Rise of the Alchemy God

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Ethan initially sensed a presence staring at him, so he shifted his gaze toward the source.

However, as he saw who it was, he felt a sensation coming from his sea of consciousness a feeling somewhat familiar to him.

The amphora was reacting.

'It's started reacting again?'

This came as a bit of a surprise to him. After all, the amphora had gone dormant again after its last activation.

But now, it had awakened once more, and the vibrations it was emitting were the same as the last time.

Ethan was still unaware of many things about the amphora, but he knew one thing: whenever it reacted, it was always to something of considerable importance, just like before.

But one thing stood out. The vibrations it emitted were never the same.

They differed each time because the situations were always different, yet at this moment, the feeling it gave was identical to when the portal was opening.

'Could it be that the sphere wasn't its target?' he thought, realizing something.

Was it possible that the amphora was reacting to something beyond the portal rather than the portal itself?

Ethan wasn't sure, but the appearance of this woman and the amphora's reaction hinted at something like that.

That said, he decided to set this thought aside for now as he noticed the woman shifting her gaze from him to the audience.

Following the trajectory of her gaze, he noted where she was looking.

'Hm, she's looking at Lin Yu?'

He thought for a moment, then shook his head, thinking he might be wrong.

Just as Ethan had noticed the woman's appearance, so too had several others. When some recognized her, panic immediately began to spread as they murmured:

"That woman, why is she here?" said a commander at the first stage of the Spiritual realm as he recognized the figure standing on the wall.

Like him, others also recognized her and, just when they were starting to panic due to the recent incident related to her, a strong pressure suddenly covered the area.

Jing Xia, who had been on the wall a moment ago, now appeared in the area reserved for the audience.

Seeing this, Ethan immediately noticed where she had positioned herself and quickly realized that she was indeed targeting Lin Yu.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He wasn't certain why she would be interested in a slave, but then a thought crossed his mind as he recalled what Lin Yu had told him a few days ago:

'Could she be the female commander who bought her?' he wondered, trying to probe the woman's aura.

'I can't determine her strength,' he thought grimly, though he could tell that this person was far stronger than him.

As the crowd descended further into panic due to the sudden pressure, Ethan heard some murmuring a name.

'Jing Xia? Could it be her?' he thought as fragments of memories from the demons he had recently absorbed came to mind.

While Ethan began piecing together the situation, Jing Xia, who had appeared near Lin Yu, cast a clearly angry look at her and said:

"Who dared to put that collar on you?" she asked in a low but sharp voice, loud enough for the elven girl to hear.

Unlike the others present, Lin Yu didn't feel the sudden pressure, so she was a bit confused by their reactions.

However, she didn't dwell on it for long, as in the next moment, the figure of a woman she knew well appeared before her.

It was the woman who had saved her back then, the one who had ensured she could live until now.

It was the female commander she hadn't seen for some time.

Lin Yu had never had the chance to properly thank her, so seeing her now made her a bit happy.

Just as she was about to say something, she stopped when she saw the woman's clearly displeased expression.

As she wondered why the woman seemed in such a bad mood, she heard her voice and immediately realized something.

'Oh no,' Lin Yu immediately understood that things could have taken a bad turn if she had said she had become Ethan's slave.

She felt a little panicked, unsure whether to tell the truth or not.

Under normal circumstances, she would have told the truth, but now was definitely not the right time.

After all, Ethan needed to keep his strength a secret, and if it were revealed that she wasn't truly his slave, she wasn't sure how this might affect his recruitment as a soldier.

Clearly, this put her in a bit of a difficult position, and soon she began to figure out the most effective way to get out of this situation.

Seeing the elven girl clearly hesitating, Jing Xia's anger grew stronger as she mistakenly assumed the girl was being forced to stay silent on the matter.

She raised her gaze from the elven girl to the surrounding crowd.

With a fierce look, she said:

"Who is this slave's master?" she asked, her voice not particularly loud, but still heard by everyone.

Thud!

The moment she uttered those words, several weaker demons fainted instantly, while many others visibly struggled to remain conscious.

She was a powerhouse at the peak of the third stage of the spiritual rank, and even though she wasn't releasing her cultivation at the moment, Just her aura alone was enough to knock everyone out.

Thus, those seemingly innocuous words had a disastrous effect on many of those present.

Several demons fainted, and others were on the verge of doing so.

Only the commanders present were still standing, albeit barely, and seeing that the situation was taking a bad turn, one of them, aware of the recent events, managed to connect Jing Xia's words to that matter and said:

"C-Commander Jing, the owner of that slave it's right there," said the first-stage commander, pointing at Ethan.

Jing Xia shifted her gaze from the commander who had just spoken and looked in the direction he was pointing.

The moment she noticed who he was indicating, her gaze narrowed as she thought,

'Is it him?'

She had already confirmed that the reaction her weapon was having was due to that person, but thinking that he was also the one who had placed the collar on the elf girl made her even more curious about him.

She immediately tried to probe the other party and soon discovered she couldn't.

Hm?

She could sense a second-stage mortal rank aura from him, but she could tell that was merely his apparent cultivation.

She was certain his true strength was greater than that.

This fact made things even more suspicious in her eyes, and soon, she turned towards him while placing her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Ethan, seeing how quickly the situation was getting out of control, mentally cursed himself for allowing Lin Yu to put on the collar.

'Haa... I knew putting that thing on her would cause trouble,' he thought, frustrated by the situation as he prepared for what was about to happen.

His only consolation in all this was that the situation was still manageable, although he could tell that his next words might either make things more or less chaotic.

***

While Ethan was getting his welcome into demonic society, elsewhere, light-years away from that dimension, someone else was also receiving a warm welcome.

"How did they manage to discover me?" thought a ten meter tall demon, frustrated by the situation.

He was none other than the demon king of the Red Moon City base, Yi Hei, the grandfather of Yi Tiao.

A few days ago, he had sensed the death of his grandson, and it had infuriated him.

He used a forbidden technique to try and determine the circumstances that led to his grandson's death and soon discovered that his grandson had been cornered by a human and had chosen to sacrifice himself to activate the formation that would trigger the mechanism to open the portal.

Clearly, this didn't please him at all, but he managed to put aside his frustration as he focused on the more important matter.

His grandson had successfully opened the portal.

The mission was to open the portal without alerting the consciousness of that world, so Yi Tiao and his team had been cautious in their movements upon arriving in that plane.

There were various ways to achieve this, but the most effective was to sacrifice a being of spiritual realm, in other words one of their demon commanders.

Although the death of a commander wasn't too concerning to him, they considered it a waste of resources for a world like that, so they opted for the plan that would take more time but was just as effective as sacrificing a commander from their base.

He had thought the mission was of medium difficulty, not requiring a massive army, so he had allowed his grandson to go there.

He knew the beings of that place didn't even reach the spiritual realm, so they wouldn't pose a threat to his grandson's team.

But things had gone terribly wrong, and in the end, his grandson had used himself to open the portal successfully while simultaneously preventing it from alerting that world's consciousness.

He was enraged, so he immediately rushed to the location to personally capture the human who had caused his grandson's demise.

Or at least, that's what he thought, but something interfered while he traveled through the portal he had connected to that place with his energy, and soon he found himself being forced to change course as he was transported to a higher realm tied to that world.

He was shocked by the fact that someone powerful enough to do such a thing existed in that world, and for a moment, he thought it might be the consciousness of the place, but he quickly dismissed that thought as he focused on the force that had altered his path.

"Who the hell are you? How dare you interfere with me?" he said, frustrated, as he unleashed his power and tried to suppress the opposing force dragging him to a different place.

Soon, he realized the other party was no simple entity, and just as he considered releasing his domain to escape the situation, he was ejected from the spatial tunnel and found himself in a familiar place.

He immediately stabilized himself, dispersing the effects of the spatial tunnel he had been traveling through, and soon got a clearer view of the place.

"This place... could it be that realm?" he thought as he immediately sensed his surroundings.

He could feel a dense concentration of spiritual Qi permeating every corner of this place, and no matter where he looked, he couldn't sense any trace of demonic energy.

He was able to determine a few things about this place right away, and soon, a certain location described in fragments of consciousness left by members of his race in the past came to mind.

They were fragments of a superior realm that their race had discovered a long time ago, a realm that disappeared from their radar and that they had been trying to track down for many years.

It was precisely the realm the mission carried out by Yi Tiao's team had aimed to help them reach once more.

The Celestial Plane.

He was shocked that he had managed to reach this place, but he didn't pay too much attention to it while realizing that his situation was somewhat difficult.

In the previous counterattack, he had been able to determine the strength of the other party, so he could tell that he had been targeted by someone at a level similar to his own.

Most likely, someone from this realm.

He didn't know if he could face them successfully or not, so he decided to disperse within this area to hide. As soon as he could, he would transmit the coordinates of the location to his base to call for reinforcements.

Just the thought of this made him happy, and for a moment, he thought that his nephew's sacrifice had not been in vain after all, because he had managed to find the realm they had been searching for some time.

Unfortunately for him, things weren't so simple.

He didn't even have time to react when he immediately felt the presence of the entity that had forced him to deviate from his original destination appear once more.

If it had been just that, things would still have been manageable for him, but soon he felt the presence of three other beings with a cultivation level close to his own.

"Damn, I can't stay here," he thought, realizing that his situation was more serious than he had imagined.

Just as he was about to scatter himself across the area, he immediately felt the surrounding environment begin to change.

Soon, the sky was torn apart as three enormous pillars of light appeared and struck the ground in three separate locations, all surrounding the area where Yi Hei stood.

The three enormous pillars encircled a vast area spanning several hundred miles, and each of them emanated an oppressive aura.

Earth, wind, and fire,

three particular elements stood out prominently from these pillars as massive figures began to emerge within them.

Seeing these pillars appear, he immediately understood what was happening as he roared:

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"Do you really think that weaklings like you can trap me so easily?" he shouted, releasing an enormous wave of energy that expanded outward like a bubble in all directions.

"INFERNO!"

As if that single word possessed a mystical effect, the expanding energy bubble began to distort reality, surging ever more violently in all directions and targeting the three pillars of light.

Every area engulfed by the energy bubble became dim as a suffocating aura spread everywhere it touched.

The surroundings, distorted by the energy, began to wither as visible cracks formed on the ground, radiating intense heat from the fissures.

Yi Hei's domain was manifesting.

Just as the domain continued to expand rapidly, nearing the three pillars of light, another change occurred in the environment, and soon Yi Hei's domain began to slow down.

A feminine voice echoed through the surroundings, and soon a chilling aura descended upon the area.

"Absolute Zero."

As if those simple words had triggered something, an overwhelming pressure descended on the area, and Yi Hei's domain, which had already begun to slow, was immediately suppressed.

Before the demon had time to react, the surrounding temperature began to drop at a dizzying rate, while a thin layer of ice began to cover the surface below.

Yi Hei sensed danger from the spreading ice and moved away quickly, directing his attention upward.

The ground started trembling as the layer of ice spread even into the cracks of the fractured earth.

Soon, with several loud explosions, the earth shattered, and massive pillars of translucent blue crystal emerged one after another. Yet none of this drew the demon's attention as much as what he saw above.

"So, you've decided to reveal yourself at last," he said, looking with a complex gaze toward the sky.

As the temperature of the area continued to plummet, transforming the surroundings into a frozen wasteland, another phenomenon struck the area,

a new rift formed in the sky.

The section of the sky where the rift had opened fell like pieces of shattered glass, and faintly among the fragments, a humanoid female figure descended.

To an ordinary person, the figure would be indistinct and blurry, but to the eyes of beings at the level of those present, the female figure could not have been clearer.

She was a little over 170 cm tall, wearing a classic white robe adorned with blue decorations.

Her long white hair fluttered slightly, while her piercing crystal-blue eyes, with pupils as thin as needles, fixed intently on the demon below.

Although her expression was impassive and emotionless, it radiated a coldness far greater than the chilling aura that spread in all directions.

Yi Hei, watching the appearance of the being that had forced him to change his course, began to feel an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

He could tell that the woman was at the stage of spiritual ascension, at a level comparable to his own.

But the more he felt her presence intensifying, the more a realization he had been trying to ignore began to surface:

his death was drawing near.