Warlock Apprentice

Outside the dense mist, all wizards attending the auction had gathered. They shared different attitudes about the situation. Curiosity, surprise, shock, and mostly, fear.

Something unknown was exerting an aura from the mist, which brought fear to even the powerful wizards.

An aura of terror so powerful that no one could escape from being affected.

“Who’s that boy??”

They could not understand why a level-1 apprentice could do something to plant fear into the minds of wizards.

“The point is, are we inside an illusion? I don’t sense mana ripples.”

People all pondered about that question. To them, the place felt more like reality.

“You! What’s about that boy? Tell us!” A guard of the auction house grabbed the eyeless man and questioned.

The eyeless man looked at his captor with those fake doll eyes. “Gege, gege… I don’t know him.”

The man’s limbs were so creaky that he would create noises whenever he moved.

“I ask you again, WHO IS HE?” The guard thought the slave was playing tough.

“I can read minds. Let me try it.” The white-haired old man from Chamber 2 left the painting he was watching and joined the guard.

“Mister Kooper, please do.”

The old wizard named Kooper stood in front of the eyeless man. Mana ripples shined in his eyes as he chanted something.

A while later, he wiped some sweat from his forehead and moved away.

“He spoke the truth. It’s not the young man he knows, but that bird. The bird was once Greya’s beloved pet before it was handed to someone else’s care,” Kooper pondered. “Although he did hear Greya speaking of who she entrusted her pet to… Mister Sunders’ student.”

Everyone froze up upon hearing that name, especially the guards.

The boy used an illusion… the student of ‘Phantom Master’ Sunders… the bird just used the sequence of gravity, and Sunders recently obtained a gravity garden…

They quickly concluded that the wounded young man was Sunders’ pupil.

The guard captain could not help shaking his head. If they did kill Sunders’ student, something terrible would probably come to them. More importantly, Sunders was here watching the auction all along!

Next, people looked at Flora, believing that the other student of Sunders had to know something.

Flora shrugged at the attention. “Yeah, that little one is my professor’s new student.”

“Hey, Flora, so your little junior is being bullied, and you seem pretty happy to watch,” Lydia spoke.

Flora scoffed. “Help him? Why should I? And besides, he doesn’t need my help to trick you fools. Just look at you. Heh, if you have time to mind people’s business, how about finding a way out of this Nightmare Domain?”

Everyone else looked away when hearing Flora addressing them as “fools”. They already tried, and no one had succeeded in breaching the walls around them. They were completely trapped in the castle hall.

“Nightmare Domain? This is not an illusion?” Kooper noticed something in Flora’s words.

Flora did not answer. She glanced at Little Red with a worried look and moved toward Angor somewhat furiously.

The guard captain could no longer conceal his concern. He dragged one of his men and ordered, “Get in there and tell this to Lady Twilight. I mean the identity of that young man. Move!”

Before anyone could move, people felt their heart racing as if the fear they sensed earlier just grew tenfold.

“Heeheeheehe-”

Cold sweat appeared on their foreheads upon hearing the eerie laughter.

“Who-who’s that? Even Mister Monkey did not sound so horrifying when I saw him last time!” Someone commented.

The teacup band stopped their music and announced in unison. “Behold the Queen! It’s time for nightwatch!”

…

Inside the white mist, Sunders grabbed Twilight’s attacking claw.

“Mister Sunders?!” Twilight called out in surprise.

“Leave him. You get out, I’ll handle this.” Sunders cast a careful glance at Angor, who was barely breathing now. “You… my boy. What a pain you are…”

Twilight felt something jumping in her mind when she noticed the hint of care in Sunders’ words.

“I have no idea what you did to lead the Nightmare Domain here… if that woman comes, I’m afraid the entire underground world will crumble.”

His student had created the Nightmare Domain. He did not know how Angor learned such twisted art, but he was pretty angry at Angor’s rash action.

Sunders could create illusions feared by anyone in the southern region just because of the Nightmare Domain elements that was hidden within.

The Nightmare Domain was almost another reality which shared the same attribute — project reality from imaginations — as the Nightmare Realm, making Nightmare Domain way deadlier than ordinary illusions. However, this dangerous art could not be used freely. There was only a thin barrier separating Nightmare Domain and Nightmare Realm. Powerful nightmare monsters could tear through such a boundary and find their way toward reality easily.

For this reason, Sunders always had to use other means to create a “private” space to deploy his Nightmare Domain and use it against his enemies. Little Red also used such a way to exist in a separate Nightmare Domain which had completely lost connection with Nightmare Realm.

Now… not only did Angor create a Nightmare Domain, he even summoned creatures from the Nightmare Realm.

The barrier protecting the Nightmare Domain was still intact, and the laughter from those monsters already displayed the same level of might as legendary wizards. Sunders could not imagine what would possibly follow behind.

“We have trouble now…” Sunders amplified his voice with mana. “Get up, Angor!”

The strange frequency of his voice entered Angor’s wilting consciousness, briefly rejuvenating Angor’s mind as if presenting water to someone who was lost for a long time in the desert.

Angor slowly opened his eyes, still puzzled at what was going on around him. In his blurred view, he saw someone in black standing near him.

“Pro-professor… thank, thank heavens… quickly, help To… by…”

Sunders was going to scold his student for attempting dangerous arts carelessly. However, he could not when he saw Angor’s terrible condition.

“Do you have any idea what outrage you’ve just done??”

Twilight was still behind Sunders to hear the man speaking. She was even more surprised when she realized the young man was Sunders’ student.

She quickly collected available information in her mind and determined what was more important. Then she quickly turned to leave.

Someone suddenly screamed.

A Twilight Guard tried to enter the mist. He accidentally tripped on the materialized musical stave created by the teacups, which torn his legs into two halves nice and clean. Upon losing his balance, the guard tumbled among the teacups, and more stave and “tadpoles” shredded the guard to pieces, leaving bloody organs and guts on the floor.

Twilight grew more infuriated at the sight. She should have killed that kid when she had the chance!

She did not care whether Sunders was here now. That kid was the one attacking their auction, and people would support them even if the incident was known by the public.

She clenched her fists to contain her great rage.

“He’s just an apprentice. I have had plenty of chances-”

More laughter came and interrupted her thought. Unlike the previous one which planted fear into the minds of people, this one meant to harm. Almost all apprentices started bleeding from their ears.

“Using sound to damage people?” Lydia grimaced as well. “It means at least something stronger than level-3 wizards…”

Twilight’s face grew pale. How could a small kid create that kind of attack?

She immediately gave up her previous idea about killing the boy. It seemed she needed to tread carefully and look for more info first.

Inside the mist, Angor also heard the terrible laughter coming from his own body. It did not harm him, but he could still sense the horror carried by that sound.

“What are you waiting for? Cancel the Nightmare Domain at once! Or we’re all dead if those monsters get out!” Sunders bellowed.

Sunders did something to cure most of Angor’s external wounds. Angor still had broken bones, so he could not move now.

“But I didn’t do anything! I was thinking about deploying illusion nodes in my body, and I thought about that woman when creating the illusion…”

“Which woman?” Sunders frowned.

“The one that scratched my shoulder,” said Angor as he lowered his head in shame. “I didn’t know it would be so terrible, but I didn’t have a choice. I just wanted to bring out something, or someone really strong, so I can hopefully survive.”

In the beginning, Angor could only remember a vague figure of the woman, and maybe the sutures on her face. But as he constructed his illusion, he realized the face of the woman became clearer and clearer in his mind. In the end, he could definitely describe every single detail on her, including her clothes, the way she moved…

Then he felt the back of his shoulder started to itch again.

Next, the illusion appeared.

When he checked again, Angor found his vision in an extremely strange state. Half of his vision still registered the reality around him, while the other half showed him another place, where all kinds of strange creatures dwelt.

He also felt numbness on his shoulder bone when the white mist began to seep out from the old wound.

Inside his “vision”, the strange creatures on the right side began to move through a thin barrier, entering the left side.

He watched as a flock of dragonflies shining with rainbow colors appeared from the white mist, circled around his head, and left the area.

He did not see the previous teacup band because he almost lost his consciousness. Now the bizarre vision completely baffled him.

At this very moment, there were more creatures approaching the “thin barrier”.

At the end of the army of strange creatures was a throne of the color of the starry sky, upon which sat that sutured woman.

As Angor looked that way, the woman also lifted her head.

Across the army of countless pawns, they stared at each other.