038 Insidious

Roland's goal in striking was to kill the red-haired freshman and prevent him from being consumed by the demon. He had no intention of fighting the demon head-on, so he fled immediately after making his move.

Wallace had mentioned earlier that the demon was extremely weak and incapable of using effective techniques, and that the truly tricky part was the wondrous items in its possession. What he said was indeed true. But the crucial point was that the demon possessed far too many wondrous items!

The good news was that the demon would devour some of its wondrous items, meaning it wouldn't keep too many on hand.

The bad news was that after eating the wondrous items, the demon would recover its strength.

After putting some distance between himself and the blonde freshman, Roland headed straight for the West Hall. Along the way, he used telepathy to continuously scan his surroundings, quickly discovering a large cache of relics in the West Hall. It seemed the demon hadn't lied to the blonde freshman; there were indeed many items here.

With a single thought from Roland, the various objects on the ground flew over under the influence of his telepathy. He glanced at them briefly before reaching out to open the dimensional pouch at his waist, letting the floating debris fall into it.

Roland thought to himself, "I must pack up everything in the great hall as quickly as possible, faster than the demon can. Huh? There seem to be a few usable wondrous items, but they're all contaminated. Although the 'Immune to Fiends' potion I took can resist pollution and curses, it's best to scorch them with the Flame of Dawn before using them... I'll deal with that after I finish searching the entire hall."

As Roland controlled the surrounding debris to continuously fall into the dimensional pouch, a cracked orb-shaped wondrous item flew over. This orb contained violent fire elemental power.

Roland's heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly and carefully made the orb stop mid-air. He wrapped it in soft materials before placing it into the dimensional pouch.

"This orb is already extremely unstable; it seems it could be used to make a trap."

Lost in thought, Roland had already collected everything here. Without pausing, he continued to search for relics in other areas of the great hall.

After thoroughly checking every corner of the great hall and gathering all the items, he came to a specific spot, opened *The Aleyer Notes*, and checked one of his skills.

[Apprentice-Level Magic Array: Novice (6/100)]

He applied all 100 points of enlightenment value he had previously obtained to the magic array. Then, he took the damaged orb out of the dimensional pouch.

The orb contained terrifying fire elemental power.

He thought to himself, "I just need to leave a magic array like this behind to activate the violent fire elemental power within the orb."

...

A few minutes after Roland left the West Hall, the demon and the blonde freshman drifted into it as well.

"Old thing, aren't we going after that little mouse? Who knows where that coward has run off to..."

"Master, don't rush; he can't run away. I'm too hungry. Let's gather the wondrous items here first."

The two of them flew leisurely to the western side of the great hall. After searching a circle, they found that there was nothing around. The expression on the demon's face stiffened slightly.

"I remember it should be right here... Look around nearby again."

The two searched the vicinity for a while longer, but didn't even see a single torn piece of clothing.

The blonde freshman began to cry out: "Old man! You lied to me! There's nothing here!"

"Shut up!" the demon roared. "Hurry to the northeast corner of the great hall!"

When the blonde freshman headed to the first location earlier, he had already been a step slower than Roland. The speed of this low-level apprentice was far inferior to Roland's as a high-tier swordsman; being a step slow meant being slow at every turn.

Next, following the demon's instructions, the blonde freshman went to several places, only to find absolutely nothing. Halfway through, the demon caught sight of that little mouse who was stealing items and tried to intercept him, but the little mouse inexplicably teleported more than a dozen meters away, scurrying off without a trace.

"Old man! That guy picked up a wondrous item!" the blonde freshman shouted.

"Go south... Go south!" The demon trembled with rage.

"Old man, are you stupid? The south is where we first arrived; we already got everything there!" The south was where Roland and they had first clashed.

"Hurry up! There are still two corpses there!"

The demon was now like a starving refugee on the verge of death. It originally could have enjoyed a lavish magical feast (wondrous items), but this feast had been snatched away by a robber. Thus, it thought of the slop it had previously ignored—namely, those two corpses.

Soon, the two returned to the side of the red-haired freshman's corpse, but this charred body was completely carbonized.

The demon hesitated for a long time, ultimately choosing not to eat the corpse.

"Old man, that guy must have obtained some wondrous item, otherwise he wouldn't run so fast!"

The blonde freshman was still dwelling on what had happened earlier. "However, only I can use your items... He actually dares to use contaminated wondrous items; he's not far from death!"

The demon ignored the blonde freshman. It didn't believe that kid would be contaminated in a short time, because the kid had taken the 'Immune to Fiends' potion. If he wasn't afraid of death and fought it to the death with wondrous items, it would indeed be rather troublesome.

The demon's expression turned somewhat ugly.

From the blonde freshman's memories, that kid named Roland was merely a country boy who hadn't even grown up yet. He had only been in contact with magic for a short time and was just a newly initiated low-level apprentice.

Normally, a person like this, upon encountering today's events, even if they hadn't pissed their pants on the spot, would have only had the thought of fleeing in their mind.

Yet the reality was completely the opposite.

That cunning little mouse involuntarily reminded the demon of those insidious and crafty Black Abyss Wizards, as well as that Baron Hall who had repeatedly brought people to disgust it.

It had been the same back then; clearly just a group of tiny ants, yet they had driven it to such a plight.

It didn't know when its true body would be able to deal with that group of outsiders, but it would probably have to waste some time here.

"Black Abyss wizards..."

The demon's gaze gradually grew serious.

The demon knew every wondrous item in the entire hall. It knew that even if Roland had a way to deal with the contamination, he could at most find two undamaged wondrous items. But it also understood that it was currently extremely weak, and just like that kid, they were both mere ants.

It no longer harbored arrogance and intended to seriously deal with the small trouble before it.

After pondering for a moment, the demon looked at Wallace's corpse in the distance and commanded, "Go over."

The blonde freshman's eyesight was not as good as the demon's. As he flew over, he only realized that Wallace's corpse was still in its original spot.

"Great, old man! This corpse is very fresh!" The blonde said with a joyful expression, "Old man, you have something to eat!"

"Hmm." The demon looked at the corpse, an expression of extreme disgust showing in its eyes, but it motioned for the blonde freshman to lift the corpse.

The blonde freshman waved the magic wand in his hand, lifting the corpse telekinetically.

Clatter, rattle...

An orb fell from the corpse.

Upon seeing the orb, a look of disdain appeared in the demon's eyes.

The orb seemed to contain powerful fire elemental power. The moment it shattered, the blonde freshman felt a terrifying fluctuation of magical power.

The blonde freshman's expression changed drastically: "Not good!"

Whoosh, rumble...

A fierce flame storm erupted from the orb beneath the corpse, transforming the surrounding dozen-meter area into a sea of fire in the blink of an eye. At the same time, a bolt of lightning struck from behind a stone pillar in the distance, targeting the center of the sea of fire.

Sizzle, crackle...

Unlike previous lightning attacks, this bolt of lightning did not vanish instantly like a tripped circuit breaker after hitting its target; instead, it clung to the target, flashing continuously in mid-air. This indicated that the demon had not activated its barrier just now.

"Hit the target... It doesn't seem to be using that lantern for protection... Has the lantern already been eaten by the demon?" Roland frowned, vaguely feeling that something was amiss.

At that moment, he suddenly heard three faint sounds, and vaguely saw three streaks of black light flashing consecutively within the sea of fire.

Roland's pupils constricted violently. He hurriedly shrank back behind the cover.

Fortunately, he had found cover before making his move, otherwise he wouldn't have had time to dodge at all.

As the three streaks of black light flew out, one struck the cover, while the other two brushed past it. Yet halfway through their flight, those two streaks of black light actually made a turn and flew back toward Roland!

Who would pay attention to stray bullets on a battlefield? Had Wallace not mentioned the grey magic wand earlier, Roland would likely have been ambushed to death by the demon.

Even though he had long known the characteristics of the magic wand, he was still thrown into a flurry.

The black light was too fast, clinging like maggots on a rotting bone, making it hard to shake off. He narrowly dodged the second streak of black light, but when the third streak flew in, he could no longer evade it.

In a flash of lightning and flint, Roland activated a 'silver pocket watch' (a wondrous item) inside his coat with a single thought.

Immediately afterward, everything around him slowed down.