Standing at the front of the ship were John and Lilian, Lilian at the ship's command center, John next to her. The ship's hull was translucent from the inside, allowing them to see out all around them.
John watched as the land below the ship became an expansive ocean as far as the eye could see. Surprise coursed through him as he realized that they had already arrived at the edge of the Divine Martial Continent, and were now speeding over the ocean that covered most of the planet. The water shimmered brightly from the sun overhead, filling his chaotic thoughts with a small sense of ease at the beauty of it all.
"How fast!" he exclaimed.
They had been traveling for what seemed like minutes, and yet they had already traveled from the center of the continent to the coast. A trip like that typically took months to make, not minutes.
Lilian glanced sideways at him, her face slightly red from concentration and Qi expenditure. She had been using her power mixed with the ship's natural ability to transport through space to move the ship forward at incredible speeds.
"We're burning enough spirit crystals each minute to last our sect a hundred years," she said tersely, her face scrunched with strained concentration. "Of course we're moving fast when we're burning a fortune each second."
"So much!" John exclaimed, his eyes shifting to the door of the ship's power room, where the mountain of spirit crystals existed. The ship's power room, where the formation to take Qi from spirit crystals and use it as energy to move the ship, was a pseudo-spatial realm of its own. It wasn't separate from this realm, but was far larger on the inside than the dimensions on the outside, allowing for the mountain of spirit crystals to exist within.
John's eyes shifted forward, over the endless expanse of ocean. His mind drifted back to when he had first made this trip all those years ago, Raijen escorting them across the ocean to defend against the strong beasts that dwelled beneath the surface.
He had traveled to the Divine Martial Continent with wondrous awe, thinking of the journeys that awaited him. Now he fled from the continent, while his Sect Leaders and other allies fought with their lives on the line against an invincible creature, all for the sake of keeping him alive. Regret over his own weakness coursed through him again, his fists clenched tightly from the miserable feeling.
John pushed down that feeling as best he could. He knew he could not be blamed for this. He had just not lived long enough yet, and no amount of struggle and effort would have allowed him to be on the Asura's level already. He would take this sacrifice of the others, and put it to good use.
'I will make good on their sacrifice. When I return from wherever we are going, I'll make sure even the memories of that Asura are erased from history,' John promised himself.
He then sighed, and watched as the ship sped over ocean, then entered the chaos of space, and then back over the ocean.
"The last time we crossed, we needed Raijen to protect the ship. Do we not need to worry about beasts from below?" John asked curiously.
"We're moving far too fast for any beast to catch us," Lilian said, her eyes glued forward, her hands pressed to several of the ships command formations. Her spatial power was constantly flowing into those formations, augmenting the ship's ability to move through space to a higher level than it was capable of on its own.
As they sped forward, John stared upwards, taking a note of the sun's position in the sky. Based on the time of day and their orientation towards the sun, he made a note of the direction they were traveling in.
His eyes widened with sudden realization.
"We're going towards the Yuan Continent!" John exclaimed, staring at Lilian beside him. They were heading directly for his home continent, where most of his family and friends still lived.
She remained silent, her face still scrunched with strained effort, but her silence was all the answer he needed.
"Why? What could possibly be there for us?" he asked.
"You'll find out soon enough," Lilian finally answered him.
John took a step towards her, his face filled with uneasiness.
"What about the people on the continent? The Heavenly Lightning Sect? My family clan? Leading the Asura there will bring nothing but absolute ruin!" John said, his voice louder than before.
Even if they managed to escape somehow, if the place they escaped at was the Yuan Continent, the Asura would no doubt raze it to the ground looking for him, or just out of anger from losing them. The continent was tiny compared to the Divine Martial Continent, and the Asura would easily be able to destroy it completely without much effort at all.
"Already taken care of," Lilian said, glancing sideways at him. "We evacuated the Yuan Continent months ago, anticipating this day would soon come. Your family, as well as everyone else who agreed to leave, is safe, hidden in a distant land."
John breathed a sigh of relief. That was one less thing to worry about, and based on the preparations everyone had made, it seemed as though much thought had gone into this plan.
"Good," he said, falling silent with contemplation of everything that was happening.
'What could possibly wait for us on the Yuan Continent?' he thought. There was the ancient city, which was marvelous and unexplored, but was that where they were going? Was there some other unexplored place that held the key to their survival?
He remained consumed by these thoughts for some time, his mind losing track of the time going by. While consumed deep in his thoughts, John's mind suddenly shuddered, an icy sensation of approaching dread creeping up his spine.
He snapped out of his thoughts, and turned backwards quickly, staring through the back of the ship towards the endless expanse of ocean behind them. Their ship entered the void, replacing the expanse of ocean with the chaos of space. Moments later, they returned to the ocean, his eyes narrowing as something flashed into existence on the distant horizon.
A storm of incomparable proportions, one that seemed to cover the entire world appeared, stretching as far as the eye could see. Flashes of lightning flickered ceaselessly from within the storm, as if the storm itself was the coming of the apocalypse.
The flickers of lightning revealed existences within the storm, so distant that they appeared to be no more than specs of dust. And then from within the storm, a familiar, horrifying aura leaked out, growing with power every second as the storm grew closer and closer.
John took a few steps towards the back of the ship, his narrowed eyes peering forward at that endless storm.
"The Asura is here!"
