Chapter 680 Returning Home

Once the white flash of light was gone, the people of the twelve great factions found themselves in a different location.

They were familiar with this location as well since this was the entrance to the Ancient Era Ruins.

After a moment to get their footings, everyone suddenly gathered around with their own group, warily staring at the other groups.

They all knew that this was the most dangerous moment of this entire expedition. After all, they had just gotten plenty of loot from these Ancient Era Ruins and they were all tired from being in those ruins for close to a month.

If someone were to make a move and attack them, it would be hard for them to fight back.

But that didn't come into play as several figures jumped out from the trees around them, landing with each group. Of course, there were also several figures that landed in open space that didn't have any groups standing there.

p These were all experts from the various factions that had sent groups into the Ancient Era Ruins. They had been waiting here for these groups to come out to protect them from any tricks that the other factions would play.

Lin Fan took a close look at the figure that had jumped over to their group and he found that it was Qiao Yi Fei's grandfather, Qiao Yi Yin.

When Qiao Yi Yin saw Lin Fan looking at him, he gave him a nod with a faint smile before turning his attention back to the other experts. Namely, his focus was on three experts who stood there without a group.

Lin Fan also followed his gaze, but he didn't pay any attention to these three experts.

Instead, he looked around the area that the three experts were standing in, looking for someone. However, no matter where he looked, he wasn't able to find anyone in the end.

It seemed like the figure with the different coloured cloak had long left this place.

But that did make sense since there was no reason for him to stay here any longer than necessary.

As soon as they had been sent out of the Ancient Era Ruins, the tokens that they had that allowed them to access it had disappeared. It was clear that once you were sent out, you didn't have another chance to go back into the Ancient Era Ruins.

So since he didn't have a chance to accomplish his goal, there was no need for him to stay in this area any longer.

It seemed like the experts from the Assassins Association, the Thunder Sect, and the True Spirit Sect were already aware of this, otherwise they wouldn't be as calm as they were.

Still, even if he called them calm, they weren't really that calm. After all, all the young experts from their factions had died in the Ancient Era Ruins, so there was no way that they would really be that calm.

After a long period of silence, the expert from the Thunder Sect turned to old man Qiao and asked, "Old Qiao, it seems like the experts from our group have disappeared. Can you give me an explanation?"

Old man Qiao didn't back down as he said, "Why should I give you an explanation? It's not as if we're that close."

The expert from the True Spirit Sect said, "Certainly we're not that close, but isn't that the reason why you're the most suspicious?"

The experts from the other factions were confused since they didn't know the situation behind this, but none of them said a thing as they silently watched the discord between the two sides. There were even a few of them that wanted the two sides to start fighting and weaken each other.

After all, if they did weaken each other, that would be a chance for them to strike.

But before anyone else could say anything, Wang Jian's master from the Myriad Sword Hall said in a sharp voice, "Isn't it enough to leave this matter here?"

The experts from the Thunder Sect and the True Spirit Sect were surprised to hear this since they didn't know about the alliance between the two sides.

The expert from the Assassins Association was about to say something, but the expert from the Ice Goddess Palace spoke first by saying, "Just let this matter end here."

All three of the experts from the Thunder Sect, the True Spirit Sect, and the Assassins Association looked at the expert from the Ice Goddess Palace with surprised looks.

Then before they could recover from their shock, the expert from the Tamers Guild said, "There's no need to drag out this matter, let's just end it here."

At this point, the three experts from the Thunder Sect, the True Spirit Sect, and the Assassins Association had ugly looks on their faces.

To put it simply, they were outnumbered at this point.

They had never expected so many other factions to speak up for the Hunters Organization. With them being outnumbered like this, the situation was clearly not on their side.

The moment that they fought and they showed any weakness, the other factions that remained neutral could change sides in an instant and it would make things worse for them.

So after some thought, the experts from the three factions gave cold snorts before turning around to leave.

Even if they had failed here, there were still other plans that their factions had been planning and the lord had explicitly told them that if they failed again, their factions would be blamed for ruining the plan of the power behind the lord. When that happened, it was very likely that they would be wiped off the face of this planet to keep their secrets hidden…

They had no choice but to back down in this situation to avoid drawing more attention to themselves.

Seeing that the experts of these three factions back down, the experts of the other factions all stopped watching for fun. After all, even they could tell that the three factions suddenly speaking up for the Hunters Organization wasn't normal.

There was no need for them to involve themselves, all that mattered right now was for them to bring back their loot from these Ancient Era Ruins back to their factions.

So after a moment of silence between everyone, they all split off into different groups heading in different directions without any words. Even the factions that were allies with each other traveled separately.

After all, even if they were allies, things like allies among these factions were temporary. They didn't want their "allies" to know what kind of treasures they had obtained just in case that alliance suddenly shattered one day.

Once they were far enough from where they had been previously, old man Qiao took out a movement artifact and had everyone get on. Once they used this movement artifact, they started moving countless times faster compared to before.

Old man Qiao hadn't taken this movement artifact out previously because it took most of his concentration to use this movement artifact if he wanted to go fast. The faster he wanted to go, the more concentration that he would need to use.

Until he was far away enough from the other group to ensure that there wouldn't be an ambush, he wasn't confident in pulling out this movement artifact.

But now that they were far away enough, he wanted to use this artifact to bring them back to a safe place as quickly as possible.

As they were moving quickly through the open fields, Lin Fan also waved his hand to release two different laws that covered them.

Old man Qiao was surprised to see these laws, but he didn't question them since he could understand what Lin Fan was trying to accomplish with this. In fact, just the fact that Lin Fan had these two laws under his control explained quite a few things.

They didn't return to Harmony City right away because there was another branch of the Hunters Organization that was closer to this area. So instead of taking more time to reach the Harmony City branch, they chose to head right to this other branch instead.

All of the Hunters Organization branches had teleportation gates in the basement that connected to each other, so it didn't matter if they headed to this branch first. They would be able to use the teleportation gate to immediately return to Harmony City. It would even be faster than if they ran all the way there.

So after arriving at this branch, everyone let out a sigh of relief since they knew that they were now safe.

After all, they were now on the territory of the Hunters Organization and the Hunters Organization would certainly defend their territory. Unless it was an attack by multiple factions of the twelve great factions, nothing would be able to stop them.

Let alone the fact that there were transport gates in the basement that would allow them to escape.

So everyone quickly separated and returned to their own cities.

When he returned, Lin Fan couldn't help feeling a bit emotional since it had been quite a long time since he had been here. In fact, this was probably the longest trip that he had taken since he had come up to the upper realm.

Of course, he didn't leave right away because there was something else important to do first.

They had to distribute the loot that they had collected from the Ancient Era Ruins.

While Lin Fan had a special agreement with the Hunters Organization that allowed him to keep whatever he found, he still didn't feel right keeping everything since they had been the ones that had given him the tokens. So he took out some of the items that he found were useless to him that he had obtained from the trials.

While these items were useless to him, that didn't mean that they were useless to the Hunters Organization since they had people with many different abilities. They certainly had people who would be able to use these items.

After that, Lin Fan headed back to his shop.