Unsealing Emptiness

Even from meters away, he noticed a small strand of his Scent leaving through the end of his severed arm. At this point, he felt as if there was nothing he could do except wait for the result.

‘Tsk! No! I have to do something...’ Ozul clicked his tongue. It was no time to give up. No matter the result, he will have to do something to get his arm back. It won’t just fly to him without doing anything.

A few drops of the Ball of Purity separated themselves from the shield and without anyone noticing, Ozul snuck them behind Darcia.

Under the skeptical gaze of the Sovereign, the strand of Ozul’s Scent was immediately sucked in the cannon.

Bzzz!

The cannon suddenly started to vibrate!

.....

“Gahaha! Looks like this is all your toy-” The Sovereign stopped speaking when it noticed the huge spike in energy that began to gather at the head of the cannon.

Even feeling the huge spike in energy, the Sovereign didn’t back down. Instead, she snorted and readied herself to take on the attack without any defensive measure. She was just that confident in being able to deal with some fancy artifact.

One could easily tell that the giant fiery wolf had smug facial expressions right now. However, her conceit soon started to crumble as the density of the energy continued to increase without any signs of stopping anytime soon!

As the moments passed, the Sovereign began to worry about the power behind the cannon. On the other hand, Darcia’s face turned to that of extreme delight.

“This is it! Yes! This power! I hold all of this power in my hand! Mine!” Darcia shouted as a white formless sphere of energy began to take shape at the very end of the cannon.

A second almost passed and the energy radiated such a pressure that any being under Rank-9 anywhere near them would have already been suffocating to their deaths.

Although surprised by the sheer power the cannon was gathering from just that small wisp of his Scent, Ozul wasn’t as infatuated with the cannon as the wolf covered in burning fur and the old Darcia.

Instead, he focused on sneaking the Ball of Purity behind Darcia. Unlike the other two, he had realized in this split second that he might not be able to protect himself if he stayed here any longer.

The formless sphere of energy wasn’t massive in size, but its density was on a whole another level.

Sadly for Darcia, she only started to realize how dangerous of a weapon she was holding when the cannon began to shake violently.

The excitement and the complacency disappeared from her face as she began to panic, unaware of the small particles of the Ball of Purity sneaking closer from behind.

The blacksmiths had built the cannon with one of the rarest and the most durable metal on the continent. Of course, they could only get enough to make the cannon from the Church’s treasury. According to Lammert, even the Church only possessed that small chunk of it.

He didn’t want to use it on the cannon, but he had no choice under Darcia’s bone-chilling glares.

Not only the metal but even the runes added on the gold plating were of the top category.

But despite all that, it became evident to Darcia how fragile this cannon was in the face of pure power.

The scene of the old physician pleading anxiously, expressing his worries that the cannon might not be ready played inside her mind. She pursed her rough lips, regretting that she hadn’t given it a little more thought back then.

Although she understood only little of how they had made the cannon, she knew that the runes etched on the gold plating were all focused on creating pure destructive energy from any source provided.

From the earlier experiments, while creating the healing potions, the physicians had all come to the same conclusion that the smoke released by the severed arm contained an unbelievable amount of energy. From this, everyone agreed that they could create a lethal weapon using the severed arm.

However, they needed resources so expensive that even Lammert was not willing to allocate them such expenses before. At least not until Darcia forced him to use whatever means required to create this cannon.

Even while Darcia wanted the cannon built, she wouldn’t let anyone else touch the arm, so the physicians didn’t have a clear idea about how much power it held.

Left with no choice, the physicians could only make a general guess. And looking at the situation at hand, it was obvious that the reality was far off from their guess, and even one of the toughest metals on the continent couldn’t handle so much power.

These thoughts of regret didn’t even take a second to process in her mind, and the cannon was still increasingly shaking.

‘Should I throw it away?... NO! This is mine!’

In her greed, Darcia didn’t want to let go of the cannon even when she felt that it might explode any time.

*Crack!*

The sound of cracking could be heard in the midst of all the confusion.

Darcia’s eyes immediately darted in the direction of the sound and noticed a small crack had appeared in the middle of the runes etched on the gold plating!

‘NO! This is bad!’ Darcia realized how dangerous it had become now that the runes were damaged. She didn’t fully understand runes, but everyone knew that when runes were damaged in such a way, the results were always unpredictable.

“Gaaahh!!” the Sovereign in the distance suddenly shouted and started to cover herself with a shield of burning red Mana.

She had dropped the thought of withstanding the attack with only her natural defenses long ago. Although she was arrogant, her life still came before her pride.

Only Ozul at this moment didn’t care about what the cannon was about to do.

Not only was he at a safe distance from it, but he was also focused on something else.

“A little more... Just a little more...” Ozul muttered while controlling the Ball of Purity to slowly get closer to Darcia.

There was only a few meters distance from the Ball of Purity to the cannon, but Ozul didn’t want to risk it from here. If he tried to snatch his arm from that point, there was a high chance that Darcia would be able to stop it.

But at the same time, he had a sense of urgency because the cannon was like a ticking bomb.

It might just shoot towards the Sovereign, but there were also chances that it might explode on Darcia’s face. And what if Darcia decided to abandon the cannon as she takes out his hand and runs away?

Ozul really didn’t have any room to breathe in this situation.

He had no choice but to try either. His own arm was on the line and he didn’t want it to explode together with the cannon if that happened.

“There!” Ozul suddenly shouted as he noticed Darcia’s attention shifting to the Sovereign just for a split second.

At the center of everything, Darcia was taken aback by the sudden shout that came from her side as she remembered that there was also Ozul on the scene other than herself and the Sovereign.

*Crack!...*

It was only a pity that she didn’t even have time to finish her thoughts before the crack in the center of the runes began to spread.

Dread took over her mind as she realized the consequences of the cannon exploding right now.

‘But the arm!’ Darcia would have already thrown the cannon away if not for the arm inside it. However, she didn’t have any time to take out the arm nor throw the cannon away!

*Zckck*

She had yet to reach a decision when sparks of pitch-black color surrounded the cannon.

“Argh! What are these!?” Darcia shouted in pain as a few of the sparks got in contact with her skin.

She as a Rank-10 Mage had a skin that even Rank-10 Fighters might not be able to injure. But she could see the burning of her skin at the spot where the sparks had hit.

Everything was happening too rapidly and not only her, but even the Sovereign and Ozul couldn’t comprehend the whole situation.

The black sparks hadn’t settled yet when the formless sphere of white energy gathered at the end of the cannon started to grow to an even bigger size!

Darcia sucked in a deep breath. She hadn’t planned anything to go this way, so why was it happening like this!?

*...zz...ZZZ...ZZZ*

The humming noise of the cannon increased to the point where even a normal mage would be forced to use Mana to cover their ears!

Darcia’s panic-stricken expressions eased a little as she realized that the cannon was only powering up to shoot!

“KHAHAHA! Who said it wouldn’t work!? Once I’ve dealt with you, he will be next!” Lost in the relief and her madness, Darcia started to shout while cackling like an old witch again.

In her response to her shouts, the Sovereign stayed silent. There was no way that she could run from this fight now and although she couldn’t gauge how much power the cannon held, her instincts at least told her how dangerous her situation was.

A second was all it needed with the black sparks still covering the whole cannon, for it to fire straight at the fiery giant wolf in the distance.

*BOOOM!*