Odyssey of the Blind God

"Crimson Moon? That's the name of your second ability?" Kristine asked, feeling slightly confused.

The ability's name didn't really say anything and there was no way that she could figure out its actual use and effects.

"So what does it do?" Sabrina asked, mirroring her master's curious voice.

Hana had stopped crying by now which was why everyone's attention was now on Nial.

However, Nial merely shrugged his shoulders in response.

"I have no idea," He said truthfully.

The four women in the underground training hall didn't believe him but it was not as if they could extract further information out of Nial.

Even Sabrina was not able to pierce through Nial's iron wall of determination to keep everything a secret.

Nobody believed that Nial was actually about to bind an ability to his mana core without having an inkling of its use.

This was actually about to happen, which was why Nial had to make sure that nobody would sustain any injuries from the binding process.

He had no idea what would happen, after all.

Kristine and Kirlia were more than willing to follow Nial outside the shelter.

They would protect him from any kind of dangers in the wilderness if someone or something were to approach them with ill intentions, to begin with.

Meanwhile, Hana and Sabrina followed Nial and their masters out into the wilderness to watch Nial's binding process.

They were still pretty sure that nothing serious would happen, and the girls only followed him because Nial seemed way too confident.

With the crimson-colored ability crystal in his hand, Nial stopped when he was roughly five kilometers from both the Forest of Life and the shelter.

"That distance should be more than enough," He mumbled before he pulled thousands of Origin crystals out of his spatial ring.

Nial laid them out around himself while leaving a small empty spot in the center. He sat down cross-legged in the center and activated [Mana Sense] to access every single Origin crystal at the same time.

Simultaneously accessing all Origin crystals was not easy but Nial did so without too many difficulties. He pulled a single strand of mana outside the Origin crystals before he led it straight to the crimson-colored ability crystal that began to glow.

The name [Crimson Moon] manifested inside his mind, which was exactly what Nial required to initiate the binding process.

He removed the ability from the crystal and led it inside his mana core, where he finally bound it to himself.

This process was not very difficult because it required only lots of mana and a free vacancy in his mana core. With Nial's control over mana, it was easy for him to do anything related to mana.

Thus, binding an ability was easy, in theory. At least, if it would end here!

Nial's binding process was just like that of everyone else. The only difference was that the hieroglyphs representing the ability [Crimson Moon] would have to be fully bound to his mana core before he would feel the changes, let alone the ability to activate it.

Usually, the mana core required an hour or two before the binding process was completed and the fusion succeeded.

But when Nial was still sitting on the ground after three hours, the four women looked at him in confusion. Nothing impressive seemed to have happened until now and they started to believe that Nial was merely being a show-off.

"Should we just kick his butt?" Sabrina asked at one point but it was at this moment when Kristine lifted her hand.

Sabrina turned quiet in an instant as she realized that her master was fully focused on Nial. Her laser-sharp eyes were trained on Nial, making her feel jealous of her brother once again.

The attention her master awarded her brother was much more than everything she seemed to have received, except for the day when one of the Legacy items chose her.

Thus, Sabrina could tell that she was clearly missing something, and that irked her.

Only then did she focus on Nial, which allowed her to see a faint bloody red hue around Nial. Strands of darkness swarmed the bloody red hue that kept expanding.

Whenever it expanded, the bloody red hue was also retracted. It was a back-and-forth act that never seemed to end. Meanwhile, Nial's eyes were closed and his hands clenched together.

Sweat trickled down his temples and his back was already drenched in a cold sweat.

It was impossible not to see that something weird was going on, but nobody was able to say anything, let alone figure out what this 'something' actually was.

Nial was currently trying to accept the influence both the Odyssey seed and [Hodur's Heir] were trying to force onto the [Crimson Moon] ability that had yet to gain permission to fully fuse with Nial.

'Darkness Essence, go for it,' Nial thought when he sensed that the temperature in the surrounding area had dropped considerably. It was already late at night by now and he felt a cooling sensation sweeping through his body.

This gave him the reformation he had required to allow his entire existence to influence his new ability as much as possible.

[Crimson Moon] was activated when it was being influenced. Simultaneously, the brightly shining moon shone on Nial. The moon was what he had waited for.

He used the bits of Essence of Darkness he possessed to activate [Crimson Moon] with it. The moonlight that shone on Nial and his surrounding changed in color and it looked like the moon turned crimson.

The atmosphere in the surrounding turned heavy, while Nial's strength seemed to increase exponentially.

Darkness emerged from his body and it spiraled upward, almost as if it was trying to reach the moon that towered high above them.

Everyone's gaze followed the swirling darkness instinctively, and it was only at this very moment that everyone realized what was truly going on.

"Did his ability recreate a moon of energy by devouring the moonlight?" Kristine blurted out the first thought that came to her mind. The others could only nod their heads or freeze in place as they didn't understand what was going on.

They could only see that a tiny grain of a bloody red moon had begun to expand and swell to a football-sized moon. The moon that levitated hundreds of meters above them increased in size and it changed the atmosphere around them.

Everyone felt heavier, breathing became harder, and the difficulty to circulate mana through their body increased as well. Even Kristine, who was a Prometheus Original, faced difficulties, which caused her eyes to widen.

"Is that really only his second ability crystal? Isn't that way too powerful?!" She mumbled, feeling clearly confused because even she was not able to fully comprehend what was going on.

The Darkness Nial's body had instinctively released and finally reached the bloody red moon. It revolved around the moon and seeped into it, infiltrating the bloody red moon.

When the Essence of Darkness entered the moon, its appearance changed drastically. Simultaneously, more and more moonlight was suctioned in the direction of the second moon.

The surrounding area turned pitch-black because all the light was drained from it. Every single speck of light was devoured by the bloody moon, blanketing the area around them into nothing but pure darkness.

The only source of light that was left behind was the bloody red hue around Nial. Swirls of darkness revolved around him while the bloody hue expanded once again.

"Doesn't it look like his hue becomes stronger the larger the bloody moon grows?" Kirlia wondered in fascination, not believing her eyes.

Right now, Kirlia felt that Nial was superior to her in terms of combat power. Without a shred of doubt, she could tell that Nial had grown stronger than her, which was not only frightening but downright impossible. But, it was the truth.

She was just about to advance to the Prometheus rank with a total of 9 Advanced origin rings, and it was not supposed to be possible for anyone at the Mirae rank to reach her strength.

Yet, the more moonlight Nial's ability devoured the more obvious was the increase in strength he received.

Nial's body was overflowing with power and it was only when the bloody moon seemed to have finished changing and growing that Nial began to move once again.

He got up from the ground swiftly and he lifted his hand, stretching it out to reach for the bloody moon.

At first, nothing happened, just like it was supposed to be.

However, when Nial opened his mouth to say a single word, everything seemed to change. Nature's laws didn't seem to matter anymore and the bloody moon shot straight toward Nial.

The moon shrunk in size before it pierced straight through Nial's chest, and disappeared into him like air.

And the word Nial had said was nothing but a simple order, "Come!"

The moment the moon disappeared in Nial's chest, his knees buckled under his weight. He was exhausted and felt freezing cold.

But despite the exhaustion and the cold he felt, there was still a bright smile on his face.

With the moon entering his body, the metamorphosis of his ability had finally changed. It was completed and the transformed ability had fused with him as well.

This was everything Nial had wished for, and it allowed him to feel extremely relaxed as he activated the ability which he just bound to his body.

[Blood Eclipse Moon]!

The moon that had just disappeared in Nial's chest came out of his body at his will.

Instead of ordering it to influence the surrounding area or to devour more moonlight, Nial deprived the Blood Eclipse Moon of some of the moonlight it had absorbed.

A darkish crimson strand of energy was pulled outside the moon that shrunk in size.

Nial inserted the darkish crimson energy inside his body. His smile turned brighter in return as his physical strength increased drastically.

The potency of his mana increased under the influence of the darkish crimson strand as well.

"This will be great for the future!" Nial mumbled before he willed the moon to shatter.

It burst open in front of everyone, releasing all the darkish crimson energy the moon had stored.

Only a tiny grain of the moon was left behind, and that was everything Nial required to let it grow again.

Simultaneously, he could burst open the remains of the moon as per his will using the darkish crimson energy.

Nial played around with them while allowing the grain-sized Blood Eclipse Moon to grow once again.

His surroundings turned bloody red, merged with darkness and his earlier joyful smile turned into a devilish smile for all of the spectators, who had watched everything with bated breaths.

"Yeah…now I get why he didn't want to bind the ability in the shelter or the Forest of Life…" Sabrina mumbled quietly in understanding, while everyone else could only nod their heads.

"I think I won't be able to sleep tonight…" Hana added without realizing, just for Sabrina to chime in as well.

"Me neither."