Shin’s raid team carefully entered the blue Payirci, moving at a pace that wasn’t too slow or too expedited. There was a race against time, but Guardian Sword couldn’t afford to be careless with their actions. Typically, the elites in the raid force would summon out their Spirits before entering any Payircis, just like any army would when going into battle. However, the circumstances surrounding Heaven’s Gate had crippled that capability. Instead, the majority of them used mana strengthening to enhance their bodies to prevent any mana leakage as they treaded cautiously into the open entrance.

So… It didn’t take long for Guardian Sword to bypass the first bottleneck and come face-to-face with what laid on the inside.

Before Shin invaded the floating tower coated with Water-Elements, he’d come up with some cursory landscapes of what to expect. After all, each Payirci was different in their own way. Given that the blue Payirci’s owner was none other than Ao the World Serpent, Shin had anticipated that its interior would be a vast ocean and most of their battles would be fought underwater. Shin had even cast Spiritual Body Enhancement on his own body, strengthening it with the Celestial Dragon’s scales and giving him the ability to breathe underwater.

However, the moment Shin stepped foot into Ao’s domain, the familiar, sweet scent of water didn’t hit his nose. His face inadvertently turned red as a dry, hot wind blew onto his face, warming it into a crisp.

“What the hell?!” Shin raised his right arm and blocked the heatwave with a curse. The same went for the other members of Guardian Sword. They had prepared to fight in a cold environment, so many of them were wearing thick armours and waterproof vests. So, the new area’s heat was a little too much for them to bear at the moment.

Shin took two seconds to recollect himself. He wiped off the sand that blew into his eyes and rubbed his face vigorously. Unconsciously, a water ball appeared above Shin’s head and two tendrils spread out from its core to damp Shin’s uncomfortable body.

“Wait a minute… Sand?” Shin thought out loud, his eyes slowly opening up.

The moment that Shin decided to enter into Ao’s Payirci, he was prepared for a battle in a large body of water. Or at the very least in a place that was damp and humid… A territory that was suitable for the World Serpent to fight in. However, as Shin opened his eyes, all of his predictions were blown out the window.

Ao didn’t create a vast ocean or a humid mangrove for his personal Payirci. What the World Serpent had decided to create, was shocking for all to see. A ball of golden fire was hung high above in the ‘sky’ sending down rays of blistering heat that burnt through one’s skin. Howls of sandy winds slapped into the faces of the members of Guardian Sword, forcing them to cover their faces with their sleeves to protect themselves from the winds. Sandy dunes stretched for kilometres from end to end, and tall mountains of sand towered over the vast landscape.

Shin couldn’t believe his eyes. If not for the fact that the exit to the Payirci was still open, showing the harrowing darkness of the Neutral Lands, Shin would have thought that he’d entered another dimension.

“A desert? He created a fucking desert?” Isadore gasped, perplexed. “Wasn’t the World Serpent a Water-Elemental Spirit Beast? Why didn’t he make his Payirci aquatic?”

“Is this even Ao’s Payirci then?” Ella shot the unusual question. Common sense dictates that the Payirci coloured blue would fall under the jurisdiction of the Noble Beast that held the Throne of Blue. However, based on its interior, one would be sane to debate that opinion.

“Maybe they’d changed the Noble Beasts around just to confuse us?” Emma backed her sister up. “The World Serpent has a history with Shin. It makes sense that he could be the lure to entrap Shin.”

“No… This is his domain alright...” Shin shook his head, his eyes gazing into the distance.

Unlike most Payircis, the current one that Guardian Sword was raiding didn’t have many floors. It had a vast open space that was enhanced by Aether crystals to make the place seem larger than it really was. Therefore, it was simple for Shin, the inheritor of the Celestial Dragon and the Five Titans of Old, to extend his senses to each end of the Payirci.

Shin’s radar picked up on about a thousand different signatures, most of them being weak beings that were beneath the Rank 60 Spirit King realm. There were a few dozen in the Spirit Emperor realm with a select few breaching into the coveted Spirit Venerate realm.

On paper, Shin’s power rivalled that of Spirit Venerates. After all, he himself had just recently ascended past the second barrier of mortality. However, Shin’s true power could challenge those at the Saint-realm, and his sensitivity to those in a similar realm was rather acute. Saint Longyu Tian and Primordial Beast Zishen were two of the distinct mana signatures that Shin had picked up. However, they were friendly and posed no threat at all to Shin’s overall being.

The ones that truly bothered Shin were the two heavy mana signatures located at the far end of the Payirci. One of them was massive with elemental energies swirling around its being. Shin couldn’t see it, but the first mana signature seemed like a vortex that greedily sucked in everything that was fed to it. It was just like the whirlpool up in the sky, but instead of being an endless pit… There was a point where the entity ‘spat’ all of its energy out.

‘That should be the Paradise Heart… It’s supplying energy to Heaven’s Gate, alright.’

Shin instantly identified the target that he’d sought to destroy. The whole idea of raiding the Payirci was to cut off the link that kept feeding the Allfather’s attempt to open Heaven’s Gate. If that link was severed, the Allfather’s plan would unquestionably take a tremendous blow.

Identifying the first mana signature came easily to Shin and so did the second one. Just a few metres away from the enormous blob of energy, there was a single concentrated point of mana. It wasn’t as far-reaching and insurmountable as the previous mana signature, but it was most definitely a towering force that resembled that of a Spirit Saint’s. No, it was about one and a half times more overwhelming than a mere Spirit Saint’s spiritual energy. And the most important aspect of that mana signature was…

“That crazy amount of Water-Elements surrounding it… There’s no question about it! Ao is present in the building!” Shin declared. “Haha! No traps, no hidden floors, no gimmicks… Just an open arena that we can duke it out without a care in the world… That really does sound like something that World Serpent would do.”

Ao was never a calculating individual. Being a Spirit Beast of immense strength and size, the World Serpent was able to resolve any conflicts with just his overwhelming might. So, in the final battle that would determine whether the Black Masks or the Alliance wins… Ao had decided to make it as straightforward as can be.

All of your troops versus all of mine. Let’s fight it out and see who’s superior!

That was the message that Ao had sent to Shin through the layout of his Payirci. The lack of Water-Elements in the area could be a means to cripple both Shin and himself so that they would fight with their fists alone. Having a handful of elites by Ao’s side proved that point. He could have summoned out armies upon armies of Umbras to slow down Shin’s progress, and he could have aligned the Payirci with mazes and useless traps that would buy the Black Masks some valuable time. However, Ao wasn’t that kind of Spirit Beast.

The World Serpent wanted to go head-to-head with Shin.

And well… Shin was up for that challenge!

“Let’s go!” The Prince of Water led the charge into battle, ready to rip the first branch of evil from its very core.