“What just happened? Did you hear that voice?” Debbie scanned her surroundings in utter astonishment. She had also noticed that the carriage had disappeared.
“I heard it… The wolf fog seems to be deliberately controlled by someone, but that voice sounded rather like a child’s?” Ye Chui was somewhat puzzled too, but what concerned him more now was Green, Lessa, and the others. The white fog had vanished, yet the carriage had completely lost all trace. Ye Chui flipped through his iPad spellbook, intending to check it for any clues.
To Ye Chui’s shock, just as he glanced at his spellbook, it suddenly flickered once and vanished without a trace!
The spellbook had disappeared before, but only when magic power was depleted. Ye Chui remembered clearly that moments ago, his iPad had at least 80% magic power remaining. It could not have run out so quickly. Moreover, if the iPad vanished due to depleted magic, Ye Chui would feel a wave of exhaustion and weakness, yet now he felt nothing of the sort.
“What is wrong with your spellbook?” Debbie asked Ye Chui, puzzled.
Ye Chui shook his head and tried to summon the spellbook again. However, the summoning sensation, so familiar to him since transmigrating, failed entirely at that moment. Ye Chui attempted repeatedly, but the familiar form of the spellbook refused to appear before him!
“Could there be some power here that prohibits using the spellbook?” Debbie muttered in surprise. She had heard that in the grand cathedral of the Holy City, no magus, summoner, or swordsman could wield any power, but that was an immensely powerful and fearsome measure. How could such a thing occur here?
She hurriedly drew her summoning key, intending to summon Gilga for protection first. Yet, as she extended her hand holding the key into mid-air, the summoning gate that should have appeared swiftly did not materialise. Since becoming a summoner and earning the title of genius, this was the first time Debbie had encountered such a situation.
Her face showed astonishment as she looked at Ye Chui. “I, I cannot open the summoning gate… My summoner power seems sealed here too?”
Ye Chui and Debbie, from the moment they met, had always carried an untameable aura. They feared nothing, dared face any peril, but that was because they relied on their powers. Ye Chui’s iPad spellbook and Debbie’s summoner talents were inherently cheat-like. Yet now, they suddenly found their powers inexplicably sealed.
A panic unlike any they had known swiftly descended upon them.
Was this a trap designed to kill Ye Chui!? But what sort of person could achieve this, sealing the spellbook and summoning gate outright!
“No, this should not be a trap set against me by those people.” Ye Chui shook his head. The fourth prince and his ilk lacked such power. The Church might manage it, but at tremendous cost. Why use such means against Ye Chui, who was not yet so dangerous? A few archbishops from the Church could deal with him easily.
“This place seems like some sort of secret realm…” Ye Chui speculated. He looked towards the village perched on the distant hillside. He called it a village because it had few buildings, but it was ringed by walls, and the structures inside were substantial, more akin to a small town. He said to Debbie, “Let us go there and see. That must be the Greenleaf Village Old Harry mentioned, right?”
Debbie nodded and walked with Ye Chui towards the distant village. After just a few steps, Debbie suddenly turned her head in confusion. “Strange, why do I feel like someone is following us?”
Ye Chui also frowned and looked behind. He felt Debbie’s sensation too, but the flat vista revealed no figures.
“An illusion, perhaps…” Ye Chui said reassuringly, pulling Debbie onward.
Once they had walked far enough, on the grey-brown earth behind them, a figure slowly materialised. It was as if Ye Chui had emerged from [Shadow Stealth], and this emerging figure was a naked sixteen-year-old youth.
Of course, that was not the most astonishing part. What shocked was that his appearance was identical to Ye Chui’s!
His eyes fixed on the backs of Ye Chui and Debbie. He tilted his head, a puzzled expression on his face. Moments later, his body vanished once more…
The weather was overcast, as if a heavy rain loomed, yet the air carried a touch of sultriness. Ye Chui and Debbie unfastened their leather outer coats, cradling them as they fanned themselves. At that moment, Ye Chui sorely missed the spatial storage of his iPad spellbook.
“Strange, why is the weather here like this? It feels just like summer heat…” Debbie grumbled. Emerging from the white fog earlier, she had felt nothing amiss, but now it grew increasingly hot.
“Yes…” Ye Chui replied, though his gaze suddenly froze. He looked down at the ground.
“Ye Chui, what is it?” Debbie wiped the sweat from her forehead and asked.
“There is a blade of grass on the ground.” Ye Chui said呆呆地.
“Grass? What is strange about that?” Debbie said oddly too, but then she froze as well. The grass on the ground was a common plains bamboo grass, with green leaves and segmented stems like beads. That was ordinary enough, but… this grass grew only in summer and autumn. It was impossible to see in winter!
Ye Chui and Debbie exchanged glances and suddenly understood. Could it be… time was disordered again!?
At that moment, Ye Chui and Debbie sensed something. The ground trembled faintly. Both wore vigilant expressions. But now they were mere ordinary youths and maidens. Before they could act, with bangs, bangs, bangs around their bodies, stone pillars erupted from the earth, forming a cage-like enclosure.
Then, in the distance, a group rushed towards them. All wore somewhat peculiar armour. It looked odd because it differed from the styles on the current Castro Continent, thicker and more rugged. Among them, a few wore black robes similar to those favoured by magi, but bulkier.
Yet they were not magi, for none summoned spellbooks. One young man in black robes, about twenty-five or twenty-six, gripped a one-metre wooden staff. Its tip glowed faintly, aimed remotely at Ye Chui. Undoubtedly, the stone pillars around Ye Chui and Debbie were his doing!
“Who are they? Wolf bandits, perhaps?”
“They seem ordinary, but their attire is strange. I sense no magic fluctuations from them… How could they reach here!”
“At a time like this, we cannot afford any laxity. Kill them outright!”
These people argued loudly in a slightly odd accent, but Ye Chui and Debbie could understand their words.
Ye Chui gripped Debbie’s hand tightly. One swordsman wielding a longsword had raised it, poised to strike in the next instant.
However, the black-robed staff-bearer said, “Dikao, hold off. Let the Divine Lady meet them first. Rest assured, I will keep watch over him!”
Divine Lady? Ye Chui and Debbie exchanged glances.
“Merendan, you are but a senior magician. What right have you to boast so? The Divine Lady’s safety is paramount now. We cannot risk any mishap.” The swordsman called Dikao retorted. Ye Chui and Debbie’s bodies jolted. Magician… He had said magician, not magus!
Magician was the term from five thousand years ago for those who wielded magic without spellbooks. Some could still do so today, but the Church deemed it heresy. The Church’s Godpunishers existed to purge such heretics. The son of Old Matron Rosie in Stan Town had been killed for unwittingly mastering such forbidden power.
Magicians should have vanished long ago, yet now… Ye Chui and Debbie’s faces paled drastically. Bloody hell, had they transmigrated to five thousand years in the past?
At the same time, what made Ye Chui and Debbie inwardly curse again was that after Dikao spoke those words, sword qi erupted fiercely from his blade. The sword descended. Ye Chui hurriedly shouted, “Wait, we mean no harm. We merely wandered here by accident…”
“With those wretched wolf bandits surrounding us, you claim you wandered here by accident? Who would believe that?” Dikao swung without mercy.
But at that instant, a white shadow rushed swiftly from afar. “Yah,” a somewhat immature male voice cried. The figure seemed a youth… only naked.
He descended from on high like a beast, crouching before Dikao.
Dikao’s face filled with alarm. His sword slashed at the youth, but the youth dodged nimbly. Gales swirled around him, making him akin to a wind god. Mid-air, he extended one hand towards Dikao’s shoulder. Bang! Blood sprayed from Dikao’s shoulder. His entire arm severed at the root, and his body reeled backwards with a roar.
The others assumed attack stances against the youth. Sword qi and spells assailed him relentlessly, yet the youth dodged agilely, launching counterattacks sporadically.
Ye Chui and Debbie were stunned. They recognised the youth’s attacks as Ye Chui’s former spells: [Wind God Kick], [Spark Bombardment], [Full Firepower]…
Of course, what shocked them most was that this youth looked exactly like Ye Chui!
“Everyone, fall back!” An elderly man in black robes shouted. He wielded no staff but still gathered magic. Raising both hands, a massive thunder orb coalesced between them, radiating daunting power. The other swordsmen and magicians retreated hastily.
The naked youth stood firm, body slightly hunched. He eyed the rapidly forming thunder orb, tilting his head as if oblivious to it. “Yah?”
Boom,
The thunder orb hurled towards him.
In an instant, a massive cannon silhouette formed around the naked youth’s body. [Second Company Commander’s Howitzer]!
Boom!
The magic shell collided with the thunder orb. Lightning and explosion waves ravaged the surroundings, dust billowing!
Ye Chui hugged Debbie and dove to the ground. Several of the stone pillars caging them snapped.
When the two climbed up, they saw the naked youth still standing not far away, curiously surveying the area. Meeting Ye Chui and Debbie’s gazes, he grinned in a somewhat dopey smile: like a child weighing over a hundred pounds.
“You, you are a magician! If a magician, then not a wolf bandit, but… who exactly are you?” The swordsmen and magicians swiftly encircled again. Merendan, gripping the staff, demanded in shock.
The naked youth turned to the questioner. He drew a deep breath, then bellowed at the top of his lungs, “My name is iPad!”
