In Kanjur, Ambrose was having frequent panic attacks. The plane was more dangerous than Jupyter. As Jupyter even had divinities, how could Kanjur be more dangerous? It was because he had been courting danger quite a lot since coming to this plane. Michael had created his own enforcer unit which was mostly comprised of rogue heretic groups that he had vanquished. And he had then left all tasks related to managing this unit to Ambrose. This is where the problem started.

Michael was insanely strong for a demi-ascendant. He could kill rank-2 ascendants in direct combat and hold his own against weaker rank-3 ascendants. Thus, he defeated quite a lot of heretics who were heavenly masters or ascendants. Except for the 12 zodiacs and the popes, there was no one he feared and he dealt with every situation with overwhelming force. His strength was one of the reasons for his meteoric rise in this plane. As a result, the enforcer unit had many ascendants. But Ambrose was nowhere near the level of competency to manage a group like that. If not for Denise's support, he would not dare to give these beings any order. Denise was a rank-2 ascendant and the strongest expert after Michael in their team. Given her incredible mastery over buffing spells, she had greater status than Ambrose in the team's eyes. While Ambrose was suppressed by her, he did not mind it. First of all, the lady was a powerful ascendant. And secondly, her ability was the real deal. With her buffing spells completely focussed on Ambrose, she could raise his battle strength to match rank-1 ascendants! This was a testament to her ability. But not even she was enough to handle the situation. There were 2 rank-3 ascendants in Michael's group as well who he had defeated.

He had bound their souls with sealing stone from the church. But only Michael could use the church's artefact to suppress them. As a result, they were unrestrained in their behaviour when he was not around. There was nothing even Denise could do. Also, with their power, they both created their own factions comprising of heretics of the plane. All in all, Michael's enforcer unit had thousands of members. Even the weakest were in condensation realm while the strongest being at rank-3. These people were split into 4 factions, each being led by Ambrose, Denise and the two rank-3. In terms of strength, the factions made up of native heretics were the strongest followed by Denise's men. Ambrose being Michael's retainer had full control over the army from the sect and hence had the greatest numbers. And the chain of command was just like this - messed up beyond recognition. All people served Michael but internally, there was no coordination.

This caused Ambrose great anxiety. This did not matter initially as the opponents they faced were either lone heretic cultivators or small groups of them. Hence, the entire ability of the army was never called into question. But things changed after Michael enacted his plan.

Ambrose: What a plan!!

Ambrose still shuddered at Michael's guts to scheme against rank-4 ascendants. Rank-4 ascendants were known as the peak experts of society. Cultivators beyond that point were not considered a part of society as they were too few and busy with their own cultivation. Thus, to the countless people who started cultivation, their goal was to reach rank-4 and become the overlord of a domain.

Rank-4 ascendants were also called as law masters by people. This was because they had completely grasped their foundational laws. The strength of rank-4 was something that was not easy to imagine and even the weakest of them could perhaps destroy tertiary planes. This was the power to destroy a small world!

After the plan was enacted successfully, Michael had recruited Roger, a law master. Thus, Michael began his conquest in seriousness and began eliminating the remaining candidates one by one. The power of a law master was enough to sunder heaven and earth and thus, Michael's side always had an overwhelming advantage. But Roger was only one person and he was a basic warrior. He practised the law of weight which made him a restricted resource. He was capable of slaughtering his way through the opposite army but not changing the flow of battle with powerful spells. And in comparison to the opposing army, Michael's army was inferior. In all the raids, they had followed the simple strategy of taking out the leader to quickly end the battles and limit their damages. But still, 31 raids had caused a dent in their numbers as hundreds of native heretics, as well as the army from the sect, had died. And now, Michael was planning a battle against a divine child. This was something that the army was not prepared for.

As much strong a law master was, divine children were capable of extended battle with them. This was because of their divine blessings which made defeating them much harder. Besides, no one knew what other trump cards they had. After all, they were the children of divinities. This meant that this battle would not be won quickly like others and would be a drawn-out battle. Even though the chances of their side winning were overwhelming, the army would suffer a heavy blow. And this was not something Ambrose wanted to see. After all, these men were the ones he was planning to take to Aterna to fight the devils. If they all died here, that would be the end of his plans. But what could he do? After cultivating rapidly in Jupyter and reaching demi-ascendant realm, he had thought that he was cultivating quite fast. But now, he was having trouble keeping things together.

The night ran deep and in the thickness of the night, Michael was currently taking his army covertly to attack Raven Rothschild. Rothschild was the family name of a two-star divinity who was a Grand Elder stationed at the Sludge Sea. Raven Rothschild was her youngest son. This person was one of the 10 divine children taking part in the competition.

Michael: Even if defeating a divine child will give lots of trouble later, I still have to do this. My dao lies in my indomitable mindset. If I get scared of his background, my dao-heart will be damaged. But if I can win, my dao tree will have significant growth. With my increasing mastery in the psychic path, my dao path has been overshadowed and its effect on my strength is not as noticeable. This is an opportunity to improve. I don't believe that they will kick him out of the sect just because he lost to me here.

Michael practised the indomitable dao. One should understand that his dao did not mean he was unbeatable. Michael could definitely lose battles and it would not affect his dao tree. But Michael could not be fearful and cowardly. His spirit could not fall into subservience! If it ever happened that he lost his spirit, his will or drive, his dao-heart would collapse. That would greatly reduce his dao path cultivation and recovering from a blow like that would be extremely difficult. Normally, dao cultivators never bounced back after suffering a crack in their dao-hearts. Michael used his ambitions to cope against the great disparity of strength between him and Divine Sea Divinity previously or else he would have suffered a terrible backlash.

Michael's troops travelled on foot, not making any noise. All of them were capable of using rudimentary laws making their presence hard to detect. Ascendants did not even need to touch the ground but the condensation and demi-ascendant experts could also use their energy to keep them afloat. As a result, the entire enforcer unit was gliding through at extreme speeds. Michael had used the Church's and Roger's information network to find a divine child to hunt. He found that Raven was still in the plane and he was quite active in the underworld. Raven was very ambitious and he wanted to create a heretic organization that had the same influence as the zodiacs. This was not impossible as he had such strength. Raven had the divine blessing of space melding. This was a very troublesome ability. It allowed him to attack and retreat at will. Even law masters would not be able to hurt him easily.

But Michael was not unprepared. The enforcer unit carrying the insignia of Church of Mercy easily reached the spot told by their intelligence. And they found the base of the enemies. Michael did not wait and immediately gave the order to attack. The battle began silently but soon huge explosions began taking place throughout the base. The buildings crumbled as people were constantly thrown about. Blood and flesh flew around and carnage spread. The battle only had thousands of soldiers on both sides but they were all extremely powerful with great recovery ability. This led to a battle that seemed unending. After all, condensation realm experts found it very hard to kill one another. This was only the beginning of the battle. While the soldiers battled each other, Michael was walking around the battlefield with Roger, trying to locate Raven. His strategy was simple, use the soldiers against soldiers and generals against generals. As long as he could make Raven vanish, he would be the winner.

Looking for me?

Before Michael had noticed, Raven had already found him. Michael immediately activated his powers and got into battle mode. Black mist swirled, his dao intent ignited and he was even ready to use perfect-persona at a moment's notice. But the expected attack did not come. Raven just stood there, smiling at him.

Raven : What's the rush Michael Rageberg? Besides, I thought you were the type who sat in his palace and had others do the work for him. I did not expect you here.

Michael : It seems that you had already expected an attack from me. You hid it quite well. Your soldiers were caught off-guard and we managed to kill many. To even deceive your allies, you are a good schemer.

Raven : Oh, common! It is not like I owe these soldiers anything. I pay them to fight. Why would I care about their fate? There are too many people dying every day, not worth mentioning. But I have already obtained what I wanted, so the sacrifice was worth it.

Michael : I don't think you were looking for me, nothing in it for you. So I guess you are targetting Roger?

Raven : Yes, of course. Though you have made some waves in the continent, you are still only a small fish. Why would I bother with you? But your friend is a big fish. If I can kill him, my strength will be proven to the entire plane and my organization will become one of the zodiacs. I will have made a much better foothold than you.

Roger(sighing) : Haah! Kids nowadays know no respect. Michael had warned me that you would be arrogant. Your blessing would have been troublesome to overcome. Here I was thinking how to make sure that you don't run away but you are already running to me. I guess I was worrying in vain.

Raven : It is true that law masters are powerful beings. But you are only an ordinary law master, weakest among the lot. If it is just you, I can manage.

Roger(smiling) : Let me see you try!

Roger jumped towards Raven. His jump made ripples in space itself! He was not jumping off the ground or air but space itself. After all, at his level, ground and air could not stand the rebound and so the acceleration he could get would be limited. But the void of space was different. As long as one had enough strength, one could rebound from it and gain incredible acceleration. Michael could not even see Roger once he moved. He could "see" him through intuition but using his other senses, he had no clue. This was the level of strength of a law-master!

Had Michael needed to battle Roger, he would not even have been able to escape and would have died in a few moves. Michael could perhaps save his life by escaping as a conscient but Michael had never done so before and so, he was not confident. But there was not a single chance of escaping without stepping into psychic reincarnation. But to Michael's surprise, Raven had also vanished from his place and was constantly matching Roger in speed! Michael could only sigh in admiration of the youth's divine blessing. It allowed him to blend with space itself. Thus, he could travel incredibly fast. His ability was only limited by the constitution of his body. As he grew stronger, he would be able to travel greater distances at a faster speed. Currently, the blessing enabled him to match the agility of a law master at demi-ascendant cultivation. This showed how broken this ability was.

Michael was not able to participate in a battle of this level. His speed simply could not keep up. In fact, even his senses could not keep up. His intuition gave him a general idea, but it was very hard to intervene physically. But that did not mean that he could not intervene at all. He immediately started casting psychic suppression towards Raven. Psychic suppression was his self-created technique. This was an extremely simple application of psychic energy and illusion. He suppressed the psyches of his opponents slowing down and muddling their thoughts and sensations. For a battle between experts, this could be deadly. This was an improved psychic version of his disorientation technique. Roger was already under Michael's illusion so Michael could make sure that he was not affected. This did cause Raven to slip up a few times. He yelled

Raven : Lupin! Distract him!

Michael immediately felt a powerful aura leave the battlefield and rush towards him. Sighing, he turned to face the opponent. He knew that he could not start suppressing Raven before taking care of the guy in front of him.

Lupin was a rank-2 ascendant from Raven's army. But he was no ordinary rank-2 but a celestial. While he only had a normal bloodline, overall, his battle strength was enough to battle weaker rank-3. This was about the same as Michael. Michael gritted his teeth. The battle was bound to turn into a stalemate and most likely there would be no result if things remained unchanged. He was about to use the trump-card he had prepared before a blinding flash of light erupted from a distance. The sheer power contained in the attack caused even Michael to shudder. Followed by that, Michael could hear Roger groan as he stepped back. He had a thick wound on his chest and his blood continued to flow ceaselessly. Michael was stunned. This was rank-4 attack power, something that should have been impossible for Raven.

Michael: What!? Did he use a treasure?

Michael had already begun battling Lupin and was having a hard time concentrating on the battlefield. While Michael could battle Lupin evenly, there was a fundamental difference between them. That was the presence of law marks. Lupin could easily take hits from Michael and not worry as his body was extremely durable. But Michael had to constantly heal himself. If his body was to be ruined, it would be too late to cry. Also, Lupin was much better in combat, giving him quite the advantage over Michael.

Michael was constantly pushed back but in the meanwhile, he could figure out that Roger was not fighting one person but two! Who could join a fight of this level? Did another law-master come over?

Michael eventually identified the other person. Elaine Silver, another divine child. She was the one who scored highest in the test of combat! Her combat standards were off the charts, and she was extremely powerful. She had the divine blessing called tyrannical might. It added additional destructive energy to all her attacks raising their might by many levels. She was truly capable of throwing out rank-4 attacks. But what Michael could not make sense of was her mobility. Even with a divine bloodline, there was no way she could battle a law-master with only powerful attacks. How was she dodging all of Roger's attacks? Michael had to take a few serious injuries to see the battlefield clearly.

Michael : How is this possible? Isn't his blessing limited to helping you move around?

Michael had not expected an answer but Raven still laughed during his battle and said:

Raven : Michael, you are an ignorant idiot! This is the benefit of being a divine child. Divine blessings are not like normal blessings. Divine blessings can be cultivated to become stronger! Divine blessings can be upgraded! Initially, I could only meld myself, but now I can meld one more person. Did you think that I challenged you just for fun? I did not run away because I was confident of my victory!

Michael was indeed quite shocked at the revelation. This was a bad situation! Michael was tied up and could not help Roger. And there was no one else who could. With this new information, even his trump card may not be valid anymore. It seemed like the expedition was going to end in failure. But just as Michael was about to give the retreat signal, another force entered the battlefield and one person who Michael was very familiar with but had never expected to see at that moment came crashing with his army furiously smashing into the ongoing battle.

This was none other than Charles Rutherford.