Chapter 771: The Six-Layered Curse Barrier for the Third Time, and Reunion with Patty

Graeme Stein's eyes lit up slightly. Black wizards lacked any systematic education in alchemy, and his own foundation was far from solid to begin with.

Within the Blood Curse Court, knowledge was picked up here and there in a piecemeal fashion, leaving him deficient in a great deal of basic knowledge. At this moment, making use of this pitiful little witch seemed as though it might help him identify the names of a large number of advanced medicinal compounds used within white wizard society.

That would bring him considerable advantages within the Blood Curse Court, and might even allow him to distinguish himself before the clan elders, or perhaps even earn the praise of the Blood Lord.

The moment this thought crossed his mind, Graeme Stein's expression shifted. He smiled with a sinister edge and said, "Rest assured, I will not eat you. Little witch."

"I have already fed you a drop of my heart's blood. You need only die once more and consume the blood of a magical creature, and you will become a blood thrall under my control."

"Not a vampire transformation curse, that would be far too advanced for the likes of you. I am simply turning you into a blood thrall with diminished intellect, one that can be easily controlled by me."

Patty's face went pale.

Graeme Stein smiled and said, "Although a blood thrall loses the capacity for continued learning, it at least retains a portion of the skills the wizard apprentice possessed in life. All I need is a portion of your skills. After all, I am not foolish enough to think that controlling a white wizard apprentice outright is anything but extremely difficult. Every moment I would have to divert a portion of my attention to suppressing your little schemes."

"Even if I were to plant a paralysis curse in your body, I would not rest easy. My way of doing things is to keep only the obedient blood thralls."

"Heh heh heh..."

Patty's face was drained of color, and in her heart she felt a despair beyond measure.

How could she possibly escape alive from the midst of so many black wizards?

No matter how desperately she racked her mind, Patty felt that she was already finished. Whatever use she made of the botanical knowledge she had studied at Virdantia University, she simply did not have the power to escape from so many formidable black wizards.

And she had already swallowed Graeme Stein's heart's blood.

Should she give up?

Patty clenched her teeth. She thought back to how she had entered Aurelius Academy on Corfu Island at the age of eight, beginning her first contact with magic.

That was already fifteen full years ago to this day.

Fifteen years of seasons turning, day after day, spring after autumn. How much effort had she poured into those years to walk out of a place as harsh and impoverished as Corfu Island and by great fortune, enter Virdantia University to continue her studies.

On Corfu Island, as the child of commoners, how much effort had she once expended to rise above those children of noble families whom she had once believed to be the favored sons and daughters of heaven.

Thinking of those children of noble families on Corfu Island, Patty's gaze grew distant for a moment.

Because she thought of a certain person.

And at the same time, she also thought of something else.

Had those former classmates who had once studied with her at Aurelius Academy already inherited their family businesses on Corfu Island, or become people of means and standing there?

While she, who had once considered herself a cut above them all on Corfu Island, had now fallen into the brutal war between the white and black wizards of the wizard world, trapped in mortal peril with no way out, facing the very real danger of death and of being turned into a black wizard apprentice's blood thrall.

Thinking of this, Patty felt a wave of regret rise within her.

Would it have been better if she had simply remained on Corfu Island?

At precisely this moment, Graeme Stein was startled to discover that the ordinary wooden frame of the carriage had suddenly become scorching hot. The black walnut wood skeleton of the magical carriage was actually beginning to turn red, with sparks appearing across its surface, just like firewood thrown into a pit of flames.

Graeme Stein furrowed his brow.

Only then did he notice that his magical carriage had separated from the main convoy and was moving through an unfamiliar forest. The forest was thick with mist, a bright and luminous moon hanging in the sky above, dream-like and ethereal, as though it were a world apart from the present reality.

The entire forest was suffused with a hazy, otherworldly beauty.

Graeme Stein broke into a savage grin. "White wizards? Ha ha ha, was it not precisely to provoke you stray dogs of Virdantia University into attacking us that we have been carrying on so brazenly? Ha ha ha, you have walked right into a trap!"

"Every carriage in the convoy has been tampered with, all of it set up just for you. Ha ha ha, the Six-Layered Curse Barrier! White wizard, I am going to kill you."

A hexagram formation rose up from beneath his carriage.

At the same time, a spirit orb appeared within the carriage's interior, providing negative energy to power the Six-Layered Curse Barrier.

In this way, a formation that practically served as an anti-magic array targeting white wizards had been constructed.

Locke's voice appeared at his ear.

"This apprentice, you have taken your little joke far too far."

Locke appeared within the magical carriage.

In an instant, Graeme Stein felt every hair on his body stand on end.

He looked toward Locke, his gaze momentarily confused, for Locke's avatar was wearing nothing but a plain black wizard's robe, carrying no insignia of any kind, which made it impossible to identify his background.

At the same time, the difference in magic pressure between Locke and himself was simply too vast.

As a result, this top-ranked wizard candidate seed of the Blood Curse Court was unable to gauge Locke's magic pressure at all. He felt only as though the figure before him were an empty void, as though someone were standing there and yet as though no one were standing there at all.

What unsettled Graeme Stein most was that this white wizard before him appeared to have simply ignored the Six-Layered Curse Barrier entirely.

That fearsome formation, capable of subjecting a white wizard to six layers of opposing negative energy, had been combined with the Ghost Sacred Order's ghost orb to produce a devastating killing technique directed at white wizards, resolving the greatest weakness of the Six-Layered Reversal Barrier, namely the risk of insufficient negative magical energy.

Yet this killing technique, formidable as it was, seemed to not exist at all as far as the wizard before him was concerned.

What was more, the man was actually examining the hexagram formation pattern of the Six-Layered Curse Barrier on the carriage floor with what appeared to be interest.

Locke looked at the Six-Layered Curse Barrier, and felt a certain degree of feeling stir within him.

For this was the third time he had encountered this formation.

The first time had been when he had infiltrated the heart of the Blood Curse Court's territory alongside Witch Sophia, cutting their way into the cursed array research facility.

The second time had been at Lilith’s Cottage, when he had turned the tables on the Blood Curse Court's wizard candidate seeds who had come to surround and kill him.

And now, for the third time.

"This Six-Layered Curse Barrier is truly conceived with a certain ingenuity," Locke said.

He reached out and seized it, and the formation that had been set by the formal black wizard beneath the carriage was pulled directly out and came to rest in his hand.

This so startled the wizard named Graeme Stein that his heart lurched violently, his eyes nearly falling out of their sockets.

What, what was happening?

Locke looked at the formation and gave a slight shake of his head. "Though ingenuity is all one can call it. It does not even rise to the level of clever."

He applied a mild pressure with his fingers and crushed the formation directly.

In an instant, the shattering of the Six-Layered Curse Barrier caused the ghost orb within the carriage to crack open as well. The more than a thousand departed souls imprisoned within the ghost orb immediately came drifting free throughout the interior of the carriage.

Locke snapped his fingers, drawing them into his kingdom domain, using the properties of the Land of All Spirits to transform them into spirit essences.

He had already pulled this carriage into his kingdom domain from the outset.

During the Silent Chalice, he had used the Locke’s Kingdom Domain to absorb Wizard Edgar's Land of All Spirits and Time Shadow Fern, and so while he was unable to use that Grand Magic himself, his kingdom domain possessed a portion of the Land of All Spirits' properties.

At this moment, the departed souls that the Ghost Sacred Order had imprisoned, their structures already disrupted, were able to have their spiritual forms partially restored, recovering a measure of independent function and becoming once more a part of the kingdom domain.

Locke then released them from the kingdom domain, letting them return to the natural flow of souls within the wizard world.

The wizard world already had a complete and well-established soul circulation system.

His kingdom domain at present was primarily oriented toward receiving the spirit essences of plants, and in the future it was intended to accommodate a measure of the spirituality from the civilizations of cooperating worlds. In order to preserve the purity of that spirituality, he did not wish to introduce any impurities.

Otherwise, it would affect the energy dissipation rate of his Grand Magic and impede the ongoing process of its forging.

Locke gave a slight shake of his head.

"The Blood Curse Court today is truly a step down from what it once was. Hussein would be very disappointed to see this."

"The former top apprentice of the Blood Curse Court could remain composed even when facing formal wizards, setting traps and killing his own teacher, and only then walked away from the Blood Curse Court unscathed. How is it that the current top candidate is such a dullard."

Graeme Stein's pupils contracted sharply. He forced a smile onto his face and said, "Senior, a person of your strength has no need to quarrel with a junior such as myself. You..."

In the next instant, his body, transformed by the curse into that of a vampire, began to crack apart inch by inch. He looked down, and his eyes went wide. The sparks on the wooden framework inside the magical carriage that had turned to kindling were crawling along the floor toward his feet, creeping up through his soles and climbing his body.

His entire form now resembled red-hot charcoal glowing inside a furnace.

What made it worse was that he had absolutely no idea what was happening.

The vampire transformation curse seemed to have lost all its potency. When he tried to unleash the Thousand Blade Curse, opening his mouth to do so, what came spewing out was a stream of black qi, and even that black qi was seared away by a blazing heat, burning to nothing in an instant.

First his throat caught fire, then his head caught fire, then his entire body caught fire.

His undying body was completely powerless.

Locke glanced down at the perennial herb magical plant Pinellia in his hand, its blade-like form and the distinctive spathe rising from its center like a ritual candle, and felt a deep satisfaction.

This was the power of Pinellia.

Of course, using it against a black wizard apprentice was rather excessive. Locke was fairly certain that if he used Lone Tree Cannot Form a Forest at full force, even those black wizards at the gaseous phase would have their bodies annihilated in an instant by Pinellia's blazing summer power, destroying their undying capabilities along with them.

Locke gave a slight shake of his head.

"Another one of Hussein's junior sect-brothers killed. He would probably be quite pleased to hear that."

Locke snapped his fingers, and the interior of the magical carriage swiftly returned to its original state. The black wizard apprentice destroyed by Pinellia's summer magical power had vanished entirely from existence, reduced to nothing.

Locke then sat down within the magical carriage, looked at Patty before him, and asked, "Are you the driver of this magical carriage? Patty."

"Drive for me. Follow the convoy. I would like to attend the black wizard alliance conference as well."

There was nothing in the southeastern quadrant that he needed to fear.

For after arriving here, he had already confirmed that there was no Second Circle wizard who could endure a prolonged stay in this place.

A Second Circle wizard here was already in a state of virtually unchallenged dominance.

At this moment, the Lunar Cultivation Method surrounding the magical carriage quickly faded, and the carriage returned to the present world.

Throughout the entire process, the black wizards in the convoy had noticed absolutely nothing.

Patty was still staring blankly at the brutal black wizard apprentice who had died right before her eyes in an instant.

Hearing Locke address her, she lowered her head at once, bowed to him, and said, "My lord, my lord, I am indeed his driver. I will drive the carriage for you. Are you a First Circle wizard of our White Wizard Association?"

Locke paused.

"A First Circle wizard? I am not."

Patty found this puzzling.

If the formidable wizard before her was not a First Circle wizard, then how had he managed to kill the Blood Curse Court's top-ranked formal wizard candidate in the midst of so many black wizards?

Patty blinked.

"Wait... how do you know my name? Do you know me?"

Among the black wizards, the slave-master black wizards had never once called her by her name, addressing her either with a grunt or simply as "witch."

And so it was only now that Patty realized Locke very likely knew her, or had at least learned of her beforehand.

Locke let out a quiet sigh, sat down facing her, and said to her, "Stand up."

"It is me. Locke Augustine. Patty, have you forgotten me?"

Patty was just about to stand when she heard that familiar yet distant name, and froze where she was.

It was a name she had believed she would have very little chance of ever hearing again in this lifetime.

"Locke Augustine..."

Only then did Patty dare to look at Locke carefully. She could still dimly make out the face of that former classmate of hers.

They had studied together for two years at Aurelius Academy on Corfu Island. At first it had been she who was always giving Locke supplementary lessons. Three months later, Locke had overtaken her.

That had been the first time she had ever felt what it meant to be thoroughly surpassed by someone in terms of natural talent.

Patty looked at Locke with wide eyes and said, "Locke... it is actually you..."

"Can it be that you have become a powerful first-class wizard apprentice? You survived the great black wizard raid a year ago?"

Patty was astonished and overjoyed, yet also frightened and full of questions all at once.

"It is too dangerous here. Our academy has already been seized by those black wizards. The dean gave the order for us to break into small groups and scatter, waiting for the signal to rally for the counterattack."

"Locke, if you are not a formal wizard, how were you able to kill Graeme Stein?"

"Are you all right at Lilith’s Cottage? Have you run into Kode?"

Patty asked, "Locke, what is the situation at Lilith’s Cottage right now? Can it be that you have come with rescue from the formal wizard lords at Lilith’s Cottage?"