Even the stupidest person would be able tell that they had just been completely outwitted by the humans!
"Those lowlifes—!" Siacis roared furiously. His murderous intent was clear in the wild twisting of whiskers on his cheeks.
"Shut up!" Hackzord interrupted him. "If they were lowlifes, than who are we, the ones got outwitted by lowlifes? From now on, I don't want to hear you calling them 'lowlifes' ever again!"
Then he leaped up and flew toward the other end of the island.
The black smoke was still billowing upwards ceaselessly, forming a thick column of smoke. The indistinct flashing of firelight from below it caused the column to resemble a jet of magma shooting upwards from the ground. The interior of the city was in disarray. Even in places where the fireball's shockwave hadn't reached, there were bodies of several Primal Demons strewn in across the area at different angles, dead or alive.
However, this was not what he was focusing on at the moment—the milk had already been spilt. Staying there would not make his losses any smaller and would only add fuel to his fury. If he had the energy, he would rather use it to make his enemies pay.
As expected, on the south side of the island, the Sky Lord spotted some boats that had not yet gone far from the island. Even though they were in full sail, in the face of his abilities, they were equivalent to being stationary.
Just when he was about to close the gap in a single stride, a ray of light below him caught his attention.
A silhouette flew out from the outer region island and rapidly towards the southern side.
No wonder! He had believed that the person responsible for the detonation of the explosion had been buried in the flames together with his vanguard troops. To think that the humans had actually planned a full retreat!
Getting a witch to activate the explosion in order to retreat easily from the battlefield?
As if it was going to be so easy!
The Sky Lord immediately switched targets, opened a distortion door and appeared in front of the witch.
She was a female with pale, blonde hair. She revealed an expression of shock, as if she didn't expect him to suddenly appear. Without another word Hackzord reached out to grab her—
Yet his hand grasped thin air.
The female before his eyes suddenly moved with an explosive speed, tearing hundreds of meters away from him in a blink of eye. At the same time, the shock wave from her movement slammed into Hackzord and the Parasitic Eye Demons like a wall. The spell blast glistened and rippled outwards before slowly easing away.
After the witch flew out a distance and slowed to a stop, she looked like she used up over half of her energy.
He harrumphed and then chased her once more!
He planned to close the distance in one step again, however this time just as he exited the Distortion Door, the witch was already miles away, leaving a trail of white clouds behind her.
Hackzord was furious. He used his ability for the third time, thinking that he might as well open the door three hundred meters in front of the witch.
However when he exited the door this time, he suddenly felt the gazes of numerous eyes on him. It was as if he just entered a city center from an empty plain.
Shocked, the Sky Lord looked in the direction of where he felt the gazes—numerous black figures were coming in his direction, both from the horizon of the sea and from the land. Among them were iron birds and witches.
This is...a planned ambush?
So that b*tch was intentionally stopping and starting, fooling him believe that she could only perform brief moments of accelerated flight because she was being limited by her magical power?
"Ha... humans... hahaha..."
Hackzord laughed as his fury rapidly boiled up to its limit.
Not only did they outwit his troops, they were also planning to trick him?
Retreating now would be as easy as taking a breath.
But he didn't do so.
Indeed, he wasn't a Magic Slayer and it always bothered him, but that didn't mean males wearing God's Stones of Retaliation would be able to defeat a grand lord!
He had to let his enemies know who the real ruler of the sky was!
In an instant, eight iron birds had already charged towards him, spitting out streaks of fire from their heads—
Hackzord waved his left hand, directly opening a Distortion Door at his side, swallowing the iron bolts that shot at him; at the same time he opened the other side of the door beside the iron birds. After the fatal iron bolts passed through the door they swept straight back towards where they came from. In an instant, several iron birds were struck and their formation fell into a disarray.
But what surprised him a bit was that the iron bolts which were supposed to be fatal didn't cause the iron birds to break apart; instead, they only left a few dents in their iron bodies.
The Sky Lord quickly pushed his surprise to the back of his mind and made a stride to a higher place, putting the entire battle area under his feet. The iron birds were clearly unable to follow his pace. As much as they tried to climb up, their stupid and clumsy bodies were slower than worms.
Just as he was planning to rip them apart one by one, a passing bird suddenly transformed into a devilbeast and propelled towards him with its jaws wide open!
His Eye Demons hadn't regarded the birds that were commonly seen at sea as threats at all. Hackzord dodged abruptly, just avoiding the attack in time. Fuming, he widened his palm and a black streak of light instantly appeared in the space between them. This was also a Distortion Door, except it's width was only a finger thick, any body that passed through would not emerge in one piece.
As if it realized that it was in danger, the devilbeast shrank back into a seabird. But it was too difficult to stop its momentum in such a short amount of time, and half its wings swept through the black line. The sliced wing tip and feathers burst apart like blossoms.
But before he could attack again, a thunderous roar erupted once more.
The golden-haired witch turned into a streak of golden light and shot straight towards him! Not having enough time to use the same tactic, Hackzord could only gather all the magical energy in his body and turn it into a shield cocooning his entire body!
"Bang!"
The two collided, and the immense impact caused the witch's golden light to shatter into innumerable small pieces and raised a feeling of stuffiness in Hackzord. The opponent's injury was clearly more serious; not only was blood seeping from the edge of her mouth, one of her arms was bent into multiple sections. Yet the witch thought nothing of her injuries. With her remaining hand, she pulled out a short fire fork from her waist.
Damn!
Left with no other choice, Hackzord opened another Distortion Door. If she was going to shoot, the iron bolt would be directed towards her companions.
But what infuriated Hackzord was that not only had the previous attack been a guise, the witch didn't shoot anything at him but accelerated downwards to catch the falling seabird.
"I'm going to smash you all into pieces!" he roared for the first time in this battle.
But at this moment, the highest-priority warning rang inside the Sky Lord's mind—the source came from a large iron bird that was in the clouds below him. Through the Eye Demons' view, the source was indeed the witch that Ursrook made sure to point out as a key target.
He felt his body being latched on by something—
Feeling an increasing sense of crisis, Hackzord expanded the Distortion Door to its biggest range, covering his enemy's entire attacking range!
One of his Eye Demons violently pushed him.
There was a flash of fire. After what felt like both a long time and a brief moment, a black shadowy cluster flashed across like lightning. Innumerable cracks appeared on the Distortion Door and then it shattered apart in a deafening explosion like glass.
After the door, the next victim was the Eye Demon that pushed him aside—the blue light on its body pulsated and blood, flesh, and organs squirted outwards, raising a wave of blue fog among the lingering shattered pieces. The two events occurred almost simultaneously, so quick that Hackzord couldn't react.
Finally, it was his turn.
Even though the attacking God's stone had already shattered, it still sliced away half of his hand, leaving multiple dents in his armor. The turbulence in his magical power caused him to lose control of his body, and he fell straight towards the ocean.
The iron birds, having finished redirecting themselves, surged straight towards him.
After he left the Forbidden Area, Hackzord used the last of his energy and opened a new door below him.
Then, as if he had fallen into a bottomless pit, he vanished above the ocean.