In the wilderness, the people who had been performing Nuo Opera-or rather, the corpses-suddenly charged at Raphael.
Their running postures were extremely strange, their steps uneven. They nearly fell over several times, but invisible threads seemed to tug at them, restoring their balance in bizarre poses and letting them keep running forward.
Raphael stood ready to flee at any moment. Once the corpses came close enough, he immediately used his ability to create zombies to seize control of them.
Under Raphael's influence, the corpses bleeding from all seven orifices slowed with every step, as though someone had suddenly switched them to slow motion.
Raphael could clearly sense the force currently manipulating the corpses, but there was something strange about it. It seemed to keep tugging at them to make them move, rather than controlling them completely.
Or rather, it was not a power associated with the undead. It somewhat resembled the abilities of a Marionettist as Raphael remembered them, controlling corpses through invisible Spirit Body Threads.
But the resemblance was only slight. If it really had been a Marionettist, the corpses' movements would not have been so uncoordinated, and Raphael would not have been able to wrest control of them away.
After some effort, Raphael finally seized control of the corpses. He could now be certain that whatever had been controlling them was not a Marionettist-at least, not a genuine one.
There were no longer any spirit bodies inside these corpses, which meant there were no Spirit Body Threads either.
Clearly, these people had been dead for some time before invisible threads dragged them here to perform Mountain Opera.
Raphael then made the corpses turn around and attack the animals charging toward him.
At that moment, the eerie green glow on the "stage" gradually faded. The green light in the