Odyssey of the Blind God

It was pretty convenient that Nightingale stopped being a bother.

The Royal Nightshadow Elf was much easier to deal with and so was the Nightshadow Elven cohort around him.

They obeyed the commands of the Royal Nightshadow Elf, who in turn obeyed Nial. Thus, one could say that Nial had everything under control.

'Sometimes it feels great to possess the Essence of Darkness. It's like having another race in my grasp.'

Looking around at the ravine, Nial walked slowly and unhurriedly toward one end of it. It looked like there was nothing special in that direction but Nial knew better.

He might not be able to see something but his range of perception, combined with his Mana Sense were strong enough to perceive the 'lack of mana' in certain areas around this side of the ravine.

It was not impossible to become invisible and create a runic armament capable of camouflaging oneself and a small area around oneself. Nobody, not even Nial or someone with greater perception would be able to sense anything.

However, the Shelturion were both too greedy and too scared. They didn't want to be discovered and were greedy enough to attempt using Tier-3 runic armaments to hide their entire laboratory.

If they had used customized Tier-4, or even Tier-5 runic armaments, this might have been possible, but not with the runic armaments that could enter the lands of Jundra right now!

Nial was well-informed about the limited supply of high-quality ores and ingredients. He also knew that Tier-3 runic armaments were the highest rank of a runic armament that could be brought to the Origin in its current form.

That was why they had taken great care to keep the location of the laboratory a secret. It was well-hidden, but not invisible, let alone perfectly camouflaged from the perception of someone like Nial.

He created a bunch of spears out of darkness and cleared his throat to ensure that the Nightshadow Elves listened attentively to his words.

"I will mark the regions you should attack for the time being. I can sense two entrances to the hidden laboratory, but getting in is quite annoying because they're either too narrow or spiked with traps. That's why we'll create our own entrance near theirs!" Nial explained.

A moment later, he released three darkness spears, one near the furthest point of the ravine's end, one more than ten meters to the left, and another one a few meters above.

The holes he pierced in the wall near the ground of the ravine were merely traps. They were located at the original entrances of the hidden laboratories and the follow-up attacks of the Nightshadow Elves were something that was supposed to work as a distraction.

The camouflage runic armaments of the hidden laboratory stopped working after their runic constellations had been damaged and Nial was able to gauge a considerable chunk of information from the situation within the laboratory.

While visualizing the interior, Nial felt almost like he was back to Alliance City. Everything was pretty modern and the technology they used was pretty similar as well. If he was not wrong they used the same artificial intelligence system, but he might as well be mistaken.

It was not as if Nial's knowledge about artificial intelligence, or truly modern technology was vast in any kind of way. He didn't even know much about the technology humans had used before various races had descended, but that technology was already considered to be outdated by now!

The attacks manifested from the Nightshadow Elves' shadow energy destroyed the ravine's wall, exposing a huge white building where not even a speck of dust or dirt was sticking to it. Large tinted glass doors could be seen in the area Nial had fired his first two darkness spears in, but not even a small crack appeared on them.

Even after the Nightshadow Elves that were at the Late Deux rank and the Low Keltia rank, attacked the tinted glass doors, not a single crack appeared.

"Forget it, these doors are made out of some Anti-Magic Sand that was mixed with something to reinforce and guard them from the physical impact. The doors are even stronger than the building's walls!" Nial explained shortly.

Nightingale nodded his head at that but he didn't accept giving up. On the contrary, he created several spears with his energy before he released them at the white marble walls next to the tinted glass door.

'If I cannot go through the door, I will make my own pathway!'

Nial understood what Nightingale was thinking but the walls near the entrance of the hidden laboratory were also reinforced.

However, the same couldn't be said about the roof of the building or a specific area to be precise.

That was why Nial jumped up to reach the large hole he and the others had carved into the ravine's wall with their long-range attacks. The hole was several meters broad, wide and high. There was enough space for everyone to stand and move around.

Bending down, Nial's flat hands touched the rooftop of the hidden laboratories' entrance area. It was not the highest position in the entire building but that didn't really matter. Nial and the others were supposed to cause distraction and attract the guards' attention, all of them, if possible!

When he released his dark energy in the white marble, it was first repelled. Energies from outside the building were repelled naturally, but that was also expected. Nial didn't allow that information to distract him.

He spread out his dark energy once again. However, this time, he fused it with his Darkness essence and used a considerable amount of the accumulated crimson moonlight to further reinforce his dark energy.

Crimson, vein-like patterns spread through his dark energy that spread slowly through the ground.

The potency of his dark energy caused some Nightshadow Elves to subconsciously step back as the dark energy crept towards them and was about to cover the ground below their feet. However, they stopped moving after a moment when they realized that they had acted in panic…possibly even in fear.

Their bodies' instinctive reaction was humiliating, especially since they attempted to hide away from the power of a human whose rank was lower than theirs.

They knew that Nial was not ordinary but it was still a hard pill for them to swallow.

"Don't bother feeling embarrassed…he has the same power as the Late God of Darkness. It would be weird if you wouldn't feel anything…" Nightingale said, trying to sound calm and composed.

However, what everyone could see quite clearly, was that Nightingale had broken out in a cold sweat and his legs were quivering lightly. He had had a rather traumatic past experience with the exact same type of energy, after all!

The Nightshadow Elves noticed that Nightingale was giving his best to remain calm while Nial didn't notice anything.

He focused on the information he could absorb while slowly spreading his dark energy through the ceiling of the laboratory's entrance hall.

There was no need for him to cover every inch of the laboratory's ceiling with dark energy, but he was looking out for something.

"Where is the weakest seam…" He mumbled after a while. The Nightshadow Elves had regained their composure and they were trying to act as if the eerie dark energy didn't affect them in the slightest.

They were supposed to be brave warriors, unshakable and silent assassins with a high amount of patience and composure that would allow them to face Gods with blazing eyes.

However, that was not the case. In fact, they were far from feeling like that, especially because it felt like Nial's dark energy was devouring their exuded mana as its nourishment.

The Nightshadow Elves had to seal their mana to prevent the dark energy around them from draining them of their entire energy.

How was that even possible?

In the end, not even Nial was sure about the correct answer. There were quite a few things he didn't know about dark energy, the Essence of Darkness, and basically, everything else related to the Late God of Darkness.

But Nial was not impatient. He knew that the time would come when he would get to know everything he was supposed to know.

Now was not the time, because he had finally found the weakest seam to break through the anti-mana reinforcement of the hidden laboratory.

"Let's take a look at my new lovely power," Nial mumbled to himself but the Nightshadow Elves could hear him. Grayish currents emerged around the wrist of his right hand and Nial opened his mouth slightly.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and controlled his power precisely.

"Crumble!"