Chapter 181
Chapter 181
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 181
Chapter Title: Indoor Thunderstorm
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“-That closed red door. There's a hostage situation inside.”
Sienna was startled by Loan's words, which had seeped into her mind.
It was the first time she’d known Loan to use a mental message; she herself had not yet reached that level.
Her ability was limited to receiving telepathic orders from her superiors during battle, which made her surprise all the more profound.
But she didn't let it show.
The effectiveness of a mental message lay in its secrecy.
She casually brushed her hair back, her gaze falling upon the building Loan had mentioned.
It was her way of letting him know she understood.
From Sienna's perspective, she could only sense a cluster of mana, but she also knew that Loan's intuition was rarely wrong.
“What brings the Union here? And with such a lovely lady and an even lovelier boy, no less.”
Just as Loan and Sienna were approaching the site of the hostage situation, several members of Nostra blocked their path.
They were impeccably dressed. One of them smoothed the lapel of his suit, offering something akin to a greeting with a smile. If not for his slightly thuggish tone, he could have passed for a proper gentleman.
But she knew from experience how vile and cruel these men were, despite their appearances.
Maintaining her distance, Sienna dismounted, tied her horse to an awning post of the adjacent building with a perfectly calm expression, and faced the Nostra members.
Loan followed her lead.
Sienna said,
“Nostra. You look like a Caporegime.”
“I appreciate the recognition. So, what's your business?”
“We were looking for a village to rest in for a day, and it seems we stumbled upon a Nostra branch. Seeing as it's crawling with insects like you.”
“Ha, hahaha.”
Finding Sienna's provocative words amusing, the men looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Loan read a different meaning into it.
Sienna was more talkative than usual. She was buying him time.
It was a chance to further examine the situation inside the building where the hostages were being held.
They couldn't start a fight without resolving the hostage situation first.
Loan meticulously mapped the flow of mana inside the building, creating a perfect diagram in his mind.
It was less a floor plan and more a three-dimensional blueprint.
Upon this mental map, he calculated various possibilities, considering the spells at his disposal.
‘Thorn Bone will be difficult to use.’
The composition of the floor extending into the building was a chaotic mix, and without a direct line of sight, it seemed too difficult to control with the precision needed to avoid harming civilians.
Launching a Sheville was also problematic.
Normally, he would secretly levitate it high into the air and have it descend in the blink of an eye for total annihilation, but that was impossible here.
First, there was only one entrance, and it was closed. The preparation would be too obvious.
A small window was open, but continuously feeding Shevilles through it to kill all the enemies at once would be a challenge even for Loan.
The Caporegime before them was at least Runner-level, so a half-baked plan wouldn't do.
In the end, Loan concluded that his best option was to use a technique that was still incomplete.
‘I just need to change my approach.’
If ‘Thorn Bone’ or a ‘Sheville Descent’ were surprise attacks that struck before the enemy could perceive them, what he was about to do was a ‘dazzling’ attack they would see coming but be powerless to stop.
Having completed the mental simulation and predicted the outcome, Loan—
—began to weave a rich current of Convection past Sienna, who was still trading barbs with the Nostra.
Given the distance to his target, his intention was to turn the space itself into his domain.
Sensing the change in the atmosphere, Sienna gave Loan a sudden nod in the middle of her conversation with the men, signaling her acknowledgment.
They were running out of things to say, so much so that the conversation between Sienna and the Nostra had devolved to debating the difference in fabric between their suits and the Union’s.
At this point, it was hard to tell who was stalling for whom.
Thanks to Sienna's efforts, Loan had no trouble pushing the Convection through the window and circulating it along the ceiling inside.
It was saturated with water-aspected mana he had drawn in.
‘Alright, preparations are complete.’
The hostages were in two main groups.
One, likely a villager, was lying on a table or something similar, and then there was a cluster of light auras huddled together four or five paces away.
Figures with murky mana surrounded the table, and another group stood in a formation that seemed to threaten the clustered auras.
Loan observed, identified, and deduced this entire scene solely through the movement of mana.
‘I have to get them all at once.’
Now, he summoned enough Convection above the enemies' heads, layering it in swirling tiers.
He applied pressure to the space created between the currents.
The men inside the building were still unaware.
A complex atmospheric change began to occur above their heads.
And finally.
A cloud formed.
It was small, but it was a dense, highly concentrated cumulonimbus cloud, the kind often seen in hot regions like Varchinno or Rhodes in midsummer.
The moment the villains inside noticed the anomaly, Loan altered the flow of the Convection enveloping the cloud.
Retrograde and prograde currents mixed and collided.
The particles of water-aspected mana within the cloud created friction, generating sparks.
*Crackle—*
An electrical discharge began inside the cloud and spread to the surrounding Convection.
Lightning, so bright it stung the eyes.
Just as everyone was mesmerized by the continuous, god-like display,
The Convection, responding to Loan's will, carried the bolts of lightning toward those with murky mana.
*Kzzzzzzzzap—*
He slammed blinding bolts of lightning down upon their heads all at once.
*Rumble— CRACK?!*
The moment the sound of death screams, muffled by the thunder, leaked out of the building.
The Nostra gang, finally sensing something was wrong, tore their eyes away from Sienna.
*Swish—*
In that instant.
Sienna closed the distance with a swift and sublime movement that even Loan found admirable, crossing her twin swords beneath the Caporegime's chin.
The head, cleanly severed above the knot of his tie, tumbled to the ground.
“You looked away.”
The result was clear.
They had effectively yielded the first strike to a well-matched opponent.
Having lost the initiative, the Nostra gang couldn't regain the upper hand in the ensuing exchange.
Sienna began to slaughter the Soldatos, her twin swords moving as if possessed.
She had always been quick on her feet, but now everything, including her breathing, seemed more stable than before.
A faint flow of mana trailed around her.
It wasn't as solid as Convection, but it was clear the mana breathing Loan had taught her was having a positive effect on her mana control.
Inwardly pleased, Loan brushed past her.
They hadn't spoken a word, but their thoughts were aligned.
Their roles had been divided the moment Sienna started the verbal spar.
*Bang—* He kicked the door open and rushed inside.
The smell of burnt hair and flesh assaulted him.
Behind it was a nauseating stench mixed with the smell of blood. It was more than enough to guess what these men had been doing.
It was so horrific, words failed him.
“…”
The interior of the building looked like an altar.
Not an original one, but something hastily constructed.
On the table, just as Loan had perceived, a villager lay bound.
The woman, unconscious and still, was dressed in a sheer white gown, seemingly destined to be a sacrifice in a dark magic or demonic ritual.
And those who had already met such a fate were crammed into a large cauldron.
As Loan let out a devastated groan at the sight,
*Ssssss—*
—a few of the charred figures lying on the floor began to stir and rise.
Most had been burned to death, but some were still alive.
They seemed to have no major injuries aside from temporarily losing consciousness from the shock and having their skin melted.
Their frantic movements kicked up a cloud of murky smoke.
An unpleasant odor drifted through the space along with it.
Within the smoke, the men began to merge, their turbid mana churning wildly as it intertwined.
The mixture transformed into a mana darker than before.
And so. The moment they integrated, as if something that was originally one had only been temporarily divided.
A sharp scream echoed through the building.
The hostages, who had fainted from extreme terror and the sudden barrage of lightning, had woken up.
At the same time, Loan's heightened senses flared, causing him a moment of agony.
Perhaps it was worse because his own senses were so interconnected.
Everything he saw, heard, and smelled was chaotic and horrifying. Just then.
Through his vision, still blurry with smoke and dust, something like a wedge shot toward him.
*Shwiiiiik—!*
It was a sharp-tipped tentacle that looked almost like black Convection.
*Swoosh—* He countered with his own Convection, deflecting it, but the tentacle immediately twisted like a snake, changing its trajectory to pierce his heart.
Loan deflected it once more, sharpening his Convection to slice off the side of the black tentacle.
*Slice—* The severed piece writhed violently in the air as if in pain.
Simultaneously, Loan retaliated by launching a Sheville at the tentacle's base.
Several new tentacles sprouted and shot down the Sheville.
It was surprising how it had matched the speed and made precise contact in that split second.
The Sheville became entangled in a part of the tentacle that had transformed into a sticky mucus and fell to the floor.
As he decided against retrieving the sullied weapon,
—a man completely entwined in snakes, or black tentacles, revealed himself.
The parts not covered by the tentacles were a mass of burnt skin. Here and there, scraps of cloth were fused directly to his flesh.
From this, Loan deduced their identity. They weren't Nostra.
“Le Tell.”
“You could say I’m the one using… his body. I am the master of this vessel now.”
“A demon?”
“Andre. That is my name.”
It likely wasn't his true name, but it was rare for a demon to state its name so openly.
Loan tilted his head.
Andre, guessing the meaning of the gesture, answered in advance.
“My name? It has no meaning anymore. I don't mind telling you my true name, either. Andromalius. Hence, Andre.”
“I heard demons instinctively hide their true names, fearing exorcism.”
“I only regret realizing too late that it was pointless to hide and scheme like a rat, worrying about exorcists.”
Every time the creature opened its mouth to speak, the parts that looked like tentacles transformed into snake heads, their long red tongues flicking in and out.
***
His entire body was charred black, but his mouth was still running.
He seemed to enjoy talking.
It felt like if he kept talking, he might spill some valuable information on his own.
“Sounds like you’re saying it’s time to come out into the open. You seem quite well-prepared.”
“The time is right. It’s all thanks to the original owner of this body and his colleagues, who worked so hard to find a way.”
“A way?”
As Loan asked with a frown, the demon's face, charred like dead wood, crumpled as well.
But their emotions were different.
He was smiling, revealing a full set of stark white teeth. The creature laughed, exhaling smoke.
“Haha. You’re good. I almost told you.”
Andre cut the conversation short and turned his shoulder toward Loan again.
At that, the snakes coiled around his body instantly split into multiple heads, lunging at Loan in a flurry of chaotic arcs.
Watching the split second unfold.
Loan casually raised a single finger.
*Kzzzzzzap?*
A bolt of lightning struck down from the cumulonimbus cloud on the ceiling, coiling around Loan’s body.
After a brilliant flash.
Sharp forks of electricity, split into multiple streams, shot out along the Convection as if to greet the snake heads.
*KRA-KOOM?!*
The orange lightning traveled along the snakes, erupting in another explosion and thunderous roar on the demon's body.
Knocked back by the recoil, Andre glared at Loan with bloodshot eyes.
Blood trickled from the cracks in his burnt skin.
“You talk a lot, but you’re a remarkably slow learner.”
As Loan shook his head slightly, another bolt of lightning descended between his fingers.