Even when Forus saw the approaching danger, his face remained unmoved, not even a ripple of emotion was on his face. Instead, a faint smile was emerging from his usual still face.
Ever since when he had resurfaced the realm of life from his first demise, his soul that had wandered between the boundary of life and death had strengthened his mind and almost entirely disconnected him off the dull emotions. Only the olden memory and nostalgic recollection could move his tranquil mind.
From the moment he set out to gain strength to protect himself and to achieve his wishes, he had hardened his mind and used every bit of his mind and soul to plan, choosing the best choice to come out on top in this cold and unfeeling world. The feeling of despair he felt during the darkest moment of his life had left him dull and empty.
If not for his last bit of fortune, or misfortune, depending on the perspective, he would never sign the contract with that mysterious entity and set himself free from the shackles of fate that tied him with those he loved. Although the bitterness of living was painful, the sweet relief of death was just a thin exterior that hid the darkness below.
So, against all the odds, Forus chose to endure the soul-searing pain. He decided to abandon the illusion of peace and faced the cruel reality of torture. It was his worry about his lovely daughter's well being and the promise with his faithful wife that kept holding him back from crossing the line of rationality.
To hear about his daughter for the final time, he wouldn't be scared to challenge that mysterious female sorcerer and her disciple merely to listen to a story about his daughter. To find out about his younger brother and his wife, he wouldn't hesitate to go against fate.
The terrifyingly detached state of mind of his was the result of experiencing death and embracing life. Against such an unbelievable experience, how could a silly plan be compared with his indescribable struggle against fate and destiny?
With a flick of his hand, Forus spontaneously strengthened his hand before stretching out to seize at the blazing wave of flame that rushed towards him.
His action caused Abicel to frown before letting out a sneer. She revealed her disdain expression while continuing to refine her concoction, unbothered by his performance in the slightest. Mabilis, on the other hand, pondered about it in his mind deeper than before. He seemed to be unable to glimpse into the thought process of Forus, no matter how he tried, the man gave off an unusual vibe of being shrouded in a thick fog.
Uninterested in his surrounding, Forus used his bare hand to seize the searing ray of fire, letting it convert his layers of tissue into the scorched surface, layer by layer. The scene that unfolded before the spectators were very shocking to some of the true sorcerers.
To the other, the pain would make the weak-willed people roll around and screamed mindlessly and the strong-willed people to heavily sweat and disrupt their breathing, but for Forus who had once merged with the sea of nothingness, the physical pain was like a nonsensical illusion, weaker than the psychic pain and the pain that grasped at his soul.
Ignoring the pain on his hand, Forus tightly gripped at the spark of energy and used his light elemental sorcery to exhaust the ray of energy and infused the light elemental energy in it, depleting its offensive power. After the wave of heat had lost parts of its potential, shrinking into half of its previous size, Forus threw it towards the silhouettes within the dark mist.
The deadly ray of light penetrated the layer of fog and landed on the vague figure of the mature lady, causing her to let out a chilling scream. The lady had her chest impaled by the sharpened and semi-transparent light that continuously scorched her ethereal body, turning it into black and rotten flesh.
Her eyes turned pitch black as she sensed the rampaging flame particle inside of the strike that pierced her heart, clutching her hands tightly as she hatefully glared at Abicel, whose expression had turned solemn and full of regret.
The resentment spirit was just a fragment of their original self, broken and worn out. Their intelligence was even worse than a small child. Once they got hit by a mysterious power that had a heavy scent of fire, their instinct let them focus their attention towards the one which they assumed to provoke them.
Abicel, who had fallen into the scheme, was the first target of the ghost lady. While she was formerly the master of the spell, making numerous of her traces apparent in the strike, the attack was not intentional. Only by the guide of Forus, who decrease the power of the strike and threw it towards the spirit, did the ghost not suffer the severe damage and had the remaining strength to retaliate.
The female ghost screamed out a blood-curdling scream before launching herself towards Abicel. Although the resentful spirit was weak, she could cause Abicel's pain-staking effort to go down the drain if she were to become distracted by the attacks of the ghost.
Seeing the situation was turning bad for her, Abicel instantly pressed her hand towards the ground, triggering a hidden formation that she had placed it to protect herself from the unexpected attacks. A countless spark appeared and flew around Abicel, forming a ring of flame that protected its owner.
Even though they were causing a huge commotion and disturbed other participants, no one was trying to stop them. Everyone had reached a silent agreement to let this matter slip off as long as there was no causality.
In the eyes of the Steel Cauldron, this would serve as an additional test for the participants. They would have to stay focused to complete their concoctions and also stay aware of their surroundings not to get hit by the impact of their conflict.
The participants sweated heavily as they hastily set some forms of protection for themselves. They had never encountered the scenario where they had to protect themselves while trying to concoct a pill before. Naturally, this would make some of them panic and afraid.
Although the others were busily thinking about their present, Mabilis had been observing the hidden battle since the start, and he had been shocked by the marvellous plan of Forus Ander, whose mind seemed to be stretching into the abyss of darkness, silently watching and waiting like an invisible hunter.
After weighing the situation carefully, Mabilis decided to not interfere with the on-going conflict between the two. He didn't want to offend the sorcerer families behind them and also didn't want to sour the relationship between him and the twos.
Strangely, he noticed that Forus didn't seem to try to fight back, and only continued to refine his pill while staring at the dark cloud deeply. Mabilis could easily deduce that Forus was waiting for something to happen. Otherwise, he would try his best to ruin the opponent's concoction, increasing the chance of him winning the competition.
Sensing that something was amiss, Mabilis used his sorcery energy to strengthen his perception sense. Now, with his temporary increased perception, he could detect a faint air of melancholy diluted in the atmosphere. The air of melancholy had infiltrated every bit of the testing ground.
Even though he had greatly reinforced his perception, Mabilis could only detect it if he focused most of his conscious mind into perceiving it. The air of melancholy was very diluted and seemed insignificance to even the dimmest elemental particle, even then, it was very weird that something like this would appear here.
This thought process led Mabilis to the horrible conclusions that something sinister was about to occur, causing him to set up many protections fanatically. His actions caused others to frown, making them wonder about what was in the mind of his.
However, almost none of them would spare their thought for him. The geniuses were usually the most unusual of them all. Maybe he was preparing for his concoction that required the use of something dangerous.
Suddenly, without any warning, the air of melancholy in the atmosphere intensified itself. From the faintest particle that wasn't noticeable from the standard perception of sorcerer apprentices to the overwhelming force that threatened to invade physical beings in the surrounding, this instant of change caught almost everyone off guard, except for Mabilis and Forus.
The impact of this had caused several of the participants lost their control over their cauldron, causing it to explode or burn their ingredients, resulting in severe losses. However, the one with the most pathetic state was Abicel, with the ghost lady attacking her, the air of melancholy became her nightmare.
As of now, if she dared to relax her breathing of focus on other things, not only her concoction would fail, but she might even sustain internal injury as well. She couldn't even get time to think about Forus and how his scheme had already shown its result.
While others were busily dealing with the air of melancholy, Forus wasn't doing anything to protect himself other than a small faint layer of light that covered his body. Although the aura of sadness was threatening to ordinary people, against Forus, who had fought and obtained control over the Death Aura inside of his body, it was as weak as the air that mortal breathed.
Forus raised his injured hand and forced the blood inside of it to come out. The blood contained within his palm had a hint of grey diluted in it. It stretched out according to his will, slowly creeping towards the black mist.
Although he could use his Death Aura to control the aura directly, he decided not to do so. His reckless action would expose his extraordinary talent to use the Death Aura. Not only that, if he was unlucky, he might reveal the special grey light that came from the transaction with the mysterious entity.
His blood formed a string of dark-red line and warped itself around the remaining figure within the thick fog. The last ghost of vengeance was a silhouette of an infant. On its dehydrated skin, multiple miniature holes were emitting the faint air of melancholy, forming a layer of a shadowy sphere that continuously battled against the incoming string of crimson blood.
Sensing the immense crisis coming towards it, the ghostly infant started crying loudly, sending waves after waves of distorted noise outwards. Whenever the waves of distortion touched anything, it would convert the surface of the object into rotten flesh. The flesh will then continue to corrode the target further, causing numerous chain reactions.
Alas, no matter how hard it tried, the fragment of the soul of an infant wouldn't be able to contend against the sorcerer apprentice. The shadowy sphere finally collapsed and let the crimson string in, catching the body of the infant and retreated towards Forus.
Forus gripped onto the infant and pointed at its screaming mouth, causing icy spikes to condense into existence and sewed its mouth shut, not letting any sound out at all. Without any emotion, Forus covered the ghostly infant with a layer of ice, sealing every pore on its body.
After that, Forus glared at the devastated Abicel. She was having a tough time merely to keep up with the attacks of the ghost lady and the invasion of air of melancholy while controlling her blazing cauldron. Not only that, after she could adapt to the assaults of the ghost, she had to face another threat that was waves of distortion that considerably damaged her protection formations.
Her situation was very pathetic as she was on her last leg. However, if she could banish the female ghost, she could easily keep up with the air of melancholy. After an instant of thinking, Abicel decisively cut her wrist, causing blood to leak out.
The blood then automatically formed the structure of a formation, generating a tremendous attraction force to confine the female ghost. However, after she activated the trap, a sense of creeping crisis emerged within her soul. It was feeble and hardly detectable, but a disaster nonetheless.
