Chapter 50: Chapter 36: Tier 2
Only a single table lamp was lit inside the room.
The dim light wrestled with the darkness. Quill’s hoarse voice and morbid smile seemed to flicker as erratically as the faint light and shadows.
Seeing Quill, who should have been dead, appear alive and well before his very eyes, Sean’s pupils contracted. His heart skipped a beat.
’How is this possible...?’
He had personally seen Quill run through by Kate’s Light Spear. The Power of a Tier Five was absolutely not something a mere doctor could withstand. He was certain Quill had been thoroughly killed at that moment. So why was he here now, waiting for him at the motel, completely unscathed?
’Resurrection?’
’No... it’s not resurrection.’
Sean sized Quill up, and his gaze suddenly landed on a broken doll on the coffee table in front of him.
The doll had a large hole in its chest, identical to the wound on the Quill that Kate had killed.
’This is...’
"Puppetry Art?"
Sean reacted abruptly. The Quill killed by Kate wasn’t the real Quill, but his substitute!
No wonder, from the very beginning when he’d pointed a gun at Quill in Florist Hospital, the man had given off the fearless air of a lunatic. He’d even used his aura to pressure him, making Sean feel like he was facing an unbeatable foe and breaking out in a cold sweat...
It turned out Quill was a Wizard, too!
"Isn’t it surprising, Mr. Sean?" Quill repeated the question.
He savored the look of shock on Sean’s face. It gave him a deeply satisfying sense of accomplishment.
"To figure it all out so quickly, Mr. Sean is indeed a clever man." He smiled. "But as I’ve said, I’m not stupid either."
Who ever made a rule that a Witch Hunter couldn’t be a Wizard?
In fact, one could say that only a Wizard can be a true Witch Hunter.
Quill knew that for Sean to dare attend the book signing, he must have had something to rely on. And with the cautionary tale of Vincent and the others from the Black Fruit Rainforest, how could he not have prepared an extra trick up his sleeve?
The "Quill" at the book signing had been under his control the entire time.
He truly hadn’t expected Sean to be able to get the Light Attendant, Kate, involved. So the surprise his substitute showed at the time was genuine. If he had gone in person, the outcome would have been ugly.
Just as Sean thought, he wouldn’t be a match for a Tier Five Wizard even if there were ten of him.
But he didn’t go.
And Kate didn’t recognize his trick.
There was a certain element of luck to it—if the person Sean had brought wasn’t Kate but another High-tier Wizard with some knowledge of Puppetry Art, his ruse might have been exposed on the spot.
But alas, there were no ’what ifs’.
Oftentimes, luck is also a form of strength.
Undoubtedly, Sean’s trump card was a big one—big enough to turn the tables. But Sean had played it too early. Or rather, Quill had baited him into revealing it. Now, without the Light Attendant’s protection, how could Sean possibly win?
"I’m sorry, Mr. Sean, but I can’t give you a choice this time."
Quill had changed his mind. He still admired Sean, but the potential Sean had displayed, combined with his unexpected connections, forced Quill to re-evaluate the threat he posed. The answer he came to was—Sean must die.
Everyone who had helped Sean evade his pursuit, everyone connected to him, had to die.
Total annihilation is the highest form of respect for an enemy.
The temperature in the room dropped rapidly, thick with killing intent. Sean felt as if he were back in the cold morgue of Florist Hospital. Quill stood up. The air around them grew viscous, and pressure once again washed over Sean from all directions like a tide, surrounding him and making him feel like he was suffocating.
"Any last words, Mr. Sean?"
Quill pulled a scalpel from his pocket and wiped it gently. "As long as it isn’t anything too sensitive or inappropriate, I can personally carve your desired epitaph on your tombstone for you."
This game of cat and mouse, unique to him and Sean, was now nearing its end. The Hunter was, after all, the Hunter, and the prey should obediently accept its fate.
Quill believed that no matter how unwilling or indignant Sean felt, he wouldn’t try to talk tough at a time like this. After all, they were both adults who should know how to accept reality. In the face of facts, any argument was pointless.
Just as he himself hadn’t struggled unnecessarily when facing Kate.
Sean agreed with Quill’s line of thinking.
When faced with a foregone conclusion, the more one talks tough and throws around empty threats, the more one ends up looking like a clown.
He also admitted that Quill’s move was beyond his expectations. It wasn’t so much that he hadn’t expected Quill to be a Wizard, but that he hadn’t expected Quill to practice Puppetry, tricking Kate and forcing a one-on-one, life-or-death situation.
But the problem was...
"Are you that confident you can kill me?" Sean asked.
Quill laughed and retorted, "And why wouldn’t I be?"
Sean said, "You should have brought more people."
"I don’t think that’s necessary," Quill said.
The moment he finished speaking, the scalpel in his hand shot out, flying straight for Sean’s neck.
From their brief exchange, Quill already knew Sean had no intention of surrendering without a fight. In that case, there was nothing more to say.
There was no "three, two, one" this time, which showed that Quill was truly intent on killing him.
Facing Quill’s unannounced attack, Sean was already prepared. A golden ring materialized once more in his palm, and he raised his hand to flick the incoming scalpel back.
"Just as I thought." Quill dodged Sean’s counterattack with a slight tilt of his head. The scalpel grazed his cheek, severing a few strands of hair before embedding itself in the wall.
He had guessed that Sean knew some special Magic. The thrown scalpel was just a probe. Next, he would let Sean have a good look at his true strength.
Quill’s long, slender hands formed claws, rising as if playing a piano. Thin, transparent threads grew from his fingertips. The Puppet, which had been lying quietly on the coffee table, suddenly grew in size and vanished, reappearing behind Sean in what was almost an Instant Teleportation. Along the way, it even plucked the scalpel from the wall and stabbed viciously at the back of Sean’s neck.
