Warlock Apprentice

There was a patch of dry, fissured wasteland that served as the boundary between lava zone and more wasteland. Here, about a hundred individuals gathered. They were either standing or flying, laughing or being all quiet. Most of all, they were all looking at the handsome-looking man in silver uniform in the center of them.

If Angor were here, he would quickly recognize the surrounded individual as one of the elite apprentices sent by Floating Mech City—Dira. Or rather, he was actually Carveline who disguised as Dira.

“I believe we all know what’s going on, Dira.” The speaker was a black-skinned, bald woman with heavy makeup and a strapless robe. “Now speak. What exactly is this ‘blood sacrifice’ thing? Where’s the exit?”

Dira revealed a mocking, silent smile as his response.

“What? You think you can go and fight all of us?” The bald woman gave Dira a side-glance while touching her large ear stud. “If you don’t talk to us, we’ll force you to.”

“Go ahead and do it, Chocolate. But don’t drag us all inside your business.” Another fine-looking woman with dark skin said to her, “We’re simply trying to talk with Mister Dira. No fighting needed.”

Chocolate quickly grew irritated when someone openly disobeyed her script so soon. “Ohh, look at that, it’s Tana. I was wondering, why did your drunk teacher ask you to come here in the first place? So you can die sooner? Or…” Chocolate glanced at the young man standing beside Tana. “Did you manage to find a new follower by spreading your legs?”

Dira didn’t accept Alan’s little gift. Again, he glanced at the boy silently as he kept flying forward.

People began to doubt something. Just like the small cook said, Dira never said a single word ever since they met with him. Were they going to where they were expecting at all?

Dira’s all quiet, which meant they had been following him by assuming Dira’s intention.

Is he actually planning to take us somewhere dangerous and kill us all? Perhaps all the other apprentices from the city are waiting for us?

While thinking about the question, people found themselves arriving at a giant lava lake.

Something was waiting for them, true. Not the apprentices, but a giant monster that was slowly emerging from the lava.

Even though only half of its head was exposed, it was already bigger than an adult cloud whale!

Along with its monstrous head, several hundreds of tentacles slowly reached out from the abyss, causing the relatively peaceful lava to go violent.

Everyone froze at such a terrifying sight.

They heard someone talking from afar, “Here, we got backup! Just like I said. You keep it busy. I’ll go talk to them!”

The “backup team” looked at each other, not sure what to do.

“He fooled us all!” someone exclaimed. “Dira brought us here to get us killed!”

Sinehowze appeared in their sight. “Huh? Not really. The exit is just below that abyss. Well, believe it or not, I don’t care.”

“But how? That thing’s at least a wizard-level monster!”

“Actually, it’s a liiiittle weaker than it appears to be. But we need something strong, right? Just think, you need to reach this place, kill that thing, and enter the abyss. The whole process will kill 90% of us. And that’s how the blood sacrifice works!”

Someone slowly nodded. The woman did make sense.

“Can’t you see that some people are already trying to finish the job over there?” Sinehowze pointed to the Lord of Tentacles in the distance.

Keely, Freud, Yethew, Shayaron, and an old man they didn’t recognize were confronting the monster. However, Keely wasn’t moving for some reason. She just sat on her broomstick and watched while the others unleashed various attacks.

Apart from the strange old man, the other combatants were all famous figures too. Not long ago, Keely made quite a grand entrance by provoking “Child of Ocean” Jebra in front of everyone.

So it is true? The exit is down in that pit? People felt more convinced now.

“Shall we check it out?” Hermes stepped up first. Whether it was true or not, he believed they always needed to see with their own eyes.

While the group moved to join the fight, Carveline sent a private transmission to Sinehowze, “What’s happening here?”

Carveline was pointing at Freud’s group. When she left earlier, Sinehowze was the only one in this area. Why were there so many people all of a sudden?

“These fools found their way here just after you left,” Sinehowze responded with another voice transmission. “They knew about the Lord of Tentacles and the rumor about the exit below, so I said something to sway them into helping us. Although I don’t really understand that Keely girl… She’s not interested in the exit. She’s using her cat to look for someone.”

“Who is it?”

“No idea. She won’t tell me. Each time someone approaches her, she growls like she’s really angry. And I can’t beat her in a fight, so I just left her there.”