"Then, keep the original warp plan. Destination—Xianzhou Alliance, Luofu." Himeko made the final decision.
"Wait."
Ms. Herta suddenly stood up from her chair and looked around at everyone with great interest. "Sounds like, besides looking for that Pink Hair girl, you have some other crisis to handle on this trip to the Xianzhou? Did those Stellaron Hunters reveal it?"
Welt looked at her: "Yes, Ms. Herta. Kafka hinted that there will be a major incident involving a'Stellaron' on Xianzhou Luofu."
"Stellaron?"
Ms. Herta stroked her chin and said: "Interesting." (Elio: Eh?)
She clapped her hands and made a decision: "I'm going to the Xianzhou with you. I'm very interested in the technique that girl named Long Night Moon used to make people disappear right under my nose, and I also want to see what kind of'script' the Stellaron Hunters are talking about and what kind of play it will actually perform." (Elio: Ah?)
Ms. Herta's joining undoubtedly increased the Astral Express's combat support, even though her main motivation was to satisfy her curiosity.
"Then, it's settled."
Himeko stood up, regaining the competence of the Astral Express navigator. "Pom-Pom, prepare for the final warp check. We'll take a short rest, and in one hour, we depart for our destination, Xianzhou Luofu!"
Time flows back slightly.
In Fuyuki City, on the edge of a residential area, stood an ancient Japanese-style mansion that looked completely out of place with the surrounding modern buildings.
High walls, dark tiled roofs, and silent, tightly closed gates all exuded an atmosphere of decay, confinement, and even a faint sense of foreboding.
On the nameplate, the two characters "Matou" were written.
Long Night Moon held her black umbrella, her crimson eyes calmly surveying the mansion.
Jack stood slightly behind her, her face expressionless, only occasionally glancing at a patch of stubborn weeds growing in the shadows of the corner, or a sparrow flying in the sky—her scope of observation was always very broad.
"According to the retrieved local 'master' family information..."
Long Night Moon whispered to herself, her voice almost dissipating in the cool evening breeze, "This should be the 'Matou Family'. A family with the qualifications to participate in the 'ritual'."
Her mission was clear: obtain a legal 'master' status and participate in the Fourth Holy Grail War, using this as a 'ticket' to stay in this world and rapidly advance the timeline.
The simplest and most direct way was to "borrow" an existing qualification.
And the Matou Family, among the information she quickly filtered, was a suitable target to "take over".
She closed her umbrella, stepped forward, raised her hand, and knocked on the heavy wooden door with moderate force.
Slow footsteps came from inside the door, and a moment later, the door creaked open a crack.
A middle-aged man wearing ordinary loungewear with a slightly haggard face poked his head out; it was Kirei Matou (a mediocre man shrouded in the shadows of his family).
He looked suspiciously at the two strange girls outside the door, whose appearance and temperament were both extraordinary: "Excuse me... who are you looking for?"
Long Night Moon did not answer, nor did she even look at him.
Her gaze seemed to pierce right through him, falling directly into the depths of the mansion.
She simply took a light step and walked straight in through the gap between the door and Kirei Matou.
Jack followed closely behind, also looking straight ahead.
Kirei Matou stood frozen on the spot, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but it seemed he had suddenly forgotten why he was standing at the door.
His eyes went blank for a moment, and then, as if he had just finished a routine door-opening action, he silently closed the door and turned back into the room, completely unaware of his abnormal behavior.
The interior of the mansion looked even more eerie than the outside, with dim lighting.
Long Night Moon did not stop her pace, walking deeper along the corridor.
Her perception was like invisible tentacles, quickly scanning the structure of the mansion and reading the imprints belonging to the master of this place.
"According to this person's memory, the current person in charge of the Matou Family... is named Zouken Matou?"
Long Night Moon sorted through the information as she walked. However, when she "saw" the image of that old man through Kirei Matou's memory fragments, her words paused rarely.
"... A..."
She frowned slightly, seemingly searching for a suitable adjective, and finally spat out two words with clear disgust, "... A somewhat ugly guy."
As soon as she finished speaking, as if to confirm her evaluation, the door of a Japanese-style room at the end of the corridor slid open.
An old man with a hunched back, wearing a dark Japanese kimono, his face withered like dried tree bark, and his eyes flashing with turbid shrewdness, walked out leaning on a cane.
It was Zouken Matou.
He was clearly surprised and vigilant about the appearance of strange aura inside the mansion, his hoarse voice demanding: "Who are you..."
He couldn't finish his sentence.
The moment he saw Long Night Moon's crimson eyes, which were calm but seemed to reflect all filth, his surroundings seemed to subtly distort.
Immediately after, several translucent, jellyfish-like phantoms emitting a soft, deep red glow appeared out of thin air without warning, lightly circling around his body.
Zouken Matou's body froze completely, his turbid eyes staring fixedly ahead, but they had lost their luster.
Long Night Moon closed her eyes slightly and then opened them quickly, her expression looking somewhat unpleasant in the dim light.
She had just quickly browsed through the surface and even some deep memories of this old worm.
It was filled with paranoia and cruelty spanning several centuries, the greedy exploitation of life, and countless dirty secret arts related to worms...
Especially the essence that constituted his body at this moment—it was a fake object formed and simulated by countless Imprint Worms!
"... Worms. Still worms."
Long Night Moon's voice was colder than the evening breeze of Fuyuki, carrying undisguised disgust, "... Worms that exude decay and malice in their very existence."
She didn't even bother to look at this puppet whose consciousness and actions were imprisoned, walking straight past him towards the direction marked in her memory that led deeper into the mansion—especially the underground.
The target was clear: the Worm Cave, and that little girl who was being used as 'material'.
Jack stopped in place, tilting her head, looking a bit confused at Zouken Matou, who was surrounded by deep red jellyfish and standing stiffly.
She could feel a kind of aura emanating from this "old man" that she instinctively didn't like.
Was Long Night Moon angry just now?
Why?
Because he looked ugly? Or because it seemed like there were many tiny life reactions squirming inside his body?
Jack didn't quite understand, but she felt that since Long Night Moon had "fixed" this guy, it should be temporarily handled.
She curiously leaned closer, her golden eyes carefully examining the statue, and even reached out a finger, seemingly wanting to poke the phantom of the deep red jellyfish, or see if the old man's skin was really as hard as tree bark.
Just as her fingertip was about to touch the halo at the edge of the jellyfish—
"Click."
From the direction of the mansion's main gate, the sound of the door being pushed open came.
Jack's ears twitched, she immediately withdrew her hand, silently retreated behind the shadow of a pillar in the corridor, and cast her gaze towards the entrance.
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