Chapter 186: Plans

"Looks like that’s the last of the stubborn ones," Hela muttered, resting the blunt edge of her scythe against her armored shoulder.

She was standing atop the crushed skull of a deformed abomination that looked like a grotesque fusion of a deep-sea anglerfish and a horned mountain ram.

The prolonged skirmish outside the wreckage had finally ground to a violent halt.

The wild predators infesting this sunken impact basin were absurdly tough, hardened by the ambient spatial miasma of the Nether Realm.

Several of the pack alphas had breached the upper limits of Tier 5.

Putting them down had been a grueling, bloody slog.

Even with Ethen’s S-Rank summons holding the defensive line, completely wiping out every wild creature in the crater had proven practically impossible.

At the end of the day, Hela and the vanguard had simply beaten the surviving packs bloody enough to drive them fleeing into the surrounding badlands.

The effort had pushed the entire perimeter force to their physical limits.

"Outstanding work, everyone," Ethen called out as the Mind Dragon’s massive shadow fell across the crater floor.

The crystalline beast descended with a heavy flap of its leathery wings, settling smoothly onto the shattered bedrock beside Hela’s position.

Hela turned around, brushing a strand of sweaty dark hair from her forehead.

"We held the perimeter," she said with a faint, tired smile.

Her eyes drifted toward Ella, who was kneeling near a broken boulder, quietly channeling healing energy into her own battered forearms.

Ella had spent the entire clash acting as the squad’s primary anchor, weaving layered kinetic barriers to catch stray artillery spit and flanking charges.

Her specialized barriers were durable, but absorbing repetitive, high-impact charges from Tier 5 beasts had pushed her soul conduits to the brink.

Even the strongest defensive matrices had breaking points.

Ethen walked over, kneeling down to inspect the jagged cracks running along the breastplate of Ella’s armor set.

"We need to forge you a high-grade replacement," he murmured, gently brushing the fractured steel with his thumb. "Something forged from pure Nether ore."

Hela walked up beside them, giving a quiet nod of agreement.

She looked down at Ethen, her sharp eyes immediately cataloging his disheveled state.

Thanks to the absolute passive regeneration of *Undying*, there weren’t any weeping wounds or open fractures left on his skin.

His physical body had already knitted itself back into peak condition.

Yet his combat tunic was shredded into ribbons, caked in dried black blood, and the deep slashes lining his back told the unmistakable story of a brutal, close-quarters brush with death.

Hela’s brow furrowed, genuine worry bleeding through her composed expression.

She stepped closer, placing a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

"What actually happened down there?" she asked softly.

She had maintained the outer perimeter the entire time, but she hadn’t missed the sudden sonic boom that signaled the King of Bark dropping from the clouds.

That single detail had set off every alarm bell in her head.

Ethen was notoriously stubborn; he took pride in solving his own problems through his contracted summons and personal martial arts.

For him to need an authentic Angel to intervene meant the situation in the ship’s bilge had spiraled completely out of control.

Ethen looked at her furrowed brow, suddenly feeling the weight of the secret.

How was he supposed to casually explain the truth without giving her a heart attack?

*’Oh, nothing much, just an ancient, slumbering Akasha god who used a Demi-god as bait to lure me into a feeding pit?’*

*’I only almost had my soul eaten before the World Tree woke up and called in a royal air strike?’*

If he laid out the raw details, Hela and Ella would likely forbid him from stepping foot outside the citadel walls for the next six months.

He swallowed the elaborate truth, keeping his answer smooth and simple.

"Ran into a tough ambush, but we managed to clean it up," he said, offering her a reassuring smirk.

He turned his head to take one last look at the massive, rotting vessel lodged in the rock wall.

"We should pack up and head back to the citadel. We’ve spent enough time in this hole."

His dark eyes lingered on the dark breach in the hull for another quiet second.

This expedition had served as a harsh, necessary reality check.

The Nether Realm was not an ordinary hunting ground where high-tier mortals could strut around unchallenged.

Buried beneath the ash-choked soil were horrors that defied mortal logic—beings that could snuff out a Tier 5 summoner like a candle.

Until he broke through his own bottlenecks and stepped into the Demi-god realm himself, he was still walking through a minefield.

Ethen turned his back on the ancient ship, leading his companions toward the waiting dragon.

It was time to return to the Thousand Beast Citadel and prepare for the storm ahead.

Meanwhile, not too far away from the crater. The beasts previously chased away by the group could be seen rallying towards a singular point where a few Demi humans sat.

"Those are your scouts?" One of the asked looking at the horrible state of the beasts Infront. They had noticed the commotion in the crater while passing through and stopped to check it out.

At first they thought it was just wild beasts, but after confirming it was humans, they decided to attack. Unfortunately even the beasts they send to scout had been injured talk less of them going by themselves.

"There was a Black Gold dragon in their camp, I think it’s still worth while to go after them. We can enlist one of the dragon dukes sons, they hate it when humans control dragons" one of the Demi humans said conferring with his men.

If they could bring such news to the dragon clan and claim victory then they would definitely see a rise in their status.

"It’s a good idea, the dragon clan has been looking for an excuse to attack the thousand beast citadel for a good minute" the leader smiled caressing the head of one of his beasts a smirk on his face causing his golden whiskers to contort.