Inside the Flying Theatre, the orchestra members played their instruments to their hearts' content. The lingering yet sorrowful music echoed within the vast, dim space, resonating in the ears of every audience member. On the stage, under the gaze of all eyes, Adele, in a red dress, continued to dance with abandon.
Adele's limb movements were graceful and natural, flowing smoothly like water. Coupled with the bright red dance dress, this flow sometimes seemed like blood, driven by the heart, coursing through veins.
Adele's elegant dance deeply captivated the gaze of all the audience members present. Everyone was immersed in it, and including Adele, no one realized that within this grand dance, a faint killing intent was lurking.
Unnoticed by anyone, a backup dancer quietly left her position, moving with dance steps from behind and slowly approaching Adele. She danced as she approached, so much so that the audience thought it was part of the dance. Although some of the other backup dancers noticed this dancer's abnormality, they didn't dare to stop and point it out because the performance was still ongoing, and Adele was still dancing. Stopping would ruin the entire performance, so they could only watch as the dancer deviating from the path slowly approached Adele from behind.
They did not see the small Stone knife with carved symbols already prepared under the dancer's skirt.
Spinning, dancing, the unruly dancer finally approached Adele from behind. In a turn, under a carefully designed dance move, she pulled out the small Stone knife from under her skirt, then gripped it tightly and thrust it straight towards Adele's back. In the next second, it could pierce Adele's body, staining her red dance dress with real blood.
And at the moment the dancer gripped the small knife and thrust it towards Adele, her body suddenly trembled slightly unnaturally. The hand thrusting towards Adele suddenly deviated, and the tightly gripped small knife grazed past Adele's side. In a certain Shadow, a pair of eyes saw this scene and couldn't help but frown deeply.
This degree of abnormality from the dancer finally elicited a reaction from the audience. Many viewers exclaimed directly upon seeing this scene, while some other backup dancers, realizing something was wrong, also momentarily stopped their dance. Only the orchestra, whose position was below the stage, continued their music. The performance was on the verge of turning into smoke due to this unexpected incident.
Just then, Adele, who was dancing, turned sideways, grabbed the dancer's wrist that was thrusting towards her with one hand, shook it slightly to dislodge the Stone knife held in her hand, and as the Stone knife fell to the ground, she gave another slight pull to draw the dancer's body towards her, wrapping her other arm around the dancer's waist.
In an instant, Adele and the dancer struck a pose for a duet. Adele, with powerful force, led the dancer to continue dancing on the stage. The assassin and the intended victim danced together. The gasps from the audience instantly transformed into exclamations of awe and cheers. While dancing, Adele spun around in the center of the stage, sweeping a sharp gaze over the backup dancers who had stopped. The backup dancers, upon being swept by Adele's gaze, immediately reacted and continued to dance with the music.
And so, the music continued, the dance continued. Amidst the audience's applause, Adele and the dancer she was holding began a duet, a duet that was not originally planned but was improvised. Pulled by Adele, the expressionless assassin dancer began another section of the dance, while the other backup dancers continued their accompaniment as usual.
During the dance, Adele gazed at the dancer's expressionless face. She lowered her voice, her red lips parted slightly, and she asked softly.
"Are you... Maria?"
As if hearing Adele's question, the dancer named Maria's originally expressionless look relaxed for a moment, and then her demeanor became natural, as if she were a real person.
"You almost died. You'd better stop your performance now."
Facing Adele before her, "Maria" said softly, while Adele smiled slightly and continued to speak softly.
"I know, thank you. But since the music hasn't ended, the dance must continue."
"Can you dance, stranger?"
Adele, holding "Maria" and seemingly understanding the situation before her, continued to say with a smile, while "Maria" replied directly.
"No."
"It's okay, I'll lead, just follow me."
Saying this, Adele exerted some force, making the dance moves slightly larger in amplitude, while "Maria", dancing with her, tried her best to keep up with Adele's steps. Under Adele's impromptu improvisation, this dance officially became a duet, and the dance continued.
Adele's dancing skills were superb. She could clearly feel that "Maria", her dance partner, was indeed a novice at dancing, but she could still secretly guide "Maria"'s movements with various sophisticated techniques and hints, ensuring that "Maria"'s performance remained within the scope of the dance without any mishaps.
As the music continued, this dance, which originally had a hint of theatrical meaning, began to deviate from the original script midway, turning into an improvised performance starring Adele and "Maria". Although the backup dancers were all extremely confused in their hearts, they still tried their best to keep up, relying on their years of rich dancing experience. Their accompaniment was not much different from what was previously arranged, but what Adele and "Maria" were dancing was completely different from the original version.
Adele guided "Maria" to follow her dance steps. At first, she could feel that although the dancer in front of her could barely keep up with her guidance, her movements were very unnatural. However, as time passed, she could feel that the unnaturalness in "Maria" was decreasing, and her movements following her guidance were becoming more fluid. Sometimes, even without Adele needing to guide her, she could spontaneously take a step. The coordination between the two was becoming increasingly harmonious.
Learning, Adele felt with some surprise. The "Maria" she faced was learning the impromptu dance she was performing at an astonishing speed. She was learning as she danced, and instantly applying what she learned. Under Adele's guidance and teaching, "Maria"'s dancing skills were growing rapidly, transitioning from being passively guided to actively cooperating in less than a minute.
"Interesting..."
Seeing "Maria"'s incredibly rapid growth amidst her terrifying learning speed, the smile on Adele's lips deepened. She immediately took the initiative to increase the difficulty of the dance. After figuring out "Maria"'s learning speed, she also gradually increased the difficulty of the dance moves. Their movements became increasingly fast and expansive. Following Adele, the difficulty and complexity of the dance moves "Maria" performed gradually climbed, even exceeding Maria's original level.
The gradually escalating dance between the guide and the learner caused the audience below the stage to occasionally let out gasps of amazement. Meanwhile, some staff members in the theater who had seen the rehearsal were completely dumbfounded. The dance being performed on stage now was completely different from the rehearsal. They watched the scene on stage with trepidation, fearing that such an unprecedented, unplanned, and purely improvised performance might suddenly encounter a major mishap. Fortunately, no such mishap occurred even once.
Adele and "Maria"'s dance began to become increasingly intense, the difficulty of the moves grew, and the footwork became faster and faster as they watched. The entire dance, in its spiraling ascent, seemed to gradually reach a point of madness, seemingly starting to gradually exceed the scope of ordinary dance, rapidly advancing towards a certain realm. A hint of unease permeated the music.
Adele wanted to push the dance to its extreme, to madness. However, when she noticed that the music was nearing its end and time no longer allowed her to test the limits of her mysterious dance partner, she began to actively slow down her movements, easing the overall pace again, and then started to conclude the performance with the other backup dancers.
Finally, after the conclusion of the music's final section, Adele and "Maria", who had successfully brought the dance back, also stopped at the end of the dance. The two of them stood in a line with the other backup dancers, bowed to the audience, and then received unprecedented thunderous applause.
The audience erupted. After witnessing such a performance, the entire theatre was filled with enthusiastic applause and cheers. Countless audience members stood up from their seats, clapping eagerly, and many of Miss Adele's old audience members were also extremely excited.
"Adele! Adele! Adele!"
Amidst the thunderous audience, people even began spontaneously and neatly shouting Adele's name, and at the same time, the huge final curtain began to slowly close, and the performers started to be hidden behind the curtain.
After the curtain fully closed, the dancers immediately rushed towards Adele with cheers, and the staff who had been terrified offstage could finally no longer restrain themselves and rushed up, surrounding Adele. To outsiders, this was an extremely successful performance, but in the eyes of the dancers and theatre staff who knew the truth, everything that had just happened had put their hearts in their throats.
Behind the curtain, Adele was constantly asked questions by the people surrounding her, and Adele also smiled and responded to the concerns from all sides, explaining that she was fine. And during this process, her eyes kept scanning and searching for a figure, searching for the figure of her recent dance partner, "Maria".
However, she found that "Maria" had disappeared without a trace at this moment. Behind the curtain, no trace could be found.
"She's gone..."
Amidst the noise, looking at the busy stage, Adele softly muttered.
...
Although the curtain on the stage had fallen, the enthusiastic sounds from the audience remained undiminished, only changing from cheers to discussions. The audience members were all vying to discuss the wonderful performance that had just taken place.
"It was amazing... truly amazing. Is this Miss Adele's dance? It was so beautiful, and her dance partner was also incredibly strong. At first, I thought she was going to kill Miss Adele, it startled me. I didn't expect it to be part of the program, the creativity is truly brilliant." Sitting in her seat, Naifnis, who had just been clapping vigorously, exclaimed repeatedly, then she turned her head towards Dorothy beside her.
"Captain Miss Dorothea, did Captain see it?! I feel like our trip here was truly worth it... Hmm?"
Naifnis said excitedly to Dorothy, but suddenly she noticed something wasn't quite right. At this moment, Dorothy was sprawled directly on her seat, holding a piece of paper and wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead, her mouth slightly panting, looking somewhat tired.
"Captain Miss Dorothea, what's wrong with Captain? Is Captain hot?"
"Ah... pretty much. Maybe it's because I wore too much today and there are too many people here." Dorothy replied with a sigh of relief, but the actual situation was definitely not like that.
In a sense, Dorothy had just accompanied Adele on stage for an entire dance, mentally.
Yes, just now, Adele's dance partner was less the corpse that was Maria and more Dorothy. Just now, it was Dorothy who manipulated Maria using spirit threads and danced an entire dance with Adele.
When she realized Maria was a controlled Corpse Puppet and was preparing to assassinate Adele during the dance, Dorothy acted. She used the Puppeteer ability simulated by the Erudite, connecting her spirit threads to Maria, and contended with Maria's original controller for control of the Corpse Puppet.
Maria was a Corpse Puppet controlled by an extraordinary item similar in form to Dorothy's Corpse Puppet Ring. The controlled Corpse Puppet was wooden, rigid, not very flexible, and couldn't speak. The control strength was very low. Compared to Dorothy, who could use spirit threads much more skillfully, this "Puppeteer" was far inferior, so Dorothy easily seized control of Maria. When Maria was assassinating Adele, she controlled her to intentionally stab off-target.
Originally, Dorothy had only intended to remind Adele, but she didn't expect that Adele, surprisingly, for the sake of the performance continuing, pulled the Maria controlled by Dorothy and wanted to dance, completely lacking any awareness that she had just almost been assassinated and might still be in danger. Dorothy initially found it quite interesting, so she manipulated Maria to accompany her in dancing.
In order to dance this dance better, Dorothy utilized the Erudite's powerful learning ability and began to learn Adele's dance on the spot through Adele's guidance. But who would have thought that Adele quickly noticed Dorothy's formidable on-the-spot learning ability, and then surprisingly intentionally increased the difficulty of the dance, seemingly wanting to test the limit of Dorothy's learning ability.
Although Dorothy kept learning and keeping up, she was also sweating due to her high level of mental concentration. In her eyes, Adele's dance, with its gradually increasing difficulty, was becoming harder and harder to learn, and more and more frantic.
Dorothy had a feeling at one point that if the music hadn't made her stop, she would have led Dorothy towards some kind of forbidden realm.
'This woman, she's indeed the kind with big problems...'
Dorothy exclaimed in her heart, then she turned her thoughts to be concerned about another problem, the problem of Maria.
During the process of Dorothy controlling Maria to dance, she could feel that Maria's original controller had been trying to use the extraordinary item they held to regain control of Maria, but had only been suppressed by Dorothy.
Dorothy also became curious about who was controlling Maria, so after the performance ended, she intentionally released control. This was because when she interpreted the command sent to Maria by the controller, the command she deciphered was for Maria to leave immediately, and at that time, it seemed that the controller had also consumed extra Spirituality, wanting to contend with Dorothy for control.
This might be Maria's original controller wanting to reclaim Maria, Dorothy judged. Thus, while still having a spirit thread attached to Maria's body, she intentionally pretended she couldn't resist the other party's contention and returned control of Maria to the other party. However, as expected, the Maria controlled by the other party immediately ran away from the stage, taking advantage of the chaos after the curtain call. By means of the spirit thread still wrapped around Maria's body, Dorothy could still find Maria's figure now. If the controller wanted to reclaim Maria, Dorothy could also find the controller.
'So... where is that Miss Maria now?'
Thinking like this, Dorothy began to sense Maria's trace.
...
Inside a washroom in the Flying Theatre, a dancer wearing a dark red dress pushed open the door and walked into the washroom. After closing the washroom door, she walked in front of the mirror. On the mirror, Maria's wooden and blank expression was reflected.
After standing blankly in front of the mirror for a moment, Maria raised her right hand. In it, she was currently holding a small knife, an ordinary iron-made small knife.
Driving her body with stiff movements, Maria held the small knife backhand, placed it in front of her chest and abdomen, and then, without blinking, stabbed towards her abdomen.
One stab, two stabs, three stabs... With a wooden and indifferent expression, Maria continuously stabbed her abdomen with the small knife. For a moment, blood splattered everywhere, the entire washroom was stained with splattered blood drops, and her entire abdomen was a bloody mess.
Then, Maria raised the knife, pointed it towards her face, and again forcefully slashed out several large blood marks on her beautiful face, incidentally poking out her own eyes.
Finally, Maria threw the small knife out of the washroom window leading outside, then lay down on the washroom floor, her eyes wide open. She stretched out her hand, dipped it in her own fresh blood, and began to write letters on the ground, crookedly and trembling.
Slanted letters were written one after another. When she wrote the last letter, her head tilted, and her entire body collapsed, losing all strength.
And the crooked, bloody letters she finally wrote spelled out a simple name.
"Adele"