Odyssey of the Blind God

Surrounded by a dozen Low Prym-ranked beasts, both Nial and Mathias were at a huge disadvantage.

The beasts, that surrounded them were three meters tall each, and they looked like scaled bison with long necks.

Their appearance was quite fearsome, they were only slightly injured and had been faking their death until just a moment ago before attacking Nial and Mathias.

Mathias reacted instinctively and conjured several Earthen walls. A moment later, he turned the soil around the hooves of more than six long neck, scaled bisons swampy.

Due to the beasts' heavy weight, their hooves sank into the ground as Mathias had even moved aside some of the mud below the beasts.

The restriction created by Mathias' quick thinking was more than enough to allow him to get his hands on the Tier-1 Blackwood wand.

Simultaneously, Nial had long since manifested the Dragonflame spear. He inserted mana into it, igniting a flame that engulfed the searing hot spear's blade, while black miasma oozed out of his palms, shrouding the spear as well.

Nial had activated the Curse [Hodur's Heir] to create the black miasma to shroud the Dragonflame spear with it.

He smiled lightly instead of taking the situation seriously as he was able to see that the corners of Mathias' mouth had curled upward.

'You did a good job in acting, Mathias.' Nial thought while trying to hide his smile.

From the moment they had separated from their group to get hold of the beast corpses, Nial knew that a total of 12 beasts hadn't been killed and were still roaming around.

His Mana Sense could clearly detect that their mana was still full of vigor. He had told Mathias about it and that they would have to fight the beasts without his dark energy.

Mathias was not able to understand his reasoning but that was not important. For him, there was no problem fighting a few Low Prym-ranked beasts.

He was ready to give his all and defeat his opponents.

It was only fortunate that Mathias was very interested in finding out the reason why a dozen beasts hadn't been killed by the powerhouses.

Two powerhouses had been fighting against the large group of Prym-ranked beasts, and Nial could only think of one or two reasons for each of the powerhouses to intentionally leave behind a few beasts with minor injuries.

'The leader of the Sacred Knights is probably testing me out. He wants to see my dark energy and figure out if he was correct with what he saw on the records made during the Teradan military camp's military games.

Meanwhile, the other powerhouse is probably just annoyed at us for taking all the beast corpses without hesitation. Maybe he is just annoyed, maybe he is envious, or maybe he simply doesn't like us for acting as if we were the ones to kill the beast groups.'

In the end, the truth was not important in the given situation.

Both Nial and Mathias had to fight a dozen beasts, and they had to act as if they didn't know about it beforehand. It should look real, after all.

This would make things a lot easier in the future. Thus, Nial made use of the black miasma instead of his dark energy, but his Dragonflame Spear didn't lose out much in terms of lethality.

The searing hot flames and the Spear's usual sharpness were already more than enough to face the beasts ahead.

But with the black miasma shrouding it, Nial didn't have to fear anything as he released the miasma whenever he lashed out.

His spear penetrated through the already existing cuts and wounds all over the bodies of the dozen long-neck scaled bison.

While Mathias restricted the beasts' movements with perfect timing, Nial focused on attacking the monsters.

He was only at the 10th Origin rank, but he held enough mana to rival a Low Prym-ranked Original.

His physical strength was also on par with a higher ranked Original. Furthermore, Nial had already begun to create the foundation of his primary Origin ring, thereby increasing his strength even more.

That was why Nial could easily blast over the ground, and emerge in front of the closest opponent before he thrust his weapon into one of the scaled bisons' chest.

The tip of the blade destroyed the protective scales at once before penetrating deep into their flesh.

Twisting the blade within the beast, while blazing up the flame that engulfed the weapon, Nial could kill the beast in an instant.

A moment later, he was holding the spear in one hand, tearing it out with all his might, while a different beast was already on its way toward him.

It looked at him with a ferocious and bloodthirsty gaze and was ready to tear him apart the moment it reached Nial.

Mathias was fully occupied with fighting and distracting a total of 10 beasts to prevent them from attacking either him or Nial all of a sudden.

Thus, he could barely create a thin Earthen wall.

However, the long-neck scaled bisons burst through the Earthen wall without hesitation. It was unstoppable and snarling ferociously, ready to trample over everyone, who dared to obstruct its path.

But the moment it burst through the Earthen wall, coldness and darkness shrouded the beast.

Nial had released black miasma explosively from the palm of his right hand, shooting the gaseous miasma toward the beast.

It didn't kill the beast nor had a corrosive effect.

Instead, it marred the beast's senses, restricted its wild instincts, and led to a severe mental breakdown, including inducing extreme fear.

The beast, who had been overly confident to kill everyone around it, was now acting like a small, terrified puppy. It had slowed down, bleated out in fright and it was about to slump to the ground, hoping to be rescued by its mother.

Unfortunately, it was Nial, who found it first and pierced the Dragonflame spear that lit up the dark and cold surroundings into its head.

He pushed the weapon further and it pierced through the beast's skull without any resistance, killing it at once.

While killing the beast he was already retracting the black miasma he had released in order to save on wasting his precious mana.

Pushing forward, he moved rapidly and killed another five long neck, scaled bison in the following ten seconds.

A single attack was enough for Nial to kill the beasts that were caught in Mathias' traps, and more of them that continued to appear over and over again.

The soil in a radius of 100 meters around Mathias was fully under his control. He could use it as a means of attack and kill the long-neck scaled bison if he used his ability in the right way.

But that was not what Mathias wanted.

He was currently experimenting a little bit, attempting to use his surroundings as a means to potentially eliminate stronger opponents with an environmental advantage.

At the same time, it was important for Mathias to gain better control over the Water elemental affinity.

It hadn't been long since he bound it to his mana core. That was also why his proficiency with the water affinity was bad, in his opinion.

However, to others, his actions were quite surprising because one could clearly tell that Mathias used both the Earth and Water affinity simultaneously.

"His control is precise, and he seems to have gained a great understanding of both affinities. If he wanted to, this young man could probably kill the dozen Miaran scale bison all by himself."  One of the few Originals, wielding an elemental affinity with a [Comprehension] tag remarked.

He was surprised about the fact that someone around the age of 18 was already able to control two elemental affinities to such an extent.

"It is possible for him to defeat the dozen Prym-ranked beast all by himself, but he is still wasting too much time and focus on each trap he creates. His mana consumption is also quite high, even though it is already reduced by the runic wand he uses.

I guess his entire mana would be drained before the last Miaran scale bison would be killed." Another Original stated his opinion while glancing over at the others to see whether they would agree with his statement or not.

But Windbreaker Sam Anderson merely looked at Mathias without a change in his expression.

'So that is the future Elementalist, the young man spoke about? Earth and Water are quite uncommon affinities for someone to learn but his control is truly not that bad. As long as he keeps practicing, he should become a powerhouse in the future.'

Mathias might be interesting to observe because his talent was visible. One could see that he would make a great Elementalist one day. That was out of the question.

However, Nial's case was a little bit different. At first, Sam misunderstood the black miasma for some sort of darkness-attributed fog without any actual use.

It didn't consume much mana to be created, no mana was required to sustain it, and merely controlling it drained a little bit of Nial's mana.

That was something Sam clearly perceived. However, when the Miaran scale bison's behavior changed the instant it entered Nial's fog, Sam Anderson knew that he had undermined Nial and that it was not some ordinary fog.

Potentially, the fog was some sort of product derived from several negative effects being compressed together.

But then again, Sam had never heard of such an ability nor had he witnessed it before, which was why he predicted that it was Nial's Innate ability.

Little did he know that the fog was actually the black miasma Nial released with the help of the Curse he had bound to his mana core quite a while ago.

While many Originals observed the battle of the two young men, the Sacred Knight's leader frowned deeply.

"That is not his energy… I shouldn't have mistaken the black miasma of this youth with the dark energy of him, right?"

On the other hand, the other powerhouse, who had left the 12 Miaran scale bison alive, frowned deeply as well.

He ground his teeth and was visibly frustrated about the fact that Nial and Mathias were completely unscathed while facing the dozen Low Prym-ranked beasts.

It didn't even look as if it was difficult for them to face so many beasts at the same time as if they had done it a lot of times already.

And this was exactly what was the case. Nial and Mathias had entered a lot of Expert dungeons together. Most of the time, they faced many beasts at the same time.

Thus, the current fight was quite unproblematic for them, even if Nial was not using the Elementus Mylee technique to fight with his dark energy.

Mathias noticed this but he didn't think much about it. After all, his friend had already told him that he didn't want to be dependent on his dark energy, which was the reason Nial gave for not using it during the conquest until it was really necessary.

Nial felt a little bit bad for not telling the whole truth.

However, sometimes ignorance is bliss, and one should enjoy it as long as possible.