Unsealing Emptiness

Since it was early in the morning, Ozul was alone sitting in the lounge, looking outside the window.

When Clara came down from her room, she had to control herself not to stand there in a daze after seeing him with a thoughtful look on his face. Even with the tension between them, she could not stop herself from looking at him in that way.

‘If only sunlight shined on his face at this moment, it would be perfect!’ Clara thought to herself.

However, she quickly shook those thoughts away. For some odd reason, Ozul would always put on his hat whenever there was sunlight.

Ozul suddenly turned his head to look in her way as she jumped in fright. Though it soon proved to be embarrassing since he wasn’t specifically looking at her. Instead, he turned around because of Cyril and Mark behind her.

“Ready?” Mark asked, but did not expect any answers, so immediately left the hotel as the others followed right after.

.....

Ozul was planning to drop off Clara at the Church before heading to the duo’s organization.

However, they had just gotten out of the hotel when Ozul sensed the familiar Mana around him. Turning his head around, he noticed that it was actually Raven and Blaze together with the rest of the people.

Just as he had noticed them, the other group did the same.

“Ozul!”

Raven ran and almost jumped at Ozul, but she stopped herself at the last moment. She could not hold herself back from smiling ear to ear. Ozul had no choice but to pat her head, making Raven think that the previous month was worth it.

“Young miss!”

“Venessa!”

Venessa hurriedly ran to Clara’s side and checked her from head to toe. She was even crying as she kept blaming herself.

On the other hand, Clara was trying to console her while grinning happily. She could not hold back her smile, knowing that Venessa was indeed alright, as Ozul had said. She was with her for as long as Clara could remember, so Venessa was nothing less than a family to her.

Ignoring their commotion, Blaze calmly walked towards Ozul, and under Raven’s dumbfounded eyes, he gave him a light hug before both of them nodded their heads. Blaze then calmly stood to the side.

Raven could not help but regret hesitating to jump on Ozul after witnessing this. Meanwhile, Blaze tried his best to hold back his laugh since he had done it on purpose.

Before Raven and Blaze could ask any questions, Rufus approached Ozul.

“As expected, you had already brought her here safely,” he commented before moving his gaze onto the two lean men standing behind Ozul.

He could not help but feel something odd about them, but he could not put his finger on it.

“You had any doubts?” Raven asked with a smug smile on her face. She had been mostly quiet the whole month, but now she spoke as if she had a newfound strength.

“Haha... Of course not. But young man, we had to stop at almost every city before coming here just to make sure!” Rufus said with a laugh. However, he wasn’t at all happy about it.

The previous month, they had kept on traveling without any rest at all. The group would stop at every city to make sure that Ozul and Clara were not there, and only after making sure this not to be the case did they move on to the next city.

Although these cities were not so different from regular towns, it was still a lot of hassle to search around every one of them. Not to mention, they had found no evidence of the duo ever visiting any of the cities, which put more pressure on Rufus.

Not only did he have to search every city and town but also fast enough so they could quickly confirm if the duo really were ahead of them and not somewhere behind.

And he would have to bear full responsibility if they really had left the duo far behind, stuck in some other mess.

After all that, their group had just arrived at the Neutral City. Fortunately for Rufus, they were just going to take a little rest at a restaurant when they encountered Ozul and Clara.

It was one of the only things that improved his mood after his failed mission. One of his foremost tasks here was to deal a massive blow to whoever came to assassinate the convoy, but the situation turned out to be complicated, and both sides had almost equal losses instead.

Thinking about his tasks, Rufus suddenly remembered what he was asked to do about Ozul.

“Cough... Since we are already here, let us visit the Church. Everyone will receive their rewards by them personally,” Rufus said in a way that seemed very casual.

The few mercenaries remaining in the group immediately jumped in excitement. It had been months since they took this mission, and after all those sacrifices of their comrades, they were finally going to receive their payment.

“Hmm?” Ozul finally remembered why he had tagged along in this long trip in the first place. It was to see what Emperor Luthien had planned for him personally.

‘But I also have this thing on my hand,’ Ozul knew that the leader of the organization could only be a Rank-9 Mage. It was just as important to deal with him as well.

“Alright,” In the end, Ozul agreed since there was no hurry to meet with that person either.

Rufus was overjoyed. Even if he failed one of his tasks, the other one was easy and quite complicated at the same time. He just had to keep watch on Ozul until they arrived at the Church.

It was easy since he did not have to do anything. But it was complicated because it would be more accurate to say that he did not have any power to do anything. It all depended on Ozul’s mood.

And he was delighted since they were almost there, and Ozul had agreed to follow as well.

And of course, Cyril and Mark behind Ozul had no problem with it either as they quietly followed behind the group.

Raven was curious about the two lean men following behind Ozul, but she chose to keep quiet about it for now. She had many questions, but they could wait for now since it was neither the time nor the place for it.

Their group was quite large, so a couple of gazes landed. However, these people were forced to avert their eyes when they felt the suffocating pressure from almost everyone in the group.

They passed by almost every type of property. There were restaurants, houses, hotels, and almost everything that one could ever think of in the entire continent.

Each property was owned by organizations renowned all over the Mainland. Raven and Blaze looked at everything with interest.

Half an hour passed before the group arrived in front of a spacious area.

In the back, they could see the massive white building. Tens of people were walking in and out from the entrance. The ones who were entering had crestfallen expressions, while those who came out mostly had slightly better conditions.

It was indeed the Church of Light that they had traveled for months to reach!

Before the Church, there was also a giant water fountain that caused a cheerful atmosphere. Ozul felt the weird waves of Mana in the atmosphere.

‘Probably some formations set up by the people...’ Ozul thought before the group stopped at a little distance from the fountain.

*Fuuu...*

A lot of people released a sigh of relief. These past months were nothing less than torture for them.

Just at this moment, a couple of middle-aged men with faces full of amiable smiles slowly walked out of the Church.

It was almost as if they were specifically waiting for their group as they approached them.

“Clara! Rufus! You guys finally arrived, haha,” the man in the middle laughed heartily.

Clara smiled beautifully as Venessa and Hanry bowed their heads behind her. Meanwhile, Rufus nodded his head as well.

“How was your journey?” the man ignored everyone else as he asked Clara.

“It was only so-so, Uncle Garth,” Clara only gave a short and polite answer.

“Hmm, We will discuss it later. Your father has been expecting you for a few days now. Go and inform him about your arrival,” the man named Garth said as Clara nodded and hurriedly walked away, followed by Venessa and Hanry.

After that, Garth looked at Rufus with a smile on his face. Rufus also smiled in return as he gave him a bear hug, “It’s been years, Rufus!”

“Well, yes. But I am here, aren’t I?” Rufus laughed, dumbfounding his subordinates who had never seen this side of their leader before.

“That can be discussed later. Here, these are the mercenaries who expect their rewards,” Rufus said while pointing at the few remaining mercenaries in the group.

“Hmm? Only these pitiful numbers? Did something happen?” Garth asked. According to his guess, there should have been nearing hundreds of mercenaries, so it was a wonder why there were only these few.

“Cough, We will talk about it, but this is Ozul,” Rufus introduced Ozul as Garth’s eyes had a hidden gleam.

“So, this is the young man, huh...” Garth said out aloud before making his way towards Ozul.

“Haha! You can call me Garth. I am one of the High Priests in the Church,” Garth introduced himself while extending his hand towards Ozul.