"Storm Convergence"

Having made up her mind once more, Angel did not take the Public Carriage to Tingen City's Steam Train Station as originally planned. Instead, she went straight to a Hired Carriage waiting at the street corner.

"To the Evil Dragon Bar in the Docklands." She spoke to the driver, who was sitting in the driver's seat with one leg crossed, waiting for work. The docks on the outskirts housed Tingen City's largest Underground Trading Market. Before dealing with Mrs. Sharon, she needed to be thoroughly prepared.

"It's 12 pence from here to the Docklands. If you'll be taking a carriage back too, you might as well hire mine for the hour. Two Soule an hour, and I'll take you wherever you want." The driver named his price.

Without hesitation, Angel hired the carriage. From now on, every second counted. She had no time to look for another carriage to take her back.

Watching the streetscape race past outside the window, Angel closed her eyes and planned her next move.

In her original plan, dealing with Mrs. Sharon would have required at least two weeks of preparation. Not only did she need to turn the knowledge and technology that did not belong to this world into combat power, she also needed several Official Extraordinary to cooperate with her. Only an ambush would give her a chance of winning. If it turned into a direct battle, then with her current Sequence 9 strength, injury or even death was highly likely.

Now, the preparation time had been shortened to twenty-four hours. Her chances of success had undoubtedly plummeted.

Angel did not know when her words at Saint Selena Church would reach the Official Extraordinary. Perhaps they had already begun moving, and the moment she returned to Narcissus Street and opened her front door, a group of burly men would pin her to the ground. Or perhaps even when she arrived at Mrs. Sharon's residence for their appointment, those sluggish people would still have done nothing.

All she could do was increase her strength as quickly as possible.

There was certainly no time to continue raising her Sequence. Perhaps if she successfully advanced, Sequence 7 Cole Granger could take out the higher-Sequence Mrs. Sharon in a single ambush. But right now, she was merely a Sequence 9 Assassin.

Besides, Angel had no intention of following Cole's example and treating the precious lives of ordinary people as experience for leveling up, simply because the Assassin Potion was called that.

In that case, she could only arm herself with external tools and increase her combat ability.

After crossing all of Tingen City, from the church in the Northern District to the Docklands in the south, the crowds on the streets gradually thinned, and fewer and fewer Gas Lamps stood lit by the roadside.

If Cole Granger had not bought Beyonder Ingredients here several times in his memories, Angel would almost have suspected that the driver had some strange intentions and was taking her elsewhere.

Only when the low, cramped buildings disappeared beyond the carriage window and the Tassok River, reflecting the Crimson Moonlight, came into view did she confirm that she had reached the Docklands.

The driver stopped the carriage beside a narrow path by the river. At the end of the road lay stretches of dock work areas and cargo warehouses. During the day, goods were loaded and unloaded here, wares were hawked, and the place bustled with activity. But at night, it was unusually quiet.

"Miss, security isn't very good here at night. If you're going to that bar... all right, forget I said anything." He kindly warned Angel as she stepped out of the carriage and pulled her hood back on, only to see her pat the holster strapped to her thigh. He immediately shut his mouth.

The Evil Dragon Bar was the only entertainment venue in Tingen City's docks. During the day, it was packed with workers stopping in for a drink during their breaks, while after dark, drunks reluctant to leave lingered inside. It also had Dog Catches Mouse gambling games like Wild Heart, but the rough dockworkers preferred bare-knuckle fighting matches.

Pushing open the heavy door, Angel was hit by howling cheers mixed with the heavy stench of alcohol. Two burly bare-chested men were throwing punches at each other with all their strength in the boxing ring. Every collision of fist and flesh drew waves of cheers. More than a dozen drinkers around them waved their glasses and shouted encouragement for their favored fighters. No one noticed Angel's arrival.

She went around the boxing ring and entered the billiards room at the back of the bar. Two men were playing, while several others stood around the table offering commentary. The moment they saw her enter, the room fell silent.

Angel explained why she had come. The men exchanged glances, then quietly moved aside, revealing a spot deep within the room where a concealed door stood.

She pulled the candlestick beside the window, opening the hidden door. After passing through several empty rooms, she arrived at a spacious area.

This was a warehouse behind the Evil Dragon Bar, rented out as an Underground Trading Market. It was currently the peak trading hour. Stalls were set up everywhere, with people standing or sitting as they waited for customers. More people moved between the stalls, chatting and comparing prices.

Most of the items sold here did not actually possess Beyonder properties. They were merely ordinary mysticism items: prayer candles, various spices for rituals both real and fake, crystals and ores that resembled jewelry more than materials. Most buyers were mysticism enthusiasts. They bought these things only to satisfy their own needs or those of their small circles, and had nothing to do with Beyonder incidents.

Of course, Beyonders like Cole Granger were also mixed among the buyers. Supplementary ingredients needed for various Potions, materials for divination or curse rituals, and base materials for making Beyonder items could all be found here.

After walking around the market and listening in on several transactions, Angel selected the items she needed.

She first bought most of the reagents from a vendor selling prepared chemical solutions, then bought the wooden case he used to store them as well, complete with lining and a handle.

Carrying the wooden case through the various stalls, she soon filled it with materials such as Luminous Lizard scales and Screaming Grass. Finally, she placed a Star Crystal weighing roughly ten grams into a separate cloth pouch and slipped it into her jacket pocket.

Declining the market guards' offer to help carry her purchases, Angel carried the wooden case back along the same route to the billiards room, passed through the noisy boxing area, and returned to the Hired Carriage waiting by the roadside.

"Let's go. To Narcissus Street... no, first go to Iron Cross Street." She told the driver their destination. Before going home, she first had to retrieve the ladies' handgun she had left there a few days ago. Right now, every weapon was precious.

Ignoring the grime on the wooden case, Angel carefully placed it on her thighs and lifted her feet to cushion it from the carriage's jolting. This was an important guarantee of whether she would survive tomorrow night.

When she pushed open the door of 6 Narcissus Street, the note she had left to warn her of intruders fluttered down. For a moment, Angel did not know whether she should feel disappointed or relieved.

The paper bag she had casually tossed aside that afternoon, filled with bread, potatoes, and celery, had fallen over on the table in the living room. She had neither the mood nor the time to cook now, so she merely picked up a loaf, tore off half, bit into it, and carried the wooden case down to the basement.

The mutton she had thrown down there two days ago had begun giving off an unpleasant odor, successfully covering the faint smell of blood. But now, she regretted doing so, because she would have to spend the entire night in the basement with that foul stench.

"If the study weren't full of flammable materials, I wouldn't be working down here."

Pinching her nose as she entered the basement, Angel lit the candles and looked around. In the end, she decided to endure the discomfort. Once she got a fire going and the basement warmed up, the chimney effect would draw away most of the smell.

She sorted the materials she had bought onto the stone table, lit the stove beside it, preheated the crucible she had retrieved from the kitchen, and then used the alchemy tools Cole had left behind to process the materials.

She scraped portions from the surfaces of the lizard scales with a small knife and soaked them in Nitric Acid inside test tubes. She extracted the essence from the Screaming Grass with alcohol, ground calcium carbide into powder, softened resin and kept it warm beside the crucible, cut the Star Crystal into equal pieces...

As her movements shifted from clumsy to practiced, Angel felt as if she had returned to the days when she had personally made her own combat equipment in the Templar Order. Memories of the past welled up, making her eyes sting as tears nearly fell.

Ah, it was just the Steam from the Etching Fluid irritating her eyes. Never mind.

She slightly heated each brand-new 0.45-inch Handgun cartridge, melted the adhesive, removed the bullet heads, and poured out the propellant. Angel picked up an engraving knife, focused her mind, gathered her spirituality at its tip, and let it surge forth.

She engraved the first Charm with mechanical precision.

Storm Convergence was the easiest of the five types of Special Ammunition once controlled by the Church of Light on Earth to produce. By repeatedly striking the same location, it could stack increasingly greater damage. Even when used on its own, its penetrating power far exceeded that of ordinary bullets.

Because repeated hits could stack damage, Storm Convergence was usually used with automatic weapons. But in the Ruen Kingdom, automatic and semi-automatic weapons such as repeating rifles and six-barreled Machine Guns were military-controlled equipment. Angel had no way of obtaining them, so she could only make Revolver rounds and rely on the Assassin's physical coordination to aim at the same spot as much as possible, triggering the bullets' properties.

Making Storm Convergence required engraving complex patterns onto the cartridge casing, then filling it with materials rich in spirituality. The bullet head was made by mixing Mithril with crystal powder. Soft bullet heads reduced ricochets, concentrating impacts more effectively. Processed bullets also shattered more easily upon striking their targets, releasing immense energy. After receiving the Goddess's blessing through prayer, these traits became even more pronounced.

Although the engraved patterns representing the various bullet properties were physical principles and should work in this world as well, prayer clearly could not obtain the Goddess of Light's blessing across an entire world. Angel was not sure how much effect the engravings would have.

She also could not use the original formula for the materials. Instead, drawing on Cole Granger's meager mysticism knowledge, she used inferior substitutes of similar types from this world. The bullet heads could only be made of low-melting-point lead. Fortunately, the Star Crystal was rich in spirituality, raising the bullets' quality somewhat.

Angel filled the cartridge casings with engravings, treated them further with resin and Etching Fluid, then filled them with Screaming Grass essence. She melted lead blocks in the crucible, added Star Crystal, and poured the mixture into iron molds to make new bullet heads. Once they cooled, she reassembled them, completing a Storm Convergence bullet.

Her skills had not grown rusty. After calculating the time required, Angel estimated that she could finish processing all the bullets she had on hand before dawn. Before that, however, she planned to test whether a prayer blessing would work.

Clenching a cartridge casing in her hand, she traced a circle with four points before her chest using one finger and silently recited a prayer, asking the Goddess of Light for a blessing.

As expected, the bullet showed no reaction.

With a quiet sigh, Angel opened her palm. The brass casing reflected the dim candlelight, no different from before.

This incomplete Storm Convergence possessed only the properties of its materials and engravings. Its lethality against Beyonders would be greatly reduced.

Though disappointed, Angel had expected this. She had not hoped that prayer could gain her the aid of Earth's gods in another world. Picking up another cartridge casing, she prepared to replace the part of the engraving that represented divine power with ordinary engravings. At the very least, that would add some physical lethality.

Just as she was about to finish engraving this bullet, she suddenly remembered the strange incident at Saint Selena Church that night, as well as the words spoken by that mysterious voice.

"Those who dare to press forward shall be rewarded."

After all, Cole had been a believer of the Goddess of the Night in life... With the intention of giving it a try, Angel replaced the engraving that had originally requested divine power with the Goddess of the Night's Holy Emblem she had seen in the church—a half Crimson Moon surrounded and adorned by stars. After processing the second cartridge casing in the same way, she held it in her hand, drew the Crimson Moon before her chest according to the earlier ritual, and prayed to the Goddess:

"Goddess of the Night, nobler than the starry sky and more eternal than eternity.

"You are the Crimson Monarch, the Mother of Hidden, and the Queen of Calamity and Fear.

"Lord of Repose and Silence..."

This was the prayer of the Church of the Night Goddess from Cole Granger's memories. He had once been a not particularly devout believer of the Goddess of the Night, but after becoming an Assassin and staining his hands with the blood of innocents, he had never dared step into a church again.

"I pray to You...

"I pray that You bless this item...

"Grant it the power to oppose evil and injustice..."

A traitor's body, a heretic's soul—would such a prayer truly work?

After silently finishing the prayer, Angel opened her eyes. A trace of crimson leaked through the gaps between the fingers of her tightly clenched right hand.

She opened her palm in surprise. Red lightning danced and flowed through the formerly dim engraving. The brass casing radiated a dazzling crimson glow as if it had been ignited, and it took a long while to fade.

There was no doubt about it. This was now a complete Storm Convergence bullet, enhanced by the power of prayer. It did not even need testing for her to know that it was no inferior to the standard ammunition mass-produced in her original world.

The prayer... had worked?

Angel took a deep breath. She was not sure whether this truly was divine favor, or whether the method of creation happened to conform to this world's laws, allowing her to reproduce the bullet's full effect.

But that did not stop her from thanking the Goddess of the Night.

She lightly tapped four points before her chest, outlining the Crimson Moon. Compared with her ritualistic display at Saint Selena Church, this prayer came somewhat more from the heart.