Not only them. Angor also saw the toy soldiers beside the teacups.
He recalled Sunders saying something about “dealing with the monsters”. Did that man just threw them into the Nightmare Domain and left them there?
“That was terrible customer service, professor,” he mumbled in frustration.
But it was not the time to care about those monsters now. Angor looked to the other side, at the guards covered in his mist, and decided to deal with them first.
He did not know how to utilize the Nightmare Domain yet. But it did not matter since he had never intended to use the domain for help.
Angor turned around and put a hand on Prome’s shoulder. Prome’s eyes immediately focused and saw through the mist.
“You go back first, sir. I’ll handle this,” Angor spoke in a small voice.
Prome frowned. “We can get away together while they’re inside the mist. Are you really going to fight Twilight Auction? You should escape.”
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
Prome decided to leave after he heard Angor’s confident tone.
There were five people trapped in the mist. The leader of the guards was a level-2 apprentice, while the others were all level-1. The team would do a quick job defeating common level-1 apprentices, but Angor was no longer a “common level-1 apprentice” now.
Angor grinned. He was going to deal with them “one by one”, but it did not mean he was going to kill them.
…
A moment later, he snapped a finger and removed his mist illusion.
He watched his enemies huddled together closely, chuckled, and turned to leave.
Behind him, the Twilight Guards were doing indescribable things to the bodies of each other with their cheeks burning with heat.
The alley was relatively quiet, but there were still people passing by.
Angor wondered what kind of humiliation those fools would attract. He assumed that Twilight had to be watching from somewhere nearby, so he did not stop to enjoy the show. He quickly left the area.
He was still afraid of Twilight, so he did not really wound those guards. He only did a little trick to trouble their spirit.
Since Angor could fool people’s senses, he also knew how to arouse desires from the minds of people.
Just now, he constructed a “customized dream” for each of the guards. To do this, he first needed to understand their personal tastes, and he was quite shocked to find out that the guard leader was actually attracted to other males. He wasted a lot of time using the images of women to affect his mind.
Speaking of males… Angor quickly thought about the portraits he received from Lady Mirror. Those were all weirdos, true, but Angor would admit that they looked decent.
Following his memory of the portraits, Angor created the images of those men for the guard leader.
However, not all level of handsomeness worked. Angor tried to create Sunders’ image, but it simply caused the guard to tremble, and he almost escaped from the illusion.
Angor shook his head. Not everyone was bold enough to “flirt” with Sunders like Lydia or Lady Mirror.
Until he made something happened by bringing Alan into his illusion.
“Tsk. A boy lover?” Angor shivered in disgust. He quickly stepped farther.
After giving every guard a “suitable illusion”, Angor turned away and left.
…
In the sky.
“Aw, Angor, you learned something nasty!” Flora tried to hold back her laughter. “I wonder who instructed him that. Oh, heehee, I’m beginning to like this kid.”
Compared to her joyful mood, Twilight scowled so hard that it would give her permanent wrinkles on her face.
“As expected, a rat only knows such petty tricks,” Twilight retorted and began to descend. Those were her guards, so she still had to help them.
“A trick is good as long as it works. You’re an experienced wizard now, Twilight, and you didn’t even realize something as simple as that? I think you have no hope in finding truth in your life,” said Flora as she followed her.
“Tell me that if you succeed first, or your words are just empty banter.”
Upon reaching the ground, Twilight glared at a number of bystanders to scare them away before helping the guards.
Flora simply stood there and watched the show, and Twilight did not mind it.
Twilight woke a young and timid-looking apprentice first.
“Was I gentle enough, Lady Twilight?” He said.
Twilight gave the man a furious stare.
Flora snickered and looked away when Twilight glared her way.
“Good job, Angor!” Flora silently gave a thumbs-up to her little junior.
Slap!
The now awoken apprentice was sent flying.
“Nice! Please, again, Lady Twilight!” The apprentice appeared to be enjoying it despite the blood around his mouth.
“How dare you!” Twilight could no longer hold back her anger. Her man was bewitched by the illusion because there was really that kind of filthy thoughts in his mind.
And it was absolutely disgracing!
Without hesitation, she released a light beam which pierced the poor apprentice’s skull.
“Ouch. How cruel. How many people are going to answer your recruitment if they heard about this?” Flora would not mind adding fuel to the situation.
Twilight only cursed loudly, “Angor… I WILL kill you, for tainting the honor a wizard!”
“Oh, come on! It was you who killed your own man, and you still blame him?” Flora pouted.
…
Angor did not foresee that his attempt to “act nice” to Twilight Auction had gained him more hatred instead.
…
Prome sighed in relief when he saw that Angor was back.
“You got everything you need, Angor? We should leave now. Since Lady Twilight came for you, we shouldn’t tarry in Twilight Well any longer,” Prome spoke.
Dave nodded to agree. “Yeah! Let’s go now so no more trouble finds us.”
Angor would usually agree to that as well. But… he looked at the hanging clock, which suggested it was past 4 in the afternoon. He already bought a ticket to watch Phantom of Festivity, which was at 7.
He was not interested in the opera itself, but since Lady Mirror asked him to create something using the elements of the opera, he had to go and watch it just to fulfill her request.
“When is the most recent airship?” Angor asked.
Dave considered. “Nine, I think.”
Angor pondered. Two hours should be enough to watch the drama. Furthermore, he did not really need to watch it from start to end—he simply needed to get that “feel” of it.
“Okay, let’s leave by that time.”
Dave offered to get them the airship tickets, so Angor retired to his own room.
There was still time before the opera, so he intended to use the chance to experiment on his Nightmare Domain.
With a snap of a finger, an Acoustic Illusion was made in his room. He constructed a simple empty illusion this time.
As he expected, his vision became two again. The Nightmare Domain appeared in front of him. Since the other side was complete emptiness, he could better observe the Nightmare Domain.
There was that exquisitely-decorated castle hall which looked exactly like the hall of Padt Manor, AND it was the same hall in which he met “Mister Bunny” during his first visit into Nightmare Realm.
Also, he was not looking at the Nightmare Domain using the perspective of someone within. He could shift his vision around and look at the place from all angles as if he could fly.
There were desks, chairs, candle stands and clocks… They were all familiar elements he could remember from his memory about his home. The only things that were out of place were the teacup band and toy soldiers.
Some of the teacups floated in the air, some were playing music which became real, bouncing musical notes, while some of them was hiding inside the fireplace with a grim look. There was even a teacup hanging below the chandelier as it played with its shadow.
These teacups with stick-like limbs scattered about like children with different characters.
The red-skinned toy soldiers, on the other hand, patrolled around the hall on solid steps. Their tiny figures made the hall appear like a Lilliputian world.
All the creatures were doing their own business. They all stopped when they noticed Angor was observing them. Next, Angor heard a familiar name being called.
“Shava! Shava!” The calling voice from the creatures sounded joyful and friendly. Strangely friendly.
“Who… are you?” Angor tried to ask them.
They kept calling “Shava” as if they could not understand his words.
Angor tried a couple more times but to no avail. Neither verbal language nor emotions worked. He had to leave them there yelling for Shava’s name for now.
Who was Shava anyway? Why did all the nightmare creatures call him that way?
Angor wondered if there was someone inside Nightmare Realm that looked like him who went by the name “Shava”. However… was that a man’s name at all?
He simply gave up on thinking about what he could not understand. He needed to find out how to use the Nightmare Domain with illusions.
Did he need to drag someone in here for that to work?
Or… maybe dragging Nightmare Domain into the illusions he created outside?
He decided to give it a try. With Toby still sound asleep, no one could help him right now. He wanted to see if he could “pull” the Nightmare Domain into the empty illusion.