Chapter 460

Three hundred and fifty-eight chapters: Trusting the Flavor

South Tivyán, Bishop Square.

Under the cold winter night, the New Year’s Eve party in the square was already underway. Joyful and exciting performances were being staged on the stage, causing the crowd below to laugh and cheer intermittently. Amidst continuous applause and shouts, people’s enthusiasm surged wave after wave. In such an atmosphere, people could even forget the bone-chilling cold wind of winter night.

While the large crowd in the square was immersed in laughter, Dorothy frowned deeply, her face filled with indescribable heaviness. When she realized the immense danger lurking among the crowd, her thoughts could no longer focus on the performances on stage.

“These guys have planted bombs among the audience, planning to detonate them at a meaningful moment… They’re really crazy. To carry out a terrorist attack, they don’t choose more meaningful targets but instead pick this place…”

Dorothy thought angrily. Through Kapak, she also knew that the indigenous people of the New World were severely oppressed by the colonizers. It made sense for them to harbor hatred, but vengeance should be directed at the oppressors, not these lower-class civilians.

This party was held in the southern area, mainly targeting the lower-class citizens of Tivyán, most of whom were workers—also oppressed people. Dorothy couldn’t understand why Sado would choose this location as the target of the attack.

“As expected, just like what Kapak said before, this Sado is a madman completely blinded by hatred. He probably chose this place because there are so many people gathered here, allowing him to k*ll many. It seems he has been misled by the mastermind behind the scenes.”

At this moment, Dorothy thought in her heart. She was no longer able to consider why Sado had chosen this location. Her urgent task now was to find the bombs hidden among the audience.

To find the bombs, the best method was to continue eavesdropping, hoping to discover more clues from their conversation.

After calming her emotions, Dorothy focused her energy and began to use the bird zombie puppet to eavesdrop on Sado and his group again.

At this moment, in a smoke-filled attic on the rooftop near the square, Sado was continuing to calm the other indigenous people who were becoming restless due to the long wait.

“Please bear with us all. I know many of you are eager to make those celebrating white-skinned people bleed and feel fear. But we must stay calm and not act rashly at this crucial moment.

“We have already arranged everything. Kum and the others will sacrifice themselves at the predetermined time. We need to rush out after their sacrifice, taking advantage of the chaos to cause more casualties, k*ll the most people, and teach those guys a painful lesson!

“I understand that everyone here has been severely bullied by the white-skinned demons. For the sake of our shared desire for revenge, people from various tribes have gathered here to make those guys pay the price.

“I empathize with your feelings. I know you want to rush out and k*ll them when you hear them celebrating, but we must endure. The plan is set, and we must follow through. Otherwise, we won’t maximize their suffering! So please, for my sake, endure a little longer.”

In the small attic room, Sado stood there comforting the other indigenous people. Under his soothing words, the originally restless crowd gradually calmed down. These brown-skinned indigenous people sat back on the ground, enduring the laughter from the square while smoking silently. Each of them had a rifle beside them, clearly ready to charge out and wreak havoc at any moment.

By the window of the attic, an inconspicuous little bird was secretly observing inside. Just now, Dorothy had obtained critical information through the zombie puppet.

“The predetermined time… sacrifice… bombs… These guys are using human bombs. Someone has already infiltrated the audience, waiting for the right moment to detonate themselves.

“Based on what Sado said earlier, they plan to detonate the bombs at the peak of celebration, creating terror during the climax of the party. Thinking carefully, the climax of the party should be when the new year arrives at midnight. They seem to be preparing to act then…”

Dorothy thought in her heart. Then she took out her pocket watch and looked at it. The watch showed the current time was 10:20 PM, leaving an hour and forty minutes until midnight.

“I need to figure out how to find the human bombs hidden in the crowd within this time…”

Putting away her pocket watch, Dorothy scanned the surrounding crowd. There were at least several thousand people gathered in the square, making it very difficult to find two or three individuals hiding bombs.

Initially, Dorothy planned to use the bird zombie puppet to search for the human bombs among the crowd. According to what Sado had said, those who would sacrifice themselves were also indigenous people from the New World. People there generally have darker skin tones, so finding someone with a brown complexion should suffice.

However, Dorothy quickly realized that this approach was impractical. It was dark outside, and the lighting in the square was sparse. Under such dim light, it was difficult to identify skin tones unless one got close. Furthermore, with the winter season, almost all the spectators wore hats and were wrapped up tightly, making it impossible to distinguish skin tones from above and confirm who might be carrying a bomb.

“This is quite challenging… Seems like I need to think of another way…”

Unable to detect the human bombs through the bird zombie puppet, Dorothy started thinking of other methods. She recalled that the indigenous people from the New World had different scents compared to the people of Tivyán. If she could discern these differences and combine them with the smell of gunpowder, she might be able to find the human bombs among the crowd.

This idea was excellent, but just as Dorothy prepared to implement it, she discovered a fatal problem: the scent-tracking sigil she had obtained from Adele was completely used up. Without the extraordinary sense of smell provided by the sigil, it would be impossible for her to distinguish individual scents among thousands of people.

“Tsk, the scent-tracking sigils are really useful, but there aren’t enough of them. Adele only had three left after dealing with the Wolf bl**d Association for so long… and they are all used up now…”

Dorothy lamented inwardly. With yet another plan discarded, she momentarily had no good ideas to find the bombers. Reluctantly, she continued to use the bird zombie puppet to monitor the situation in the attic, hoping to gather more clues from Sado’s side.

Through further careful observation by the bird zombie puppet, Dorothy soon discovered some subtle signs in the attic. For instance, she noticed that the attic did not only contain indigenous people from the New World. In a corner of the attic, there were two or three masked men distancing themselves from the other indigenous people. These men seemed to deliberately keep away from the other indigenous people, and the latter cast slightly wary glances at them.

Moreover, a more important discovery was made on the wall of the attic. Dorothy saw a spider crawling on the wall. Although the spider appeared ordinary, it caught her attention significantly because she had seen something similar before in King Campus. Back then, when Dorothy was engaged in an intelligence war with Thistle, the latter had used such spiders to track her zombie puppets. This was a special extraordinary creature used by the Eight Pinnacles Nest, capable of surveillance.

“These guys’ mastermind… is actually the Eight Pinnacles?”

Seeing this scene, Dorothy thought with surprise. Initially, she believed that the native Baru, who had joined forces with the Underworld Coffin Cult, was the one manipulating everything. Therefore, she once thought that the mastermind was the Underworld Coffin Cult, but she hadn’t expected it to be the Eight Pinnacles.

“It turns out the Eight Pinnacles are the ones orchestrating these indigenous people to carry out a terrorist attack here. It seems they have reached some kind of cooperation with the Underworld Coffin Cult. But… why would the Eight Pinnacles want these indigenous people to carry out a terrorist attack in such a place? What benefits do they gain from it?”

Gazing at the spider on the wall of the attic, Dorothy pondered. Regarding the reasons why the Eight Pinnacles Nest was manipulating Sado and others to launch a terrorist attack here, she already had some guesses, but she didn’t spend much effort thinking about it. Her top priority was to find the human bombs among the crowd, not other matters.

Dorothy continued to use the zombie puppet to eavesdrop on the attic, hoping to gather more useful clues to help her locate the bombers. Unfortunately, after Sado had calmed the other indigenous people, there was no significant exchange in the attic. Dorothy listened for a long time without hearing any key clues, which made her increasingly anxious.