Chapter 46: One Plus One Is Greater Than Two

Chapter 46: One Plus One Is Greater Than Two

As Klein passed through the living room, his spiritual intuition was stirred. He felt invisible gazes being cast at him from unknown places, sweeping over his body.

He pretended to have noticed nothing and entered the sitting room ahead. After examining the environment, he found a seat neither too close nor too far from the host’s position.

The instant he crossed the doorway, all those gazes vanished.

If the Wraith weren’t isolated by three layers of seals, it would probably have been discovered just now… Mr. X isn’t as bold and insane as he appears…

Klein sat down and pulled at his hood, hiding his face deeper in shadow.

After waiting for a little over ten minutes, when the gathering members had mostly arrived, Mr. X, wearing a brass mask, appeared soundlessly at the doorway and walked inside step by step, heading for the host’s seat.

He wore a black classical robe and a pointed wizard’s hat. As he walked, his aura remained restrained, yet it made everyone present lower their heads unconsciously.

After turning around and slowly sitting, Mr. X swept his gaze around the room and spoke in a low voice.

“Begin.”

Within four meters… Klein did not rush to act. He withdrew his gaze and patiently watched several gathering members exchange information about people with abnormal luck for gold pounds, listening as Mr. X occasionally responded with a few words.

Time passed second by second. The focus of the gathering began shifting from Mr. X’s bounty to transactions between participants. Klein no longer hesitated. With the thumb of his left hand, he pinched the first joint of his index finger twice, activating Spirit Body Thread vision.

Illusory black threads instantly appeared before his eyes. They extended from different people and spread toward infinity.

After briefly distinguishing them, Klein covertly began manipulating Mr. X’s Spirit Body Threads.

In his plan, there were mainly two difficult points. One was that Mr. X, whose previous Sequence included Astrologer, and the saint of the Aurora Order who might be hidden in the dark, could receive a premonition of danger when Klein began manipulating the corresponding Spirit Body Threads and keenly notice something unusual.

Regarding Mr. X’s spiritual intuition, Klein was fairly confident. Back when Miss Sharron existed in a Wraith state, even she had not detected Marionettist Rosago’s manipulation of her Spirit Body Threads ahead of time. However, a saint, a half-human, half-divine high-Sequence Beyonder who had obtained godhood, would not surprise Klein no matter what strangeness he possessed. Nor would it be surprising if the saint’s inspiration were stirred by changes to another person’s Spirit Body Threads.

Other Marionettists would most likely have no solution to this point. But Klein was different. He still had the identity of the Fool, and he could borrow the power of the mysterious space above the gray fog. He could rely on the Paper Angel’s interference in advance to eliminate the hidden danger.

The gathering continued without the slightest abnormality. A dozen seconds flashed by. Klein was only three seconds away from achieving preliminary control over Mr. X, while this divine envoy of the Aurora Order remained utterly unaware, his gaze deep as he watched a transaction conclude, seemingly lost in thought.

At the critical moment, Klein stopped on his own initiative.

Barely maintaining his progress, he drew out one hand and inserted it into the inner pocket of the hooded robe, touching the iron cigarette case sealed by a wall of spirituality.

Klein then moved his finger and gently poked, removing the wall of spirituality and letting it turn into a breeze that coiled within his pocket.

He withdrew his hand and waited several more seconds, until Mr. X’s gaze shifted to the other side. Only then did he continue manipulating the Spirit Body Threads.

Two seconds. One second. Zero.

Mr. X’s thoughts abruptly became sluggish, as if freshly mixed cement had been poured into them.

Enemy… danger… His slow-moving thoughts turned. Very quickly, he made a decision, preparing to warn his subordinates and the one secretly watching over him, call for help, and carry out an effective resistance.

At that moment, a mass of icy cold drilled into his body, making his limbs and mouth no longer belong to him.

Admiral of Blood Senor!

Wraith possession!

A Marionettist’s manipulation of Spirit Body Threads had no shortage of flaws. The greatest problem was that once preliminary control was established, the target would immediately discover something wrong and, if capable, take various countermeasures.

If it were one-on-one, with no other people nearby, Klein could naturally make use of the target’s increasing “delayed state” to interfere with and interrupt resistance more effectively. But if the target still had helpers, a Marionettist’s actions would be hard to conceal from others. One needed either an appropriate environment or an accomplice’s help to continue covertly, without leaving traces.

And in this respect, a Wraith that could possess the target and forcibly control the target’s actions was simply the perfect assistant for a Marionettist!

The reason Klein had not directly entered preliminary control just now was precisely to find time to release the Wraith.

Once the entrance inspection had been passed, the level of vigilance inside the gathering’s sitting room was bound to be relatively lower.

Mr. X’s eyes widened slightly. His thoughts gradually slowed. The words he had intended to shout were locked tightly by his own throat and sealed firmly by his own mouth, completely erased without form.

And the hands he had intended to lift directly also slowed, reaching instead toward the bone china teacup beside him.

This entirely violated his will. It was all done by the icy aura that occupied every corner of his body.

Wraith… Marionettist… no… at this rate… I will die… soundlessly…

Mr. X immediately controlled his spirituality, sketching complex symbols and markings in his mind.

He intended to open a Traveler’s Door—also known as a Door of Teleportation—around himself, using it to directly escape the Marionettist’s range. Compared with that problem, Wraith possession was relatively less dangerous.

But within those slow and sluggish thoughts, the manifestation of illusory symbols and markings did not occur in one smooth motion. It happened stroke by stroke, pause by pause, not quickly enough.

Seizing this opportunity, the Wraith Senor, possessing Mr. X, acted under Klein the Marionettist’s control. He simply moved Mr. X’s head and took the initiative to adjust his sitting posture.

This single action instantly interrupted the covert formation of the Traveler’s Door.

Terrible… my… reaction… is too slow… I will be… interfered with… by the Wraith… use… use a mystical… item…

Mr. X’s eyes faintly showed traces of bloodshot red, but his surrounding subordinates noticed nothing. Even the one secretly watching this place failed to detect any abnormality.

As for the gathering members engaged in exchanges and transactions, they merely lowered their voices and softened their tones because of the change in his sitting posture.

At this moment, although the sitting room was filled with people, although Beyonders were everywhere, all of them his helpers, Mr. X felt an extreme loneliness and helplessness.

He did not even know who was attacking him, or where that person was sitting.

As thoughts moved one by one, Mr. X once again controlled his spirituality, causing it to extend toward the gold ring inlaid with ruby on the index finger of his left hand.

But from thought to decision, from decision to action, his process took far too long, like a performance of slow-motion inner monologue.

This gave the Wraith Senor enough time. He raised Mr. X’s left hand, bent his fingers, and, as if thinking, tapped the side of “his own” forehead where it was not covered by the brass mask.

Amid extremely faint thudding sounds, the force of the taps was in truth not small. It was merely that, under Klein’s control, Senor managed it very well, driving most of the force into Mr. X’s head without letting it scatter outward, thereby concealing the sound.

Thud! Thud!

Mr. X’s idea of extending his spirituality was abruptly interrupted, and for a brief moment, he could not recover his train of thought.

By the time he recovered, the Marionettist’s control had advanced another step. This made his thoughts chaotic and slow, making even thinking and decision-making difficult.

With the additional interference brought about by the Wraith’s various covert movements using his body, even though Mr. X possessed many Beyonder abilities and several decent mystical items, he still inevitably slid step by step toward the abyss of becoming a marionette.

He watched himself walk toward death in slow motion, utterly powerless.

Only now did he deeply understand just how terrifying, how unsolvable, the combination of Marionettist and Wraith truly was.

Beneath everyone’s gaze, the hunt unfolded in complete silence.

As Klein’s control deepened, Mr. X’s movements became increasingly rigid and sluggish. However, with the Wraith possession compensating for it, no one else could see the problem.

To be precise, Mr. X’s actions no longer originated from the stagnant, rusted man himself, but from the Wraith Senor. This prevented even despair from showing in his eyes.

Amid various transactions succeeding, failing, arguing, and being discussed, five minutes quickly passed. Klein was only one step away from killing Mr. X and turning him into his own puppet.

However, he could not do it.

Because his Marionettist potion had not been digested much yet, he could currently control only one puppet. To transform Mr. X, he would have to give up the Wraith Senor.

And once he gave him up, this long-dead Admiral of Blood would immediately appear and be discovered, bringing tremendous trouble.

Similarly, if Klein did not abandon the Wraith marionette and instead took advantage of Mr. X’s inability to resist by directly killing him, he would still have to consider the Aurora Order saint who might exist in the dark.

This was the second difficult point in his plan.

Silently controlling Mr. X and stripping him of his ability to resist was not difficult for the combination of Marionettist and Wraith. Completing the kill was not difficult either. In Mr. X’s current state, Klein could easily finish him with even an Air Bullet.

The difficult part was how to safely leave after taking such action.

And that required sufficient patience.

Time flowed calmly while Klein’s spirit, seemingly peaceful yet actually tense, remained taut. He pretended that nothing appearing here interested him and did not speak at all.

At last, the gathering reached its end. Mr. X said in a deep voice, without the slightest abnormality, “Dismissed.”

His words were extremely concise, exactly the same as his closing words last time. This was something Xio had described to Fors.

One gathering member after another rose. Klein mixed among them inconspicuously. At the same time, he reached into the inner pocket of his robe and, by feel, opened Leymano’s Travels.