Warlock Apprentice

After he finished setting up his illusion, Angor immediately sat on the ground and panted badly. His clothes were drenched in sweat.

"I… it was so tiring, to deploy an illusion inside Nightmare Domain…" He almost exhausted his mana reserve to create a low-level illusion which was mostly thick mist.

Then, he looked at Shadow, who was wandering aimlessly in the illusion. At least it looked successful.

The tactic was described by Sunders in The Mystery of Nightmare Domain. According to Sunders, he could turn everything to his advantage by deploying illusions right inside his Nightmare Domain, and since such illusions did not have breakable nodes, it meant anyone trapped in them would find it extremely hard to escape.

This was caused by the indescribable nature of a Nightmare Domain. As a peculiar illusion itself, a Nightmare Domain was filled with countless illusion nodes, which instead appeared as if there were no nodes at all. Another illusion did not require nodes to exist in such a case since the domain itself would support the illusion fully.

In his book, Sunders didn't recommend such a tactic since it was only manageable by someone adept at manipulating a Nightmare Domain. If a victim managed to break the illusion, it meant breaking the Nightmare Domain as well.

A Nightmare Domain was a valuable asset. It could be repaired like a broken mirror, but it would also leave "scars" behind like a broken mirror.

Unfortunately, Angor didn't really have a choice now. He thought he could let the parasite go into Shadow's body, but then, he realized he couldn't. The parasite wouldn't occupy anyone when there was rich nightmare aura around. Besides, there were many people in the room, and he couldn't control the parasite at will yet.

This was why Angor chose a more "reliable approach".

And it worked, at least for now. Shadow wasn't going to escape from that mist any time soon.

Angor sighed and began to order Toby and the other nightmare monsters to attack Shadow in order to eat away the man's stamina.

It was a slow process too. Angor had to cycle between real and fake attacks to slowly damage Shadow's patience.

At first, Shadow would keep yelling something like "I'm so gonna kill you!" furiously. Now, the man had changed his attitude entirely.

"Stop! Please! Let's talk this over!

"What do you want? I'll give you anything as long as I can!"

Angor didn't mind him at all. He might as well capture Shadow alive and proceed from there.

While Toby led the assaults, Angor began to meditate in order to regain his spent mana as soon as possible.

About an hour later, he managed to recover most of his mana reserve.

Meanwhile, Shadow almost exhausted his own power. His healing ability could no longer stop new wounds from showing up now. As he lost more blood, his "Salamander Form" gradually disappeared.

In the end, Shadow collapsed on the floor helplessly.

Curse it all! How did I run into a tough guy out here?!

Shadow complained in his mind. He was planning to use the puppets to enter the "Otherworld", but now, something just ruined his plan at the very last moment.

He still had one last secret trick up his sleeves but using it would prevent him from going to the Otherworld for a while, as well as sending his preparations over these years down the drain.

"F*ck you, asshole. Do you really wish to fight till our last breath?" Shadow huffed painfully.

Since he had regained enough strength, Angor retorted this time, "Do I need to remind you who caused this first?"

"Well, I'm sorry! I can pay you something, alright?"

"Too late. I guess I'll just take it from you."

"Ha! But can you take what's inside my mind?"

Shadow saw Angor was unresponsive, and he revealed a smile. "So, what do you want? My knowledge? Channeling method? Cantrips? Information? I can give you anything as long as you let me go."

Angor didn't reply. He asked Toby and the dragonfly to keep suppressing Shadow.

Shadow clenched his teeth and endured several more attacks. That damned bird and strange insect seemed tired as well because the attacks hurt less than before. However, he wouldn't be able to take many more of them at such a rate. Soon, his mana would be emptied, and his own flesh would be exposed to harm.

He considered and decided to use his last move as a bluff.

"My professor is visiting your organization! You know who that is, right? Are you really going to do this? As I said, I can give you anything you want! If you don't give up, I'll use my last tool even if it costs years of my effort! And I don't know what will happen, mind you."

Shadow was already going to explain what his "last move" was, but he was surprised to notice that the young attacker wasn't interested at all.

"Your professor is at our organization? Do you even know who I am?"

"What—you're not from Silent Hill? But that's the only organization around here, in the real world!"

Real world? Silent Hill?

Angor searched around his mind and failed to find anything related to those concepts.

"You're not one of them?" Shadow tried again when he noticed Angor's confused reaction. "So are you from… Dark Castle?"

Angor's eyes brightened upon hearing that name. "Do you mean the Dark Castle under Fairytown?"

"Huh… You're not from Dark Castle then. You're not even from Fairy World."

"This is Fairy World?" Angor asked, which also confirmed Shadow's question.

"Yes, this is Fairy World! So which organization are you from? Don't tell me you are freelance. I don't believe it." Shadow realized that Angor had been asking for locations and their names. He wondered if this young man came here accidentally without going through any plane passage.

The Fairy World, like the Brilliance Plane, was another "appendage" plane of the wizarding world, which shared the same seasons and time cycles. There were certain fixed passageways to travel into these planes, which might appear as a door, a lake, or a small well. The entrance to Fairy World was a hole located at the base of an ancient tree.

People had to pay something to go through these entrances. Sometimes they needed to offer a sacrifice or bring a valuable magic plant with them. The cost of entering Fairy World was fairly cheap, which was only 10 magic crystals. Those who paid the price would receive a general map of the Fairy World from the office near the entrance.

"A smuggler?" Shadow wondered.

A smuggler wasn't an issue in the appendage planes since every wizard knew how to create their own plane passageway.

"But this young one is obviously an apprentice… Did someone bring him here?"

As Shadow went over his thoughts, Angor tried to remember everything he knew about Fairy World.

Fairy World was solely dominated by Fairytown. "Fairytown" was a general name that referred to a number of wizard organizations that joined one single union. For example, Candy House was one of them, and it gave birth to most of the known gourmet wizards around the southern wizarding region.

There were also the Rainbow Forest, Heaven Tree, Dark Castle…

Despite the knowledge though, how to get out of here was still a problem for Angor to solve.

"You saw that Krakok leaving, right?" Shadow said, "Their door can take them to or from the other worlds."

"And?"

"Heh. I'm saying that I don't need to use my last move to get the message out to someone, including my professor."

"You threatening me?"

"It's a fact. Again, I can tell you any information you want, and I can take you away from Fairy World too. Or give you a map. You showed me your strength, and I'll respect you. We can talk peacefully."

Angor looked at Shadow's battered body and didn't point out that the man was in no place for a "peaceful talk". Still, he was a little worried about Shadow's "secret move". The student of a major organization could definitely possess something powerful.

"How can I trust your words?" Angor thought about it and asked.

"I'll swear in the name of the world's consciousness. Otherwise, we can make a temporary covenant."