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After fighting for more than half an hour, Nial finally managed to defeat the blue-scaled Rhinoceros.

It had been a much harder battle than expected but he overcame it successfully. Now he could reap the rewards by devouring the corpse of the huge and powerful beast.

The beast turned into countless particles of pure energy that nourished the Heart of Darkness.

"I wonder how far I can enhance the Heart of Darkness…" He mumbled to himself as he lay down in the middle of the crater his battle with the blue-scaled Rhinoceros had caused.

Nourishing his Heart of Darkness was different from advancing his mana core rank. The more he nourished his Heart of Darkness, the more dark energy he could produce and the stronger his dark energy became.

Both his dark energy and the Essence of Darkness were stored, accumulated, and strengthened within the Heart of Darkness but there were too many things Nial didn\'t know about.

"Was Damian in possession of the Heart of Darkness as well? I didn\'t see it in his memories, so I don\'t think that he possessed it as well…does that mean it is something that belongs to me, and me alone?" Nial wondered as he tried to make sense of the Heart of Darkness\' existence.

He knew that the Odyssey seed had started to form after his mother\'s death. One could say that her death was the spark that initiated everything.

His raging emotions, the fact that he had been in possession of a trace of Cursed Divine energy, and his own energies had been important factors in the creation of the Heart of Darkness, but the two most important ingredients had been the Fragment of a God and the Ankh.

The Fragment of the Darkness God was different from the defective Lesser Divinity Fragment of Life, but Nial didn\'t really know what exactly it was.

"All these factors caused Damian\'s Fragment to evolve…but is that really it? Couldn\'t it have been a perk of me being a human? No, I doubt that…" Nial was trying to come up with theories to figure out more about the Heart of Darkness because it was the biggest obstacle in his emotional control.

The influence of the Heart of Darkness was something Nial was not able to control anymore. This hadn\'t been the case when the Odyssey seed had yet to evolve, which was why many things had been easier that time.

Now things had changed and Nial felt a little bit weird because he was not even sure whether he wanted to obstruct the Heart of Darkness\' influence or if he should just accept it.

"Seems like there is one more thing I will have to find on my journey…" Nial sighed before he got up from the ground. He headed in the direction of his designated destination while his mind was in big turmoil.

This slowed down his steps drastically and it made him think about getting his hands on a mount to travel around with.

\'Something comfortable to sit on and easy to control would be best,\' He thought while expanding his range of perception and [Mana Sense] to look for a suitable mount.

While traveling around for three days and searching for a suitable dungeon beast on his way, Nial came across various beasts that would be somewhat suitable.

However, Nial didn\'t even think of subduing them because he was not ready to waste his time taking care of a being that was not perfectly suitable to what he desired.

He would just start replacing one mount after another, which was stupid and not something he desired.

That was why Nial was so happy when he sensed a beast that was considered a cripple in the eyes of its brethren.

He had reached a small mountain range where Gryphons were flying around.

A Gryphon was a creature with the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle, and they occasionally possessed an eagle\'s talons as its front feet. That was how they usually looked as they towered over others with their three-meter height.

All the Grpyhons in the air were exactly like this, soaring through the air majestically. Nial might have been interested in them if he wouldn\'t found something even better than them.

\'Gryphons are considered extremely prideful existences that would rather die than subdue themselves and bow to someone who is not worthy of even standing in front of them. Using brute force would only make matters worse!\' Nial recalled something he had read about Gryphons and his smile became even brighter.

He focused on the ground and the only Gryphon that couldn\'t fly…a wingless Gryphon! His hyper-sensitive senses could clearly hear the miserable whimpers of the wingless Gryphon and Nial felt genuinely sad for it.

Seeing how all its brethren were able to do something naturally that it would never be able of doing made it caw in sorrow. Its face plainly showed the sorrow it felt at being abandoned and left behind on the ground.

Nial was pretty sure that it was even worse than being blind, or missing a limb as a human because he could still live in society, even if there may be certain difficulties \'ordinary\' humans wouldn\'t face.

However, as a  mutated and wingless beast, it stuck out like a sore thumb among the other Gryphons that almost had shunned it for being different. Its feathers and fur were mostly black in color while the other Gryphons were brown and white feathered. Nial couldn\'t see this but he could tell that the wingless Gryphon had a seed of darkness within him.

At least that was what Nial presumed as the Gryphon\'s screams were swept through with the darkness affinity. And that was exactly why Nial climbed the mountain to reach the cave of the Gryphons.

It may be dangerous since all the Gryphons were between the peak of the Prometheus rank and the Deux rank but Nial\'s mind repelled the thought of being bothered at the thought of danger.

He focused only on the wingless Gryphon and the thought of making it as his personal mount. There were multiple ways he could achieve this but Nial hoped to find a rather simple way to achieve his goals.

He wanted to avoid getting into too much trouble or spending too much time convincing the wingless Gryphon to journey with him.

Thus, the moment he reached the large cavern entrance of the Gryphons\' home, Nial released his Essence of Darkness which he spread out in a thin line toward the wingless Gryphon.

All beings related to darkness would be drawn to the Essence of darkness. With that in mind, Nial wanted to introduce himself to the Gryphon without scaring it.

He had only used bits of his Essence of Darkness before he calmly waited for the wingless Gryphon to approach him. The beast was not too far away from him and it could see him almost immediately.

Nial didn\'t seem to be very impressive to the Gryphon as it was only around 1.85 meters tall, with lifeless eyes and a mere mana core rank at the Lowest threshold of the Prometheus rank. Nonetheless, his Essence of Darkness was enough for the beast to approach him vigilantly.

It always cried out in misery whenever its family left him to go hunting because he was not able to fly, and until now nobody had ever cared about its miserable cries.

The wingless Gryphon was lonely, jealous, and unable to accept reality. Even now it was of the belief that its wings may grow soon and that it would fly again.

Yet, despite not accepting the reality and fighting against it day in and day out, the Gryphon fell silent at the sight of Nial.

It was intrigued about the crippled being that didn\'t possess a high mana core rank and not a single trace of mana or vigor around its eyes.

Nial smiled in the direction of the Gryphon, trying to make it like him but that was far from easy.

The wingless Gryphon started to make low high-pitched noises which it repeated several times as if it was trying to communicate with him.

"Are you trying to talk to me? I\'m sorry but I don\'t know any language which the dungeon beasts can understand as well…" Nial could only say with a complex expression on his face.

He had planned lots of things to convince the Gryphon to follow him but the language barrier was definitely the biggest problem.

With that in mind, Nial chose the easiest way to make sure that the Gryphon would understand that he had good intentions in his mind.

He removed his shirt and turned his naked back in the direction of the Gryphon. The beast was confused and its wild instincts were urging it to attack Nial right now.

However, instead of attacking, the wingless Gryphon watched in awe as darkness protruded out of Nial\'s back. After fusing with Kaeldur multiple times, Nial could manifest wings of darkness to fly through the air.

His ability to fly using his dark energy was probably also something he learned from the memories of the late God of Darkness but that was not really important right now.

The only important fact was that darkness could be used to fly through the air, which was what Nial intended to show the wingless Gryphon.

Sadly, his efforts had the opposite effect and the wingless Gryphon took his actions as a provocation. It screeched at him in anger and charged forward with a shocking speed.

For a moment, Nial was pretty sure that the wingless Gryphon was faster than the blue-scaled Rhinoceros. This made things a lot more difficult and Nial shot in the air while he used a large amount of dark energy that shot and merged with the ground.

He didn\'t want to injure the wingless Gryphon because he felt that he could help it while making use of the monster.

Nial didn\'t want to acknowledge it but he felt sympathetic to the beast. The beast was special in its own way, whether that was advantageous or not and it was rejected because it was different.

Thus, Nial wanted to give his utmost to make sure that the Gryphon would be unscathed while he wanted to convey what exactly he desired from the Gryphon.

This was not difficult because he had just enraged the Gryphon but Nial felt that he would be capable of changing the beast\'s opinion of him.

The only troublesome part would be to make sure that no other Gryphon would attack him because he was currently making use of the fact that he was able to fly while the wingless Gryphon could only use its darkness affinity to attack him from afar.

Nial manifested many balls of darkness that he shot toward the cavern entrance to spread his dark energy further to make sure that his plan was working out.

\'If that doesn\'t work, I will either be eaten alive, or I will have to leave!\' Nial thought in his mind but he smiled nonetheless.

Somehow, the current situation was quite enjoyable to him, especially since he would get what he wanted while helping a miserable creature to become stronger and accept its flaws.

That was something Nial would not be generous with which was a change to his earlier behavior. Now he would only think of extending a helping hand once or twice before he would feel that it was too troublesome to help others while giving his all.

But that was fine because he was currently helping because he wanted to, not because he was forced to do something!

**

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