Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2222: Chapter 2223: Asymmetric Battle

”Just as Kamil said, the winds here are in a special state.”

The Soft Wind, Fuyi, entered the Mist Battlefield and immediately felt an atmosphere distinct from the outside.

Although there was still wind here, the wind seemed to be split into countless segments; you could only perceive the wind around you.

As soon as you walked a few more steps, the familiar wind from before changed its nature again.

It seemed as if the entire Mist Battlefield was in an unstable space, where each step transported you to a different location, rather than a continuous and complete path.

Therefore, the wind perceived by Fuyi was quite fragmented.

However, even if the wind felt disconnected, it didn’t mean the wind was actually interrupted. Its essence remained continuous; the contradictory situation was very likely due to external intervention.

As for what kind of force it was, considering the words of the Dangross group and the past information obtained from Mr. Feng about the Wizard World, Fuyi had a vague answer in mind.

It paused for a moment and controlled a strand of soft wind casually, attempting to send a message outward.

But when the strand of wind entered the mist, it didn’t leave the battlefield; instead, it vanished.

Fuyi seemed to have anticipated this phenomenon and, after pondering briefly, chose not to experiment further. It directly ventured into the depths of the mist.

During the journey, Fuyi encountered no danger, yet the mist enveloped it all around, as if it had entered a misty cage. If it weren’t for its ability to detect the scent of wind at different stages, it might have wondered whether it was standing still.

It kept walking, seemingly walking aimlessly, yet in truth... it was indeed walking aimlessly.

It had a general direction in mind for its search but hadn’t yet found the right timing. So, it decided to wander around, measuring this peculiar mist with its steps.

After walking for about three minutes, Fuyi stopped.

”Hmm... familiar wind, but not a familiar place.” A glint of joy appeared in Fuyi’s eyes; unlike others trapped without escape, its understanding of wind far surpassed the illusionist’s arrangements.

Therefore, even though Angel took all considerations, including energy interception, element distribution...etc., into account when setting up the illusionary realm to make 99% of those trapped feel confused, before the true essence of ”wind,” clues to breakthrough could still be found.

Like now, after wandering aimlessly, Fuyi smelled the familiar wind.

And from the familiar wind, it sensed the paths the wind once traveled.

Even though the illusion was constantly changing, the essence of the wind would not change. It simply needed to encounter the segments of wind along different paths to gradually understand the entire illusion.

This was indeed Fuyi’s plan.

Proven feasible, as it sensed the familiar wind, its mood gradually became lighter, following the wind’s path forward.

Around five minutes later, a vague wind trail formed in Fuyi’s mind.

Many scenes within the trail emerged before its eyes.

In the incomplete scenes, it finally saw things besides mist.

It was a wind-type creature, shaped like a green-black wind eye. Fuyi had never seen a similar wind-type creature on Wind Island before; undoubtedly, this should be one of Hurricane’s subordinate brought to conquer Wind Island.

The wind eye silently stayed in the mist, looking left and right, seemingly waiting for something.

Fuyi thought for a moment, turning its body into an invisible wind, drifting close to the wind eye along the wind trail.

As it emerged from the mist, excitement flickered in the single eye of the wind eye, and it couldn’t help but approach. But when it recognized the incoming as Fuyi, disappointment clearly reflected in its pupil.

”So it’s Prince Soft Wind.” Despite its disappointment, the wind eye secretly sighed in relief. Should it encounter other wind creatures from White Cloud Village, it wouldn’t fare well, but as long as it didn’t provoke Soft Wind, a prominent being like Fuyi, the wind eye knew it wouldn’t endure any hardship.

The wind eye was indeed wise, as Fuyi had no intention of dealing with it but came to inquire about the Mist Battlefield.

The wind eye didn’t hide anything, narrating its experiences wholly. It hoped Prince Soft Wind could take it away from here, even if it meant capture by Wind Island.

However, Fuyi hadn’t found a way out itself, let alone able to bring the wind eye along. So, after listening to its experiences, Fuyi turned to leave.

The haste in its departure resulted from two aspects: firstly, the wind eye lacked useful information, only confirming the strength enveloping the Mist Battlefield; secondly, because Fuyi smelled familiar wind again, and this time from the wind trail, it saw a familiar figure.

One of Hurricane’s four great wind commanders—Komira.

The wind trail indicated that Komira was constantly moving, and if not pursued quickly, Komira might leave the wind trail again.

Within seconds, Fuyi, going full throttle, finally witnessed the massive tri-headed creature resembling a small hill in the distance—it was Komira.

As it approached Komira, intending to communicate, close observation revealed that Komira was unlike the previous wind eye, free-thinking, and mobile; it seemed to be trapped in some kind of hallucination, completely ignoring everything around it, walking mindlessly in Mist Battlefield as the wind blew.

Fuyi studied Komira’s situation closely and discovered something slightly horrifying.

Upon entering the Mist Battlefield, Fuyi immediately felt the enveloping energy within. After verifying some facts along with its analysis, it discerned this Mist Battlefield was likely shrouded by a powerful illusionary realm.

In other words, the Mist Battlefield originated from an illusion crafted by a human called Angel.

Previously, Fuyi believed the illusion’s persistence relied on Angel continuously expending energy, but upon seeing Komira, it realized its assumption was incorrect.

On Komira, Fuyi identified a connection echoing the aura of the illusionary realm.

This illusionary realm was set by Angel, but its maintenance wasn’t through Angel; instead, it was Komira.

Relying solely on Komira’s power might not suffice; perhaps aside from Komira, other wind commanders also functioned as similar ”energy suppliers.”

If this were truly the case, Fuyi contemplated a way to dismantle the illusionary realm.

By directly removing these energy suppliers, without subsequent energy supply, this illusion would naturally dissipate.

Yet how to remove them? If one did not comprehend illusions, there was but one method—to kill the energy suppliers completely.

With this thought, Fuyi couldn’t help but gasp.

With Hurricane currently trapped within the Mist Illusion, it believed, considering Hurricane’s strength, if it encountered Komira in the Mist Battlefield, it would certainly discern this information.

Perhaps Angel intentionally left this for Hurricane.

If Hurricane wished to escape, without Angel’s assistance, it would have to ultimately eliminate its closest wind commanders...

”Such ruthless methods. Teacher Kamil was right, human Wizards really shouldn’t be easily offended. Their methods are not only extraordinary, but they even make their opponents cut their own flesh... Hmm, was this said by Teacher Kamil or by Kalomchis?”

Gentle Breeze Uranus didn’t dwell on who said it. Anyway, when it saw Chimaera, it had already secretly decided in its heart to never offend Angel.

Seeing Chimaera, who was controlled by an illusion and became unaware as an energy provider, Gentle Breeze Uranus did not rashly act but instead gave a look of pity before turning away.

The information Chimaera provided was not just about being an illusion node, but it also sensed the extension of illusion energy from it.

It guessed that as long as it followed the flow of this illusion energy, it might be able to see other illusionary nodes.

It planned to check other nodes to confirm whether its guess was right, whether all the Wind Generals had become illusionary nodes.

Moreover, Gentle Breeze Uranus had a premonition that perhaps Hurricane had also discovered the matter of the illusionary nodes. As long as it found Hurricane, Angel should also be able to meet soon.

Five minutes later, Gentle Breeze Uranus found the enormous mountain floating in the mist—Kraken.

And as it imagined, Kraken was also one of the nodes.

After leaving Kraken, it continued along the vein of illusion energy derived from Kraken. This time, it took about ten minutes to find the last illusion node.

Upon reaching the region constructed by the Tri-headed Lionhound illusion node, it unsurprisingly saw the two targets it had been searching for in the Mist Illusion.

Angel, whose intentions were unknown, good or bad.

And Hurricane, who undoubtedly came with malice.

...

When Angel and Earl Mi found Hurricane, it had already located the illusionary node formed by Lobal.

However, just as he had previously guessed, Hurricane did not attack Lobal. Even though it already knew Lobal was an important node of the Illusionary Realm.

It just stood silently near Lobal, waiting.

It believed that Angel, who created this illusion, would surely come to find it.

Hurricane could not attack its closest companion, so if it wanted to break the illusion, it had to kill Angel, the creator of the illusion.

So it waited quietly.

And indeed, it waited for Angel.

But it was not just Angel; Earl Mi, restored to peak strength, was also there.

There was almost no rank difference between Hurricane and Earl Mi, but in terms of combat strength, Earl Mi far surpassed Hurricane.

Thus, not even Earl Mi alone was someone Hurricane could rival, let alone with Angel added.

Angel came with Earl Mi, primarily to restrain Hurricane and prevent it from escaping.

This time, Hurricane was not prepared to run because behind it was its dearest partner, and only by winning this battle could it free the three Wind Generals.

Thus, for Hurricane, a battle where retreat was not an option began.

Yet, Hurricane’s determined resolve could not compensate for the gap in real strength.

This battle was entirely asymmetrical. Even without Angel’s assistance, Earl Mi was already pressing Hurricane. Moreover, Angel was also on the side, constantly constraining Hurricane through manipulation of illusion techniques.

Obviously holding the upper hand and going two against one might not sound fair, but Angel was not one to pursue lofty goals. Since they were already at odds, there was no need for a prolonged struggle if they could win through a more relaxed gang-fight method. Besides, Angel maintained a certain baseline; at least he didn’t use Lobal as bait to intentionally weaken Hurricane.

The battle quickly approached its final moment.

Without any accident, the energy of Hurricane had reached a dangerous threshold after continuous consumption.

At this point, the vigilance of Angel and Earl Mi instead increased to the peak.

In a direct confrontation with Hurricane, real strength was what’s compared, but when pushing Hurricane to its limits, one must be careful.

Every elemental creature possesses a trump card, an ability to overturn tables, which is elemental self-detonation.

If Hurricane chose to self-detonate now, probably only Earl Mi could withstand it, and even if it endured, it would likely suffer considerable injuries.

Of course, facing an elemental self-detonation, absolutely determined to escape would be simple, but maintaining distance from Hurricane to avoid a mutual destruction scenario was crucial.

Angel and Earl Mi began to respond cautiously, and Hurricane also saw through their intentions. It understood that at this point, even if it wanted to self-detonate, it probably wouldn’t harm them much.

Hurricane had not thought of self-detonating either, because Lobal was behind it.

Its defeat was already predestined, but Lobal... Even though being used as an illusion node, wasn’t severely injured.

Perhaps there was still a glimmer of hope.

Because of this consideration, Hurricane did not self-detonate until the last moment.

When its elemental core was exposed, Hurricane closed its eyes, knowing that the dust would eventually settle.

It had already released its wind outward, no longer struggling.

The only hope was for its subordinates to survive.

While Hurricane quietly awaited death, Angel stopped his hand. It wasn’t out of mercy, but because there was some movement from the ”person” hiding in the clouds and mist.

Angel turned his head and looked at the man with the lyre who walked out of the mist.

He was extremely handsome, with long pointed ears like an elf. His eyes were a deep blue, as if holding a piece of azure sky.

He looked just like a real human.

But Angel understood that the comer was not a human, but a creature of the wind element. Moreover, from the gentle breeze surrounding him and the emblematic lyre, Angel had already discerned his identity.

Without surprise, it was the target he came to White Cloud Village for this time, Gentle Breeze Uranus.