"Ha... haha..."
Merle stared blankly at Louis disinfecting his wound, then burst into a fit of hysterical laughter and tears, "Oh, God! I knew you wouldn't abandon me!"
He grabbed Louis's arm like it was his last lifeline, ravings frantically, "Kid! Quick! Find me a tool!"
"An axe! Pliers! Anything! Break this damn handcuff!"
"Calm down first. There aren't any suitable tools here."
Louis calmly inspected the handcuffs that locked Merle tightly to the pipe, "I need to go down and look. Wait here for me."
"No! You can't leave!"
Hearing Louis was about to leave, Merle immediately became agitated again, gripping Louis's arm tightly, terrified that this newfound hope would vanish once more.
"I won't leave." Louis looked at him with calm eyes, "Take a deep breath and calm down first."
"Listen, the passage I came up through is safe. I remember seeing a Fire Axe in the fire cabinet downstairs. I'm just going to get it."
He paused, glanced at the door not far away that was still being battered by Walkers, and emphasized his tone:
"But if you keep grabbing me and shouting like this, who knows if Walkers will be drawn by the smell of blood and find their way up here."
"If that happens, neither of us will escape."
If possible, who would really want to cut off their own hand?
Merle's mind, consumed by the will to survive and fear, gradually calmed down. He slowly released his grip, nodding as he gasped for breath.
Seeing this, Louis was about to turn and leave when his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of the door on the other side that T-Dog had chained shut!
His pupils contracted sharply as he saw a rotting arm already reaching through the gap in the door!
Immediately after, a Walker's head began to squeeze through the deformed door gap, bit by bit, forcing its way in!
Half of its body was already inside!
Merle followed Louis's gaze, and when he saw the deformed iron door and the Walker that had squeezed halfway through, the colour drained from his face in an instant!
"Quick! Kid! Go get me that axe!"
He panicked, frantically urging Louis, "Wait! Give me your knife first! Hurry! It'll be too late!"
However, Louis remained exceptionally calm. He didn't even turn his head, just slowly drew his peculiarly shaped "pendulum steel cone" from the holster at his waist.
Then he took a few steps toward the Walker.
Seeing this, Merle's eyes widened.
"Oh, damn it! What the hell are you doing?! Is now the time to play with your stupid toy?"
"You're not planning to use that thing against a Walker, are you?!"
Merle didn't believe a kid Louis's age had any ability to deal with Walkers. All he hoped was that if the kid got bitten, he could saw off his own hand before the child was eaten by the Walker.
Watching as the Walker squeezed its entire upper body through, Merle's gaze turned fierce:
"I knew it! I shouldn't have trusted any damn God!"
Just as he picked up the saw to continue cutting his hand, a sharp whistling sound pierced the air beside him!
He snapped his head around and saw a sight he would never forget.
The kid hurled the steel cone in his hand forward with force!
The steel cone, which looked heavy, seemed as light as a feather in his hand. It shot through the air with a barely visible glint of cold light, piercing the back of the Walker's skull with pinpoint accuracy!
"Thud!" A muffled sound.
The Walker's head, which had just emerged, went limp like a punctured balloon, instantly lifeless.
Immediately after, Louis flicked his wrist slightly, and the Nylon Rope connected to the steel cone instantly tightened, pulling the deadly weapon back into his hand!
The rooftop fell silent, leaving only Merle's heavy, wheezing breaths.
Louis didn't stop there. He threw the steel cone again, and another Walker trying to squeeze through the doorway was similarly and cleanly dispatched with a headshot!
Due to limited energy, he could only precisely control one steel cone at a time, but that was enough.
He cleared the Walkers at the door a few times, shook the black blood off the steel cone, and returned it to the holster at his waist.
Then he turned to Merle, who was already dumbfounded, and said, "Rest for now. Don't worry. I'll be back soon to save you."
With that, he turned and disappeared behind the fire escape door.
Only after Louis left did Merle gasp for breath as if he'd just been pulled from water.
He wiped the cold sweat and rain from his face, looked at the two fresh corpses by the door, then at his empty surroundings, and muttered under his breath, only audible to himself:
"Damn, did God send me a Terminator?? That's just fucking great!"
...Soon, Louis returned holding a Fire Axe.
However, perhaps due to excessive blood loss and the sudden relaxation of his nerves after seeing hope, Merle had already slumped over, unconscious.
Louis walked over to him, examined the police handcuffs locking his wrist tightly, looked at the Fire Axe in his hand, and frowned.
Merle's wrist was already a bloody mess. Cutting at the joint would make it hard to treat the wound, but cutting at the edge risked not only breaking the handcuff but also crippling Merle's hand with one swing.
He hesitated for a moment before finally making a safer decision.
First, he took off his jacket and gently covered Merle's face to prevent him from waking up suddenly and seeing something he shouldn't.
Then, he pulled out the ebony wand from his pocket.
He pointed the wand at the cold handcuffs, cleared his throat, and softly recited in a somewhat unskilled tone:
"Alohomora (Unlocking Charm)!"
...The handcuffs remained unmoved, not even a ripple of magic.
Louis's cheeks flushed slightly. It seemed such a specialized spell for dealing with locks was too advanced for a "wild Wizard" like him.
He coughed twice as if nothing had happened and raised the wand again.
"Alohomora is just a minor trick after all. Better to use something more practical."
He sighed, concentrated his magic at the tip of the wand, and silently recited the transformation command.
"Grow... widen..."
Under the influence of his magic, the hard steel handcuffs began to slowly and unnaturally twist and expand, like clay!
Soon, the inner diameter of the handcuffs was stretched considerably.
Louis carefully pulled Merle's bloody hand out, then restored the handcuffs to their original shape.
He breathed a sigh of relief and was about to leave with Merle when he suddenly realized a problem!
So Louis immediately turned back, picked up the Fire Axe, and swung it at the connecting edge of the handcuffs!
"Clang!" A loud crash, and a notch was cut into the circular handcuff.
After manually bending the notch wider, Louis wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
"That was close... almost a big problem."
He knew the plot well. Rick and the others were very likely to come back later to rescue Merle.
What if they returned, saw Merle saved, but the handcuffs were still intact and locked on the pipe? How would they explain how Merle escaped?
He couldn't exactly say he used magic to enlarge the handcuffs, could he?
After dealing with this potential issue, he refocused on Merle's wound.
He took out medical supplies from his backpack and, using the first-aid knowledge he'd learned from Doctor Gale, began treating Merle's wound.
First, he used the "Aguamenti" spell to conjure clean water, washing away the dirt and blood from the wound, then disinfected it with alcohol... After treating it as much as possible, Louis looked at Merle's deep, bone-exposing wound and his pale face from blood loss, knowing that without timely treatment, infection and Tetanus would be enough to kill him.
After a moment of thought, he finally raised the wand.
"Episkey."