The man with a red nose rushed over to the safe in a few steps and took out a wireless receiver and a codebook from a hidden compartment.
He crouched down and quickly translated the news of Charlie Rayk's accident into a telegram, then began transmitting it with a clatter.
Meanwhile, in the building where Rayk's Bookstore was located, a maid with a brownish complexion rolled up her sleeves and poured a bottle of indigo liquid over her left arm.
The skin there instantly changed color, but beneath the indigo, streaks of black light emerged, like wriggling threadworms.
These black glows quickly coalesced into a bizarre face about half the size of a palm, with eyes as small as rice grains and a mouth as large as a saucer.
"Charlie Rayk has met with an accident," the maid said to the face on her arm, enunciating each word deliberately.
Every word she spoke seemed to take on its own shape, manifesting as indigo entities between her mouth and arm.
Then these word-like entities intertwined, wrapped in the same colored smoke.
At that moment, the mouth of the strange face on the maid's arm slowly opened, drawing the indigo smoke and words inside.
All the anomalies then disappeared, leaving only a patch of skin on the maid's arm still not restored to its original color.
Outside the window, a small, ordinary bat flapped its wings, breaking its stillness, and flew off into the darkness.
…
On another street less than five hundred meters from Rayk's Bookstore, in the air above a restaurant specializing in Southern Continent cuisine.
Small bats flew out from the darkness, gathered together, and rose as thick smoke.
The smoke and bats seemed illusory, disappearing in an instant, leaving only the figure of a man in a tailcoat without a matching hat.
This man was tall and thin, very erect, with light hair verging on silver and bright red eyes that seemed to hide blood. He was the vampire Count
He raised his left hand, adorned with a sapphire ring, touched his somewhat ostentatious bow tie, and looked down at the restaurant that had already closed for the night.
"Two pieces of information have both ended up here," he said.
As soon as he finished speaking, a figure materialized opposite him, wearing a deep black court dress and a matching small soft hat, with light gold hair, blue eyes, and a pale face, like the most exquisite puppet.
The trees on the street below suddenly swayed, and the glow of the gas lamps flickered simultaneously.
"A puppet," Count Mistral nodded slightly, acknowledging
Sharon didn't look at him, staring at the second floor of the restaurant and saying, "There's a residual feeling of worship of the '
"Then there's no problem." Mistral turned in midair, nodded toward the area of densest darkness, and said, "Lord Nibais, please seal this place."
A deep, aged sigh sounded, and from that darkness emerged a pair of wings covered in dark membranes and countless runic symbols, growing larger and larger, completely enveloping the surroundings in a matter of seconds.
The restaurant was suddenly plunged into an unnatural darkness, as if it had been removed from the real world.
Mistral hesitated no more and didn't attack directly. He took out a bronze box inlaid with many rubies and removed an item from it.
It was a transparent glass ball shaped like an eyeball.
Then, with a slight grimace of pain, the vampire count let the glass ball fall from his fingers.
The ball emitted a faint light on its own in the darkness, constantly adjusting its trajectory in midair, as if attracted by something.
Eventually, it fell into a room on the second floor of the restaurant.
A dazzling white light immediately burst forth, as if a "sun" had risen in that room, illuminating everything and causing all filth, rot, evil, undead, and darkness to rapidly dissolve.
"Eh?" Mistral, who had already closed his eyes, suddenly frowned and uttered a sound of confusion.
He didn't sense any resistance within the restaurant!
Though Sharon's gaze had shifted from looking down to straight ahead, her expression didn't change, but her tightly bound light gold hair seemed to sway almost imperceptibly.
After that "sun" rose, it quickly "set," and the blinding white light helplessly faded into the darkness.
Since this item was targeted at evil spirits, the building itself was not damaged. Count Mistral opened his eyes, looked for a couple of seconds, then reached out his right hand and snatched upwards.
The darkness above the restaurant instantly came alive, transforming into illusory shackles that bound the entire roof.
With a teeth-grating creak, the shackles wrenched the roof up and suspended it in midair.
Without that obstruction, both Mistral and Sharon could clearly see the situation in the target room: A wireless receiver sat on a square table covered with a tablecloth, next to it was a decoded telegram, and opposite, there was a patch of indigo scorched marks on the floor.