In the past, his understanding of humans came from various battle reports and Holy See meetings. Along with their obvious contempt for the lowlifes, it was the general consensus of virtually all grand lords that humans lacked Awakened warriors. It was just as difficult for humans to upgrade as demons. The humans' overall strength was volatile as it was impossible to tell the extent of an Upgraded's power beforehand.

Human males who possessed no magical power at all were on the battlefield purely to add to the headcount. They were akin to the Inferior Demons of his race; however, Inferior Demons were utterly abandoned after the first Battle of Divine Will. Now, they weren't even allowed to partic.i.p.ate in battle, and were only used for manual labor at most. Just from this, one could see the difference in strength between the two races.

The Sky-sea Realm inhabitants were even more highly-evolved. From their land-engulfing s.h.i.+ps to their most basic soldier, every one of them possessed remarkable magical power, as if they were designed just for war. Even several of the demonic beasts that they corrupted and controlled eventually grew into ones containing magical ability. Undeniably, the Sky-sea Realm was the strongest among the four races.

Precisely because of the difference in strength, senior demons regarded the legacy that would be left behind by humans after the second Battle of Divine Will as something in the bag.

This was also why Ursrook's last words caused such a great stir on the Presiding Holy See.

Now however, Hackzord had come to believe with a greater certainty that Ursrook had not been exaggerating.

Even if humans' exceptional utilization of fire was not enough to raise the King's concern, the new weapon Hackzord's people had discovered two weeks ago was a completely different story.

Without the help of witches, human males—creatures that were supposed to be merely extra tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs—actually flew via a strangely modeled iron bird!

His first reaction when he heard the news was that it was definitely impossible.

Since ancient times, excluding birds, the sky was a place dominated by magic users. The saying that G.o.d resided in the place above the sky layered the blue dome above their heads with a greater sense of holiness and divinity. Yet how could species without even a drop of magical power intrude this holy domain?

However, there was more than one witness to this phenomenon. Upon accepting the news, he realized that that the humans' rapid growth in strength may not only be owed to their manipulation of fire.

Indeed, he was slowly being convinced of Silent Disaster's shocking "Upgrade Theory"—It was likely that the Nightmare Lord had realized this possibility before him, which was why she decided to enter the Realm of Mind in search for answers.

After all, the rate that the humans were evolving was way too fast.

There wasn't any mention of the iron bird in Ursrook's report. If humans already possessed such a weapon at the time, there would be no reason not to use it. The only explanation was that in less than a year, the developments of humans had already reached the realm of the sky.

Such a sudden change could only be explained by upgrading.

Once males also become a main force in battle, the humans' fighting ability would undoubtedly multiply dramatically. Perhaps this was Ursrook's real warning in his last words.

Fortunately, Hackzord was substantially more familiar with the sky than fire. The iron birds the humans created were not much stronger than Devilbeasts. As long as he was here, n.o.body else was allowed to touch the sky!

This time, the attack will not fail like the previous time.

His confidence was not because he looked down on his enemy. At this point, underestimating the enemy was unquestionably stupid.

His confidence came from his own t.i.tle.

Because he was the supreme lord of the sky!

After pa.s.sing through the door, the Sky Lord appeared on the edge of the island.

Constantly lingering by his side were Parasitic Eye Demons who came with him. If Eye Demons were regarded as a rare species, than the scarcity of Parasitic Eye Demons was on a whole other level; they were an extremely precious resource.

Despite the high price, Hackzord placed them on the front line without hesitation, letting them travel by his side. This was the only way he could handle the other key target mentioned by Ursrook: a witch that specialized in exceptionally long-range attack.

Up until he arrived on the island, the witch's appearance still hadn't materialized in his mind. This meant that humans' only a.s.set that could threaten him wasn't present on the island.

At the same time, he didn't see any observers that would be able to catch sight of him.

There was no better time than now.

Hackzord didn't hesitate any more and activated the complete form of the Distortion Door!

A black hole rapidly spread out from behind him and very swiftly extended several meters outwards. Any natural barrier would be rendered useless against the Door!

A red haze gushed out. Siacis, a higher ascendant, was the first to appear before him. "My lord, your army is ready."

"Convey my command: Seize this island and kill all who resist!"

"As you wis.h.!.+" Siacis let out a piercing scream. As a psychic who had undergone three upgrading ceremonies, this scream was more than enough to drop any human who didn't wear a G.o.d's Stone instantly. Even if they did have one on them, the mind blast would cause them to fall in a trance. Simultaneously, it was a signal to commence the attack. When the scream ended, ma.s.sive numbers of Primal Demons and Symbiotic Demons poured out from the Distortion Door towards the center of the island.

The strength of humans' fire bolts lay in their long range. As long as they could close the distance, these new Symbiotic Demons would definitely be able to break through the enemy's line of defense in one go.

Very quickly, the vanguard traversed the peripheral of the island and closed in on the humans' settlement.

Yet there were still no sounds of fire.

This caused Hackzord to feel a shred of astonishment.

Just when he had managed to get himself to view the humans as equals to his own race, what was with the huge oversight they were making? Could it be that they still hadn't noticed that their territory was being invaded?

"My lord..." A quarter of an hour later, Siacis hastily hurried over. "We have already captured the inner city; however... we didn't discover any traces of humans. This place is an empty city!"

"What did you say?" Hackzord's eyes widened.

"There are still many uncompleted buildings inside the city. From their color, it seems that the buildings were recently under construction, I'm afraid the humans have probably abandoned Archduke Island one or two days ago."

So he was saying... the boats spotted by the sentries were not for sending weapons onto the island, but evacuating the soldiers from the island?

But... how could this be possible?

The humans acted as if they knew he was going to attack Archduke Island! He had intentionally made his troops avoid all cities and towns. Every path he traveled had been checked by Eye Demons. The easiest way this secret could be leaked was via those human workers, so he ordered his subordinates to put them under centralized supervision, removing all possibility of communication with the outside. Even if the enemy had noticed that something was odd, they wouldn't have evacuated so quickly!

How did the information get leaked?

Before he could think about the problem properly, an ear-splitting explosion suddenly erupted from the island centre. In an instant, the earth began to violently shake.

A cl.u.s.ter of blindingly bright fireb.a.l.l.s illuminated the cloudy day. In the midst of their light, rolling clouds of black smoke shot into the sky and an intense air wave swept across the entire inner city. All the soldiers in the city were engulfed by the surging smoke in a blink of an eye.