236 The search. (1/2)

Though Rufus or the Empress might have started to believe that a simple cat was the reason, Emperor Luthien wasn't aware of such details and directly rushed back to the Silverbird Kingdom.

Unaware that he had already started making his way back, Ozul leisurely waited for the Empress to disable the formations.

Only when it was midnight did Ozul notice that the guards who had earlier been rushing everywhere started to make their way towards the Palace.

He got up and decided to follow where everyone was heading. The screen created by the Ball of Purity completely blended him in the dark surroundings.

'Rufus...' Ozul noticed that the place where the guards had gathered was around the old man. He hid in a tree again, but close enough so that he could hear what Rufus was saying.

”...Go back to your positions, but be extra alert. It was a false alarm, but don't slack off now,” Rufus ordered.

He didn't say much, but Ozul knew it meant that now they were really thinking that the formation was at fault.

Following Rufus' orders, the guards dispersed and he also went inside the Palace. And this time, Ozul was there to notice that the formations ignored the old man.

Now that he knew what they were thinking, he excitedly waited for them to put down the defenses surrounding the Palace.

And just as he had expected, just a few minutes later, he felt the layer of Mana disappearing around the Palace.

Gradually, the dense surge of Mana that he was previously feeling disappeared, indicating that all of those defensive formations were deactivated.

'Finally!' Ozul cheered inside his mind, but still waited there for a couple of minutes.

The guards uniformly went back to their duties, but no one dared to slack off this time. All of them were as vigilant as they could get.

When he noticed that things had calmed down, he began to discreetly make his way towards the Palace.

With his speed and the camouflage because of the Ball of Purity, no one noticed him rushing towards the huge gates.

Even when he didn't sense any formations, Ozul was careful about his surroundings. There have been a number of times before when he missed them, and he didn't want to make the same mistake here.

As he got inside, he didn't have the same advantage of the dark surroundings as he had outside. So he relied on his speed to stop only at a place where no one was around to see him.

Only when he stopped around the corner of a corridor did he have the time to look at the interior of the Palace. The inside of the Palace was as if it was still day. The ceiling was high and decorated with expensive-looking ornaments.

'Well, now that I am inside, it doesn't matter whoever sees me as long as they aren't conscious after that...' Ozul thought inside his mind with a smirk almost taking place on his face.

He was fairly confident to be able to deal with just about anyone since Emperor Luthien wasn't here.

It would have been a real problem if the formations were active and Emperor Luthien was here at the same time. It was fortunate that he didn't have to deal with even one of them.

”It's time to search,” Ozul muttered under his breath and began to look around the Palace. He didn't know the internal layout, so all he could rely on was the trails of Mana.

The Palace was too big for him to blindly run everywhere and hope to run into the place where they had left his arm.

He searched a couple of rooms, but none of them had anything.

Just as he was standing there, contemplating what to do next, a voice woke him up.

”Hey! Who are you?” The voice belonged to a tall man wearing a neat uniform. He seemed like one of the royal guards because his aura and cultivation base was on a different level than the ones patrolling outside.

”Already? Sigh... ” Although Ozul could easily deal with him, he would have to hide his body somewhere as well, or someone might find him and report it to the Empress. Even if he somehow managed to hide his body, his friends could also notice his disappearance.

'Can't do anything about it now,' he thought inside his mind as a single thin needle passed through the guards' head, creating just a tiny hole before the man fell down.

*Thud.*

When Ozul was going to pick up the body and look somewhere to hide it, he noticed the golden pouch hanging on his waist.

'Nothing alive can be stored there... but he is dead now, isn't he...' Ozul didn't know if he could do it. But when he picked up the man's corpse and opened the Spatial Pouch, it interestingly worked!

It made it a lot easier for him to just store all the dead bodies inside the pouch if need be. Just when he was about to continue, he stopped and realized that it would take a lot of unnecessary time if he kept on going like this.

Half an hour had already passed after he had entered the Palace, and all he had found was the throne room.