The appearance of the first conscious participant imdiately drew everyone's attention.
Several elders quickly stepped forward.
"Are you alright?"
"What happened inside?"
"Where are the others?"
Questions ca from all directions, forcing the exhausted youth to steady himself before responding. His breathing was still uneven, but he managed to answer a few things.
Before long, more figures began erging from the portal.
Unlike the earlier wave, these participants landed on their feet or quickly pushed themselves upright after hitting the ground. Though they looked tired and their auras were weakened, they were clearly still conscious.
Soon a small group of them had gathered near the elders of their respective factions.
Naturally, the questioning began imdiately.
Within a short ti, the people outside began piecing together fragnts of what had happened inside the realm.
The first important discovery quickly explained the strange situation with the unconscious participants.
According to the conscious youths, the realm had contained a special type of orb that could rapidly increase one's cultivation.
Many of the participants had absorbed those orbs the mont they found them.
The conscious participants were mostly those who had absorbed only
a small amount or had chosen not to absorb the cultivation orbs at all.
The elders listening to this information imdiately frowned.
Clearly sothing inside the realm had gone very wrong.
Unfortunately, the story the conscious participants could tell was incomplete.
None of them knew the full truth of what had happened.
Only three people inside the realm had truly witnessed the core of the disaster.
The Tenth Prince.
Renn.
And Michael.
Yet none of them had erged from the portal yet.
More importantly, no one outside even realized how important those three figures were to understanding the truth of the situation.
The gathered factions continued questioning the returning youths. Eventually they also learned how many of their people had died.
So had fallen in fights against other participants. The cultivation orbs had been extrely tempting treasures, and several conflicts had broken out because of them.
Others had been killed by strange faceless monsters that road the realm.
Those creatures had been the source of the cultivation orbs.
However, there was at least one piece of good news.
The strange orbs the participants had brought back were not the sa as the cultivation orbs they had absorbed inside the realm.
These new orbs appeared different.
According to the conscious youths, they contained knowledge.
So participants had already absorbed a few of them inside the realm, and the results had been harmless.
The energy inside those orbs did not forcibly increase cultivation. Instead, they transferred fragnts of knowledge directly into the mind.
Because of that, they seed safe and potentially extrely valuable. This was good news for the factions that were unwilling to suffer heavy losses without gaining anything in return.
As the discussions continued and more fragnts of the story were pieced together, the unstable portal continued releasing the
remaining participants.
A few more figures were expelled one after another.
Among them were several individuals whose appearance drew brief attention from the surrounding factions.
Michael appeared at one point, landing steadily before quietly moving aside. Not long after, Arianne was also expelled from the portal. Uga followed later, his massive fra crashing onto the reinforced ground before he slowly rose to his feet. Renn appeared soti after as well, carrying an unconscious prince over his shoulder as he erged from the collapsing realm.
Aside from Michael and Arianne, the others did not arrive together.
However, none of them beca the center of attention for long. The clearing was too crowded, the situation too tense, and too many other participants were still being thrown out of the portal for any
one individual to draw prolonged focus.
Yet as ti passed, sothing strange gradually beca apparent to
everyone present.
A certain group had not appeared.
The empire team.
The strongest group among all the factions that had entered the
realm had yet to return.
A strange silence slowly spread through the clearing as people began
realizing this.
No one openly spoke about it.
But many could not help glancing upward.
High above the clearing, several figures from the empire floated
silently in the air.
They had been there since the first wave of participants had
appeared.
From their vantage point they had heard the scattered reports, the bits of information gathered from the returning youths, and the growing uncertainty surrounding the events inside the realm.
Their expressions were unreadable.
No one dared to stare at them for long.
Because by now everyone could sense it. Sothing had gone terribly wrong inside the realm.
And there was a terrifying possibility that no one wanted to be the
first to ntion.
The empire group had entered with overwhelming strength. Among them was a royal prince.
If that entire group had fallen inside the realm, then this expedition would no longer be a simple exploration gone wrong.
It would beco sothing far more troubleso.
The silence in the clearing slowly grew heavier. More participants had already returned.
Most of the factions had accounted for at least a portion of their
people. So had recovered almost all of their youths, while others had only retrieved a handful. Even so, the chaotic flow of participants
coming out of the portal had begun to slow.
Everyone could see it.
The unstable gateway was weakening rapidly.
The ripples across its surface beca more violent. The circular edge
of the portal warped and shrank slightly with each pulse of spatial
energy.
The mages responsible for maintaining the formation exchanged uneasy looks.
One of them stepped forward again, his eyes fixed on the trembling
gateway.
"The realm is collapsing faster now," he said quietly.
His voice carried across the clearing.
"It will close soon."
The clearing grew even quieter.
Everyone watched the portal.
Another pulse of energy erupted from the portal. But this ti, no
bodies followed.
The gateway flickered violently.
The surface of the portal twisted inward as though the entire space
within it was folding in on itself.
Then the light began to dim. The circular gateway rapidly shrank.
The portal trembled one final ti.
Then it collapsed.
The swirling spatial energy vanished in an instant, leaving only empty
air where the gateway had once floated.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
The clearing was completely silent because everyone present
understood what that ant.
The portal had closed.
And the empire group still had not appeared.
High above the clearing, the imperial figures floating in the air did not
move, but the pressure radiating from them suddenly grew heavier.
Several nearby cultivators instinctively lowered their heads. No one dared to speak first.
Yet the thought in everyone's mind was the sa.
The strongest team that had entered the realm. The imperial expedition that had included a royal prince.
Had not returned.
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