Warlock Apprentice

"Oh dear, I'm not going to let you get Diablo out so easily." Felicia grinned while looking at Angor from her crystal ball. Slowly, a glowing black butterfly emerged from her hand and flew away.

On the third floor of Dark Castle, Angor had been following behind Venees, but he was growing really nervous now. Venees never walked any ordinary passage. She would sneak into all kinds of secret doors which were hidden behind strange mechanisms such as a lever in a book or a rope on a hanging lamp. Sometimes she needed to do a certain action to trigger a portal, like pulling a rope at a fixed speed.

Angor wasn't sure if any of these secret ways were safe, but since Venees walked into them… they should be fine.

And he felt lucky; he would never find these paths if he didn't "trick" Venees into helping him.

This also explained how Shadow was captured. That man might be careful and smart, but he was still an apprentice who would obviously fail when faced with so many traps.

Angor was amazed by the number of expansion runes that were used in the whole place.

Next, Venees entered an ordinary-looking bedroom with a pinkish-red design. All the plush toys and lady dresses suggested that the room belonged to some woman.

Venees walked deeper inside and dragged "Diablo" toward a large teddy bear.

Is there another door behind that thing? Angor pondered.

And he was wrong. Venees turned the toy over, unzipped it, and walked inside the bear.

Angor followed her again and found himself standing in a giant lobby. The lobby was mostly empty apart from the statue of a praying goddess in the middle of it. It looked a lot like those statues in Hippocrotee. Isabelle's statue, probably.

Venees knelt down in front of the statue and remained in a groveling position for a long time.

A glowing portal suddenly appeared in front of the statue, which led into a dark cave.

Angor decided not to move yet since Venees was still praying.

A moment later, the scenery across the portal slowly turned into a room filled with a blizzard. Venees trembled a little when the cold wind came from the entrance.

But she kept still.

As more time passed, Angor saw different views in the portal such as hallways, colorful rooms, narrow gaps… He realized that Venees was still waiting because the correct path wasn't here yet.

Angor began to admire the great creativity presented by the person who set these traps. No one would easily find the right path without knowing it beforehand.

As he carefully inspected the shifting portal, a black butterfly suddenly descended into the lobby.

Venees, who had her head on the ground, didn't notice the blinking butterfly. Angor, on the other hand, was terrified to notice that his illusion was failing when the butterfly moved closer.

With each wing flap, glittering scales came off the butterfly, which immediately disrupted Diablo's phantom.

Angor realized that someone, who had been watching him, finally decided to sabotage his plan.

He wasn't sure about this before. Now that he saw the butterfly showing up out of nowhere, he was almost certain that a certain being had been monitoring him since he entered Dark Castle.

Judging from the butterfly's effect, his "Diablo illusion" was already found out, which probably meant his own phantom was exposed as well.

So… did someone find out his real location too?

He planned to try it out.

Diablo's image was almost broken now. Angor unleashed more mana onto the image to repair the affected illusion nodes so that "Diablo" wouldn't vanish too soon.

He managed to sustain the illusion under the butterfly's attack. Angor wouldn't mind wasting some strength since Shadow's prison seemed pretty close now. He could win as long as Venees took him into that "blood prison". And whether Venees would discover his trick afterward didn't matter.

Venees noticed nothing about the silent battle right behind her while praying.

On the first floor, Felicia snickered at Angor's retaliation. She moved a finger to control her butterfly across the distance.

Upon receiving the order, the glowing butterfly suddenly became two.

The black one was still releasing scales. At the same time, it began to glow more brightly and gave birth to another white butterfly.

The white butterfly didn't go for Diablo's phantom. Instead, it halted in the air for a moment and headed to a concealed corner in the lobby.

It then patrolled in the air, chose a certain direction, and slammed into it.

With a violent space ripple, Angor was knocked out of his invisibility effect and crashed against a wall behind him. The sudden pain kept him stunned on the ground while coughing up some blood.

No longer supported by Angor's magic, Diablo's phantom quickly vanished under the black butterfly's effect. The ropes used to restrain Diablo all fell on the floor.

"Know your place… kid." Felicia grinned while looking at Angor's condition in her crystal ball.

At the same time, Venees had completed her waiting. The portal was now leading into some stairs that connected to darkness.

"Oookay, the blood prison. Lady Butterfly's going to reward me for bringing Diablo back. Maybe I can get some of her wine!" Venees picked up the ropes which now held nothing and slowly walked into the portal.

Felicia gazed at Venees in shock.

What just happened? Venees didn't notice her stupid action? Her captive is gone!

And that little apprentice just hit a wall which should have attracted Venees' attention! Why didn't she check the noise out?

Felicia shifted the focus of her crystal ball back to where the "little apprentice" was at.

"Where is he?!"

This was all so strange. First, Venees never noticed the violent actions happening in the lobby or the disappearance of Diablo's body. Now the wounded apprentice just escaped so easily?

Felicia frowned and moved her finger again, and another butterfly with both black and white coloring emerged from the black one.

The third butterfly landed on the floor where some blood was spilled. The insect glowed for a while and created a white vortex above the blood.

At the same time, the same vortex appeared in front of Felicia.

She reached a hand into the vortex, which acted as a small portal and allowed her to reach all the way to Angor's original position. She then captured some of Angor's blood on her finger and retracted her hand.

To her, this level-2 apprentice looked so strange. She planned to use his blood to look for his information.

But when she moved her finger closer, she only smelled something sweet.

As a Gourmet Wizard, Felicia immediately recognized the familiar smell.

Tomatoes!

A level-2 apprentice just fooled her!

"Interesting. I see you're capable enough to take Diablo away. However… you're going to pay for tricking me like that."