Chapter 705 - Book 6, Chapter 97 - Advent (1/2)

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 assault the Temple?

The Cloud God 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 god 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 space, 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 space.

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 airships.

These vessels had been specially outfitted. Their energy pylons released enough energy to get them into high altitude 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.