The fifteenth floor’s heavy, life rich atmosphere resisted him like thick water, but his body did not slow.
His muscles tightened.
His bones hummed with pressure.
And his mana moved with frightening efficiency.
Michael’s gaze locked onto the direction the others had vanished toward.
He could not see them, but he could feel the faint traces left behind.
Most people would have fallen behind immediately.
Michael did not.
He reached the first point where one of the Stonekin elders had disappeared.
He passed it.
His eyes widened a fraction.
He had expected to feel the gap widen with every second.
Instead, the distance did not seem to explode the way it should have.
Michael clicked his tongue again.
This was his first time fully testing his flying speed, and indeed, his body was definitely not an ordinary vessel.
"Ridiculous," he muttered.
Then he pushed harder.
BOOM.
The sound rolled across the sky like a cannon.
Michael accelerated until the air ahead of him began to distort, and the pressure around his body turned into a tight shell, a moving barrier that split wind and cloud.
His coat snapped violently behind him.
His hair whipped back.
Below, entire rivers became thin silver lines.
It was a brute method.
It was inefficient pared to stepping through space.
But it worked.
And the most absurd part was that, for a brief stretch, it felt like he was keeping up.
Not perfectly.
But enough that the gap did not bee hopeless.
The moment Michael broke the sound barrier ahead, the silver haired Amazari elder felt it first.
Her brows knit together.
She turned her head slightly, senses extending backward, and what she felt made her breath catch.
Something was ing.
Fast.
Behind her, one of the Stonekin elders slowed for half a second. He frowned.
The second Stonekin noticed it an instant later. His heavy brow lowered as his perception sharpened, following the disturbance backward along its path.
Both of them reached the same conclusion at nearly the same time.
That Rank Two was still behind them.
And he was not falling behind.
At first, none of them had truly understood why the old man had allowed Michael to follow.
A Rank Two.
In a situation that involved Demon Lords and Rank Fours.
They had assumed it was indulgence. Or perhaps the old man was using him as bait. Or maybe there was some hidden protection they had not sensed.
The old man had said the Rank Two could contribute.
They had not believed him.
Now, doubt crept in.
The Amazari elder slowed her teleportation again, just enough to confirm what her senses were telling her. Her expression tightened.
He was not chasing them blindly.
He was even following the residual traces of spatial movement.
Crude.
Inefficient.
But accurate.
And terrifying.
She had seen Rank Threes struggle to maintain flight at this speed.
Michael was doing none of that.
Another sonic boom cracked behind them.
The Stonekin elders exchanged a glance.
Stonekin valued mass and endurance above speed. Their race did not excel at rapid movement, yet even they knew what they were witnessing defied mon sense.
A Rank Two body should have torn itself apart under that strain.
What sort of monster was this.
The second Stonekin felt confused.
If he had not seen the Rank Two’s aura with his own senses, he would have assumed this was a hidden Rank Three suppressing himself.
No.
Even that explanation felt weak.
The Amazari elder felt a chill trace down her spine.
This was her first time witnessing Michael act without restraint.
The realization unsettled her.
A Rank Two with a body capable of chasing spatial travelers through brute force.
She thought back to the old man’s calm certainty earlier.
This is enough.
For the first time, she understood what he might have meant.
Behind them, the pressure surged again.
Michael pushed harder.
The shockwaves grew tighter, more focused. Instead of scattering outward, they wrapped around him, pressed into a moving sheath that reduced resistance through sheer dominance.
He felt it too.
The strain no longer felt foreign.
His body adapted frighteningly fast.
His mana circulation stabilized under extreme output, not flaring wildly like most would. His bones stopped screaming. His muscles stopped protesting.
They obeyed.
Michael’s eyes sharpened.
He was closer now.
Not close enough to catch up to the ones ahead of him.
But close enough that the gap no longer mocked him.
The realization made his heart beat faster from excitement.
In any case, though what happened now seemed to have taken minutes, it was only a few seconds, and soon they caught up with the old man.
But none of them had the attention to spare for him anymore.
Not when the sky ahead looked like it had been split open.
The moment Michael’s senses brushed past the space ahead, his mind went still.
Hundreds of demons filled the air.
It was madness.
And fighting them were three different forces, three different races, scattered across the airspace like islands trying not to be swallowed by a tide.
One group fought with elegant formations.
Elves.
Even from a distance, their style was unmistakable.
But they were losing.
Not because they were weak, but because the demons were too many.
Demons dove like arrows, screaming as they tore through defenses, dragging fighters out of formation. Explosions rippled across the sky, but for every demon that fell, two more took its place.
The air itself felt poisoned with intent.
Michael’s breath caught.
So this was the eruption.
Ahead, the old man stood in the air.
And then Michael slammed into the edge of the battlefield’s pressure zone, slowing just enough not to crash into them.
The sonic boom behind him rolled across the sky like a war drum.
For a fraction of a second, the others stared at him again, as if remembering he existed.
Their eyes flicked over his posture.
Then their attention snapped back to the demons, because the sight in front of them did not allow distraction.
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