After having lunch, Charlotte happily left work.
Strasbourg, which had just experienced a rainfall, had very muddy roads. After all, this place wasn't Earth; even the royal palace didn't have fully paved roads, let alone the streets!
This kind of road condition wasn't suitable for a date, especially since Miss Annie was a noble girl who couldn't tolerate the dirt of the ground.
Charlotte planned to head straight home to continue studying his diary.
He no longer felt the excitement he had when he first bought the carriage. On the way back to 58 Élysée Gardens, he didn't even bother to enjoy the scenery and just closed his eyes for a short nap.
Suddenly, the blood vortex at Charlotte's brow trembled, and his Insight activated automatically. He "saw" a familiar, corpulent figure about a few dozen steps away. It was a rotund man whose large military uniform was stretched tight and somewhat tattered. His face was filled with anger as he raised his left arm across his chest, holding a thunder gun in his right hand, aiming at "himself" and preparing to fire.
"What the hell!"
"Magru Trelle? How did he get out?"
This former warden of Kilmarnock Prison was supposed to be locked up, not "moonlighting" as an assassin here.
Without thinking further, Charlotte reached out, pushed open the carriage door, hooked onto the edge, and flipped onto the top of the carriage with the agility of a cat.
He retrieved an anti-space sniper rifle from his alchemy staff, discarded the staff, and braced himself to avoid falling off the carriage. Kneeling on one knee, he adopted a standard shooting stance, loading a magic-breaking shell. Thanks to the newly mastered agility technique, he completed the entire process within a second and then unhesitatingly pulled the trigger!
Although Magru Trelle was the one setting up the ambush, Charlotte, with the warning from his Insight and the threefold increase in "hand speed" brought by the agility technique, fired first.
He didn't even use his Magnum revolver or alchemy handgun, knowing that this former warden was a seventh-tier knight who had reached the threshold of intermediate extraordinary power. Ordinary bullets might not be able to break through his protective aura.
The magic-breaking shell shot out like a divine fire, hitting Magru Trelle. Charlotte's marksmanship was decent, and with one shot, he blew apart half of his former superior's body.
Magru Trelle, with his lower body obliterated by the magic-breaking shell, rolled on the ground before struggling to get up. His face showed no pain, only a savage expression as he shouted, "You destroyed my family! I'm taking you to hell with me."
Charlotte couldn't help but retort, "It wasn't me who ransacked your house!"
While he did get a share of the money, he didn't force Magru Trelle to cough up the "dirty money."
He didn't even know who actually took action.
After all, Kilmarnock Prison was full of jail soldiers, plenty of people capable of forcing confessions…
Charlotte also wondered, "Why isn't this guy dead yet? Half his body is gone!"
"Could it be that he summoned an evil god too?"
The mere thought of evil gods made Charlotte uneasy.
He couldn't help it; he still had two buffs from evil gods that could descend at any moment!
Charlotte was about to finish off his former superior with another shot.
A half-dead body that still wouldn't die was too terrifying.
Although the life essence of a seventh-tier extraordinary was incredibly tempting to Charlotte, he didn't dare to use a bloodsucking weapon; it was safer to stay at a distance.
Magru Trelle seemed to sense the danger. Suddenly, countless tendrils of flesh sprouted from his body, touched the ground, and propelled him towards Charlotte with great speed.
Charlotte tried to aim three times but couldn't lock onto the target, so he gave up shooting. He wasn't an extraordinary marksman, after all, and couldn't hit such a fast-moving target. He hooked his foot to flip up the alchemy staff, stowed the anti-space sniper rifle inside, and tossed out a bloodsucking hatchet.
Controlled by bloodflame energy, the bloodsucking hatchet traced a strange path, intercepting Magru Trelle three times, but each time it struck the former warden, it was deflected by some strange force.
The tendrils of flesh on Magru Trelle's body soon transformed into eight long, slender legs, and with these legs, he moved like a half-human, half-spider creature, several times faster than a normal person.
Charlotte, worried about harming Lady Nancy or bystanders, leaped onto the roof of a nearby building.
Magru Trelle immediately followed, able to run up the vertical wall.
The two of them jumped from building to building, engaging in a running battle. Lady Nancy showed no signs of panic; she touched the gun in her bosom but eventually decided not to join the fight, sighing to herself, "Sorry, Mr. Mecklenburg, but I have a child."
Charlotte's agility technique was still in its early stages, and soon the distance between them closed. Magru Trelle raised his thunder gun and fired eight shots in rapid succession.
Although the thunder gun was larger than a Magnum revolver, its magazine was smaller to ensure its power, holding only eight bullets.
Charlotte returned fire with his Magnum revolver, but the ordinary bullets couldn't break through the strange force protecting Magru Trelle, even when they hit him.
Even though the alchemy handgun was crafted with more precision, with a slightly longer range, faster rate of fire, and better accuracy, its power wasn't any greater. Knowing this, Charlotte didn't bother trying, holstered his Magnum revolver, and prepared to fight with the Blood Rose.
Magru Trelle, having exhausted his bullets, retrieved a box of specially made bullets from his person, grinning ferociously as he loaded them into his thunder gun.
Charlotte muttered to himself, "I'm a non-combatant clerical officer. Why do I have to fight in the streets like this?"
Though the city patrols weren't front-line troops, they were still soldiers. In the empire's military hierarchy, they were the main force in urban warfare and cannon fodder, but Charlotte, as a clerical chief, wasn't part of the combat ranks.
Magru Trelle had fired eighteen rounds before Charlotte belatedly realized, "This guy has a spatial bullet pouch!"
"Otherwise, how could he be carrying so many bullets?"
Charlotte had initially planned to wear down Magru Trelle's strength with a hit-and-run tactic, having already figured out the source of his former warden's power thanks to his education at Sheffield University.
This was a kind of spell-armed weapon!
From the Kabbalah magic system of classical alchemy, if Prometheus was considered a grand philosopher, Kabbalah was the grandest of them all, being the founder of an entire field of study, not just the creator of a secret art.
Kabbalah was a follower of the Lantern Man, deeply versed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and created a magic system named after himself, also being the founder of classical alchemy, the grandmaster.
Spell-armed weapons were the pinnacle of classical alchemy and the highest masterpiece of so-called self-alchemy.