Chapter 268 Only One Can Live
"Your soul will cease to exist…that I swear on the name I was given by the Origin itself!" Silvian screamed out, blood spilling out of his mouth as his decaying hand reached out for Nial's neck.
"But first of all, we will have some fun!"
Silvian's voice echoed through the Forest of Life, and a creepy smile formed on his burned face as he lifted his other hand that was tightly grasping an amulet.
The amulet began to glow, shrouding both Nial and Silvian.
"Let's fight for life and death, once and for all… My friend, it is time for our paths to separate!" He said coldly before his body started to get sucked inside the amulet.
Nial just listened to Silvian. The God of Saints and Devils seemed to have gone crazy, and Nial enjoyed this thoroughly. This was, at least, as crazy as the behavior Silvian showcased!
It may have been impossible to notice Silvian's teleportation behind him, and it was not possible for Nial to prevent being dragged inside the Dimension rift, but that was not something he cared about.
Nial could only smile as dark energy began oozing out of his body,
"Dude, I think you forgot who the hell you're facing," He gritted his teeth, while his eyes turned pitch black.
Nial's hand reached out for Silvian's neck, ignoring the bruise on his own neck.
Darkness shrouded his hand tightly. It enlarged, and his hand transformed into razor-sharp claws that were ready to tear the neck of the half-dead Silvian apart.
However, before Nial's Claw of darkness touched Silvian, both had been dragged inside the Dimension rift Battle mode amulet. They were separated and thrown out in a place neither of them had ever been.
"Tch! I almost had him," Nial said with a frown on his face.
He was currently lying on his back, sunlight was shining on his face, and a cool wind curled his clothes up.
The sound of rustling bushes and the chirping of birds rang in his ears, waking him from his stupor.
'There is an entire ecosystem within the amulet?' Nial thought in astonishment while simultaneously releasing his Mana sense.
Within seconds, he could tell that Silvian was not in his range of perception. But other than Silvian, there were other beasts, trees, bushes, and all kinds of plants, and there was even a small lake nearby.
The sunlight that shone on his face felt just like normal sunlight.
Nial was surprised. He got up from the ground and walked through the surroundings, his expression changing every now and then.
"To think that there is a working ecosystem within a small amulet's Dimension rift… I thought we would be teleported into some sort of Arena. That is bullshit," Nial grumbled in dissatisfaction.
Silvian was close to death, and he didn't have any mana left, while Nial was overflowing with power.
Even if Silvian ought to have an upper hand as he was at the Prometheus rank and Nial was supposed to be much weaker, the tides turned.
Nial was at an advantage right now, but the situation had changed once again.
'Just how big is that dimension?' Nial wondered while expecting the worst.
One could leave the dimension rift alive, so it was either do or die. Nial understood his situation very well. Giving Silvian weeks to recuperate would mean his inevitable death. Even a few days were already enough for Silvian to recuperate a bit.
Every second was important, and Silvian knew this just as well as Nial. Thus, even if he was a prideful man, Silvian would hide for a few days, biding his time and improvising to make sure that he could obliterate Nial, and escape the Elves' grasp the moment he was to leave the Dimension rift amulet.
Nial didn't want to give Silvian the chance to recuperate, so he stored the Dragonflame spear in his spatial ring before he began his search.
Mana circulated through his body when he began to dash through the small plain that bordered on a forest with huge trees.
'Right now, he shouldn't be able to control his mana fluctuations. He won't be able to heal properly if he concealed his power,' Nial concluded with a serious expression.
Without a second thought, he ran in the same direction and in a straight line for three hours, while keeping the same pace. Only then did he encounter a dome wall that blocked off any further advances. Nial was not able to sense anything behind the wall.
"200 kilometers…" He concluded while feeling a suffocated sensation passing through his entire body.
A radius of 200 kilometers was definitely not something he could take lightly. If he focused on his range of perception and his Innate ability [Mana Sense], the surrounding 10 kilometers could be easily perceived by him.
However, it was a problem that his perception beyond the range of 10 kilometers was rather weak. Nial would barely be able to differentiate a tree from a walking beast at that distance. Differentiating a beast from Silvian was something completely different.
"At least, I can sense unstable mana from injured existences. That will make it easier," Nial reassured himself while touching the dome's wall.
Nial was confident to find Silvian in the next few hours. But after the hours turned into days, his confidence crumbled.
Worry filled him because there hadn't been a single clue about Silvian's whereabouts.
"Where the hell is he? I've searched through the entire Dimension rift. He is nowhere to be found!!" Nial muttered in anger. Darkness energy oozed out of him, the ground below him cracked and the air around him turned eerily cold.
Without knowing Silvian's whereabouts it would become a cumbersome task to leave the Dimension rift's dimension alive and search for him.
In fact, Nial was pretty sure that Silvian had already recuperated a bit. By now, the Sacred Knights leader was definitely strong enough to face him head-on, once again.
After a week passed, Nial felt as if something within him had shattered. He couldn't understand the world anymore, and his thoughts were a jumbled mess.
'He cannot disappear from the Dimension rift as long as I'm alive… does that mean he is running away from me, or that he is hiding somewhere in isolation and away from my range of perception? He cannot engrave runic constellations here though.'
The Dimension rift weakened the runic constellations on runic armaments, and new runic constellations couldn't be engraved anywhere either. There were numerous other restrictions one had to face inside the Dimension rift.
Nial wasn't aware of all the restrictions, but he had figured some of them out.
Unfortunately, that didn't make things easier for him. Nial could only tell that Silvian couldn't use some sort of large-scale radar to find and avoid him. But it was not as if this fact changed anything about the situation.
'Wait…isn't something wrong with this beast? Haven't I perceived the exact beast more than a dozen times in the last three days?' Nial thought in confusion.
He was pretty sure that he could recall the beast because its mana was a little bit odd. However, after encountering it a few times, he predicted that there were entire packs of such beasts with these weird mana fluctuations.
'It is definitely the same as before!' Nial thought, growing certain that he was correct.
He may not be able to see, but his memory was quite good. In order to know who he was talking to, and who was approaching him from further away, Nial had to imprint everybody's individual mana fluctuations in his mind. This was his way of identifying the people around him, even if they were not close enough for his Mana Sense to visualize them!
Something was definitely odd about the beast that was only two kilometers away from him.
But instead of charging at it to startle the beast, he slowly made his way toward it.
At first, the beast didn't move but once Nial was less than a kilometer away from it, the beast began to move backward slowly.
The beast's pace was exactly the same as Nial's. When he slowed down, the beast, that was a wolf, slowed down as well.
The same happened when Nial's speed increased. The wolf accelerated its speed as well, just to keep a distance of exactly one kilometer from Nial.
'I got you, Silvian!' Nial thought as a bright smile emerged on his face. He knew that the wolf was not Silvian but that didn't matter.
He knew what was going on, and everything made sense now.
"You little bastard, to think that you would have gotten even slyer than before!" Nial cursed and clenched his fist. The ground below him burst open. Dirt and rubble were flung through the surroundings causing a small commotion.
Silvian had forcefully subdued the wolf to make him obey his orders. The wolf that was just a kilometer away from Nial was probably not the only beast that had been subdued by Silvian.
With his strength, this shouldn't have been easy. Silvian had been in a weakened state, and using his mana, or physical strength to subdue the beast would prevent him from healing.
'Considering that the wolf seems to have been fully subdued and that the beast is obediently following the orders he has been given, Silvian's condition must have worsened.' Nial concluded, and a faint smile emerged on his face.
Compared to just a few minutes ago when his hope had been shattered, Nial was feeling much better now.
An idea popped up in his mind, and without a second thought, he released his dark energy in various spots all over the ground.
Every now and then, Nial released dark energy on the ground, creating small dark spots that were hidden within bushes, next to plants, or in the shadows of the large trees.
Being inside the forest was definitely helpful. Nial kept working without taking a break. The ground was covered with dark dots that could be found everywhere as long as one knew where they were.
Nial had to use quite a bit of his accumulated dark energy, but he was perfectly fine with that. As long as it would help him to figure out Silvian's position, everything was fine!
After he finished laying out the dark energy, Nial distanced himself once again. He moved one kilometer away, leading the wolf straight into the area where all the dark energy was located.
It didn't need many brains for Nial to achieve this because the wolf's order seemed to have been quite simple.
'As long as you're on patrol, keep a distance of, at least, one kilometer.'
Earlier, the beast was two kilometers away from Nial but it was not able to sense him anymore when Nial restricted the use of his mana. Thus, the wolf had been forced to close the gap and inch nearer to Nial.
It was only a matter of time before one of the wolf's paws would get in touch with the spots of dark energy Nial had created. It stuck to the beast and marked it.
"Finally, I got you!" Nial mumbled, clenching his hand, "Now, return to your master, my little pawn!"
**
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