Odyssey of the Blind God

Nial didn't spend too much time preparing the plan he had come up with on a whim.

He was not in need of many things because it was already more than enough if he continued to provoke the wingless Gryphon by evading its attack, flying through the air and emerging in the sky outside the cavern entrance.

The wingless Gryphon ought to feel more miserable than before but it was just enraged right now. If it could fly, it would have attacked Nial and torn him into pieces.

That was the first thought it had when looking at Nial, who continued to provoke the Gryphon by turning his back to the beast as he enlarged the pair of wings.

However, that was not everything Nal did. He let a second pair of wings grow out of his back to show the Gryphon what he was capable of with his dark energy.

The wingless beast could clearly sense that Nial's wings were made of darkness but it was not possible for the beast to replicate his wings, otherwise, it would have done so by now.

While standing at the edge of the cavern entrance, the Gryphon looked down the mountain, just to see that it would fall more than a thousand meters if it were to jump now.

It wished to attack Nial and to show him just how powerful it was, but that would require the beast to be able to fly and reach Nial who was hovering in the sky.

Nial smiled when he perceived that the Gryphon was at the edge of the mountain, looking down the terrifying cliff it would fall by taking the risk to jump.

He knew that the wingless Gryphon would never jump on its own but that was not necessary, to begin with.

Nial could just force the wingless Gryphon to jump, and that was exactly what he did!

All the dark energy and the Essence of Darkness Nial had thrown towards the cavern entrance moved through the ground. It shot out of the ground behind the wingless Gryphon and pushed the beast with a terrifying force.

A horrifying screech filled with fear and shock reverberated through the surrounding area as the Gryphon began to fall down. The beast's short yet miserable life flashed through its mind. It was unwilling to give up and die but there was no way that it would suddenly grow wings.

At this moment, Nial appeared less than five meters in front of the wingless Gryphon. If it wanted to, it could attack Nial right now and drag him with it to the grave.

But that was not what the Gryphon did. Its dark-brown almost black eyes darted at Nial, who smiled gently at it. Both were falling and it looked almost as if Nial was ready to die with the wingless Gryphon if it was unable to start flying all of a sudden.

However, that was simply not possible in the beast's opinion, which meant that Nial was willing to die with the beast. The Gryphon couldn't comprehend that at all. Its anger, wrath and the feeling of having been forced to live an unfair life dispersed at this moment, only for confusion to fill the beast's entire being. It had trouble understanding why Nial was doing nothing to save himself.

All of a sudden, the wingless Gryphon noticed that it was falling slower than Nial. It looked like Nial was falling at a slower pace too but that shouldn't be the case.

Only a few hundred meters of empty space were left between them and the ground, yet, the wingless Gryphon continued to fall slowly.

The beast didn't understand what was going on as Nial flashed a smile at the Gryphon.

"Spread your wings!" He screamed at the top of his lungs while doing exactly what he ordered the Gryphon to do. He spread out both pairs of wings, which slowed down his fall a bit more until he ended up levitating mid-air.

Nial was still smiling while both he and the wingless Gryphon were both hovering in the air.

The Gryphon's mind blanked out as it realized that it was not falling anymore and the beast tried to see behind itself, almost twisting its neck at an uncomfortable angle.

However, that was enough for it to see that wings had spurted out from its back. The wings clearly belonged to Nial because his dark energy and darkness essence had only temporarily attached to the back of the wingless Gryphon but it could also sense that the wings would listen to its will as long as Nial gave the permission to do so.

After giving it a try, the Gryphon willed the wings to flap, which they did at the same instant the beast thought about it.

A sound of excitement erupted from within the wingless Gryphon as it began to flap its wings over and over again. More screeches of joy and excitement came from the beast that began to fly through the air.

"If you work hard enough and become stronger, you should be able to do the same on your own!" Nial suddenly said out loud and the Gryphon instinctively halted mid-air. It looked over to Nial, who had spoken something and tilted its head trying to understand what exactly the human had said.

It was an intelligent beast and could roughly understand what Nial meant as his Essence of Darkness stimulated the wingless Gryphon's darkness affinity to become active as well.

For now, it might not be possible to recreate the wings of darkness but the wingless Gryphon could clearly perceive that it was possible to learn everything as long as its darkness affinity would get stronger…and be strong enough to do what Nial achieved with his dark energy and the Essence of Darkness!

After what Nial had said, he released more of his Essence of Darkness for the wingless Gryphon to absorb and use in order to strengthen its darkness affinity.

Once the beast fully understood that his Essence of Darkness would allow it to become just like its brethren and learn flying, Nial would gain the upper hand.

By then he was pretty sure that the beast wouldn't be able to escape him anymore.

Unfortunately, Nial had forgotten to consider something very important into his plan! The other Gryphons had heard their brethren's scream of overwhelming fear as it had fallen down from the entrance of the Gryphons' lair.

Alerted by the noise, all the Gryphons in the nearby surrounding had returned to check on what was going on, just to see a winged human levitating a few meters away from their crippled brother. The wingless Gryphon, who had been so different from them, was also flying in the air.

However, that was not something the Gryphons realized because they could only see and perceive the power of the human, who was clearly trying to overwhelm their brethren.

Even if the wingless beast was different and a cripple, the Gryphons couldn't allow one of their kind to be taken away by force. Their pride didn't allow this to happen and their protectiveness of their family and kindliness took over.

Nial heard the loud screeches from above and he clicked his tongue when he saw how the beasts dived down straight toward him.

It was obvious that they wanted to kill him, which forced Nial to retract the strand of Essence of Darkness he had connected to the wingless Gryphon.

Nial shot closer to the ground, leaving behind the black Gryphon, who stared down at Nial with confusion spreading through his entire being.

The beast was not sure what was going on and it only clicked when four of its brethren shot past it, attacking Nial with all their might.

They didn't possess any elemental affinity, but their physical strength was already more than enough to allow them to catch up with Nial in no time.

Nial had shot down to the forest on the ground, where he seemed to have disappeared. However, the Gryphons didn't stop their attack. They began to wreak havoc within the forest in an attempt to find Nial.

While wreaking havoc, they woke the Overlords of the huge forest, which caused a territorial fight of aerial beasts and beasts living on the land to erupt.

A six meter tall blazing bear, a four-meter-tall wolf shrouded in thunder and a large group of powerful Gorillas appeared as they ganged up on the Gryphons.

"I didn't even know that so many powerful beasts had emerged on Jundra. Am I missing something or is Jundra evolving much faster than calculated by the Elves?" Nial wondered as he concealed his whole power in the tree top of a large tree.

He was not too far from the battlefield that had erupted on the ground and had enough time to observe the flourishing nature around him.

Until now, he hadn't really paid much attention to the nature around him but the forest and the mountain range possessed almost as much mana as the Forest of Life.

That was interesting but somehow Nial felt that all his efforts in participating in the tournament had been for nought. He had worked his ass off to procure the augmented Dryad Princess' tear to evolve the Forest of Life, just for the Forest of Life to turn out as nothing overly special.

Nial knew that the Forest of Life was not yet done digesting the augmented Dryad Princess' Tear. Until that would happen quite some time had to pass, enough time for many things to happen, whether they were good or bad.

Nonetheless, he was a bit frustrated.

'Well, it is not like I didn't gain anything in return…' He finally concluded, trying to disperse his frustration.

At this moment, Nial noticed something that made him forget about his grumbling in an instant.

The wingless Gryphon shot down into the forest and it released its mana while trying to perceive everything in its surroundings. It saw that its brethren were fighting with other beasts but that was not to the wingless Gryphon's concern.

It knew that the Gryphons had only acted to 'save' it from getting kidnapped because it was also a Gryphon, whether crippled or not. Before Nial's arrival, they had never really cared about him, the young male, who was 'tarnished' and born wingless.

Right now, they only wanted to protect their pride and the majestic reputation they had claimed in the mountain range region by not letting one of their own get subdued by a puny human.

The Gryphon knew all of this very well which was why he would rather look out for Nial than anyone else.

By now he understood that Nial didn't want to provoke him. He had yet to figure out what Nial truly wanted but his intention at their first encounter hadn't been to humiliate the wingless Gryphon for being unable to fly but to tell him that it was possible to fly even though he was not born with wings.

As long as he worked hard enough it would be possible for him to learn how to fly using his darkness affinity. It was never supposed to be an easy feat but the possibility was already more than enough for the wingless Gryphon to feel an infinite amount of gratitude.

Nial had given him hope and pulled him out of misery, whether that was his plan or not and the wingless Gryphon didn't want Nial to die. Not only did he need the stimulation Nial's Essence of Darkness could provide but it was also his thankfulness that played a major role in the Gryphon's action to fly down to the ground and search for Nial!

**

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