Broken

"You must be Eli's elder sister? He's mentioned you before. I'm glad I'm friends with a guy who has such a beautiful sister," Dyon said with a smile on his face.

Venus blushed. It wasn't as though she had never heard those words before, but, the purity in Dyon's eyes in combination with his earnestness gave him a charisma she couldn't ignore.

Uncle Ail noticed her reaction and chuckled, "You know little Venus, Dyon's the one Madeleine loves. You'll have quite a lot of competition."

"That's you?! We all thought you were dead!" Venus said with a gasp.

Dyon chuckled bitterly, "I kind of had no choice but to fake it. That aside, I should have a way to help them both. But, before I do that, I want to find out what happened to them."

Dyon's face steeled.

Since Dyon didn't have the skill of his master, it was hard for him to use the memory search technique. Any slight bit of resistance, even if it was unconscious, would cause damage to his soul. So, it was best if he did it was Ava was incapacitated.

Dyon trembled as he looked through Ava's memories. He felt her pain at her best friend's betrayal and anger bubbled over in his heart as he watched the scene that occurred right afterwards.

He nearly lost it when he went through Eli's memories. His teeth crushed against each other as his jaw creaked under the strain. His muscles tensed and a dense killing intent filled the room.

"Storm Family!"

Even Uncle Ail could barely breathe under the aura Dyon was releasing. It felt as though if they took a single step, their bodies would be slashed into nothingness.

'Is this really a guy that Oliver killed?... They're not even on the same level…' Thought Venus, shivering.

Venus had met Oliver many times. Compared to Dyon, he might as well have been an ant on the side of the road. How did this make any sense?

After Dyon went through Ava's memories, he closed his eyes, trying to settle himself, "Baal. Tammy. The Storm family. Akihiko. Oliver. The Kami family. The Sapientia family. The Daiyu family."

With a flash, ten medicinal pills appeared.

'These are… they're soul mending pills, but the potency.. it's not enough.' Thought Uncle Ail.

Dyon's eyes flashed with gold, tens of tiny arrays appeared around each pill. They floated into the air, being slowly broken apart into their original ingredients.

'This is… innate aurora... wait will of time? No, using arrays to perform alchemy? Wait, is it both?' Venus was shocked.

Uncle Ail trembled barely containing his excitement, 'This is what I meant! You can't reach higher levels of alchemy unless you understand arrays, and vice versa. Dyon is literally defying the heavens by combining weaker pills to form a stronger one. This… it's ridiculous.'

'What level is his will of time at? This will is so rare, I have no way to judge.'

This was why it took Dyon an entire half month to understand the Pill Condensation technique.

Not only did it require his aurora flames to strengthen its healing property, he needed to understand the Will of Time which was an incomparably abstract will. As though that wasn't already enough, he needed a thorough understand of the pills, so he spent days at a time meditating on pill theory and alchemy.

In the end, it took more time than even gaining decent understanding of space, celestial, wind and sword wills combined.

Beads of sweat fell down Dyon's forehead as the pills finally fully separated.

Then, the massive array covered everything. The pills' parts began to condense into a single form, a holy light shining down on it. Dyon didn't want heaven's chime to ring, but, he had no choice. If he didn't go all out, Ava might not wake up.

CHIME!

CHIME!

'Heaven's chimes… he did it,' Venus was shocked.

Uncle Ail stood by Dyon, smiling brightly.

**

Delia looked up at the moon, hearing the chimes sound off, 'Could it be him?'

Then she shook her head bitterly, 'With how many geniuses there are here for the big sect tournament, it could be any one of them. You'd think I would have stopped hoping by now. I should head to Sapientia Peak so I can be ready to help Madeleine early tomorrow.'

**

Back in Eli's room, Dyon was slowly circulating the pill within Ava's body using his aurora flame.

An hour later, Ava slowly opened her eyes.

"Ava!"

"Hmm, Dyon, what are you doing here," She said groggily, "Wait, what! Dyon?!"

Ava's eyes flashed in disbelief. Unable to control herself she flew up and hugged Dyon tightly.

As Dyon was enjoying the soft sensation, Uncle Ail had turned away blushing.

Venus coughed in teasing disdain, "You sure have a lot of women."

Ava, finally realizing she was naked screamed, "AH! You pervert!"

She hid her body under the blanket and cuddled in the corner, her scarlet red face matching her hair.

Dyon grinned, "You left too soon, I was enjoying that."

"Humph, wait until I tell Madeleine. She'll set you right... Wait, you know she's getting married soon right? What day is it!"

Dyon's face distorted, "Married?"

Uncle Ail smiled bitterly, "I didn't get a chance to tell you because of the situation, but, Madeleine is getting married tomorrow as the opening ceremony for the Big Sect tournament."

"Big Sect tournament? Seems like I'll be able to do two things I want in a day. Save Madeleine and enter the world they'll be opening soon."

"It'll be hard this time Dyon, the seeded geniuses like my sister are participating, and they Storm family has a whole bunch of new members all of a sudden."

Hearing the Storm family be brought up, Ava shivered. Her eyes brimmed with tears she refused to let fall.

Dyon, noticing this gently touched her knee, "You don't need to say anything Ava, I know what happened. I'll make sure that you can kill him with your own hands. I promise."

Although he said nothing to Venus, she could see his meaning in his eyes. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she looked towards Eli's shivering body.

Ava looked up in surprise, but seeing the resolute look on Dyon's face, she finally couldn't stop the tears anymore.

"Mm…" She nodded firmly.

"Alright, your situation was the most dire, but I need to save Eli now…"

Dyon walked to the bed, lightly touching Eli's chest and allowing his aurora flames to circulate

'His spine is broken…' Dyon trembled in anger but fought to maintain his focus.