Unsealing Emptiness

Most of them assumed that it would take almost another week before Old Gu declared the end of this competition. Hence, no one expected him to make an appearance after only one night.

Just like at the start of this competition, the participants couldn’t see Old Gu anywhere but heard his voice nonetheless.

“Well well well...”

It felt as if he was talking right next to everyone, but that seemed impossible at best.

Hearing the familiar voice filled with amusement, most participants breathed a sigh of relief to have survived and a few felt irritated that their fun was ruined. Everyone thought that Old Gu was speaking to announce the end of the competition.

After all, no one knew exactly how many people had survived the first night.

.....

...

Among the battle-crazed ones, Berk Leonhard was the most annoyed. He wanted to finish off the two people from that information-gathering organization his father had talked about, but a day didn’t seem to be enough to find them.

“Cowards! They should have been here in the middle!” raged Berk before he angrily stomped his feet on the ground.

As he did so, a sound of something cracking was heard from under him.

Right now, his whole body was covered entirely in blood while a couple of unconscious bodies lay there unmoving; all dead.

Behind him, a woman seemingly unconcerned of the bloody mess, spoke nonchalantly, “I told you, not everyone’s like you. Some people actually use their brain a little.”

Although Maura trusted Berk’s strength, it was still a stupid move to march right towards the middle of the bloody battle and taking on everyone at once. Even when Berk had defeated them all and still stood upright without any concerning injuries, he had exhausted himself quite a lot.

Berk only clicked his tongue in annoyance before the familiar voice rang out all across the Neutral Lands.

“... Damn it! Damn it! It’s already ending?! Just how weak were these people?”

“Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions. What do you know? It could be something else,” Maura reasoned. Being with Berk for so long, she had to learn to calmly analyze every situation. One of them had to use their brains instead of brawns. And she wasn’t wrong.

“I was expecting this to only be the last test, but alas, my calculations were wrong. There’s so much an old man like me can do without messing up these days.”

Old Gu couldn’t hide the amusement in his tone.

“Seems like ‘he’ could only hold the ‘puppy’ back for so long~” He continued to ramble. No one really understood what he was trying to say.

“Anyway, things won’t be changing much. Same rules and same game. Your end goal is also the same; survive until the very end. Dead will receive no consolation nor any pity from me. On the other hand, the survivors will all be enlightened.” Old Gu spoke with a little seriousness.

This dramatic shift in his way of speaking changed quickly and he was back to his previous self, “Heh, as for what changed? Well, all of you will have yet another ‘participant’ to play with.”

Those who heard him mostly heaved a breath of relief. If it was just another participant, things wouldn’t change much. Though they did all wonder what was so special about this late arrival.

Ozul, on the other hand, didn’t assume that things were so simple like others thought. Old Gu calling it a puppy coupled with his instincts telling continuously drumming his head, he thought better than to assume the new participant would be a normal human.

‘Just what is going on,’ he didn’t like this suspense. Maybe the threat was still bearable, but now he wouldn’t be able to rest until he knew exactly what was going on.

“That being said, I didn’t want to do this so early in the competition, but all of you have to move to the city in the middle now. All of you have at most half a day to do so.” Old Gu spoke with a little pause, “Also, for those wondering who the new participant is, I will only give a little hint; it is a fiery one! Hahaha!”

The echoes of his laughter hadn’t died down yet when the ground shook just a little and the barrier rapidly started shrinking.

This death tournament was far from being over.

. . .

The shrinking barrier forced Ozul to change his plans, which mostly included staying away from all the battles as long as possible.

Now they were all forced to move towards the Neutral City. One of the most talented individuals in this world all gathered at one place and fighting to kill others would wreck unimaginable havoc all around the city.

‘Yet, this new ‘participant’ seems to be more troublesome than all of them combined,’ Ozul again had a feeling that he had missed something.

Only when Raven was standing before him did he wake up from his fleeting thoughts.

“Ah. Let’s move.”

The barrier was shrinking at a high speed. They couldn’t delay reaching the city. There wasn’t anything to pack, everyone just stood up and continued moving.

On the way, Zier’s physical strength became apparent as proved by the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He was only slightly faster than the speed at which the barrier was contracting.

Meanwhile, the rest were kind enough not to leave him behind. Seeing this made Zier feel a little warm-hearted.

‘They aren’t so heartless after all...’ he thought with a smile on his face.

Unknown to him, Ozul’s reasoning for moving so slow was completely unrelated to him. He merely didn’t want to reach the city earlier and have to deal with everyone there.

It was more relaxing going only slightly faster than the shrinking barrier. As for Raven and Blaze, it went without saying that they would always follow behind Ozul.

“Any guess on this participant?” Blaze asked, his question directed towards Raven because he knew Ozul would ignore him merely so he wouldn’t have to put an effort into speaking.

“None. But something is not right. I have a feeling it could just be a rare and strong Beast since the old man said someone couldn’t hold back a puppy,” Raven put forth her speculations.

“A Rank-9 Beast?” Blaze muttered to himself.

“... No, it can’t be. He was excited when he spoke about it. He didn’t even bat an eye while dealing with the Rank-10 Mages, I don’t think including only a single Rank-9 Beast in the competition would stimulate him so much,” Raven refuted. At the same time, she shook her head, denying her own conclusion.

“But a Rank-10 Beast- ” Blaze was about to speak but he was interrupted by someone he never thought would voluntarily join the conversation.

“She is right. That old man would have never been so excited about a Rank-9 Beast,” Ozul could never see through him, but judging merely from his personality, he could tell that Old Gu wasn’t interested in anything ordinary.

Right after that, he also shook his head and sighed before continuing to ponder. If it wasn’t a Rank-9 Beast, it must be a rank-10.

The reason they all didn’t want to believe their own speculations was because the only known Rank-10 Beast was the Sovereign which had already died. They had confirmed it with their own eyes.

Even Kure, the Rank-10 Mage from the Ashin family, had gone to confirm the Sovereign’s death.

‘Wait... ‘ Ozul suddenly paused when he realized something.

“Kure Ashin never returned after he went there to confirm Darcia and the Sovereign’s death...” Raven also paused as she muttered the exact same thing that was on Ozul’s mind.

Both of them had reached the same conclusion. Raven also remembered that the Rank-10 Mage of the Ashin family had yet to come back after he had left.

” ‘He’ could only hold the ‘puppy’ back for so long; if the puppy is the Sovereign, ‘he’ could be Kure, the ancestor of the Ashin family!” Blaze wasn’t the most intelligent, but listening to their conversation, he had also come to the same conclusion as Ozul and Raven did.

The Sovereign was also a fox with Fire Element, so it fitted well with Old Gu’s clue that the participant was a fiery one.

His words had not yet died down when a distant screeching sound resounded all over the Neutral Lands.

*GHREAA!!*

Unlike how it was with Old Gu, this sound was not the same for everyone. Few heard it clearly while a few had a hard time distinguishing this war cry from the other Beasts near their vicinity.

“T-that...” Zier suddenly paused as he stuttered unconsciously.

From the distance between the furious roar just now and the strange behavior of his kind yet ruthless team, he could tell that something was wrong.

“You guys know what... that is, right?” he asked while trying to calm his beating heart.

Even high ranking Mages, in the past, found their legs shaking when hearing the furious roars from the Sovereign much less him who was only a weak Fighter.

“It’s... the Sovereign,” slowly muttered Raven.

“Sovereign what?”

“A Rank-10 Beast...” replied Blaze this time.

“What!? What is a Rank-10 Beast doing here!?!!”

“...Participating in the competition,” uttered Ozul.

“huh?” Zier was left dumbfounded at their lack of reaction.

For a second, he even thought that he had heard wrong. He, who was merely a Rank-5 Fighter, was participating in the same death competition as a Rank-10 Beast who even multiple Mages of the same rank don’t dare to go against?!

Were they playing a joke on him?

Miss Reality, on the other hand, was as cruel as she was charming...