Part 1 The Joker Chapter 123 The Transcendental Battle

　　Outside the glass windows, the gardens were sprawling and broken and gloomy, the river flowed darkly, reflecting a bit of starlight, while the nearby houses had a cozy and warm glow.

　　Everything was quiet to a fault, as if welcoming the night.

　　Tris, whose features were not exquisite on their own, but were exceptionally beautiful in combination, withdrew her gaze, walked quickly to the coat rack, and took down a black robe with a hood.

　　She quickly put on this piece of clothing, buttoned it up, tightened her belt, and flipped over the hood, transforming herself into an assassin.

　　Tris raised her right hand and wiped it in front of her face, instantly making the features hidden by the hood hazy and blurry.

　　Immediately afterward, she reached down and twisted a handful of fluorescent shimmering powder from a hidden pouch at her waist and sprinkled it over herself in conjunction with the spell.

　　Tris’s figure began to disappear inch by inch, the outline lines appearing as if they were drawn by a pencil and completely erased by an eraser.

　　Completing her invisibility, she left this bedroom without a sound and made her way to the opposite room, pushing open the unbarred window.

　　With a slight leap, Tris stood on the ledge and looked down at the lawn behind the small building, at the iron fence that blended almost into the night, and at Fry, the “body collector,” who was creeping over the fence.

　　She took a breath and dropped down like a feather, stepping on the lawn without a sound.

　　Wearing a black trench coat and carrying a special revolver, Frye, with his high nose and thin lips, looked cautiously from side to side, searching for any ghosts or evil spirits that might have appeared.

　　He could see these things directly!

　　Tris silently approached Fry, circled around to his back, and in her hand was a dagger coated with “black paint” at some point.

　　Poof!

　　She struck like a swift wind and stabbed the dagger into Fry’s waist.

　　But at this moment, what she saw in front of her eyes shattered, like an illusion.

　　Tris found herself still standing on the windowsill, still looking down at the lawn, overlooking the gated fence.

　　But beyond the fence, there was no longer just Fry the Body Snatcher, there was Leonard Mitchell aiming at the window sill, and there was Dunn Smith with his eyes closed, his brow pressed down, his body half bowed, and it was as if invisible ripples were rippling around the captain of the Nightwatchman, one after another.

　　Tris’s pupils shrank, realizing that just now it was just a dream, and that she had fallen asleep at some point!

　　Bang! Bang! Bang!

　　Leonard and Fry fired a total of three shots, accurately hitting the invisible target that seemed to have not yet awakened from the dream.

　　Ka-ching!

　　The silhouette of Tris’ figure emerged, first cracking and then spiraling into pieces, turning into shards of silver mirror with a rough surface!

　　Inside the house, using her double spell, she turned around and sprinted down the corridors and steps, all the way to the first floor.

　　Ugh! Within this floor, the wind that was so cold that it would make people freeze blew as if it would never stop, and an invisible, transparent figure wandered around each place blankly and numbly.

　　Tris, who had lost her stealth effect, saw her body temperature drop a little with each of these spectral-like presences she passed through, and when she finally reached the altar, she could no longer control her shivers.

　　The altar was a round table with an idol carved out of white bone in the center.

　　The idol was the size of a normal adult man’s head, and with only a vague outline of her eyebrows, she seemed to be a woman of great beauty.

　　Her hair extended from her head all the way to her ankles, the roots clear and thick, like a poisonous snake, a tentacle.

　　And at the top of each hair, there was also an eye, either closed or open, densely packed.

　　Around this evil idol were then cluttered numerous puppets, crudely made, with a name and corresponding information written on them, such as, for example, Joyce Myer.

　　There were also three candles on top of the round table, their dim greenish flames swaying in the cold, whistling wind.

　　Tris curtsied to the idol and recited the incantation under her breath quickly.

　　Then she pushed the puppet away, pressed out the candle flame, and picked up the idol.

　　Whoosh!

　　The wind sounded harsh all of a sudden, blowing the tightly closed windows to appear to shake violently.

　　Clang! Click! Glass shattered on one side, and the cold, lifeless wind blew in all directions.

　　Fry, who had just circled around to the other side, not daring to recklessly intrude into the confines of the altar, instantly shivered, feeling only that his blood was turning cold and frosty, and only that there was a noticeable slowdown in his movements.

　　Just then, his ankles tightened, as if they were firmly grasped by something invisible.

　　An even colder sensation spread upwards from the point of contact. Any other Sequence 9 Extraordinary would have been paralyzed and stiffened, but Frye, as a “corpse collector”, was no stranger to similar states.

　　He turned the revolver around and pulled the trigger on the side of his ankle, as if he could see who his enemy was and where he was.

　　Bang!

　　A silver hunter’s bullet burrowed into the wind and was rewarded with a mournful wail.

　　The invisible specter dissipated, and Fry regained his ability to move freely.

　　On the other side, Dunn Smith, who was trying to climb to the second floor and avoid the front of the altar, was similarly frozen by the outwardly expanding chilling wind and stopped outside the broken window.

　　Ugh! The dark-colored curtain at the back of the window suddenly raised and enveloped Dunn, like a monster opening its mouth and devouring its prey.

　　Dunn’s head was instantly wrapped in the life-giving curtain, which grew tighter and tighter, outlining his mouth and nose.

　　In the state of imminent suffocation, Dunn’s feet stepped down, knees straight, waist and back turned, actually by brute force to tear the curtain off.

　　He grabbed the corner of the curtain wrapped around his head with his left hand, pulled it down, and threw it to the ground.

　　Bang!

　　He raised his hand and fired a shot at the half of the curtain that was still trying to shroud the back of the window.

　　That curtain cloth instantly stilled, and there was a flash of crimson color seeping out quickly.

　　Woo!

　　On the lawn, Leonard Mitchell, who was opening his mouth to sing a poem, was also blown by the chilly wind, which contained a strong meaning of death, so that his teeth clashed and rattled, and it was briefly difficult for him to make a sound.

　　Just then, the broken and disorganized vines suddenly spread and wrapped around his ankles, and a black shadow also smashed over on the outwardly dispersing gusts of wind.

　　Slightly stiffened, Leonard had no time to fire, so he had to rip his shoulder sharply and raise his arm upward.

　　Poof! The black shadow smashed into the position of his little arm, sending its own spikes into the skin.

　　It was just a delicate, bright red flower from nowhere.

　　Leonard shook it off in pain, flinging the flower, stained with his own blood, aside.

　　Bang! He fired a shot at the twining vines, hitting the dark red sap.

　　Stomp! Leonard stepped away, rushing toward the altar on the first floor, toward the shattered window.

　　And where he had been standing, the vines suddenly shrank away, as if hiding from something invisible.

　　With the help of the chaos caused by destroying the altar and interrupting the ceremony, Tris completed her stealth once again and managed to conceal her auric vision, breaking away from the encirclement and arriving at the back of the three night watchmen.

　　She reached out with her right hand, and a cold wind blew through, holding the flower stained with Leonard’s blood into her palm.

　　Without stopping any longer, Tris, holding the flower, nimbly flipped over the iron fence and fled towards the Tasok River.

　　At this time, Leonard, who was just about to enter the first floor, suddenly turned his head sideways and seemed to be listening to something.

　　His face changed at once, and he pulled up his sleeve in a panic, looking at the wound that had just been stabbed out by the flowers.

　　With his physique, the bleeding there had already stopped and was only slightly red and swollen.

　　Leonard’s expression changed to a sullen one as he violently pinched his left index finger and hardened it, pulling the piece of nail off!

　　His face was instantly filled with a pained and twisted look, but his movements did not stop because of this, and while silently chanting something, he used his nail to slice open the congealed wound, letting it be stained with dark red blood, and then pulled off a few strands of hair and wrapped them around the piece of nail.

　　At the edge of the Tasok River, Tris slowed her pace and turned her gaze to the flowers she held in her hands.

　　She muttered something, and a black, illusory flame leapt out of her palm in a flash.

　　This flame wrapped around the flowers and literally burst into flames, burning the other side to ashes.

　　Only after doing this did Tris step into the river and sink into the water.

　　Meanwhile, Leonard threw out the fingernail that was tangled in his hair and stained with blood, and watched as it landed in the corner and burned out of thin air, emitting a foul, charred odor.

　　The piece of nail, along with the hair, quickly disappeared, leaving only a little dust behind.

　　Leonard breathed a sigh of relief and tumbled through the window into the first floor, addressing Dunn and Frye, who were destroying the altar:

　　”The target got away, thankfully, our main objective has been to stop the ritual.”

　　Dunn sighed and looked at the many puppets on the round table:

　　”She was alert and powerful enough to notice our approach in advance, otherwise …… she would have been at least a Sequence 7 Extraordinary.”

　　”Signal Klein to come over.”

　　Through the brief dream contact, he judged that the enemy was a female.