"Have you all fotten your owies?" Will shouted loudly. "Before we became wizards, we were all noble children of the Secas Empire!"

  Bud the others exged gnces, falling into silence.

  They had all experienced what Will had gohrough, that feeling of falling from heaven to hell was indeed unpleasant.

  In the midst of the silence, Lynn suddenly spoke, "You should uand, Will, the Church will never ge its treatment of us based on our identities..."

  As a moic faith, the Church's most fual belief was in the Creationist doe. The legendary deity, Elra, had created everything in the world and brought the elixir of life, giving life to the once barren ae nd. Therefore, everyone was expected to obey the Church's rule.

  Wizards, who sought to decipher the ws of the world and gain power from them, naturally became the Church's aremies. After all, this was undermining the very foundation of the Church's religious authority.

  "This time is different!" Will excimed excitedly, looking at everyone present, appearing almost insane. "Jonny, Carl, Buck, the Church's primary target is not us. As long as we sincerely repent, Archbishop Anluke and Duke Nond will surely five our sins!"

  "You're crazy, Will!" Jonny sighed. "From the moment we chose to bee wizards, there was n back."

  Ohey chose to bee wizards, magic would forever flow within them, a symbol of evil and shame in the Secas Empire.

  If t Isk khat his sed son had bee a wizard, his first rea would undoubtedly be to disown him and cast Will out of the family...

  In other words, they could never return to their previous lives.

  "I'm not crazy, I kly what I'm doing!" Will said coldly, turning to Dove, who had remained silent, and from the hidden pocket of her robe, he took out several magic stones. Suddenly, without warning, he scattered them towards Jonny and the others.

  "Jonny, be careful!" Dove screamed, her spiritual vision allowio see the hidden runes inscribed on each magic stone.

  As Dove's voice rang out, several magic stones exploded in mid-air, and sharp shards rained down like locusts...

  The gray-haired witch remained unged in expression. She raised her right hand, her fiapping like pying a harp, and the runes on her gloves lit up in succession.

  A faint fme appeared at her fiips, and then it rapidly expanded, engulfing everything in front of her in just one sed!

  This was a higher-level magic, "Fme's Touch"!

  At the moment Will threw the magic stones, he had already pnned his escape route. He rolled in a desperate mao avoid the searing fmes and was about to jump out of the wide-open window.

  But Lynn's as were quicker than his. A diamond-shaped ice bde shot out, pierg Will's ankle directly, causing his airborne body to lose band fall to the ground.

  A pierg cold spread up his ankle, and Will immediately felt his right leg go numb. He leaned against the wall, panic-stri, about to say something, but a slender "Magic Missile" flew straight into his eye sockets and exploded.

  Crimson blood mixed with brain matter spttered, dyeing the wooden floor crimson. Lynn immediately turo look in the opposite dire, and Jonny, incredulous, questioned Dove, "What are you doing, Dove?"

  When she used "Fme's Touch," she iionally reduced its power to leave a survivor arae information through interrogation.

  "It's too te; I only kill him!" Dove cried out, her hands clutg her head in fear. "Outside... there are at least a hundred guards, we're surrounded!"

  Hearing this, Jonny rushed to the window and used a Fireball spell to illumihe dim night.

  In the explosion of fmes, Lynn saw from a distance a group of armuards, bearing crossbows, silently crossing the dense forest, heading towards them.

  The leader, holding a staff and a white and gilded robe, gazed at Lynn from a distance, illuminated by the firelight.

  "It's Archbishop Anluke of the Nond domain! We're done for!" Barton immediately reized him and fell into despair.

  He hadn't expected that the Archbishop of the Nond domain would personally lead the pursuit to capture a few wizard apprentices.

  Lynn g the dim alchemical array on the ground; they should have stopped the spell from being cast earlier, which meant...

  The eyes of everyone on the se involuntarily turo Dove.

  "It wasn't me... it wasn't me!" the fourteen-year-old girl frantically shook her head, her face filled with a mixture of fear and uainty.

  The chaotic situation and the immi Church pursuers made Jonny, who was already on edge, feel a wave of dizziness. She ched her teeth and forced herself to calm down, speaking in a low voice.

  "Listen, things aren't as bad as they seem. There's a wide drainage al in the basement of this estate that leads directly to the river outside. We escape from there."

  As she spoke, Jonny turned her head and used a pleading look to signal Lynn to keep an eye on Dove, as she didn't know who else she could trust.

  ...

  One minute earlier, in the dense forest outside the town of Uru, over a hundred ly uniformed guards were slowly advang uhe cover of the trees.

  Priest Aaron, apanying the troops, looked at the castle looming in the distand asked in fusion, "Archbishop Anluke, acc to the pn we previously set, shouldn't we have waited for these wizard appreo arrive in the Harbor Town before taking a?"

  For this "Caged Bird" operation, they had mobilized a rge number of people to monitor the eown of Uru. Their iion was to use these apprentice wizards to trace the heretics who had abahe faith of the Master ahem all to hell.

  Now, they were taking the initiative, whidoubtedly disrupted all the efforts they had made earlier.

  "Aaron, a skilled hunter not only o learn how to set clever traps but also to know when to close the ," Archbishop Anluke responded in a deep voice. "A sturdy cage may hold clumsy ostriches, but if a griffon happens to be trapped i break free ahe huo pieces."

  "Remember, excessive greed will only make you lose everything in your hands."

  The essence of the "Caged Bird" operation was their absolute trol. No matter how these apprentice wizards struggled, they couldn't escape the trap they had set.

  However, Bine's death had made Archbishop Anluke feel a hint of uhe presence of a formal wizard among Kora's apprentices pletely disrupted his pns. Havi with the followers of these heretics many times, Archbishop Anluke was well aware of how formidable formal wizards could be. Their magic was diverse, and a slight ht could lead to instah. Itle in the Nond domain, capturing a formal wizard was no easy task, especially sidering Kora sacrificed herself to protee of her apprentices and stayed behind.

  Weebkun