Chapter 302: Why All the Commotion?

When Priam’s vision finally cleared, he found himself in a vast, barren wasteland.

The sun was blazing, and white clouds covered the blue sky. All around him, a crowd of several thousand Mages had gathered. Most wore expressions of shock and confusion.

They were back on the same planet as before, where they had gathered before heading out on the mission.

As they looked up at the skies and across the open wasteland, there was no sign of the Sect Leader Elders anywhere. It was perfectly understandable: the mission was still supposed to last a little over twenty-nine days. Everyone had returned much earlier than expected.

"!"

Suddenly, Priam’s pupils contracted violently.

A paralyzing, icy shiver ran down his spine, accompanied by instinctive fury.

At that exact millisecond, Priam felt a presence.

A presence he was certain he had felt before...

When he woke up sealed, while he was still a soul, shortly after his life on Earth.

It was the gaze of a Sovereign!

Somehow, the omnipresent perception of that divine being was focused precisely on that group of Mages. More specifically, it was locked directly onto Priam himself.

The air became heavy and suffocating. Feeling the overwhelming pressure, the Mages around him raised their eyes toward the sky.

Above them, the sunny sky and white clouds tore apart in a majestic rift, opening a portal directly into the void.

From that celestial rupture, a colossal torrent of golden, serpentine energy came crashing down like a bolt of lightning, piercing through the atmosphere toward the ground.

The luminous figure twisted through the air like the monumental silhouette of a legendary Golden Dragon, slicing through the skies with terrifying grace.

Terror paralyzed the crowd, but the destructive shockwave never came.

As the divine beam approached the ground, its form dissolved into billions of golden runes.

Stopping a hundred meters above the Mages’ heads, the runes began orbiting in a hypnotic vortex. They intertwined, compressed, and fused together, shaping the perfect structure of a golden egg half a meter tall.

Surrounded by a sparkling divine mist, the artifact began its solemn descent.

It floated gently through the air until it stopped just a few centimeters from Priam’s chest, hovering in perfect stillness.

Priam took a deep breath, feeling the magnetic pulse of the creation. The egg radiated an implicit will, demanding that he claim it.

The feeling of being watched by the Sovereign disappeared.

Noticing this, Priam sighed. Then he slowly extended his hand.

When he touched the surface, he felt an almost solid texture. But inside... he noticed something anomalous.

*BUZZ!*

The fabric of space trembled violently, and more than a dozen spatial rifts tore open in different directions across the sky.

One by one, the Sect Leader Elders emerged from the portals.

All of them wore stunned and disoriented expressions. They had been summoned in a hurry and had arrived without even knowing exactly why.

When they saw their disciples, they became even more confused. How were they already back?

But...

Their gazes swept across the barren land and quickly locked onto a single point.

The ’golden egg’ floating just a few centimeters from Priam’s chest.

In an instant, the expression of every Sect Leader Elder froze in absolute horror and disbelief. The deathly silence that followed seemed to paralyze time itself.

Priam met Mishnar’s gaze. She stared at him in utter astonishment.

Connecting the dots quickly, he simply maintained an upright posture.

"Priam... you...?" Mishnar’s voice faltered.

"Complete the mission? Yeah, it’s done," Priam replied indifferently before looking at the others. "Why all the commotion? Wasn’t this exactly what you expected from us? Wasn’t this the ultimate goal of the Mages?"

Silence.

The Sect Leader Elders’ expressions shifted between shock, envy, and undisguised surprise.

Priam let out an impatient snort and moved his hand closer to the gleaming artifact.

"What kind of energy is this? It feels like..."

"DON’T TOUCH THAT!" one of the Sect Leader Elders shouted chaotically, his voice echoing through the air.

Priam raised an eyebrow at the Elder who had shouted, then turned his attention back to Mishnar.

The leader of the 11th Branch swallowed hard before explaining:

"That is the Sovereigns’ main Reward... granted exclusively to whoever completes the mission."

"Main Reward?" Priam muttered.

"Yes. That was the original reward. But with every failure in the past, the Sovereigns accumulated additional prizes and bonuses that would be given to the Sect. What you received... is the supreme treasure our Sect has been seeking for generations."

Priam’s eyes lit up slightly. "From what I understand, this belongs to whoever accomplished the feat. In other words, me. If the Sect wants it... you intend to buy it from me, correct?"

The Sect Leader Elders took a deep breath, some of them clearly irritated.

Indeed, it belonged to whoever completed the mission. But Priam was still a disciple of the Sect. If the Sect needed something, he should hand it over without much resistance.

"You don’t need to worry about that," Mishnar assured him, once again adopting a firm and solemn tone. "The Sect will send a Central Elder directly to negotiate a fair deal for your reward. Besides, all the accumulated bonuses that will be delivered in the future will bring benefits to you. The Sect will honor your achievement with absolute fairness."

Priam nodded. He knew he shouldn’t push things beyond the limit; the Sect had provided the resources for his growth and had treated him with relative dignity.

Besides, knowing that the Sovereign Goddess—or rather, Dandara—had founded this entire institution in the past, he trusted that there were internal safeguards in place to contain corruption within the upper ranks.

The greatest proof of this was that, although Dioma was an infiltrated spy, he had no accomplices among the Sect’s powerful figures. On the contrary, he was terrified of leaving even the slightest clue, because he knew he would be easily detected.

Minutes later, the Sect Leader Elders finally descended toward the crowd of disciples on the ground.

"What happened in there?! Why did you return so early?" Questions erupted from all sides.

But most of the gathered Mages belonged to the groups that had fled from the final battle, unable to offer any coherent explanation.

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!"

Edhella’s guttural roar tore through the air. Her daughter and all the disciples of the 4th Branch had been completely wiped out! There wasn’t a single survivor among them!

Nearby, Validar remained motionless in the air, his face pale as he realized that the 8th Branch had also been practically wiped off the map. Only a few dozen were still alive, all of them having fled desperately at the end when they realized they would be killed by Priam’s faction.

The devastation extended to several other Sect Leader Elders, paralyzed by the complete or near-complete absence of their disciples. Only the Mages of the 11th Branch, along with those from five other weaker branches, had more than a thousand people alive.

Priam remained in absolute silence. Seeing their leader’s attitude, every member of his faction kept their lips sealed. This wasn’t the time to reveal anything.

Mishnar felt a chill as she observed her own disciples.

Priam seemed to be the simultaneous epicenter of a miracle and a devastating disaster. Why did everything around that boy always turn into such monumental chaos?

Mishnar’s eyes passed over every disciple who had returned alive. Nearly two-thirds had died... but that was a loss she had more or less expected.

However, as she inspected the survivors of the 11th Branch, Mishnar noticed that every one of them radiated the dense aura of a Mage Master. Their eyes were sharp, as if they had undergone a massive transformation.

When her gaze finally landed on Dandara... her breath caught in her throat.

Dandara puffed out her chest with unwavering pride.

The young half-beast radiated a subtle yet frightening pressure—an aura so dangerous that even Mishnar felt uneasy.

She had definitely gained more than anyone could have dreamed of.

After calming herself, Mishnar turned around.

"Priam, I’m going to seal and store the reward for now, okay?" she asked, pointing at the golden egg.

Priam agreed with a nod.

Without wasting any time, Mishnar channeled her energy, surrounding the artifact with multiple layers of seals until its glow was completely extinguished.

"We’re returning to the 11th Branch immediately," she declared in a low voice.

With a quick gesture, she activated a transportation emblem, enveloping all her disciples in a silver light before the others could ask any more questions.