It was the Substitute who arrived behind him just in time, grabbing him by the back of his collar. Her seemingly frail body erupted with a strength that didn't belong to her, actually managing to run with him in tow.
"Roar!" The heavy knight roared, his eyes glowing a deep crimson, and gave chase to the two with extreme speed.
With a point of his finger, countless puppets surged out from the surroundings, joining the pursuit.
To the rhythm of the country-style music, the speed of those puppets had clearly more than doubled. The Substitute carried Chen San at the front, his legs dangling in the air like swaying reeds as she ran, making for a somewhat comical scene.
The army of puppets with glowing red eyes chased madly behind them. From time to time, a few faster ones caught up, swinging their sharp claws and nearly tearing a chunk of flesh from Chen San's body.
Chen San wanted to cry but had no tears. He gripped his pants tightly to prevent the lunging puppets from tearing them off and shouted into the communication channel, "Is it ready yet!?"
"Not yet, we’ve only just started. Hold him off, I believe in you."
The young girl's slightly amused voice came through the communication curtain.
"You're using a public mission to settle a private grudge!" Chen San's eternal poker face finally cracked, looking as wretched as could be.
He saw the distant heavy knight let out a roar before taking a massive leap into the air, plummeting straight toward them like a meteor!
Amidst an explosive crash, a large section of the ground cracked.
That frenzied monster burst through the rising dust, charging headlong at them once again. Any puppets blocking its path were either smashed to pieces or torn into fragments.
The ground shook violently as a terrifying aura bore down on them.
Chen San gritted his teeth, thinking that even if he died, he couldn't die in such a pathetic way. Deciding to go down fighting, he raised his sniper rifle and, without even aiming, fired a rapid succession of shots at the monster in front of him.
Tiny sparks danced, white light flashed, and the sound of gunfire was continuous.
Hearing the sounds in the communication channel, Xu Xiaoyou nodded in satisfaction.
Chen San alone had drawn away almost all the puppets near the church, making their entry into the building very smooth. Not a single puppet had noticed them from start to finish.
In theory, they were still in the puppeteer's blind spot.
From the enemy's perspective, they had last appeared on the snow of the Second Zone. In the blink of an eye, they had already entered this fellow's lair, striking directly at the heart of it.
The entrance to the Donglin church's underground was in the prayer room. The blurred murals were covered in creepers and vines. At the very center of the prayer room was a confession room. Beside this small, sacred space lay the corpse of the previous sniper. This fellow wasn't a puppet, but a fanatic follower of the puppeteer.
Even now, he still held that heavy sniper rifle in his arms. His face in death was filled with disbelief and infinite horror—likely the result of the shock to his young heart when the blonde girl he had sniped earlier climbed back up from the snow like a vengeful spirit in the blink of an eye.
Xu Xiaoyou stepped over the man's body, casually picking up the heavy sniper rifle he had dropped, and walked into the confession room.
The passage of time had stripped away all the intricate and beautiful patterns of this confession room. The ritual vessels originally displayed there had long since been looted when the disaster struck. It looked like a very ordinary, albeit large, wooden box.
Inside the confession room was a hidden cellar leading underground. After traversing a dark and deep passage, they finally arrived beneath the abandoned church.
A massive circular platform was hidden underground. A deep, nearly black dome pressed down, supported by four giant stone pillars distributed at the four cardinal directions of the platform.
The murals on the dome and walls had long since become illegible, though one could vaguely see ancient myths depicted. A figure stood at the end of this space, with hundreds of puppets prostrating themselves on the ground as if on a pilgrimage to that figure, their expressions devout and respectful.
"The puppeteer," Xu Xiaoyou whispered.
They were currently positioned above the underground platform, directly facing that black figure in the distance. He looked exactly like the description in the communications—wearing a long, black men's suit with a delicate bowtie. His head was encased in a black plaster head, with a strange eye on each of its five facets.
Behind the man, they saw a giant puppet monster. The creature had no skin or flesh on its surface; a massive ribcage was exposed, casting a heavy shadow. The man was being sheltered within it. Several sharp, spider-like long limbs extended from the back of the ribcage, waving in the air. A woman's head with a grieving expression was attached to the top of the spine, her long, withered black hair hanging down and obscuring her face.
It was the puppet mother Jian Liu had mentioned before. This design made Xu Xiaoyou think of a pipe organ.
She was like a giant pipe organ made of flesh and bone. The blood vessels climbing the ribcage were the organ pipes. Below the end of the skeletal frame grew a piano made of flesh and organs; those were the keys. The spine was the tracker action, and every bone on the ribs was like a stop, changing the tone as they contracted and twitched.
Her entire chest cavity was a massive bellows, and her mournful cries were the music played by this pipe organ.
There was no mistake; this puppet mother, shaped like a pipe organ, was the puppeteer's mimicry.
Just how twisted and abnormal must one's psyche be for a mimicry of such design and appearance to be born.
At this moment, the puppeteer's expression was anxious. He kept his eyes closed, hands in his pockets, transmitting commands to the puppet mother behind him through his mind and will. Crimson points of light slowly lit up along the puppet mother's spine.
Hundreds of silk threads invisible to the naked eye rose high into the air, piercing through the deep, nearly black underground dome. As her ribs contracted and writhed, the puppet mother's will descended upon every puppet nail stationed outside the church, controlling the puppet army as they searched frantically for their location on the snow plains.
That puppeteer seemed to want to regain sight of them and bring the battle back under his control.
Tang Xin happened to arrive at this moment. The girl had also sustained some minor injuries, mostly scrapes from moving between positions.
She lowered her voice. "Don't worry, I wasn't spotted by those puppets."
Xu Xiaoyou nodded to the girl, raised the heavy sniper rifle in her hands, bolted a round into the chamber, and handed it to the blue-haired girl after flicking off the safety. She pointed at the puppeteer sheltered within the skeleton below, then tapped her own temple with her fingertip, making a shooting gesture.
"We only get one shot at this," Xu Xiaoyou said.
Tang Xin nodded. This time she didn't hesitate, taking the heavy sniper rifle directly.
It was barely over a hundred meters from them to the puppeteer. From this position, facing a stationary target, she was one hundred percent certain she could hit him after all her training.
She braced the gun, aiming at the enemy just as before. After taking a few deep breaths, she pulled the trigger.
The heavy sniper let out a roar. The bullet it spat out shattered the puppet mother's ribs and blew the puppeteer's head apart!
Under the force of a .50 caliber heavy sniper round, a person's head would explode like a watermelon, scattering everywhere.
"Return!"
The puppet mother's mournful wail echoed throughout the underground space. To Xu Xiaoyou's lack of surprise, the 'puppeteer's' headless body slowly rose into the air, controlled by silk threads, dull and lifeless.
That cunning fellow couldn't possibly expose himself so blatantly. This was merely another one of his puppets.
A guy like that would only disguise himself to look no different from an ordinary puppet, making it impossible to distinguish him—just like those puppet nails.
"That's not a very friendly way to say hello. Barging into a person's private chambers like this... it's quite rude, isn't it?"
The puppeteer's voice echoed throughout the underground space. His tone carried an irrepressible excitement, as if a great play was about to begin.
"Everyone, I hope you've been well."
Rate on N.U.
