Witch Training Manual: My Water Magic Is Wrong

The crowd automatically parted to make way.

Wilford led the way, followed by thirty guards, their armor gleaming coldly in the torchlight. He stopped at the foot of the inn steps, raised his head, and fixed his gaze directly on Greve's face.

Gleeve's pupils contracted slightly.

"You... how did you get here?"

Wilford didn't answer. He took a step forward, his boots thumping on the cobblestones.

"Shouldn't you..." His words caught in his throat, his eyes darted around, and he swallowed the rest of his sentence back.

Wayne stepped out from behind Wilford.

"Surprised, aren't you? The mayor didn't fall into a deep sleep; he actually managed to come to the scene." His voice wasn't loud, but everyone could hear it in the quiet night. "I must say, the methods of your St. Hilde are truly despicable."

Gleeve's face twitched.

"What...what do you mean? What are you talking about? I don't understand."

He shifted his gaze from Wilford to Wayne, raising his voice by half an octave.

"As for you, a lowly member of a false church, what brings you here? Are you here to watch the execution of the witch too?"

Wayne ignored Gleeve.

His gaze went over the steps, over the shoulders of the white-robed missionaries, and landed on the iron cage in the hotel's backyard.

The torchlight shone from the side, casting long streaks of iron bars on the ground. Seven or eight people, adults and children, were huddled together in the cage, like cargo stuffed into a cage.

Their eyes were completely black.

But it seemed they heard Wayne's voice.

It made "ah ah" sounds.

Wayne's eyes reddened.

He felt anger, not the kind of anger that makes you slam your fist on the table, but an anger that seeped from the very marrow of his bones, an uncontrollable anger that made him want to kill.

The torchlight cast alternating shadows on his face.

He went to the prison van.

The crowd parted automatically in front of him.

A man in a white robe emerged from the shadows at the inn's entrance. He was nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered and with a longsword at his waist, the hilt inlaid with the golden emblem of St. Hilde. His gaze fell on Wayne, scanning him from head to toe, a slight downward smirk playing on his lips.

"You're the bishop of Frosttown?"

Wayne looked at him.

"Get out of here."

"I am Herbert, Vice-Captain of the Third Combat Battalion, Third Division, of the Holy See of St. Hilde, a fourth-tier combat priest." His voice was unhurried, carrying a condescending composure. "Father of the Church of Wiggins, you have no right to interfere with the Holy See of St. Hilde..."

Snapped.

The sound of slaps exploded in the night sky.

Herbert's words came to an abrupt end.

His body flew past Wayne, his feet leaving the ground, and he flew through the air like a kicked sack, slamming into the woodshed door on the side of the inn.

The wooden door shattered.

Wood chips flew everywhere.

Herbert's body was embedded in the ruins of the woodshed, limbs outstretched, motionless.

Then it exploded like a pot boiling over.

"Bishop Wayne knocked that white robe flying!"

"One slap! Just one slap!"

"That's a fourth-tier battle priest of Saint Hilde!"

"So what if it's fourth rank? Bishop Wayne is also fourth rank!"

"They're not the same! Fourth-order items are not all the same!"

Greve stood on the steps, took a half step back, then remembered that the hotel door was behind him, and there was nowhere left to retreat.

His fingers gripped the hem of his robe tightly.

"You...you dare to do this!"

The next second, Wayne's figure disappeared from the spot.

Greve's pupils constricted sharply. He didn't even see how Wayne moved. He only felt a blur before his eyes, and then a hand reached out from the darkness, its five fingers like iron clamps, and gripped his neck.

Feet off the ground.

His body was lifted up.

The torchlight flickered on Wayne's face, which was usually gentle but expressionless. His eyes were fixed on Greve as if he were looking at something lifeless.

Greve instinctively grabbed Wayne's wrists with both hands, trying to pry them open, but he couldn't. His fingers dug white marks into the back of Wayne's hands.

"You...you let go..."

Wayne didn't say anything.

His fingers tightened slightly.

Gleeve's face went from white to red, then from red to purple. His lips trembled, and he made muffled sounds in his throat, like a snake being strangled.

The white-robed missionaries at the hotel entrance were stunned.

They looked at each other, but no one moved. Not because they didn't want to, but because they dared not. Herbert was still lying in the ruins of the woodshed, limbs outstretched, his fate unknown. A fourth-tier combat priest, one slap. What could these third- and second-tier warriors do up there? Serve as cannon fodder?

The noise of the crowd vanished at that moment.

The torchlight illuminated Wayne's silhouette, his priest's robes fluttering gently in the night breeze, his right hand gripping Greve's neck, suspending him in mid-air.

Gleeve's feet were half a foot off the ground, his legs kicking weakly, like a frog hanging on a hook.

Wayne's voice was clear and distinct.

"You did all of this, didn't you?"

Gleeve's face turned from purplish-red to deathly pale.

"Give innocent villagers potions, turning them into half-human, half-demon beings, into tormented monsters." Wayne's fingers tightened slightly, and Gleeve let out a muffled whimper. "Gleeve, do you know how much the goddess wants you dead right now?"

Gleeve's lips trembled slightly.

His eyes glanced towards the second floor of the hotel.

Wayne did not turn around.

But his hand was tightening.

Greve's consciousness was peeling away bit by bit. His vision began to darken from the edges, and he could see less and less, narrower and narrower things, until finally only Wayne's face remained.

A thought flashed through Gleeve's mind.

He really will kill himself.

The thought hit me like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

Then, a beam of holy light flew out of the second-floor window of the hotel and headed straight for Wayne's face.

fast.

quasi.

ruthless.

"Be careful, sir!" Diaz shouted first.

Wayne's gaze sharpened.

A curtain of water silently opened behind him. The holy light crashed into the water, like a knife plunging into the water, its speed being swallowed up piece by piece, and its light being filtered out layer by layer.

After the holy light passed through the water curtain, only a dim yellow halo remained, which landed on Wayne's shoulder.

Even his clothes didn't catch fire.

Someone in the crowd gasped.

Wayne threw Greve to the ground.

"Don't worry, I won't let you die easily."

Gleeve's body slammed onto the stone pavement with a dull thud. He curled up into a ball, clutching his neck and coughing violently. His face turned from purplish-red to liver-colored, and hoarse gasps came from his throat.

Wayne didn't look at him again.

He turned around and faced the crowd.

The light from the torches surged in from all directions, falling on his face and body, bathing his white priest's robe in a warm orange hue.

His gaze swept across the crowd, over the townspeople holding torches, the farmers with hoes, the elderly with canes, and the mothers holding their children.

"All mercenaries and guards, assemble!"