"Nina! Nina!" Grimm shouted continuously into his crystal ball, trying to contact Nina to determine her location.
After a sizzling sound, Nina communicated her message to Grimm. "Grimm, are you doing okay?"
"Yeah, I am fine. What about your situation? Are you in any trouble? Did you contact other people in our team?" Grimm was not delighted. From the images received from his crystal ball, Nina was running in a panic and was ready to cry out.
"Grimm, several people are chasing me — people from Compass Sorcerer Academy. I just heard from Lefay and Robin. They are coming for me. And Lowry is with me."
Lowry was really into Nina despite her permanently injured eye. However, he had neither good appearance nor prowess in terms of sorcery. Besides, he came across as awkward in movement. So Nina had refused to accept his love.
"Why are they doing that?" Grimm sounded rather anxious.
"It was Lowry. He discovered a Moon Chirper. When we were digging, it chirped and attracted them. Ah..."
In the crystal ball, Grimm saw that Nina drop to the ground. Then the ball became dark and the contact was lost.
"She is in real trouble. The students from the Compass School won't let her go with the Moon Chirper (a plant that is alive)." Grimm felt more worried.
The Moon Chirper was much sought after because it could double the efficiency of meditation, which could result in an improvement of the practitioner's mental strength. One prerequisite was that the Chirper had to be in the moonlight to work. A considerable number of sorcerers were interested in getting one.
Grimm cared for Nina. So, the moment he realized the danger she was in, he sprinted toward Nina.
As for Nina, the place where she tripped turned from hard ground to a swamp, and she was stuck.
"Nina!" Lowry cried out.
Lowry's capabilities were mostly related to pharmaceutics and thus, they couldn't be put into use in rescuing Nina. Born into a fisher family, he had rough and dark skin, and he was slow with his words.
Six sorcerers from the Compass School had chased up, and one of them seemed to be ready with energy level of five points.
While they were still catching their breath from their running, they felt relieved when they saw that Nina was trapped in the swamp.
"Stay away from her! Or I would destroy this Moon Chirper!" Lowry tried to defend Nina from the sorcerers while he took out a mysterious plant from a box. Lowry held and stressed the plant in his hand, it kept struggling its' root like a baby and cried out an ear-piercing scream.
The screaming voice was heard by everyone there.
"How dare you threaten us, haha, have you not heard about us who came from the Compass School. We dare you to destroy the Chirper, and you will be dead." The sorcerer who was leading seemed to be unaffected by the threat.
"You…. don't you dare touch her!" Lowry screamed tensely.
Half of Nina's body was immersed into the sludge, there was no way she could escape, and her tears started rolling down while looking at the rest with her wretched expression. She was afraid that the sorcerers would harm her to get the Moon Chirper.
"Haha, little beauty, fear not, both of you will be released if you ask your friend here to give us the Moon Chirper. We will not kill you since you are such a cutie. I would want to…." The sorcerer roared fervently and took off Nina's mask which instantly disgusted him.
Damn it, this ugly freak acted as if she has an innocent look?!" The sorcerer scowled as he gazed up at Nina's face. He then yelled at Lowry. "You have last three seconds to give me that thing!"
Nina was terrified, trembling while she tried to hold up her rolling tears and hide the scar on her face with her hand. Nina lost one of her eyes and it was pitiful to look at her. But for the sorcerers, they could not stand another second looking at Nina's ugly face.
At first, when Nina was wearing her mask, she looked just like a beautiful and shy lady. As soon as the mask was removed, she looked just like an old witch with her ugly scar on the face and her missing eyeball.
"How dare an old ugly witch acted innocently in front of us!" One of the sorcerers shouted.
"No! Don't you dare to kill her!" Lowry panicked and ignored Nina's expression, as if he already knew this would happen. Without a second of hesitation, he tossed away the Moon Chirper from his hand.
The group of sorcerers were alerted while the Moon Chirper was being tossed in the air, they anticipated it would be their chance to get hold onto it.
Pa!
A tongue extended incredibly long at lightning speed and grabbed the Moon Chirper away while it was still free falling. Only then, the sorcerers noticed there was a student hidden on top of the branch of a tree behind them. The student looked at them and gave them a sardonic grin, while showing the tongue that was rolling onto the Moon Chirper.
If Grimm was here, he would have spotted the hidden student from his trained olfactory. This student was the one that had been following Grimm for quite a while and managed to escape when being noticed by Grimm.
"That bastard from the Bone Bell Tower!" The sorcerers got really furious at the student who ruined their chance to get hold onto the Moon Chirper and cursed at the student before he escaped. One of the sorcerers gushed out a splash of black liquid towards the student from his mouth.
"Heehee, thanks for the compliment!" The student's body shrunk and disappeared into the branch of the tree.
Splash! The dark liquid ended up splashing onto the branch and corroded a massive hole out of it; the surrounding was immediately filled with a nasty smell.
"Gone?! That bastard!" The sorcerers from the Compass School were really infuriated as they rushed towards the tree where the student from the Bone Bell Tower was at. They failed to discover any trace of the student that disappeared.
One of the sorcerers experienced an epiphany and thought, "Weren't we informed that we have to be aware of the seven people during this trial? Was that the Phantom Thief from the Bone Bell Tower?"
The sorcerers were lost in words when they heard this.
Indeed, all sorcerers who participated in the trial were given a document by the management of the Compass School. It documented the seven Desperators who were apprenticed by some Level 2 sorcerers three years ago.
Among the seven, there were three from Black Isotta, known as the Immortal, the Distorted and the Golden Sighted; one was from the Hourglass School, known as the Sun Child; two were from the Ivory Castle, known as the Delusion, and the Machine Heart; and last but not least, the Phantom Thief from the Bone Bell Tower.
According to the document, the Phantom Thief enjoyed very much of being cursed and insulted by others as he would have already taken advantage of others to cause such anger and hatred.
They were the ones who were personally handpicked by those highly esteemed Level 2 sorcerers. It was then they were regarded as The Seven Desperators, as they would bring disparity to whom that went against them.
Out of a sudden, several strong waving signals were sensed by the sorcerers from the Compass School, two of them even managed to sensed waves of signal that had exceeded above ten points!
"Damn it, we got to go!" The gang of sorcerers from the Compass School fled.
"Lefay! Robin! Alaistair!" Nina who was still trapped in the mire shouted joyfully when she saw them approach.
Lefay and Robin met the other two members from the Death Sail League that were rather unfamiliar to them while they were on their way to save Nina. Alaistair was a highly ranked and esteemed person in the league, incomparable with the other league members; even Lefay who was crude to everyone else had her respect towards him.
"Hmph! How dare they do harm to our league members, Lefay, let's go after them!" Alaistair suggested pursuing the group of sorcerers who had fled.
Lefay felt awful when she thought of what could have happened to Nina if she had come later to save, not to mention how Grimm would have reacted if anything bad happened to Nina.
"Alright, let's go!" Lefay agreed to Alaistair's suggestion.
Before they could make their move, they were terrified by what they sensed from afar. A high level of waving signals sending out a flood of energy that they had never experienced before! They could felt the energy level was highly destructive till the extent of destroying anything that go against it!
Both Lefay and Alaistair pulled to a stop.
"Both of you leave! Lefay and I will hold on to whoever that is approaching! The energy level is tremendously high, comparable with Brianna that we had met before, it even surpasses the top 10 board of elite sorcerers, and no doubt it would be from one of the Desperators." Alaistair instructed Nina and Lowry to flee while he drew his sword, releasing magical power that sparked out silver lightning. He was ready in battle mode.
Lefay extended a pair of wings that lifted her up from the ground while her skin was covered by armor. She held a glowing magical bow on her left hand while her right hand drew out an arrow with striking energy level, and one of her eyes transformed into eagle eyes. "Combining this with my magical force would be sufficient to crush this person!" Lefay told Alaistair.
Alaistair was shocked by the level of confidence Lefay had. He thought she had overestimated herself in facing the Desperators!
Since the short battle Alaistair had with Brianna, he knew very well the horrifying capabilities of the Desperators. He even doubted that this trial was merely an excuse for the management of the academies to prepare for a race to slaughter for the Desperators!
