Someone gave him a rough push on the shoulder, and Douglas subconsciously wiped the rain from his eyes and looked up.

Francois's stiff face appeared before him. The former noticed his sudden expression, frowned, wrapped his strong arm around Douglas's shoulder, and forcibly pulled him up: "There is another one." ”

"What......"

"There's another one alive, the guy didn't shoot at a good angle, and a shot hit me."

As he spoke, François pressed his hand on the gunshot wound on his waist, and streams of blood gushed out with his press, and were quickly diluted by the rain.

As if his eyes were stinged by the bright red, Douglas raised his hand again and wiped it vigorously on his face, barely regaining the ability to think.

The blood clan has a deep attainment in medicine, and under the influence of his ears and eyes, Douglas at least remembered the location of the important organs in the human body, and quickly judged it, confirming that the bullet only penetrated from a very shallow part of the flank, and there was no fatal risk in a short time.

Françoyer was confident enough in his physique, and pulled him away from the two agents who were shot in the middle of the eyebrow, and came to the agent who was originally in charge of holding a steam high-pressure rifle, and said with a gloomy face: "I'm fine, but he's not necessarily." You see, the bullet hit the chest, but it didn't penetrate. ”

The agent, who had been knocked unconscious in the brawl, woke up from the pain of the shooting, and lay on the ground moaning weakly. Douglas crouched down and found that the bullet was in a rather bad position, perhaps hitting the stomach or liver, and it didn't seem to bleed much, but in fact most of the blood was flowing into the abdominal cavity, causing severe internal bleeding.

"You have to be hospitalized to save ......," Douglas took a deep breath and fumbled his hand into the inner pocket of his shirt. The blood and rain made the tiny glass bottles slip between his fingers, and he had to squeeze them hard, take them out, pull out the cork, and pour the pale green liquid into the wounded's throat, "The potion can only suppress his pulse and metabolism and reduce the amount of bleeding, but the bullet must be removed as soon as possible." ”

With that, he shoved the same potion into François's hand, and looked around anxiously, trying to determine the location.

Although he can take advantage of "travel", he is not really a "traveler" and cannot go anywhere he wants. If he wanted to return the wounded to Beckland now, he would at least know the relative orientation and distance from Beckland.

But as far as the eye can see, there are only trees standing silently in the dim rain curtain, and there is nothing to explain the direction.

Douglas could only pat the wounded man in the face with hopelessness and asked, "Do you know where this is?" ”

The wounded, whose face was already a little pale, looked at him as if he was looking at a fool, and said intermittently: "It's not yours, cough, ...... your trap?" How would I know......"

Surprisingly, François, who had swallowed the potion, answered the question while taking off his shirt and making a simple bandage for the wounded and himself: "First to the north, I hear the sound of the river, and if you find the Sotak River, you can find Beckland downstream." ”

"The sound of the river?" Douglas looked at him in disbelief and tried to listen, but all he could hear was the sound of the rain.

"Just as the Church of the Night needs to patrol the cemetery, the Church of the Storm patrols all the waters within Beckland, and we know the Sotak River well. And I'm a 'navigator', so I can't go wrong with my sense of current. ”

There was no other way but to go north, as François said. The tall substitute picked up the wounded despite his injuries and led the way.

Walking one foot deep and one foot shallow on the rain-soaked ground, Douglas stared only at his feet, unable to concentrate.

That moment still flashed back to his mind.

The moment Taryn pulled the trigger.

He thought that the other party's target was himself, so he dodged away from the hostage to avoid accidental injury. But judging from the results, Taryn was simply going to kill his comrades to extinguish his mouth, and the five bullets, except for one that François blocked, the remaining four were accurately delivered to the fatal place.

If I didn't make a threatening move, if I didn't dodge, if I attacked or blocked more aggressively, if I ......

Countless "ifs" filled his mind, but in the end they were all abstracted into two dead corpses. Douglas's breathing became uncontrollably rapid, and he stopped abruptly, covering his mouth with his hand, feeling dizzy.

"Is it the first time you've seen a dead man?"

Francoyer's voice came from overhead. His tone was unusually flat, as if it wasn't something worth mentioning. I don't know if it was the question or this light-hearted attitude that worked, but in short, it made the young master of tricks take another step and catch up.

“…… No. Douglas replied in a low voice. He had seen all the bones and the corpses cut into pieces, whether it was from the memories of the original owner, or when he was traveling through the East End, or even when he and Antonia were investigating the demonic serial murder case. He has also experienced nausea, vomiting, insomnia and other reactions that normal people should have.

He thought he was able to accept it, but ......

"It's different." Douglas muttered, thinking for a moment before finding a suitable statement, "I've seen dead people, but I haven't...... I've never seen a living person die like this. ”

"Yes......" the substitute sighed as if he had a long sigh, "it's not your fault, brother, it's not your shot." Although sometimes...... Let's just say that the first time I encountered such a situation was when I was testing seals underground in the church. ”

Although he did not look back, Françoyer caught certain emotions in Douglas's slightly hesitant footsteps. He let out a "huh" and continued with a pretended lightheartedness: "Don't let me describe the scene at that time, it is enough to keep me from going to heaven anyway." Cough...... In short, let go of the things that can't be changed first, and the real trouble is still to come. ”

As dry as it sounded, François didn't make it up, and he wasn't very happy to reminisce about the experience, as the sealed object under test was very aggressive and restrictive. Since then, he has left all the work of escorting the Wild Extraordinary to the test to his teammates, and he has never set foot in the test area again.

Fortunately, after a short silence, he heard the person behind him whisper: "I almost forgot that I was already an official extraordinary, it's terrifying." ”

If you can make a joke, it should be fine...... François breathed a sigh of relief. The bean-sized raindrops crackled the leaves, but he caught the familiar dull sound of the rushing river in the noise.

Sure enough, as the trees thinned out, a wide, but murky river came into view.

François put down the wounded who were in the mood to faint again, observed the landscape of the upper and lower reaches of the river, and was suddenly pleasantly surprised to find a very obvious landmark: "I know! This is the outskirts of Beckland to the northwest, and the lake past is the famous 'Rose Grove Manor'. ”

Two years ago, due to an extraordinary event for which François did not know the cause, the ground collapsed and caused groundwater to rise up, forming a lake that almost affected the "Rose Grove Estate" purchased by a gentleman. The Storm Church regularly cruises the waters to clean up extraordinary artifacts such as water ghosts, and the lake is a natural focus.

He quickly explained to Douglas: "It's about an hour's drive from the 'Rose Estate' to Beckland......

Armed with information on the direction and distance, Douglas reached out and grabbed Françoyer and the wounded by the shoulders and immediately launched a "creeping hunger".

Colorful blocks of color, transparent and ethereal spirit creatures, these magnificent scenes that had firmly attracted his attention were now unable to distinguish even the slightest glance from Douglas. The coordinates of the spirit realm are extremely disordered, and he must remember where he is going in order to find the right path with the help of the seal.

Fortunately, in the end, the figures of the three people still flashed and appeared on a certain street in the East District.

Although the straight-line distance is definitely the closest to Queens or the West Side, Douglas is unfamiliar with that side, and the appearance of three big living people on the street out of thin air may cause more trouble, so he ends up "traveling" to the street where the East Side and the North Side meet.

"You come and take him to the hospital," Douglas said, and he had to "travel" back into the woods again.

Françoyer hurriedly stopped him: "Wait a minute, we'll take this guy to the hospital, and then I'll go back with you!" ”

"I know it's too late to get to the hospital! The situation on Winkel's side is uncertain! ”

"Wouldn't it be nice if you did this teleportation again and send us directly to the hospital!"

"Did he just throw him in the hall? Do you not need time for the procedure? Douglas said with an ugly look on his face, "and...... I don't have enough spirituality. This seal is so much stronger than my own sequence, and I don't have much time to wield it. ”

Using Sequence Eight to control the Sequence Five Level Seal, even without considering the side effects, the total amount of spirituality restricts its use. This problem was not mentioned before, because Douglas thought that he would be able to solve Tyron soon, and with Francoyer, who had good attack ability, to help Winkel, it was theoretically enough to deal with the witch.

François was stunned for a moment, then continued to ask, "Then, give me the seal and let me go back?" I'm at least better at head-on combat than you are! ”

But Douglas still shook his head: "You also know that I borrowed this seal at a price, and I have no right to give it to you. Don't worry, I won't die. ”

If "creeping hunger" wasn't Amun's thing, François' return would be the best solution, but as it was, Douglas had no other choice.

Having said that, Françoyer had no choice, it was impossible to leave Winkel behind now as if nothing had happened.

"Forty minutes." François said suddenly, his brow furrowed, as if he was a little reluctant, "I'll contact the church after I get this guy to the hospital." With the archbishop's ability, you can report back and forth and hurry up, and within forty minutes, you will at least catch that MI9 traitor and let Winkel hide completely. ”

He spoke quickly and unceremoniously interrupted Douglas's unspoken question: "MI9 will definitely not let go of this matter, but if we only listen to their words, we are not far from entering the Inquisition!" So I'm going to say hello to the church in advance and leave some leeway. Remember, we didn't know anything, we just got caught up in an accident when we attended the Extraordinary's party! It's all the work of that traitor! You've got to catch him! ”

Without waiting for Douglas to respond, François turned around and rushed out of the alley in the direction of the North District. After all, the agent on his back had fainted in the rain for so long, and if he didn't hold on tightly, this person was saved in vain.

Douglas didn't say anything more, and the human leather glove on his left hand became transparent again, and the whole person disappeared in place.

-

The flames continued to emit a scorching heat, evaporating the falling raindrops into bursts of ethereal white mist.

But the rain poured down from the gray sky seemingly endlessly, showing no tendency to abate.

"It's raining at an inopportune time......"

Winkel thought nonchalantly as he pressed his palm, covered in flames, against his wound.

The sound was accompanied by a burnt smell, and the flesh around the wound was melted and deformed by the high temperature, and the terminal cells quickly turned black and died, blocking the outflow of blood.

She grinned as she tended to her wounds, and her feet were not slow to run at all.

At the same time, Winkel has to constantly control himself to think about things that don't matter, so as not to generate overly intense emotions.

For example, if those two stupid people don't come yet, they won't be killed before themselves, right?

Men are really unreliable!

As he was sighing, he caught a glimpse of a dazzling reflection out of the corner of his eye, and Winkel immediately stopped his body, jumped backwards, avoiding the sudden appearance of the cursed black flame, and at the same time raised a strangely shaped revolver in his hand and fired a shot very casually.

The bullet was driven into the trunk of a tree more than ten meters away, and at the same time, Winkel's figure faded, and he had disappeared from its place, appearing next to the tree hit by the bullet.

And in that dazzling reflection, a pitch-black figure suddenly appeared, it was the witch Cortina who had been entangled with the hunter.

However, at this moment, Cortina's lilac eyes, which should have been soft and rippling, were precipitated with a cloudy black, and her clean and fair skin was covered by a layer of coarse black hair-like things, and the faint fragrance on her body had been replaced by a pungent smell of sulfur.

These bizarre changes have turned the beauty, who used to be willing for any man to kiss Fang, into a monster full of weirdness and madness.

The monster itself doesn't seem to have any self-realization. Holding a short staff twisted and shaped like a sheep's horn in her right hand, Cortina looked at Winkel, who was no longer trying to escape, still covering her lips with a seductive movement, and let out a laugh of eating.

"Huh...... This is probably your last bullet, right? I didn't expect that you still have this kind of seal, haha, hahahahaha, it's a pity! Now, where else can you run? Hahahahaha! ”

The hunter stroked his long rain-soaked hair and stuck it to his forehead, looked at his opponent seriously, and said, "My dear, I didn't expect you to be driven crazy by your seal, it's really ...... It's amazing. ”

As she spoke, she snapped her fingers, and the tiny flames suddenly burned in mid-air in a long line. If you look closely, you can see that it is not the air that is being scorched by the flames, but the silk threads that are so transparent that there are almost no outlines.

But in the next second, the silk thread connected from Cortina's body was also dyed with flames, and the black-purple, pungent sulfur fire surged wildly down the silk thread. Collide and confront the blazing fire of the hunters. And on the lawn below the silk line, strings of ice spikes grew one after another, piercing everything that stood in their way.

Winkel used the flames and his agility to dodge the attack, but his gaze remained fixed on the claw staff.

When she saw Cortina raise the staff, she immediately held her breath and tried to clear all her distractions, and at the same time flipped her hand and took out the dagger that had sliced her flesh so many times in the past half an hour.

As the blood-red light on the short staff flickered and fluctuated, Winkel's spirit involuntarily became in a trance. All sorts of massive, deformed desires rose in vain, bulging and filling her ribcage like a balloon that had been inflated to the limit, trembling and about to burst.

Almost unconsciously, Winkel stabbed the dagger into his thigh with precision, like a robot carrying out a predetermined program.

Flutter! The blade sank into the body, trembling and cutting a deep bone-deep hole. Massive streams of blood spurted out, and the intense pain and survival instincts allowed Winkel to barely control the unwarranted rambling emotions against his mind and reason, but he was still extremely sluggish.

Chaotic and conflicting desires still interfered with her judgment, and she sometimes over-interpreted the seemingly self-harming act as an urge to kill herself/kill, sometimes the blood-filled desire to kill because of the smell of blood, and sometimes she cowered and howled in the pain of her body to escape.

Judging from the performance, she is now so crazy that she is not losing to the witch on the other side.

However, Cortina did not take the opportunity to attack. The witch seemed to have suffered some kind of heavy blow at the same moment, clutching her head and wailing silently, the strange hair on her body continued to grow, and the withered black hair became thick and gray, and it spontaneously rose without wind.

Until Winkel regained her senses, the witch's pain continued. The hunter stopped the bleeding in his old ways, but his face became extremely grim.

If it weren't for the side effects of the other party's seal, she might have shaved herself into a skeleton by now.

But that doesn't mean Winkel can take advantage of the opportunity to attack. In the past half hour, she had tried everything, but the closer she got to Cortina, or rather, to the horn staff, the more powerful and irresistible that power could trigger all kinds of emotions.

She could only keep this safe distance, throwing the flaming spear and fire raven from a distance to attack. However, even the madman has a sense of self-preservation, and those attacks seem to hit Cortina, but only a "snap" is heard, leaving only the remains of a few mirrors in place.

"Mirror double again......" Winkel muttered, quickly shifting his position. This is the place that the other party has already set up, and I don't know how many mirrors in the forest reflect the light, and the ghost knows which one Cortina will shuttle to.

Good hunters don't care about avoiding the edge for a while, but it's not good that a life-or-death battle turns into an alternative battle of willpower.

"Hey!" In the pouring rain, the red-haired hunter walked aimlessly, ignoring her awkward dress and bloodstains, it was like walking through her back garden, "That's what you want?" Give your so-called revenge to a seal, and hide behind yourself as a shrunken turtle? ”

The crackling rain did not stop her hoarse voice, Winkel laughed, gave full play to his ability as a "provocateur", and shouted around: "Or are you not brave enough to confront me head-on, just delaying time, waiting for the little white face you have bred to come over and save the beauty heroically?" ”

So, with her words, a figure really slowly walked through the dense forest.

Taking off his glasses and shaking off the water droplets on them, and then putting the bridge of his nose back on, Tyron's indifferent gaze fell on the hunter, and replied in the same nonchalant tone, "You guessed right. ”

Aha. Winkel's smile widened a little helplessly, but his mentality remained relatively stable.

Although it was a remiss of the hunter not to lead the prey into the trap, there was no time to regret it. Winkel silently recited another rule that belonged to hunters, and without fear he clenched his dagger:

If there must be a winner, why can't it be yourself?