Chapter 100 Beauty
While swiftly moving through the darkness, Nial's inability to see turned into his advantage.
As he was accustomed to not relying on his sense of sight, he used his other senses to reach Bella only seconds after he said that he would help her.
Meanwhile, owing to the moonlight that barely managed to peek through the small gaps in the dense foliage of the large and tightly packed pine trees, Mathias was unable to see anything properly on the small hill.
Only his mana perception allowed him to make it have some idea of his surroundings.
But it was nothing compared to his eyesight which would have allowed him to see clearly, and Mathias was fully aware of this.
Sighing deeply, he could only wish that it was daytime, as it would allow him to fight along with Bella and Nial.
They were risking their lives to clash and fight the wolf riders, while he was far behind just trying to find his way in the dark.
He was supposed to protect them, but somehow was now being protected from greater harm.
It make him feel useless all of a sudden, and he clearly noticed that he was unnecessarily relying a lot on his ability to see.
Even Bella relied too much on her sight, but her situation was different.
After all, there were not many people that could see in the darkness, without actually having a nightvision-like ability bound to themselves.
And that ability was, rarely considered powerful enough for most of the ordinary people to consider binding to their mana core!
There were a limited number of abilities that could be bound which was why most people focused on using powerful abilities to make the most out of it.
As he recalled this, Mathias noticed something he hadn't truly realized earlier.
'Wait…we were for an hour, or at most two inside the basement… How can it already be well past midnight??'
Earlier, he had been sulking about his incapability to join the fight which forced him to listen to the clash of Nial and Bella's weapons against that of the four remaining Goblin Wolfriders.
But given the thought that had flashed through his mind just a moment earlier, Mathias was unable to keep his calm anymore.
'Where the hell have we been teleported to?!?'
If he were to ask this question to any Instructor of the Teradan military camp, they would just shrug their shoulders in an attempt to hide the fact that not even they knew the answer to that question.
It was just another day many years ago when the government had reported that a teleportation circle to a specific part of a large island had been created.
The said island was the land on which the Teradan military camp had been built upon and was proudly standing for many years.
Yet, if someone were to add the question about 'Why' the Teradan military camp had to be constructed on an island that was not even fully protected by the strongest of mankind, not many would be able to answer with certainty.
Not even Junades was able to give an answer as his authority was simply too little to know of the reasons for the government to do so.
It was already a wonder that he had been asked to become an instructor of the military camp as his rank in the military was not supposed to be high enough.
From the looks of it, the government had simply deemed him responsible and competent enough to nurture the camp's participants, meaning that he was highly regarded by the highest authorities.
Even Junades was of the opinion that the island was rather eerie and not the perfect place for young prodigies to be trained in.
Little did he or the other instructors know that there were more than enough reasons for this to be the case.
Mathias was still not sure where they had been teleported to, but while trying to advance towards his friends through the slippery mud he was being forced to remain vigilant.
The surrounding beasts must have been woken up due to the noises created by their fight against the Goblin Wolfriders, which was certainly an added disadvantage.
Bella and Nial were still fighting, but when he perceived the swift movements of Bella as she emerged right amidst everyone, Mathias knew that the fight was almost over.
Upon exerting the [Outburst] ability, her mana fluctuations became more powerful as her golden eyes began to gleam brightly.
The passive effect of her Innate ability had been activated, allowing her to see the mana fluctuations of her opponents.
Through this, and her nightsight, Bella was able to sense the exact moment when one of the Horned wolves would pounce on her.
It was an extremely advantageous ability, but on the flipside drained her of her mana and mental energy drastically.
With that in mind, she decided to face her opponents using her entire strength and slashed her razor-sharp shortsword through the darkness.
Fountains of blood splattered through the gloomy space but it didn't deter her from moving ahead and killing everything that stood in their way.
Angered by her moves, Bella sensed the attack of two Goblin Warriors that thrust their spears toward her.
They had willingly sacrificed their mounts in order to distract Bella and take her by surprise with a killing blow after realizing that she was the most dangerous being they had encountered in their entire life.
The issue was not what they were currently seeing in front of them.
Instead, the presence of Bella, and what she ought to be hiding was the most dangerous to the Goblins, whose wild instincts told them to flee at once.
As this was not possible owing to multiple reasons, they had to give their best to kill Bella.
However, it was only when Bella moved her shortswords and charged up to them to deflect the spear thrusts that they noticed something- Bella was not alone!
A shadow with white, lifeless eyes emerged in between the two-horned wolves that had just died, swiftly moving his spear, only to inflict tiny cuts…or so it seemed.
Both the Goblin Warriors felt a faint sting on their neck but didn't think much about it.
Moments passed without them noticing anything and they were just about to lunge at Bella, who was already fully prepared to defend herself when they noticed something change.
Their sight began to blur and their body stiffened as if it was of lead.
It became increasingly difficult to move, and even lifting their arm to thrust the spear at Bella made them sweat profusely.
Time seemed to pass at a ridiculously low pace, and it was at this moment that their head seemed to move without them even doing anything.
Only when their neck seemed to twist at an impossible angle which made them see their own shoulder upside down did they realize that something was wrong…horribly wrong!
A moment later their blurred sight saw blood spurting out of their own neck, as it began to flow down their armor like a dam that had suddenly burst open.
Was their head not supposed to be attached to their neck? Why could they suddenly see their own neck, bleeding like a beheaded pig?
As the last piece of skin that was holding it together tore off, their heads slumped to the wet mud. All of this happened within a second and they didn't even realize what or how they had just lost their lives.
Nial had simply slashed his Viper spear like a high-speed razor blade that cut through their flesh and bones in one move. The blind youth they had labeled a pushover had beheaded both the beasts that were two ranks above his own.
All of this was owed to the Viper spear's sharpness which was far more terrifying than one could think, while the black Miasma was something nobody was truly familiar with.
Even Nial was unable to tell every single characteristic it had.
Yet, one of the peculiar characteristics of the miasma which he had already figured out was that inflicted injuries would only be noticed moments later and that the sharpness of his Viper spear was increased several times, without the need to insert more mana into the blades!
There was much more about the black Miasma Nial had yet to figure out, but the things he got to know until now, were already enough to tell that the Curse [Hodur's Heir] was extraordinary.
The only downside was that it was extremely difficult to control the Curse, and the black Miasma it released upon receiving enough mana.
As such, Nial was experimenting a lot right now, but he was happy to have taken down two opponents at a time. The corners of his lips curled upwards in a smirk as he slithered over the slippery ground.
He felt excited to fight with his own team for a change, and to defeat a group of powerful Golin Warriors that rode Horned wolves together.
His mana core's rank was much weaker than that of his opponents, yet, his physical strength was on par with the foes he faced.
As such, adding his precise use of mana, there shouldn't have been a problem for him to defeat his opponents, to begin with.
He only took a short moment to adjust his stance, which was possible to do owing to Mathias' support.
Having defeated the opponents on his side, Nial wanted to help Bella tackle her opponents, but after sensing her entire being brimming with energy, he began to wonder if it was truly necessary.
'Maybe I would obstruct her from having fun fighting with some pressure if I were to jump in?
This thought might sound ridiculous at first, but after giving it a second thought, Nial could only grimace.
From the looks of it, she had been enjoying herself as not even a single scratch could be found on her clothes or body.
In the end, this meant that not even a total of 16 beasts that had attacked her at once, were able to injure her.
Nial felt a little bit weird when he realized this as he couldn't help but question her motives behind joining the two of them.
She didn't belong to a great background which could be inferred from the fact that her mother leased apartments, but at the same time, her social standing seemed to be much higher than Nial's had ever been.
This meant that she was likely to have received a pretty basic education, followed by weaponry practice with the classmates she had been in school with.
It might as well be a wrong conclusion, but Nial hadn't expected her to be as powerful as she seemed to be.
His knowledge about Bella was insignificant because he knew nearly nothing about her.
Even the things he guessed or knew might not be the entire truth, or completely false, at that.
With that in mind, the mystery revolving around Bella became even more complex, and to the extent at which Nial simply stood aside instead of interfering in her fight.
Through this, he gave Bella the freedom she wanted in order to reveal her true combat prowess.
However, even then Nial clearly detected that Bella was hiding a lot from him, and had restricted her prowess to be fully unleashed.
Holding herself back, she knew that her hidden power was not required to be released in order to defeat the puny opponents that caused Mathias and Nial to struggle to defeat them.
Yet, instead of feeling as if they were a burden to her, Bella was overjoyed to witness Nial's fight.
Mathias had also quickly buckled up and switched from protecting her and Nial to attacking the beasts along with Nial in order to defeat the minority of opponents before getting ready to help her out.
This might have not been required, but it was obvious that Mathias' eyesight wasn't adapted to seeing well in the darkness, thereby forcing him to rely on his mana perception and other senses, while Nial was facing opponents he had never encountered.
It caused her to smile brightly as she became certain to have picked the right opponents, just as she finished off the last of her beasts with quick slashes of her razor-sharp shortsword.
Just at this moment, the moon reached the zenith as the bright rays bathed the muddy hill in a bright light and accentuated Bella's appearance.
This made her look like she was a Saintess, who was surrounded by blood trickling down the beasts' dead bodies and soaking into the ground.
Nial was unable to see all of this in detail, while only Mathias could see everything, his eyes widening in shock.
**
If you want to support me use your golden tickets and powerstones.
You can also visit my pa treon: Pa treon.com/HideousGrain
More character images and nice chats about the HideVerse:
https://discord.gg/EdsDgFVWwZ
Link also in my description.
Do you like it? Leave a review and add it to the library!