“I-I think I hit the wrong guy!”
“Is it you, Eight? Eight! Answer me!”
No response.
The other guild members felt their confidence earlier breaking down really fast.
“What about you, Twelve? Are you hurt?”
Again, no answer.
“Fool! Don’t make a move before we destroy the illusion nodes!” “Boss” demanded in a loud voice.
“Boss” was the strongest guild member sent by Centipede Guild, who was said to be an elite apprentice from a major organization. He was expelled for his misbehavior later and became a rogue. Even so, both his talent and knowledge were way more competent compared to the other people in the group.
“Who’s there? Urgh!” someone grunted.
“Three?! What’s the matter?”
“The b*stard is ambushing me. Don’t come, I can manage. Keep your guard up!” “Three” replied in a trembling voice.
The others couldn’t do anything but to wait until the painful screams of “Three” became weaker and then disappeared.
That was the third one who was either killed or captured in the mist, and none of the guild members saw what got them.
“Dirty tricks...” “Boss” grimaced. “Defend yourselves and keep looking for illusion nodes. I’ll do something if any of you see him again.”
But the entire illusion area remained quiet for a long time. No one was attacked.
“Then I should use the chance to break the illusion faster...” “Boss” clenched his fists. “But what the heck is this? I can’t see through it at all!”
In his view, the mist illusion was one of the most basic cantrips studied by amateur illusionists. He could even feel the deadly wind outside still affecting the mist, but he couldn’t find any waymarks or directions no matter how he tried.
He moved around a little and realized that the wind also changed along with his movement, which only further confused him.
“Boss, that guy’s on me!” “Seven” called out.
“Boss” immediately rushed toward the source of the voice to rescue his man, but he failed to find Seven. In fact, he had never seen any of his members since they were engulfed by the mist.
“Goddammit. The illusion affects our sense of direction!” “Boss” just noticed why their attacks went to the wrong targets.
He felt his heart sink when he realized that their enemy hadn’t made a move for real yet. The simple illusion was enough to completely trap them.
He declared his following plans, but he received absolute silence.
“Don’t fu*king tell me you’re all dead?!”
“I got it! The illusion node! You all attack what I’m pointing at so that we can get the hell out of the illusion!” someone suddenly yelled.
“Good job!”
“After you, boss!”
“Let the a*shole taste the might of our brothers!”
“Boss”‘s face went pale upon hearing that order.
That man’s mimicking my voice!
“DON’T LISTEN TO HIM!!” he called as loudly as could. He was already regretting his reckless decision of confronting Angor without being fully prepared. They should at least maintain their Spirit Bond beforehand!
Once again, no one answered him. Soon, several energy explosions were heard in the illusion, followed by the shrieks of the guild members.
“Boss” finally knew why their target seemed so chill when facing them, but it was too late.
A man suddenly emerged in his view.
“YOU!”
Without a second thought, “Boss” unleashed his strongest poison attack at Angor, who simply remained where he was and watched.
“Boss” saw this and immediately knew something was off again.
When his poison fully covered Angor’s form, he heard his men yelling in pain. As he feared, “Angor” slowly melted away, leaving his twelve brothers behind.
“Crescent Barrage.”
“Boss” did not have a chance to look at who said those words when his body was overwhelmed by a swarm of wind blades.
He knew “Crescent Barrage” was only a level-1 cantrip, which was enough to finish him off in this situation. It seemed their bigger number was pointless against an illusionist who could control their sense or even emotions.
Angor had more than one way to thoroughly destroy them. This mist illusion was only one such method, which easily maimed all thirteen of them.
“This is impossible... I should’ve never accepted this job...”
That was “Boss”‘s final thought before he blacked out.
Angor had canceled his illusion since the guild members had done killing each other without his help.
While Toby used gravity power to keep the corpses in the air, Angor checked their bodies and was disappointed to find almost no useful resources. These thugs combined were more broke than him when he joined Brute Cavern as a freshman. He managed to find a one-use space capsule from their “boss”, which didn’t contain any valuables either.
He then tossed the bodies into the sea. While it was possible that some of them would come back as souls, Angor wasn’t going to mind them. Devil’s Water was never short of wandering ghosts anyway.
He didn’t deal the finishing blow to the “boss” yet, who was unconscious due to serious blood loss. He did so because he needed someone to tell him about Centipede Guild.
He was planning to capture more than one guild member earlier, but the poison attack used by the “boss” was deadlier than he thought. He didn’t have time to revive anyone.
It was time for him to get back to The Limpet. Since he could see nothing other than violent seawater being blown into the sky, he closed his eyes to sense the energy waymark he left on the ship earlier.
The bad weather greatly disrupted the “signal”. In the end, he only sensed the general direction of the ship.
“Northwest... and a bit far.”
He carried the “boss” onto Toby’s back and told Toby to head to the direction he sensed. In order not to accidentally dive straight into Summerdew’s territory, he told Toby to maintain a moderate speed in the wind.
Ten minutes later, Toby ate a Mana Flower to keep up his Griffin Form.
Angor could see the waters around them changing, which suggested a new route. But the hurricane was still blowing over them.
After another five minutes, Angor gazed at the peculiarly dark water beneath them with a confused look.
“Is this Summerdew Ridge?”
According to Helen’s map, Summerdew Ridge came with many scattered reefs and small islands, which he didn’t see yet. Besides, The Limpet should remain at the outer edge of Summerdew Ridge instead of going inside.
They successfully outran the windy environment a moment later, but he didn’t feel any better. Instead, another dreadful sensation made his hair stand as if there were blood-sucking worms crawling all over his skin.
Now, it was obvious that this place wasn’t the Summerdew Ridge The Limpet used to sail across.
“Perhaps something bad happened and forced The Limpet to enter the wrong route?”
His best choice right now was to turn back into safer areas. But on second thought, he decided to keep moving and look for The Limpet first. Without a guide, he didn’t know how to travel to Farren Land anyway.
The energy waymark soon helped him locate the ship.
But it didn’t look good. The Limpet was left ashore on a tiny island about a kilometer in width. There were no buildings or mountains on it—only dark, thorny creeping plants that had grabbed The Limpet and pulled it onto dry land.
At this moment, there were many pairs of glowing eyes hidden among the vines glaring at the ship.
Also, Angor felt something familiar coming from the horrible gazes.