Unsealing Emptiness

The only thing in their mind now was that these humans were attacking them, and they had to show them their place.

*Hrrwrr*

The drakes growled, intimidating the lower rank mercenaries before both of them jumped in the opposite direction, running towards the mages who also rushed towards them.

The first one to ready their spell was Clive. Since he had wasted no time contemplating on what to do, he was already at a safe distance from the group.

“The spirits of fire grant me thy blessings...” Clive chanted while running. He had raised his hand, channelling all the mana from his hand to create fire.

As he finished chanting, a giant fireball floated above his head. When Clive noticed that he was in the perfect range, he sent the massive fireball around the size of an elephant towards one of the drakes.

.....

Barry was right behind him, so he wanted to finish it as quickly as possible as not to let others get to the cores.

Despite his spell being just a simple fireball, it was much more than that. Not only was it colossal, but it was a hundred times hotter than an average fireball.

After throwing his spell at the drake, Clive expected that it would be enough to finish it. He had already started planning in his mind to see if he could also get the other drake’s core.

The spell had not even hit the drake, and Clive had thought the core to be his already.

However, reality pulled him down from his high horses. The drake, which was supposed to be dead, was still running because it had only stepped to its side, effortlessly dodging the fireball.

This turn of events left Clive flabbergasted. It was a shame for a rank 7 mage not to be able to instantly kill a rank 6 beast at only the middle stage with a spell!

His face turned red with fury. But before he could conjure another spell, Barry had caught up to him as he also used his spell.

Winds started blowing around Barry as he finished his chanting. Then suddenly, as if they were alive, the winds began clashing together. Sharp wind blades were created because of their clash.

The wind blades also rushed at the drake that had previously dodged the giant fireball. This time, Clive was sure that the drake wouldn’t survive this attack.

He thought that since there were a lot of wind blades, one of them was bound to hit the drake. And only one hit on the drake was enough to kill it because of the power behind those wind blades.

Despite the number of blades that were aiming at the drake, out of all their expectations, the drake just side-stepped as if it was a child’s play!

Just when a blade would be about to hit him, the drake would jump to the other side. Its movements were so fluid that it almost seemed as if it had made a secret deal with the mages, and they were just acting this part out.

At this time, the drake was already close enough to them that he only needed to make a long jump to attack either Barry or Clive.

It suddenly leaped towards them, but the power of mages at rank 7 was not a joke. They had already begun to replace their body cells with that of mana. So they were physically stronger than an average man and even some low ranked Fighters.

Barry and Clive both jumped to the side while conjuring spells for the next attack at the same time.

On the other side, Hanry had arrived near the other drake. He was also a wind mage, so his spell was quite similar to Barry’s. However, the wind blades in his spell were so thick that they almost looked like real blades, if not for their transparency.

But just like with the other drake, this one also dodged the spell effortlessly. The two drakes looked similar to each other. The only difference was that the drake attacking Hanry had one of his horns slightly broken from above.

As this drake was about to attack Hanry, the rank 6 mages had also arrived in the safe range. So they all attacked the drake with their respective spells.

The drake wasn’t given a chance to attack before spells rained down on it. Much to the mages’ surprise, it dodged almost all of them!

The only ones that hit him were those who did almost no damage to him.

Ozul looked bored at the battle, which quickly turned into a stalemate. The mages kept attacking the drakes in hopes of their spells being the one to kill them, but the drakes were quick on their feet.

However, they couldn’t attack the mages either since they outnumbered them. Whenever the drakes tried to attack the mages, a new spell would come their way.

Only a couple of mages were capable enough to kill the drakes. However, they could not conjure their stronger spells because it took time. And all of them only thought if they wasted time on stronger attacks, someone else would get the kill.

And they were not willing to let anyone else have the drakes’ cores.

Regardless of what the mages did, nothing seemed to work. It was either that they risked conjuring a more potent spell or keep this stalemate and expect a lucky blow to hit their target.

A few minutes passed with the battle going nowhere.

Not only Ozul, Raven and Blaze also looked at the scene with bored faces. Ozul was even planning to look for a place to lie down and have some rest in the meantime.

“Why are those rank 7 mages even taking part in the battle? I mean, don’t they usually not fight with someone under their rank to maintain their dignity and stuff?” By Ozul’s side, Blaze curiously asked.

“Because the rewards are just too good for them to not take part in it,” Raven replied to his question.

Blaze did not have the luxury of any of the knowledge, but she had read many books courtesy to Count Oliver. So she was aware of the importance of a drake’s core.

“What is so special about it? Just because it is a core from a rare species of beasts?” Blaze did not understand what could be so unique in a beast’s core to make these mages fight like madmen.

“It is said that a drake’s core-” Just as Raven was going to explain to Blaze about the peculiarity of a drake’s magical core, she was forced to cut off in the middle of speaking when she saw Ozul suddenly taking a few steps forward.

Raven noticed that unlike the earlier bored look on his face, he suddenly watched with interest as to what was going on in the battle.

When she followed his line of sight, she could not understand what was so interesting about it that had caused the change in his expressions.

“Idiot,” Raven heard Ozul mutter as she again intently looked at the battle to figure out what was wrong.