North Shore of Conquest, Truva.
At night, a large mansion on the edge of Truva City was brightly lit, with the entire mansion bustling with activity.
Due to a sudden unexpected situation, members of the Dark Gold Society received a temporary evacuation order. The entire Dark Gold Society force in Truva began to busy themselves in the middle of the night. They had to be ready tonight, as they were to leave by train tomorrow morning.
Inside the bustling mansion, a man named Barna, dressed in black, was walking quickly down the corridor. His gaze was serious, and he carried a large cloth bag in his hand, surveying his surroundings as he walked.
Quickening his pace, Barna climbed several stairs and quickly reached the third floor of the mansion. After looking around on this floor for a while, he saw someone dressed as a servant running towards him from the other end of the corridor, who bowed slightly and asked as he passed by.
"Mr. Barna, do you know where Mr. Ben Gecheer is?"
"Hmm... what are you looking for him for?" Looking at the Dark Gold Society servant in front of him, Barna paused slightly, then asked instead of answering directly. The other person stopped and replied to Barna.
"Ah, it's nothing really. Mainly to ask how Mr. Ben Gecheer wants to deal with the material people who haven't been moved out of the basement yet? There are still over a dozen people left there now, and time is too tight. It's a bit difficult to move all of them. I'm going to ask Mr. Ben Gecheer now if we should just finish those people off first to avoid any trouble."
The servant said to Barna. Listening to the other person's words, Barna pondered for a moment, then spoke.
"Hmm... this issue is indeed worth paying attention to. How about this, I happen to be going to find Mr. Ben Gecheer now anyway, come with me."
"Yes, thank you, Mr. Barna."
The servant replied accordingly. Then Barna turned around and continued walking in one direction, and the servant also chose to follow directly behind him.
Shortly after, Barna arrived at an empty room, and the servant behind him also followed in. After entering the room, the servant looked around and found that the room did not contain Ben Gecheer, whom he was looking for. Thus, he asked the figure of Barna ahead with some confusion.
"Mr. Barna, where are we..."
Before the servant could finish speaking, Barna, who was originally facing away from him, suddenly turned around to face the servant. A pistol, which had appeared in his hand at some point, was aimed directly at the servant's head. Before the servant could react, Barna pulled the trigger. Amidst a violent gunshot, the servant's forehead was pierced by the bullet ejected from the muzzle, and he fell down with wide eyes.
As the gunshot echoed throughout the mansion, Barna directly killed the servant in front of him. Without hesitation, he immediately grabbed several yellowish-brown cylindrical objects tied together from the cloth bag in his hand and threw them beside the fallen servant. Then, he immediately climbed out of a window that had been opened beforehand, landing on the pre-arranged spot outside the mansion. He then quickly re-entered the mansion and ran back towards the third floor. Meanwhile, the fallen corpse in the room on the third floor also suddenly began to move slowly. After picking up the explosives thrown on the ground, it put them into its embrace and lay back down on the ground.
At this moment, the bustling mansion was completely startled by the sudden gunshot. The people who were organizing things everywhere rushed towards the source of the gunshots, and Barna also blended in among them, rushing towards the third floor. On the way, he also met a middle-aged man named Farrol. As soon as Barna saw him, he anxiously asked directly.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, the gunshot came from upstairs, let's hurry up and take a look!"
While speaking, Farrol and Barna quickly ran upstairs together. Soon, they reached the room where the incident occurred. At this time, several figures had already gathered at the entrance to the scene, including the old man Ben Gecheer and his young attendant Araulo. They, along with several other servants, looked solemnly at the scene inside the room.
"What happened here, Mr. Ben Gecheer?"
Along with some other servants, Barna and Farrol ran to the door of the room and asked. It was Araulo beside him who answered Barna's words.
"Someone was shot... we've been invaded, someone got in."
"What..." Listening to Araulo's words, Barna and Farrol looked at the scene inside the room in surprise together. Then they saw the servant's corpse lying face down on the ground, and both couldn't help but freeze slightly in place.
Seeing the current situation, Ben Gecheer, who was leaning on a cane nearby, turned his head with a serious expression and spoke directly to Barna.
"We've been exposed. You were followed when you came over. Those guys deliberately let you come back!"
"Fo-followed... No way, I clearly used my ability frequently when I came over, there shouldn't be any possibility of being followed. Could this be..."
Facing the gazes gathering around him, Barna argued. At this moment, while everyone's attention was focused on Barna, the corpse that was originally lying on the ground stirred.
The moment everyone's gaze shifted away, the corpse lying on the ground began to move again. As if it had been prepared long ago, it suddenly stood up from the ground and then rushed violently towards the crowd gathered at the door. In the clothes in its embrace, it seemed to be holding something.
The servant's corpse's abnormal movement immediately drew everyone's attention back. When they saw the corpse rushing towards them, they couldn't help but widen their eyes, and then everyone instinctively wanted to dodge backward.
Just then, Barna, who had been looking nervous, suddenly his face sank. At this critical moment, he reached out and grabbed Farrol and Araulo, who were trying to retreat beside him, using unusually great strength to pull them in front of himself as a shield. This sudden situation made Farrol and Araulo instinctively want to break free, but at this moment, the servant's corpse had already rushed in front of them. Under a subtle electric current, the explosives in the servant Corpse Puppet's embrace were detonated.
"Boom!!!"
The violent explosion directly detonated at the entrance of the room on the third floor. Dazzling firelight and powerful shockwaves erupted violently and swept outwards. The corridor and room at the center of the explosion were filled with firelight. Instantly, all the windows on the third floor shattered, and countless debris, accompanied by black smoke and dust, sprayed out. The glass downstairs was also completely cracked by the tremor, and the ground trembled slightly. The huge noise in the dark night startled dogs barking in the neighborhood.
After the explosion, the entire mansion was engulfed in thick smoke. The origin of the explosion had turned into a chaotic ruin. Walls collapsed, and ceilings and floors caved in. Large areas of the third floor and roof were blasted down to the second floor. Broken bricks were scattered everywhere, and the servants' broken bodies were buried under shattered bricks and collapsed ceilings. A third of the entire mansion was instantly turned into ruins, with the damage concentrated on the second and third floors.
Within the ruins of the mansion, amidst a pile of broken rubble, the figure of an old man slowly stood up. Ben Gecheer's outer clothes were almost completely ruined at this time, and he was covered in dust from head to toe, his angry eyes filled with resentment.
Located not far from the center of the explosion, he almost directly bore the brunt of the powerful impact. The people who were next to him were now scattered broken limbs, while Ben Gecheer's body only had a few subtle, not very noticeable cracks.
"Damn it... I was set up, Araulo! Anyone still alive, get up quickly!"
With resentful emotions, Ben Gecheer gritted his teeth and shouted towards the surrounding ruins. At this moment, in another pile of rubble not far from him, other survivors were also slowly standing up in the dust.
Barna stood in the ruins. In front of him were two broken bodies. One was bloody and lifeless, belonging to Farol, while the other was covered in fine cracks and blood fissures. Although the body was relatively intact, it was also lifeless. This was Araulo.
In the moment of crisis just now, Barna grabbed Farol and Araulo, who were closest to him, and used them as shields to block most of the explosion's damage. Although both Farol and Araulo were Wall Walkers and possessed strong defensive capabilities against firearms, they couldn't withstand the close-range explosion of dynamite. The two who were used as shields were blown to death on the spot.
After hearing Ben Gecheer's voice not far away, Barna, who was in the ruins, immediately stared at the fallen Araulo. Then, under a strange power, Araulo reopened his eyes, stood up, and responded to the direction from which the voice had just come.
"Cough... cough... Mr. Ben Gecheer, I'm here!"
After responding, Araulo took a pistol from Barna's hand. Then he and Barna walked towards Ben Gecheer. After climbing over two obstacles, they saw Ben Gecheer standing among the rubble and corpses. When Ben Gecheer saw Araulo and Barna, he was about to say something, but who knew that as soon as they saw Ben Gecheer, they immediately raised their hands and shot.
"Bang! Bang!"
As the triggers were pulled, the bullets from the revolvers in Araulo and Barna's hands poured out, shooting directly at Ben Gecheer. Ben Gecheer stood still and was hit by all the bullets, but the bullets bounced off him with a 'thud'. Ben Gecheer, standing still, didn't even budge.
"Controlled... So it's a Living Puppet?!"
Seeing the two Araulo raising their guns at him, Ben Gecheer, who seemed to understand the situation before him, said through gritted teeth, his anger deepening a few points.
Facing this scene, Ben Gecheer first touched his ring, then swung the cane in his hand. Suddenly, the front end of the cane detached and grew into an iron ball the size of a basketball out of thin air. Sharp blades popped out of the iron ball, and an extended iron chain was still connected to the body of the cane. The entire cane instantly transformed into a heavy flail.
Ben Gecheer swung the flail. As the chain extended, the heavy iron ball attached to it smashed heavily into Araulo. Araulo was sent flying to the side by the immense force, his entire upper body was smashed to pieces, large amounts of blood splattered and bones shattered, completely losing all ability to move.
Having dealt with Araulo with one swing, Ben Gecheer immediately started the next swing. The chain with the heavy iron ball swung towards Barna. Barna couldn't dodge in time and was also hit. He was knocked to the ground with large cracks appearing on his body. If it weren't for Barna, who was a Living Puppet, possessing the hardened skin of the Black Earth Stage which resisted a lot of damage, this blow would have been enough to incapacitate him directly.
Seeing Barna fall, Ben Gecheer wanted to deliver another blow. However, when he swung the flail again, he felt his arm sink and missed completely. The flail didn't hit Barna but hit the ruins next to him, kicking up a lot of dust. Ben Gecheer looked closely at his side and found that his right hand was being held by a broken male servant's corpse. It was this force that caused his attack to miss just now. This corpse had been lying at his feet just now.
In an instant, the broken corpses scattered throughout the ruins, missing arms and legs, all exploded at the same time and pounced towards Ben Gecheer, holding him tightly from all directions, suppressing him. Ben Gecheer wanted to swing the flail to counterattack, but found that the head of the flail was now firmly gripped by Barna.
Just as Ben Gecheer was about to exert more force to break free, in the distance of the mansion, in the dark night, a dazzling, hot orange light cut through the night sky and directly struck Ben Gecheer, who was restrained. Ben Gecheer's shot back instantly erupted with high temperature and scorching light, and large flames spewed out from it, completely engulfing Ben Gecheer and the corpses restraining him. Ben Gecheer's entire body instantly turned into a blazing torch.
At this moment, hundreds of meters away from the mansion, on top of a low building, Dorothy, wearing a black cloak, was crouching here. In her hand, she was holding a rather long rifle.
This was a beautifully crafted rifle, made of brass and cypress wood. The brass barrel was engraved with exquisite patterns, and the cypress stock was smooth and comfortable. Lenses were supported by tiny brackets on the side of the barrel, overlapping on top of the barrel. Dorothy looked through these overlapping lenses towards the mansion in the darkness in the distance.
"Focused Blaze" is the name of this gun. It has the ability to transform the Spirituality of "Light" into high-temperature projectiles, allowing them to be projected like beams of light up to a thousand meters away, intensely scorching the target. The "Insight Overlapping Mirrors" equipped on it allows ordinary people to possess the long-distance and night vision capabilities of an Extraordinary of "Light". When using these overlapping lenses to see, it also increases the user's concentration, greatly improving sniping accuracy.
This gun was originally intended by the Eight Point Nest to assassinate Duke Barret. After their original plan was disrupted by Dorothy, this gun was forced to be abandoned at the scene. It was eventually seized by Vanya and given to Dorothy. This is Dorothy's first time using it in actual combat.
"Feels good... This gun is at least reliable in terms of accuracy, and the damage effect is not bad... at least it seems so."
Through the lenses, Dorothy gazed at the scene in the ruins of the mansion in the distance and muttered. Although she successfully hit the target and turned it into a ball of flame, the alert expression on Dorothy's face did not disappear. She was still observing the burning flame through the lenses. She could clearly see that the blazing fire was rapidly extinguishing.
In the ruins of the mansion, the flames that engulfed Ben Gecheer gradually died down. When the flames dispersed, what first appeared were the carbonized corpses, followed by what those charred corpses were trying to restrain.
Dark, smooth stone skin covered his entire body, sharp claws like a beast grew on his limbs, a demonic, hideous face was between his pointed ears, and a pair of large stone wings grew on his back.
When the flames dissipated, what appeared before Dorothy was Ben Gecheer's new form, a form like a meticulously carved, terrifying stone statue.
Ben Gecheer, transformed into a terrifying stone statue, was now standing on the ruins. His gaze swept across the surrounding scene, and then he saw other broken bodies in the surrounding ruins continuously gathering and surging towards him. Facing the situation before him, Ben Gecheer's entire body suddenly lit up with orange-yellow runes. Many of these runes displayed the symbol of "Light".
Then, Ben Gecheer opened his mouth and sprayed blazing fire at the moving corpses. This was the "Light" flame that he, as a Stone Gargoyles, had absorbed and stored in his skin from the previous attack.
As a Wall Walker of the upper Chalk Stage, a Stone Gargoyles, Ben Gecheer possesses the ability to absorb and return almost any elementalized, materialized, or spiritual attack.