The moment he heard the system, an evil grin appeared behind his black mask. Standing from the opposite side, Andreas saw a dark and extremely powerful energy gathering around the Dark Lord's both hands. He creased his brows seeing the dark energy as the Dark Lord spoke,
"You said that you killed my followers like a bunch of wild dogs and the guardians will do the same to me. But you forgot one important thing Andreas" Michael slowly stepped forwards towards the balls of energy hovering in the sky beside Andreas, the closer he got the energy balls, the denser the dark mist around his hands became.
"When you play with the devil, you'll end up in hell" after these words escaped his mouth, he reached out to grab the floating balls of energy.
"You-" Andreas's eyes widened as much as they could, staring at the Dark Lord grabbing the balls of energy. The two balls struggled, vibrating violently under his grasp but the dark mist quickly surrounded them. As the dark mist surrounded the two energy balls, they started to struggle less and less before finally completely vanishing off into the dark mist.
"How...how is...it can't..be" Andreas stuttered, he never thought the Godly energies he spent half of his life searching could be destroyed by the Dark Lord in a couple of seconds. Just as the order of death, the guardians also had an oracle who warned them about the Dark Lord but nobody took the badass system into the equation.
Soon after Michael destroyed the two energy balls, the ethereal form of Andreas began to flicker,
"This sliver of soul is dissipating," the baby dragon said, coming out of his shock of seeing Michael destroy the two energy balls.
Andreas could only stare at the Dark Lord and pray that his successor could defeat the Dark Lord who seems more powerful than he had imagined. At this moment, he really doubted whether what he left behind was enough to help his successor beat the Dark Lord or not. After what he had just seen, he realized that it was definitely not enough and hoped the Gods would help his successor on his path to defeat the darkness.
"Thank you for everything you said old man, it was really helpful" Michael waved his hands snickering before the ethereal form of Andreas disappeared from his sight completely.
On the ground, Lailah's body slightly moved as she slowly opened her eyes, regaining consciousness. He quickly unequipped Lucifer's armor and equipped the armor he was wearing before.
"Down" he whispered to the dragon, falling on the ground to pretend he too was unconscious. The baby dragon did not ask any questions as he followed Michael's lead.
"What...just...happened?" Lailah opened her eyes to see Ghost and the baby dragon slowly waking up.
"I don't... know," Michael said, gently lifting the baby dragon from the ground. Both of them struggled to stand on their feet, Laila was really struggling while Michael and the baby dragon just pretended to be.
He let out a sigh of relief thinking about finally leaving his place looking toward Lailah. "Lailah, we should leave"
Lailah glanced at Michael. She forcefully restrained her voice and did not say anything. Turning around, she silently walked to the place where the two balls of energy were before.
Standing there, she closed her eyes, chanting a few words under her breath to activate the teleportation array. Soon after she started to murmur, the ground beneath them lightened up revealing blue complicated engraving.
Walking to the center of the glowing formation, Michael looked back at the fog-covered island. He knew that from now onward, he had to work harder than ever before to achieve his goals. The short conversation he had with Andreas really opened his eyes and gave him a new perspective. Everything he said was deeply engraved into his brain, especially what he said about Edros's descendent. Even though he had the badass system, he did not underestimate the foes he would be facing in the future. To fight them, he planned to recruit people with high potential to build an army that would fight for him. He saw what a drop of Edros's blood could do and if the descendant has half of his ancestor's power, he knew he must increase the baby dragon's power as soon as possible.
Roar!
Perhaps the disappearance of the two energy balls had alarmed the mutated beings roaming around the treacherous ocean as powerful roars immediately echoed. Large numbers of mutated beings all charged at the two from the surroundings.
Both of their expressions changed. Although their strength had increased substantially, they could not fight hundreds of unkillable mutated beings. Moreover, there were quite a few Fusion stage mutated beings among the corpses, if they were surrounded, they would not be facing a hard battle but die in a couple of seconds.
"Let's leave here quickly!" Michael called out to Lailah, urging her to activate the teleportation array without lingering any longer in this god-forsaken place.
Lailah did not hesitate either, she immediately drew a few symbols in the air.
The very next moment, the engraving on the ground glowed brighter and brighter while the ground began to tremble. In a blink of an eye, a beam of light appeared where they were standing a second before and disappeared along with them.
********************************
At that moment, in the sky far away from the Rainbow island, a white light appeared in the empty space without any forewarning. As it disappeared, it revealed the figures of Michael and Lailah.
The two of them finally returned to the world of living from the Treacherous ocean.
As soon as they emerged from the light, Lailah immediately became a blur that flew off into the distance with unbelievable speed. She disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving Michael behind, who was still floating in the sky on the flying sword with the baby dragon.
Looking at the direction in which she disappeared off, Michael remained indifferent. He knew that what happened back in the treacherous ocean had affected Lailah greatly but he did not give a shit about her little feelings.
"Lightning Dash" he just activated the lightning dash, turning himself into a bolt of lightning before flying towards Angel's peak where he met with Christopher. After a few hours of flying, he saw two figures flying to him from a distance. They were the two disciples of Lailah, Johan, and Nerita.
"Ghost, you've finally returned. Three weeks have passed since your departure with the island mistress. We were worried about her" Johana said from afar. Her voice was clear and pleasant just like a lark's.
"And you cured your pet dragon, wonderful" another pleasant voice followed Johana as nerita appeared behind Johana.
"Pet?! Grrr'' the baby dragon growled after hearing Nerita call him a 'pet dragon'.Although the baby dragon never spent any time with his mother or his siblings, he did inherit all the qualities of the proud dragon race. Calling him a pet was an insult to him yet he was not stupid to show his annoyance in front of two powerful cultivators who could crush him to death in a blink of an eye.
"What happened back there? Why did the island mistress look different? as if she is a completely different person?" Nerita asked. Her face was filled with worry and concern.
"Hehehe" the baby dragon chuckled devilishly standing on his shoulder.
"How come?" Michael asked curiously.
"As soon as the mistress returned, she gave us the Demon Dragon's hearts and entered the back mountain to go into seclusion. She paid no attention to us no matter how many times we tried to talk to her. All these years I studied under her, I have never seen her like this, what happened to her?"
Johana's face was filled with the feeling of being wronged. When she reached the end of her words, she immediately became stern and her gaze toward Michael had even become filled with some threat.
Michael chuckled. "From this trip, your teacher has gained a lot. Since she reached level 5 of the Fusion stage, she must have wanted to consolidate her cultivation, I think that's why she went straight into seclusion. You shouldn't worry about her and disturb her"
"Is that so? Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Master's is getting stronger and stronger. At this rate, she would become the youngest half immortal this word has ever seen"
The two of them immediately became excited with what Michael had said.
"Did she tell how to suppress the curse before she went into seclusion?" Michael asked Johana and Nerita before they could ask more about what happened back there.
"We knew the method, we just needed a powerful energy source to suppress the curse and since we have the Demon Dragon's heart, we can finally help that pitiful person to reach the Soul refining Stage
"As long as he breaks through successfully, the pain he suffers will be greatly reduced and if the gods desire, he can find a way to permanently lift the curse," Johana said.
"Yeah. Because of that curse in his soul from all those years ago, he has been suffering greatly. We did not have the heart to watch on. At least now we can free him from that torture. Alright, let's not talk anymore" Nerita seemed genuinely happy as her smile was rather sincere.
Even though Johana and Nerita were Soul Strengthening stage warriors who were just a couple of years of cultivation away from reaching the Soul refining stage, they had always lived on the harmonious Rainbow Islands. Very rarely did they ever leave the island, which allowed a sliver of good and kindness to remain in their hearts. They had not been corrupted by the disputes and deceptions present everywhere in the outside world. This was not to say they were a hundred percent pure-hearted kind people but they were just less scheming horrible people, unlike the cultivators Michael had met.
With Johana and Nerita accompanying him, they arrived at Christopher's cave. They found him sleeping on a stone bed with a disheveled appearance.