Tivian North Suburb, King's College, Royal Saint Crown University.
At night, deep within the Secret Knowledge Society's gathering point on the King's Campus, after passing through a long corridor filled with strict guards, white spider silk, and orange lights, in the first layer of the ruins, more than a dozen figures were gathered at this moment. Above the lamp-lit room, these figures were all wearing black hooded robes, arranged in neat ranks.
These people were student members of the Secret Knowledge Society. At this moment, they were all standing in a neat line, looking forward with blank expressions. In front of them, a row of three people was standing. The one in the middle was bald and thin, with prominent cheekbones and deep dark circles around his eyes. This was Claudius.
"Everyone, for a long time, you have proven your loyalty and ability. As a reward, tonight, I will personally lead you to become Extraordinary."
Looking at the neatly arranged students of the society with confused expressions, Claudius opened his arms and declared. Hearing Claudius's words, these students bowed deeply one after another, their movements uniform, and they spoke in unison.
"We are grateful, Captain..."
The unified sound echoed in the room. Seeing this scene before him, Claudius nodded slightly, then responded.
"Now, the time has come. Come."
After speaking, Claudius waved his hand, and the students lined up and walked to the side of the room, descending the stairs to the next layer of the ruins. After watching the students descend the stairs one after another, Claudius turned his head and said to a henchman not far beside him.
"Guard this place well. Don't let a single bug in."
"Yes, Captain. With so many precautions, this place will definitely be foolproof."
That henchman who was asked responded, and seeing this scene, Claudius also nodded slightly.
Ci Rong being killed by an unknown force proved that someone was watching them. For the important ritual at hand, Claudius had to take precautions against unexpected situations. Thinking of the security network composed of sensing spider silk, guards, Hui Jian Lamps, and even anti-Ghost and in-wall Spirituality detection measures, a sense of security filled his heart.
Claudius was confident that unless it was a truly high-level Extraordinary, no one could pass through such a strict security network silently. If someone were to force their way in, the immediate warning would let him know instantly.
After all the students had left, Claudius also took the people around him down to the second layer of the ruins. In the spacious hall, towering stone pillars supported the underground space. In front of the hall's wall, there was a five to six meter tall statue of a goddess with a spider's head and a human body.
In front of the statue was a huge magic array that had been drawn. A circle of candles was lit around the hall at this time, and lamps were hung on the stone pillars. On both sides of the statue, two rows of masked figures in black clothes holding small knives were standing. Their expressions looked like they were waiting for something. This was the ritual ground of the Eight Point Nest.
After entering the ritual, the students uniformly stepped onto the magic array, then knelt down facing Claudius, their movements completely consistent.
"Now, pray! Pray to the Spider Queen! Call Her power from the deep web of the reverse side! Invade this land!"
Claudius spread his hands and shouted loudly. Immediately after, the more than a dozen cult members in the hall holding small knives also began to silently pray, while the group of students still knelt motionlessly on the ground, watching Claudius in front of them, their expressions as blank as ever.
The ritual in the ritual ground began, and on the ceiling of the ritual ground hall, a gecko perched there was intently watching the scene inside the ritual ground.
...
"They've started..."
On the third layer of the underground ruins, near the staircase entrance, Dorothy was sitting on a chair, muttering. Around her lay a dozen or so corpses of various kinds, which Dorothy had taken out of the magic box as corpse reserves. Now they were all Corpse Puppet reserves.
"It's started... So, should we sneak up now?"
In front of Dorothy, Vanya said with a hint of nervousness. At this time, she was wearing a black Sister's habit, a mask on her face, holding a rifle in her hand, and carrying a large fan-shaped item covered with a black cloth on her back.
"Yes, according to the plan, it's time to act. Now is the best time."
Dorothy said this, while Vanya continued with some worry.
"Uh... It seems there are quite a few people up there, Miss Dorothy. If we sneak up like this, won't we be discovered?"
"Don't worry, I've checked. The people up there are busy with the ritual and have no time to worry about anything else. There's no one near the staircase entrance leading to us... How could they possibly send someone to specifically guard the stairs leading deeper into the empty ruins?"
Listening to Vanya's words, Dorothy smiled and said frankly. The lower layers of the ruins, which had been repeatedly plundered by countless societies for hundreds of years, were empty and had only one dead end. Only someone with water in their brain would think of sending people to guard it.
The Eight Point Nest had searched this ruin many times. In their eyes, there was only one main road leading to the sole gathering point for entry and exit. As long as that was guarded, everything would be foolproof.
They would not expect the hidden secrets within this ruin that originally belonged to the Xing Shu Xiu Shu Hui (Star Numerology Scripture Society), because the Extraordinary of "enlightenment" who could discern these secrets had been extinct for a thousand years.
After continuous overtime efforts, Dorothy's Corpse Puppet construction team finally opened up a passage from the six-layer ruins. Thus, Dorothy could bypass the gathering point and enter the lowest level of the ruins through the passage of the Hall of Ascension, arriving below the ritual ground through a "back door" completely unknown to the Eight Point Nest.
After Beverly took the poison gas sample to her professional "friend," she obtained the antidote tablets specifically for this poison and was charged a black-hearted price of 40 pound per tablet by Dorothy.
Because she didn't have enough money, Dorothy even ran to the City, pawned all the gold and silver utensils she had plundered from Burton's house, Buck's house, and Field's villa, a pile of stolen goods, and finally got 440 pound in cash. With the pawned money, Dorothy, who originally only had 10 pound left, barely had enough to pay for the medicine. Later, she bought three antidote tablets in one go.
This evening, the well-prepared Dorothy and Vanya entered the ruins through the secret passage of the Hall of Ascension. With the support of the medicine, they passed through the poison gas corridor, crossed the ruins where a path had been cleared, and finally arrived below the ritual ground, which was the third layer of the ruins, and had been waiting for the opportunity here.
"Okay... We should go. Be quiet."
Saying this, Dorothy stood up from the chair, then simultaneously manipulated six Corpse Puppets wearing coats and holding revolvers, walking towards the stairs leading upwards not far ahead, and Vanya immediately followed.
Carefully, Dorothy, Vanya, and the Corpse Puppets crept up the stairs and arrived at the edge of the second-layer hall, hiding in the shadow behind a tall pillar. At this time, everyone on the second layer was focused on the ritual, and no one noticed that people had emerged from the downward staircase leading to the dead end.
"Prioritize sniping the bald leader!"
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Dorothy whispered to Vanya beside her. Hearing Dorothy's words, Vanya nodded, then raised the rifle in her hand and aimed the muzzle at the head of Claudius, who was presiding over the ritual in the distance. At the same time, Dorothy also controlled her Corpse Puppets to raise their guns one after another, aiming at the black-clothed figures participating in the ritual, those henchmen.
Now, everything was ready, just waiting for the shot.
Just as Dorothy was about to give the order to fire, she suddenly noticed a problem, and then her brows furrowed slightly, her gaze lingering on the blank-faced students.
'These students' eyes... are they hypnotized? One of the Vampire's abilities is human hypnosis. It seems that bald bat hypnotized them all together and brought them here. Well... that makes them easier to control.
'It's just... the direction these students are looking seems a bit off.'
With the help of multiple small Corpse Puppets spread throughout the entire ritual area, Dorothy carefully observed the crowd of students before her and found that their eyes were all staring blankly ahead, seemingly fixed on Claudius's direction. However, upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a slight deviation.
After being promoted to a Black Rank Erudite, Dorothy's information reception and processing abilities had significantly improved. This meant she could notice more details and detect inconsistencies.
For example, now, these students all seemed to be looking at Claudius, but Dorothy mentally 'photoshopped' the scene in her mind. She took an overhead view from a small Corpse Puppet directly above and used the "line" tool to draw auxiliary lines along the gaze of all the students, only to find that this was not the case.
In Dorothy's eyes, the true focus of these students' gazes was not Claudius, but one of the guards beside him, and that guard's eyes were also fixed intently on the students before him.
'Interesting... it seems this is your standard routine, huh?'
After noticing the current situation, Dorothy thought to herself. Just then, Vanya, who was seriously aiming nearby, spoke in a low voice.
"Miss Dorothy... when should we make our move?"
"Ah, immediately, but change your target. Change it to the one on the right of your original target."
Dorothy said to Vanya. Although Vanya was a bit surprised, she immediately followed Dorothy's instructions and adjusted her aim, targeting another guard-like man to the right of Claudius. Meanwhile, Dorothy directed three Corpse Puppets to aim at Claudius.
"Aiming complete," Vanya reported, and Dorothy immediately responded.
"Fire!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Simultaneously, Dorothy's Corpse Puppets and Vanya fired together. Accompanied by the roaring sound of gunfire echoing throughout the underground space, six bullets shot towards the crowd performing the ritual ahead.
Of these, two bullets missed, two hit two henchmen who were performing the ritual, and one hit Claudius in the chest.
As for the shot fired by Vanya, it was originally flying precisely towards the head of the attendant to Claudius's right. However, just as the bullet was about to hit the attendant, he suddenly widened his eyes and managed to timely dodge by tilting his head.
"Crack!"
Finally, at the last moment, that attendant narrowly avoided the fate of being shot through the head by Vanya's bullet. The bullet hit his head at a slightly off angle, shattering a part of his skull and grazing a small portion of his brain tissue. Blood gushed out. Afterward, his chest was also hit by a shot. After being shot, the attendant let out a scream, then his entire body was enveloped in Shadow, transforming into a swarm of bats that scattered and flew away.
The other people who were shot fell down. Among them, as Claudius clutched his wound and grit his teeth while falling, his face rapidly wriggled, eventually changing into another face. It was Avery's face!
Just in case, the Shadow Facers, who could disguise themselves, played the game of identity swapping again. The original Claudius pretended to be Avery, and Avery pretended to be Claudius to take the bullet for him.
Dorothy and Vanya had seen this move performed by Ci Rong and Eile. Dorothy was already wary of this basic operation of Shadow Facers. Through the slight visual anomaly of the hypnotized students, Dorothy determined Claudius's true location and shot him. But it was a pity that White Rank's reaction ability was too strong; he could actually dodge a rifle bullet fired in a sneak attack to a certain extent.
"What, that guy isn't dead? He turned into bats!"
"Don't panic, Vanya, keep shooting. Kill those henchmen first..."
Dorothy said in a deep voice, then controlled six Corpse Puppets wearing coats to line up and walk out of the Shadow together, continuously firing their revolvers at the panicked henchmen in black robes. The henchmen, caught off guard by the surprise attack, were instantly thrown into chaos. Without their commander, they were shot down before they even had time to draw their guns, while the hypnotized students remained kneeling in the magic circle with blank expressions, not moving. They didn't run around and create obstacles for Dorothy's cleanup work.
For a time, the ritual area was in chaos, with continuous gunshots ringing out. The originally dozen or so henchmen were instantly killed off for the most part, while the scattered bats reassembled in a safe place. Claudius, with blood still gushing from his head, reappeared as the bats converged.
Trembling, Claudius took out a large syringe filled with bright red blood from his clothes, then without thinking, plunged it into the large artery in his arm and pushed the plunger down in one go.
As a large amount of blood was rapidly injected into Claudius's body, his injuries instantly healed completely. The gunshots on his body quickly closed up, the bullets were squeezed out, and his head stopped bleeding. The damaged part of his brain tissue also rapidly regenerated with the wriggling of flesh and blood, exposed by the shattered skull.
Aside from the bone damage, Claudius had recovered as good as new after that one injection.
"Damn attackers... Where did you come from!"
Claudius said through clenched teeth. Although he was extremely confused about where this group came from, he knew that the priority now was to eliminate all the enemies.
Claudius waved his hand, making all the hypnotized students fall asleep to reduce Spirituality expenditure. Then he transformed again, turning into a large swarm of black bats that lunged directly at the six invading gunmen.
At this time, the six gunmen, after dealing with most of the henchmen, were running towards the stairs leading to the first floor. They all ran up the stairs, launching an attack on the enemies on the floor above and had gradually reached the first floor.
When they saw the large swarm of bats Pounce them, the six gunmen raised their guns and fired a barrage at the bat swarm. However, bullets were clearly limited in their killing power against such agile small targets. Before two bats were shot down, the entire dense black swarm of bats had surged before the gunmen, enveloping all of them.
Under the tearing of sharp claws and teeth, the bodies of the six gunmen were rapidly torn apart and dismembered, falling down one after another. Seeing this scene, Dorothy, who remained hidden in the Shadow, couldn't help but smile slightly.
Subsequently, Dorothy controlled a fallen Corpse Puppet gunman to press a small mechanism hidden in its sleeve. When this mechanism was triggered, a simple ignition device inside the Corpse Puppet's coat ignited, then lit the opening of a small gas cylinder nearby and flammable material soaked in kerosene.
Next, the gas cylinder filled with gas was ignited, and the gas inside began to burn violently, causing an explosion. The explosion of one gas cylinder triggered another nearby, and finally, all the gas cylinders carried by the same Corpse Puppet were detonated in a chain reaction. The explosion on one Corpse Puppet triggered the explosion of the gas cylinders on the nearby Corpse Puppets, and eventually, all six Corpse Puppets erupted in dazzling flames. The high-temperature inferno instantly engulfed all the surrounding bats.