Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial got to know lots of things today.

He realized that Kaeldur and the others knew a lot more about this Universe, and even Jundra than he did.

Usually, he would think about changing that but Nial didn't really have the time to leave the human shelters and spend a few years searching for answers to all the questions he had in mind.

It was quite a hassle but he was in no rush and it had to be fine being oblivious to a bunch of things for the time being.

This included the answer Kaeldur had given him when he asked his first Devil why he was so certain that the human Ascender he encountered would soon meet him as well.

Nial felt that meeting a human Ascender all of a sudden would be quite random. Ascenders wouldn't really go to the Origin, not if they could prevent it, at least. The Origin was overflowing with Mana but it didn't have that much Essence according to what Kaeldur had said.

Thus, there was not really a way for Nial to meet the said human Ascender for the time being.

'-The Oracle visited you, so I wondered why. She probably was keeping an eye on your progress…-'

Nial thought about Kaeldur's last words for a while and he couldn't help but feel suspicious as well.

The Oracle had appeared out of nowhere and she left after extending a helping hand once. That one time she had been quite helpful but it was not as if he would have died without her help, probably.

That was when Nial realized that Kaeldur's guess could have been correct.

'Did she really visit me to assess my strength? If so, why would she do that and leave all of a sudden?'

Nial had many questions in his mind but it was not as if he could just summon the Oracle to answer them. He didn't even know if it was possible for him to see the Oracle in the near future.

With that in mind, he averted his focus to something else. Nial asked Kaeldur to tell him more about Chaos, again. He wanted to find out more about the Power of Chaos that seemed to be directly connected to the Vengeance of Chaos ability.

Nial would love to get to know the reason why the name of the ability was Vengeance of Chaos, to begin with. Did the Chaos have feelings, to begin with? Wasn't it just another type of energy? Or…was Chaos the name of someone, a nickname?

Nial didn't know and Kaeldur was the only one who seemed to know something about the Power of Chaos, and even nicknames used by certain people.

Unfortunately, most pieces of information were rather useless for Nial currently. He was not at a level where he could freely wield the Power of Chaos and it would probably take quite a while until that would be the case. For now, he was trying to endure the pain in his arms whenever he used the Vengeance of Chaos ability.

It was quite a big mess, but he was fortunate to be in possession of both, the enhanced version of the Symbol of Life, though evolved and fused with the Odyssey seed and the Fairies' Blessing. He could heal faster than others and it wasn't that easy for anyone to injure him, in the first place.

Kaeldur continued to speak about many things in great detail. Thus, Nial was getting a rough understanding of many things. Unfortunately, they were interrupted when it was about to become truly interesting.

Loud explosions resounded in the surrounding area, attracting everyone's attention in the Halheim shelter and the Forest of Life. Nial spread out his range of perception, and he used a large amount of dark energy to amplify the power of Mana Sense.

Nial focused on the perception of mana sources rather than the visualization of everything in great detail. Thus, he could sense everything in a radius of more than 200 kilometers quite clearly.

'An Army?'

Nial tensed up the moment he perceived more than a hundred thousand sources of mana clustered together. Wanting to get a good look at what was going on, he rushed over to Ryu.

Ryu was fully grown by now and he was already at the Deux rank. Now, the Darkness Gryphon had to accumulate higher proficiency in the darkness element and absorb more Mana to break through the limits of his Mana Sea.

Ryu was able to reach the Deux rank so quickly because he had once been at the Peak of the Prometheus rank. The Mana Core had already been liquefied to a certain extent and it was only because of Ryu's lesser bloodline that he had never advanced to the Deux rank.

Now that Ryu's bloodline was devoid of impurities it was possible to become much stronger than ever before. With Nial and his Darkness Essence by Ryu's side, this was, even more, the case.

Listening to Nial's will, Ryu shot high into the air. He shot through the cover of leaves and branches of the trees that surrounded the territory of the Orion Artisan Guild.

When Ryu reached a certain height, the three-meter-tall Gryphon spread out his wings that seemed to enlarge further. A fog of darkness oozed out of the Darkness Gryphon's wings and Ryu burst forth with a swing of his two pairs of wings. They generated a terrific force that was more than enough for him to reach a speed much higher than what Nial could attain on his own.

At least, Nial wouldn't be able to reach Ryu's speed for now as his rank was too low.

But that was fine because he could ride on Ryu's back. They flew through the air while Nial focused his Mana Sense solely in the direction of the army of clustered mana sources.

He wanted to find out more about the beings who seemed to approach the Halheim shelter with slow strides. There were not many chaotic mana fluctuations, showing that the clustered mana sources were stable and the owner of the mana was confident in himself.

Nial was not able to tell whether they had any bad intentions or not but that was something he would find out soon enough.

While charging in their direction, Nial noticed that the Royal Princess of the Elven, Nightingale, and a bunch of higher-authorities of the other Elven sub-races were doing exactly the same.

​ Ryu was almost as fast as the Elven's Keltia-ranked Originals…but only almost. They didn't use any mana to move either. This was to ensure that the other party would not misinterpret their actions and think that they were about to attack the army of the clustered mana sources.

As for the mana sources, Nial found out what kind of race the mana clusters belonged to…and he couldn't help but frown deeply.

"Dracos…" He mumbled, just to sigh heavily.

"...will they take all my profits from Runic Armaments now?!"

The Dracos race was one of the races that were considered at the top of the Runicier Industry. One could say that they were Nial's enemies, whether they would be hostile or not.

'Should I hope that we start waging a war…no that's stupid…'

One way or another…the Dracos race had appeared, with an army of more than 100,000 members.

Did they desire blood, or were they searching for allies…or possibly a place to stay?