The Wizard World
chapter-500

"What was that?"

"Octopus dragons. The name fits their appearance, right?" Justin answered Aria's question.

They walked to the damaged dragon tail and observed it carefully. The tail was about two meters long and still twitching.

Justin and Monteria crouched, they tried to cut the tail into pieces. Aria, Miray, and the other female wizard were talking on the side.

Angele checked the area on his left and walked to Becky, who was lying by the campfire.

"Are you alright?" He crouched and patted Becky's face.

The woman turned her head around as she did not want to see Angele's face.

Angele shrugged, stood up, and checked Becky's wounds. The wounds were healing quickly, it would take her about ten minutes to completely recover.

*WOO*

Red light suddenly flashed on his right arm.

Angele raised his hand and checked the five scorpion-shaped patterns on his arm. Two of the patterns were glowing.

'Two of the signs are completed.' He lowered his hand.

The five scorpion patterns represent the five signs of the lords. Each of the signs could absorb 6000 souls and the scorpion pattern would glow when the sign was full.

Two of the signs were glowing, which meant that he had collected 12000 souls.

'It means the war is intense.' He pressed on the glowing patterns and the glow quickly disappeared.

The team sat down and rested for a while. They walked to the right side of the vine when the sun rose.

The surface of the vine was bumpy and it looked like a cracked stone pillar.

Miray, Aria, and the female wizard floated in the air. They jumped up using the branches as stairs.

Justin and Monteria decided to fly using energy particles.

Angele exchanged eye contact with Becky. Becky grabbed a branch and jumped up. Angele followed after her.

"Watch out for the wind. The wind is strange here!" Justin warned.

Angele grabbed a green branch and was about to jump up. However, the chilling wind was brushing over his body and it felt like being stabbed by daggers.

Also, he noticed that there were translucent human shadows mixed in the wind. The shadows rotated around Angele; they were the source of the cold air here.

"Hurry!" Angele shouted and started climbing at full speed. His body was surrounded by red glow, which increased the temperature around him.

It was a rank 2 spell named High-Temperature Light. The heat from the light drove away the shadows and Angele finally caught up with the other wizards.

The team disappeared into the clouds that surrounded the vine slowly.

Several minutes later.

The campfire had already been extinguished but it was still smoking. The smoke slowly turned into a gray-robed man on the side.

The gray robe raised his head and looked at the vine.

"They're all climbing up the vine," he spoke in a low voice. "They separated into three groups and started climbing at different time. We can take them out one by one."

"No." A middle-aged woman's voice echoed in the air. "We can attack them when they reach the top. They have more wizards than us. Fiona, Anchura, and Simon are the biggest threats."

The man's brow furrowed. "If the monsters are still here, we'll have a much easier time."

"It's too late. Does the leader have a plan for us?" the woman questioned.

The gray robe took out a jade stone that had the shape of a crescent moon. He threw the stone forward and it exploded, creating a light screen in the front.

On the screen, there was a bald man staring at the gray robe with a blank expression on the face.

"What happened? Is there a problem? I'm busy right now. Go straight to the point."

"I understand." The man created a blue barrier to block the sound and opened his mouth. "Duke, we tested our enemy and I'm afraid that we're not strong enough to take them out. Do you think we can activate that item?"

"You need to accomplish the mission, you should figure out if you should activate the item or not by yourself. I'll give you the right to do that," the bald man responded in a deep tone. A middle-aged woman wearing a black military suit interrupted before he could say anything else.

"Wait." The bald man waved his hand.

"Master, the commander of the Wooden Dragon Legion is ready. You just need to give the order."

The bald man looked at the woman and asked, "How are the dark knights?"

"They are having trouble. If the intel is correct, the guardians of Sky Lord have already destroyed their formation," the woman responded.

The bald man thought for a while and ordered, "Ask Hocus Legion to assist the dark knights; where is Alice now?"

"It'll take her two days to reach the battlefield."

The bald man's brow furrowed, it seemed like he was trying to figure out a plan, but realized that the gray robe was still waiting for his orders.

"Elite Team One's mission is to eliminate as many alliance elites as possible. You should at least eliminate their strongest wizards and activate the Blood Throne through the blood ritual so our main force will have nothing to worry about."

"Yes, Master." The gray robe nodded.

"Alright then. Don't disappoint the empire." The bald man disappeared from the light screen.

The jade stone returned to its normal shape and returned to the gray robe's hand.

He put the stone into his pouch and spoke with a low voice, "We can complete the mission without any problem with the right the Duke gave us. We can ask someone strong for help when necessary and we don't have to activate the item."

"You're right. This is the major goal of Elite Team One. I wonder if Elite Team Two and Elite Team Three are doing well. We'll win the war easily if everything is going well," the middle-aged woman spoke.

The gray robe smiled. "Alice is almost here. She and her servant will put an end to this war. We will conquer the entire central continent!"

"True." The woman chuckled. "I'll go prepare for the operation."

"Sure, I'll help you." The gray robe turned around and disappeared into green smoke.

　　******************************

Three days later.

The golden light of the morning sun illuminated the surface of the vine.

The vine looked like branches that were being tied up; there were gaps between each of the branches.

Three small black dots were climbing up the vine. Each of the dots was actually several human beings that were trying their best to climb the vine.

The third black dot was Angele and Becky. Angele was wearing a black robe and Becky was still in her white armor.

Angele grabbed a green branch above his head and inhaled deeply. He raised his head and noticed that he still could not see the top of the vine.

He then looked down and saw a sea of white clouds. The white clouds looked like balls of cotton that were connected to each other.

Blue light dots flashed in front of Angele's eyes.

"We already climbed over 10000 meters…" he said with his brow furrowed.

"Let's find a place and have some rest." Aria sounded tired. "I need to prepare a rune circle. They are ready and they'll teleport to us."

"Sure," Justin agreed.

Angele agreed with their decision as well.

They started moving toward each other and found a large branch on the vine. The branch looked like a platform that could fit more than ten people.

Aria and the other wizards jumped toward the branch and landed on the platform. They started preparing a rune circle that would help weaken the chilling wind.

Angele and Becky jumped onto the platform as well.

Justin took off his hood and removed the ice shards from his long robe. "The higher we climb, the stronger the wind. The temperature is also much lower than before," he said while cleaning his robe.

"Well, it's common in the sky." Angele chuckled. "The problem is the wind elementals. Wind and temperature are nothing when compared to them."

"Wind elementals…" Justin's expression changed as he heard these words. "You're right, they'll stop us from climbing if we want to cast a spell or check the surroundings under these circumstances… They might even drag us down the vine."

"The first several wind elementals we encountered were weak, however, the wind elementals we met last night were strong." Miray joined the conversation. Aria and the other female wizard were still drawing runes.

"The stronger the wind elementals, the lower the temperature will be."

"Well, their appearance also changed. They looked like children at first, but they look like muscular men now…" Aria sounded disappointed.

"Damn! Again…" Miray's expression turned serious and he released countless white strings that flew to the branches around. His body was stabilized by the strings.

Angele had no time to check on others. He grabbed an arm-sized branch using one hand and grabbed Becky's arm using the other. He heard people screaming and laughing when he stood steady in the wind.

A group of muscular men with translucent bodies charged at the team. They were flying at full speed while shouting and laughing.

*BAM*

A muscular wind elemental passed by Angele and hit the left side of his body.

*BAM BAM BAM*

Becky and Angele were hit multiple times by the wind elementals.

The wind elementals were too weak to damage the wizards' bodies, but Angele could feel the chill that was trying to invade his body.

Another group of wind elementals appeared and charged at the team at full speed. However, this group looked a bit different, their bodies were almost solid.