Chapter 42.2

Before Xiao Tangqiu could carefully study the Ouroboros pattern on the cover of the book, Lippin.o.bert opened it. He let out a strange, creepy laugh from his throat. “Don’t worry, darling, you’ll soon be a part of my body…”

Xiao Tangqiu laughed bitterly, “Can I refuse?”

“Why refuse?” Lippin.o.bert smiled coldly. “Come, become a part of me. Your body and soul will become a part of me, a part of her…”

Xiao Tangqiu subconsciously took a step back, but before he could run away, his foot was caught by something. He looked down and saw countless puppet hands sticking out from under the floor of the church, firmly holding his feet.

Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t move despite struggling vehemently. The hands that stretched out from the ground were as powerful as iron chains and held him firmly.

Lippin.o.bert looked down and flipped the book as if he were looking for something. Soon, he stopped on one of the pages. “Found it…”

His voice was somber and cold, and every word sounding sinister. “Demon sacrifice… sacrifice your souls… Call her dead soul back to earth…”

Xiao Tangqiu struggled violently. At the same time, the gears in his brain were also rapidly turning. Lippin.o.bert’s purpose was obvious – this terrible man was going to offer his soul as a sacrifice!

Not only is his soul, but perhaps all those players who had died plus the souls of Shen Yuan and his team! Lippin.o.bert was going to sacrifice all their souls to summon the dead of Lily Marlene!

Lippin.o.bert had sacrificed so many of them, including his own relatives and the entire town of Daemon, just to summon the dead soul of a woman he imagined… This man was completely insane!

Xiao Tangqiu felt fear and despair. He was much more desperate now than in the previous instance. Although Fang Lan of the previous instance was also terrible, it wasn’t invincible after all. However, Lippin.o.bert was abnormally strong, seeming impossible to defeat… Was this the gap between a D-level mission and S-level mission?

He couldn’t help but think of Yun Jizhou, who suddenly woke up at the end of the last instance. Right when he was about to be killed by him, he had felt the exact same way as he did now – despair and fear. He didn’t even have any more courage to struggle and only hated his own fragility and insignificance.

Maybe the way you feel before you die always remains the same…

Right when Xiao Tangqiu lost all hope, a figure suddenly appeared at the door of the church.

His heart skipped a beat,

could it be…

However, in the next second, he was disappointed.

The man who appeared at the church door wasn’t the one he imagined, but someone he hadn’t thought of at all.

“…It’s you? Why are you here?!”

Xiao Tangqiu was shocked, subconsciously blurting out.

“Quickly, run! Don’t come in here!”

The man who came inside the church was the young man who had begged to join their team this morning. He entered the church with something in his hand.

Xiao Tangqiu thought that the young man had found the church by mistake at first and shouted at once to get him to run away. However, when he saw what the young man was holding, he was left speechless.

The young man was holding five heads in one hand!

The incisions on the necks of these five heads were crooked and messy. They seemed to have been sawed off bit by bit by a blade that wasn’t particularly sharp. There was still blood dripping. Obviously, the whole incident had just happened.

The five heads belonged to the other three old players, the middle-aged man… and the little boy who had run out and disappeared. Their expressions were extremely painful and contorted. They looked like they had died nursing a grievance.

Xiao Tangqiu stared at the five heads in a trance, his hair standing on end. Then, he looked at the young man in disbelief. Although the young man was obviously not a good person, he didn’t seem so cruel and cold either…

Just then, he realized that the young man’s broken arm was made out of the same material and joints of a puppet!

The young man came up to Lippin.o.bert with the heads in his hand. He looked humble and ingratiating, “Master, I have brought the remaining five people…”

Lippin.o.bert frowned slightly, as if he were not satisfied. “Why do you only have their heads? Where are their bodies?”

“They were uncooperative so I had to kill them and bring their heads.” The young man sounded like an annoying yes-man, “They were too ignorant to know what an honor it is to be Master’s sacrifice …”

Lippin.o.bert said coldly, “Enough, put them down. How many others are left?”

The young man trembled and mumbled, “I couldn’t find them just now…”

“Forget it. Anyway, I have enough offerings.” Lippin.o.bert turned to Xiao Tangqiu, his gaze cold and gloomy. “With so many offerings, this time the sacrifice will be successful…”

Xiao Tangqiu gritted his teeth and looked coldly at the person and the puppet in front of him. It wasn’t until now that he fully understood what had happened. The young man was already dead. Yesterday, that group of newbies had left the castle without authorization… All the other newbies were dead, so how could the young man have escaped alone?

The young man must’ve died yesterday, was then made into a puppet by Lippin.o.bert, and returned to their group of players, becoming the 13th “person” among them.

Now 14 of them had died, leaving only the last six survivors.

Lippin.o.bert whispered the spell, which seemed to be written in an ancient, forgotten language, but he could sense its malevolence and evil, just like the whispers of a demon.

As the spell fell from Lippin.o.bert’s lips, the gold lines on the cover of the book suddenly began to move fluidly, as if the pattern of the serpent of the world suddenly woke up. At the same time, with him as the center of the spell, a round black totem suddenly appeared under his feet.

It looked like a magic array, full of strange, evil-looking black totems, exactly the same as the tattoo on Shen Yuan’s body.

Soon, the tail-biting serpents in the black totem seemed to have come to life, and began to turn and twist and slither around.

As a result, the magic array at Lippin.o.bert’s feet grew larger and larger. In the blink of an eye, it had spread to Xiao Tangqiu’s feet, covering almost half of the church.

Xiao Tangqiu instantly felt an unearthly atmosphere – a chill that penetrated the bones, like the undead aura from the depths of h.e.l.l. He couldn’t help trembling.

“Sacrifice… these guests first…”

Lippin.o.bert stood in the center of the magic array, sneering at the puppets in the church. “Let them go first, go to h.e.l.l to bring back my real bride…”

At his command, the tail-biting serpents immediately crawled out of the black totem, slithered over to the residents of Daemon town who had long become puppets, and climbed up their bodies.

Wherever the snakes went, the puppets, who more or less still had some human form left, showed their true state. Their skin decayed into dust, their hair withered and disappeared, and their clothes wasted into nothing.

In an instant, all the puppets in the church reverted back to the original body that was composed of several pieces of wood. However, that wasn’t all. As the serpents continued to move around, their wooden bodies finally decayed and crumbled, completely turning into dust that disappeared in the wind.

Xiao Tangqiu looked at the scene before him, all of which seemed very familiar.

Although the puppets had already lost all consciousness and could no longer speak, he seemed to have heard their silent screams as they struggled to break free of their horrible fate.

The originally overcrowded church had once again become empty.

Lippin.o.bert laughed, looking as happy as a child who had just gotten a beautiful doll. “Whose turn is it next…”

Xiao Tangqiu wanted to escape but couldn’t. He could only stare helplessly at Lippin.o.bert. Was it his turn next?

However, Lippin.o.bert didn’t act according to common sense at all. He smiled coldly at Xiao Tangqiu. “It’s your companions’ turn next, my darling. Your relatives and friends aren’t here, but at least your companions are…”

The serpents turned and slithered towards the young man who screamed in fear. “Master! No! Master… “

Lippin.o.bert didn’t even spare him a look. The serpents crawled up the young man’s body. As he screamed and screamed, his human disguise quickly faded away, revealing the body and joints of a puppet.

“He is the creation that I’m most proud of so far,” Lippin.o.bert said triumphantly as he looked at Xiao Tangqiu. “Puppet and human perfectly combined. He has human consciousness and even knows how to camouflage himself and feels fear… Although it is a pity, I believe the most perfect work in my life will be born in my hands soon.”

Xiao Tangqiu frowned.

Was Lippin.o.bert’s so-called revival of Lily Marlene also a plan to turn her into a puppet like those residents?

The young man screamed incessantly. His puppet body quickly withered under the moving serpents, instantly turning into dust and disappearing completely.

“For this day, I have done countless experiments. And now, it has finally arrived,” Lippin.o.bert smiled with satisfaction. “All my experiments will become part of this consecration, becoming a part of her…”

Lippin.o.bert’s words just fell when the puppet housekeeper and maids appeared at the church door. They walked towards the magic array in a uniform pace.

They came to the center of the magic array and allowed the serpents to climb up their bodies. Rosetta, the housekeeper, turned to Lippin.o.bert with a pious look on her face. “Master, I’m willing to serve you.”

Lippin.o.bert smiled, “Go and bring back your Mistress.”

Rosetta bowed her head deeply. “Yes.”

Unlike the young man who had struggled, they didn’t seem to fear their impending deaths, as if they were Lippin.o.bert’s most loyal servants. The puppet maids, headed by Rosetta, allowed the serpents to devour and swallow up their bodies.

Soon, they were transformed from “human beings” into puppets and finally disappeared.

Xiao Tangqiu watched all this with a gla.s.sy look in his eyes. Lippin.o.bert merely stared as his housekeeper, Rosetta, disappeared. Suddenly he said, “Many years ago, I also had a housekeeper named Rosetta…”

Xiao Tangqiu turned to look at Lippin.o.bert. Was the big villain BOSS about to reveal his thoughts as all villain bosses always did?

“Then, she left,” Lippin.o.bert smiled faintly. “But it doesn’t matter. Now, Rosetta will always be with me… just like my Alice.”

The little puppet girl with an axe and red leather shoes suddenly appeared. It skipped into the center of the magic array.

“Alice, you’ll always be with daddy,” Lippin.o.bert said in a low voice. “…Soon, our whole family will live happily ever after, just like a fairy tale.”