Warlock Apprentice

The demon’s enchanted voice broke her spirit defense like a sharp needle.

She couldn’t remember when she felt so terrified last time. But this was the second time today.

She didn’t know whether the giant creature in front of her was the rumored Manjimania, but she knew that unparalleled aura wasn’t fake. She felt her legs giving in when she was still some distance away from the monstrosity.

Fzzzt—

Drops of lava erased trees and snow as the demon slowly turned its head around to look at the small-bodied woman. Following its movement, more burning bubbles slowly emerged from the crack like fireworks.

“Human… HUMANS… Must all die…”

The woman felt pissed off because she was usually the murderer, not the one to be murdered. But she wasn’t going to complain right now. She knew she had zero chance of defeating this demon in a fight.

In fact, she wasn’t even sure whether her body still followed her will.

To make it worse, the forbidden spell she used to escape from the tunnel almost spent all of her mana. She had to run.

Without a second thought, she used the trees to jump away.

The demon was clearly angered by her action. It jumped out of the fissure with a mighty leap, further breaking the ground into a giant crater.

The woman looked back and saw a burning body almost 50 meters high standing behind her. The demon’s form was fully covered in obsidian plates and chunks of lava, while a blazing cape hung behind its back, sending intense flames into the environment which had stopped the snow.

She couldn’t see its face due to all the vapor and smoke. But she did see a pair of skeletal wings slowly spreading open behind the creature.

“Don’t f*cking tell me that thing can fly!”

Countless fireballs came down upon her and imprisoned her within a flaming cage.

She immediately bit her tongue to temporarily forget her exhausted condition so that she could muster up enough mana to cast another ability.

“Void Shift!”

Her body turned transparent as she successfully moved out of the fire prison.

She felt tunnel vision as her body and mind were badly burdened for overusing mana. When she could see clearly again, the demon had somehow teleported right in front of her despite its large body.

Her face turned pale in fear. She was now certain that she was looking at Manjimania, the legendary demon lord.

“Bothersome human pest… Prepare to face your end.”

A red, mushroom cloud blossomed in the middle of Prominent Forest, coating the land in boiling lava pools.

…

What happened in the forest nearby quickly alerted those in the Overwatch Base. Everyone including Angor all moved out of their rooms to look at a certain direction, from where an ill aura was relentlessly haunting their minds.

They couldn’t see anything yet because the snowstorm around the base had not died down in the slightest.

Sunders quietly landed beside Angor’s position while using one hand to hold his top hat in place.

“What’s happening, professor?” Angor glanced around and saw many apprentices and wizards looking in the same way.

“We don’t know yet.” Sunders frowned as he sensed the rampaging fire elements. “Maybe a powerful enemy just showed up.”

“A powerful enemy… Could it be the demon descendant Mister Monkey is waiting for?”

“No. Even Grand Demons do not display such violent energy signatures that affect our minds from afar. Could it be…”

Sunders had been suspecting that the legendary demon lord came to attack them. This was definitely bad news because it would take a level-3 truth-finder to fend off a demon lord, and the Overwatch Base didn’t have any.

The question was, every demon lord owned their territory at deeper levels. They usually had no business coming to level 3 or above.

“What is it? Did you see it?” Kanter suddenly popped up beside them. He came in a hurry without putting on his wizard hat, causing his silver hair to sway madly in the wind.

Sunders shook his head.

Soon after Kanter’s arrival, two other individuals appeared to join them—a woman wearing see-through fabrics, Samantha, and another woman with white hair and bright orange eyes, Sennefer.

This meant all truth-finders in the base had gathered up. Seeing this, Angor wondered if he should leave as soon as he could.

He thought these wizards were here looking for his professor. But instead, both Sennefer and Samantha had their attention on Kanter.

“Mister Eventide, can you help us scan the Prominent Forest and see what’s going on?” asked Sennefer.

Kanter hesitated. “My Eventide Blood can’t work well in the Abyss when we can see neither the sun nor the moon. I’m afraid—”

The sky turned bright as day when a giant explosion blasted the forest flat, leaving a mushroom cloud behind. This was followed by a heatwave that instantly vaporized all snow.

The truth-finders could feel the power of that explosion. None of them could survive it if they were in the center of it.

Sennefer yelled at Kanter as she took out an oval-shaped stone from her storage, “The base will get burned down in no time if that thing hits us. Use your power right now. I’ll give you the necessary material!”

The stone was called Solid Starlight, a high-tier material worth at least a few thousand magic crystals. Kanter wasn’t being stingy when he said he couldn’t use his power—it did come with a great cost.

Kanter took the stone from Sennefer, squeezed it into pieces, closed his eyes, and pressed the glowing shards against his forehead.

Angor saw Kanter’s body glittering brightly as if he were looking at a clear, starry sky at midnight.

“… The forest and a large area around it have been incinerated into a magma zone. The culprit is a… demon. Same level as a level-2 truth-finder, or worse.” Kanter opened his eyes. “It’s chasing after someone.”

“Who is it??”

“Dura.”

Everyone realized that if Dura showed up at the Prominent Forest, she must have contracted the curse of Pilgrim of Misfortune, which probably was the reason why she provoked the deadly demon.

By carrying the curse, she didn’t have to do anything specifically to attract trouble. Even if she just stood still, she would see meteorites popping up in the sky and coming down at her head.

Kanter added with a rather grim look, “It’s clear that Dura cannot defend herself against the demon. She’s… attempting to lure it to us.”