Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

The conversation outside the car continued:

"You go up now, take care of the detective, and then we'll take this woman away together. Now that the church has traced us to the place we took Lawrence, trouble is probably going to get bigger. That androgynous person should be dead, and before dying didn't manage to fool the cultists about who they wanted. Lawrence was a rare suitable vessel for the Lord of the Blood Feast to descend...

Move quickly, don't use the methods of a Circle Sorcerer to kill, or it will be easy for the church to track us down."

Shard adjusted his coat, revealing part of the revolver on his waist.

"I know that, of course."

The man with the local accent spoke, then cursed something so filthy that Shard couldn't even translate it into Chinese:

"You always make me do these dirty killing jobs."

"Stop talking nonsense and go, do you want to wait for the True God Church's team of Circle Sorcerers?"

There was a sound of scuffling that followed.

The short-statured man with the local accent was pushed by his companion, cursed, and clambered onto the carriage. A tall man wrapped in a black headscarf, with a scar on his face, was wearing a short-sleeved sailor shirt this early summer, and his black pants were adorned with some silver rings.

He reached out to grab Miss Beyas, whom they had thrown on the ground, but at that moment the Female Sorcerer lying face down on the ground suddenly opened her eyes:

"Balance!"

"What?"

A golden glimmer spread out from Miss Beyas's eyes like ripples, passing through the body of the man with the headscarf. He shuddered subconsciously, but found he had sustained no injuries.

Shocked and annoyed, he swung his fist towards Miss Beyas's head. The young girl with brown long hair raised her hand to block, but upon contact, the fist exploded.

This was the man Shard had seen at the silverware shop being besieged by the True God Church, unexpectedly not caught.

Even though Miss Beyas was prepared, she was still blown away, hitting the wall heavily before stopping. She quickly flipped to her feet while the man with the headscarf did not pursue but looked at his own hands in amazement:

"How did I become weaker, only Two Rings? No, what did you do?"

He remembered the "Balance" the young girl had spoken when she opened her eyes and had a guess about it. He reached up to remove his headscarf, gave it a gentle shake, and the soft cloth suddenly hardened and whistled through the air as the man swung it:

"Even if you can weaken my Arcane Technique in a strange way, can you affect a Relic?"

As he spoke, he swung the "Cloth Sword" at Miss Beyas, the laughable sword drawing a black trace in the air.

But Miss Beyas was not panicked; she raised her right foot and delicately stuck it to the wall behind her, then the left foot too, astonishingly standing on the wall behind her. Before the man wielding the weapon could catch up, she reached the second floor of the building.

This narrow, closed alley was between two three-story buildings, chilly and damp even during the day, so seldom people entered here; thus, even if Miss Beyas stood vertically on the wall clinging to the piping, nobody would notice:

"Spare the detective, he's just an ordinary person, unrelated to this matter."

The girl from above spoke, her black little leather shoes firmly stuck to the wall, only her brown long hair hanging down due to gravity, slightly obstructing her view.

The man holding the "Cloth Sword" scoffed:

"What authority do you have to discuss terms with me..."

Bang~

The man had only spoken half a sentence when a gunshot came from the carriage behind him. The sound of the gun was somewhat muffled and did not carry far. It was only because of the enclosed structure of the alley that the echo rippled continuously:

Miss Beyas's face turned pale immediately:

"You actually killed him."

Although she had known the detective for less than a day, he was a decent person and had become involved in this matter because of her. Beyas didn't know how to react at first, but soon, her regret and sorrow turned into anger:

"You people are the scum of the earth. At Lakeside Manor as well, and Mrs. Lawrence too, here too, how many more innocent people do you want to kill?"

The bell sounded, the steam whistle blew long, and white Steam Mist burst forth behind the girl standing vertically against the wall, a giant metal Ring of Fate materialized. Sparks flew as the high-speed spinning ring rubbed against the wall, indicating that the Circle Sorcerer only manifested the Ring of Fate when fighting with full effort, and Miss Beyas was clearly angered at that moment.

The man holding the Cloth Sword saw this and hurriedly summoned his own Ring of Fate. Its quadrilateral cross-section indicated that he was a Four-Ring Sorcerer, and the floating element Spirit Runes displayed the power of the Circle Sorcerer.

The Black Iron Rune "Decay" flickered with the luster of Spirit, and black light clung to the Cloth Sword. The man swung the sword upwards, and black light flew from the "Relic" surface; the blade-shaped light approached the Female Sorcerer above.

Most of Miss Beyas's Ring of Fate was still obscured by the Steam Mist that hadn't completely dissipated behind her; she swung her arm and forcefully blocked the black light, while the man below cursed:

"How can it be so weak? Damn it, what trick did you use? This isn't normal power for a Circle Sorcerer!"

He glanced back at his own Ring of Fate, confirmed there was no issue, and was just about to make his next move when he felt the muzzle of a gun pressed against his head from the side:

"I'm very curious to know if you can still survive if a bullet hits your brain." Experience tales with empire

The front of Shard's clothes splattered with blood, he asked in a deep voice, looking up at the girl standing on the wall:

"Although I don't know what this is... magic or witchcraft, I think a person without a brain is likely not going to survive. Now, please put down your weapon, did you wrap an iron bar inside the cloth?"

He asked, nudging the man's head with the muzzle of his revolver:

"Put it down, or I really will shoot."

The man frowned and stood still, and a few seconds later, he let go, and the "sword" in his hand immediately fell to the ground, even bouncing a few times.

"Okay, do you have any other weapons? Miss Beyas, I think you can come down now."

Shard said.

He knew his own power, even in a Divine Afterglow State, but he was, after all, only a First Ring Sorcerer, not very confident in facing the Four-Ring Sorcerer in front of him, he even couldn't pull the trigger of the gun he held, thus hoping Miss Beyas could get closer quickly.

"I don't have any weapons now."

The man said, looking up at the girl on the wall, who was naturally happy to see that Shard was still alive.

With a light jump, she landed on the ground, but just as Miss Beyas squatted to unload the force, the man suddenly pushed Shard and then turned and ran towards the other side of the alley.