In the villa's great hall, Lawrence stood at the center of the altar, clad in silver robes, his face twisted in pain yet blazing with fervent excitement.
He could distinctly feel that as the spectral figure behind him merged with his body, his blood was boiling, singing, and slowly remaking itself.
[Is this the prelude to awakening the bloodline's power?]
[Is it about to begin?]
[Will my forty years of pursuit and hope finally bear fruit?!]
In Lawrence's ears, the scattered, provocative moans around him sounded like the applause and cheers of a knighting ceremony — but just then, he found his body swaying back and forth, struggling to stay upright. Clanging sounds echoed from all around the villa, and clumps of dust rained down from the ceiling.
[An earthquake?!]
[An earthquake, of all times! Could it be the Lord's punishment?!]
Having abandoned his faith to pursue power — and having done so too recently to fully shed his reverence for the God of Truth — Lawrence couldn't help but recall the myriad legendary feats of the God of Truth when an earthquake struck at such a critical juncture.
[No — I'm only one step away! I've waited forty years, and the bloodline power is about to awaken! How can I give up now? As long as I awaken the bloodline power and become a knight, even if the villa collapses, I'll still have a chance to survive!]
The spectral figure, now partially fused into his back, seemed to sense Lawrence's thoughts. It spoke in a voice that pierced directly into his mind: "The Magic Circles and traps I set can't counter an earthquake, and you still need six or seven minutes to fully merge with my projection. The shaking is getting worse — if the entire building collapses, you won't survive. Lawrence, stop for now. You've already absorbed a fraction of my projection's power and reached the peak of a High-level Knight Squire. There will be another chance to complete the fusion."
The infernal tongue was spoken at breakneck speed — in barely a dozen seconds, it had conveyed its entire thought to Lawrence.
Lawrence was seething with fury. Success had been snatched away by a natural disaster, and he had nowhere to vent his rage — his chest felt ready to burst from frustration. "No! This earthquake could stop at any moment!"
He still refused to give up.
But suddenly came the sound of shattering — the windows cracked apart under the violent shaking, and a fierce gale heralding an approaching downpour blew through, sweeping away the cloying, acrid scent of debauchery. The men and women who had been lost in carnal indulgence even as the villa seemed on the verge of collapse were jolted awake in an instant.
"Lord! It's an earthquake!"
"Run!"
"Help — ahh!!"
Some scrambled to throw on their clothes, others sprinted for the front entrance stark naked, and still others simply hurled themselves through the windows... For people who had no knightly strength — some among them mere delicate young ladies — being buried under a collapsed villa would mean nothing left but to pray for the Lord's mercy.
Drained of their vitality and strength by the evil ritual, they stumbled as they ran. One woman collapsed to the ground, her legs too weak to support her from sheer exhaustion and terror, and could only crawl toward the door — while the man who had shared pleasure with her moments ago ran past without so much as a glance.
The sacrificial lambs fled one after another. The lines on the altar flickered out rapidly, and the spectral figure gradually faded. Baron Lawrence let out a thunderous roar, venting all his frustration and rage.
After the roar, he quickly recovered from his frenzied anticipation and smoldering resentment, saw that his villa was still shaking violently, and cursed: "Damn this earthquake!"
Then he hurried toward the villa's exit, dismantling the magical traps in his path one by one.
Behind him, a man in a black formal suit — who moments ago had appeared lost in the debauched revelry — stood watching the outside of the villa with a grave expression.
…………
In the shadows outside the villa, Sage, White Honey Sugar, and Smale — eyes wide, mouths agape, struck speechless — watched in stunned silence as the terrifying Professor withdrew his hands amid the violent shaking, slowly retreated into the darkness, and spoke in his same eerie voice and utterly flat tone: "They've started fleeing outside. Prepare yourselves — it's time to hunt down that abomination."
"Professor, wouldn't it be simpler to just bring the villa down?" White Honey Sugar asked, still somewhat dazed as she watched the building continue to shudder from the lingering momentum.
Lucian let out two low, sinister chuckles. "If I collapsed the villa and crushed that abomination inside, how would I quickly harvest its blood? The sound of a collapsing building is tremendous — it would definitely alert any roaming Night Watch members, or even the nearby church."
Those two reasons were only part of it. The real reason was that a building's natural resonant frequency — unlike ultrasound or high-intensity infrasound — could theoretically be matched by Lucian's current spiritual power through the Professor's Resonant Hand. However, a building was a complex structure with not one but many natural frequencies. Based on vibration feedback and mental calculations, Lucian could only simulate the first natural frequency to make it sway, not trigger full resonance and collapse. Moreover, Lucian was still only a Magic Apprentice, and the spell's energy was insufficient to bring down a sturdy structure.
Therefore, by contrast, toppling a bridge — a simpler structure — was something Lucian could perhaps just barely manage.