The Metal Lifeform sped forward, but inside it, there wasn't the slightest feeling of movement.
Some Fiends gathered in the hall to drink and chat, passing the time, while others chose to stay in their private rooms and cultivate.
They had only just finished cultivating, and Luo Ya and the others also wanted to enjoy the scenery along the way, so they happened to be staying in the hall.
"Someone's probing us with divine sense! We're under attack! We're under attack!"
Suddenly, a divine sense swept over the Metal Lifeform. An orange-haired young man reacted wildly, shouting at the top of his lungs inside the Metal Lifeform.
"Smack!" A green-haired young man beside him promptly clapped a hand over his mouth, then looked apologetically at everyone else inside. "Sorry, everyone. This kid's on his first Fiend Mission, so he's a little worked up!"
As he spoke, the green-haired young man blushed a little, too. But since he was a Highgod, no one openly mocked him. They just stared at the pair with odd looks.
"That orange-haired kid's a real oddball. If he's that scared, why'd he come out to be a Fiend?" Though they didn't dare mock him loudly, the gods inside the Metal Lifeform seemed to have found themselves some entertainment and began whispering and teasing in little groups.
"Kid, can you stop embarrassing me?" The green-haired young man angrily rapped the orange-haired Midgod on the head, then dragged him into a private room.
It was perfectly normal to encounter divine-sense probes while traveling in a Metal Lifeform.
But there were no fewer than thirty Highgod Fiends aboard this Metal Lifeform alone. The orange-haired young man was only a Midgod, and if he could detect the probe, those powerhouses certainly could, too. So his earlier fussing really had been laughable.
Inside the Metal Lifeform's hall.
"Luo Ya, Milia, sorry you had to see that earlier. This kid really is a bit of a coward." Perhaps because the three of them hadn't mocked him earlier, the green-haired Highgod named Berik had been chatting with them often lately.
"Don't let the kid's timid manner fool you. He's much more talented at cultivation than I am. He's already started fusing two Profound Mysteries of the Laws of Thunder. Once he reaches Highgod, he'll definitely be a little stronger than me..." Hearing Berik say this, Luo Ya and the others took another look at the timid, introverted orange-haired Midgod.
The fact that he'd begun fusing two Profound Mysteries meant he really did have a gift for cultivation. After all, most Highgods who had become gods independently couldn't fuse Profound Mysteries.
Anyone capable of fusing Profound Mysteries could be called a genius in Hell.
Life aboard the Metal Lifeform was peaceful. Now and then, they encountered some foolish bandits and robbers along the way, but when a large group of Fiends stepped out, the bandits were so frightened that they scattered in every direction. Just like that, eight years passed.
During those eight years, aside from occasionally relaxing and enjoying themselves in the hall, Luo Ya and Milia spent most of their time cultivating.
As for Morti, he devoted himself to refining the Water Highgod Spark, striving to become a Highgod Fiend as soon as possible.
That day, the Blood Sun hung high in a cloudless sky. The weather was clear and pleasant.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, the Metal Lifeform shuddered, and the many Fiends inside staggered.
Whoosh! The entire Metal Lifeform abruptly vanished, turning into a person, and everyone who had been inside was left floating in midair. More than a hundred people stared in shock. Many Fiends had been cultivating, but now they were all jolted awake.
At that moment—
A dense mass of god-level powerhouses hovered before them. There were so many that the faces of many One-Star and Two-Star Fiends turned pale with fright.
"Brother Berik, how many people are there?" The orange-haired young man's eyes widened as he trembled.
"Looks like almost ten thousand." Berik felt his heart tighten, too. "Nearly ten thousand powerhouses, and it looks like almost all of them are at least Midgods. There are plenty of Highgods, too! If this huge group attacks us all at once, the consequences..."
Berik wasn't the only one. Many of the other Highgod Fiends also paled.
"Milia, stay by my side. Don't wander off." Seeing the imposing bandit force of nearly ten thousand, Luo Ya grew solemn.
"Mm, I understand." Milia quickly focused, too.
The tactic of overwhelming an enemy with numbers had always been terrifying.
Even a powerful Highgod could be in grave danger if hundreds of Midgods attacked at once. And here, there were nearly ten thousand Midgods.
The bandit group of more than ten thousand surrounded the people who had emerged from the Metal Lifeform.
Several white-robed guards anxiously shielded an elven girl. She was Miss Sherry, their employer for this mission.
"Mr. Aliquin, it looks like we'll have to rely on you to handle this personally!"
The minotaur brothers, Coradi and his brother, looked grim as they turned toward the black-robed young man holding a little golden cat in his arms.
"Mm." Aliquin nodded calmly, his gaze cold as he watched the group before him. Among the nearly ten thousand bandits, there were no fewer than thirty Highgods.
"This is my first Six-Star Mission. How could I let you ruin it?" Aliquin flipped his hand and drew a long black whip. Black light spread along its length, producing ripples in the air.
The bandit leader opposite him changed expression slightly and shouted, "I didn't expect you to have a tough one among you. I'll handle him. Everyone else, attack together!"
The bandit leader who gave the order was a Werewolf Race powerhouse with dark green eyes. He rushed toward Aliquin like the wind, a pair of dark blue clawed gauntlets on his hands.
"Take this!" The werewolf powerhouse was no slower than Aliquin. Terrifying cyan light gathered at his claws without dispersing, and he moved like a phantom. In the blink of an eye, he appeared before Aliquin. His cyan-glowing claws tore through the air with a hiss as he raked them straight toward Aliquin's head.
"A powerhouse who cultivates the Laws of Wind?" Aliquin watched the sharp claws rushing toward him and felt the terrifying force tearing through the air. His eyelid twitched, and he hurriedly created hundreds of Shadow Clones, switching places with one of his shadows to evade the ambush.
Laws of Darkness—Shadow Clone Technique!
"Clones? I can do that, too!" The werewolf powerhouse laughed. In an instant, he split into hundreds of clones himself and charged forward again without backing down.
Laws of Wind—Clone Technique!
The number of clones could even offer an indirect indication of how many Profound Mysteries someone had fused.
Both Aliquin and the werewolf powerhouse could create hundreds of clones, which showed that their strength was fairly evenly matched.
While the two top powerhouses battled in the sky, the other bandits didn't sit idle.
With their numerical advantage, they were in high spirits.
"Kill!" "Kill!" "Kill!" "Kill!"...
The bandits shouted in unison. As they yelled—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...
Nearly ten thousand powerhouses swung their attacks at once. Some were invisible soul attacks, while others were all kinds of material attacks. The sky filled with countless sword shadows, blade shadows, elemental beasts, and more...
The attacks swept over the sky and surged straight toward Luo Ya and the others.
All the Fiends' faces changed.
Even the powerful Five-Star Fiends, the Coradi brothers, didn't dare withstand the attacks of ten thousand god-level powerhouses head-on. They could only avoid the brunt of them.
"Fall back!"
Luo Ya barked, and he, Milia, and Morti immediately plunged diagonally downward at top speed.
With so many attacks, there was nowhere to hide. Material attacks were manageable, but soul attacks were deadly.
Even though they retreated quickly, the attacks moved even faster. In an instant, the material and soul attacks arrived.
Movement techniques could indeed help them dodge many attacks, but there were simply too many of them—too dense, and too fast!
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