The guards slowly unzipped the body bag, revealing a middle-aged male tightly restrained by ropes.
Duke Tepikkhu was still wearing normal clothes, probably because Lydia tied him up the moment he was affected by the parasite. However, the way he twisted his arms and the maniacal gazes in his eyes exposed his condition.
Even though he was bound by the ropes, Tepikkhu was struggling so hard that the two guards were having a hard time keeping him under control.
He writhed harder as Angor approached.
When Angor reached him, Tepikkhu suddenly stopping moving and looked away.
The guards, as well as Domino, glanced at each other in confusion. They wondered if the young wizard used some kind of spell.
Using the chance, Domino asked a medic member to inject tranquilizer into Tepikkhu’s arm. The duke didn’t resist at all.
“Lift his head,” Angor said.
A guard slowly held Tepikkhu’s head upward until he was looking at Angor’s eyes. They noticed that the duke was no longer showing madness. There was a tiny trace of respect in his expression.
Domino suddenly regretted his decision to take everyone away, for he wasn’t sure if Angor was really Lady Lotus’ helper. Angor only claimed to be.
And he felt afraid, looking at how his father was reacting.
His father never showed such fearful respect even in front of Lady Lotus’ magic doll. Did this mean the young wizard was actually stronger than Lotus? No. As Domino recalled, this young wizard addressed the lady as “Lady Lotus” instead of using her true name, and this tiny detail suggested a lot in the world of wizards.
But this didn’t make the situation any less chaotic.
The entire Midnight Sovereign was currently in a strange condition, and Domino felt more fear whenever something else happened. He was regretting his decision, yet he couldn’t back off now.
Angor stared at Tepikkhu for several seconds and pulled the silencing tape off Tepikkhu’s mouth.
With his mouth freed, Duke Tepikkhu began to sing in a low voice. While everyone else listened to the strange music, Angor read the emotion which praised Shava, again.
“Shava…” he murmured.
“Sir Wizard, are we leaving?” Domino looked toward the mist-covered door. He didn’t hear any other “mutants” singing, but he was still terrified that one of his guards or even himself would “turn” at any moment.
“Hold on. You all stand back.”
Angor asked them to keep some distance and began to release mana from his mana pool, swiftly constructing a cantrip model.
When he opened his eyes again, the environment around him suddenly shifted.
It was no longer the dim study room. He was now standing inside a bright, exquisitely-decorated chamber.
He only dragged himself and Tepikkhu into this illusion while leaving everyone else outside.
Tepikkhu wasn’t surprised when he appeared somewhere completely different. Rather, he felt happy, as if he really liked this new area.
A group of teacups suddenly showed up from a corner while playing a strange song.
Meanwhile, a few red-painted toy soldiers moved in rank in front of Angor like real marines who were welcoming their commander. But those palm-sized bodies didn’t really do a good job.
It wasn’t an illusion, but the piece of Nightmare Domain Sunders severed for him.
Angor tried to remember Sunders’ words.
…
“How can I wake them?” After learning that the possessed citizens could be saved, Angor asked his professor.
“Do you know what exactly controlled them?”
“No…” Angor shook his head as he answered truthfully.
“When you accidentally opened a nightmare passage at the auction house, you should know there were many monsters that escaped into reality. Just like how each wizard has his or her own expertise, monsters do as well. For example, the teacup musicians can resist and reflect harm, while the toy soldiers can absorb energy and shoot it back. There is one particular monster you let loose who can cause the outbreak.”
Angor went over his memory and tried to think of what monsters left the nightmare passage in front of him.
The aria singer Froggy, harper Fox, joker card, and…
Several small, colorful figures flashed in his mind.
“The rainbow dragonflies?”
“Precisely,” Sunders said. He then sighed as he continued, “They only have strength similar to level-3 apprentices, so I didn’t expect them to cause such a serious influence. My attention was fully distracted by the pair of animals and a card who had been lurking inside the auction hall, and here’s what happened; those ‘insignificant’ dragonflies brought both Twilight Well and Midnight Sovereign into a disaster.”
There were about a hundred of them which escaped from everyone’s sight. No one thought they would cause so much trouble half a month later.
“They set up their nests on top of two energy sources of Twilight Well and gave birth to countless twinkle parasites in merely two weeks. They’re extremely fast, and they can control wizards too,” Sunders said. He then paused to arrange his words before he continued, “They do not pose any threat to you or me, who can manipulate a Nightmare Domain. The problem is the tunnels inside these nests, which are releasing the mist into the city.”
…
Sunders asked Angor to come so the boy could shut these tunnels off. Getting rid of the parasites was only a secondary task. Angor didn’t really mind the victims he ran across since Sunders pointed out that the longer they were controlled, the more benefit they would receive in the end.
Now that Angor had such a victim who couldn’t escape from him, he wanted to try Sunders’ theory out.
According to Sunders, he could get rid of the parasite by utilizing the property of Nightmare Domain and force the parasite from leaving its host on itself.
Sunders also mentioned that the whole issue wasn’t really dangerous because the parasites could only survive within the strange mist. If they were connected with the environment outside, they would immediately die off. This meant the outbreak would never leave the ground of Midnight Sovereign.
The mist that covered the area was a special nightmare aura that escaped into this world via the nightmare tunnels. It wasn’t difficult for Angor to deal with the parasites since they were restricted here.
However, he couldn’t solve the problem by taking the victims away from the mist.
If he did so, the parasites would attempt to sustain themselves by absorbing the life energy of their hosts. Considering that they didn’t need much energy, neither the parasites nor their hosts would die once they leave the mist.
Killing the host would force the parasite to expose to the outside and die. But obviously, this wasn’t an optimal option.
After learning that the parasites couldn’t live without nightmare aura, Sunders easily found a solution. The mist covering the city was only a temporary, “fake” nightmare, while a Nightmare Domain was the real deal.
When a parasite was put inside a Nightmare Domain, it would grow livelier, and it would quickly absorb the abundant energy around it. And since all the energy inside a Nightmare Domain was controlled by the owner, once the parasite was “filled up” by the energy, this domain owner would be able to force the parasite into leaving its host.
Angor didn’t know how to control the energy yet. He had been too busy with his alchemy works to read The Mystery of Nightmare Domain .
In order to learn this, he carefully listened to Sunders’ lecture while heading toward the duke manor. Now he already gained an overall idea.
…
Tepikkhu looked really happy. Just as Sunders said, the parasite within him was glad to devour the rich energy inside a real Nightmare Domain.
Angor tracked the energy flow and noticed that there was a concentrated spot inside Tepikkhu’s body.
He grinned at his success. Following the energy-control technique he just learned from Sunders, he pulled the parasite, which looked like a glowing spot at first, from Tepikkhu’s mouth. The parasite obediently landed on his hand.
At the same time, Tepikkhu collapsed while his eyes rolled back into his head.
Angor stared at the shining sphere in his palm. There were a number of vortex-like structures on the surface of it which looked like the parasite’s eyes.
Creepy.
The parasite stayed put on Angor’s hand. Even if it were to escape, Angor could easily pull it back using the nightmare energy it already absorbed.
“Professor said this is another nightmare creature, so I can put it here.” He didn’t have time to worry about other matters now, so he simply tossed the parasite to the teacups nearby. He assumed that they would get along well.
Next, he grabbed Tepikkhu’s clothes and canceled the Nightmare Domain.
In the views of the onlookers, Angor suddenly vanished with Tepikkhu. Domino was terrified when he saw this. He feared that Angor had taken his father to somewhere prone to infection.
Before Domino could do anything though, the old servant called him.
“Sir Wizard and the old master have returned.”
Domino looked back and saw the young wizard appearing again, along with Tepikkhu, who was no longer held in ropes.
He was about to speak when Angor stopped him by pushing Tepikkhu into his chest.
“Take him. He’s fine now.”