Chapter 74: A Demoness’s Methods

Chapter 74: A Demoness’s Methods

As thoughts flashed rapidly, Klein abruptly switched places with his personal valet Enuni in the neighboring room.

Under a grapevine about one hundred and fifty meters from the manor’s main building, a slowly crawling centipede suddenly stiffened, then relaxed.

Almost at the same time, its figure vanished from where it had been, and Dwayne Dantès, dressed in blue-and-white checkered pajamas, appeared there.

Klein had switched positions with a marionette again!

He decided to use this method to covertly follow Qonas Kilgor and figure out where exactly the man was going and what he was preparing to do.

Although this meant he could only “teleport” one hundred and fifty meters at a time, with each activation requiring an interval of two or three seconds because the marionette conversion process had to occur, compared with Flaming Jump or Traveling teleportation, it was sufficiently concealed. It produced very little disturbance and would be difficult for Qonas Kilgor to discover.

One had to remember that this was a demigod. Even if he was not skilled in domains such as spiritual intuition, he was still a demigod. He absolutely could not be underestimated!

By the same logic, the reason Klein did not rely on Creeping Hunger to hide in shadows was that, although such tracking would be concealed, its speed was comparatively too slow. There was no possibility of catching up to a demigod that way.

Under the deep night, between Rose Song Manor and the south bank of the Tussock River, rats moving among tree roots, venomous snakes active around rocks, spiders, and river fish grew stiff one after another, their movements becoming sluggish.

One marionette after another was transformed in succession. With their help, Klein continuously “teleported” without producing any disturbance, very quickly reaching the south bank of the Tussock River and catching up behind Qonas Kilgor, maintaining a distance of nearly one kilometer.

For a Bizarro Sorcerer, even if a marionette left the range of his control, it would not immediately lose its controlled state and die on the spot. Without the Bizarro Sorcerer’s main consciousness accelerating the process, this development was quite slow and required nearly ten minutes. Therefore, Klein was not at all worried that he would lose Winner Enuni, who was lying in his bed because of the tracking. As long as he could return within ten minutes, he could continue manipulating the marionette.

Silently, Klein followed Qonas Kilgor upstream along the Tussock River, passed through a dense forest, and climbed a mountain beside the bank.

At that moment, Qonas Kilgor, who wore no waistcoat and no coat, suddenly stopped. He began examining the surroundings, gradually expanding the range step by step, as though marking out his territory.

Seeing this, Klein did not dare linger. He immediately swapped positions with a marionette and retreated repeatedly, pulling nearly three kilometers away from that major general and deputy director of MI9.

At the same time, he proactively relinquished control over the marionettes ahead. The death of a few small insects would not arouse suspicion.

In the outskirts, in forests and mountains, this was truly far too common!

King of the Five Seas Nast can create a battle environment advantageous to himself. As a demigod of the Black Emperor pathway as well, could Qonas Kilgor possess the ability to mark out an area, tampering with, adding, or using certain rules so that any tracker entering it would be directly exposed and unable to hide? Very likely! With sufficient vigilance, Klein took out a gold coin from the pocket of his pajamas and made it spin, leap, and flip back and forth between his fingers.

This time, he deliberately controlled his strength and did not flick out any clear ringing sound. The gold coin flew up silently, then fell back down into his palm.

Klein did not need to lower his head. The state of the gold coin naturally reflected itself in his mind:

The king’s head faced upward!

That meant the area ahead had undergone a change and carried very high risk!

As expected of a demigod. Abilities like this truly are enviable… But do you think this alone can escape my “tracking”? Klein inwardly chuckled. He retreated another few dozen meters, found an exceptionally secluded place, and changed his appearance into Gehrman Sparrow.

Immediately afterward, he clasped his hands together, pressed them before his mouth, and spoke in a low voice:

“The Blessed of the Sea and Spirit World, the Protector of the Rorsted Archipelago, the Ruler of Undersea Creatures, the Controller of Tsunamis and Storms, great Kalvetua…”

After finishing the prayer, Klein immediately took four steps counterclockwise and arrived above the gray fog, sitting in The Fool’s seat. With a beckoning gesture, he summoned the white bone scepter whose tip was inlaid with a ring of blue-green gems.

Then, with the help of his own prayer light dot and the Sea God Scepter’s response to a believer, he saw the region where Gehrman Sparrow was located.

He then proactively raised his viewpoint, bringing the surrounding scenery into his eyes, and using this as the center, expanded outward across five nautical miles—the Sea God Scepter’s maximum observation range through a believer’s prayer.

In this way, the area Qonas Kilgor had marked out, where nothing could evade his perception, appeared within Klein’s field of vision.

…

In the dock area, inside that warehouse stacked with many goods.

After Trissy laughed softly and said, “Love…”, her figure abruptly faded and took on a radiance like a lake at night.

In an instant, she, who had been tightly bound layer upon layer by the spider silk of the Unaging Demoness Katerina Pelle, transformed into an illusory mirror.

It was a full-length mirror taller than a person. Within it, watery light rippled and deep, ghostly radiance formed, as though it were a door leading to another world.

At that moment, it did not reflect the scene in front of it. Instead, it outlined a room.

That room was hazy and dim. Its bed and furniture had been cut into countless neat pieces, scattered everywhere. Only the central area was completely clean, without even dust.

Trissy stood there, wearing a dark and gloomy black dress. Her smooth hair hung loose and moved gently in the wind, making her face look exceptionally pale, like a female ghost from folk legends.

She had not been at the scene at all. Instead, she had used that illusory mirror to project her figure and power across who knew how great a distance, as though she were truly present!

That was why she had shown no panic at being controlled or hunted.

The instant she saw this, Katerina Pelle, dressed in a simple, holy white robe, did not hesitate at all. She directly released a shriek.

As invisible sound waves spread rapidly, her hair also floated up, strand by strand, each thick and distinct, dyed in a dim grayish-white color.

The illusory, deep full-length mirror abruptly shook violently, as though it might collapse and disintegrate at any moment.

Within the messy room reflected inside it, fragments of the bed, desk, and chairs all turned gray-white, losing their luster, like stone after stone.

Before Trissy, the brownish-yellow floor similarly turned into gray-white stone, rapidly extending toward the only human inside the room like a surging tide.

Trissy did not attempt to resist. She immediately turned around, waving one hand backward while throwing herself toward the open window.

In midair, invisible spider threads belonging to her appeared one after another. All of them were dimming, shifting toward gray-white.

At the same time, crack after crack appeared across that dark, profound full-length mirror. Amid illusory cracking sounds, it collapsed and directly vanished.

However, before the full-length mirror completely disappeared, within that fully petrified room, the gray-white color strangely flowed backward, condensing into a human figure.

The figure wore a simple, holy white robe. She had glossy black hair and a pair of blue eyes that seemed both mature and innocent, both profound and pure. She looked exactly like the Unaging Demoness Katerina, who had just been inside the warehouse!

With ghostly light scattering piece by piece, Viscount Stratford could no longer see the room “opposite.”

He withdrew his gaze and looked toward Shermane beside him. His eyes became slightly complicated, then quickly returned to normal.

“Trissy really is patient. In order to deal with me, she actually spent several months cultivating a new Demoness.” Viscount Stratford shook his head and laughed softly. “What exactly did she want you to obtain from me?”

At that moment, because the connection with Trissy had been cut off, the spider silk around Shermane had loosened one strand after another. It could no longer bind her or restrict her movement.

This beautiful young woman answered expressionlessly, her eyes hollow:

“She wanted me to determine who you truly serve.”

Before Viscount Stratford could speak, a faint, indescribable light appeared in her eyes. Hesitantly, she asked,

“Of the words you said to me, of the promises you made to me, how much was true?”

Viscount Stratford froze briefly, then chuckled.

“You are probably the stupidest and most naive Demoness I have ever seen…”

Shermane’s expression froze on her face. The light that had barely gathered in her eyes dimmed little by little once more.

…

Outside the warehouse, in another direction, Xio and Fors were hiding in the shadows, watching the silent target area.

They had followed Viscount Stratford here!

Their patient waiting had indeed been rewarded. They had discovered that this court guard captain had left his residence in the dead of night and headed toward the dock area near Backlund Bridge.

Relying on Xio’s Sheriff ability, they had followed from a considerable distance and reached this place, confirming that Viscount Stratford had entered the warehouse diagonally ahead.

In addition, they had also noticed one thing: Viscount Stratford’s condition was not especially good. He seemed to have been injured.

“Actually, we had a chance to act along the way earlier…” Fors said softly as she looked at the warehouse door.

Without turning her head, Xio replied,

“But you yourself said that you felt things were not that simple and wanted to wait a little longer.”

“That might be an Astrologer’s intuition, or it might be procrastination…” Fors replied self-mockingly.

They said no more and fell silent again, continuing to wait patiently.

Just then, before them, on the hard-packed earth, black flames abruptly began burning.

These strange flames swiftly split apart, moving close to the ground in all directions and outlining a line of Loenese words:

“The opportunity you desire has arrived.”

Xio and Fors’s pupils dilated at the same time. Then they looked at each other, not knowing how to respond or what to say.

“What do we do?” After several seconds, Fors finally could not endure the silence and asked.