Unsealing Emptiness

‘I don’t care either way...’ Ozul thought inside his mind as he slowly made his way to another side of the wall from where he kept an eye on Jinx as she slowly approached the gate.

The guards didn’t notice Ozul in the dark and minded their own business.

From Irvin, he had heard that even a man with almost no Mana at all was detected by the formation. It could only mean that anyone above a certain size trespassing the estate would automatically set off the defenses.

Ozul figured that they had probably manually disabled the formation when he had briefly entered the estate to talk with Rufus previously. It also meant that the control of the formation was basically in someone’s hand and they could turn it off and on anytime they wanted.

The part which he focused on was the fact that the guards had to find that man for sometime all around the estate. The people with Mana, on the other hand, were spotted in an instant as if the guards just knew where the infiltrators were.

Taking all of these points into account, he could form a basic conclusion that there were two formations or the formations had two separate functions. Considering the latter to be true, one function would set off in case anyone above the designated size regardless if they had Mana or not, entered the estate without whatever the proper method was.

.....

In contrast, the second function located anyone under a certain range or inside the walls, but the condition was that the person should have Mana.

These were his basic conclusions that probably many others had reached as well. However, for them, it was all the same even if the second function couldn’t detect the location of a person without Mana.

They could possibly never get an average man to infiltrate the Royal Palace and succeed.

That was the sole reason that people hadn’t managed to infiltrate the Royal Palace of Silverbird Kingdom even after all this time.

And that was also the reason that Ozul had the chance to get in the Palace without setting off the tens of lethal formations that would even give Rank-9 Mages a hard time.

Unlike what was supposed to be the absolute law in this world, Ozul hadn’t used Mana to grow stronger at all!

With no Mana inside his body, the formation that detected where the infiltrator was, would never be able to find him.

In the end, it would be up to the guards to find the culprit, but Ozul was confident in his strength. After Emperor Luthien had left the Palace, there was not a single person who could stop him there.

The only reason that Ozul wanted to get more information was that all of these were just his assumptions.

He could very well be completely wrong, and the person in control of the formation might really find out that someone strong had managed to get in the estate. In that case, he would have to just improvise.

Though it would get chaotic if that happened, and he didn’t like creating such a mess.

‘Let’s see...’ Ozul muttered as he noticed Jinx was just about to cross the gate when one of the guards again shifted his attention to her.

“Go away!” the guard waved his hand in a lazy effort to drive off the black cat. In any case, the two did not pay much attention to the cat.

Though Jinx remained unfazed and ignored them.

‘Do it...’ Ozul muttered inside his mind as he noticed Jinx stopping just a single step away from the entrance.

As if Jinx was able to understand his command, she stepped inside, and at the same time, Ozul also jumped to the other side of the high wall.

*Ti’n!*

“!!!”

Immediately a sharp noise resounded throughout the Royal Palace, alerting all the guards on duty!

Every team that had previously been circling around the Royal Palace began to run back to the entrance.

Most of them had never heard this sound before, but they knew that it was some kind of alarm. Immediately, the whole Palace woke up and guards were seen running almost everywhere.

Meanwhile, the two guards stationed at the entrance looked at each other in astonishment. To them, it looked as if the strange black cat was the reason that the formation had set off.

But the formation was supposed to ignore a creature of that size! What happened? Did the formation somehow break down or was the cat a Magical Beast with Mana?

The two weren’t able to come to any answer. Just as they were thinking about what to do, a strict voice entered their ears with a refreshing scent invading their nostrils.

“What happened?”

Just as they heard the voice, a slightly old looking man suddenly appeared in front of the guards, making them stumble back in fright.

Only when they noticed his appearance did the two hurriedly stood up and composed themselves. With a shout, they saluted, “Sir Rufus!”

“Hm,” Rufus expressionlessly nodded his head.

He was in charge of the security in the absence of Emperor Luthien, so he was the first one to appear after the alarm alerted the whole Palace.

“What’s the situation?” he asked again, reminding the two guards that they had a situation at hand.

“We didn’t see anyone, Sir!” the guard hurriedly replied with another shout.

Rufus was about to nod his head and take control of the situation when he noticed that the companion of the guard who had shouted seemed to be evading his eyes.

“Do you have anything to say? If so, hurry up,” Rufus guessed that the guard might be nervous, but he didn’t have the time right now.

“I... it’s just that I think it was that black cat, Sir” the guard was nervous at first, but under Rufus’ glare, he hurriedly spat out what he wanted to say while pointing at the ground.

“A black cat?”Rufus squinted his eyes and followed the direction where the guard was pointing his finger.

“Where?” He didn’t see any cat on the ground.

Following this, the guards who knew that there was a black cat here hurriedly looked around but there was not a single trace of her.

“S-sir! We clearly saw a black cat crossing through the entrance and didn’t stop it since it seemed harmless...” the guards explained themselves with sweat dripping down their forehead.

If something went wrong, they wouldn’t be able to face the consequences. Hence, they quickly explained their thoughts.

‘A black cat? Why does it ring a bell in my mind...?’ Rufus thought. He felt as if he was on to something, but couldn’t put a finger on it.

“If what you say is true, then the cat might be a Magical Beast and you merely failed to recognize it. For now, instruct all teams that you see to find the cat,” Rufus ordered before making his way back inside.

The Royal estate was huge, and he would need to instruct all the guards to search for the infiltrator.

The two entrance guards nervously nodded their heads and started to instruct all the teams who came rushing there. The black cat, after setting off the formation, had instantly disappeared as if it was just an illusion.

Just when Rufus was going to head towards the Palace, a man wearing black clothes suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Sir Rufus, her Majesty sent a message,” the man fully covered in black clothes spoke in a robotic tone.

“I am listening,” Rufus answered. In the absence of Emperor Luthien, it was the Empress who had to make all the decisions.

“I will repeat her words... No foreign Mana signature was detected. Find the infiltrator as soon as possible,” the man gave Rufus the message and disappeared without waiting for him to reply.

What made Rufus confused was the fact that the formation didn’t sense any Mana signature at all.

‘So that cat was normal...’ Rufus realized that if the alarm had gone off with no Mana signature detected, a random drunk guy who managed to get up the wall would most probably be the reason behind it.

It was either that, or the formation really did start to act up and sounded the alarm only because of a stray cat stepping inside the estate.

This had never happened before, and Rufus also assumed the former to be the case this time.

Immediately, almost all the guards were mobilized to search for the drunk guy who had signed off his death warrant with this idiotic act.

After not finding anyone after an hour, half of the guards were ordered to even search near the Palace. However, they found not a single soul that didn’t belong there in the estate.

‘Did the formation really triggered a false alarm?’ Rufus could not help but sigh after not finding a single clue whatsoever.

The only thing he did know was that a strange black cat had stepped inside just at the same time when the formation had gone off.

All the guards were in a dilemma since each passing minute caused Rufus’ aura to flare up.

Unknown to all of them, Ozul watched this commotion play out from above a tree.

‘It worked!’ Ozul felt glad as the scene played out just as he hoped it would. The formation wasn’t able to detect him, and if he wanted to, no one else here had the ability to find him either!