Over fifty miles away, north of the archipelago, a small fleet of demons was swiftly moving away from the islands.
Standing on the ship deck were three masked figures. Two of them were demons, and standing between them and looking quite small was a woman without any demonic traits.
"How do you do it?" The demon in the black mask questioned with disbelief while looking at the woman.
"Heh, if you know 'him,' then you know better than to ask such a question. What I'm interested in, who are you to 'him?'" She questioned back with a cold tone.
The demon spoke again after a few moments, "I'm someone who doesn't deserve his friendship, I guess. But I will repay him somehow, with all my life, if I have any after I'm done." He sighed at the end.
Then he suddenly looked at the demon standing on the other side of the woman, and a terrifying aura rose, filled with malice and hatred, "Leland! How does it feel to be a puppet of somewhat else? I'm sure your soul will be burning right now, knowing that you had tricked your own master, and you will be going to harm the entire demon race. I will make sure you will stay alive to see how I kill everyone you guys loved with our own hands!"
Despite his menacing words, the masked demon remained motionless as if he couldn't understand or retort to his words.
The woman couldn't help but chuckle, "I must say, 'he' really knows how to pair up teams. I never thought 'he' would introduce me to a revenger like you, and our goals seemed to be the same, the destruction of demons. Knowing 'him,' I'm pretty sure you are fully capable of this deadly endeavor."
Then suddenly, her voice grew colder as she looked at the masked demon, "But let me make it extremely clear that I'm your advisor, and you are going to follow my leads if you want any help from me, not the other way around. Or we can part ways in the demon continent. Only 'he' is worthy of commanding me!"
The masked demon stayed quiet before he looked at the woman and nodded, "I know, and I'm grateful for Lady Evil's help and his kindness."
At this moment, both of their focus suddenly turned toward the archipelago's direction, and the inky clouds suddenly gathered over it, and they were increasing at terrifying speed as they covered one after another island.
Lady Evil's heart grew cold with fear as she gave an order to Leland in a hurried tone, "Make your men increase the speed more! I don't want to be caught between those clouds, or we won't even know how we all die!"
On the southern side, the entire human fleet was also moving fast away from the archipelago.
On the main ship, two hooded figures stood on top of the sail as they both looked toward the clouds gathering and the two-color lightning swarming in it, which gave anyone who looked at it soul damage.
"I still can't believe that he has to go through this sort of 'trial' every time he needs to break through. It's like… like the goddess wants to kill him…" Freya's sharp voice sounded with a hint of fear.
She still vividly remembered when the first time she saw Ace going through his breakthrough and almost got caught in it.
Noa was the same, and she sighed with worried, "Nothing is free in this world. Everything has a price. Like we are bound to his life in return for our abilities. It isn't strange he also had to pay some sort of price to be what he is. I just hope he will always prevail over everything."
"You're right. All we can do is hope that his plan will work like always. I am starting to doubt our Leader's tendency to seek deadly trouble, or they are just drawn to him…" Freya sighed with indignation.
In the center of the icky clouds, Ace stood under the horrendous pressure, but he wasn't bothered. On the contrary, he looked at the eye-like vortex forming above his head, which was extremely familiar to him, and smiled coldly as if he was seeing an old enemy.
Furthermore, he can now clearly see the two-color lightning crackling within the punishment clouds, and he knew this time it wouldn't be as easy as before.
The system voice rang at this moment,
[Host has reached the halfway point of the Mortal Sky Cultivation journey. Heaven wants you dead more than anything, and its desire to get rid of burn is as furious as ever. The desire to kill has manifested as the time of mortal sky come to an end…] [The Fourth Heavenly Punishment [Abolishment Despair Thunder] has been detected!]
[Warning: The Heavenly Punishment sensed Host's Qi Sea Core!]
[Warning: The Heaven is seething!]
[Warning: The Heavenly Punishment has been strengthened!] [Strengthened Heavenly Punishment: There is a 99.99% chance of a Heaven's Terminate Manifestation to descend on Heaven's Stealer!] ---
[System recommends fighting without holding back; use any means necessary you had, or your life will be forfeited today. Please find an isolated place, or the Heavenly Punishment will annihilate all the living in a 50-mile radius around the host!]
Ace was surprised when he felt the solemnity in the system's voice today. But when he heard and saw the final few columns, Ace's blood ran cold because the system sounded extremely grave, and he knew why because even he could tell this Heaven's Terminate Manifestation, whatever it was, it was awful news.
"What the hell is Heaven's Terminate Manifestation? And why I'm only hearing about it now?" Ace's instantly questioned as he had a very, very bad feeling right now.
An apocalyptic sound suddenly resounded in the entire vicinity of the archipelago, and Ace's heart palpitated as all the fine hair on his body stood up, and he looked up abruptly.
What he saw made his heart sink because if he wasn't hallucinating, then within the vortex, there seemed to be a pair of giant glow eyes of blue and red colors, and they seemed to be staring right at him!