Warlock Apprentice

From his position, Angor could see the animal nudging its head against the pile of broken flesh, which looked like a beast scavenging a corpse. But he waited for a moment and noticed that the corpse remained still without depleting.

“Is it eating at all?” Angor raised an eyebrow and approached the puppy to check more closely. Why would the animal “dig in” the corpse without consuming it? Was it enjoying the smell?

The puppy heard Angor coming and turned around to look at him while its snout was covered in blood.

This was when Angor realized why Toby wanted him to pay attention. There was a dark energy stream that connected the puppy’s mouth and the dead corpse.

Hookdick’s body had broken into several parts and scattered everywhere. It seemed the dog was searching among these meat parts while absorbing the strange energy contained within them.

Angor immediately thought about certain monsters he read about before, who loved draining the energy of lives from humans.

But at the same time, he felt something familiar with the energy.

“Is that…?”

Toby landed on his shoulder and whispered something while displaying some gravity energy, which appeared as gray ripples in the air.

Angor looked between Toby’s gravity power and the strange energy being “eaten” by the puppy.

“It’s absorbing the sequence of a law?”

The sense of a “natural law” coming from Hookdick’s corpse wasn’t very strong. Angor recalled that Hookdick had been training at somewhere called the “Soul Soil”, which suggested that Hookdick might have received a soul-related law from it. And according to what Angor heard from Ness before, this “Soul Soil” was likely the name of a Sorcerer’s Garden intended for Soul Manipulators.

It seemed Hookdick managed to comprehend the soul-related sequence from the Sorcerer’s Garden. The power he acquired was too shallow to be considered useful yet, but this already proved that Hookdick was quite a superb talent.

This law was likely what kept Hookdick “safe” from the parasites. Although it didn’t help him defeat Angor. And when he died, that power only went to waste.

Wait…

Compared to Hookdick’s terrible fate, Angor was more interested in why a dog could “eat” the sequence power of a natural law.

From his earlier experience, he suspected that the animal might be a Mystery spirit or a Mystery item. Was “absorbing sequence power” something it was meant to do? Could such power still work after going to someone else like this?

Angor tried and gave up on thinking. And since he could not ask the monsters for Nausica’s whereabouts for obvious reasons, he had to look for Nausica on his own for now.

With this in mind, he told Toby to ignore the puppy and returned to inspecting the remaining clowns.

Toby’s lamp was broken just now, but the burning house nearby had provided enough light, if not brighter than before.

Like before, Angor stood beside the exit of the interlayer, while Toby scout above the leaving clowns.

Half an hour later, over 80% of the gathered citizens had left this area, leaving about a hundred more people behind. And Angor still had not found Nausica among them.

The last clown left their view soon. Nausica was nowhere to be found.

Angor grimaced as he wondered why Nausica was separated from her teammates. He looked back and saw both Shiliew and Shan still being restrained by his gravity power. Shan looked a bit terrified when receiving his attention, while Shiliew was snoring loudly.

Angor could not use his Nightmare Domain in his soul form, which meant removing the parasites from the ladies and asking them questions was a no-go.

He then tried to think of an excuse that might convince Fox and Froggy into helping him, but he could not find any.

If I can’t use excuses… how about requesting so directly and see what happens?

Fox saw Angor looking at her and approached him. “Did you finish picking your slaves, Lord Shava?”

Froggy followed closely behind. “Praaaaise the queen, croak! Although it pains me to say that we have not the moon’s blessing, I still would like to express my love for the moonlight to Lord Shava!”

Angor’s lips twitched. Those words somewhat sounded like a man’s confession.

“Ahem, music is a fine art that does not fit in this burning environment. I surely cannot let you perform when there is black smoke around us.”

“Croak! The fire cannot snuff out my passion for poetry. I shall present a FIERY anthem of war to Lord Shava!”

Angor felt choked when hearing Froggy’s emotional outburst and could not think of anything to discourage the frog from proceeding.

“All… alright. Fire and heat do contribute to ardor and devotion. I wonder what lucid and fascinating ballad I’ll be witnessing!” Angor spoke dryly.

Froggy immediately found several crates somewhere and made a stage to stand on.

“Please do not mind this simple setup. It will not hinder my spirit, croak!” Froggy took a deep breath as his chest area swelled bigger than a woman’s breasts.

Fox did a back-flip, landed beside Froggy, put down a wooden bench, and prepared her harp.

Angor would admit that the fox monster looked rather elegant. Bewitching, even. Her music usually sounded refined, as long as Froggy was not singing. And when he did, Fox would adjust her melodies accordingly, which meant something weird and creepy to go with Froggy’s voice.

This was exactly what was happening right now.

Froggy was doing his best to present that “passionate hymn of war”, but Angor only heard poor wording and terrible cliché that did not make much sense. The beautiful picture of a gentle moon Froggy was trying to paint was fine, but it didn’t go very well when he mixed it with battlefield and dead bodies.

A story of war would be fine. Yet Froggy insisted on blending his love for tender moonlight into that story which sounded neither fish nor fowl.

The performance was made worse when Fox had to occasionally create sharp noises that sounded like scratching on a chalkboard to go with Froggy’s “changes of events”.

Angor endured the almost painful show while trying not to frown too obviously.

When Froggy finished a period, Angor did his best to show a smile. “What a heartbreaking story!”

Yeah, heartbreaking, literally.

He waited helplessly as Froggy prepared to keep on. He told the monsters that he’d listen to their show, and there was no backing out now.

A golden string suddenly came from the sky and cut one of Froggy’s crates in half.

“This is Yorkshire’s puppet wire.” Fox put down her harp.

“Croak! Shite! Is this dum-dum trying to ruin my concert?! The moon will hate him! Yes, it will!”

Angor raised an eyebrow as he recognized the golden string as the same ones that controlled that puppet girl earlier.

But isn’t Yorkshire fighting with the professor?

The string suddenly twitched and began to pulse with a strange energy signature.

Fox closed her eyes for a second before she stood up. “Yorkshire is calling us. It seems he has met some trouble.”

“Go yourself. I’m staying here!” Froggy made a sullen face.

“So it will be then.” Fox didn’t seem concerned about Froggy’s response. After excusing herself, Fox took off and dashed into the darkness beyond the interlayer.