NOVEL WEB Chapter 316: Assassin's Rage?
[Marionette's POV]
Marionette, who was dashing through the rubble, pulled out her phone again, looking at the app before slowing down.
Eventually, her steps came to a halt as she stared at the screen of her phone, more specifically the arrow that pointed her in the direction of the tracker.
It was spinning around in a circle like a broken compass before flashing:
[Tracker Not Found!]
The hand that was gripping her phone began to shake uncontrollably. Her eyes trembled at what the app had told her.
The only reason why the tracker would display this error would be either that it was too far to reach, for example, in an entirely different world, or... It had been completely destroyed...
"What... Happened...?"
In any normal scenario, her tracker was powerful enough to connect with her device from across the world. So, she could rule out the first possibility.
Could it be that Lillian had destroyed or accidentally destroyed the tracker after finding it?
That...
That couldn't be it either... Especially with where she hid it...
Her mind then raced. Earlier, she had just witnessed the Luton Academy's Headmaster release a wide, scorching attack on the academy.
'Could it be... She was caught in the attack?'
With her current knowledge, this was the only possible reason why her tracker wasn't working...
And with what she had concluded...
'Is... Lillian dead?'
Marionette's eyes glowed a dark red light as she continued to stare at her phone's screen, which continued to flash the error into her eyes.
She gritted and gnashed her teeth, tightening her grip on it until it eventually—
Crack.
—Cracked under the pressure of her grip.
She couldn't believe it.
"I... I lost again...?"
She then watched as something crawled out from the rubble around her.
They wore black clothes, a cult mask, and held weapons that were now dulled slightly. At first, only a few crawled out from under the buildings.
Then suddenly, more began to appear around her, and some even began to fall from the skies. That was when she found that the Invasion was not yet over.
She crushed her phone into dust and circuitry as a furious light flashed through her blood-red eyes. A dark aura radiated off the edges of her body, becoming sharp and jagged.
Her body became completely encased in darkness, with only her eyes being uncovered by it.
The enemies around her reached the number of 50, all surrounding her from either side. And when one leapt towards her, she shot her arm out, piercing through the centre of their chest.
Painting her entire arm red, Marionette moved her other hand, shaping it into a blade and severing their neck before catching and crushing their skull into a pulp.
After tossing the remains of the cultist to the ground like it was filth, she dashed towards the horde, creating a variety of weapons from her darkness.
Tearing a cultist in half with her bare hands and crushing their skull, she summoned a javelin and spun around, hurling it with enough force to cause a cultist's head to explode upon contact with it.
She then glanced back, noticing a cultist coming at her from behind before being skewered by a dark spear shooting from the ground.
As the spear rose from the darkness that Marionette had begun to spread on the ground, a humanoid figure came along with it.
It was a dark clone of herself.
And this sight appeared one after another.
Soon enough, it became a mosh pit of both blood and darkness.
***
Lillian, ignorant of what was unfolding in the other world, continued to gaze at the Puppeteer, who still had a confused glint in his eyes at what she said.
A few seconds had passed.
And eventually, the scrawny man responded, but not in a way any regular person would.
"KYAHAHAHAHA!" He laughed manically, leaning back in his throne, facing upwards. His sharp teeth were fully revealed as he continued to laugh like a madman.
He soon sighed in relief, letting the last bit of laughter drain out of him before grinning at Lillian.
"Interesting! Interesting I must say!" He yelled in a scratchy and hoarse voice.
"It seems that I did need to prepare after all! Considering I can't in any way control you in this manner." He declared, completely believing in what Lillian had told him.
"Before we begin, let's exchange names..." He smirked and proudly spread his arms out, "I am Thalrek, or most infamously known as the Puppeteer!"
He then gave a dramatic pause before adding:
"And I hold one of the five higher-up seats of the Cult of Jesters!"
Lillian nodded, replaying the game cutscene where Thalrek gave out his name inside her head. She watched as the scrawny man looked towards her for a response.
At that moment, she could give a name.
However...
"I'll tell you before I send you off to another world." She said in a cold tone, which caused Thalrek to frown.
Lillian didn't care if Thalrek was upset that she didn't give him her name or some sort of way for him to refer to her. She was here for one purpose in mind and one purpose only.
She was going to kill the Puppeteer.
"Tch... Very well." Thalrek muttered in hateful response to Lillian's words before grinning devilishly, "Let's begin to play fair, alright?"
As he said these words, he raised and lowered his fingers rhythmically.
Lillian knew what he was doing and tilted her gaze towards the dark ceiling, watching as cultists were lowered by thin strings.
She began to count each one slowly inside her head.
'One. Two. Three. Four... Six...'
As she continued to count, the number drastically increased.
'Twenty-three... Forty-five... Fifty... Sixty-seven...'
Eventually, it soon reached a minimum of one hundred enemies surrounding her in a wide half-circle formation—a number that left her rather worried.
And these weren't like the cultists that invaded the academy realm; these were fully "sane" and intelligent.
But not only that, but unlike the one spread throughout the maze, these ones were capable of using mana, albeit through unorthodox ways.
While they aren't capable of using any elements or abilities, they were able to manipulate mana the same way a Tier 2 could.
This could only be the case if someone had undergone the "Hearth Process".
It was a dangerous technique that the inhabitants of the Trial World, Hearth, used to increase their Tier and Mana Shells.
The technique was about overloading a person's Mana Core with a large influx of energy to the point where the Core wouldn't be able to store all of it, leading it to forcefully adapt to form another shell.
Thalrek cackled psychotically as he watched his cultists stand before Lillian with weapons in their hands.
"DO YOU THINK I WOULD PLAY FAIRLY?! KYAHAHAHA!" Thalrek laughed wildly, spit flying out of his mouth as his legs bounced up and down like a child.
She looked around in front of her with a wary look in her eyes, looking at the cultists staring at her unsettlingly with eyes that screamed murderous intent.
Could she... Take on these many enemies?
She took in a deep breath and opened her mouth.