Tremble! My System Manufactures Modern Weapons

CHAPTER 2

Lady Vivienne looked down at the dark wet blood on her beautiful silver dress. She looked at Dustin’s face and felt a very strange, deep pity inside her heart.

Dustin was bleeding in the mud, his handsome face covered in cuts and dirt. Vivienne thought he looked too beautiful and too sad to die in this dirty courtyard.

"Stop this right now," Lady Vivienne said, her voice loud and cold like winter ice. "I do not care about your stories or your family problems. I want to buy this man."

Chloe Sterling blinked her eyes fast, completely shocked by the lady's words. She looked at Young Master Brandon, and then she looked back at Vivienne with a greedy smile.

"You want to buy this broken trash, Your Grace?" Chloe asked, letting out a small, mean laugh. "He is completely useless now. His legs are broken and he cannot work anymore."

"He is just a lying, bad servant," Eleanor Sterling added quickly, nodding her old head up and down. "But if you give us some silver coins, you can take his useless body away."

"Name your price," Lady Vivienne told them, her silver eyes flashing with anger. "I will not say my words twice. Give me the paper."

Young Master Brandon smiled widely, thinking about the free money they would get for a dying man. "Ten silver coins," Brandon sneered. "Give us ten silver coins and this dog belongs to you."

Lady Vivienne did not say a word; she just waved her hand smoothly. Her personal guard walked forward and dropped ten shiny silver coins right into the wet mud.

Chloe dropped to her knees immediately, grabbing the money from the mud with greedy, dirty fingers. "He is yours now, Your Grace! We will make him sign the paper right away!"

Julian Sterling rushed into the main house and brought out a glowing, magical servitude agreement paper. He grabbed Dustin’s bleeding, shaking right hand with absolute force.

"Sign it, you worthless piece of garbage," Julian hissed, pressing Dustin's bloody thumb onto the magical paper. "You are a slave now. You do not belong to our family anymore."

The magical paper glowed with a dark red light as Dustin’s blood stained the words. The agreement was locked, and Dustin was now the legal property of Lady Vivienne.

"Throw him into the back of the transport cart," Lady Vivienne commanded her guards coldly. "We are leaving this place immediately. The tax collection is done."

Two big guards grabbed Dustin by his tattered shirt, dragging his broken legs across the gravel. They kicked him into the dark back of the wooden cart like a sack of old grain.

Dustin lay on the hard wood, crying silently as the cart began to move away from the house. He could hear the Sterling family laughing happily behind him as the heavy gates slammed shut.

But back inside the grand sitting room, the happy laughter did not last very long. Eleanor Sterling stopped smiling, her old face turning pale with a sudden, deep fear.

"Wait a minute," Eleanor said, looking at Chloe and Brandon with wide, worried eyes. "What if that dog Dustin tells Lady Vivienne the real truth about us?"

"What do you mean, Mother?" Chloe asked, turning around from the window with a small frown. "He is just a broken slave now. Who would believe him?"

"You are wrong, Chloe!" Eleanor cried out, her voice shaking badly. "If he tells her that my sickness was a lie, she will know we stole the empire's medicines! She will become our greatest enemy!"

"Mother is right," Young Master Brandon hissed, his fists tightening until his knuckles turned white. "If Lady Vivienne finds out we laundered those magic herbs, our families will be executed."

"Oh no," Chloe whispered, her hands falling to her belly as her face turned completely white. "What should we do? We cannot let that trash speak to her!"

"We have the ten silver coins she just gave us," Brandon suggested with a dark, murderous smile. "We can use this money to quickly hire the elite shadow assassins from the dark alley."

"But Brandon," Chloe said, her voice full of panic. "Lady Vivienne just left our gates! If Dustin dies right now, she will know our family did it! She will suspect us immediately!"

"Then we must be very smart and very cruel," Brandon sneered, leaning close to Chloe’s face. "We will not just kill Dustin. We will tell the killers to murder both Dustin and Lady Vivienne!"

"What?!" Chloe gasped, her eyes wide with shock. "Kill the Archduchess? That is too dangerous, Brandon!"

"Think about it, Chloe," Brandon explained with an evil chuckle. "The mountain pass is very narrow and full of thick mist. We can blame the murder on the wild mountain bandits."

"Yes!" Julian shouted, jumping up from his chair with excitement. "If Lady Vivienne and her little guards die in the pass, no one will ever know the truth! Our reputation will be perfectly safe!"

"This is a wonderful plan," Eleanor smiled, her mean eyes shining with cold delight. "Go right now, Brandon! Pay the killers and tell them to leave absolutely no one alive in that valley!"

Brandon nodded fast, rushing out into the rain with the ten silver crystals to find the murderers. They all agreed with the plan happily, feeling no regret at all for what they were about to do.

Meanwhile, the grand carriage and the wooden transport cart were moving slowly through the dark, misty mountain pass. The wind was howling loudly through the tall trees.

Inside the back of the cart, Dustin was coughing up blood, his entire body shaking from the freezing cold. His shattered knees were throbbing with a nightmare of physical pain.

Suddenly, the wooden doors of the cart opened, and Lady Vivienne stepped inside with a small silver cup. Her face was soft, and she looked at him with deep kindness.

"Drink this water, Dustin," Vivienne said gently, leaning down to lift his weak head up. "You are safe now. I will not let those cruel people hurt you anymore. Nobody hurts my man."

"Thank... thank you, Your Grace," Dustin whispered through his cracked lips, his voice breaking into small pieces as he swallowed the cool water. "You are... very nice."

"Do not speak," Vivienne told him softly, wiping some dark mud from his pale forehead. "Your injuries are very bad. We will reach my private manor soon, and my doctors will fix you."

But just as the silver cup touched Dustin's lips again, a loud, terrifying shriek tore through the quiet mountain pass. The sound of metal slashing through flesh echoed everywhere.

"Enemy attack!" a guard screamed outside, his voice cutting off suddenly with a wet gasp. "Protect the Archduchess! Protect the—"

BOOM! The grand carriage outside exploded into wooden splinters as a group of masked men rushed out from the thick fog. They carried long, gleaming spiritual blades.

The shadow assassins struck with absolute, calculated brutality, moving like black ghosts in the mist. Within five seconds, they brutally slaughtered all of Vivienne's personal guards.

"No! Stop it!" Lady Vivienne shrieked in absolute horror, dropping the silver cup as she rushed out of the cart. "Who sent you? Take all my gold, but leave us alone!"

"No! Stop it!" Lady Vivienne shrieked in absolute horror, dropping the silver cup as she rushed out of the cart. "How dare you attack my carriage! Do you know who I am? I will kill you all and make you scapeghosts!"

Before she could step forward, the lead killer quickly flicked his wrist, spraying a fine dark powder straight into Vivienne's face. The strange dust immediately had a terrifying effect on her, making her gasp as her vision blurred instantly.

"Don't waste your energy, Archduchess," the killer mocked with a low laugh. "This powder will completely suppress your fierce magic power for a couple of hours. You are nothing but an ordinary woman right now."

Lady Vivienne grew furious, trying to force her fierce strong magic to explode from her core to kill them all on the spot. But her cultivation was already far gone, her powerful spiritual veins falling completely asleep under the weight of the dark poison.

The two big, heavy killers grinned as they saw her stumble, quickly grabbing Vivienne by her beautiful silver robes. They violently dragged her down onto the muddy ground without an ounce of respect.

She dropped to her knees in the slush, sobbing and shaking with pure terror as she looked at her dead guards. Her absolute dominance was entirely gone, leaving her completely vulnerable in the dark mountain pass.

"Please!" Vivienne begged, her tears streaming down her pale face as she looked at the masked men. "Take all my gold, kill me if you must, but do not hurt my poor servant! He is already dying!"

The lead assassin did not listen to her cries; he just let out a loud, disgusting laugh that filled the valley. He walked slowly toward the back of the wooden cart where Dustin lay.

With a dark wave of his hand, the leader magically formed a sharp, jagged energy knife in his bare fingers. The knife glowed with a mean purple light.

"No need to thank me, trash. It’s my pleasure to help you end your pathetic life" the leader hissed, lunging forward into the cart with lightning speed. He drove the sharp knife straight into Dustin’s chest.

STAB! STAB! STAB! The lead killer repeatedly drove the blade deep into Dustin’s lungs, tearing through his flesh without an ounce of mercy.

Dustin let out a choked gasp, his chest exploding with a burning, terrible pain as his lungs filled with blood. He fell out of the cart, crashing hard onto the wet dirt.

"Dustin! No!" Vivienne wailed, trying to break free from the guards, her heart breaking for the boy. "You monsters! Why are you doing this to an innocent soul?"

The lead attacker turned away from Dustin's bleeding, still body and walked slowly toward Lady Vivienne. He looked at her beautiful face with a disgusting, predatory grin.

"First part is done, boys," the leader sneered, reaching down to grab Vivienne by her long, shiny hair. "But look at this high-and-mighty lady. She is too beautiful to waste."

"Yes, Captain!" the other killers laughed, their eyes full of evil delight. "We can firstly rape this one before we kill her and throw her into the bushes!"

"No! Please! Let me go!" Vivienne sobbed, thrashing her body around in the mud as the men pinned her arms tightly to the wet ground. "Somebody help me! Please!"

Dustin lay in the mud just two feet away, his vision turning completely black, his heart stopping as his breath left his body. He was at the absolute brink of death.

He could hear Vivienne’s terrified screams, and his soul was consumed by a raw, unadulterated rage. He wanted to save her, but his body was completely dead.

Right at that exact, final second, a bright, glowing blue screen suddenly exploded right in front of Dustin’s failing eyes, shining brighter than the dark night.

A strange, mechanical voice echoed inside his brain, freezing time itself: [Dimensional Technology System activated. Initializing anger-point core. Host is near death. Prepare for emergency boot.]