Unsealing Emptiness

He had come here to ask him about any possible way to use the artifacts and formations without Mana because he didn’t know what type of formations would be set up in the royal palace of Silverbird Kingdom.

If he had a way to use the artifacts without Mana, then it would give him a little more confidence while searching for his arm. Now, he could only hope that the defensive formations in the palace were weak enough.

After a while, Ozul forgot about it and hurriedly made his way straight towards the Nine Petals Sect instead.

——-

Nine Petals Sect, it was one of the few Sects on the continent that didn’t discriminate against their disciples on the basis of their Elements.

Not just the Sects, but most of the factions in this world held prejudice against certain Elements and the Darkness Element was the only commonly-hated one among all of them. Some of them even looked down on the Water Element.

.....

However, there were only a few numbers of factions that accepted people on the basis of their merits and strength; the Nine Petals Sect was one of them. And because of this, such factions have always been an eye sour among the rest of the prominent groups.

Nine Petals Sect had allied with the Ashin family due to these reasons as well. The Ashin family didn’t care if one had a weak Elemental affinity or if they even chose the Darkness Element.

The Sect’s reputation wasn’t the greatest among others, but they were a force to be reckoned with. And despite their reputation of housing and nurturing Dark Mages, many talented individuals joined under them every year.

Though that was only the case before the Church had created and started selling the miraculous potion to heal injuries, no matter how fatal or life-threatening.

The Sect’s stand to accept the Mages even with Darkness Element had naturally made them an enemy of the Church, not to mention that they had also allied with the Ashin family.

Because of the Church of Light’s newly created healing potion, many Mages who were planning to join the Sect decided otherwise. The people with Darkness Elements couldn’t change sides, but others were drawn towards the Church like bees are to the nectar.

All who could think a little knew that the Church only released a little number of high-quality potions while the rest are stored only for their members.

These people, though didn’t want to join the Church and start spouting nonsense about the God of Light everywhere, couldn’t resist the temptation of the healing potions. They were like extra lives, and none of them wanted to die early.

For such reasons, the stream of new capable Mages joining the Sect had lowered significantly; to the point where even a couple of Elders were assigned to seek out talented individuals around the continent!

Many of the Elders didn’t agree to such a tactic, but the Sect Leader’s orders were absolute. And their dissatisfaction all vanished when Elder Michiko had brought in two individuals that even the Sect Leader praised and commented that they had high chances to become a Rank-9 Mage.

And the fact that both of them had chosen such complex Elements only made them more formidable.

One of them, a black-haired woman who looked around in her early 20’s, with a stony face, stood near the cliff as she watched a group of teenagers surrounding another girl...

. . .

The short-haired girl, who was surrounded by the teenagers, suddenly spun around and flashed between them, leaving a black trail behind her that disappeared immediately after.

There were a total of 11 teenagers including 3 girls and all of them began to fall down on the ground, holding their stomachs as they squirmed in pain.

After just a few seconds, only the short-haired girl remained standing. Even as she was out of breath, the girl smiled brightly while looking in the direction of the cold beauty observing her from a distance.

“Big Sister Raven!” the girl shouted before she ran towards Raven. Her short brown hair were drenched in sweat, but it didn’t seem to trouble her.

“You know what you did wrong?” Raven asked while shaking her head as the girl was looking at her with expectant eyes, seemingly asking for praise. The girl’s smile immediately disappeared and she lowered her head before answering, “I didn’t want to use the Shadow Way, but I had no choice...”

“You are exhausted after that last attack. If it was a real fight in some wild area, many unknown factors would be included and there was a high chance that you’d end up dead as well, Alda.” Raven reprimanded her.

“I know...” Alda muttered in a quiet voice.

Looking at her sorry figure, Raven couldn’t keep her cold face for much longer and sighed before petting her head.

“If it was him, I am sure you would be crying by now...” Raven stated while shaking her head again. Although this girl was already a peak Rank-4 Mage at her age, Raven thought that she was quite lacking in teaching.

‘Haa... I can never get myself to be strict with her,’ Raven sighed internally.

Over the years, she had come to look at this girl named Alda as her younger sister. No one, even she herself never expected that she would open up to someone else.

But she had saved Alda when a couple of kids were bullying her in the past. It seemed like just simple bullying, but the girl was almost on her deathbed! After that incident, Alda always stuck close to her. Raven couldn’t refuse her since she reminded her of when Ozul had saved her from that dark alley.

So, over time, Raven started to teach Alda as a mentor. Alda was so attached to her that she also chose to develop the Darkness Element.

“He? Oh, is it that person?” Alda clearly heard Raven as she asked. She knew many things about this person as her big sister often talked about him.

‘What kind of a person he is that even big sister talks about him so much...’ Alda looked at Raven and thought.

It had been more than 10 years since Raven joined the Nine Petals Sect and there were naturally many people who tried to approach her; some because of her talent and others because of her beauty.

Raven now had a mature look on her face with shoulder-length hair that were tied to make a ponytail. Over the years, she had only grown more beautiful. She didn’t know if it was because of the Elemental Seed or each breakthrough cleansing her body, but she had almost become a different person.

Only Alda had heard a few words of a certain man from her mouth once in a while.

‘Whoever he is, I don’t like him...’ Alda didn’t think that there could be any man suitable for her big sister. In her mind, absolutely no one was good enough!

Meanwhile, Raven looked at Alda’s angry face and realized what she must be thinking right now. She could not help but pondered, ‘Am I like that too?’

With a little time away from Ozul, Raven had realized that he was not at all interested in her. She had reflected on her obsessive thoughts previously, but even now, she couldn’t just stop liking Ozul. Now, she was only aware that it was hopeless.

Raven couldn’t help but sigh when suddenly her eyes narrowed. It remained like that for a little while before she relaxed them and spoke, “I told you, it will never work.”

“What?! Again!?” a voice erupted from below the cliff as Alda hurriedly took a fighting stance. She hadn’t sensed anyone, so the loud voice had made her unconsciously ready her fists.

Under Raven’s bored eyes, a cyan-haired man suddenly appeared before Alda. The man had a black cloth tied on his forehead like a headband.

Alda could only take a few steps back because of the chilling aura she felt from that man.

“Control yourself, Blaze. She can’t resist,” Raven said in a colder tone.

Blaze immediately retracted the chilling aura and turned towards Alda before apologizing, “Oh? I didn’t realize it. I apologize.”

Alda suddenly forgot about all the bone-chilling cold aura released from Blaze and a pink hue took place on her soft cheeks. She couldn’t help. In fact, people would doubt her gender if she didn’t blush in Blaze’s presence.

It couldn’t be helped. Blaze was handsome previously as well, but now he also had the mature vibes which only added to his charms.

“I-it’s fine...” Alda could only manage to mutter these words before Raven glared at Blaze, indicating him to back away.

Blaze smiled wryly and took a few steps back and asked, “Okay now?”

Raven nodded her head in response. She was probably the only person in the entire Nine Petals Sect that Blaze listened to.

“Tell me how you sensed me,” Blaze asked. He could beat Raven in 1v1 fights, but there were many aspects where she would always beat him, no matter how hard he tried.

“If you are so capable, find out yourself,” Raven didn’t answer his question and retorted. She didn’t like the fact that even with her trying so hard, Blaze had gotten ahead of her just because of his talent.

*Sigh*

“If he was here, I wouldn’t have asked you,” Blaze sighed exaggeratedly.

Raven squinted her eyes at him and was about to ready her daggers when Blaze took another couple of steps back and waved his hands, “Oi oi! Don’t get serious. I wasn’t making fun of you!”