890 Mad Zone
"Done?" Seated on the throne in a lazy posture, the Matriarch asked the messager who just stormed into the throne hall.
The messenger was panting heavily and his blue skin turned dark red, proving he was incredibly excited about something.
Even though the members of the throne hall already guessed the news, they couldn't help but look at the messenger in anticipation.
The messenger forgot to even breathe as he said with a big smile. "The hunting teams pushed the invaders into the Mad Zone."
The faces of everyone in the room lit up and they slammed the armrests of their chair in appreciation, one of their cultural practices.
The Matriarch's lips curled into a thin smile as she witnessed this scene.
In the last thousand years, this was the highest appreciation given by the court members.
"Announce this to the citizens. We will hold a celebration for three days and three nights." The Matriarch waved her hand at the cultural minister and walked out of the room.
The ministers and courtesans that stayed behind in the throne hal whispered among themselves.
The census among everyone was that by doing something no ruler had ever done before—destroying a group of invaders—even if it's only a single group out of five—the Matriarch's prestige reached a terrifying level.
As long as she's alive, the Matriarch would have no problem being the ruler.
One of the older ministers sighed as he stroked his brown beard. "…If the invaders were directly killed off, the hunting team that killed them would've been in the spotlight. Instead, she pushed the invaders into Mad Zone where they can't live or die. Now the public will think she inflicted eternal torture on them and give her all the credit."
Everyone agreed with his analysis and sighed one more time before leaving the palace.
Not a single person even thought of the possibility of the invaders escaping from the Mad Zone.
If you're not a Sovereign, forget high level 9, even peak level 9 couldn't escape that place. And even Sovereigns needed to pay a price to escape.
Mad Zone or the Twilight Zone, as written in their scriptures, was a place of intersection. The intersection of life and death.
— — —
Boom!
With a loud bang, Varian's trio crashed onto the hard ground. The tiny but pointed grave would've pierced their skin if they didn't set up their defenses in advance.
Still, the three of them were already injured from the hunting teams' attacks. Crashing only made it worse.
But ignoring the pain, Varian jumped onto his feet and looked around while spreading his psychic sense.
The sky was blocked by thick white clouds. His psychic or any other sense was also blocked by the thick clouds. In fact, the whole sky was covered by white clouds.
The region he was in resembled a vast plain land of earth. Except the soil was purple with countless black patches spread all over the place.
But the most surprising of all was the—
"ROAR!"
There were a large number of beasts on the plain.
Even though the closest beast was fifty miles away, Varian realized that was because the area they were currently in was relatively isolated. Every other area had at least ten to twenty beasts.
Even though not all these beasts were strong, there were plenty of high level 9 and peak level 9s around. And worryingly, there were even several Sovereign auras.
Even though it was a dangerous situation, Varian didn't panic.
Sarah and Enigma too observed the areas around them while maintaining an extraordinary calmness.
Just a few seconds ago, they were hunted down and were about to be killed. And now, they're in a strange area with countless beasts.
"…Why did they throw us here?" Enigma looked up, trying to pierce her senses through the clouds and look at the hunting teams.
Sure, it's dangerous. But why let go of the prey in your hand?
"This place is weird…" Sarah said with a frown.
She waved her hand and a couple of huge weird corpses floated from the ground. With each passing second, these corpses were filled with a familiar energy. And that energy was slowly turning their purple flesh black.
"U-Undead?" Enigma's expression turned for the worse and she looked at the corpses with a hateful gaze.
Varian grabbed a corpse that looked like a giant horse and brought the strand of death energy in his body in contact with it.
The dormant death strand jumped twice and started sucking in the death energy from the corpse. A clump of death energy surged into Varian's body and caused him to stagger back.
Before Varian could even throw it away, the corpse broke down into countless small particles and flew away with the wind.
The death strand in his body strengthened slightly. Varian's lifespan was cut off by 10 minutes.
"A single corpse has a lot of death energy and it's all very pure," Varian said with a grave expression.
The Abyssals had to sacrifice tens of millions of corpses to gather the death energy in the death strand. But if they had these corpses, a hundred thousand were enough. This place was reeking of death energy.
Varian stepped forward to inspect more corpses but Sarah grabbed his arm and injected time power into his body.
This was all the time power she accumulated since the last usage and as she poured out the last drop out, Sarah's face paled.
But she didn't care about her condition and urged Varian. "The time power in your body has been unstable since we entered here. This place is more dangerous for you. Let's get out of here first."
After saying that, she gestured for them to fly.
The reason they didn't try just flying to the clouds and getting out of this place was to avoid being targeted by the beasts here.
They learned a bitter lesson in the forest: Anyone and anything flying is an open target.
Sarah was willing to risk even that. So, staying was more dangerous.
Varian and Enigma trusted her and channeled their power.
Dust flew under their feet and in the blink of an eye, the three shot up to a height of hundred meters.
But before they could fly further, a heavy pressure enveloped them and slapped them down.
BOOM!
This crash was worse than the first one.
Varian climbed out of the crater coughing. The dust slowly cleared and the three of them flew up again.
BOOM!
This crash was twice as rough as the last one. Hoping that it was just this area's fault, Varian and the girls flew to another area with a couple of level 8 beasts and flew to the sky again.
BOOM!
This crash was also twice as rough as the last one and was already capable of injuring them.
After two more attempts, they gave up trying to fly out of this place and accepted the bitter reality.
"We can't fly out of this place, we can only find an exit," Varian said as he looked around.
The exit would be the region where the thick white clouds ended. As far as Varian could see, there was no such place in sight.
And worse…
Engima noticed the beasts and Undead beasts nearby slowly moving in their direction.
They couldn't fly out—flying was prohibited.
They couldn't escape—they were being approached by beasts from all sides.
They couldn't strike peace—these beasts were reeking of crazy bloodlust. Most of the beasts were smeared in thick purple blood and were exuding tremendous killing intent.
Enigma's heart sank as she realized the danger they were going to be in. She unsheathed her sword and warned the two. "Prepare yourself. It's going to be long."
