Death and Madness

It was like the return of hell; distortion and chaos filled every corner. Under the influence of the hallucinations, everything seemed to come alive, with countless faces sprouting from the surroundings, wearing expressions of every kind and screaming in agony.

The short figure looked like a gaunt ghost, and the straight rapier became twisted under the hallucination, resembling a living white snake.

This place had once been a dueling arena, where gladiators stood in the dark underground, listening to the cheers from above, waiting for the elevator chains to tighten and bathe them in the first rays of light.

Everything here now was so similar to that time; the two of them were those iron-blooded fighters, and only one could survive.

Without any warning, the rapier lunged forward. The swordsmanship was as flawed as Sabo himself; one could barely discern a style, yet it looked more like he had stolen techniques from others and added his own flair.

The blades collided, the crisp sound shaking the eardrums. Lorenzo gripped his hilt tightly and then slid his cane sword to the side.

This was a technique in swordsmanship known as deflection. By changing the angle of the blade at the moment of impact, one could achieve a leverage effect, forcing the opponent's blade to change direction. Of course, the point of this technique was not defense, but building momentum while defending. The opponent would be unable to retract their force, leading to a slow recovery, and that gap in defense was the fatal eye.

Lorenzo saw that fatal eye. The rapier brushed past his side, and the cane sword rose in response, hacking down fiercely and powerfully like the blade of a guillotine.

Sabo had no time to recover. His short body twisted violently as he pulled back the rapier, sparking a dazzling burst of light.

Leaping back nimbly, Sabo looked at Lorenzo with some alarm. His arm was numbed by the immense force; it was hard to imagine that this detective possessed such great strength.

This round of the offensive ended with Lorenzo's victory.

Sabo looked down at his rapier, where a clear notch marred the blade—a mark left by Lorenzo. If that cane sword had been a few pounds heavier, like a standard blade, that last strike would have decapitated both the rapier and Sabo himself.

"Do priests have to learn swordsmanship too?"

This was not something a detective should know, let alone a priest.

"In Florence, being a priest is essentially just a social class, much like those Temple Knights; most of them were priests before they were promoted to knights."

He slowly raised the cane sword, the tip drooping forward—one of the stances of swordsmanship.

"Courage, strength, technique, and... cunning!"

Few people knew these were the four principles of swordsmanship: the courage to swing the blade, the strength to break steel, the lethal technique, and the insidious cunning. In the end, this was a craft for killing; so-called honor was merely a fig leaf for self-comfort after taking a life.

He stepped forward abruptly, his sword cleaving down like thunder.

It was a whistling sound that tore through the air, and under the distortion of the hallucinations, it sounded like the wailing of souls who had died under that blade.

Sabo's short figure became gaunt. He knew clearly that he could not block this strike, but in the time it took to think, the white light descended.

Red dust exploded as the sword fell, and from within it, the treacherous rapier struck.

The cane sword barely caught the attack, but the rapier was like a snake; after failing to land a hit, it twisted eerily and stabbed into Lorenzo.

The two grappled within the delirious hallucinations, accompanied by beast-like roars.

The black formal suit was torn open, and blood spilled out in a large patch. After this strike, Lorenzo suddenly advanced instead of retreating. In his distorted field of vision, he reached out his hand and gripped the white snake tightly.

The swift rapier was caught by Lorenzo, which shocked Sabo. He had not expected Lorenzo to be able to keep up with his blade under such circumstances, but that was all. The edge of the blade was a jagged, broken saw; as long as he pulled back quickly, he could sever Lorenzo's palm directly.

Sabo pulled with all his might, but the blade remained motionless in Lorenzo's hand. Lack of strength was his weakness, and under this constraint, Lorenzo clamped down on the blade and swung his cane sword.

Before firearms and cannons ruled the battlefield, the masters of the field were warhorses and knights clad in iron armor. Unlike the novels where a mere touch meant injury or death, the duels of knights hundreds of years ago were cumbersome—mostly two people wearing dozens of pounds of iron cans bumping into each other.

With the metallurgy of that time, blades could not penetrate heavy armor, so they were mostly symbols of status. The truly useful weapons were blunt instruments that crushed internal organs. Yet, even in such an era, there were those who studied swordsmanship, using unsharpened blades to shatter iron armor.

This was one of those techniques: gripping the enemy's weapon with one's hand, sacrificing one's own flesh to take the enemy's life.

Lorenzo tightened his grip on the blade and pulled it toward himself, then swung the cane sword. It was a guaranteed hit unless Sabo abandoned the weapon. But once he gave it up, he could not contend with Lorenzo using only his few remaining fingers; he couldn't even fire a gun with such hands.

The short figure looked like a child, and the cane sword swung down with a wailing wind. It landed precisely, yet it struck the ground.

The confusion lingered in Lorenzo's mind for only a brief moment. He realized the hallucination had misled his judgment. The next second, the blurry black shadow rolled away, and the grip on the rapier loosened—Sabo had abandoned the sword.

This was not a good sign. Although he had known him for less than an hour, Lorenzo knew exactly what kind of person Sabo was. He had lost almost all his fingers just to win; such a desperate man would not admit defeat. Him letting go of his rapier only meant he had another weapon.

His body flipped rapidly. Although Sabo was a deformity, in close-quarters combat, his short stature now appeared incredibly lethal.

A sharp, piercing pain came directly from Lorenzo's back. Just as he had thought, Sabo still had a weapon—a blade mounted on his elbow. Since he lacked fingers, he still had his joints; every part of him was lethal.

"Rather than a detective, I think you'd have a better future as a fencing instructor."

He praised him with his mouth, but Sabo did not hesitate to act. Like a spinning whirlwind, Sabo left several wounds on Lorenzo's body within a few breaths.

"No need. So-called swordsmanship is merely a relic of the old era."

Lorenzo's voice was cold, showing no sign of fear.

He suddenly remembered a night in Florence. Lorenzo's fencing teacher was drinking and weeping in the night. When Lorenzo asked him what was wrong, he said he was thinking of his own master. At that time, firearms had been continuously improved to become immensely powerful, and the old master had told him that the era of swordsmanship had passed. In the future, the battlefield would be dominated by guns and cannons, and swordsmanship would only become a performance to please the nobility.

Enduring the pain in his hand, he swung both swords down in a wide, fierce arc. In the distorted hallucinations, Sabo was forced to retreat step by step. Lorenzo then threw the rapier in his hand, attempting to pierce Sabo.

"Why? It's truly a pity for such a craft to be cut off."

Sabo still felt he could kill Lorenzo. In his eyes, Lorenzo's action was a mistake. His few remaining fingers hooked the speeding rapier with ease, and with a few flourishes, the sword returned to his hand. But it was then that Sabo saw Lorenzo had already raised his hand.

Blood flowed incessantly, soaking the short grip of the shotgun. Whether it was the effect of the hallucination or something else, the weapon seemed to have a life of its own, devouring Lorenzo's blood, and the exquisite patterns seemed to come alive.

"Because the times have changed, Sabo."

Lorenzo's voice was hoarse. To aim at Sabo, he had first discarded the rapier, barely correcting his mistake along the trajectory before pulling the trigger.

The era had changed, and the old days would never return. One must either follow the mandate of heaven or die.

The cone-shaped barrage was like a rain of ten thousand arrows. Fire surged from the muzzle in an instant, as if a red dragon were breathing its flames. Sabo tried his best to dodge to the side, simultaneously raising his rapier to protect his heart; as long as his heart could still beat, he could continue to fight.

But it was all in vain. No matter how fast a person is, they cannot be faster than a bullet propelled by gunpowder.

After the lethal exchange, half of Sabo's body was drenched in blood, with crimson fluid gushing from several bullet holes.

The kinetic energy carried by the pellets stifled his movements, slowing him down significantly.

The trigger was pulled again, thunderous roars echoing incessantly until Sabo's body was shredded. His already mangled frame teetered, pushed backward by the relentless impact of the bullets, until he finally managed to stand precariously at the edge of the high platform, leaning heavily on his Rapier.

"It looks like I won after all."

Lorenzo emptied the chamber and slowly lowered his Shotgun, his gaze turning cold.

Sabo hung his head, vomiting blood. The visceral pain kept him incredibly clear-headed; despite being on the verge of death, he suddenly let out a hoarse laugh, his voice laced with an indescribable, demonic quality as he looked at Lorenzo.

"This isn't the end yet, Detective," he said, like a stubborn child.

"But you are already dying."

The figure looked so wretched that Lorenzo didn't believe for a second he could survive.

"Yes, and that is exactly what makes it so terrifying, isn't it? Death is far from the end of the story."

He struggled to lift his body, and with Sabo's movement, even more blood surged from those bullet holes. It was hard to imagine a human body could contain so much blood; it seemed endless.

"Run, Great Detective. The outcome of facing it is just like a coin toss."

Behind that strange steel, his pupils burned with madness. He scrutinized Eve, who stood to the side, her eyes filled with terror as she gripped the coin tightly.

"One side is death, the other is madness."