Chapter 582: Conformation of Supremacy (1/2)

The group released a collective sigh of relief when the gates slid open without issue, giving them a first look at what waited for them on the other side. It was definitely a change of pace, and the group walked inside curiously. It looked like they had entered actually a glasshouse in the middle of a forest.

The gate led them into a room over one hundred meters across, and it appeared to be some sort of holding room or stable for beasts, with metallic troughs and dozens of reinforced stalls. They could also spot all sorts of advanced equipment in a series of adjoining rooms, which was only possible because both the inner and outer walls were made from some transparent material.

Outside the building was an enormous forest completely different from the artificial biospheres they had arrived in. It felt wild and genuine, like something they might find on Earth if you discounted the fact that most of the foliage was either white, silver, or purple. The place was huge as well, and Zac could even spot a few mountains in the distance. Zac couldn't be sure from where he stood, but he guessed that it would take hours to traverse the whole thing even if he kept a high pace.

However, it didn't take long to realize that this massive forest was still just another part of the research base as the familiar lines ran across the sky as the enormous alloy wall stretched into the distance. There was one odd addition though; nine orbs in the sky that reminded Zac of the moon. Four of them seemed broken, but the other five radiated a silver glow.

The transparent building they found themselves in was installed like an extension of the wall, with the gate they passed through on one side and a large barn door at the opposite.

The glasshouse was just enormous, but Zac figured it probably that it was only a few hundred square meters before the spatial expansion began. Furthermore, going by the current size of the stalls, the animals that were housed here should be around the size of a rhinoceros, which wasn't that big for a multiverse-beast.

”I think it's a satellite base to perform field experiments,” Thea eventually said as she looked across the building. ”The original owners of this place were studying something inside this forest, and this place was used to take measurements.”

Zac slowly nodded in agreement, feeling there was a lot of merit to that theory. It looked like there was room for about a dozen animals at a time going by the number of stalls, whereas the forest outside was large enough to sustain a whole ecosystem.

”Ah!” Billy suddenly exclaimed from another room, and Zac's swirled toward him with wide eyes, fearing that the giant had triggered another trap.

Zac breathed out in relief though when he saw that Billy had actually managed to open the gates by pressing a large button on one of the closest consoles.

”Be careful,” Zac quickly exhorted. ”We have no idea what these things do. One of them might trigger an alarm and make the building attack us.”

Billy quickly nodded and stepped away.

Still, it was good news to know that even someone without any clearance could open the door without assistance. As long as Zac placed a squad at this place in the future they would be able to come and go as they pleased without having to rely on himself or Kenzie.

“Why would the Cartava Clan lead us here?” Zac muttered as he looked over the consoles.

Most of them seemed to be out of order or at least turned off. There were no new messages like another signpost either, leaving Zac a bit confused.

“This place definitely leads further inside the Mystic Realm than what we have accessed until now,” Thea answered as she nodded to their left. “Look, we’re right at the edge of the Outer Band, but the forest continues for god knows how further in. ”

“Let’s check it out,” Zac said after some thought. “Not much anyone of us can gain from these machines anyway.”

“Might have been a good idea to bring something more than a bunch of muscleheads,” Joanna muttered from the side, and Zac could only wryly smile.

True, his expedition squad was a bit lopsided, with the three strongest humans along with a teenage shaman and a Valkyrie guide. Billy’s disposition spoke for itself, and both Zac and Thea were only focused on getting stronger, to put it nicely. More accurately, they were both fighting idiots.

Billy was more than willing to get out of the boring stables and he pushed open the barn doors with a grunt. The group walked outside, but they stopped after only a few meters, realizing the glasshouse had disappeared. More importantly, Zac felt a sense of impending doom, like he would die if he didn't get out of the way.

The only reason that he didn't start running was that the feeling was distinctly different from his Danger Sense, like it was a cheap mimicry of the real thing.

“Illusion array,” Thea muttered as she looked around with some trepidation. “Do you feel the weird sensation of dread as well?”

“It might be something to keep beasts away,” Emily ventured. “Like bug repellant.”

”Probably,” Thea nodded before she looked into the sky with a slight frown. ”The ambient energy is so dense in here, and there is some attunement in it as well.”

Zac needed a bit longer to properly sense the Cosmic Energy, but he could immediately see what she was meaning with the help of [Cosmic Gaze]. The whole forest was shrouded in a silvery haze after he activated his ocular skill, and it seemed to radiate down from the moons like light summer rain.

“Should we head toward the closest mountain? The closest one isn't too far, and we might be able to spot other exits that way,” Thea ventured. ”It's either that or keep to the wall.”

”Let's go to the mountain,” Zac eventually said. ”The wall looks the same far into the horizon. We will probably learn more if we head a bit further in.”

They immediately set out, this time led by Zac who was using his natural affinity with the forest that came from [Forester's Constitution]. There were occasional calls of beasts that reverberated through the forest, and Zac tried to keep them away from any potentially dangerous spot. It was worth remembering that this place wasn't like Earth or the Tower of Eternity, and Zac couldn't help but feel some pressure as he walked through the woods.

There were no limits here, so the beasts could even be D-Grade for all they knew.

The fact that the strongest cultivators were just High E-Grade indicated that the beasts weren't that powerful, and neither did the howls contain that kind of power. But they couldn't be certain. So Zac's senses were pushed to their limits as he kept a vigil of the surroundings, and the others looked back and forth as they snuck through dense parts of the undergrowth.