[Voodoo Kingdom]

Although Lude did not see the bullet, he dodged to the side almost instinctively.

The next moment, a bullet tore through the waiter's chest and grazed Lude's left upper arm.

Lude leaned his body, grabbed the waiter's collar with his left hand, and drew his gun with his right to fire.

Relying on the marksmanship mimicked from Aleppo via his high-level stats, he fired four bullets in an instant. The person at the end of the corridor didn't even let out a groan before being struck by all four shots, stumbling...

...slowly shriveling up like a leaking inflatable doll before collapsing onto the floor.

It was only then that Lude noticed the strange sensation in his left hand.

He hurriedly looked at the waiter whose collar he was gripping, only to find that the waiter had leaked air through the bullet holes until he was nothing more than a sheet of skin.

Sensing Lude's gaze, the skin even winked at him playfully.

Following that, the eyes lost their luster, and the facial features shifted from three-dimensional to mere pigment on rubber.

Lude frowned deeply and reached up to touch his left arm.

His vision had been blocked by the waiter earlier, preventing him from seeing the trajectory and dodging completely. The bullet had left a bloody graze on his arm, though fortunately, this minor injury didn't even require him to use a candle to cauterize it.

Creating balloon puppets—it seemed that was the enemy's ability.

Unlike Death-Defying, this ability likely involved conjuring puppets out of thin air, and the caster's consciousness could directly possess them for precise manipulation. However, once a balloon was punctured, it would rapidly lose its combat effectiveness.

The enemy's Arcanist technique had been revealed... so what was their objective?

It appeared that this elaborate setup, which sacrificed two balloon puppets, was intended solely for that final bullet aimed at Lude's chest.

But why would they do that?

Lude frowned in thought. If they were truly sent by the Black Tide Society to hunt him down, they should know that to incapacitate or severely wound him with a single shot, they would need at least a 12.7mm armor-piercing round hitting his torso.

Wait, let's look at it from another angle. What if their goal wasn't to incapacitate me from the start?

Lude whipped his head around, his gaze locking onto a pair of eyes hidden in the shadows of the stairwell. The owner of those eyes had already pried the bullet stained with Lude's blood from the wall and vanished into the stairwell in a flash.

Sure enough, that waiter had begun the setup the moment it spotted me, and the purpose was to obtain my blood!

"Interesting." Lude thought to himself, then turned back to look at Sally, pushing a pistol toward her. "Stay here and don't move. I'm going down to pluck a few heads."

Sally nodded hurriedly, and Lude immediately turned and walked down the stairs.

On the first floor of the restaurant, at a small table for two, a young man was holding a newspaper.

On the table sat a few bagels with ham and cheese, along with two cups of coffee without sugar or milk. The steam had long since stopped rising from the cups, clearly having sat there for quite some time.

Just then, an old man dressed in a dark brown canvas suit sat down at the table, panting heavily.

He brushed the dust off his clothes, took a deep breath to make himself appear more natural, and then fished a small brass bullet casing from his pocket. He scraped off the dried blood crust from it and handed it to the young man beside him.

"Moke, see if this blood will work, even though it's just a stain from the bullet..."

The youth sitting next to the old man looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, standing six-and-a-half feet tall with muscles that coiled like black pythons all over his body.

Yet, despite being a man who could earn the title "Cloud Vajra" based on his physique alone, his face held a hint of timidity.

He reached out with both hands to take the bullet. "Don't worry, Master Matos, it should... it should be fine."

Hearing this, Matos sighed immediately. "Moke, oh Moke, how many times have I taught you? Do not speak with such uncertainty. You must firmly believe you can succeed, and only then will your psionic energy respond to you. Do you understand?"

"I... I understand." Moke took a deep breath, his eyes becoming focused. "I can do it, I definitely can!"

It was unclear whether he was saying this to himself or to Matos, but the moment his words fell, the bloodstain on the bullet in his hand began to twist and squirm as if alive, floating into mid-air.

Within seconds, three blood-stained nails, each the length of a finger, emerged from the specks of blood.

Voodoo Kingdom, Moke's Arcanist technique, could create three nails using the target's blood or hair. When the nails pierced an enemy, they would merge into the target's body. Once all three nails were embedded, they would cause a fatal, grievous wound.

However, this ability could only be used on one target at a time, which was the weakness of this technique.

"Here, Master, I made them!!"

Moke, like an excited child, presented the three nails to Matos as if showing off a treasure. "I really succeeded, look, Master! My Voodoo Kingdom combined with your Two as One is invincible!"

"...Sigh!" Matos sighed, and under Moke's confused gaze, he pushed the nails back.

He stared at the big boy before him with a complex expression. "Moke, this time only, I will not use Two as One to attack. In the coming battle, my Two as One will only serve a supporting role."

Hearing this, Moke's eyes widened in shock, his face filled with panic. "Master, if we are changing our tactics, then how are we supposed to take down... that guy who looks so terrifying?"

"It will be up to you, Moke, my most excellent student," Matos said softly.

"I... me?" Moke's eyes widened further, and he shook his head frantically. "No, Master, I can't! I have never, never fought another Arcanist one-on-one. Even if I were to fight, I should start with an opponent of equal strength..."

"Moke!" Matos barked, cutting Moke off.

Watching Moke's spirit deflate instantly, Matos sighed heavily and pressed down firmly on Moke's shoulder.

"Moke, you are my most excellent student; that is no empty flattery."

"Your talent in intelligence and tactics is already on par with mine, your techniques in close-quarters combat are truly blue-out-of-blue, and after you voluntarily underwent alchemical modification and training, your physical combat ability ranks in the top three of the elite guard—but there is one lesson you have yet to learn."

"And that is the [decisiveness] that an Arcanist, as an independent individual in society, must possess."

"You possess outstanding tactical literacy and intelligence analysis capabilities; you can conceive several feasible plans in an instant, yet you lack the ability to select even one of them to execute—"

"--without my approval or the consent of others."

"It is even my mistake that caused you, a genius of melee combat, to awaken such a Secret Art so ill-suited for you!"

Upon hearing this, Moke immediately wanted to defend himself, but Matos raised a hand to stop him:

"[Secret Art] is a unique ability born from the distortion of the soul fire, shaped by a caster's destiny, temperament, talent, and desires once they have come to understand their own cravings."

"Even I did not expect that your desire would be 'to remain my subordinate forever'!"

"This is my mistake," Matos murmured in a rather desolate tone.