The next day, the soul path experts of Aterna including Michael, Karslon, Mubal and the rest had already understood the working of the medallion that opened the sky gate. By the time, it felt as if the devils on the other side had already guessed something. The sky gate was again building up the pressure and the skies in Aterna darkened.

While the mortals were not in know about the current stage of the battle, all of them had heard of Michael's words about enemies from beyond. Currently, they were all praying to the plane-will, praying for the immortals' safety. It was true that when the sky fell, it was the taller ones who had to step up. But if the immortals lost in this war, the mortals had a good idea of what would happen to them. Even in racial wars, when a race was thoroughly defeated, they were sold as slaves and exploited without end. The only possibility of getting out of this cycle of deprivation was the birth and development of a heaven-defying genius who would be able to rise against the powerful and bring his race along with him. But, the growth of such a genius was much harder than normal. Even though the humans were not the most powerful race, they were still a free and independent race. This was why despite Michael showed incredible talent, he was able to grow up, especially in his early years. Had Michael been born in an enslaved race, changing the situation would have been extremely difficult.

It was not hard to imagine that if Aterna lost, they too would face the same circumstances. Thus, the mortals prayed.

As the pressure increased, the three hundred experts did not forcefully open the sky gate. They were waiting, waiting for the pressure to build up. As two more days passed, the sky seemed to be rumbling. The entire sky had darkened and the sun did not rise for the past few days. It was a perpetual twilight with the omen of destruction hanging above. The populace could only hold their breath and watch as the sky gate tried to open a portal to the outside. The three hundred soul masters were staying awake, fully focussed on the gate of hell.

The sky kept on rumbling and at a point, the sounds grew so loud that anywhere in Aterna, one would hear them. At this point, the gate seemed to crack in the middle. But as soon as this crack appeared, all the three hundred souls activated at the same time. The soul energy from them all formed countless patterns and formed into an extremely complex formation. As soul energy was essentially light, it could be activated very fast. As soon as the formation glowed, the devil medallion kept at the centre was joined by all formation nodes. The jade flew up in the air and started giving off a blinding light. It connected to the other side of the devil gate.

On the other side of the gate, two devils stood in front of an extremely huge and powerful army. Both were clearly demi-ascendants. Three huge ships could be seen in the background. These ships were things that the people in Aterna had never seen. They were ships that could travel in the law ocean! This was the level of technology that was miles ahead from Aterna. This devil expedition was almost like when the Colonials found a tribal village. The huge ships were all almost the size of the entire human kingdom. The hulls were so massive that even the tallest mountains in Aterna could not compare. Even in the super-planes, not all forces had their own ships. The massive sails were built out of a superposition of special materials that were grown in the devil ancestor's semi-planes! The symbol of flame was imprinted on each of these.

In front of the ships was a huge device that almost looked like a generator. And in front of the device, the enormous army of devils stood. Each of the devils was at least in the emperor realm.

At the moment the devils were about to tear the veil of protection from the plane will, the device flashed. An extremely powerful ray of light came through the crack and entered the device. As soon as the connection was set, the plane veil lost its effect. But, this was the worst time that this could happen. The Devils were using extremely powerful formations and attacking methods to break the plane's protection veil. But as soon as the veil lost its effect, all the resistance vanished instantly. As a result, a huge gap emerged in the veil! As soon as it happened, the laws of the native plane swept out and affected the entire army!

Not Good!

Panic could be seen in the eyes of all devils. But before they had a chance to react, the law of gravity pulled them inside the rift. As soon as the entire army was pulled in, the light vanished and the device went back to normal. The veil regenerated instantaneously and the entire scene went quiet. The ships and the device were left floating in the law ocean. But the entire army had vanished.

On the other side of the veil, as soon as the jade sent a beam of light into the sky gate, the entire sky trembled. One could see the sky distorting as it split apart! A huge rift opened and a massive army came in. Only, it was that the devils were all panicking. Anyone below law-condensation could not fly. This was because they did not have law energy. If Aterna would have been in its energy-rich state, these devils would have used methods of other paths to fly. But in Aterna, only the warrior path people could do anything - something true across all tertiary planes.

As the devil-army fell, only selected few were still floating with their law energy. But this was extremely wasteful. Law energy took time to condense and it was the lifeline of law-condensation experts. Only after reaching the transformation realm would one have the power of law marks. At that stage, one could fly as one wanted by relying on the law marks. It also allowed those experts to move unhindered in the law ocean. This was the reason they were called ascendants - they could ascend from the plane with their own power!

The scene was something that would remain frozen in the hearts of all mortals and immortals who were able to see it. The sky was ripped open and the huge army of almost three million fell from the skies. It was like the fall of angels from the heavens. Even thousands of years later, legends about this event would be sung by bards and written and passed around by historians.

As the huge army impacted the ground, the entire battlefield vibrated. The entire plane felt the tremors. A huge crater was created on impact as the devil-soldiers fell on top of one other. But while one would expect the army to be destroyed by this fall, the losses were surprisingly few. One reason - equipment.

The devil-army was one of the wealthiest forces in the 26 dominions. While they similarly had a huge number of members, the average member had decent armour and weapons. Remember that this was relative to the 26 dominions as a whole. With respect to Aterna, all the armours and weapons might as well have been made up of divine elements. Thus, less than a hundred thousand people actually died in this event. While the army had lost its aggression, these soldiers were not much of an army, to begin with. They were infiltrators and information gatherers. They could not use powerful military formations, neither did they have sufficient teamwork. Thus, what they wanted to do was to break the encirclement and escape into different directions. Then, they would collect information and send their reports to the main army. Thus, the devils were prepared to erupt from the crater.

But at that moment, the entire plane trembled. But this time, it was not only the lands that quaked. The air also rattled as if signalling the arrival of a great storm. But none of the people in the allied Aterna army showed any reaction. Michael was standing some distance away from the crater holding an exquisite medallion. But this was not the devil medallion. It contained no symbols. But at that moment, almost all the devils - both on the ground and in the skies looked at it with the greatest concentration. In front of millions of gazes, Michael crushed the medallion turning it into powder. At that instant, the entire plane lit up with a huge formation. This was the formation that had once flashed when the sky-gate had appeared.

After Micahel married Ashley and Maria, he had used his connections to form a massive formation in Aterna. It used a great amount of resource-value and almost all races had erupted in rebellion. It was only after much diplomacy that the formation was set up. It was a one time use formation. And it could not harm anyone that had the mark of the plane. But leaving this aside, it was the greatest killing formation developed in Aterna! Had the people not confirmed that the formation was unable to hurt them, they wouldn't have allowed Michael to wield the medallion so easily.

As soon as the formation erupted, the formation boundary shrunk at great speed from all over Aterna. It passed the mountains, rivers, seas and forests of Aterna. As it did so, the formation gained more and more power. It passed the intelligent and non-intelligent races and the power in it became terrifying! It was as if the entire plane was attacking!

While the power of the attack was not comparable to a true attack from the plane-will, it was still much beyond the mortal stage. Only an ascendant could stop this attack head-on. Even Michael would die! The devils all sensed their doom as fear appeared on their faces. Eve the ones floating in the air were scared. They immediately rushed up with their law energy! They wanted to get away, as far as possible.

The attack swept through Aterna collecting its power and impacted the devil army standing at the crater. The entire world lost its colour and only one colour remained - red! The blood of countless devils erupted out as their bodies and souls imploded from the impact. Blood erupted in concentric waves moving toward the centre.

Had it been any other army, this would have finished the entire army. But the devils had much better equipment. This while the blood wave reached the half-way point, it scattered as the devils beyond that point were not killed. But, they were still injured. In the end, less than 15 per cent of the army was left in any condition to fight. In one action, Michael had killed more than two and a half million people! This was definitely the highest for any individual from Aterna. But Michael did not feel much happiness at this achievement.

The powerhouses of the Devils' side were not injured much. They had only wasted their immortal energy. It was helpful and within expectations. But around than four hundred thousand devil soldiers left alive was outside of his calculations. Michael knew from his previous life that the devils were strong. This was why he did not dare to underestimate them and had set up the massive killing formation. He was hoping to save the sacrifice of the plane experts. But it seemed like it was not as easy. While the allied army was more than fifteen times the Devils' number, it would still be a pyrrhic victory. Each devil soldier was a veteran of many battles and had great equipment. Thus, they could fight multiple people in the same realm. According to Michael's estimate, perhaps half the plane's army would die in this battle.

As Michael made these calculations, the plane army became a single beast that started moving. Kandrif's orders were given at rapid frequency and the plane army tore through the blood and bones of the devils' remains and reached the centre to kill the remaining. Michael gazed above the battlefield at the two captains who both had extremely ugly expressions. He went forward as all his powers activated. What happened next was not something that Michael could prevent. Those who were meant to die would die. All he knew was that today was the day he was stepping out to kill!