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At night, Angor told Trusan that he would be going away for a couple of days again. After he handed her some coins, he headed out.

He came to Water Grasse just to tell Trusan about his departure. He had to meet with Shadow tonight at the Deadmen’s Dent at Hollow Wood.

Before he could leave on his boat, another lone boat slowly approached the manor.

Angor stopped and looked at the time-beaten face under the moonlight, as well as the visitor’s silver hair that was moving in the night breeze.

“It’s been only several days, and you look worse than before, Count Leonrick,” Angor addressed him.

It was Leonrick. In Angor’s eyes, this spirited and energetic middle-aged man had become a wrinkled and ill elder as if he was approaching his last years.

Leonrick put down his oar and looked up slowly.

“Mister Mask...” Even his voice sounded distant and husky.

“You came here alone, which means you’re prepared to face the worst?”

Leonrick shook his head and chuckled helplessly. “I’ve been thinking about what to do in these days. I... cannot use the lives of my citizens to go for something uncertain.” The man lowered his head in sadness as he said, “But I do want to know who did this. Every time I tried to sleep, I’d see Margot cursing me for not being a capable father. Those who lost their shadows... they were all here to spit on my failure as the leader of their city.

“And here I am, when I can no longer bear with the torture. No, I will not offend the great wizard. But may I at least know who he is?”

Angor looked at the weeping man in front of him and could somewhat understand his feelings. It was personal gain against the greater prosperity of the city, and Count Leonrick had decided to go for the latter by sacrificing his daughter, along with the other patients.

Angor thought about the question and believed that he would choose “personal gain” if he were in the same boots. He was unlike Leonrick, who was tasked to take care of a great city and who had to make an honorable choice as the leader of many.

“I can tell you a name now since I just ran into him recently,” Angor said. He had no problem selling out Shadow’s privacy.

“What does he want with the shadows?” Leonrick asked. This was his biggest concern because solving it might help the victims.

Angor tried to arrange his words.

“We generally divide criminals into three types: those who are forced to commit crimes, those who cannot control their own actions, and...” he said as he put a finger at his temple, “those who got a problem in their brains.”

“Do you mean... madness?” Leonrick grew confused.

“Madmen should be considered those who can’t control themselves too. I’m talking about people who have no mental problems but with very wrong ideas. You can call them freaks or antisocial perverts. As for his reason... Why would a pervert kill people? These individuals tend to insist on a particular discipline to satisfy their twisted obsessions.”

As someone who managed to bring a whole city back to a better shape, Leonrick quickly understood Angor’s hint. “Discipline... Blond hair and blue eyes, sir?”

Angor nodded. “A weirdo who’s obsessed with the hair and eye color, one who collects shadows for his own ritual belief.”

“Then... what’s going to happen to the shadows?”

“To become his collection and be stuck in chests and cabinets perhaps, just like the trophies of someone who like to collect strange things they do not wish to share.”

Leonrick quickly grew desperate when he heard these. He thought he could help the mysterious wizard with whatever problem there was in exchange for the stolen shadows, but there was no way he could persuade a “pervert” by mortal means.

Leonrick thought about the rumors about wizards, which mostly described wizards as strange-natured freaks who loved burning down cities and towns because of tiny discontents... Then he glimpsed at Angor. He was glad that this young wizard had a better character since Margot and Tyrael only received negligible punishment for their offenses.

“Anything else you want to know?” Angor asked.

“Can you tell me his name, sir?”

With a snap of fingers, an illusion covered both of them, and Shadow’s image was presented in front of Leonrick.

“This is the man you’re looking for,” Angor said as he pointed at Shadow’s image. “I don’t know his real name, but he goes by the codename ‘Shadow’.”

Leonrick was terrified of the figure that suddenly appeared in front of his eyes. He quickly calmed down as he carefully inspected the individual.

Shadow looked quite decent when judged by normal standards. He had black, coffee-ish short hair, sharp and distinctive facial features, and bright, oblique eyebrows that reached into his sideburns.

To Angor, however, Shadow was more like an ill-mannered ruffian despite that handsome look.

“One last warning for you. This man’s very powerful. I suggest that you stay away from him at all costs. I don’t think a ‘freak’ will ever give you a chance to reason with him.”

With that, Angor went away.

Leonrick looked at Angor’s back with a pleading look. He wished he could ask the young wizard to help his people, his daughter.

But he couldn’t.

Angor sighed again when he sensed Count Leonrick’s wistful emotion.

...

The moon hung high above Angor’s head when he arrived at the meeting spot.

The trees in Hollow Woods grew rapidly by absorbing the nutrients provided by all the corpses underground, and they prevented all light from shining through, be it day or night.

Angor cast Light and leaped into Deadman’s Dent.

The Purification Field on his top hat blocked all rotten smells. Angor walked along the dark path filled with broken bodies and wriggling maggots until he finally reached the small stone chamber that he was in a week ago.

“Finally. How I waited for you.” Shadow grinned. There were eight puppets standing behind him, all of whom had an eerie smile on their pale faces.

“We’ll begin right away?”

“Yup. Follow me. The array is a little bit ahead.”

Shadow took the lead while all the puppets trod behind them.

Angor thought what he saw last time was the complete area of the chamber. Instead, Shadow took him toward a small opening on the side.

There was an even thicker smell of filth and endless darkness inside.

“The ancient magic array lost for ten centuries is right there,” Shadow said as he stepped into the small hole first.

Angor found the terrible aura that came from the small passage to be the same as what he felt from Shadow in the morning, which meant Shadow had been spending his time in there.

The dark path no longer smelled like dead people, yet something told Angor it was even more filthy compared to corpses and maggots. His Purification Field couldn’t fully expel the overwhelming griminess now.

“That hat of yours will get you at least several thousand crystals if you sell it at Floating Mech City,” Shadow said. He seemed jealous again. “Does Brute Cavern consider you a primary trainee or something? I don’t remember them teaching apprentices this way. They always let their recruits do whatever they like... Or maybe you’re from some rich wizard clan?”

Instead of answering those questions, Angor pointed to the puppets tailing them. “What are you going to do with them after half a month, when your plan’s done?”

Shadow shrugged. “Let them go, of course. I can’t take them back to Floating Mech City. Well, unless I find someone as charming as you, in which case, I’d trade anything for a chance to bring him back home, even if it means my teacher will kick my a*s for it.”

“What, I thought you’re going to kill them after you’re done...”

“Hah. I’ve no interest in bullying these wimps.”

“My own teacher once told me, that even the weakest dog might find its day. Who knows, maybe one of them will grow super strong in the future, and you, will be their enemy,” Angor said as he thought about the random novels he read in the hologram tablet. Those who appeared weak at first all tended to become big shots later.

“You know what, I agree. But that won’t happen this easily in the wizarding world, where the weak will quickly get eaten by the strong.”

After walking along the terrible path for about ten minutes, they finally reached another concealed chamber.

Angor immediately sensed strange energy coming from the drawn patterns under his feet.

He was pretty familiar with magic arrays now, and he could see that the room had a typical, triggered array. He couldn’t tell the exact level or effect of it, but the ancient patterns suggested that it to be something from really long ago.

“Can you see anything from it?” Shadow noticed that Angor was inspecting it. However, he didn’t believe the young apprentice could actually read such a complicated magic array. An alchemist at this age would know about some simple runes at best.

“It was here for at least ten thousand years,” Angor said.

“How do you know?”

“The drawings are primeval. Whoever created this never learned about ‘Bental’s Tri-Intersection Rule’. There are many points that can be simplified, such as this corner here. I don’t know what this thing does, but I can say that this corner is overdone. Most alchemy books will tell you how to fix it. You can use ‘Six-Overlaying Method’ to draw a simple straight line here without wasting mana,” Angor slowly explained while pointing to a small edge inside the array.

“You... learned about magic arrays?” Shadow’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t know if Angor was correct, which was what made those words sound amazing.

“No. But I saw it from a book before.”

Shadow took a deep breath and looked at Angor with a more serious expression.

“One thousand years ago, when the Krakoks met with a terrible disaster, a wizard from Dark Castle came and activated this portal to take the Krakoks into the ‘Midworld’, where they enjoyed peaceful lives.”