Chapter 78: Arc 2: Chapter 33: Merlin’s War

It's been a year since they've met, but Tuck is still as efficient as ever.

At dawn 7-am, what Merlin needed had been delivered to his hands. It was a heavy sniper rifle packed in a box, along with 100 AP shells. There was also a box of grenades, along with an armored pickup truck Tuck had borrowed him temporarily.

Fury holds a cup of coffee with an odd expression as he watched as Merlin trades with the young black man and put the things into the trunk of his new ride, the former agent supervisor can't help but say:

"Maybe I should arrest you right now! You trading with an arms dealer right in front of my face."

Merlin glances at him and says:

"This is Yuri's subordinate, and the arms dealer Yuri is your friend, so maybe you should start with yourself, Mr. Fury."

"Alright, I'm just saying."

Fury shrugs, he opens the car door, gets into the driver's seat, rolls down the car window, and tells Merlin:

"I'll be waiting for you at the safe house."

"Mmm."

Merlin nods, he then takes out a note from his pocket and hands it to Fury, on it was a list of different materials, he tells Fury:

"I'm taking my cousin and brother-in-law to a safe location, Fury, help me collect these materials, I'll be needing them to make some medicine."

"Medicine?"

Fury takes the note, glances at it, and looks at Merlin:

"When did you learn all these? So you're now a real wizard?"

"Sort of."

Merlin presses his glasses, looks around, and tells Fury:

"Don't let other agents into this, Fury, it's suicide for them to go after the half-demon. Wait for me to come back, Fury, then I'll end this myself."

"Fine."

Fury looks at Merlin without saying anything else. He puts on his sunglasses, closes the car window, and following the roar of the engine, the black Ford disappears from the streets of Hell's Kitchen.

Merlin drives Tuck's car to Queens and prodded his cousin and brother-in-law to go outside, and after having some lunch, Merlin drives them to St. Matthew's Church.

Merlin enjoins young Erik to keep Ben and May inside the church at all costs, at least spend the night in the church.

Merlin did not know what secrets St Matthew's Church held.

But what Merlin was certain of, was that there were some forces, some mysterious powers protecting the church from the dark forces.

Just when Merlin decides to finish off the hidden Rabid Morris, he must first guarantee the safety of his remaining family.

The moment he leaves the church, Merlin sat in the pickup truck and lit a cigar, in his hand was a phone with a string of numbers dialed in, all he needed to do was press the button, but Merlin was hesitant.

Only after finishing his cigar, did Merlin finally make up his mind and press the button.

"Dudu Dudu Dudu"

As Merlin waited for the call to be picked up, he purses his lips and looks at the phone in front of him; moments later, a voice resounds from the phone:

"Hello? This is the Coulsons, who is this?"

It was Phil's voice, it had been nearly 4 years since he left, Phil should be graduating high school soon enough, wonder if he's been doing well.

Merlin moves his lips, but no sound came out.

He suddenly lost his words.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?"

"How's James?"

Merlin asks in a coarse voice:

"And Anna..."

"My mother is fine, my father may be in a wheelchair right now, he still heads to the farm every day."

Phil answers:

"But sir, who are you? This is a very unfamiliar number."

"I'm your father's friend, it's good to hear that he's well. I've some things to do so I'll end here."

As he finishes, Merlin hangs up the call.

He leans against his seat, raises his head, and looks at the ceiling. After he left, the COulsons' family seemed to be peaceful and calm. Merlin then puts down the last concern he had in his heart.

A few minutes later, Merlin starts the truck and heads towards Brooklynn. Soon, he arrives at the safehouse Fury had arranged in a warehouse.

"What you need are pretty much right here."

Fury points at the open warehouse behind him, at the center of the warehouse, was a table. On that table were multiple odd-looking materials. A few bags of herbs, a few pieces of bone, a small box of industrial silver ingots, and a miniature crucible.

"Good."

Merlin takes off his coat, and under Fury's watch, he takes out his red wand from the box on his waist and gently flicks it at the crucible on the table, the charcoal under the crucible lights up, and as the fire flickers, it inflames Fury's surprised face.

He looks at the wand in Merlin's hand and the crucible that magically lit up sluggishly, he then grits his teeth and says:

"M*********er! I thought you were joking...you've actually become a wizard!"

"You of all people should know the existence of wizards in the world."

Merlin looks at Fury with a surprised expression, he rolls up his sleeves and tells Fury:

"Didn't you work with Constantine? He's a wizard, though a third-rate fraud. Come, sir, give me a hand and help me with something."

As Merlin asked, Fury, walks over, grabs a piece of industrial silver ingot with black pliers, and throws it into the heated-up crucible.

Merlin takes out his spatial bag from his pocket and takes out the textbook <Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them>, he follows the production method of Holy Silver Bullets described in the Vampire article and throws a fistful of cosolvent into the crucible, and as the golden flames danced, the silver ingots began to melt quickly.

"This is a magic book?"

Fury stands behind Merlin with interest, he looks as Merlin sorted out the herbs and ground the bones while glancing at the open magic book in front of Merlin.

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Yet he did not understand a single word in that book, he could vaguely identify those words as English, just arranged in a way that he did not understand to form different meanings.

"Mmm, this is a magic book. It's written in old English mixed with Latin and Germanic ancient scripts, only understandable through specialized learning."

Merlin cuts open the herbs using his combat knife while handing a small hammer to Fury, he points at the bone next to him and tells Fury:

"Sir, help me smash those bones, preferably to powder."

"And what is this?"

Fury looks at the hammer in his hand and the melting silver ingots in the crucible, he asks:

"Aren't you making some type of medicine?"

"It is medicine. To be precise, I'm making Holy Silver."

Merlin pours the chopped-up herbs into a bowl, and while grinding them, he tells his superior:

"I'm going after a half-demon, probably one that's fully transformed, normal bullets don't work on it. But thankfully there are many things in the magic world that deal considerable damage against dark beings, and Holy Silver is one of the easiest to make. This is my first time making it though."

"Oh? Is that so?"

Fury smashes the bones with the hammer while squinting his eyes, he looks at Merlin and the bizarre things in front of him.

Moments later, he says:

"Mind sharing with me the creation method of this thing? Since we've discovered dark beings hiding in the city, I think it's best that our organization has weapons specialized in dealing with them."

"Sure."

Merlin nods and tells Fury:

"The production of Holy Silver can be done even without magic, it's suitable for normal agents to use for self-defense. If you need, I'll give you the complete formula after this thing is over."

"Alright!"

Fury stops talking and begins focusing on smashing the bones, all while taking out his note and recording the process of Merlin's selection and grinding of herbs.

A dozen minutes later, Merlin collects the bone powder and puts it into the herb bowl, after mixing it up evenly, he walks to the crucible and slowly pours the black liquid into the already melted silver.

Fury watched closely from the side, after the black liquid is poured into the melted silver, simultaneous sounds agitate the liquid, causing it to boil.

Merlin stirs it using a glass rod, until 5 minutes later when the silver liquid settles down. Its color had changed from pure silver to a silver-white, stickier high-temperature liquid.

"Mold!"

Merlin takes a step backward and takes out Lola, as he waved the wand, the high-temperature crucible levitates from the burning fire. Fury places the bullet mold onto the table, and Merlin pours the silver liquid into the mold, then closes the mold completely.

A few minutes later, 10 formed bullets are thrown into the cold water, making a sizzling sound.

"Done!"

Merlin puts down his wand and picks up the plier, he picks up a silver-white metal bullet from the cold water and places it on the table.

Fury touches the warm bullet with his finger, then he picks it up in his palm and examines it, asking:

"Is that it? It's that simple?"

"Theoretically, real demon-hunting holy silver bullets need to have an exorcising rune engraved on its surface to further enhance its penetration and destructive power, leading to legal secondary wounds."

Merlin stands next to Fury and tells him:

"But it's too much of a hassle to write exorcising runes, we don't have that much time, and I know too little about alchemy, so we'll have to skip that process."

Merlin looks at his watch and looks at the sky outside the warehouse, he then says:

"We have to make at least 100 holy silver bullets before midnight...time's tight and mission's heavy."

As he spoke, he hands a pipe wrench to Fury and points at the few boxes of sniper rifle and handgun bullets on the table:

"There's one last step, changing the bullets."

"Sir, as a former experienced soldier, you should know how to do this."

---

At 10-pm nighttime, Fury's Ford is parked just outside of Papa Midnite's Nightclub, Merlin takes off his seatbelt, opens the car door, and looks around.

He passes Fury an ammo clip full of holy silver bullets and enjoins:

"Don't follow me, there are irregulars crawling all over the place. There might be some around here too, Fury, so when you head back and find anyone weird trying to harm you, shoot without hesitation!"

Fury takes the ammo clip and loads his pistol with it, he puts the pistol on the cab and nods at Merlin:

"Go, I'll wait for you here."

"Fury..."

Merlin purses his lips and tells his superior x friend:

"You need not risk yourself, you've helped me enough already. Go home, I don't want my friend falling into danger because of me. This is my risk."

"This is my war."

"This is my city, and the place I live, Merlin."

 Fury takes off his sunglasses and smiles at Merlin, this over-40-years-old man tells Merlin:

"You're not the only one with family and loved ones, I do too. And they live in this city, right now there's a madman running amok in the city, and he even took one of my consultants and one of my agents...how can I pretend that this never happened?"

"Miss Carter and Pierce handed me the SSR for me to lead the organization forward, I'm your leader! My subordinates are being threatened right now, and if I don't fight for them...who will?"

"Go, Merlin."

Fury puts his sunglasses back on, he looks at the lit-up nightclub in front of him and says:

"This isn't just your war, Merlin."

"It's our war. I'm also participating!"

"We're soldiers now."

 

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