Chapter 1162: Chapter 1162 Getting Back on Track

Marcus, Lyra, Roxene and Quillon were ready to begin their journey again, but they were at a bit of an impasse.

Their fight with Gronex had brought them back to the surface, and the colossal hole in the ground that had led back to the Darklands had been filled in by Forlorieous and was now a sparkly lake.

Marcus would not have any problems since he could just become intangible, and Roxene was already waiting inside of his companion storage.

Regrettably, Lyra and Quillon would not be able to follow him in this manner. So, their group would need to find another way down.

"What about Relia. You had one of your duplicates take her away, right?" Lyra asked.

"Yeah, but I barely gave it any spiritual energy considering we were about to fight a dragon. It already disappeared a long time ago. I have no idea where she is right now."

As powerful as they all were, none of them were omniscient. Even they could not detect where Relia might be several kilometers away underground.

"I could cut us a path back to where we were. That magma sea was huge, so I’m sure we’ll reach it if we go straight down." Quillon suggested.

However, Marcus just shook his head and explained why that would not be a great idea.

Forlorieous had used a great deal of power to restore the area and he did not want to anger her by destroying part of it again.

Though, more importantly, the magma sea was a wreck itself.

Their battle had begun down there and Marcus and Gronex had thrown out some explosive tier ten spells.

The paths that they had taken before were almost certainly already in ruin and the landscape had been heavily altered.

That was the kind of destruction that occurred when incredibly high-level entities fought.

"I’m not saying that there is a guarantee it wouldn’t work, but I think we should save that as a last resort. If we cause too much commotion, we might attract other powerful beasts and monsters that live in the Darklands. That’s the whole reason we took a roundabout path along the edge of the magma sea in the first place. Because the main path was blocked by hordes of monsters blocking the way."

Lyra grimaced at the thought of being dragged into another battle like the one they had just gotten through.

And even Quillon, who seemed to live to fight, did not seem enthused by the prospect.

"I think that our best bet is to find another entrance somewhere nearby and make our way back to the Lamia’s town. From there, we can try and find Relia, or she might come there looking for us." Marcus said, offering a plan of his own.

"Sounds great. But how are we going to do that? We don’t know the way to the Lamia’s town, nor even where an entrance into the Darklands is."

Lyra made some good points, but Marcus had already thought up a solution. Although it was a bit of a brute force method.

"I’ll just create a bunch of doppelgangers and send them out. There aren’t any obstacles that should be able to stop them. Eventually I’ll find a way in and a path that takes us where we want to go."

Without waiting for another response, Marcus created about two hundred clones of himself.

He did not give each one very much spiritual energy, but it still drained him.

The connection between all of them was also a bit loud and he felt it a bit disorienting to be receiving thoughts from several different versions of himself.

Fortunately, there was no chance of them ever going rouge and trying to replace him as the "original".

And if even this was possible, none of the clones would ever stand a chance against him. He was the one that designated how powerful each one was and could reabsorb them with a single thought.

"Okay, go out and find us a way into the Darklands." Marcus said while clapping his hands.

Instantly the two hundred clones flew off in different directions.

Some of them phased right into the ground while others kept low and searched for any openings on the surface.

"That’s impressive. Your clones are a lot more versatile than mine. I can only use them when I’m in my Awakened state, so they’re basically only good for combat."

Being someone else that could create copies of herself, Lyra understood how astounding what Marcus had just done was.

Just having eight other versions of herself had been something that took a lot of time for her to get used to.

But Marcus had just conjured up more than twenty times that amount with barely any difficulties at all.

"Thanks, but I some ways your ability is still better. My Ecto Doppelgangers are formed from my spiritual energy, so to make a strong one, I’d have to weaken myself. They don’t give me a sudden spike in power like yours do." Marcus said.

With nothing better to do, the three of them sat around and waited.

They passed the time by chatting and playing games while occasionally snacking on some food Marcus pulled out of his item box.

It was around four hours later that Marcus suddenly perked up while they were playing cards.

"One of my doppelgangers just found an entrance. We can head back into the Darklands now."

Without waiting around any longer, Marcus, Lyra, and Quillon packed up their stuff and headed out.

At their speeds they covered the entire distance of several kilometers in only a few minutes.

When they reached their destination, they found one of Marcus’ clones standing in front of the entrance of a small cave.

It honestly looked completely unimpressive, but apparently it descended all the way down into the tunnels of the Darklands.

"Good work. Head back in and start looking for the Lamias’ town. I’ve already directed the other doppelgangers to start searching."

The clone vanished without saying a word.

Turning intangible and flying underground to begin looking for a path to return to their first destination in the Darklands