The Sky Lord was soaked from head to toe, as if he had just been scooped out of a pool of water. He was exhausted, injured and one half of his armor was splattered with blue blood. It looked as if he had just experienced a dreadful battle.

The Parasitic Eye Demons that were supposed to be by the Sky Lord's side had disappeared. Being vigilant creatures with the sharpest reflexes, Eye Demons were only useful if they were next to the grand lord. The current situation would only suggest that some great misfortune had befallen the Eye Demons.

The scene before his eyes would be more understandable if their enemy had been the Sky-sea Realm; however, their opponents were only the lowlifes—mere humans.

Hackzord was in no mood to explain it to him. He grabbed his subordinate in one hand and dragged him into the Distortion Door.

In the next moment, they had already returned to the region of Red Mist.

"Sky Lord, the soldiers on the island—"Siacis reacted to the situation very quickly. His expression couldn't help but change for the worse. Even though the unexpected explosion in the city caused great losses in their vanguard troops, there was still a portion that luckily managed to survive. Leaving like this was equivalent to abandoning them all on Archduke Island.

The troops carried a limited amount Red Mist with them and they could only hold up for a few days at most.

"I'm already unable to open another door." Hackzord's response made the high-level psychic shut his mouth. The value of Primal Demons was far below a grand lord no matter what the circ.u.mstances; there was no need for discussion when deciding between the two.

"I'll escort you back to the Sky City then."

"First tell Totolock to get the humans to send our vanguard troops back with sailboats, as many as they can. As for those Symbiotic Demons, let them hide on the island for how," the Sky Lord spoke through gritted teeth. "Once the Red Mist has enveloped the entire Archduke Island, the main troops must immediately launch attack on Sedimentation Bay and the other places. You two will be responsible for the warfare!"

"My lord, isn't it a bit hasty to do so?" Siacis asked with surprise. "It wouldn't be too late if we started once you have recuperated—"

"This is my command, so say no more!"

"Yes, I have overstepped my boundaries." Siacis hastily nodded his head. "As you wis.h.!.+"

Gazing at his subordinate's figure as he left, Hackzord viciously clenched his remaining hand into a fist.

How could he not be aware that what he was doing was hasty? But it was better than dragging it out with the humans. For the first time, the Sky Lord realized that time was not on their side. The humans' absorption of their legacies was faster than he had imagined; within a year, just relying on a few witches and some magically-inert males they managed to threaten a grand lord. What would it be like after a few more years then?

They definitely couldn't give humans any more time to catch their breath!

The Western Front must be steered back onto the right track!

Several days later, Hackzord finally returned to the bottom of the great rupture. The place had already become filled with rich and dense Red Mist. Just by virtue of his presence, he could feel his spirit being rejuvenated and the piercing pain in his palm lessening.

He went straight to the Red Mist Pond which was located at the bottommost point of Birth Tower.

Staring at the still motionless Nightmare Lord, the Sky Lord suddenly felt angry at everything. If she hadn't been immersed in the Realm of Mind all this time then he wouldn't be in such a difficult position!

It wasn't supposed to be like this!

If he was focused on simply moving the troops around, the advancement of the frontline wouldn't have been so slow, and if the Nightmare Lord lead the troops to battle, none of the Graycastle people who were meeting up with the fugitives would have escaped! Then, they would have launched a direct attack while the humans were still panicking, and he would have lead the troops from the west side in a pincer attack, capturing Hermes Plateau immediately—that was the real Western Front battle plan!

Furious as he was, when the moment came that he was really about to pull the Nightmare Lord out of the Realm of Mind, hesitation flickered across Hackzord's face.

In the end, the Nightmare lord was the person he always looked up to in the past.

He even... even once thought, that the Nightmare Lord would become sovereign of the race.

No, no, no... Hackzord shook his head. He was utterly loyal to the King; those were only his ignorant thoughts when they were partic.i.p.ating in the upgrading process. In terms of ranking, Nightmare was essentially no different to Hackzord now.

At most... she just had a slightly deeper understanding of the Realm of Mind.

He made up his mind.

His actions might harm the Nightmare Lord's memory, making her furious and it might even cut off all the clues to the mystery of the humans' upgrading, but these things paled in importance as the battle on the Western Front.

At worst he would simply have to stand on Silent Disaster's side during the Holy See meeting, and admit that Upgrade Theory was correct. As for where that legacy shard came from, he could study that after they won. As long he could swallow the humans' legacy shard, then everything they held in their hands at the moment would turn into a stair that advanced their entire race a step further!

With this in his mind, Hackzord inhaled deeply and made a violent pus.h.i.+ng motion towards the Nightmare Lord.

The magical power in his palms broke off the connection between the Realm of Mind and the Nightmare Lord, pulling her out from the Fountain of Magic—

In theory, that was what was supposed to happen.

Yet Nightmare didn't open her eyes, her body fell down to one side like a empty sh.e.l.l in the Red Mist Pond.

Hackzord instantly felt as if fear gripped his throat!

He had never felt this much terror, even when his mind was almost destroyed at the loss of control over his magic during his upgrading process, or when he was ambushed by the Sky-sea Realm!

He stepped forward, lifted the Nightmare Lord up and tried to catch her consciousness, but only found emptiness...

Being alive but forever in deep sleep—this was the characteristic of being lost in the Realm of Mind. Yet once one had been submerged in that never-ending red sea, returning was impossible. Even if one could maintain lucidity for a moment, it would eventually be eroded by the surrounding surging and chaotic consciousnesses and become a part of them eventually.

Hackzord's heart dropped to his feet.

This meant that they had already lost the Nightmare Lord!

How could this happen?

With the Nightmare Lord's ability, as long as one was careful and didn't make any terrible mistakes, she shouldn't go to the extent of being trapped in the Realm of Mind!

What on earth did she encounter in her search?

The Sky Lord didn't dare to think any more about it. He got up and leaped upwards towards the top of the tower, he had even forgotten about his own injury.

He must inform the King of the news immediately.

The situation of the Western Front has changed dramatically!

*******************

"How is everyone recovering?"

At the Cage Mountain command post, Iron Axe asked Agatha in a concerned tone.

"With Nana here, what could go wrong?" Agatha put away her Sigil of Listening and smilingly shook her head. It was obvious that she was in a great mood. "According to Wendy, Maggie had already healed up so much that she could skip and jump about on the first day, Lightning recovered completely on the second day and both are now doing frontline patrolling. My only regret is that I didn't partic.i.p.ate in the ambush this time."

"We were taking a big risk after all... Moreover, in order to pack that huge flintlock, we even had to take apart all the seats on the "Seagull." We couldn't have taken another pa.s.senger." Iron Axe smiled as well. "I thought your only regret would be that we couldn't get rid of that high-ranking demon in one go."

"Winning against a grand lord with such a lineup is already an extraordinary victory." Agatha turned to the Pearl of the Northern Region and said with her hand to her chest. "I underestimated you in the past; reality has proved that that was indeed a mistake—except for His Highness, Roland, there are still many outstanding people among those with no magical ability that should not be taken lightly."

Edith calmly accepted her compliment. As the strategist behind the entire ambush, there was no need to be humble in that moment.

"Even though it's a pity that we let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d called Hackzord escape alive, we reaped a lot from this battle." She patted the doc.u.ments in her hand. "At least we are now no longer clueless about our enemy."