In the blink of an eye, Klein suddenly swapped places with his valet Enyuni in the adjacent room.
And about 150 meters away from the main manor house, under a grapevine, the body of a centipede that was slowly crawling suddenly stiffened, then relaxed.
At almost the same moment, its figure vanished, replaced by Dwayne Dantès, who was wearing a blue-and-white striped pajama set.
Klein had swapped places with his puppet once again!
He had decided to use this method to secretly follow Qunas Colg and figure out exactly where he was going and what he was about to do.
Although each “teleport” only covered 150 meters, and it required a two-to-three-second interval between uses—due to the puppet transformation process—it was stealthy enough and made so little noise that Qunas Colg would be hard pressed to notice.
After all, he was a demigod, and even if he wasn’t particularly skilled in spiritual intuition or the like, he was still a demigod and not to be underestimated!
Similarly, Klein hadn’t relied on “Creeping Hunger” to hide in the shadows because, while that method was also stealthy, it was too slow to keep up with a demigod.
Under the deep night, from the Meige Estate to the south bank of the Tasok River, rats scurrying among tree roots, snakes slithering over rocks, spiders, river fish—one after another, they stiffened and became sluggish.
One by one, they were converted into puppets. Klein used them to continuously “teleport” without making a sound, soon reaching the south bank of the Tasok River and falling in behind Qunas Colg at a distance of just under a kilometer.
—For a Faceless, even if a puppet leaves his control range, it doesn’t immediately lose its controlled state and die on the spot. Without the conscious intervention of the Faceless, the process is quite slow, taking nearly ten minutes. So Klein wasn’t at all worried about losing track of “Winner” Enyuni, who was lying in his bed, as long as he could return within ten minutes, he could continue to control the puppet.
Silently, Klein followed Qunas Colg upstream along the Tasok River, passed through a dense forest, and climbed the mountain beside the river.
Just then, Qunas Colg, who was not wearing a vest or coat, suddenly stopped and began examining his surroundings, gradually expanding the area as if marking his territory.
Seeing this, Klein didn’t dare stay put and immediately swapped places with his puppet, retreating repeatedly and widening the distance from the deputy director of Military Intelligence Department 9—who held the rank of major general—to almost three kilometers.
At the same time, he actively gave up control of the puppets up ahead; the death of a few small insects wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
This was far too common in the suburbs and the woods!
“King of the Five Seas” Nast could create a combat environment favorable to himself. Would Qunas Colg, a demigod of the Black Emperor pathway, be able to demarcate an area, tamper with, add, or exploit certain rules, so that anyone entering it would be directly exposed and unable to hide? Very likely!
Cautiously, Klein took a gold coin from his pajama pocket and let it dance and flip between his fingers.
This time, he deliberately restrained his strength so it wouldn’t clink. The coin flew up silently, then fell back into his palm.
Without lowering his head, the state of the coin was naturally reflected in his mind:
King’s head face up!
That meant the area ahead had changed and posed a high risk!
As expected of a demigod—capabilities like that were truly enviable… But did he think that could shake off my “tail”?
Klein “tched” inwardly, retreated a few dozen more meters, found a very secluded spot, and changed his appearance into Gehrman Sparrow.
Then, he clasped his hands together, raised them to his mouth, and said in a low voice:
“Patron of the Sea and the Spirit World, Protector of the Roselle Islands, Ruler of the Creatures of the Deep, Master of Tsunamis and Storms, Great Kavitua…”
After finishing the prayer, Klein immediately took four steps in reverse, ascended above the Gray Fog, sat in the place of The Fool, and beckoned to draw over the short white bone scepter with a ring of cyan-blue gems at its tip.
Then, using his own prayer light and the response of the “Sea God’s Scepter” to believers, he saw the situation in the area where Gehrman Sparrow was located.
He promptly raised his field of view, taking in the nearby scene, and from there expanded it outward by 5 nautical miles—this was the limit of what the “Sea God’s Scepter” could observe through the prayers of believers.
And thus, the area that Qunas Colg had delineated, where nothing could escape his perception, came into Klein’s sight.
…………
In the warehouse district, inside a warehouse piled with goods.
“Love…” Triss chuckled softly, and her figure suddenly dimmed, taking on a shimmer like a nocturnal lake.
In an instant, she, tightly wrapped and bound by layers of spider silk from the “Immortal Witch” Caterina Pele, transformed into an illusory mirror.
It was a full-length mirror taller than a person, with watery light rippling inside and a dark gleam emerging, like a gateway to another world.
At that moment, it was not reflecting the scene in front of her, but instead outlining a room.
That room was dim and gloomy; the bed and furniture had been cut into countless neat pieces, scattered everywhere, only the central area was perfectly clean, not even a speck of dust.
Triss stood there, dressed in a somber black gown, her smooth hair cascading down and swaying gently in the wind, highlighting the unnatural whiteness of her face, like a female ghost from folklore.
She wasn’t actually on the scene—she was projecting her image and power through that illusory mirror from an unknown distance, as if she were truly there!
That was why she wasn’t the least bit alarmed at being controlled and hunted.