Odyssey of the Blind God

The lifeless golden eyes of the young Saintess seemed to stare in Nial's direction as he sat on the ground near her lifeless body.

He didn't hesitate to tear Bella apart. There was no trace of remorse nor was there any self-satisfaction when he succeeded in taking revenge on the woman who had dared to take his mother's life. At the end of the day, killing Bella Morningstar, the Saintess of the Angels, wouldn't bring his mother back to life.

That was a fact and something Nial had to accept. Nonetheless, the emotions that coursed through his entire being made it quite obvious that he felt a little better knowing that the Saintess hadn't been granted a happy ending.

For Nial, that was more than enough, though he was not too sure what he was supposed to do. Leaving behind Bella's body was the best option since he was not willing to give her any kind of funeral. Her body had been torn apart into pieces, with parts of her body scattered all over the flourishing grass in the proximity.

Nial could still perceive her body parts but he ignored them. He hoped that Bella had suffered a lot in those last moments and had felt the pain that his mother has gone through before the light dimmed in her eyes. He genuinely hoped that she had the worst end even though he knew that this was probably not the case.

Bella had been desperate but her end had been rather quick. It didn't even require five minutes before the vigor in her eyes began to disperse. The last bits of vigor was wiped out from her eyes not long after and her body went rigid once until everything was finally over and her head lolled to the side.

Nial had terminated the Ancient Devilization with the Devil Roc who was now sitting on Nial's shoulder in his smallest form. The Devil Roc looked like an ordinary eagle, just that he had black plumage. Nial had to tend to his wounds with bandages or some vials that could prevent ailments from taking up a residence in his body, or give them some time to regenerate, at least.

He took a deep breath and sent the Devil Roc into the air after an hour or two.

"Scout the planet while I'm healing," Nial ordered and the Devil Roc complied. He transformed back into his original form as a Devil Roc and began his trip all over the planet.

Nial was pretty sure that the planet was not too large, which meant that the Devil Roc wouldn't have too many problems encountering foreign races and wild beasts. The Devil Roc would be strong enough to defeat them.

Furthermore, Nial didn't really think that this planet attracted anyone's interest. There was not a trace of mana in the soil and the nature of this planet, or his proximity to be precise. While the mana in space was extremely pure and high in terms of quantity, the planet he had landed upon didn't seem to be able to hold mana. That was something Nial didn't encounter often since even the hibernating Jundra was capable of holding Mana.

As for other unawakened planets, Nial had never been to any. It was the first time for him, and it couldn't be at a worse time.

"In exchange for killing this bitch, I am now stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Nia grumbled to himself while continuing to spread out his range of perception and Mana Sense. He was trying to find some foreign race or at least some beasts in the surrounding area. Unfortunately, it was not exactly easy for Nial to sense anything since the planet didn't hold any mana. Not even the animals he heard were in possession of mana for him to communicate in the universal language.

It was almost as if they didn't even know about the existence of mana, in the first place. Nial felt that this was hard to believe but it was the truth and a fact. The only thing he was able to sense with his expanded range of perception was the mana in space. He was trying to control it and lead strands of it toward him, just to realize that the mana was not able to get through the stratosphere.

Nial had to give up in the end but that was still acceptable. It was already great that he was not lost in space and that he could breathe some fresh air. It was not necessary for him to breathe, eat, drink or sleep anymore as long as his body held some mana or dark energy but it made his journey a bit bearable.

It was just natural for him to breathe with the oxygen in his surroundings, not the mana inside his body.

A week passed in the blink of an eye, and the Devil Roc returned from his third time traveling across the entire planet. The planet was rather small in size and the Devil Roc didn't find any beings that could be considered a foreign race. According to the Devil Roc, there were a bunch of hairy existences living in rather large tribe-like communities but that was already it.

They wouldn't be able to tell Nial where he was in the Universe, or if there was a Worldbridge or something similar to that nearby. With that in mind, Nial chose to leave this planet. His wounds had already healed and both his crimson moonlight and Essence of Darkness were slowly being refilled as well.

The Essence of Darkness was created by extracting the purest Essence out of his dark energy. With that in mind, Nial's dark energy was about to get depleted as well. It was time for him to leave, which Nial did without hesitation. He got on the Devil Roc's back who shot into the air with a shocking velocity.

Within the following minutes, they reached space where the Devil Roc used his dark energy combined with the wind affinity, which he possessed before he had been devilized, to fly toward the closest planet.

While the Devil Roc turned into a living rocket, Nial focused on replenishing his dark energy. Because he couldn't be sure whether there would be any intelligent races in the entire stellar system, or if one of the few planets in this stellar system were capable of holding mana in the first place, Nial made enough preparations for the worst case.

Traveling to the next closest planet took two days. Nial's mood improved gradually when he realized that quite a bit of mana passed through the planet's stratosphere and that the planet was able to hold mana. It didn't have an awakened planetary mana core but that was still fine. He was already quite satisfied with the improvement he made in comparison to the manaless first planet he encountered.

Nial gave the Devil Roc some time to recuperate. In the meantime, he spread his range of perception, reinforced through his Mana Sense to take a look at his surrounding area. The smells, sounds, and vibrations he felt through the ground were already pretty good indicators to determine everything he had to know about his immediate surroundings but Nial liked to be as detailed as possible.

That way, he wouldn't miss out on something that other senses may not be able to perceive.

However, even on this planet, Nial didn't encounter a foreign race. The planet was filled with beasts and other things that attracted his interest quite a bit!

"This might be useful for later!"