I dodged a bolt from the attacker’s lightning staff, grabbed him, then kicked him to the curb.
Once I’d caught up to him, the rest was simple. He had a rare short sword for close-range combat that emitted flames, but his skills were mediocre at best. He made a shrill cry like a bird’s when he swung the blade, and it was easy to tell where he’d strike.
“Too slow.”
I stepped in, struck his elbow, and delivered a powerful vibration from Loradd, my probe seal, right into his body. One hit was powerful enough to make most people drop their weapons, and then all I had to do was kick it away. But just as I did so, I noticed something engraved into the blade—a wedge-shaped symbol vaguely resembling the Great Sacred Seal. It was the mark of Gwen Mohsa.
“Relax. You’re only hurting yourself by resisting,” I warned.
The guy was trying to pull out another knife to throw at me. It was a little disturbing how much energy he had left, but not many people in the world could outdo me at knife-throwing. I pulled out a blade and had it lodged in his shoulder before his own ever left his hand. He fell facedown on the ground in front of me.
“I need to ask you something,” I said, putting one foot on the sniper’s back. “Who’s giving you orders? Who’s the asshole financing Gwen Mohsa?”
They had to have someone backing them. They could never have hatched a plan like this on their own. That same person was supporting High Priest Mirose and manipulating Verkle Corp—it had to be a real big shot.
I doubted this guy knew the person’s name, but I was hoping for some kind of clue.
“Ha… Ha-ha! Xylo Forbartz! …You filthy heathen!”
But all I got were nasty insults. There was no fear or anger in the man’s eyes—he looked completely unhinged. What was hurled back at me was far harsher than I had anticipated. The emotion in his eyes wasn’t fear or anger, either—he looked like he’d long given up such things.
“I only have one thing I want to say to you!” A spark flew from his body, the only warning I needed. “Die!”
I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I used Sakara to leap back on reflex. Not a second later, the attacker’s body was blown to pieces in a fiery explosion. I’d managed to avoid the blast, but the shock wave still sent me tumbling to the ground.
Unbelievable. This guy just blew himself up. And to make matters worse…
A fiery vortex raged before my eyes, the effect akin to a small-scale scorched terrain seal. Soon, investigators and firefighters would be rushing to the scene.
That guy was serious… Did he swallow the seal? Or maybe he had it embedded in his stomach.
Whatever the case, the man’s resolve was terrifying. He clearly had no intention of telling me anything and was willing to take himself out if necessary. He could easily have blown me up, too.
But I had gotten something out of our little exchange.
He’s military.
That much I was sure of.
Only someone in the military could have gotten their hands on equipment like that. Sniper staffs and scorched terrain seals weren’t easy to come by. Even if Verkle Corp had supplied the weapons, there were only a few workshops allowed to craft them—military facilities overseen by Galtuile. The same was true of the laboratories where they were developed. Gwen Mohsa’s large-scale use of such weapons made it clear this wasn’t just a few arms making their way onto the black market.
The fact they’d managed to get their hands on something as dangerous as a scorched terrain seal was frankly alarming. Proper storage and handling of such items were some of the military’s most closely guarded secrets. Aside from Dotta, no one could have managed to steal the seals and the relevant information.
Someone within the military, and of considerable rank, had to be behind this. At least a governor—probably a governor-general. And then there was the Uthob Front, Unit 7110. If they were linked to the unit that set me up back when I was in the Fifth Order, that would narrow down the list of suspects even further.
I started to form a mental list of people at the governor-general rank and above who’d been serving since back when I was in the Holy Knights.