Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial was not sure how much time had passed before Bella and Mathias finished their heated debate.

However, once they were done, Bella straightened her back while revealing a bright smile and a prideful expression.

On the other hand, Mathias could only grumble, while sighing deeply.

Bella won the debate, so she sealed the plants away before storing them and the portable garden inside her spatial ring.

Nial was slightly frustrated because they had wasted so much time on a trivial discussion but he somehow understood both sides of the debate, including their reason to do so.

Bella didn't really care about the value of the 'living' plant as she would simply sell them. She was only able to perceive the future value of the portable garden that was no less than a treasure.

Mathias had the completely opposite view to that of Bella but in the end, he was still too timid to win a heated debate.

'I'm such a loser…'

Mathias was frustrated with himself but when Nial pushed a small pouch in his arms, he was able to calm down quickly.

"What is tha-...WOW!"

While Mathias and Bella had been occupied with their debate, Nial hadn't wasted his time.

He had used his range of perception in an extremely detailed manner to perceive and inspect the entire terrace.

This was also the reason why he had been able to locate a small box hidden from plain view. He even perceived the two bags filled with seeds stored in it.

The bag was perfectly sealed off with the seeds so as to not let the outside environment harm them. With the sealing bag it was possible to store the seeds inside the spatial ring and to plant them whenever one wanted.

It was only obvious for Mathias to be astonished by this and when both Bella and Mathias realized that their discussion had been nothing but a waste of their precious time, they felt embarrassed.

Nial was not really interested in making them feel so. He just hoped that they wouldn't keep acting like this.

Only now did he recall that they hadn't even been friends for an entire month. That was more than enough to make him realize that he had yet to get to know Bella and Mathias.

He didn't know much about them, after all, and the same could be said about the other two.

'I guess, time will slowly unveil our background and past to each other.'

Nial just shrugged his shoulders as if he was not sure what to think about his own thoughts.

He simply accepted the given situation before stepping out of the terrace and entering the top floor of the palace., and on the same floor as it.

It was connected to the terrace and the only difference between the terrace and the top floor of the palace was the ceiling above their heads, followed by the walls that restricted their movements.

"I was not able to sense any mana trap on the highest floor."

Nial didn't exclude the possibility of the presence of ordinary traps or hidden mana traps with mana distortion runes inscribed in them.

That was more than enough for Bella and Mathias to become serious the moment they heard Nial's tone.

He might have been calm before but it was quite evident to see that he was a little bit frustrated about their completely unnecessary debate.

Both Bella and Mathias noticed this, which was even more reason for them to pay attention to their task and not to prevent making any kind of mistake.

Thus all of them were now fully focused on perceiving their surroundings and searching for clues about traps.The group stayed together while advancing through the highest floor.

Despite being much smaller than the floors below as the terrace was also on the same floor, the top floor of the palace was extremely huge.

The hallway was more than seven meters high, spanned more than five hundred meters in length, and was around 25 meters in width.

Even if they were a group of 10 Originals, it would be possible for them to walk side-by-side without the need to squeeze next to each other.

At first, everyone was slightly astonished about this because it made the small group question if the palace had belonged to some sort of Giant race.

"If the palace belonged to Giants or whatever type of huge race, why were the proportions of the tower rather 'normal'? Like…the size and shape of everything around perfectly fit to be used by our race, even the runic armaments such as the Tier-1 protection chestplate!"

It was only obvious for Mathias to be confused, and if Nial wouldn't have gotten imprinted by some of the late Darkness God's memories quite a while ago, he would have been confused as well.

But despite his astonishment, Nial answered calmly,

"Well, that is simply because these ancient ruins belong to a race with similar proportions as that of humans."

After he said this, Nial took a breath. He was about to explain why the hallway was so huge, but Mathias jumped in once again.

"That doesn't explain the reason behind the overproportional size of the hallway and all the rooms…"

All of a sudden, a flat hand landed on Mathias' neck, smacking him as the sound of a slap resounded in the hallway they were walking through.

For a moment, Mathias was just shocked. He stopped abruptly and threw his friend a bewildered look.

"Did…you just slap me?" Mathias asked, looking fiercely at Bella, who could only sigh deeply.

"If you would stop interfering when others are speaking, I wouldn't have to do that. But do you even realize just how often you interfere in others' discussions or cut them off when they're still speaking?

Even if my slap was rude, your behavior is even more miserable, so get your act together!"

Bella had already been annoyed at Mathias' behavior for quite a while. Maybe it was because he was warming up to them or something else but Mathias had started to speak far more during the last few days than before.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice that he was interrupting quite often even if he did not mean to do it or realize it.

That was only one example of many, and Bella had had enough of it. As such, she resorted to a drastic measure to force Mathias to change his behavior and attitude towards others.

A light slap on his neck was more than enough to achieve this and when he heard her explanation for her actions, Mathias could only look at her dumbfounded.

He completely missed her point.

"Huh? What are you talking about?! Nial was done speaking, right?"

Mathias momentarily forgot about Bella's slap on his neck. He looked over to Nial, just to see him smiling wryly before he shook his head lightly.

"I was just about to say that the huge hallways and rooms have been built to accommodate the allied races of the fallen colonization to which the ancient ruins had belonged.

The towers, the runic armaments, and the size of the portable garden are a pretty good indicator that the people inhabiting the fallen colonization more or less had our proportions while the size of the entire palace, including everything within, indicates that they were allied with larger races…"

Nial had also noticed that Mathias spoke his mind whenever he wanted.

However, especially because his friend was not confident and timid, Nial hadn't said anything yet.

After leaving the ancient ruins dungeon, Nial had been meaning to have a discussion with Mathias about his behavior and tell him that it might come off as rude if he were to act like this in front of powerful Originals, influential families, and other highly respected people.

But from the looks of it, Bella had lost her patience.

Thus, Nial could only keep smiling wryly as he kept walking down the hallways.

Instead of simply entering one room after another they first wanted to make sure that the hallway was safe and that it could be considered their safety zone.

It would be great if no trap was located in the hallway on the highest floor. After all, it would be pointless to set up a trap so high if nobody could reach the top floor without passing the lower floors.

Unfortunately, luck was not on their side, which Nial realized the moment they passed a total of six Knight armors that were tightly holding onto their longsword.

The longsword pointed to the small stone foundation they stood on, which made the scenario that was bound to unfold in front of them even more impressive.

But Nial was not happy at all as his range of perception was able to perceive nearly everything about the six Knights, with three of them flanking each side of the hallway to guard it.

"The Knights will be troublesome".

Nial's low voice only reached Bella as Mathias kept his mouth shut while he was raking his mind to figure out what he had done wrong.

If it would have been only Bella, who said something about him, Mathias would have been fine. He wouldn't have thought much about it.

However, when it came to Nial, it was pretty sure that he wouldn't be lying. That was how highly Mathias thought about Nial and why it hurt him even more than Nial had agreed to Bella's words.

'Am I really that rude?' He had been sulking when he heard a loud creaking sound.

All of a sudden the surroundings erupted and it was as if an explosion occurred all around them, making small and large stones fly in the air.

"What the hell!?" He could merely blurt out as a strong wind current brushed past his face.

A moment later, a huge stream of dark energy had brushed past Nial before the sound of metal clashing upon each other could be heard from Mathias' right side.

Turning his head to the right side, Nial saw a five-meter-tall Knight armor, which had swung its longsword at him.

The moving Knight armor had attempted to behead Mathias with a single strike. However, Nial had reacted quickly enough.

He used his dark energy to twist the Knight's gauntlets, forcefully changing the blade's trajectory so that it clashed with the second Knight armor's longsword.

All six Knights had begun to move, wielding their longswords expertly as soon as they detected Nial and the others.

They burst open the foundation on which they had been standing before brandishing their weapons and slashing at the three.

However, while Bella had listened to Nial's words and the commands that had followed suit, she had been able to evade the oncoming attacks easily.

Only Mathias had been distracted, thereby requiring Nial's help to survive the two attacks.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Nial appeared behind Mathias. He grasped his friend before spreading out his dark energy in an explosive manner in an attempt to prevent the advance of the Knight armors.

Shooting backward with Mathias in his grasp, Nial arrived right next to Bella. She was already in a combat stance and ready to fight with all her might.

"Let me introduce you to something far more dangerous than magic traps…" Nial stated, his expression dead serious as he added,

"Runic armaments, Puppet-type, Guardian Knights!"