The Wizard World

Angele followed the blood trail and soon arrived at one particular white mushroom-like building.

The windows and doors had long been destroyed. The light coming from outside poured in and gave light to the interior.

It shined on the floor.

Angele cautiously entered the room; his skin was engulfed with a thin layer of metal. Due to the metallic glint in his body, it made him look like a metal man.

The room was small. Several wooden chairs could be found lying on the floor.

On the wall was a painting of a family portrait which seemed to belong to a family of three. A happy family of which there were the husband and wife and their cute, blonde daughter seated in their arms. She had a sweet smile on her face.

All of them wore gray hunting suits. They looked exactly the same as the human beings in the main world.

Angele had decided to refer to the real world as ‘main world’ so that it would become easier for Zero to compile and organize the database. However, the human beings in the Nightmare Realm seemed to be identical to the ones in the main world.

He walked towards it and brushed off the dust aside.

*KA*

The painting loosened and leaned down. Only a nail remained on the white wall.

Angele lowered his hands and glanced around.

There was a large bed beside the tables and chairs. A white blanket had covered two corpses that now looked like mummies. Their dried-up arms and feet looked like decaying branches.

Angele walked to the bed and removed the blanket.

The stench coming from the corpses rushed into his nose.

Blue light flashed in the pupil of his eyes. Angele stepped back several steps and covered his nose with his hand, staring at the corpses.

"Huh?" That was when he noticed something peculiar as he looked at the gaps between the two corpses.

There was a girl in dirty clothes slumbering quietly in her parents’ arms.

There were hints of blondeness among her gray hair. She was wearing a black shirt and black pants and no footwear.

The girl looked absolutely nothing like the one on the painting. Her skin was gray.

She was holding a black object in her arms. It looked like a cracked human skull.

Angele scanned the girl using the biochip and walked near to her. He tapped the girl’s face with the baselard in his right hand.

*CHI*

A black blade was swung toward Angele’s legs.

The girl was grasping a hunting blade tight in her hand. Clearly, it was her who attacked Angele.

*CLANK*

The baselard collided with the hunting blade.

The girl could not withstand such force. She grunted and rolled backward, only stopping after smashing against the wall.

"Ah!" the girl screamed. Dark-colored blood was leaking out of her eyes and ears. The rotten stench in the air thickened even more.

The girl leaned against the wall and glared at Angele. A greater amount of blood was leaking out of her eyes as her screams became louder.

The sound waves turned into transparent energy waves that spread out to all angles.

Angele frowned. He raised the baselard high in the air and slashed downwards.

*CHIN*

The baselard increased its length until it reformed into a silver longsword with a blade more than two meters long. The girl’s head was cut in half.

The screams finally stopped.

The girl’s body fell to the ground unmoving. Angele soon noticed that there was no skull in her head. It only looked like an empty ball.

Angele walked to the girl’s body and crouched beside her. He pulled a necklace down her neck.

It was an eye-shaped, wooden-carved necklace hung on a string.

‘I thought she was still alive. Oh well...’ Angele stood up. ‘They must be the victims of that plague that had been recorded on the obelisk.’

Angele turned the girl’s body to the other side with his sword. The necklace should be the only valuable thing she had. The cracked skull was not an enchanted item.

He cleaned the blade of the sword and stepped out of the building.

*Kata Kata*

Angele heard intense footsteps coming from one mushroom-like building on the right.

He hesitated for a second before he rushed to that building immediately.

There was a man in black behind that building but he quickly disappeared into the corner.

Angele held the sword tight and quickly turned around at a corner. The man in black was still running forward.

He raised his left hand and released a silver string, barring that man’s path.

The man stopped immediately and turned around.

He had his entire body shrouded in a black cloak and was wearing a pair of strange, dark sunglasses. None of his skin was exposed.

The man was around 1.6 meters tall, shorter than Angele. The man looked at Angele and started to slowly flee. He seemed to be scared.

"Are you a survivor?" Angele narrowed his eyes and asked in the unfamiliar Chaos language.

Speaking in the Chaos language sounded like a male and female speaking at the same time. The words were extremely hard to pronounce.

The man was both surprised and excited at the same time upon listening to Angele speak.

His body started trembling.

"Molasuxiliyeji?" he suddenly replied as he looked at Angele.

"Yehu! Thjjlinan!" He was trying to communicate with Angele.

"You don’t understand the Chaos language?" Angele was confused.

"Gofanliya?" the man tried to communicate using another language.

"What do you mean?" Angele pointed at his lips and waved his hands.

"Who...are you?" Finally, the man began to speak in the universal ancient language, but it was a bit strange.

"Don’t repeat my words...only those mutated freaks do that!" He sounded nervous.

"Me? I am...only a hermit. My house is in a remote area. I decided to take a stroll and you are the first person I met." Angele quickly made up a random story and introduced himself in the ancient language.

"A hermit...?" The man’s voice was deep. "I am the only survivor in this town." He was slowly getting used to communicating in the ancient language.

"Can we find a safe place and have a short talk? I am not sure what is going on right now. I have just been attacked by a strange girl several minutes ago." The silver string returned to Angele’s body.

"Definitely." The man nodded and inspected Angele. Several seconds later, he sighed in relief.

"Did you apply something to your skin? It is silver. I have to cover my entire body..."

"Yes, I was wondering..." Angele hesitated. "Why did you dress up like this?"

"You do not know about them?! They will attack anyone who is not wearing black. They can penetrate your body, suck your blood, and feast on your flesh!" The man was surprised. "Anyway, let me take you to our shelter." He turned and started walking again to his left.

"Alright."

Angele tied the baselards to his belt and followed the man.

They arrived at a decaying mushroom-like building several minutes later. The building was severely damaged; half of its roof was missing.

The man stepped on the broken wooden floor and started checking for the entrance to the basement. He found a handle quickly and pulled it up.

*BAM*

A large piece of stone was pulled up from the floor, revealing the dark space under it.

"My family found this basement about three years ago..." he explained as he walked down the stairs carefully. "Come in and close the door."

Angele’s brow furrowed. He quickly scanned the basement using the biochip and went down.

The basement was about ten square meters.

The walls and floors were all built with black stones. The visibility was low. Angele could barely see the wooden barriers and furniture on the floor.

The air smelled like rotten eggs mixed with urine. The floor was sticky and slippery.

The man was standing beside a bed in the corner and two children jumped into his arms.

"Isa!"

"Isaliqu!"

It was a girl and a boy, but Angele was still not sure what language they were speaking in.

The man took off his black outfit. Turning around, he looked at Angele.

"This is my son Frey and my daughter Freia."

Angele nodded. He watched the man give dried bread and stinky meat jerkies to the kids.

"This is the shelter you talked about?" he asked in a low voice.

The two kids hid behind their father and looked at this stranger with fear in their eyes.

"Yeah...it has been three years. There are 64 months in a year and 100 days in a month...That should be about twenty thousand days...This is the only shelter we have..." The man sighed with mixed emotions.

"What happened?" Angele sat down in a chair. He immediately did some calculations using Zero. One year in the Nightmare Realm was equal to 17 years in the main world, which meant that this family lived in the basement for more than 51 years already.

"Let me explain the situation to you." The man wryly smiled. "Everything changed five years ago. This plague that came out of nowhere struck the land. All creatures mutated, that even the Mother of Iicolin failed to cure the plague. The last grand priest left a desperate record on the obelisk before the entire realm sank into complete darkness. Occasionally, illusions become reality, and reality turns into illusions. The world has gone messed up."

"Huh? What do you mean? Illusions and reality?" Angele was getting more and more curious about this realm.

"Yes." The man sat down beside Angele. "Sometimes you would see lakes, houses, and trees randomly appearing on an empty ground. Many buildings would also simply disappear from cities and towns. Mutated creatures have occupied the land and the sky. You know what? I have once seen a human leg walking in the forest. It was not attached to a body, but it continued to walk without stopping..."