Unsealing Emptiness

A massive streak of light shot towards the Sovereign who could only let out a surprised growl before the blinding light enveloped her.

At the same time, Darcia’s face fell as she noticed the cracks which had previously stopped began to spread all over the cannon again. The cracks covered the whole cannon in the blink of an eye and rays of light shot out from the gaps.

“NO!!” Darcia immediately went to reach the chamber in which the arm was placed, but her hands didn’t even stretch before the cannon exploded!

Unable to decide between escaping and grabbing the severed arm, Darcia was unable to avoid the fire of the explosion which had a radius of at least fifty meters.

——

Hundreds of meters away from the site of the explosions, Raven and Blaze together with the Rogue Crew floated in the air as they witnessed in awe of the phenomenon that they might never come across in the rest of their lifetime.

.....

Even from so far away, the massive pillar of light descending on the ground and then the huge explosion in the air was all too clear for this group of Rank-8 Mages.

“o-...Ozul!”

Unable to stop herself, Raven shouted his name, jolting awake Blaze out of stupor.

After a few seconds, he spoke, “Don’t worry. Nothing can harm him.” His confidence stemming from all the time spent with Ozul and watching him solve all the difficult situations with ease.

But Raven didn’t need any assurance. Anyone else might have not, but she certainly knew that Ozul could get as well. He wasn’t invincible as everyone thought him to be. It was just that since he would never openly flaunt his strength, most of the time people couldn’t guess how dangerous the situation was to him.

That might be the case right now as well since she wasn’t exactly sure how strong Ozul was, but she could be sure of one thing: that massive pillar of light descending from the sky could crush a whole mountain range to smithereens!

Raven couldn’t help but clench her fists in anger, towards herself mostly since she was always so weak to look from the sidelines whenever there was any dangerous situation.

Her dry lips pursed as she muttered in self-depreciation and an almost inaudible voice, “It has always been like this...”

No matter how hard she or Blaze tried, they were never able to make a difference whenever Ozul needed it the most.

While Blaze heard her bitter murmuring, he couldn’t do anything about it either. He was just as helpless as her.

It was frustrating because of how many times the same situation had repeated. Each time, they would push themselves even harder, but all their efforts would, in the end, prove to be futile.

If Ozul was here at this moment, he would have noticed the rage in the wavering eyes of Raven at this moment. Rage at herself and everyone who became an obstacle in Ozul’s path.

At this moment, she swore to herself that after all of this was over, she wouldn’t sit still. If putting in even more effort wasn’t working, she would just have to use extreme means.

Slowly, her mentality was shifting after Ozul had confronted her and he would have varying degrees of feelings towards this change in the future.

——

Back at the site of the explosion, nothing could be observed with naked eyes because of all the dust and the debris which used to be rock hard earth just a few seconds ago.

Contrary to the chaos just now, everything went still with only the winds blowing and the dust settling down.

The thousands of Rank-8 Beasts and the three Rank-9 Beasts on top of the mountains also went quiet in anticipation. They had all witnessed the massive pillar of white light descending on their Sovereign.

The whistling of winds gave an eerie feeling because of the deathly silence that reigned over these ruins.

It took quite a few minutes before the view finally became clear enough for everyone to see.

The ground was all uneven and one could only imagine what had just transpired here. Any normal Mage wouldn’t be able to divert their eyes

The Beasts, however, all had their sight fixated on the massive hole that had erased more than half of the giant mountain temple!

Judging from the size of the pit that had formed on the mountain, one could easily tell that it was caused by the pillar of light that had fallen on the Sovereign.

From their distance, the thousands of Beasts on the mountains couldn’t see how deep the pit was, but they all began to show their unrest as the four Rank-9 Beasts suddenly flew out from the disordered hoard of Rank-8 Beasts and separated from the rest.

Since The Wolf’s Cage spanned over thousands of meters, Ozul wasn’t able to sense the last Rank-9 Beast on the opposite end of the mountains previously.

Although they were all miles apart from each other, one could easily distinguish their appearance from afar because of their size. There was a giant eagle, a centipede, a snake, and at the far end was what looked to have a scorpion’s tail but a sheep’s body.

They rose so far up in the air that even Raven and Blaze stared at them in wonder.

Just then, they started to simultaneously screech as if they were calling the Sovereign.

Their combined roaring noise was strong enough to shake the earth again, but just as Blaze was about to ask Raven’s opinion, he noticed something that made his heart skip a beat.

In front of their eyes, the heads of the four Beasts who were flying apart suddenly just started falling to the ground later followed by their bodies!

“Di-d they just get beheaded?” Blaze stuttered as his eyes continued to stare at the falling corpses of the four Rank-9 Beasts in the air.

Raven didn’t answer him but a light shone past her stone-cold eyes, her thoughts unreadable to others.

“... Hey! Wait for me!” Blaze suddenly shouted, surprising the Rogue Crew which only now noticed that Raven had already started making her way back to The Wolf’s Cage despite knowing that thousands of Rank-8 Beasts were still there.

Blaze didn’t try to stop her this time and instead followed behind her.

Meanwhile, the members of the Rogue Crew all contemplated whether to follow them or not.

Their precise orders were to stay with the duo and if they were to disobey the orders, it meant instant death because of the contract.

Just that, they didn’t know if Ozul was even alive now or not. After all, if Ozul was dead, then they could simply just escape now! They were already branded as criminals before, so they could afford to be on the run again.

“Urgh! What are you guys waiting for!?” shouted Tatsuo, the middle-aged man who Ozul chose to be the temporary leader.

The one who answered him was an old man with a gaping scar in the middle of his face, “I am leaving. That kid is obviously dead! Can any human being even survive that!?”

Tatsuo frowned as he noticed the others were hesitating as well.

“And what if he isn’t dead? Then what? Anyway, I have to follow them. Whoever wants to leave can leave,” saying his piece, Tatsuo followed after the duo. He didn’t have enough time to lecture this group of people.

“Che! If you are so willing to jump into death’s mouth, go ahead! But I am not willing to throw myself in front of those monstrosities!” the old man with a scar spat before turning around to leave.

A couple of others joined him as well while the rest hesitated a little before flying after Tatsuo. They were mostly the older ones who understood that there were high chances that Ozul had survived. After all, they hadn’t even seen who the pillar of light had descended on.

. . .

While the loud screeching from the four Rank-9 Beasts stopped after they were mysteriously beheaded, the thousands of Rank-8 Beasts on the horizon all began to roar simultaneously as well.

In a short second, there was chaos in the sky as all the Beasts either escaped from The Wolf’s Cage or started fighting with each other.

Even with their numbers, their noise of battles was not even close to that of the four Rank-9 Beasts previously. With intellect that could match even that of a human, most of these Rank-8 Beasts didn’t dare to raise their voice.

With intelligence came fear and the fear prevailed their pride in this situation. They were not willing to risk their lives to see if their Sovereign had survived the attack or not.

Through all this hazardous chaos, Raven and Blaze somehow managed to arrive at the site without engaging in a battle with any of the Beasts.

Tatsuo and the members who chose to follow them though weren’t so skilled and had to fight with a couple of Rank-8 Beasts on the way. Fortunately for them, they didn’t encounter any peak Rank-8 Beast.

Meanwhile, the duo didn’t care enough to give them a helping hand as they were busy scanning the area to find Ozul.

Their eyes were immediately attracted towards the giant pit that almost seemed bottomless from afar.

Moving on, they tried to look for Ozul but their eyes landed on another sight that made them stop in their tracks.

Blaze pointed towards the figure of a person clad in blood on the ground, “That... Isn’t she one of the only Rank-10 Mages?”