Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 353: Failure

Landing in front of the dungeon, Ezra plates ice over the ground, cooling off the scorching soil where the molten rock landed whilst turning the monster exiting the dungeon into ice statues.

Lacing skyfall with Lightning, he casually swings, breaking apart the iced monsters.

Then, he takes out Bezart’s mana core and absorbs it.

As with Gaza’s mana core, he absorbs about twenty percent before disposing of the rest.

He felt a substantial difference in the effects of the absorption.

Bezart’s mana core gave an insubstantial increase to his cultivation while Gaza’s mana core made the fight worthwhile.

’Considering the difference in their strengths, I guess it makes sense?’

With this, he advanced from the fringes of Peak Mythic rank.

At this point, reaching Transcendent rank was but a matter of time.

With the dungeon’s help, that time would be shortened.

Placing his hand on the dungeon’s entrance, the artifact prompts the absorption of a foreign energy.

—-------------

On the other side, the draped figure notices it immediately.

"Khasavar. Its started again"

"What has?" Khasavar replies.

"Something has started sapping our essence reserves again. Its preventing more troops from going through"

Khasavar was annoyed.

"What are those buffoons doing?! How is this happening right under their noses?"

"Khasavar" the draped figure calls. "You don’t think something could’ve happened to them?"

"We scoured the planet for months" Khasavar retorts. "There is not a single rank six on it"

Then, Khasavar’s eyes glimmered as a thought popped into his head.

"Perhaps...have they decided to betray me?"

"Let’s not jump to conclusions, we still-Hmm?"

Towards explaining, he abruptly stops, his attention back to the transparent screens in front of him.

"What is it?" Khasavar asked.

"Whatever’s sapping the essence just got faster" he replies. "If things go on like this, we will lose all the essence"

"Khasavar, should I close the gateway?"

"Let’s wait a while. If nothing changes, we’ll close it"

Nodding, the draped figure follows the screen’s data with rapt attention.

—---------

’Zydrax, what’s happening?’

Back on Orion, Ezra stood in front of the gate, absorbing its energy.

Things were going at the normal pace when a sudden spike occurred and the artifact started absorbing the dungeon’s energy much faster.

[Calm down, nothing’s wrong]

Ezra breathed a sigh of relief.

[At this rate, you’ll reach Transcendent rank in a few days, a week at most]

’Yeah’

Ezra was excited.

—---------

"Khasavar, it’s not showing any signs of slowing down"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk"

Khasavar clicks his tongue, thinking.

"Can’t we overload it?"

"Yes?"

"Something’s eating up our essence. So why don’t we kill it through over feeding?"

Khasavar grinned, convinced he’d found a solution to the problem.

"Direct all essence reserves to this dungeon and force our troops through"

"If we’re going to use that much essence, wouldn’t it be better that you go yourself?"

Khasavar gave the draped figure a chilling glare, spitting out his next words with a sinister tone. "And leave you at the helm of affairs?"

"Seem I’d mistakenly thought myself to have proved my abilities"

"You have, and I’ve promised you a greater reward for your competence"

How differently things would’ve gone had he listened to the suggestion.

"I see. Forgive me for that sleight" he says. "What are your orders?"

"Direct every bit of essence we have left towards this dungeon and force our troops through. Whatever’s sapping the essence will either stop or self-destruct by its own greed"

Of the original twenty thousand army, less than seven thousand now remained.

By Khasavar’s order, all of them started entering the gateway almost simultaneously.

In the passing of almost two hour’s time, the last of the monsters entered, returning the planet back to its desolate atmosphere.

Khasavar gave his command.

"Begin!"

With synchronized movements, they redirected the reserves of spatial essence from all other gateways.

This would push through whatever force was sapping the essence and drastically increase the speed of transportation, making it at least five times faster.

—-----------

On the other hand, Ezra was still grinning, excited at the prospects of a breakthrough as he felt his cultivation rise by the droplet.

The dungeon entrance lights up, startling him.

Without respite, the essence level spikes, rising to ten times its former amount.

The disproportion caused by sudden influx of essence made Ezra’s whole body spasm.

"Ack!"

Intent on backing off, Zydrax’s voice resounds.

[Don’t stop. Keep going!]

"Ack!" Ezra grunts as the essence levels continue to rise.

’Are, you sure, about this?’

The sensation was causing the brain to lag, so he conveyed his thoughts slowly.

[...Yes]

Ezra couldn’t believe him even if he wanted to. With such a tone, it seemed even Zydrax didn’t believe it.

’I’d rather, not die, like this’

With his thoughts already lagging, he had to strain his mind to take his hand off the entrance.

Essence levels spike once more, throwing him off rhythm with terrible migraine.

Shaking his head to gain back his focus, the dungeon brightens even more, raising essence levels to the extreme.

Like a dam rupturing, too much essence floods into his system.

The shock causes Ezra to visibly vibrate, because of the fast adsorption of essence, the suction force holds him in place.

Although his cultivation level was rising at an absurdly fast pace, he was still suffering because he was absorbing essence faster than he could refine it, and then absorbing even more essence.

Ezra felt as if he would explode if it went on any longer.

"I can’t. Hold. On...!"

But he couldn’t pull himself away! The artifact greedily sucked in the essence without reservation.

[Ezra!]

Zydrax tries to swap Ezra’s consciousness for his, but fails.

"Ahh!"

Screaming as pain overwhelmed him, Ezra didn’t notice himself floating.

As Ezra’s screams die out, his eyes whitens and his hands come off the dungeon entrance almost effortlessly as the dungeon’s essence starts to unravel around him, swirling.

Like a spider knitting its meal in a web, the essence exiting the dungeon wrapped around Ezra, cocooning him in the shape of a large ball.

Zydrax could only watch helplessly, unable to intervene.

But as he observed, he shook with untold emotions.

"This..."

—----------

On the other hand, the draped figure thought he was having a nightmare.

"SIR! The gateway’s origin essence is being siphoned. What do we do?!"

Rather answer, the draped figure turns to his own boss for an overall command.

"Khasavar, the plan isn’t working. None of the troops have landed and the essence is just being siphoned faster. We’ll be emptied out if this goes on any longer"

"Cut the connection and stand by for further orders"

"What about those within?" The draped figure asked.

"If you can save them, do so, and If you can’t...that’s also fine"

With quick hands, his orders are carried out.

But there’s a problem.

"Khasavar, something’s wrong" the draped figure calls.

"We can’t redirect the essence!"

"What?" Khasavar’s perplexed.

"The connection is being held down by whatever’s draining the essence, we can’t cut it off!"

As he speaks, the downward spiral keeps up and seconds later, the gateway’s essence bottoms out right before their eyes.

All their essences reserves were emptied just like that.

The gateways, all the gateways, shut down immediately.

Well, thanks to Khasavar redirecting essence from all other dungeons, all the dungeons except for the largest one were already dormant.

This just made sure they would stay that way.

The line connecting and transporting things from one end to another fell apart like dust.

As one would infer, all seven thousand beasts died.

Without the essence maintaining the connection, they simply fizzled out of existence.

Worse, with the essence lost, the complex screens used to observe the situation died out.

—-----------

The siphoned essence was swirling around Ezra.

Covering him like a cocoon, it lay above the gigantic dungeon and by absorbing more essence, it had ballooned enough for three Ezra’s to fit.

The dungeon’s essence had an uncanny similarity to mana, being of a clear blue colour.

The swirling orb of essence no doubt grasped the attention of all those nearby.

But none dared to get close.

The force it generated was constantly destroying the soil below it, only the dungeons lay steady under such intense assault.

The moment the last of the dungeons essence was drawn, the essence lit up momentarily and the dungeons entrance faded like it was never there.

Ezra began experiencing significant change as the artifact absorbed the essence.

Five minutes later, the last of the essence was absorbed rk reveal Ezra.

Afloat with his head hunched towards the sky, his eyes lifeless and his body unmoving, he looked like a corpse.

But his insides, where the eye couldn’t see, was extraordinarily active.

Especially the artifact planted in his heart.

From looking like a big puff of blinding white light before, it constantly changed shape as sides of black, blue and gold popped up.

All of a sudden, it started sending waves of coloured energies, mana, negative mana and dimensional essence, through Ezra’s body, while still changing shape.

Disassociating from its ball shape, it reassembles itself into a more complex form, its original form.

A Cube.

The moment the artifact settled into a shape, Ezra’s body let out a wave of blue essence, jolting him awake.

"Ah. What happened?"

He groans, stretching his neck as his eyes reclaim its crimson hue.

Still switching between shades of Black, Blue and Gold, the cube was just big enough to be held between one’s index and thumb.

[You’re about to breakthrough, go higher]

"Huh?"

[If you breakthrough here, you could destroy half of Quartez. Go into the clouds, Now!]

With die haste, Ezra blew right into the sky.

—--------

On Khasavar’s side, the spectacle rendered everyone mute.

With Khasavar’s palpable aura shrouding the surrounding, they feared their lives may be forfeit if they breathed loudly.

Releasing an enormous sigh, the frozen atmosphere melts almost immediately.

"The plan has failed" he says, forcing himself to keep a calm tone.

"Drava, status check"

Unlike the others, the draped figure, Drava, is quick to respond.

"At the moment, we’ve lost contact with all dungeons and the troops have either defaulted or perished"

Khasavar slammed his hand on arranged equipment.

Bam!

The whole place shook.

"Dammit! What is this?!"

The tiniest bit of his frustration was let out as he calmed himself.

"Everything was riding on this" he speaks in a sober tone. "How, just how did it fail?"

In his anger, he caught Drava by his clothes and pulled him off the floor.

"There were no rank six on that planet. Those bastards betrayed me, and you must be in it too. Who are you working for? Answer me?!"

"I swear by Calde-Ack!"

Gripping his throat to stop his words, Khasavar seemed "You won’t fool me those words!"

Seeing that he was in real threat of dying, Drava scrambled a few words.

"We still have the coordinates to planet, you just have reach there before anyone else to claim it"

"Tch" clicking his tongue, Khasavar’s anger lessened and he tossed Drava aside.

"If it was that simple, I would’ve done it already"

Coughing, Drava replies. "I’m sure if anyone can think of something, you can"

Khasavar nodded, taking a deep breath. "Indeed I will"

He wasn’t going to take this defeat lying down.