C154: Slow-witted fools
“In the name of your servant,
Grant me the strength to quench the light!”
Victor hovered among the swarm of blackened creatures, raising his hand.
In his palm rested a small stone idol, its surface etched with symbols that seemed to crawl and shift in the dim light.
Instantly, his strength surged. A familiar pain coursed through his body. Blood veins emerged from his skin, pursed violently. They ran through his flesh like snakes.
Gregory's pupils dilated the instant his gaze fell upon the stone idol in Victor’s palm, a primal terror gripping his soul before his mind could even register what he was seeing.
Dizziness assaulted him, his strength faltered, and a terrible headache followed. Blood trickled from his nose without warning.
“Close your eyes!”
Before any of them could see the stone idol clearly, he roared, and all four Inspectors immediately squeezed their eyes shut.
Listening to Gregory, none of them dared to look.
“Barrier!”
“L-light!”
Both Hazel and Troy deployed their protective barriers, invisible planes of force expanding outward, while Naomi weakly struck her cane against the stone floor, her voice trembling with exhaustion.
Naomi remained safely behind Gregory, shielded by his body.
Although none of them could open their eyes, Gregory could technically perceive the entire battlefield through the combined use of his two abilities, Tracking and Scan, painting the chaos in wireframes within his mind.
In the same moment, Victor swept his hand through the air.
Immediately, dozens of blood lances condensed around him, launching toward the barriers and piercing clean through them as though they were made of paper.
“Tch!” Hazel clicked her tongue, moving instantly as she felt her barrier crumble.
Troy shifted his position as well, adjusting his formation. His mask had no eyeholes, allowing him to sense Victor's location without having to focus on the object in his hand.
He launched a consecutive attack on the fake priest. Victor used his long claws to deflect his attack and, at the same time, strike back.
Metallic sound reverberated. The rapid strikes clashed against each other, silver daggers to claws, sending sparks into the air.
Troy used every attempt, every trick to aim the dagger at Victor's heart, but to no avail. He was only in the Foundation stage; his agility was no match for Victor's.
“Ugh.”
Before long, his entire body was covered in deep cuts. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks aimed at him, Troy stepped back.
However, before Troy could fully retreat, using the moment of defenselessness, Victor delivered a powerful kick toward Troy.
The kick landed, sending him flying toward the wall. The moment he managed to stand up, his eyebrows furrowed.
'He ceased his attacks?' Victor had stopped putting pressure on him.
The answer immediately flashed through his mind, and his eyes widened.
"Hazel!"
Hazel, meanwhile, looked down and risked cracking one eye open just enough to see the floor ahead of her.
'As long as I don’t look directly, I should be safe!'
Of all the people, she was the most vulnerable. Her position was the worst. There was no one beside her to protect her at this moment, and she had no way of seeing either.
“Hazel!” An urgent shout rang in her ear. Hazel immediately assumed a defensive stance.
Without any warning, a blurred figure materialized directly in front of her!
Hazel directly thrust her arrow towards the blurry figure, but it missed its target!
A powerful force struck her head.
She had applied a defensive shield over herself beforehand. However, this powerful blow that crashed against her body was far stronger than before. Coupled with the accumulated damages from before and her weakened state, her protective shield shattered.
Her body flew violently to the side, crashing through the wall and tumbling out into the main room of the church.
"Agh..."
Hazel gasped in agony; her body trembled as pain assaulted her. Several of her bones were broken. One side of her ribs was fractured.
She tried to move her arms, but to no avail. No matter what, she could only lie there, gasping heavily, her sight blurred, watching Victor approaching her.
*Bang!*
Before Victor could come close, his body ground to a sudden halt mid-stride as a silver bullet slid past his ear, missing by a hair's breadth.
“Grrr...”
Victor turned his head fully toward Gregory and growled in irritation. He momentarily forgot about Hazel, who had collapsed and immobilized, and only had Gregory in his sight.
Without warning, Victor raised the idol higher in his hand.
The stone object levitated out of his palm, hovering in the air like a dark star, and its vertical eyes burst open with a blinding violet!
Simultaneously, a wave of violet energy pulsed outward from the idol, creating a powerful shockwave that tore through the sanctuary!
“Be careful!”
Gregory immediately hurled his body in front of Naomi, shielding her with his own form as Troy’s barrier materialized before them.
The shockwave struck the barrier with explosive force, instantly shattering it and throwing both Gregory and Naomi backward into the stone wall with a sickening crunch.
Nearby, Troy was also flung backward across the room, his twin daggers slipping from his fingers and clattering away into the debris.
Gregory and Naomi both collapsed to the ground. The man pressed his hand to his head, his face twisted in agony, as streams of blood flowed from his eyes.
"Blessing... of the Monarch of White." Yet even then, Gregory did not give up.
He murmured through gritted teeth, clinging tightly to his revolver as though it were his sole lifeline, beginning his prayer.
Blood seeped from his ears, his nostrils, and the corners of his mouth. Yet he refused to halt. Closing his eyes, he pleaded for "His" help.
"the Eternal Ruler of Order,"
He raised his revolver toward the space where he calculated Victor to be hovering. His abilities painted the room in golden outlines.
Hazel lay motionless, buried beneath rubble in the adjacent chamber. Naomi had completely depleted her spiritual reserves, her cane clattering uselessly against the floor. Troy was gravely wounded, his daggers scattered out of reach.
And Gregory’s Restrictions had both been torn asunder. Since he knew his enemy could tear it apart immediately, making another one was useless.
Victor ceased his assault. He hovered in the dusty air in silence, observing the battered captain with cold, calculating eyes as he weighed whether to risk finishing them all or withdraw.
"the Inextinguishable Dazzling Light,"
As Gregory continued his prayer, the muzzle of the revolver emitted a flickering glow.
"To think you insufferable foozlers would make things this tedious," Victor's arrogant voice reverberated through the ruined sanctuary. He stroked his matted black hair with one bloodied hand and growled through gritted fangs.
He had paid quite a price to ask for “Her” help. Killing them all here would be ideal.
But it was risky.
A single bullet imbued with the Blessing of the White Monarch could kill him permanently if it made direct contact. No matter what form he assumed, if that blessed bullet struck him, he would truly die here.
The sole reason he had survived the captain's blessed shot earlier was his retention of one final Substitute, which he had invoked at the very last instant to escape the bullet before it could fully strike him.
A cornered prey was the most unpredictable beast. Who could say what suicidal tactic these barbarian might employ in their final moments?
Victor had no desire to gamble his life on such uncertainty. After all, he had endured in this wretched village for a decade precisely because of his careful, meticulous nature.
It could be said that he had thrown every resource at his disposal into defending himself. These barbarians had ambushed him in his own domain, yet he was still alive.
By his standards, this outcome already constituted a fine victory.
The basic preparation of the ritual had already been achieved. Now, he needed time to recover from his injuries and prepare for the Rite. There was no need to linger around this place any longer.
"Consider yourselves fortunate. I shall attend to your executions at a more convenient hour," Victor hissed, his voice filled with contempt.
Victor's figure slowly dissipated into a swarm of blackened creatures, merging seamlessly with the existing swarm that churned around the ruined sanctuary.
The dark mass pulsed, their violet eyes of hundreds of tiny beasts glowing in unison as they coiled upward toward the ceiling.
The unified swarm surged outward, pouring through the shattered stained-glass windows of the church before spilling out into the afternoon sky.
At the same time, a muffled explosion rumbled beneath the church, the shockwave traveling through the bedrock and rattling every remaining pane of glass.
The entire structure vibrated violently, the walls groaning under the stress as debris, dust, and wooden rafters came crashing down in a cascade of splintering wood and crumbling mortar.
An eruption of orange flame broke out from the hidden chamber underground. The fire clawed its way up through the secret passage under the broken White Monarch statue, engulfing the sanctuary on the ground floor.
Before Victor had fully departed, he had ensured that no secret of his underground study would fall into the hands of his enemies.
Every document, every piece of evidence was being consumed by the flame below. This was his final gift to those barbarians who had dared to assault him within his own domain.
"Farewell, slow-witted fools. Do enjoy the gift I have so graciously bestowed upon you," his voice, thick with mocking sarcasm, echoed one final time through the blood-stained church, reverberating off the collapsing walls before fading into the roar of the spreading flames.
And no one could stop him.