Odyssey of the Blind God

"Is he toying with her?" Mathias asked all of a sudden, looking at the spar ahead of him.

It felt a bit weird for Mathias to see Nial fighting like this because his friend never really bothered about defending.

Since the start of the spar, more than ten minutes had passed, and Nial was still blocking Sabrina's attack instead of landing one himself.

He was pushed back occasionally before he turned in another direction whenever they were about to reach the border of the arena.

Sabrina was fighting with all her might trying to land a hit but that seemed to be impossible.

The only issue Nial had to overcome seemed to be the fact that the shaft of the Dragonflame spear was not able to endure many more hits.

The thin shaft showed thin cobweb-like cracks that spread through the areas of the shaft that had been hit by her the most.

Mathias was a bit sad to see that the Dragonflame Spear was about to break, which was why he was displeased about his friend playing around with his sister.

"He is not really playing around," Miranda observed and both Kirlia and Hana nodded their heads.

"Right now, he is just getting used to Sabrina's strength, her fighting style, and her highly potent mana," Kirlia explained calmly before she added, "Sabrina's physical strength should be much higher than Nial's, even if he has one more Origin ring than her. Furthermore, her mana is purer than his as well!"

"Sabrina had bound her Mana Eye ability and the other abilities to her mana core because of her constitution. The abilities strengthened her constitution's special traits and the special traits augmented her abilities in return," Hana joined the conversation as well, clarifying why Sabrina's strength was so terrifying.

However, Mathias didn't seem to accept the three women's comments. He was pretty sure that Nial was playing around with his sister, and that was frustrating.

"But I have to say that Nial is really strong. At his rank, I would never be able to block all of Sabrina's attacks, even less considering that she is using the gloves with the [Rapid Release] and [Mana outburst] runic constellations engraved upon them," Kirlia acknowledged reluctantly as she kept watching the spar ahead of them.

Nial could clearly tell that the Dragonflame Spear wouldn't survive this spar. It was sad but he had no other choice. Right now, he was not in possession of a Runic shield.

Nial had yet to create a whole set of weapons for himself, and that was something he was a bit frustrated about.

With runic armaments, it was possible to escape numerous tricky situations, even if his strength was lower than the opponents and dangers he faced.

This was something Nial understood since he witnessed Finn using numerous runic armaments to fight against opponents much stronger than himself.

His Innate ability had been unique while his usage of runic armaments was sloppy, but it was still enough for him to understand that runic armaments had to be used in a way that gave him a big advantage.

Nial took a deep breath when he finished reading and analyzing Sabrina's movements. Her combat style was focused on a single technique, and Nial had studied that martial art technique for the last 10 to 15 minutes.

Now, he was ready to counterattack, which Nial did by releasing a massive amount of black miasma with the use of the Curse [Hodur's Heir].

He blocked Sabrina's sight for a short moment. This was more than enough to release his dark energy rapidly.

Until now, Nial hadn't attacked Sabrina even once. He had only used [Mana Sense] to perceive his sister's movements precisely.

That was also why Sabrina was astounded when her sight was blocked by dense black miasma. She drove her fists in front of her to disperse the black miasma with the wind pressure each punch created.

However, she couldn't find her brother, when the black miasma dispersed. Nial seemed to have disappeared all of a sudden.

But even before she could turn around to figure if Nial was behind her, hundreds of pitch-black vines shot out of the arena's ground.

The whole arena was dyed black and close to 300 vines created out of darkness emerged from it, tightly holding onto Sabrina's arms, legs, head, neck, and upper body.

For a moment, it was impossible for Sabrina to move. Her feet seemed to be sinking into the ground, while a quiet but amused voice resounded behind her as she saw the blazing red tip of the Dragonflame spear digging into her cheek.

"Next time I won't miss, little monster," Nial said, laughing lightly before he released the darkness vines.

He retracted the dark energy inside his body, saving most of it. Nial could reuse the dark energy instantaneously if he wanted to.

This was quite advantageous, especially since such a powerful attack barely drained him of his energy.

'Retracting the unused dark energy is truly a life savior!' Nial thought with a meek smile as he visualized Sabrina's annoyed expression.

His smile turned even brighter at this sight and he began to dishevel his sister's hair fondly.

Ruffling her hair increased Sabrina's anger about having lost so suddenly even more, but Nial seemed to be completely oblivious to this.

"Calm down, little monster. You don't want to be known as a bad loser, right?" Nial asked quietly as he removed his hand from her head.

Sabrina pressed her lips together in a thin line and she squinted her eyes, feeling the desire to punch Nial in his stomach right here and right now, but she held back.

'Mom will probably scold me if I punch him now...' She could only think, glancing over at her mother. Maline was worriedly looking over to her kids, fearing that they might have injured each other.

Fortunately, everything seemed to be fine.

Nial stored the Dragonflame Spear inside his spatial ring before he averted his attention to Mathias.

A fiery red crystal appeared in Nial's hand and he threw it over to his friend. Nial gave Mathias a peace sign before he averted his focus once again.

He had bought a few gifts for his parents as well, mostly items that allowed them to increase their mana veins' strength.

This was one of the most important things to do in order to make sure that his parents would have a long life. As long as they were to give their best to advance their mana core's rank, their life would never be endangered, Nial would make sure of that!

After he handed over a few treasures, he gave Miranda a history book about various races, detailed information about the Prometheus and Deux rank, and various other facts Miranda would be curious about.

Not only Miranda would be interested in the new information but the entire human race from Jundra would be more than eager to read that book. But Nial didn't intend to let everyone know about it.

He told everyone close to him what they had to know, and he shared all the necessary information while giving them the opportunity to do whatever they wanted to do.

Nial had had enough of politics for the time being. His only goal was to become stronger and to protect what was important to him.

To make sure that his family would be well-protected and safe, he had to make sure that the humans and Elves would be powerful.

The artificially augmented Dryad Princess' tear had been digested by the Forest of Life, and its effectiveness was clearly perceptible.

Both humans and elves gained a lot from the changes in the Forest of Life. Nial could only hope that the Forest of Life would stay as exceptionally useful as it was right now because Jundra's awakening would happen soon.

If they could ensure that the Forest of Life remained the area with the highest mana density, they could accelerate their growth to make sure that the new visitors wouldn't be stronger than them.

That was Nial's plan and hope!

At this moment, Nial perceived something with his [Mana sense]. A few young men rushed inside his mansion, down the flight of stairs to reach the underground arena as quickly as possible.

"Someone is coming?" Nial said but he sounded more like he was asking if someone was expecting a visitor.

Everyone turned toward the entrance of the underground arena, where they saw a 16-year-old young man arriving, breathing heavily.

"A Hell Dungeon manifested inside the shelter...it is already starting to show signs of breaking out, and close to 100 beasts have emerged..." the young man said, just to realize that everyone was looking at him.

The teenager felt a bit distressed with all the powerful beings around him but Kirlia and Miranda gave the young man a thumbs up before they told him to go.

"We'll come in a moment," They said in unison, which caused the two women to look at each other with a weird smile.

"A new dungeon portal is on the verge of breaking? Since when did the dungeon portals start emerging before they break out?" Nial asked in confusion, feeling that he missed out on too many seemingly minor changes when he was away.

However, instead of answering, Sabrina began to smile brightly, and she forget about having lost the spar against Nial.

"Perfect, let's go!!"

She rushed past the young man, whom she didn't know, and was ready to leave the mansion in an instant.

'What the hell?! First of all, who is that guy, and second...why is a dungeon breaking out shortly after it manifested?' Nial wondered.

It was weird that some guy had entered his family's mansion, known where to find them and delivered the news. However, the dungeon portal issue seemed to be even more pressing.

Nial rushed behind Sabrina, whom he began to question.

"Is it more common for a unique type of dungeons to manifest? Since when? Are there more low-ranked unique dungeons as well? What is the strongest dungeon portal that manifested during the last few days?" Nial bombarded his sister with questions, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

"How should I know? I came out of my Legacy trial last week or so. Mom wanted to spend some time with me, so I wasn't even able to train properly!" Sabrina excused herself quickly before she began to smile lightly once again.

Nial nodded his head in understanding. He was pretty sure that his mother would force him to stay with her for as long as possible too.

It was not that he disliked this but it would certainly make things a little bit more inconvenient. After all, he had lots of things to do.

Sabrina was the same. She had a lot to do but it was her disadvantage to having returned first. That way, Nial wouldn't have to console his mother because his sister had already done so.

It was quite advantageous, and something he was thankful for.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean the situation itself improved, especially since he had too many unanswered questions.

But even if didn't get any answers from Sabrina, Nial was able to tell her a few things about the current situation.

'The dungeon portals are getting wilder...seems like we have many impatient Gods breathing down our neck...'