Ace couldn't help but look around; as he looked at the widespread devastation his battle with Hemmers had caused, he couldn't help but wonder aloud why it was that no one else had come.
Hemmers rolled his eyes and explained that although neither of them were Paragons yet, the shockwaves of their battle were near enough at that level, especially after using Sovereign's Might – unless you were at that level getting near enough to check what was going on was nothing but suicidal.
Ace just opened his mouth to respond when his head turned towards the Divine Darkness Plane's side, and a small smile crept onto his mouth.
When Hemmers asked what happened, Ace calmly replied that his friends had just arrived.
On the other side of the Planar Battlefield, as Ace said, several of his friends had just arrived, namely Killian, Leona, Wukong, Alyssa, Faye, Joel, Yulana, and even Linley. Several of them had even brought a few friends in with them.
Linley had brought his whole group, aside from Wharton and Gates, who were still a little too weak for an operation like this. But it was Faye who brought the unfamiliar faces.
It had to be remembered that after the battle between the Four Divine Beasts Clan and the Eight Great Clans, Faye was accepted as the Emissary of Gitara – the Redbud Sovereign. And after passing a certain test Gitara set for her newest Emissary, Faye was accepted as the Redbud's first-ever named disciple.
Since then, Gitara spared no expense in training this new disciple of hers. Although Gitara was a Sovereign of Destruction, she was actually more skilled with the laws of Earth, having long since become a Paragon of Earth.
Not only had Faye come on by leaps and bounds in both the Laws and Concept of Earth, but just like Linley, she had even been given an Amethyst Soul Stone, giving her the ability to manipulate the directional force of her gravity with incredible ease, but unlike Linley who merely bonded with his Soul Stone, with the help of Gitara, Faye had genuinely fused with it, giving her the spiritual properties of a true Amethyst Godbeast – effectively multiplying her Spiritual Sea tenfold.
Whilst training under Gitara's wing, Faye made friends with both her Master's other emissaries as well as her one and only child – her son, Reisgem.
Well, friends was a little bit of an understatement. With the amount of time the two spent together, they quickly developed romantic feelings and, after hundreds of years, even got engaged.
They would've even gotten married, but Faye refused to get married before everything was sorted with the Planar War. If she was getting married, she, of course, wanted all of her family there with her – meaning Ace, Amira, and, of course, Kannal.
As such, it should come as no surprise that when entering the Planar Battlefield, Reisgem, as well as Gitara's strongest emissary, Reihom Stonebreaker – another very powerful Commander-level expert – came with her.
Still, the most surprising tag-along was none other than Garott. Even though he was now the head emissary of Wukong's father, Shinji, the Intermediate Sovereign hadn't asked him to go – Garott had chosen to go of his own free will, much to the dismay of his Four Divine Beasts Clan.
Gisalson and the other senior members of the clan didn't even want Linley and Alyssa to go, but they understood they had no right to ask them to stay, especially as Ace was very close to both of them, but when Garott expressed his plans, they all unhesitatingly expressed that it wasn't a good idea.
Still, Garott was nothing if not honourable. It was because of Ace and the others that he not only escaped his prison but also learned the art of Concepts, which in turn allowed him to break through and finally become a paragon. It wouldn't sit right with him if he couldn't support Ace during his time of need.
The moment the large group touched down, Leona explained that she just made contact with Ace via their bond, and he told her not to find him for now.
He needed to use the experts on the side of the Divine Darkness Plane as a whetstone so he could try and breakthrough to become a paragon – as much as he wanted to see them all now, doing so would only make it that much harder to find someone willing to stick around and fight. For now, they were all better off doing their own thing.
He also passed along all the information he'd been given about the Planar Battlefield. He even told them to pay special attention to the Stellar River as it might help their comprehension, especially the soul mutates amongst them.
After hearing that, Killian's group headed directly for the Divine Plane of Light's side of the Stellar River before splitting down into smaller groups – Group 1: Killian, Alyssa, Wukong, and Leona. Group 2 – Faye, Joel, Yulana, Reisgem, and Reihom. Group 3 – Linley, Bebe, Yunaia, Oscar, and Olivier – agreeing that, as Leona was the only one who was able to make contact with Ace, should anything happen, Leona would set off a flare and they would all make their way over to Ace together, meeting up by the Stellar River.
The only one who went off on their own was Garott. As a paragon-level Apex Divine Beast, he naturally had the least to be afraid of; as such, he wandered around freely.
Over the next 600 years, rumours began to spread about various formerly unknown Supreme Geniuses running amok in the Planar Battlefields on both sides of the Stellar River. Whether it was Ace or the three groups that came in with Killian, they all made a name for themselves as they used the various commanders as whetstones.
To most experts at their level, 600 years was more or less the blink of an eye, but for a group of youngsters, each of whom was still under 2000 years, 600 years was enough to make a lot of improvement, which each of them had.
That was true even for Ace, who had the least room for improvement of them all, having long since comprehended 99.9% of the *True Flame*. In that time, by facing off with powerful commanders, Ace's [Blazing Glaive Art] had finally caught up with his comprehension of the Laws of Fire, meaning that whether it was the Concept of Fire or the Laws of Fire… if Ace took another step forward in either path, he would become a Paragon.
If before, when he and Hemmers first fought, Ace could only barely be considered an Invincible Commander, now he was firmly among them – without the use of his Willpower, of course.
As for Hemmers, having Ace to guide him and learn from, his progress wasn't small either. First of all, he had finally captured ten commanders' badges with Ace's help. Still, the thing he was most joyous about was his comprehension.
With Ace's guidance, he had long since created his own weapon art based on the Concepts of Earth.
It had to be remembered that when creating a Concept-based weapon art, one must first bond spiritually with the weapon they wish to use – but because those weapons more powerful typically had already developed a spirit of their own, it took a lot longer to refine said weapon, and even though Hemmers was already a High-God with a fairly powerful soul, it would have still taken him near enough a thousand years just to refine a weapon that was already at the High-God level for him to use.
And because of the natural raw power of his physical body, he stopped using weapons back when he was still a Demi-God back on the Divine Earth Plane billions of years ago; as such, he was forced to start the refinement process again.
Still, it wasn't all bad. Because of the raw power of his body, he wouldn't need to rely on the power of his weapon for support. It was for that reason that he decided to use the first weapon he ever used – a pair of golden white gauntlets of the Demi-God rank.
First, because they were originally his to begin with, he wouldn't actually have to go through the whole refinement process – and because the golden white gauntlets were actually made from the residual mountain range he was birthed from, it created a synergy between man and gauntlet that not even Ace saw coming.
Because of that, it allowed Hemmers to go straight to the comprehension portion, and it was during this portion that Ace finally got to understand the true difference between Supreme Geniuses like him and his friends and other, more ordinary, experts.
In these 600 years, despite having several commander-level experts to use as whetstones, as well as frequent sparring against an expert like Ace who could spot and point out the weak points of his "[Heavy Mountain Fist Art]" – an overly simple name that Ace couldn't help but sigh at – with incredible ease, Hemmers only just brought his Fist Art up to the Full God level.
At the same time, on the other side of the Stellar River, things appeared to have reached boiling point as the actions of the three groups that entered with Killian had annoyed too many people.
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