Chapter 161: Encounter in the Woods (2)
Translator: Leo Editor: Frappe
Angele raised his hand. A portion of the floating metal liquid quickly formed into a shell-shaped barrier in front of him.
He began invoking strange incantations. The words were simple, yet it didn’t seem to belong to any known language.
The temperature around Angele rose. Heat waves became visible in the air, bringing mysterious distortions into the black smoke.
Angele nearly finished the incantation as the smoke approached.
*DING*
Suddenly, Angele’s face turned pale and his body trembled. The heat disappeared within seconds as his incantation was interrupted.
As he failed to finish casting the spell, he watched as the black smoke tried to engulf him whole. Thanatophobia crept into depths of his mind. His body had become paralyzed. Now, there was nothing else he could do.
*CHI*
The black smoke amassed together. Angele’s silver barrier and the revolving knives began dropping onto the ground as if it was raining.
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At the opposite side of the vast forest was a black cliff.
An old man wearing a black robe stood on the cliff observing the sea of trees. The howling gust blew the lower of his robe into the air.
The man’s hair was white and it was messy, yet his beard and eyebrows were red. His pale face was carved with a countless number of wrinkles.
The old man had a blank expression on his face. In front of his chest, there was a head-sized golden plate floating. The plate was translucent, slowly rotating and many complicated runes were engraved on its surface.
"I shall harvest your soul for what you’ve done to my beloved disciple," he muttered. His line of sight fell onto the battlefield thousands of miles away from the cliff.
He pointed at the golden plate and lightly touched its surface.
*DING*
The crisp sound echoed in the forest and that was the noise Angele heard.
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Angele was no longer paralyzed. However, he had lost some strength that caused him to step back.
The silver barrier in front of Angele had turned into a pool of black liquid and splashed to the ground, but it still prevented the black smoke from reaching him.
"F*cking hell!" he cursed as looked at his right hand. A small amount of the black smoke covered the tip of his first finger, and the black liquid dripped down the wound.
Angele gritted his teeth and pointed at the oncoming black smoke with his left hand. The wings on the palm started flapping.
A dangerous aura surrounded his body.
Arisa sensed the changed and immediately tried to retreat. The black smoke began to move away from Angele.
Arisa was trying to backstab him. However, her expression changed after seeing Angele raising his hand. She stepped back and returned to the smoke screen while sending a small amount of smoke to Angele’s back.
Angele narrowed his eyes and was about to activate the signet using his mentality.
*DING*
He heard the noise again, which made him flinch for a second.
"AH!"
Angele’s legs numbed and his back was hit by the black smoke. Green smoke rose from the wound and it created a sound similar to a piece of meat being grilled. He failed to activate the signet completely.
Only several translucent waves spread into the air and blew away some retreating black smoke. The remaining smoke on his back was also eliminated.
Arisa revealed herself.
"That was close. However, that was your only chance to hurt me." There was a cold look on her face.
She waved her hand. The black smoke gathered in the air again and rushed toward Angele.
Angele kept running away from the smoke. He could sense someone locked onto him with a strange energy wave, and the wave would interrupt him every time he tried to attack or defend. Moreover, this special energy wave penetrated his defensive forcefield with ease.
He wanted to gain some practical battle experiences in this fight by himself, but it would seem that he had to seek Zero’s help.
‘Zero, is it possible for me to eliminate this energy wave?’ he asked Zero as he dodged several strikes from the black smoke.
‘The energy wave will weaken if you can move two kilometers away from your current location. There is an 87% chance this strategy will work,’ Zero reported.
Angele groaned as his right arm was damaged by the black smoke again. The silver metal that covered his skin dropped to the ground, and a black wound was left on the arm.
He could feel the intense pain coming from his arm and back, but he stayed calm. The smoke in front of him gathered together and turned into the shape of a human, attempting to embrace Angele.
"Show me the direction."
"East is your best option."
Angele threw the crossguard sword into the air, and it turned into a silver shield in front of him. He turned toward the east and started running away like a madman.
"Are you trying to run?!" Arisa’s voice came from the human-shaped smoke. The silver shield turned into a pool of black liquid after making contact with the smoke.
She started chasing after Angele at full speed.
"Give me the Light of Thor!" Her voice changed. It was crisp no longer. Instead, she sounded like an old man with a hoarse voice.
Angele increased his speed. He was still regretting activating the signet on his left palm. It was almost a complete waste since the activation had been interrupted by the strange energy wave, and his mentality was damaged by the side-effects of the signet.
‘Arisa turned herself to the energy form. If I can hit her with the signet, she’ll at least lose the ability to fight… What is that energy wave? How can it penetrate my force field?!’ Angele was a bit anxious.
He started invoking the incantation of Berlin’s Haste.
It was one of the Wind spells he had purchased from the school. It could increase the caster’s speed.
Angele enhanced his boots with the spell and his speed was greatly increased. He was almost traveling at the same speed as the black smoke.
Arisa was still in the form of a human-shaped smoke.
"You can’t escape from me," she shouted in a cold tone.
"I don’t understand. How did Calello lose to a weak Wizard like you?! Ha!"
Angele ignored Arisa’s taunting and kept running forward. The noise made by the strange energy wave was getting intense and was interrupting his thinking.
‘Zero, boost all my senses right now!’
‘Boost mode enabled. Special mentality tunnel detected… boosting…’
Blue light dots flashed in front of Angele’s eyes. His mentality was boiling and roaring, trying to drive the strange energy wave away from Angele’s mind.
His vision blurred. The trees on the sides, dried leaves on the ground, and the light from the sun all became gloomy.
*BAM*
Angele could sense that his pure energy particles had passed through a mysterious tunnel and reached somewhere far from his location.
He saw an old man staring at his energy particles on a high black cliff.
The golden Rune Plate in front the old man cracked, breaking into countless tiny pieces and slowly vanishing into the air.
"Lucky bastard..." the old man muttered, his voice echoing in Angele’s head.
Angele could do nothing but watch the old man walk away.
*CHI*
He was pulled back to his corporeal body by some strong power. He felt like the scene he just saw was a dream. It was like an uncomfortable out-of-body experience.
Angele was still running forward. Behind him, it was the noise of the smoke engulfing the plants around. Cold sweat was dripping down his forehead as his face was being blown by the howling wind.
"Red eyebrows and beard…" Angele mumbled. The unpleasant noise finally left his head. It would seem that the spell stopped after he found the caster.
"Come back!" Arisa’s voice came from behind again.
Angele’s expression turned serious. He moved his feet and suddenly turned around.
Three silver scars slowly appeared on the left side of his face.
He raised his left hand as he aimed at the black smoke. A raging fireball gathered upon his palm that was about the size of a human’s head.
"Go… Lesser Fireball!" Angele pushed the raging flame forward.
The fireball drew a straight line in the air. It sounded like an arrow soaring through the sky.
Arisa had no time to react. It was too late for her to stop. The fireball hit her body directly.
*BOOM*
"Ah!" A high-pitched scream echoed in the forest.
The black smoke was blown away by the flame and spread into the bushes. The whole area was covered in smoke and fire sparks.
Right in the center of Arisa’s body, a fireball was spinning at high speed while exploding. Everything around was being lit. The flame quickly drove away all the dark power and cleansed the black liquid on the ground.
Angele raised his left hand and aimed at Arisa with the palm. Two black wings on his palm began flapping. He could hear the screams originating from the abyss.
"No!" There was fear in Arisa’s eyes.
"Nas’vak!" She shouted like a lunatic. Angele could hear a sound of something cracking.
A skull composed by green smoke appeared in front of her body and slowly opened its mouth.
*BOOM*
The fireball exploded again and hit the skull. A small dark energy vortex was created by the contact.
Angele leaped away. The energy strike forced him to stop activating the signet, and the black smoke around almost disappeared.
The remaining smoke formed into the shape of a human on the ground. It was the female Wizard, Arisa. Her arms were gone, and there was a large hole in her chest. The left side of her face was burnt black.
"My face…" She trembled.
Angele looked at her calmly and grabbed the metal bow from his back.
"Any last words?" he spoke in a light tone.
Arisa heard his voice and slowly raised her head.
Angele pulled the bowstring to full and created a black metal arrow on the bow.
*CHI*
The arrow turned into a black string and struck Arisa right in the center of her forehead.