Warlock Apprentice

Could it be someone who wanted to ask him to make something, who was now looking for him, used a prophecy spell? That would be so wasteful!

It was commonly believed that prophecy spells posed the strongest backfire hazard among all arts. People almost never used such spells to directly predict the result of something, since such attempts easily provoked the world’s consciousness. When trying to look for someone, a prophet usually looked for other less relevant matters first. The prophet would then deduce the location of the target by referring to the stars, the weather, or the layout of stones. This was why prophets always acted absurdly in the views of people.

Now that Angor felt his “isolation” effect swaying, it was obvious that someone was checking on him directly.

And if a prophecy spell was involved, whoever that did it aimed to get his location immediately. It was a dangerous act.

He called Toby back and placed the invitation poster of Phantom Island into Toby’s Snowy Feather. He then ordered the bird to hide somewhere safe. It would be nice if someone simply wanted him to craft. But if someone were here to attack him... then he would let Toby escape to Phantom Island, and hopefully, he would ask for Sunders’ assistance.

As he tried to convince Toby into running away, someone spoke to him in a clear voice.

“So cautious. Am I so scary to you?”

A disturbingly shiny, half-naked man showed up from the trees.

“Mi-Mister Tree Spirit?!”

...

An hour ago, inside Lady Mirror’s residence, Lydia received a transmission from Tepikkhu Moa, which was sent at the cost of the blood of his kin.

As the symbols became comprehensible characters on the paper-

“Devastated?!” It wasn’t Lydia, but Lady Mirror who exclaimed first.

Lydia did sign a contract with the Moa clan that she would receive tribute from them. Yet she wasn’t someone from Darkivil Empire. She wasn’t even from Parmigi Highlands. Lydia originated from another wizarding family millions of kilometers away.

As a small, self-sufficient family who enjoyed the brilliance of ancestors, Lydia’s family was pretty abundant.

To Lydia, whether the Midnight Sovereign was drowned with blood had little to do with her. However, Midnight Sovereign fell inside the territory of Brute Cavern, while the other side of Midnight Sovereign, which was Twilight Well, was mostly controlled by Brute Cavern.

“Something happened in Midnight Sovereign... What has become of Twilight Well?” Lady Mirror looked worried.

Lydia carried the same grim expression. Lady Mirror might believe that she didn’t care about the Midnight Sovereign, but Lady Mirror didn’t know that her contract with the Moa clan involved a sanctuary pact—she had to protect the clan. If something caused the Moa clan to die off, she would suffer a terrible backlash from the covenant.

“As long as Twilight Well stays at the opposite side of Midnight Sovereign, we can’t watch Midnight Sovereign go down. If Tepikkhu spoke the truth... something must have happened,” Lydia spoke.

“All of my energy is for supporting the mirror world. I’ll go look for the Tree Spirit. He has enough spare energy to sense what’s going on inside Midnight Sovereign,” Lady Mirror replied.

When Lady Mirror prepared to leave, Lydia quickly stopped her. “Wait, I can speak to Tepikkhu.”

“You can?” Lady Mirror frowned. It was possible to communicate over such a long distance, but it was extremely hard to do it with a mortal.

“I left an alchemy puppet over there when I signed the contract. The puppet contained my blood which would help me to establish a connection. But my strength isn’t enough to do it from too far. I need your help, Lady Mirror.”

“That’s not a problem. Go ahead.”

Lydia injected her mana into her blood to create a resonance with the tiny trace of blood far away.

“I got it!”

It was only several seconds, and Lydia was sweating badly on her forehead. “Assist me, Lady Mirror, so I can bring the image here!”

As Lady Mirror provided her extra energy, a scenery slowly materialized in front of them.

Thousands of kilometers away, inside a secret underground chamber in Midnight Sovereign, a wicked ritual was being commenced.

An old man, who was wearing strange, colorful clothes like clown costumes, was tightly bound on top of an altar. He was mumbling nonsense. He would cry, scream, and suddenly laugh in the next second. His childish behaviors were decorated by a pair of maniacal eyes.

“Do we really have to do this, Father? Butler Horey has been serving our family for 60 years, body and soul. I can’t bear to look at him being sacrificed...” a young man said with tears around his eyes.

“And you think I wish for this, Domino?! This man has accompanied me for longer than your lifetime! But the outside has become hell. We must hide in this chamber, and Horey is the only one who ‘turned’. It’s our only choice. Or should I kill someone normal instead? Or go outside and look for another of those things? We don’t know if we’ll get infected out there. To save ourselves, sacrificing Horey is the only thing we can do.”

The speaker was a middle-aged Phantom Servant, Duke Tepikkhu, a powerful figure in the entire Midnight Sovereign.

The young man who protested was Domino, Hobbiton’s elder brother.

Domino was fully aware of the situation, so he nodded. “Hobbiton has gone missing... I wonder if Lady Lotus is willing to save us.”

“Again, it’s the only way. We have to try.” Tepikkhu sighed when thinking about his younger son.

The duke turned to his guard and revealed a determined look. “Do it!”

A guard moved a blade to cut screaming Horey’s leg artery. Blood came surging out like a fountain, tainting the guard’s face.

Tepikkhu quickly ordered another guard to take the blood-covered man into an observation room nearby. They didn’t know the exact manner as to how the infection spread, but body fluid contact was one of the possible ways.

Horey’s blood slowly flowed down the altar and filled the base of the structure across the small gaps. In the end, it created a strange diagram, where a piece of brown paper floated at the center of it.

Horey didn’t respond at his wound. He kept laughing, crying, and doing every creepy move he had been doing.

Tears came flowing down both Domino and Tepikkhu’s face as they watched Horey grew paler.

When the brown paper suddenly glowed, Tepikkhu knelt down and screamed in a miserable voice, “Lady Lotus, the Midnight Sovereign is now almost devastated, and the Moa clan is near its doom. Please, Lady, we beg for your merciful assistance...”

Time slowly went by. The paper lost its brilliance, while Tepikkhu kept at his kneeling position. Domino felt his heart aching with sadness and decided to join his father to pray for help from the great wizard.

A moment later, something suddenly squeaked from a corner of the secret chamber.

Tepikkhu and his son quickly looked up toward the source of the noise.

This room was established by Lydia, and they usually didn’t come here. They had no idea what was placed in here, and they were both confused to see a legless doll with a giant head floating in the air.

They then felt great joy when the dull-colored doll gave out a familiar woman’s voice.

Lady Lotus was here!

...

The image was fuzzy, but Lady Mirror still managed to read the situation shown in it.

“They are the Moas? Good choice. They used a psycho as the sacrifice.”

Horey was not dead yet but very close now. His eyes still displayed total madness.

As someone who visited Tepikkhu’s mansion before, Lydia quickly recognized the man on the altar. “That’s no psycho. I think he’s the butler of the mansion. A prudent old man. How did it come to this?”

She didn’t worry about it too much. The man was going to die anyway.

Using Lady Mirror’s power, Lydia controlled the doll to approach Tepikkhu and Domino, who had been staring at the doll in shock.

“Keep it brief. Tell me what’s happening inside Midnight Sovereign.”

Lydia and Lady Mirror frowned harder and harder as they listened to Tepikkhu’s explanation.

“Ask them if any wizard from Twilight Well came out and dealt with the situation yet,” Lady Mirror said in a low voice.

The Twilight Well was only a legend to most residents in Midnight Sovereign, but an authoritative figure like Tepikkhu already knew about the place. However, he never really went there.

“Has any wizard come out and help?” Lydia asked.

Tepikkhu shook his head. “No. I’ve sent people to watch the entrance of Twilight Well ever since it started. No one came.”

“Something’s not right,” Lydia replied to Lady Mirror in a small voice. “Twilight’s got to do something by now if it’s just a new disease. Well, unless...”

“Oh, Lady Lotus, there’s one more thing,” Tepikkhu said to the floating doll. “Before entering the chamber, I saw a witch flying in the air while riding on a broomstick. She was wearing strange things and talking nonsense just like Butler Horey.”

Both Lady Mirror and Lydia grimaced at those words.

“Now this is trouble. It must be an apprentice who can use a flying vehicle. Yet the ‘disease’ can affect her. We must quarantine Midnight Sovereign, now!”

There were many types of illnesses that could affect supernaturals. But something that could do so in such a short time without allowing anyone to get the message out was something completely different. Also, no one had shown up from Twilight Well yet, which meant...

Were the wizards inside Twilight Well infected too?