Unsealing Emptiness

There were currently two men from the Mercenary Guild inside the Neutral Lands. One of them was even the son of an important figure in the upper echelon of the Guild!

“Cort! Hurry your lazy ass up here!” shouted a robust man with short dark brown hair which fluttered freely in the air. He was currently on top of a giant boulder, taking a look around their surroundings.

A few meters away from him walked a man with an average build and light brown hair that dropped almost to his shoulders. An annoyed expression was plastered on his face as he spat on the ground before jumping on the boulder as well.

“What is it, Aakal? Can’t you keep your voice down? It’s not the Guild anymore! We can be attacked anytime!” barked Cort. He had known Aakal for a long time, and yet he couldn’t get used to his annoying behavior.

“Alright alright, calm down, will you?” Aakal waved his hand nonchalantly and pointed in a certain direction, “Look there, see that?”

Cort didn’t want to keep following Aakal’s orders, but considering his sudden enthusiasm, he decided to comply one more time.

.....

Following the direction in which he was pointed at, Cort noticed a tiger-like Beast with a long tail that seemed to be strangely tied to a massive rock. But looking closely, he noticed that the rock wasn’t tied to its tail but the whole tail at the end had morphed into that rock!

“What is that Beast? How come I have never seen it before?” Cort muttered in confusion. He wasn’t afraid of the Beast as there was still a considerable distance between them.

By his side, Aakal grinned, “Ha! Now you see? This must be a rare Beast! There is no way that I wouldn’t recognize a normal Beast just by looking at it.”

“But that’s not the point here. Look at it! It’s crouching in that direction and then there is a redberry bush right in front of it. Don’t you see what’s going on?”

Cort continued to blankly stare at Aakal for a few seconds before his eyes suddenly lit up. Mouth agape, he immediately asked, “Can you sense how many are there?”

Unfortunately, Aakal shook his head. He was close to breaking through Rank-8, but he doubted that even then he would be able to have his senses enhanced so much.

“I obviously can’t! Are you making fun of me?” Aakal clicked his tongue, “But even if I can’t, there shouldn’t be more than one or two. From my guess, the Beast may be around the peak of Rank-7. It should be smart enough not to attack people it can’t defeat.”

Listening to his deductions, Cort nodded his head in agreement. He had to admit that no matter how annoying, this guy was quite sharp at times.

Just as he was having that thought, he suddenly noticed something was amiss, “H-hey! Where are you going!?”

“Let’s check it out! And keep it down, will you!?” replied Aakal while slowly sneaking behind the tiger.

As they both controlled their Mana, the tiger didn’t notice anything and kept waiting for its prey to get closer.

At a certain point, Aakal and Cort stopped and hid behind trees. From their location, they could finally see who was being targeted by the Beast.

Aakal slowly tilted his head to the side to get a clear view when he noticed two absolutely beautiful girls, clearly oblivious to the danger that awaited them if they advanced further.

His eyes especially stayed glued to the figure of the lady with blonde hair. She looked innocent, yet her firm eyes portrayed unmoving confidence.

Beside him, Cort had also noticed that those two girls were the Beast’s target. To him, it looked like the girls hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Looking at this situation, a smile slowly crept up his face.

“Even if these little girls can survive the Beast’s sudden attack somehow, we can easily take care of them later!” he excitedly whispered to which Aakal had no visible response.

Cort found it suspicious that his usually noisy friend had gotten so quiet all of a sudden. He turned his head only to come across a face who was dumbly staring ahead with parted lips and little to no regard for his surroundings. Aakal’s eyes held an intensity of fondness that he had never seen from him before!

A sense of premonition quickly rose from Cort’s heart; he could already see where this was going...

****

Other than these prominent talents currently inside the Neutral Lands, there were more than fifty participants. Some of them were alone while others had teamed up.

Unlike the calm start for some of them, fights had already started on quite a few occasions, though most of them were caused by Beasts, all of whom ‘strangely’ turned out to be at least Rank-7.

Outside the dome of shield, the experts of the Mainland could only witness a few battles. Though they hadn’t been able to come across anything interesting as of yet, they all stayed calm. No one had any intentions of observing from any closer, they were fine as they were right now even if they couldn’t see much.

Among the spectators, there was only a single man who actually wanted to pass through the shield so he could save a child precious to him.

The man looked quite old with his long white beard and bald head. Though he looked full of vigor with a straightened back and an aura that didn’t seem to lose from the heads of the top organizations of the continent.

Strangely, however, this old man wasn’t a famous personality. Among those present here, there wasn’t a single person who knew about this old man.

A couple of people would occasionally throw curious glances at him, but he completely ignored everything. He was too worried for the child who was trapped inside the dome to care about anything else.

‘Please be okay, Little Zier. I knew it! I shouldn’t have allowed you to participate!’ thought the old man as his fists were clenched with an intensity that would shatter a tree trunk to paste!

His heart was filled with regret. That fateful day when the mysterious old man had appeared on their island out of nowhere, he had warned his grandson not to leave the house.

But not only did his grandson not listen, but Old Gu had also, for some sickening reasons, decided to choose his grandson to participate in some competition.

After Old Gu disappeared, his grandson somehow managed to persuade him to allow him to participate.

He just couldn’t say no to the desperate pleas of his only family remaining in this world. After all, his grandson had never left the island. They stayed in this little village on the island and Zier would always ask to show him the outside world.

When his chance came, he didn’t let go of it and did his best to persuade his grandfather.

But right after Zier had reached the Neutral Lands, the dome separated him and his grandfather who could only helplessly look from outside.

Even that was bearable, but when Old Gu announced that the competition consisted of surviving and even killing was allowed, he couldn’t take it anymore!

Alas, even though he was a powerful Rank-9 Mage, he was no match for Old Gu.

Not to mention destroying the dome, he couldn’t even leave a scratch on it!

His grandson wasn’t some genius kid who could kill or survive in this hellish competition! He wasn’t even a mage!

The old man kept shouting in rage but no matter what he did, Old Gu never appeared. He completely ignored his attempts to destroy the barrier.

It was only now that the old man had calmed down a little. He remembered the smile his grandson had shown him from the opposite side of the barrier before turning his back to him and walking away.

‘You grew up so fast, little Zier...’ the old man reminisced, ‘Your father would, that brat, would have been proud.’

A heart-wrenching bitterness remained on his tongue.

Him, an honorable Rank-9 Mage was reduced to such a sorry state where to protect his own grandson, all he could do was pray to God!

‘You may not be the strongest little Zier, but you have always been a smart kid. Please be safe!’

No matter how the old man tried to console himself, in the end, he couldn’t help but worry.

Fortunately for him, as of yet, he hadn’t noticed any huge commotion near the area where his grandson had walked in.

What he didn’t realize was that the reason there wasn’t any kind of disturbance near that area was due to a specific group of people who had been camping there for quite some time.

Whether it was Zier’s bad luck or good future, he would soon find out...