Chapter 232: Ambush
Just as Dorothy was about to give the order to fire, she suddenly noticed a problem. Her brows furrowed slightly as her gaze fell on the bewildered students.
‘These students’ eyes… have they been hypnotized? The ability of vampires includes hypnosis. It seems that the bald bat used this to hypnotize them all together. That makes it easier to control them.
‘But… their line of sight seems to be slightly off.’
Using multiple small zombie puppets scattered throughout the ritual site, Dorothy carefully observed the students in front of her. She found that their gazes were blankly staring ahead, seemingly fixated on Claudius, but upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a slight deviation.
After becoming a Black Tier Scholar, Dorothy’s information reception and processing capabilities had greatly improved. This meant she could notice more details and sense inconsistencies.
At this moment, although these students appeared to be looking at Claudius, when Dorothy mentally superimposed an overhead view from a small zombie puppet, she drew a straight line through all their gazes. However, it didn’t align correctly.
In Dorothy’s eyes, the students’ true focus wasn’t on Claudius, but on one of his guards, who was also intently staring at the students.
‘Interesting… It seems this is your usual tactic, huh?’
Noticing this scenario, Dorothy thought to herself. At this moment, Vania, who was carefully aiming, whispered:
“Miss Dorothyia… When do we act?”
“Oh, right now. But change your target to the one on the original target’s right.”
Dorothy told Vania. Though surprised, Vania immediately followed Dorothy’s instructions and adjusted her aim towards another guard-like man to the right of Claudius, while Dorothy directed three zombie puppets to aim at Claudius.
“Target locked,” Vania reported, and Dorothy immediately responded:
“Fire!”
“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Simultaneously, Dorothy’s zombie puppets and Vania fired. Gunfire echoed throughout the underground space as six bullets shot towards the crowd performing the ceremony.
Two bullets missed, two hit the lackeys, and one hit Claudius in the chest.
The b*llet fired by Nia, originally aimed precisely at the head of Claudius’ right attendant, narrowly missed its mark as the attendant suddenly widened his eyes and dodged in time.
“Pop!”
In the end, the attendant narrowly avoided being shot in the head by Vania’s b*llet, which struck him at an angle, fracturing part of his skull and grazing some brain tissue. bl**d spurted out, and he was hit again in the chest. After being shot, the attendant screamed and was then enveloped in shadow, turning into a swarm of bats that scattered.
The other hit targets fell instantly. Claudius, as he clutched his wound and gritted his teeth, rapidly transformed his face into Avery’s.
To prevent any mishaps, the shape-shifters played an identity swap game. The original Claudius disguised himself as Avery, and Avery took the hit for him.
Dorothy and Vania had seen this tactic before with Thistle and Eli. Having developed caution against such basic operations by shape-shifters, Dorothy noticed the subtle anomaly in the hypnotized students’ gaze and pinpointed Claudius’ real location, firing at him. Unfortunately, the White Tier’s reflexes were too strong, allowing him to dodge the sneak attack.
“What? That guy isn’t dead? He turned into a bat!”
“Don’t panic, Vania. Keep firing. Eliminate those lackeys first…”
Dorothy said sternly. Then she controlled six zombie puppets dressed in coats to line up and emerge from the shadows, shooting revolvers at the panicked black-robed lackeys. The ambushed lackeys were thrown into chaos, unable to even draw their guns before being gunned down. The hypnotized students remained kneeling motionless in the magical array, not causing any hindrance.
The ritual site erupted into chaos. Gunfire echoed continuously, and most of the dozen or so lackeys were killed instantly. The scattered bats regrouped at a safe place, and Claudius, bleeding profusely from his head, reappeared amidst the bats.
Trembling, Claudius pulled out a large syringe filled with fresh bl**d from his coat and stabbed it into his artery, injecting the entire dose.
As a massive amount of bl**d was injected into Claudius, his injuries healed instantly, the b*llet squeezed out, and the bleeding stopped. The damaged brain tissue rapidly regenerated, and the fractured skull healed.
Apart from bone damage, Claudius was back to normal after one injection.
“d*mn sneaking bastards… where did you come from?!”
Claudius gritted his teeth, though confused about where this group came from, he realized the priority was to eliminate the enemy.
With a wave of his hand, Claudius made the hypnotized students fall asleep, reducing spiritual expenditure. Then he transformed into a swarm of dark bats and swooped toward the six gunners.
The six gunmen, having eliminated most of the lackeys, were running up the stairs to the first floor. They reached the top and attacked the enemies above, reaching the first floor.
When they saw the swarm of bats coming at them, the six gunmen opened fire. However, the bullets had limited effectiveness against such agile targets. Only two bats were hit, but the entire swarm of bats enveloped the gunmen, wrapping around them.
Under the sharp claws and teeth of the bats, the six gunmen were quickly torn apart and fell. Watching this, Dorothy, still hidden in the shadows, couldn’t help but smile slightly.
Then, Dorothy controlled a fallen gunman’s puppet to press a small mechanism hidden in the sleeve. When triggered, a simple ignition device inside the puppet’s coat ignited a nearby small bottle of gasoline, setting off an explosion.
The gasoline bottle ignited, causing a violent explosion that triggered another bottle nearby. Ultimately, all the gas bottles carried by the same puppet exploded in sequence, igniting the surrounding puppets’ gas bottles. Six puppets burst into brilliant flames, and the intense heat instantly consumed all the surrounding bats.
