Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 404: Return

Coming out on the other end, he finds himself in the familiar dark hall he has come through two weeks prior.

Alongside him were the survivors of this year’s secret realm expedition.

Seeing the others quickly exiting the hall, he follows suit, as other people would soon exit the portal as well.

From the hall’s entrance, he watched as people arrived one after the other.

The majority held bad expressions on their face, ranging from distraught and despair to anger and frustration.

While Ezra wasn’t elated to see this, he nodded in approval of his actions producing the intended effect.

’Things are going to get heated soon’ thought Ezra. ’I should get out of here’

Walking into the large venue they were originally gathered, he sees others darkened gazes as they sit in deep contemplation.

Ezra looks arounds at everyone at the entire venue, letting them gaze aslt his haggard appearance in turn.

Then, he conceals himself and uses the <Gatemark> he left at the Elder residence to appear in his room.

All treasures found within the secret realm was the finders property.

This was a rule set down by the black dragon clan, so he had no obligations to report anything he earned to anyone.

Neither was there any need to inform anyone of his exit.

Normally, if a clan member died in a secret realm, his clan mates would be the ones to report it to the clan.

Since, after all, the black dragon clan would not cater for other clans.

Nothing concerned the black dragon clan about the casualties of other clans and vice versa.

Entry into a secret realm was an opportunity not normally given, all who died would only have themselves to blame for venturing in without being strong enough.

In Ezra’s case, he travelled alone, so there were no clansman to report anything about him to the clan.

As such, he maintained the bare minimum of courtesy and notifed the clan leader of his exit.

That was all.

With that done, Ezra entered his universe, lay on a bed in the Kingsmere and slept off.

The fatigue of the past few days where he continuously ran around plundering, had piled up.

******

While he took a nice nap, all the clans were in chaos.

Due to his actions, there were far more casualties than expected.

With a fatality rate measured at ten percent, casualties were expected to stay at below hundred or just a bit above hundred at most.

Yet by the time everyone was out, a hundred and eighty-six casualties was recorded.

This was the highest casualty rate in past fifty years.

Heck, it was the highest in the past hundred years!

Beyond that, it was the black dragon clan had held the highest casualties!

This was even more abnormal, as it hadn’t been case for over two hundred years.

They had expected the same thing this time.

So, ’What exactly had gone wrong?!’ was the question on everyone’s mind.

In less than two hours after everyone returned, each clan summoned the expedition members with the least injuries for an explanation.

Here, there was another uproar as the clan elders learned of the bizarre behavior of the puppets within.

Almost all the Nascents today had ventured into the alchemist tomb at one point or another, so they knew the contents within very well.

With Ezra’s meddling, the most widely used explanation amongst the expedition members was that the secret realm was malfunctioning for an unknown reason.

This reasoning was passed onto the elders, thus diverting their thoughts from straightforwardly suspecting others.

Moreover, with a death toll amounting to sixty four black dragons of rank five and six, who were located at different places, who would rationally suspect it to be the work of a single individual?

A rank four nonetheless.

Therefore the idea that the secret realm malfunctioned couldn’t help but seem the most likely.

A rational mind would think so.

Naturally, those whose disciples died felt the most pain.

Likewise, Avaken’s eyes widened when he was told that no one from Lipeters entire group exited the secret realm.

A group consisting of a rank six and rank fives was wiped out.

Regardless of the difficulty, with the amount of training black dragons were given, it was an unbelievable outcome.

His mind was sent reeling.

’That too when I asked them to take care of that troublesome fellow...could it be?’

His mind tilted to another possibility, but after thinking it over, he shakes his head.

’Its too unlikely’

He had given Lipeter an artifact as insurance to ensure Ezra’s death, and had briefed him on his abilities.

Even if Lipeter was caught off guard or outclassed, Avaken didn’t believe the entire group would be wiped out...

’No...’ he thought, fixing his mindset. ’There’s a possibility’

As he walked off, Avaken couldn’t help but contemplate.

Was his suspicion valid, or was he just being paranoid?

The latter seemed more likely...

******

Waking up five hours, Ezra took a good bath and changed his clothes before returning to his room in the elder residence.

Focusing his senses, he caught a familiar presence in front of the door.

’Already?’

Straightening his clothes, Ezra opens the door to find Musad meditating with his eyes closed.

"How long have you been here?"

Without opening his eyes, Musad replies. "I had to check on my juniors"

"How bad is it?"

"Mostly intact, only one of them lost an arm. Nothing much"

"That’s good" Ezra nodded.

"And you?" Musad questioned, opening his eyes.

"Apart from almost dying a few times? Not much either"

A second later, both men burst into echoing laughter, stopping after a good thirty seconds.

"But you don’t seem to have grown stronger since the last time I saw you" Musad observes, raising a brow.

"I focused on grabbing as many pills as a could for the most part" Ezra replies.

"Oh? Then how many did you get?"

"Not as many as I wanted, but good enough"

Musad nodded, higher beings were prone to secrecy, he was of bad etiquette to pry further.

"Alright, just make your way to Nascence quickly"

"Don’t worry, I’ll catch up to you very soon"

"Hahaha!" The orc burst out laughing, "I would like to see that"

"Of course" he suddenly becomes serious, "Don’t forget to build your MUSCLES!"

Posing, Musad imagined himself glowing.

Blown away by sheer enthusiasm, Ezra slightly nodded, answering in a weak tone.

"I will...make sure to do that"

With that, Musad rose to his feet in one motion and turned to leave.

"I have to go now, we will meet when next fate allows it"

It was expected.

The expedition was over, it was time for the Transcendents he was supervising to return, and he had to return with them.

"I have your number. I’ll call you"

Waving, Musad walked down the stairs until he was out of sight.

Ezra nods. "I should leave as well"

His intentions of entering the secret realm at first was to find the one who deployed dungeons on Orion.

Instead, he had to deal with black dragons sent after his head.

Afterwards, he decided that searching the secret realm for the person was not worth it compared to plundering pills that could assist in mass producing Transcendents.

He was certain of his choice.

It was better to have Orion producing Transcendents than to punish anyone.

Since after all, punishing the perpetrators didn’t make the pain go away, neither did it lead to any tangible benefits.

As for finding out more about that black dragon, there was another secret realm opening a month from now with less resources.

There was no rush, he could do it then.

Though, eager to count his gains, Ezra immediately got moving.

He sends his space ring into his universe to reduces the chances of accidents occuring to Zero.

With all his things in that space ring, there was no need time to waste packing as he had nothing to pack.

Putting on good perfume as a final touch, Ezra made his way to the Skyline.

Having gone through it once, Ezra didn’t need a guide for the returning ride.

Without much suspense, he soon reaches the main entrance.

Meeting the guards who had ridiculed him for a second time, the atmosphere turned awkward very quickly.

From their facial expressions, it looked like they wanted to die as they forced themselves to treat him with respect.

The few minutes he used at the checkpoint felt like a couple of hours to the guards.

While a funny sight, Ezra didn’t make any comment.

Getting through the checkpoint, Ezra soon reaches the checkpoint for transport spaceships and boards a spaceship to the entrance of the Black Quartet.

Hours later, he arrives at his destination and checks himself out of Black Quartet.

Impatient, Ezra didn’t want to use another spaceship to get across two galaxies.

Activating <Teleportation>, he sets in the coordinate for planet Polaim.

He already wanted to test galaxy to galaxy teleportation, so this was killing two birds with one stone.

Flashing out of sight, Ezra feels nothing for a good while, before then appearing at Polaim.

But he wasn’t at all in the state to check his surroundings.

"Ack!"

Pale faced, Ezra spat out a lot blood, collapsing on the ground soon after.

He could barely make a sound as he observed the state his body was in.

As though his bones were turned to jelly and played with, all his limbs were twisted.

His legs were almost curved into circles, while his arms were bent outwardly, with his elbows bent in the wrong direction.

Worse, his internals were also twisted and it was far worse than it had ever been.

In short, his body was a total mess.

Perhaps it was retribution for indirectly killing so many people.