The night in Igwynt, on Knight Street, illuminated by dim orange-yellow lights.
On the upper floor of House No. 26, in Anna’s bedroom, Anna had been startled awake by the intense sound of gunfire. She was now huddled on her bed, frightened, while two Hunters, disguised as household servants, stood by to protect her.
On the balcony in front of her, Elena, dressed in a maid outfit, had set up a rifle and was firing at the enemies below. The battle was too chaotic—both sides had engaged in close-quarters combat, making it difficult for Elena to aim properly. As a Lantern gunner, she found it hard to be effective in such conditions.
“Damn it… They’re all mixed together, I can’t aim properly…”
Frustrated, Elena muttered a complaint. Fortunately, the chaotic fight took a strange turn when the thugs inexplicably started attacking each other. The tide of battle shifted. The Hunters, now freed from their debuff, immediately counterattacked. With several of their comrades cut down in succession, the remaining thugs lost morale and scattered like frightened birds.
Standing on the street of Knight Street, Gregor, who had regained his mobility, watched as the scattered thugs fled. He let out a breath of relief and then turned his gaze to his wounded Hunter teammates.
“Is everyone alright…?”
“Huff… Huff… We’re fine, Captain. Those bastards had crappy weapons, they couldn’t even cut through our armor… Most of us just have minor injuries… It was only because our bodies suddenly stopped listening to us that we were in such a mess earlier…” one of the Hunters replied.
Hearing this, Gregor nodded.
“I understand. Just now, my body also froze completely, like I was possessed by an evil spirit. If it weren’t for those few guys suddenly turning to help us, I might already be lying dead…”As he spoke, Gregor turned his gaze across the street. There stood a well-built thug wielding a sledgehammer—the very man who had just saved him by turning against his own allies. Beside him were two more thugs who had acted similarly.
At this moment, the three thugs were standing alert, scanning their surroundings as if wary of something. Seeing this, Gregor tried to greet them.
“Hey, brother over there, can you come over and—”
Whoosh!
Before Gregor could finish his sentence, a sharp, piercing sound sliced through the air. A shadow streaked out from the darkness, targeting the remaining thugs. In an instant, the thug wielding the sledgehammer had his head severed. Blood spurted violently from his neck.
“What—?!”
Gregor’s eyes widened in shock as he watched his "savior" die on the spot. Before he could react further, more sharp sounds echoed through the space. Something was rapidly flying towards the remaining thugs and Hunters.
One of these objects was heading straight for Gregor. Sensing the danger, he instinctively raised his weapon to block it. With a loud clang , he deflected the attack and sent the object spinning away. Looking at it closely, he realized—it was a serrated bone blade without a handle!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
More bone blades streaked toward the Hunters. Some managed to deflect them in time, while others were slashed, collapsing with screams of pain. The bone blades then circled back into the air, adjusting their angles before launching another wave of attacks. The Hunters had no choice but to draw their swords to counter the relentless assault.
The clear sound of weapons clashing echoed continuously in the night. Gregor and his team struggled to hold their ground against these strange, flying bone blades that swarmed from all directions like relentless mosquitoes.
Fighting a physical opponent was one thing, but these unmanned, floating bone blades were incredibly difficult to deal with. They attacked from unrestricted angles, leaving no openings for counterattacks—only endless defense.
Worse still, they were fast. Blocking one attack was already challenging, but there was always a second, a third… If they kept taking hits without a chance to retaliate, they were bound to make mistakes and fall. Already, more Hunters were being cut down, their numbers dwindling rapidly.
"Get inside the house!"
Faced with this overwhelming disadvantage, Gregor ordered a retreat indoors. Staying out in the open was too dangerous against these bone blades.
“Hmph… None of you are getting away…”
From the fourth-floor window of a nearby building, a figure named Goffrey observed the scene below. Seeing the Hunters attempting to retreat indoors, he adjusted his strategy. Instead of focusing on eliminating them outright, he prioritized blocking their entry, ensuring they remained trapped on the street—perhaps intending to wipe them all out in the open.
…
Meanwhile, on a distant rooftop, Dorothy watched the unfolding situation with growing concern.
“What the hell is this… Sword-controlling technique? No… These things are being controlled by those spirits from earlier—they’re using spirits to wield objects! That hidden bastard isn’t ordinary…”
Dorothy mused. This level of Beyonder ability was beyond what an Apprentice-rank Beyonder could achieve. The hidden figure controlling these attacks was likely above Apprentice-rank—most likely a Black-rank!
“Hah… Looks like Igwynt has a new visitor…”
With a cold snort, Dorothy refocused on the battlefield. Watching how the bone blades had reduced their offensive pressure in favor of sealing off the street, she suddenly hesitated.
“They’re giving up offense… just to keep the Hunters trapped outside? Why? Would the bone blades become ineffective in a smaller indoor space? Or is there some other reason? Could it be…”
Dorothy furrowed her brows, deep in thought, before an idea struck her.
“Maybe… I should test something…”
She quickly began controlling her corpse marionette.
Under the relentless assault of the bone blades, Dorothy had already lost all but one of her undead minions. The last remaining marionette was a short and nimble thug, seemingly a thief in life, who had been shot dead by a stray bullet during the earlier chaos. When Dorothy took control of his corpse, she found it to be unusually agile and useful.
Now, this thief-turned-corpse marionette was Dorothy’s last remaining tool for an experiment.
Under her precise control, the marionette dodged an incoming bone blade. That particular blade had already shredded all of Dorothy’s other undead minions and now seemed intent on slicing this one apart too. However, with Dorothy’s full focus, the marionette moved even more swiftly than it had in life, evading each attack.
Seizing an opportunity, Dorothy directed the marionette to dash into the open doorway of House No. 26. The pursuing bone blade abruptly halted at the entrance, refusing to follow inside.
Dorothy’s eyes lit up at the sight. She waited as the bone blade lingered before turning away, ready to rejoin the battle against the Hunters. That was when she had the marionette rush back outside.
The bone blade seemed to react, chasing after the marionette again—yet when the marionette ran beyond the reach of the streetlights into a dark flowerbed, the bone blade stopped once more, refusing to follow into the darkness.
"Heh… So that’s it. That guy can’t let his controlled objects leave his field of vision. He can’t share the spirits’ senses in real-time!"
Dorothy chuckled softly. She had just uncovered the key weakness of the spirit-wielding enemy. If the Hunters made it inside, they would be out of his sight, rendering the bone blades useless.
She recalled seeing spirits entering House No. 26 during the day, seemingly scouting the area before retreating. Those spirits had shown signs of confusion and fear—emotions a simple marionette shouldn’t have.
Back then, she suspected that these spirits were more like familiars or servants, receiving orders and returning to report rather than being directly controlled.
But now, the spirits behaved like remote-controlled weapons—entirely devoid of autonomy, responding to commands in real time. Unlike her own marionettes, which could share her vision, the enemy relied solely on his own direct line of sight to control his spirits.
"So he can only control them within his field of vision… Now that’s interesting."
Realizing this crucial flaw, Dorothy smirked. With this vital intel in hand, she began formulating a plan to counterattack the unseen enemy lurking in the shadows.