Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial and the others had merely scourged the 8th floor from the top when they had decided to leave the ancient ruin's palace.

It had been impossible for them to keep plundering the floors below because the traps had become too dangerous. The small team of three required more than two hours to detect a single trap and deactivate it, which was way too long.

After all, there were hundreds of traps on the following floor. That was why Nial and the others chose to comb through the other floors once again to see if they had missed out on something.

Their spatial rings were overflowing with all kinds of runic armaments, books, and other valuable objects they had found inside the palace's higher floors.

By the time they decided to leave, there had only been a few hours left before the camp's gathering would start.

Bella and Mathias had been a little bit worried about how to leave because they were stuck on the top floor and had found no easy way to reach the lower floors and leave the palace that way.

However, Nial had led his team back to the terrace of the highest floor with a faint smile on his lips.

"Shall we jump?" He asked his two friends upon reaching the terrace.

"Nial…you're not ill, right? If we jump we're going to die!" Bella suddenly exclaimed while looking at him in doubt.

"How about we use my Earth affinity and your dark energy to create solid stairs downward? It might take some time but we will safely reach the ground."  Mathias' idea was quite simple but at the same time dangerous as well.

The moment they made a single mistake, the entire stairway leading outside the palace's walls might collapse, and all of them might fall from a big height.

Yet, instead of listening to his friends, Nial just shook his head before smiling slyly.

"No, we're going to jump." He repeated while assessing his spatial ring.

A moment later three backpacks appeared in front of Nial. He threw one toward each Bella and Mathias while putting on one himself.

"Didn't we purchase a few things when we first entered the ancient ruins? The same goes for the second time. I bought something from the Miriad trading firm, did you guys forget?"

Nial's smile only widened because he could sense that neither Bella nor Mathias were able to understand what Nial wanted from them.

"They're parachutes!" Mathias suddenly exclaimed, when Nial had already reached the edge of the terrace.

"Exactly, parachutes," Nial commented before jumping down the huge wall.

Bella and Mathias rushed towards the edge of the terrace, only to see that he had already opened the parachute and that Nial was gliding in the direction of the dungeon portal.

'Nial had already planned to leave the palace through the terrace?'

Looking at each other, both Bella and Mathias realized that this had been his escape route all along which was why they felt a little bit baffled.

But after a moment of astonishment, they were glad that Nial had thought about everything.

Jumping down the terrace, they opened the parachutes a second later before following behind Nial.

It took them quite a while to reach the ground, but they had safely landed not far from the dungeon portal.

They could see that the number of employed junior Soldiers had increased quite a bit as well.

There were even junior Soldiers who had been walking toward the ancient ruin's palace to clear it.

'So they're finally grasping their chance to go treasure hunting?'

Without the competition against other Originals, the junior Soldiers had more than enough time to deactivate all the traps and loot everything the participants of the military camp had to reluctantly leave behind.

Everything that the junior Soldiers would gain inside the dungeon would be sold in exchange for military merit points. This was the most important currency for Soldiers as it allowed them to apply for a promotion, to attend certain training sessions that were usually restricted, and so on.

Thus, the military would not only gain numerous treasures from the ancient ruin's dungeon but they would be able to justify strengthening the individuals, who had collected the most treasures.

It was a clear win-win situation, just that the military gained both treasures and more powerful soldiers!

But that was not something Nial could be bothered about. He would just defeat the junior Soldiers once again to prevent paying a 'protection' fee if they would be asked to pay it.

Thankfully, he did not encounter the junior Soldiers when he reached the proximity of the small base within the ancient ruin's dungeon. Nial could only smile faintly when he sensed the presence of a familiar person.

"Yves Ygdra, what a pleasure to meet you here. I doubt this is a coincidence."

Yves Ygdra and more than a dozen of his underlings had been waiting for Nial and his group to appear.

He had been humiliated by this small group earlier and had planned to take away everything from them.

Yves had even planned to snatch their spatial rings, clothes, and everything else.

"Everyone who dares to disregard my authority and generosity will have to face my punishment!"

Nobody would act that brazen during the Teradan military camp's mission, or at least that was what Nial had presumed.

What he didn't know was that more than enough young Originals believed that their family background would allow them to get away with acts of bullying, deceit, and trickery while receiving the royal treatment.

Thus, many had acted brazen and demanded all kinds of things from both the military camp's staff and the participants as well.

However, most of them had been beaten to a pulp to make them understand that their background had no value in the military camp.

Strength was all that mattered!

The junior Soldiers, who had been observing Yves and his group for quite some time, had thought of intervening and reminding them that the camp's gathering was about to start.

However, when they saw Nial's ice-cold expression and his dominating presence as he stood in front of the heir of the Ygdra family and his underlings, they didn't dare make a move.

A tinge of excitement spread through their bodies as one of the junior Soldiers said,

"He must be the one Mike spoke about…the Blind Original!!"

"Ohh, that's him? I can tell why Mike was defeated by this young Original. He might be blind and only at the 3rd Origin rank, but I can sense something unfathomable from him.

I doubt that I would be able to defeat him."

"..."

Nial could hear all the comments about him, but none of the snide remarks and taunts bothered him right now. Yves had yet to say anything to him yet, but the intention of the young Original and his group of a dozen underlings was quite obvious.

Perceiving the Originals opposite him with all his senses, Nial could easily determine their battle intent and hostility.

As such, he turned his head toward the junior Soldiers before he smiled faintly as he released his dark energy and black miasma into a merged form.

"Just help us carry them over…in a minute or so!"

The moment Nial finished his words, darkness emerged from the ground that had suddenly turned pitch-black a moment ago.

It formed a dense shroud around Yves' group, the junior Soldiers, and everyone else, so one couldn't see anything. Even Bella's natural night vision was not very helpful.

She could barely see anything and chose to rely on her range of perception to support Nial in the fight against Yves and his cronies.

Oddly enough the battle that ought to be extremely difficult ended within a minute, and none of the members of Yves' group were able to face Nial head-on.

Nial's opponent had been unable to use their mana properly as his dark miasma interfered with their mana senses and the activation of their mana.

It was only a weak disturbing function that his dark miasma owned. However, to those who had not expected this, it was a severe restriction that hit them off-guard.

While they were unable to activate their mana and abilities for a few seconds, Nial had already appeared in front of the most dangerous Originals and began knocking them out with ease.

Meanwhile, Mathias restricted everyone's movement by using his newest crowd control technique, which he had taught himself.

Bella knocked out those who Mathias had restricted, ending the battle even quicker.

The moment the dark miasma was retracted by Nial, the junior Soldiers could only see more than a dozen unconscious young Originals lying on the ground, with Nial standing in front of the unconscious Yves Ygdra.

The corners of Nial's lip curled upward, turning into a devilish grin as he spoke to Yves, barely loud enough for the junior Soldiers to hear.

"I might have gone overboard, sorry for crushing you…"