North Shore of Conquest, Truva.
At night in Truva, the entire city was plunged into Silence. In the suburbs of this nocturnal city, inside a small seaside villa, a figure was sitting inside a room, reading by candlelight.
Sitting on the sofa by the window, a handsome young man was reading a book in the dim Light, listening to the sound of the sea outside the window, with a slight look of exhaustion on his face.
As the clock on the wall gradually ticked, time passed by. As the night deepened, the young man reading yawned, then took out a new pocket watch from his body to check the time. After that, he closed the book and put it back into the luggage on the cabinet beside him.
Then, the young man stood up from where he was, walked into the bathroom of the room in a few steps, simply washed up, and then returned to the room. After taking off his coat and trousers, he turned off the gas Light in the room, lay down on the soft big bed, covered himself with the quilt, and in the rhythmic sound of the waves outside the window, he soon fell into a peaceful sleep.
The young man entered dreamland, and the clock on the wall continued to tick softly. As time passed, the bright moon outside the window reached its highest point, and the night in Truva became even deeper.
Almost an hour after the young man fell asleep, a trace of movement gradually appeared in the empty and dark room. On the originally smooth wall, an unusual bulge suddenly appeared. As the bulge expanded, a figure emerged from the wall.
Silently, a thin man wearing black clothes and a mask appeared in the room. After looking around the dark room, he focused his gaze on the other wall of the room. Then, a trace of movement also appeared on that wall. Then, not long after, the wall he was staring at also moved, and another taller figure emerged from the wall in a silent process and stood on the floor.
Through strange means, two masked men came to this house, which should have been a private space. After looking at each other, they began to slowly approach the bed in the room, without making any sound during the process.
Arriving at the bedside, one of them stared at the young man lying on the bed for a while, then took out a small bottle from his pocket. He gently brought the small bottle to Mr.'s nose, then opened the lid. Then, a cloud of white smoke emanated from the small bottle, and then all the white smoke was inhaled by the sleeping young man.
After seeing that the white smoke was inhaled by the young man, the man put on the small bottle, and then waited silently for a few minutes. After looking at the time, he snapped his fingers in Mr.'s ear. Seeing that Mr. did not wake up because of the snap, but continued to sleep soundly, the two of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
"Alright, he has successfully entered deep sleep."
Putting away the small bottle in his hand, the thinner masked man said, and his companion next to him also spoke.
"It's a bit easy. Is this the guy you told us to pay special attention to? It doesn't seem like much. It feels similar to the guys we've dealt with before. There's no need to send the two of us at the same time."
"This is just for caution. A guy who can buy three copies of secret transmission in one go is likely not an ordinary Extraordinary. Now it seems that Mr. is a little worried."
The thin man responded to his companion next to him. After scanning around again, he continued to speak.
"Let's start. Be quick. After taking all the things on his body, take the person and the things away separately. Don't leave anything on his body."
While speaking, the two men immediately began to act. One of them, who was slightly stronger, first went to search the young man's suitcase, while the other, who was thinner, directly began to go to work to search the young man's coat hanging on the hanger next to him. After searching the coat, he even lifted the quilt and began to search the young man who was wearing underwear and sleeping soundly.
"The secret transmission he bought has been found. Other than that, there's a pistol and some Life Devour. I didn't see anything special. It feels like a poor guy. What about you?" The man, holding a lantern emitting an orange-yellow halo, looked at the messy suitcase in front of him and said this.
"I didn't find anything special here either, but now is not the time to confirm the harvest... I'll talk about it after I get everything off his body and take a look..."
While speaking, the man who was searching the young man began to directly strip the young man's clothes. He carefully took off the things the young man was wearing one by one, and finally, when he took off the young man's innermost clothes and saw the young man's chest, he couldn't help but frown slightly.
"This is..."
At this time, what appeared in front of the young man was a male body covered with many deep old wounds. On the young man's skin, there were many wounds crisscrossing, some of which were even in fatal areas. After seeing these wounds, the man felt that something was wrong for a moment.
"That's not right... There's something wrong with this guy's body. He seems to be..."
Before the thin man could finish speaking, suddenly, the young man, who should have been sleeping, suddenly opened his eyes. Taking advantage of the opportunity when the man turned his head to talk, the young man suddenly sat up from his bed, stretched out his hand and directly hugged the thin man tightly, using his great strength to restrain him from moving.
At the same time as this hug came, there was a tingling sensation that ran through the thin man's entire body. The man began to tremble involuntarily in this tingling sensation, his eyes widened and his expression showed pain. However, even so, the thin man did not immediately lose consciousness. His struggle did not completely stop, and the young man named Brandon had no choice but to do his best to continue to restrain him.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh..."
Faced with this sudden scene, the thin man began to struggle desperately, trying to get rid of this sudden restraint. However, due to the other party's excessive strength, his struggle was not enough to allow him to break free. On the other side, the stronger man who was rummaging through the luggage immediately put down what he was doing after being stunned, pulled out a dagger and planned to rush forward to help.
At this moment, the closet in the room suddenly opened, and several tall Corpse Puppet in various clothes directly emerged from it. The leader of them was holding a pistol in his hand. When he saw the strong man preparing to help his companion, he raised his hand and fired two shots without saying a word. With the loud sound of the gun, this shot accurately hit the strong man's chest. The man who was shot directly fell backwards, and then the Corpse Puppet who rushed out of the closet ran quickly towards the strong man who fell to the ground.
However, what was unexpected was that the strong man who was shot could still move. Before the Corpse Puppet could rush to him, he struggled to stand up and dodged the first round of attacks from the closet Corpse Puppet.
The first round of attacks failed to catch the strong man. The closet Corpse Puppet immediately launched the next round of attack, rushing towards the strong man collectively, seemingly wanting to block him in the corner and catch him. Faced with this situation, the strong man leaned against the wall behind him, and the whole person escaped into the wall. For a moment, all the Corpse Puppet pounced in vain.
The strong man disappeared into the room, but he reappeared soon after, far away from the closet Corpse Puppet, next to Brandon, who was restraining the thin man. The strong man directly rose from the floor, holding a dagger and slashing towards Brandon. The strong man's idea was very clear, that is, to kill this young man first, and then free his restrained teammate!
Under the sneak attack from the ground, one of Brandon's arms was directly cut off by the sharp dagger. Brandon, whose arm was cut off, lost the means to restrain the thin man for a moment. However, just as Brandon's arm and body had just broken, and the thin man was about to gain freedom, a strange situation occurred.
The arm that was cut off by the strong man suddenly reconnected automatically before it fell, and even healed as before without a drop of blood flowing out. Brandon still restrained the thin man, who was still struggling weakly, with his complete body, as if the scene of the broken arm had never existed at all.
The robust man was stunned by this strange scene, but he didn't have much time to marvel. The hand holding the dagger swung out again, directly stabbing into Brandon's neck. However, even this fatal blow failed to bring Brandon down. Instead, a strange stinging sensation was transmitted from the dagger that pierced Brandon's body to the robust man. The man's entire body twitched slightly from the stinging sensation.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Corpse Puppets from the closet, who had previously missed their attack, swarmed forward, grabbing the robust man and subduing him. This time, the robust man couldn't escape. He was restrained by several Corpse Puppets working together. Unable to touch the walls or the ground, he couldn't even rely on Wall Walking or earth escape to leave.
With both intruders subdued, things became much simpler. Under the Corpse Puppets' force, their mouths and noses were tightly covered, preventing them from breathing smoothly. Eventually, after a long period of muffled struggling, their bodies slumped, completely devoid of any activity. After both of them had lost all movement, the Corpse Puppets finally released them, ending the brief intense fight.
In a hotel room far away, Dorothy, sitting on the sofa, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing this scene.
"Whew… finally got it done. There were quite a few unexpected situations… I didn't expect two Wall Walkers to come…"
Rubbing her temples, Dorothy's originally relaxed expression revealed a hint of seriousness. Although this ambush was ultimately successful, it didn't make her feel very satisfied. The current outcome was not what she wanted most.
'Listening to those two guys' conversation, it seems they were planning to take both the person and the items back with them… But I didn't expect they'd even take off the clothes when taking someone.'
Dorothy thought this. She had originally intended to let the two carry Brandon back to their lair. However, after those fatal scars on Brandon's body were discovered, Dorothy knew that Brandon's Corpse Puppet identity might be revealed. Therefore, she decisively took strong measures and directly pinned them down.
However, some unexpected things also happened during the implementation of these strong measures.
'These two Wall Walkers… seem to have higher resistance to electricity than other Extraordinaries. When I used Electrification to shock that skinny guy, I didn't immediately knock him unconscious.'
'On the shining white pearl, this amount of electricity would be enough to take down a Water Manipulator, but it couldn't immediately knock down a Wall Walker. Is this because the hardening of'Shi' (Stone) also has the effect of weakening electricity? Because I couldn't immediately knock down that skinny guy, Brandon, who had Life Devour attached, couldn't immediately switch to support, but was forced to continue restraining him, lengthening the entire battle invisibly.'
'Another crucial point is… my Corpse Puppet gave that robust guy two shots as soon as it came out of the closet. Afterwards, that guy stood up and walked through the wall like nothing happened. It's like the bullets had no effect. Aren't Wall Walkers mainly'Shadow' and secondarily'Shi' (Stone)? Can Apprentice Stage hardened skin resist bullets?'
With these doubts in mind, Dorothy began to control the Corpse Puppets at the scene to tear open the clothes of the Wall Walker she had shot, checking the other party's wounds. She found that the skin where the bullets hit had cracked like a spider web, with blood seeping out from the cracks.
She had seen this type of wound before. When the two Deer Skull subordinates Bonecrafters in Igwinte were shot, they had similar injuries. But the problem was that those two Bonecrafters had Black Earth Stage hardened skin.
Dorothy had started shooting as soon as she saw that the other party was a Wall Walker, thinking that the Apprentice Stage hardened skin shouldn't be able to block bullets. But she didn't expect that the other party not only blocked them, but also ran away. If he hadn't come back to save his teammate, giving Dorothy another opportunity, he would have successfully escaped.
In short, the unusual hardness and resistance to electric shock of these two Wall Walkers caused changes in Dorothy's plan, ultimately forcing her to waste some Spirituality for nothing.
At that time, after Brandon's hand was broken, Dorothy used the ability of damage transfer to transfer Brandon's injury to other Corpse Puppets who were not participating in the battle, so that Brandon could maintain his suppression of the skinny man. But the price was that Dorothy used a few more points of "Cup" Spirituality. This Spirituality was originally unnecessary to waste, all because Dorothy misjudged the strength of these two Wall Walkers' abilities.
'No matter what, now I can completely confirm that the clock shop sold me something with a Beacon Sigil to trick me. Their purpose is to mark the goods in order to locate the position of the purchasing customer, and then to drug the customer, harvest wealth, and even kidnap people?… Is this kind of behavior something that the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild can do? These guys are fine with making money, but what's the point of kidnapping people?'
Dorothy thought to herself. Then, she focused her attention on the book-sea navigation record on the table next to her. Regarding the possible problems with the Truva White Stone Craftsmen's Guild stronghold, she had already reported it to Beverly through the book-sea navigation record during the day. Before leaving Tivian, she had also specifically left a contact text for her good neighbor. However, the first time she used it, the other party did not respond for a long time.
Unlike Vanya and the others, Dorothy couldn't leave a puppet imprint on Beverly, so she couldn't remind the other party to receive the message. Therefore, after Dorothy sent the message, she could only wait for the other party to see it and reply. Because she waited all afternoon without seeing Beverly's reply, Dorothy set up a simple plan to deal with possible situations.
The room where Brandon was located was a seaside villa near Truva that Dorothy had specifically chosen, a villa whose owner was away and unoccupied. After Dorothy found a way to enter, she had Brandon treat it as his own home, waiting to see what the Beacon on the secret transmission would attract at night. She didn't expect that it would actually attract two Wall Walkers.
'Unusually tough Wall Walkers, a White Stone Craftsmen's Guild stronghold that seems to have some problems, customers being treated as harvesting targets… I feel like I'm dealing with'Stone' this time… If I want to figure out the situation, I still need to contact Beverly. I don't know if that guy has the habit of checking the book I sent her every day…'
Dorothy controlled the Corpse Puppets in the distance to clean up the battlefield while starting to flip through her book-sea navigation record to check. On Beverly's contact page, Dorothy had already written down all the abnormal situations she had observed at the clock shop during the day. Now she was just waiting for a response.
Looking at the pages, Dorothy wondered when Beverly would reply to her message. Suddenly, new letters appeared on the originally blank pages, a series of standard printed letters as if typed out by a typewriter.
This was Beverly's response. Dorothy had waited for most of the day and finally received it. Looking at the words that kept appearing on the white paper in front of her, she immediately perked up and started reading.
"Good evening, dear Miss Neighbor. I hope it's not too late for me to reply to your message. I only check this thing you gave me about every three days. I hope the messages you gave me aren't from three days ago.
"First of all, I wish you a pleasant time in Castile. I have read about your experience in Truva. I am very sorry that you bought a product that does not comply with the rules at our Craftsmen's Guild. If that thing was really sold to you by the Craftsmen's Guild, you can claim a lot of compensation. But I think that the people who traded with you are not the Craftsmen's Guild, but another group of dirty, despicable, and bottomless guys…
"Their name is Dark Gold Society… According to your description, our poor Truva branch may have been infiltrated, devoured, and replaced by these guys in secret. They should now be using our name to harvest the local hidden world of Truva, just like they have done in other places in the past.
"Perhaps Miss Neighbor, you are a little unfamiliar with this Dark Gold Society. For him, you only need to remember one key point. This so-called Dark Gold Society is one of the very few mortal enemies in the eyes of our supposedly neutral Craftsmen's Guild. They are some other so-called 'merchants' spread throughout the hidden world."