Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 410: The Mad Caverns

Drawing closer to the caverns, Ezra could not only see but feel the increase in the numbers of madmen.

From the hundreds scattered across the two mill distance, he could already see hundreds as well, crawling through the mountains, growling like always.

Their reckless nature made it so they smashed into the mountain in multiple places, breaking off pieces of it by the minute, with many of the madmen slipping and falling to the ground from atop high mountains.

Therefore, once nearing the entrance to the mountain range, he was met with broken rubble piled up to his ankle, alongside destroyed madmen stuck within here and there.

There were the few madmen whose fall had rendered them unfunctional.

Beyond those, you also had madmen who were partly crushed but we’re still functional situated at points within the pile of rubble as well.

Apart from the height of the pile of rubble. Its width was also considerable, measuring almost ten meters from the feet of the nearest mountain.

Naturally, this meant parts of the closest mountains had been broken so much that they couldn’t be called mountains anymore.

They looked like half baked sand castles with multiple holes in them.

In those holes, Ezra could glimpse multiple madmen moving about on other mountains.

’It’s a mess right from the start’ Ezra grimaced.

Though, he had to admit that seeing the mountains so close made for a good view.

The fact they all took on light shades of red and pink made them resemble peaches somewhat.

Getting that out of his mind, Ezra accelerates, stepping on the layer of piled rubble, he uses soft steps to get across as swiftly as possible.

He doesn’t bother any madmen, avoiding them instead.

In all likelihood, there were bound to be thousands of them within the mad caverns; he would eventually have to deal with them as he searched for the factory.

So there was no need to rush.

Likewise, the two mile distance was also filled with corpses, clothes and weapons as well.

Ezra had noted a few weapons that retained their quality, but forgoed them in order to reach the mountain range as fast as possible.

A minute later, he reaches the foot of the nearest mountain whose structure had been decimated to the point that it looked pitiful.

Without stopping, he leaps onto it, taking fast strides as he soon leaps onto another mountain, observing the ground as he did.

There he finds similar piles of rubble with more madmen moving around.

He continues to leap from mountain to mountain, avoiding madmen until he arrives at the peak of a rarely intact mountain.

There he looks from above to get a better view of the entire mountain range.

To his surprise, he finds that his gaze couldn’t encompass the entirety of the mountains even from such a height.

’This place is even bigger than I thought’

With such a large search area, the chances of finding the factory was far too slim.

More than that, the fact that this secret realm only opened for ten days basically turned his chances to zero.

Therefore, Ezra requested support from someone he thought could give him a better path.

’Zydrax, I need your help’

It is annoying that flying is restricted in this secret realm as well, but what can one do?

[I’m on it] Zydrax replies. Having Ezra send out a wave of energy, he used that to make some deductions before giving a direction.

[I’m not sure, because the energy in the area is very little but for now, go Northwest]

Ezra simply nodded, trusting in Zydraxs abilities, he went down the mountain and started going through the artificial caverns created by the madmen.

Navigating took time, as he was forced to spot multiple times to avoid colliding into madmen.

Also, he had to take intervals to rest and recover energy as keeping <universal concealment> active while making large strides was taxing and very energy consuming.

This was also why he didn’t stop to do anything when running straight for the mountain range.

Concealing himself while racing across two miles of distance while concealed was taxing on Ezra’s energy reserves, and he didn’t want to halt before entering the mountain range.

The secret realm was closing in ten days, but unlike the alchemist tomb, the exit would open exactly where the entrance opened and the expedition members were required to gather there to leave, else a person would be left behind in the secret realm.

Without enough provisions, one would eventually end up starving, and thus unable to maintain enough energy to protect themselves from the hostile atmosphere and subsequently die.

It may sound absurd but more than a fair share of Transcendents of the previous generation had died for exactly the same reasons.

Thus, they were warned a lot not to wander in deep so as to prevent the unfortunate act of being left behind.

Yet, this was exactly what Ezra was doing, he was not only wandering deep inside, but determined himself to reach the deepest part of the mountains if that was where the factory was located.

In any case, he had the skill called <Gatemark> that allowed him to open a spatial door to that place.

Of course, Ezra had left a Gatemark close to the entrance point.

With such a skill, it mattered not how far Ezra went, he only needed to activate the skill to get back to the entrance.

Still.

In many ways, this secret realm was much tougher to scale through than the alchemist tomb.

He had once compared the mad caverns to the likes of a colony of ants while looking at it from afar, but he hadn’t known just how accurate that description actually was.

The caverns were literally crawling with madmen.

It should also be noted that each one was for some reason good at breaking through rocks.

There was also a lot of evidence that many others had come into the caverns such as corpses, clothes and worn out weapons.

Two days pass as Ezra explores the caverns.

There was a problem with Zydrax detection method, forcing him to change directions multiple times as it was corrected.

All the while, Ezra didn’t forget to stash up on Ladium by diligently dispatching and inducting madmen as he travelled.

As of the fourth day, Ezra acknowledged that he must have dispatched at least two hundred madmen and also, he didn’t know where he was anymore.

Only that he had entered into deep madmen territory and now lay somewhere deep in the mountain range.

As it should, seeing only mountains with holes and madmen for days was enough for people to lose their sense of direction.

Ezra could only wonder just far away from the initial he now lay.

He was sure that if he exited the mountain range in a straight line, he would find himself somewhere very different from his starting point.

But Ezra was determined to find that factory, so he simply kept with Zydraxs directions, which by the eighth day, had brought them close to the opposite end of the mountain range.

Of all the places Ezra had been to, the amount of madmen here topped all others.

From a single glance, this section of the mountain range held thousands and thousands of madmen lined side by side as they growled.

It was a number that would kill a Nascent if they converged upon the person, so the risk of death was very real.

Therefore, he had to do things with as little mistakes as possible, else this would surely be his grave.

Moreover, Zydrax confirmed to him that the factory was located underground in one of the mountains, whose entrance was blocked off with such sections of madmen.

[Whoever created this place really doesn’t want anyone tampering with the factory]

’Tell me about it’ Ezra sighs. ’Now, how do I go about this?’

Racking his brain, Ezra came up with a plan.

Getting on the mountains surrounding the thousands of madmen, Ezra let off a slash of fire to cut off the top of the surrounding mountains and thus had large rocks fall on the congregation of madmen, destroying a good portion of them.

*Boom*

On the flip side, he had opened a path into the mountains that he could access without going to the ground filled with madmen.

So without further ado, he jumped into the mountain with the highest possibility of having the factory beneath it.

Since before long, the madmen would climb to the top of the mountain, he couldn’t afford to dilly dally.

Making his free fall, Ezra hastily hung onto the side of the mountain with Skyfall.

It was because even the insides of the mountain were filled to the brim with madmen of a number Ezra didn’t even think would be possible for such a mountain to contain.

That action caused a few rocks to break off and fall to the ground, thus calling the attention of a few madmen.

But thanks to <universal concealment>, Ezra was hidden from every kind of detection ability and thus saved.

Putting Skyfall into twin sword form, he uses it as a grapple to get down slowly, while using his darkness affinity to do a scan of the ground in order to locate anything unusual.

Anything differing from the growling madmen.

Eventually, he picked up an abnormality, a large hole lay at the extreme end of the mountain.

The only issue now was he intended to make his way there.

Tension reached its peak as Ezra took his time to think.

If dying was a possibility before, messing up here would definitely make it a certainty.

So, he racked his brain hard.

’What do I do?’