Unsealing Emptiness

“What do you mean by that you’re leaving?!” Rufus almost shouted his lungs out.

Ozul raised his brows at this, amused, he said, “Oh? Quite desperate to keep an eye on me, aren’t you?”

“Wai- Uh. No! What are you talking about? I just wanted to know where and why are you going to leave alone?” Rufus explained himself while nervously shifting himself in his place.

Fortunately for him, he had learned from his past interactions with Ozul and had already sent his subordinates away. Otherwise, they would have seen this embarrassing sight of him.

“So, it was just that?” Ozul did not press on the matter and continued when Rufus nodded his head furiously, “You see, I am bored. So I would be venturing off on my own now. It might take me a few days to come back.”

Ozul generally wouldn’t have bothered to tell Rufus before leaving, but he thought that it might help Raven and Blaze avoid getting into dangerous situations.

.....

Rufus wouldn’t be able to stop him anyway, so why not say hello, at least?

“Wait! But you can’t do that!” Rufus said, trying his best not to shout like he previously did. He was given the mission from his Majesty, so Ozul leaving his sight would mess up all his plans!

“And why can’t I do that?” Ozul asked calmly.

“Uh... I mean, you shouldn’t do that! Yes. What if something goes wrong? It would be the same as abandoning the mission at that point. And remember, his Majesty-” Rufus wasn’t able to finish his words.

*Sigh*

“That talk again? Let’s be honest here, ok? Tell me, do you think that I care about your Emperor?” Ozul asked, staring in the eyes of Rufus, which made the latter quite uncomfortable.

Despite being afraid, Rufus could not take the insult towards Emperor Luthien since he was a loyal follower of his.

“Young man! You better watch your words! How dare you talk like that?!” Rufus finally couldn’t it anymore and shouted while pointing his finger at Ozul. Now only the fog prevented his face from resembling that of a tomato.

“Yeah, whatever. Oh, and if something happens to my two friends while I am gone...” Ozul said before turning his back to Rufus.

This time, Rufus did not stop him from walking away. Although he was mad due to his behavior, he also knew that getting into a fight with Ozul was not a suitable option since he was sure to return after leaving his friends with them.

“Che! Don’t need to follow him! You won’t be able to keep up,” Rufus ordered when he saw that a couple of his subordinates were going to follow behind him.

As for Ozul, since he was alone right now, he just used Ball of Purity to fly above the forest. It didn’t take long for him to be high enough to escape the fog.

When he looked around, all he saw was the warm night sky filled with twinkly stars above while the ground littered with dark green color till the horizon.

And one particular thing he found was that the fog only covered a small part of it underneath him while the rest was still as usual!

“There must be something strange here,” muttered Ozul before looking around him to see if he could find the anomaly from above.

However, even after looking for a while, he could only see the thick mattress of trees laid below him.

“Then, I can only do it the hard way...” Ozul said before diving right back down.

He could try to sense all around the foggy area and see if he finds the source of this fog, but the scope of the search was just too big. Moreover, he didn’t even know what he was looking for.

He landed a little far away from the group so as not to attract any attention. Since Ozul did not know what he was looking for, he decided to walk in a random direction.

He kept his focus and had already spread his senses all around him.

“Come on! Just take the opportunity of me being alone!” Ozul encouraged the unknown. It wasn’t that he had some death wish, but because he was confident in defeating whatever it was.

Since Ozul didn’t know what he was looking for, the only way to hurry this process was for the enemy to attack first!

However, to his disappointment, he couldn’t find anything, no matter how much he searched.

Ozul was getting quite annoyed at the situation after some hours since it was night and the perfect time for him to enjoy sleep, but here he was, running here and there in the middle of the jungle just because of his curiosity.

Unknown to him, this anonymous enemy had already made numerous attempts on him, but he was unconsciously avoiding it!

Since it had been a few hours without any clue, Ozul decided to contemplate some more in solitude and climbed up a tree.

The Ball of Purity formed above his head and shaped itself into the conical hat before he closed his eyes and lost himself in the comfortable darkness.

There he slept, alone in the middle of the forest, shrouded in dense fog with a comfortable yet eerie silence.

. . .

*A few hours earlier*

Back to the group of mercenaries, no one was aware that Ozul had left the group since there was almost no one that interacted with the trio.

At this time, Raven sat cross-legged on a tree near Blaze’s. Although both of them were exhausted due to absorbing the red energy a few minutes ago, they were dead set on cultivating at this moment.

Raven had frowning expressions on her face as she sat there with closed eyes. It seemed that she was struggling with whatever she was doing right now.

After a while, suddenly as if something had suddenly exploded inside of her, a wave of energy swept outwards from her!

*Woooz*

Though not loud, the energy wave was strong enough to push the fog away from Raven for a while before it came back.

Other mercenaries could only feel a little wind hit them while some of them felt a little cold behind their backs. However, they couldn’t find any cause for this.

If only it wasn’t night and there wasn’t dense fog present everywhere, they would have realized what had happened just now.

It was because Raven had broken through to Rank-6 as a Mage!

The only people who actually realized this were the group of Rank-7 Mages which included even the group watching from afar, Rufus, and Blaze!

Blaze wouldn’t have realized it either if he not meditating right on the next tree. And Raven had also previously shared that she was close to breakthrough to the next rank. So he could put the pieces together easily.

As for the Rank-7 and above Mages, they were just on a whole another level. It wasn’t hard for them to pinpoint another Rank-6 Mage in the group.

“You broke through!” Blaze said as he jumped on her tree as well. Unlike before, he wasn’t jealous of Raven getting ahead of him but excited instead.