Unsealing Emptiness

Though Rufus or the Empress might have started to believe that a simple cat was the reason, Emperor Luthien wasn’t aware of such details and directly rushed back to the Silverbird Kingdom.

Unaware that he had already started making his way back, Ozul leisurely waited for the Empress to disable the formations.

Only when it was midnight did Ozul notice that the guards who had earlier been rushing everywhere started to make their way towards the Palace.

He got up and decided to follow where everyone was heading. The screen created by the Ball of Purity completely blended him in the dark surroundings.

‘Rufus...’ Ozul noticed that the place where the guards had gathered was around the old man. He hid in a tree again, but close enough so that he could hear what Rufus was saying.

“...Go back to your positions, but be extra alert. It was a false alarm, but don’t slack off now,” Rufus ordered.

.....

He didn’t say much, but Ozul knew it meant that now they were really thinking that the formation was at fault.

Following Rufus’ orders, the guards dispersed and he also went inside the Palace. And this time, Ozul was there to notice that the formations ignored the old man.

Now that he knew what they were thinking, he excitedly waited for them to put down the defenses surrounding the Palace.

And just as he had expected, just a few minutes later, he felt the layer of Mana disappearing around the Palace.

Gradually, the dense surge of Mana that he was previously feeling disappeared, indicating that all of those defensive formations were deactivated.

‘Finally!’ Ozul cheered inside his mind, but still waited there for a couple of minutes.

The guards uniformly went back to their duties, but no one dared to slack off this time. All of them were as vigilant as they could get.

When he noticed that things had calmed down, he began to discreetly make his way towards the Palace.

With his speed and the camouflage because of the Ball of Purity, no one noticed him rushing towards the huge gates.

Even when he didn’t sense any formations, Ozul was careful about his surroundings. There have been a number of times before when he missed them, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake here.

As he got inside, he didn’t have the same advantage of the dark surroundings as he had outside. So he relied on his speed to stop only at a place where no one was around to see him.

Only when he stopped around the corner of a corridor did he have the time to look at the interior of the Palace. The inside of the Palace was as if it was still day. The ceiling was high and decorated with expensive-looking ornaments.

There were too many sparkly things for him to move leisurely without worrying about getting caught.

‘Well, now that I am inside, it doesn’t matter whoever sees me as long as they aren’t conscious after that...’ Ozul thought inside his mind with a smirk almost taking place on his face.

He was fairly confident to be able to deal with just about anyone since Emperor Luthien wasn’t here.

It would have been a real problem if the formations were active and Emperor Luthien was here at the same time. It was fortunate that he didn’t have to deal with even one of them.

“It’s time to search,” Ozul muttered under his breath and began to look around the Palace. He didn’t know the internal layout, so all he could rely on was the trails of Mana.

The Palace was too big for him to blindly run everywhere and hope to run into the place where they had left his arm.

He searched a couple of rooms, but none of them had anything.

Just as he was standing there, contemplating what to do next, a voice woke him up.

“Hey! Who are you?” The voice belonged to a tall man wearing a neat uniform. He seemed like one of the royal guards because his aura and cultivation base was on a different level than the ones patrolling outside.

“Already? Sigh... ” Although Ozul could easily deal with him, he would have to hide his body somewhere as well, or someone might find him and report it to the Empress. Even if he somehow managed to hide his body, his friends could also notice his disappearance.

‘Can’t do anything about it now,’ he thought inside his mind as a single thin needle passed through the guards’ head, creating just a tiny hole before the man fell down.

*Thud.*

When Ozul was going to pick up the body and look somewhere to hide it, he noticed the golden pouch hanging on his waist.

‘Nothing alive can be stored there... but he is dead now, isn’t he...’ Ozul didn’t know if he could do it. But when he picked up the man’s corpse and opened the Spatial Pouch, it interestingly worked!

It made it a lot easier for him to just store all the dead bodies inside the pouch if need be. Just when he was about to continue, he stopped and realized that it would take a lot of unnecessary time if he kept on going like this.

Half an hour had already passed after he had entered the Palace, and all he had found was the throne room.

Though he didn’t enter it, he knew that it was the throne room because of the presence of a couple of Rank-8 Mages there.

‘Hmm?’ Just then, Ozul felt something rubbing the side of his leg and when he looked down, there she was.

“Took you long enough,” Ozul bent down and patted Jinx. Though he had just asked her to walk inside and disappear afterward, she did obey him and deserved a few pats.

Just when Ozul stood up after patting her, Jinx started walking in the corridor.

“Hm? Where are you going?” Ozul asked. She would usually just follow behind him where he went. He had never seen her visibly go anywhere. Whenever she did, she would just disappear, and never physically walk away.

Jinx stopped and looked back at him in the eyes. They stared at each other for a few seconds as if communicating with their eyes.

If anyone else had seen them looking at each other like that, they would have thought that both of them were in love.

After a moment, as if Ozul just understood what she was trying to convey, he started following behind her.

Ozul actually didn’t know what Jinx exactly wanted him to know, but he could at least understand that she wanted him to follow her.

The only problem was that Jinx walked as if she owned the castle. It was as if each of her steps was carefully planned because the grace of that walk would have put even the noblest of ladies to shame.

Jinx walked in the middle of the corridor, and Ozul could only helplessly follow behind her slowly.

And not surprisingly, they ran into a couple of royal guards. Ozul quickly dealt with them, and put their corpses inside the Spatial Pouch.

Just like that, Jinx made him walk through a couple more hallways and the number of royal guards’ corpses inside the Spatial Pouch kept increasing.

At this point, Ozul realized that they would need to hurry up because the disappearance of so many guards at the same time would definitely cause a big commotion. He didn’t know where the defensive formations were placed, but it would be better if they weren’t activated again.

“Hurry up, Jinx.”

Although Ozul told her to hurry up, Jinx still walked at her own pace.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t need to deal with another group of royal guards because Jinx took a turn and went towards a dark corner.

“Hm?” Ozul hadn’t seen a single part of the Palace that wasn’t lit up with illuminating stones, but this dark corner wasn’t noticeable because of the sudden turning hallways.

At once, he realized that this might be the room. There was no way that those who built the Royal Palace just mistakenly left this room without any lights.

Even Jinx just stopped in front of the door and continued to stare at him.

Though when he was about to enter, she didn’t move away and almost seemed to be blocking his way.

Ozul squinted his eyes at her, but still stopped and closed his eyes to try to feel what was behind the doors.

“!!”

He was forced to open his eyes and took a few steps back because the room was a trap!

‘Fuu... I would have walked right into it if it wasn’t for her...’ Ozul deeply exhaled. There was a formation set up behind the room and he didn’t know how strong it.

Though one thing was clear, it would certainly alert the whole Palace and whoever had the control of the rest of the defensive formations would immediately activate them again.

‘If it was a trap, why did she bring me here?’ Ozul questioned inside his mind. He knew that he wouldn’t get any more answers from her.

“Let’s see...” he muttered before he closed his eyes again to see if there was something else about this corner.

. . .

While Ozul was searching for his arm, some royal guards were anxiously reporting to the Empress in the throne room.

“What do you mean people are missing?” The Empress asked with a chilly tone.

“Y-your Ma-majesty, we searched everywhere...” the royal guard stuttered in a shaky voice.