Chapter 3050: The Mercury Chronicle (47)

Through communication with Tim in other universes within the Battleworld system, Tim obtained an important piece of information—Archmage Faust's real name was Felix Faust, and the Faust family was a wizard family. Besides Felix, there were his son Sebastian Faust and daughter Fauna Faust.

Among them, Felix and Sebastian were relatively far from human society. After Tim investigated these two names, he didn't get much information.

But only Faust's youngest daughter, Fauna, was a famous outlaw. It seemed she had been stealing and robbing magical items all over the world, and had long been targeted by the Federal Shield, and the wanted order had been upgraded to blue.

The last time information about Fauna was obtained was when she ransacked the Metropolitan Museum, stole an Egyptian artifact, suspected to be a magical item, and was captured on camera by the hidden camera in the museum.

Relying on being a magician, this guy was very arrogant. Stealing things without disguise, and with silver-white long hair paired with sunglasses, she was exceptionally conspicuous. If you wanted to not remember her, it would be impossible.

With this clue, the next things were easy to handle.

The Federal Shield's ability wasn't enough. Although they could follow Fauna's footsteps to find her various strongholds, they didn't have the ability to take her down directly. But with the Young Avengers, arresting a magic thief was simple.

Amanda immediately retrieved the pursuit information and sent people to meet Dick and the others, taking them to the suburbs of Metropolis by helicopter. They deduced that Fauna was active in this generation of farms, hiding herself with the help of the sparsely populated farm environment.

Amanda leading the team was still quite capable. The subordinates deployed nearby had narrowed the search range to one of the farms. Raven volunteered to rush in, and before two minutes had passed, they were fighting inside.

Fauna's ability was much stronger than ordinary people, and she could be considered a good hand among magicians, but Raven was a "relying on her father" player, with someone behind her. Her use of energy wasn't refined enough, but she had a large quantity, and she beat Fauna to the ground with a few punches.

After pressing the thief lady down, Dick explained their intention. As a result, Fauna didn't resist anymore. Once she heard that they were going to deal with her old man, her motivation was more sufficient than anyone else's, and she poured out all kinds of information about Faust.

It turned out that Faust was also not doing human things, taking the son and daughter he gave birth to as sacrifices to demons. If it weren't for the special constitutions of the two, not only were they not swallowed by demons, but they also obtained the power of demons, they would have been killed by him long ago.

After the children grew up, Faust still wouldn't give up, wanting to imprison them and extract their power. Fauna had been locked up by Faust before. If it weren't for a magical item she accidentally obtained that saved her life, she would have encountered a disaster long ago.

She had been collecting magical items all over the world now, also to guard against her father. After all, the demon Faust contracted was much more powerful than them. She couldn't beat him head-on, so she could only rely on ancient magical items to protect herself.

Fauna grew up in ordinary society since she was a child and was a cool girl chasing trends. Hearing Dick's intention, she flipped her hair and said: "That old man has indeed been to the Underworld and brought back a bottle of Styx water. He relied on this to trap me in a special dimension."

"I don't know how he went, but if there is a key as you said, it should be placed in his dark vault. I know where the entrance to that place is, but after you get the key, the other things in the vault belong to me."

Dick was about to speak, but Raven stopped him and said: "Do you think you can fight him after getting your father's treasures? The blood relationship between you cannot be cleared, he will find you sooner or later."

"I will definitely make him look good this time." Fauna gritted her teeth and said.

"We can help you." Raven said: "Your father is no match for me. If you join us, he won't be able to do anything to you. Maybe you can even obtain stronger power, only then can you give him a profound lesson."

Dick pulled her and whispered: "Why do you want to recruit her?"

"Human performance is also performance, she is quite strong."

Fauna, who had just exchanged two moves with Raven, also knew that the little girl in front of her who looked even more tender than her really had some skills. She didn't know what she ate to grow up so big, and she almost kicked her sunglasses off the line.

If she joined them, next time Faust came looking, he would think she was still that helpless weak girl, but would be slapped back by Raven. She didn't know how good that scene would be.

Fauna nodded immediately and said: "No problem, count me in, I'll take you to find the key."

Fauna took them to London, England. According to her, Faust's life trajectory before becoming a mage was almost unknown, but it was certain that he had lived in England for a period of time and had a stable job here, because only in this way could he support his research into those forbidden black magics.

During his work in England, Faust collected many strange black magic items and stored these things in his private vault. Later, after becoming an Archmage, this was still his first choice for storing magical items.

Barclays Bank was the oldest bank in the UK, providing private vault services for many clients. Fauna used magic to deceive the staff, entered the private vault area, and successfully found the gate to Faust's vault.

But if they just walked through, there were only some ordinary jewelry and ornaments inside. They must use magic to attack the gate to open a path to the dark vault.

Asha had been holding it in for a long time. Hearing that she needed to attack with force, she didn't even think about it and bumped into it.

With a bang, the original vault door was fine, but a dark crack gradually appeared in front of everyone.

Fauna appeared a bit surprised. She looked at the little girl beside her, guessing her extraordinary origin.

While walking along the passage, Fauna explained: "Faust added very complex magic protection devices to this gate. Even an Archmage cannot open it easily. My brother once tried to destroy this place, but didn't even break through the outermost defense."

Asha touched her forehead and said: "It's not that exaggerated, right? I didn't feel any resistance..."

As soon as they walked through the passage, they were stunned by the scene in front of them.

It wasn't that the scene in the dark vault was magnificent; on the contrary, this place was a mess. It looked like it had just been ransacked. Various display cabinets, treasure chests, and display cases collapsed, and broken magical items lay on the ground, dead-eyed.

Fauna was completely stunned. No wonder the door was so easy to open this time; it turned out it had been opened by someone long ago.

She walked through the messy ground, took the group to rush toward the innermost part, and as a result, the secret room in the innermost part was also opened by someone, and the thing that was once hung on the wall in the center of the secret room was gone.

They hadn't seen with their own eyes what had once hung there, but the rich breath of death in this secret room had already indicated the answer.

"Someone took the Key of Tartarus in advance?!" Dick had to say the worst answer, which was that someone had come here before them and snatched the key.

What shocked them even more was that Funa quickly turned her head to look at the room next to the secret chamber. She said in disbelief, "I sense Faust's aura. My father is very likely here!"

Without a second thought, Raven used magic to shatter the wall. Sure enough, there was another secret chamber next to the first, but Faust was nowhere to be seen inside. After Funa rushed in, she discovered that her father's aura was coming from a toad in the room.

She thought this was some kind of prop for storing magical power and grabbed at it, only to hear a familiar scolding; an aged voice rang out in the room.

"Put me down! You little brat! I'm your father!"

Funa threw the toad away immediately.

Aisha caught the toad and was about to stuff it into her mouth, but fortunately, Jason was quick-witted and snatched the toad away when it was less than a centimeter from Aisha's fangs.

The toad was clearly terrified by the Great White Shark and roared, "You can't kill me! I'm a victim!"

"Are you Faust?"

"If you mean the Great Mage Faust, yes, that's me. Someone ransacked my treasury and turned me into this!"

"Who?!"

"The witch Circe!" Faust gritted his teeth and said: "That damn witch controlled a man and used witchcraft to crack the lock on the vault door. I noticed someone invading and rushed back in a hurry, but was sneak-attacked by her with a beast-transformation curse."

"What did she take?"

"That key!" Faust raised his voice and said, "The key that leads to the Underworld. You must hurry to the Underworld Gate and stop her. Once the creatures of the Underworld are released, everyone will be devoured by them!"

Jason and Dick exchanged glances, realizing the severity of the problem. Dick snatched the toad and asked, "Where is the Underworld Gate? How do we get in?"

"The Underworld Gate is in the back garden of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. You only need to go to the deepest part of the Samaria Canyon at sunset. After the last ray of light disappears, the Gate of the Underworld will appear."

"But we don't have the key anymore..."

"Once the Gate of the Underworld is opened, it will not close for a day and a night. If that damn witch goes to open the door now, you should be able to get in before the gate closes."

Faust's readiness made Dick and the others suspicious, but Faust could only helplessly explain, "That witch is a lunatic. Her faith is different from all other mages. She wants to welcome back what she calls the source of witchcraft. When that happens, the magical world will be overturned, and all magic will be unusable. Helping you is also helping myself!"

Dick and the others were indeed anxious to rush to Mount Olympus, so they had to say, "You'd better be cooperating sincerely. If Circe doesn't die, then you'll be a toad for the rest of your life!"

"I understand that better than you do! But entering the Gate of the Underworld is the simplest part. You don't mean to tell me you don't know there's a three-headed dog guarding the gates of hell, do you? Are you sure you can beat that big dog?"

"Then how did you beat it back then?"

"I snuck in!" Faust said. "That dog is attracted to the scent of the other shore flower. I made a magical aromatherapy that briefly confused it, which allowed me to truly enter the Underworld."

"Where is the magical aromatherapy?"

"It was used up long ago. Besides, that's not a real dog; it has intelligence, too. It won't fall for the same trick twice. Either you have another way to distract it, or you'll just have to force your way through."

"Do you think we can't force our way through?" Raven asked.

"The point isn't whether you can beat that dog, but that beating a dog requires looking at its master. If you beat Hades' dog directly, it's equivalent to being in an endless feud with the Lord of the Underworld, and you're still on his turf right now!"

Faust was indeed old and cunning; he had thought through the pros and cons very clearly.

A thief should do a thief's job: be stealthy, be cautious, and retreat quickly after stealing the goods.

Breaking directly into someone's home, beating their dog, and wanting to run away with the goods—that's not called stealing, that's called home invasion robbery. Just see if the homeowner beats you or not, and that's the end of it.