Dyon held Madeleine close to his body, scanning the area. Some time ago, Madeleine's body had begun reflexively flickering with cold blue flames. If it hadn't been for Dyon strength of body, he would have frozen ten times over by now.

'Madeleine life flames seem to be the antithesis of this energy.' Dyon pushed the thought to the back of his mind. It was good that Madeleine's blue flames were dancing about. He had never seen her separate it from her usual violet flames, probably because it was always stronger together with red flames, but these blue flames would definitely help her heal.

Dyon thought about amplifying them with his white flames, but he held back. The more of this process Madeleine did alone, the better.

At the same time as this was happening, though, Dyon's black flames threatened to burst out. He usually suppressed them because he hated the feeling they gave him, but now it seemed to have resonated with something. It was even threatening to break the balance he had built with it and his white flames.

Dyon's food tapped the ground beneath him, trying to use his comprehension of resonance to gain a clearer picture of what lay beneath his feet.

After trillions of years of being tempered by this demonic essence, the ground had become frighteningly hard. Dyon believed that it was actually comparable to the ground of his constitution's world. However, for very different reasons. While that world had hard minerals due to the excess energy and primordial qi, this ground was hard due to demonic essence.

The truth was that after entering this world, Dyon had almost thought he accidentally entered his constitution's world, somehow. Not only was there primordial energy here, but it had an ancient feeling Dyon found difficult to put his finger on. But, after adapting, he realized that he was wrong. This place was a mere fake replica.

That said, this den of demonic tigers was definitely closer to the real thing.

"There's definitely something keeping this place stable. It could be anything from the laws of this world itself, to some energy core replacement of some sort." Little Yang commented. "This sort of vein is even more dangerous than a vein that doesn't discriminate energy type. The imbalance it could cause would be catastrophic."

Dyon nodded seriously. In his second trial world, the spiritual vein of the Angel Clan caused all sorts of Abyssal Cores to form around them. In fact, if it hadn't been for those abyssal cores, Dyon wouldn't have had a chance at winning. But it was also because of them that Luna died.

It was exactly because of these phenomena that spiritual veins were so dangerous and needed a stabilizer like the Energy Core.

One could imagine the kind of danger abyssal cores formed of demonic will and essence would cause. Just taking the demonic beasts that called this gorge home into account was enough to paint the picture, and that was just on the physical side of things.

BOOM!

Suddenly, the rumbling of the earth above Dyon's head caused him to raise an eyebrow.

'How impatient.' Dyon sneered. 'If you think I'll let you take part in treasures I fought for, you're sadly mistaken.'

Dyon knew exactly what they were thinking. Even True God Tatsuya took a step back and allowed others to enter his sky castle, shouldn't True God Sacharro do the same? After all, if even an arrogant Dragon gave way to peak celestials, should a man who hadn't even stepped into the Celestial realm do the same?

It was too bad they didn't realize that Dyon's arrogance was deeper than even that of a Dragon True God.

"Ah, here it is." Dyon finally found what he was looking for. "What an interesting concept"

"What is it?" The hamster twins asked curiously.

"This is truly a land where flames thrive." Dyon said with a smile. "The thing keeping this whole place intact isn't some Energy Core replica, it's a corrosive flame who's been sucking up all the excess energy for itself If I tried to dig up this vein blindly, death would be the least of my problems Even my soul wouldn't survive to reincarnate"

Dyon suddenly understood why his black flames were so excited. It was like it had just met a close brother it hadn't seen in decades.

Unfortunately, Dyon couldn't get a scope of the flame. His resonance abilities only faintly caught onto its outer traces

"You plan on taking that flame and this vein, don't you?" Little Yang asked as though he was looking at a masochistic fool.

Dyon grinned. "I would never do something so stupid, who do you think I am? I would die the moment I dug even a centimeter into this ground To describe this flame as a dao flame is an understatement. Don't you see how far even the half-step transcendent demon tigers sleep from this place?"

"Then why is your smile getting bigger and bigger" Little Yang mumbled.

Dyon's grin grew so wide that his lips looked as though they'd crack at any moment. "Oh, me? No reason?"

An instant later, Madeleine's body disappeared to be replaced with a blade as black as night. Then, Dyon swung downward!

'We're all gonna die.' The Hamster twins tried to find tears to cry, but the heavens wouldn't even allow them the benefit of shedding any.

**

While Dyon was having the time of his life, Clara and Ri were having quite a difficult time.

The Dark Ocean was exactly as advertised. Without even a piece of land as far as the eye could see, dark waves crashed beneath them, making it seem as though even the water itself wanted their lives.

After Little Wind became unable to withstand the harsh winds any longer, Centauress expanded into her true form, an ability Ri had kept hidden from the others of the Water Mist Sect.

Luckily, the Pegasus' perverted ways were thwarted by her master, so she was forced into her full Pegasus form, hiding away her human half.

Like this, two absolute beauties glided across the dark ocean waves on the head of a massive, deity-like horse of pure white.

"You should know that this is foolish." An ancient voice filled Ri's mind. It was obvious to her that it was the World Tree nagging her once more, but unfortunately, the old thing didn't have a mute button. "You're not yet strong enough to subdue such beasts, even relying on me. You should wait until you enter the dao formation realm."

Clara smiled, looking at Ri's annoyed face. "That old bastard annoying you again? Tell him that if he's so worried, he should come out here himself."

"I'm not worried about him, we just need to make countermeasures for dealing with BPA. In the case that we succeed, they probably wouldn't be very happy or eager to thank us."

"BPA is just filled with beasts and humans who have nothing better to do with their lives. At most 5% of them are true activists, the others only look to make a profit. This is the martial world, as long as we're not stealing children, there should be no problem."

Isla blinked while listening to their conversation. Despite her small size, she didn't seem too bothered by the harsh winds or cold.

"An organization created to protect the abuse of beasts? Isn't that noble of them?"

"It would be noble, if it wasn't actually made of transcendent grade beasts who look down on lower grade beasts to begin with. The organization was essentially created so that humans couldn't monopolize beast resources, so that they could. They don't actually care about beasts, they only care about projecting an outward appearance that they do so that they can profit." Ri explained.

After Dyon's confrontation with BPA, Clara had done some digging, something that was easy for her considering she was in the Sapientia Clan's good books. She found horrible abuses of power everywhere, it was laughable that they called themselves the beast protection association.

In the past, it was true that humans only saw beasts as food and resources. High grade beasts were the best delicacies, while their innate connection to the heavens made their flesh and bones practically treasures in and of themselves.

Some found this commodification of beasts unfair, and as such wanted to set some protective laws. But, who knew that transcendent grade beasts would swoop in to take charge?

Using the powers of BPA, the controlled large portions of every quadrant, taking the beasts they supposedly protected as their own resources.

The only reason more quadrants weren't solely controlled by beasts like the Hydra Quadrant was to continue this faade of weakness and dependence.

In some ways, it was ironic. The beasts that spent so long touting strength over all had suddenly grown to learn to scheme and plan. It was a conspiracy of the grandest proportions, yet it happened all under the public eye. It was truly the perfect crime.

Clara was about to reply, but instead it came out as a sigh. "Here comes another one"

The pale, sweat matted beauties stood once more, taking a deep breath as the waves began to tower before them.