Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 401: Concealed Confrontation

Four hours later, Ezra clears out his thirtieth building.

Storing the pill in his space ring with the label glued to it as usual, while burning the rest of the stool to dust, he exits.

He then waits a minute or two for the puppet to go and come out, thus leaving the door open, he then closes the door and leaves a right in front of it.

After running intensely for majority of the past four hours, Ezra’s body was sore all over but his energy reserves were just a bit from full capacity, having just rested.

Continuously using would do that to a person.

In exchange, Ezra’s proficiency with the skill was growing rapidly, as he used it, he became more aware of the many layers of concealment they were and could now tweak them to fit his wants easily, but he has to concentrate.

So now, he could easily tweak the skill to make him remain visible but have all other aspects of his presence erased.

Or have his presence revealed but remain invisible.

Soon, Ezra suspected he’d be able to tweak it even whilst on the move, and he was looking forward to that.

Getting out of the ten meter radius, Ezra moves a bit farther, sitting on the comfortable grassland.

’This is enough’

The buildings he had been clearing out for the past four hours were those that lay in the path of the black dragon group.

With the thirteth one, Ezra had cleared out all the buildings the black group would pass by and those nearest to them in three separate lines.

He begins looking through the gatemarks he set up at those buildings to see if people got caught in it too.

At the original location where he abducted Dekan, Ezra takes notice of movement.

Waiting ten minutes for the shadows he glimpsed to disappear completely, Ezra utilized the gatemark and crossed over to the location.

Arriving, he finds that none of the black dragons remain nearby.

The black dragon group had gotten back on their feet and finally decided to resume their treasure hunt.

After all, they could only mourn someone for so long, especially when there are treasures to be found.

Racing forth, he soon meets them in front, battling a puppet.

As he expected, it was chaos.

The impromptu attack of the puppet whilst still being more than five meters came as shock.

Normally, they would move until they were but a few steps away from the three meter distance before readying themselves and engaging the puppet.

As such, the sudden attack left them flustered and unprepared as the puppet swung its sword arm to cut the nearest dragon.

But it was parried by another dragon.

"Hold it together!"

Their leader, a rank six Transcendent.

Ezra found this out thanks to the gatemark he placed on Dekan earlier.

The leader’s voice brought them to their senses and with him holding the line, they were able to coordinate themselves, soon barraging the puppet with their attacks.

But there was another issue, unlike the somewhat conservative fighting style the puppets used normally where they advanced and retreated, this puppet focused only on attacking.

Attack, attack, attack.

The puppet moved as though blood drunk, targeting every inch of uncovered flesh of the person in front of it without caring for its own safety at all.

In the face of such rampage, even the rank six had to step up his game to avoid injuries.

Not to mention, in the face of such an offence, the puppet protected its vitals far better than before, making it several times harder to kill.

It was enough for the leader to be agitated.

’Dammit, what is this?’

Only after three minutes with the group bombarding the puppet till it was completely destroyed did the battle end.

"What was that?!" a black dragon exclaimed afterwards.

On the other hand, Ezra was also shocked.

’I might have done too much’

Since he hadn’t fought the puppets after stealing the pills, he hadn’t known they show such drastic change, which was why he estimated that a substantial amount of puppets would be needed to wear down the party before he enacted his final act to wipe them out.

’But if it’s like this...’ he thought with a smile. ’Things will end much faster than I planned’

Ezra simulated himself into the battle he just watched.

’Would I have won against it?’

With the use of skills, there is a very high chance he would die to the puppet.

Whatever constellation created this place really abhorred thieves.

Getting his answer, Ezra moves closer to the dragons, and places a on the head of the dragon farthest from the group without his knowledge.

He didn’t place gatemarks at every building he stole the pills from, so this would let him see what they were up to.

Done, he moves behind the building and pops out at his first location before coming to Dekan’s side to begin looting more pills.

Before that, he had something else he wanted to try out.

Reaching a new building, he conceals himself and steals the pill.

Once the puppet enters, he sends it into his universe with following right after with .

Floating listlessly in space, Ezra appears in front of the puppet and dispels his concealment, watching for its reaction.

Immediately, the puppet attacked him, glaring red even when Ezra further away.

With that confirmed, Ezra cuts its head off and has Viprus take care of the rest, heading back to the secret realm.

Glueing the box to its description, he races to the nearest building and conceals himself once near.

This time, rather than steal the pill, he sends the puppet into his universe first and repeats his actions.

Unlike the last one, this puppet remained dormant even after Ezra dispelled his concealment.

Nodding, Ezra mentally compiled his findings on the workings of the puppets.

The puppets stayed stationary and dormant until someone entered within three meters of their position to which they entered battle mode.

The trigger to enter battle mode is caused by the seal imprinted on the ground which lights up upon sensing an intruder, thus activating the puppet.

In the scenario where one sneaks into the room and steals the pill, the light within the building would turn red, signalling the seal which would then activate the second mode of the puppets.

A frenzied mode which would have it chase down the thief until it killed him or was destroyed.

Therefore, in the case with Ezra whom the seal couldn’t sense and the puppet couldn’t see, the second mode was activated.

But without a target, it would remain stationary until someone else would enter within ten meters of it and thus be designated the ’thief’ by the puppet and attacked.

There was no undo button, so once the second mode was activated, it could not be reversed.

The puppet would be freed from the seal’s range and chase after the designated target for however long.

Which was why even when Ezra brought it to his universe, it tried to kill him on sight.

On the other hand, if he brought the puppets into his universe while in its dormant state, the puppet, still chained to the seal’s control, would be like a headless chicken and thus be cleanly disconnected from the secret realm.

’Now, if I can somehow recreate that seal-’

When thoughts reached this point, he was interrupted.

[I can do that]

Ezra’s face lit up. ’Really?’

[Of course, but I will analyze it first, so it will take some time]

’I’m fine with that’

Now, there was more than one treasure to take.

He could use them to train other Transcendents, or gather them as an army to fight.

Ezra was excited just thinking about it, getting back to the secret realm, he grabs his reward, turns the stool to ashes and then checks on the group of black dragons.

Apparently they had fought their third battle with a frenzied puppet and this time, there were injuries, with one person gaining a deep wound.

’Good’

Seeing things going as intended, Ezra races off to the next building.

Grabbing puppets and pills, Ezra soon tries out something else and finds that the seals aren’t exclusive to a particular puppet.

Meaning, he could kidnap*cough* I mean take a puppet from one building and place it in the vicinity of another and it would work fine.

Going further, if one placed a dormant puppet in the vicinity of a building whose original puppet had been destroyed, it would remain dormant without anything to activate since the pill had already been taken.

But if placed in the vicinity of a building whose pill was stolen, it would instantly have its frenzied mode activated.

This function had Ezra smiling wickedly.

He would have to tweak his plans again.

Now, there wasn’t any need for him to move personally to finish off the group of black dragons.

This was too good.

Ezra was pumped up even more, accelerating as much as he could.

At this moment, he set himself the goal of taking at least a hundr-, no, at least two hundred puppets with him before the secret realm closed in two weeks.

Because of this, he set the deadline for wiping out the group of dragons to the end of today.

At the same time, he also put down a mental note to see if he could find other groups.

Though that was unlikely because of how far in he currently was.

******

"Haaa..."

Lipeter, leader of the group of dragons, breathed heavily as he lay his weapon on the ground.

The situation was only getting worse as they proceeded.

It was a bizarre setup where the puppets would attack them in a frenzy and then after extending themselves to fight it off, they wouldn’t find any pills within the buildings as rewards for their efforts.

And this was the third time it was happening!

The third DAMN time!

The leader felt like he was going crazy.

One of them was already critically wounded, they couldn’t keep going like this else it would only be a matter of time before they all died.

His instincts were telling him that there was something more to this situation, but there was nothing to prove the hunch.

So, in agreement with the rest, they decide to head further down the line of buildings before trying for another building.

...

Unfortunately, things didn’t go so smoothly.

Ezra, having anticipated this, had cleared the closest five buildings to the one in their path in both directions.

Having cleared two more buildings to their right, they would have to pass by three buildings in addition to reach one that hadn’t been cleared.

While they intended to do that, they still weren’t aware of the ten metre radius the frenzied puppets possess.

As such, while they passed by another building, it was inevitable for one of them to accidentally step into its range, thus enabling it to chase after them.

Seeing another puppet running towards them, the group members shook and because Lipeter didn’t want to deal with this issue once more, he gave the order to flee, in hopes of losing the puppet while he held up the injured member.

Unfortunately, this action only backfired as while they fled from the puppet, Lipeter ran across the next building and entered the range of another frenzied puppet, thus drawing it into the fray.

Lipeter had to halt as the second puppet approached them, because while he could run past them, the rest of his group would be caught in it.

Honestly, he would rather do that, but he wouldn’t be able to gather many more pills since his efficiency would slow to a crawl.

Beyond that, he would be blamed for incompetence if he survived by himself and his position would plummet.

’I can’t have that’

Standing his ground, he places the injured dragon on the floor and makes the other dragon members form a circle around the injured dragon while he stays outside of it to confront the two puppets.

The battle ensued, with the dragon wielding a sword and shield, he fends off the attacks of the two puppets, but he started to accumulate from the frenzied attacks gaining injuries, even with the others supporting him.

Two dragons came to his side to take the pressure of one of the puppets off him.

While he fought off one puppet, the others were running riot against the other two, cutting them in many places.

By the time he destroyed the puppet in front of him, one of the two dragons had died.

The puppet had sacrificed its body to stab the dragon’s throat.

With one member injured, another missing and one more dead, the other members were unwilling to continue on.

With the fact that there was no pill even in this building, Lipeter was forced to relent as well.

Without knowledge that this was the last of the frenzied puppets, they turned back to their original location.

Carrying the body of their dead comrade along.

Seeing this, Ezra’s eyes settled.

It was time to round things up.