A Sorcerer’s Journey

Chapter 196: Layers of Shadow

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The place that entered his view was a bloodbath. There were streams of blood and corpses everywhere, smoke from firearms reached for the skies in this distressing land.

The sky was dark red, a mixture of bloody fog and smoke, several slave beasts were pursuing a few single Golden Amonros, waves of explosions blasted behind Grimm.

He looked further, and beyond that, numerous creatures were fighting, killing each other ruthlessly. In the middle of the area were two creatures that were controlling a powerful energy, the King of the Enigmatic Prophets and the Stigmata Sorcerer.

The two Level 4 beings released an energy shockwave from time to time, without realizing they had turned the mountains around them into flatlands, flatlands into craters, and low-level beings laid dead everywhere.

Grimm hovered in the sky, his hand holding a magic stone to recover his Magic Power as he moved towards the direction that Master Deidarion pointed to.

Demon-Hunter gears could only be used once, as soon as the Magic Power of the magic stones inlaid in the inner layer was used up, they had lost their function. The next time when he returned to the Holy Tower of Seven Rings he could use this magic-depleted Demon-Hunter gear to exchange for five Sorcerer Essences, adding on five more could get him a new one.

As he put his magic robe back on, Grimm knew that the expedition to the Shadow World this time was the Demon-Hunter sorcerers’ first decisive battle. Basically the Demon-Hunter Sorcerers had secured a sure win, the remaining Amonro’s Shadow Legion army was just struggling in despair, there were even some Amonros that had finally given up hope and flung themselves into the gaps of the Void Fortress.

Were they trying to change the flow of the battle into their favour?

What a foolish struggle!

Knowing the capabilities of the Void Fortress, even if there were attempts of damaging it randomly, without the powers of a Level 4 creature there would not even be a scratch left on it, and not to mention the Void Fortress had a self-counterattack system and a Stigmata Sorcerer behind its back.

Grimm had just escaped from danger, and was almost killed by this world’s guardians, but looking at it from another perspective, the Hearkening Whisperer Stigmata Sorcerer that was now brutally treating the Shadow World, was this not a similar disaster that was happening to this world’s living beings?

Did the low-level creatures plan to fight back?

Unless it was a force that was on a scale of a thousand Bright Sorcerer groups, there would be a chance, and the power of unity was the key. It was obvious that Amonros of the Shadow world did not have this quality.

After one and a half hourglasses, he found a crystal ball that indicated the presence of a Camphoragate, Grimm slowly descended.

A Camphoragate was a special plant that existed only in the Amonro World, it was an underground castle that Enigmatic Amonro nobles relied on for survival, and it was separated into an upper ground and lower ground section. The upper ground section of the Camphoragate looked very similar to the French bread that the commoners of the Sorcerer World ate, there were holes at the tip of the bread that constantly created a kind of whistle blowing sound.

The material of the main body of the Camphoragate was not like what humans traditionally thought it would be whereby it contained vitamins, instead it was a strange type of fatty flesh.

Maybe it was because there were different laws in this world, most of the plants here were made out of a fatty-flesh-like material.

According to the information archived in the crystal ball and drawing upon a hypothesis, the exposed part of this Camphoragate was not even one-thousandth of its real body, that would be the lower ground section.

Right then and there, the tree that stood a few hundred metres tall before him had left Grimm deep in thought. This underground castle, just how big was it?

“Hmm? Grimm?” A surprised voice came from the ground.

Right now there were around thirty Dark Sorcerers that had gathered here and there, among them there were two Level 2 Dark Sorcerers at the centre having discussions with the surrounding low-level sorcerers, planning battle strategies.

As he slowly descended, Grimm looked towards where the voice came from. The man had a mechanical tail shaped as a scorpion’s tail with a mechanical hand exposed, he also had a big metal spiral disc on his back. The sorcerer was actually Victor?

Speaking of which, when Grimm was putting an ancient Mechanical Armor Core up for sale, this guy had supposedly shown great interest, however the green-eyed Bright Sorcerer, Julni’s financial situation was far better than Victor’s.

“Victor, what’s the situation here?” Grimm asked after he greeted him.

Although Grimm felt quite surprised meeting Victor, he had anticipated that both would participate in this Demon-Hunter expedition, he had then naturally accepted this unexpected meeting, and he went straight to the main point, asking about the situation at this point.

It was obvious that under the Camphoragate, there were a lot of strong Amonros in hiding, the power accumulated there was a troublesome situation even though there were around thirty Dark Sorcerers gathered here.

The Dark Sorcerers around looked at Grimm for a moment, as they remembered his appearance where he was wearing a grayish-white Mask of Truth that had spiral patterns and golden hair, then went back to discussing battle strategies under their breaths.

A Level 2 sorcerer flew over to Grimm, and that sorcerer’s head was actually a giant pumpkin, one that was much bigger than its body, all he could see was a piece of orangey-yellow ball, even Grimm was not sure if this was Transfiguration Sorcery or Hematology Sorcery.

The pumpkin head bowed to Grimm with respect and Grimm simply greeted him back.

“Since you two know each other, I guess there’s no need for me to explain to you what’s happening down there. Our target is to kill everyone in there that opposes The Great Sorcerer’s will,” The pumpkin head sorcerer told Grimm coldly and wickedly, his mouth was full of thin and small razor teeth, too many to count how many there were.

Grimm’s gaze did not waver under the Mask of Truth, he remained silent as he nodded his head.

“Alright then.” This Level 2 Demon-Hunter Sorcerer then turned away and left.

Not many words were needed between Demon-Hunter Sorcerers, everyone only had to be responsible for themselves.

Victor then extended his arm. This mechanical arm looked about thirty centimetres thick, slightly bulky, it was not only much stronger than the materials used during his sorcerer-apprentice stage, it was more complicated and built more precisely, even the other arm had many supporting mechanics installed onto it.

Click.

The cover of the mechanical arm unfolded, and one single mechanical bee flew out.

Grimm looked at it and used his mental strength to sense it. The energy focus point of the inside of this mechanical bee was quite intriguing, perhaps it was a self-destruction device, though the self-destruction degree was unknown, he estimated that it would be well over two hundred degrees.

Inside the mechanical hand just now, there were more than a hundred of this kind of mechanical bee.

Buzz…

The wings of this mechanical bee’s vibrating frequency was extremely fast. It flew back and forth around Victor, he then lifted his mechanical arm, the tip of his finger reached towards the mechanical bee, a metal needle was inserted into it, and then Victor’s right eye just lit up like a crystal ball and started releasing a footage containing information.

“This footage was taken when this mechanical bee went to investigate the underground tunnels, the flesh barriers seemed like it had been absorbing the fire elements that were abundant in this world, and thus it could glow by itself, it won’t be a problem for sorcerers that have poorer perception abilities. However, we’ll need to be careful as these flesh barriers are the perfect hiding spot for Golden Amonros, using normal methods would be hard to find those in hiding. And…”

Grimm’s view of the footage was the point of view of the mechanical bee.

These bread-like fleshy tunnels were everywhere, and it kept squirming as if it was breathing. Most of the tunnels were thirty or forty metres wide, some places looked similar to the underground courtyard at the Tree of Life in the Sorcerer World.

There were uncountable Amonros relaxing around in the footage that the mechanical bee showed, these low-ranked beings seemed to have adapted themselves to this kind of environment quite nicely. They moved faster in the tunnels of the Camphoragate compared to when they were above the ground, and as if they were a part of the plant itself, when they squeezed themselves lightly against the flesh barrier, their whole body would just diffuse into it.

According to Grimm’s estimation, compared to being above ground, these low-ranked Amonros would be at least twice as strong as they were underground, every single Amonro would be at the same level as a low-level Legendary Knight that had not had their blood transformed.

Victor stopped in the middle of the sentence and Grimm naturally asked him, “And what?”

Victor said in a low voice, “And, the Enigmatic Amonro of this world, only in the shadows can they unleash their strongest form of the Enigmatic Energy. However, the shadows that the Amonro meant were not what the sorcerers perceived it to be, but rather the depths shrouded by the Shadow World and inside the Camphoragate!”

When he finished speaking, Victor opened his mouth and a scroll popped out. He opened the scroll and three clumps of Enigmatic Energy that were sealed were struggling within the runes.

Victor pointed at the three clumps of Enigmatic Energy and said, “Look, these three clumps of Enigmatic Energy were each collected from the dark shadow clouds at the centre of the battlefield, the dark shadow clouds of this area and the low-ranked Amonros under the Camphoragate respectively, one of their energy qualities is twice the degree!”

Hmm?

Grimm also observed the three Enigmatic Energy carefully, as he had just came from the centre of the battlefield straight to this area, Grimm had never seen any Amonro in the depths of the shadow clouds, and thus was unable to understand the situation.

A few minutes later, Grimm muttered, “Thirteen degrees, twenty one degrees, twenty eight degrees.”

In just a short amount of time, Grim had used complicated formulas to calculate an estimation of the attack level in a simulation where all three energies had the same quality, and the result of the calculations was shockingly close to the accurate numbers.

The Amonros inside the Camphoragate had Enigmatic Energy levels twice as strong as compared to those on the battlefield.

Then does this mean that if any one of the low-ranked Amonros fought a sorcerer inside the Camphoragate, their powers would be equivalent to that of a Neon Green Amonro?

Not only that, those strengthened Golden Amonros could perfectly blend into the flesh barriers…

“Kekekeke, the souls of these low-level beings are really just primitive souls. I’ve finally finished dissecting them and observing them, let me use him to probe for some information, kekekeke…”

Suddenly, a Dark Sorcerer laughed out loud without a care in the world. Grimm and the others looked over at him, the Dark Sorcerer seemed to be very proficient in the study of Soul Sorcery. He was holding a straw doll the size of an infant as he recited an incantation, at the same time an Amonro that had fainted on a simple altar was starting to struggle unconsciously.

The Dark Sorcerer had skin filled with wrinkles and emitted an aura of death, as he was reaching the peak of excitement he suddenly yelled out loudly, there was a ‘puff’ and the straw doll on his hand suddenly lit up.

“Oh no, the soul was too weak, it couldn’t even handle grafting! God damn it! Talk! What are you protecting down there? Why did you choose to fight to the death instead of running away?” This sorcerer yelled at the burning straw doll on his hand irritably, his gaze was ferocious and he was terribly unsightly, his shrivelled dry skin made his bony joints more apparent when he squeezed the straw doll tightly.

“The Great Bloodfalls Lavawyvern, ugh…” the straw doll mumbled meekly and was then burnt to ashes.