Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial smiled behind the mask and slowed down his steps.

"The Tier-1 chestplate in exchange for all the information you have." He said in a cold voice. The merchant could only nod his head hastily in response.

Nial turned around and walked back towards the counter while accessing his spatial ring once again.

'The merchants of the black market are far more civilized than expected. To expect that they wouldn't attack me to get their hands on my runic armaments…weird.'

The image of black markets had always been the same for all. In the minds of most, it was a dark alley, a place where only the unlawful carried out their illegal trades and a place where no naive person could be sure of survival.

However, it didn't seem to be that bad.

He received loads of information from the chubby merchant about other things before he revealed the special information about the Eclipse Assassins, which he hadn't even written down.

Whether this was because of his fear of being discovered for sharing this information with him or owed to a different reason was unknown.

"Sometimes the Eclipse Assassins are ordered to kidnap 'unique' people and bring them to the Heaven's Gates.

You might not know about them but the Heaven's Gates is also an Organization that had been created more than a century ago. However, despite its rich heritage, it is not well known and nobody has a lot of information about Heaven's Gates.

But there is one thing you have to understand; the Members of the Heaven's Gates are the strongest Originals in existence. Some rumors even say that their members are capable of defeating Peak Tritan ranked Beasts all by themselves.

However, that is merely a rumor and not something they have been able to prove until now."

It was actually not that surprising for Nial to hear that some Originals were able to defeat Peak Tritan ranked Beasts.

The public knowledge was, in most cases, fabricated so that the civilians couldn't even think of creating a ruckus about things like, 'If we have so strong Originals, why are there still dungeon portals in the shelters? Why is it necessary for us to stay in the shelters if we have powerful Originals, who can create a path for mankind to excel once again?' and so on.

There might be other reasons but Nial was pretty sure that the strongest and rather unknown Originals were completing other tasks in order to help mankind.

And even if they wouldn't do anything to help mankind, it was not as if anyone could order them around, to begin with.

'It is already weird that eight human shelters were still going strong, with the strongest Original being 'publicly' announced as having eight Advanced Origin rings. They would have long since been destroyed if someone with eight Advanced Origin rings were to be the strongest…'

Nial's smile didn't falter after realizing this. He didn't bother about the strength of the strongest human Originals right now.

"What 'unique' people are kidnapped by the Eclipse Assassins?"

This question was the most important to find answers to for now!

The chubby merchant looked at the robed Nial for a moment before clearing his throat and answering,

"Like terminally ill people. Well, don't think too much about it. Usually, you'll never hear from them ever again."

The chubby merchant shrugged his shoulders before he recalled something else.

"But I also heard that some Originals with great talent, unique traits, and other special characteristics have been kidnapped by the Eclipse Assassins. Though, I cannot tell you what happened to them. That is not something I know about."

Nial didn't care about the second part of the chubby merchant's answer. Only the term 'terminally ill' was important.

When the chubby merchant said that they were usually never seen again and that one wouldn't hear from them again, Nial felt a lump in his throat.

For a few seconds, he was scared about the possibility of never seeing his family again. However, after he took a few breaths, Nial reassured himself.

'Not hearing from someone doesn't mean that all of them have died. There are more than enough Organizations that demand their members to wear masks and conceal their identity when they're working on a mission in the name of their Organization.

The Sacred Knights are a great example of this!'

Nial nodded his head after he had calmed down before he acted as if he was simply reading through the pieces of paper he had received.

In the end, he had already used his Mana Sense to imprint the words written in the papers in his mind by visualizing them to read through.

Afterward, he stored the papers away. He threw the Tier-1 runic armament toward the chubby merchant, turned around, and left without saying another word.

If he were to enquire further about the Heaven's Gates now, Nial would have to expose his true intention in its entirety.

It had already been quite risky to show his interest in the special information about the Eclipse Assassins.

That was why he left without paying any more attention to the chubby merchant, or the hidden guards around him.

Gianna followed him quietly without making a sound.

'This guy… maybe, just maybe, I might have underestimated him a little bit.'

"Do you know something about the Heaven's Gates?" Nial suddenly asked her.

Gianna was dragged out of her thoughts and she thought for a second before answering,

"I have only heard rumors about them. They never reveal themselves, and they usually don't take action, even if a human shelter gets destroyed.

Even after they had been requested to clear the Abyssal ranked dungeon that had manifested in the center of Juna, the third shelter, the same shelter we had to abandon a few months ago…they never reacted.

Nobody knows their goals…maybe not even themselves."

Gianna shrugged her shoulders afterward and Nial merely nodded his head in return.

The information was interesting but not exactly useful for his purpose.

'Looks like my sister was brought to the Heaven's Gates, isn't it?'

It sounded quite logical because his sister had a terminal illness. However, Nial had no idea what exactly they wanted to do with her.

Considering that he was still certain of her well-being and the fact that his parents were also alive, there was no need for him to be overly worried.

Unfortunately, this didn't make things any easier for him. He was still worried about his family and wondered what kind of mess they had been navigating through.

If it had already been a nuisance to find a way to meet his family before, when he was still under the impression that they were somewhere with the Eclipse Assassins in Liondra, the current situation was even worse.

'Looks like a single Superior Origin ring won't be enough for me to obtain before I can finally see my family once again…'

The Heaven's Gates Organization was definitely a hard nut to crack, so Nial chose to return to his previous plan.

'I need to get stronger…much stronger!!' Nial thought while clenching his fist.

"Let's go back. Thanks for leading me to the black market." He said all of a sudden, feeling the need to return quickly.

The female butler merely nodded her head before she turned to the direction they had come from as she stepped forward to leave.

Nial followed her without making a sound. Once again, his senses were fully unleashed, clearly perceiving everything in his surroundings.

There had been something that bothered him before and it looked as if his gut feeling hadn't betrayed him.

'Maybe I didn't imagine the black market's ways wrongly before?'

Gianna had slowed down her steps. She seemed to have sensed something as well.

"Apparently, the way in which you treated the runic armaments made it seem as if it was some trash you can pick up from every corner. It looks like some people would like to get their hands on your storage ring to make some quick bucks."

Oddly enough, Gianna sounded amused as she was saying this, but Nial could only nod his head. He perceived more than eight well-hidden Originals, who were following them.

"Even I would try to rob my storage ring if it was not mine already," Nial said nonchalantly to ease up the tension.

However, the female butler merely froze in her steps as she heard his teasing and nonchalant voice.

'Either he doesn't understand the situation and is dumb, or he is serious and filthy rich but completely unbothered about being attacked…'

None of these scenarios were to Gianna's liking but it was not as if she could do something against it.

Yet, the moment she sensed that Nial grasped her wrist before leading her into a dark alley, she frowned.

"You want to face them? All of them are at the Prym rank, you know. I can only take care of the four Originals with two and three Intermediate and Advanced Origin rings, you know?"

'You can handle that many? Not bad, it seems as if I didn't underestimate you!' Nial thought while continuing to use his mana to create black miasma and dark energy.

He fused them inside his body and released them through his feet the moment they entered the dark alley.

Nial's dark miasma merged with the darkness before proceeding to expand along the grayish walls that were smeared with dirt, dried pee, and worse.

"That is exactly how I imagined the black market to look like, not the cleaned up street, where you cannot even find a speck of dust!" Nial mumbled, slightly excited as he kept using his mana to release more and more dark miasma.

Gianna rolled her eyes, the naive image of Nial had shattered in an instant.

However, the moment each of their eight pursuers had entered the dark alley, the pressure around Nial seemed to change drastically.

A 1.8-meter-long spear had manifested in his hand. The spear's blade was fiery red, and the heat it released shot up the moment Nial used a trace of mana which he inserted in the Dragonflame Spear.

A moment later, a compressed dark flame manifested around the searing spear blade and Nial used one of the large containers near him to push his right foot against it.

It was blasted backward while providing Nial with the necessary momentum to change his trajectory and dash toward his opponent.

"Don't hold back," Nial mumbled in a low volume that could only be heard by Gianna.

She saw his change of trajectory and sensed the sudden, and drastic difference in his presence as well.

That was why it took her a fraction of a second longer to react.

Daggers manifested in each of her hands and she activated one of her abilities before disappearing in the darkness of the dark alley.

Not long after, she catapulted her body in the same direction as Nial before passing him by even before the eight perpetrators and Nial had collided with each other.

Yet, even before Gianna was able to decimate the number of opponents, the path of the dark alley which they had already run past began to change.

Suddenly, without warning, the darkness that tightly covered the ground and clung to the walls began to move.

'Huh? What is going on?'