Michael's advance was like an arrow that ran straight to the gate above.
All his powers activated - vitality burning, Styx incarnation, perfect persona blessing, the light of dawn. His power-level steadily climbed up as he neared the giant gate that was starting to crack. His dao intent was fused with all his powers making him extremely terrifying at the moment. He had stepped beyond the power-level of immortals and he could feel it.
Immortals all had different power-levels. This was a gap that was present in all big realms. But the immortal realm was not divided into minor breakthroughs like the other realms. It was more like continuous improvement. This was the reason there was no early, mid or late immortal realm cultivation level. But if one was to strictly classify, the immortal realm too would be classified based on power levels. Actually, after the immortal realm was the legendary transformation realm. But transformation realm was not easily attained. This was because for reaching the transformation realm, one would have to use their condensed law energy to transform their body or soul fundamentally. While not all immortals knew of this in Aterna, there were many who did. So why did they not breakthrough to transformation realm?
The answer was simple. Tribulation.
Transformation realm was the gateway for becoming a higher level of existence. The existence of law. In the process, one would change the very structure of one's body or soul to become ingrained with the laws one practices. This created law marks inside the body or soul. But once these marks were formed, it would cause disturbances in the law ocean.
The law ocean surrounded everything. Even if Michael and the others were living in a plane, the plane itself was surrounded by law ocean. It was not wrong to say that the law ocean was omnipresent. When one used the power of laws - it originated from the law ocean. Simply put, law ocean was the source of all laws - even the laws practised by immortals. But transformation-realm was something else. It would take the laws from the law ocean and form marks ingrained in one's body or soul. This was different from condensing the laws into immortal energy. The later was only a temporary phenomenon and once the immortal energy was left for a while, it would decay back into laws. But law marks were permanent! This was the reason why reaching the transformation realm meant reaching the next level of existence.
Breaking through law transformation was like taking laws permanently from the ocean. Now imagine a huge ocean. If say that some small amount of water from the middle of the ocean vanishes, what will happen? The water will flow back to fill the vacant space. Something similar happened when one broke through to the transformation realm. There was a backlash from the law ocean! This was also known as law tribulation. And to survive this tribulation, one needed a required amount of strength. Michael knew all this because he received the ancient records from the god-beasts. This was something that many other immortals knew as well. If reaching that level after stepping into the immortal realm was to be considered as a journey, the following explanation would hold pretty well.
Newly ascended immortals with weaker laws and lower attainments could be said to be in the early immortal realm. Reez and Jerome were immortals in this category. They were the weakest among immortals. In fact, there had been geniuses who could battle such immortals at the peak-perfect realm. They had completed less than 10 per cent of their journey in the immortal realm. The next level was the level experienced immortals had achieved - Ragnar and most of the rest were at this level. They had completed around 20 to 30 per cent of their journey. The next level was the stronger immortals like Karslon, Kevin and Astang. They completed around 50 per cent of their journey. Immortal slayers could be said to have completed 60-70 per cent. Michael, a few moments before was around 90 per cent of that level. But currently, he was at the required power level to make the breakthrough!
But while Michael had the power to resist the tribulation, he was lacking in law comprehension. Also, the mentioned required power-level was only an estimation of the minimum required power. As Michael was cultivating grand laws, how terrifying his tribulation would be, it was hard to tell.
The gate finally cracked and a huge rift appeared in the sky. At the rift, one person seemed to stand on a disc of light. The power in his body and soul was terrifying. It was around Michael's own level! This was a powerful expert. While he too had not reached the transformation realm, he was still not an opponent Michael could win against in a fair fight.
The reason for that was simple - experience.
This person was a captain in the devil's army. He had conquered countless planes and fought countless wars. He had participated in invasions against powerful primary planes. The number of people he had killed could form mountains and their blood would form rivers. This was someone that had his own territory in a super-plane! An overlord across many worlds! Someone revered by countless mortals and cultivators.
Michael too knew that he was not this person's match in a fair fight. But, the fight was not fair, to begin with. Michael was defending his native plane. As Michael closed in, the plane-will emerged and his perception and sensory abilities increased by a huge amount. His battle instinct also seemed to have become sharp. Most importantly, he could see all the weaknesses of the enemy! This was a feeling of being a true master!
The plane-will, of course, had the memory and techniques of all the geniuses that had lived and died in Aterna. It was not surprising that Michael would become a combat master with its influence. But if this was all the plane-will would do, it would no longer be the will of an entire plane. As soon as the devil captain came under the influence of plane laws, the plane-will descended on him with full force bringing his level down! This was suppression. This was the main reason invading other planes was so difficult and as long as the planes' powerhouses were of comparable might, an invasion was a suicidal attempt.
The devil captain looked quite surprised as he saw Michael ascending to meet him. Before the man could take a stance, Michael's flying beast crashed into him. The collision was like a deafening boom. But as the height was quite big, the shockwaves got diluted by the time they reached below. As the soldiers had the boost of plane-will and Michael's dao, they were not severely injured.
As soon as Michael's steed crashed with the man, he seemed to have brought out a sword out of thin air. This was an extraordinary sword - the likes of which had never appeared in Aterna. As soon as the sword emerged, a sense of danger assaulted Michael's senses. But there was no way he could avoid this battle. He jumped off the bird and attacked from the side almost simultaneously.
The devil captain was now facing two-pronged attacks. As he had been caught off-guard, he had been badly hurt by the collision. He had taken out his weapon - his trump card before anything could go wrong. He revealed a decisive look and attacked the beast with his full power completely ignoring Michael's attacks! One could see that he was a veteran of wars just from this. Michael was a powerful opponent even without plane-will's involvement. But currently, he was not Michael's match. He had a simple plan - kill the beast and fight a defensive battle with Michael. This would allow him sufficient time for his comrades to arrive. He was going to give Michael one attack for free. But, this was the wrong decision to make!
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Michael was extremely strong in both body and soul at the moment. But most importantly, Michael's dao was extremely destructive. It amplified the destructive impact as well as the duration of all his attacks. Also, Michael had mastered his physical strength completely and thus, his attack carried much more damage than someone else with the same level of power. But the devil captain had never fought dao-path experts. In fact, he had never seen an oddity like Michael in any other planes. This was the reason he was underestimating Michael - he was thinking that Michael's aura was probably amplified by the plane will. There was another reason as well, he wanted to probe Michael's true level of power. Due to these reasons, he left himself open.
The devil's sword directly pierced the beast's skull and terrifying immortal energy went through the sword into the beast's brain. Law contamination! Killing the beings in the immortal realm was extremely frustrating. Even if they were to be severed into pieces, they could reassemble themselves. This was the reason mortals never managed to kill immortals. Michael could see that the devil was using his immortal energy from both his body and soul. This meant that this person had an immortal body and soul. As soon as it happened, Michael closed in and used all his powers to throw a punch at the devil's ribs.
Crack!
The devil's eyes went wide from the impact. The hit had been so hard that his ribs had shattered followed by his lungs and heart. His soul also suffered from the impact and made him go into soul-shock. Blood came off his mouth along with chunks of organs. But the terrifying thing was that the power from the blow was not dissipating. It made it difficult for him to heal his wounds. His immortal energy rushed to the damaged areas of his body and began to struggle with Michael's powers. But this caused the power to recede from the sword. The beast howled at the next moment and tried to bite the devil's head off. Of course, it did not succeed but it still tore away chunks of flesh off the devil's throat causing blood to gush out. The devil powerhouse was still trying to get control of the powers raging inside his body when Michael attacked in continuous succession. Each of his attacks was aimed at fatal points and weaknesses. The devil grew more and more injured. But he was not dying - not even close to it.
This was the thing about immortal experts, to destroy them, one needed to destroy their law source and contaminate their immortal energy. Michael's understanding of laws was much less and so he was not capable of contaminating other's laws. His dao-intent gave his opponents some problem but that was the limit of it. Truly killing the devil captain was going to be very difficult of Michael alone. But, he was not alone.
At this moment, other immortal slayers arrived. Igor, Goliath, Memphis - they all attacked with their powers that contained their own laws and immortal energy. These people would be easily suppressed by the devil captain even if they had fought together. This was even in the situation when their might was comparable. (due to plane-will) The reason for this was their low soul cultivation. Michael, on the other hand, was able to suppress this person but unable to kill him. But under their combined assault, they had managed to contaminate the devil's laws!
The entire fight only lasted less than five seconds!
As the devil was suppressed, Michael took away the space-ring on the devil's hands. This was another treasure that was not present in Aterna. Michael knew what it was because of his past life's memories. He took the ring and sent his soul energy into it. He could see many resources inside. The wealth was enough to shock him!
It must be kept in mind that Michael was the overlord of this entire plane. Thus, he had seen many unique resources. For him to be shocked was not easy. There were mountains of resources piled up - weapons, pills, cultivation resources, manuals. This was a huge loot. Michael could understand the devil's crazed passion somewhat. The more planes they invaded, the more they obtained. After looking at the contents of the ring, Michael took out one command token from inside it. The token was made up of transparent fibre like material. It was engraved with the symbol of a flame. This was the symbol of devils. Michael had seen it plenty of times. As the other immortals arrived, Michael turned around without waiting for other formidable foes to appear. In less than ten seconds, they were back on the ground.
The gate continued trembling as the rift that had healed after the battle happened was being torn again. Michael knew that this command token was the property of the devil captain and could be activated by his blood. The token contained spells inside it.
It was reasonable to ask - how did the devils manage to enter the plane? After all, the plane-will was still there. Could it be that when foreign enemies tried to enter, the plane-will did not retaliate? Of course, that was impossible. The devil army used a special treasure that could break through the defences of the plane. Then, they would enter the plane and start a massacre. The plane-will was the rudimentary conscient of the plane-laws. But what was the plane-will's core? In fact, what was a plane's core? The answer was - order.
The plane Aterna had a unique order of laws. This order had engraved itself in all the lands, seas and living organisms. Battling the plane-will directly was a foolish thing to do. The power required for that was too huge and even upper-transformation realm experts could not destroy the plane-will easily. Also, even if they succeeded in destroying the plane-will, the plane too would implode due to the result of battle thoroughly destroying any resources that were originally there. Therefore, unless one had irreconcilable hatred or madness, they would not destroy a plane. The usual process of conquering a plane was to enter it and kill a huge number of living organisms. This would completely collapse the order of the plane and cause an irrecoverable blow to the plane-will. Once the will went into slumber, the devils would then plunder wantonly. They would take all resources, capture all powerhouses and either brainwash them or crack their conscient refining them into puppets. The mortals would be sold to slavery after being defiled and played with. The money and resources from this selling would increase the power of the army. Basically, for each plane conquered, the power of the army improved significantly. This was the devilish path - the path of conquest.
Obviously, Michael was unaware of these things in full detail. He and others had their own speculations but the inner details were unknown. Michael simply looked at the captured devil and the token and a cold smile settled on his lips.
This token could be used to connect to the token on the other side. Then, they would together activate the treasure piercing the skies and creating a hole for the devils to enter through. Michael did not know this but it was easily analysed. At this moment, three hundred solid-soul-realm experts were powering a formation that was trying to force the soul of the devil captain. This was a forced method to get the answers in the short term. Considering that it took a few days to create the first rift, they still had some time.
The answers and information obtained from this devil captain was something that shocked even Michael. In his previous life, the devils were extremely mysterious. They had appeared slowly and many considered them to be a newly ascended race. It was only later that people found about the invasion. By that time, the devils had already amassed armies and powerhouses in the plane. Thus, it was very hard to take a powerhouse captive. The lower rung did not know much and so the information obtained from them was worthless. Michael in past ten years had sat down with Mubal and they had worked daily on this formation. It suppressed the soul and made the person answer your questions truthfully. But to get only a few answers out from the devil completely drained all the experts of soul path in Aterna. But the information obtained was similarly valuable.
Their first gain was the full understanding of the mechanism of invasion. How was the treasure used, what was the scope of the army invading and what was the threat they were facing. As the answers to these questions were revealed, the expressions of all immortals became so grim that the victory on such a formidable foe was totally forgotten. Michael too took a deep breath and felt horror at the answers. This was the first time since his rebirth that he was feeling completely hopeless!