Unsealing Emptiness

Whatever they had in them, he felt like he wouldn’t need any of it.

Raven caught the Spatial Rings before storing them away. This was not the time to list out their content.

Reluctant to say anything in fear of disturbing him, everyone stayed quiet while Ozul stood there staring at the lava erupting out of the pit hundreds of kilometers away.

“Do you want to collect its Core?” Raven asked after a while.

Ozul only shook his head slightly in response and continued to stare at the rain of lava which melted whatever it came into contact with.

When Raven followed his gaze, she was surprised to find that the lava pouring out of the pit suddenly blasted from the inside, scattering it all around. Following this scene, the group also felt a few tremors in the ground before they calmed down.

.....

“It is no more. Let’s go,” Ozul spoke before he turned around, leaving everyone else to wonder what had happened just now.

Unknown to them, it was exactly the Sovereign’s Mana Core that had blasted under the pressure and heat from the lava.

The Sovereign was a Rank-10 Beast with the Fire as her Element, but her Mana Core could still not hope to survive the heat from molten rocks so deep underground.

The group forced themselves to think about it and moved on to follow behind Ozul.

Their eyes fixed on to his back which felt solitary than ever before.

Hadn’t he just defeated a Rank-10 Mage and a Rank-10 Beast all by himself? So why wasn’t Ozul cheered up now? The members of the Rogue Crew had many questions, but they kept it to themselves.

Raven and Blaze also understood from Ozul’s behavior that something was wrong, but Raven had already tried and failed to get an answer from him. They didn’t have the courage to press him any further than that.

Different from Raven, Blaze also had other thoughts running wild in his mind, but he didn’t know whether to say them or not.

In front of their eyes, Ozul started to float in the air without any visible thing supporting him from below like before.

Others didn’t notice this difference, but Raven had keen eyes and she would usually keep track of everything related to Ozul. This little change immediately caught her eyes.

He would use the Ball of Purity to fly before, but she couldn’t find that black material supporting him anymore.

Too many things had happened at once and everyone had too much on their mind. They flew behind Ozul, all in their own thoughts.

There were undoubtedly many gains from the recent events, but Ozul also had to think some things through.

—–

It took a few days for the group to leave the abandoned part of the continent and enter the Neutral Lands again.

The tremors of the battle earlier were huge, but they were not extreme enough to cause a commotion on the rest of the continent.

Even until now, everyone else was clueless about the death of one of the only four Rank-10 Mages.

“What happened to the rest of you?” Ozul asked at some point, the question was directed towards the members of the Rogue Crew.

The sudden question caught them off guard and for a moment, no one knew how to reply. Only a while later did Tatsuo muster up his courage and closed in a little.

“They... They thought that you would be dead, so they decided to leave,” Tatsuo thought that Ozul would be angry or at least a little annoyed at his statement, but he saw no change in the latter’s facial expressions.

This too came as a surprise to Tatsuo since a total of 25 Rank-8 Mages had decided not to follow the orders, walking away to their own death. Ozul had spent so many of the organization’s resources and now there were only 10 of them left.

If it was any other person in his place, they would have naturally been at least in a little bad mood. But Ozul didn’t care about them either way now.

He had noticed that the labor he needed others to do for him could be done with these 10 as well.

Also, he had a feeling that the time was near when he wouldn’t be able to make use of this Rogue Crew.

It had almost been a month since they had left for that abandoned part of the continent and Ozul was only able to achieve one of their two reasons for exploration.

They weren’t able to do the actual exploration of that mountain-like temple since it was destroyed in the aftermath of the battle.

It had turned out to be the home for the Sovereign, but there were surely many valuable things inside its cave. Unfortunately, the lava that came pouring out of the pit had destroyed everything.

Ozul was flying at his leisure pace, so the group took a few hours to finally reach the town of their Headquarters.

The building remained as it was, only there were even fewer people in sight. Many more had migrated outside the Desolate Borders as well.

The ten Rank-8 Mages remaining of the Rogue Crew including Tatsuo went back to hiding in the surroundings before Ozul landed near the tower.

Like all other organizations, Irvin had also ordered to put off the formation from the tower since it consumed resources as well. The situation at hand had every organization so busy that none would try to interfere in the matters of others anyway.

There were two Rank-6 Mages standing guard at the entrance of the tower who instantly grew alert at the sight of three people suddenly landing near them.

Only when they recognized the trio’s appearances did the two guards calm down before starting to panic immediately afterwards.

Because of how little interaction Ozul had with the members of the Three-Eyed Strangers, they all had their own fearsome image of him in their minds. Some only imagined him a little strict because of his cold face while others fantasized a sinister old man in the disguise of an innocent boy.

No matter the case, no one talked about their view of the leader since it was not only disrespectful but if it got to the higher-ups’ ears, they would surely enact a severe punishment for disloyalty.

These two guards, judging from their shaking legs, Ozul could tell leaned more towards the scarier image of him.

Ignoring the two, Ozul walked inside followed by Raven and Blaze.

As always, surprised and strange gasps could be heard as they passed by everyone. Even Blaze had become numb to this by now.

Raven and Blaze paused when they had reached the floor of management, but Ozul didn’t stop. He went directly to the top floor and entered his room without bothering to meet with Irvin or Haley first.

Since Ozul wasn’t in the mood to, Raven and Blaze stopped there since Haley would surely have many questions.

Leaving the duo on the floor below, Ozul didn’t feel like having a talk right now.

Inside his room, there was only him and Jinx who had appeared out of nowhere, as always.

. . .

Ozul only came out of his room the next day after sleeping for hours straight.

No one disturbed him during this time as strictly warned by Raven and Haley. No one else dared to near his room anyway.

As Ozul came down the floor, everyone had gathered in the hall. They were having a heated meeting that he chose to ignore before taking a seat in his favorite corner.

His entrance was naturally not missed by everyone, but everyone chose not to disturb him. Only Raven and Blaze stood up from their seats before making their way towards him.

“End the meeting. Tell Haley, Irvin, and Oliver to come here,” Ozul ordered before they could say anything.

Although confused, Raven followed his orders nevertheless. She went to Haley’s side and whispered something in her ear before making her way back to Ozul.

Only a minute passed and Haley was seen ending the meeting as she drove away everyone to get back to work.

“Both of you, go train in the forest,” Ozul said to the duo.

Raven quickly moved about but Blaze stood there hesitating for a while. It looked like he had something to say, but in the end, he just walked away before Ozul could question him.

Ozul kept staring at his back, keeping his thoughts to himself before turning to Haley, Irvin, and Oliver who stood waiting at the side.

“Have Raven informed you of everything already?” Ozul questioned.

“Yes, young master. She briefed us of everything,” Haley replied with her sweet voice. Unlike others, she wouldn’t get tense in his presence for no reason.

“The Church of Light would pose no threat to us from now on. But this does not mean that you go out of your way to taunt them. There still remains a Rank-9 Mage there,” Ozul spoke with an unhurried manner.

Irvin nodded his head in understanding. If he had said those words, it only meant that he had no plans to get rid of the Archbishop right now.

“If you have prepared already, start moving the headquarters outside the Desolate Borders. I doubt there remains anything of interest here,” advised Ozul.

All those who still lingered on the Neutral Lands were the people belonging to all the giant factions. These people would rarely if ever come to the Three-Eyed Strangers for information even if it was considered a Neutral faction.

“Just leave an elite group here and shift the headquarters already,” Ozul ordered to which Haley agreed fully.

They were already planning to relocate outside the Desolate Lands.

“Also...”

...

Ozul discussed a few unrelated things with the three before he motioned them to leave.

“Haley, stay for a second,” he called out as he remembered something.

“Yes, young master?” Haley stopped and turned around with confusion on her face. They had just discussed everything that needed to be discussed, did she forget something?

“Don’t bother to recruit more into the Rogue Crew. Any more than these ten are not needed,” stated Ozul.

He had noticed that the tasks that he personally needed to do required people way stronger than just Rank-8 and as for the menial tasks, those could be done with even normal people much less Rank-8 Mages.

Using Rank-8 Mages only to pass on his orders was an overkill already. It wasn’t worth wasting the organization’s resources on more of these people.

“I will do as you say, young master. Is there anything else?” Haley asked just in case.

Ozul rested his back on the couch and took a breath before answering, “Indeed. I need you to form a team of at least Rank-6 Mages and search for a person...”

.....