Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 443: Gathering of Mights

Along the snowy mountain ridge at northern hinterland, a giant figure suddenly swept past the sky and left a brief shade upon the ground. If anyone observed carefully, they would notice that the shadow was slowly shifting like a fluttering butterfly.

However, they wouldn’t actually see anything when looking up. There was only a clear sky with occasional clouds drifting by.

A while later, a strange bird appeared above the snow mountain.

The moderate-size bird was, in fact, made of metal. An experienced alchemist could easily notice countless springs and gears inside the mechanical bird.

The bird was painted in blue and white. While flying, it released a specific frequency used by a certain wizard.

As the frequency traveled around, the clear sky was suddenly occupied by a giant, colorful butterfly that slowly cruised its vicinity. There was a delicate-looking wooden house built on its back.

The mechanical bird circled around in the sky and approached a small postbox near the house. Then it dropped a letter with a red seal into the box and immediately left.

Slowly, the giant butterfly vanished again.

A short, plump boy showed up from the wooden pub house and bounced toward the postbox. He then joyfully yelled at the other waiters working inside. “The professor sent a letter!”

He was dressed in a clean, white chef uniform; his sleeves were covered in oil stains and different-colored powders. His round face was tainted by some black charcoal marks, and he smelled like roasted meat.

Following his call, another mature-looking woman, who barely wore anything on her body, came out of the pub. Her healthy, bronze-color skin reflected sunlight. Three pieces of scissored clothes were the only things that covered her private parts.

“What did the professor say, Alan? When will she come back?” the woman asked, which also aroused a series of discussions among the other waiters. They talked about different things, but all of them more or less showed interest in the return of their professor.

The fat boy, Alan, gulped at the woman before two streams of blood came rushing out of his nostrils.

The woman covered her mouth and chuckled, which caused her pair of giant buns to jiggle up and down. At such a sight, the fat boy bled faster and fell flat on the ground.

“Stop it, Tana, or you’re going to murder our little cutie Alan like that,” someone inside the pub said with a laughter.

Tana wiggled casually, which caused more people to stare at her and blush.

“But isn’t that why I’m here?”

Next, Tana moved to Alan and began to drag the unconscious boy back inside by his ankle.

A wind suddenly came and blew the letter away from Alan’s hand. The letter flipped in the air and landed in Tana’s unoccupied hand.

Tana checked the letter to see the beautiful, butterfly-like penmanship which was created by her teacher. The characters were arranged behind a certain password that only those from the pub could read.

[A private message to Alan and Tana]

To me and Alan? Tana revealed a joyful look. Without minding Alan, Tana opened the letter, while Alan’s body dropped on the floor again with a loud “thud”.

The letter also contained two cards inside.

Tana had finished the letter and remained agape, while Alan rubbed his throbbing head as he stood up. The boy joined Tana and read the letter as well.

“Huh? What’s a purification garden? Something to eat?” Alan’s vision was blurry, so he could only make out several important words between the lines—Month of Resuscitation, Floating Mech City, Garden of Purification.

…

The Sin World was an appendage plane to the northwest of the Fey Continent. It sat in the center of the Baikal Sea with its entrance left in the middle of a submarine volcano.

There was a tiny nation located along the edge of Sin World called the Gambillon Kingdom.

There was no wizard organization stationed in the Gambillon Kingdom, and almost none of its residents knew about supernatural beings. However, such a remote place had given birth to a certain group hated by most wizards in the entire wizarding world—the Supreme Cult.

Supreme Cult regarded the world’s consciousness as their ultimate belief. The members declared that they were all “believers”, but in fact, they were also wizards—wizards favored by the world’s consciousness. They hunted down every “illegal traveler” from foreign worlds, which was also what the world’s consciousness would usually do.

This was the “political correctness” in the wizarding world. By taking advantage of the unspoken rule, some of the higher-ups in the Supreme Cult could use special arts to acquire indescribable powers from the great consciousness.

Supreme Cult was not a wizard organization. Yet it was so powerful that no wizard would disregard their presence.

Today, a number of apprentices who had been accepting training on how to hunt for otherworldly beings stood in line on the training ground to welcome one of the authoritative figures in the cult, the Black Bishop.

The Supreme Cult had three training sections. Most apprentices were youths below the age of 20. Some had not even reached 6 yet. However, despite their age, every single apprentice showed violent and deadly emotions after being lectured by the cult’s creeds.

Black Bishop felt very satisfied when inspecting their new generation.

“The purification garden in Floating Mech City is about to open. Those who wish to participate, come to me.”

No one spoke.

Instead of feeling offended by the unresponsiveness, the bishop nodded in contentment.

“Of course, the quota is not free. You have to fight for a chance if you want one. Candidates will be immediately arranged into deathmatches, and the last survivor can acquire an invitation from me. By ‘deathmatches’, I’m expecting battles for your life and death. Do not show me your useless friendship and morals.”

Black Bishop then left the apprentices while laughing madly. He had to present his speech to the other training sections.

Half a day later, the winner of the first training section walked to the bishop on bloody steps.

“Good. Tell me your name,” the bishop addressed the merciless-looking young man in front of him with a smile.

“Saladin Buer.” The young man’s hair had clumped into several parts due to all the blood covering his head, which suggested the brutality of the previous battles.

“Very well. This is yours now.” The bishop handed him a card.

The young man nodded and turned away without saying anything.

As the bishop admired the brilliant young man, the vice bishop suddenly whispered to him, “Sir, I heard rumors that Floating Mech City has prepared some little tricks this time.”

“Oh, I know about it. When I joined their discussion, an informant told me that the garden might turn into a bloody battlefield… But isn’t that what brings the best destiny? Gah-haha!”

…

A vast nation called the “Lavish Division” was situated northwest of the Evernight Kingdom. Despite its name, three-fourth of its land was covered by deserts. This was why none of its adjacent nations ever attempted to attack Lavish Division.

In the hinterlands in the middle of Lavish Division, a little boy riding on a white Sand Rhino suddenly showed up inside a small oasis town.

The boy looked like he was about the age of 10, but he was extremely mischievous. Within three days, he had traveled among a dozen such towns. And each time he went into one, people would direct hostile yelling at him, which only seemed to entertain the boy.

He always had a small whip in hand and used it to whip the creature under him. Bothered by the whip, his rhino would simply ram into every house it saw and turned it into ruins.

However, he didn’t get to do his usual game inside this town named “Horse Hooves”.

As soon as the rhino bumped into the walls of a stone castle, a young man descended from the sky and pinched the boy’s ear.

“Aw aw aw…” the boy moaned in pain.

“Loki! Didn’t the professor told us NOT to bother mortals?” the young man said with a plain expression.

“I didn’t! It was Alby who did it!” The boy named “Loki” protested with tears around his eyes.

“Alby is your familiar, and you shall answer for its crime.”

Next, the man dragged Loki by his ear and led him around the town to apologize to the local residents. He had been amending all the damage caused by Loki these days, and he decided he’d never let Loki slip from his view again.

Loki simply cried at the top of his lungs while pretending to be an innocent kid.

In the end, the residents of Horse Hooves chose to forgive him. However, they still expected compensation for the broken buildings.

“Aw sh*t! The Sand Pirates are here!” someone suddenly screamed.

The small towns that scattered around the desert weren’t ruled by any governments; as such, it allowed the existence of bandit groups. Upon hearing the terrible message, all people grew fearful.

Fearful, but not yet desperate. The Sand Pirates only wanted money, not their lives.

But their expressions darkened further when another folk declared that it was “Baba Ali Clan” who just showed up. This was a very infamous bandit group that had already burned several towns to ashes.

People either ran or hid. Someone even chose to escape into the unforgiving desert.

A gentle-looking woman saw Loki and the young man standing in the open without moving and quickly called, “Stranger, quickly, come to my basement!”

“There’s no need,” the young man replied.

The woman sighed and returned to her own hiding spot when she saw the bandits drew near.

The young man simply took Loki into hiding by vanishing into thin air.

Again, Baba Ali Clan lived up to their name by killing everyone they could catch and taking everything they got their hands on. It was only a minute, and there were already a dozen corpses lying on the ground.

Loki watched the ongoing slaughter with a curious expression. “Brother Hermes, aren’t we going to help them?”

Loki knew that Hermes had been repairing the broken buildings he left behind, so he believed that Hermes would save the mortals again.

However, Hermes shook his head. “Again, do not bother the lives of mortals.”

Loki rolled his eyes.

He loved doing mischief, but he would never maim people without a reason.

Loki watched silently as countless lives perished in front of his eyes. He finally couldn’t take it anymore when he saw several bandits dragging the kind woman from her basement and prepared to execute her.

“Go, Alby! Kill these bandits. All of them!”

Hermes gave him a side-glance but didn’t do anything.

Alby howled and instantly wiped out the Sand Pirates after using several simple cantrips—Sandstorm and Sand Trap.

When Horse Hooves Town regained its peace, albeit relatively, Loki showed his form in front of the people proudly while expecting words of praise. Yet the residents only gave him more fearful looks as if they just saw a demon. Several people began tossing lit torches at him. Even the “kind woman” from earlier stepped back in terror.

Loki felt his heart aching. How could Brother Hermes earn respect by repairing buildings, while he only received foul treatment after saving so many lives?

“The hearts of humans are difficult to fathom. Let’s move,” Hermes said as he dragged Loki by his hand. “Professor had arrived at Floating Mech City, and your naivety caused us to fall behind. We can’t afford to miss our timing.”

“Yes, brother…” Loki pouted and nodded in sadness.