Michael woke up from his meditation as per his schedule and started his morning practise forms. Living in a space tunnel required following a rigorous routine or one's mental state would suffer a lot. After warming up, Michael freshened up and started dressing up. But this time, it was not a disciple robe that was hanging in his cupboard but an entire assortment of amour, weapons and accessories. This was what he had received from the sect before the expedition. And today, he armed himself with everything and meditated to bring his mental state to his peak. Currently, he was wearing a thin magical armour underneath that was light but gave extremely powerful protection. He had armed himself with some flying swords, a broadsword and several hidden knives. He also had a necklace and a ring. The necklace contained the water of life which carried extremely condensed manifestation of the laws of life while the ring was made up of black bone which carried the condensed laws of death. Even if his laws had been suppressed, he could still augment himself through these treasures.
After that, he went out of his meditation chamber and moved to the bridge of the ship. This was the place where all disciples of the sect were gathered, prepared to finally step into the new world. As he saw his companions, he could feel that they were nervous too. He consciously moved closer to Alexis and stood solemnly. For about half an hour, they stood in silence. No one talked. Soon, Blue Wind Divinity's announcement rang through the ship, "Prepare for entering the world. Till now, your laws were non-existent in the world, now they will probably be accessible but in a suppressed form. There will be a powerful shock from entering into the world which would follow with disorientation. Prepare yourselves."
Michael prepared himself and the screen in front of him suddenly burned with dazzling golden light. Before he knew it, a terrifying shockwave travelled through the ship. The entire bridge suddenly cracked and Michael felt himself being slammed into the floor with great impact, shattering his bones! His mind suddenly felt like it was splitting from the pain. He immediately used psychic energy to protect himself as his pain gradually subsided. He still felt nauseous and vomited a mouthful of blood. Instinctively, he tried to heal himself, only to find that nothing happened. He could then feel clearly that while he was able to connect with the law of life of this world, he couldn't manipulate the laws, even with the perfect persona blessing. It was as if the laws around him had been anchored tightly, becoming incredibly rigid! The world-will was directly opposing Michael's efforts to manipulate the laws. Michael had never felt such a feeling before.
So this is the suppression everyone talks about. It's not that our ability to manipulate the laws has been suppressed, the laws themselves have been anchored tightly by a much more powerful will! No one would be able to use the powers of ambient laws unless they have special treasures or have their personal laws.
He started sensing the laws inside the life-water that he was carrying and started healing himself. While the speed of recovery was slow, it was better than nothing. Soon, he started feeling better and stood up. The bridge had thoroughly cracked and everything inside had been shattered. The crystal screen was already in pieces while all the furniture and devices were broken.
Was the shock supposed to be this serious?
Michael felt that the situation was not normal. He quickly found his companions. Although all of them had some injuries, no one was fatally injured. He quickly started helping the ones who were more seriously injured while Kelhus went beyond the door to figure out the situation. Razor, Trisha, Elaine, Raven and Alexis started guarding the injured. In about 15 minutes, Kelhus returned and said, "We have been ambushed. The ship has been damaged and so we couldn't hear the message from the command centre. The devils have attacked with full force and I could feel terrifying fluctuations outside. Divinities from our side are also in battle currently."
Everyone started frowning as they thought of the situation. Frankly, they couldn't really change the situation. After all, the results would be decided by the battle between divinities. But it was also impossible to not do anything. Or else, it would be a serious blow to their mentality and status among their peers. Fortunately, battles between forces were generally conducted on somewhat level playing fields. Since higher-level cultivators could massacre hordes of lower-level cultivators, powerful cultivators from both sides would engage each other tacitly, reducing the damage to their foundational forces. Thus, the situation of divinity or upper-ascendant from the devils' side suddenly attacking their group was extremely unlikely. At most, they would have to fight devil law masters.
"We are too large a group, it will be very hard for us to fight together. We should split up based on our coordination. Let's engage in battles. While this ambush is extremely fierce, we won't be in too much danger.", said Elaine.
The others agreed as well. Soon, three groups formed. The first group contained Michael, Alexis, Elaine and Raven. Elaine was the main damage dealer whereas Raven was the shuttle of the group allowing for everyone's quick movements. Michael was a versatile addition who could take the role of support or warrior depending on the situation whereas Alexis was mainly focused on support and strategic counter to weapons of war. The second group consisted of Ray and Roy, both of whom had strong constitutions and damage attracting abilities alongside Kelhus as the attacker. With the proper defence from the brothers, Kelhus would be fully able to bring out the offensive power of heavenly fire. The last group had Trisha, Razor, Shanner and Ross. It was the optimal configuration of combatants based on their abilities. After that, they went to the deck of the ship and charged towards the devil army.
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The first sight of Might secret realm stunned Michael. It was as if he had seen the vastness of heaven and earth for the first time. The world was huge. From the deck of the ship, he could see mountains, rivers and seas all at once. The sight was simply breathtaking. Lower-ascendant cultivators like him had lost the power of their laws and were not be able to float in the air. As such, they used treasures to fly and join the battle. Fighting in a group was much more convenient than fighting alone. There were hundreds of thousands of cultivators in the sky, flying while shooting spells at each other. Close combat cultivators were ramming and charging towards each other whereas long-range combatants were providing support from a distance. The combat mechanics of Michael's group was very simple. Elaine was the main fighter. She was capable of fighting at all ranges with her powerful swords imbibed with her blessing and bloodline. She was like a god of war as she slashed through the devil cultivators left and right. Blood seemed to rain around her. Most of the devils' attacks could not even break the energy barrier that she had. Raven was usually running around either saving her or others from fatal attacks or helping them change their location on the battlefield. Alexis was used as a tool for negating the devils' weapons of war. The more complex a weapon was, the more chances it had of malfunctioning. Usually, it wouldn't matter but once Alexis was targeted, anything that could go wrong would go wrong. Michael was also constantly taking down devils using psychic attacks. Several devils around him would suddenly bleed from their eyes, nose and ears before falling to their deaths. Lacking severely in direct combat power, he could only make himself useful that way. Overall, they all co-operated well and were able to kill many devils and destroy many war weapons.
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Trisha's group was doing a bit worse. Trisha lane was a genius as well, but having been cut off from the source of her laws had severely downgraded her strength. She was mainly using the laws of chaos to disorient enemies, who were then taken down by Ross and Shanner using spells or martial arts. Ross displayed the power of flow at a very intricate level. His martial arts allowed him to easily block spells as well as weapons with his staff while hitting vital points of his enemies. Shanner was using several yang-oriented materials to cast powerful spells supporting Ross' close-combat. Razor was the tank of the team, taking out powerful blows from war weapons whenever it was aimed at the group. Overall, their group was struggling but was still able to fight for a long time.
Kelhus' group's dynamics was even simpler. The gander brothers would use dense art and encompassing art to constantly attract all spell attacks. On the battlefield, they looked like a suction pump, attracting all freely flying attacks. Kelhus, who was around them would then easily use his heavenly fire to rapidly destroy his enemies in close combat. It was so effective that they had garnered the most attention despite Michael's group having all the divine children.
Even though Michael and his peers were fighting brilliantly on the battlefield, they were as insignificant as a speck of dust in the huge battlefield. It was a war between the entire expedition and the devil army located in the Might secret realm. Thus, there were more than 30 divinities on the battlefield. While the divinities were also suppressed under the pressure of this new world, they each had countless tricks to overcome the suppression. After all, every divinity had ample experience in exploring dangerous secret realms. Thus, they were still powerful enough to bulldoze the entire army if left unchecked. Using several treasures, arcane abilities, or other methods, both sides' divinities were fighting fiercely. Every area under the clash of divinities was cleared out completely as anyone around them had either fled or died.
For example, Sword Saint divinity and Sword Devil divinity fought with incredible moves of sword qi. The law of sword in this world was extremely underdeveloped and the sword path divinities' strength had been reduced drastically. But these divinities still had their own sword laws which were not only complete but also extremely robust. Their laws merged with their energy to produce sword qi that ripped across the world, rending the surroundings in hundreds of kilometres around them. Any devil or cultivator in the area would be ruthlessly attacked by rampant sword qi, dying by a thousand cuts. Even upper-ascendants could only stand in the region for small periods of time. The combat strength that they were displaying was beyond the peak ascendant level. Thus, even though divinities were suppressed in this world, they did not fall below their divine status.
Upper-ascendants were able to fly on their own using the power of their personal law. Even though they were suppressed, they did not lose their foundational strength. Most upper-ascendants were able to utilise almost one-third of their power, making them the core pillar of both sides. Lower-ascendants were simply cannon fodder in this war. Another thing to note was the stability of the world. The makeup of the world was much more stable than super-planes like Jupyter. Thus, the impact of the abilities of cultivators was much more suppressed here. Even a battle between divinities had not caused the space to shatter. In Jupyter, several spatial fissures would have erupted from it, destroying an area of tens of thousands of kilometres in radius.
Michael had seen the war of Aterna from up close. As such, this was not his first time witnessing a large scale war. Even though this war was much grander in scale, Michael was not as pressured as he was while fighting for his home plane. One reason was the difference in stakes. Ever since Michael started cultivation, he had already accepted that death would be his most likely end. He did not fear death too much. Now, even if he died, his home plane would at most be annexed by the sect. It would still allow Aterna to survive. The populace might even thrive under the sect. His family and friends were out of the calamity and were protected. Another reason was that he had the support of three divine children, all of whom were more powerful than him. He was having it really easy, killing some devils with psychic blasts while only taking a look at the battlefield. Their position overall was also much better than during the Aterna war. They currently held the upper hand and the forces of devils were not enough to truly win. It was more like a last effort from a leftover army, holding their final resistance. Thus, there really wasn't much pressure on him.
But while he was feeling confident about the situation, he was being eyed by two dangerous beings.
On one side, one of the geniuses from the devils' camp, successor disciple of Ice Devil divinity, Drake Ice.
On the other side, one of the dao protectors of the Divine Sea Sect, the master of poison and curse, Alec Woodrue.
And in the battle, both their eyes shone suddenly.