Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 429: Gatekeepers

In little time, Ezra decides his target, an island of fire.

Landing in front of this island, Ezra takes a good look at the landscape he enamoured to step in.

The landscape differs for each island in conjecture to its element.

This island’s layout sported a large number of molten rocks floating above a sea of boiling lava.

Further in, Ezra counted seven beasts arrayed across this landscape laying in wait for any visitors.

These Beasts are gatekeepers leading to the next section of the island, making this trial a straightforward one where he had to defeat a portion of the beasts in front of him.

But Ezra knew these trials would be tough, because every single one of them lay either very close to the lava or with half their bodies drenched in it, swimming with leisure.

To do such a thing, their fire resistance had to be outstanding.

Each Island is split into three sections by means of an opaque wall made of unknown material.

These walls act as gates, connoting an increase in difficulty and a proportional increase in reward gained as a matter of course.

When entering an island of the fire element, beasts with such high level fire resistance were to be expected.

What unsettled Ezra is that such beasts occupied the first section of the island, indicating that the second and third section would contain much more powerful beasts.

But on the bright side, that meant the rewards would also be better than normal.

Warming up for battle, Zydrax issues him a warning.

[Be careful. Those beasts aren’t dumb mutts]

"Sure"

Stepping into the island, Ezra passes through a thin barrier.

This thin barrier covered the entire island in the form of a dome. It acted as a restriction for the beasts to keep them from leaving.

Upon entry, waves of heat bore down on Ezra, followed by a higher gravitational force.

’Straightforward, but definitely not easy’

Staring straight at him, Ezra confirms that his intrusion hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Yet none of them deigned to attack.

’All the better for me’

Having chosen a target amongst the beasts beforehand, Ezra heads towards it.

With fur of burning red, claws of gleaming yellow and a jaw of the same colour, this beast lay five times Ezra’s size.

Holding the frame of a big cat whilst casually dipping its claws into lava, it was rightfully intimidating.

Taking notice of Ezra’s approach, the cat leisurely stretches, warming up for the upcoming battle like it was the most obvious thing.

[Ezra, stop]

Suddenly halting in his tracks, Ezra lay perplexed. "Why?"

[Fight another beast instead]

Taking a moment to consider whether to listen or disobey, Ezra steps away from the path of the cat gatekeeper.

Looking over the rest of his options, Ezra steps into the path of another beast.

This time, his opponent is a moving mass of molten rocks basking in lava.

A Golem.

This time, upon noticing Ezra, the golem explodes into a fit of rage, lashing out with his fists, creating a shower of lava.

Thus kicking off the fight.

Avoiding the falling droplets, Ezra surveys the reaction of the other gatekeepers.

To his surprise, he finds that none of them showed any signs of movement, nor were they agitated.

’Are they looking down on me...? All the better for me’

While pricked by their blatant disregard, Ezra focused. On facing the opponent before him.

Inhaling, Ezra speeds up.

Lining up the edge of his scythe with energy, he flashes past the golem as a blur.

In this instant, the other gatekeepers perked up, their leisurely disposition vanishing.

Stopping a good distance away from a counter attack, Ezra turns his gaze to the golem.

Its arm had been heavily chipped into, with the severed part covered in a layer of ice.

Melting away the ice, the golem reattaches its arm, restoring the arm to peak functionality.

Confirming the effectiveness of his attacks, Ezra quickly follows up with another strike.

This time, he struck only air.

The gatekeeper had submerged itself into lava to dodge the attack.

Surveying the lava’s surface to pinpoint the golem, an eruption occurs, prompting a large splash.

Retreating with pace, Ezra bends to the left as something hot whizzes past him, missing him with very little.

Tracing the object, Ezra discovers a broken piece of molten rock coated in lava.

Sensing the approach of another projectile, Ezra lets off an energy slash.

Cutting the projectile in half, it afflicts the golem with a scratch.

*Graaa!

Bellowing its anger, the golem steps out of the lava onto the rocky ground, its arms morphed to resemble spiked halberds.

The ground quakes as it charges straight for Ezra.

With the latter responding in kind, the two clash. Their momentous collision caused a tremor on the molten ground.

Facing the golem’s halberd with Skyfall, Ezra finds himself outmatched, as people normally would against a creature five times their size.

Outmatched in a head-on collision, Ezra switches tactics accordingly.

Matching strength with speed, the golem’s wide swings simply brushed past Ezra as he weaved with nimble movements.

In exchange, Ezra delivers fast and decisive strikes, lacerating the golem’s exterior and lining it with ice.

Despite this, only annoyance lingered on Ezra’s face.

’I’m hitting with all my strength, but it’s body is too damn sturdy’

Voluntarily retreating, the golem’s arms morph it into jagged tips-letting off a hail of magma shards.

Leaping to avoid the attack, the golem lets off a number of shards in his direction.

"Tch"

Rather avoid the attack, Ezra lets off an energy beam, extinguishing the magma shards and freezing a good portion of the golem’s head, throwing it off balance.

A rather comical sight.

*Grrra!

Looking to the stars to find its opponent, the golem is surprised to find nothing in his sights.

Eyes darting, the golem swerved in both directions looking for its opponent when suddenly, something dug right into its head.

In this instant, a stream of foreign energy flowed into its body.

Before it would process what was occurring, the energy materialized into ice, freezing it from the inside out and thus snuffing out the golem’s life force.

Rasping for breath, Ezra dislodges Skyfall from the golem’s skull, throwing off its balance.

Falling on its back like a tree, the ground cracks, with splinters of ice flying about.

"Whew"

Recovering from fatigue, Ezra looks over the golem’s body, shaking his head.

’I expected it...but that was tough’

Even with all his strength, Ezra couldn’t cut deep enough to end the battle.

With its ability to regenerate once in contact with the lava, the battle was turning into one of attrition.

When adding the disadvantage brought by the environment they were fighting in, Ezra had lesser chances of winning than losing.

’I can see why we were instructed to attack in groups’

While he had intended to not use any skill, Ezra was forced to use <universal concealment> to end the battle.

Outstretching his hand intending to induct it into the sovereign universe, the golem’s body begins to dissipate.

Breaking up into energy particles of red hue, what remained a minute later is only a small bunch of glimmering shards and a what looked like an orb of molten rock and lava made in a hurry because of the irregular and jagged edges.

In this situation, even Ezra couldn’t keep a straight face.

’That’s all of it?’

Expectant of the rewards, he is visibly disappointed.

Nevertheless, he wastes no time collecting his spoils.

In the midst of doing this, confusion came upon him as he looked up.

In the distance lay two new gatekeepers, there sudden appearance disconcerting, to say the least.

One, an abominable crustacean with a shell of light red hue and two small, delicate but sinister red eyes held up by thin socket lines.

With four legs and six gleaming razor like arms as appendages, it fit the bit as a mutated crab primed for killing.

The second, a member of the underwater species club casually swimming in lava.

But with the teeth of a shark and the face of an electric eel on a body three times that of an adult crocodile, it looked grotesque and felt like an entity that had come out straight out of a nightmare.

Looking both ways, Ezra confirms that he hadn’t accidentally ended up in their territory but they had left their territory to assemble in front of him.

Furthermore, the fact that they had gotten this close before meant they had hidden their presence and approached him while he fought the golem.

Instinctively, Ezra inducts the shards on the ground but the molten orb remained.

Barring any foreplay, the crustacean cries out and begins spinning, tossing three of its arms straight towards Ezra.

....!

With the spinning razor arms reaching him almost instantly, Ezra forgoes evasion and counters with Skyfall, only to be pushed back.

Warding away the first arm, he nimbly avoids the second warm but is grazed by the third.

*Hiss*

Instantly, the cut begins to burn, but Ezra cancels out the effects by covering it with ice.

Regaining balance, Ezra is forced into a tussle as the crustacean engages him in battle.

Leaping, Ezra steps out of the range of the crustacean’s attack, readying himself for the follow up, only to see the crustacean picking up the magma orb.

’That’s what it was after?’

Realization hit, leaving Ezra stunned for words.

[I warned you that they were intelligent]

Nodding, his surprise morphs into anger.

Taking a fighting stance, Ezra launches himself towards to crustacean with fire in his eyes.

"Give me back my reward!"ƒreewebηoveℓ.com