Chapter 342 Butterfly
The night was deep, and the moonlight couldn't penetrate the heavy clouds.
A light appeared on a cliff some distance from Saul and the others.
There stood a dilapidated lighthouse, where someone, perhaps unknowingly, still guarded the seaside, bringing a bit of safe light to this dark sea.
Saul constantly changed his position, ensuring he always stood where the seawater just covered his ankles.
From time to time, he used the Touch of Torment to delve his soul-form deep into the sea, checking the concentration of soul fragments and other anomalies in the water.
Occasionally, some forgetful pale arms would come to hook him, subsequently making a negligible contribution to Saul's soul energy reserves.
After Saul refused to cooperate, Andy and Parker quickly left the seaside and returned to the shadows beneath the cliff. Their figures were faintly visible, seemingly protected by witchcraft.
All three were waiting for the soul tide to appear.
According to the locals, the sky would always be gloomy before each soul tide, and a very, very strong wind would blow across the sea.
When many blurry figures began to appear on the sea, it meant the soul tide had arrived.
The seawater would become warmer, but the clothes soaked by the seawater would become increasingly heavy.
Many heavy breaths would be heard around the limpet pickers standing in the sea. If they untied the black cloths on their faces, they would discover that the breathing came from the schools of fish emerging from the seabed.
The fish clearly couldn't breathe on the surface, but they stood upright one by one, extending their mouths out of the water, looking up at the starry sky, and making "hachi hachi" sounds.
It was as if the undead of the seabed longed for air.
At this time, if the limpet pickers couldn't escape the fish in time, run to the shore, run far away, they would gradually be assimilated by the surrounding fish, raise their heads, open their mouths wide, breathe rapidly, but have less and less air in their lungs.
Finally, they would follow the fish, their minds unclear, and plunge into the depths of the sea without looking back, never to be seen again.
Tonight, the wind was very strong by the sea, and the night was exceptionally deep, perhaps the soul tide was about to appear.
The local limpet pickers had all left the seaside before night completely fell.
As far as the eye could see, only Saul and the other two wizard apprentices were still here.
However, the three people's moods while waiting were completely different.
"You're very nervous. What did you just see?"
Under the shadow of the cliff, outsiders couldn't see what was inside. Only then did Parker ask Andy, who was still trembling.
"This Saul's mental strength is so powerful. I've only felt such pressure from formal wizards."
Parker frowned slightly, then relaxed. "It's about the same as Jerome said. Did he discover your probing?"
"Probably not. Many formal wizards can't detect my methods."
"Well, your probing ability is indeed special."
The two watched the sea while occasionally glancing at Saul out of the corner of their eyes.
"Why do you think he has to stand in the seawater? Isn't it uncomfortable?" Andy raised her hand and scratched the skin behind her ear.
"I suspect he's using the seawater to detect something?"
"These apprentices with backers have so many tricks. Who knows what treasures he has on him?" Andy licked her lips, her voice tinged with coldness. "Parker, can you beat him?"
"If we're just determining a winner, I have a 60% chance of winning. If we're fighting to the death, he's dead for sure," Parker said calmly.
But before Andy could speak again, he pinched the woman's butt hard.
"But that's not what I'm worried about. These apprentices from big forces, especially those who have a second-tier wizard as a mentor like him, must have a trump card to save their lives. That's fine, we have plenty of trump cards too. But if he also has a tracking curse on him, it'll be troublesome."
"A curse?" Andy raised her head in surprise, unconsciously scratching her neck again.
"I once accidentally saw two people fighting to the death in a forbidden area. The murdered was also an apprentice of a high-level wizard. No one else saw their fight except me. But I clearly saw a dark shadow suddenly emerge from the deceased's body after the murderer succeeded and drill into his shadow," Parker's voice was gloomy, obviously thinking of some bad memories. "When we left the forbidden area, the deceased's mentor was already waiting at the door and immediately picked out the murderer. Later, I heard that it was a type of tracking witchcraft."
Parker didn't recall the tragic death of the murderer and continued to warn Andy, "High-level wizards generally don't give their apprentices witchcraft tools that exceed their strength too much, after all, that could turn around and contaminate their students' lives. However, this kind of tracking curse is very safe. It helps them protect their apprentices' lives… or secrets."
Andy pouted, as if seeing a treasure chest with legs running away from her.
Especially just now, she was intimidated by the terrifying mental strength on Saul, and now she felt a little embarrassed when she thought about it. Therefore, she wanted to kill him even more to erase her shameful performance.
But after hearing what Parker said, she knew there was no chance.
Was she going to gamble whether Saul's mentor, Golsa, cared about the life of this genius?
Everyone knew that she would definitely lose the bet!
"Got it." Andy reached for her buttocks again, feeling that the place Parker had pinched was becoming more and more itchy.
"Huh?" As she was speaking, she suddenly tilted her head and looked to the front left.
"What's wrong?"
"I seem to have seen a butterfly fly by… well, how could there be butterflies in this place? I must have seen it wrong."
"A butterfly?" Parker looked around, not seeing a butterfly, but some flying insects. "Could it be that the consciousness interference field is starting to appear before the soul tide? But how could it be a butterfly? Shouldn't it be a fish?"
"Maybe I'm too nervous."
Andy couldn't find the butterfly's trace, and her skin no longer itched, so she felt happy and stopped dwelling on what had just happened.
She leaned her head on Parker's chest, listening to the man's heartbeat.
"What's he going to do?" Parker didn't pay attention to Andy's ambiguous actions.
He had been secretly watching Saul out of the corner of his eye.
And the latter suddenly took a step forward, walking into the deeper seawater.
Hearing this, Andy glanced at him, watching him stop when the seawater reached his knees, not caring.
She chuckled. "Could he be bewitched? That would be embarrassing."
…
The cold seawater stimulated his calves. Although Saul couldn't hear the conversation of the two wizard apprentices, he knew they would definitely be observing him in secret.
As for whether they were planning to deal with him, that was hard to say.
The smarter people were sometimes more cautious, and since that Parker knew Jerome, he shouldn't be too stupid.
After testing the density of soul fragments in the seawater again, Saul suddenly spoke.
"What did you do to that Andy?"
The silver little butterfly appeared in his vision, slowly fluttering its wings, sometimes flying high, sometimes falling.
The biting sea wind couldn't move its thin wings.
"Saul, Brother Saul, she was testing you just now! Humph, she thought she was doing it so secretly. That sticky thing stuck to your skin, so disgusting!"
Saul stepped forward while raising his hand, a light yellow sphere appearing inside the transparent skin of his palm.
Previously, the female apprentice named Andy was secretly observing him.
The probing was fleeting, thinking she was doing it very discreetly.
But they didn't know that Saul's entire skin had been modified by the Soul Devouring Omentum, making him very sensitive to external probing, especially probing with mental power.
At the moment when the distorted black shadow shattered on the sea, Saul even caught a bit of the other party's fleeing residue.
He looked down at his palm, analyzing it one by one with the knowledge he had learned.
"Andy most likely majored in water-attribute witchcraft. Relying on skin affinity to conduct hidden spying. However, this ability, apart from the connection to the original owner's mental power, is nothing special."
Saul roughly analyzed Andy's witchcraft and lost interest, putting down his hand.
As his palm turned, the light yellow was gradually swallowed by gray-white, leaving not even a trace of residue.
At this time, the seawater had already passed Saul's knees, and the waves were pushing him outward layer by layer.
He stopped again, checking the concentration of soul fragments in the seawater.
There was no difference from the shallows.
Saul looked into the distance, his body suddenly leaping out of the water, freezing in mid-air, and then instantly flying forward.
"Saul, Brother Saul, where are you going?" Penny, who was playing with the waves, flew back in front of Saul. "Weren't you going to wait for the soul tide to appear on the shore?"
"The concentration of soul fragments in the seawater hasn't increased for a long time. At this rate, a soul tide is unlikely to appear tonight. If I have to wait all night in vain, I might as well go see for myself."
First update
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