Outside the glass window, the garden vines grew wildly, desolate and dark. The river flowed dimly, reflecting a few specks of starlight, while the nearby houses emitted warm and cozy glows.
Everything was perfectly still, as if welcoming the arrival of night.
Triss, whose features weren't particularly exquisite individually but combined into an exceptionally beautiful face, withdrew her gaze and walked briskly to the hat rack. She took down a black hooded robe.
She quickly put it on, buttoned it up, tightened the belt, and pulled up the hood, transforming herself into an assassin.
Triss raised her right hand and passed it in front of her face, instantly making her features under the hood hazy and indistinct.
Next, she reached into a hidden pouch at her waist and pinched out a handful of glowing powder, which she sprinkled over herself while chanting a spell.
Triss's figure began to disappear inch by inch, her outline like a pencil sketch being completely erased by an eraser.
Having completed her concealment, she silently left the bedroom, crossed to the room opposite, and pushed open a window without bars.
With a light leap, Triss stood on the windowsill, looking down at the lawn behind the building, at the iron fence that almost merged with the night, and at the "Corpse Collector,"
She took a breath and descended like a feather, landing on the grass without a sound.
Dressed in a black trench coat and holding a specially modified revolver, Frye, with his thin lips and high nose, cautiously looked around, searching for any ghosts or evil spirits that might appear.
He could see these things directly!
Triss silently approached Frye, circling behind him. A dagger coated in "black paint" had somehow appeared in her hand.
Pfft!
She struck like a swift wind, plunging the dagger into Frye's lower back.
But just at that moment, what she saw before her suddenly shattered—shattered like an illusion.
Triss found herself still standing on the windowsill, still looking down at the lawn and the iron fence.
Only now, outside the fence, there was no longer just the "Corpse Collector" Frye, but also
Triss's pupils contracted. She understood that it had all been a dream. She had fallen asleep without knowing when!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Leonard and Frye fired three times in total, accurately hitting the invisible target that seemed not yet awake from its dream.
Crack!
Triss's silhouette emerged, first cracking, then shattering into pieces—fragments of a rough-surfaced silver mirror!
Inside the house, having used a substitution spell, she turned and ran, sprinting down the hall and stairs until she reached the first floor.
Woo! An eerily cold wind that could freeze a person blew ceaselessly on this floor. Dozens of invisible, transparent figures wandered every corner of the place, confused and numb.
Every time the now-visible Triss passed through one of these ghostly existences, her body temperature dropped a little. By the time she finally reached the altar, she couldn't stop herself from shivering.
The altar was a round table. In the center was a divine statue carved from bone.
The statue was the size of a normal adult man's head. Its features were only vaguely outlined, as if depicting a stunningly beautiful woman.
Her hair extended from her head down to her ankles, each strand distinct and thick, like venomous snakes, like tentacles.
And at the tip of every strand of hair was an eye, some closed, some open, clustered densely together.
Around this sinister statue were scattered numerous crude wooden dolls, with names and corresponding information written on them, such as
On the table were also three candles, their yellowish-green flames flickering in the cold, howling wind.
Triss bowed to the statue and quickly chanted a spell under her breath.
Then, she pushed aside the dolls, extinguished the candles, and picked up the statue.
Woo!
The wind suddenly became shrill, rattling the closed windows violently.
Bang! Crack! Windowpanes shattered one after another, and the cold, lifeless wind rushed in all directions.
Frye, who had just circled to the other side and dared not rashly enter the range of the altar, shuddered. He felt his blood growing cold, frosting over. He felt his movements slow down significantly.
At that moment, his ankle tightened, as if firmly grasped by something invisible.
An even colder feeling spread upwards from the point of contact. Any other Sequence 9 Beyonder would have been paralyzed and numb, but Frye, as a "Corpse Collector," was no stranger to such a state.
He turned the revolver and pulled the trigger against the side of his ankle, as if he could see who the enemy was, exactly where they were.
Bang!