Henry put a bullet through the last stable hand's head, then collected his forty-eight horses, leaving the thirty-six belonging to the Lagan's Colts behind. He had enough.
He rode out of the stockyards, and after a few blocks, found a deserted alley, changed his disguise, and continued on.
It was 2 PM when he arrived back at the Pony Trade Company building. He let himself in with the keys he had taken and went up to the fourth floor. He collected the pile of bodies he had left there, then left, locking the door behind him.
He had no kerosene, and he didn't want to risk a fire in the crowded stockyards. A building full of mysteriously vanished men was a cleaner crime.
He bought the last two days' worth of newspapers, then rode for the manor in the northern suburbs.
He locked himself in the basement's secret room and finally took the time to examine the full extent of his new powers.
His progress bar now read Level 4, 0.015%. The next level would require a staggering one hundred thousand grey pearls.
And then he saw it. The new stat on his panel.
Lifespan: 7365 / 31286
He focused his mind, and the information flowed into him. The numbers were measured in days. Every soul he "released" extended his life. He could also now use the energy of the Release Pearls to increase his lifespan, but there was a limit, calculated by a simple formula.
One grey pearl was worth two days of life. One white, ten. One green, twenty.
He did the math. 7,365 days was twenty years and two months, his current age. 31,286 days meant his current maximum lifespan was just over eighty-five years.
His pearl husks could now also be used to expand his storage space. He had been kicking himself for not realizing it sooner; he could have saved so much of the loot he had been forced to burn.
But the most important new feature was a trait tied to his lifespan. As long as he was in the first fifty percent of his life, his appearance would not age. He would remain in his physical prime. From fifty to ninety percent, he would age into a middle-aged man and remain there. Only in the final ten percent would he begin to rapidly decline into old age.
At his current lifespan of eighty-five years, he would remain a young man until he was forty-three. If he used his pearls to extend his life to the maximum of 328 years that his Level 4 status allowed, he would remain in his prime for 164 years.
He decided he would wait. He would let himself age naturally. When the time came, when those he cared about had passed, then he would turn back the clock, and live a second spring.
He used a portion of his husks to expand his storage space to a massive 306 cubic meters, leaving a healthy reserve for defense.
He then went back upstairs to the manor's main hall, summoned a leather sofa, and sat down to read the newspaper.
At that same moment, the Lagan's Colts' branch headquarters was a roaring inferno, the flames consuming the entire building, a monument to Henry's wrath.