Firearms were terrifyingly lethal in any era. The writing was on the wall for a group of unarmed infected charging through a hail of bullets. They never even saw the machine guns before the sniper rifles took them out precisely on their way to the manor house.
The lawn was too big!
In a sense, it was money that killed them.
Veryl had instructed that sandbags be built into forts in front of the manor house, mounted with two machine guns to make sure the firepower covered the greatest area. Two maids each operated a machine gun. Their stocky build allowed them to fire as if there was no recoil.
Unfortunately, they didn’t get to make a shot. All the kills were stolen by the sniper maid on the rooftop.
Behind the sandbags, Wayne sat on a lounger under a parasol, enjoying black tea with sunglasses on. Veryl, the monocled butler, stood beside him in perfect posture.
Remembering the followers with tentacles dangling from their mouths, Wayne guessed that these people had been parasitized from consuming raw eggs. With a disgusted expression, he said, “Those tentacles are gross! So ugly!”
Veryl and the maids had not panicked at the followers’ appearance. They knew that magic existed in the world and had received professional training. Veryl, especially, had achieved the impressive feat of killing four mages in combat.
As the saying goes, within seven steps, guns are both accurate and fast.
Wayne picked up his binoculars and looked toward the giant tentacle descending toward the town from the sky, frowning wordlessly. From the looks of it, the sacrificial ritual had already begun. He wondered if Isabella could hold out. The Geocentrism Sect had assembled a large number of townspeople—had those innocent people already been parasitized?
He disliked the sect out of his sense of justice and personal grudges. He could never develop any goodwill for them.
He wouldn’t even say thanks to the Lord of the Void, the generous supplier who had just given him a treasure trove of the four elements. He had seized it through his own abilities. Why should he be grateful?
The followers’ arrival told him that the Lord of the Void now saw him as a target. If Isabella fell, a large number of mutated followers would come rushing toward the manor, along with powerful mages like the sect leader and the Archbishop. His scalp tingled at the thought of the zombie siege scenario that would come to be if all of Enrod residents mutated. He trusted the butler and the maids to defend the manor for a full fifty-eight days, but it would be regretful for the innocent townspeople to face such a fate.
“I hope Isabella won’t disappoint Master...” he murmured, then suddenly sensed a magical disturbance.
There was still a threat!
He sprang to his feet, telling Veryl to stay alert before focusing on the direction of the disturbance.
On the lawn, the followers blown apart by the sniper rifle writhed and crawled with their broken bodies, converging in one spot. Their flesh piled up and oozed white suds as they fused into one single entity. The mass of flesh, covered in limbs and pale faces, rolled frantically toward the fort of sandbags.
Its target was Wayne.
The two machine guns immediately opened fire, intersecting lines of bullets hitting the constantly accelerating ball of flesh, splattering blood and chunks of meat. The flat lawn ensured no blind spots, but the relentless firing only slowed the ball down rather than stopping it, much less destroying it entirely.
The ball of flesh hit something, and an explosion sent it flying half a meter. After falling apart and hitting the ground, the steel wires in place were triggered, setting off chains of slithering and rising flames.
Explosions erupted continuously as the buried Molotov cocktails detonated, coating the flesh and white foam and purifying them with great heat. The effect was excellent. The flesh infected by parasites and gradually transforming into starfish-like creatures was highly flammable. In no time, the lawn was shrouded in a curtain of fire and black smoke.
Wayne accepted the silk handkerchief that Veryl handed him, covering his nose and mouth. He had instructed Veryl to make the Molotov cocktails, with motor oil added to gasoline for effective adhesion, making the fire more difficult to extinguish.
Bright white light flashed intermittently, dazzling like white phosphorus. It was magnesium powder. Veryl had added magnesium powder!
To ensure that the heat was intense enough to properly kill the infected, Veryl had bundled magnesium powder around the Molotov cocktails. He was a professional butler, well-versed in the art of making explosives. As for the destroyed lawn, he didn’t worry too much about it. One phone call, and a replacement would be delivered from Londan.
Wearing sunglasses, Wayne marveled at Veryl’s meticulous execution. He couldn’t imagine how disorganized his life would become after losing the butler in three months.
He didn’t have much time to reflect before the situation took a sudden turn. Over ten mud-like earth figures rose from the ground, advancing toward the sandbags despite the crossfire. The enhanced Mud Slimes were immune to bullets—no, to all physical damage, perhaps. The bullet holes rapidly healed anew as the mud figures waded through the minefield, their march undisturbed by the explosions.
Wayne frowned, closing his eyes to look for nearby mages. Not good. Not only was his opponent’s magical proficiency superior to his, but their concealment techniques were also exceptional. His keen nose couldn’t detect even a whiff of their scent.
He was eager to try something. Half crouching, he pressed both hands to the ground. In terms of magical proficiency, he might be inferior to his opponent, but mana reserves...
Heh heh, I’m in a different league!
Wall after wall of earth rose, imprisoning the mud figures and solidifying. The weak overcame the strong, and Wayne managed to defeat advanced magic with basic spells.
Well, it was basic in his eyes; Bishop Kent and Melville disagreed. Besides, Wayne had casually summoned over ten earth walls simultaneously, making both bishops recognize him as a troublesome mark.
The Anointed One had an unusually large reserve of mana, and his mind was resilient, ensuring he could cast and control over ten spells at once. Using conventional means to take the Anointed One wouldn’t be viable!
Fluctuating mana spread as dark clouds gathered above the manor house, their friction generating snaking lightning bolts, rumbling in preparation for a downpour.
Wayne’s eyes lit up as he captured the source of the mana. He rattled off, “Two o’clock, fifty meters.”
Veryl nodded and opened the briefcase on the table, targeting the precise location and pressing the detonation button.
A tremendous explosion sent mud mixed with filthy blood splattering. The shockwave threw half a charred corpse into the air. Gone was Bishop Melville despite his extreme caution. He hadn’t been careless, but poverty had limited his imagination. He never expected such thorough preparation to be possible.
The storm clouds above the manor quickly dispersed. At Wayne’s signal, Veryl’s hand moved rapidly to trigger explosions in quick succession, plowing through the manor’s front lawn. All around them was scorched earth and rising gunpowder. Acrid smells mixed with the heat waves and spread in all directions.
“Young Master Wayne, the enemies are dealt with. There doesn’t seem to be any other intruder.” Veryl came up to Wayne and bowed as he offered another silk handkerchief to cover his nose with.
Wayne nodded and took a deep breath, taking the handkerchief with one hand while pressing the other hand to the ground.
On the cover of the Book of Greed, the central eye looked toward the eye of Nature, establishing a connection. Obscure, indescribable knowledge flowed into the central eye, settling within Wayne’s body and turning his pure white mana green. Veins bulged on the back of his hand as mana far exceeding that of a mage apprentice surged underground. Plants took root rapidly, and vine after vine raced and weaved through the soil. The lawn around the manor undulated and fluctuated like the surface of an ocean under a violent storm.
Surging waves and turbulent undercurrents swept as hundreds upon thousands of vines slithered and interlaced, the massive net contracting continuously in search of any rat that might be hiding within.
Blazing wind blades carved a square into the surface of the ground. Bishop Kent leaped out and shouted, “Anointed One, I’m Bishop Kent of the Geocentrism Sect, here by order of the Lord of the Void to escort you. I am no enemy.”
Wayne ignored him. He and the Geocentrism Sect were not on the same side; an ally of the righteous would never go down the same path as evil villains.
He increased his mana output, and thousands of vines shot out of the ground, forming hands that grasped at Kent in twos and threes. Kent wasn’t going to sit idle, of course. While shouting and appealing to Wayne’s conscience, pleading with the Anointed One to stop being obstinate, he stepped on air with mana rippling under his feet, allowing him to move across the sky and change directions constantly to avoid the vines’ grasp. At the same time, he wielded wind blades and fire to drive away the vines he couldn’t avoid.
Wayne’s mana surged once more, and more vines shot up from underground, using quantity to compensate for the gap between himself and Kent. Finally, a vine hand managed to grab Kent’s calf.
The vines tightened, the excruciating pain disrupting Kent’s concentration. More and more vine-formed hands wrapped around him. The sphere of vegetation contracted and solidified mid-air.
Light flashed in Wayne’s eyes as the sphere buried itself deep underground. Then he clenched his hand into a fist. There was a faint, muffled noise. No screams, no sounds of something breaking or being crushed. Kent passed quietly.
Wayne sighed and turned to Veryl. “Veryl, does this count as murder?”
“As far as I know, it doesn’t count as long as there’s no evidence.”
Wayne rolled his eyes and was about to make a sarcastic remark when Veryl pulled out the white handkerchief from his breast pocket, gently wiping Wayne’s right hand.
Figurative question marks popped up from Wayne’s head. What was this about?
“Your hands got dirty, Young Master Wayne.”
Please stop, Veryl. I’m not going to be able to live without you if you continue to be perfect.