Akemi’s words carved themselves into bark as the viscount anguished in the air.

How do we get him down?

Pyre’s eyes caught the inscription almost as soon as it started forming, and a full-out conversation began up and down the side of the tree. Bamo watched in stupefied astonishment, looking back and forth between the two women as they fiercely exchanged ideas via bark.

Can you influence him? Pyre wrote.

Um, no? Did you see his level? Akemi replied.

The more distress someone is under, the lower the barrier to Influence.

Akemi grimaced. Pyre was right, but still—he was level sixty-five. She didn’t want to waste her mana on useless efforts, even if he was under extreme duress.

As she considered, Pyre added: I have a Whip of Fire spell that works like a fishing hook, but it’d be useless against someone of his level. The only hope we have of getting him down is agitating him enough to make him want to thrash us with his own two hands, or Influencing him.

Akemi pinpointed her gaze on the bat, who was staring down at her with a deranged fury that Akemi—in all of her troubling teen years—had never managed to provoke in someone, even her own mother. He had his claws firmly pressed over his ears, but his staff had curiously begun to float in the air in front of him. He was mouthing words silently with his lips, as if he was perhaps controlling the staff using them.

Fiery red lightning began growing again at the staff’s bulb.

Akemi clenched her jaw, worry spiking through her. He could do that the whole time? She knew he had been holding back—obviously, given his morbidly high level—but their team’s ability to make his staff unusable while he covered his ears had been a huge advantage. This nullified that. Meaning, shit. He was about to blow them all to pieces.

Seeing no other option, she yelled to Bamo, “Screech as loud as possible!”

He looked at her like she was deranged, which, yes, she was.

“What?”

“Just—just do anything to make the sound a little bit more unbearable for him!”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yes—Bamo, now!”

He got the message.

Swallowing and pressing his claws over his ears tighter, Bamo opened his mouth. The sharp, bloodcurdling cry that emitted made every single bird within a mile radius flee the nest.

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While Akemi couldn’t actually hear the cry, she could feel it. It was like a small earthquake rattled through her body, making goosebumps run up her arms.

When reading the section on chimeras from Pyre’s bestiary, there was one thing—aside from their weird fashion tastes and bone-destroying teeth—that caught Akemi’s attention. It was their cry. They could do a few versions of the cry, varying in decibel, with some being friendly greetings and others, like this one, mimicking the sound of a wailing, shrieking infant. The bestiary had mentioned that for chimeras, it sounded like “glass being shoved in your foot.”

“Gods—gods dammit!” the viscount groaned, losing focus again. The staff, having lost his attention, broke free of the spell and began to plummet.

“Pyre! Use the whip on the —”

She didn’t need Akemi’s direction. A long rope of flame flung from Pyre’s hand to the rod, dragging it down to smack on top of the runic circle. Viscount Dimitri roared.

With the chimera at the peak of his agony, Akemi cast, “[Influence]”

Influence Check (Success)

Success! Target is under your influence.

All of a sudden, the viscount’s demeanor settled. He was still covering his ears and wincing, but he was no longer focused on Akemi, the red of his eyes dimming. It felt like whiplash seeing that notification fall in front of her eyes. She didn’t have time to be amazed, though, because she knew that the target had a chance to break away from the skill every five seconds.

And Bamo couldn’t keep up that high note forever.

With all the air left in her chest, Akemi screamed, “Come get your staff, you asshat!”

The viscount looked at her for a second, consideringly, like the small, still-sovereign voice in the back of his head saw the obvious trap of this—but at the same time, with his chimeran eyesight, there was no way he had actually noticed the rune sitting there. To him it probably looked like any other patch of dirt and grass in a sea of forest floor.

And so, he dove for it.

In spite of the radiating, aching pain of her broken foot, Akemi couldn’t keep the face-splitting grin that began to spread across her cheeks at the sight of it. The moment his feet landed on the soil, his claws wrapped around his reclaimed staff, she knew it was all over. The ring of fire that sprung up to surround him was only confirmation of the fact.

A ghastly black smoke manifested not a moment after. It settled just above the viscount’s head, like a raincloud, and from it, a white, boney hand descended. It was carrying a lantern, with the initials I.M inscribed on the side of the glass surface. The flame inside it flickered dark purple.

“Holy shit,” Pyre muttered, face turning pale as she dropped the steel armor at last.

Bamo broke his screeching note, his face going similarly stricken.

Influence Check (Failure)

Target has broken free of your influence!

The viscount regained control of himself almost instantly, blinking quickly before whipping his head from side to side, ears shooting rigidly upwards as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. When he finally pinpointed Akemi, he didn’t hesitate in pointing his staff at her again.

His face contorted in raw, blithe anger, and he shouted, “[Bloodletting Oblivio-].”

The terror that would have emerged from his staff after that command, in all scenarios, would have killed Akemi in an instant. But the skeletal hand had dropped its lantern, and instead, cupped its palm around his face before he could get the last syllable out. His pupils went as wide as saucers, his entire body going stiff. His fur stuck up like pine needles.

The hand proceeded to curl around the width of his neck, and pull him down mercilessly through the dirt, as if he had been attached to a rope and yanked into a mineshaft.

“Holy shit,” Pyre repeated.

In the moments proceeding, when the ring of fire dissipated, and the smoke passed, the only evidence that the viscount had ever existed at all was a hole in the ground in the shape of his body, a piece of parchment serving as a receipt, and…

Immortal Marketplace Bounty Exchanged: You have received 105,000 silvers.