Sorcery

Among those guarding the cabin entrance, four were clearly exceptionally powerful.

One of them was naturally the legendary knight Balon. Bare-chested, his dark muscles exposed, he wielded an axe and slaughtered the sea monsters trying to break into the cabin.

Another was the boatswain. Though they had often seen this legendary knight before, they had never seen him fight. Wielding a greatsword, his strength was scarcely inferior to Balon's, making everyone look at him in a new light.

As for the remaining two, they were the two magic apprentices staying in the wizard's room.

Green had already learned their names. The male wizard apprentice was called Yun Li, while the female wizard apprentice was called Bibilionna.

What left Green and the other three utterly dumbfounded was that these two wizard apprentices had not only cast the legendary sorcery, but their spells were so powerful and bizarre that the four could barely believe it.

Facing such enormous sea monsters, the female wizard apprentice Bibilionna was clearly somewhat nervous. Still, under the protection of the many sailors around her, no sea monster could get close.

Bibilionna hid behind the sailors, her golden hair flying loose around her. A Golden Beam Eye on her forehead stared majestically at any sea monster daring to approach.

That Golden Beam Eye seemed to be an energy body formed from some marvelous combination of elemental energy. Ripples spread through the surrounding space because of it.

"Hah!"

With a soft cry, every sea monster stared at by that Golden Beam Eye for even a moment let out a pained howl. Then, as if every drop of moisture had been drained from its body, it died in the grotesque state of a dried corpse.

In that brief span alone, no fewer than five sea monsters had died beneath the gaze of that bizarre Golden Beam Eye.

However, Bibilionna apparently could not maintain the Golden Beam Eye's sorcery for long. After breathing lightly for a moment, the eye vanished.

As for Yun Li on the other side, that little white mouse was perched on his shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the danger around it. Yun Li himself appeared not to regard the surrounding sea monsters as worthy of notice.

It was not arrogance, or rather, not mere haughtiness. It was indifference toward everything outside himself, contempt. His detached eyes freely observed these novel marine creatures around him, while a trace of amused interest curved his lips.

Yet what matched Yun Li was his utterly unfathomable and mysterious sorcery!

There was no warning, no strange phenomenon. Yet one sea monster after another inexplicably became nothing but severed limbs, lost its head, or even vanished entirely before everyone's eyes. Only a snake tail less than twenty centimeters long remained, its cut as smooth as a mirror, proving that what had just happened was no illusion.

"This..."

Green, Lafi, Yorkris, and Yorklianna all stood with their mouths agape in shock, unable to believe what they were seeing.

They possessed such bizarre and powerful strength. No wonder those two lived in the wizard's room!

With the power of these two wizard apprentices, let alone Yorkris and Green, even Lafi, whom they believed had mastered sorcery, was simply not on the same level as them.

Lafi's expression was extremely grim. Others might not know, but she herself knew exactly what she was capable of.

Her so-called sorcery could only be cast with the magic-guiding witch artifact prepared by her father. As for her own power, she could not cast even the simplest spell.

She still had a trump card, another powerful magic-guiding witch artifact prepared by her father. But first, her magic power was insufficient to activate it, and second, even if she did activate it, she would still find it difficult to contend with those two magic apprentices who had mastered such bizarre sorcery.

Therefore, Lafi knew very clearly just how enormous the gap was between her group and those two geniuses said to appear only once in a century at Lilith Wizard Academy.

However, Lafi, who knew some secrets of wizards, also understood that sorcery as powerful as what the two had displayed should absolutely have been impossible to activate at their level of spiritual power. By that reasoning, they most likely possessed the legendary Innate Manifestation-Born Talent.

Leaving aside the cabin entrance.

The powerful Wizard Dila floated about five meters above the deck. His broad gray robe rustled and shook as though battered by a gale-force wind.

The unnatural flush on his face grew even more apparent, while the delicate gear over his eye spun rapidly. Beneath a low, mysterious chant, he seemed to be preparing some highly destructive sorcery.

Meanwhile, on the other side, two black tentacles over thirty meters long battered the deck again and again. Not only had the rooms on the deck long since been wiped away, but several great holes had already been smashed through it. Faint screams of terror came from the wizard apprentices who had luckily survived below deck.

Suddenly, everyone on the deck felt their bodies tremble for no reason. They all involuntarily raised their heads. After the silent darkness in the sky, beneath an indescribable oppression, a gray flame ignited in Wizard Dila's hand.

The flame was utterly silent and seemed unremarkable, even powerless. Yet it made everyone's body tremble uncontrollably, as though it could devour every gaze fixed upon it.

Even Yun Li and Bibilionna, who had always been brimming with confidence, changed expression and stared fixedly at the gray flame burning in Dila's hand.

"Dead Soul Flame."

Dila's weakened voice seemed to carry a wondrous magic. It entered everyone's ears as though whispered beside them.

The next moment, when the gray flame struck one of the octopus tentacles with perfect accuracy, another earth-shaking cry of agony erupted from the seawater beneath Hailun.

This cry was far more intense than the previous one. The waves churned up by the giant octopus writhing in pain sent towering swells across the entire visible sea.

As though it had touched a brazier, every octopus tentacle snapped back like lightning. The octopus's head on the surface instantly dove beneath the sea and disappeared.

"My lord wizard!"

"Master!"

Seeing that nightmare-like marine beast flee, the sailors and several magic apprentices cried out in delight. But Dila raised a hand, forcibly suppressing the abnormalities in his body and stopping them.

Then, the wizard's venomous gaze swept over the many sea monsters on the deck that feared no death. His broad gray magic robe rustled as he descended from the air.

Wizards had always been evil and cruel toward their enemies. Even the gentlest wizard would naturally snuff out countless lives time and again while pursuing knowledge of higher-level wizardry.

Wizard Dila glanced at the frozen sea monster corpse beneath his feet, as though observing something.

Suddenly, Wizard Dila's eyes lit up. Then he gave a sinister grin. "Hehehe, it's about time. Since you Ulado Sea Monsters refuse to honor the treaty signed with the human Wizard Alliance, then prepare yourselves for a wizard's revenge!"

As Dila spoke, the scales of the frozen sea monster suddenly wriggled. Then, under everyone's horrified gaze, the once enormous sea monster nearly instantly became nothing but a skin. Countless palm-sized purple-black centipedes burrowed out from its body.

Even more terrifying, each centipede had four pairs of transparent wings on its back, along with a pair of chilling eyes.

"They've finally been cultivated! Kiekiekiekie... Ulado Sea Monsters, enjoy the nightmare ancient wizards specially developed to devour you! Perhaps after so many years without war, you marine creatures have nearly forgotten the terror of human wizards! Welcome the nightmare! Tremble within the nightmare!"

Dila roared as though crazed.

These sea monsters could not understand human language. Or rather, these low-level sea monsters simply could not understand it.

But for some reason, their instincts sensed that those inconspicuous purple-black insects brought an irresistible terror. Many sea monsters could not help but leap straight from the deck into the ocean.

Buzz...

When the thousands of purple-black centipedes had just crawled out of that sea monster's body, their wings were still soft. Yet in only a brief moment, some centipedes began to take flight one after another. Then, as though driven by instinct, they crazily charged toward the many sea monsters still on the deck.

The centipedes showed absolutely no reaction toward humans or the octopus tentacle severed on the deck, those pieces of "fresh meat."

Hiss...

Terrified roars burst from the sea monsters' mouths, because they discovered in horror that the scales they had once been so proud of were like paper before these strange insects, utterly useless. One insect after another frantically burrowed into their bodies, even throwing themselves inside without regard for their lives.

Some sea monsters even tightly grabbed the tails of centipedes that had burrowed into their bodies. Yet more frighteningly, even after their hind halves were torn off, those centipedes still possessed tremendous vitality and continued madly drilling into their bodies.

It was as though the entire purpose of these insects' existence was to burrow into the deepest parts of these sea monsters' bodies.

Watching the many sea monsters howl in agony, the wizard gave a low, sinister laugh. "Heh heh, if the Parasitic Gu researched with ancient wizard wisdom could be killed so easily, they would not deserve to be called the Nemeses of Ulado, nor would wizards deserve to be called the slave masters who control countless other worlds!"

Dila's voice gradually turned excited.

"Though they live for only one day, their sole purpose during that short day is to lay their eggs inside every Ulado. And their eggs need only half an hourglass's time to mature."