238 Concern. (1/2)

And unaware of many things, Ozul was down in the secret room somewhere under the Palace. The Empress had activated all the defenses again and also sent the royal family's personal guards to stop him.

While all of that was happening in the Silverbird Kingdom, there was a different kind of excitement growing in the Neutral Lands.

. . .

In the headquarters of the Three-Eyed Strangers, Raven sat on the couch placed at the far corner of the room on the 7th floor. She was staring blankly on the floor, thinking about her battle with that middle stage Rank-8 Mage from the Church.

The result of that match, much to her dissatisfaction, didn't happen as she wanted it to be. Raven wanted to defeat that brown-haired man, and she was finally making some progress at the end.

However, before she even came close to defeating him, the Mercenary Guild's representative stopped the battle.

She was furious as to why the match had to be stopped, but she found out the reason when she looked around herself.

It was because the other Rank-8 Mage from the Leonhard Dynasty had already cleared all the other participants. Since only three people remained standing on her platform including her, the battle royale was concluded with the three as winners.

At that time, she regretted not taking care of that guy from the Leonhard Dynasty who became the reason for not being able to defeat the brown-haired man from the Church.

It wasn't even that man's fault. While Raven was fighting the brown-haired man, the two didn't look around them. They were destroying the whole stage with their spells!

And the participant from the Leonhard Dynasty had no other choice but to defeat everyone else to stop them from getting more violent. He was also standing on the same platform, and if they had decided to unleash their destructive Spells, he would have also been caught in them sooner or later.

Raven clenched her fist in frustration as she remembered how she couldn't get a single hit on her opponent.

”Still thinking about that?” Suddenly came the amusing voice of Blaze as Raven looked up at him with a deadpan face.

”... I told you already, tomorrow are the individual matches. You didn't have the time today, but the individual battles would last as long as one isn't defeated,” Blaze tried to cheer her up. He couldn't take the ever-growing gloomy aura from her.

Raven loosened her fist as what Blaze said did make sense. She wouldn't rest easy until she defeated that man.

'It will be hard for her...' Blaze thought as he looked at her determined eyes. He had observed their whole fight and noticed that just like him, that man didn't give her a single opportunity.

Raven almost got hit twice as well. Maybe she had gotten used to only being on the offensive, but Blaze could see that the brown-haired man was more skilled than her.

It didn't help the fact that he was almost 55 years old as Blaze learned from Irvin who had such information on all the participants. Being more than a decade older than them, he would certainly have more battle experience.

'He was right, we haven't had any experience in real life-threatening situations...' Blaze admitted as he remembered Ozul's words.

Ozul wanted to bring them to a fairly dangerous place and pit them against Rank-8 Beasts, but he didn't find the time to do so.

. . .

In a hall with dim lighting and many seats neatly arranged, facing the front of the room, a man sat at a chair placed in front of all the other seats.

It was the prayer hall for the Church of Light and the man sitting on the chair was Archbishop Lammert.

Besides a couple of his most trusted Bishops, there wasn't anyone in the hall right now.

”Why couldn't he defeat her?” Lammert asked in a calm voice but the Bishops knew that the calmer his voice sounded, the more furious he was.

They quivered at his questions. No one had the courage to answer him.

”You gave him all of it, yes?” Lammert pointed towards a particular Bishop wearing glasses.

The man in question again shuddered, being put on the spot, and stuttered, ”... I-it was decided t-that giving all of it to him might have side effects...” The more he spoke, the lower his voice got.

”And who decided that?” Lammert asked. This time, his eyes had gotten darker and the other Bishops took a few steps back.

”I-it was Bishop Sebun...” replied the man wearing glasses.

Bishop Sebun behind him instantly fell on the ground as he hit his face on the floor and asked for mercy while trembling, ”A-archbishop, f-forgive me! I-”

Before he could even utter another sentence, a beam of light passed through both of his hands, creating two gaping holes!