"There's only one aura coming from the south?" Angor wondered.
"Yes." Nausica nodded.
That didn't make sense. Their journey had come to an end, and they were only five hundred miles away from the Altar of Demise. This section of the road was the area with the highest number of robberies. In the beginning, they had only encountered 30 auras. Now, they had encountered 50, 70, 100 auras. The auras were fluctuating more and more.
Everyone who didn't get a Meraid's Sword was waiting for the lambs to come knocking on their door. How was it possible that all the robbers had appeared at the back, but there was only one ripple at the front?
Could it be that someone had already been robbed in the past, so there was a period of no one robbing?
Angor didn't know, but it was still a good thing if there was only one person left. However, for some reason, there was a faint sense of unease in his heart.
This kind of anxious feeling was difficult to describe. In the end, he hid it in the bottom of his heart and didn't say it out loud.
"Something's wrong, Angor." Nausica's frown grew deeper as they traveled for another ten kilometers.
"What's wrong?" Everyone looked at Nausica.
"The aura ahead is circling around. It's not coming toward us. It doesn't look like it's trying to rob us," Nausica explained. Nausica paused. "It's like I lost my way and kept walking around in circles in a small area."
Angor looked at Keely, who nodded. "Luna sensed it too. It's just as Nausica said."
Not coming? Circling around in a small area? It was strange, but Angor wasn't sure if it would affect them.
Was someone trying to kill someone who had a scale on his or her heart? Or perhaps, the scales were not on the apprentices, but on the Duons?
But he couldn't figure it out.
"Should we keep going?" Nausica hesitated.
Angor considered the hundreds of auras following them. Based on his experience, at least half of them belonged to groups, which meant there were at least two or three hundred apprentices following them. Under such circumstances, if he hesitated for even a moment, it would be very easy for him to be caught up.
"Let's keep going. But we have plenty of time. We can take a detour around that aura. It doesn't matter if we deviate a few kilometers from it."
Nausica nodded. "Alright. Let's take a small detour to the southeast."
With that decided, Gondola kept moving forward. It didn't take them long to get close to the aura. Nausica decided to take a detour to get away from here.
At this moment, the sky suddenly started to drizzle. The raindrops hit the side of the ship, creating small splashes.
Shiliew looked up and saw the dark clouds drifting toward them. "What a strange rain. It doesn't have any roots, and it smells fishy?"
Shiliew lifted a hand. The raindrops wrapped around her fingers like soft strands of hair. She sniffed lightly, and her eyes flashed with astonishment. "No, this isn't rain!"
As soon as she said that, a cloud of mist covered them. Everyone was shrouded by the mist at the same time. Next, their eyelids began to feel heavy, and their heads drooped. Soon, they all fell asleep.
Angor also collapsed on the ground. However, he didn't fall asleep. Instead, he was only half-awake.
The reason why he wasn't completely unconscious was because … the surrounding fog was simply an illusion! As an Illusionist, Angor had some resistance against illusions. However, even with his understanding of illusions, he couldn't tell what kind of illusion the surrounding fog was or what it was used for. But he could tell that whoever cast the illusion was much stronger than him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have fallen for it.
Even though he could still stay conscious, he couldn't do anything about it.
Now he understood why he felt so uneasy at first. This was the source of his anxiety!
He couldn't do anything now, but he could hear the breathing of the other people on the boat. They sounded calm, as if they were just sleeping.
One minute. Two minutes.
Angor watched as time went by. Ten minutes passed in the blink of an eye.
They were so close to the Altar of Demise. Why did this happen? Was he going to die at the last moment? Angor didn't want to give up. He tried to struggle, but his body didn't belong to him at all. He couldn't even move his little finger.
While he was trying, he suddenly sensed some movement beside him.
Shiliew slowly stood up.
Angor was glad. Shiliew was always sleeping, and she just took some anti-drowsiness medicine. Maybe she was awake now.
Angor hoped that Shiliew would wake him up as soon as possible. They couldn't waste any more time here.
But to his disappointment, Shiliew didn't do anything after standing up. She lowered her head, stood on the railing, and jumped down.
He only heard a loud thud and nothing else.
Did Shiliew just jump down like that?!
While Angor was still wondering, the second person stood up. It was Keely.
Keely didn't say anything. She didn't do anything to wake the others up either. Instead, she jumped into the sea after Shiliew. Next, Shan and Nausica did the same thing.
Soon, Angor was the only one left on the boat.
Clearly, the series of actions that they had just performed were all caused by the surrounding illusion. But he still didn't know what kind of illusion it was.
Was there another illusionist apprentice on the boat? And someone who was much stronger than him?
As Angor's mind wandered, he suddenly moved and stood on the railing just like the others.
His mind was still clear, but his body didn't seem to belong to him. It was being pulled by some unknown force.
As he was about to jump into the sea, he chanted Spirit Mantra in his mind. He was just trying it out, but he found that he had actually succeeded!
Even so, his body was still being controlled by some unknown force, which forced him to jump into the sea.
Angor put Gondola into his bracelet and followed his body into the sea.
He wanted to find out who did it and what they wanted to do.
As soon as he entered the water, he saw a dark vortex. Just as he was about to see the situation inside the whirlpool, a huge suction force began to emerge from the whirlpool.
He swore to drag Angor into the vortex.
Angor quickly used his remaining sequence of gravity to break free from the vortex.
He dragged his body back to the sky. The others were all gone. Most likely, they were all sucked into the vortex.
Another ten minutes had passed. There was only one hour left until the countdown ended. He wondered if he should leave and go to the Altar of Demise on his own. His soul wasn't affected by the illusion, so it shouldn't be a problem for him to leave.
But he didn't want to see Nausica trapped in the vortex.
Suddenly, he saw something bubbling on the surface of the water. He frowned. Did someone wake up and escape from the maelstrom?
As he pondered, a black ear suddenly popped out of nowhere. Soon, a small black cat came out of the sea and floated on the water with its head lowered.
"Luna?" Angor tried to call her name.
The black cat was Luna. She did not notice Angor's presence until she heard someone calling her name.
"Meow!" Luna's eyes lit up when it saw Angor. It jumped up and bit on Angor's clothes.
Luna quickly climbed onto Angor's shoulder.
"You didn't get hit?" Angor remembered that Luna jumped into the water after Keely.
Luna shook its head and kept meowing.
Unlike Keely, Angor couldn't understand cat language. They looked at each other in confusion. A moment later, Luna suddenly jumped into the water and reached out its paw with a pleading look in its green eyes.
Angor understood that Luna wanted him to save its master, Keely.
Angor sighed in his mind. Luna just saved him from Yethew not long ago, and he really didn't want to refuse.
In the end, he jumped into the water.
He calculated the time. If he took Gondola to the Altar of Demise, it would only take him half an hour to get there if there were no problems along the way. There was still one hour left until the countdown ended, which meant he had half an hour to spare.
If he didn't hear from Keely in half an hour, he would have to leave no matter what.
He was willing to extend his hand to help others as long as he could, but the premise was that his own life was not in danger.
To him, his own life was the most important thing. And he believed that everyone else would do the same. No wizard would take their own lives lightly.
Once they were back in the water, Luna tried to dive down with Angor.
Angor stopped it and took the gray scale from Luna's mouth. With the help of the scales, he sensed the presence of four Meraid's Swords and two scales at the bottom of the sea.
The Meraid's Swords didn't move. One of the scales was mixed with the other Meraid's Swords, which meant it was the scale in Nausica's hand.
Angor frowned when he sensed the other scale. The scale wasn't stationary. It was moving toward the Meraid's Swords.
Could it be that the owner of the scale was an illusionary master who set this trap? To steal the Meraid's Swords?
If that was the case, then what was with the black vortex?
With that in mind, he dove deeper into the ocean.
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