Chapter 0018: The Battle Begins

In just half an hour, the mercenary squad that had entered the Magical Swamp alongside the three was nearly wiped out. The four remaining members, covered in blood, huddled together back-to-back, barely holding back the frenzied assault of the monsters. As their employers, the three apprentice sorcerers watched coldly, only intervening to kill monsters that attacked them directly, otherwise showing utter indifference to the mercenaries’ fate.

While the four survivors fought desperately, the three apprentices chatted leisurely.
"The trace of elemental energy sensed earlier must be the local apprentice of this swamp. Why didn't you let me capture him?" The round-faced girl, adorable and shy, whispered her complaint.

"What’s the point of capturing him?" the burly leader shook his head. "This place is clearly shielded by an extremely sophisticated sorcerous array. We've been wandering here for three days and still can't find the entrance. Without a guide, even another three days wouldn’t get us to that sorcerer’s tower."

"Isn't that reason enough to capture him?" The girl pressed on, pouting, venting her frustration on the caged creature she held. As she muttered, the space inside her golden birdcage began to compress, squeezing the infant monster until its body creaked and groaned. The creature’s thin, anguished shrieks only made her smile brighter and sweeter.

When the pitiable infant monster finally burst into a pulp, the girl danced with glee, exuberant and delighted. Seeing her distracted by her new toy, the other two apprentices breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

The snake-headed apprentice leaned in to the burly sword-bearer, voicing his concern: "Are you sure it's okay to let that observer go? He’ll surely bring more guardians!"

"Guardians?" The burly swordsman sneered. "This is just a common resource point. Do you think the Sarubo family would invest formal sorcerer-level guardians here? Aside from that Anderson sorcerer, the rest are likely just apprentices. Are we supposed to fear their apprentices?"

The snake-headed apprentice grinned, his forked tongue flicking out with a sinister hiss.
"There are plenty of rare materials here that I need. Since the guardians won’t show up right away, I’ll take a look around first!"

With that, he strode off toward a distant patch of swamp. Strangely, although a stone path lay nearby, he seemed not to see it, walking straight through. This was one of the tower’s defense mechanisms: only apprentices wearing sorcerous amulets could perceive the stone paths running through the Magical Swamp; outsiders saw only wasteland like any other.

Watching his companion vanish into the thick mist, the burly swordsman hesitated briefly, then turned toward another direction. After all, coming to a private resource point of a sorcerer family, it would be a waste not to seize some benefits before conducting business.

As for the peculiar little girl, she was left behind—deliberately or not—in the midst of the bloody, chaotic throng of monsters. Whether she would be harmed was not a question that crossed the minds of the two male apprentices. In truth, she was likely the most dangerous creature in the swamp.

Thus, when Grim led Alan and the other three to the scene, they saw only a cute little girl standing alone with her golden birdcage in the midst of a swarm of monsters.

By now, the human mercenary squad had been reduced to scattered chunks of flesh and pools of blood, their shattered corpses fought over and torn apart by infant monsters. The sight was bloody and chaotic. The girl stood at the center, yet within ten paces of her, not a single monster dared approach.

As she skipped and played, the infant monsters, disturbed from their feast, first screamed fiercely, then actually cleared a path for her. One mercenary, his body mostly devoured but not dead yet, raised a bloodied hand, struggling to beg her for help: "Save me... save... save me..."

The girl, smiling sweetly, squatted before him and asked softly, "I can rescue your soul from these monsters. Do you wish for me to save your soul now?"

The dying mercenary nodded frantically, failing to notice the ambiguity in her tone when saying "rescue," nor the strange inflection that, if he knew linguistics, he would recognize as ancient Andisian for "to acquire."

Upon his affirmative answer, her smile turned even sweeter. She deftly produced a milky crystal sphere, placing it on his forehead. A brief sorcerous incantation later, his body convulsed, and the flicker of hope in his eyes was snuffed out.

A white shadow emerged from his forehead, instantly vanishing into the crystal sphere.
Life faded from his body, his raised hand falling limp.

This scene was witnessed by the approaching tower apprentices, who felt a chill of apprehension. Grim’s group arrival caught the little girl’s attention; she walked directly up to them, tilted her head, and asked in a soft voice, "Are you the guardian apprentices here? Hello, I’m the adorable Alice!"

Grim and his companions gazed coldly at the precocious girl, unmoved by her outward innocence. Among sorcerer apprentices, friendship, love, humanity—those beautiful words had long been discarded, replaced by knowledge, resources, and power.

A naïve apprentice would not survive to become a senior, let alone reach the heights of mastery.

Seeing their eyes linger on her crystal sphere and golden birdcage, Alice quickly hid them behind her back, pouting, "These belong to Alice. You’re not allowed to covet them."

Alan swept his gaze around, coldly questioning Grim, "Didn’t you say there were three sorcerer apprentices? Where are the other two?"

"Kerry went that way... He’s a big guy, quite formidable... If he meets with that woman, it’ll be lively..." The girl pointed east, innocently enough, clearly referring to the sword-bearing berserker woman. "Jeffrey went over there... He said he’s looking for materials or something..."

Hearing this, Alan and the others shuddered, their expressions darkening. They cared little for dead monsters, but if those hidden gardens and herb plots were breached by outsiders, the entire tower’s apprentices would face Anderson’s wrath.

No time for further thought—the berserker’s loud voice rang out.

"I’ll go stop that guy!"
With that, the burly woman accelerated, charging east like a force of nature. Several infant monsters foolish enough to block her way were crushed into pulp, while others shrieked from afar, not daring to approach.

"I’ll go this way," Hawk Eyes said coldly, pulling up his hood and heading west. Above, the thick mist was filled with the croaking cries of carrion crows, flocking after Hawk Eyes toward the west. Alan, his eyes flickering, declared, "I’ll give him a hand!" and followed after.

Suddenly, only Evil Bug, Grim, and the enigmatic little girl remained.

"Are you planning to fight?" Alice tilted her head, looking from one to the other. "Don’t you want to ask about our origins first?"

"There’s nothing to ask. You’ve caused chaos here, so you must face punishment. If I capture you, you’ll tell me everything. If I lose, I’ll bear the consequences. Now, let’s see what you, an outsider, can do!"

Unusually, Evil Bug, one of the typically silent trio, spoke at length.
As his final word fell, the black soil beneath the girl swelled suddenly, spewing forth a horde of strange black scorpions, each palm-sized, jet-black, with one large and one small claw, and a high-arching poisonous stinger dripping with a foul toxin.

Though they stood more than twenty meters apart, Evil Bug had somehow sent his scorpions underground to the girl’s feet.

From her appearance, the girl’s constitution seemed weak. If he struck quickly, no matter what sorcerous tricks she possessed, she would have no space to retaliate.

Grim had already described her as particularly strange, so Evil Bug had no intention of testing her in person; his opening move aimed for a swift takedown.

But the next moment nearly made his eyes burst from their sockets.

An invisible barrier of space separated the girl from the scorpions; no matter how they struck or pierced, they could not budge it. More and more gathered, forming a wall of insects around the transparent barrier, attacking desperately yet unable to penetrate.