Storm Convergence

Since she had already made up her mind anew, Angel did not take a public carriage to the Tingen City steam train station as originally planned, but instead directly hailed a hired carriage parked at the street corner.

"To Evil Dragon Bar in the Docklands," she said to the driver, who sat with his legs crossed on the driver's seat waiting for work. The docks on the outskirts of the city held Tingen City's largest underground trading market, and before dealing with Mrs. Sharon, she needed to make thorough preparations.

"It's 12 soli from here to the Docklands. If you'll also be taking the carriage back, you might as well hire it by the hour—2 soli an hour, and you can go wherever you'd like," the driver offered his quote.

Without hesitation, Angel hired the carriage. Every second counted now, and she had no time to look for another carriage to return.

Looking at the street scene rapidly moving backward outside the window, Angel closed her eyes and planned her upcoming actions.

Originally, in her plan, dealing with Mrs. Sharon required at least two weeks or more of preparation time. Not only did she need to translate her knowledge and technology—which did not belong to this world—into combat power, but she also needed the cooperation of multiple official Beyonders, launching a surprise attack to have any chance of winning. Once drawn into a frontal battle, given her current Sequence 9 strength, injury or even death was quite likely.

Now the preparation time had been shortened to 24 hours, and the success rate had undoubtedly dropped significantly.

Angel was not sure when her words at Saint Selena Cathedral would be passed on to the ears of the official Beyonders; perhaps they had already started their action now, and when she returned to 6 Daffodil Street and opened her front door, she would be pinned to the ground by a group of large men, or perhaps until the moment she arrived for her appointment on time to head to Mrs. Sharon's residence, those slow-witted people would still have no reaction.

All she could do was enhance her own strength as quickly as possible.

Continuing to raise her Sequence was certainly too late. Perhaps after a successful advancement, Sequence 7 Cole Granger could eliminate the higher-Sequence Mrs. Sharon in one fell swoop under a surprise attack, but right now she was merely a Sequence 9 "Assassin".

Moreover, Angel did not intend to be like Cole, using the precious lives of ordinary people as her own leveling experience in accordance with the "Assassin" potion's name.

That being the case, she could only arm herself through external objects and increase her combat capabilities.

Passing through the entirety of Tingen City, from the North Borough's cathedral to the southern Docklands, the flow of people on the street gradually thinned, and the gas lamps lit along the roadside became fewer and fewer.

If not for the fact that Cole Granger had come to buy Beyonder ingredients here a few times in her memory, Angel would have almost thought the driver harbored some strange intentions as he brought her elsewhere.

Until the low and cramped buildings disappeared from outside the window and the Tussock River, reflecting the crimson moonlight, appeared, she was certain she had reached the Docklands.

The driver parked the carriage by a small path near the river. At the end of the road were rows of dock working areas and cargo warehouses; by day this place was bustling with cargo loading, unloading, and hawking goods, but at night it was exceptionally quiet.

"Madam, public order around here isn't very well at night. If you're heading to that bar—well, never mind, pretend I didn't say anything," he kindly reminded Angel, who had stepped down from the carriage and readjusted her hood, only to see her pat the holster tied to her thigh and immediately and sensibly shut his mouth.

Evil Dragon Bar was the only entertainment facility in the Tingen docks. By day it was crowded with workers grabbing a drink during their leisure time, and after nightfall, drunks lingering without the desire to leave wandered about. Inside, there were also Dog Catches Mouse gambling games just like at Wild Heart, but the rough men of the docks preferred fist-to-fist fighting matches.

Pushing open the heavy door, a roaring wave of sound mixed with thick alcohol fumes washed over her. Two shirtless men on the boxing ring were energetically swinging their fists to attack each other, the collision of fists and flesh eliciting bursts of cheers, while a dozen or so surrounding drinkers waved their mugs to cheer on their supported fighter. No one noticed Angel's arrival.

She bypassed the boxing ring and came to the pool room near the back of the bar. Two people were playing pool inside, while several others gathered around the table to offer critiques. Seeing her enter the room, they instantly quieted down.

Angel stated her purpose. The few looked at each other and quietly cleared a path to the deep end of the room, where there was a secret door.

She pulled the candlestick by the window to open the secret door, then passed through several empty rooms to arrive at a spacious venue.

This was a warehouse backed against Evil Dragon Bar, rented out to serve as the underground trading market. Right now was the peak period for trading, with people setting up stalls everywhere, standing or sitting to await customers, while more people wove between the stalls to communicate and compare prices.

Most of the items sold here actually did not contain Beyonder attributes, but were merely ordinary occult items, such as candles used for prayer, various real or fake incense used in rituals, and crystals and ores that resembled ornaments even more than materials. The people who came to buy were also predominantly occult enthusiasts; they purchased these things for nothing more than satisfying the usage needs of themselves or small circles, without involving Beyonder events.

Of course, Beyonders like Cole Granger also mingled among the buyers. Various auxiliary materials needed for potions, materials for divination or curse rituals, and base materials for making Beyonder items could all be found here.

Wandering around the market for a bit and eavesdropping on a few transactions, Angel selected the items she needed.

She first bought most of the reagents from a vendor selling formulated chemical solutions, and by the way bought the lined, handled wooden box he used to hold reagents.

Then, carrying the wooden box, she strolled among the various stalls, quickly filling the wooden box with materials such as Luminous Lizard scales and Screaming Grass. Finally, a piece of Star Crystal weighing about ten grams was separately placed in a cloth bag and put into her jacket pocket.

Declining the market guard's offer to help carry it, Angel carried the wooden box and returned along the original path to the pool room, walked through the bustling boxing ring, and returned to the hired carriage waiting for her by the roadside.

"Let's go to Daffodil Street... No, let's go to Iron Cross Street first," she instructed the driver on her destination. Before going home, she first needed to retrieve the woman's handgun she had dropped there a few days ago. Any weapon was precious right now.

Disregarding the filth of the wooden box, Angel carefully placed it on her thighs, standing on her tiptoes to isolate the carriage's jolts. This was the vital guarantee for whether she could survive tomorrow night.

Pushing open the door of 6 Daffodil Street, the slip of paper used to warn of any intruders fluttered down, and for a moment Angel didn't know whether she should feel regret or relief.

The paper bag containing bread, potatoes, and celery that she had casually tossed aside when she came back in the afternoon had fallen onto the living room table. Right now she had no mood or time to cook, so she simply picked up a loaf of bread, tore off half a piece to bite down on, and carried the wooden box down to the basement.

The mutton thrown down two days ago had already begun to emit a strange odor, successfully masking the faint smell of blood, but at this moment she regretted doing so, because for the rest of the night she would be keeping company with this unpleasant smell in the basement.

If not for the study being full of flammable materials, I would never come down here to work.

Pinching her nose as she walked into the basement, Angel lit the candles and surveyed her surroundings, ultimately deciding to endure this slight discomfort. Once she got a fire going later, the basement's temperature would rise, and the chimney effect would suck away most of the smell.

She arranged the purchased materials by category on the stone table, lit the stove beside it, preheated the crucible retrieved from the kitchen, and then used the alchemy tools left behind by Cole to process the materials.

Parts of the lizard scales' surface were scraped off with a knife and soaked in nitric acid within a test tube. The essence of the Screaming Grass was extracted via alcohol, calcium carbide was ground into powder, resin was melted and kept warm beside the crucible, and the Star Crystal was cut into equal small pieces...

As her movements went from awkward to practiced, Angel felt as if she had returned to the time when she personally crafted her own combat equipment in the Templar Order. Recalling all sorts of memories from the past, her eyes stung and tears nearly fell.

Ah, it was simply being fumigated by the etching fluid's vapor; that was fine.

She slightly heated a brand-new 0.45-inch handgun bullet, melted the adhesive, removed the bullet head, and poured out the propellant. Angel picked up the carving knife, concentrated her focus, and channeled her own spirituality straight to the tip of the knife, letting it surge forth.

With mechanical precision, she carved the first charm.

Storm Convergence was the easiest to make among the five types of special ammunition originally mastered by the Church of Light on Earth. By repeatedly hitting the same location, it could stack higher and higher damage; even used alone, its penetrating power was far stronger than ordinary bullets.

Due to the characteristic where repeatedly hitting could stack damage, Storm Convergence was usually used on automatic weapons. However, in the Loen Kingdom, automatic and semi-automatic weapons like submachine guns and Gatling guns belonged to military-controlled equipment, and Angel had no way of acquiring them at all. Thus, she could only make them into revolver cartridges, relying on the "Assassin's" physical coordination to aim for the same part as much as possible to trigger the bullet's traits.

The creation of Storm Convergence required carving complex patterns on the cartridge case, then filling it with spiritually rich materials. The bullet head was made of mithril mixed with crystal powder; soft bullet heads could reduce the occurrence of ricochets, making the impact point more concentrated, and processed bullets were more prone to shattering upon hitting a target, releasing powerful energy. Moreover, after receiving the Goddess's blessing in prayer, these traits would become even more pronounced.

Although the engraved patterns representing various bullet traits belonged to physical principles and should be universal in this world as well, separated by an entire world, prayer obviously could not obtain the blessing of the Goddess of Light, and Angel was uncertain how much effect the carvings could exert.

The materials also could not use the original recipe; instead, using Cole Granger's meager occult knowledge, she used the same type of degraded substitutes available in this world. The bullet head could even only use lead, which had a lower melting point, though fortunately the Star Crystal was rich in spirituality, elevating the bullet's grade somewhat.

Angel filled the cartridge case with carvings, processed it further through resin and etching fluid, and filled it with Screaming Grass essence. The lead was melted in the crucible with Star Crystal added, poured into an iron mold to create a new bullet head, and after cooling was reassembled, completing a finished "Storm Convergence" bullet.

Her craftsmanship was not rusty. Calculating the time spent, Angel estimated that she could finish processing all the bullets on hand before dawn. But before that, she planned to test whether prayer and blessings were effective.

Clenching the bullet casings tightly in her hand, she traced a four-point circle on her chest with a single finger, silently reciting the prayer in her mouth to beg for a blessing from the Goddess of Light.

As expected, the bullets showed no reaction.

Sighing inwardly, Angel opened her palm. The brass casings reflected the dim light of the candle in her hand, showing no difference from just a moment ago.

Such an incomplete Storm Convergence, featuring only the properties of the material and the engravings themselves, would have its lethality against Beyonders drastically reduced.

Though disappointed, this was within Angel's expectations; she had not dared to hope that she could obtain help from the gods of Earth through prayer in another world. Picking up a bullet casing again, she prepared to replace the part of the engraving representing divine power with a ordinary carving, which would at least increase some physical lethality.

Just as she was about to complete the engraving on this bullet, she suddenly recalled the bizarre incident that happened tonight at Saint Selena Cathedral, as well as the words spoken by that mysterious voice.

"Those who march forward with courage shall receive a reward."

After all, Cole was a believer of the Evernight Goddess during his lifetime... Harboring a tentative mindset, Angel replaced the portion of the engraving originally meant to beseech divine power with the holy emblem of the Evernight Goddess she had seen earlier at the cathedral—stars dotting the sky, clustering around a half Crimson Moon. Following suit with the second bullet casing, she performed the prayer ritual as before, holding the bullet in her hand, drawing the Crimson Moon upon her chest, and praying to the Goddess:

"Evernight Goddess, more sublime than the starry sky, more eternal than eternity itself.

"You are the Lady of Crimson, the Mother of Concealment, and the Empress of Misfortune and Terror.

"Lord of Repose and Silence..."

This was the prayer of the Church of the Evernight Goddess from Cole Granger's memories. He had once been a not-so-devout believer of the Evernight Goddess, but ever since he became an Assassin and stained his hands with the blood of the innocent, he had never dared to step foot inside a church again.

"I beseech You...

"I beseech You to bless this item...

"Bestow upon it the power to fight against evil and injustice..."

The body of an apostate, the soul of a heretic—was such a prayer really going to work?

Angel finished reciting the prayer, opened her eyes, and a trace of crimson leaked out from between her tightly clenched right fingers.

She opened her palm in astonishment. Red electrical arcs leaped and circulated within the previously dim engravings, and the brass bullet casing emitted a dazzling crimson glow as if it had been ignited, which only dissipated after a long time.

Undoubtedly, this was already a complete Storm Convergence bullet imbued with the power of prayer. Even without testing, she could determine that this was no less than the standard-issue ammunition mass-produced in her original world.

Prayer... worked?

Angel took a deep breath. She was unsure whether this was truly divine favor or if the manufacturing method inadvertently aligned with the laws of this world, which was why she successfully reproduced the complete bullet effect.

However, this did not prevent her from expressing her gratitude to the Evernight Goddess.

She lightly tapped four points on her chest, sketching out the Crimson Moon. Compared to the ritualistic display at Saint Selena Cathedral, this prayer was somewhat more heartfelt.