A four-winged eagle was flying in the sky, seeking for a prey. The bird was hungry as it hadn’t eaten anything for quite some time. Its eyes were staring fiercely at the forest below, trying to find any movement worth noticing. Until now, the four-winged eagle hadn’t found anything at all. In the forest, it was the king of the sky. However, right now, it had nothing to eat. It was as if all the preys had disappeared. It was like that since its hibernation had ended several hours earlier. As soon as it woke up, the bird had wanted to eat something so it began to hunt. How could have it imagined that even after several hours, it didn’t find anything to eat, not even a single rat? The eagle was very depressed but unexpectedly a prey appeared over the horizon.
The eagle was not simple animal but a magical beast. It could use magic and were as intelligent as a human child. This bird was not young anymore. Magical beast could cultivate their body and soul in order to increase their longevity. The four-winged eagle had already lived for thousands of years and had seen many things throughout its life. When looking at the prey, it remembered a certain race that all magical beasts hated to the bones, the humans. Magical beasts hated humans and humans hated magical beast. They were natural enemies. It had been a long time since the four-winged eagle had since a human for the last time. It nearly thought that they were extinct.
Eyes glittering with hunger, the bird looked at the human from up above. As a magical beast, its instinct urged it to attack the human without hesitation. If by misfortune the human was strong, it could always flee through the sky. Fortunately, this human didn’t seem to be very strong. Being at the peak of the qi condensation gave the four winged eagle the qualification to be arrogant. With such a power, it could stand at the peak of the food chain inside the forest. As it didn’t sense a single strand of magic from the human, it determined that the human couldn’t use magic. Therefore, it was not a threat at all. Furthermore, human flesh was quite tasty but even if it was not tasty, the four-winged eagle would still attack because it was too hungry. It activated a wind-based spell which multiplied its speed by several folds before diving toward the ground at an incredible speed.
When the four-winged eagle was a dozen of meters above the human, it unfurled its claws and was ready to tear the apart. However, before it could do anything to the prey, it suddenly sensed a terrifying aura weighing down on it. The bird felt like it was struck by lightning. That aura was so strong that it caused all the bird’s feathers to stand on end. An impression of deadly crisis appeared in its mind and it wanted to flee right away. Unfortunately, a powerful gravitational force appeared out of nowhere and began t drag it toward the human. The later stretched out a hand and grabbed the four-winged eagle without any resistance. Soon, the bird became a prisoner and realized that it had made a fatal mistake.
The prey was not a human at all. Now that it thought about it, the bird finally remembered that humans were at most two meters tall. It didn’t pay attention in the sky but now it could see the creature more clearly. The creature it took for a human was as tall as a small mountain. The facial features and the body proportion were exactly like that of a human but everything else was different. The creature’s eyes glittered looking at the four-winged eagle which made the bird feel an intense terror. Before it could do anything, a scorching fire engulfed the four-winged eagle before burning it to death. All that remained was a roasted bird.
Aziel was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the forest. She was meditating to heal herself. The physical injuries she had sustained were already healed but the injuries to her soul were not. Simple healing potions could not heal the injuries to the soul completely. She hadn’t wanted to go anywhere before being at peak condition. Therefore, she meditated for seven days. Sometimes, she would pick up something to eat. A mage of her level didn’t need to eat anything anymore. But this didn’t mean Aziel didn’t want to eat anything. The dish of the day was roasted four-winged eagle which she found, after eating it, extremely delicious. It was very normal as she had lived countless years in the abysses with nothing to eat. For her right now, even a crude rat meat would be delicious.
She was puzzled though, those past few days, animals became rare. It was as if they had fled somewhere else, afraid of something. However, she discarded the thought afterward, classing it as unimportant. After an entire week, her injuries were completely healed which made her a little excited. She could finally begin to explore this new world. Aziel stood up and checked her equipment. The plate eternal-grade armor she had worn one week earlier had been replaced by a common-grade one. The higher the grade of an equipment was, the higher the consumption of divine energy which was like a fuel for a mage. She didn’t want to waste divine energy if she was not in battle. She also decided to leave her battleform and in the blink of an eye, she transformed into a two meters tall woman. Her initial apparence, golden skin and white hair were still there, only her height was changed.
Standing on the ground, she sent her divine sense to sweep the surroundings while thinking. “I must find the civilization first. The natives of this planet should have a star map. With a little chance, I could find a star system I know. Maybe they even had a way to travel to the abysses. Once there, returning to friendly space should not be difficult.” Having made a plan, her body transformed into a stream of wind before flying up into the sky at high speed. Elemental transformation was a basic magic any hyperion learned at a young age. Everything in the universe was composed of the four basic elements: fire, water, earth and wind. Each of which had their own characteristics. The elemental transformation of wind allowed one to transform one’s body into the wind. The wind was the element with the fastest speed among the four especially in a gaseous medium like an atmosphere.
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There was no preferred direction Aziel wanted to choose. Therefore, she traveled in a straight line. Time passed slowly. She traveled at high speed through the sky while enjoying the scenery. The lands were covered with lush forest which the highest trees reached more than a hundred meters. Contrary to her expectation, the dominant color was not green but blue. Apparently, the trees here were very different compared to those on earth. Sometimes, she would encounter some strange animals. One of them was a giant bird which body was entirely recovered by red scales and which head was that of a lizard. All of its body emitted ardent flames and when it flew, it let a trail of blood red flames in the sky. Another strange animal was a giant black tortoise. It was so huge that one would believe it was a mountain. It walked slowly, searching for food and whenever it made a move, the ground would tremble.
Aziel was quite satisfied with this planet. She thought that the environment was really good. Compared to the abysses, this world was a paradise. Time passed and soon she had traveled for an entire day. She was still flying in the sky like a gust of wind but this time with a hint of boredom on her face. The scenery hadn’t changed at all. The forest was still there and she hadn’t found a single intelligent being, only blue trees and animals. That puzzled her as she estimated having crossed a dozen thousand kilometers without finding any habitant of this world. There were no cities, no villages, and no sign of any civilization. Maybe she was the only intelligent life in this planet? This thought crossed her mind but was discarded immediately. She had seen sufficient number of worlds to know that when there was life there was intelligence. One way or another, the indigene life on a planet would always produce an intelligent species.
Not wanting to waste much time Aziel canceled the elemental transformation spell and body became solid again. Always in midair, she took a step forward. That step seemed ordinary but if one looked closer, one would find that some profound mysteries were imbued within that step. Suddenly, space and time became distorted. The space-time ahead of Aziel contracted greatly and formed a space-time current. If the space-time was compared to an ocean, the space-time current was like an oceanic current. Like a fish, she entered the current which transported her at a speed several fold higher than before. With a single step, she crossed a huge distance before reappearing hundreds of kilometers away. Arrived there, she took a second step and another. She traveled like that over an enormous distance. However, she lurched to a stop few hours later with a frown on her face.
Aziel was puzzled as she hadn’t encountered anyone yet. Moreover, the scenery hadn’t changed in the slightest. The same blue trees forest covered the lands. Normally, two places separated by thousands of kilometers should have different ecosystems. She had fought finding something else, like a desert, a meadow, an ocean… However, all that she saw was the same dense forest. After pondering a few seconds, she began to run forward without stop. Compared to before, her speed had reach terrifying level. Unfortunately, she stopped again few hours later. This time she was really shocked. The distance she had crossed till now was several millions of kilometers. However, all she could see was the same dense forest as far as the eyes could see.
“Impossible! How can this be? I should have traveled millions of kilometers in a straight line but I haven’t returned to my starting point yet. How big is this planet?” Aziel was breathing heavily. She had been on countless planets in her life but not as incredible as this one. One should know that the circumference of Earth was just 40 000 km. With her speed, she could have gone around the Earth nearly a hundred times. Yet, on this planet, she had the impression of not traveling very far. In midair, she didn’t even see the curvature of the planet and its surface was too flat while seeming to stretch infinitely over the horizon. That meant only one thing, the planet’s circumference was enormous.
She realized that she couldn’t continue to walk mindlessly like that. If this world was as huge as she imagined, she would need many years before she could find help. It was not that she was impatient. A thousand years meant nothing to her. The problem was the boredom. Several years of traveling alone for her was like a trip in hell.
“What a boring world! Forget it, I will just go elsewhere.” Having made up her mind, Aziel began walking again but this time towards the sky. She wanted to leave this world and find help on another one. She had many choices as several moons were visible up above. What she didn’t perceive was the pair of eyes which was staring at her from the sky. Those eyes were icy cold and radiated an intense killing intent.
Those eyes belonged to an entity only known as of guardian. The guardian was observing the world of Asteron like he always did when he caught sight of a strange creature. At first glance, the creature appeared to be a human cultivator, a woman. She radiated the aura of purification-stage cultivator as she was using a strange magic to cross huge distances. The guardian was just slightly puzzled about Aziel in the beginning but he didn’t really mind. Everything changed the moment she decided to leave Asteron. The guardian, like its name suggested, was guarding something. What it guarded was Asteron itself. More particularly, its mission was to stop anyone from living the planet. Anyone who wanted to leave would be killed without mercy. It was the guardian’s mission since a long time ago and he had never failed a single time. Moreover, the human was just purification-stage cultivator. She was so weak that the guardian felt insulted to kill her. He snorted before beginning to move.
Aziel was nearly out in the starry sky when she heard a cold snort. Suddenly, big black clouds formed ahead of her which blocked her path. Countless red lightning bolts exploded out from inside the clouds. Aziel stopped and frowned. She wasn’t happy as she could sense magic ripples emanating from the clouds which meant that it was not a natural phenomenon. Apparently, someone didn’t want her to advance.