Unsealing Emptiness

When he stood before the wall made out of the mud with vines all over it, Ozul closed his eyes to see if he could sense anything on the other side. Unfortunately, he only felt these strange vines there as well.

He searched for some switch or a lever that would open this hidden wall somehow, but there was nothing as of this sort around here. Ozul sighed as he did not like to make a mess of things.

The conical hat on top of his head suddenly turned into liquid before changing its shape to a sharp blade and turning solid again. The blade slashed at the wall, cutting out a square in an instant!

With a push from Blaze, the square part of the wall fell on the other side. Some dirt flew in the air, but everyone had a clear vision inside after the debris had settled down.

Raven and Blaze had to squint their eyes at the tunnel before them. They tried, but couldn’t see the end of it from here.

“This does not look like some secret treasure room...” Blaze muttered. Raven did not say anything since she agreed with him as well.

.....

Shouldn’t a room with such a rare treasure be more majestic or something? But all they sensed was some tunnel that was made in the dirt!

Ozul was about to explain to them that there was an exit to the tunnel, but just then, a sudden light flashed. They could clearly see a beam of red light under the ground, moving towards the other side of the tunnel!

Although the beam of light was under the ground, they could see it moving from above!

Because of the intensity of light when it reached the other end of the tunnel, the duo also saw the exit. As for the beam of light, they could only wonder what it was.

Only Ozul was aware that the beam of light was actually Mana in compressed form since he had seen it in the giant root before. And because it was red, he guessed that it was because the Element of that individual was the Fire.

The trio knew that standing still here wouldn’t get them anywhere, so Ozul took the lead and walked down the tunnel.

The group behind the trio, though, were too afraid to step into the dark tunnel. The group had already been surrounded by the Beasts before; they did not want to face such danger again.

However, to their surprise, it was Clara who stepped up first and followed behind the trio!

“Hais... Young Miss!” Venessa sighed before following behind her as well. And since Clara had gone ahead, Henry followed as well.

Not long after, Clive also started to advance since his real mission was always to protect Clara. Behind him followed the Silver Knights, who were all his subordinates.

After these people left, the group only contained the mercenaries. The weaker teams shifted their gazes between Barry and the people who had gone into the tunnel before quickly making their decisions.

On one side, they had the person who had protected them from such a dangerous situation and the other two Rank-7 Mages. While on the other hand, there was only Barry! So it wasn’t difficult for them to decide on what to do.

Barry was not following behind everyone else since he did not like the idea of following someone who had killed someone who he considered to be a brother.

However, when almost everyone had left, and only the mercenaries of Wind Eagles were left, he realized how dangerous it would be to be alone here.

If there were two Rank-7 Beasts here before, then there might as well be more!

If he stayed back here, it would be the stupidest decision of his life! So, he put aside his grudge for later and also followed others into the tunnel.

In the lead, Ozul reached the exit as he had to push aside the vines blocking his way out.

“Just what is up with so many vines!” Ozul muttered in annoyance. Although it was true that such a jungle was sure to have so many vines, he had come to dislike them after seeing so many in just one day.

It had come to the point where Ozul was internally complaining to the forest for not having anything other than the vines as decorations!

*Sigh.*

‘Will there ever be a day when I will find something equally perfect as the emptiness?’ Ozul thought inside his mind before a chuckle escaped his mouth.

“Hah, who am I kidding!?” he spoke out loud to himself in a sarcastic tone.

Behind him, Raven and Blaze stopped at their spots with their eyes going wide.

‘Did he just laugh?!’ both of them only had one thought inside their minds before Ozul walked out of the tunnel before the vines blocked their way now.

Instead of pushing them aside, Raven stood still on her spot, wondering if she was just hallucinating or did Ozul really just chuckled.

Behind her, Blaze had similar thoughts. However, they did not ask to confirm and just followed Ozul out of the tunnel as well.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever heard him laugh or chuckle. It was just rare. Moreover, they did not understand what was funny in this dark tunnel that could make Ozul smile.

As everyone else also got out of the tunnel while following behind the trio, another big room came into their view. However, it was much smaller than the previous one in size.

Ozul did not need anyone else to tell him that this was the actual room where the Elemental Lotus would bloom. Why? Because there was a small Lotus right in the middle of the room!

As he looked around, the walls were made up of dark brown dirt with occasional vines embedded in them while the ceiling was purely made out of the vines on some wood branches that they had yet to figure out where they came from!

Anyways, the room was closed off from all the other sides, and the ground was also just pure dirt with no grass at all. All in all, the rest of the room was pretty dull since there was nothing out of the ordinary.

However, when the people in the room looked in the middle of the floor, they forgot everything about the place. First of all, some thick roots were coming out of the ground to meet right in the center of the room. The roots all joined together at one single point.

A delicate and small green stem grew out of that spot. It was around 15 centimeters in length and had a single flower on the top, which hadn’t yet bloomed.

Everyone understood that this must be the Elemental Lotus that the White Snake was talking about.

Just from the outer appearance, it looked just a delicate flower that had spurted out in the middle of the room, but the dense Mana surrounding the plant was proof of its uniqueness.

Ozul did not go to check it out yet as he was trying to sense if there were any traps in the room or not. Since the garden was such a giant natural trap that had killed thousands of creatures, he did not believe that this room had nothing dangerous in it.

Clive and others had the same thoughts as him, so they did not try to approach the Lotus.

However, not everyone had a brain in the right place. When everyone else stood at a distance, one blonde man walked towards the Lotus with sparkly eyes.

Only his mouth was not drooling. Otherwise, he would have looked exactly like someone who had lost their minds in a literal sense.

Since Ozul and the duo stood the closest to the middle, that man had to pass by them to reach the Lotus.

“What are you doing!? Stop!” Clive shouted, but his words fell on deaf ears as the man did not even turn around his head to look at him.

Others couldn’t stop him since he had already been ahead of them, and they just thought that the trio would stop the madman.

When Raven and Blaze noticed the man, they were about to step in the way and stop the man from approaching the Lotus, but they stopped when Ozul gestured with his hands.

“Let him,” he whispered before Raven and Blaze quickly halted in their steps. Although they did not understand why he wanted to let the man approach the flower, the duo restrained themselves from questioning before shifting their focus to observe the man.

“If he wants to, let him,” Ozul repeated himself but with a little more explanation that caused an understanding look to appear on the duo’s faces.

Since that man was so willingly advancing to test if there were any traps around the Lotus or not, then why not let him?

In any case, if there were really no traps whatsoever, they were confident of getting the Lotus back from that guy since he was just a Rank-6 Mage.

The people behind them had not heard Ozul, so they were quite confused as to why Raven and Blaze had suddenly stopped in their steps just when they were about to stop that person.

Everyone anticipated some sort of traps to be laid around the flower, but except for Ozul, they were all stunned to see that the man reached the Lotus unharmed!