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233. The Hunt Begins

"Hmm...Isn't it weird that we're the ones stuck with this job, Nohre?" asked one of the five Black Heirs accompanying Nohre, Maron's bodyguard. They were making their way through a tunnel system, following plans that the merchant had given them.

Nohre shook his head, "Nah, it's just that Team A, B, and C don't have any stealth skills. We're the best suited to strike that objective and cut off the Baron's retreat route. We just need to find..." He glanced down at the map and stopped in front of a random wall with a wide grin, "...There. Now, how much time do we have left until we begin?"

One of the five other Black Heirs looked at a pocket watch, "Ten minutes maximum."

Nohre made his knuckles crack and drew a short breath, "Ready yourselves. Once we're in, there's no going back. Let's bring Giselle her grandson back."

The other Black Heirs unsheathed their weapons and nodded tensely, the white marks on their forehead gleaming softly in the tunnel's darkness.

***

On top of a nearby house in Grimwalk.

Liam drew a long and deep breath, adjusting the scope with a small thumbwheel on its side. He verified his rifle's chamber and made sure the safety was off. Last but not least, he prepared the physical bullets and kept them within arm's reach. They were their last resort and a resource he couldn't exactly afford to expend. A Blumar core cast in silver, enchanted with explosive runes. The silver would explode like shrapnel once hitting the target, while the Blumar core would remain in the body and restrain energy usage.

Hopefully.

Liam looked at the five bullets he managed to produce painstakingly and gritted his teeth. The moonlight from the twin moon reflected off the silver layer, glimmering ominously. He pressed his hand on his chest, over the creaking mechanical heart they eventually managed to perfect with Janica.

"Today, I'll be the one Harvesting, Howard..." He hissed as he leaned on the roof and pressed the rifle's butt against his shoulder. To his side, a small briefcase was waiting, another safety they might need to succeed in this operation.

"Let's just hope Glenn was wrong..." Liam muttered as he looked at the Howard's Manor through his scope, his finger waiting beside the trigger. He glanced at his pocket watch and gulped.

Only eight minutes left. Hopefully, Team D would be able to do their jobs, or this whole thing was going to be for naught.

***

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Liara and Sahro exchanged one last glance before nodding at each other and glancing at Howard's Manor entry a few meters away. Two Grand Chevalier knights were standing guard drowsily, leaning on their rifles while yawning.

They were both dressed in black, their hair concealed under thick hoods. They wore clothes close to the skin, to keep their movements as unrestrained as possible. Sahro clenched his mechanical arm with a wicked grin, a flash of blue lightning coursing through the mechanisms. Liara breathed out heavily, her spear firmly clenched in a hand while her sword floated nearby.

The two Black Heirs glanced at their watches, the adrenaline suddenly surging. Both of their Aura and Mana flared up powerfully, ready to carve through their enemies.

Three minutes left.

***

"Oh, I've been waiting for this forever!" Diamanes laughed evilly, excited, "At least since the end of the first volume!"

Nelg groaned, "Let's keep our cool and do this methodically. I don't believe we could be more prepared than we are currently, but let's not have a repeat of the Northern Town."

"Don't worry," Glenn grinned as he stretched widely, his black Imoogi suit reflecting the moonlight. He was standing on top of a house overviewing Howard's Manor, Mana twirling around him as if excited for the upcoming events, "...I learned of my mistake. Even if things go wrong, I can just lure in the Bourgeoisie's authorities. It will be a piece of cake to escape while they take care of the Vampire Baron."

"I still think doing this during the day would have been better, though. Howard is a vampire, after all, he probably prefers the comfort of the moonlight, compared to the sun," Nelg grumbled, uneasy.

Glenn's lips curved upward wickedly and he slowly shook his head, "Oh, but I know. We certainly can't have our dear Baron running away because he can't fight with the home advantage, right?" He gritted his teeth as Nelg appeared in his right hand in his hand axe form, "Tonight, we're going vampire hunting. Let's exterminate these pests."

He glanced at his Exan's Egg, his purple eyes gleaming ominously as he watched the needle reach the expected time.

Tick!

Glenn dashed forward, using Gravity Manipulation to go over the walls surrounding the Howard Manor. The guards looked up in disbelief and raised their rifles, but two shadows jumped out of the darkness and slit their throats, not even giving them the time to speak a word. Glenn grinned and nodded at Liara and Sahro, before resuming his flight and landing on top of the Baron's Manor. He used a Silence Curse on a window and broke in, the glass shards bouncing off the floor without a noise.

A musty scent reached for Glenn's nose, alongside a thick cloud of dust that welcomed him. The room he had entered was practically empty, and from the look of things, hadn't been maintained for a very long while. So far, nothing surprising.

"I disagree. The guards were rank 4 Aura users, but used magic tools and died from a single attack from lower-ranked fighters. They were way too weak, it's weird." Nelg remarked worryingly. Glenn pressed his lips together.

'You're the only one surprised. Howard has eight guards at the fourth rank surrounding this place, even though he's only a Baron. Rank four is supposed to be an incredibly tough level to reach, and most if not everyone with such skill would probably be fighting in the Ink Dunes or the other fronts. It doesn't make sense for them to stay here despite the urgency and the Kingdom's drafts.'

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Diamanes chuckled, 'Good reasoning. My best bet is that their strength has been artificially increased. They can use lots of Mana but have no idea how while their bodies aren't as reinforced as traditional Aura users. It's probably the sort of power-up that limits future growth and comes with severe side effects.'

Nelg paused, "That...makes a lot of sense. Hmm...Maybe it'd be worth looking into it while searching for the Baron, right?"

Glenn nodded slowly as he drew a deep breath. He activated Mana Sight and surveyed his surroundings, searching for magic traps, alarms, or anything. The timing had to be precise. If Liam's memories were correct, the Baron's Teleportation Gate should only be five minutes away from the entry point of team D, Nohre's team of Black Heirs.

Team C's role was pretty straightforward: support from afar. If one of the enemies tried to escape from outside, such as the Baron, Liam was charged with sniping them with his magic rifle. Team A, composed of Liara and Sahro was tasked with finding Callum and bringing it back to Team C as fast as possible, and then retreating.

Finally, Team A, or Glenn, had only one mission.

Wreck as much havoc as possible. Playing bait to draw the security away from the teleportation gate and giving a window of opportunity to Nohre's Team. That was the entire gist of it.

"I never thought being the bait would be so exciting!" Diamanes exclaimed aloud, uncaring of being heard by other people. With how things were standing, Glenn didn't care about revealing Diamanes either.

There probably wouldn't be many witnesses to tell what went down in Howard's Manor after this whole mess, anyway.

***

Team D, Nohre.

BOOM!

Nohre gritted his teeth and pointed at the wall, "That's our cue! Let's show them the skills of true Black Heirs!"

The other Black Heirs nodded tensely and combined Mana and Aura to break through the wall. The noise of chaos at the surface was covering the digging process, thankfully. Nohre couldn't help but wonder how powerful Glenn was to create such a mess all by himself and so confidently. He was going to be the target of the entire Manor after all, how was he going to handle them all?

"Fucking monster..." He muttered through his teeth before punching the wall with all his strength. A ripple shook the wall, making it explode. The Black Heirs dashed through the cloud of dust, not wasting a second. They already had Liam's plans of the underground in mind, guiding them through this labyrinthic network of hallways. There were countless rooms locked away behind thick steel doors, but none of them stopped in front of these doors.

Their objective was to destroy the Teleportation Gate, nothing less, nothing more. But if things went well, maybe they could check these rooms out, as Maron had taught them. Any loot taken on the battlefield was theirs by right, and loot meant money.

And money meant booze! An ample motivation for them, beyond the fact that they were probably going to fight powerful opponents. This was an opportunity to let the name of the Black Heirs shine, and make the status of their clan rise once more to the top!

"Nohre, why are you salivating?" One of the Black Heirs asked him, interrupting his reverie. He shook his head and dashed forward, "Keep up! The faster we're done, the better!"

***

Liam clenched his teeth as he watched a portion of Howard Manor's disappear through his scope, swallowed by a massive black orb. Glenn was flying over said orb, laughing wickedly as more spells appeared in his hands. His left arm was gleaming with a purple, ominous light, the same that was shining in Glenn's eyes.

"The Devil's Hand...It is a fitting title, isn't it...?" Liam muttered as he adjusted the position of his rifle's butt against his shoulder. A presence to his side tensed him up and he reached for his belt, where a smaller version of his rifle was waiting just in case.

"Keep your eyes on the fight, you idiot," A female voice stopped him with a gentle touch on the shoulder. Liam froze and shook his head in disbelief, "What the hell are you doing here, Janica? This isn't your fight!"

Janica smacked her lips and leaned beside him, wielding a machine gun bigger than her. There were two large Fire Shards embedded in the rifle, glimmering powerfully under the moonlight, "I couldn't leave you alone, could I? You might mess the whole thing up, after all."

Liam blushed and gritted his teeth, "You—! Never mind, just don't get in my way!"

"Sure, sure~"

***

"The servant quarter is in the East Wing," Sahro said as he dashed through the Manor's hallways. Liara ran beside him, her weapons drawn, "...If Callum isn't there, we need to head to the master bedroom and check if isn't serving Howard. But..." Sahro grimaced, "I'm almost certain that he will be underground. Let's hope Glenn manages to draw in most of their fighters before we head in."

Liara nodded, "...Do you think they will recognize me? Nohre's people?" She asked sheepishly. Sahro glanced at her and notably at the bandana covering her forehead and her white cross mark.

"As long as you keep that thing on, you should be fine. But are you really worrying about that right now? We're not in a situation where we can afford to think about something else."

"...I know," Liara admitted, before smiling brightly, "...But with Glenn backing us, it's hard feeling threatened, you know. And I'm not even counting you."

Sahro sighed before suddenly stopping, his mechanical arm crackling with blue lightning, "...Maybe it would be time to feel threatened. They found us."

Liara's expression hardened as she firmly clenched her spear, "So it seems."

The ground erupted in front of them with countless naked humanoid beasts snarling and shrieking at them bloodthirstily. A pale man with slick black hair and a classy black suit floated above the horde, looking down with contempt. He wasn't Howard, but it was almost certain that he also wasn't a human.

"How annoying. It seems like we chose to visit at the worst time, didn't we, brother?"

Another figure came out of the hole in the ground, behind the snarling humanoid beasts. He was a pale, bald giant with massive fists and bloodshot eyes, "Y-Y-You're r-right, b-brother," The giant stammered, grinning brutishly, "B-but we can't c-complain ab-bout f-free food, c-can't w-we?"

The classy vampire grinned, revealing sharp upper fangs dripping with fresh blood, "Too bad they interrupted our meal. Let's show them what happens when they mess with the descendants of the great Nosferatu!"

Liara and Sahro exchanged a glance before letting their powers erupt. Seems like Glenn wasn't the only one who was going to need to fight his way through his objective.

***

Glenn watched the disaster his Blackhole was causing with a satisfied smile, feeling the tension he had accumulated these past few days being alleviated.

"Ah, it truly feels great to ruin my enemy's house, haha!" He laughed as he prepared a Nitrogen Lance in one hand, and Solar Flare in the other, "It just makes me want to destroy this place even more!"

"Don't forget you need to save up on Mana," Nelg warned, only to be shrugged at.

"My reserve is practically infinite, Nelg. As long as I don't have to break through whatever material was making the W.O.R.M.'s walls, I'll be fine," Glenn snorted, watching with a widening grin as his Blackhole dissipated, the spell destroyed by a stronger Aura. A knight in black armor dragging a massive two-handed sword behind him drew closer, the shadows glued to his dark steel boots.

"The Devil's Hand..." The knight hissed with an otherworldly voice.

Glenn grinned, "Stormblade. Remember how I almost killed you last time?"

Stormblade raised his greatsword, a dark Aura covering his armor and weapon, "...I knew we should have hanged you alongside these peasants. That would have spared us the reconstruction efforts."

Glenn's features contorted angrily, his Mana flaring up. His grin became evil, the perfect copy of Diamanes', "Don't worry, your master won't need a home after I'm done with him! Just a fucking urn to keep the ashes!"

He flicked his spells at Stormblade, the Solar Flare, and Nitrogen Lance mixing in a devastating mix.

"Come at me, freak. Let me finish what I couldn't a year ago!" Glenn spat, the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he watched Stormblade fend off the spells with a dark Aura.

Tonight, Howard was going down.