Odyssey of the Blind God

After Mathias took all safety measures to protect Bella, he switched his focus on helping Nial.

The newly awakened Original might be extremely powerful, but the Lesser Goblin Shaman they faced was not ordinary either.

It was already weird for it to owe more than a single armament, to begin with.

Yet, considering that there were several rings that could manifest fireballs and that it was able to converse in the human language, too many things were off.

This gave Mathias the necessary intel to know that he had to act fast.

After destroying three fireballs, Nial had garnered the Lesser Goblin Shaman's entire focus.

As such, he had expected the remaining fireballs to be fired at him.

Mathias perceived this quite early on, giving him the necessary time to react.

Nial didn't have much mana left, and destroying a total of eight fireballs at once was not something he could do just because he wanted to.

It was obvious that Nial was powerful and quite stronger than those at his rank, but there were still certain things he was not capable of doing.

At least, not right now!

Being a team, they were supposed to take care of and protect each other.

Thus, without hesitation, Mathias used the vast majority of his remaining mana.

Materializing a wall of Earth a meter ahead of Nial, and towards his left, Mathias gave his friend the opportunity to use it as a means of protection.

At the same time, Mathias manifested a bunch of Earth spikes which he shot toward the Lesser Goblin Shaman.

When Nial sensed the mana fluctuations of Mathias, and what he was about to do, he made use of it.

Moving slightly to the left, he quickly reached the Earthen wall.

Yet, instead of halting in his tracks, Nial simply used it as a means to hide his appearance before he pushed ahead.

While he continued to run ahead, the fireballs that had been shot in his direction missed him as he kept evading them and they collided on the Earthen wall instead.

The wall began to crumble and dirt flung through the air, stirring it up.

Because of that, Nial was hidden from the sight of others for one more second than he had calculated.

This allowed him to change his trajectory once again, shooting toward the Lesser Goblin Shaman that had to endure an attack from two sides.

Mathias' earth spikes had already reached its designated target, inflicting small cuts on the Goblin that was barely able to block most of his attacks.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible for the Lesser Goblin Shaman to survive Mathias' attack.

After all, manifesting new fireballs required some time, and they were certainly not considered a means of protection.

However, by using some of the other rings it was wearing, the Lesser Goblin Shaman was able to materialize icicles with which it blocked most of the Earth spikes.

The fact that the Lesser Goblin Shaman was able to utilize two different elemental affinities caused Mathias' eyes to widen for a moment.

But he quickly recovered from the shock and readied himself to protect Nial by creating more means to attack their opponent.

In the end, Mathias noticed that neither his defense nor means of attack were required anymore.

Nial had already emerged in front of the Lesser Goblin Shaman while brandishing the Viper spear and thrust it forward and into the opponent's throat.

No mercy could be sensed in his attack as he grit his teeth, pushing it inside the flesh, sealing the Lesser Goblin Shaman's death.

It was overly exhausted after using the armaments it had in possession, and couldn't even move anymore.

Despite having used up the vast majority of its mana while fighting against Bella, the Lesser Goblin Shaman was forced to fight both Nial and Mathias, which is why it was bound to give its all.

Yet, even in the face of Nial's attack, it looked unwilling to give up.

Glaring deep into Nial's dead eyes, the Goblin groaned loudly, while the pendant that was hidden below its tattered clothes lit up for a moment.

"Diee!!"

It was only a moment later that the Viper spear's blade completely pierced through the Lesser Goblin Shaman's throat, ending its life in the seconds that followed suit.

His opponent's lifeless body slumped to the ground when he forcefully tore the blade out of the Goblin's throat after he had killed it, but Nial didn't really feel anything.

Somehow, it was a little bit weird.

He was neither happy about having killed a powerful opponent, nor frustrated that he had required the help of others to do so.

It was just that they had killed their opponents as a team, and that was it.

Remaining vigilant for a few more seconds until the last traces of mana left the body of the unmoving beast, Nial sighed in relief.

The tension that had accumulated in his body was released as he blurted out.

"Fireball and icicle creating rings… That's something new!"

Bending down, Nial picked up all the armaments that belonged to the Lesser Goblin Shaman.

With some mana left in his body, it was even possible for him to test out a few things.

He quickly inserted mana in one of the rings, and instantly a subtle connection was formed, allowing him to use the ring he was holding.

As such, with some more mana utilized, it was even possible for Nial to create a fireball.

This astonished him slightly as he had presumed that the elemental affinity rings were some sort of marked objects.

But that didn't seem to be the case.

Continuing to test a few things, both Mathias and Nial quickly noticed that all the elemental rings had already been configured.

That meant they required a specific amount of mana in order to shoot out a fireball or icicle.

There were differences in the structure of both the fireballs and icicles which pointed out that they were created by hand and not machines.

'At least we know that they shouldn't be able to mass-manufactured these rings…'

Nial had never heard about any kind of accessory or device that could reproduce the ability of an elemental affinity with accuracy.

As such, he should be happy as their find would elevate mankind's technological knowledge by leaps and bounds.

But even after giving it lots of thoughts, and trying to feel happy what he felt was just emptiness.

His brows were knitted, and his entire focus was on the batches of rings, pendants, bracelets, and gemstone necklaces.

There were simply too many, and all of them had been worn by the Lesser Goblin Shaman, allowing it to become stronger than its mana fluctuations hinted at.

'Why does it even need more than one of each elemental rings?'

This was one question Nial had in mind as it made no sense in his opinion.

At the same time, it was even weirder for only the Lesser Goblin Shaman to possess all the armaments.

The other Elite Goblin and Goblin Warriors didn't really have many armaments, only one beast controlling necklace each.

'So the Shaman is the most important, or possibly created the armaments on its own?'

Nial's conclusion was quite simple and probably hit the bullseye.

Just at this moment, he noticed something that he had missed out on before.

"Bella!?"

He had completely forgotten about Bella and quickly turned around to sprint towards her.

Mathias' earthen walls were still protecting her, but that didn't mean she was free of pain.

Nial knew that her condition had been weird, which was also the reason why he couldn't help but feel a little bit worried.

When Nial shouted out Bella's name, Mathias also recalled that they had forgotten something.

Thus, he quickly dissolved the earthen dome to reach her.

She was breathing heavily and was barely holding onto her consciousness.

Reaching her in a matter of seconds, Nial quickly checked her vitals.

'Just exhausted and overexerted her mana…that's great!'

Nial had already expected the worst, but that was not the case.

As such, he would have preferred to hand her a few recuperation vials.

Unfortunately, this was simply not possible because they had no healing or mana recuperation vials with them.

They were forbidden to be brought to the Teradan military camp, which made the situation at hand quite difficult.

"Just sleep for a bit. We'll quickly rummage through the small settlement, take everything important with us, and leave, alright?"

Nial knew that Bella could barely hear him.

It still annoyed her that Nial seemed to be unaffected by the mental attacks.

However, if she were to be honest, it was better for Nial to be fine.

She didn't want him to be injured or possibly die.

Thus, Bella forced a smile on her lips, telling herself that she would become stronger, be perfect, and make no mistakes in the following fights.

Unable to stay conscious, she just grit her teeth before allowing the darkness to overwhelm her senses

As Bella fell into a deep slumber, Nial decided to carry her on his back.

They had yet to plunder through the Goblin settlement, and take all the armaments with them, but the noises of their battle and the smell of blood would quickly attract other beasts.

Because of that, they couldn't leave Bella on the ground.

Binding her on his back with some ropes, to prevent her from restricting Nial's movements, they quickly collected their spoils of war before leaving.

In total, each Goblin had a beast controlling necklace, while the Lesser Goblin Shaman had more than 15  armaments.

This caused both Nial and Mathias to feel a little bit dumbfounded as they hadn't expected the final result to be like that.

Other than the ice and fire elemental rings, the Lesser Goblin Shaman had some sort of pendant that could induce dizziness and nausea to the intended target opponents.

Then there was still the pendant with which the Goblin was able to converse in the human language and some bracelets whose use neither of them was able to figure out.

This was a lot, but given the fact that the beast controlling necklaces were marked objects, their use was not of high importance for the current strength of Nial and Mathias.

However, it was different in the case of the mental attack pendant and the elemental rings.

Their use was quite decent for each of them as it allowed both of them to utilize an elemental affinity.

It was quite difficult, and its usage was restricted, but it was still quite decent.

Yet, what all of them understood clearly was the fact that even the Instructors of the Teradan military camp might be oblivious to the things that were happening on the island.

'If someone were to know that elemental affinity rings existed, even the public would have found out about it by now, right?'

Nial predicted that they had made a huge discovery and almost landed a treasure by defeating the Lesser Goblin Shaman.

But if he were to know that all of this was just the beginning, he wouldn't feel as relaxed as was the case right now.

Instead, without the Odyssey seed, he might even shiver in fright while feeling uncertain about mankind's future the moment he got to know the bitter truth!

**

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