The thunderous crack of the flintlock felt like it split the world in half.
At that range, the lead ball anchored into Jon. Blood sprayed across Lou's face, hot and metallic, as the man's head snapped back.
The Witch's eyes went wide, reflecting the muzzle flash.
Jon stumbled, two clumsy steps back, before his knees buckled.
He hit the floor hard, and a dark, thick pool began to map out the uneven wooden planks.
Debra scrambled toward him, her black gown soaking up the red.
"Jon! Jon, wake up! Don't do this to me!" she sobbed, clutching his limp shoulders.
Lou lowered the pistol.
It was a dead weight now, a spent piece of iron. William hadn't handed him a powder horn or spare balls, and even if he had, Lou's hands were shaking too much to perform a thirty-second reload.
Whatever happened next was in the hands of the gods.
He stared at the body. He expected to feel a crushing weight of guilt, the first kill trauma.
But there was nothing but a cold, hard clarity.
Scum like him, men who let their dicks lead them into destroying their own flesh and blood were better off as fertilizer.
But the adrenaline was fading, replaced by a cold sweat.
Debra looked up from the corpse, and the "grief" on her face vanished instantly.
It was replaced by a raw, jagged malice. Lou realized then that she wasn't crying because she loved Jon, but because her favorite tool had just been broken.
"You're dead, you little shit!" she shrieked.
I have to move. Now. If I don't get to her, she's going to cook me. Lou didn't have a plan. He didn't have a knife. What am I going to do? Strangle a Witch? Punch her to death? Screw it, just move!
Lou lunged, his boots slipping slightly on Jon's blood as he charged across the room. Debra didn't move. She just raised a single finger, mimicking the barrel of a gun.
"Shadow Bullet," she whispered.
A sphere of oily, compressed darkness flickered at her fingertip.
Shit, shit, SHIT! Lou's brain screamed.
He was a straight-line target. He was about to get his head ventilated exactly like the man he'd just killed.
The orb stretched, sharpening into a needle-thin line of black light that hissed through the air.
Lou braced for the impact. He shut his eyes, waiting for the white-hot spike of pain that would end his second life.
Instead, he hit something solid.
His eyes snapped open.
A scarred, steady hand was pressed against his chest, halting his momentum.
William was standing there, his coat shredded and blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, but his materialized sword was out, humming with a fierce intensity.
He wasn't looking at Lou, but his presence felt like a fortress. "I told you, kid. I'm not letting you die. You're too important for this gutter."
Lou looked down. The shadow bullet hadn't hit him. It had been sliced clean in two, the remnants dissipating into the air like smoke. Fresh gashes decorated the walls where the deflected energy had struck.
But William wasn't moving.
He stood unnaturally still. Debra was grinning now, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "You can't move, can you? I told you both, death is the only way out of this house."
Lou followed her gaze to William's boots. A pool of pitch-black shadow had spread across the floor, winding around William's ankles like living tar.
"Is he... glued to the floor?" Lou thought, panic rising.
William just grinned, though it looked more like a snarl with the blood on his teeth. "A Shadow Binding spell, huh? Clever girl."
"Shadow Binding?" Lou echoed.
"Yeah. Standard kit for the Noah Cult," William spat the name like it was poison. "A bunch of fanatics serving the Lord of Shadows. They love their parlor tricks."
Noah Cult? Lord of Shadows? Lou's brain filed the names away for later, if there was a later.
Right now, it just sounded like a death sentence.
"I'm going to kill you now," Debra said, her voice dropping into a rhythmic, ritualistic chant. "Don't worry. I'll try to make it quick. I need your soul fresh."
William's grin widened into a full-blown laugh.
"A Fifth-Grade shadow technique? You're going to need more than that to anchor me, witch."
Even with his feet fused to the floor, William's upper body was a weapon in itself. He crossed two fingers in a sharp, ritualistic gesture and began a low, rhythmic chant that made the very air in the cottage vibrate.
Small, golden orbs, flickering like aggressive fireflies, ignited in the air around his boots.
"Release!"
The tiny dots detonated into a blinding surge of solar energy. The oily shadows around his ankles hissed and evaporated like water on a red-hot stove.
System mechanics at work, Lou thought, shielding his eyes. Light beats Shadow. It's a classic elemental match-up, but seeing it live is a whole different level of 'cool.'
"My light outclasses your shade," William said, stepping out of the scorched circle with a predatory smile.
Debra's face drained of color.
Her finger shook as she tried to manifest another Shadow Bullet, but William was already ten steps ahead of her. More golden motes appeared, drifting lazily through the air to surround her like a constellation.
"Luminous... Prison," William whispered.
The dots glowed and solidified. In a flash of kinetic force, five glowing yellow rods slammed through the air, pinning Debra where she stood.
They held and pierced her.
Lou winced at the sound. The rods had bypassed her vitals- shoulders, thighs, and side.
But the sheer power of the impact had her coughing up dark, frothy blood. She was a human pincushion, held upright by stakes of pure, condensed light.
That is some high-tier crowd control, Lou noted, his pulse finally slowing down. He didn't kill her instantly. He's making a point.
"That," William said, wiping the blood from his own chin, "is how a Combat-type Hunter settles a debt, lad."
"So, what happens now?" Lou asked, looking at the broken woman. "Do we call the guards? Is there a magical jail for people like her?"
William walked over, looking down at Debra with the cold detachment of a judge.
"Normally, we'd need a Seer to conduct a Corruption Trial. A Seer can dive into the soul, search their memories, and weigh the scale of their crimes. If found guilty, the sentence is usually a seal on their spirit energy, or madness for the truly twisted. But you haven't learned the Trial rites yet. So, there's only one way I can close this case."
"And that is?" Lou asked, though his writer-brain had already filled in the climax of the chapter.
"She murdered Albert," William said, glancing at Jon's corpse and then back at Lou. "She manipulated a son into a death-trap. She's a member of a shadow cult. For that, I'm exercising my right to issue the Death Penalty."
Lou didn't argue.
He didn't even feel the urge to play the moral hero. This woman had turned a family into a slaughterhouse for a mediocre real estate gain. She'd sent her own husband to be executed by a stranger.
Scum like her don't need a trial, Lou thought. They need an exit strategy from existence.
William saw the resolve in Lou's eyes and nodded. "Let's be done with it, then."
He turned on his heel and walked toward the hole in the wall. "Let's go."
"Wait—you're not going to... you know, do it?" Lou asked, confused. William hadn't swung his sword. He was just leaving her pinned there.
"Trust me, kid," William said, not looking back. "You'll want to be a hundred meters away for this. It's about to get loud."
Lou took one last look at the cottage, at the Witch gasping for air and the man he'd killed lying in the dark. Then he followed William to the horse.
They mounted up, the horse trotting away into the cool night air. When they reached the edge of the clearing, roughly a hundred meters out, William pulled the reins and looked back over his shoulder.
"Boom," he said quietly.
A split second later, the cottage detonated. The golden rods William had left inside acted like timed charges, erupting in a massive, pillar-shaped blast of yellow light that vaporized the wood, the thatch, and everything inside.
Lou's jaw dropped. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face.
He turned the whole house into a fucking claymore, Lou thought, watching the embers drift into the sky. If that's the kind of power I can tap into... I want in. Sign me up for the 'overpowered' track immediately.
------------
A/N: The Noah Cult mentioned in this chapter is a clandestine sorcery society founded by the heretic Noah Dann during theRed Sun Period (1300–1675). This era was defined by the "Great Unearthing," where humanity discovered the existence of the Five Fallen Deities.
Among these forgotten gods was the Lord of Shadows. Noah and his followers pledged their souls to this entity, receiving the forbidden gift of Umbrakinesis (Shadow Manipulation) in exchange for their humanity.
While they were once a plague upon the continent, their numbers have dwindled in the 17th century. Most modern dark-awakened now seek the favor of more "popular" or aggressive deities, such as the Primordial Demon, Zezebel.
However, as Lou just saw, even a "minor" cultist can turn a grieving family into a slaughterhouse.