After fleeing the inn, everyone ducked into a secluded alleyway, with the sound of dense, rapid footsteps closing in on them.
"We can't just sit and wait to die! There's only one path to survival!" Lin Jie's voice was resolute. "That is to take the initiative and attack! Charge into that UMA's lair, charge into that 'Marionette' master's base! Before that thing can exhaust us to death, we must first sever the strings with which it controls everything!"
"To catch the bandits, first catch the king!"
This plan was imdiately endorsed by his two other companions.
A look of excitent appeared on William's face.
Julian, anwhile, stuffed the disabled boy Hans, who had been scared to the point of incontinence, into a sturdy wine barrel in the alley and covered it with rags.
What was to co would be a charge with no retreat, and Hans had to be left safely here.
Julian slowly straightened up. "Let us bring a great cleansing to this 'holy land' that has long been occupied by devils!"
A raid tactic took shape through the trio's discussion.
Lin Jie's instructions were concise. "William! You are responsible for clearing a path to the theater for us at the front! Don't get bogged down in fights, don't pay attention to the ordinary townsfolk! Your sole objective is to charge! Advance!"
His gaze turned to the Curator. "Julian! Follow behind William, use your alchemical tools to create the widest possible disruption among those townsfolk! You don't need to harm them, just create gaps for William's charge!"
Lin Jie raised the [Serene Heart] in his hand. "I'll cover the rear and provide fire support. The targets are the corpse-based puppets. I'll do my best to cripple their mobility, ensuring they can't harass and cut us off from the flanks!"
A trinity breakthrough tactic combining strength, wisdom, and precise coordination was thus decided.
William responded to Lin Jie's trust with action.
He grabbed a dilapidated wooden plank from the ground, holding it before him like a shield from an ancient Roman legion.
Then he turned and said two words to Lin Jie and Julian.
"Stay close."
The next second, his body charged with an unstoppable montum directly into the sea of madness outside the alley, packed tight with fanatics and puppets.
"Boom!"
William's burly fra slamd into the crowd, imdiately sending seven or eight townsfolk who couldn't dodge in ti flying in all directions with broken bones, like bowling pins.
A brutal yet magnificent charge officially began.
The wooden plank in William's hands, swung with his imnse strength, beca a primitive yet effective weapon of mass destruction. Every swing stirred up a bloody whirlwind mixed with the sounds of shattering bones and agonized screams.
But the number of townsfolk was simply too great. They surged forward like maniacs from all directions, heedless of their companions' injuries and deaths, while pitchforks, axes, and old-fashioned muskets rained down upon William's massive fra.
Julian's support arrived at this mont. With swift movents, he pulled three palm-sized, peculiarly shaped dark blue alchemical bottles from his canvas backpack.
Inside the bottles swirled and churned a silvery-white, fog-like gas. The surface of the bottles was etched with complex alchemical runes resembling mazes and paradox symbols, crafted from mithril.
"Taste the purest 'Mist of Reason' from the Athens Academy, you pathetic souls dominated by fanaticism!"
Julian let out a scornful growl. He simultaneously pulled the stoppers from all three alchemical bottles and, with precise throwing angles, hurled them toward the dense crowds ahead and on the left and right flanks.
The bottles traced three parabolas through the air, followed by three crisp shattering sounds: "Crack! Crack! Crack!"
The silvery-white gas inside, upon contact with the air, imdiately exploded and rapidly expanded and diffused, forming a thick silver fog with a pungent ozone sll within seconds.
This was no ordinary smoke grenade.
The charging movents of the fanatical townsfolk who inhaled the silvery-white gas stopped. The religious fervor and numb expressions on their faces also froze.
Then, uncontrollable chaos and confusion surfaced in their crazed eyes.
A burly man who had been raising an axe to chop at William froze mid-swing. He looked down at the axe in his hand, then at his ferocious-looking companions around him, his face revealing a philosophical bewildernt of "Who am I? Where am I? Why am I trying to chop soone?"
An old hunter who had been about to pull the trigger froze his finger on the trigger. His gaze beca vacant, and he began muttering unconsciously, "One plus one equals two... The sun rises in the east... I am a carpenter...?"
This was one of Julian's treasures, a non-lethal tactical tool jointly developed by the Psychology and Alchemy departnts of the I.A.R.C. Paris branch: the alchemical mist "Socratic Perplexity."
The gas itself was non-toxic, but the special alchemical dium contained within could temporarily block the parts of an intelligent being's brain responsible for emotion and feeling upon inhalation, while forcibly activating the regions responsible for logic and reason.
It couldn't kill the enemy, but it could turn people into calm philosophers pondering ultimate philosophical quandaries like "Who am I? Where do I co from? Where am I going?" for a short ti.
Under the shroud of this rational silvery-white mist, the townsfolk's madly charging figures subconsciously experienced a montary, collective pause tinged with philosophical reflection.
William seized this fleeting golden opportunity.
He let out a roar, completely bowling over the last few dazed townsfolk blocking his path, carving out a bloody passage where the team could catch a brief breath.
"Lin Jie!" William bellowed!
As his voice rang out, Lin Jie's figure flashed out from behind him.
The [Serene Heart] in his hand locked onto the corpse puppets that were flanking and encircling them from the sides, poised to deliver a fatal cut to their formation.
"Bang! Bang!"
Two gunshots.
The bullets traced two silver lines through the air. They did not attack the puppets' sturdy wooden and leather torsos, but instead struck their most vulnerable neck joints, the conduits for the spiritual thread energy.
With two crisp cracking sounds, the two puppets lost the connection between their heads and bodies.
Their glass eyes dimd, and their still-charging bodies slumped powerlessly to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut.
The tactic was effective!
Under the barbaric path-clearing of William, the sturdiest shield;
with the interference of Julian's alchemical tools;
and with the precise, long-range pinpoint kills from Lin Jie, the sharpest blade, this Iron Triangle team erupted with an unstoppable, terrifying montum.
They forcefully pierced a straight path of life through the encirclent net woven by dozens of fanatics and several puppets.
Finally, after paying no small price, they successfully broke through the siege and charged to the gaping dark entrance of the theater. By now, Julian had long since exhausted all his alchemical stock, and William's body bore several wounds of varying depth from pitchforks and axes.
Beyond that massive Gothic-style archway carved with reliefs of wailing angels and suffering saints, upon that stage bearing an ominous aura, the Limb Collector—a grotesque patchwork of countless pieces of human skin of different colors and textures—sat quietly upon a profane throne ticulously stacked from yellowed human bones.
It was not shaken by the bloody, chaotic farce outside.
In its hand, it held a slender thread shimring with faint spiritual light and a sharp bone needle polished from a human finger bone.
It was with extre focus performing the final finishing touches on a new, unfinished puppet laid flat across its knees.
The puppet's body was a male torso with perfect muscular definition. Its limbs ca from four different sources: one calf belonging to an athlete, full of explosive power;
one thigh belonging to a ballet dancer, with elegant lines;
one arm belonging to a pianist, long and dexterous;
and another arm belonging to a soldier, full of raw strength.
This was its lifelong masterpiece, painstakingly pieced together over years from the most perfect parts collected from countless offerings.
Currently, this masterpiece only lacked one final part to be complete.
The eyes.
The Limb Collector carefully picked up a pair of perfectly sized, perfectly hued azure-blue eyeballs from a plate made of a human skull beside it, filled with various spare parts.
These were the precious legacy left by a young Viennese artist who had co here to sketch a few months prior.
It lowered its head.
Aid the bone needle in its hand at the empty eye sockets of the new puppet.
Prepared to sew on the final pair of eyes for its masterpiece—the eyes that could perceive the utmost beauty in the world.
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