Kyrion spent the next month and a half sparing against everyone save Almira herself. Not that he hadn’t tried. The goddess had simply poked him on the head, muttered something about mindless dullards, and left.

Kyrion’s bouts with Volain were currently 14 to 36, meaning out of fifty spars, Kyrion could only win fourteen. Sure, it started pretty even, but after Volain transformed his torso, the losses began to wrap up. It wasn’t impossible to beat Volain, but it wasn’t easy. Then the arms came, and suddenly Volain was immune to being forcefully teleported away, and the battles were heavily strained in his favor.

Kyrion’s fights with Marigold were worse, 1 to 49. Boy, he was glad that he hadn’t had to fight her for the boss floor. It wasn’t that she was strong. It was more that her skills were mid to long-range counters to his fire, and her close combat ability spoke of a life spent in constant battle. Albeit the one win was during the last bout, his resolve to not lose to her fifty times in a row won out. That battle resulted in his upper left arm joining his hand in its transformation. The fire Kyrion could throw around was no joke, and after a while, his body was capable of using the area around him as fuel.

Gamodren was mean; he hadn’t let Kyrion win one bout or even come close. Almost as though he was hammering that Kyrion couldn’t beat him in a head-on fight. They only fought ten times, and yet Kyrion couldn’t even come close to winning, and four of said fights were after his arm transformed.

Where Gamodren was mean, Mike was too nice. He let Kyrion win twenty-five of their fifty bouts. Which didn’t make too much sense until he realized he had achieved that same feat with Gamodren, Volain, and Marigold. After a while, Kyrion realized that Mike was focused on the teaching and experimental aspects of their training. If they performed well enough, then he’d allow himself to lose.

Kyrion continued to blindly increase his range through absorbed Divine Essence while occasionally increasing its potency and his soul’s endurance. Kyrion’s draw rate was now counted in the miles, which resulted in him being able to sense creatures further away and draw massive amounts of D.E. at once.

While not helpful in a one-on-one fight, aside from forcibly teleporting someone off a cliff, it was valuable in the free-for-all matches where tower monsters and floor bosses could jump in. All Kyrion had to do was find a corner and manipulate everything from an unreachable position. Something he noticed his master also did for the majority of the fight. Which worked as everyone else was too busy fighting to absorb most of the D.E., leaving the power to go straight to him.

All in all, the time spent training made everyone stronger, and while he hadn’t paid much attention to the others’ fights, he knew he had fallen behind. He was strong for someone without a complete body of divine armor, but that could only get him so far. And while he could borrow the creature’s armor in his eye, he felt it would only do more harm than good for his growth, even if he did win. Kyrion had a taste of the power he could wield and would reach that level with his own ability.

And so Kyrion left the Tower that night, only notifying Almira of his goal. He had to meet with the person who had been calling him since he was a kid. The feeling of knowing there was more to this world had led him here, and the connection he felt whenever he climbed high up in the sky was present. The instinct to draw power from the heavens as though it were hoarding everything he owned.

As Kyrion made it to the tortoises that represented the Forest of Thorns, he decided to bring out his spite on the thorns that refused to help him in his fights by teleporting one tortoise atop of another, resulting in massive explosions for sharp triangular projectiles and tortoise shells followed by a dense amount of D.E. flowing into him. And only him, as he didn’t let the power go into his right arm at all. He wouldn’t feed them if they didn’t want to work.

“If you want power, fight for me. If not then I’ll remove you when it’s convenient.”

He felt anger reverberate in his arm, and Kyrion decided to make an example out of the thorns by choosing what he felt was the nucleus of one and teleported it here, causing the tortoise attached to it to gasp in relief as the plants atop its back grew healthier and its body stronger. The creature’s size increased quite a bit before as it stood on its hind legs and peppered its brethren in a wave of what Kyrion recognized as purifying fire.

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The thorn nucleus in front of Kyrion flowed into his right arm, much to his consternation. Still, the creature there was more afraid than disobedient, as though it recognized Kyrion as the threat he was, as well as the threat those angry tortoises posed to it if it disobeyed.

“That’s all it took? I should have done this ages ago!” Kyrion looked at the giant tortoise dragon things and scowled despite freeing them. They gave Kyrion the same hungry look the human-eating creature from before had, and the world would soon be covered in flames.

“Oh not me. Them!” Kyrion said as he appeared behind the creature and created a purple portal around its neck, causing it to reappear in the face of another. He let the creature breathe its fire before cutting off the portal. The tortoise’s head fell limp where it was as the body began to wall onto another.

“I did not want to know if I could do that. You see my power now! You know that you should retreat!”

The rest of the giant creatures lined up and prepared a simultaneous blast.

“I tried to spare you all. I’ll be sure to make propper use of you all.”

From there, Kyrion began the grim art of decapitating large creatures through teleportation. While he wouldn’t want to do that to a person. Those creatures ate people and were quite disruptive. It was only right that he removed their heads. It was for the good of humanity and had nothing to do with how delicious they tasted. It had nothing to do with wondering how it would pair with Bella’s special sauce mix that he wasn’t allowed to learn.

“I’m a hypocrite. Well, at least they tried to eat me first. Had they been a little thankful I would have let them be. That was a roasting fire, not a purifying one. I wonder if Lapora could eat tortoise meat. I imagine it would be cathartic. Cathartic? Where in the abyss did I hear that word? Sounds like something from Cecil’s home language. Yet I’m certain he hasn’t…” Kyrion slapped his face to achieve focus as he felt a connection strengthen further in the direction he was headed. But first, he had to gather all the meat from the creatures he killed. And so they were all dropped into his dungeon or would have been if he didn’t find resistance eight island-sized turtles in.

“Well that sucks.” Kyrion left the remaining corpses alone.

A tiny and confused tortoise looked up and saw a creature with a red upper body and blue lower body jump away after slaying its entire family. And that memory burned itself into the tortoise’s memory. He would get his vengeance. But first, it needed power, and to get that, it began eating the feast left behind.

“You left one alive, Kyrion.”

“I don’t kill kids. That was a kid, and while a monster, it was no threat. Also, my goal wasn’t to make them go extinct. Gotta save some to continue the species.”

“This is probably going to bite you in the bum at one point.”

“Hopefully I’m not in this world when it happens. If they harm Lin then I’ll be sure that my family never wants for turtle meat.” Kyrion muttered as he continued to fly off towards the feeling pinging in the back of his head.

As he continued his travel, a series of ballista bolts shot at him simultaneously. Interrupting his mindless flight and forcing him to land to avoid injury, in front of him appeared to be a wall for a citadel. A large castle sitting in the middle.

Kyrion focused and felt that the place he had to enter was behind the Citadel. He’d have to go around it to get where he needed to go. Unless there was an easier way to go through it.

Curious about why he hadn’t sensed this castle before he was in Balista range, Kyrion approached the entryway.

Standing in front of the door were two ten-foot giants wielding halberds.

“This is the city-state of Lucival. You are to state you name and strip yourself of all powers or die.”

“Ok. So... No. I’m just going to go around if you all are being jerks. I worked hard for my power. I sugest you let me leave in peace.” Kyrion began to take the long way around the walled city. A polearm thrust nearly took Kyrion’s head off and haltered his steps.

In a matter of moments, the man who thrust the halberd lost both of his arms as a plane was drawn between his lower elbows and severed. Everything is being teleported into the forest of thorns.

“We are stopping here; if you call for reinforcements, then I doubt I’ll be able to let you all live peacefully. I am leaving and if I see you all again. I’m going to cut loose.”

The guard missing his arms had fallen into shock while the other nodded and called for a medic. They could see reason. So long as reason roughly looked like Kyrion and held enough power to level the city.

Thus, he continued like nothing had happened, already putting the Citadel out of his thoughts. After a few hours of traveling, Kyrion flew off towards his goal. It was much closer and in a somewhat familiar feeling location.