A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 67

Chapter 67: The Devil Lord

Black Isotta Sorcerer Academy was located in the 12th section of the Seven Rings Holy Tower, and Bajaur was on the border of the Ivory Castle Sorcerer Academy. It was a big, well-known city whose importance equaled those established harbor cities. Besides, Bajaur was open and inclusive, with merchants, knights, and adventurers coming from many places.

On the Sorcerer Continent, black sorcerers usually abounded in two types of places. One was those areas where people rarely visited. The other was where two spheres of territories overlapped. Black sorcerers favored the latter because varied sorts of people co-existed there and most nobles were descendants of different branches of sorcerers, with many past disputes unresolved.

Grimm had arrived at Bajaur many days ago. Sitting in a tavern as straight as a sculpture, he watched the streams of people passing by while sipping the good wine in his hand now and then.

This was not a low-grade tavern where stray knights frequented. And the room Grimm had ordered was a tasteful, private one where few people came to inquire about things.

All of a sudden, Grimm gazed out. “They’re going out of the house.” He then rose up after putting down the wine glass on the table, and stared at the familiar faces on the street.

The familiar faces were Violent Bear, and the other knights hired by the little girl, and three more people seemed to have joined them. Those seven knights were convoying the luxury carriage towards the city gate.

Grimm had been waiting in this tavern for 20 days, and he found them entering Bajaur only three days ago, but he had been very careful in not exposing himself. If there was indeed a stronghold of black sorcerers, then it would be as dangerous as a sheep running into a herd of wolves.

However, Grimm had been assured that the little girl’s knights were not facing any dangers these days, so he had conceived an idea.

Grimm snickered. Then he twisted his face, which then looked very different. Afterwards, he left the tavern unhurriedly and tracked the carriage.

Taking advantage of his hunting nose, Grimm could track this carriage from several hundred meters away. Thus, in no way would the knights detect him.

“I’m gonna find out what exactly they are doing!”

Grimm had been following the fleet for several days, and the trip had been quite smooth. However, on the fifth day, using his nose, Grimm had detected that the procession stopped marching suddenly, and it remained at the original site for half a day.

Grimm moved stealthily towards the fleet.

“Ah—You robbers!!!” A desperate cry was heard.

On hearing the sound, Grimm stretched his head out of a ditch on a village’s farm land, and just caught sight of Cobra killing a peasant woman. He seemed to have become frenzied and then slaughtered the baby wailing in the dead woman’s arms without blinking an eye.

‘What’s going on? Black sorcerers need civilians alive for the experiments, then why is this guy killing them?’ Grimm thought.

After living several years of sorcerer life, Grimm had become unsympathetic. However, he still got angry on seeing such a murder. They didn’t have a purpose in mind and were just killing for killing! If they were catching civilians in large numbers for their experiments, Grimm would disapprove because of his standing point as a “sorcerer”, but he could understand. Killing innocent people? That enraged him!

The Sorcerer World was founded on ordinary people, without whom there would be no new sorcerer students.

In his wrath, Grimm noticed something incredible.

Cobra had pulled out something similar to a black stone and shook it before the dead mother and her child. Then, an arcane energy wave appeared in it.

“This energy wave should be soul wave! But why is Cobra collecting them?” Grimm rasped, expecting something big to happen.

Normally, a knight being able to gather soul waves made little sense. Even for a sorcerer student like Grimm, his use on soul waves was very primitive.

“Cobra, how many souls have you got?”

At the time, Grimm saw that little girl walk out her carriage. To his great surprise, this ordinary human was now shrouded by a gray aura of negative life information, which belonged exclusively to black sorcerers.

Grimm simply couldn’t believe what he was witnessing.

“She has become a black sorcerer in such a short span of time? That’s impossible! Sorcerers have to build knowledge to become stronger. This is applicable to any sorcerers in everywhere. Power comes from knowledge!”

Grimm kept trying to make his case, yet he was still stunned by this fact presented by the girl.

All at once, a thought struck Grimm. ‘Could it be that this little girl is like the Black Sorcerer I killed before? They just resort to some negative energy to build constitution and wield the gained energy in a simpler way? They definitely couldn’t lever up their ‘sorcery’ as sorcerers do, too. If that was true, I’d crush them even if they came in hundreds.’

Actually, the power of leverage mattered. Without it, Grimm’s attack power would be limited within 10 degrees, allowing for his current level of mental strength and magical force.

Black sorcerers might be able to work some magic with the negative energy and improve constitution. But their maximum offensive power would be bounded at around 20 degrees, and what they could achieve in the future would also be limited, at least according to the real sorcerers in the sorcerer world.

But, what forces sped up their power, exactly? A real black sorcerer? This question baffled Grimm’s mind, yet soon, he ruled out the possibility that a black sorcerer was behind it.

Black sorcerers were bent on sitting on top of the food chain by killing and seeking the truth governing life and death. They wouldn’t bother to reach such a boring, short-sighted girl. As for human souls collecting, a much more reliable and efficient way would be to pull off some sorcery and decimate people in large stretches in a city, like the East Coral Island where Grimm’s hometown was located.

Grimm was still puzzled about that “master” who had created this little girl and the others, but whoever it was, it wouldn’t be a real sorcerer.

‘Degenerated as they are, black sorcerers are basically an elite group who don’t lack intelligence. This little girl is definitely not their intellectual work.’ Grimm thought.

Thinking about this, Grimm took a breath of relief. “Whoever created these weird ‘Black Sorcerers’, they were not very wise.”

In the Sorcerer World, lack of high intelligence meant weak power, so Grimm had nothing to worry about. In fact, if Grimm had focused on developing some followers and had trained them, (although there might not be many due to restrictions of time, energy, and resources), he would certainly be faring better than these lame black sorcerers.

During the time when Grimm was lost in thought, the little girl had led Violent Bear, Cobra and the other knights out of this village, leaving the cold, dead bodies behind them.

Grimm proceeded to track the fleet like a ghost stalking in the dark.

……

Four days later in another village, the slaughter went on. But this time, Grimm approached them quietly. He came directly to Cobra and dealt with him!

Grimm had decided to target Cobra back in the tavern. He seldom spoke and thus was less likely to be debunked.

Now Grimm had become Cobra and was playing with the black stone in his hand, which he had no idea about. But he could feel the soul waves in it and estimated that there were no less than ten.

Before a student succeeded in upgrading to a sorcerer, his/her soul was not different from ordinary people. So, technically, the stone contained ten of Grimm’s souls.

“Cobra, how many souls have you got?” The little girl approached “Cobra” excitedly, with her hands coated in blood.

Grimm took a glance at the stone and said, “Thirteen, Miss.”

The little girl was not very familiar with “Cobra”, so Grimm was able to deceive her by mimicking Cobra’s voice and tone.

The girl pondered a while and then jumped joyously, as if she were a little girl that had received a candy.

“Wonderful! Including yours, we’ve raked up 100 souls in total. Now we can go to the Devil Lord, who’ll realize my wish and hide this gray cloud around me. And next time, I’ll collect 500 souls and become a stronger sorcerer student.”

Grimm laughed at her in his mind. “What a nice dream. In the absence of the power of leverage, what kind of a sorcerer student would you be? But who’s this Devil Lord? Could it be an ancient sorcerer?”

“Lord” was a word repugnant to sorcerers, since it stood for superstition, ignorance, and benightedness. No sorcerer would like it if his/her nickname ended with the word “Lord”, even those conceited, unenlightened type. Besides, being nicknamed “Lord”, his power level should be high. Then, why was he asking those who were not even students to collect souls?

This was strange!

Still disguised as Cobra, Grimm went back to Bajaur along with the procession, and during the trip, nobody became suspicious of his identity.

Now the group had arrived at an expansive manor of a noble in Bajaur. The security was tight, with many knights covering important positions. After having been examined and allowed to pass at several positions, they were led to an underground lobby.

Two “Black Sorcerers” were guarding there. Grimm squinted and found that these two were much stronger than the little girl—their attack power should be over 30 points, an estimation Grimm made on the premise of no leverage power.

However, these “Black Sorcerers” didn’t seem to have magical force, which was exclusive to sorcerers, let alone the ability to lever up sorcery. What they could pull off was a crude use of their enhanced constitution and negative energy, a raw power application according to real sorcerers.

“Stop! The Devil Lord is meeting other disciples.” One of the Black Sorcerers stopped Grimm and the others. The little girl said nothing and waited where they were as ordered.

A short while later, a male Black Sorcerer who was 14 or 15 years old came out. Negative energy was coming off from him, which was nearly as strong as the two guardians.

Excitement and frenzy filled the eyes of this Black Sorcerer who was like a little wolf that had just learned how to drink blood. He then led several sturdy knights behind him out of the hall without casting a glance at Grimm, the little girl and the others.

“Let’s get inside,” said the little girl indignantly; she seemed to have been irritated by the boy’s arrogance.

In a grand palace, an over-ten-meter mirror appeared before the group like a watery screen. In its thin space, there was a mysterious, unknown energy wave, which gave a feeling that this place was a wormhole bordering the sorcerer world.

In the palace were varied arcane energy waves, most of which were unknown to Grimm. Roughly, he could discern out twisted space waves, negative energy waves, soul waves, void waves, and others.

“My disciple, what do you want and what are you giving me for that?”

A calm, serious and deep voice came out from the mirror, which startled Grimm.

Afterwards, a huge ball of black fire appeared in the mirror, and in it, two smaller balls of blue fire shone like a pair of eyes, as if they could look into ones’ soul. It was this ball of fire that was talking to the little girl in non-standard sorcerer language. It was an irregular element creature!