The six of them had a few mugs of beer in the private room, but since EeDechi hated the dim lighting there, the Last Defender of the Way team waved goodbye to Yaso and Deus, then left the tavern.
It was already dusk, with the setting sun half-hidden behind the low, rundown buildings, and the thin clouds in the sky edged with a faint red glow. At the mouth of a small alley, EeDechi suddenly stopped in her tracks, puzzled. "I hear dogs barking."
After a brief pause, she added, "A lot of dogs barking."
This orichalcum-level adventurer's senses were sharper than the others', and Barrett was used to it by now. He glanced at the surrounding streets, recalling from memory, "Yeah, we're not far from the arena. I remember there's a dog-fighting pit nearby."
"Dog-fighting pit? Let's check it out." EeDechi didn't wait for her three teammates to agree—she just followed the sound straight into the alley, leaving the others no choice but to follow with a sigh.
After turning a few corners, they came to a spacious shed where Barrett and the others could now hear the vicious dog barks coming from inside. A skinny guy lounging in front with an iron rod in hand glanced at their adventurer gear, collected sixteen copper coins for entry, and let them in.
The shed was a chaotic racket—sharp dog barks and curses blending into one big noise, the lively buzz mixed with the stench of blood, not unlike the atmosphere at the arena they'd visited that afternoon.
Like the arena, the middle of the shed was fenced off with iron bars to create an open space, but dueling inside weren't humans—they were two vicious dogs, their bodies drenched in blood.
The crowd pressed up against the bars outside, watching the dogs tear into each other. Many were in ragged clothes, covered in grime—mostly laborers hauling heavy loads all day, rushing over straight after work without even changing. Dog-fighting was one of their few ways to unwind.
Inside the bars, the two similarly sized dogs were fully driven by raw animal instinct, locked in a desperate fight, blood and fur whipping up clouds of dust. The scene was bloody and brutal, but it fired up the spectators' frayed nerves. People clapped and cheered, rooting hard for the dog they'd backed with their spirits—and their bets.
Sean pointed at one of the dogs with mottled white fur, surprised. "That dog's got winter wolf blood mixed in." He'd once had his leg bitten off by a winter wolf from the wastes, so he remembered the features of those vicious beasts all too clearly.
The fighting dog with winter wolf blood wasn't gaining the upper hand, because its opponent was a pit bull with iron jaws and copper teeth. This pit bull was the real deal when it came to "iron teeth and copper fangs."
Its head was covered with a thin sheet of iron armor, and its teeth were fitted with long, sharp copper spikes by its owner. Every time it snapped its jaws, those teeth sank deep into its opponent's flesh and bone, ripping away chunks of meat along with the fur.
Barrett pointed at a pile of mangled meat mush on the ground. "Both dogs were fed cheap alchemical energy potions mixed with cow blood."
EeDechi asked him, "Like doping them with stimulants?"
"Stimulants?" Barrett nodded. "It stirs up the beast's killer instincts inside them."
The two vicious dogs lunged, clawed, and thrashed until the gear advantage beat out the bloodline edge. The pit bull's sharp copper teeth clamped down on the other dog's head and wouldn't let go. A few seconds later, its opponent went limp and stopped moving for good.
The winning dog wasn't much better off—one eye bitten to a bloody pulp, fur matted and filthy, body covered in bloody gashes where the armor didn't protect.
But it had no clue about its own wounds. After growling low at its opponent's corpse on the ground a few times, it suddenly lunged at one of the iron bars, twisting its head to gnaw at the railing with those blood-dripping copper teeth, trying to break out and bite the people outside.
The spectators outside the bars jumped in fright, the crowd shoving back in panic. Once they realized the vicious dog's sharp teeth couldn't snap through the thick black iron, they all started laughing.
"That scared the hell out of me!"
"That beast..."
"The drug's still pumping strong—it hasn't had enough bites yet... wants to chomp on people now, haha."
The walls of the dog-fighting shed were lined with tall square iron cages, each holding fighting dogs of all different looks and sizes. Some of them, riled up by the bloody scent of their kind, crouched low in their cages and barked nonstop. The gruesome fate of the two dogs in the barred pit was clearly what awaited them all.
"This is so cruel!" EeDechi's face darkened with anger, her hand clenched into a tight fist.
Barrett glanced at her, knowing his captain's nature all too well—he could tell there was about to be a brawl. Fine by him; these were all small fry anyway. He could handle them with just his fists, no need to kill anyone.
"AH!" Suddenly, someone in the crowd watching the dog fight let out a piercing scream, as if some wild beast had clamped down on their leg.
"DOG!" "How's there a dog!" "Who let the dog out..."
Outside the iron-barred pit, the spectators suddenly panicked, shoving each other as they scattered in all directions. One of the iron cages nearby had been opened by someone unknown, its door swinging loosely, the cage empty of any dog.
The dog-fighting pit had clearly dealt with this situation many times before. A few guards rushed over with iron rods, raising the black clubs high over the crowd and smashing them down. The dull thud of metal against skull echoed, a dog whimpered in pain, and the crowd's chaos died down.
"WHO LET THE DOG OUT?" The big man wielding the iron rod snarled like a fiend, his gaze sweeping back and forth over the crowd.
EeDechi, Barrett, Sean, and Stella exchanged glances. This dog riot had broken out on the other side of the barred pit, with the crowd packed shoulder to shoulder—they couldn't see the situation clearly.
"It's him! It's this kid!" "I saw him earlier, sneaking around..." The people who'd nearly been bitten by the dog's jaws were furious, the crowd boiling with rage. They quickly spotted a suspicious boy.
The boy was dodging and weaving through the crowd, his face covered with black gauze, his body wrapped in a dirty, grimy robe. From his height, he wasn't very old.
He gripped a short wooden stick in his hand. BANG! A deafening explosion erupted from the tip of the stick, stunning everyone on the scene for two seconds. The boy tried to bolt in the opportunity, but the people snapped out of it fast, countless burly arms reaching out toward him.
"He's just a wizard's apprentice! Don't be scared!"
"Grab him!..."
The outnumbered boy was immediately seized, his wand kicked aside, arms twisted behind his back by the burly men and clamped tight, face pressed down into the ground, unable to budge.
No one noticed that in the dog-fighting shed, a side door made of thin wooden planks was quietly opening. A masked old man in a light blue robe stepped inside.
He too held a slender black wooden stick in his hand. Like a conductor directing an orchestra's performance, facing the restless crowd, he waved the stick through the air and then pointed lightly:
"Stupefy all!"
A blinding white light flared up on the ceiling in the center of the dog-fighting pit, like a blooming little sun. Beneath the white glow, thud, thud sounds of bodies hitting the ground rang out one after another. In the shed, whether it was the watching spectators or the guards wielding iron rods, everyone sprawled out on the ground, passing out cold.
Stella's body went limp, and she toppled straight over too. Barrett quickly grabbed her shoulders to keep her head from smacking the floor. Sean staggered back a step, dropping to his knees, but he gritted his teeth and stood up, supporting the unconscious Stella.
At that moment, the only ones still standing steady in the dog-fighting pit were the masked blue-robed mage, and EeDechi and Barrett.
Barrett flipped his hand and pulled a greatsword from his spatial ring, gripping the hilt firmly, his expression grave. He didn't know who this black-gauze-masked wizard was, but the guy could casually cast a powerful area stun spell—he was definitely dangerous.
The mage pulled off his veil, revealing skin crisscrossed with wrinkles, dotted with a few brown age spots. Beneath that weathered face was a distinctive gray-white goatee. He chuckled, "Barrett, don't make a move—I couldn't beat you anyway. Sorry for accidentally hitting your teammate; don't worry, she'll wake up in half an hour."
"Tony?" Barrett and EeDechi were stunned too. It was actually the capital's Adventurer's Guild guildmaster, Tony Ulea. What was he doing here?
The boy who'd been pinned down by the burly men struggled out from under the unconscious meat mountain, picked up his wand from the ground, and ran over to Old Tony's side.
Old Tony patted the boy's head and explained, "This is my nephew, also a wizard's apprentice. I'm giving him a lesson in practical magic combat."
You're one hell of a teacher, then. Barrett glanced at the people lying every which way on the ground, grumbling inwardly.
Old Tony raised his wand again, his lips moving with incantations. He gave the wand a light tap, and magic unleashed its mighty power. Squeaky metal grinding echoed from the walls of the dog-fighting pit as the iron cage doors stacked along the edges swung open. One by one, the fierce dogs bolted from their cages, trampling over the passed-out people as they ran outside, finally free.
One of the dogs hadn't lost its ferocity; it opened its mouth to tear into a person's body. The scattered unconscious bodies on the ground looked like a feast to it. Old Tony raised his hand and pointed, a bolt of lightning shot from the tip of his wand, and the vicious dog dropped dead instantly.
Luckily, most of the dogs were single-mindedly fleeing out of the shed. EeDechi and Barrett stepped aside, watching dog after dog run out the door.
"What's the point?" Barrett asked. "Once they leave here, they'll just become strays."
"But it's better than dying while slaughtering each other." Old Tony shrugged, then patted the boy beside him on the shoulder and ordered:
"The first test failed. Second test starts now. You have forty seconds to set up a teleportation circle for two people. No need to repeat the coordinates, right?"
The boy immediately rummaged through a spatial leather bag hanging around his neck, pulling out magic crystals, potions, and other items. He knelt on the ground and hastily drew the teleportation circle's pattern. His hand holding the curved-neck ink bottle trembled slightly—this "practical lesson" had him excited and nervous.
"Oops! You drew it wrong!" Old Tony slapped his forehead. "Second test failed! The more urgent the moment, the more you need to stay calm. If you'd stolen a dragon's guarded treasure and didn't run fast, by the time you set up the circle a second time, we'd be charred by dragon breath!"
He snatched the curved-neck ink bottle from the boy's hand and in less than 10 seconds drew another intricate magic circle, then arranged the magic crystals inside. The blue magic crystals faded to transparent colorless stones, and mana flowed along the magic patterns with a ghostly blue glow.
He led the boy onto the teleportation circle, and the magic light blazed brightly, as if someone underground was shining a powerful magic spotlight through the circle at them.
In the white radiance, Old Tony waved to Barrett, "See you." Then the blinding white light flashed and vanished, the two figures disappearing, leaving only the remnants of a small teleportation circle on the ground.
"Is magic this fun?" The scene before her made EeDechi's eyes widen.
She didn't usually interact much with proper Arcane Magic mages, and the magic skills she possessed were just a few explosive, fire-starting destructive spells. At this moment, she realized that maybe she should delve deeper into understanding the workings of supernatural forces in this world.
"Sean, carry the unconscious Stella back first." In the dog-fighting pit, EeDechi gave orders. "Barrett, take me to Tony's house. I have questions for him."