204 Ambushing Behlam
Behlam Dorian had night blindness from when he was a kid.
Usually, impairments like these would get cured when mortals became rankers. But Behlam experienced mana circuit anomalies when he was breaking into the Meta rank. This forced him to live with the handicap he was born with even when he had entered the Awakened rank.
Behlam felt his night vision improving when he broke into the Awakened rank. But it was a far cry from the normal vision he would have when there was enough light. All he could see at this point was a blur.
For obvious reasons, Behlam kept this secret closely guarded. He didn’t tell anyone in the guild about it. But a perceptive person like Ariadne had guessed his condition after seeing him operate in a previous job before the cultist hideout mission.
She saw that Behlam would depend on his mana sense more when it was nighttime. It allowed him to function as a normal ranker even though he could see almost nothing with his eyes.
Ariadne was already thinking of her exit strategy when she knew how serious the conflict was between the House of Spiders and the Stardust guild. She had plans of honey-trapping Behlam when they reached the city of Ludan after seeing the loot he was carrying.
As such, Ariadne had made preparations in that direction. She got her hands on a potion bomb from the black market that could temporarily inhibit the mana sense of the rankers that were in the vicinity. She added the blinding effect to the potion bomb just as a precaution.
Ariadne dropped the idea of messing up with Behlam after she found out that he was planning to get inside the guild’s secure facility after the mission. She knew she could mess with Behlam just enough to get her hands on his possessions. But she couldn’t fight or fool an entire guild.
However, Ariadne’s plan was revived in a revised form when she teamed up with Eren. The revised plan would make her share her gains with him. But it would also be relatively safer since Eren would be the one doing the heavy lifting.
Plus, instead of just letting Behlam go and painting a target on her back, it was much preferable for Ariadne if he got killed for good. That way, she could keep her presence in a dying organization without anybody being the wiser. Even if she leaves the Spiders after this day, she will not cause any trouble for herself.
Thus, after getting rid of Polo, Ariadne quickly retreated into the distance, allowing Eren to take over. Even if Behlam was blind, she couldn’t help Eren in the hunt seeing how dangerous he was even without his vision. Only someone like Eren stood a chance of defeating him because of his impairment.
***
“Bastard, who the fuck are you? Are you from that wretched Stardust guild?”
Behlam asked in a tone of suppressed anger. In response, he received the silent treatment from Eren.
The battlemage maintained a safe distance from Behlam while observing his moves. He knew that if the guy managed to get hold of him, his condition would be worse than a punching bag. The hunt for an Awakened ranker, who was close to receiving a further rank-up, was a bit exciting for him.
“That bitch Raina with you?”
Behlam answered his own question right afterward.
“Naah. It would have been game over for me if she had come here. You smell like a newbie I haven’t encountered before. Who the fuck told you about my condition?”
The moment Eren finished speaking, Behlam tried to pinpoint Eren’s recent position. Too bad, the battlemage had already moved to a different place.
Eren knew that he had 10 minutes before Behlam started using his mana sense once again. He was just not trying to charge out of the mana-sense inhibiting area blindness because of the fear of being surrounded and falling into a trap. If he knew that Eren was the only one targeting him, he would have charged out of the affected zone and waited for the cloud to disappear. This would have helped him get rid of Eren.
With a stressed mentality, Behlam was on his toes. He was still recovering from the injuries Raina had given him. Plus, his morale had shaken a bit because of Polo dying not too long ago. This was the right time to get him.
Eren dropped the array disk he took out of the storage and stepped on it. It was the same array disk that he had used to start Igni Lotus instantly. The array also amplified the effects of Igni Chains.
The array disk’s shelf life was liable to decrease if Eren used it to amplify the effects of his Igni Chains. He was set to run the array disk up to 20 times without the amplification. But after using it, that number was bound to reduce to less than half.
Eren did not care about wasting the mana quartz invested in the artifact that he had paid handsomely for allowing him to take down someone of Behlam’s stature. He imbued his mana into the array disk and cast his spell.
Igni Lotus!
Behlam saw that the blur in front of his vision was suddenly illuminated when he found himself inside the domain of Eren’s AOE spell. The dark blue blur now turned into a visibly orange blur.
Igni Bolt Blast
Eren took out his crossbow from his storage and started shooting Behlam with a bunch of Igni Bolt Blasts. By then, the inside of the domain was engulfed in orange and red flames. The amplifying effect from the array disk made these flames even more potent, giving them quasi-Rank-2 properties.
Behlam felt like he was suddenly immersed in the pool of lava that was slowly trying to burn him. He was somewhat fine when the flames first made contact with him as they were not cast using Rank-2 mana.
But then he started getting targeted by Igni Bolt Blasts. The fire-element arrows were now benefitting from the fire-element domain Eren had created for them. Behlam knew that their potency would eventually breach his mana defense layer and burn him alive.
The attacks also made the Awakened Spider aware of something very crucial.
“Are you fucking kidding me? What gave two Meta-rank frogs in a well the confidence to target someone like me?”