Cloudhawk was preparing to reduce the Temple to rubble and abscond when the whole structure began to quake . Something from outside was slamming into it .

“We’re surrounded! We don’t know where they came from, but they’re attacking the Temple!”

Frost and a handful of his men raced into the chamber carrying a huge block of ice . Anxiety was written on their faces, like a pack of wild animals were close on their heels .

“What’s going on?”

Cloudhawk didn’t understand . The Avatar had surrounded herself with capable fighters but the Temple could only house so many . Her forces weren’t highly motivated to start with, and they had been badly ravaged by Cloudhawk’s team . Had they somehow rallied and launched a counterattack in less than an hour?

No . That wasn’t right . Frost wouldn’t be so alarmed by an Elysian strike force .  

The ones attacking them came from someplace else . Skycloud’s main forces were down on the ground and were engaged with the Green Alliance . What kind of force could come all the way up here to a.s.sault the Temple?

The Cloud G.o.d released a pulse of mental energy, sweeping the area . It revealed the entire scene to him .

Thousands of elite troops were pouring into the front doors of the Temple . Most were wearing the garb of demonhunters, with demonhunter weapons . However their style was not from Skycloud . That could only mean…

The G.o.d connected his vision to the others so they could see . Their faces slackened when they saw for themselves .  

Cloudhawk scowled . “They’re from the other Elysian lands . The Boundary Portal is open, we’re too late!”

The Avatar, with her ability to see into the future, had planned everything . She had probably envisaged her own defeat but made preparations to ensure the portal succeeded . Suddenly things had turned very bad for Cloudhawk and the others . They didn’t know who these foreigners were or how many had come, but it seemed obvious their small force was not enough .

“We have to leave . ”

“Leave? I don’t think we can!”

By now the Temple’s front doors were sealed off . There was a whole host of enemies waiting right outside! Not to mention they were tens of thousands of meters above the surface . Only Cloudhawk could escape from a situation like this . He could try to teleport them all, but in all likelihood he would get caught himself . It was a dire problem .

“Don’t worry, I have this . ”

Cloudhawk pulled out a slender dagger that looked like it’d been carved from crystal . Its complex structure was beautiful to behold, a real work of art . It was the Riftshard dagger, he’d taken it from Bruno Argyrys .

His own dimensional powers had limitations . The dagger was more effective for what they needed . Bruno had already placed markers in Skycloud city, markers they could use to escape . The distance between the Temple and the surface was nothing for this relic .

He didn’t have time to explain . The sound of pounding feet was drawing near . If they stayed even another moment they would be surrounded .  

Cloudhawk reached his mind into the relic and created a slew of copies . “Everyone take a dagger . Hold on to it, it’ll get you out of here . ”

Riftshard was able to make copies of itself . The copies were not relics, but markers which only existed for a period of time . Aside from the ability to move the bearer from one place to another, they had no other function .

Cloudhawk grit his teeth and got to work . Although the dagger facilitated moving as many people as he needed, it was extremely draining even for him .

Figures began pouring into the chamber . They surged from the corridors and leaped onto the dais . But just as they came in range, all they saw where flashes of white light and then – nothing .

Inside the Temple was a different sort of s.p.a.ce, almost like a separate dimension . Before they could use the daggers, Cloudhawk had to bring them outside first . They blinked into existence and when confronted with the whole scene, they stared in utter shock .

The pyramid-shaped Temple was suspended high in the air . Below the earth was distant, its features small . Above them the sky was no longer blue, but a deep and eternal black . They were at the cusp of the atmosphere, another twenty thousand meters or so above them was the vast emptiness of s.p.a.ce .

The Temple had risen this high already?

But if that was the only thing they saw it wouldn’t be so surprising . What shook them to their core was what hovered around the Temple: a fleet of a hundred airs.h.i.+ps .

These vessels had been specially outfitted . Their energy pylons released enough energy to get them into high alt.i.tude while protecting the crew from a lack of gravity and oxygen . There wasn’t any mystery where they’d come from . These were the armies of the other four Elysian realms .

From these lands came capable warriors, numerous as the clouds . Cloudhawk and his allies couldn’t stay here .

The a.s.sumption was that these vessels had all come through the Boundary Portal, but in fact that was not the case . News of Skycloud’s troubles had long ago reached the other realms and in response they dispatched this armada to make the long journey over land .  

Farther in the distance Cloudhawk could make out the shapes of other enemy forces closing in . He should of known the world was much bigger than the wastelands he wandered! However far these other realms were, they could still reach Skycloud by s.h.i.+p .  

Lifting the Temple was a calculated move by the Avatar . On the one hand it protected the structure from attack, while on the other it made it easier for forces from the other Elysian lands to come to the rescue . Skycloud’s Temple hung above the world like a satellite, but not in stationary orbit . As the world turned below it brought the building-turned-s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p closer to the other realms . Here the Elysians could regroup, recover, and prepare for their a.s.sault on the Cloud G.o.d’s domain .

All told the force wasn’t enormous – about a hundred s.h.i.+ps in total . Several tens of thousands of soldiers could be expected to have come along . However, without a doubt this would be considered the vanguard . That meant these soldiers were their elite .

“We’ve located the enemy!”

“Kill them! Shoot them down!”

Suddenly attacks were launched at Cloudhawk’s group from all directions . He activated the Riftshards without hesitation . “Take your men and go!”

A white light spread from the dagger’s copies, swallowing up the bearers and teleporting them to safety . Cloudhawk was left alone . His mission wasn’t finished, so he couldn’t go yet .

He spread his arms and s.p.a.ce rippled at his call . Moments later the ripples became too great and the skies shattered like broken gla.s.s . Enormous rocks were flung into being, dozens of them immediately caught by the tug of gravity . Their trajectory brought them toward the Temple .

“What is this?!”

It was the first time soldiers from the other realms had seen anything like it . They had never encountered Cloudhawk before and did not know how to defend themselves . When the first meteor struck – the size of a small mountain – it rammed into one of their s.h.i.+ps . Huge kinetic force smashed it to pieces and flung it aside as the falling rock continued its charge .  

More came screaming through the formation, one after another . The Temple was difficult to destroy outright, even for a meteor storm, but at the very least Cloudhawk’s attacks would cause tremendous damage . If he could do enough harm, perhaps the Boundary Portal would become unstable and collapse .

The Temple’s anti-gravity mechanisms started to fail . It pitched to the side, slamming into a couple s.h.i.+ps . Gravity reestablished its control over the ma.s.sive structure and it began to plummet . No question about it, no matter what the thing was made of the Temple wouldn’t survive slamming into the ground from this height .

But then… suddenly…

Four dark spots appeared, stark against the flickering light of the collapsing Boundary Portal . Great cheers arose from the soldiers when they saw them . Their perfect forms, stalwart figures and mighty presence – there was no doubt, these were the remaining four Supremes .

One of them, wrapped in iron-black armor, dashed beneath the Temple . It slammed its arms up to the elbows into the building . How much could the Temple have weighed? Certainly as much as a mountain! Large as G.o.dly bodies were they were still minuscule in comparison . Like an ant beneath an elephant .  

Yet somehow, in an astounding display, this ant began to slow the elephant’s fall .  

This was the War G.o.d, one of Sumeru’s mightiest generals!

Its companions spread out to help . One was larger than all the others, its armor like some sort of relic . When engaged it seared with golden scales and a pair of t.i.tanic wings spread from its back . Dragenmere’s patron, the Dragon G.o.d, was aptly named .

Wings extended, it raised its arms toward the falling rocks . Waves of invisible energy burst forth and smashed the meteors to pieces . Nothing remained but clouds of dust, eliminate the threat to the Temple .

Seeing this Cloudhawk prepared to make his escape, but two flashes of light appeared before him . One was a brilliant white light in a humanoid shape, and the other was a form composed of living lightning . Both appeared as beings of pure energy, but their blazing eyes and the outline of their forms were visible beneath the glare .

In the instant they arrived two intense bursts of power were released toward Cloudhawk . With shocking ease they tore through his defenses and into his body .

It’d been a long time since Cloudhawk had been wounded seriously . Faced with the coordinate strike from two Supremes, he could not avoid it on top of preparing to flee . Taking the blows, he wrapped himself in dimensional power and blinked out of reality before the G.o.ds could strike again .

The War G.o.d had stabilized the Temple and brought it back to its original alt.i.tude . Once again it hovered above the earth like a stationary satellite .

“It appears the Boundary Portal is again damaged . ”

“No matter . We have arrived, Sumeru has also begun to act . ”

“The G.o.d King has given its order: Destroy the demons . Destroy the betrayer . ”

The Four Supremes huddles together, suspended in mid air and conversing telepathically . One of them alone was terrifying to face . Four now had their sights trained on Skycloud, backed by their armies . Never since the Great War had such power been levied . Yet most terrifying was the prospect that Mount Sumeru would soon become involved .

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