2205. Clumsy
There was only one massive problem with the plan of finding Alexander and Wilfred. Heaven and Earth had made their intentions clear. They wanted Supreme Thief to steal what he needed and get out of the sky without causing problems. However, they didn't say anything about the two hybrids.
Truth be told, Noah wasn't sure that Alexander and Wilfred were inside the sky. The hypothesis was very sound since they didn't show up at all during the creation of the landmass, but that didn't make it a certainty.
That faint uncertainty created an issue that went beyond the simple chance of looking for someone who wasn't there. The sky was inscrutable. Noah and the others would even know where to begin the search. They would typically try to find clues, but they wouldn't appear as long as Heaven and Earth remained silent.
"Elbas, how is your world?" Noah asked while the group remained in their position in the middle of the sky.
"I am fine," King Elbas scoffed. "I can deal with a minor search, but I won't find anything. I don't even know if my fake quasi-rank 10 stage can achieve something with the actual sky as the enemy."
Questioning Divine Demon was pointless after that explanation. The expert could accomplish miracles, but he had the world's energy as the limit. The sky could surpass that.
"It's up to us then," Noah stated, and Steven nodded as he began to inspect the area, trying to find something that Heaven and Earth were attempting to cover.
The absence of reasonable methods forced the group to rely on the inherent advantage that Noah and Steven had against Heaven and Earth due to their anger. They could instinctively find situations that could cause problems for the rulers better than anyone else, so they gambled everything on that.
Spending time staring at the immutable sky felt pointless, but Noah and Steven had to try. Yet, as time passed, it became clear that they wouldn't achieve anything like that.
"Let's try something else," Noah eventually interrupted the inspection. "Elbas, allow us to use the dragon's ability."
"What makes you think that I've developed something like that?" King Elbas sneered.
Noah shot a meaningful glance at King Elbas, and the latter crossed his arms before snorting loudly. A golden light left his body, and a big inscribed item expanded right under the group.
The item had a simple shape. It was nothing more than a pillar with a few platforms connected to its structure. Its use was also relatively straightforward, so the group immediately put themselves to work.
The odd dragon
Then, when Noah and Steven landed on two different platforms, the dark shade expanded toward them, which granted them access to a weaker version of the dragon's innate ability.
Now, the inspection could benefit from deep anger toward Heaven and Earth and a substance born to counter them. Noah and Steven began to see figures hiding behind the white layer, but nothing ever became clear.
'Come on, Alexander,' Noah cursed in his mind. 'Use one of your abilities to sense us.'
Alexander was incredible, but he couldn't react to what he didn't sense. Moreover, the sky would block anything that tried to reach him. The faint figures that Noah and Steven had managed to see were the best they could do at their level.
"We can't piece it," Noah exclaimed after deciding that they had remained too long in the same position.
"It has always been a gamble," Steven sighed as he left the platform and granted the odd dragon some well-deserved rest. "The sky simply isn't in the mood to lose anymore."
"We only have one option left," Noah announced.
"Why do I feel that you always wanted to go for that option?" King Elbas asked while retrieving his inscribed item.
"Hey, I gave the sky a chance," Noah justified himself. "Also, I bet Supreme Thief doesn't want to steal something handmade for him. He would rather take what he liked by force."
"Well, I'd take both," Supreme Thief responded, "But I like your idea. I guess I can delay the breakthrough a bit longer."
"That's the spirit!" The Foolery laughed.
"It's so obvious that even idiots understood it," King Elbas commented.
"Let's see where Heaven and Earth want us to go first," Noah ordered, and the group began to move.
The period spent investigating the sky had appeased some of the injuries suffered by the group, but their situation remained quite tragic. Still, their plan didn't allow them to think about those issues.
The sky began to transform now that the group had decided to move. The massive area that had been the home of three different battlefields shrunk to transform into a tunnel that tried to give a precise direction to that trip.
However, Noah and the others paid attention to the areas that Heaven and Earth had decided to close first. Then, they summoned the asset they had intended to use at the beginning of the mission.
The golden drill made its appearance inside the sky, but the group didn't hold back now. They had to be quick to counter any plan Heaven and Earth would try to throw at them, so they went all-out.
The dragon filled the drill with its dark liquid, and Divine Demon improved its features, turning it into an item that could pierce the sky at a decent pace. Noah also added his passive ambition, and Supreme Thief began to steal the laws on the weapon's path.
The biggest creature inside the group right now was the Foolery, which had no problem hiding inside the dark world or Shafu's separate dimensions. The tunnel didn't have to be immense anymore. A narrow passage was more than enough for the group, and that considerably quickened their advance.
Noah and the others felt to be inside a shining underground world that did its best to hinder their advance. They slipped through the narrow cracks opened by the drill for a long time until Heaven and Earth inevitably decided to intervene.
Bright figures appeared inside the walls around the experts. They knew that a few privileged cultivators were about to materialize in the area, so they escaped until Heaven and Earth's reopened some tunnels.
"We need to be faster next time," Noah ordered.
"And how do you plan on doing that?" King Elbas asked. "We are already sliding. Do you expect us to become ethereal?"
"We can always crawl," Noah suggested, and King Elbas put aside his annoyance to agree with that idea.
The experts shrunk the drill to increase its power output. The tunnels that it could create now were far smaller, but the experts could crawl inside them quite quickly, and that was enough.
Bright figures eventually appeared again, but the group fended them off by escaping in areas where Heaven and Earth allowed their stay. The process was beginning to feel pretty strange due to how easy they had it. After all, they never went back to their starting point even when they retreated.
The approach was clumsy and quite deplorable for existences at that level, but Noah and the others seized every chance that flew in their direction.. They could avoid fights while continuing to explore the sky, and that was exactly what they wanted.