Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 323: Going all out!

After the initial exchange of blows, it quickly became apparent that even while poisoned, the enemy team couldn’t land a hit on Raven and Blaze.

Despite the fact that their spells kept failing, they were able to avoid the enemies’ attacks. Blaze had been careless at first when he was struck on the hand, but after that one exchange, he made sure not to rely on a single spell.

It wasn’t that they were gradually gaining back absolute control over their Mana over time but started to get used to their weakened state.

On the contrary, the duo clearly felt weaker the longer their battle continued.

“They won’t be able to hold for long! Don’t hesitate to attack with everything you’ve got!”

The leader of the three-man team shouted at the other two. They were feeling quite helpless against these Rank-8 Mages who should have been easy to deal with as they were poisoned.

His encouragement reminded them that even if they weren’t able to seriously harm these people, it was only for a limited time. The longer the battle continued on, the weaker they would get!

.....

Their attacks got fiercer and they didn’t hold anything back this time.

Even Raven and Blaze were made aware of this alarming reality. They knew their bodies best and had already felt their movements getting sloppier and their thoughts getting cloudy with time.

‘Tch! We have to end it quickly. Otherwise, we might actually lose this!’

Raven glanced in Blaze’s direction and for a moment, their eyes met. They nodded their heads at each other; both decided to give their all before it was too late.

Only a few minutes had passed since they were fighting and making a mess all over the forest.

Both sides fought intensely. Despite the size of the surrounding trees, they fell as if they were made from sand.

“How long do you think will you last?! Give up now and we will give you an easy death!” shouted the man as he muttered a spell, creating a big circle under Blaze’s feet, emitting a purple light.

In response, Blaze summoned an ice floor to push himself up in the ground, only to see his opponent in front of him, about to hit him with the same spell he used before.

He reacted quickly, pulling the ice floor in front of him as he kicked it forward, crashing with the darkness-enhanced fist.

Both he and the enemy flew in the opposite direction. The latter falling to the ground and him hitting a tree trunk.

*Urgh!*

Though he had a much higher endurance than his enemy who was two small realms below him, each direct confrontation always caused him to suffer more. All because his control and senses were muddled.

Right now, Raven and Blaze were mostly fighting with their instincts as their bodies reacted on their own after years of experience.

Ozul had never let them lag behind in that regard. He always made sure to put them in situations where their bodies would adapt to fighting.

All of the torture and near-death experiences were finally paying off.

Nevertheless, that didn’t mean that they weren’t at a significant disadvantage right now.

Blaze stood up groggily. His expressions didn’t reveal how much pain he was in right now.

Opposite to him, the man also stood up with only a little difficulty. He had a smirk on his face as he noticed the thin trail of blood leaving from Blaze’s lips.

Looking at that annoying smirk, Blaze couldn’t keep calm anymore. After all, until now, he had only been dodging or blocking instead of focusing on attacking.

“AHH!!”

He suddenly shouted as his Mana flared many times over!

Since he already had a limited amount of time to finish this battle, he might as well stop trying to contain his Mana in order to gain finer control and just go all out with whatever he had.

The Mana which belonged to a peak Rank-8 Mage finally showed its effects on the enemy who was merely in the Initial Stage. The taunting smirk was instantly wiped out from the face of the enemy as he realized that he couldn’t afford to be careless now.

Blaze didn’t give him much time to think and disappeared from his spot and appeared right before the man as he kicked the latter in the abdomen with his whole leg covered in ice!

That man didn’t have much time to dodge the attack; at most, he was only able to reduce some force behind the attack using his hands.

That too was only possible because Blaze’s speed was significantly lowered.

It was at that point when Raven found a few seconds to observe Blaze’s situation. When she saw him letting his Mana run rampant, she was about to scold him for that.

However, when she noticed the kick sending the man flying in the air after the contact, she smiled instead.

“Perhaps that’s the most effective way right now,” she muttered as she let her Mana loose as well.

Due to the effects of the poison, their Mana was becoming uncontrollable by the second. Keeping it under control took away most of their concentration. Now, they had one less thing to worry about.

Faced with the flaring black colored Mana which was even denser and more eerie than their leader’s, the two Rank-7 Mages immediately retreated to create some distance between them.

Unfortunately, Raven was even faster than Blaze in agility!

Despite the fact that they had already formed shields in front of them, the force of the impact caused them to cough up blood as they were pushed several meters back!

As the leader of the team noticed this abrupt change in the situation, he couldn’t help but ground his teeth in anger, “Gah! Do you think you can survive this!?”

“I didn’t expect you would push us to this extent,” saying that, the leader signaled the other two with his head.

There wasn’t a speck of hesitation as all three of them collectively summoned a pill in their hand before throwing them in their mouth.

While doing so, the leader continued to speak, “At most we will have to bear through some pain after this is over... but you will surely die here! Even if you were to defeat us by some miracle, you would still end up dead because of the poison! Even as I speak at this moment, it’s still consuming you from inside!”

The annoying smirk on his face only got worse as veins on his face and his whole body started to bulge to an unusual extent.

It wasn’t just him; the other two people who had taken the pills experienced the same side effects.

Just then, all three of them flared their Mana which surprised the duo since it almost matched theirs now!

It was at that point when even Ozul squinted his eyes, finally wondering which hidden organization these people belonged to.

‘I didn’t feel any of my Scent in those pills either,’ he had kept a close eye at everything just now and he didn’t sense even a trace of his essence being used in those pills. Yet, they were able to increase the consumer’s strength to such an extent!

‘Judging from his words, pain after its effectiveness wears off must be one of the side effects. Also, as all three of them have nearly the same amount of Mana even when their initial power was different, it could mean that the pills’ limit was near peak Rank-8 Mage.’

Still, Ozul wondered why an organization which had a tool which could temporarily grant the strength of a peak Rank-8 Mage would remain so hidden that even he didn’t know about them.

‘Even with all my efforts in establishing the Three-Eyed Strangers, it seems gathering information from the commoners on the streets could only do so much...’

Despite his expectations, Ozul was not dissatisfied. The Three-Eyed Strangers were still a new organisation in comparison to others; given enough time, it would have truly spread its roots all over the world.

As he contemplated these thoughts, he shifted his focus back on the ground which had long turned into a battlefield.

Raven and Blaze had the upper hand for only a few moments before the battle reached a stalemate.

Such a thing, in the end, was unfavorable to the duo since they only had a limited time before their powers were rendered useless by the poison.

Just like that, a few minutes passed. Both sides exhaled heavily, and bruises and cuts covered their bodies on all sides!

“Haah!” Raven gasped for breath before she mustered all of her strength, ‘This must end now!’

As the Water Mage had just surrounded her with water, she broke through it using her daggers.

He was only a few feet away from her so both him and the Lightning Mage expected her to attack the Water Mage.

Contrary to their expectations however, Raven blasted through the water and rushed towards the Lightning Mage!

Although stupefied, the Lightning Mage and the Water Mage smirked since now the Water Mage had an easy target to shoot.

Just as the Water Mage had shot the sharp bullets of water, targeting Raven’s back, he was dumbfounded when the water bullets froze midway and dropped to the ground!

He immediately glanced in Blaze’s direction only to see him smirking dangerously while enduring another attack from their leader! ‘Monster!’ he thought as he could tell just how much pain he was going to experience because of this.

At this moment, the Lightning Mage didn’t see the Water Mage’s spell failing because of Blaze and confidently threw a lightning bolt of his own at Raven, thinking that even if she dodged one of them, the other would hit her.

When two identical daggers appeared in Raven’s hands as she slid on the ground, narrowly dodging the lightning bolt before plunging both daggers into the Lightning Mage’s stomach, the Water Mage didn’t have time to warn him!

“GAHh!”

As his scream rang out in the forest, the Water Mage could only stare at this scene in horror!

Raven didn’t let this opportunity go to waste as she threw one of the daggers at him from the distance.

The Water Mage was only able to dodge the dagger at the last minute. Even then, it grazed his shoulder a little.

Unfortunately for him though, he hadn’t balanced himself yet when he found his world turning black.

The last thing he saw were the tired but firm and cold eyes staring down at him.

Both the Water Mage and the Lightning Mage died instantly.

Raven, on the other hand, didn’t have the luxury of taking a break right now. She still had to help Blaze, who had suffered another direct blow, in order to help her distract her opponents.

When she turned around to find Blaze and the enemy’s leader, her eyes widened in horror.

‘No!’ she internally shouted when she witnessed Blaze stumbling a little before falling on the ground!

His opponent had just kneeled on the ground and was about to crush Blaze’s head with his darkness-covered hand, but she was too far away to help him!

.....