Warlock Apprentice

Dave quickly perked up in joy. “Thank god. I knew Angor will be fine!”

He did not realize that he had completely forgotten about his “princess”, Parasite Queen.

Melantha also watched intensely when “Angor” slowly climbed up from the ground on his trembling arms.

She sighed in relief. “Looks like Bouy did it.”

Baroque nodded, causing his small braid to flip behind his head. “Good. I didn’t think her host infestation would work so perfectly. The soul looks like it has completely merged with the body. At least I can’t find a single flaw in it yet.”

Melantha looked further relieved now. “You can’t? So… maybe Sunders won’t notice that Angor’s consciousness has been replaced?”

Baroque did not answer this time. “I’m not sure. And it doesn’t really matter. More importantly, I want to know why Sunders accepted that boy as a pupil in the first place.”

“What is it, Mister Baroque?” Melantha gave him a puzzled look.

“This can’t be… No!” Baroque kept shaking his head in denial. “It shouldn’t be like this. Bouy would never destroy her old host because it contained the spores of Green Velvet. Besides… Bouy never used that kind of expression in front of everyone before.”

Melantha also revealed a frightened look. She pointed at the center of hate in the middle of the arena with a trembling hand. “Do you mean—that’s—”

“He’s Angor. The original Angor! Not Bouy!” Baroque could not believe his own words but the truth already proved so. Even with Angor’s memory, Bouy could never mimic the boy’s character. Also, the familiar bird would not trust Bouy’s order so easily.

The answer was obvious.

Bouy lost the battle which no one could see. Angor survived!

Baroque stared at Angor with squinted eyes. “Well well… I underestimated you. A fresh-new apprentice who knew how to defend his soul? He can even retaliate. Sunders must have put a lot of effort into his student. This Angor kid must have something really interesting on him.”

“Sunders implanted something in Angor’s soul. This is the only explanation. Otherwise, there’s no way Bouy would fail.” Melantha grimaced at the situation. If what they thought was right, Angor was much more valuable to Sunders than they expected.

“Now I REALLY want to know the reason behind Sunders’ decision, and why he put such a powerful defense inside Angor’s soul.”

Bouy’s death more or less surprised Baroque, but the surprise did not last long. To Baroque, this spy from Floating Mech City was not much different from the other apprentices.

If Bouy did succeed, he would be glad to make further plans. On the other hand, he would not mind her failure at all. A mere spy was nothing important.

Baroque remained calm as always. Even if Angor would question why Bouy came to steal his body, the boy had nothing to drag the old man into this.

As Baroque believed, those two could not possibly communicate as souls. Even if they could, Bouy would never reveal his name to Angor.

All in all, what happened during the match was only Parasite Queen’s personal decision. It had nothing to do with Floating Mech City.

At this moment, Baroque still did not know that he could no longer keep himself out of the matter.

Maybe he did not explicitly ask Bouy to do anything. Yet he did not know anything about Angor’s special soul talent which allowed him to read clues from Parasite Queen’s emotions.

“Since Sunders placed a defense mechanism in the soul of his student, he should have already learned about what happened here. Don’t worry though. What Bouy did has nothing to do with us,” Baroque spoke in a careless tone.

Melantha still looked troubled, but she understood what Baroque said. At least, with Bouy’s death, she could not expose anything else.

“I see. Bouy is only another common fighter in Sky Tower,” Melantha replied in an emotionless voice.

…

Sunders did not put anything in Angor’s soul. Melantha and Baroque’s assumption was incorrect from start to end.

And of course, Sunders did not know what just happened to Angor. Yet.

Inside Phantom Island, Sunders abruptly looked up from his desk and toward the direction of the underground market.

“Huh… I sense something familiar,” muttered Sunders as he revealed a determined look. In the next second, his body vanished from his study.

On the arena, Angor was using all his will to keep himself upright.

He did not know how he won the battle against Parasite Queen, but he only managed to save his soul, not his body. Now that Parasite Queen’s soul had disappeared, he had regained control of his body. However, the Green Velvet spores still remained in him.

Standing up was the best thing he could do right now.