Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial watched the battle on the ground for quite a while before he realized that no side was really at an advantage.

The Gryphons were fewer in number but their physical strength was not to be underestimated. The razor-sharp talons of a Gryphon's front legs dug deep in the body of the thunder shrouded four meter tall wolf, which howled out in pain while releasing a high amount of high-voltage lightning.

They injured each other like this, and the same scenario could be seen in several places all over the battlefield that had formed.

The six-meter-tall blazing bear was the fiercest intruder and was fighting the strongest of the four Gryphons. It tried to grasp one of the Gryphon's wings to tear them apart before it would do the exact same with the Gryphon's remaining body.

Fortunately, the Gryphon was able to evade most attacks, if one excluded one or two fireballs that impacted on the Gryphon's chest and back.

As for the last two Gryphon's, they had killed a few Gorillas by ripping them apart and digging their sharp beaks deep inside their head. The Gryphons were trying hard to fight their opponents but it was not hard to notice that they were slowly losing their upper hand.

Nial was not really bothered when he perceived this and he focused more on the wingless Gryphon. The beast was still looking for him, which was enough reason for Nial to appear next to it on the thick branch where the wingless Gryphon had landed.

There was not much energy left within the wings of darkness he had manifested on the wingless Gryphon's back but it was still more than enough for the beast to fly around a little bit.

"Hey," Nial attempted to talk to him, knowing that the Gryphon couldn't understand him. He couldn't sense any hostility from the wingless Gryphon anymore and that was something that made Nial smile brightly.

'Does he trust me now? No…that shouldn't be it,' Nial thought as he was trying to figure out what the wingless Gryphon was thinking of him. That didn't seem easy and he decided to ignore whether the beast trusted him or not.

It was not really important whether he trusted him, or if he considered him to be a neutral existence. He wanted something from the wingless Gryphon and the beast had clearly shown interest in his Essence of Darkness!

That was enough to 'make a deal'.

With that in mind, they watched the battle of the four Gryphons for quite a while. The wingless Gryphon hadn't been very interested in the battle at the beginning, which only changed when all four brethren were slowly losing the battle against their opponents.

They had been strong enough to injure their opponents more or less but all four Gryphons had been injured even more severely.

The bones within the wings of two Gryphons had been fractured and one of the wings of a Gryphon had been broken. Upon seeing all of this, and hearing the painful screams of its own kind, the wingless Gryphon felt the sudden urge of joining the battle.

Earlier he had assumed that he wouldn't be affected to see the other Gryphons struggle but that didn't seem to be the truth. In the end, he cared about the other Gryphons enough not to want to see them die.

Nial could clearly perceive that the wingless Gryphon was ready to help. He sighed quietly and nodded his head afterwards,

"Alright, let's help!" He said out loud and it was as if the wingless Gryphon understood him as he took off when Nial jumped off the branch.

A large spear emerged in his hand and his wings of darkness shot out on either side of him and spread out immediately.

Darkness oozed out of his body and he was clad in an pitch-black armor merely a moment later. All of a sudden, a Blood Eclipse Moon manifested above him, Nial stretched his spear in the air and the crimson moonlight of the moon shone onto it.

Nial felt tremendous energy circulating through his right arm as he inserted dark energy in the spear that was already augmented by the Blood Eclipse Moon's power and a faint smile emerged on his face.

He used the dark energy of his wings of darkness to turn it into threads that shot in the ground, where he was pulled by the same dark energy.

Using the broken [Gravitation] runic constellation of his boots, the gravitational force weighing on Nial increased exponentially and a huge crater was formed around the area he impacted.

Big fragments of soil and stone were flung through the surrounding, and coincidentally enough, only the blazing bear, the thunder-shrouded wolf and the Gorillas received the brunt of the attack and were hit in their face and vital spots.

The dark energy that had merged with the ground had precisely controlled the direction of the fragments, which was more than enough for the attention of all hostile monsters to be drawn to Nial.

This was even more so the case when Nial unleashed his bloodlust and the dark energy that was amplified by both his emotions and the Blood Eclipse Moon's power.

All beasts in the surrounding stopped fighting and their gaze was drawn over to Nial, whose face had turned into the grimace of a merciless murderer; Kaeldur's face.

Taunted by his actions, the beasts except the Gryphons turned over to Nial and they initiated attacks one after another not long after.

Darkness intertwined with crimson threads shot out from the ground. They formed spikes, spears and needles that catapulted forward, piercing through their designated opponents before the darkness dispersed inside the ground once again.

Nial controlled his dark energy precisely and he intended to injure all the opponents around him and make sure that they would target him with their attacks.

This had worked much better than expected, forcing Nial to face more than 20 beasts at the same time.

He took a deep breath and inserted the vast majority of his dark energy and Essence of Darkness inside the Blood Eclipse moon that enlarged in size while its color changed.

However, before it finished changing color, Nial smiled lightly as he said a single word.

"Burst!"

The Blood Eclipse Moon burst into countless fragments that were shrouded crimson and black while one tiny grain of the moon had been left behind. It was the Origin of his Blood Eclipse Moon ability and everything required to regrow the moon as it had been before.

There was no need for Nial to be worried about destroying his ability, which was why he went all in.

The fragments of the Blood Eclipse Moon levitated around Nial, while the remaining dark energy within the ground shot outward in the form of vines.

While the vines restricted the movements of the monsters for a quarter of a second, the highly augmented Blood Eclipse moon fragments that had been empowered by his Essence of Darkness and dark energy shot out as well.

Nial had not yet learned how to control the moon fragments perfectly, but that was something he could do right now!

The moon fragments ignored all obstructions, whether they were bushes or thick trees that not even attacks of Deux ranked monsters could destroy fully as they pierced through everything with little to no effort.

Nial was shocked when he realized how terrifyingly high the penetrative force of the moon fragments were. He didn't want to imagine getting pierced by the moon fragments as they pierced through the opponents that were charging at him with the intention to kill him.

Nial knew that it was now or never and that gave him the necessary confidence to pierce all the hostile beasts around him.

He didn't show any mercy and attempted eradicating the life of all beasts, but some survived, even if they were merely hanging on to dear life and desperately trying to stay alive.

Nial began to breathe heavily when he finished the attack. The moon fragments dispersed, and Nial slumped to the ground.

Each of the moon fragments had been controlled by him, meaning that he had controlled more than a thousand fragments with the necessary power to easily kill most beasts at or below the lower Deux rank.

Nial's head felt like it had been mashed but he also knew that the battle was far from over. As long as some opponents were still left standing, he would have to keep fighting, otherwise, he would end up on the losing side!

He didn't want to lose ever again, which was why he forced himself to get back on his feet. Post that, tens of spears manifested out of darkness shot through the body of the remaining beasts, ending their life.

The wingless Gryphon landed on the ground next to Nial. The beast looked at him for a few seconds with a specific glint in his eyes before he began rubbing his head against Nial's upper body.

Nial was not sure what was going on with the Gryphon but he didn't reject it.

"Are you thanking me?" He asked out loud, wondering if that was it, just to end up shrugging his shoulders.

He was not sure what beasts were thinking, what kind of mindset they had, or how different they were from humans and other intelligent beings, but that was of no concern to Nial right now because his mind would never be able to comprehend anything at the moment.

Nial was tired after using the Blood Eclipse Moon in such a unique way and overly augmenting it for the first time. It was a great feeling to be able to defeat a bunch of powerful monsters in an instant but Nial could tell that the moonlight power he had accumulated within it had been far more than expected.

Every night Nial released the Blood Eclipse Moon to allow it to store more moonlight inside it to grow stronger. He hadn't expected that unleashing all this power would end up in such a powerful move.

'I should really learn to control myself better. I have no idea how much power I need to kill a Deux ranked opponent which is why I end up going all-out…' Nial complained as he lifted his hand to caress through the fluffy plumage of the wingless Gryphon.

He knew that he hadn't tamed the beast and that there were four wild Gryphons around him but Nial's full focus was on the wingless Gryphon next to him.

"Do you want to join me in my journey? It will be pretty interesting…and dangerous, but let's ignore that fact!" Nial asked with a gentle smile on his face.

Right now, he didn't really care about the benefits he would gain from having the wingless Gryphon by his side or that the beast would probably only follow him to further stimulate his own darkness affinity until the day where his Essence of Darkness was of no use to the beast anymore.

Rather than minding that too much, Nia felt a weird connection with the wingless Gryphon and he began to wonder what this meant!