Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 411: Madmen Factory

Ezra looked over the horde of madmen, racking his brain.

Using darkness affinity, he had vaguely determined the factory’s location, but getting there is a whole different problem entirely.

There is the option of using <Teleportation> to appear in front of the large hole, but Ezra forwent that option.

It was far too risky.

All he had seen was the outline of a large hole.

If he teleported there only to discover that it is just another den of madmen and ended up in their midst, he would get attacked within seconds and die just like that.

But, apart from that, there was little else he could do to avoid the horde.

Already on the eighth day, Ezra was in a hurry to confirm the factory’s location.

He had no thoughts on giving up, he had come too far to do so.

So, Ezra changed his thinking.

’If I can’t avoid them, I’ll just brute force my way through’

He soon came up with a much more feasible plan to get across.

With Skyfall in sword form, Ezra carefully went down deeper into the mountain until he was but a few meters from touching the growling madmen.

Then, he set off his darkness affinity by pouring it over their shadows, extending it slowly until it covered every inch of land within the mountain.

’Let’s do this’

Taking a deep breath...Ezra deactivated <Universal Concealment>, instantly alerting nearby madmen!

But, before the effects would even fade, Ezra set off an attack.

Pouring out a large amount of energy, he used the carpet of darkness he laid beforehand as the base for another elemental attack.

Ice.

Instantly, ice sprouted from the darkness, enveloping each and every one of the madmen from head to toe in less than five seconds, turning them all into giant ice cubes.

Without hesitation, Ezra heated up the sole of his feet and started running across the mountain.

Using the madmen turned ice cubes as stepping stones, he swiftly got past them, moving with large strides.

Armed with Ladium, the madmen were naturally resistant to elemental attacks, added to the fact that large scale attacks are naturally weaker than an individual one, it is a given that the ice would not hold them for long.

Perhaps a minute, optimistically, yet it took vast amounts of energy to deploy.

It was for this reason that Ezra deactivated <Universal Concealment>, else the use of the two skills would have the energy cost for such an attack skyrocket.

To compensate for the weak overall effect, Ezra focused more energy towards freezing the madmen on the opposite end, closer to the large hole he was heading to.

This made it such that those closest to Ezra at the time of the attack were the first to break off the ice.

With those close to them breaking off, they soon tried to chase Ezra.

But at this point, Ezra had long passed over them, already halfway across the distance to his destination.

As he stepped over the ice cubes in haste, one of them suddenly broke through, showcasing a sharp metal palm.

He had strengthened the ice on this section to ensure that it lasted long enough for him to get through.

Perhaps he had missed one or this madman was stronger than others? Ezra had no interest in the answer.

He casually avoided the madman, circumventing its surroundings as he headed towards his objective.

But things wouldn’t end so easily.

The madman broke off the rest of the ice and pounced on its fellow iced madmen as it growled loudly.

Taking beast form, it chased after Ezra, using the blocks of ice as stepping stones as well.

At the loud growls, Ezra took a glance behind him.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance at the nuisance chasing after him before picking up his pace.

’I can’t get tangled up here’

He weaves across the icicles of madmen like a gust of wind, all while sounds of breaking ice resound behind him.

With just thirty seconds passed, the madmen were beginning to break out of the ice en masse.

Regardless, Ezra did not look back, simply racing towards the hole in the wall as fast as possible.

He focuses his gaze to pierce through the darkness within and discern its contents.

Ten seconds later, Ezra got within five feet of the large hole and decisively leapt off an iced madman, entering the cave in one fell swoop.

As he entered, Ezra twisted his body to face the horde of madmen.

Closest to him, the madman chasing after him in beast mode neared the hole as well.

It picked up the pace, lunging at Ezra like a cat hunting prey.

With a stern face, Ezra took out Skyfall and poured energy into it, heating it up with fire before letting off an attack.

The attack let off a fire slash which saw the madman neatly split in half like a sandwich.

It fell to the floor like a piece of scrap metal.

With the nuisance dispatched, Ezra took a look at the horde of madmen.

Far in the distance, he saw the wave of madmen clamoring towards him as they jumped, pushed and shoved one another, causing the entire wave to trip into itself, making the scary sight into a childish mess.

Having reached his goal, Ezra quickly concealed himself once more before the nearest of the frozen madmen broke off the ice.

Turning around, he stared deeper down the hole he entered.

Just as he had speculated, the large hole was an entrance, or rather, an exit from which newly created madmen came through to join the rest.

That would explain the enormous horde at the bottom of the mountain.

To note, this was indeed Zydrax’s explanation.

The large hole showcased a well dug out path leading underground as though it was mined through.

The path was wide enough to accommodate Ezra without having to crouch or bend his head.

Not only was it neat, but also excessively smooth.

He left a <Gatemark> and prepared to descend into the tunnel.

But as he would begin his descent into the path, the sound of metal grating hit his ears.

Moreover, the sound got louder as seconds passed, signifying that the object was approaching.

It was very easy to guess what it was.

Sure enough, a madman popped out into the final stretch of the tunnel, growling as it ran towards where the other madmen were congregated.

Pulling out Skyfall, Ezra beheaded it in one swoop, inducting the body into his universe.

With that, Ezra confirmed that whatever was either creating or sending out madmen lay at the end of the tunnel.

Walking in strides, Ezra soon went beyond the first stretch of the tunnel.

Taking a turn to his left, he went out of sight from the entrance as he walked in deeper.

Meeting another madman, he stabbed its neck with Skyfall in sword form, dispatching it quickly.

After two minutes, he ended up at another open space.

The first thing he saw was a cut out space in a large black metal wall.

Following the metal wall with his eyes, Ezra ended up staring upwards till his neck was almost bending.

That’s how large the factory was.

"Wow"

Ezra let out in admiration as he took in the rest of the room.

It is a ginormous room hosting an equally ginormous machine.

Built like a tower, the machine was not only enormous but extensively tall.

Looking at it, Ezra couldn’t help but wonder whether his plan was even feasible.

’Will Zydrax be able to handle something like this?’

But the person in question swiftly responded.

[What nonsense are you thinking?! Of course I can handle it]

With that, Ezra suppressed the anxiety that wanted to sprout.

At all times, Ezra could hear gears moving with fumes being released as the factory did its work.

Leaping, Ezra climbed the factory to get a better look at the inner workings.

Going higher, he could see multiple metal appendages lined at the top of it just like those in the AlphaNova base that helped him lift the Astral Beast corpse.

Each appendage was assisting in putting together a new madman, placing its parts against one another before it then went down the end of the tuning row and fell deeper into the factory.

[Now I’m certain] Zydrax said.

[This secret realm was built by an Automaton, someone from the machine race. They are the only one who would go this far with machinery when creating a secret realm]

A good observation, but one that I didn’t do them much good.

During the time it was away from prying eyes, the puppet was fitted with all the needed tune ups to make it a proper madman.

The madman then came out below, only for its eyes to glow red as it ran off into the corridor.

As for where the pieces of the bodies of the madmen came from before being assembled, one would have to look beyond the ginormous tower until they sighted the pieces being let down from above, held by a small thin string.

’It seems the factory is even more than what it seems’ Ezra thought as he leaped even higher.