Unsealing Emptiness

Now that it was very likely for a Rank-10 Magical Beast to have been residing in these unexplored lands, he would have to be extra careful not to encounter it.

Earlier he was planning to explore as much as he could in the little time they were going to stay here, but now he would have to keep his curiosity under check and limit himself to check out those ruins marked on the parchment only.

There were only general directions specified on the map since people hadn’t mapped out these lands yet.

Just then, he noticed the worry growing on the duo’s face and even the Rogue Crew had taken defensive positions. They were ready to face some giant Beast coming directly at them.

“Ease up. There is nothing to worry about... as of yet. You guys come out as well, there is no one to hide from here anyway,” Ozul said the last part to the Rogue Crew since they were putting in extra efforts to only stay in the vicinity and not come out in open sight.

Immediately as he said those words, the Rogue Crew appeared, all floating behind him.

.....

Raven and Blaze also calmed down, but they kept up their guard.

“When I tell you to run, all of you are to immediately head back to the headquarters. These are my orders,” Ozul said, making all of them nod their heads except for Raven and Blaze.

Although he had just told them the same, it felt as if this time things were more serious than before. Something had changed, but they didn’t know what.

Looking at Ozul’s stern face, they knew that they weren’t even allowed to ask anything.

The duo only sighed with apparent worry on their faces. They would have already suggested to give up on exploring those ruins if not because they already knew Ozul wouldn’t agree.

In the end, Raven could only leave her mouth hanging open as she stopped herself from asking any questions.

Although she worried about Ozul, she also knew that he had his reasons.

“Let’s move. Keep alert all the time,” Ozul reminded them to stay vigilant since even he might not have enough time in case that Rank-10 Beast really appeared before them.

What he didn’t think was whether these Rank-8 Mages would even be able to move if a Rank-10 Mage exerted its aura on them.

The group seriously nodded their heads before following after him.

A few more hours and they had left the woods far behind and were now in a desert.

As they had expected, the Beasts that appeared next were mostly of Earth Element. What they didn’t expect was the sudden rise in their strengths.

From Rank-4 occasional Beast sightings to suddenly encountering even Rank-6 Beasts!

‘With sudden changes like these, no wonder people won’t try to create settlements in these lands,’ Ozul thought before he noticed others’ exhausted faces.

After continuing on for a few hours, he decided to make a stop after they had crossed the desert and again arrived at a grassland.

Rank-6 Beasts were appearing more frequently now and some even dared to attack their group. These were mostly only the Beasts who hadn’t eaten anything for weeks. Hunger had made them suppress the sense of fear and the little bit of rationality that they possessed.

“Deal with them,” Ozul naturally didn’t bother to care about such Beasts. He had brought Raven and Blaze to train here, so he made them deal with all of the Beasts.

He even stopped the Rogue Crew from interfering who were more than happy to oblige.

While Blaze and Raven were tasked to kill all the Beasts which came near them, Ozul chose to simply laze around on a tree in his own thoughts.

Suddenly, he felt a little off and looked around before he realized what he was missing right now, ‘Where did Jinx go off to...’

It had been quite a while since Jinx went away. That cat only listened to him when she wanted to.

He thought about Jinx for a while before his thoughts moved to his ‘Scent’.

Ozul hadn’t been able to find any plausible reason for his Scent to increase Mikol’s strength like that.

He had to test extracting his Scent from someone stronger than that prisoner, but he didn’t have time to find someone like that now.

Just then, he again paused his line of thinking as he realized something, ‘Tch... I could have used them.’

The three Rank-8 Mages sent by the Church had probably consumed the healing potions more than once. They should have been more than enough for him to at least draw a plausible conclusion.

Now they had already come a long way, and those three were dead for a long time in the middle of a forest. Magical Beasts would have already ripped their corpses apart by now.

It was too late to go back now, he could only sigh at his carelessness.

Ozul eyed Raven and Blaze for a few minutes as he contemplated if he should just try extracting his Scent from them or not.

In the end, he shook his head, ‘It is too risky.’

Even that man who had it just for a few seconds felt so much pain just from taking out that little trace of Scent. Raven and Blaze might experience it many times worse as they had more than ten times of the amount inside of them as well.

In the end, Ozul decided to focus on exploring these ruins and training the duo first. After they returned, he could task the Three-Eyed Strangers and the Ashin family to find him some people to experiment on.

The night passed with Ozul ending up taking a big ‘nap’ and only waking up the next morning.

The Rogue Crew had it much easier than the duo since they were only tasked to ease any and all inconvenience to Ozul, but he didn’t have any as of yet. So they were only following him around for now.

Although it looked to the Rogue Crew that Ozul had been sleeping so leisurely, he was always alert enough to keep any eye out for anything dangerous approaching them.

As the sun rose to the sky, Ozul continued to lead the group deeper into these dangerous lands.

. . .

After another four days, the group was already in one of the deepest parts of these lands.

They had just passed through a swamp and everyone except for Ozul was exhausted. It wasn’t because they hadn’t rested in these four days.

In fact, he would stop at any suitable location to take a nap and let them recover their Mana as well.

The problem appeared when even Rank-8 Beasts would sometimes pop out of nowhere.

Even Middle Stage Rank-8 Beasts would have been fine, but dealing with one peak Rank-8 Beast required everyone to work together.

Even though Blaze had become an End Stage Rank-8 as well, it was still not easy to deal with a Beast at the same rank.

It was funny for Blaze to see the varying expressions of misery on the members of the Rogue Crew when they realized that Ozul wouldn’t be helping them in anything that he didn’t need to help in.

Only then did they realize that unless there was a Rank-9 Beast, Ozul would never step in to help them.

Fighting two peak Rank-8 Beasts consecutively last day had tired all of them. The relatively weaker ones even had injuries, but nothing too serious as Blaze took it upon himself to keep the Beasts occupied.

“According to this map, the ruins should be just behind those mountains,” Ozul muttered as he looked at the distant mountain range with dark clouds lingering above them.

The parchment in his hand had only marked a few specific terrains and the directions that they had to travel in from there. Ozul was quite careful in not taking the wrong direction since half of the map was filled with scratches and blurred images.

Fortunately, he hadn’t taken a wrong turn as of yet since he could already see the mountain range mentioned on the map.

Looking at the worn out state of everyone, Ozul decided to make a stop here. They were in a forest with sky tall trees, but it wasn’t a problem for them.

The training of the duo had already started the moment Rank-8 Beasts started to appear, so he didn’t have to worry much about delaying their exploration.

He wanted them to gain battle experience which had no shortcut. But he was satisfied with their progress as their battles were more refined and they made less and less unnecessary movements while fighting.

Everyone’s mood visibly improved hearing, “Let’s stop for a rest.”

All of them relaxed a little but kept up their guard as they still had to deal with the Beasts wandering about.

As Ozul noticed how even Blaze didn’t completely drop his guard, he realized that their training up until now wasn’t in vain.

Raven already had many things instilled in her instincts when she had stuck with Ozul all those years during his assassination missions given by Oliver, but Blaze was like a dull blade compared to a newly forged high quality saber in front of Raven.

‘He is learning fast,’ Ozul understood that despite him not using his brain enough, Blaze was talented in almost everything.

‘Even if left on his own, he could single handedly dominate the whole continent one day,’ Ozul had quite a high evaluation for Blaze...