Odyssey of the Blind God

Half an hour passed since the [Berserk Roar] had numbed everybody's senses for a short while except Nial's. By now, all the soldiers were extremely exhausted.

Under normal circumstances, they would have been able to fight for hours until a dungeon had been conquered.

However, the given situation was beyond any possible norms.

The number of dungeon beasts that pushed through the rows of the overly exhausted Soldiers was still increasing.

And even though the Soldiers had already formed their first or even second Origin ring, it was not possible for them to fight against more than 20 Dungeon bosses, the rare bosses, and more than thousands of dungeon beasts at once.

After all, the number of Soldiers that were present in the cave of the Rookie dungeons was less than 150.

The other two caves required far more Soldiers, as the strength of the beasts was far higher around there.

In fact, a single dungeon boss of an Expert dungeon posed a tremendous threat to far more than 250 Prym ranked Soldiers with just one Basic Origin ring!

Expert dungeons were dungeons that inhabited dungeon beasts with, at most three Origin rings, while a Basic Origin ring was an Origin ring that had been materialized with just the basic amount of required mana.

Meanwhile, an Intermediate Origin ring used the liquefied mana of a 7th Origin ranked Original.

As such, the dangers posed in the other two caves were much higher as the dungeon bosses alone were enough to wreak havoc.

It was likely to be because of this reason that the military had been unable to send more Soldiers to the Cave of the Rookie ranked dungeons.

But this was not something most participants of the Teradan military camp could understand.

They were fighting for their lives, some of them cursing their fate which made them face more and more monsters as time progressed.

Meanwhile, Nial and Bella remained quiet as they could clearly understand the gravity of the situation.

Their expressions were grim as they paved the way through the rows of Shadow Tigers that had broken through the four defensive lines of the soldiers.

Unable to do something against the special traits of some beasts, the soldiers could only hope that the young Originals were capable of protecting themselves.

Yet, instead of feeling threatened by the Shadow Tigers, Bella, Nial and a few other Originals killed them without too many difficulties.

"Clara, how about you and two or three Soldiers take charge of killing the dungeon bosses?!

This mess has to stop, and if the dungeon beasts continue to crawl out of the permanent dungeons, we would keep fighting them for eternity!" One of the young Originals shouted in frustration.

The young man, whose entire face was smeared with the blood of the beasts he had killed, didn't even care about addressing her formally owing to his frustration.

He had certainly not entered the Teradan military camp to fight against thousands of dungeons beasts at once.

Instead, his task had been to become the strongest and show everyone that he was the best!

In the given situation, this was simply not possible, but that was not it.

'All of us will die if this goes on, even if it's only for half an hour!!'

Looking around worriedly, Yves didn't even have to know the number of the beasts that tried to push their way through the Soldiers' defensive lines. The intense pressure weighing on the soldiers in front of him was not hard to decipher.

Just a single glance was enough for him to figure that the dungeon beasts showed no signs of slowing down and that the dungeon bosses had yet to be defeated.

Realizing how killing the boss would automatically decimate its pawns, Yves had a mad urge to go for the head of the dungeon bosses by himself.

But he knew that he would die the moment he broke through the defensive lines of the soldiers that were facing the steady outpour of dungeon beasts and fought the monsters all by himself.

With that in mind, he decided to use his ability and Innate ability for the sake of the others, and unveiled it to them.

"You guys need to be protected, I cannot leave you-.." Captain Clara had begun but was cut abruptly by another youth who shouted.

"Stop with that nonsense!! We are going to die if nobody kills the dungeon bosses. So either you and some other soldiers have to go…otherwise, we are going to die!!"

It was a rather bulky young man's voice, who was fighting several beasts at once with a huge mace.

After shouting at Clara, he angrily smashed the mace onto the head of the closest beast that was a Heavy Armored Rhinoceros, followed by loud noises of its skull cracking into pieces that resounded in the surrounding.

"Captain Clara, go. We will handle this." Nial suddenly yelledskull-cracking, his eerily calm voice reverberating through the surroundings as his lifeless eyes encountered hers.

His confident voice and demeanor snapped her out of her trance as she gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded her head.

Earlier, she was just too worried that something might happen to the young Originals.

However, she also understood that the situation would not improve if she didn't do as asked.

Even with more than 150 Soldiers at the Prym rank, the number of Rookie dungeon beasts was simply too high.

As such, she was thankful that Nial was able to keep his calm and reassure her that they would be fine even without her help.

With that in mind, Captain Clara circulated mana through her body before catapulting herself toward the last defensive line.

There, she picked the three best soldiers of the lot, whose abilities she was familiar with before instructing them to follow her.

A moment later, they broke through the soldiers' defensive line, advancing straight in the direction of the closest dungeon boss.

Detecting the dungeon bosses was not further difficult because their mana fluctuations and presence were quite obvious, and hard to miss.

Thus, they forced their way through the masses of beasts, using one of the Soldier's [Warrior's Rush] abilities to push everyone away to create a path for the others.

A moment later, it looked like the pressure on the defensive lines had decreased.

But, unfortunately enough, this was not the case, and the opposite occurred.

The dungeon bosses noticed the change in the situation, causing them to react with the use of their own abilities.

While utilizing them, they didn't even care about hurting the beasts around them.

Thus, most beasts were driven by their fright, leading them to start running around helter-skelter, thereby increasing the pressure on the defensive lines.

Adding the exhaustion of most of the Soldiers to it, the situation seemed to escalate, only for four to five young Originals to appear near the first defensive lines.

It was Nial, Bella, Mathias, Yves, and Shariq, the bulky man, who had appeared in between the rows of the soldiers.

However, none of them held their weapons right now.

Instead, they held some seeds that Yves had pushed into their hands.

"Spread them out!" He just shouted before throwing the seeds in front of him with a smooth wave of his hand.

The others followed suit, unsure of what exactly was supposed to happen.

Yet, it was Nial, who first noticed that Yves was doing something as his entire body was enshrouded in a greenish transmuted mana.

Using his ability [Plan growth] and his Innate ability [Nature's wrath], with all of his mana, roots, vines, and large flower stems grew out of the seeds that were sprinkled throughout the cave.

Growing with a rapid speed, a huge net of protection formed in front of all soldiers spanning the entire cavern hall.

According to the thickness of the veins, everyone presumed that they would last for a few seconds before crumbling due to the beasts' attacks, possibly even more.

"I can hold it for 10 seconds, afterward, I will be drained of mana and unable to fight due to overexertion of my ability!"

Under normal circumstances, one wouldn't think that Yves' abilities were extremely powerful, and they may not seem mighty right now.

But once some time passed, and he grew further, the lethal combo of his ability and Innate ability would turn into something extremely fearsome.

Yet, for now, the only thing he could do to help was to create and cast a properly working net of protective vines.

However, this was already enough to give the Soldiers a few seconds to take several deep breaths.

Mathias, who was still scared of the numerous dungeon beasts tearing him apart, recalled that he hadn't done anything great yet.

In comparison to Bella and Nial, his contribution was close to negligible in the current situation.

He was not supposed to simply idle around. Thus, with the aim to do something, Mathias used up his entire mana at once.

With the used up mana, Mathias empowered his Earth affinity with which he created a huge earthen wall within the net of protection.

Through this, and the sudden collaboration of both Yves and Mathias, they created a firm and seemingly indestructible wall.

Several moments of utter silence passed, and it was only when both Yves and Mathias slumped to the ground in utter exhaustion that the surroundings seemed to turn alive again.

A collective sigh of relief escaped the soldiers after they saw the gigantic wall of vines and the additional earthen wall of protection that had been manifested.

For a few moments, the pressure around them had been too high, and it was only fortunate that the wall of protection seemed to be quite sturdy.

This led Nial to avert his focus on both Mathias and Yves as a faint trace of interest emerged within him.

'Interesting ability,' He could only think, believing that the young Original at the 8th Origin rank was anything but ordinary.

Not only had Yves undergone seven enlargings, but he owned a powerful ability and Innate ability as well.

For now, they might not be overpowered, which was quite obvious as the necessary preparations took time and some effort.

However, Nial was pretty sure that Yves hailed from an influential background, and had the necessary means to become extremely powerful…far more powerful than he already was!

There were many interesting Originals Nial was interested in.

Almost all of them had Innate abilities as well, causing Nial to wonder if he was just lucky to encounter so many Originals with Innate abilities, if most participants of the Teradan military camp had Innate abilities or similar traits to that, or if they were just the cream of the crop!

But it was at this moment that Nial noticed something that caused him to halt in his tracks.

"It's great that we can protect ourselves, but…we didn't kill Captain Clara and the soldiers who went with her with this, right?"

Nial asked in a horrified voice, accepting that he would be partially responsible for this mess as well if something had really happened to them.

However, Shiraq just waved his hand as he pointed towards the wall where huge tusks had already pierced through, leaving gaping holes behind.

"Don't worry, the fight is not yet over. There are still some Rhinos, Elephants, and other huge targets, whom I have to show just how beautiful my Bloody mace is!"