Carried by the turmoil of fate, his eyes perpetually radiated intense hatred, a hatred that had become a chilling force affecting others; anyone who ventured too close would feel an icy chill penetrating their bones.
Therefore, he had to constantly disguise himself, only able to shed that facade in the darkness.
Guillaume sat atop the mast, unmoved by the fierce sea winds battering him, perhaps because his heart was already more tumultuous, colder than the storm...
Compared to Nidhogg, an orphan from the remote island city of Bisher, Guillaume's fate was even more twisted and bizarre.
Fifteen years ago, in a peaceful village on the Sorcerer's Continent, a terrifying dark sorcerer descended upon this village one quiet night, slaughtering anyone who dared oppose his will.
The dark sorcerer's true aim was to gather his experimental materials—living humans.
No one could comprehend a dark sorcerer's psyche. They had strayed down a misguided path in their pursuit of magical knowledge, willing to go to any lengths for power, seeing weaker kin merely as stepping stones.
Unbeknownst to them, magic and sorcery's original purpose was to protect humanity from the plundering and enslavement by powerful beings from otherworldly realms!
In a dark cage, Guillaume spent over ten years in complete darkness, witnessing, from his childhood, one family member after another being captured with irresistible force by the dark sorcerer and subjected to brutal human experiments. And later, batch after batch of new "experimental materials" were locked in the cage.
Guillaume witnessed too many deaths—some were even excessively cruel and bizarre.
Until one day, his fate took a turn!
No one but himself knew why he survived the experiments repeatedly, where the chance of survival was only one in ten thousand. Not even the dark sorcerer could believe this miracle, yet Guillaume undeniably achieved it.
And through repeated brushes with death, his eyes turned calm and icy cold, like the legendary black ice deep at the abyss.
A few years ago, when the Demon Hunters from the Black Tower Academy slew the evil dark sorcerer and freed all the innocents held captive, Guillaume finally gained freedom after more than a decade.
For this reason, Guillaume considered the Black Tower Academy his home.
Meanwhile, with the joint efforts of many sorcerers at the Black Tower Academy, they discovered why Guillaume repeatedly survived the experiments. It turned out the academy had gained a true prodigy, one with a significant chance of winning the Holy Tower qualification battle.
Soon, the Black Tower received intel about two rare innate talents emerging on distant East Coral Island. However, that was territory belonging to another sorcerer academy, Yssia’s Cottage.
Driven by ambition, the Black Tower Sorcerer Academy, a place governed by mutual competition, survival of the fittest, and natural elimination, launched a meticulous and detailed mission...
"Goo goo..."
A calm owl landed on Guillaume's shoulder in the night. He seemed prepared, showing no surprise as he gazed at the owl with his dark eyes.
"At your current speed, you should reach the target sea area by around seven tomorrow morning. Just sprinkle that thing in the ship’s hold, and your task will be completed."
The owl spoke in a low human voice.
Guillaume replied in a deep voice, "Understood."
As a violent sea breeze gusted, the owl wobbled as it flew into the distance, while Guillaume continued to sit calmly, his icy gaze looking into the endless darkness.
"Guillaume? Solum?"
...
These days, Nidhogg's life revolved around two themes: studying magical books and fresh fish and mushroom soup.
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Inside the cabin, it was hard to discern whether it was day or night outside, with only the spent candles providing an illusion of eternal light.
Rubbing his eyes, sore and bloodshot, Nidhogg closed the book he had been reading for who knows how long, "On Nasal Transformation and Olfactory Mapping."
Stretching, he murmured, "Bingham hasn't come by in ages; I should get out for a walk."
Perhaps from sitting too long, his bones creaked audibly as he stood, putting away the magic stone and book before leaving the cabin.
"It's morning?"
Nidhogg murmured in surprise, having thought it was still night according to his sense of time.
Boom!
Suddenly, a deafening sound rang out, and as the five-story ship rolled violently, Nidhogg, heading for the deck, was thrown to the floor, feeling the immense ship rock drastically.
His first reaction was that they had struck a reef!
Before he could regain his senses, the cabin was engulfed in chaotic panic.
"What happened? Did we hit a reef?"
"Help! Sea monster!"
Many sorcerer apprentices, panicked and disoriented, emerged from their cabins, trying to reach the deck to understand the situation. At that moment, a massive creature, standing two and a half meters tall, entered the deck exit.
This giant creature had a humanoid upper body and a lower body like a snake, its entire body covered in blue scales. Holding a gleaming metal trident, it looked greedily at the dumbstruck sorcerer apprentices.
The crowd gasped; without a doubt, this monster was beyond their capacity to handle!
“What’s happening? What’s happening…”
In a room near the deck exit, a dazed sorcerer apprentice opened the door, trying to understand the commotion, only to be confronted by the massive creature.
“Oh my... am I dreaming?”
The apprentice barely managed a curse before the sea monster’s enormous trident pierced him, splattering intestines with the roughly made weapon and filling the cabin with the stench of blood.
"Run! Sea demon! It's a sea demon! The sea demon is killing!"
The fifth-floor cabin erupted into chaos as sorcerer apprentices fled in terror, pushing and shoving, driven by the sight of their slain peer.
Meanwhile, on the fourth floor, apprentices were caught in confusion, trying to see what was happening, causing a bottleneck that led to further chaos.
“Nidhogg, over here!”
Yorkris beckoned Nidhogg, and nearby was Yorkrianna. Overjoyed, Nidhogg hurried over.
“Wait for me!”
For some reason, Nina from next door also rushed over, seemingly feeling unsafe alone in her room, believing in strength in numbers.
During this, two other panicked apprentices had also taken temporary refuge in Yorkris’s room, all pushing against the wooden door.
Everyone was in shock, and Nidhogg could clearly hear the cries and screams echoing down the corridor, suggesting there were more monsters than just one, massacring those too slow to escape.
Yorkris brought over tables, the wooden bed, and anything else he could use to barricade the door, creating a momentary silence in the room, filled only with heavy breathing and rapid heartbeats.
No one knew how many apprentices had fallen, but from the screams, it must have been at least twenty.
Meanwhile, the sounds of human fighting and the unique raspy roars of the sea monsters began to echo, raising hopes that the powerful sailors were coming to the rescue.
For the first time, the group found those rough, unclean sailors endearing.
But despite the sailors’ intervention, screams continued to fill the ship.
Suddenly, a crashing sound followed by desperate screams came from next door, chilling everyone to the bone. It was evident that the terrifying sea monsters had broken in, unleashing a bloody massacre.
No one in Yorkris’s cabin dared make a sound, their eyes filled with despair.
“No worries, there’s still hope. If Wizard Dira acts, he can definitely kill those sea monsters!”
A male sorcerer apprentice who had taken refuge in Yorkris’s room whispered.
The group perked up; indeed!
They all had immense faith in the mysterious and powerful sorcerers.
Boom!
Suddenly, the ship rattled again. The violent shaking alarmed everyone in Yorkris’s room. Behind them, the sound of wood snapping echoed, followed by a barrage of splintering wood, reminiscent of a fierce sandstorm.
They instinctively curled up and closed their eyes, and when they finally looked back, the room was bathed in bright sunlight.
In shock, they turned around to see a nightmarish sight.
A gaping hole, seven to eight meters wide, had opened in the ship’s side, right at the center of Yorkris’s cabin!
Through the hole, a serpent-like dark creature was slowly crawling upward, its diameter over two meters, hinting at the terrifying size of the “sea serpent.”
“Ah…”
A female apprentice let out a gut-wrenching scream, and they looked down to see she was one of the two strangers who had taken refuge in Yorkris’s room.
The female apprentice had a wooden stick impaled through her abdomen, blood pooling around her as the stick protruded.
With a desperate look on her face, she pleaded at the group, but all wore expressions of helplessness.
Nidhogg too felt something amiss underfoot. Looking down, he saw his leg soaked in blood—the result of a splinter during the earlier wood wreckage striking his leg.
Though the injury wasn’t serious, it compromised Nidhogg’s movement.
“No!”
Yorkris, heartbroken, covered Yorkrianna’s eyes, his expression crazed.
A stick had not only scarred Yorkrianna’s cheek but also pierced her eye. While not life-threatening, it was an unimaginably cruel injury for any girl.
"Hiss..."
Nina inhaled sharply, her face pale. Her left shoulder was bloody and ragged.
In almost an instant of disaster, only Yorkris and the unknown male apprentice were relatively unharmed in the room.
It seemed the noise from the room was noticed, as a metal trident suddenly thrust through the door, its bloody, sinister eyes glaring through the gap at the group.
Everyone's faces turned to despair...