Unsealing Emptiness

Ozul found it hard to believe this purple-haired boy could still ask for confirmation. After all, he knew how much this boy was afraid of him right now based on the waves of nervous emotions thrown at him.

Under his scrutinizing gaze, Zier didn’t know what to say.

He would be lying if he said that he wasn’t afraid. Still, he didn’t want to back down from this.

“I... It doesn’t matter. If you don’t make a promise, I wouldn’t know if I will end up dead later anyway.”

He was lying. Not to Ozul, but to himself.

Growing up only trusting his grandfather, he knew that promises didn’t mean a thing to people in power.

.....

“So, promise me to keep everything a secret and you wouldn’t harm me. Otherwise, kill me right now...”

He also knew that if his secret were to be out, people might use him and his fate might turn out even worse than death.

Yet... he didn’t want to die.

He wanted to hold onto a sliver of hope. His reasoning told him that a mere promise wouldn’t hold anyone back from harming him later, but right now, he was willing to fool himself just to avoid instant death.

As Zier stood firm on the ground, Ozul was admittingly surprised at his unfounded bravery.

‘These waves of emotions don’t belong to a person ready to die, heh...’

“Alright, what is your name?”

“Huh?”

As Zier had even begun to brace himself for death, he didn’t expect the opposite party to ask for his name.

“It’s Zier! Zier Grey!” he shouted.

“Hmm.”

Ozul nodded his head and spoke,

“I, Ozul Ashfall, vow not to harm you in any kind, Zier, regarding the secret you’re about to reveal.”

As his oath resounded in the forest, a gentle breeze appeared out of nowhere, brushing past Zier’s face. That cool caress made him aware of his reddened eyes.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t think Ozul noticed anything under the veil of darkness.

He was merely lying to himself, holding onto an illusion that this man named Ozul would’ve taken his promise seriously. However, now, his wavering heart calmed down.

That oath did not belong to a man who would back down from his words later!

“I...”

For a few moments, he didn’t know what to say anymore. He never predicted this outcome, and he was more than grateful for it.

“Hurry up now,” the same voice reached his ears again, reminding him of the little time they had.

“Uh yes!” Zier shouted before reaching Blaze and dropping on the ground near him.

Ozul looked at all of this with an indifferent face, but his eyes closely followed whatever Zier was doing.

He had never dealt with poison before, and the situation was serious. If this purple-haired lad wasn’t here, he would have tried to deal with it using the Ball of Purity himself.

It would have been a risky move and he wasn’t even confident in succeeding, but in case there were no other options, he would’ve given it a try.

‘Now that I think about it, I should have thought about curing the poison before I let them fight these three...’

A kind thought appeared in his heart, but he shook his head internally, trying not to think about such unnecessary thoughts.

“So... about my secret...” Zier turned around, facing Ozul.

He held a small black knife in one of his hands and an unsure look in his eyes.

But a moment later, the uncertain look in his eyes disappeared, replaced with a resolute determination as he remembered the oath Ozul had just taken.

He closed his eyes with a force great enough to imitate his expression to that of pain even before anything had happened.

This action was justified just a moment later when he drove the knife into his other hand, instantly cutting through the skin!

A painful hiss left his mouth, but he tried his best not to shout out aloud in this forest now filled with occasional growls from distant Beasts.

Ozul quietly watched this scene with interest. He didn’t ask any questions as he believed they would be answered if he just waited for a little longer.

Zier threw the blood-smeared knife away as the warm blood began pouring out of the cut.

“I’m special... or so my grandfather used to tell me,” Zier slowly muttered while moving his bleeding hand towards Blaze, “Anyway, my blood is different.”

Zier moved his hand above the darkened hand of Blaze as his blood dripped on the wounds.

“To a certain extent... it has immunity to poisons.”

As he said so, Ozul could see his blood seeping into Blaze’s body through the scrapes and cuts on the arm.

He wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if he hadn’t confirmed that Zier held no malicious intent as of now.

“Not only is it immune to poisons, but it seems to... eat the poison itself...”

Zier muttered with a relatively weaker voice.

Following his explanation, Ozul noticed the bulging veins on Blaze’s arm gradually calmed down and the darkened color slowly receded into nothingness.

As he observed Blaze more carefully, it turned out that his breathing and heartbeat had both also become steady again.

And all of this happened in a matter of a few seconds!

Ozul doubted that even a proper medicine for this poison would have been this effective.

Following that, Zier slowly stood up and dragged his feet towards Raven.

Although she was also unconscious, she didn’t have any visible bleeding wounds on her body.

Noticing this predicament, Zier turned towards Ozul, “Uhm, this won’t work if I drop the blood in her mouth.”

Ozul stepped forward and also noticed that although she seemed to be in a battered state right now, there were no visible wounds on her body.

However, he did not hesitate and formed a sharp blade from the Ball of Purity before making a small cut on the skin of her feet. Zier didn’t waste any more time and moved his hand above the cut.

As a few drops of his blood seeped into her body, Ozul covered the wound with a layer of the Ball of Purity. Taken aback by the sudden appearance of this black matter, he noticed that even the wounds on Blaze’s body were now covered with black straps of the same thing.

“Your work is done here,” Ozul spoke.

He had examined both Raven and Blaze’s bodies and confirmed that they were already recovering.

Although he knew that his Ball of Purity also had regenerative properties, there weren’t many occasions in which he was forced to use it as such, except for the duo.

Zier, who was relieved of his work, breathed a sigh of relief. He finally smiled, taking a deep breath,

“Ah good... t-they should be fin... ow...”

And just like that, Zier blacked out.

With him unconscious as well, Ozul was left standing alone amidst many unconscious bodies lying on the ground surrounded by tall trees and a thick layer of ever-present darkness.

He didn’t know why Zier would faint after losing only this much blood.

After all, he was a Rank-5 Fighter nonetheless. Even a normal person could have endured losing a few drops of blood.

Whatever the reasons may be, Ozul sighed to himself as he felt something brushing past his feet.

Even without the need to look down, he could tell that it was Jinx.

Only she could ever get so close without him noticing anything at all. Even the air itself remained still when she appeared, without a slight hint of disturbance.

Noticing that the wound on Zier’s arm was still bleeding, Ozul shook his head in annoyance.

He didn’t want to do it, but this man did help him save Raven and Blaze.

Without minding much, a strap of the Ball of Purity was released from his body before it flew towards Zier and latched onto the bleeding wound.

If losing just a few drops of blood caused him to faint, Ozul wondered if a few more might just make him lose his life.

‘Whatever...’ he thought in annoyance as he found himself being forced to perform tasks that he didn’t want to.

He didn’t see the six unconscious bodies on the ground as human beings, but manual labor instead.

If he wanted to sleep without any trouble later on, he had to clean up these dead bodies. Not only would they start to rot and leave an awful stench if left like this, but it would also attract Beasts here.

He himself didn’t care about the Beasts but then he would have to bother about killing them for the duo. They could be peak Rank-8 Mages, but even a Fighter could easily kill them right now in this vulnerable state.

*sigh...*

.....

A part of him wanted to leave them all be and take a nap, thinking of dealing with any nuisances later.

In the end, he remembered all the things the duo had gone through just for him. He couldn’t leave them be like this.

A pitch-black hand formed with the Ball of Purity formed and quickly picked the three up before placing them all under a shady tree.

Another hand picked up the corpses one by one before throwing them all in a random direction far far away from this place.

He had no tool to instantly dispose of the corpses and he didn’t want to go through the trouble of digging the ground to bury them.

In the end, it took him more time to seriously contemplate and decide on what he wanted to do than to actually clean up the scene.