Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial's clothes were soaked in blood as he emerged next to his sister.

Her fists were stuck deep inside the body of a Blazing Direwolf, which exploded moments later.

Sabrina had released some of her compressed mana within the dungeon beast's body to finish it off.

'As expected from Sabrina. She is turning into a brutal and unstoppable monster!' Nial thought, smiling faintly.

He pushed past her, unsheathing the thin Elvensword from the scabbard, and executed a series of cuts and slashes.

The thin Elvensword was one of the few Tier-1 Runic weapons he had created for himself before he had left for the Runicier Tournament.

It was far from perfect but it could store and make use of his dark energy which was why he quickly enveloped the Elvensword's blade with dark energy.

Through this, the blade turned pitch-black, razor-sharp, and much more durable than before. There was no need for Nial to activate any additional runic constellations because the dungeon beasts around him and his sister were rather weak.

They were only at the 4th Intermediate Mirae rank and it was no problem for the sibling duo to eradicate them.

Until now, not too many monsters had emerged from the dungeon breakout and many Originals had been called out for help.

Apparently, some dungeons would manifest near the Forest of Life and break out not long after, releasing a horde of beasts into the outside world. This phenomenon had begun not too long ago, and the Elves presumed that it was a consequence of the increase of the Forest's mana and vigor.

After the artificially augmented Dryad Princess' tear had been used to rejuvenate and strengthen the Forest of Life, a few things changed.

More dungeons manifested around the Forest of Life, and many of them were permanent. While this had been a problem before, it had become an opportunity for everybody to reap benefits.

The resources they could gain from various permanent dungeons were exceptional and they helped both the human and elven races to become much stronger.

The opinion of many humans about this change shifted gradually. They started to get more fond of dungeons, and their fear of the unknown future was slowly dispelled.

There hadn't been many issues in the last 15 months, which was why many civilians had slackened and grown relaxed to a great degree.

However, the Originals knew that the silence was just the calm before the storm. Everyone was preparing themselves and many were eager to fight and to use the opportunities that revealed themselves in front of them.

Nial perceived that more than 100 Originals rushed to the outbreaking dungeon portal. All the dungeon beasts that had emerged inside the dungeon portal were swiftly taken care of, and both Sabrina and Nial reached the dungeon portal as one of the first Originals.

Sabrina didn't show a sign of hesitation as she rushed forward to enter the portal. Nial would have waited for someone to determine the rank of the dungeon portal but he followed her with a sigh.

It was not as if he could let Sabrina wander alone inside the unknown dungeon!

With his range of perception expanded as far as possible and [Mana Sense] activated, Nial perceived the area in a radius of tens of kilometers around him.

There was almost nothing he couldn't sense, which was why he could tell what the dungeon was in an instant.

He frowned deeply as all his senses reaffirmed his first guess and he began to break a sweat almost immediately.

"It's so hot!!" Sabrina cursed as she activated her [Mana Eye] to perceive her surroundings.

With her Mana Eye, she could easily detect swirls of mana, whether they came from dungeon beasts, plants or the surrounding environment.

Thus, it was no problem for her to determine that they were in a unique environment, where numerous plants were able to overcome the extreme conditions of the searing heat and the lack of water.

"Are we in hell or what?!" She wondered, unsure of what exactly she was seeing.

However, what she didn't expect was for Nial to nod his head.

"Well, it's a plain from the Underworld to be precise," He explained as memories of the Underworld Plain entered his mind.

There were many independent realms and dimensions that were controlled by Gods. These realms were usually not directly connected to any planets and they could survive on their own.

The memories he received from the Odyssey seed didn't tell him how these realms were sustained, let alone how they were created but that was not important right now either way.

'Is that a small part of the Underworld's lowest plain?' Nial wondered, trying to make use of Damian's memories.

It was a relief to have Damian's memories at times like this. He seemed to know about the Underworld Plain and that he clearly recalled the dungeon the siblings were currently in.

The memories were not clear in Nial's mind but he was pretty sure that he connected the dots correctly.

"Let's not waste too much time here. We don't know if that's only a temporary dungeon, or if we're inside some sort of unique permanent dungeon…" Nial warned his sister, but Sabrina had already run off.

She was too excited about being on an adventure with her brother and fighting powerful dungeon beasts that she rushed in the direction she liked the most.

Nial had to run after her so as to not lose her in this unknown space, just to find her fighting some Centaur-like fire-shrouded monsters.

'Guardians of Hell, Hell's Centaurs…We're really in the Underworld…' Nial hadn't been so dejected to be proven correct when he perceived and visualized the Hell Centaurs.

He let out a deep sigh but quickly joined the fight to help Sabrina.

She was fighting with all her might, and Nial didn't feel like interfering in her fight, at first. However, he also noticed that Sabrina didn't even think of changing her weapons.

With her constitution's special traits it seemed to be harder for her to get burns as long as she could circulate mana through her body.

Unfortunately, this didn't prevent her from getting any burns, especially with the Hell Centaur's blazing flames that could scorch through anything be it natural or man-made. They had powerful burning properties, which was why Nial jumped into the fray of a dozen Hell Centaurs.

'And here I thought that I would have a few days off after coming back from Yggdrasil…' Nial grumbled inwardly, fully aware that he had yet to bind his second ability to his mana core.

He had two vacancies but had only found one ability crystal he liked. Nial thought that this was more than enough, especially since it was a truly interesting ability crystal.

Yet, from the way things were changing since he had returned from Ximatra, Nial believed that it would take a bit longer before he could finally set aside some time to bind the ability crystal.

This frustrated him a bit, which resulted in his dark energy leaking from his body.

He used the Elvensword with powerful and rapid thrusts. His attacks were rapid and the wounds he inflicted were lethal.

Not even one of his attacks was missed because he began to use his dark energy together while fighting close combat.

It was different from everything he learned with the Elementus Mylee technique and more focused on subtle yet rapid attacks to kill his opponents quickly.

The dark energy was mostly used to shoot out vines from all over Nial's body to restrict the movements of the Hell Centaurs and to allow Nial to create various unique movements.

His dark energy could pull Nial in all possible directions when shot in a certain direction. Using the dark energy as a means to control the crowd around him, he and his sister ended up killing all of the dozen Hell Centaurs in no time.

The 5th and 6th Advanced Mirae rank beasts had been taken care of within five minutes with just a small amount of his dark energy.

Most dark energy that had been released against the Hell Centaurs either burned or it was used to maintain the shape of the ropes Nial manifested.

Other than that, he had always received enough time to retract the dark energy that was left after attacking.

This gave Nial the necessary energy and momentum to keep fighting.

"Are you proficient with other weapons?" Nial asked as he followed his exhilarated sister.

Sabrina rushed through the surroundings like a blur. She plucked some of the plants she deemed to be valuable before they ended up in a completely different area of the Dungeon.

The dungeon was much bigger than the siblings would have expected. Even after they ran a few dozen kilometers through the Underworld's searing hot plain there was no sight of an end.

Even Nial's fully expanded range of perception was not able to perceive the end of the dungeon.

'Is that really still a dungeon? If the Reign of the Underworld's first plain chose to turn the whole plain in a temporary dungeon…that would be scary…' Nial just thought, feeling an uncomfortable sensation crawl up his spine.

"I can wield all kinds of weapons. If you have something with high mana conductivity, I will gladly take it," Sabrina sought lightly, ignoring Nial's weird behavior as she added as an afterthought, "But something heavy would be great. I feel like bursting some heads!"

Nial felt chills running down his spine upon hearing the cold words of his sister but he just did as she said nonetheless.

He retrieved the Runic mace with the broken [Gravitation] runic constellation in her direction.

"You can configure the mace's weight with [Gravitation]. Just…don't overdo it…" Nial warned his sister, still not believing that his cute and lovely sister was actually a madwoman, a battle maniac, who loved blood and death!

Unfortunately, Nial's actions only helped her fuel her drive to kill. He supported his sister's desire for blood and death by handing her the Runic mace.

She swung the Runic mace in front of her, and activated the [Gravitation] runic constellation numerous times to test out how fast she could switch the mace's weight and how heavy the highest gravitational force of the broken runic constellation was.

Sabrina ran off once again after she figured out everything she wanted to know. However, she didn't expect to find a huge, five-meter-tall lava golem emerging from a riverbank that was filled with lava.

She shrieked and rushed back the moment she realized that the Lava Golem was an 8th Advanced Mirae rank monster.

"Is that the Dungeon Boss?!" Sabrina asked while trying to brush off the lava that splattered on her skin.

She had barely been able to avoid getting serious burns and possibly her skin melting right off the bone by releasing compressed mana from all the spots she had been hit with the lava drops.

Nial visualized what his sister was doing and he could only shake his head.

Sabrina was restless and didn't seem to think her actions through ever since she returned from her Legacy trial.

'Maybe she has to relax a bit after facing the Legacy trial? It should have been quite dangerous…' Nial wondered before his expression turned into one of determination.

"It's not the boss, but who cares? Let's beat it into a pulp!"