Odyssey of the Blind God

When Nial spoke to the Dracos from his elevated position, he used Dominion and some of his Essence of Darkness to alter the effect his words had. He made use of the crimson moonlight to further enhance the effect of his voice and sound even more intimidating.

The final result was somewhat expected but also a bit surprising.

"Who the hell are you?" The presumed leader of the Dracos asked Nial the moment he had proclaimed that he knew Ophelia and that she wouldn't like it if he were to die.

That could be utter nonsense, but Nial's voice held a lot of conviction.

It was hard not to trust his words, which was why the Dracos leader didn't think of attacking Nial and his mount immediately.

Ryu was diving toward the ground and he stopped only when he was less than ten meters above the air. He hovered in the air around at that height.

Both Ryu and Nial were clearly visible to the Dracos who ended up staring at the odd pair for a few seconds.

The sight of a Darkness Gryphon was also somewhat unexpected, even more so because the Gryphon had accepted a blind human as its master.

Usually, Gryphons were too prideful to accept cripples as their masters, even if they were a little bit stronger than them. Nial's blindness could easily be considered a weakness in that regard.

But seeing how well the Darkness Gryphon behaved without the need to receive a voiced-out command from the blind human rider, it was quite obvious that the Darkness Gryphon had actually accepted Nial and was loyal to him.

"You're a human? I didn't know that another human race had emerged near this area," The Dracos Leader added without waiting for Nial's answer to the first question he had voiced out.

"I'm Nial Orin and I'm an Origin Human. I didn't emerge from anywhere," Nial responded straightforwardly.

He responded quite bluntly and was mildly surprised to see many Dracos gasp upon hearing him.

"You're from the Origin? I thought they were all weaklings…You're only at the Peak of the Prometheus rank…but you said that you know our Gods sent Miss Ophelia. If you're really her Rival, you would have to be strong…" The Dracos Leader seemed to be much calmer when speaking to Nial compared to the Royal Princess.

He was vigilant of Nial but he was not furious or harboring ill intentions when looking at Nial.

"I participated in the same tournament as Ophelia. I was ranked second in it and I got the artificially reinforced Dryad Princess tear from her in exchange for my reward. Though, I'm pretty sure that I would have been the winner if I had learned about the existence of Runic Armaments earlier.

She had the advantage of possessing more theoretical knowledge and practical experience. But she is probably already an Archmaster Runicier by now, right?"

Nial was extremely calm in front of the army of 100,000 members. He willed Ryu to land on the ground and he got down in order to face the Dracos head-on. There was no need for him to look down at them from Ryu's back.

It would make the situation and conversation more awkward than necessary.

The tournament Nial was referring to was the big tournament in the Golden City. The Runicier tournament wasn't held often and everyone clearly recalled that Ophelia had disappeared for a while to participate in a tournament. She came back with two treasures, one being a Unicorn's Horn.

At that time, Ophelia hadn't said a lot about the tournament, only that it would have been boring if not for her encounter with someone. Much later the Dracos found out that there had been a mass murderer participating in the tournament. They had been enraged but Ophelia was still alive and completely unbothered by the shocking incidents that had occurred during the tournament.

Instead, she had worked hard and became a much more proficient Runicier. However, rather than rushing anything, Ophelia seemed to have found inspiration during the tournament because upon returning home she started to recreate Superior and Ancient runic constellations with the combined force of overlapping effects, created through Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Runic Constellations.

That was exactly what Nial had always done simply because he didn't know much about Superior and Ancient runic constellations at that time.

Thinking back to that time, Nial could tell that he had been an extremely bad Runicier at that time. He had improved a lot and had even started researching new types of Runic armaments and how to improve existing runic armaments.

"How can you prove that you participated in the tournament and that you know Ophelia?" The Dracos Leader asked suddenly, his voice much calmer than before. He gave a sideways look to the Royal Princess which Nial noticed through his visualization.

"You can ask Ophelia. Other than that, I don't know how to prove it… I encountered Saint Runicier Siegfried when I was in the Golden City. That old man was a real nuisance… Other than that, the Forest of Life devoured the artificially reinforced tear of the Princess Dryad. We had some problems with a God's Incarnation before, Sylvian the Trickster, to be precise. I don't know if you know that God but it was a hassle….

The Dryx destroyed parts of the Forest of Life, and I solved that by getting my hands on Princess Dryad's Tear!"

Nial might have jokingly thought that war between the Elven races and the Dracos would be a good solution, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

The Origin humans of the Halheim shelter would inevitably be dragged into their war, just because they lived so close by. He would rather avoid seeing a big portion of his race getting accidentally killed.

At the same time, Nial figured that the equipment of the Dracos was not as terrifying or worrisome as expected. They were not in possession of Broken Tier-2 runic armaments, or he didn't perceive them at least.

"Why are you telling him everything?" The Royal Princess whispered in his ear as she appeared by his side. She was ready to pull him back and protect him from the army of the Dracos if necessary.

That was the least she could do. After all, Nial was evidently trying to prevent war from breaking out. The timing was simply too bad, and it was stupid to wage a war without a reason.

"Looks like the Wood Princess has changed a little bit. I could have never expected the Elves to get so close to a human, even less a human weaker than them!"

"Who says that I'm weaker than them?!" Nial suddenly retorted with a crafty smile on his face.

The Royal Princess was just about to say something. However, upon recalling what Nial's two Devils did to the guards of the Shelturion's hidden laboratory, she halted in her tracks.

Right now, the Royal Princess couldn't even deny what Nial said. He might not be able to defeat some High Elves at the Keltia rank, but that was not actually something anyone could tell for sure.

With his two Devils and Ryu by his side, nobody could ascertain the true might and strength of Nial. Furthermore, his powers were something nobody could truly fathom.

The Dracos noticed the Royal Princess' hesitation to respond to Nial's comment.

'Interesting!'