Chapter 15: A Dramatic Appearance

Wang Yu was loyal to a fault with regards to his companions.

If he trusted them, then he would obey their commands in the heat of battle even if they were superficially unreasonable. The alternative could mean missing a valuable opportunity, after all.

He behaved the same way now. Upon hearing Avia's request to knock her unconscious, Wang Yu did so without any hesitation. He struck at the back of her neck with his palm using a controlled amount of strength, This was a classic adventurer's technique. Such an attack could easily knock an ordinary human unconscious.

He caught Avia before she could slump to the ground, then laid her down.

Wang Yu turned toward the monstrous entity whom he couldn't seem to hurt, only to find that it was becoming more and more ethereal.

Just like Avia's right hand, which had been virtualized, the undying entity slowly peeled away from reality.

Its pitch-black body turned translucent, then almost transparent.

The entity's hagbird face seemed to come to life, revealing an expression of surprisingly human shock.

It shot toward Wang Yu in a crazed manner, the only conscious intelligent lifeform in the vicinity.

Though he was shocked, Wang Yu was still on high alert.

Rather than take advantage of his Nightblade gauntlets' special power, he simply encased his fists in void energy.

The Nightblade gauntlets drained too much of his stamina. His latent ability was more versatile and easier to use.

He had previously confirmed that this entity wasn't skilled at direct attacks.

It largely preyed on others' fear and took advantage of its ability to endlessly regenerate itself.

The entity rushed madly at Wang Yu, but no faster than before.

Wang Yu sent the entity flying, its teeth shattering from the impact as translucent dark blood seeped all over.

Its neck seemed broken; it lay spasming on the ground.

"How weak..." Wang Yu narrowed his eyes and watched the entity continue to squirm.

Its strength seemed to have gone down compared to before, but he couldn't exclude the possibility that it was simply trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

Wang Yu carefully crept toward the entity, then dashed forward at the last moment.

He struck the entity with a flurry of fists, bolstered by void energy and his firm, bulging muscles, smashing down on its body like a pile driver.

Turbid black smoke erupted from the entity's body as it was beaten into a pulp. The entity screeched in pain as its face flickered and morphed to reveal a series of particularly vile and disgusting faces. It shrieked at Wang Yu, but Wang Yu was fearless. He continued to hit the entity harder.

Teeth cracked and blood splattered all over. The entity's screeches turned hoarser and more subdued, and its spasms grew weaker.

Finally, as Wang Yu smashed its skull to pieces, the entity lost all sign of life whatsoever.

Best of all, the entity didn't vanish as it had beforehand. It seemed to have finally died.

Wang Yu clambered up and stared at the entity's headless corpse as he panted.

His rapid, continuous attacks had drained his stamina to a considerable extent, but this outcome was well worth the expenditure.

He wiped away the blood and grime on his hands, then put on his gauntlets again. He had previously taken them off to avoid consuming more of his stamina.

Wang Yu strode up to the entity and began to inspect it more closely. He was very curious about it.

Avia seemed to have uncovered something, but he didn't know how to awaken her, so that would have to wait...

The entity was turning more ethereal and more transparent by the moment. The process had started almost right after Avia had fallen unconscious, as if it were being expelled from physical reality and into the void.

Wang Yu likely would have let it flee if it hadn't provoked him further. In the end, it had perished.

"Just what sort of entity is this..."

Wang Yu frowned as he took a closer look at the monstrous entity's body.

It was formed out of dead hagbirds that had been forcibly twisted together.

The hagbirds' birdlike limbs were thrust into each other's dead bodies. Their faces, which should have been stiff and expressionless in death, were contorted in abject fear.

Wang Yu eyed the hagbirds warily. Though he lacked expert knowledge on the matter, his sharp senses and keen intuition had allowed him to glean some information about the entity during the fight.

It likely operated on principles of fear. Avia had been strangely fearful of the creature, and it had been undefeatable while she remained awake.

"Does it feed on the fear of its prey? That rumor about hagbirds—void entities really do defy common sense."

To be frank, Wang Yu was rather exasperated. He had been adventuring with Reynard for over a year, but all he had seen were the staples of Western fantasy: sprites, elves, dwarves, dragons, and the like. Recently, however, things had only grown stranger and more sinister.

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"It must be because I've gained the power to sense the void..."

Wang Yu shook his head. Why it had happened didn't matter much. The reality was that he would likely have to face more such void entities in the future.

His gauntlets suddenly came to life, transmitting a thought into his head. "Take advantage..."

Wang Yu was inclined to trust the gauntlets. Though he was understandably wary, the gauntlets had proven particularly effective against the entity, and he couldn't afford to give up on the possibility of gaining more strength.

The consciousness imbued within his gauntlets directed him to the entity's head and the hagbird that made it up, the most special of the lot.

Put differently, the other hagbirds were merely corpses; only the one that served as the entity's head was its core.

The gauntlets guided his fingers into the disgusting glop of brain matter, where he found a small piece of hard crystal.

He pinched it, retrieved it from the glop, and examined it carefully. It was pitch-black with an opaque interior that seemed to absorb light.

It was a thin, octahedral crystal with a glossy exterior. It looked perfectly regular; all eight faces were the same, and there were no blemishes nor misproportioned angles that he could make out.

True darkness lay within the crystal. It didn't reflect light and didn't have a sheen.

It was dark beyond belief, darker than night, darker than anything Wang Yu could imagine.

He didn't know what this strange crystal was, but the gauntlets seemed intent on absorbing it. Wang Yu allowed them to.

The pitch-black crystal melted into Wang Yu's gauntlets, transforming into black fluid that seeped through their metal exterior.

He didn't know what the gauntlets were doing, but he could sense that the carving by his wrist had transformed.

The monstrous eyeball was excitedly waving its feelers as it sought to grasp something, but the ornate sword that pinned it down was gleaming as it suppressed the eyeball's motion. Darkness trickled into the carving, causing both the sword and the eyeball to appear even more alive.

Finally, the sword and eyeball stopped vibrating. Everything turned still and back to normal.

Wang Yu squinted. The eyeball had grown a little larger, with more auxiliary feelers, while the ornate sword's design had grown even more exquisite.

Then, a wave of pure energy emanated from the gauntlets and headed up into Wang Yu's mind, where his mindscape was located. He didn't reject the energy, confident that his will would remain unshakeable.

The energy entered his mindscape and transformed into fluid brimming with starlight.

Wang Yu examined his mindscape to find that the vast expanse of the mirror-like lake seemed to have grown slightly deeper.

The lake was made of a strange substance that looked like a liquid but was actually a solid. Now, that substance had begun to shine with starlight.

The old magician Egor didn't mention what this lake in his mindscape was, but the modifications to his lake seemed like a good thing.

He could visibly feel that his void energy capacity and control had both increased by a considerable extent.

Wang Yu retreated from his mindscape and returned to reality. After the entity's death, the fog within the forest had begun to dissipate, and he could hear the cries, chirps, roars, and clicks of its inhabitants once again.

The sounds that had been suppressed by the fog surged forth.

This was what made Wang Yu confident that the entity really had been killed.

Before its death, they had likely been trapped within some kind of domain that restricted their contact with existences in the world at large. With the entity's death, that domain had been dispelled.

At the same time, somewhere else within the forest, two figures were running straight for their destination.

One was a blond male with stern and imposing features and a tall, muscular physique, with a broadsword strapped to his back. He rushed through the forest with nothing but brute force.

Before him was a beautiful female guide, with a strong but gentle wind circling her well-rounded body.

She floated in the air as she darted through the gaps between trees.

"That horror again—I wonder how long its target will last this time... We never get to the victims in time!"

The man sighed. He didn't think anyone could last long under its assault.

"The fog has dissipated, Garcia. I suspect the unfortunate traveler is dead, but it's our duty to head there as quickly as possible regardless."

The beautiful woman commanding the wind shot forward even more intently.

"Of course, Headmaster Lilya." Garcia inclined his head. Despite his physical prowess, he was clearly a calm, obedient subordinate.

His footsteps grew heavier as he picked up his pace, a cloud of dust billowing behind him.

Meanwhile, as Wang Yu lifted the unconscious Avia onto Torrent's back, he heard a huge commotion from the forest.

Before he could react, a howling gale had escorted Lilya into the clearing—followed swiftly by a wrecking ball of a man who broke several boughs and branches as he too emerged. A haphazard trail was apparent where he had barreled through the trees.

Wang Yu glanced at Garcia and Lilya warily. He drew his sword and pointed it at the two strangers, who were taken aback. How could there have been a survivor?

They gaped at the entity's corpse, which was still slowly virtualizing, before turning back to Wang Yu.

Lilya's gaze landed on the unconscious figure on horseback beside him.

"Avia!" Lilya gaped, first in shock, then excitement.

Then, she frowned at Wang Yu. What had this fellow done to Avia? It was safest to detain him for the moment.

Lilya summoned howling winds around her staff, conjuring a huge palm of wind about five meters wide from end to end. It shot toward Wang Yu.

Upon hearing one of the mysterious strangers call out Avia's name, Wang Yu was taken by surprise. Then, his eyes opened wide as he realized his compromising position.

Lilya's giant palm of wind, which she had conjured with barely a snatch of incantation, sent warning bells ringing through his head. She had to be an advanced magician!

"I'm on your side!" Wang Yu gasped out, and then the palm had him in its grip.

Gale winds encircled him as tremendous pressure befell his eyes, ears, and nose.

But perhaps because of what he had said, or because Lilya needed him alive to ascertain the situation, the palm's grip didn't tighten. Otherwise, Wang Yu would easily have burst into a cloud of blood and vanished in the wind.

Lilya glared at Wang Yu as she walked toward Avia. She instructed the hulking man to her side, "Garcia, tie that fellow up. We'll detain him for now. I need to figure out just what happened to my niece these last few days..."

"Of course." Garcia sighed. Lilya hadn't been such a violent magician in the past. He had been tricked by her beauty!

As he shook his head, Garcia caught Wang Yu, which the giant palm of wind tossed toward him.

Fighting spirit blazed over Garcia's body, tough and durable, with the yellow-brown color of earth. It bound Wang Yu tightly.

"Fighting spirit made manifest—an advanced knight," Wang Yu murmured. He was stunned. Where had such powerful existences come from?

Even so, he was almost certain he could relax. The fact that the woman had recognized Avia meant that she was very likely Avia's aunt, Lilya Svein.

Lilya walked toward the wary Torrent and picked him up like a chick with her giant palm of wind, then carefully hugged Avia and lifted her prone body up herself.

Wang Yu's eyes rolled up as he pretended to faint.

Avia opened her eyes to light and gentle warmth. How many times had she fainted recently?

She was far too weak. She would have to dedicate herself to training once they arrived at her aunt's academy. At the very least, she couldn't end up a burden.

Where was she, anyway? Hadn't she had Wang Yu knock her unconscious after realizing what that entity could be?

Where was Wang Yu? And what was with her clothes?

Avia fell into a momentary bout of confusion. She glanced around her and found that she was in a small cottage, a soft mattress beneath her and a warm blanket draped around her. No longer was she wearing those worn robes she had obtained from the bandits' encampment, but rather a comfortable, form-fitting gown.

Who had changed her while she was asleep? Avia couldn't help but blush at the thought.

Then, the door to her room slowly creaked open. Avia turned to see a voluptuous woman enter alongside a muscular hulk. Avia's eyes lit up. "Aunt Lilya!"

"Avia, you're awake! Let me give you a hug."

Lilya beamed and rushed toward the bed, where she brought the petite Avia toward her bosom.

She gave her such a tight hug that Avia felt short of breath.

Avia struggled to break free from her aunt's grip as Lilya gave her a few kisses on her cheeks.

"Oh, how I've missed you, my darling Avia!" Lilya smiled warmly at Avia with love and tenderness.

Avia leaned into her aunt's embrace for a moment before suddenly exclaiming, "Aunt Lilya, have you seen Wang Yu?"

"Wang Yu? Who?"

"A black-haired squire. He's saved my life several times by now."

"Ah? Ah..."

(Wang Yu: It feels like I'm always the one suffering...)