Warlock Apprentice

Angor could trick the senses of something weaker than him, but the near-wizard-level beings among the schools of fish, such as the Ignis Medusozoa, would merely shrug off his attempts.

However, he didn’t need to trick every single fish with his illusion. Just like how he dealt with the first encounter after entering the purification garden, all he needed was to cause a small ruckus among the fishes, and they would start a fight among themselves.

Once there were enough victims inside his illusion, he quickly felt like he was in control of everything. Soon, he unleashed a unique power that began to change the minds of the fishes.

A moment later.

As he expected, only one out of every ten fishes was affected by his trick; all of which were the weaker ones in the group.

He was quite surprised to see the mightiest being of all—the Lord of Tentacles—showed a brief moment of confusion inside his illusion.

The condition only lasted for less than a second, but it was enough for the Lord of Tentacles to slam its arms aimlessly while hitting several flying monsters, including the Ignis Medusozoa, which was not much weaker than the Lord of Tentacles itself.

The Lord of Tentacles had lost its sanity when someone stole its egg, which gave Angor an opportunity to manipulate its mind for a blink of an eye.

Added with the already confused fishes, the “arena” immediately fell into an utter mess.

After getting hit by the Lord of Tentacles, the Ignis Medusozoa quickly retaliated by unleashing more embers into the air, which killed countless fishes in the area. In the end, some of the stronger creatures like the whale-like monsters began to attack the Ignis Medusozoa out of self-defense.

Taking the chance, Angor activated Infinite Reticence. He then ejected his soul and moved to the edge of the mist illusion.

He couldn’t leave the illusion yet since doing so would cause his mind-tricking aura to fade. While carefully dodging stray attacks, he tried to further enlarge the illusion so that he had more room to run around.

The battle between the Ignis Medusozoa and the Lord of Tentacles was reaching its climax. Soon, the Ignis Medusozoa also began to build up its rage and grow stronger. At this point, more than half of the smaller fishes were already burned to ashes.

The originally pink-themed jellyfish-like monster turned completely red, just like how the Lord of Tentacles did. The jellyfish-like monster also began to unleash its wizard-level energy.

As their battle continued, more fish fell dead.

Angor felt glad about the success of his plan, but he was also terrified of their strength. If a stray energy stream caught him, it would shatter his body without a doubt.

Several of his illusion nodes were broken in the chaos, which caused the mist illusion to slowly go away. The smaller fishes saw how their “bosses” were dueling each other, and all chose to run away without minding Angor.

Soon, only the Lord of Tentacles and the Ignis Medusozoa remained behind as they continued to fight against each other.

Angor moved as far as he could the moment his illusion failed, and that was when Keely caught him on her broomstick and began to retreat.

Since that the Ignis Medusozoa was too big a threat to ignore, the Lord of Tentacles had to focus on its new enemy, which allowed Sinehowze’s group to move out of the dangerous area. The Lord of Tentacles saw this and tried to go after them, but it was soon dragged back by the “jellyfish”.

When it saw Sinehowze almost getting away, the Lord of Tentacles bellowed again and began to grow further in size. As it visibly gained another level in strength, blood started to seep from its skin.

Once again, the now enhanced pressure managed to catch up with the escaping apprentices and fixed them in place.

They felt desperate as their hard-earned hope vanished so soon.

They suddenly heard someone speaking in an emotionless, robotic voice, “Its strength has reached its peak. Bring forward the sacrifice.”

People looked back and saw Lawson, still in his black robe, had somehow shown up above the lava lake.

Lawson was watching the fight between the two monsters with a surprised look. Earlier, Muse mentioned that Angor might be the one to turn the tide, and he thought Muse was merely joking. But it really happened!

This didn’t mean Angor gained anything out of it. The boy only managed to escape.

But Angor still caused two powerful monsters, which would stay clear of each other’s territory, to meet up and fight. The battle even raised their strength somehow.

The Lord of Tentacles grew stronger purely out of uncontrolled rage. Once everything settled down, it would suffer a great side-effect that might strip all of its supernatural energy.

But that didn’t matter now.

Lawson came so that he could sacrifice both monsters while they were enjoying the temporary moment of their lives. And this would work even better than their original plan.

As he estimated, this incident would decrease the number of “fertilizer apprentices” by at least 20%, which meant Angor’s deed might have saved the lives of thousands of people.

Of course, Lawson didn’t care about the number of apprentices who died. He was just glad to see that less trouble would be directed at Floating Mech City.

…

Along with Lawson, a giant vortex also appeared in the sky. Following Lawson’s words, a towering, metal hand about a hundred meter in length emerged from it and covered up both the Lord of Tentacles and the Ignis Medusozoa.

Strong as they were, the two monsters were no match against Lawson. Not in the least.

With a simple squeeze, the metal claw ground the monsters to scattering energy that disappeared to nurture the garden.

With his job done, Lawson gave Angor a meaningful glance and vanished.

When the others saw both Lawson and the violent energy in the environment gone, they all sighed in great relief.

Loki sat up on the back of his rhino. “Oh, thank goodness! We’re safe. Are we safe?”

Kaboom!

The land in the lava zone exploded and more lava came splashing out like fountain water, turning the area into a dangerous ground for unwary creatures once again.

“Oh, you and your tongue!” Hermes slapped Loki’s head and yelled to Tana, “Let’s move! It’s better not to stay here.”

Tana checked Alan, who had fallen into a mild coma, and nodded.

Whichever side they were on, people all agreed that they should leave first. While doing so, no one said anything to break the silence. Although they would occasionally glance at a particular young man who was hanged on Keely’s broomstick by the back of his collar.

Lawson did come and deal with the wizard-level monsters. However, they all saw what happened earlier. That young man was the one who made the entire plan work out.

No one would regard Angor as a “coward” now. Obviously, no coward in this world was brave enough to fly around with a bunch of deadly predators chasing after him while making up something to provoke two wizard-level monsters.

And he succeeded!

They realized that the magazine wasn’t overstating Angor’s skill at all. Rather, they should have used better words.

As for Angor… he had yet to get over his stressful mind. He was still panting heavily while trying to calm his heartbeat.

While inside the battlefield, he didn’t really feel anything even though he was so close to the terrible monsters. Now that he had time to think about it, he felt terrified—one wrong move back there and both his life and his soul would be gone.

*Purr*

He felt something and looked around, only to see Keely’s cat, who had been sitting on her broomstick, hopped onto his shoulder and meowed at him.

Perhaps the creature sensed Angor’s troubled mind. It licked at his cheek gently.

Angor was a little surprised, but he was even more surprised when he felt his mood getting soothed.

“Luna said thanks,” Keely said in her usual cold tone.

“It did?”

“Yeah. It believes that without you, all of us would be dead.”

Angor felt something strange from Keely’s voice. She still sounded distant and unfriendly, but… not as distant as before.

“I was just saving myself…” Angor nodded. “Didn’t expect such an outcome though.”

Keely wanted to ask why Angor brought so many fishes to the lava zone in the first place. But on second thought, she felt that it wasn’t a good time to talk with people watching them, so she gave up and focused on controlling her broomstick.

Angor reached for Luna’s tiny head to show his friendliness.

And he totally wasn’t expecting to earn three bloody gashes on his hand.

Luna turned around, slapped his face with its tail, and returned to the broomstick.

“Cats… I’ll never understand them,” Angor complained as he used Heal on himself while glaring at Luna. The kitten seemed indifferent about what it just did whatsoever.

“Luna hates it when people touch it. If you must, try to do it when Luna’s happy,” Keely explained.

Angor glanced at the kitten in doubt. “So… is it happy or not?”

“Somewhere in between.” Keely reached out a hand and rubbed Luna’s chin. “Okay, it’s happy now.”

“Huh?!”

But there’s no difference! How can you tell? And wait, so the cat switches mood between seconds? Well, that doesn’t help!

“I just… know,” Keely said as if she managed to read Angor’s mind. “I know what Luna is thinking about.”

Angor couldn’t help complaining in his mind. Yeah right. They say pets resemble their masters. That so explains it!