Chapter 435 Shadow’s Favor <TOC> Chapter 437 Bogula Appears
Previous page password is bold portion: Su+2W0a_usP
Translator: SumTLMan
On a cloudless night, the cold moon hung alone in the sky.
Angel used a cleaning spell to completely erase the bloodstains and smell from his body as he cautiously advanced.
The forest was pitch-black, and looking up, one could see the enormous moon. After taking a few steps, a flock of black crows was startled in the distant forest for some unknown reason.
The forest was not large and was situated on a downhill slope. Angel quickly reached the edge of the forest, and as he faintly saw the desolate land outside the mountain, he suddenly stopped.
At some point, the sound of the wind ceased, and the surroundings were completely silent, as if no one was paying attention to him anymore. However, Angel felt something was amiss, and the inexplicable sense of threat made him stop and observe the situation from Shadows.
After hiding, Angel activated his supercomputing ability, and various data began to be collected in his eyes.
It wasn’t until he entered the supercomputing state that he suddenly discovered various traces left behind on his way here. The footprints on the ground, the broken branches and leaves, and all kinds of things he had unknowingly touched were all pointing out the direction he was moving in.
Angel could figure out these new traces by himself, let alone Isabella, whose calculating ability might be far superior to his.
Regardless of whether there was danger ahead, Angel calmed down and decided to change his direction.
To avoid the eyes of the wizards, it was necessary to leave no traces. Otherwise, everything would be pointless. With his supercomputing state activated, Angel carefully followed the edge of the forest and slowly circled around.
Angel thought that this time he should no longer leave any traces, but sometimes, the vision of a wizard is vastly different from that of an apprentice.
Angel hadn’t walked for long when he suddenly heard a terrible scream coming from a certain direction in the forest.
His expression darkened, as he recognized the sound; it was from Shadow.
Along with Shadow’s scream, a bizarre laugh and frenzied cackling came from the distance: “Do you really think you can escape with your strength, daring to run in front of me?”
This dual-track sound undoubtedly came from Isabella. She seemed to be talking to Shadow, but at the same time, she seemed to be warning Angel with her words.
Not long after her voice fell, several more screams came from the direction of Shadow, gradually weakening from their initial intensity until, in the end, Angel could only capture a familiar vibration in the wind through his supercomputing state.
The discovery of Shadow was an outcome that both Angel and Shadow had anticipated. But Shadow still chose to fight. It released Naga to attract attention, hoping to take advantage of the time Naga bought to run back to the wizard tower where its mentor was located.
As long as he stayed close to the mentor, Shadow was confident that Isabella wouldn’t dare to act rashly.
However, neither of them expected that Isabella would deal with Naga so quickly; the power of a second-level wizard was indeed beyond their comprehension.
Angel’s expression was somewhat sorrowful, not knowing how Shadow was faring and not daring to speculate too much. In addition to feeling sadness for Shadow’s plight, he felt deep guilt.
Angel didn’t dare to indulge in negative emotions for too long and forced himself to enter a rational state, continuing to walk along the edge of the forest.
He didn’t leave the forest rashly because, under the ultra-calculative state, he deduced that the atmosphere outside the forest was not quite right. Combining various pieces of information, he believed that once he left the forest, unpredictable consequences would inevitably occur, and the danger outside the forest was far greater than within.
Soon, Angel heard a noticeable commotion coming from the direction he had arrived. It seemed that Isabella had already found the place where he had stopped before.
Angel glanced back, his gaze immediately becoming solemn. He faintly saw Isabella hovering in midair, with the moon like a jade plate behind her. She held a head in one hand and a tattered figure in the other.
Angel took a deep breath and began to move faster.
Meanwhile, Isabella caused black crows to startle as she passed by each place. When she arrived at the location where Angel had paused earlier, just as he had thought, she could easily see the traces he had left, which even he could calculate.
However, when Isabella arrived there, the traces suddenly disappeared. She appeared slightly taken aback, but she quickly smiled again.
“So, you deliberately created a trail for me to find, then entered real traceless invisibility and tried to escape. Diavolo, look at you. Not only is your power inferior to a child, but even your observation and calculation abilities are far weaker than his,” Isabella said to the man she was pulling with her left hand.
Shadow was now severely injured, even more so than Angel had been earlier. At least his limbs were still intact, and he had some breath left in him. This was far better than the mere head that remained of Naga in Isabella’s right hand.
“Heh!” Shadow could only utter one word before blood mixed with broken viscera flowed from his mouth: “Do you know who he is?”
“Oh, judging from your tone, does he have an extraordinary background?” Isabella had already roughly guessed from Angel’s various performances that he was no ordinary apprentice. Just the invisibility spell that could deceive a wizard was not something an ordinary apprentice could cast.
“Try killing him, and you’ll find out,” Shadow didn’t actually know who Angel’s mentor was. He had asked many times, but Angel always responded with a smile, only knowing that it was from the Savage Grottoes.
However, when they were in the Blood Prison of Black Castle, Gloria had warned Felicia that Angel’s mentor was extraordinary.
Therefore, Shadow already had several candidates in mind, as even Gloria, a true knowledge wizard, admitted that Angel’s mentor was untouchable. His mentor must also be a first-class true knowledge wizard. There were only a few true knowledge wizards in Savage Grottoes, and Shadow locked his target on the top-level wizards.
Silencer, Phantom Master, Whisper of the World, Thunder Wolf… Shadow leaned towards Phantom Master, as both Angel and Phantom Master Sanders belonged to the illusion school. However, he couldn’t really confirm it.
Isabella pulled Shadow in front of her, laughing wildly: “Your physical state tells me that you’re bluffing. However, I don’t really care who’s behind him, just like you. Even if Baroque is in Silent Hill, if I want to kill you, he can’t stop me.”
Shadow was silent, and his only hope for survival was for Baroque to appear.
Although Baroque’s personality was a bit extreme, Shadow knew that Baroque was actually one of the simplest among wizards… and he was also very protective of his own.
However, Shadow had never offended a formal wizard-level person before, so he didn’t know whether Baroque would stand up for him this time.
Shadow wanted to say to Isabella: “You try to kill me and see.”
But he didn’t dare to bet whether his mentor would appear or not, so he could only remain silent.
At this time, Angel had already walked around the edge of the woods and arrived near the main road. In other words, he circled back to the main road where he was previously stopped by Isabella.
At the end of the main road, Angel could vaguely see the figure of the two-faced stone spirit Taros.
If he continued to walk around the edge, he would enter the woods on the other side. If he left through the main road, would it be safer?
Angel began to calculate the possibility of leaving from the main road based on various details and auxiliary information.
After a while, Angel came to a conclusion: Leaving from the main road was indeed safer than crossing the edge of the forest directly.
This conclusion made Angel somewhat incredulous, but it was the answer he derived from various pieces of information and some unknowable feedback.
Should he really take the main road?
At this point, Angel’s brain had already begun to fatigue. His body was already in a decaying state, and he had also activated the highly demanding supercomputing for his brain. If he continued this double load, he believed he wouldn’t be able to hold on for long.
This means that, under such circumstances, he could not continue to open the supercomputer to enter the forest on the other side and search for a possible safe exit.
Angel thought of this and made a decision in his heart.
…
Returning to Isabella’s perspective, she was not worried about Angel running away at all.
If Angel had hidden himself and parted ways with Shadow since fleeing from the Mobile Market, she might have lost him. But now that she had seen Angel, his pheromones were firmly imprinted in her memory.
Even if Angel were to escape to the ends of the earth, she could pinpoint and lock onto his location through the pheromones. Moreover, she could directly collect the blood Angel shed and curse him from a distance through secret techniques.
Under such circumstances, Isabella did not care about Angel’s actions at all. She even had the interest of playing Cat-and-Mouse, leisurely letting the “little mouse” scurry around.
“Cough, cough, cough —”
At this moment, Naga’s skull was held in Isabella’s left hand suddenly woke up and began coughing up blood.
Naga was a magical puppet, and her body was just a vessel, with only the brain being the core. So, when Isabella chopped off her head, she didn’t really kill her.
“Master, I failed.” Naga’s slightly downcast voice reached Shadow’s ears.
Shadow had never dared to look at Naga because her condition was his doing. He didn’t know if it was a fever or a rush of blood to the head, but at the most critical moment, he chose Angel.
Now, as Naga woke up and spoke to him, Shadow had no choice but to look at her…
He was aware of Naga’s tragic condition.
Even with only a head left, she was not entirely intact. One of Naga’s eyeballs was missing, and half of her face was almost destroyed.
However, Shadow didn’t feel horrified at all. Instead, he felt more guilt and pity: “It’s… it’s my fault.”
Naga: “It’s my…cough, cough…responsibility.”
“I didn’t expect you, Diavolo, to grow up and follow your mentor’s path, talking about feelings with a magical puppet.” Isabella sneered: “I have no interest in watching you lovey-dovey, nagging each other.”
As she spoke, a blood-red sphere appeared in Isabella’s hand, wrapping Naga’s skull inside it, and finally slowly solidifying.
Inside the blood sphere, a wide-eyed blonde woman, with a mixture of shock and farewell.
Like a wax artwork.
However, this artwork had an additional blood-colored shell.
“Look at it, such a beautiful expression.” Isabella laughed: “Probably the most interesting piece in my recent collection.”
“You!” Shadow witnessed this scene in anger, closing his eyes and suppressing his rage.
But Shadow was still young, and although his experiences had shaped his character to align with the mainstream values of the Wizarding World, time had not yet smoothed his inner edges.
Impulsiveness had not yet become a thing of the past, and reason sometimes struggled to overcome emotions.
Shadow suppressed it again and again, and even tears tinged with blood fell from his eyes. In the end, he couldn’t hold back, gritting his teeth and uttering a hoarse voice word by word: “You, old, witch!”