Warlock Apprentice

Those pupils showed nothing more than insanity. A simple glimpse and Angor started to feel something crawling on his spine.

The sutured woman in heavy face powder grinned at Angor. She then laughed madly while swinging back and forth on her throne. Her black heart-shaped crown barely remained on her head.

Angor felt something similar to when he met the Glutton Flower Lord. He could sense complex emotion from the woman. Except that this time, he could not tell a word of it, as if a child who only learned single characters could not read words.

Still, he could comprehend the terrible madness coming from the woman… as well as unending killing intent.

“She cannot get out!” Angor thought.

Sunders ordered him exactly the same thing, “Think of something to end the Nightmare Domain!”

Sunders felt his heart growing a little cold when he looked at the rainbow dragonflies. In the view of wizards, those previous teacups were something as strong as level-2 apprentices, while these dragonflies were almost at a wizard’s level. And there were at least a hundred dragonflies out there! If they did something together, even a real wizard would not guarantee a victory.

“What’s the Nightmare Domain? How do I end it??” Angor panicked. He was now the medium of two worlds, and he could observe both.

But he had no idea how to stop all this.

“The Nightmare Domain is the link between the Nightmare Realm and reality, and only Nightmare Forms can create it. Monsters from the Nightmare Realm must go through this link to enter our world!” Sunders bellowed, “The woman you mentioned must be something from the core area of the Nightmare Realm, something stronger than legendary wizards. DO NOT let her pass, or we-No, the entire south will see doom!”

Sunders stared at Angor with the seriousness he never displayed to his student before and said, “You saw her first at your home, right? When she gets out, it’s very likely that your home will get involved as well. Stop her at all cost, for your family’s sake!”

“But what should I do?”

“Close the Nightmare Domain and stop any monsters from advancing! Those insects earlier are nearly at wizard level, the next who gets out will be real wizards!”

“How do I close it? And I can’t stop them! The owl is coming out!”

“Owl?” Sunders was unsure of what he referred to.

Soon, he saw a green, cartoon-style toy owl emerging from the mist around Angor while flapping its chubby wings.

And the gentleman only grew more alarmed at this. “As I expected, this one is as strong as a wizard now.”

Sunders suddenly recalled Angor’s “warning”.

“You can see into the Nightmare Realm?”

“Yes!”

Sunders widened his eyes. That was something he could not to when using Nightmare Domains! But he did not have the time to question the reason now.

“How many monsters are coming?!”

Angor tried not to cry. “A lot! I can’t see the end of them! And there’s that woman, on her giant throne at the end of the army…”

Sunders could not help shaking his head. “Boy, do you have any idea how much trouble you brought??”

“But, but…” Angor never expected that he suddenly had to take the blame for endangering the lives of people in the entire south, when his own life was in danger just moments ago. Seriously! He just wanted to survive!

Sunders clenched his teeth as he said, “A ‘secure’ Nightmare Domain is only possible for you when you become a wizard. But we can’t mind that now! I’ll go sever your domain while you try to stop the monsters from coming! Especially that woman!”

Sunders’ figure already disappeared before Angor could say anything else. Only the man’s voice lingered in the air, “You are the medium of two worlds, and you should be the one shutting the passage. Do something, or we will have to face our deaths!”

Angor did not get an answer to that at all. How to close this god-damned passage??

…

The green toy owl circled around in the air before landing on top of Angor’s head. It seemed the creature preferred tidiness too. It blew some green air on Angor’s hair, which removed his blood stains as well as curing some of the scars still on his head.

But Angor did not have time to mind the creature now. He was desperate for an idea to block the monster passage.

Sunders did say that the toy owl was as powerful as a wizard, yet Angor did not feel anything. Besides, the adorable and silly look of the owl did not scare him at all.

Still, he wondered why birds all liked to perch on his hair.

Once the toy owl steadied itself, it immediately exerted a terrible aura around it.

Those outside the mist quickly felt it. Some of the apprentices gave up right away and fell on the floor, while the wizards only frowned, not knowing what just happened.

Next, the flock of rainbow dragonflies stopped patrolling the mist and formed up a line in front of the toy owl.

Green ripples appeared around the owl, enveloping both Angor and the insects.

Angor sensed emotions coming from the toy owl. Unlike the incomprehensible sutured woman, he successfully read the owl’s mind.

In general, the owl was asking the rainbow dragonflies to clear the path ahead so their Queen could do the nightwatch.

Angor believed it was referring to the woman sitting on that throne. But “queen”? Queen of what? Was she the same queen mentioned by the Glutton Flowers?

Upon receiving the order, the dragonflies all left the mist.

The wizards outside frowned again at the strange sight.

“Something else showed up. What are these monsters? I never saw them before.”

“The boy’s illusion, I guess?” A wizard with punk hair scoffed at Twilight. “You guys are always such bullies. It’s just a kid who’s almost dead, and you still wanted to execute him? See what happens now? Maybe Mister Sunders gave his student some kind of power as his last resort.”

Those words worsened Twilight’s rage. As the auctioneer and host of the auction, she was responsible to maintain order. And now she was getting blamed?

She could not say anything about it though. The woman only cursed Angor silently.

Lydia rolled her eyes and decided to divert some hate to Flora. “Poor Flora. Mister Sunders is so… unfair. He never helped you in your worst desperation, and he sent so many creatures to protect this new one? Ah… I feel sorry for you now.”

Flora was already in a bad mood since she came to the scene. The laughter from the mist caused Little Red’s vitality to waver, and Flora was only worried about the skeleton. Now she was in no mood to mind Lydia’s provocation.

“So you think Sunders did this? I see my little junior was quite successful in tricking you.”

“Enough! Let’s deal with these dragonflies first. Are they invulnerable to our attacks like those teacups?” Twilight barged in.

A Twilight Guard cast a cantrip at a dragonfly who was resting on a wall lamp.

And he was quite surprised to see his attack making a small hole on the insect’s wing.

It worked?!

The guard turned to Twilight to report, only to get knocked aside by Twilight’s spirit feeler.

Kaboom!

A small crater appeared where he was standing a second ago. People could see elements flowing around the dragonfly.

“Stay focused! These things are at least level-3 apprentices at their best conditions, if not wizards already!” Twilight demanded.

Now that they knew the insects could be hurt, Twilight immediately ordered her guards to work together and get rid of the creatures.

With the help of wizards, the number of dragonflies was halved within several minutes. When they tried to keep going, they saw the insects changing colors and… vanished from their sights.

Someone used Remove Delirium, which failed to catch the whereabouts of the dragonflies. Another area-of-effect spell managed to bring out several more corpses, which meant the creatures were still inside the hall.

Moreover, they noticed that the dragonflies did not attack people unless they were triggered first, so the situation was not really dire.

Shifting mana ripples suddenly emerged from the mist.

Flora quickly noticed it. “This is… professor?”

As she expected, Sunders stepped out from the mist while casting something on his own. The man was also taking out strange items from his ear nail which looked like glass sharps. He would drop one of them on the floor every several steps.

“Mister Sunders?”

“So he’s here because his student is getting killed?”

People started whispering.

“Why did you come, professor?” Flora floated to him. “And why is a Nightmare Domain here? Angor did this?”

“It’s complicated. We’ll talk later,” said Sunders as he gave her a serious look. “Get ready to fight. If Angor fails to shut off the nightmare passage, we’ll have to force ourselves inside a plane passageway and escape.”

“It’s THAT bad now?”

Sunders lowered his voice so only Flora could hear him.

“Yes. Something many levels stronger than a legendary is waiting behind the domain barrier.”