Unsealing Emptiness

This thing had been in his mind, but he hadn’t stopped to give it another thought before.

Now that he was alone and focused on it, he found a very strange feeling engraved in his mind.

‘No... it was more like already there but... was unsealed?’ he mused. It was the same when he had turned 5 years old and had suddenly learned to produce and control the Ball of Purity.

Maybe if he had been complete back then, he would have learned this thing together with the Ball of Purity.

Those life-like black engravings on his limbs probably played some important part in it as well. But he couldn’t be sure of anything until he had more knowledge.

Putting that thought in the back of his mind, Ozul focused on the strand of knowledge that had seemingly been unsealed in his memories.

.....

The strand of knowledge wasn’t as complicated as one would think. He just innately knew that if he willed it, he was able to do something different now.

As he followed his instinct, everything suddenly turned a little darker as if a thin layer of cloud might have covered the Sun.

But as he assessed his situation, he realized it wasn’t that the sunlight was blocked by the clouds. Instead, it was his vision that turned a little dull. His eyesight itself was clear and so were the surroundings, but the light had just dimmed a little.

To any other person, such a negligible change wouldn’t have been noticeable at all. But Ozul had always been sensitive to light and on top of being vigilant to any new development, he couldn’t have missed it.

After analyzing the situation for a couple of minutes, he began to understand what was going on.

Approximately a foot of the radius with him as the center had suddenly just lost a little of its light.

It was as if a curtain of shadows had enveloped him, protecting him from the ‘filthy’ light of this world, albeit just a little.

It was also worthy to note that the thin layer of darkness surrounding him had nothing to do with the Ball of Purity. This was entirely something else.

He felt a peculiar chilling sensation run deep within his skin, but it was by no means an uncomfortable feeling. He was instead feeling quite at peace in this state.

“And that is not all...” he muttered before standing up.

Clenching his fist, he realized that his strength had taken a huge leap as well!

Ozul took a deep breath as he began to feel whatever else changes this darkness had caused in him.

It turned out that his strength wasn’t the only thing that had improved. All of his senses felt little improvements as well.

He performed a few more tests and moved about but the almost negligible shadows followed wherever he went. He also experimented with the Ball of Purity while in this state but there weren’t any obvious changes except for him finding it a little easier to control it.

“Well this is a pleasant surprise...” Ozul muttered with a small smile on his face. Being surrounded by these barely visible shadows not only brought him a pleasant feeling but also improved his overall abilities.

Just as he was thinking as such, his smile strained.

Unknown to him, he didn’t feel like not expressing his feelings this time.

‘Strange... well whatever.’

Although him not wanting to keep his emotions to himself felt weird after all this time of doing the opposite, he had also become used to his changing mood.

Others might call him crazy but he was just following what he wanted whenever he wanted.

That was also his mother’s last and only words to him.

‘Be myself. Even if I don’t know what I am as of now, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that I am being myself if I follow whatever I desire,’ that is what kept Ozul going even when he felt absurd following his instincts sometimes.

Fortunately, following his desires had never failed him. It always led him to a path on which he gained the most.

Coming back to his senses, Ozul again focused on the darkness covering him as he began to ponder what else he could do with it.

Looking at Jinx staring at him from the side, he looked deep into her eyes before speaking, “Can you bring me a Beast?”

“...”

Unsurprisingly, Jinx continued to stare at him with a blank face, clearly not wanting to bother finding a Beast.

“What did I expect...” Ozul only sighed before moving his focus back to the darkness.

He could have also found a Beast easily but just didn’t want to bother doing it, that’s why he asked Jinx, hoping that she would listen to him.

Unfortunately for him, Jinx was just as or even lazier than him.

Since he still didn’t have the mood to find a Beast, Ozul left it for later and decided to check the most important factor of this new ability of his.

‘Can I control it?’ That was the ultimate question that would decide how useful this ability actually was.

Trying to remember the familiar feeling of activating this cover of darkness, he tried moving it around him according to his will.

Just as he did so, this space with less light suddenly shifted towards him. However, only he was able to feel this minuscule movement. If he was not doing it himself, there were chances that even he might have missed it.

Clenching his fists harder, Ozul tried his best to compress the space, forcing it to close in on him. Sadly, no matter how hard he tried, the darkness barely moved towards him before regaining its previous position.

‘I can’t do it,’ Ozul concluded, “But... It is certainly possible.”

There was no denying the fact that he had failed to move to control the space to close in on him, but if it moved even if just a little, it proved the point that it was possible.

The only reason he didn’t put force into trying to move it away from him was that he simply couldn’t. It wouldn’t even budge when he willed it to move away from him.

Moreover, he just had a feeling that he should try to compress in on him instead. For whatever reasons he didn’t know. For now, he wasn’t even able to move it an inch and was too lazy to keep forcing it right now.

“Haa...”

Not only was he lazy, but he only realized it now that activating this new ability of his kept draining his stamina. It wasn’t much but trying to force it to compress was what made him exhausted.

With that, he had also summarized all of the changes his body had gone under after regaining his arm.

There was nothing more for him to test as of right now. And since that was the case, he turned around and went back on the stone before closing his eyes again.

It was afternoon and the sun was about to set but he still didn’t want to go back to the tower. For now, he hadn’t regained complete control over his own hearing, and being in the middle of so many people annoyed him to no end.

As he was again back to being depressed about not even being able to control his own hearing, he forgot to take in mind that this task was almost impossible for normal people.

Gaining control over one’s own hearing so they heard less? How would a person even begin to do that?

Ozul hadn’t realized that him being able to gain control over his senses was also unique to him.

He didn’t know if it was the presence of Jinx, but no Beast or even a normal animal dared to come nowhere near them all this time.

Just like that, he spent the next couple of hours sorting out his thoughts before finding a tree to lean on and sleep. There was no point in going back to the tower anyway.

. . .

The next morning, he felt better than ever and if not for the burning ray of sunlight falling directly on his eyes, he wouldn’t have bothered to wake up at all.

He had ordered Raven and Blaze to rest for a few days and the task he gave to Haley wouldn’t have been completed in just a single day either.

So until then, he had nothing to do. Sleeping was the best way to pass time.

At this time, Jinx was also snuggled up to his body, sleeping soundly.

Although he wanted to change to a different tree to avoid the sunlight, he also didn’t want to wake her up.

‘Uh...’

If it was any other being in the world, he wouldn’t have hesitated to choose his comfort over the other, but it was different with Jinx. He somehow couldn’t bring himself to wake her up.

Not having any other choice, he released a bit of the Ball of Purity before flattening it out and putting it above them.

Holding the small roof he had created over them even in his sleep was no problem for Ozul. He had never truly lost consciousness anyway.

Just like that, he spent another day just lying around in the middle of the forest with Jinx.

. . .

While Ozul was gone for these two days, Raven and Blaze had already rested enough and wanted to move out to complete their mission right away.

However, they couldn’t do anything since they were supposed to first tell Ozul before leaving.

And he was nowhere to be found...