Unsealing Emptiness

On his way here, he had noticed how previously the most crowded city on the continent now looked like it was some ghost town.

All those people had already moved outside the Neutral Lands, including many large factions as well.

The only people who still remained here till now belonged to factions that could afford to move anytime they wanted.

And without any doubt, the Ashin family was one of them.

Although the Neutral City looked completely different after more than 95% of the populace had already migrated, Ozul still managed to find the estate.

He flew directly down, ignoring the shocked look on one of the guards outside the estate who had nothing better to do than looking at the sky. They would barely see anyone even passing by from a long distance away these days.

.....

When Ozul entered, the barrier naturally made an opening for him.

Since there was no one else who was allowed such an entry except for him, the two brothers didn’t need to make a guess to know who had arrived. They came out of the building with huge smiles on their faces.

“Nephew!” x2

Ozul landed right before them and nodded his head. He looked around and noticed that their ancestor wasn’t present and couldn’t help but look at the two brothers with confusion.

“Ah. The ancestor had something to deal with. He said that he would take a couple of days before coming back,” Alver caught onto his confusion and cleared his doubt.

Though Ozul was confused about what that old Rank-10 Mage would have to deal with, he didn’t question them any further.

“Anyway, nephew! It has been nearly four years. Where did you disappear to? Irvin wouldn’t tell us anything at all,” Raymond questioned as they walked towards the garden.

Though Ozul didn’t want to sit under the sun again, so he instead walked inside the building.

Raymond and Alver turned around and could only chuckle awkwardly before following behind their nephew.

“I was training Raven and Blaze,” Ozul replied to his question only after he had taken a seat on the first empty room that he found.

“Oh? No wonder your tracks were so random-” Alver replied unconsciously before he widened his eyes as he realized that he had blurted out something he shouldn’t have.

Even Raymond looked at him with a deadpan face that seemed to say something along the lines of, ‘Where is your calm now? Couldn’t you just stay silent like you do most of the time!?’

Both of them looked nervously at Ozul, but they were relieved when they saw no obvious reaction from him.

Unknown to them, Ozul already knew that these two uncles of his would occasionally send their men to keep track of his whereabouts. However, he didn’t care about it since those people never came in his way and they didn’t have any bad intentions for doing this.

“I had a couple of things to ask,” Ozul didn’t waste any time and went straight to the topic.

Alver finally sighed in relief before hurriedly replied, “Haha, of course. Ask anything!”

“First of all,” Ozul spoke as he took out the old parchment he had gotten from Luthien’s Spatial Ring which had the destination of the old ruins marked on it from his Spatial Pouch. He continued, “Can you recognize this, in any way?”

Raymond took the parchment from Ozul’s hand and observed the parchment carefully.

“Where did you find this from? It is quite old, and probably authentic as far as I can guess,” Raymond spoke while his scrutinizing eyes stayed on the parchment.

“From Luthien’s Spatial Rings. I am planning to explore it before the test of Old Gu,” Ozul answered surprising Raymond and Alver.

“But you just returned no? Moreover, this part of the continent is really a dangerous place,” Alver had heard how there were many Rank-9 Beasts roaming in there as well.

Ozul didn’t answer immediately and waited for Raymond to finish looking at the parchment before taking it back. He put the tattered sheepskin back in his Spatial Pouch and replied, “I am planning to train Raven and Blaze there. I also have to start training myself.”

Both the brothers had a sense of realization on their faces as they thought to themselves how hard working their nephew was. When they had become a Rank-9 Mage, they had truly stopped training like they used to, so there was some admiration for not becoming arrogant as they did.

“Well, I can’t say that I know about these ruins. Maybe grandfather would have been able to tell you something about this, but he isn’t here...” Raymond answered with an unsure face.

Ozul wasn’t disappointed either. Although he didn’t get his answer from them, he didn’t hold any high hopes before coming here either. It was just that since he was already here, he thought it wouldn’t hurt to try.

“I want something done as well...” Ozul stood up this time, making Raymond and Alver stand up as well.

If one didn’t know any better, they would have thought that Ozul was the uncle and those two the nephews instead.

“Go ahead,” Raymond replied feeling that it would again be some trivial detail.

“I want you to look for any information about the strange black squirming runes,” Ozul demanded. This would be the first time where he decided to openly talk about it.

“Strange black squirming runes? What is that?” Raymond asked in a confused state.

When Ozul looked at Alver, he had the same questioning face as his brother.

Only then did he realize that not everyone was Haley whom he could give any absurd order and expect her to understand without any hints.

Seeing no other choice, Ozul cut a part of the Ball of Purity and tried to replicate the shape of those runes using that in the air.

Those strange runes were still quite vivid in his mind, so it wasn’t difficult before he had a rough replica of those ruins floating in the air.

“Something like this?” Ozul said while making those floating letters squirm as if they were all alive.

“Oh? I haven’t seen any runes like these. And you say that they move as if they possess life?” Raymond questioned with a skeptical look on his face.

He held no doubts though since it was Ozul who had said this and not just some random person on the street.

Ozul nodded his head in response before he continued, “Can you collect anything even remotely related to this and report it to Irvin in my absence?”

“Sure Sure. I will do it,” Raymond answered. Although they didn’t understand what goes inside Ozul’s head most of the time, he still agreed with the request.

For the Ashin family, it wouldn’t be as hard as one would think before they could get the lead. Above all, they might even find any information related to this in the Ashin family as well.

“Now the main reason I had come here for...” Ozul leaned forward, causing a change in the atmosphere around them.

“Do you guys have any prisoner who is physically healthy and it doesn’t matter if they die?” Ozul asked, again astonishing his two uncles who both looked at each other, not comprehending why their nephew not only knew about their secret prison facility but also seemed to have some business with death deserving prisoners.

Ozul hadn’t forgotten the fact that he had yet to test out what would happen if he forcefully took out his essence from someone else’s bodies.

He wanted to take his essence out of Raven’s and Blaze’s bodies. However, he first wanted to confirm what type of results could be expected from doing so.

He could have chosen these test subjects with the help of the Three-Eyed Stranges, however, it was a relatively new organization. There weren’t many people who were openly declaring war on his organization.

Ozul would rather not harm a member of his own organization since he was completely oblivious as to what the outcome would be.

The Three-Eyed Strangers didn’t have anything like an underground prison either. That is why he decided to ask for help from the Ashin family instead.

He was certain that Raymond and Alver would have a secret prison inside the estate where they kept all those people who had once tried to infiltrate their estate.

“Uh... Sure. Anything else?” Alver asked with an unsure tone of voice.

Why did their nephew suddenly ask for a random prisoner now?

Did he get himself a weird fetish?! The two brothers couldn’t help but think fearfully before shaking these thoughts out of their minds.

Whatever Ozul did with people, they would never be able to comprehend it.

“I want the prisoner right now...” Ozul cleared a misunderstanding when he noticed how Alver was only nodding his head carelessly.

“Right this instant?” Alver confirmed.

“Yes, right now, right here.”

Alver looked at Raymond for confirmation first before he stood up and left the room after the latter gave him a nod of approval.

It was their nephew making such a weird request, could they even reject it? Raymond didn’t think so.

As for what Ozul wanted to do with the prisoner, they could only ask and hope for a proper answer.

“What are you going to do with a healthy prisoner?” Raymond asked with a casual tone.

Ozul slowly made his way towards Raymond before he replied, “I want to test something.”

Raymond didn’t have enough time to understand his words before Ozul already held his hand on his chest.

Although Raymond didn’t understand any of what their nephew was doing, he let him be.

‘Hm...’