Seeing that Daly had not been splattered with blood on the spot, but had instead activated her Spirit Medium ability in time and bound Mrs. Sharon, Angel's heart, which had nearly leaped out of her throat, finally settled back into her chest.
Leonard, who had been maintaining a forward-charging posture nearby, also broke free of the threads' restraints. He stumbled forward and nearly fell.
"Hasn't it been twenty seconds yet?"
Angel asked Daly. By her calculations, at most half that time had passed.
Mrs. Sharon had deliberately taken a bullet and used Mirror Substitution to move beside Daly. She had originally thought Daly, who was still performing spirit mediumship, would be unable to resist. Unexpectedly, Daly had activated the effect in advance, making Mrs. Sharon, who had walked right into the trap, look like a clown.
"Heh, I lied to her. Ten seconds was enough."
A faint smile appeared on Daly's pale face, which was covered in eye shadow and blush and had turned somewhat white after performing spirit mediumship twice in succession.
"Finish her quickly. Although Black Flame was useless against her Spirit Body this time, I'm afraid she has other tricks."
Angel did not stop moving as they spoke. She swiftly loaded the last five rounds of Storm Convergence into the cylinder and strode toward Mrs. Sharon, who stood frozen in place.
Crash—
The first sound was not Angel's gunshot, but the shattering of mirrors. Leonard directly grabbed a chair and smashed every remaining decorative mirror in the reception room one by one.
Only after seeing that every mirror in the room had been smashed into fragments smaller than a palm did Angel raise her revolver and press its barrel against Mrs. Sharon's forehead.
The mixture of fury and terror on Mrs. Sharon's face suddenly gave way to calm. Her pale red lips turned black, and the brown in her eyes spread across the surrounding whites, making them look like a tranquil lake.
Black Flame erupted from Mrs. Sharon's body, enveloping her from head to toe. Then specks of white frost appeared within the black flames, rapidly spreading into ice that covered them, surrounding her body like an ice coffin.
Invisible threads appeared in the air, wrapping around the ice layer by layer and forming a cocoon-like object. The surrounding temperature plummeted, and the entire room seemed to have skipped straight into winter.
Everything happened in an instant. Angel thought Mrs. Sharon had launched another attack and staggered back two steps, shielding Daly behind her. Leonard also charged over with the chair, and the group surrounded the "cocoon."
Yet the "cocoon" made no further movement and simply stood silently where it was.
Leonard first frowned in confusion. Then, as though he had remembered something, his expression changed drastically. He said quickly, "She's trying to remove Ms. Daly's curse. We have to kill her immediately."
Angel immediately raised her gun and fired. A round of Storm Convergence struck the "cocoon," tearing through the outer threads without difficulty, but the sturdy ice stopped it. The bullet left a dent in the ice before shattering, leaving behind only a faint blue mark.
That was the characteristic of Storm Convergence. As long as she kept attacking the same spot, the next few bullets would deal increasingly greater damage.
"Wait. Don't waste bullets yet."
Leonard reached out to stop Angel from continuing her attack, then turned toward Daly.
"Ms. Daly, please find its weak point."
Daly nodded. Her green eyes rapidly turned grayish-white, as though covered by a layer of mist, before becoming transparent.
After staring at the "cocoon" with those unusual eyes for only a second, Daly pointed at a spot roughly level with Angel's waist. "At this height. Shoot straight through. Her head is behind it."
The threads around the "cocoon" were already beginning to loosen. Perhaps in only a few seconds, Mrs. Sharon would remove the curse and break free.
Angel crouched slightly, lowered the barrel, aimed at the spot Daly had indicated, and pulled the trigger again.
Bang!
The first round of Storm Convergence left a blue bullet mark on the ice.
Bang! Bang! The next two bullets struck the marked spot precisely. The stacked damage took effect, opening a tiny gap in the sturdy ice. Behind it was Mrs. Sharon's pale forehead beneath her brown hair.
Goodbye, Sharon Khoy. Go keep Cole company down below... Angel silently bid Mrs. Sharon farewell in her heart and pulled the trigger, firing the final round of Storm Convergence.
As though it had been detonated from within, the cocoon of solid ice and threads exploded. Black flames surged out from inside before drifting away and vanishing.
Mrs. Sharon knelt where the "cocoon" had been. Her exquisite face overlapped with the image in Angel's memories. The large-caliber bullet entered her forehead and burst out through the back of her skull, spraying a fan-shaped rain of blood. Her body, left with only half a head, toppled backward from the impact and collapsed limply onto the floor.
If that final bullet hadn't taken out Mrs. Sharon, the battle ahead would have become much harder...
Angel exhaled in relief. Only then did she notice that her right hand, still holding the revolver, was trembling slightly. After firing such powerful Storm Convergence rounds in succession, even her Potion-enhanced body could no longer bear the strain.
Daly, behind her, cared even less about appearances and simply sat down on the floor. After performing spirit mediumship repeatedly, her face was deathly pale and her eyes unfocused, as if she might faint at any moment.
Seeing this, Angel hurried over with Leonard and helped the greatest contributor to this battle onto the room's only intact sofa.
"I'm fine. My spirituality is just too depleted. I'll be alright after resting for a while."
Although Daly said so, the pallor that even her blush could not conceal and her bloodless lips still worried Angel. She simply stepped away from the sofa and gave up her seat, laying Daly flat so she could rest properly.
Leonard seemed accustomed to such situations. He took off his trench coat and covered Daly, who had fallen asleep the instant her head touched the sofa. Then he returned to the battlefield, picked up the revolver, and went back to Mrs. Sharon's shapely but skull-shattered corpse.
"We were too lucky." After a long silence, he forced out those words.
Angel froze for a moment, then immediately understood what he meant.
"Indeed. Too lucky," she sighed.
A Sequence 6 Beyonder had launched a surprise attack, yet not only failed to kill anyone present, but had even been counter-killed through their cooperation. In the end, it came down to Mrs. Sharon's inadequate preparations.
If Mrs. Sharon had prepared properly and brought a firearm, then fired decisively after the threads had bound them, no one present possessed a nearly shameless defensive ability like Mirror Substitution. Once restrained by the threads and unable to dodge, Mrs. Sharon could have killed anyone she wanted.
Perhaps she had been overly confident. Perhaps the decision had been made in haste. Or perhaps she had wanted to preserve her public image after secretly killing Angel. Mrs. Sharon had come to the Nighthawks' base carrying only a dagger, intending to control everyone with invisible threads, quietly kill her target while invisible, and then leave unharmed.
Unfortunately, although the people present were weaker than her even combined, the coordination between their various Beyonder Abilities had formed a powerful whole. They not only quickly broke the threads' restraints, but also counterattacked.
Angel's suppression of invisibility, Leonard's lullaby and combat support, and most importantly, Daly's Spirit Medium ability—she had controlled Mrs. Sharon twice, ultimately giving them the chance to kill her.
Looking at Daly Simone, who had fallen asleep, Angel guessed that she might also possess strength close to Sequence 6. Otherwise, even with the others' cooperation, it would have been difficult for her to control and even curse Sequence 6 Mrs. Sharon by commanding invisible Spirit Bodies.
"It's a pity Ms. Daly's spirituality is exhausted. She can't perform spirit mediumship on the dead Mrs. Sharon. Otherwise, we might have learned why she attacked this place."
Leonard, crouching beside Mrs. Sharon's corpse, spoke with a frown. Wearing gloves, he searched Mrs. Sharon's pockets. Aside from the dagger that no longer burned with Black Flame and a palm-sized mirror smeared with an unknown dark red liquid, he found nothing meaningful.
"Spirit mediumship? It works on the dead too?" Angel asked curiously.
"Of course. For a Spirit Medium, dead people are more useful than living ones. Didn't you just witness the role of Spirit Bodies?"
Leonard picked up the dagger, left the corner of the room filled with the stench of blood, and returned to the sofa.
"As a Sequence 7 Spirit Medium, Ms. Daly can obtain fairly complete information as long as the person has been dead for less than an hour and their Spirit Body has not been damaged by Beyonder powers. But in her current state, she definitely won't risk performing spirit mediumship again. It could very likely cause her to lose control."
So "Spirit Medium" really was the name of Daly's Potion, and it was Sequence 7. No wonder she could restrain Sequence 6 Mrs. Sharon for a short time... Angel silently thought, committing the keyword "lose control" to memory as well.
No, wait. If a Spirit Medium could speak with the dead, then killing Mrs. Sharon had not truly achieved the goal of silencing her?
The thought made Angel break out in a cold sweat. She looked toward Daly, lying on the sofa, and felt somewhat relieved. The only person here capable of spirit mediumship had exhausted her spirituality and did not seem able to perform it anytime soon. According to Leonard, the best window for spirit mediumship was within an hour. As long as Daly did not recover enough to perform it during that time, Angel would be safe.
But then, why hadn't Dunn Smith considered bringing Daly when planning the operation? Wouldn't this characteristic of a Spirit Medium be extremely useful when apprehending desperadoes like Mrs. Sharon?
Angel voiced her question. Leonard's tense expression relaxed, and he even wore a faintly gossipy smile.
"You don't know about the captain's relationship with Ms. Daly?"
How could I possibly know...
Angel paused, then shook her head.
Leonard cautiously glanced at the sleeping Daly. Only after confirming she had not awakened did he continue in a low voice:
"Actually, the captain has always liked Ms. Daly. He pretends not to care, but whenever he lectures us, he always uses her as an example. Every other sentence is about 'how Daly does this' or 'how Daly does that.' If you ask me, Ms. Daly has feelings for the captain too. Her posting is in Enmat Harbor, and every time she leaves, she has to submit an application to the Holy Cathedral. Yet she comes to Tingen City all the time. Of course, she always has all kinds of reasons—assisting investigations, escorting Sealed Artifacts, and so on—but it can't escape my keen eye... Back to your question, spirit mediumship involving cults like the Demoness Sect is extremely risky..."
The commotion downstairs interrupted Leonard's gossip. He nervously shrank his neck. After listening carefully, he realized it was not Dunn and the others, but several police officers questioning passersby.
"It should be residents nearby reporting the gunshots to the Police Station. One of the officers downstairs looks familiar. He's a patrolman from this district."
Leonard leaned out the window and looked down. After observing for a while, he reached that conclusion.
He returned his revolver to its shoulder holster and headed for the reception room door. After thinking for a moment, he went back to Mrs. Sharon's corpse, grabbed the tablecloth that had fallen to the floor, and covered her horribly mangled head along with her entire upper body.
"I'll go downstairs and deal with the police. We can't let them come up for now. Mrs. Sharon is a celebrity in Tingen City. It would be better to wait until the captain has communicated with the higher-ups before announcing her death."
He explained this to Angel.
Angel nodded. As Tingen City's most famous socialite, Mrs. Sharon had close ties with many politicians. If they learned that she was not only a Beyonder but also a member of the Demoness Sect, those people probably would not sleep tonight.
The commotion downstairs suddenly vanished, as though the sounds from moments earlier had merely been an illusion shared by the two people upstairs. Angel and Leonard exchanged glances. Leonard returned from the doorway and looked out the window again.
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