Odyssey of the Blind God

"...What a monster."

Staring at the youth in front of them, the spectators could only frown deeply.

"Isn't the rookie at the Deux-rank?"

"I heard his focus is Agility as well…and it looks like that, so…"

"...how is this monster able to evade the rookie's rapid attacks?!"

Seven years had passed and Nial Lacardia had grown up quite a bit. He didn't look like a 14-year-old teenager, but more like a young adult.

He was 1.7 meters tall and was shredded but with an athletic physique rather than a bulky constitution. His long silver hair was bound back to a small man-bun to make sure that not a single strand of his hair could enter his field of vision.

That was necessary as he circulated mana through his eyes to pre-determine the incoming attacks.

His opponent was a Deux-ranked Summoner whose focus was agility. The Summoner had two agility-based Familiars, enhancing his agility drastically. The rookie was twice as fast as an ordinary Summoner at the same Mana Core rank.

Meanwhile, Nial had barely advanced to the Prometheus rank. He didn't train his Mana Core too much in the past few years. That was also why his progress was a lot slower than expected.

That was, at least, the case when it came to Nial's desire to grow stronger as quickly as possible. An ordinary Deux-ranked Summoner was already several times faster than Nial, however, the rookie was on a completely different level.

Nial had been appointed to examine the rookie's strength. This was a great surprise for everyone because it was common for an Elder to evaluate the strength of the newcomers.

Nobody had seen Nial training, forget about fighting, more than ten times in the past seven years. That was also why nobody really knew how strong Nial had become.

Ayase trained Nial in her own training hall where nobody was allowed to enter without her permission.

Seeing him fight right now, it was hard to fathom what kind of drugs Ayase had given Nial to turn him into the monster he had become. Only seven years had passed but he was already that powerful, with only one familiar at that.

Nial was currently twisting his body before inching closer to his opponent. His precise movements allowed him to barely evade the longsword that crashed down on him with terrific velocity.

The attack nearly cut off his shoulder, missing him merely by a hair's breadth. However, that was more than enough for Nial to inch closer and use the open defense of the agility-based Summoner to breach his defenses entirely.

The Summoner was trying to move away from the incoming attack. He released a tremendous amount of mana to further enhance his agility - even if it was just temporary - to avoid the razor-sharp spearhead from piercing his heart cleanly.

Nial's eyes were ice-cold and the killing intent he radiated was also not just for show. The Summoner knew that he would die the moment he would be hit. Because of this thought, the young rookie did everything he could to evade the incoming attack. His entire focus was on the spear which he had avoided cleanly.

But that was a big mistake. Focusing on nothing but the spear was a grave mistake, something he only realized when it was already too late.

A weird feeling shrouded his legs, goosebumps covered his entire body a moment later and chills ran down his spine. His eyes moved down before he realized it and what he saw down there caused his mind to blank out for a moment

A huge tail covered with golden scales had shot out of Nial's tailbone. The tail had coiled around the rookie's legs, restricting his movements.

If the rookie were to use his full physical strength at once, he could have freed himself. However, combining the great shock that spread through the head of the Summoner in addition to the follow-up attack issued by Nial, the Summoner's brain began to smoke.

Even though the Summoner had underestimated Nial when the battle began, he quickly noticed that Nial was not someone he could underestimate.

Knowing about the special trait of the Silver Eye Clan to a certain extent, it was obvious that Nial with his heterochromia eyes was a direct descendant of the Clan. That indicated the severity of his training and that he was able to see the flow of mana within his field of vision.

Nonetheless, it shouldn't have been possible for Nial, a newly advanced Prometheus-ranked Summoner, to deflect, forget about evade, the rapid attacks of an agility-based Deux-ranked Summoner.

Comparing his strength to ordinary Summoners, the rookie was confident to defeat Summoners at the Keltia rank. There was no need to speak about those at a lower rank, even the geniuses at the Deux rank were usually unable to deflect his attacks, ending in their defeat.

Yet, a young teenager, no more than fourteen years old, a kid at the Prometheus rank and with merely one Familiar…defeated him just like that?

It was important to know that the rookie didn't realize who Nial was. Nobody had seen the Crown Prince during the past seven years, and there hadn't been too many people other than a few thousand citizens of the capital, who had seen him during his time in the capital.

His heterochromia eyes might be a pretty decent indicator of his identity, but it was not exactly weird to see someone with silver hair and a silver eye in the Silver Eye Clan. Nial might actually be the son of the matriarch, considering that both of them had silver eyes and silver hair.

Their facial features hinted at similarities as well.

Of course, that was only the case because the Empress and the Matriarch of the Silver Eye Clan looked so similar.

Nial's right golden eye was the only truly unique feature about him, creating a huge contrast to the matriarch's appearance.

"You nearly got me there. Your speed is terrifying!" Nial said, holding his hand up while the golden-scaled tail dispersed.

He had used more nutrition and mana than he intended.

His eyes were hurting a lot as well.

The fight was not easily won, but that was not something outsiders realized.

They had seen him skillfully evading the attacks and creating an opportunity to strike back, granting him the inevitable victory, or so it looked.

However, their eyes weren't able to see the truth, so it was only obvious that they could only see what they wanted to see.

Only Nial could see the truth.