The attacker clearly feared the witch's black flames. His body nimbly dodged the cursed flames Angel threw at him, but the frost under his feet greatly affected his movements. One black flame still touched his elbow.
Instantly, black flames ignited across his entire left arm, rapidly spreading upward, looking ready to ignite his whole body along the limb.
The gloomy-faced "giant" immediately pressed his other hand against his left shoulder, tore off the entire ignited arm along with the blood spurting from the wound, and threw it toward Angel.
"BOOM—"
The arm exploded in mid-air like a bomb. With the explosion's shockwave, a rain of blood splashed toward Angel as she dodged backward.
This is a flesh bomb. He's a "Rose Bishop" from the Secrets Supplicant pathway!
Quickly judging the opponent's potion sequence, Angel made cold air rapidly condense into frost before her, creating a shield thin enough to be almost transparent but exceptionally tough, blocking the splashing blood.
The filthy blood corroded the ice surface with a "sizzle," burning holes in it, but Angel had already circled around the ice shield to the "giant's" side.
"Bang bang—"
Lightning-fast, she drew the revolver at her waist. Angel activated two "Storm Gathering" bullets and shot them at the Rose Bishop's massive body, not seeking an instant kill, just effective damage.
The "giant" used both arms—including the blood hand rapidly growing from his left shoulder, temporarily without skin covering—to block his vulnerable head and neck, but his chest and abdomen were hit by consecutive bullets, leaving two bloody holes.
"Urgh—"
He roared, whether from pain or anger. Just lowering his arms, he saw several black flames floating toward him. He quickly rolled away from his position, taking another bullet to his waist, and scrambled toward the apartment entrance he'd emerged from.
"Not using 'Shadow Dive'?"
Having dealt with Rose Bishops many times and even predicted the opponent's next move, Angel was startled. She withdrew her right foot charged with ice power and continued shooting, chasing the "giant's" figure until he fled embarrassingly into the apartment.
Looking at the pitch-black apartment's first-floor entrance, Angel didn't immediately pursue. Instead, she used the spiritual detection of "Flame Jump" for selecting landing points to search for usable fire sources in the apartment.
Though she could see in darkness, rashly entering what was obviously a trap didn't suit her habits.
Can't be hasty, even if this guy is likely connected to Lanevus.
Finding flames not yet extinguished at the third-floor explosion site, her body emitted waves of bright yellow firelight and disappeared from the street. The next second, Angel's feet landed on the third floor, and her nostrils immediately filled with the acrid smell of flesh burned by flames.
Someone died in the explosion here?
Quickly observing the surroundings, she found blood spots on the room's inner walls after the explosion. Though the ceiling had a hole blown in it from the violent explosion, the remaining parts blackened by smoke, she could still see the radiating pattern of dried flesh and blood.
He was already dead before the coal gas explosion. This death pattern looks a lot like a "Rose Bishop's" flesh bomb...
Recalling what the "giant" had asked earlier, Angel guessed he had likely come to find and silence someone tracking Lanevus. After killing them, he was preparing to leave when he encountered her, mistook her for a bounty hunter named "Hugh Dilcha," and directly attacked.
This works out. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known Lanevus was in the East District, right under my nose!
Gritting her teeth, Angel reloaded her revolver, briefly activated spirit vision to scan without finding other anomalies, then left the room and came to the third-floor corridor.
The coal gas leak had automatically shut off the supply, causing all the gas lamps on the third floor to go out. The corridor was pitch black, impossible to see one's hand in front of one's face, but to Angel with dark vision, it was bright as day.
After a brief search finding no trace of the Rose Bishop on the third floor, she held her breath and listened carefully for faint sounds. The second floor had vague metallic scraping sounds.
Sure enough, on the second floor. Is he planning to ambush me coming up from the first floor?
Taking out a small handful of powder made from fish scales, Angel sprinkled it on herself while silently chanting an incantation, soon making her figure disappear from the apartment.
Taking nearly soundless steps, she circled to the stairwell at the other end of the corridor, holding a gun in one hand and a dagger in the other, about to go down to the second floor and approach the "giant" from behind.
The metallic scraping sound stopped.
Then came the "gurgling" sound of flesh squirming and the "chi chi" sound of fingers rubbing.
No, he's igniting spiritual fire?
A terrible thought arose in Angel's mind. The next instant, orange-yellow flames burst from the second floor, swallowing Angel's invisible body like an unleashed beast and rushing up to the third floor.
Angel, appearing under a streetlamp on the other side of the street, watched flames ignited by coal gas burst from the third-floor room with half its ceiling collapsed, from other windows, from the row of second-floor windows, from the apartment's first-floor entrance, nearly covering the entire apartment building.
The towering flames gathered into a fireball above the apartment, floating upward and gradually extinguishing, leaving only thick smoke.
That "giant" actually used himself as bait, tricked me inside, then ignited the entire building's coal gas pipes?
The surrounding pedestrians injured in the first explosion and unable to escape were now shocked by the second blast. Those still able to move, even if crawling, fled from the burning apartment, making Angel standing in the middle of the street look isolated and alone.
But soon, a shadow emerged from the burning apartment building, surging out flesh before her, forming a body nearly two meters tall. The newly regenerated left arm was still bloody without skin covering. Under curly light-yellow hair were beast-like eyes.
His drooping mouth corners twitched as he looked at the flame-covered apartment, quite satisfied with his handiwork. Then turning back, he was about to transform into shadow and leave when he saw a lithe figure and the dagger burning with black flames in her hand.
"Frenzy!"
Approaching the panicked "giant," Angel swung her black flame dagger while simultaneously using the Frenzy Ring's attached Beyonder ability, stirring the Rose Bishop's fragile psyche.
The giant, just about to dive into shadow, had his brown eyes turn blood red, like an enraged bull. He even forgot the Beyonder ability he was about to use, instead clenching fists the size of sandbags and charging toward Angel.
The latter nimbly avoided the chaotic counterattack, swinging her dagger to sever the left arm that had grown less than ten minutes ago at the root. Her second strike went straight for his throat.
The pain brought some clarity back to the Rose Bishop's blood-red eyes. Without hesitation, he detonated his fallen left arm. A rain of blood accompanied by an explosion swept toward both of them, but Angel in front of him bore the brunt.
Corrosive blood covered her entire body with a "sizzle" of burning, but the blood-soaked body suddenly shrank and thinned, transforming into a paper figure full of holes.
This is a "Substitute Paper Doll"... but isn't she from the Witch pathway?
A trace of doubt arose in the Rose Bishop's heart. He hurriedly mobilized his spirituality nearly losing control in the frenzy, summoning back the surrounding flesh and blood to swirl around him like a whirlwind, about to form a deep red "Flesh Cloak" that could resist the pervasive black flames.
"Pffft—"
The sound of a blade entering flesh reached the giant's ears, followed by severe pain in the back of his head.
"Flesh bom..."
His dying final thought dissipated in the black flames shooting skyward.
Several minutes later, two police carriages rushed over, stopping before the apartment where flames had nearly extinguished but black smoke still shrouded everything.
Several police officers jumped from the carriages, staring dumbfounded at the devastated Darawil Street until the groans of injured people nearby sounded. Only then did they wake as if from a dream, remembering their duties and scattering—some rescuing people, some fighting fires.
A sergeant with two V's on his shoulder straps frowned as he crouched on the ground, looking at two areas of radiating bloodstains clearly not caused by fire or explosion. The ground had been corroded into shallow pits by the bloodstains. At one bloodstain, a blood trail led to a sewer manhole cover by the roadside.
Calling two constables to lift the heavy manhole cover, the sergeant ignored the blood and ash on the ground. He lay flat and stuck his head down to look. In the pitch-black sewer were only a few sounds of water droplets falling on the surface. He made no other discoveries.
"Sergeant, here."
A constable handed him a still-burning stick. From its square shape, it was probably part of some surviving table or chair.
Taking the torch, the sergeant threw it into the sewer, watching bright firelight illuminate the entire passage before falling into shallow water and extinguishing with a "pff."
In the brief time the firelight illuminated the sewer, he quickly moved his gaze, observing below. Besides sewage reflecting the firelight, he found no anomalies.
After pondering a moment, the sergeant gave up the idea of climbing down the ladder for a thorough search.
Standing up and dusting off his dirt-stained hands, he directed the constable beside him to replace the manhole cover, then walked toward another colleague also wearing double V's.
"Call those people. This scene clearly involves Beyonder factors. It's no longer our jurisdiction."
Pointing at the frost not yet melted on the ground and two pools of blood that had corroded the paving stones, he said with a serious expression.
"I wouldn't dare manage it either..."
He added silently in his heart.
...
Watching the torch fall from the nearby sewer exit, Angel suppressed her fear, curling up in the sewer corner, trying her utmost not to make a sound.
These reckless people! If the sewer hadn't been redesigned and rebuilt over ten years ago, just that spark would be enough to ignite the marsh gas below and blow the entire East District sky-high!
Only when the manhole cover closed again and darkness once more shrouded this area did she slowly stand up, dragging the entire body soaked in sewage and burned beyond recognition of the "Rose Bishop," leaving the East District sewer network before official Beyonders arrived.