I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

Little Black transformed into a shadow and escaped.

Duke, on the other hand, charged forward without flinching!

Duke hasn't experienced a close battle in a long time.

He was like a lone boat, swaying back and forth in the turbulent waves of a major event, struggling with all his might to stay afloat and avoid capsizing! Duke's opponents were no longer professionals of his level, but those hero-level professionals, even those legendary professionals, those witch games where even the strongest could capsize, those crown-level witch games that could even affect the real world!

Faced with such an opponent, Duke could only rely on his own wisdom and the powerful items produced by the system to barely put up a fight. But more often than not, he had no choice but to use his wisdom to devise strategies and break through the deadlock, and then hand over the task of fighting to those professionals—such as the Radiant Witch, Duke's professional henchman and bodyguard.

In just a few months, Duke's strength has improved a lot, but this level of progress seems insignificant in the face of the crises and challenges he faces.

This directly led to Duke's lack of regard for his own abilities.

He has brains, he has systems.

As long as Duke has "Deus Ex" (a cheat code), "Requiem for Souls" (another cheat code), and "cheating gadgets," regardless of his actual strength, he can influence the course of the battle with these outrageous cheat items and his own intellect.

Duke once genuinely felt that he had no choice but to improve his skills.

Until he confronted Talia head-on.

In that battle of souls, Duke lost, and lost miserably.

If Talia hadn't chosen her own path to destruction, Duke, whom she devoured, would never have lived to see the turning point.

This incident served as a wake-up call for him, making Duke feel the urgency of improving his strength for the first time. What truly ignited his impulse and desire to become stronger... was what happened later, when Duke watched Cecil shatter the stars.

What kind of feelings did Duke have for the Radiant Witch who held the "I Want" weapon?

Amazed? Shouting "Outrageous!"? Happy for Cecil?

All of these were there, but another kind of feeling was beginning to sprout.

envious.

Duke envied the power of legendary destiny, and the legends who could control their own legendary destiny.

"I also want to improve my strength."

Duke, with one foot firmly planted on the biscuit tree, uttered unrealistic words softly.

"I also want to become a legend."

Let's start with this battle.

Chapter 265 The Trickster's Fighting Style

Duke is not using his own body now, but a prosthetic body created by Annie herself. It is based on the prosthetic body technology of the ancient magical empire, but also embodies the culmination of Annie's years of research.

The Floating City currently lacks a legendary witch in the necromancy field, and although Annie's strength is below hero level, her research capabilities are among the best in the entire Floating City. This prosthetic body is her most perfect work in recent years and can represent the highest achievement of the Floating City in the field of necromancy and even in the entire field of life.

Its excellence is not only reflected in its physical attributes of strength, agility, and physique, but also in another aspect that has been overlooked by many researchers: high adaptability.

When Duke first entered the prosthetic body, he was able to control his body freely. After a month of adaptation, Duke's control over the prosthetic body became even more effortless. He even began to wonder if he would feel uncomfortable returning to his original body.

The prosthetic body's high adaptability is also reflected in its compatibility with various abilities, such as the sulfur fire that is still dripping with sulfurous blood and tears. Furthermore, it can automatically fine-tune itself according to its inner soul. For example, if Duke is a monk, then this prosthetic body can generate qi; if Duke is a warrior, then this prosthetic body can naturally unleash more powerful physical abilities; if Duke is a priest, then this prosthetic body generates a higher divine affinity.

Duke is a wanderer, or more accurately, a sorcerer.

Tricksters are wanderers skilled in illusion and enchanting, retaining their original agility and speed while gaining spellcasting abilities. Duke's prosthetic body naturally adapted to Duke's soul and habits, adjusting its performance to a more suitable state. In fact, because Duke had unconsciously cast "Omnipotent Trickster" and "Spell Thief," two of the tricksters' strongest spells, its automatic adjustment specifically tailored these two abilities.

However, it wasn't until he actually faced a battle that Duke finally realized these changes in his cybernetic body.

Faced with the Candy Girl's attack, Duke did not choose to run away with Xiao Hei. Instead, he suddenly stepped into the air to avoid the first attack. Then, he burst into speed, leaving a trail of afterimages in the air, and stepped onto the Cookie Tree step by step.

The cookie-formed tree appeared upside down in mid-air, but this did not hinder Duke's progress. He stomped heavily on the cookies with each step, creating a cloud of cookie crumbs that he sank deep into. In this way, Duke used DIO's method of climbing pillars to defy gravity and ascend the Cookie Tree.

Numerous branches made of Pocky biscuits sprouted from the trunk, each of these densely packed biscuits having a sharp, chocolate-coated tip, and they thrust towards Duke, who was still advancing!

But they all quickly missed their target.

The cookie-shooting tips were piercing through a mere illusion! As the cookies pierced the illusion, it slowly vanished, along with the deep footprints it had left on the cookie tree trunk! It turned out that the "Duke's true form," which created afterimages with speed, was itself an illusion. Where was the real Duke?!

The candy girl stared wide-eyed, her eyes, made of fruit candy, darting around, but she couldn't find Duke's figure until a crisp cracking sound came from her chest.

A dagger pierced her chest from behind, and at the same time, Duke's voice came:

Watch out behind you, beautiful.

The candy girl, whose face resembled Gretel's, panicked. She felt no pain, and even if her heart was pierced, she wouldn't lose her mobility for a while. However, the feeling of being betrayed was still unpleasant. She suddenly released the cookie tree that was growing wildly in the air, letting herself fall freely along with the tree trunk. At the same time, she twisted her slender waist, her gorgeous cake dress displaying a magnificent waltz, and forcefully turned her body to throw a punch at Duke.

But this powerful punch missed its mark again—the Duke in front of him was still a false phantom!

How is this possible? He just stabbed me in the chest with a knife. How can this still be a phantom that I can see but can't touch?

The candy-loving girl, whose mind wasn't exactly sharp, was completely bewildered. She subconsciously glanced down at her chest, only to be shocked to find that there was no dagger there at all. Her chest was perfectly intact, without any trace of being stabbed.

Then, the sound of hard candy breaking rang out again. The candy girl suddenly looked up in the direction from which the sound came, but only saw Duke and his semi-transparent mage hand. The mage hand clapped gently in front of Duke, but instead of the sound of clapping, the sound of hard candy breaking was heard.

"See, it's just a little trick to fool people."

Duke shrugged, then waved to the Candy Girl who had begun to fall freely, while he himself stood on the Cookie Tree, which was still suspended in the air.

The candy girl blinked and suddenly revealed a cold-blooded smile—Duke felt a little uncomfortable with her showing such an expression, after all, the naturally naive (and naturally cunning) cake princess would never show such an expression.

Her fluffy cake dress swelled up again, suspending the candy girl in mid-air. She began to laugh, making an obscene gesture at Duke as she shouted:

"You've been tricked!"

Even as she fell, she still retained control of the Cookie Tree. The Cookie Tree twisted violently, contorting into a shape resembling a gaping maw, which swallowed Duke whole. Then, she detonated it!

"Boom—"

The candy girl burst into laughter, but then she heard Duke's languid voice again:

"You and Gret are so different. Apart from having the same face, you are completely different in personality and ability. Our Cake Princess is a well-behaved girl who follows the rules. She won't launch a reckless counterattack in a fit of anger, nor will she be unable to understand the situation at hand."

The candy girl's smile froze instantly. Completely fooled, she looked down at the source of the sound.

Duke was still in the same spot; he hadn't moved at all. He had tricked her into believing that he had detonated his own Cookie Tree.

Duke is a genius con artist who uses trickery.

Through his illusionary abilities and several brilliant misdirections, he not only completely fooled the Candy Girl, but also revealed her personality and abilities. Duke realized that apart from her appearance, she had nothing to do with Grete and was just a mass-producible elite monster.

What is Meghan up to? Is this some kind of twisted humor of hers?

Duke rolled his eyes, then held out his hand to the candy girl and said softly:

"Spell Thief".

Chapter 266 Sugar and the Producer

Duke is a genius trickster.

At lower levels, the most important thing for a Trickster is to learn as many spells as possible. In this respect, Duke, due to his own spellcasting talent and Megan's careful teaching, has mastered far more spells than a Trickster should have. This also means that he has a very obvious gap in spell slots compared to other Tricksters.

But such talent is a pity. Why did Duke choose the path of a rogue instead of becoming a proper spellcaster? Judging from the talent he has shown so far, even if he doesn't lock in a legendary position with Cecil's almost unreasonable talent, he could at least have a smooth path up to the hero level.

However, Duke's talent in the path of the trickster is only the most insignificant of all his talents, particularly his spellcasting ability.

The all-powerful trickster and spell thief.

These two moves are high-level techniques comparable to a thief's lucky strike, and should theoretically be abilities only a hero-level trickster could use. However, Duke used them unconsciously the first time he saw their principles. And this was the first time he had used them intentionally, so the effect was surprisingly good.

The Omnipotent Trickster can create many "magical" effects, but Duke managed to fool the Candy Girl completely with just a phantom and a few misleading sounds and words.

When the cat doesn't want to play with the mouse, the mouse has no chance. Duke didn't continue trying other applications of the all-powerful trick; instead, he reached out and pointed his hand at the candy girl.

"Spell Thief".

Although Duke had a minor mishap the last time he used this trickster's strongest skill—stealing Lightbringer's underwear, leaving her completely naked—his successful theft of Cecil's items on his first attempt at spell thief fully demonstrates his exceptional talent in this area.

Besides... he couldn't possibly steal panties from this candy girl who was made entirely of candy, could he?

The somewhat ominous thought flashed through Duke's mind, but fortunately it didn't happen. Otherwise, he would have been seen as a pervert by Blackie. Oh, cats and shadow creatures don't have any worldly ethics. Blackie doesn't care if he steals other people's underwear, so it's fine.

This time, Duke's spell thief stole the core spell that constituted the candy girl before him—the spell that allowed cookies and candies to take shape and even move like living beings.

If this spell were placed in the alternate dimension of Candy Castle, it would be a rule of the world, something that spell thieves could not steal. However, this is the memory world created by the Turtle Soup game. Here, the Candy Legion and the Bone Legion do not maintain a dynamic balance and evolve one after another like they do in the Candy Castle Witch game.

The rules of the world have been weakened into spells that can be controlled by humans.

As Duke's spell thief succeeded, the Candy Girl, who had been suspended in the air, suddenly lost power and crashed heavily to the ground. However, she did not break; instead, she lay scattered on the ground like a work of art, and the different kinds of candies on her body also dispersed due to the loss of power.

Duke snapped his fingers and then used the spell he had just stolen.

"Use me, young lady."

The candy girl's body twitched, then she struggled to her feet. The brief moment of powerlessness caused her to completely forget the entity she had previously served, and she no longer remembered her enmity with Duke. She looked at Duke with some confusion, and after sensing the connection between them, the candy girl lowered her head and bowed to him:

"My master."

“Don’t call me that with that face…” Duke rolled his eyes, particularly annoyed by the obsequious candy-like Gretel in front of him. “Just call me brother.”

"Yes, brother."

“Hmm, that’s a good name.” Duke narrowed his eyes and then asked, “Do you remember who your previous owner was?”

Are you referring to Miss Megan?

Duke became slightly excited.

One of his most important goals in entering the Tower of Babel was to find Megan, who was staying there. After traversing multiple memory worlds, he finally got close to his goal: "That's right, do you know where she is?"

"Miss Megan is right here..."

Candy Greta's voice abruptly stopped, a flash of light appeared, and then her candy head flew off, separating from her body.

“Traitor.” A deep voice rang out beside the remains of the Candy Girl. He too was a human made of candy, and now he stood on the remains of the Candy Girl, his back to Duke. “Miss Megan will not forgive you.”

"Hey, hey." Duke frowned. "She's mine now. What right do you have to kill her just because you disagree with her?"

“I will not only kill this traitor, I will also kill you, you despicable human.”

He turned around and revealed his face to Duke—this candy warrior was wearing a stylish trench coat, with a long sword and a short dagger at his waist... and he also had an unparalleled handsome face.

That's right, the candy warrior in front of you looks exactly like Duke.

Duke: "?"

"...Duke Meow, this person looks exactly like you!" Little Black, who had disappeared somewhere at the start of the battle, reappeared when the fight seemed to have stalled for the time being, pointing at him excitedly and asking, "Is he your father?"

Duke: "???"