There was another round of applause from the sailors who welcomed their hero with their best passion, while the hero being welcomed—Angor—was checking the cylinder of his revolver with a disappointed look.
He killed over a thousand souls, which only gave him the faint shadow of a bullet. Telling from his previous experiences, he was still halfway to go until he could get an actual bullet.
More importantly, one or two bullets were pointless. He had to use all six on a single soul to erase 98% of the negative energy on it.
He felt greatly unsatisfied since there were far from enough souls on the island for him to farm, despite the fact that the swarms earlier looked quite big.
He looked again and could not find another soul remaining on the island, nor were there any creeper plants left. At the same time, all the dreadful sensation had gone.
He sighed and walked to Helen and Erwin while ignoring the yelling sailors.
“It’s clear. Calm down and do what you can do to the ship. Bring any wounded men that you can’t handle to me.”
Helen was still dazed after the turmoil she went through. It was Erwin who answered him, “Thank you for the great help, sir. I’ll arrange repairs right away.”
Angor nodded and glanced at the dark waters behind them.
“What can you tell me about these parts?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. We never came here before. Rumors say that this place is full of traps and ghost ships, and everything could be lethal to us.”
Angor checked again and did not sense any imminent danger or hostile will around them.
“We should be fine for the moment. Tell me immediately should you see anything suspicious.”
“Understood!” The sailors all complied since this was about whether they could live on.
Angor would also like to ask where they should go next, but seeing the ship so broken, he decided to let people do their work first. They weren’t going anywhere without the ship anyway.
He asked Tony to guard the ship and took the guild member back to his cabin, where he deployed a small nightmare illusion to block off their voice. No matter what became of the ship, he had to learn what he could about the Centipede Guild first.
...
A moment later, Angor ended the guild man’s life without bothering to ask his name.
Using his highly developed nightmare illusion and emotion control skills, he forced the man to spit everything he could possibly get, including how the 13 brothers departed from Salem Highground.
After Sunders killed most of their members, the Centipede Guild moved their base to Salem Highground, which sat in the middle of three nations. Due to its deprived landscape, the area was usually free of the attention of anyone.
There, the Centipede Guild built their headquarters in a secret underground cave. It was their former leader, the “Fallen Centipede”, who told them about this spot. After Fallen Centipede was killed, “Barren Centipede” took charge of the organization.
Currently, there were two known leaders in the guild, “Barren Centipede” Buffalo and “Rotten Gnat” Robinson.
According to “Boss”, they were both level-1 wizards. Sunders also mentioned their names to Angor before, but what Sunders said was that they were “hardly level-1 wizards”.
Nevertheless, such a level was enough for them to beat down apprentices with ease.
Angor knew he had to run as fast as he could, should he encounter them for real. This was not so difficult with the help of the sequence of gravity.
“Boss” also told him that the guild leaders did not come after him personally because another matter kept them occupied, which might take some time. They decided to send the “Brotherhood of Thirteen” instead, which didn’t end up well since they terribly underestimated Angor’s capabilities.
Angor recalled that Sunders said something about keeping the guild busy for a while, which meant Sunders already did so.
After finishing off the “Boss”, he canceled his illusion and fell into his own thoughts while listening to the clanging hammers outside.
He should be safe for now since the two guild leaders were too busy to deal with him. As for the other guild rogues... He had no problem repelling them together with Toby’s help, as long as he wasn’t targeted by some other wizards.
But there was a problem he was anxious to solve, which was how he was found out in the first place.
“Boss” said that their brothers managed to find the sailing records of the White Clam Association, from which they discovered his trip on The Limpet.
However, how did the Centipede Guild learn that he was heading home by taking a ship of the association? There were only a few people who knew his plan, who were all inside Brute Cavern. And he didn’t believe the guild could send spies into Brute Cavern.
This meant the guild probably asked a Prophet for help.
Also with the assistance of the Prophet, the guild would probably soon learn about the death of the thirteen brothers. Or in a worse case, the Prophet could directly reveal his current location to the guild.
While Angor wasn’t afraid of random guild members coming for him, he absolutely did not want the guild to approach his family.
Both Sunders and Greya regarded the Centipede Guild as a corrupt and shameless group who would do ANYTHING to achieve their goals. Killing mortals for fun was definitely one of their options.
For this, he made up his mind to look for a magic array in his tablet that he could use to prevent the Prophet from targeting him, or he wouldn’t be able to go back to Old Earth at all. The existence of prophecy had upset him more than once now.
There was another matter mentioned by “Boss” that worried him.
It seemed someone from the Song of the Deep showed up at Devil’s Water, who captured the thirteen brothers but then released them for some reason.
On the first look, the incident had nothing to do with Angor. But he noticed something interesting in “Boss”‘s description.
When imprisoned, the brothers thought they were dead for sure. However, someone from the Song of the Deep asked them several questions such as why they came to Devil’s Water, and let them go.
While it was true that quite a lot of people disliked the Centipede Guild, they still wouldn’t suddenly attack them for no reason. It was a strange case when the Song of the Deep captured these wanderers and interrogated them as if they were trying to protect a secret.
As soon as the guild members said that they only came to capture or kill Angor, they were set free.
Angor had a hunch that the Song of the Deep did so because they also wanted to see the guild members annoying him. He was also curious to find out why the Song of the Deep showed up at Devil’s Water at such a moment.
According to Sunders, the high officials of the Song of the Deep were closely related to invaders from other planes, which made them a primary target of the Supreme Cult.
Are those people dealing with intruders again?
Helen came to his door and interrupted his random guesses. “Sir, we have two sailors who are badly injured. Can you help them?”
Angor rubbed his temples and put those concerns to the back of his mind. For now, he had to think of a way to get out of Specter Basin first. Only THEN would he have the time to worry about Prophets and Song of the Deep.
Following behind Helen, he arrived at a temporary shelter built not far from the ship.
Casting Heal was all he needed to keep the said sailors stabilized. However, those men still needed several months on their beds to properly heal their broken bones and muscles. They were not likely to do anything on the ship before the journey ended.
Since the most urgent problems were solved, Angor found Helen again to learn about their next course of action.
Helen looked around with a grim look. After making sure no one could hear them, she whispered, “To be frank, sir, it remains to be seen whether The Limpet can set out ever again.”