Watching his old classmate awkwardly reversing his steps, Truman could guess some of the situation with Sealed Artifact 2-049.
He silently walked to the path Klein was retreating along.
At this moment, Klein, affected by Sealed Artifact 2-049, sensed the movement behind him but couldn’t even turn his head—the simplest of actions.
Thump!
Truman delivered a light chop to Klein’s neck.
Klein was jolted out of his stagnant state by the attack, but also collapsed to the ground unconscious from the force.
After dealing with Klein, Truman also spotted the black box not far away.
He first surveyed the battlefield.
Dunn and Lorotta had eliminated the monster at the cost of being unconscious.
The other Nighthawk members also hadn’t caught their breath.
“Interesting!”
A barely perceptible smile curved beneath Truman’s hood.
He could tell that some were truly unconscious, while others were only pretending.
Whoosh!
Truman threw out six ropes.
The ropes seemed to come alive, tying up the six Nighthawks tightly.
Buzz!
A faint buzzing sounded in his ear.
Truman’s own body suddenly became sluggish.
He caught a glimpse of a thin, brown arm protruding from the broken black iron box at his feet.
“Sealed Artifact?
2-049?”
At the same time, a figure in a tuxedo with clown paint appeared not far before him.
This Secret Order member, who had previously been hiding using Illusion Creation to achieve a near-invisible effect, had now decided to strike first upon discovering another intruder.
Above the gray fog, Klein sat in the high-backed chair looking bewildered, completely unable to understand what had just happened.
“Was I saved?
Or was I ambushed?”
He only remembered receiving a blow just before he finished reciting the final incantation and arriving above the gray fog.
“Should I return to reality now?”
Klein then had another new question.
“Maybe I should do some divination first!”
“Returning to the real world is very safe…”
“Returning to the real world is very safe…”
Klein closed his eyes, silently chanting while taking out his citrine pendant to perform divination using the pendulum method.
Outside, just as the Tuxedo Clown was launching an Air Bullet attack at Truman, Leonard, who had been lying motionless on the ground, somehow broke free from the ropes.
He began chanting a soothing song while raising his gun to fire.
“Her flowers bloom all night till dawn.”
“But when daylight opens its eyes.”
…
At this moment, both the Tuxedo Clown and Leonard had clear targets.
They seemed to share an unspoken understanding to first take out this meddler.
Truman didn’t panic upon sensing the stagnation in his thoughts.
Some curses entwined around his spirit body activated, and his body uncontrollably let out a sneeze.
“Achoo!”
Although there was no external force, due to the power of the sneeze curse, Truman’s body began to break free from its numb and stiff state.
He lightly tossed his astrology crystal ball into the air.
Bang!
Bang!
Several small water balls suddenly appeared before Truman, precisely blocking the Air Bullet and revolver bullets.
“Freeze!”
With a single command from Truman, the water balls that had blocked the bullets’ impact were instantly frozen solid.
Although a Trickmaster’s spells weren’t powerful, with proper execution they could still buy considerable time.
Using the time gained from the water and ice balls, Truman ducked down to dodge the incoming bullets.
“Light!”
After crouching, he snapped his fingers.
The crystal ball falling from the sky suddenly burst forth with blinding light.
Both Leonard and the Tuxedo Clown lost their vision for an instant.
Buzz!
Truman calmly extended his right hand.
He could feel his body and thoughts once again becoming sluggish under the influence of Sealed Artifact 2-049.
Thump!
The astrology crystal ball landed precisely in Truman’s right palm.
The force of gravity and inertia from falling from such a height combined to help Truman break free from the controlled state.
Truman glanced at the crystal ball in his hand.
A complex and brilliant galaxy quickly appeared, then gradually faded, leaving only two star paths connected by scattered stars converging toward the brightest star.
Just as the two star paths were about to intersect with the most dazzling starlight, two streams of blood-stained water slithered like snakes across the ground before Truman.
“Not good, stop him!” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Leonard’s ears twitched slightly.
He seemed to have heard something and called out anxiously, raising his revolver to reload and fire.
He was finally getting serious, and had also loaded the demon-hunting bullets specially prepared by the Church for handling supernatural incidents.
Just as Leonard was about to fire, the crystal ball in Truman’s hand once again displayed the intricate star charts.
As the stars flickered, they simultaneously calculated the trajectory of Leonard’s shots.
Truman grabbed the black metal box beside him—the one with a large hole revealing a doll’s arm—and threw it over.
The large iron box containing Sealed Artifact 2-049 blocked all of Leonard’s bullets.
Leonard had also fallen into Sealed Artifact 2-049’s five-meter priority attack range!
Whoosh!
The Tuxedo Clown, being a Sequence 7 of the Seer pathway, had his intuition strongly warning him of how dangerous this newcomer was—he had to eliminate him immediately.
A ball of orange-yellow flame shot toward Truman at high speed!
Truman paid no attention to the flashy but insubstantial orange-yellow flame.
He casually summoned an identical fireball to intercept it, then took a dark glass bottle from his bosom.
Whoosh!
Truman’s summoned fireball passed through the Tuxedo Clown’s fireball as if passing through an illusion.
The Tuxedo Clown, using his Flame Jump ability, teleported through Truman’s summoned fireball to appear right in front of him.
His tuxedo was somewhat scorched from the fireball, but because the fireball was too weak, he hadn’t suffered much damage.
The Tuxedo Clown drew a long sheet of paper from his bosom.
Using his ability to turn objects into weapons, he briefly endowed the paper with sharpness and durability.
The white paper sliced through the air like a machete, aimed at the neck of Truman, whose head was bowed.
But at this critical moment, the astrology crystal ball beside Truman’s hand began to emit a deep, dark halo, and the Clown’s spirituality also started frantically warning him.
The Tuxedo Clown sensed the approaching danger.
He gritted his teeth and decided to gamble, trying to nip the threat in the bud.
Thump!
The paper blade in the Tuxedo Clown’s hand struck Truman’s neck.
However, the expected spray of blood never occurred—instead, the previously sharp paper went limp and drooped against Truman’s body.
“Ah!
Ah!
Ah!”
The Tuxedo Clown clutched his head and collapsed to the ground in agony.
His supernatural power instantly went out of control, as if he had glimpsed some unspeakable horror and fallen into temporary madness.
+++
T/N: Seeing Truman fight like this makes me wonder what Fors was doing when she was a Trickmaster—I guess this is what it mean to be a protagonist.