The man with the bright red nose rushed to the safe in a few steps and took out a radio receiver and a codebook from a hidden compartment.
He squatted there, quickly translating the news of Charlie Lake's accident into a telegram, and began sending it with a rapid-fire pace.
Inside the building where Lake Bookstore was located, a tan-skinned maid rolled up her sleeves and poured a bottle of indigo liquid onto her left arm.
The skin there immediately changed color, but beneath the indigo, streaks of black light stood out, like wriggling nematodes.
These black rays quickly coalesced into a strange face the size of half a palm, with eyes as small as grains of rice and a mouth as large as a tea saucer.
" Charlie Lake has had an accident." The maid spoke slowly and deliberately, pointing to the face on her arm.
Each word she uttered seemed to take on its own shape, standing out as an indigo entity between her mouth and arms.
Then, one after another, these words, seemingly written, intertwined and were enveloped in smoke of the same color.
At that moment, the strange face on the maid's arm slowly opened its mouth, inhaling the indigo smoke and the words together.
All the abnormalities disappeared, except for the patch of skin on the maid's arm that hadn't yet returned to its original color.
In the darkness outside the window, a tiny, ordinary bat flapped its wings, breaking its stillness, and flew off to who knows where.
Less than 500 meters away from Lake Bookstore, on another street, a restaurant specializing in the Southern Continent delicacies is half-empty.
Tiny bats emerged from the darkness, gathered together, and rose into a thick cloud of smoke.
The smoke and bats seemed to be mere illusions, vanishing in an instant, leaving only the silhouette of a man in a tuxedo but without the appropriate hat.
The man was tall and thin, with a very upright posture, light-colored hair that was almost silver, and bright red eyes that looked like they held blood. He was none other than the Sanguine Count, Mistral.
He raised his left hand, adorned with a deep blue gemstone ring, touched his slightly flamboyant bow tie, and looked down at the restaurant below, which had already closed for the day, saying:
"Both pieces of intelligence eventually converged here."
As soon as Mistral finished speaking, a figure appeared in front of him, dressed in a deep black court dress, wearing a small soft hat of the same color, with light gold hair, blue eyes, and a pale face, like the most exquisite Puppet.
The trees on the street below suddenly swayed slightly, and the gas streetlights flickered at the same time.
"A ' Puppet '." Count Mistral nodded slightly, acknowledging Sharron's identity and status.
Sharron didn't look at him, but gazed at the second floor of the restaurant and said:
"There's a lingering feeling of worshipping the ' Mother Tree of Desire '."
"Then there's no problem." Mistral turned around in mid-air and nodded towards the area with the densest darkness. "Lord Nibes, please seal off this area."
A deep, ancient sigh followed, and a pair of wings covered in dark membranes and covered with countless patterns and symbols suddenly emerged from the darkness, growing larger and wider until they completely enveloped the surroundings in just a few seconds.
The restaurant was suddenly plunged into an unnatural darkness, as if it had been transported from the real world.
Without further hesitation or direct attack, Mistral took out a bronze box inlaid with several rubies and retrieved something from it.
It was a transparent glass ball shaped like an eyeball.
Then, the Sanguine Count Mistral's expression Distortion slightly in pain as he released the glass ball from his finger, letting it fall downwards.
The glass ball emitted a faint glow in the darkness, seemingly drawn by some force, constantly adjusting its direction in mid-air.
Eventually, it landed in a room on the second floor of the restaurant.
A brilliant, white light burst forth, as if a " The Sun " had risen in the room, illuminating everything and rapidly melting away all filth, Depravity, evil, immortality, and darkness.
"Huh..." Mistral, who had closed his eyes earlier, suddenly frowned and made a sound of doubt.
He didn't sense any resistance from inside the restaurant!
Sharron, whose gaze had shifted from looking down to looking straight ahead, showed little change in expression, but her tightly bound light blonde hair seemed to sway slightly.
After that " The Sun " rose, it quickly "set," its blazing white light helplessly fading into the darkness.
Since this was something aimed at Evil Spirit, the building where the restaurant was located was not damaged. Count Mistral, Sanguine Count, opened his eyes, looked for two seconds, and then reached out his right hand and grabbed upwards.
The darkness above the restaurant instantly came to life, transforming into illusory shackles that bound the entire roof.
With a creaking sound that made your teeth ache, the roof was forcibly pulled up by the shackles and hung in mid-air.
Without this obstacle, both Mistral and Sharron could clearly see the situation inside the target room:
A radio receiver sat on a square table covered with a tablecloth, next to which lay a translated telegram; opposite it, on the floor, was a patch of indigo-black scorch mark.
On the other side of the room, there was a rather old piano with a brown piano bench, which looked like it had just been moved.
On the piano sits a glass of red wine, in which a strange, flesh-colored, sticky little figure is submerged;
The rest of the furnishings and arrangements were just like those of a normal household, except for the addition of herbal powders and splashes of essential oils and hydrosols.
This gave Sharron, who could receive revelations directly from the Spirit World, a vague idea:
The people here just left!
Before she, Count Mistral, and Marquis Nibes could react, the red wine infused with the flesh-colored figurine began to glow softly.
The light instantly expanded and brightened, forming what appeared to be a gigantic "red moon" within the room.
The radiance of the "red moon" dispelled the darkness in the area, giving the Demigod participating in the battle the feeling that they were on the ground, looking up at the sky.
Sharron's azure eyes seemed to freeze for a moment. She suddenly raised her left hand, flipped it lightly, and revealed a dark red ornament in her palm.
The ornament is shaped like Full Moon, surrounded by scarlet gemstones, and filled with the Moon symbols and many mysterious emblems in the center.
This is the " Crimson Moon Corona " that Sharron obtained with the help of Sherlock Moriarty. It constantly radiates a serene light, granting the wearer immunity to the effects of the Full Moon.
However, the "red moon" in the restaurant was not just Full Moon; it was closer to Blood Moon, and even surpassed it. An indescribable Spirituality power arose from it, giving the area isolated by Nibes's huge wings an eerie and desolate feeling. Even with the " Crimson Moon Corona " in hand, Sharron could feel the evil thoughts in her heart swelling, and felt unimaginable changes brewing within her body.
She instinctively wanted to transform into Evil Spirit and hide in things like roadside trees and gas lamps, but reason stopped her impulse because the "red moon" shone without blind spots.
At this moment, Sanguine Count Mistral, a vampire, saw his belly swell up little by little, and felt the pulse of life slowly gathering inside, trying to take shape.
As a supernatural being who could draw upon the power of the " The Moon," he had not prepared any additional methods to eliminate the effects of the Blood Moon. He originally thought that he would be filled with joy and could give full play to his abilities in such an environment, but he never expected that the changes would be so bizarre that they would completely exceed his imagination.
He felt that if he continued to delay, he would give birth to a new life, an evil, terrifying life of unknown origin.
The power of the " The Moon " itself includes reproduction and procreation!
At the same time, on the pair of huge bat wings that obscured the surroundings and created darkness, dense white hairs grew out, making it exceptionally eerie.
Nibes gave a low snort, and a crack appeared in the blockade of this area.
A few blocks away Emlyn White was idly stroking the " Rose's Vow " ring set with a deep blue gemstone when he suddenly gained the Earl of Mistral's current senses, seeing what he saw and hearing what he heard.
Meanwhile, some of Count Mistral's feelings and thoughts, after accumulating for a long time, also entered Emlyn's mind. After a brief examination, he was so frightened that he sat up straight, his expression Distortion, his stomach churning, and he felt an urge to vomit.
Klein's main body, aided by " Creeping Hunger," was hiding in the shadows outside the restaurant, but his Manipulation Marionette, Qonas Kilgor, had already infiltrated the darkness created by Nibes and used " Distortion " to bypass the isolation and maintain the connection of the " Spirit Body Threads."
At that moment, under the illusory "red moon," he was astonished to discover that the Marionette, which were essentially made of dead people, seemed to have a tendency to reproduce on their own!
And that new life must be the offspring of the " Mother Tree of Desire "!
This... this is similar to Lilith, the progenitor of the vampires in the legends of Silver City, and some of the manifestations of the "primordial moon" that Emlyn spoke of... Sure enough, the "Mother Tree of Desire" has already grasped part of the "moon's" power and infected it with an even more sinister influence, more sinister than before... Just as Klein was about to switch places with the puppet, enter the range of the red moon's illumination, and "teleport" away with Miss Sharon, an indescribable joy suddenly rose in his heart.
It is the joy of seeing a flower slowly blooming in one's own garden after a long, Evernight, in the light mist of Dawn; it is the joy of leaving the big city, going to the suburbs, breathing the fresh air in the woods after the rain, and witnessing mushrooms grow; it is the joy of all things growing and new life arriving.
The fine white feathers on the enormous bat wings that covered the surrounding area all fell off, Count Mistral's slightly protruding belly shrank back, and Sharron, who was struggling to hold on with the " Crimson Moon Corona," seemed to have relaxed a bit more.
Immediately afterwards, the "red moon" in the restaurant dimmed rapidly, as if someone had absorbed a large amount of its brilliance.
Finally, the "red moon" disappeared, and everything returned to normal.
Was it Duke Omer of the Sanguine who made the move? Klein nodded thoughtfully and continued to hide in the shadows.
Mistral suppressed his anger, looked down at the restaurant below, and said in a deep voice:
"The target seems to have been aware of this beforehand..."
"Not too far in advance." Sharron gave her answer, combining the situation at the scene with revelations she received from the Spirit World.
A strange glint appeared in Mistral's crimson eyes as he observed and analyzed for several seconds before speaking:
"Around the same time we arrived, the people here left, leaving behind that glass of red wine and that strange Puppet."
"This trap doesn't seem like it was planned; it's more like a last-minute setup..."
At this point, Mistral looked at Sharron and said:
"How were they able to detect the danger so quickly?"
Sharron answered calmly and in the same tone:
"Not because of the ' Mother Tree of Desire '."
This evil god is not yet able to infuse too much power into reality, making it difficult to issue early warnings.