The sky was gloomy.
Dusk was approaching.
In the growing sound of rain, the carriage wheels tore through the puddles on the ground, rushing forward with a clop-clop noise.
Eventually, the carriage stopped in front of the Viscount’s manor.
"I really appreciate your trouble."
A young man of ordinary appearance, whose smile was always gentle, opened the carriage door and softly thanked, "Coming all this way to drop off in such heavy rain."
"It’s nothing, Master Gerald."
The coachman let out a loud laugh, "Shall I wait for you here?"
"No need, I will have the Viscount’s coachman take back."
Doctor Gerald politely responded, "The rain is getting heavier, and you might catch a cold if you wait here. Please head back."
"No worries, Master Gerald. For such a small task, I would help even without paynt... and since you’ve given so much, who wouldn’t I drive for?"
The coachman was nonchalant, "Such a kind neighbor like you is hard to find these days."
Gerald just smiled and stepped out of the carriage, holding his umbrella.
He replied in his slow and warm voice, "Well then, I’ll be off, sir. Pay my respects to the silver coins tonight as well."
"Pay my respects to the silver coins, Master," replied the coachman.
After seeing off the neighbor’s coachman, Doctor Gerald still wore that gentle smile on his face as he walked up to the courtyard.
Four guards took shelter under the eaves, their backs to the guns they were guarding the door with.
Seeing Doctor Gerald approaching alone, one of the guards hesitated slightly before stepping forward.
The other guards also instantly gripped their guns with alert.
The guard asked, "May I know if you are Master David Gerald?"
As he spoke, he raised a square, very flat jade token in his hand, aiming it at Doctor Gerald.
Doctor Gerald showed no hint of annoyance.
In a warm and clear voice, he answered, "Yes, I am David Gerald."
Upon his answer, the jade token shone with a bright white light.
The guard nodded slightly, and the others put away their weapons.
"Please enter, Master," said another guard who ca forward and made a polite gesture to Doctor Gerald, "I’ll take you inside."
Gerald followed behind him, joking, "I thought Justin would be the one to receive ."
"...I apologize, Master," the guard replied after a pause.
There was a slight tremble in his voice.
Gerald’s pace hesitated briefly, then he continued walking as if nothing had happened.
But transparent ripples had already started to spread in his pupils, like circles of water waves dispersing in a lake.
The world before him instantly turned black and white like an old television, and every person emitted a colored radiance of different shades and proportions.
——[Consciousness Judgnt]
Gerald silently surveyed him.
Such intense vigilance? Fear isn’t very strong... indeed, are there contingencies in place? This subtle killing intent... haha, if I hadn’t expected it, I might have mistaken it for hostility.
He beca more certain of his previous speculation.
David Gerald, as a fugitive Wizard, was already denounced by the Black Tower, no longer officially attached to the kingdom, but rather on soft notice.
Which is the so-called "Black Wizard" mark.
A soft notice ant they weren’t actually sending people to capture him. They just hung his na on a warrant as a formality, while Gerald himself couldn’t cross borders, take out loans, marry, or have children... and he also wasn’t protected by the law.
In other words, for the Curse Hunters, killing or robbing him was not illegal. But that was it.
After all, he had only stolen a cursed object and had neither conducted illegal sacrifices nor killed anyone, so he could only be tentatively deed "potentially dangerous." Naturally, they wouldn’t allocate soone specifically to capture him.
Especially since he was a Wizard of the Soul Snatching School. Belonging to the type where one would be overwheld, but many could flee, they were reluctant to waste precious manpower on him.
But Gerald certainly had to be wary of those Curse Hunters.
If their Wizards maintained a balance in their mana, they could continue to use spells and keep increasing their strength. For the Hunters’ profession, it would undoubtedly be very difficult to enhance their ability quickly during peaceful tis.
Because they had to hunt other Transcendents.
These warrants were actually written especially for the Hunters. It’s almost like saying to them openly, "You are only allowed to kill these people, only killing these people won’t be considered as murder, and there’s even a bounty for it."
Even Gerald was afraid of the Hunters.
Who knows what strange abilities a Hunter could combine.
In this era, Transcendents typically received good education. Before ascending, they would try to plan out a set of abilities that ford a self-sustaining cycle, and after achieving the bronze rank of Curse Binding, they would essentially start to choose their path.
This would allow them to optimize their personal abilities or achieve the most extre capabilities within the limited "personal curse capacity"—in other words, the limited slots for leveling up inherent skills.
However, these skills were always traceable.
To gain other abilities, one could only rely on temporary Curse Bindings, cursed objects, or by inheriting soone else’s Binding for a chance at additional random abilities.
Hunters were entirely different.
As soon as a Hunter killed a Transcendent and perford a simple ritual, they could plunder a portion of the victim’s abilities for temporary use.
Therefore, the abilities a Hunter possessed were always a chaotic mix. Although each Hunter had very fatal flaws—that is, their thods of killing were each subject to limitations.
But hunters always operated in the shadows against the light. It was only the hunters who investigated the Transcendents; there was no reason to investigate an assassin in advance.
Gerald’s thod of response, aside from the Curse Binding "I Am Not Here" that had always protected him, was to briefly initiate a simple spell about every hour:
——[Consciousness Capture: Killing Intent]
Gerald’s eyes hardened, a flash of deep red brilliance flickered through his pupils, lasting rely for a brief second.
In that second, he clearly saw a very fine line extending from within Roth Fort, with the other end tied to himself.
...Hah, as expected.
Gerald’s mouth slightly curled into a smile, his gaze turning cold.
This was a precursor to a Soul Snatching School spell.
"Consciousness Capture: Killing Intent" enabled Gerald to detect at the earliest mont the exact location of soone harboring clear killing intent towards him.
It was akin to a ntal detector.
If anyone tried to aim a gun at Gerald, a line of indication would imdiately appear in his consciousness, leading back to that person.
Even outside the reach of spells like "Consciousness Replacent" and "Consciousness Erosion," he could still roughly discern the direction of his enemy; as long as they appeared within his field of vision, he could lock on to them right away.
Their main combat thod at the bronze stage was to capture a certain consciousness that erged from the opponent, then capture it and transfer it to another person, or diminish it or detonate it.
It wasn’t until they reached the silver stage that they could wield direct lethal power.
But if he only captured without interference and limited it strictly to killing intent... and if he activated and deactivated it in just a second, it ant that it would hardly consu any Order Mana and was unlikely to be detected by any anti-surveillance spells or abilities from others.
He had just arrived at the Viscount’s manor when he spotted a thread of killing intent, very clearly directed at himself from within.
Was the Lord Viscount really planning to make a move...?
Gerald looked towards the direction of that intent, his lips curling slightly upward.
That person must be Viscount Barber.
He could feel that there wasn’t much of a curse on the other party, which ant he was likely an ordinary person.
And Gerald was very certain he had never offended any other ordinary people.
——In everyday life, he was extrely careful.
He never made enemies or distanced his relationships from others, always maintaining amiability, even to a near humble degree. Any ordinary person who might harbor killing intent against him would be silently killed.
This way, he could reduce the margin of error in his search as much as possible.
He had never interacted with anyone else in the entire Viscount’s mansion.
This was the strategy he had devised upon arriving at Roth Fort—he would only associate with Transcendents, so that he could clearly sense when the Viscount might harbor killing intent towards him.
When the intent to kill erged, that was his cue to prepare his escape.
Four hours earlier, he had detected killing intent coming from the direction of the Viscount’s mansion, originating only from an ordinary person. That had to be Viscount Barber... since no one else had the chance to et him.
Yes, everything was within expectations.
A brilliant and confident smile spread across Gerald’s face.
"The Lord Viscount must have been waiting for so ti."
He spoke gently, his eyes cast downwards.
He had made preparations to use "Heart Control" the mont the door opened, completely stripping away the Viscount’s consciousness.
However, the guard at his side suddenly hesitated.
A surge of fear and panic filled his heart, and then he tried to calm himself before responding: "The Lord Viscount is temporarily out. He will be back shortly, please wait a mont."
"...What?"
Gerald paused, his footsteps halting a few steps before he reached the main door.
Without the use of spells, just his professional judgnt was enough to discern that the guard’s words were indeed the truth.
If the Viscount was not at ho,
Then who was the person behind the door with the killing intent towards him...?
At the first opportunity, Gerald turned his head and whispered a preset key phrase to the guard beside him:
"Look at ... [Patient]."
The instant he spoke the keyword "Patient," Gerald’s eyes burst forth with a myriad of colors.
Yet the guard showed no reaction whatsoever.
"Tell , what exactly is your Lord Viscount planning?"
"The Lord Viscount plans to lure you and Lord Geraint here, then ignite black fire and burn you both to death in the house," the guard answered fluently. "He and the butler have already gone to the vineyard in the outskirts—"
"Shoot at that door in five seconds!"
Gerald did not hesitate to interrupt the guard, stretching out his hand towards the other end of the line of killing intent and ordering the guard: "Kill everyone who cos out from the door!"
At the sa ti, he imdiately started to back away, turning on his heels to run, preparing to control another group of ard guards at the entrance to cover his escape.
The guard, whose consciousness had been taken over by Gerald, didn’t hesitate and pulled out a rifle—
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