761 Return (Part 1)

"A high-level rank two artefact that can change a person's appearance and aura..." Arden muttered as he crushed the mask Evan left behind.

His powerful spiritual senses covered an area of tens of thousands of kilometres, yet he found not a single trace of Evan and Cedar.

He glanced at the square-shaped artefact in his hand to locate the airship but noticed it couldn't detect the airship anymore.

'They must have placed the airship inside the storage ring,' Arden thought inwardly and clenched his fist in frustration. Because the space inside the storage ring was a completely different dimension, his artefact couldn't detect the airship's location anymore.

"To think I was fooled by a Rank One Core Evolver..." Solara muttered with an ugly look on her face and her expression fell.

After seeing how Evan disappeared into black smoke, all of them already realized that the person they had been talking to all this time was actually a clone. They were unable to detect it was a clone because of the mask he was wearing.

After creating his clone using the Shadow Clone skill, Evan had changed the clone's appearance to match the one he used in the Star City, using the mask Cedar gave him. Because of the mask's effect, Lucian and the others were unable to recognize that they were actually talking to the clone during all this time.

Illusia also wore the same mask to mimic Cedar's appearance and aura. In addition to the mask, she used her Chemilion Illusion skill as well to further enhance its effects.

Upon realizing they had been tricked by Evan and Cedar, Lucian and the others wore gloomy expressions.

Solara and Arden were upset because they lost their chance to obtain the Enlightenment Stone, while Thomas was disappointed because he couldn't capture Evan. Despite their frustration, they maintained some level of rationality and contemplated their next steps.

In contrast, Lucian's mind was in complete chaos, and his face turned pale as if all the blood had been drained from his body.

Not only did he lose the Enlightenment Stone, but the reputation of the Bloodmoon auction house would also plummeted down because of this incident. Additionally, he had asked Solara and the others to give their storage rings to Evan. Now that Evan had somehow escaped with their storage rings, he would have to compensate them for their losses.

When Lucian looked at Arden and the others, he noticed that although they were upset, they were not overly concerned about the matter because ultimately, they did not suffer any losses.

Even the storage rings they gave to Evan didn't matter because Lucian would bear full responsibility for that. All four of them had their own ways to recover the Essence Stones they had given to Evan.

'I am doomed...' Lucian thought with a despair-filled expression, and swore that he would definitely seek revenge against Evan and Cedar in the future.

****

A few thousand kilometres away from the Dark Forest, a jet-black airship suddenly stopped flying, and Evan and Cedar flew out of it.

"Quickly put the airship inside your storage ring," Evan said, and Cedar complied, stashing the airship away.

Once Cedar placed the airship inside the storage ring, both of them flew towards the Dark Forest as fast as they could.

Evan had destroyed his clone just a few seconds ago, so although he knew Lucian and others were far away from them, he still wanted to get back inside the closed world of the Drayds as soon as possible.

In just a few minutes, both Evan and Cedar arrived outside of the Dark Forest and rushed inside without caring about the people who were camping outside.

The people who were camping outside were curious when they saw Evan and Cedar rushing inside the Dark Forest in such a hurry, but they didn't think too much about it.

Once inside the Dark Forest, Evan and Cedar didn't stop and continued to move into the deeper area. While moving, Cedar monitored their surroundings using his spiritual senses.

After a few minutes, when Cedar confirmed that there was no one around them and no one was monitoring them using their spiritual senses, both of them stopped.

After stopping, Cedar took out a small silver-coloured paper from his storage ring. The paper was engraved with a rune, emitting strange power fluctuations.

Holding the paper in his hand, Cedar approached a random tree and affixed the silver-coloured paper to it. Instantly, the tree began to emit a silver-coloured glow.

Looking at the glowing tree, Evan recalled his previous entry into the closed world of the Drayds with Ashley.

'It seems they can open the entrance to the closed world anywhere within the Dark Forest using that rune,' Evan thought to himself as he watched a portal manifest in the middle of the tree.

Seeing the portal, Cedar sighed in relief and turned to Evan.

"Let's go," He said and entered the portal first. Evan followed after Cedar and entered the portal as well.

The moment Evan and Cedar entered the portal, it disappeared, and the tree returned to its normal state. The rune paper that Cedar had attached to the tree turned into ashes and scattered into the air.

Upon entering the portal, Evan felt a sudden increase in the density of the World Essence and soon found himself standing in the middle of a grassy plain.

"Finally safe," Cedar breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the familiar environment around him, and all of his tense muscles relaxed.

Evan also sat down on the ground and rubbed his eyebrows. Although they had somehow managed to escape, his mind had been working at full speed the entire time.

'That was dangerous if they had caught us...' Evan said to himself and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, he thought about something, and a smile appeared on his face.

"Although it was dangerous, the benefit that I received wasn't small," Evan muttered in a low voice as he looked at the four storage rings that were inside his shadow storage.