Warlock Apprentice

This is a gentle slope covered with black thorns. Looking around, aside from the thorns, there are hardly any other plants.

Black spores drift in the wind, overhead hangs a grey, misty sky.

Maya senses her surroundings, her mood tinged with hesitation. Not long ago, she was still seeking answers in the Mystery of the Stars as her heart desired, yet she ended up here.

Of course, not with her physical body but with her consciousness immersed in future time.

This future fragment is more weighty than any segment Maya has sensed before. She feels like a butterfly traversing time and space, personally arriving in the future world.

Maya can even freely observe her surroundings. Compared to previous fragments, her degree of freedom has greatly increased.

What is this place? Is it related to Angel?

Maya observes her surroundings. Although she cannot truly sense the surrounding energy, just by looking at the scenery all around, a complex feeling arises within her.

The environment here evokes a peculiar familiarity within her.

Where exactly is this?

As Maya wonders, the scene suddenly escalates, her vision slowly elevates from the ground to the sky. As she gazes at the misty sky, she seems to recall something and eagerly looks back at the ground.

Previously she hadn’t seen clearly, just noticed the area filled with thorns. Now, viewing from a height, it’s clear that this expanse of thorns stretches over thousands of miles.

The entire ridge is covered with black thorns, resembling countless undead hands reaching out from hell.

Maya gradually pulls her gaze back, and in the extreme south direction, she sees undulating mountains.

Looking at this continuous mountain range, Maya softly murmurs a name: ”Ancient Cold Ruins.”

Maya visited the Ancient Cold Ruins two hundred years ago, so she is quite familiar with the directions of the mountain ranges nearby.

Given that the extreme south is the Ancient Cold Ruins, there is no doubt this should be the surface layer of the Abyss.

And she is currently located in the northern area of the Ancient Cold Ruins—Thorn Ridge.

Thorn Ridge is known for being covered in Black Thorns, and indeed, it’s full of Black Thorns here, so Maya quickly determines her location. However, she still doesn’t understand what this future fragment intends to reveal to her.

As Maya investigates her surroundings in confusion, her peripheral vision suddenly captures something.

At the very center of Thorn Ridge, a mysterious firelight seems to flicker.

What is that place? Why is there firelight? As Maya contemplates, her viewpoint rushes madly towards the source of the firelight, like a meteor plummeting.

During the shift in viewpoint, Maya uncovers the truth of the firelight—a glow emanating from a third-floor window of a Gothic castle.

Maya wonders when a castle of obvious human architectural style appeared at the center of Thorn Ridge as her perspective crashes directly into the castle.

Once her view stabilizes, Maya finds herself inside the castle.

She is in a dark corridor, blocked at both ends by dense thorns, indicating that despite its seemingly long length, the corridor has less than ten meters of room for movement.

Within this space, there is a door.

Through the crack of the door, a faint light emerges, perfectly matching the room of the Gothic castle that previously had its lights on, but regrettably, the room’s door is locked and the situation inside is unobservable.

Yet from the shadows pouring through the crack, it’s apparent there are people inside.

After an unknown duration, Maya suddenly hears an eerie laughter emanating from beneath the corridor’s floor. Since she is on the third-floor corridor of the castle, the laughter presumably comes from the second floor?

The laughter is intensely unsettling, even though Maya isn’t within the physical environment, it still causes her skin to prick.

Soon after the laughter surfaces, Maya notices the glow radiating from the grand door being slowly pushed open, and a woman steps out, moving towards Maya’s vantage point.

Consequently, Maya gets a clear view of this woman’s face.

The woman wears a vibrant red magic robe like boiling blood, green hair, and her entire body brims with authentic thorns, which continuously maneuver across her clothes and beneath her skin.

”Is it her?” As Maya immerses in this future fragment and perceives the weight, she understands this fragment undoubtedly has a theme. However, she had not anticipated the protagonist of this theme would be—

Madeline!

Madeline ”Ruthless Thorn” Silian!

Due to the tragic massacre of the Silian family, Madeline, the survivor, was forced to leave her original wizard family, and after wandering for some time, she joined the Barbarian Cave.

Maya and Madeline are not well acquainted because Madeline wasn’t with the Barbarian Cave for long before being sent to the Abyss, and afterward, she didn’t return; no one knows where she went...

Last time Angel returned to the Barbarian Cave, he mentioned Madeline but didn’t elaborate much, saying she would remain in the Abyss for now.

Unexpectedly, Madeline stayed in Thorn Ridge.

As Maya ponders about Madeline’s information, the future-time Madeline passes through her body, heading to the corridor behind.

Prior to this, the corridor was swarmed with thorns, obstructing all paths. Yet, when Madeline walked past, the thorns naturally parted, and after Madeline left, they closed once more.

Maya’s viewpoint remains fixed on Madeline.

Madeline doesn’t appear calm, seemingly particularly concerned about the prior eerie laughter, urging her to swiftly run to the end of the corridor.

Upon reaching the corridor’s end, Maya notices there’s a Spell Technique wall here. The wall bears specific Spell Technique marks; only the spell caster can unlock the codes on the wall.

Evidently, this Spell Technique wall belongs to Madeline; she reaches out to touch the wall, then closes her eyes, slowly flexing the magic power in her mind space.

The Spell Technique wall begins to glow.

Just as the Spell Technique wall’s codes are about to unravel, Maya’s heart suddenly leaps; her gaze flips toward Madeline’s back.

Unexpectedly, the dense thorns quietly begin to move.

A pale, bizarre girl’s face emerges among the thorns.

Madeline concentrates on decoding the Spell Technique wall’s codes and fails to notice the anomaly behind.

Until, the face progresses outward—

Like a snake, the girl’s neck stretches longer, reaching Madeline’s nape.

The girl’s mouth also begins to tear open, instantly transforming into a terrifying giant maw.

Perhaps it’s the rancid wind from behind that prompted Madeline to turn abruptly, encountering nothing but that terrifying mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

In the next instant, the girl’s massive maw directly engulfs Madeline’s head.

Within the dark corridor, apart from the eerie laughter, shrill screams, there remains only the long-standing and incessant sound of chewing...