Warlock Apprentice

When the dragon’s staggering voice was filled with mockery, it only meant more trouble for Angor who simply blacked out briefly.

The unconscious state didn’t last long, but it was painful enough for Angor to remember for the rest of his life.

He opened his eyes and saw the dragon still looking at him from afar.

“Your spirit is as weak as an insect. Your strength… so paltry that you do not deserve to live in this realm. You wish to help the little one remove the curse? ’tis a terrible joke.”

Angor silently sat there without responding.

“Humph…”

The dragon breathed out a small tornado that enclosed Angor within.

It used precise controls to make sure that the deadly wind did not kill Angor, but only leave some scars on his body. But it felt something off when Angor did not move an inch against the harassment.

Angor remained motionless with his head lowered, so the dragon could not see his face.

“Acting tough, or… has his mind buckled under pressure?”

Several green strands suddenly emerged from behind Angor’s back and began climbing the air like a spider web. Within seconds, they covered a big area above Angor’s head.

Meanwhile, Angor’s body went pale as if the strands were blood-sucking plants that fed off his flesh.

While watching this happen, the dragon thought that the human below was pulling off a small trick to intimidate it. But it was surprised to realize that a certain emotion was stirring in its mind, after it had spent centuries without feeling so threatened.

It was fear. Overwhelming fear that stupefied its body. It was the same, staggering fear shown by the tiny human just a moment ago.

The dragon was not the true ruler of the Abyss. Occasionally, it would run into foes powerful enough to endanger its life, such as a Grand Demon it encountered in the deeper levels. The conflict left it with a serious wound from which it had to spend a few centuries to recover.

In fact, it would still be sleeping if the curse on Toby didn’t wake it up.

It could not understand why a mere human had something that terrified it so much.

The dragon carefully inspected the “green marks” floating around Angor’s body. They were growing so fast that they almost reached where it was hovering.

Then everything stopped.

The dragon thought that the marks were here to attack it, which did not happen. It seemed that the marks were searching for a spot in the sky where the dimensional properties were stable. As soon as they reached where they wanted to be, they began releasing more energy into the environment, which slowly altered the space.

“They are attempting to open up an inter-plane tunnel… Here?” the dragon wondered.

Instead of stopping the green marks in action, the dragon looked below to check Angor again.

“What are these? What manner of secret does this human hold?”

It suddenly noticed that Angor was not completely unmoving. He was mumbling something under his breaths, “No… No…”

Next, a strange voice that sounded nothing like Angor suddenly came about.

“Did you summon me?”

This foreign voice did not come from Angor’s position. It sounded distant as if the speaker was talking from a faraway dimension. And just like powerful Grand Demons in the Abyss, this one sounded as authoritative and imposing.

Before the dragon could check more carefully, it suddenly felt its vision blinded by encroaching darkness. It then saw a pair of eyes slowly opening up in the dark. It was a pair of eyes completely void of any emotions or sentiment. Yet the aura being released from the eyes was nevertheless menacing, like the gods staring down upon insignificant creatures, ready to freely control the way they lived or died.

The dragon searched its memory and recalled the last time when it felt so vulnerable against something stronger. That was when it was still working alongside Eldiclaus, a Grand Demon sitting on the high throne of the Abyss Plane. Although those times had long passed.

After giving the dragon an amused glance, the eyes closed up.

The unusual darkness dissipated, allowing the dragon to see where it was staying a moment ago, including the mumbling human sitting in the crater.

This time, it dared not look at the green marks again. Something told it that a deadly presence no less than the ancient Grand Demon was watching this place.

It wanted to leave as fast as possible before the inter-plane tunnel was built, which would summon whatever horror waiting to come.

“No… I’m not calling you. Get away! GET AWAY!!!” Angor almost screamed at the top of his lungs.

This got the dragon even more confused. It wondered if Angor was talking to the unknown presence it just saw.

But how?

Digging deeper into such a secret was clearly risky. Yet the dragon couldn’t help but wonder why the seemingly defenseless human was able to communicate with a powerful foreign will across different dimensions.

Plop.

Several drops of bright-red blood dripped off from Angor’s body, followed by a large splash of blood that painted the ground beneath Angor in red.

The wriggling green marks in the sky shrank until they retreated back to Angor’s body. Though they did not completely disappear. Under the dragon’s wary gaze, they silently pulsed in rhythm behind Angor’s back as if waiting for another chance to get out.

Angor’s body swayed to and fro and finally collapsed.

The dragon looked that way and found Angor’s body to be in no better condition than a dead man. His vigor was fully spent, and he had lost too much blood.

It faltered with a decision. Usually, it wouldn’t care about the life or death of a human. But when it thought about the terrifying image projected from those green marks…

The dragon’s form was suddenly covered by a thick fog, from which a human figure stepped out.

…

Angor opened his eyes, only to see unending darkness.

He felt his body aching all over. It reminded him of his old days when he would run along the mountainsides for fun all day, only to get paralyzed on his bed the next morning.

A flash of yellow light drew his attention. He looked aside and saw a burning campfire somehow placed just nearby, which brightened his body.

He saw a man resting near the fire, eyes closed.

Where am I? Who is that?

The last thing he could remember was that he tried asking the Abyssal Dragon’s help in cleansing the curse of misfortune from Toby. That was when his back grew painfully itchy until he could think of nothing else.

He did try to summon nightmare monsters by copying what he did during the Twilight Auction, but he didn’t believe he had a chance because the dragon’s tornado attack interrupted him.

Somehow, the familiar itchy sense was triggered on his back, when he also heard a voice asking, “Did you summon me?”

Next, he felt the “green marks” growing madly, which dangerously drained his soul energy. Even though he desperately denied the question, the marks did not stop.

It was not until he used the last bit of his strength to say “no” that the strange voice finally went away. By that time, his soul was already on the brink of dissipation.

His mind went blank from that point.