South Tivian, Bishop Square.
The New Year's Eve celebration continued, and the evening party in the cold wind was still underway. After a brief rest backstage, Tivian's ruby, the dancing star Miss Adele, reappeared, triggering another round of cheers from the crowd below and pushing the party's atmosphere to another peak.
Appearing on stage for the second time, Miss Adele shed her original bright red attire and changed into a pure white dance dress, bringing a completely different performance to the audience. According to the host's passionate introduction earlier, her dance this time was titled 'The Praise of Life', and its form, true to its name, was a dance celebrating life.
"Heh heh... Isabel, look, Miss Adele's dance this time is very interesting. Although there are no lines or dialogue, I can tell what she wants to express just from her dance movements. From stillness to movement, from sprouting to full bloom, I think this dance is like telling the story of a sapling growing into a towering tree through wind and rain... What do you think?"
On the balcony, Duke Barret watched Miss Adele's dance below, appreciating it with a chuckle, while Princess Isabel beside him also nodded and replied gently.
"I agree with you, Uncle Barret. I've heard many critics say before that Miss Adele is known for her unique storytelling. Many of her dances contain unique story content within them. Each of her movements carries not only the expressive meaning of dance but also the implied language of a story. When she dances, it's also like performing a play, one without any lines.
"Miss Adele simply uses body language to express meaning precisely, but it has more dance appeal than ordinary pantomimes or mimes. She is the only one in the entire dance world who can achieve this, making her a true treasure of our Kingdom."
Isabel commented in a soft tone. After hearing her evaluation, Barret beside her also smiled and continued speaking.
"Hmm... not bad. It seems your cultivation in this area, Isabel, is quite good. Play-like dance is precisely Miss Adele's characteristic; it's the capital that allows her to be praised even by the most demanding critics. Generally, other dancers attempting to imitate her dance form either focus too much on the visual expression of the dance, making it difficult to understand the story's meaning, or focus too much on the story expression, neglecting the dance's inherent beauty and turning it into a simple pantomime. Only Miss Adele can achieve a perfect balance in this.
"This time her dance is called 'The Praise of Life'. Performing such a dance celebrating life, a flourishing dance, in the new year is likely also her blessing for the new year. It seems she has prepared a lot for this party. Watching such a dance makes one feel much more cheerful, haha..."
Barret commented thus, while Isabel on the side couldn't help but smile and nod in agreement. What Barret said was true; the dance Miss Adele was performing indeed made all the audience members feel slightly happier. Even workers living in extreme hardship had a glimmer of positive vision for the future of the new year after watching this dance. Those suicide bombers hidden in the crowd, pushed to the brink by their desire for revenge, had their dormant survival instincts awakened by this dance. Their yearning for life made them abandon their suicide revenge mission.
Using the desire for survival to make the suicide bombers abandon their mission was a strategy discussed by Dorothy and Miss Adele. Although Miss Adele had the ability to sense the most urgent desires of living beings in her surroundings, this ability could not help Miss Adele find the suicide bombers within the crowd.
One reason was that there were too many people present; she couldn't analyze so many desires in a short time. The second reason was that her active detection might be blocked by a """Shadow""" Extraordinary item.
Yes, Miss Adele's active desire detection could potentially be blocked by """Shadow""". Her desire detection is divided into two types: active and passive. The active type is to actively sense a living being's current desire state, sensing what they want to do, just like when she used active desire detection to sense the police chief's desire situation at the Coal Ash District Police Station back then, knowing his urgent desire to communicate with his superior.
Active desire detection is a type of Extraordinary detection, broadly belonging to the category of abilities that use one's own Extraordinary power to actively sense other targets, actively applying one's detection ability to others. As long as it is this type of ability, ordinary """Shadow""" items can block it.
Passive desire detection is different. This is the ability to sense others' desires towards oneself. Miss Adele can sense the desires others have towards her, whether it's ** or killing intent. Dangerous and strong ones will also be warned and paid attention to by her. This is why the Wolf Blood Society needed to use meat puppets to assassinate Miss Adele back then, precisely to prevent Miss Adele's killing intent detection.
This passive desire detection primarily senses the desires others project onto oneself, rather than actively applying any ability towards others. Therefore, it will not be detected by """Shadow""" Extraordinary items. This is because ordinary """Shadow""" items only block the Extraordinary effects directed at the wearer, and cannot block information emanating from the wearer themselves, such as the wearer's own scent or the desires the wearer has towards others.
Those suicide bombers were tricked into coming by people from the Eight Point Nest. It was perfectly normal for them to have some """Shadow""" blocking items on them for safety. Therefore, if Miss Adele had used active desire detection to search for people, she would likely have put in a lot of effort but found nothing. So, under Dorothy's suggestion, Miss Adele did not use this method to find people but instead adopted the method of guiding their survival instincts.
Any living being has a desire for survival, even those suicide bombers pushed to the brink by their desire for revenge. The more they realize they are about to die, the stronger their desire for survival becomes. It's just that within the suicide bombers' hearts, this desire for survival was suppressed by an even stronger belief in revenge.
However, this suppression is very fragile. Miss Adele only needed a slight guidance to break this fragile balance. Once the desire for survival easily overcame the desire for revenge, they would abandon their mission.
Miss Adele's guidance was very subtle, so subtle that normal people could barely feel anything, but for the suicide bombers walking a psychological tightrope, it was enough to cause imbalance.
On the stage, Miss Adele continued to dance lightly. During her performance, her gaze occasionally glanced towards the audience below, and a hint of worry would appear in her expression from time to time, until a voice came from within her, and only then did she let out a sigh of relief.
"Great Aka, please convey to Miss Adele for me, the three suicide bombers in the audience have all abandoned their mission and left on their own. The audience is safe, and the next step can begin."
Hearing Dorothy's voice from within, Miss Adele's original worried emotions finally subsided, and at the same time, she couldn't help but ponder.
'I didn't expect that the God Aka, whom the Rose Cross society believes in, can actually help believers transmit prayer communications... What a wondrous function. I've never heard of this kind of ability in other societies. This must be a passive prayer reception function of this Aka...'
Miss Adele thought to herself. Earlier, when she was dancing with Dorothy, the latter told her to remove her mental defenses for a while afterward to facilitate communication, and Miss Adele did so. Now, Dorothy could contact Miss Adele using the information channel without obstruction.
'It seems those madmen in the audience have calmed down and are no longer crazy. So, the next step is to find the people who drove them mad, those spider perverts, who actually dared to carry out such a crazy plan in this place.'
Miss Adele continued to think to herself that Dorothy had already clearly detected before that the masterminds behind this operation were the Eight Point Nest, and their instigating these natives to venture into Tivian was clearly with ulterior motives.
In Dorothy's opinion, the Eight Point Nest had no motive whatsoever to create a pure terrorist attack targeting civilians, so their luring Sado's group of New World natives here to do these things must be to cover up their true purpose. To find out what they were doing, they must first find all the people they had arranged at the scene.
However, finding members of the Eight Point Nest among so many people would not be easy. As "Shadow" Extraordinaries, they were naturally able to shield Extraordinary abilities, could easily disguise themselves, and change their appearance into any form. Unless forced to become human bombs, their inner emotions would not be as unstable as those human bombs... Finding them was much more troublesome than finding human bombs.
But even so, Dorothy and Miss Adele discussed a plan to find people, and this still required using Miss Adele's ability.
On the stage, Miss Adele's performance ended, but she was not in a hurry to retreat. Instead, she remained on the stage. After doing a few soothing movements, the music behind her started again. Under the new music, Miss Adele began to dance her third dance of the night on the stage.
Compared to the previous two pieces of music filled with rhythm and vitality, this third piece felt a little different. The moment the music started, people felt a faint sadness, and the subsequent melody contained an unspeakable sorrow.
Consistent with the music was Miss Adele's dance. The movements she displayed in this dance were full of sadness, seemingly like a wounded swan, struggling desperately in pain, but powerless.
In this dance, Miss Adele was like a white swan shot down from the sky by a hunter, beautiful and tragic. She struggled desperately on the ground, wanting to return to the sky, but faced numerous difficulties. The hunter who shot her down seemed to be looking for her everywhere, and Miss Adele could only hide in fear.
Beauty, helplessness, fear, pain... These were the adjectives that vividly described Miss Adele in this dance. Her tragic beauty, struggling desperately amidst torment and suffering, made countless audience members below the stage feel heartache and pity.
Yes, for such a beautiful and tragic thing, who could not feel pity? Who could not feel care? Who would not want her to escape hardship, escape torment, and soar into the sky again?
A normal person's psychology would think this way, but some abnormal people would have other thoughts.
On the rooftop of a tall building around the square, a man in a guard uniform stood at the edge of the roof. His hand gripped the railing, and his eyes under his hat stared intently at the pure white, tragically beautiful figure dancing on the distant stage. Deep within his focused gaze, a hint of madness flickered, and his lips unconsciously licked his own.
Yes, madness. It was a madness hidden deep within his heart. This man looked at Miss Adele, and his heart was also filled with pity, but it was a twisted and perverted pity.
He yearned to imprison this tragic beauty in his secret room, he yearned to create various wounds on this pure body, he yearned to use all the torture instruments he treasured on her one by one, to appreciate her painful screams.
However, these were just some minor thoughts. In his daily life, seeing similar beautiful things would also evoke similar emotions. These minor thoughts were not enough for the man to act regardless of the overall situation. Now, he was just gazing at Miss Adele from afar, indulging in various cruel fantasies in his heart.
However, what he didn't know was that his fantasies, the hidden cruelty in his heart, were all being perceived by the dancer on the stage at this moment. Unseen, his position had been exposed.
Miss Adele's dance this time was also using her ability. While dancing on the stage, she was also secretly stimulating a certain desire in the hearts of the audience, but last time it was the desire for survival, this time it was the desire for sadism.
Compared to the desire for survival, which everyone uses and is very strong, the perverted desire for sadism is deeply hidden in people's hearts. Compared to normal desires like appetite, sexual desire, and survival desire... sadism is a very abnormal desire hidden deep in people's hearts, almost never expressed. Only in psychologically abnormal perverts is this desire discovered and expressed, and coincidentally, people of the Eight Point Nest are usually this kind of pervert.
The Eight Point Nest uses the Fear of Punishment method to collect Spirituality, and after using this method excessively, one's heart will inevitably become perverted. Those who cultivate the Fear of Punishment too deeply will inevitably become sadists, and the sadistic desire originally hidden in their hearts will become much larger than that of normal people, and also easier to guide.
Just as "Cup" Extraordinaries who practice the Blood-Eating method find it difficult to suppress their appetite, "Shadow" Extraordinaries who practice the Fear of Punishment have a much greater sadistic desire than normal people. For normal people, Miss Adele's guidance of this sadistic desire is very slight, causing them to feel almost nothing unusual, but for members of the Eight Point Nest who practice the Fear of Punishment, it can successfully arouse their sadistic desires.
And as long as this special sadistic desire is directed at Miss Adele, she can sense the source of the desire through passive desire detection. This is Miss Adele's method for finding Eight Point Nest personnel, and since she fused with Dalena's residual spirit, the coverage and sensing range of her desire ability have become wider, covering almost the entire area of Bishop Square.
'Found them... Heh... What an unexpected location. Next, I should report this to Detective Miss.'
Miss Adele thought to herself like this, and then she began to pray silently in her heart.
'Great Aka, please transmit this intelligence to Detective Miss for me now...'
...
Below the stage, Dorothy, who was watching the dance, was startled. Miss Adele's prayer echoed in her mind, and then her heart was filled with excitement.
'Finally...'
Dorothy, feeling happy, began to listen to the content of Miss Adele's prayer. After listening, her brows couldn't help but furrow slightly.
In Miss Adele's prayer, she said that she felt two particularly strong sources of sadistic desire. One was from the rooftop of the gray brick building on the left side of the square, from a guard. The second was very unexpected; it was from the right side of the square, from the Royal Family's viewing balcony!
According to Miss Adele, among the bodyguards behind Duke Barret and Princess Isabel, one was actually a member of the Eight Point Nest.
'The Eight Point Nest replaced one of the Royal Family's bodyguards! Their true purpose is assassination!
'These guys want to use the explosion and chaos caused by the New World natives to assassinate the Royal Family, and then push the blame onto the natives!'
In that instant, Dorothy immediately understood the Eight Point Nest's plan. She looked solemnly at the locations of the two Eight-Pointed Nest members. One was an excellent sniping position targeting the Royal Family's viewing stand, and the other was right behind the assassination target.
If they made a move, who could stop them!?