Lucian had just activated the monocle's constant "Electromagnetic Transmission" spell and hadn't yet managed to call
Charlotte, whose strength had barely recovered, reacted half a beat slower than Lucian. An illusory force-field hand materialized in front of her, shielding her body.
Susan, who stood not far from Sandra, was completely bewildered—she had no idea what to do. She could only stare as a cluster of tiny lightning arcs entwined with luminous threads erupted from Sandra's chest, illuminating coils of black mist that had at some point seeped into her body, weaving in and out of her. The radiance swiftly purified them to nothing.
Meanwhile, on the ground in front of Sandra, several sharp cracks rang out as pieces of scorched metal turned pitch-black.
"That thing isn't dead! It's still in this castle!" Sandra's voice had turned shrill, laced with barely suppressed fear. "If it hadn't been for my protective talisman, it would have dominated me just now!"
The high, conservative collar of her purple mage robe appeared to have been burst open by some tremendous force. A talisman—severely deformed beyond recognition—dropped from its broken chain, falling to the ground in what seemed like slow motion before Lucian and the others, landing with a crisp, clear chime.
After two fierce battles, with her mental energy nearly exhausted and every spell in her repertoire exposed, the bizarre creature still wasn't dead! Even Sandra, a seasoned combat mage, couldn't help but feel a chill run down her spine.
The "
The electromagnetic link remained silent—no response.
Seizing the moment, Charlotte cast "Minor Mental Link," connecting the minds of the three mages and the Magic Apprentice together, saving them the time they would have wasted on spoken words.
"Let's run! We have to run! That creature is too terrifying—we can never kill it!" As a Magic Apprentice, Susan had reached her limit. She was trembling from head to toe, tears streaming down her face as she cried out.
Having survived so many dangerous situations, Lucian had developed the trait of growing calmer the more perilous things became. He had also harbored numerous suspicions just moments ago, so neither Susan's terror nor Sandra's slight panic affected him. He quickly shared his analysis: "We assumed earlier that it was a creature summoned by Master Bertrande, with the brazier serving as the primary ritual medium. Now it's clear that was wrong—the creature persists even without the brazier as a medium. Besides, Master Bertrande was a mage raised on arcane education from childhood; he would never have attempted such an absurd summoning ritual. The summoner must be someone else!"
"Bill? He's the only other person alive in this castle. The creature is both terrifying and cunning—it couldn't possibly have failed to detect him hiding in the secret chamber." Charlotte's voice was weary and weak.
Sandra reflexively objected: "Impossible—I used Charm Person to control him and verify the intelligence. Wait… that creature had more than enough ability to help him suppress certain memories!"
At the mention of their familiar companion, Susan stopped crying and went completely still.
"From what Susan told us, Bill has always been bullied by the other apprentices because he lacks arcane talent. Children like that are bound to be filled with hatred and violent impulses. When those emotions accumulate to a critical threshold, they start seeking power for revenge. In such a state, Bill—with very little arcane foundation—would be far more likely to follow an absurd summoning ritual, regardless of how ridiculous or inconceivable it might appear to formally trained mages and well-educated apprentices," Lucian analyzed calmly. He then turned to Susan and asked through the mental link, "Susan, have you ever seen Bill reading *The Fable of Suffering*?"
Susan first shook her head in confusion, then startled into clarity: "Bill… Bill has been reading *The Fable of Suffering* recently. He said… he said he wanted to draw power from suffering and study the arcane even harder!"
"Move." Lucian's order was curt and to the point. He said nothing more—they had to kill the creature before it used Bill to fully resurrect and recover its strength. If they didn't, they would be the ones to die.
Bill had lured them into the restraint chamber earlier, clearly to buy the creature more time to recover!
The three mages once again fell into their previous formation and sprinted toward the apprentice hall, maintaining several meters of separation between them. Susan summoned her last reserves of strength and struggled to keep up behind Sandra.
As they ran, new doubts surfaced in Lucian's mind—why had the creature appeared to be coalescing from the brazier when they first opened the restraint chamber, instead of reviving through Bill as a medium, and so on—but the situation was too urgent. He could only suppress those questions for now and deal with the immediate threat of the creature first!
Without the time they had lost earlier questioning Bill, the creature clearly hadn't recovered yet—otherwise it wouldn't have merely attempted to use Domination on Sandra. The corridor they rounded was deathly quiet: no pale transparent arms, no bloody revolting tongues. In seconds, Lucian and the others dashed back into the apprentice hall, past the rows of bookshelves they had knocked over, and returned to the location of the secret chamber.
On that bronze statue, two lifeless eyes were distorting and enlarging. On the door of the secret chamber and the surrounding walls, eyes were struggling to push through to the surface—all with black irises and white pupils, grotesque and horrifying.
At the sight, Lucian and the others let out a small breath of relief. The Wall of Evil Eyes hadn't even fully formed yet, which meant they truly hadn't wasted time—unlike before, the creature hadn't managed to recover a significant portion of its strength. It also meant the creature inside was in an extremely weakened state!
This was the perfect opportunity!
Several ideas flashed rapidly through the mental link. Lucian thrust his palm forward, and a crimson fireball—as though all of its terrifying destructive power had been compressed into a single sphere—shot forward, slamming straight into the secret chamber's door.
Before that, Charlotte had already cast her "Screen of Gaze" on the other side of the Wall of Evil Eyes, forcing each eye to see its own reflection in the mirror.
With a cascade of shattering, the mirrors broke apart, and the Wall of Evil Eyes collapsed before it could fully coalesce, allowing Lucian's massive fireball to strike the chamber door head-on.
A tremendous explosion ripped through the air. The secret chamber's modest magical defenses crumbled layer by layer, and the stone door was blasted to splinters, dust and smoke billowing in every direction.
Right behind it, Sandra's purple staff blazed to life. "Arcane Radiance" flooded the chamber and its surroundings with searing brightness. It absorbed all the ambient light, piercing through the billowing dust to illuminate Bill, half-kneeling on the ground inside.