"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Just as Leon was leveraging the Black Goat's ability to quickly extract the intelligence he needed, a blond guard who had fainted outside the door suddenly pulled out the nail gun from his waist and fired four consecutive shots at Leon's head, forcibly interrupting his interrogation.
Blond? Could Ryan's family also be joining the Rebels?
Relying on the shield of the Holy Spirit pendant to block all four nails, Leon watched as the blond guard, swift and deft, replaced the gas canister, preparing to shoot at him again. Feeling that something was off, Leon furrowed his brows and aimed his invisible long nail, initially intended for the guard's head, at the nail gun in the blond guard's hand instead.
With a sharp metallic rupture, the newly replaced gas canister exploded instantly, and the rapidly spreading compressed air pushed the blond guard, sending him flying backward into the wall behind him.
Looking at his nail gun, with the air channel split and rendered unusable, the blond guard cursed bitterly. He then threw the nail gun toward Leon and rolled his eyes before toppling groundward.
At the same time, another guard, who was in Leon's blind spot, suddenly stood up, pulling out a nail gun from his waist and firing four nails at the back of Leon's head.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
*Indeed, that member of Ryan's family was merely being controlled, not another Rebel's true form. As for the other Rebel's ability, it must be some way to forcefully control others' actions.*
Upon hearing the noise, Leon turned his head back and looked at the nails scattered on the ground and the guard still shooting at him from a distance. He couldn't help but take a deep breath, cold sweat streaming down his back.
*No wonder the Cleaner's death rate is so high. When facing opponents armed with various peculiarly powerful Anomalous Objects, especially those who could control Anomalous Objects, even the slightest negligence could be fatal!*
*If I'd just acted on impulse and used the Holy Spirit pendant to kill the blond guard, not only would I have wrongly killed an innocent controlled individual, but if I'd thought the enemy was dealt with and retracted my shield to conserve energy, I'd have gotten a bullet straight through my head from this blind-spot shot!*
*Damn it! This ability is so annoying!*
Watching Leon in his invisible shield, ignoring "his" shooting and instead scanning the surroundings intently, the person controlling the blond guard gritted their teeth in frustration.
Having depleted all the nails in the guard's gun without breaking Leon's shield, he had to switch to a new body and continue shooting at Leon from another blind spot.
Toward the end, even before the preceding body pulled the trigger, and the nail left the chamber, he had already switched to a new body to continue shooting, the "bang-bang" of gunfire almost forming a continuous sound.
Yet, unfortunately, no matter what position he shot from, even those impossible blind spots, he could not penetrate the invisible "turtle shell" surrounding the target. Hundreds of nails were stopped, not one falling within half a meter of the target.
*How could he be killed?*
Watching the potential "hosts" in the hall getting taken down one by one by the target, leaving almost no one unarmed, the second Rebel helplessly lowered his nail gun.
*No wonder Barton and Samantha both fell into his hands. Although his ability is simple and brutal, it supports both attack and defense with a strength clearly surpassing ordinary firearms.*
*In a surprise assassination, I could think of a way to catch him off-guard, but in this situation where he's prepared, my abilities were completely countered!*
*Have they given up? Then it's my turn!*
After the gunfire quieted, Leon looked at the middle-aged guard who had voluntarily stopped shooting in the distance and calmly asked:
"Tell me, is your true self nearby?"
*Here it is! That deadly interrogation method!*
Upon hearing Leon's question, the middle-aged guard was startled and immediately resumed shooting, switching to another body to continue firing, trying to mask the devil-like interrogation with the noise of the gunshots.
Unfortunately, even with that slight delay, Leon already got the answer he wanted.
"So your true self is nearby."
Turning to look at another guard behind him, breaking the nail gun in his hand, and cutting off the deafening gunfire, Leon's lips curled slightly upward before continuing to inquire:
"Is your true self in the hall?"
"Not in the hall, huh? Then in the manor? Outside the manor?"
"Not in any of those places? Then in the core building area? Still near the main building? So the target is close to the hall but not in it?"
"So, if your true self is near the hall… what does your true self look like? Man? Fat? Thin? Elderly? Young?"
With Leon's calm questions, the people controlled by the second Rebel grew increasingly terrified.
*Even if I switch bodies and play dead lying on the ground, Leon's questioning only slowed slightly, continuing steadily and constantly.*
*It seemed as if a fierce tiger was unraveling the layers surrounding me; with each question of his, another layer of my disguise was easily peeled away, reducing the barrier between me and the tiger's maw by one more layer.*
*Initially, I merely heard the "tiger's" voice, but as more layers of "protection" fell away, I gradually felt the powerful pressure from its claw.*
*Gradually, I seemed to smell the metallic blood scent from its mouth and felt those sharp teeth, hanging with bits of flesh, lightly tracing my goose-bumped neck through the last layer of gossamer-thin protection…*
"A slender, somewhat short young man outside the hall yet very close by?"
Recapping the answers, Leon tilted his head in thought, showing an expression of realization.
"If you entered Ryan Manor without entering the hall… then your disguised identity should be as a servant or an attendant, right? I recall seeing a rather short attendant unloading the footstool from the carriage earlier… could that be you?"
*He knows! He knows who I am!*
Seeing his true self exposed and overwhelmed by the slow-tightening noose, the tormented Rebel nearly lost his sanity.
"Devil! You're a devil!!!"
A certain corpulent woman lying trembling at the door suddenly jumped up and screamed at Leon, tears in her eyes, before collapsing back down.
Simultaneously, in Leon's soul vision, a terrified soul dashed out of the hall, as if pursued, and hastily jumped into a new body, then sprinted madly towards the outside of the manor!
*Never again! I'm never coming back!*