The Sorcerer's Handbook

Run?

Running was the only logical choice. Running was the only logical choice. But with two Three-Winged Sacred Realm sorcerers, Light and Cliose, looming over him, his odds of a successful escape were effectively zero.

Take a hostage?

The only person within reach was the receptionist. Morality aside, she was so rooted in terror that her legs had turned to lead. A mobile hostage was a getaway vehicle, but a catatonic one was just dead weight. She was nothing more than a useless burden that would only serve to incite the Red Hats' fury.

Ashe knew he couldn't talk his way out of this. He was stuck behind the front desk with the stairs sitting at a taunting distance. He would have to fight just to earn a chance at survival. Normally, his first instinct would be to send in his substitute to die as a distraction, but the substitute was still miles away with Lys.

After a long, heavy silence, Ashe slowly raised both hands. He stepped out from behind the desk and walked toward the Red Hats. "I surrender."

Light and Cliose barked in unison, "Don't you dare surrender!"

As the words left their lips, the Red Hats leveled their firearms at Ashe as one. As a top-tier sorcery class of this generation, almost all Red Hats were Gun Class sorcerers. Even those trained in other disciplines carried a firearm as a required secondary skill.

Ashe blinked, momentarily stunned. "You won't even let me surrender? Is this an execution then? Are we really being that barbaric today?"

For a moment, the two captains looked pained. They were acutely aware of the threat Ashe represented, but they couldn't simply flout the law by executing a suspect who had already yielded. In truth, they barely dared to scratch him. Unless Ashe offered clear, violent resistance, any preemptive strike would be flagged by the Gospel as intentional assault.

Civilization was a shackle on violence. The more advanced the nation, the more cautious its use of force. In the Blood Moon Kingdom, the people might get away with bending the rules in the shadows, but here, in the Gospel Kingdom, ultimate power lay in the constant, omnipresent eye of oversight. As long as the Red Hats valued their rankings and careers, they wouldn't dare strike first.

Cliose signaled for an officer to move in with cuffs, her eyes glowing with a sharp, predatory light. "Keep your hands where I can see them. One sudden move and we aim for your vitals. Flinch, and you die."

"I'm just a humble Two-Winged sorcerer," Ashe shrugged, his voice dripping with mock compliance. "How could I act up in front of a Sacred Realm sorcerer?"

He stood perfectly still as the officer approached. But just as the Red Hat reached for his wrists, Ashe's black robe suddenly split down the center. It had been sliced clean from within by his Swordheart spirit.

Bang! Bang!

Light roared, "Close your eyes!"

Ashe didn't hesitate. He bolted toward the rows of game pods. He waited until a Red Hat officer was inches away, then lurched behind the man and used him as a temporary human shield. The other agents, terrified of hitting one of their own, sent their initial shots slamming harmlessly into the floorboards.

Every Red Hat instantly squeezed their eyes shut and scattered into practiced, defensive formations. Even with their vision compromised, they still managed to level their weapons toward the exits and windows by sheer instinct and auditory tracking. Ashe felt his last sliver of hope fray. As he ducked into the narrow aisle between the pods, using them as cover, a pang of grim regret hit him.

His gambit had failed. Almost every agent had successfully resisted the psychological intimidation of his Demonic Coat. By snapping their eyes shut the moment he bared his chest, they had denied his demonic form the chance to shatter their resolve. It was a cold, logical counter; his abilities were public record on the Art Rankings, and after his display in Azura, the Red Hats had come prepared for his specific brand of terror.

Still, the situation wasn't entirely hopeless. With their vision compromised, his escape should have been easier. It was a dirty trick, and amidst the dense cover of the game pods, the Red Hats wouldn't dare fire blindly for fear of hitting a civilian. One stray bullet into a Vanmura local and they'd be stripped of their hats on the spot.

Then... the world turned cold. A surge of primal terror clawed at Ashe's scalp as every cell in his body screamed a warning of imminent death. There was no time for thought, only the frantic impulse of reflex. He spat the Honeyed Tongue Sword from his mouth, driving the blade deep into the floorboards. A warm, amber sphere erupted around him just as the air splintered.

Sword Barrier!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Three explosive reports hammered through the lounge. Ashe hadn't managed to see anything before his barrier shattered like glass under a sledgehammer. A physical force slammed into his abdomen with the weight of a Fish-Slaying Dragon's tail-strike. His stomach felt as though it had burst like a sodden water bag, and the sheer kinetic energy launched him into the air. Shock bloomed into a psychedelic riot of color, burning his vision to a searing, empty white.

Thud!

He crashed onto the cold floor, the impact rattling his teeth. Ashe coughed, tasting copper as a spray of blood painted the tile. Every breath felt like jagged glass being dragged through his lungs. Agony consumed his mind, leaving only a few sharp shards of combat instinct to piece together what had just happened.

A ricochet!

The pods should have shielded him, but the bullet had defied the laws of traditional ballistics. It had banked twice, once off the ceiling and once off the far wall, striking him from an impossible overhead angle without shedding a fraction of its momentum. It had shredded his Two-Winged defense in a heartbeat before burying its kinetic energy in his gut.

It hadn't pierced him. It was worse. This was a Miracle-infused shock round, designed to convert all its piercing power into a wide-area concussive wave, turning a potentially clean hole into a devastating internal explosion that was a nightmare to heal.

The Swordswoman had once warned him that Firearm Class sorcerers favored either the Guaranteed Kill, the headshot, or Overwhelming Attrition. A simple puncture wound could be patched with a basic Miracle, but heavy-impact trauma was different. By turning internal organs to pulp and ribs to splinters, the shooter had stripped him of his strength instantly. It was a calculated cruelty, designed to ensure recovery was a slow, agonizing crawl.

Ashe felt as if his abdomen had been put through a meat grinder. His intestines were a tangled mess, his ribs were splinters, and he was suspended in that perfect, miserable state of being neither dead nor alive, but utterly broken.

He wanted to laugh, but he couldn't find the breath. The Red Hats were "merciful" in the coldest way possible. They had ensured he didn't even have the strength left to resist.

Swordswoman... If I still had the Reverse Day spirit, I could have mended this in seconds...

Unfortunately, he had answered the question incorrectly in the cabin and lost it.

Swordswoman...

"Don't bother surrendering or resisting. You'll be out in ten seconds," Light's voice drifted through the lounge, his footsteps drawing closer with rhythmic, predatory confidence. "Don't take it personally, either. I'm a Three-Winged Firearm Class sorcerer. Even if you were a Brute Body sorcerer, if I say you'll be out in a few seconds, that's exactly what will happen."

Another Three-Winged... and one of the deadliest in the field.

With Cliose by his side, that made two Sacred Realm sorcerers hunting him. Ashe's mind flickered back to his first arrest. The first time I was captured, it was by a single Sacred Realm sorcerer. This time, it's two...

At this point, he could only pray this was an arithmetic sequence and not a geometric one.

Escape seemed impossible. Ashe resigned himself to returning to his "old profession" as a professional prison critic. This time, it seemed, he was about to conduct a thorough evaluation of the Gospel Kingdom's correctional facilities.

However, as Ashe shook off the fog of his concussion and forced his eyes open, he spotted Iger.

The fraudster was on the ceiling. He had pried away a ventilation panel and was peering down with half his head exposed. His gaze was cold and clinical, as if he were inspecting a slab of pork in a butcher shop. Iger pointed at himself, then at the ground, and finally beckoned to Ashe, signaling him to get up immediately.

Ashe didn't fully grasp the nuance of the tactical hand signals, but he understood his role. He was the bait. As long as he stood up, the intimidation of the Demonic Coat would remain a threat, forcing the Red Hats to stay blind and defensive.

Standing up, however, carried a lethal risk. Ashe wasn't an innocent bystander; he was a high-value fugitive. If the Red Hats killed him now, they wouldn't face a tribunal. In fact, they'd likely even receive a bonus.

At this point... I have to trust Iger.

Ashe formed a sword gesture and activated the Devoted Love spirit, forcefully converting the raw pain, fear, and battle lust in his heart into pure, unadulterated joy. He then triggered the Emotion spirit, condensing that joy into a physical blade, and stabbed it directly into his mangled abdomen.

Miracle, Singular Devotion · Sword of Joy!

A surge of warmth radiated from his core. Joy seeped into every fiber of his being, and to Ashe's shock, the sensation was so potent it utterly suppressed the agony of his injuries. The pain no longer consumed his mental bandwidth. With the sensory "noise" silenced, the broken gears of his body began to turn once more.

The moment the Miracle wore off, the pain would likely return like a tidal wave, but it only had to hold long enough for him to finish the job.

"Hgh!"

Bracing himself against a game pod, Ashe forced his shattered body upright. He immediately spotted Cliose entering the aisle. With a guttural grunt, he summoned his Swordheart and launched it at the Sacred Realm sorcerer.

Cliose announced, "Target Ashe Heath is resisting arrest. Lethal force authorized!"

Even with her eyes closed, she managed to shoot the Swordheart out of the air.

Boom!

The entire floor shuddered. Beneath the feet of the Red Hats, a massive, sickly green magic circle erupted. Wisps of emerald smoke seeped into their bodies and reacted violently with their souls.

Despite their closed eyes, the Red Hats suddenly felt as if they were standing on a deserted, rain-slicked street at midnight. Their clothes felt damp. A freezing wind lashed their skin. Waves of misery, sorrow, and primal dread flooded their minds. Even Cliose and Light trembled under the psychological weight.

On the floor below, an inverted coffin clung to the ceiling. It was anchored by eight glowing green chains in a perfect octagonal array. Harvey lay on the floor beneath it with his hands clasped in a dark prayer.

Miracle, The Eternal Coffin's Cold Rain Night!

It was a Necromancy Class Miracle that mimicked the effects of Illusion and Mind Class sorcery. It drowned enemies in negative energy to induce vivid hallucinations.

In the few breaths it took for the Red Hats to lose their focus, Iger dropped from the ceiling and dragged Ashe into a blind spot. Then, the Fraudster screamed at the top of his lungs, "I'm releasing a Psychic Scream! Anyone within ten meters who hears it directly will die instantly! Three, two, one!"

The Red Hats, just beginning to claw their way out of Harvey's hallucinations, paled. The threat of a Psychic Scream was immediate. They didn't have the luxury of searching for the source. Ashe had wondered why Iger had picked up the "villainous" habit of narrating his ultimate move, but the reason became clear instantly.

In a panic, the Red Hats fired wildly at the floors, ceilings, and walls. They used Earth Class Miracles to construct temporary, soundproof bunkers as fast as they could.

At the exact moment Iger was supposed to unleash his scream, a small, blue figure vaulted through a shattered window.

It was Pankey Dolan!The strongest sorcerer of the Funeral Agency, with proficiency in both Frost and Firearm Class, landed gracefully. Before him stood a cluster of Red Hats with their backs turned to him.

Pankey's frost-infused twin pistols emptied their magazines in a single, blurring second. Sixty-two Miracle-infused bullets rained down like a localized blizzard. Upon impact, the rounds drained the victims' blood to forge jagged flowers of frost. It was a secondary strike that froze death itself into a shimmering, magnificent work of art. This was the flawless fusion of gunplay and ice sorcery, a masterclass where cold efficiency and lethal elegance complemented one another.

Miracle, Blooming Frost!

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