He casually tossed William Carter to the ground, took a cylinder from his chest, and sneered, “Kid, you actually dared to steal my stuff. Hmph, today you’ll pay me back with interest!”

He pressed the cylinder against the back of William Carter’s head, and Grace Bolton carefully took out a talisman and placed it on the other end of the cylinder.

Immediately, the talisman ignited without fire, burning up, and the cylinder began to glow faintly.

In an instant, the talisman was completely consumed, and the cylinder’s light dimmed.

However, Grace Bolton’s face was filled with astonishment, because he didn’t see the scene he had imagined. Inside the cylinder, there were no Armament Seeds—only empty, pitch-black darkness.

A trace of panic rose in Grace Bolton’s heart, and he muttered, “Wh-what’s going on, where are the Armament Seeds? Where are the Armament Seeds? Could it be that this kid is as dumb as a pig and didn’t get the Armament Seeds from the Armament Order? No, that can’t be right. The old master has been giving him special attention these days, he must have sensed the Armament Seeds in him.”

Holding the now-empty cylinder, Grace Bolton was in utter turmoil.

Glancing at William Carter lying on the ground, his anger finally found an outlet, and he roared, “It’s all your fault, you brat! I’ll make you suffer!” He raised his foot and viciously kicked at William Carter’s stomach.

Yet, just as his foot was about to land on William Carter’s belly, the previously unconscious William Carter suddenly opened his eyes and reached out a hand to block his stomach.

Grace Bolton’s eyes widened in shock, staring at William Carter as if he had just witnessed the most unbelievable thing in the world.

At that moment, only one thought filled his mind: How is this kid not knocked out?

But in the next instant, he seemed to catch a flash of red light out of the corner of his eye.

On the hand William Carter used to block him, a ball of red light was flickering.

Armament!

My god! It’s actually Armament!

In that split second, Grace Bolton immediately realized what had happened.

No wonder he’d gotten nothing—this kid had already activated the Armament.

His eyes instantly filled with terror. My foot, my foot...

Chapter 6: Counterattack

“Pa…”

Grace Bolton’s kick landed heavily on William Carter’s hand.

“Hmph—”

Two groans of pain escaped their mouths almost simultaneously, and William Carter’s body was sent flying, spinning in midair before crashing hard to the ground.

But the little guy immediately scrambled up, darting like a nimble little mouse into a pile of discarded, broken weapons in the warehouse.

This military camp wasn’t a frontline base facing the enemy directly. According to the empire’s classification, it was only a secondary camp for support and training. Moreover, the camp had another important task: collecting and storing damaged armor and weapons discarded from various camps or battlefields.

When the amount of such equipment reached a certain level, a powerful expert would come to take it to a major workshop near the capital for smelting and reforging.

But for now, since the quantity was insufficient, the broken arms were just piled up here, ignored by all—making them the perfect natural shield for William Carter to hide from his pursuers.

With a thud, Grace Bolton landed on his butt, clutching his foot with both hands. His handsome face was twisted in agony.

He swore on his soul that the moment he saw that flash of red light, he had desperately tried to pull back his strength.

Because he recognized Armament, and to kick Armament with bare flesh—how brainless would you have to be to do that?

But sadly, by then, his kick was already in motion. Even though he’d tried to control his strength, just wanting to make William Carter cough up blood and maybe break a few ribs, it wasn’t something he could just stop on a dime.

To act as you wish, with a single thought—that was a level of martial cultivation he was still far from reaching.

So, even though he was frantically trying to pull back, he could only watch helplessly as his foot irreversibly plunged into that red glow.

Then, a searing pain shot up from his leg and foot, so intense he could no longer stand, collapsing to the ground and nearly passing out.

Yes, Armament was meant for forging weapons, not for fighting.

There had been many Armament Forgemasters throughout history, but almost none were famous for their fighting skills. After all, when facing an Armament Forgemaster, no one would fight them barehanded.

Because if Armament could forge weapons, its temperature was nothing to scoff at.

To pit flesh and blood against Armament… William Carter thought, this was the first time he’d met such an idiot.

Gasping for breath, every inhale and exhale from Grace Bolton sounded like the dying struggle of a gravely wounded beast, as if he might faint at any moment from the pain.

Only after a long while did he finally recover from that agony, which was almost as bad as death itself.