The hall was in worse shape after the fight. Stones, blood, tattered cloth scattered everywhere. The intensity of the fight was totally imaginable. Angor even felt a bit scared when walking in the hall.
There were two types of blood on the floor, a blue one and a bright red one. The blue one should have come from the blue giant. As for the red one… probably younger Sunders, as long as nobody else came here.
The blue bloodstains ended at one side of the ruin. Angor took a guess that the blue giant died right there. As for why its corpse was not here, either younger Sunders took it away or something else happened.
The trail of red blood persisted until Angor reached the wooden door. Younger Sunders passed through the door, wounded.
This door was the only exit in the hall. At least, it was the only way Angor could find. He needed to leave by the door as well. Before doing so though, Angor looked at the bookshelves nearby.
As a dedicated book lover, Angor would not ignore these books of course. Besides, he was curious about what kind of content was written in the books in the Nightmare Realm.
Angor recalled his experience during which he stumbled into the Nightmare Realm when taking his talent test back at Padt Manor. He saw a “Mister Bunny” who was reading a book. When Angor peeked at the book from behind the bunny, he saw a fairytale which seemed to be able to put people to sleep. Unconsciously, Angor became the heroine in the story and was manipulated by Mister Bunny. He made it out in the end, but he went through many close calls.
The incident with the book caused Angor to hold great interest in the books in this hall.
He walked to the bookshelves and realized that the books were messed up after the fight. Many scattered on the ground.
He saw red fingerprints on the edges of some of the books. Maybe younger Sunders read them before leaving.
Only a part of the books had fingerprints on them, so young Sunders only read a few.
But why? Did younger Sunders think that these books were worthless and lost his patience?
With that in mind, Angor picked up one of the books Sunders read.
The cover was blank. It recorded an elementary alchemy technique and a common one at that. Angor saw it in Sunders’ collection room. He had even recorded it in his tablet.
Angor started up the hologram tablet and found the alchemy technique to compare.
Yup, totally the same, down to every single word.
He read several more books, with or without younger Sunders’ traces on them. They were all about basic wizardry knowledge, and Angor saw many of the same copies from Sunders’ collection.
It was only natural that younger Sunders disregarded them and left quickly.
Angor, on the other hand, gladly accepted them. There were some books that were not collected by Sunders because they were too simple. Angor spent half an hour to record all of the books that he had not seen before. These basic wizard books would not cost much at all, but Angor wanted to save up as much as he could. He only had a small number of magic crystals that Greya gave him, so he needed to make the best use of them before he found a way to earn money.
When he finished photographing the books, Angor stretched himself and looked at the blood trail leading toward the door again. He sighed and went on his way.
Behind the door, there was another maze path with occasional drainage ditches on the sides. This was the sewer of a city after all so they should totally be here. Angor was wondering why did the ancient wizards make this sewer into a maze?
He followed the bloodstains and reached the first fork road beyond the hall.
It led to three different directions, two of which had blood trails. Angor crouched down and inspected the patterns of the trails. The path on the right had two trails in it, which meant younger Sunders walked to the right side first but came back for some reason.
The path in the middle had a single trail, so younger Sunders walked here next. Considering the color of the blood, he had left for a long time and never came back.
Either he died to a monster, or the middle path was the correct choice.
Angor needed to make a decision too. The right path was an obvious no, so Angor should go to the left or middle.
The left path was unknown since no one explored it. Unpredictable. The middle path might be the right one… or a deadly monster nest. Either way could be dangerous. Angor hesitated for a while and finally chose the middle one.
He had no particular reason. Just that even though the younger Sunders was weaker than middle-aged Sunders, he was still a lot stronger than a mortal. Correct or not, the middle path was cleared up by someone else, so Angor might as well enjoy the free peace.
With this mindset, Angor stayed on the trails left by younger Sunders.
Angor did not know how long he traveled or how many forks he went past. When he began to question his decision, he saw a picture on a wall which illustrated the figure of a misty ghost shadow who had a single eye growing on its body.
Instead of fear, Angor felt joy.
The monster in the picture was a “Witch’s Eye”. Before coming to the Nightmare Realm, Sunders mentioned that these monsters roamed around the center of the underground maze, which meant Angor was close to the exit!
However, Sunders said something else too, “Witch’s Eyes were vicious and cunning creatures, they tend to stick in groups. If you meet any of those things, you will become a pile of bones in the first second.”
Sunders was half-joking. He did not think Angor had any chance of encountering a Witch’s Eye on his own. Even if the boy was somehow teleported into the underground maze, he would never make it to the central area.
Of course, Sunders would never expect that Angor not only reached the center, he only ran into a single fight. Not with a monster, but a younger version of Sunders himself.
As a matter of course, Angor believed his path was free of monsters thanks to younger Sunders’ effort. When he reached another fork, Angor went to the one with younger Sunders’ traces without hesitation. He was already inside the central area, maybe he could make it to the exit with someone clearing monsters for him!
Before he could finish that thought though, Angor heard someone screaming behind the next corner.
He looked ahead and saw younger Sunders.
The man was fighting several dozens of black shadows floating in the air. One of the shadows went through Sunders’ chest, who shrieked in pain again, vomited some substance mixed with blood and guts, and collapsed on the ground, unconscious.
Angor was startled by the scene and quickly prepared to run away. At this moment, he heard the black shadows giving out sharp noises like screams. Next, they scattered away as if something frightened them for good.
When they ran about, Angor saw they all had those big, single eyes in the middle of their bodies. Those were Witch’s Eyes!