237 Traps. (2/2)

It was a transparent box of glass. Inside, Ozul could see a big red crystal, shining with a bright red light.

'What is it...?' He questioned in his mind. That thing exuded a very strange kind of Mana that felt a little different to him.

Before trying to get closer, Ozul checked to see if there was any type of trap set up or not. Only when he was a hundred percent sure that there was nothing that could act as some sort of a trigger around the glass did he step forward.

He held the glass box and carefully lifted it up from the shining red crystal.

However, just as he had lifted the glass box halfway up, he noticed something that made his eyebrows shot up in shock.

'Damn it!' Ozul cursed in his mind because he noticed that it was actually the glass box itself that was exuding that strange dense Mana. And the red crystal under it was rapidly turning darker.

Without waiting for another second, he hit his feet on the floor, and Ball of Purity quickly covered him.

*Boom!*

The red crystal exploded, engulfing the whole room in flames!

The explosion destroyed almost everything in sight, while Ozul was thrown back and hit the wall, almost creating a hole in it.

Fortunately, Ozul had covered himself in the Ball of Purity at the last second. He didn't think taking the blast at point-blank range would've ended well for him.

As he removed the shield to look around the room, the whole room was still burning. The tall bookshelves were already reduced to mere ashes. The books certainly couldn't avoid that fate either.

”Fu... That was close...” Ozul muttered as he slowly stood up from the ground.

He had checked everything around the table and the glass box and found nothing before. He didn't think that the crystal itself would be explosive.

He had only realized in the last moment that the strange Mana he felt was actually from the glass box.

It was to lure the intruders into activating the red crystal that exploded and destroyed everything in the room.

An explosion of that size and power would have certainly even harmed a Rank-9 Mage at such a close distance.

When he looked around, the walls had big cracks. Parts of it already seemed to be ready to fall any minute now.

'They still held on...' Ozul was surprised that the walls could still stand after that explosion.

He sighed and looked for the other door that he had previously noticed when he had arrived.

Even after being so careful, he still fell for the trap. Although it didn't even scratch him, Ozul didn't like the fact that he was caught off guard.

Just when he was about to reach the door that had also somehow survived, Ozul noticed Jinx still on her spot, licking her paws.

”...”

Ozul had no words for the black cat that somehow didn't even find the need to move from its place in the face of that explosion that just reduced everything to cinders in the room!

'Oh right, I should let her lead...' Ozul remembered that Jinx somehow knew everything and had also previously stopped him from opening that trap room.

Ozul didn't know how Jinx knew everything or how she even survived the explosion, but he had realized that she was his safest option right now.

'Can she make it so things can just pass through her...?'

With such thoughts in his mind, Ozul made his way to the next room.

. . .

Meanwhile, in the throne room, the Empress was getting a report from Rufus when they suddenly heard the loud explosion that shook the whole Palace.

Rufus didn't know, but the Empress' was well aware of everything within the Palace. She instantly figured out what could have been the reason for the explosion.

”Sir Rufus, take charge of the royal guards and control the situation if any arises,” saying that the Empress stood up from her seat and waited for Rufus to leave the throne room before she turned towards the shadows and said,

”As of now, all of you are permitted to leave my side...”

Following her words, a couple of blurry figures moved and disappeared from the throne room. They were the hidden guards of the Royal family that only they knew about. All one of them had the strength of a peak Rank-8 Mage.

Though she had sent all of them to stop the intruder, the Empress wasn't sure if they would be enough because the infiltrator could very well be a Rank-9 Mage.

”I just hope he doesn't get involved...”