Chapter 373 – Infiltration
Dorothy had observed that this villa was highly flammable, with even an underground cellar stocked with numerous barrels of alcohol. With such a large amount of alcohol as fuel, the entire villa could be set ablaze in no time. Under such intense fire, Dorothy’s zombie puppet would have difficulty moving around, and the mechanism at the entrance to the secret room might be damaged due to the high temperature. The whole house could collapse, turning into ruins, making it extremely difficult for Dorothy to enter the secret room beneath the rubble.
On the other hand, it was unrealistic for Dorothy to directly confront the group of killers inside the villa. Not only were they numerous, but their leader, Kenk, did not seem to be an ordinary figure.
From Kenk’s previous words, it seemed that both the person responsible for summoning spirits and the assassin were on the same level during this operation, reporting to a being known as the Spider Fang Priest. Therefore, there was a high possibility that Kenk was a White Chalk vampire.
Without any teammates to rely on, it was quite challenging for Dorothy to handle a White Chalk vampire with just her zombie puppet. Thus, directly confronting the enemy was not a good choice for her.
Therefore, Dorothy’s main goal now was to find a way to slip in while the members of Eight-pointed were still searching for the secret room. Fortunately, with a pile of corpses scattered throughout the villa, achieving this goal was not difficult.
Without giving it much thought, Dorothy immediately began her plan. She alternated control over the many corpses scattered around the villa, using their senses to familiarize herself with the overall situation inside.
Then, Dorothy found a masked corpse of an Eight-pointed killer outside the back door of the villa. Although their surprise attack was successful, the guards of the villa were not completely ineffective. After all, this was a duke’s villa. Despite the annihilation of their forces, the guards still managed to k*ll one or two of Eight-pointed’s minions.
The corpse Dorothy found was one of those. He died from a gunshot wound to his chest outside the back door. Due to the urgency of the situation, Kenk had his subordinates search the entire villa after clearing out the guards, leaving no time to collect the bodies. This subordinate thus remained unattended after his d*ath.
Dorothy manipulated the dead Eight-pointed minion, allowing him to slowly rise without being noticed. After tidying up his clothes, he turned back and re-entered the villa.
All the assassins involved in the raid wore black cloaks and masks, making it impossible to see each other’s faces. Although the minion controlled by Dorothy had large bloodstains on his front, this was not unusual given Eight-pointed’s habit of close combat. Other killers also had bloodstains, having used blades to cut enemies in close combat, making them all reek of bl**d.
In this manner, Dorothy’s zombie puppet successfully infiltrated the villa, blending in with the other killers who were searching for something. As they moved toward the corridor on the west side of the first-floor living room.
After reaching their destination, Dorothy instructed the zombie puppet to stay in this corridor and search, appearing focused on this area. Seeing someone searching here, the other killers decided not to waste manpower and crowded in one spot, knowing the villa was quite large and unnecessary.
So when the other killers saw Dorothy’s zombie puppet moving in this corridor, they chose to search elsewhere.
After designating this corridor as her search area, Dorothy had the zombie puppet start concealing actions under the guise of searching. He overturned cabinets in the corridor and opened doors to rooms along the edge, blocking the view at the end of the corridor.
With everything prepared, Dorothy then controlled another male servant corpse who had died in a room beside the western corridor. Under the cover of the zombie puppet and the servant corpse, he walked to the hanging clock at the end of the corridor, opened the clock face, and started adjusting the hands. He set the hour hand to 12 o’clock and the minute hand to 3 o’clock, leaving the second hand untouched for now.
Next, Dorothy controlled another guard corpse who had died in a window-facing corridor on the third floor. Despite not dying a tragic d*ath, he staggered to his feet, loaded his pistol, and fired several shots out the window unseen, emptying the magazine before throwing the g*n away and returning to his original position.
Gunshots echoed through the third floor of the villa, drawing the attention of all the killers inside. Many rushed towards the source.
At the same moment, the male servant puppet in the western corridor of the living room set the last second hand to 6 o’clock, and then a series of rumbling mechanical sounds filled the air.
These mechanical noises were not insignificant, and under normal circumstances, nearby killers might have heard them. However, the continuous gunfire masked these sounds, preventing anyone from noticing.
While other killers were distracted by the gunfire, the thick floor in front of the male servant puppet began to open, revealing a downward staircase. Dorothy controlled the puppet to walk down the stairs without hesitation, and the floor closed automatically behind him. The clock hands on the wall also returned to their correct positions.
Using the gunfire as cover, Dorothy followed Barret’s intelligence to open the entrance to the secret room. The male servant puppet descended the stairs, carrying a gas lamp taken from upstairs.
Under the light of the gas lamp, the puppet quickly descended the stairs and entered a relatively spacious underground space. Using the light from the gas lamp, Dorothy lit several others in the area, illuminating the darkness below and revealing its appearance.
What appeared before Dorothy was a scene from an underground workshop. On one side of the spacious basement were tall bookshelves lined with books. On the other side was a long table with piles of books and strange instruments.
In another part of the basement, a telescope-like instrument with a long tube and countless mechanical structures lay on the ground. Dorothy recognized this device; it was a Secret Transmission Observation Instrument capable of observing secret transmissions through stacked enchanted lenses, defending against poison recognition. She had seen similar devices at the Historical Records Office in the Church, though this one was slightly larger.
However, the most notable item in the entire underground space was not the massive Secret Transmission Observation Instrument, but rather an ancient statue placed in a corner of the basement.
This statue was not the Mirror Moon Goddess Statue but a statue of a male warrior. The warrior wore armor, had a cloak draped over his shoulders, and held a sword vertically in front of him. His bearded face showed determination, and his hair flowed freely without a helmet.
On the base of the statue were inscriptions in Empire script, and beneath them was a plaque written in Prit writing:
“Arthur Despenser, one of the four Wind Knights of the Moonshadow.”
