Unsealing Emptiness

Venessa, who had doubts about her actions from the start, hesitated after hearing her shout and decided not to cast her spell from the middle of the encirclement.

If Hanry were in her place, he would not have hesitated even for a second and just fired his spells at the drake. The only reason that he was not attacking it right now was that he was afraid that his spell might hit Clara because of all the confusion.

Instead, Venessa chose the second best thing that she could do to protect Clara. And that was to run away from there.

However, there was clearly not enough time to run away as the drake had already reached the front lines of the formation.

It was only a matter of seconds before the drake would kill its way through all the mercenaries.

Moreover, the mercenaries were surrounding them from all sides. It was ironic that this formation that would have protected them had now become a trap for them.

.....

——–

A few moments earlier, Rufus had stood watching these events play out, with the rank 7 mages rigidly standing behind him.

“Leader! Shouldn’t we help them? At this rate, the drake could become a huge threat to lady Clara,” suggested one of the rank 7 mages behind Rufus.

For a moment, Rufus did not reply and just kept staring at the scene from afar. It seemed as if he was waiting for something, but his subordinates did not understand what.

“No, just a bit more... Ok, I will do a countdown. Rush to help on my go.” Rufus instructed. It seemed that even in the last seconds, he did not want to reveal their presence to the group.

Rufus wanted to avoid showing themselves as much as possible. The mission they were sent on was crucial to the plans made by his Majesty. He tried to avoid failure as much as possible.

The rank 7 mages behind him did not understand what he meant by waiting even more than they already had. For them, the situation already looked dire enough that waiting even longer would only increase the odds of Clara dying.

Moreover, they did not see anyone that could help the group out of their predicament at this point.

“3,” muttered Rufus in a low voice as everyone behind him got ready to take action.

“2,” the mages’ bodies tensed as they started circulating their mana to increase their physical strengths.

“...1,” said Rufus in a downcast voice. Revealing themselves at this point meant that it ruined all their future plans.

Just as the mages had jumped from their positions, Rufus saw something in the battle and shouted, “Halt! Back to your position. We will not interfere.”

A few of the mages tripped and were falling down, but they managed to balance themselves because of their decades of experience.

“But leader-” one of the mages was about to question Rufus, but he was interrupted in the middle of his sentence when his colleagues pointed towards the battle.

Rufus smirked as he saw a man in a white shirt, slowly walking towards the drake from the sidelines.

‘You’ve finally decided to step in, eh?’ Rufus thought in his mind, amused and glad that they did not have to step in and reveal their presence, failing the mission given by his Majesty.

——–

A few moments earlier, Ozul looked at the scene when the drake was sent flying by the spell of Barry.

He had already predicted that this would happen when he had looked at Barry, who was ready to cast his spell. However, the unknown factor in this situation was the decision made by the beast.

Even when Ozul could sense emotions, he could not read others’ thought processes. He was unsure what the drake would do when it was blasted in the middle of the ground-between the mercenary formation and his attackers, Barry and Clive.

The worst outcome was obvious: that Drake would choose to go after the mercenary formation comprising only the weakest of the bunch.

As the beast rushed to the mercenary formation, Ozul contemplated whether he should help or let it be.

‘I don’t really want to help though...’ Ozul thought before he looked towards a particular direction in the forest.

From that direction, he felt many emotions that were directed towards him from a man that he was very much familiar with. The only feelings which really stood out among them were the worry and the expectations?

‘Hm, that old man probably expects me to take action because he does not want to reveal himself,’ Ozul concluded.

“Though I also lose nothing by helping. Wait-” Ozul stopped in the middle of his thinking as he realized something.

*Sigh.*

“How could I forget that Raven and Blaze would also need the drake’s cores?!” He sighed while thinking out loud.

“Well, what better way to get them than the opportunity in front of me?” Ozul muttered, looking at the drake that was about to collide with the mercenaries’ formation with a glint in his eyes.

Behind him, Raven and Blaze were almost moved to tears when they heard his murmuring. It really wasn’t like Ozul to care about others in most case scenarios.

If he wanted to do something, he would just do it. And if he felt that something was really not worth the effort, then unless something really did happen that he considered to be worth the effort, no one would be able to persuade him otherwise.

In this situation, they did not care if Ozul saved the mercenaries from their impending doom or not. The only thing in their mind right now was that he was making some efforts in a task which he did not want to bother with only for their sake!

It wasn’t like Ozul did not do things for their sake before, or he did not care about them. It’s just that once Ozul decided that a task was not worth it, he rarely changed his mind. And this time, he had changed his mind just for their benefit!

Unlike Blaze, who did not know the worth of a drake’s core, Raven was especially delighted hearing that Ozul was going to obtain them the cores.

“You don’t really have to go that far for our sake-” As a formality, both Raven and Blaze were just saying that, but they got interrupted in the middle.

“Oh, you don’t want the cores? Well, it’s ok. I will not go then,” Ozul shrugged as he said the last part.

“No! We mean that you should go! If you would like, we can also join!” Raven and Blaze both hurriedly spoke up in unison.

Although Blaze was unaware of the value of a drake’s magical core, he had at least realized that it was something precious from the expression of Raven.

“Are you sure you want them?” Ozul again asked, this time looking at them with a scrutinized gaze. It seemed as if he was going to ask them for the last time.

“Yes, yes. We need them!” Both of them hurriedly replied. They were aware of how serious Ozul could sometimes be. If they still held back, he would really just give up on the cores.