Chapter 489

Chapter 373 – Infiltration

Southwest of Tivyán, north of Shield Hills, lies Duke Barret’s villa.

In the calm night, the royal duke’s villa suddenly suffered a brutal attack. Assassins from the Eight Pinnacle Nest stormed the mansion, and within a short time, all inside were slaughtered. Due to the success of the assault, the killers faced minimal resistance and easily took over the entire estate.

After successfully occupying Duke Barret’s villa, the assassins immediately began a thorough search of the entire mansion, rummaging through every nook and cranny as if searching for something specific. However, this search has yielded no results so far, which has infuriated their leader.

“Didn’t you swear that once Barret died, you would immediately summon his soul, and it wouldn’t take more than half an hour? Now Barret has been dead for several hours. Where is your soul? Where is your intelligence?”

In the bl**d-stained, spacious foyer, a man dressed in a black cloak and wearing a mask roared at the human-faced spider on his hand, his anger barely contained. The human-faced spider, after enduring the man’s tirade, fell silent for a moment before its human-faced pattern twisted, emitting a slightly hoarse male voice.

“Calm down, Kenk. Listen to me. Our plan has definitely been exposed. Another society is interfering. Not only with me, but even Jeffrey and Berlit have encountered major issues.”

“I don’t care about Berlit’s situation! I only know that your task was to extract information from Barret’s research room after summoning his soul! Now Barret is dead! Where is the intelligence? Are you trying to make us search until dawn and then collide with the Hunters when they arrive? Didn’t you specially invite a soul-summoner from the Crypt? With extra aid, how can you not do such a simple thing?”

Kenk, the man, continued to express his rage toward the human-faced spider. From his attitude, one could tell that he had a naturally irritable temperament. Facing his agitated colleague, the leader of the Eight Pinnacle Nest also seemed to be biting his teeth while suppressing his anger.

“Listen, Kenk… The current situation is that we are being targeted! Targeted by some ‘Cup’ society! Besides the Night Demon, whether it’s Berlit’s side, Jeffrey’s side, or my side, we are all being targeted! Our soul-summoning efforts have been ineffective. Even the soul-summoner from the Crypt couldn’t bring out Barret’s soul. According to him, Barret’s spirit has been pulled away by some other force, and even after exhausting his spirituality, he couldn’t pull it back. Clearly, they were well-prepared. It’s pointless to blame me now! Instead of complaining here, why don’t you spend more time searching?”

The human-faced spider responded to Kenk in this manner. Hearing the words from the human-faced spider, Kenk took a deep breath to calm himself and then continued speaking through gritted teeth.

“I’ve searched the entire house; I’ve used both listening and sensing techniques… But found no trace. His research room has quite robust detection defenses. Without directly questioning Barret, it’s hard for me to find it.

“The task of finding Barret’s research room was personally entrusted to me by High Priest Spider Fang. It’s extremely important. If the mission fails, we both will be held responsible! Don’t think you can get away with it!”

Kenk replied seriously to the human-faced spider. After hearing Kenk’s response, the spider remained silent for a moment before speaking again.

“Now it’s impossible to summon Barret’s soul. Here’s what we’ll do… You continue searching there, and I’ll report the current situation to the High Priest and see what he decides.”

“Alright… Since that’s the case, I’ll search again. If I can’t find anything, I’ll burn down the house and retreat. Although it won’t destroy the research room, it might cause some trouble for those Black Dogs later.”

After saying this, Kenk ended his conversation with the human-faced spider and then slowly withdrew the spider back into his sleeve.

After retrieving the human-faced spider, Kenk frowned and quickly left the foyer to command his subordinates to continue the search elsewhere. Meanwhile, the departing figure was noticed by a female servant’s corpse lying on the ground with wide-open eyes, as well as by Dorothy.

…

“Unexpectedly… These guys still haven’t found the secret room? It seems choosing to give Barret’s ghost a proper burial was the right decision… ”

In the wilderness several kilometers away from the villa, Dorothy, sitting in a carriage, muttered after the zombie puppet completed its reconnaissance of Barret’s villa. Upon confirming the situation inside the villa, her initial anxiety and heaviness eased considerably.

‘It seems Barret’s security measures were quite good. They couldn’t find it despite searching for an hour. This gives me a chance to enter the secret room and retrieve the Holy Emblem.’

Dorothy thought gratefully. Through the zombie puppet’s reconnaissance, she had obtained quite useful information, such as the “Night Demon.”

‘The Night Demon… This is the ace card the Eight Pinnacle Nest used in this operation, bypassing my alertness and ultimately succeeding in assassinating Barret… I never expected the famous Tivyán serial killer from the newspapers.’

Dorothy, who read the papers regularly, certainly knew the name Night Demon. Since mid-last year, his m*rder cases had been frequently reported in the newspapers. Targeting mainly upper-class individuals, Night Demon had eluded capture for nearly half a year. Now, he had assassinated a duke.

‘Currently, it seems possible that Night Demon is a powerful extraordinary assassin cultivated by the Eight Pinnacle Nest. But considering he has committed numerous murders over the past half-year and isn’t hesitant to act, why use him as an ace card in the last operation? If Night Demon is so powerful, why not deploy him directly to k*ll the duke from the start? And were the people killed by Night Demon previously also under the Eight Pinnacle Nest’s orders?’

Dorothy pondered these questions about Night Demon, but she didn’t delve deeper. Instead, she shifted her focus to the current situation in Barret’s villa and the place she should be most concerned about.

‘The matter of Night Demon can wait for now. The key point now is how to sneak into the secret room under these people’s noses. Time doesn’t allow me to wait any longer; I must act quickly…’

Dorothy continued thinking. Given the Eight Pinnacle Nest’s assassins’ inability to find the secret room, her original safest approach was to wait patiently, knowing that the Hunters would eventually arrive, and the killers inside the villa would leave regardless of whether they found anything.

Once the Eight Pinnacle Nest’s people abandoned the area, Dorothy would use the zombie puppet to enter the secret room and retrieve the documents and Holy Emblem during the brief window before the Hunters arrived. This method allowed her to enter the secret room with minimal risk.

However, upon hearing Kenk say that he would burn down the villa if he couldn’t find anything, she abandoned this plan. Although Barret’s secret room had robust security measures and wouldn’t be destroyed by fire, the entrance might be damaged by the flames, making it difficult for Dorothy to access the secret room.