Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial didn't want to use the Awakening of the Prymal ability for the time being. His gut feeling told him that it was fine to use the technique but he still had his doubts.

He didn't really want to face Hoert a second time. The first time was already bad enough and the memory still made him uneasy!

Nial didn't want to be controlled by someone else once again, which was also why he would rather wait with summoning more Devils than doing something stupid.

His Sea of Darkness was filled and it was about time that he advanced to the Keltia rank. At the Keltia rank, one created Mana Pillar that protruded from within the Mana Sea.

The pillars had special attributes, including the trait to accelerate the advancement progress of the Ability Stigmata. Nial had linked abilities, which meant that his Stigmatas would improve with his progress in the ranks. However, others would have to create their Mana Pillars first to accelerate their progress.

They would create their first Mana Pillar as quickly as possible and interlink it with the Ability Stigma they used the most. After the fifth Mana Pillar was created, all Stigmatas would have a link that allowed the Originals to exhibit a prowess much higher than ever before.

After all, every single Mana Pillar provided a huge boost to the strength of the Original, even more so the Ability Stigmata that had been interlinked.

At the end of the day, each Mana Pillar required a large amount of Mana to be created and a certain amount of space within the Mana Sea to be sustained properly and hold itself intact while being surrounded by liquefied mana.

Thus, the size of the Mana Sea was inevitably a deciding factor in how many Mana Pillars could be created. The least amount of Mana Pillars that could be created was three while the highest was said to be nine Mana Pillars.

This indicated that the foundation of the previous ranks was a deciding factor in how strong one could become the further one cultivated. Nial's foundation was perfect, which meant that he should be able to create nine Darkness Pillars.

The biggest difference between the Darkness Pillars and the Mana Pillars was that the Darkness Pillars increased the potency of the Darkness that loomed around them in the Sea of Darkness. The more Darkness Pillars were created the higher the potency and lethality of the dark energy stored within the Sea of Darkness.

Nial's dark energy may as well become as strong as his Essence of Darkness as long as enough Darkness Pillars were created and his dark energy would receive adequate nourishment.

However, Nial also knew that he should use his strongest powers to create the Darkness Pillars. They had to be created with dark energy as a foundation but it was also possible to enhance the dark energy to the peak using the Essence of Darkness, crimson moonlight, and the Power of Chaos!

That was what Nial had attempted to do before only to realize that he had to alter the entire dark energy that had been stored inside his Heart of Darkness to make sure that his first Darkness Pillar wouldn't turn into a failure.

With that in mind, Nial got busy with various preparations over a long period of time in order to prevent failure at all cost as he exerted the Vortex of Abyss cultivation ability to create the foundation of his first Darkness Pillar.

He was all by himself in a large isolated room where he could go wild and not worry about accidentally hurting someone. It had been created with the help of the best Grandmaster blacksmiths and reinforced to the peak of Nial's capabilities. Various runic constellations had been inscribed across the entire room which was a hundred meters in length, width, and height.

It was a cube where every single inch of high-quality metal was covered with runic constellations.

Nial unleashed the entire reinforced dark energy that had been stored inside his Heart of Darkness at once, which resulted in the entire cube-shaped room turning into the center of a dark abyss.

There was not a single source of light left inside the room. Only the crackling of the runic constellations that were fully utilized, yet barely holding out against the pressure that was put on them all of a sudden flickered in a low, almost invisible light. Some runic constellations showed signs of crumbling down but they were repaired and reinforced by other runic constellations that had been inscribed for that specific reason.

The reinforced dark energy filled the entire room and it was forcefully compressed due to the lack of space.

Nial focused on the reinforced dark energy, and compressed it further before he absorbed it at once. He forcefully infiltrated the already filled Sea of Darkness inside his body which caused him to cough up blood as the pressure weighing down on the Sea of Darkness increased manyfold in an instant.

Nial could hardly cope with the pressure but he did it by gritting his teeth and clenching his hands. His nails dug so deep inside his palm that they cut his skin and he started to bleed. Taking a few deep breaths after the reinforced dark energy was shoved inside his Sea of Darkness, Nial began with the construction of the first Darkness Pillar's foundation.

The foundation was everything he required to advance to the Keltia rank. It was extremely time-consuming to accumulate enough energy and compress it long enough to create a solid base. This was also why the advancement from the Deux rank to the Keltia rank was not considered difficult but rather time-consuming.

Everyone who was talented enough to reach the Deux rank would inevitably advance to the Keltia rank, provided they lived long enough.

Nial had enough talent to create nine Darkness Pillars but he didn't really like the time-consuming process. Thus, he would rather feel pain and get over the process quicker than waste a year or more to break through to the Keltia rank.

He solidified the massive amount of reinforced dark energy in his body by forcefully putting the dark energy together. This hurt his body as it forced the Sea of Darkness to adjust to the aftermath of his clashing dark energy. Lots of energy was released due to the clash and it was inevitably dispersed all over the Sea of Darkness.

The Sea of Darkness endured the risky process as Nial chose to skip several steps in the creation of the first Darkness Pillar by releasing more and more power rather than taking the safe yet slow path.

Time passed in an excruciatingly slow manner and Nial was slowly losing himself in the pain that spread throughout his entire body. He was trying to get used to it and accept it as an integral part of himself but that was hardly possible. His Sea of Darkness felt like it was going to tear apart at any moment but it somehow did not fail him.

The foundation of the first Darkness Pillar was slowly taking shape and the tremendous amount of reinforced dark energy began to dwindle.

It wouldn't take long before he would finish the task and be officially at the Keltia rank. However, Nial couldn't really be happy about it.

He was too much in pain to feel satisfied.

'How the hell can Dilan keep his sanity?!?'