Warlock Apprentice

Keely was gazing at Jebra excitedly like a tiger that just caught a helpless goat.

Jebra was still trapped in Angor’s illusion and couldn’t see Keely’s exact location. In his view, there were countless Keelys slowly moving to him, and every one of them looked real.

“You… psycho!” Jebra sounded pretty weak now.

“On the day my parents died, I SWORE that I’ll kill everyone related to Flunza, EVERY, SINGLE, ONE! And you shall be the first!”

Keely did not drag any longer and unleashed a giant ember at Jebra.

Jebra felt terrible. Half of his blood was on fire while the other half was slowly corroding his body like poison. Shiliew said something about “boiling the sea and turning it into poison”, and she diligently followed through.

His inner flame already scorched and burned off all his body hair, and his skin was of a dim purple color because of the effect of the poison. His once nobleman-like image had turned miserable.

Earlier, Feshie tried but failed to cure his condition. Therefore, Jebra had to put up a bounty on Shiliew so that someone could capture her. Once captured, he could then force her to remove the terrible trickery in his body.

However, the only thing Shiliew did was to grow even more violent. She then caused Jebra’s condition to worsen further.

Then, another madwoman arrived.

Keely wasn’t strong enough to defeat Jebra under normal circumstances. But now…

Jebra wondered if he were destined to die this day.

He clenched his teeth and reached for a rainbow-colored fish scale hanging on his neck. He then shattered it. His action created a shiny, bubble-like barrier that shielded him from Keely’s ember attack.

“Ohh, that color… the best Scale Shield.” Keely quickly recognized Jebra’s trick since she had been hunting him for so many years. “But that thing can’t help you get away now. Your life is mine the instant your shield fails!” She didn’t stop releasing more attacks against the shield while yelling.

Somewhere in the sky away from the battlefield, a black hole suddenly appeared and dropped a shiny sphere that slowly sank into the sea. It then broke apart and became one with seawater.

As soon as the fragment reached the sea, those who were exploring underwater all heard a booming noise right beside their ears.

As they wondered what was going on, they all witnessed the image of someone floating in front of their eyes.

Inside the image, a wizard wearing a longbow was inspecting a giant ice boulder inside a cave area. As the man’s hand glowed with a green light, the ice boulder cracked up and gave birth to a black shadow.

The shadow turned out to be a large Duon who resembled humans on his upper half while his legs were replaced with the tail of a fish. The Duon had a crown on his head and a deadly-looking trident in one hand. Meanwhile, his eyes showed pure evil.

When the Duon slowly looked around, those who watched all felt a horrific and powerful aura reaching their bodies.

They could sense the aura across the image, which meant the Duon creature was at least wizard-level.

The image disappeared as soon as the Duon was awake.

When the apprentices were trying to figure out what the information meant to them, they heard someone else speaking to them in an emotionless, robotic tone:

“The forefather of Duons has risen ahead of schedule, and so, the sacrifice of civilization will begin earlier. Everyone, please proceed to the Altar of Demise within three hours.”

The message ended here.

The voice did not tell them what would happen if someone didn’t achieve the goal. However, they could more or less take guesses, none of which seemed like a good ending.

Those who had yet to reach the altar remained motionless for a brief moment.

Three hours left?

But how?!

The Sea of Purification was HUGE, and the participants got sent to random locations upon reaching this place. Even if they knew the location of Altar of Demise right from the start, there would still be some that wouldn’t have enough time to reach it. This was downright unfair.

There was no fairness and justice in the wizarding world, but the Floating Mech City should at least attempt to achieve a certain extent of justice in order not to dissatisfy major organizations who sent their elite apprentices to them.

But now, this decision just broke that rule. No one was expecting the final countdown to begin so early.

“What’s going on?!” Shan exclaimed in shock and widened her eyes as she remembered the man she saw in the image. “That’s ‘Wanderer of Wilds’ Kayaso!”

The voice told them that the giant Duon woke up “earlier”, which meant he wasn’t supposed to wake up now and trigger the timer.

It had to be Kayaso who caused a change in plan.

Everyone began to curse Kayaso’s name, while the “culprit” himself didn’t even realize that he became the center of enmity. In fact, Kayaso was happily working on his traveling diary so that he could recreate the glorious achievements of his ancestor.

“What should we do? There’s no way we’ll make it! I don’t have a Meraid’s Sword, and I don’t know where the altar is! I’m… I’m done!!” Shan covered her head and trembled in desperation.

Keely’s mood didn’t look any better. Even her attacks against Jebra were getting weaker and unfocused.

“Leave him. We need to go!” Angor dragged her away.

“We can’t make it anyway! I’ll kill him so that I have one less regret before I die!”

Angor let Keely go by pushing her into another direction. “And you think you can break his barrier any faster?!” He quickly thought about the teleportation array under Tulip Palace. “We have three hours… There’s still a way.”

Keely considered and agreed that Angor might really make it in time using his gravity-enhance speed.

However, she didn’t know that Angor almost exhausted what soul energy he could use. There was no way he could gather enough energy OR keep his body alive without a soul for three full hours just by drinking the witch stew.

“Listen, let him go for now. If we move now, we still have a chance,” Angor said as he replaced his casual and relaxed look with a more serious one.

Keely hesitated for a bit and nodded in the end. She gave Jebra one last hateful glare and canceled her embers.

Angor approached Jebra and said to him while ignoring Jebra’s hateful gaze, “Keely may not get through your shield any time soon, but I can. I can either forcefully end your life or trap you here with an illusion so that you’ll naturally die in the end.”

Jebra’s ears twitched—he fully understood Angor’s words.

“But unlike Keely, I have no grudges against you, so I have no reason to kill you.”

“What… what do you want?” Jebra coughed up some more blood.

“Three swords. Give me three Meraid’s Swords and I’ll take Keely away AND lift the illusion.”

Before reaching Jebra, they already detected over a hundred signals coming from the man’s location. This was why Angor asked for such a thing.

Jebra plundered an entire Dugon tribe, which gave him enough swords. He knew how to reach the altar in time, on the condition that Angor stuck to his promise and free him.

Since the exchange seemed reasonable, Jebra chose to agree. “Okay… Hope you don’t go back on your words.”

Jebra took out six gray scales from his horned whale. He then combined them into three Meraid’s Swords before handing them over to Angor.

With a swift move, Angor canceled his illusion.

Jebra quickly hopped onto his whale and left this area with Feshie. Keely didn’t say anything about it. She knew that Angor could kill Jebra for real, yet she was in no position to request so.

Killing Jebra meant provoking the entire Song of the Deep including “God of Seas” Flunza. Keely would not want to drag Angor into this. And besides, she was always determined to finish her quest by herself, which was why she interfered with Shiliew earlier.

Angor nodded to Keely and returned to Shan, who was still sulking badly.

“Hey, get up,” Angor said as he tossed a sword at Shan. “Do something to wake Shiliew and let’s go find Nausica.”

“Heh… so what? Three hours… there’s no hope…”

“Stop wasting everyone’s time if you still want to live! I can do something but you need to help me first!”

Shan didn’t feel any happier, but a part of her decided to place her trust in Angor.

Shan went to Shiliew, who was looking left and right with a plain expression.

“You’re still going for Nausica? You sure you’ll make it?” Keely asked.

Angor didn’t answer. He was trying to calculate and arrange the available time so that his next plan would work. He would admit that going for Nausica was a great burden to their schedule, yet he couldn’t convince himself to abandon Nausica like this.

He prayed that Nausica would act heroically again by going back to Tulip Palace to look for Shiliew. As long as Nausica was there or somewhere nearby, Angor was confident that he had enough time to rescue her.

But if not…

“Shiliew sensed her. Nausica’s right at Tulip Palace! I think she went back there to help Shiliew.” Shan had finished explaining the situation to her friend.

Angor’s eyes brightened up. “Let’s move. That’s where we will go.”