"Rank Two"

Only a single desk lamp was lit in the room.

The dim light and darkness seemed to wrestle with each other. Quill's hoarse voice and feverish smile wavered like the faint glow.

Seeing Quill, who should have been dead, standing alive before him, Sean's pupils contracted, and his heart stopped for an instant.

How was this possible...?

He had seen Quill pierced through by Kate's spear of light with his own eyes. The power of a Tier Five was far beyond what a mere doctor could withstand. Sean was certain Quill had been completely dead then, so why had he turned up at the motel, completely unharmed, waiting for him?

Had he come back from the dead?

No... This wasn't resurrection.

Sean studied Quill and suddenly noticed a broken puppet on the coffee table in front of him.

There was a huge hole in the puppet's chest, exactly like the one in Quill's chest when Kate had killed him.

This was...

"Puppet Technique?"

Sean suddenly understood. The Quill Kate had killed hadn't been the real Quill, but his substitute!

No wonder Quill had seemed like some kind of fearless lunatic from the moment Sean first pointed a gun at him in Floris Hospital. He had even suppressed Sean with his presence, making him feel utterly outmatched and leaving him drenched in cold sweat...

So Quill was a wizard too!

"Quite a surprise, isn't it, Mr. Sean?" Quill repeated.

He savored Sean's astonishment. It gave him a deeply satisfying sense of accomplishment.

"To figure it all out so quickly, Mr. Sean, you really are a clever man," he said with a smile. "But I told you, I'm not stupid either."

Who said a Witch Hunter couldn't be a wizard?

If anything, only wizards could truly be Witch Hunters.

Quill knew Sean must have had a trump card to dare show up at the signing event. And after what had happened with Winster and the others in the Black Berry Rainforest, how could he not have prepared a backup plan?

The "Quill" at the signing event had been under his control the entire time.

He really hadn't expected Sean to bring Light Servant Kate, so the substitute's surprise at the time had been genuine. If Quill had gone there himself, things would have ended very badly for him.

Just as Sean had thought, ten of Quills together wouldn't have been a match for a Tier Five wizard.

But Quill hadn't gone.

And Kate hadn't recognized him.

There had been some luck involved. If the person Sean had brought hadn't been Kate, but another high-ranking wizard familiar with the Puppet Technique, Quill's deception might have been exposed on the spot.

But there was no "if."

Luck was a kind of strength too.

There was no doubt that Sean's trump card was formidable, powerful enough to turn the tables. But Sean had played it too soon—or rather, Quill had tricked him into showing it. Now that Sean no longer had Light Servant protecting him, how could he possibly win?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sean. I can't give you the chance to choose this time."

Quill had changed his mind. He still admired Sean, but Sean's apparent potential and unexpected connections had forced him to reassess the threat he posed. His conclusion was clear: Sean had to die.

Everyone who had helped Sean evade the hunt, everyone connected to him, had to die.

Wiping out every last enemy was the greatest show of respect.

The temperature in the room plummeted. Killing intent filled the air, and Sean felt as though he had returned to the cold morgue at Floris Hospital. Quill rose to his feet. The air around them grew thick as pressure surged toward Sean from every direction, closing in on him until he could hardly breathe.

"Any last words, Mr. Sean?"

Quill pulled a scalpel from his breast pocket and gently wiped it clean. "As long as it isn't sensitive or inappropriate, I can personally carve your preferred epitaph onto your tombstone."

The hunt between him and Sean was nearing its end. A hunter was a hunter, after all, and prey ought to accept its fate.

Quill believed that even if Sean was unwilling to accept it, he wouldn't keep mouthing off now. They were both adults, after all. They should know how to face reality. No amount of arguing could change the facts.

Just as he hadn't struggled when facing Kate.

Sean agreed with Quill's reasoning.

When the outcome was inevitable, the more you protested and the harsher your threats, the more you made yourself look like a clown.

He also admitted that Quill's trick had caught him completely off guard. It wasn't so much that he hadn't expected Quill to be a wizard; he hadn't expected Quill to practice the Puppet Technique and fool even Kate, forcing the two of them into a one-on-one fight to the death.

But the problem was...

"Are you really that sure you can kill me?" Sean asked.

Quill smiled and asked in return, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You should've brought more people," Sean said.

"I don't think I need to," Quill replied.

As soon as he finished speaking, the scalpel in his hand shot forward, straight at Sean's neck.

Their brief exchange had been enough for Quill to realize that Sean had no intention of surrendering. There was nothing left to discuss.

There was no "three, two, one" this time. Quill had truly meant to kill him.

Though Quill had attacked without warning, Sean had been ready. A golden ring formed in his palm again, and he raised his hand to knock the flying scalpel away.

"Just as I thought." Quill tilted his head slightly and dodged Sean's counterattack. The scalpel skimmed past his cheek, cutting off a few fine hairs before embedding itself in the wall.

He had guessed that Sean knew some kind of special spell. The flying scalpel had only been a test. Now he would show Sean what he could really do.

Quill's long fingers curled like claws as he raised his hands as if playing a piano. Thin, transparent strings sprouted from his fingertips. The puppet that had been lying quietly on the coffee table suddenly grew larger, then vanished. In what was almost an instant, it appeared behind Sean. Along the way, it pulled the scalpel from the wall and stabbed hard at the back of Sean's neck.

Sean reacted quickly and immediately twisted aside, but the scalpel still struck the inside of his shoulder, slicing through his skin and leaving a bloody gash between his neck and collarbone.

Worse, Quill himself had also closed in.

The taut strings were sharp as blades, their light reflecting off them in a chilling gleam. They seemed to slice the air into pieces. Sean barely managed to knock the puppet back with an elbow, slowing the strings' lateral sweep, then raised his hand to block. He just managed to fend off the deadly blow, but Quill still kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying into the wall.

The Circle of Truth, which had deflected countless bullets, was sliced apart by the strings. This was no longer a question of whether it could reflect melee attacks. The magic power attached to the strings had exceeded the Circle of Truth's limits. Otherwise, even if it couldn't reflect the attack, the Circle of Truth could still have served as a defensive spell.

That blow gave Sean a clearer understanding of Quill: he wasn't just a wizard. His magic power had reached Tier Two.

Likewise, the shattered Circle of Truth let Quill sense Sean's magic power.

"Tier Two..."

"I have to say, Mr. Sean, you really do know how to surprise people."

Though he called it a surprise, Quill's tone held no delight. The smile on his lips instead turned dangerously cold, and his eyes filled with even more killing intent than before.

Even an ordinary Newborn wizard might not reach Tier Two after a year of hard training. Magic power didn't grow through simple accumulation; time alone couldn't make it rise. A wizard had to find a new and more efficient method of self-devouring to advance in rank.

Meditation might not be especially difficult, but it was certainly no simple matter. Take Sean's little fan, for example. He could make at least two potions, one for escape and one for demolition, which meant he'd been a wizard for some time, yet he was still only Tier One.

By contrast, less than a month had passed since the Black Berry Rainforest incident, and Sean had already reached Tier Two.

Quill had never heard of anyone advancing that quickly.

Even the people in his family called occult prodigies had taken at least half a year to go from Tier One to Tier Two, with potions helping them train the entire time. Quill himself had taken two and a half years.

That only strengthened his resolve to kill Sean.

This author had to die!

Sean's terrifying rate of advancement and Tier Two magic power might have explained his confidence.

But it still wasn't enough.

"Let me show you, Mr. Sean," Quill said, raising the strings at his fingertips. He and the puppet beside him let out a shrill cry. "Even at the same rank, there are still differences."

Sean controlled roughly 3.2 Lacs of magic power, while Quill had reached 9.9 Lacs, just short of entering Tier Three. On top of that, he practiced the Puppet Technique, giving him an absolute advantage in a one-on-one duel.

It was no exaggeration to say that even three Seans wouldn't be enough to take him on.

And that was exactly how things went.

Puppets didn't "die." Kate had only pierced its chest; she hadn't completely destroyed it, so it could still be used.

Quill controlled the puppet, and the two "men" ganged up on Sean. Sean wasn't good at close combat, either. He hadn't had time to practice fighting yet. He'd barely gotten up off the ground before he was knocked down again. For a while, he was beaten so badly he couldn't fight back, covered in wounds and blood, and utterly disheveled.

But he hadn't completely fallen.

No matter what angle Quill attacked from, even when he coordinated with the puppet and pulled off combos beyond the usual move set, he still couldn't kill Sean. Sean always managed to protect his vitals, block with the Circle of Truth, or take the blow on a less important part of his body.

"You're a tough one."

Quill's killing intent deepened.

The stronger Sean seemed, the less willing Quill was to give him a chance to turn things around.

At first, he had only wanted to kill Sean. Now he wouldn't even leave him a whole corpse, just to avoid any future complications.

But he was so focused on the fight that he failed to notice Sean's magic power gradually growing stronger under the torment of the strings and scalpel.

After using the power Forbidden Meditation had granted him for the first time, Sean's body had needed time to adapt. He had to overcome the body's instinctive self-protection. The wounds Quill had inflicted were, in a way, helping him unleash that power.

Then...

At a certain moment...

Sean, who had been taking hit after hit, suddenly looked up at Quill and spoke in a hoarse voice.

"You're right."

"Even at the same rank, there are still differences."

His hair was already soaked with blood and sweat, a tangled mess. Yet his eyes shone like stars in the night sky—not as an exaggeration or a metaphor. A speck of gold had truly appeared in Sean's dark eyes.

It was formed from countless overlapping characters, all clustered into a single point.

"Trying to put on a show."

Quill narrowed his eyes and launched one deadly attack after another.

But this time, none of his attacks reached Sean.

Golden symbols and letters suddenly appeared in the air, strung together in a line like chains, binding Quill and the puppet in place.

Quill instinctively tried to break free by force.

The best way for a high-ranking wizard to counter a control spell used by a lower-ranking wizard was to overpower it. As long as you had enough magic power, there was no restraint you couldn't break. But when Quill tried to destroy the chains by force, he was horrified to find that they were far stronger than he'd expected. Despite his magic power being close to Tier Three, he couldn't break even half of a single link.

The strings, which should have been indestructible, snapped the instant they touched the chains, leaving no mark.

Was this a spell that Tier Two Sean could cast??

Even more baffling was that, on closer inspection, the chain was made up of inequalities. Those letters and symbols strung together had given him a... math problem?!

"If...f'(x)≥1/4,f(2)≥0,x≥3...max{f(x)}=?"

Quill: "???"

An utterly absurd thought enveloped him.

It seemed that if he could give the answer to this problem, he would be able to break free of the chains.

But the problem was...

He was a doctor!

A wizard!

A Witch Hunter!

Which of those professions looked like it involved solving math problems??

"Quite a surprise, isn't it, Mr. Quill?"

This time, it was Sean's turn to ask.

He climbed to his feet from the corner, wiped the blood from his lips, and gave Quill a scornful look. "Did you think all I could do was deflect bullets?"

Quill was at a loss for words. His smile had vanished, replaced by shock and confusion.

Why had Sean's magic power suddenly surged?

Why did the spell take this form?

Why, in the middle of a fight, was Sean forcing him to solve a math problem??

He had far too many questions. Even though he knew Sean wouldn't answer, he couldn't stop himself from asking in a dry, disbelieving voice, "How... did you do that?"

"You don't need to know," Sean mocked. "I liked you better when you were cocky."

Sean hadn't even touched him, yet Quill felt as though he'd been slapped in the face. His cheeks burned. For the first time, his expression slipped in front of Sean. Gritting his teeth, he said, "You think you've won?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Sean said. "You can't even solve a problem this simple. Did you go to college?"

Quill: "Shut up!"

The words seemed to hit a sore spot.

As a member of the Floris Family, he had of course gone to college, and his grades in most subjects had been excellent.

Except for math.

Sean hadn't expected Quill to react so strongly. There was clearly a story there, so he twisted the knife. "I'll give you a chance. Solve it in five seconds, and I'll let you go."

It was obviously a lie. At this point, neither of them could possibly let the other go, and they both knew it. Even if Quill solved the problem, there would be another one.

But Sean said it anyway.

The more humiliated his enemy felt, the better he felt.

Seeing Quill looking as if he were enduring a grave humiliation made Sean feel much better.

And now that he'd enjoyed himself enough, Quill was ready to die.

Puppet wizards below Tier Five could only have one puppet. Sean was certain this was the real Quill.

This time, he would personally avenge Chris.

And the innocent girl downstairs.

A vicious glint appeared in Sean's eyes. He opened his palm, and a golden tetrahedron hovered above it. Countless formulas and functions flowed within, radiating the light of knowledge.

"I told you, you should've brought more people."

Not to improve his chances of winning, but to send more lives to their deaths.

One life wasn't enough to make up for the lives Quill owed.

Sean tossed the Cone of Truth, which contained enough magic power to kill a Tier Three wizard, over Quill's head. The triangle, small enough to hold in one hand, suddenly expanded and slowly rotated, like a spinning blade of light that could grind up every "wrong answer."

Quill knew he wouldn't survive the night, but he didn't regret it.

Instead, at the end, that unsettling smile appeared on his face once more.

"Want to know why I didn't bring more people from the hospital?"

"Because you, Mr. Sean, were never our family's target. You were only my personal target."

"To put it bluntly, you're not important enough to deserve my family's attention."

"But your friends are."

"Like Light Servant, for instance. And then..."

"Your Miss Flame Crow."