Book 7, Chapter 30: Backup Plans (1)

“The Shadow Realm, that’s the Shadow Realm.”

Some people were able to identify what they were seeing.

The black door hovering in the sky above them was a door leading to the Shadow Realm, and the speaker from earlier was a Darkness Devil King.

The Crow Sovereign actually possessed skills like that of the Astrals, allowing it to open Darkness Doors and unleash the Darkness Devil King.

That creature was on the level of a final boss.

But final bosses still varied in strength. Even the Darkness Devil King wouldn’t have a good time against a Desolate Beast.

The Darkness Devil King reached out, following the Crow Sovereign’s signal as it reached out to grab the giant golden falcon.

A disdainful expression flickered across the golden falcon’s eyes before it fiercely clamped its beak down onto the Darkness Devil King’s hand.

Would a Desolate Beast fear a physical attack?

It was as if a tasty insect had just offered itself up to the golden falcon.

The Darkness Devil King’s hand immediately shattered as soon as the falcon’s beak slammed down on it.

“What frightening power! How could this...... It’s a Desolate Beast! A Desolate Beast! Crow, you bastard, you’ve set me up!” the Darkness Devil King cried out bitterly in pain from within the Darkness Door. The rest of its arm began to shrink back as it attempted to retreat.

But the giant falcon wouldn’t let this opponent go. It hooked the Darkness Devil King with its beak, forcibly dragging it back out through the door.

“No!! Let me leave!” the Darkness Devil King roared fiercely. Unfortunately, its body began to slowly but surely emerge from the door.

Darkness Devil Kings were quite large. The one the Astrals had summoned was around three thousand feet tall.

The one the Crow Sovereign had summoned was still at least a thousand feet tall.

Even so, it was still like a child in the face of the giant falcon, who forcibly dragged it out through the Darkness Door. Then, a barrage of Wind Edges descended towards it. You dare raise a hand against me? The punishment will be death!

The Darkness Devil King cried out, “Crow, this is all your fault. Come help me!”

The Crow Sovereign, however, ignored its pleas. That Darkness Door was a direct tunnel to the Shadow Realm, and its existence didn’t depend on this particular Darkness Devil King. He was more than capable of finding a replacement sometime in the future, so the death of this Darkness Devil King didn’t affect him in the slightest.

The Darkness Devil King also knew that it was finished. It had finally seen the light of day, only to immediately suffer such a cruel fate. It turned to face the falcon, who was still pecking fiercely at him, and roared, “I won’t hold back!”

Dark devilish Qi began to pour out from his body, rushing towards the giant falcon.

This Darkness Devil King’s strength was even above that of legendary Arcana Masters. Even though this one was quite weak amongst its peers, it was still objectively strong. Even the golden falcon wouldn’t be able to escape from its attacks unscathed. As the devilish Qi suffused through the golden falcon’s body, its corrosive properties went to work.

The offensive power of the devilish Qi was only average, but its wounding power was much higher. The golden falcon was already wounded. Now, the devilish Qi penetrated its body through these wounds, so there was no need for it to break through any defenses. It was also for this reason that the devilish Qi did more damage than usual.

The giant falcon was in incredible pain. It would rather be slashed hundreds of times by the humans’ blades than to be dissolved alive by the corrosive devilish Qi. The only attack that did more damage was probably Su Chen’s immortal-energy-imbued attacks.

The falcon let out a cry of rage as it began hurling attacks at the Darkness Devil King. The Darkness Devil King also knew that its time was coming to an end and attacked with all its might. At the same time, it roared, summoning even more Darkness creatures from the Shadow Realm to attack the falcon.

Suddenly, a bunch more cannon fodder had appeared on the battlefield.

This eased the burden on the elders quite a bit. Finally, they could attack as they pleased. Such an opportunity was extremely hard to come by.

Even if they had only just lit a Lifesource Candle, none of them hesitated to light another as they attacked with all their might.

The golden falcon’s vitality began to drain even more rapidly. In but a few moments, its body was covered in deep wounds, and lifesource was virtually pouring out of its body.

Eventually, the Darkness Devil King was torn to pieces, and the Darkness Door closed.

But the damage had been done. The giant falcon was grievously wounded, and its movements had slowed considerably.

When Su Chen saw this, he knew that victory was inevitable, and let out a sigh of relief.

After a moment’s thought, he commanded, “Bring the Meteor Formation back, and tell everyone else to slow down their attacks. Rotate troops to the front lines and wear down the giant falcon.”

Everyone was surprised by such an order.

“Su Chen, if we don’t take advantage of this opportunity to quickly finish off our opponent, we won’t have an advantage going into a fight against Sky City,” Chu Yuan worried.

“We’ve suffered enough casualties already. Switching to more defensive tactics will lessen that number a bit.”

“But Sky City’s currently storming in this direction at top speed......” Li Chongshan said with some agitation.

After all, they had planted spies and observers amongst the Harpies as well. This was how Su Chen and Li Chongshan had found out that Sky City was beginning to speed up.

“Don’t worry about them. They won’t get here that quickly, because I’ve prepared a grand present for them.” A cold light flickered across Su Chen’s eyes. “You’ve gotten the jump on me a few times now, Eternal Night. It’s time for me to return the favor!”

Sky City shot through the sky like a meteor, chugging ahead at full speed toward the Skywild Plains.

Eternal Night stood in the city’s observatory, gazing off at the distance.

From time to time, Harpies would fly up to him and give him reports.

“Sark’s Nucleus is operating at full capacity. We are now traveling at top speed.”

“The Mother Goddess Sect has begun the Spirit-Quickening Ceremony to further increase our speed. We probably will reach the Skywild Plains early tomorrow morning.”

“All of the observers we stationed around the human armies have been captured, and the spies we paid off have mostly been killed. Only Four, Six, and Twelve still remain.”

Eternal Night slowly read through the reports, his expression stony and emotionless.

“Your Majesty, good news!” Lonely Skyleap ran over. “Four reported that the battle has stabilized somewhat, and the humans are switching from attacking to defending.”

“Oh? They seem quite calm, all things considered,” Eternal Night said. “They don’t seem in a hurry at all even though they know we are coming.”

Lonely Skyleap said, “Your Majesty, should we also slow down a little? Many of the Harpies are reaching their physical limit due to traveling at top speed for so long.”

Eternal Night, however, decisively rejected this suggestion. “Absolutely not. We can’t afford to rest before reaching the Skywild Plains.”

“Understood!” Lonely Skyleap replied helplessly.

At that moment, alarms began to blare through the sky.

“Hm? What happened?” Eternal Night turned around.

Lonely Skyleap glanced in the direction of the sirens. “I’m not sure either. It seems there’s some kind of commotion going on over there. Let me take a look.”

A plume of smoke was rising into the sky off in the distance.

Lonely Skyleap quickly arrived on the scene. When he saw that the fire was just coming from an insignificant storehouse, he let out a sigh of relief.

The flames were burning quite fiercely, and the piercing smell of charred materials filled Lonely Skyleap’s nose.

Lonely Skyleap covered his nose with his hand. “What smell is that...... What the hell is in that storehouse?”

A Harpy bowed in greeting. “General, this storehouse contains raw ingredients we’ve harvested from this place. As for which herbs were being kept here, we don’t know yet. We’ve sent a runner to find out.”

“Well, if it’s just a few medicinal herbs, this isn’t a big deal. I’d imagine they probably just caught on fire accidentally,” Lonely Skyleap said, waving his hand impatiently. “Be careful not to let any human spies take advantage of the chaos.”

“Understood!” the Harpies below replied smartly.

An Arcana Master flew over and unleashed a water-type Arcana Technique onto the flames. Rain began to fall from the sky onto the warehouse.

Unexpectedly, the rain only served to cause the fire to burn more fiercely, as if oil had been poured onto it. The sudden increase in intensity of the fire caught the Arcana Master totally off-guard.

Lonely Skyleap shoved his palm in the direction of the fire. He wasn’t proficient in water-type Arcana Techniques, but this palm strike of his was capable of sealing off space. Creating a vacuum around the fire could also extinguish it.

A shocking scene unfolded before his very eyes.

The flames continued burning merrily without respite. The smoke, on the other hand, only grew denser and denser, and a giant cloud of smoke was beginning to form in the sky.

Lonely Skyleap finally felt like something was wrong and commanded, “Go and figure out what was being kept in that storehouse. Now!”

One of the Harpies hurriedly left. Lonely Skyleap tried out a few more tactics, but the flame continued to burn merrily.

Lonely Skyleap began to feel a sense of unease creeping over his heart. Something was very wrong.

Finally, the Harpy soldier returned. “It was Withered Flame Grass and Void...... Void...... Void Crystals?”

The Harpy soldier’s jaw dropped when he read the second item on the list.

“Withered Flame Grass? Void Crystals?” Even Lonely Skyleap was taken aback.

Withered Flame Grass was a unique kind of grass that could produce a ton of smoke from a small stalk. And the name Withered Flame was paradoxically referring to the undying nature of the flames produced when this grass was set on fire.

Void Crystals were resources that only the humans possessed.

The two combined made it abundantly clear why the fire was impossible to put out.

The flames were protected by some kind of spatial properties, isolating them from the physical world

How could Lonely Skyleap not put two and two together at this point? He began to yell loudly, “This must be one of the humans’ tricks!”

“But what’s their goal, exactly?” one of the Harpies asked, somewhat dazed.

Lonely Skyleap was startled by that question as well. What

was

their goal? He had no idea.

Why would the humans set a pile of Withered Flame Grass on fire?

Wait a second.

Lonely Skyleap took another whiff of the smoke, enduring its acrid smell as he appeared to be sniffing for something in particular. Suddenly, he yelled, “It’s Demonic Salivating Fragrance!”

Demonic Salivating Fragrance was a Demonic Beast treasure that could be used to help them evolve and adapt.

For this reason, it was often a key ingredient in manufacturing Demonic Beast bait. Even Demonic Emperors would be moved by this scent.

And this storehouse had been filled nearly halfway with this stuff. Now, it was spreading on the wind, being carried away by the smoke coming from the Withered Blaze Grass.

If there were any creatures nearby......

An idea suddenly flashed through his mind as he cried out, “Not good!”

Wu!!!

Alarms for battle began blaring through the city.

“Ambush!”

“A Demonic Beast ambush!”

Terrified cries spread in all directions.

Tens of thousands of Demonic Beasts had appeared off on the horizon.

Giant floating palaces began to appear one after the other, revolving in the sky above the arrayed Demonic Beasts.

“Revolution Palace, Hundredfold Palace, Flying Moon Palace..... Dammit, these are the Beasts from Su Chen’s side! He’s chased them over to us instead!” Lonely Skyleap cursed. Suddenly, what had happened became very clear.