"Whaaaaaa!!!"

Rood had just finished killing the Ghoul as the Dreaded Baby let out its last cry and went to sleep. The baby with pale blue skin closed its yellow eyes and started snoring lightly, looking completely different from when it was awake; it had a peaceful expression on its face.

Snore...

With the Dreaded Baby reaching its limit and falling asleep, the remaining zombies were no longer attracted to it and began diverting its attention to Rood.

"Now you guys can finally die!" he shouted coldly.

Swoosh!

The giant sword cleaved the bodies of the zombies in two, revealing the tiny horse creatures made of human fingers inside. The horse creatures quickly left their destroyed hosts and were in search of a new corpse to reanimate.

"I won't give you ladyfingers a chance to do that!" he shouted.

Using his mind, he controlled the sword to cut down the creatures while he used his dagger to finish off the rest. Once cut in two, the finger horses started disintegrating into a smoke of dark green ashes.

"Roze, I'm done here! I'm going to assist Oranje and Paars!" shouted Rood to Roze, who was busy fighting Obscurity.

"Okay! We can handle it over here!" she shouted back as she fired blood arrows at the man with a devious face.

Rood quickly dashed towards the location where Oranje and Paars were and both of them were currently fighting a flock of crows with red eyes who were attacking them from the sky. The winged man was behind the birds, playing his lute to empower his bird allies.

The man's expression was calm despite being outnumbered. He was being shot at by the normal Police officers, but his wings either blocked the bullets for him or helped him dodge them. Despite his wings being hit by paralysis bullets, the man with the unnatural green hair didn't seem to suffer the effect. On top of that, the wings also seemed to have a scary regeneration power. All the bullet holes had closed up just in a matter of seconds!

Ding... ding... Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink!

Suddenly, the man whose codename was Horror started plucking the strings of his lute violently, sending a thrilling melody. Now that the Dreaded Baby's cries were no more, the sound of his music was dominant, even louder than Rood's War Drum.

Badum! Badum!

Rood beat his drum harder to not lose out to the sounds of the degenerate melody. His drum empowered his allies only slightly because of the interference of the Lute.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

The crows appeared to be even more ferocious now that the melody had become violent. They started pecking and clawing with greater intensity than before.

"Three Police officers versus birds. Who do you think will win, Val?" said Graham amusedly. He had been watching the fight from the beginning and by the looks of it, the Police were winning.

He then turned his attention towards the other fight happening next to a collapsed office building. There were four Police Contractbounds versus four members of the Pale Society.

One of the Police, the man called Bruin, looked like he had expended all of his stamina to make the building collapse. While the others were fighting, he was just sitting on the ground while breathing heavily. The faint sound of Rood's War Drum seemed to be helping him recover a little.

"Val, we can see from this fight which Contractbounds are good with frontal assault and which are not. I guess we belong to the not so good at direct combats. Those like the vulgar woman we killed earlier must be one of the strongest at fighting others face to face. Hell, she could even get stronger when outnumbered," he analyzed a hint of jealousy.

Graham still hadn't got any direct offensive abilities that he could use to kill his enemies. He still had to rely on weapons or other underhanded measures to finish them off. Most of his abilities were under the category of controlling and manipulating.

Among the Contractbounds present on the battlefield, the ones with the highest offensive capabilities were perhaps Roze with her blood arrows that never missed, Rood with his Blood Sword and War Drum, Wit in her Puma form, and, to some extent, Oranje and Paars with their familiars. The man called Bruin also seemed strong but Graham had only seen him use one of his abilities and he was already out.

On the other hand, the members of the Pale Society didn't seem to have anyone capable of direct offense. The man who called himself Obscurity sounded more like a manipulative type while Macabre could be strong with corpses, but now that the restriction had taken place, she couldn't use Corpse Explosion anymore. Fear, based on Graham's fight with her before, was able to use all sorts of curses, but they all seemed to take time and the Police didn't appear to want to give it to her. The fact that she hadn't prepared the curse while they were still on top of the building meant they had their own limitations.

Dread, who had the summoning abilities, also seemed to suffer from limitations. It must take a lot of preparation for him to use his abilities, and he lacked an offensive one. Or, he was just hiding his abilities and was waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

The winged man called Horror, although good at supporting and was very difficult to kill, didn't seem to have any offensive abilities either. Graham was thinking that he might be able to use his melodies to directly injure his enemies, but the fact that he hadn't done so meant he might not be able to do so or the ability would also injure his allies.

Graham finished analyzing both parties and continued watching the fight. Although he could come up with those theories, he still didn't actually know the extent of everyone's abilities. It was a good learning opportunity for him.

"Val, among the abilities that we've seen so far from this battle, that building destroying one sure looks the strongest. But I don't think we'll ever have the need to destroy an entire building for our mission. The stamina required also looks to be no joke," he said while stroking his chin, "If we were to copy one of those abilities into Purloin, which one would you choose, Val?" he muttered calmly. There was a hint of excitement and anticipation in his tone.

"For me, I think I would choose the blood weapon creation for now unless there is another one with higher offensive power later. The other abilities were mostly control types, and we don't really need more of those, do we? The Puma transformation sounds neat, but I don't believe it's quite practical," he added.

Suddenly, while he was busy coming up with all sorts of theories and analysis of the fight, his sense of danger was triggered. He quickly turned around and felt that the source of the danger was already near the door. He was puzzled as to why he hadn't felt it much sooner.

It was too late for him to escape!

Step... Step...

The person's footsteps resounded in the empty office building. It sounded like the hard soles of leather shoes tapping against the wooden floor. With each sound, Graham's time got shorter. He had to quickly do something.

Since he now probably had to fight, Graham had to undo his Concealment to regain his strength that had been restricted by Caron's Book of Curtailment.

"I order the mist shrouding myself to disappear!"

Once he said that, the yellowish mist began to disperse and disappeared soon after, revealing his appearance that was still that of Cornelis Haring aka Rood. He was still weakened because the transformation was a kind of concealment. He had to return to his original self in order to regain his power, but in doing so, he would expose his real identity.

"Val, I'll rely on you to erase their memory if it comes to that," he said with regret. It was probably the first time he had to show his face without a mask to his enemies and it didn't sit well with him.

"I order myself to return to my original appearance!"

Graham quickly became a little shorter and very slightly fatter. His skin was not as tanned as Rood's and his body was less muscular, although the muscles were definitely somewhere there. The big scar on his face disappeared and his eyes turned light green while his hair became amber and somewhat curly. In less than thirty seconds, Graham had returned to his original self, and at the same time, he felt that the dangerous presence was right behind the door.

"What the hell, Val? Why am I still weakened? We've already removed any kind of concealment?!" he said, completely stupefied.

He was still under the restriction!

He didn't have too much time to come up with an answer, so he quickly took a position that would enable him to see the person through the gap of the door when they opened it.

Click!

Creak...

The door was opened slowly and the dangerous aura became even stronger, and there was also the smell of an expensive perfume accompanying the aura. Since he was not the type to wait around for the enemies to take the initiative, without even waiting for the person to completely show themselves, Graham had already drawn his gun.

Bang!

He fired a paralysis bullet at the person!

The person who was still trying to open the door stopped and there was a tiny bullet wound on his right shoulder. Graham knew exactly who the person was only from his figure.

It was Zeger de Witt!

"That man! How did he find us, Val?" he muttered in puzzlement. There was a slight fear in his tone because of the pressure that the man was emitting which felt even stronger since he was weakened. It was completely different from when he encountered him last time. "That doesn't matter, Val. It's now our chance to escape!" he decided.

Judging from the man's aura, the paralysis effect wouldn't last longer than two seconds on him. He had to take action right away or else the man would soon recover. He couldn't implant a false thought inside the man's brain because of his weakened state, so Graham looked at the man and issued an Order to buy him a little more time.

"I order you to turn back and leave!"

He shouted, this time, using his original deep voice.

Zeger's expression became twisted and there was a smile that struck Graham's heart with uneasiness as he turned around and left the room.

Graham didn't waste his opportunity and quickly shoot the glass window that he had been using to watch the fight below. He was currently on the third floor, so jumping down would certainly hurt, especially since he was still under the restriction. However, he didn't have another choice as it was his only means of escape.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The window began cracking and there were several bullet holes on it. Graham put all his power into his right foot and kicked it as hard as he could, effectively breaking it. There was now a gap big enough for him to jump through.

Zeger only took five steps in the other direction before the effect of Graham's Order wore off. He immediately turned around to find Graham who had just finished breaking the window with his kick.

"That is mighty rude of you, Mr. Detective. Now, where do you think you are going? Isn't it better to stay here and have a chat with me about all the things you've done to us?" said the man coldly. There was a sinister smile on his face that sent shivers down Graham's spine.

Without even waiting for Zeger de Witt to finish speaking, Graham had jumped off the window to the ground below. His body accelerated towards the hard pavement and the moment he touched the ground, his body turned into a blotch of ink that got erased right away. He reappeared next to it, standing on the ground completely unscathed.

It was the last one of Valentine's Illusion Substitute.

"Not only are you rude, but you are also impolite. Please listen when someone is speaking," shouted Zeger from above. He seemed rather angry.

Zeger de Witt slit his wrist and muttered something. Graham didn't pay attention to what he was saying because he had started running away. He was going to where the Police were, so at least he could get someone to distract the dangerous man.

Swoosh!!

Six blood spikes had formed near the man and they were shooting at Graham with incredible speed. Trusting his instinct, he dodged to the right and managed to avoid being hit by most of the spikes. However, because of his weakened state, two spikes still hit him: one on his left shoulder and one on his leg.

"Crap!" he cursed in pain.

He then felt a very dangerous premonition coming from the spikes, so he quickly removed the one on his shoulder with his hand while using order to get rid of the one on his leg.

"I order you to come off!"

The blood spikes came off his leg, leaving a deep wound from which blood came gushing out. His shoulder was not much different. He didn't waste the chance and quickly got as far away from the spikes as he could.

Kaboom!!

The blood spikes exploded and the impact hit him, pushing him off several meters. The explosion also got the attention of the Police who quickly assessed the situation.

"I order you to close!"

"I order you to close!"

Graham used Order to close the open wounds on both his shoulder and leg as he got back up and ran away from the spot. He was in so much pain that running became a little difficult for him.

"Val, this is totally not good!" he muttered.