Getting out was certainly easier said than done. But since Ryker had dared to take this step, he also had a solution for a way out.

He pulled out the sundial once again and looked at it, calculating some things.

“Hey, big guy!” Ryker shouted to the rampaging God Beast. “Shut up, will you?!”

This only infuriated the old Cyprus Seaking all the more, but Ryker didn’t pay any more attention to it after that. He needed the old thing as muddle-headed as possible.

Ultimately, it was clear that this beast was already past its prime and growing a bit senile. While the Cyprus Seakings wanted to protect their young, they obviously weren’t willing to have one of their true peak experts take on the burden.

Though, to be fair to the parents of these youths, it was likely that the God Realm experts were the ones that refused to waste their time away here. So in the end, it had fallen on the front step of this poor old soul with a foot in the grave.

Even more obviously, they didn’t completely trust this senile God Beast either, or else this barrier wouldn’t have nearly so much invested into it. It was actually capable of withstanding the blows of a God Beast and it seemed that it would hold up for several more days with ease. And that was only if this old beast kept up the intensity of attack, something that wasn’t guaranteed given its age.

The reason all of this was important was because it meant that Ryker could rest easy for at least a few moments and find a way to escape.

But he couldn’t give himself so much time.

No matter how senile the old thing, soon enough it would notice that it could do nothing alone. It would then be forced to lay down its pride and call for reinforcements, and in that case, whoever came would certainly have a method of easily moving in and out of this formation without disturbing the Spirit Patterns. By then, he would truly be screwed.

So, there was only one real path out of here. But first, he needed a contingency plan.

“Prometheus.”

Chains rattled to life on Ryker, and at that moment, a purplish flame, which sometimes appeared to be a rain of water, descended. In an instant, every one of the eggs had one of the purple flickers hovering above them.

Ryker drew a Spiritual Pattern in the air with great focus, and all the flames solidified, becoming small chains wrapped in the Dao of Sealing.

The God Beast outside seemed to truly be going crazy. When it saw this scene, it thought that Ryker was going to kill all of their young.

It bashed against the formation again and again, to the point even its body began to bleed and its old leaf-shaped scales began to fall from its body.

When the seals were set, Ryker relaxed a bit. Even if something unexpected happened, he was now confident in dealing with it.

“Help me out, Prometheus,” Ryker spoke as he pulled the violet, flickering chain away from his body.

The timid turtle-turned-woman was stunned. Ryker was speaking to that chain as though it was a Spirit Beast, but was that—

Her eyes opened wide as the chains began to change and morph. Before her eyes, it bundled itself up into a tight, spiraling cone that quickly became a bonfire of flames. Yet, these flames were neither hot nor cold… instead, they were comfortable, while somehow also giving her an unprecedented sense of danger.

Ryker pulled out more refined alloys from the prison and began to smelt them. It would take quite a great deal longer if he were to use normal flames, but he had long since come to realize that Prometheus’ flames were far from the norm.

They didn’t just melt things, but they targeted the very essence of a thing, deconstructing it from its foundation. In this way, it was even more effective at separating the foundational parts of an alloy than heat alone.

It only took a few minutes of focused attention. Unlike with the Earth Flame, these flames were under Ryker’s sole control, and because of that, he could direct it more efficiently. As such, despite Prometheus having far less power than the Federation Iteration’s Earth Flame, the effectiveness was on another level.

When it was done, Ryker took the globules of ores that emitted the aura of the Dao of Space and began to lay down a formation in the very same region that he had taken the two eggs from. This region also happened to be the region of highest concentrated energy, but now Ryker was tainting and changing it.

In order to make it into this barrier, he had made use of the spatial connection the sundial formed with the egg to make it through. If he wanted to make it out, he would have to do the same exact thing but on a much larger scale.

He seemed to have completely forgotten the woman behind him, but he was still inwardly stunned. From start to finish, the woman had never truly shown fear. This meant that she was either truly so confident in her own abilities to escape even in the face of all this danger… or, she had a trump card that could ignore all of this.

This made him far more curious about the powers in this world, but he also had no intention of sticking around for an extended period of time. At least not for now.

He wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because they were fighting against the same enemy, they were allies. That would be a child’s level of thought and understanding.

This world should have been established for a very long time. It definitely had its own politics and intricacies. If they found out that Ryker had most definitely antagonized the jailers on the other side by taking over their gate, their reaction was unlikely to be fond.

While it wasn’t to the point that he’d see them as an enemy, he also wouldn’t walk into the tiger’s den without more confidence.

Stolen story; please report.

These people could wield Daos unlike his own Iteration. As such, it was impossible for him to leap through so many Realms to do battle.

Until he was more confident, he couldn’t allow himself to get caught up.

And in order to draw that clear line, he would get out of this situation himself.

He had a feeling that the woman was being so casual was because she first, wanted to observe him, and second, might even want to lend a helping hand at an opportune time so that he would owe her a favor.

He could see through these sorts of games of politics with ease. That was why he had been even more flirty than usual. He wanted to test this woman’s bottom line, and the fact she had withstood his advances instead of lashing out like a woman of her caliber would do in almost any other situation told him one very simple thing…

He had to be cautious of her.

If not for the situation, he wouldn’t have exposed her at all. But he wanted to know more about this world and quite soon…

He planned to leave.

Half an hour later, the rampaging of the old beast came to a stop and the underwater hurricane trembled.

Ryker’s lip curled as he finished the last strokes of his formation. He could tell that about 15 minutes ago, the senile old beast had come to its senses and called for help. It continued to rampage as a facade, but it was just unfortunate that its intentions couldn’t escape Ryker’s Pure Soul.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

The timid turtle woman looked into the distance as though she was curious to see what would happen now. But in the end, she was shocked to feel a fluctuation that shook her to the core.

Ryker took a step into the formation and saluted to the woman.

“Since you’re so confident, good luck.”

“Wait—!”

She was a step late.

All this time, she hadn’t been sure of what Ryker was doing. He was drawing trenches into the ground, and filling them with melted ores, but there was something peculiar about it all.

From the beginning, it looked as though he was targeting the eggs, as though he was planning on using the eggs as a pathway out of here. Essentially: hostages.

She had been 100% certain of this. She wasn’t a fool, and could be considered a top genius even in this world.

But she had never expected that she would be fooled.

She had made a mistake.

Ryker was someone who had managed to see through her identity, how could his plan have been so simple?

She had mistaken the sundial for a formation-breaking treasure and didn’t understand its true abilities. If she had known, maybe she would have come to understand that from the very start…

Ryker had been playing her.

She turned as her heart shook.

The underwater hurricane seemed to be ripped apart by several furious auras. They bore down from above, their bodies as large as worlds and their momentums causing the formation that was capable of blocking God Beasts to crack and almost fall apart.

The timid turtle woman’s expression became ugly. She had been waiting all this time for an opportunity to save and reel Ryker in. But in the end, she had been caught holding the hot potato in the end.

**

Ryker appeared by a deep trench and sent a glance behind him.

It was a shame. He had wasted so much of that precious ore.

If the timid turtle woman knew what he was thinking, she would probably be infuriated, especially if she knew that the prison in Ryker’s hands was capable of regenerating the ores that he took from it.

Of course, the reason Ryker was lamenting was because he knew that there was no such thing as an infinite resource. Eventually, he would take enough from the prison that it wouldn’t be able to continue regenerating.

That said… he was a far-off distance from that.

Ry

ker grinned. “The gains this time aren’t bad.”

As for the woman, he didn’t really think about her again. He doubted she would die, but even if she did, he wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

…

Ryker appeared in a familiar trench deep in the ocean. He knew that he had returned by the lack of Dao in the air.

‘I’ll have to be careful if I return. It’s possible that they’ll be watching this entrance. Maybe they might even send people in…’

Ryker threw these matters to the back of his mind for now.

If there was one portal, there was likely another. And by the woman’s words, it was likely that these portals were located in regions that were extraordinarily difficult to reach, regions that likely would require some comprehension of the Dao to touch.

In that case, he could definitely find another entrance, while the woman had no idea that he had gleaned so much information from just a single sentence.

Ryker’s gaze flashed with a dangerous light. Now that he had succeeded, it was about time to commit some murder.

…

The Stonehart, Riversong, and Shadowvale Clans.

The Mystery Master Alliance was said to be an Alliance that accepted all those that had the talent to become Mystery Masters and had a place especially for those combat geniuses... the Innate Battle Geniuses. However, all of this essentially boiled down to the power of three families.

Today, three descendants of this family stood, wearing black cloaks. However, when the robes fluttered too wildly, it was possible to see Gold Crescents on their chests…

Crescents that represented the rank of Gold Innate Battle Geniuses. At the same time, the aura of Third Ascendeds came from their bodies.

They stood imposingly on the coastline, but their expressions were furrowed. They had been here for almost three days now, and yet there was no sign of Ryker. Could it be that he had run away? Or used another exit?

They were starting to get impatient, and as they did so, their Spirit Energy lashed out at the air, slicing through space and leaving the winds volatile and deadly.

However, it was then that a figure slowly walked out of the water.

He was so in tune with it that they didn’t notice him immediately. Even with the sun shining bright above, it wasn’t until he was already 50 meters from them and he was slowly walking on the water’s surface that they noticed him.

“The Mystery Master Alliance sent three ants to deal with me? It seems you’re not taking me seriously at all.”

The moment Ryker spoke, his killing intent exploded and the calm waters roared. A circular barrier formed around his feet, forming the only region of calm. But as for the rest of the ocean, it felt as though a slumbering dragon was awakening within its depths.

“Ryker Valor—”

“Not interested.”

A peel of water came up from the ocean and the Gold Innate Battle Genius who spoke found their head flying into the air.

The other two were taken aback and shaken, but they reacted quickly, one pulling out a great sword and another summoning an armor that shredded their black cloak apart. Out from the gauntlets of this armor, a pair of daggers extended and they rushed forward with a furious vengeance.

Ryker didn’t move.

He stood on the water, his hands clasped behind his back and his breathing calm.

Another blade of water took shape and sent the head of the swordsman into the air.

The armor-wearing Gold Innate Battle Genius found his legs trapped and soon a prison of water formed around him. Oxygen was pulled out of his lungs and nitrogen was separated from his bloodstream as Ryker rapidly changed the pressure in the water prison.

In an instant, the genius felt as though he was fading. But it was then the bubble popped.

Ryker walked forward calmly, picking the man up by his collar and looking him in the eye.

“I really want to kill all of you, but if I do, who will tell the Mystery Master Alliance what happened here? Go back. I would suggest you hurry. With the gasses in your bloodstream right now, you probably only have a few hours left to live at best even if you’re an Ascended. Maybe if you make it back, you can save your life.”

Ryker tossed the man into the water.

The water rolled and formed a sphere before it shot the man out like a cannon. In an instant, he had disappeared several kilometers into the distance.

Ryker continued to walk forward as though nothing had happened, not even bothering to clean up the corpses. It was like he wanted the world to know.

“It’s time to go see my wife.”

A smile appeared on his face as he strolled into the distance. From start to finish, not even a speck of water touched him.