Chapter 165: Conflict at the City Entrance (P2)

Immediately, the mana connection in the area was cleanly severed.

The cage of light flickered and dissipated into the air as if it had never existed, leaving Ryan completely free in the middle of the street.

The guard made a desperate gesture with his hands, trying to channel his magic again, forcing his core to activate the skill once more.

Absolutely nothing happened. It was as if his body had forgotten how to use mana.

"I can’t use my skills!" the guard shouted, stumbling back in terror until he crashed against the wall of the booth. "My mana isn’t responding!"

"It’s fine if you want to stay and die, stay, but I don’t want to be involved in this."

The adventurer woman said from afar, letting go of her paralyzed companion’s arm and turning around to run back into the interior of the city.

’It is too late for them to leave.’ Ryan thought. If he let people run and spread rumors, they would only cause unnecessary chaos.

"Debt Collapse."

Ryan pronounced the words, activating his second hidden control skill.

Every single person around him was struck by the force of the skill.

The woman who was trying to run, the group of petrified adventurers, the group of mercenaries that had arrived earlier, and the two guards at the gate.

None of them even had the time to scream or move. Their eyes rolled to the back of their heads and they fell unconscious onto the cobblestone ground, collapsing like marionettes whose strings had just been cut.

Absolute silence returned to the entrance of Wind Valley. Ryan, walking with the same slowness and calmness of someone strolling through their own back garden, approached and entered the small guard booth.

He looked at the wooden table and picked up the communication runestone that the guard had dropped.

"I will be borrowing this."

He stepped out of the checkpoint, stepped over the unconscious bodies of the guards and the civilians, and crossed the immense stone gates of Kalistia, leaving the city and delving into the dirt path that led toward the outer forest.

Now that Ryan was on the outskirts of the city, he walked peacefully away from the stone structure of Kalistia.

’Ophelia is supposed to come tomorrow.’ Ryan thought to himself, evaluating the time he had left before the meeting.

’So, for now, I will just concentrate on returning to the village.’

Ryan ventured a little deeper among the trees, making sure to be far from the prying eyes of any commercial patrol from the city.

He began to search his spatial inventory among his stored belongings and pulled out a flight scroll from it.

’I only have a couple of scrolls of this type, and consuming them for simple travel is inefficient.’ Ryan thought, evaluating the object with his usual progression-oriented mindset.

’But I would like to replicate its power into a permanent relic. I think that is something Runa and Mika could try to do if they combine their knowledge.’

The idea of standardizing an artifact of continuous flight for the party would be a massive achievement.

He activated the scroll, concentrating a minimal fluctuation of energy into the seal.

The scroll disappeared after activating, consuming itself in a subtle flash of light blue particles, and a blue light completely enveloped Ryan’s body.

At the exact same time, he felt gravity cease to exert pressure upon his boots, and he began to float stably above the forest floor.

’That way, if we manage to create our own intercoms and transport relics, we wouldn’t have to rely solely on Karol when it comes to going far away, or sending the squads on exterior missions.’ He finished his thought with a calculating smile.

Then, Ryan took off, propelling himself upwards with a brutal acceleration that took full advantage of his new SS-Rank physical stats.

He began to fly quickly, ascending in a straight line toward the sky. He was soon covered by the dense clouds, and not a single trace of him was left for any person or military patrol that might try to look for him from the city of Wind Valley he had left behind.

In the heights of the open sky, he was completely invisible.

Like that, he continued flying for a long stretch of the journey, maintaining a fixed direction toward the coordinates of the Sky Dungeon.

The wind blew forcefully against his face, but the density of his Templar stats cushioned the physical impact of the high-speed travel.

As he advanced through the air currents, Ryan reflected on the events that occurred at the checkpoint.

Now he had finally accomplished another one of his objectives for the party, although it was certainly by pure chance amidst the altercation with the wall guards.

And this was getting his hands on a military communication relic in perfect condition.

Of course. It wasn’t as if they could use it immediately to talk among themselves in its current state, given that the artifact could be exclusively encrypted under the internal channels of the church and the Kalistia militia.

And also the fact that with only a single piece of the relic, they wouldn’t achieve anything.

But surely leaving it in the hands of Mika and Runa would solve the problem.

’If they manage to replicate the design of this relic and make it work, I will be able to implement intercoms throughout the entire village to coordinate Beatrice and Karol in real time from the refuge.’ Ryan thought with great satisfaction.

Or at least those were Ryan’s thoughts as he headed at full speed toward the dungeon, crossing the skies like an undetectable shadow among the clouds.

His speed was constant, maximizing the duration of the scroll’s enchantment.

Finally, after several hours of uninterrupted flight over the mountain ranges, he could see the dungeon’s rift in the distance, outlined like a massive open wound.

However, as he reduced his speed to approach the exterior entrance platform, Ryan sharpened his gaze upon noticing an unusual movement in the aerial perimeter of the refuge.

There was a wyvern flying over the area erratically, tracing wide circles over the great rift as if it were impatiently guarding the surroundings.

"Is that Helen?" Ryan asked himself with evident strangeness at the scene, halting his glide to observe the warrior’s movements.

...

Author’s Note: In the comments, I’ve posted the interactive map of the important locations visited so far. Take a look at it—I’ve left it in several Chapters so everyone can see it.