West Tivian, Coal Ash District.
In the afternoon, on a sparsely populated street, a yellow horse was galloping forward rapidly, constantly kicking up dust with its hooves. Pedestrians in front of the running horse saw it and quickly got out of the way.
Riding on the full-speed galloping horse was a figure wearing a black cloak. This figure held the reins, constantly urging the horse to speed up, and while galloping forward along the street, also kept looking back. Behind him was a rapidly sweeping cloud of sand and dust that was engulfing the entire street.
The pedestrians who were panicking and avoiding the running horse hadn't even had a chance to curse the reckless rider when the swirling dust closely following behind them swallowed them up. In the blowing wind and sand, all the pedestrians on the street couldn't help but cover their faces and find a place to hide. Street vendors shouted as they covered their stalls to prevent them from being blown away by the sudden strong wind. Everyone was temporarily unable to see clearly.
Therefore, what no one saw was that above the sand and dust, a figure was flying forward along the street at high speed, heading straight for the galloping rider ahead.
Flying with the wind, Edmund quickly caught up to the fleeing target ahead. His eyes stared forward, and with a wave of his cane, he stirred up another violent gust of wind that swept forward. The strong wind kicked up a larger amount of dust and directly blew over the horse the rider was on. The horse fell heavily to the ground with a neigh, and the rider on it was also directly thrown off.
The figure wearing the cloak cried out as he fell to the ground, but immediately struggled to stand up and prepare to continue fleeing. However, at this moment, Edmund directly swooped down from the sky and struck the figure hard with the cane in his hand. The figure cried out in pain and fell to the ground again, his hood falling off, revealing the face of an ordinary young man.
"Don't move, kneel on the ground, turn your face away, raise your hands, don't look at me with your eyes. If you don't want your head to move, just take it easy."
He pointed the cane in his hand directly at the young man, and after a moment of panic, the young man's expression showed no resistance. He turned and knelt on the ground, raising his hands as Edmund instructed. Seeing this, a slight smile appeared on Edmund's lips.
...
On the other side, while Edmund turned to pursue other targets, Adele finally escaped. After getting rid of Edmund's pursuit, she immediately fled into the urban area of the Coal Ash District, moving back and forth through the narrow alleys. Seeing that Edmund really hadn't followed, she breathed a sigh of relief at the end of an empty alley.
Not long after, a voice that suddenly sounded made her immediately tense up again.
"That was really close, Miss Adele, we almost had a direct confrontation with the An Yin Bureau."
Adele looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a familiar figure walking out from around a corner, a man in a trench coat and a short hat, that was Detective Ed.
"Whew... Yes... I was almost caught by that mad dog, thanks to Captain, great Detective... ah no... I should say great Director."
Seeing Ed appear, Adele breathed a sigh of relief. Still wearing sunglasses, she knew that the group of seemingly mentally controlled civilians at the cargo depot just now were clearly the Corpse Puppets manipulated by Ed. When she was at the theater before, she had seen Ed's talking Corpse Puppets, and even more so, she had seen Ed's lifelike performances using Corpse Puppets. So when those "hostages" appeared, she immediately knew that Ed was using his ability to help her out of the predicament.
"Call it whatever you want... Fortunately, that Hunter Captain still cared about the safety of the civilians, so this move was effective against him. If it were a deranged cultist, things would have been a bit difficult."
Ed said as he walked over to Adele's side. At Carbonwood Crossroads, Edmund had suddenly attacked Adele, whom he thought was the culprit, in order to protect the ordinary people. This point made Dorothy certain that the other party cared about the lives of ordinary people.
If Edmund didn't care at all about the ordinary people at Carbonwood Crossroads who were affected by the ability, he could have remained still, then secretly followed Adele and cooperated with his subordinates to investigate secretly or launch a siege, instead of acting immediately and alerting the enemy. However, under the circumstances at the time, Edmund believed that if he didn't act immediately, those people at the crossroads might be in life-threatening danger.
Caring about the lives of ordinary people, and firmly believing that there were Extraordinary operating the minds of ordinary people, after understanding these two key points, Dorothy immediately devised a plan to use Corpse Puppets to act and attract Edmund's attention. Due to the overall lack of the path of """enlightenment""", in the hidden world, only Dorothy's Corpse Puppets could talk and move as realistically as ordinary people. Therefore, Edmund had no choice but to believe Dorothy's directed play.
After using an ordinary Corpse Puppet to lure Edmund away, Dorothy had been using a crow Corpse Puppet to overlook and monitor the city from the sky, constantly tracking the escaping Adele, and then letting Ed reunite with her.
"Anyway, thanks to Captain, I finally got rid of that mad dog... But why did he suddenly target me? And the situation at the crossroads just now..."
Frowning, Adele murmured. Her expression was very serious now. After this incident, she also saw that the current situation was a bit strange. The sudden loss of control of ordinary people at Carbonwood Crossroads and the timing of the Hunter targeting her were too coincidental. Regarding this situation, a series of uneasy thoughts surfaced in Adele's mind.
Looking at Adele, whose face had turned ugly, Ed spoke seriously.
"Although Miss Adele, you might not want to hear it, I still want to say, from the current situation, this series of incidents in the Coal Ash District is very likely a trap set for Miss Adele. The Wolf Blood Society has very likely controlled your teacher and used her ability to attract the An Yin Bureau, causing you to be pursued by the An Yin Bureau, in order to achieve their purpose."
Ed said this, and Adele also nodded silently, then said in a deep voice.
"Hmm... You're right, indeed... From the current situation, we have been led into a trap..." Adele murmured with a serious face, and Ed also continued to speak.
"Yes, the incident in the Coal Ash District is a trap set for Miss Adele. Now that we have fortunately escaped one of their designs, it is safest to retreat immediately."
Listening to Ed's words, Adele was slightly startled, then looked at Ed and said with a smile.
"If Detective wants to escape... you'd pull me away immediately, you wouldn't be telling me this here... So Mr. Ed, do you have any other plans?"
Adele said to Ed, and Ed shrugged and replied.
"Heh... Miss Adele is truly sharp, you'd pull me away immediately if you wanted to escape, you wouldn't be telling me this here... So Mr. Ed, do you have any other plans?"
He adjusted his collar, Ed said with a calm and composed expression. Looking at the man in front of her, Adele paused slightly, then continued to reply with a smile.
"Still so reassuring, your confidence is always the most attractive thing, Detective, I'm really happy to be able to hire you."
"Thank you for the compliment, let's talk about things like this after the current matter is over. The top priority now is to find the guy hiding in the dark trying to harm us."
Ed said this, and after hearing Ed's words, Adele's expression became serious again. She patted the dust off her body and said to Ed.
"Looking at Detective, you seem to have some leads now."
"Sort of, but we need more information to make any substantial progress, Miss Adele, I remember you once said that the activation of the Desire Dancer's ability requires perceiving the target, otherwise, it can only be released indiscriminately and randomly, so may I ask, what exactly is this kind of perception like, do you have to see it?" Ed asked Adele for advice, and the other party quickly replied.
"For the Desire Dancer, seeing is the best way to perceive. Other ways of perception, such as smell or hearing, can only roughly confirm a direction, the direction the smell comes from and the direction the sound comes from, and cannot achieve immediate precise positioning. Seeing is the best way to determine the location."
Adele replied as such, and Ed also furrowed his brows slightly after hearing it.
"In that case... at least at Carbonwood Crossroads, we... the An Yin Bureau... and those ordinary passersby, were all likely under the gaze of that person behind the scenes? Maybe... he was even on the scene?"
"It's certain that we were all within his field of vision at the time, but the person himself wasn't necessarily on the scene. Firstly, that's not safe, and secondly, if the other party is indeed controlling my teacher in some way to release the ability, then they must be by my imprisoned teacher's side, so at Carbonwood Crossroads, it's more likely a Corpse Puppet that can provide vision. The other party should have a humanoid Corpse Puppet at Carbonwood Crossroads wearing an Extraordinary item of """Shadow""" to block my Spirituality perception."
Adele said this. Having had a lot of contact with the Wolf Blood Society, she knew many of their methods.
And listening to Adele's words, Ed also nodded.
"Hmm... indeed, this possibility is greater. When that Hunter Captain stirred up the sandstorm, the affected people on the scene were instantly unaffected. This should be the reason why the vision of the Corpse Puppet he placed at Carbonwood Crossroads was blocked, causing it to lose the target."
Dorothy thought this. At that time, she didn't find anyone at Carbonwood Crossroads who acted like a Corpse Puppet, so the other party might have been hiding on the upper floors of a building, peeking outside.
"But there's still a problem here, even if the other party was monitoring Carbonwood Crossroads, how did he know we were problematic? Those Black Dogs were also wearing plain clothes when they came, how did he recognize those Black Dogs?"
At this time, Adele murmured doubtfully, stroking her chin. At that time, that mastermind accurately transferred Edmund's eager desire to find the mind controller precisely onto Adele. The premise was that he knew the identity of those plainclothes Hunters, and also knew Adele's identity. And how did he know this?
The """Shadow""" in Dorothy's ring of concealment was not missing, which proved that no one was using """Lamp""" to forcibly find Extraordinary. That group of Hunters were very likely all Extraordinary of """Shadow""", there was enough """Shadow""", making it harder to find them using Extraordinary abilities.
So... how did that mastermind determine the identities of Adele and Edmund? It's not possible that the Scarlet Heart and the An Yin Bureau both have their moles, right? Adele's action this time was highly confidential, only Ed... or Dorothy knew what Adele came to the Coal Ash District to do this time.
Listening to Adele's question, Dorothy also fell into contemplation for a moment. The Ed she controlled also entered a state of thought, but after a while, Dorothy had Ed speak slowly, uttering a word.
"Police Station..."
"What?"
"The Police Station in the Coal Ash District. When we come here to investigate a case, the first step we think of is to go to the Police Station to get the crime records for the past few days in the entire Coal Ash District. We think this way, the Hunters definitely think this way, and that mastermind would think this way even more."
With his hands behind his back, Ed murmured, and at this moment, Adele also immediately understood Ed's meaning, and she said with sudden realization.
"So Detective means... that person behind the scenes anticipated that both we and the An Yin Bureau would go to the Police Station to check crime records, so he planted informants there? These informants received instructions that as soon as anyone checked the recent crime records, they should immediately report to that mastermind? Through these informants, did that mastermind confirm our identities and the identities of those Black Dogs?"
"That's right... and once these crime records are checked and all marked on the map, there is only one location they point to, and that is Carbonwood Crossroads. Therefore, that mastermind knew that we and the Hunters would definitely meet at Carbonwood Crossroads. I estimate he originally planned for us to 'incidentally meet' in that burned-down small building... but I sensed the arrival of the Hunters and delayed a step. Seeing that we wouldn't run into them, that mastermind then manipulated ordinary people to play out the previous scene... What a meticulously prepared plan..."
Ed said with emotion, and Adele, who was standing next to him, also smiled slightly.
"But now they've still shown their hand. Since it's confirmed that the Police Station in the Coal Ash District has their informants, we can start from there."
Adele said, and Dorothy, after hearing this, also nodded together with Ed.
...
The blowing storm had just stopped, and the sky full of dust was slowly settling over the Coal Ash District. Countless pedestrians were discussing the strange wind that had just occurred.
Near the Police Station in the Coal Ash District, inside a teahouse, Adele and Ed were sitting opposite each other, looking out the window at the Police Station building in the distance.
"I had previously sent in a small Corpse Puppet to investigate... I didn't find anyone who looked like a Corpse Puppet, and small Corpse Puppets cannot wear items of """Shadow""" to block your Spirituality perception... so the informants of that mastermind in the Police Station must be living people, likely the police officers inside."
Drinking a cup of tea, Ed looked at the Police Station in the distance and continued to murmur.
"I can send in small Corpse Puppets to monitor, but I can't monitor everyone at the same time... and I can't be sure when that informant will contact their boss... so this monitoring work might need to last for a considerable amount of time, we might need to wait patiently..."
Ed murmured as he looked into the distance, and after hearing his words, Adele spoke with a hint of regret.
"Unfortunately, I can't go over and investigate myself now, otherwise my ability might be more useful when dealing with living people, but if I can't see them... I can't do anything either."
Listening to Adele's words, Dorothy was slightly startled, and then an idea suddenly popped into her mind.
'Perhaps... I can take this opportunity to do this...'
Dorothy thought, and then had Ed, who was in the teahouse in the distance, speak to Adele.
"You want to get a view inside the Police Station? This can actually be done... Now I'll give you a revered name, you just need to pray to this revered name I tell you."