Chapter 653: Siren Weapons

"So they weren't pets after all... scared me for a moment..."

After Loren's explanation, Starnight let out a sigh of relief.

At the same time, Loren learned that she had actually woken up on her own long ago, not because Mirrorheart had called her.

After locking the two sirens into the cage, Loren led the others back to the cabin, and he also took the opportunity to have Scarlett bring out some equipment.

After doing all this, Scarlett fell asleep on the spot. If Loren hadn't caught her with quick eyes and nimble hands, she probably would have taken a tumble.

In the end, Loren had Mirrorheart take Scarlett back to her cabin, while he and Starnight remained in this cabin that had been converted into a temporary laboratory.

"What are you going to do with us?"

The siren older sister's tone remained defiant, showing absolutely no awareness of her status as a prisoner.

By now, they were firmly locked inside the birdcage. This cage was enchanted, and sirens weren't particularly powerful to begin with, so there was no way they could break out of it.

Moreover, to be safe, Loren had also fitted them with collars and ankle shackles, locking them securely within the cage.

"Feed you to my pet. My pet is ferocious, and I want to watch it hunt live prey."

"Rawr!"

Starnight let out a cooperative roar, but she was still in her human form at the moment.

This comical scene actually made the siren older sister feel afraid instead. After all, she had witnessed Loren's power firsthand, so she didn't doubt that the girl beside him might actually eat them.

"Alright, enough joking. I need you to provide me with materials, your feathers.

"Don't feel aggrieved. I could have just killed you outright. Sparing your lives is already an act of great generosity.

"Besides, you originally intended to kill me as well, so it's perfectly justified for me to kill you now."

The siren older sister gritted her teeth and eventually let out a sigh, resigning herself to her fate.

"As long as you don't hurt my little sister, I'll do whatever you ask..."

"Big sister..."

The siren younger sister also shed tears, worrying about her sister.

"Enough, no need to put on this display of sisterly devotion here. When you were trying to kill us, you didn't consider our families. There's someone very important to me waiting for me on the Eastern Continent."

Loren cut them off. He felt no pity for these two sirens.

There were plenty of villains in this world who had their own sob stories and families. If he let everyone go just because of that, Loren wouldn't need to kill anyone at all.

Just like Mara, whom Loren had killed before, she was arguably the most tragic among all the villains he'd faced, but that didn't make her any less deserving of death.

"Give me two feathers, quickly."

Loren reached his hand toward the siren younger sister. She looked somewhat frightened, not knowing what to do.

"Use mine."

The siren older sister responded to Loren. She bit off several feathers from her own wings and offered them to Loren with her mouth.

They didn't have arms, so this was the only way they could do it. This was a perfect demonstration of the superiority of human arms.

Loren took the feathers and began his research.

He first directly attached the feathers as fletching to the rear of an arrow, while also carving runes onto the arrow. Finally, he threw the arrow out.

After several rounds of adjustments and swapping out some materials, the experiment finally succeeded. When he threw the arrow, the air sliced across the fletching, causing it to produce music.

Hearing this sound, the siren older sister was completely stunned. She couldn't begin to understand what was happening.

As a siren, she knew very well that the music produced by this arrow was effective.

"It works. Next step is mass production."

This arrow was made by Loren for Laila. It could deliver mental attacks, and it was area-of-effect damage at that. So Laila only needed to aim in a general direction to affect a huge number of people.

This was far more useful than those meteors she had been hurling around before.

"Just who in the world are you?"

The siren older sister asked. Loren's methods had exceeded anything her imagination could conceive, and she concluded that Loren was an absolutely terrifying existence.

"I am the Perpetual Observer."

As always, Loren directly revealed the Observer's name.

"The Perpetual Observer?"

It was clear the siren older sister had never heard of this title, but Loren didn't care:

"Quick, give me some more feathers."

"Alright."

This time, the siren older sister plucked out even more feathers in one go, without any hesitation whatsoever. She had completely lost the will to resist.

"Not enough. More."

"Yes..."

This time, the siren older sister plucked out nearly all the longer feathers from both of her wings, making her younger sister's heart ache:

"Big sister..."

"I'm fine..."

The siren older sister smiled and shook her head. Loren couldn't help but throw in a snarky remark:

"No kidding. You just plucked a couple of feathers, what could possibly happen? It won't even hurt that much."

After solving the problem of dealing with groups, Loren moved on to dealing with single targets. He wanted to continue using these feathers to research bullets.

"What a shame. These body parts with special effects can only recover slowly, and can't be directly healed with Healing Potions..."

Loren looked at the two sirens, sending a chill running through both their hearts.

Given Loren's personality, the feathers from these two sirens definitely wouldn't be enough. Loren had always suffered from insufficient-firepower phobia. He'd already made two baskets' worth of arrows, and he'd only make even more bullets.

In the end, Loren had no choice but to pluck feathers from the siren younger sister as well. Only the feathers on their wings carried magic; feathers elsewhere had no effect. At least that saved them from being stripped bare against their will.

Loren kept researching until daytime. Laila was the first to wake up. The moment she woke, she used her locating ability to find Loren, and then she saw him together with the two sirens, with Starnight obediently sitting on a small stool off to the side.

She looked at the two sirens. They looked rather pitiful at the moment, especially with the collars and other gear on them... Laila naturally let her imagination run wild...

"What are you two playing at here? Why... didn't you include me?"

"What's going on in that head of yours?"

Loren was speechless. Laila had been completely corrupted by Mirrorheart and the others:

"Have you considered the possibility that these methods are meant for dealing with prisoners or slaves, not for playing around?"

"Haha..."

Laila let out an awkward laugh that grew softer and softer, and finally she started changing the subject:

"What are you doing here?"

"Researching weapons for you."

"For me?"

Laila's heart warmed instantly. She looked at the arrows Loren had already finished.

"These two are sirens. They have the ability to beguile minds. I used their feathers to make some weapons with mental attack properties.

"For now, I can only make arrows. Making bullets is a bit more complicated, so that'll take some more time."

Hearing Loren's words, Laila glanced at the sirens in the cage. The siren younger sister waved her wing at Laila in return. She had already made peace with the situation.

Since Loren wasn't going to kill her anyway, she might as well keep a good attitude. Maybe she'd get better treatment that way.

Just then, the siren younger sister's stomach growled:

"Excuse me, do you provide meals? Maybe if I eat enough, I'll recover faster..."

The siren older sister looked at her younger sister helplessly, then let out a sigh.