Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 330: The Strongest Beast on the Continent of Egon.

“That aura...” quietly muttered Ozul as he gazed at the beast supposedly on top of this world’s food chain.

His voice trailed off into silence as he couldn’t find any words to describe his confusion.

Everyone trembled at the ferocious appearance of the beast; its whole body was set on fire as if it had just recently bathed in a burning volcano!

Its fur, which appeared to be on fire and about to turn to ash at any moment, continued to burn and flutter in the air regardless of how much time passed. Only after a while did they realize that its fur wasn’t on fire... it was all made of fire!

*HOWWLL!*

Another beastly howl filled the barrier enclosing the Neutral City, jolting everyone awake from their terror-filled disbelief.

In just a few seconds, the atmosphere which was previously tense already turned even heavier. They still had the leisure to think of other humans as their only opponent; everyone was an enemy before, but now they had a common and a much bigger threat to deal with.

.....

The air felt increasingly more depressing as the Sovereign glanced around before gradually taking steps forward.

No one knew whether it was a fortunate coincidence or Old Gu deliberately arranged like it, but even the closest human being to the Sovereign was at a safe distance away from her, not enough for him to outrun the Rank-10 Beast, but enough for him to have a little hope.

The man was one of the few people who hadn’t formed any team yet, he was alone. The moment he realized his predicament, he felt his throat turning sour and his legs shook crazily.

“I-I-I-I m-mm gonna die...”

His lips trembled as he noticed the Sovereign’s eyes shifting to him. Even from a mile away, he could see its bared teeth dripping with saliva which strangely didn’t seem to dissipate almost instantly considering the temperature around the beast.

Tears formed in his eyes, his lower part of the body feeling a little wet. All of that, however, was completely disregarded as the hazy ball of fire got closer and closer until it was too late.

His feet had completely given up on him. No matter how much he tried to turn around and run away, his body just wouldn’t listen. The sheer terror had overtaken his body, ultimately causing his demise.

The last thing he saw was the glimpse of the blazing star in the sky overshadowed by another one in front of him.

The Sovereign, with her eyes burning with blind rage, opened her mouth wide. Her sharp canine flashed for a moment before her mouth closed on the tiny human in front of her, completely crushing his body between her jaws!

The lower half of the body fell on the ground, twitching just for a moment before the Sovereign also spat the upper half out of her mouth.

*THuu!*

Blood dripped from her mouth as she gave a wide look around her, uncaringly receiving the terrorized glances from every human that had witnessed this gruesome scene.

*GRrhRr!* The Sovereign growled.

Learning from the man’s mistake, everyone disregarded all the schemes and strategies they had prepared and frantically ran away from the Rank-10 Beast.

Another human had died.

Only 8 more left before this dream worse than hell came to an end.

No one wanted to be a part of these 8 upcoming deaths.

. . .

While everyone panicked to find somewhere safe to hide, Ozul on the other hand was still lost in his thoughts.

He had noticed the Sovereign ripping apart the human, but he didn’t have much of a reaction.

He was thinking about something else.

‘Something is wrong...’

No matter how he looked at it, this was a Rank-10 Beast, and also the one called The Sovereign. Yet, something felt different.

Even her size seemed different than before. It seemed as if she had shrunk quite a lot compared to the last time.

‘She isn’t the same anymore. Her aura is familiar but completely different at the same time,’ Ozul noticed the Sovereign staying still on the ground instead of chasing the humans like a wild beast.

This strange behavior aroused his curiosity since no matter how intelligent she had gotten with her Rank, she was still a beast and he could feel her raging emotions.

‘No beast would stop to think about something when its emotions are so stirred...’ Ozul had experience with quite a few high-ranking beasts. There was always a limit before they lost all control of their cool-headedness and followed their instincts instead.

And with his calculations, the Sovereign should have long discarded all of her reasoning and attacked anyone on sight without any regard for the consequences.

“What happened?” Raven asked from behind.

This was a Rank-10 Beast, she knew it must be something concerning for him to be so distracted.

“Contrary to her feelings, she is acting too calm,” answered Ozul uninterestedly.

“Could she... be looking for us?” Raven questioned a possibility.

There would probably be no one else in this barrier that this Rank-10 Beast could be concerned about. Moreover, with their previous encounter, it was quite possible that the Sovereign had come for some kind of revenge.

“It’s possible.”

Ozul also agreed with her. That, however, didn’t shed any light on why the Sovereign, as the apex predator on the continent of Egon, suddenly had enough self-control to stop herself from blindly rampaging everywhere.

According to the little information he had, it seemed that before when she was sealed in Wolf’s Cage, she was doing the exact thing. Something had changed now, and it had only happened after they had left that place.

“Wait! You guys are talking about that monstrosity targeting us!?” Zier shouted in alarm. He was probably the weakest participant in this trial and it was only a miracle that he hadn’t already lost his strength due to fear.

This time, no one spared him any thought. Even Blaze who usually left all the thinking part to Raven and Ozul was concentrated on the Sovereign. If that beast were to attack them, he had to think of all the ways he could protect himself and help Ozul deal with it.

The only person here who could deal with that beast was Ozul. He could only hope to assist him, but even that seemed improbable.

They were one of the farthest from the Sovereign, so they didn’t need to find someplace to hide. Even if they were in range, Ozul wouldn’t choose to run.

After attaching all of his limbs, his overall strength had improved a lot. While before he wouldn’t hope to be the Beast’s match, now he had his own trump card – the new ability he had learned but yet to name.

“Don’t trust anyone and stay together,” Ozul spoke as he eyed both Raven and Blaze.

While the Sovereign was currently everyone’s focus, he didn’t believe it for a second that these humans wouldn’t resort to killing each other in order to end the competition before their lives were put in peril.

Raven instantly understood what he meant while Blaze simply nodded his head, he never trusted anyone anyway.

“Do you have a plan?” Raven asked. If he was giving them orders, it meant that he might be planning something like dealing with the Sovereign himself. She knew how strong the Sovereign was but had no idea of the extent of Ozul’s prowess.

“I’m not planning anything. She is...”

Raven and Blaze both looked ahead and noticed the flaming beast which stood hundreds of miles away from them had suddenly started running towards them!

The Sovereign seemed to have located them!

“Run.”

Ozul ordered before he seemingly disappeared from his spot, appearing almost tens of miles ahead, rushing towards the Sovereign as she ran straight at him, completely disregarding all other humans she could have easily killed in a matter of seconds.

The ground shook with the thumps of the Sovereign as she ran at full speed, her eyes burning dark orange with obvious rage.

Meanwhile, a small blurry figure surrounded by black could be seen rushing towards her.

Beads of a black material whirled around this figure, becoming faster with each passing second until they were reduced to a hazy disc of blur surrounding him.

Although the weapon used to previously ‘kill’ the Sovereign used his limb as an energy source, Ozul currently was nowhere near strong enough to release that kind of energy.

All he had was those same abilities he had been using for decades now. The only thing that changed was his mastery over them and the addition of that new skill.

Currently, he was strong enough to deal with any Rank-10 Mage, but he couldn’t say the same for a Rank-10 Beast. It didn’t help that he wasn’t able to properly gauge the Sovereign’s current strength due to unknown reasons.

It was too late to think about that now.

The battle had already begun and it was Ozul against the strongest beast on the continent of Egon.

. . .

Leaving Zier alone with Raven and Blaze seemed to be a rather difficult situation for Zier as he wasn’t entirely sure whether these two would harm him or not.

So as to play it safe, he quietly followed them and didn’t ask any questions.

Instead of running in the opposite direction of the Sovereign, Raven and Blaze found a higher spot for them to spectate the battle. They knew better to interfere in a battle of such a grand scale.

Even if they wanted to interfere, they didn’t have the ability to do so.

‘I know you can do it...’ silently cheered the black-haired girl, who, for the first time in a long whole, showed some nervousness on her previously ice-cold face.

It wasn’t much different with Blaze who firmly believed that there were no chances of Ozul losing.

“Are you seriously going to sit back and enjoy the show!?” shouted a certain sickly-looking man in the background...