The Mirror Domain!
Dox froze for a moment, then snapped back to himself: Right, how could he be so blind under his own lamp and forget about the Mirror Domain?
The Mirror Domain could actually be considered a special kind of world, and there were definitely plenty of powerful creatures in it. For example, that Laplace from before would count as one.
By using her ability to shuttle between reality and the Mirror Domain, Adanis had subdued You Nu, and she could certainly subdue more Magical Creatures longing for the outside world. There would definitely be no shortage of powerful ones among them.
So Adanis sending out some powerhouse from the Mirror Domain to deal with them was completely reasonable.
Thinking about it now, things like the Lofte World or the Abyss could all be bumped down the list; the Mirror Domain was absolutely the most likely!
"If it’s a Magical Creature from the Mirror Domain, then we need to keep an eye on all reflective surfaces around us." As Vay spoke, he looked back around, searching for any reflective surfaces.
The entrance to the Mirror Domain could be any sort of "Mirror," and as long as it could display an image—be it a water surface, or even a slightly greasy wall—it could be used by Adanis as an entry point to the Mirror Domain.
Dox didn’t check the surroundings the way Vay did, but instead looked at Angel. "Thinking about it now, if Adanis really wants to use an Otherworldly creature to block us, the Mirror Domain is indeed the most likely... That said, it’s been so long already, have you gotten any new intel?"
Everyone turned to Angel as well.
They knew Angel had his own source of information, and even while they were exploring together, he had received some related intel.
For instance, Angel definitely hadn’t known the name "Adanis" beforehand. Yet halfway through their journey, he had gotten this piece of intel. Just from that, it was obvious that Angel’s intel source was anything but simple.
"There is a bit of intel, but it’s basically useless." Angel said, "Your analysis is more useful than it."
"You do have intel?" Dox’s eyes lit up. "Useful or not, just say it first and we’ll analyze it together."
Angel didn’t speak right away, but instead looked toward the Black Earl. "My lord, is there something you wanted to say?"
Just now Angel had sensed some emotional fluctuation from the Black Earl, as if he wanted to say something, but since they had all been talking, he hadn’t cut in.
Now, since Dox had thrown the topic back to Angel, naturally Angel had to ask the Black Earl first.
The Black Earl was silent for two seconds. "I’ll speak after you’ve shared your intel."
Angel gave the Black Earl a doubtful look. He could clearly feel the Earl’s emotional fluctuation; it shouldn’t be something minor, so why suddenly hold back?
Though Angel was puzzled, he didn’t dwell on it. He opened his mouth and said, "The intel I got says that the so-called Otherworldly monster is an Infant Spirit."
"An Infant Spirit?!" Everyone practically said it in unison.
Dox: "You mean that thing that looks cute from afar and still kinda okay up close? Likes crawling all over the place, especially onto people, and loves sucking hickeys into your neck—that kind of Infant Spirit?"
Angel: "..." To be able to call an Infant Spirit "cute," Dox was probably one of a kind.
Angel: "It really is that kind of undead Infant that looks like a black weasel from afar and is downright ferocious up close."
"Tsk." Dox clicked his tongue with open disdain. "I thought it was some terrifying monster, and it turns out it’s just a little baby."
The others didn’t speak, but their thoughts weren’t that different from Dox’s. Infant Spirits... what’s so scary about those?
Even in the Black Earl’s heart there was a flash of realization. When Angel had first mentioned an Otherworldly Magical Creature, he had considered that such a creature entering the Southern Domain might be detected by an Extreme Sect, or repelled by the World Will; there was no way it could arrive without a sound. But now that he knew the Otherworldly creature was an Infant Spirit, the Black Earl understood instantly.
No matter how strong an Infant Spirit was, it had an upper limit. And as a Soul, it was almost never rejected by the World Will. After all, no matter what world undead like these appeared in, they would ultimately be drawn into the Quest World by the Soul Tide.
Vay: "Could there be a lot of Infant Spirits? So many that we can’t deal with them?"
Dox said crossly, "If there really were that many Infant Spirits, the undead aura would already be towering into the sky. You think the Wise Sovereign could just sit still then?"
Vay: "Then could it be the Infant Spirit of some naturally powerful creature’s baby?"
Dox thought it over. "That’s not impossible... but it depends on where it was born. If it’s from some powerful world, then like I said before, places like the Lofte World or the Abyss are all possibilities."
Dox looked at Angel, wanting an answer from him. Angel shrugged. "I don’t know where the Infant Spirit comes from either. My reaction when I got this intel was pretty much the same as yours. But since the intel says it’s a powerful Infant Spirit, we should still make preparations regardless."
Everyone considered it and felt Angel had a point. Stories of people in the Wizards’ Realm dying in regret because they underestimated the enemy were not in short supply, so whether the Infant Spirit was strong or weak, the safest move was to treat it cautiously and be prepared.
As for dealing with an Infant Spirit, that was essentially dealing with undead. Apprentices didn’t have many methods for handling undead, but as Official Wizards, even though undead were troublesome, they did have their means.
With that in mind, everyone began making various preparations against undead.
At this moment, Angel turned to look at the Black Earl again.
The Black Earl understood. "What I wanted to talk about is still related to that scent from earlier."
The Black Earl paused, then, in a somewhat puzzled tone, said, "That scent suddenly disappeared."
The scent disappeared?!
Angel: "Did the owner of that scent leave?"
The Black Earl: "That was my first thought as well, but after I thought it over more carefully, I realized something was off."
At the beginning, when the Black Earl smelled that scent, it had been a faint fragrance. As they moved forward, although the others couldn’t smell it, the Black Earl could clearly feel the fragrance growing richer.
Taking the place where he’d first smelled it as the starting point, combined with their travel distance and with how much stronger the fragrance had become, using these three conditions, the Black Earl could be sure that the source of the fragrance had remained fixed and unmoving.
After coming to that conclusion, the Black Earl had tried to narrow down a rough area where the fragrance originated, to estimate the straight-line distance between them and the source.
However, in the middle of his silent calculations, he suddenly discovered that the fragrance had vanished.
Because the Black Earl had been paying constant attention to the changes in the scent, he clearly perceived that the position of the fragrance hadn’t moved. It felt more like something had blocked his perception of it.
"Blocked the spread of the scent?" Angel frowned. That didn’t sound like much at first, but thinking it through revealed the oddity in it.
This passage wasn’t a straight corridor; there were breaks in the middle and twists in elevation. That was also why they couldn’t smell anything—those "breaks" increased the difficulty of the scent spreading.
And while the Black Earl’s sense of smell was also affected by those "breaks," his nose was so sensitive that the impact was minimal.