Unsealing Emptiness

He took off his mask and sighed again.

There was no hint of life in this alleyway. Those Beastkin had definitely thought it through before placing the teleportation gate here.

The dark cube that floated beside him had shrunk a lot.

Before coming here, he had already ground the man inside into a meat paste.

Although unpleasant, he didn’t want to risk exposing their location because of some unknown artifact that could inform the County Lord where his son is.

‘I still have no idea what this world has to offer.’

.....

Taking the man alive back to the Beastkin’s base might have compromised their location. So he had killed him somewhere else before coming here.

The significantly smaller cube made with the Purity now held what was left of the County Lord’s only son.

“They should at least have someplace to dispose of this waste,” he muttered, not wanting to throw it somewhere it could be easily found around here.

He entered the gate and arrived back in the estate with only Beastkin in sight.

Again, before he could enter the building, he was greeted with the familiar sight of the old lady named Ember.

She met his emotionless face with her smiling one.

“I see you have yet again completed your task flawlessly.”

Ember beamed at the report she had heard. The entire Waterfall County was in chaos, and the gang who was planning the abduction had escaped successfully as well. She wasn’t aware of all the details, but she guessed that Ozul had already taken care of the entire matter.

“I won’t call it flawless.”

As Ozul replied, the cube hovered in front of Ember, stretching a little upwards with his thoughts alone until the top of the box vanished.

Ember saw a gruesome scene of crushed flesh and little pieces of bone floating over the thick blood.

As the pungent smell invaded her nose, she receded back in utter disgust. It had been a long while since her encounter with anything so grotesque. A single glance was enough for her to know that it was the fate of some unfortunate human.

“Is this...”

“Mhm. It’s the heir... or at least what was left of him.”

Ember stared at Ozul warily. She hadn’t met many humans who could do this to their fellow humans and feel nothing of it afterward.

Even Beastkin with blood vengeance wouldn’t go so far as to reduce a human to such a state.

She once again had to change her views of this apathetic yet the most innocent-looking man.

‘Just what kind of method did he use to do this...’ she wondered in her heart before internally shaking her head. It didn’t matter what methods he used. She was worried about something else, ‘Is he a bloodthirsty maniac?’

If the man in front of him was a maniac who craved blood, it could bring trouble for her. She couldn’t have someone whose emotions could be swayed by his instincts working for her.

‘I will have to keep an eye on you.’

Ember thought of Ozul as just another Wild Beastkin. Although troublesome, she was confident that she could control him.

Unknown to her, Ozul wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac, but he was someone whose emotions could be swayed by his instincts. Many times in danger or when he needed to make a decision, he would trust his instincts.

What Ember didn’t know was that Ozul did this to the heir to remove all the evidence which could identify him and to also reduce the size of his cube.

For him, doing this wasn’t much of a problem either as he just had to add multiple blades and rotated them at high speed inside his cube. The outcome of this mechanism was the blood soup of human flesh.

“Do you have a place to get rid of it?” he asked, jolting Ember awake from her trance.

“Ah.. yes.”

Following that, a servant Beastkin ran to their side and ran their hand over the cube. They tried their best not to puke as ‘the heir’ was stored in their Spatial Ring before they ran away.

The server wasn’t at all like Ember who only felt disgusted. It seemed to be their first time dealing with such a gruesome thing.

‘So not everyone here is experienced,’ Ozul concluded that this base was most like located at some peaceful place.

His curiosity again piqued at what he would see outside the gates of this estate if that gatekeeper wasn’t there.

He’d previously checked that the gatekeeper activated the teleportation whenever he approached the gate. The teleportation was left activated from the other side, but the gatekeeper was in charge of it to change it to suitable locations for the people walking out.

Ember coughed, bringing Ozul’s attention to herself.

“You will get your rewards once I confirm the situation. It might take a day for everything to settle in Waterfall County. You may rest until then.”

Ozul nodded his head in delight, though his face barely showed any emotions. He wanted nothing more than to take a nap right now. He had worked hard and he deserved some rest. Following that, he retracted the Purity back into his body.

Such a sight amazed Ember as she once again confirmed that this unusual man in front of her didn’t use the Spiritual Essence and instead used this strange black substance that had just been absorbed into his body as if it was a part of it!

‘Was he born like that or is it a Spiritual Artifact?’ She thought of the former since he had no such accessory on him.

Ozul ignored her emotions poking at him from all angles and rushed towards their room.

As he opened the door, he saw Raven and Blaze both in a meditative position while Zier was laid on the floor with his body covered in sweat. The other two weren’t much different in that regard, but they still held on and cultivated.

Zier noticed him walking inside the room but his body had no energy left to hold himself up to greet him. He could only trace his eyes in his direction.

Ozul ignored his eye-acknowledgment and focused on the waves of Spiritual Essence permeating out of their body.

Even if there wasn’t much of a difference between Raven and Blaze, Ozul knew Raven was still half a step ahead of Blaze. Her tenacity was unrivaled by even the most geniuses.

A tragic past would undoubtedly strengthen one’s mental resilience, but Raven was an exception.

To compensate for her above-average talent, she was worlds ahead of the competition in endurance.

Behind both of them stood Zier who seemed to have been struggling in the path of cultivation.

Only Ozul didn’t know that even Zier who seemed to have been doing only so-so in his eyes would be considered a genius in this Realm.

After all, at that moment, except for Ozul, all the people inside that room had achieved the Core Formation Realm!

In just a few days, all three of them had managed to achieve a breakthrough.

After Raven, Ember hadn’t been much amazed at the other two’s performance. She had already expected everyone to reach the Core Formation Realm in a few days since it had always been like this.

The ‘Dragon Hatchlings’ were all considered the cream of the crop for a reason.

Ozul nodded in approval, satisfied with their efforts, and did not bother Raven and Blaze.

He walked over to his bed and plopped down with all his weight. When his body met the bedsheets, he felt a sense of weightlessness.

‘Mhm~’

Knowing that it wouldn’t be long until these three started assisting him with all of his errands made him smile involuntarily as he closed his eyes.

If someone else were to know his thought process, they’d cringe at how he acts like an unhinged old man who complains about every physical task he has to do.

The only thing lacking from his life just now, as he lay on his bed, was the familiar yet foreign warmth he had recently become fond of.

*Meow!*

And just as he wanted, Jinx appeared out of nowhere and jumped on his bed. She laid beside him and rested her head against his arm.

It was at this point that Ozul felt completely satisfied.

He drifted off to ‘sleep’, ignoring everything around him.

. . .

The next day went without much noise.

After Raven and Blaze stopped cultivating, they made sure not to make a sound while moving about.

It was only after the next day that a knock came on their door.

This time Ember showed the courtesy of knocking first. Though she still entered right afterward.

When she entered, she saw three people cultivating on the floor while the supposedly ‘bloodthirsty maniac’ was sleeping peacefully while holding a black cat in his embrace.

‘I feel like I have experienced this sight before.’

A sense of deja vu hit her before she purposely spoke in a louder voice, “I have confirmed with my men!”

All four of them opened their eyes. A groan came from Ozul’s bed as he woke up annoyed.

“Can’t you keep your voice down, you old woman?”

Raven gazed at him, perplexed. She was witnessing more emotions from Ozul recently than she had seen in decades.

While Raven was pleasantly surprised at his recent changes, Blaze and Zier focused more on the words ‘old lady’.

Zier even snickered in delight as he remembered his grievances.

.....

“You-”

Ember flashed Ozul a caustic glance, surprised by his reaction. Although she had imagined a variety of circumstances in which this man could lose his temper, being awakened from his sleep was not one of them.