Chapter 1115: Chapter 1116: Visitors from the Scorched Earth
Angel raised his head to look at the battle in the sky.
Nitotipu had enveloped a space with rain clouds, temporarily protecting the two blood cocoons. The wizards were trying to break through the rain clouds by all means, but with little success. Nitotipu’s combat power within the rain clouds was terrifying.
At the moment, the two sides were in a stalemate. Nitotipu was clearly trying to buy time; first, to allow the demons to emerge from their cocoons sooner, and second, to wait for the implementation of the Void’s tremors.
“If I’m to break through the encirclement and send a message, now would be the most appropriate time,” Angel thought to himself.
Time waited for no one. Since the Fafnir route was not viable, the only option left was to break through the encirclement with speed. After a moment of thought, Angel made up his mind.
Before leaving, he had one more thing to do.
He couldn’t take Toby with him, so he had to find someone to watch over Toby while he was away. Angel glanced at Fafnir, then slowly shifted his gaze to Canaan… and eventually, Angel looked back at Fafnir.
After all, Canaan was a demon, and Angel couldn’t fully trust him. Although Fafnir couldn’t be trusted completely either, Toby was essential to Odeclass’s mission, so Fafnir likely wouldn’t refuse.
With that in mind, Angel spoke, “Lord Fafnir, I wonder if… huh?”
He had only gotten halfway through his sentence when, just as he called out Fafnir’s name, Angel sensed an unusual presence outside, as if someone was approaching.
It wasn’t just Angel who felt it; Canaan also furrowed his brows and peered outside through the Domain of Wind’s barrier, “Shopkeeper, there are shadows gathering outside.”
Angel extended his spirit tentacle out of the Domain of Wind and indeed saw the shadows described by Canaan.
It wasn’t just one shadow. Under the blazing red glow of the sky, multiple shadows flickered in the white smoke rising from the Scorched Earth. The distorted refraction of light made these shadows sometimes stretch and sometimes contract.
They looked just like the evil spirits hiding in the smoke from a horrifying fairy tale.
Although the shadows in the smoke seemed creepy, Angel oddly felt they were a bit familiar. With curiosity, he extended his spirit tentacle further into the smoke to get a clearer look.
Upon closer inspection, he found something eerie; the shadows seemed to be merely flat, without any sense of depth.
Angel hesitated about whether to use his spirit tentacle to probe the actual situation of the shadows.
However, before he could investigate further, he felt a gaze fixed upon him, or more precisely, upon his spirit tentacle. The source of the gaze seemed not to be in the surrounding Scorched Earth but from a distant place.
From atop a ruined building hundreds of meters away, Samantha quietly watched the sudden appearance of the spirit tentacle, her eyes filled with strangeness and doubt.
“Is it him?” Samantha whispered.
“It looks like it, but also not. This spirit tentacle is wrapped in a layer of peculiar wind element, obscuring any real insight,” Kanter replied.
Typically, the strength of a spirit tentacle could be used to gauge the power of its owner. Yet, this particular spirit tentacle was strange. Kanter, using Phantom Shadow at close range, couldn’t find anything, only sensing a breeze of wind element clinging to the spirit tentacle.
“Can you find its origin then?”
“Its origin is deeper within,” Kanter said, his expression turning grave. “Nearby, there’s an extremely dangerous area I cannot approach. I just went a little deeper and lost a phantom shadow.”
Kanter paused, “However, that area is where I previously probed in the Void and located that mysterious little shop. It’s also there that I saw Angel’s figure.”
“Do you mean, Angel might be within that dangerous area?” Samantha asked.
Kanter nodded in affirmation.
Samantha pondered for a moment, “So, the spirit tentacle could possibly be from Angel?”
Kanter couldn’t confirm; in the peril-filled Demon City, no one could be sure whether it was a trap or not. On their way here, in one ruin, they had found some precious special materials, only to trigger an explosive trap as soon as they entered. Not only that, but the loud explosion also attracted nearby lurking demons.
Fortunately, those demons were only minor ones, and the two of them quickly cleaned them out together.
“Use the Separation Technique to try and make contact,” Samantha murmured after a moment.
The so-called Separation Technique involved the Spiritual Separation Technique. It meant cutting off a piece of spiritual power and maintaining temporary control over it through a connecting filament. This was commonly used in dangerous relic explorations, allowing one to quickly sever the connection to the origin of the spiritual power in case of an emergency, to prevent spiritual contamination.
“It’s worth a try; let me do it. If it’s Angel, it would be more appropriate for me to handle it,” Kanter said, and immediately severed a small piece of his spiritual power. For wizards of their level, the loss of this bit of spiritual power would cause only a sting, which would recover after a period of rest.
Angel hesitated about whether to approach the shadow, as he felt that it looked familiar when it revealed its normal form.
While he was indecisive, a spirit tentacle suddenly appeared nearby and emitted a familiar wave of spiritual power.
There was no specific message in the fluctuation, and if a demon were to interpret it, they would probably be confused. But Angel understood the meaning: it was a confirmation of identity and a check for friendliness.
Angel felt a surge of joy in his heart. The fact that someone could emit this spiritual power wave meant that the person was definitely a human wizard. If he could confirm the other party’s identity, he might not have to risk breaking through the demon’s defense line.
With this in mind, Angel immediately sent out a wave of spiritual power in response.
Kanter was taken aback by the spiritual power wave.
Samantha: “How is it?”
Kanter nodded: “It’s him, it’s Angel, no doubt about it.”
Once confirmed, Samantha’s expression lightened slightly, but there was still doubt in her eyes, just as with all the other wizards who had heard Angel’s name on the floating ice before: What was Angel’s purpose in appearing here?
Without overthinking it, and now that she had confirmed it was Angel, it would be best to ask him directly. With this thought, Samantha exchanged a glance with Kanter, nodded, and both of them moved at the same time, like arrows released from their bows, quickly entering the range of Scorched Earth.
Kanter had mentioned before that this was a dangerous area, but Samantha didn’t understand what he meant until she arrived and felt the constant sense of danger and oppression.
Samantha could detect where the danger was coming from, but she dared not delve deeper. She felt that if she crossed a certain line, the lurking dangers would turn into real blades.
“Let’s stop here,” Samantha steadied herself and fixed her gaze on the spirit tentacle in the white smoke, which appeared ethereal and insubstantial.
At the same time, Angel also noticed the visitors in the white smoke.
The first person he saw was Samantha. Her figure was swaying, with black hair cascading over her chest, wearing a crystal blue dress like colored glaze that made her appear both cold and enchanting.
Angel had seen her before at Watchguard Fortress, and Sanders had mentioned some things about Samantha as well, her connections with Barbarian Cave being notable. However, Angel’s most vivid memory of her was a phrase that Sanders occasionally mentioned: “a piece of broken glass.”
At first, Angel thought Sanders was referring to Samantha’s lip color, which was a crystal blue with a cracked pattern, resembling shattered glass. It was later that Angel heard the rest of Sanders’s statement: “A piece of broken glass can never be pieced back together.”
It seemed Sanders was implying something more than just her lip color. Considering that Samantha grew up in Barbarian Cave and was Sanders’s peer, there might be some unknown intrigues involved.
Seeing Samantha made Angel excited.
After all, Samantha was also a high-ranking member of the Frostmoon Alliance. By passing the message of the human purging plan to her, Angel thought he might save himself another trip.
At that moment, the surrounding shadows were suddenly retracted, and after they all disappeared, Angel saw another figure—Kanter.
Although Angel felt excited when he saw Samantha, having never interacted with her and having heard that she was harsh to those from Barbarian Cave, he still felt a bit uneasy. However, seeing Kanter, that trace of unease disappeared entirely.
No wonder Kanter had not been seen on the floating ice; he had also been sent to the ground. Angel muttered softly, “But why would Lord Kanter come here? He couldn’t also be here for Aoluxiya, could he?”
He had already informed Sinafa of the current situation at the Hunting Museum, and it was surprising that they still dared to send someone. It seemed that Lord Monty’s obsession was indeed deep.
Regardless, their arrival spared Angel the risk of having to break through on his own, which was a good thing from that perspective.
“Angel?” The familiar mental wave spread from Kanter.
Angel immediately replied, “It’s me, Lord Kanter.”
“Angel, tell me, where are you right now? Can you confirm that the message you sent earlier is true? How did you come to know these messages? What else do you know?” Samantha fired off a series of questions one after another.
Kanter glanced at Samantha and shook his head inwardly. While there was nothing wrong with Samantha’s attitude in other contexts—as a Second Level True Knowledge Wizard questioning an ordinary apprentice—it was somewhat tactless given the place and time.
Not to mention the great importance of Angel’s message, the fact that this place belonged to a supremely powerful being meant they had to bow their heads and lower their postures. Unless that powerful being had already decided to go to war with humans, this line of questioning was likely to be counterproductive.
Thinking this, Kanter didn’t wait for Samantha to finish and took over the conversation: “Angel, are you alright?”