This female
As a Crystallization Wizard of the Forgotten Land, her identity was highly sensitive, and she could only serve as Leilin's hidden force.
In several elimination campaigns, Tannasha had intervened covertly as well.
This time, upon discovering the anomaly in the Barber family, Leilin had immediately ordered Tannasha to act and rescue the Wizards trapped inside the ancient castle.
"Pike! Report the casualties!"
Even so, some of his subordinates inevitably died or were injured — but it was far better than total annihilation.
"Master, this time we lost two Tier Three Warlocks, one of them at the Gasification stage…" Pike's expression was grim; the losses were clearly severe.
After listening for a while in silence, Leilin sighed.
The world of Wizards was always brimming with danger, and Warlocks assigned to frontline combat brushed past death every single day. Many of their peers had long since grown accustomed to it.
But as their lord, there were words he still had to say.
"The Warlocks who died fighting alongside me this time — their families will receive the compensation they deserve. I swear it on the name of Leilin Farrell!"
Leilin raised three fingers and uttered the oath.
These vassals followed him not only in hopes of personal advancement — many, like Pike, had joined for the sake of their families. As a result, after hearing Leilin's oath, everyone's mood immediately eased considerably.
"At the same time, the situation in the Barber family is extremely complex. Give me a private location — I need to contact headquarters!"
Charging headlong into danger when you knew it was there was the behavior of a fool.
Leilin had backing behind him, and naturally it was time for that backing to deploy. A mere Tier Three clone — if it lingered too long, it could even be intercepted and killed right here.
Leilin had confidence in the strength of his organization.
"Your room has already been prepared. Please follow me!" Tannasha led Leilin deeper into the cavern.
Although it was a temporary safe house carved out in haste, modifying a few rooms with Wizardry was hardly a difficult task.
Pike looked at Tannasha, whose face was veiled in black gauze, wanting to speak but holding his tongue.
Only now did he realize that among his master's subordinates, there was actually a Crystal Wizard! The cold, bloodthirsty aura emanating from her immediately set his well-honed survival instincts on edge.
Just how many hidden forces did his master truly command?
Pike felt that his master, who was already accustomed to creating miracles, had now been shrouded in yet another layer of mystery.
Of course, speculation was one thing—prying into his master's secrets was something he wouldn't dare do even on pain of death. He didn't even dare to ask about this woman's identity. That was the proper way for a subordinate to behave.
He wasn't the only one. The other warlocks accepted Tannasha just as readily, as though she had always been one of them.
With Tannasha presiding over the place, the outpost immediately fell into impeccable order.
Great power, in times of danger, was the most reassuring thing of all—whether for ordinary people or Wizards alike.
Inside a cavern carved out by earth-element Wizardry, Leilin found a clean spot and sat down. He took out the Arcane Mark communicator from his waist and flipped to the page for his liaison officer.
He reached out and tapped the mark, and a dark, obsidian glow immediately engulfed it.
A few minutes passed. Leilin's expression grew heavy. "No response at all!"
He reached out again, tapping the mark once more. "Liaison! Headquarters! Is anyone there?"
After several attempts, he had no choice but to admit the truth: the liaison officer specifically assigned to him by headquarters—a Wizard who should have been on standby at all times—had abandoned his post.
This discovery immediately made Leilin's brow furrow.
He had no foundation whatsoever on the Central Continent. His only lifeline was the Ouroboros Ring. If something serious had happened at headquarters, he would be in grave danger. The backlash from Blue Mountain City alone could force him to spend the rest of his days hiding in dark sewers, keeping company with rats.
"What on earth has happened?"
Leilin flipped to other pages. Kasha's mark was also unreachable, but Lucy's was still active—though she gave him almost no information, merely mentioning in passing that there had been some situation and all external operations were to cease immediately.
"Cease? Stop now?"
Leilin sneered and cut off Lucy's arcane mark. Judging by her tone, something truly catastrophic must have happened at headquarters—they had lost all capacity to respond to the outside world.
And judging by her evasive behavior, they still didn't consider him one of their own. At critical moments, suspicion still lingered!
If the intelligence is wrong, it could get people killed!
Leilin's expression darkened as he considered for a moment, then he activated another blood-red scale-shaped mark.
After a brief connection, a response finally came from the other side: "Leilin?"
"It's me!" Leilin's voice was low and heavy. "Frey, have you made it to headquarters?"
"I have. Leilin! The situation is extremely urgent—you need to come back immediately and stop going out!" Frey's voice reached him from the other side, laced with a note of panic that surprised Leilin.
Even back when her family's bloodline had been failing, he had never seen her like this.
"I'm in trouble here too. The Barbour family is in serious trouble—they've even formed an alliance with Blue Mountain City. The Avatar of the Blue Mountain King has appeared here!"
Leilin revealed information he had just withheld from Lucy.
"The Barbour family? The Avatar of the Blue Mountain King?" An alarmed cry immediately came from the other side. A Morning Star Wizard—even in avatar form—appearing deep within their territory was enough to make anyone's nerves tighten.
"Don't tell me they already know!"
"Know what?" Leilin pressed at once.
Frey on the other end seemed to realize she had let something slip. After a pause, she lowered her voice: "Are you safe over there?"
"Perfectly safe!" Leilin flicked his finger, and a stream of black light instantly enveloped the entire secret chamber.
"Hold on a moment—I need to switch to an encrypted channel!" Frey's voice came through again. The glow on the mark flickered out, then blazed back even more intensely.
"So it's come to this…" Leilin couldn't help but prick up his ears. He knew whatever Frey was about to say next was a matter of life and death.
"My mentor, along with two other Elders—they've lost contact…"
From the other side came Frey's dry, strained voice.
"Lost contact? What do you mean?" Leilin was confused.
"Before this, my mentor said they were close to locating the coordinates of the Infernal World. They needed to conduct deep-level experiments and couldn't be disturbed! They cut off all external communications, and just yesterday, I discovered that the soul flame my mentor left with me had nearly gone out. So I forced my way into her laboratory… and then…"
"What did you find?" Leilin's voice had grown hoarse as well.
"There was no one inside the laboratory, not even the Stargate Wizard Array was running!"
"The other two elders' laboratories are the same!"
"I… I… I…" Leilin nearly cursed aloud, forcing himself to take a deep breath and steady his emotions.
The Stargate experiment was extremely dangerous, and there was always the risk of becoming lost in a foreign world. If one failed to return before the Stargate Stones were fully consumed, the Wizard who had physically crossed over would be trapped and left to die in that other world.
And based on what Freya was describing — the Stargate Stones completely depleted, the soul flame weakened to the barest flicker — this was unmistakably the phenomenon of being trapped in a foreign world!!!
Three Dawn Star-level sorcerers were the pillars of the entire Serpent Ring. Once they were lost, the entire Serpent Ring would not be far from utter annihilation. No wonder headquarters was in chaos, and even Lucy seemed to have lost all composure.
"Are you certain?" Leilin felt his throat constrict painfully, but he clung to the last shred of hope and asked.
"We've tried every method of contact, even projecting the soul flame directly… nothing worked. Teacher and the others… Teacher and the others may truly be lost in a foreign world…"
From the other side of the magical imprint, came Freya's uncontrollable, choking sobs.
Being lost in a foreign world was far more than simply being unable to return. A large world harbored immense hostility toward outsiders. If one could not return in time, a Wizard crushed under the pressure of a vast world's willpower would not meet a pleasant end.
The only way was to proceed gradually, using the Stargate to chip away at the foreign world bit by bit until the world's willpower was completely overturned. That was the optimal method for seizing a world.
The three Dawn Star elders now found themselves like ordinary people thrown into an endless ocean, surrounded on all sides by bloodthirsty sharks.
There truly could be nothing worse than this.
"Do you know why King Lanshan came here?"
After weeping for a while, Freya finally pulled herself together.
"I'm not sure. I originally thought it was about the Babur family or about me, but I can't be certain anymore…"
Leilin said with a bitter smile.
If this had simply been a tragic experiment accident, it would have been earth-shattering, yet there would still have been a sliver of hope.
But what if the entire affair had been engineered by an enemy?
Given the recent clouds of war and the unusual behavior of Dawn Star Wizards like King Lanshan, Leilin felt this was entirely possible as well.
Why, after thousands of years of searching for a hellish world, would the Serpent Ring’s Circle of Ouroboros suddenly discover one at this exact moment? And if it were an enemy’s scheme, then everything makes sense.
"What a grand scheme! Truly a grand scheme! To directly use a world coordinate and trap three Dawn Star Wizards inside…"
Leilin drew in a sharp breath. If his conjecture was correct, then once the enemy confirmed that the Dawn Star-level fighting force of the Circle of Ouroboros was gone, what awaited the rest of them would be a thunderous strike!
If this matter wasn’t handled well, whether the Circle of Ouroboros would even continue to exist in the Central Continent in the future would become a question worth pondering.
After closing the sigil, Leilin propped his chin on his hand, sinking into deep thought.