The Battle Ends

Looking at the now-empty carriage, Brandon dry-heaved, "Ugh, this is just... ugh."

Polina's complexion was equally ghastly. She leaned against the doorframe and whispered, "Stop retching over there. It's not like it's your first time seeing this. Come over here and give me a hand; my psionic energy is completely tapped out, and it feels like someone is stirring my brain with a red-hot iron spoon."

"Tapped out?" Brandon was startled. "Then can you still control that thing?"

"I can control it!"

Polina's expression was incredibly impatient. "But if you don't come over here to help me right now, that might change!"

"Sigh, alright, alright." Brandon helplessly supported the swaying Polina. "You really have no respect for your seniors. I feel like your personality is going to offend someone you can't afford to provoke sooner or later... Forget it, no one who isn't lawless would ever awaken a Secret Art like yours anyway."

"But since you even brought that thing out, I think the Vessel is definitely a dead man this time, right?"

"For sure." Polina shakily lit a cigarette for herself. After a deep drag, her color improved slightly. "My ultimate move isn't something that's easy to tank. Even an entire army wouldn't be able to deal with it unscathed!"

"Then I suppose I can relax a little." Brandon smiled, helping Polina sit on the bench by the carriage window.

However, just as they sat down, Polina suddenly froze. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Brandon followed Polina's gaze toward the window, but he saw nothing.

Polina narrowed her eyes. "Brandon, I think I saw a black shadow flash by?"

"You're probably just too tired and seeing things... wait!"

Brandon was suddenly alarmed, jumping to his feet to look out the window. "I think I saw it too!"

"What is it?" Polina frowned. "A bird?"

Brandon's gaze scanned the area. "Impossible, that thing was darting along the ground."

"Maybe it's our two Shadow-Flying Colts?"

Polina craned her neck. "Why don't I remember the Shadow-Flying Colts having such good stamina?"

"I don't know, let me take a look." With that, Brandon drew his revolver, rolled down the window, and poked his head out.

Outside the window were still the towering, craggy stone mountains. The natural environment of this world was far harsher than the one Lude had known in his previous life. Aside from the territories of the Five Great Empires, there were few plains; everywhere was filled with deep mountains, vast rivers, primeval forests, or treacherous, rock-strewn badlands.

Brandon poked his upper body out and scanned the surroundings, but he didn't notice anything amiss within his line of sight.

He was full of suspicion as he prepared to pull back inside, but at that very moment, a hand like cast copper and iron smashed down upon his head. Before Brandon could even counterattack, his skull was crushed like a watermelon, and his corpse was immediately dragged out of the carriage.

Using that momentum, Lude pressed his hands against the window frame and pushed, sliding his entire body through the narrow opening into the carriage.

What is happening, what is happening?!

Looking at Lude, who was calmly brushing the dust off his lapel, Polina's mind went completely blank for a moment.

She had deployed over thirty Self-Destruct Puppets, distributed throughout the carriage and on the roof, all equipped with optical camouflage. Furthermore, she had changed the trigger conditions for many of the mines, setting them to detonate the moment Lude entered her field of vision, serving as an alarm to track his position.

She could understand Lude breaking through a minefield, but she couldn't understand why not a single mine had detonated!

Why hadn't a single mine detonated? Naturally, because Lude didn't take the conventional path!

The trains of this era traveled at about 30 kilometers per hour on mountain roads, while Lude's speed was a full 60 kilometers per hour.

Simply put, after being surrounded by a group of invisible puppets, Lude had performed a massive leap and jumped off the train through a gap. Following closely behind, those unlucky puppets, driven by their rigid programmed instructions, had clattered and tumbled right off after him.

It was a literal clatter; every single one of them had rolled and tumbled into the mountain ravine.

Lude did not return to the train afterward. Realizing how troublesome invisible puppets with customizable trigger methods were, he chose a path where invisible self-destruct mines could never exist: he simply sprinted after the train!

I don't care how powerful your mines are or how clever your chain-reaction techniques might be; I'll just kill the user, and that'll be the end of it!

By darting between the cliffs, Lude had concealed his figure as much as possible, though he wasn't particularly skilled at it—after all, he had never received special forces training.

Looking at Lude, who had already drawn the sword at his waist, Polina's heart sank into the icy depths of despair.

Even so, she held onto a final shred of hope, pouring all of her remaining psionic energy in one direction. As long as she could summon that thing, as long as that thing could strike, everything would be alright...

However, the feedback from her psionic energy completely extinguished her last hope.

The psionic reaction of the puppet she had created should have been scorching, manic, and difficult to restrain. But at this moment, the feedback returning through her energy felt as if it had touched the snows of a polar winter—silent and stagnant.

A major intelligence error: the Vessel was not alone; he had a helper whose strength was absolutely not weak!

Damn it, Intelligence Division, you set me up!

Lude walked forward in silence. With a flash of silver-green sword light, Polina's head went flying high into the air.

Dodging the blood that sprayed out like a leaking high-pressure pump, Lude arrived before Polina's headless corpse. He fished the pack of cigarettes and the lighter from her chest pocket, lit one, put it in his mouth, and took a deep drag.

"Phew..." Lude exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Come to think of it, how long has it been since I last smoked?"

In his previous life, Lude almost never smoked—or rather, he only smoked when he was first starting his business. After that, he quit for the sake of his health. After all, as Lude used to mock himself, he already had a black heart; there was no need to manufacture a pair of rotten lungs as well.

But in this life, this body probably wouldn't have to worry about its lungs even if he sat and inhaled from a chimney all day.

Just like with alcohol, his physical condition in his previous life had been poor, so he had cut out almost all bad habits. As he lay dying, he actually felt a bit of regret; after all, he had spent his whole life busy with his career, only to die before he could ever indulge and enjoy himself.

Just then, a dull rumble came from Lude's stomach; he was clearly famished.

It seemed that smoking couldn't suppress his hunger, and Lude wanted to eat more than anything else right now.

And so, as he walked toward the VIP carriage, he took stock of the two Residual Flames he had harvested this time.

Brandon's Residual Flame was a pale, moth-green, mottled, and soft circular flame, while Polina's Residual Flame possessed a bright hue between orange-red and pink, leaping lightly within his furnace.

The arcane arts contained within them were, naturally, the Sky Coating and Death-Defying of those two individuals.

It was a pity that Lude had yet to find a third method for utilizing the Residual Flame, and as he was a severe hoarder, these two flames would likely be left gathering dust in the Heart of the Furnace until he encountered a life-or-death crisis.

Beyond that, the spoils were relatively meager, as neither of these Arcanists were the type to rely on weaponry.

After a bit of streamlining, aside from their wallets, Lude only swiped Brandon's Iron Sparrow revolver; this way, Lude could play at being a dual-wielding gunslinger, a superhero he quite liked.

Pushing open the mahogany carriage door and returning to his own luxury suite, Lude let out a long sigh of relief.

Mr. Vernon had already laid out a sumptuous spread of food; judging by the number of plates and soup bowls of various sizes, unless every dish here was served in Michelin-star portions, it was likely enough to feed three or four people for dinner.

"Not bad." Lude praised with a smile, picking up the silver cutlery from the outermost setting.