A giant boulder sat motionless in his view.
Both the “young” and the “old” side of Talos were sleeping like any ordinary folk would do in the middle of the night. Rather, the Dual Sprite looked even peaceful under the comforting moonlight.
Angor tried to talk. Yet Talos never woke up no matter how he called and yelled or revealed his body.
Angor’s expression darkened. He didn’t believe that Talos, an ancient being who had lived for thousands of years, would fail to notice someone had disrupted its sleep.
The only explanation was Talos didn’t want him to leave.
Angor would assume the worst. It was likely that Talos had sided with Isabella. Yet the sprite didn’t want to make it too obvious, so it simply feigned it.
Also, Talos probably had already informed Isabella of his arrival!
In truth, only half of Angor’s assumption was correct—Talos was pretending to be sleeping, true. But this wasn’t because it wanted to aid Isabella. Talos would like to avoid getting involved in the matter.
The sprite was almost certain that Angor was a disciple of Phantom Master, which meant Sunders—the famous “killing machine from the southern wizarding region”—was standing behind this boy. Of course Talos would NOT set Angor up so boldly.
In case Sunders did come to protect his student, Talos meant to stay out of this and put all blame on Isabella.
However, Talos failed to predict the presence of Bogula. As the gatekeeper of Silent Hill, Talos knew about Bogula’s special obsession toward people with blond hair and blue eyes. That man would DEFINITELY try to intervene.
If Sunders found out that his personal student was made into a puppet by Bogula...
Talos silently thought about what to do.
“Maybe we should let him run?”
“Hey no! I want to get paid!”
“The kid has some crystals. How about getting some of that and let him go?”
“No. I’ve already come up with a pen name! I want to get known around the south!”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“But you don’t know what Sunders, Bogula, and Isabella will do in Silent Hill. I’ve got a feeling that this little kid will be safe no matter what happens.”
“If he lives on, he will become a real beast soon.”
“Will he come back to get revenge on us?”
No one could hear Talos’ whisper of mind. For now, Angor had decided to give up on this exit and return to human crowds.
As long as there were people gathering around, Isabella had to think about Silent Hill’s standing before she tried to make any harsh moves. This meant a chance to turn the tide.
Of course, Angor wouldn’t really want to “turn the tide” in the middle of Silent Hill. He hoped to leave Silent Hill while hiding among people. Surely Talos would open the door for someone native to Silent Hill, right?
With that in mind, Angor walked toward the market area.
Before he could take any steps, a giant, blood-red barrier covered him as well as the surrounding area, which extended hundreds of meters away.
Angor’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Isabella appearing just outside the barrier. She was laughing in two different voices.
The ground was slowly covered by flowing blood. Before Angor could react, both his ankles were submerged in heavy liquid.
His Infinite Reticence instantly lost its effect.
“There you are! Come, Blood Fiend!”
Following Isabella’s lunatic order, the blood pool suddenly gained form and became a monstrous being that stood high above Angor. It howled toward the sky and slammed a claw at Angor.
Meanwhile, the blood beast was still draining all the blood inside the barrier while expanding in size.
Angor found no room to dodge such a giant claw. To make it worse, Isabella had already put her pressure on him, rendering him unable to move at all.
To Angor, there was no doubt that his several viable tactics would appear like harmless breezes in the face of a level-2 wizard. Nothing would help.
Angor stared at the incoming attack in fear and desperation.
Again and again, he would find chances of survival before he was hurled back into a deadly situation.
Am I destined to die today?
He didn’t want to die yet, but what should he do? What would get him away from the pursuit of a level-2 wizard?
Shackles on the body didn’t prevent his mind to operate its wonder.
Using what he could squeeze out of his mana pool, Angor tried his best to construct a spell model.
He planned to get out the way of the bloody attack by using a “small tornado”. With the help of his axes of the universe, he managed to finish the model in time... but the blood attack was right in front of him.
He still unleashed the tornado. However, when going against a wizard-level spell, the tornado simply dissipated like a drop of water that was swallowed by a tidal wave.
Angor was left with nothing to do.
But it seemed fate really loved to toy around his life. Before he was harmed, a pair of Hands of Spell emerged from one side and dragged him out of harm’s way at the last second.
The hands held him in the air.
Before Angor could see what was going on, he already heard Isabella bellowing in rage in her signature dual-voice, “Bogula... Are you sure you would oppose ME just for an apprentice weakling?”
Angor heard strange laughter coming from his back.
“Jajaja... To me, this is no apprentice weakling. He’s an absolutely divine material.”
Angor turned back and saw a red-haired man in soft, purple armor. The man looked decent... as far as his looks were concerned.
However, all beautiful elements on the man were ruined when he stared at Angor with different-sized eyes and a worming, slim tongue.
Angor couldn’t think of anyone who could manage to display such horrifying expressions.
But on second look, Angor recalled something. He saw this man somewhere before... from the “handsome candidate illustrations” he received from Lady Mirror.
And Isabella just called him “Bogula”...
“Puppet Master” Bogula?
Angor recalled Lady Mirror’s comment about this man.
“Bogula from Floating Mech City is a rare, one-of-a-kind genius and is very likely to become a truth finder. He looks good too. Pity, he’s a terrible pervert...”
A terrible pervert! According to THE Lady Mirror!
Earlier, Angor felt relieved that he was saved by someone, but now, he wasn’t so sure about it.
The point was, why did this “pervert” help him?
He didn’t get to think about that question. Scorching pain suddenly rose from inside his body as if all of his blood started to boil.
He screamed at the unbearable agony. Blood was seeping out from his eyes, ears, and nose. Hot, steaming blood.
“Gah-hahaha! No one can save him when I WANT HIM DEAD!” Isabella’s mad voice came again.
Bogula glanced at Angor’s condition and quickly realized something. “A blood curse...”
Isabella had already extracted some blood from Angor’s wounds. Using his blood, Isabella was putting a deadly curse on Angor.
“Burning Blood! Aw, isn’t that an amazing sight!”
Bogula lowered his head. His hands glowed with blue light, and a pair of blond, blue-eyed ladies appeared beside him.
“Get her.”
The ladies instantly lunged at Isabella.
Without much time to prepare, Isabella used one of the basic means of cursing against Angor. However, with Bogula’s puppet ladies interrupting her, the curse on Angor halted.
Isabelle was caught by surprise as well. In fact, she didn’t expect Bogula to attack her directly just for a “material”.
On the other hand, Angor felt the curse subside. But the lingering, burning pain in his veins was still torturing him alive.
He breathed heavily. His nose, mouth, even his skin was releasing white vapor into the air. His clean, white face had turned red, like someone who spent too much time doing a handstand.
Bogula waited for Angor to recover just a little before he whispered, “I’ll save your life if you’re willing to follow me.”
“Gah... Follow—what do you mean?” Angor couldn’t think too clearly. He replied out of instinct without addressing Bogula properly.
“You will know once you agree,” Bogula replied in a tone that sounded absolutely evil in Angor’s view.
Angor was taken aback as he realized something. “You’re Diablo’s teacher?”
“That’s right.”
Angor planned to ask about Shadow’s condition, but on second thought... Shadow would probably be okay since his teacher was already here.
Then Angor remembered Shadow mentioning the “bizarre fetishes” of his teacher...
He already knew what this man wanted from him.
“You’re going to make me into your puppet?”