It was as if these words had activated some kind of mechanism, and as a low and muffled voice reached his ears, countless shadowy silhouettes suddenly appeared in the darkness in front of the Annihilation Cult's eyes - a glimmer of light coming from an unknown source swayed in front of them.
An unusually open, simple and elegant hall lit up in the air!
His eyes widened, and he saw that the hall was as gorgeous as a palace, but also as old as if it had been abandoned for decades. He saw a curved staircase spiraling up at the end, connecting the high corridors and platforms. It was huge.
The pillars stood vaguely in the darkness, and exquisite curtains hung from the tops of the pillars, gently swaying in the breeze that came from nowhere. On the walls around the hall were dark and empty windows - those holes were like evil spirits.
There is no light at all outside the window, and the window itself is tightly blocked by criss-crossing steel. A huge oil painting that cannot be seen clearly hangs between the windows. There are no specific people or scenery on the painting, just filled with
Creepy colorful patches.
The Annihilation cultist looked at the scene in front of him in astonishment, and then suddenly realized that the restraint on his hands and feet had disappeared at some point. He took two steps forward, feeling that his body was back under his control, and then subconsciously called out
To the demon who lives with his soul.
However, there was only an empty roar in his soul, and the deep demon that had been with him for many years seemed to have never existed, and nothing responded to his call.
"Squire, go forward and come to the end of the carpet."
That low, muffled voice sounded again, this time even coming directly from my mind.
"Who is it?!" The Annihilation Cult's eyes widened in horror, looking around the gorgeous but empty and strange hall of the bungalow, but no one was seen in the field of vision.
He raised his head again and looked towards the end of the hall - a dark red carpet stretched from his feet to the distance, and at the end of the carpet was the staircase that connected to the second floor along an arc like flying wings.
For some reason, when he looked there, his legs moved uncontrollably - as if to obey the sound he just heard, he walked towards the end of the carpet and stood a few meters away from the stairs.
The place stopped.
A figure suddenly appeared there.
It was a body in a black dress - a body without a head.
The body stood upright in front of the stairs, his dress was meticulous, and a corner of a folded handkerchief could be seen in the breast pocket, and the thin golden chain of a pocket watch poked out from the pocket on the other side.
Holding a copper bell in one hand, the other hand is stretched forward - the posture is like a housekeeper welcoming a new person, a trusted steward who manages a bungalow.
But he has no head, and on the body wearing a black dress, there is only a bare neck, like...the joint of a doll.
"What...what is this place!?"
"The new attendant" said with a trembling voice. He could no longer remember why he came to this closed bungalow, nor his name and origin. He only felt an instinctive fear, a kind of
A strange sense of strangeness was eroding his heart bit by bit. He looked at the headless butler in front of him and mustered up the courage to ask. At the same time as he made a sound, whispers and the feeling of being spied on came from all directions.
He turned around in shock and looked at the scene in the hall——
Figures dressed in valet and maid uniforms are busy in the hall. They are obviously the servants who take care of this huge bungalow. These servants will stop when passing the stairs, seeming to look at the newcomers curiously.
Low voices of discussion came from their chests - because none of these servants had heads.
On their necks, there are only smooth spherical protrusions, which seem to be the connecting parts of the dolls, showing a texture between wood and ceramics.
The "new attendant" looked at the servants who were busy coming and going in the hall in astonishment, feeling a little dazed for a moment.
Were there so many people here before? When I first came to this hall, was it so lively?
"This is the Alice Mansion, and you are the new attendant here," the dull voice of "Butler" suddenly sounded, interrupting the new attendant's distraction, "Follow me, your next post is upstairs."
The new attendant nodded subconsciously and followed the headless butler. He glanced down unconsciously and found that he had also been wearing attendant clothes at some point - the same as the male servants in the hall.
His mind was getting more and more hazy, and more and more memories were being extracted from this body, as if they were things that were "no longer needed" and impurities that hindered him from performing his duties as a servant in this bungalow.
Every time he stepped onto a step, he hesitated less and less. At first, he vaguely remembered that he did not belong here. Then, he only remembered that he seemed to be trapped in a weird bungalow.
When he was only a few steps away from the second floor, he only remembered the butler's explanation to him——
After taking the last step, he raised his head and looked at the platform in front of him and the corridor inside the platform.
Several servants were passing by in the corridor, and even though they had no sight, the "new servant" still felt the sense of peeping.
"Why is everyone looking at me?"
"Because you are the first servant with a head," the butler stopped and turned around, with a smile in his voice, "and there haven't been any new people here for many years."
"What am I going to do?" the new attendant asked cautiously.
"Serve our mistress and become a member here. You will naturally know what to do, but before that, you should go and say hello to the mistress..."
The housekeeper slowly raised his arm and pointed to a black door at the end of the corridor.
"Go ahead, open the door and say hello to the hostess."
The new attendant nodded, turned and walked towards the door.
His steps were steady, and his expression gradually became calmer. His body movements gradually became as stiff as those of the servants in the hall. He came to the door, stretched out his hands, and glanced calmly at the door.
The wrist turned into a ball joint - it pushed the door open with a slight force.
The puppet took a step forward.
In the elegant bedroom that can almost be described as huge, a gorgeous big bed is placed in the center of the room. There are intricately patterned draperies and tassel curtains hanging around the big bed. A silver-haired doll lies quietly on the bed, sleeping soundly.
.
And beyond the bed, at the end of the bedroom, where the wall should have been, there was only a vast expanse of darkness - it seemed to lead to some distant and deep space, where the floor, walls and roof showed a fragmented appearance.
, the dark shadows of chaos and countless flickering light spots in the distance slowly rise and fall, turning into strange light and shadow illusions, stirring silently at the end of the bedroom, lingering in whispers in the darkness.
The surging darkness and light spots were like the doll's bizarre dream, and also seemed like an invisible thing trying to invade this bungalow, blocked from reality by the doll's sleep.
The new attendant, who had turned into a puppet, stood at the door of the bedroom, staring blankly at the beautiful puppet sleeping soundly on the bed, and the undulating darkness behind the puppet - then it bent down and paid respectful tribute to the mistress.
Some bright threads extended from his limbs, floating in the air, and then disappeared in an instant.
The new attendant just bent over and backed away slowly until he exited the room. The door to the sleeping Alice slammed shut in front of his eyes, making a low and majestic roar.
But the expression on the squire's face would never change again.
The puppet bent over, took out a handkerchief from his pocket, and gently wiped the ornaments near the door.
…
"Plop——"
"Wow--"
The sound of heavy objects falling to the ground resounded at the entrance of the alley. The Annihilation cultist who had just tried to escape suddenly fell from the air. He made a loud noise when he landed. His body fell into pieces like porcelain, including his clothes.
.
There was no trace of blood in the broken porcelain fragments, as if he was just a fired doll from the beginning - his flesh and blood body was just his half-life illusion.
Alice was instantly startled: "Wow!"
A gust of wind-like whistling sounded behind her, and Fanna had already rushed to the entrance of the alley. She stared at the scene in front of her in stunned silence. After being stunned for a long time, she turned to look at the puppet next to her: "Is this...did you do it?"
"...I don't know," Alice blinked and looked back a little sluggishly, "Hmm...probably?"
"What does it probably mean?!"
"It was me who grabbed his thread and then pushed hard - he made the first move, so I was a little scared..." Alice said incoherently, gesticulating as she spoke, and her explanation was very effective.
Two sentences made Fanna even more confused, "Do you understand?"
"...I don't understand," Fanna shook her head, then looked back at the depths of the alley, where there was a mass of charred remains, emitting a faint black smoke, "Damn it, the priest I dealt with didn't even exist in the end.
If you open your mouth, your piece will simply shatter, leaving no information at all."
"Does this mean the captain will be dissatisfied?"
"It's too late to think about this, we have to get out of here," Fanna said quickly, "The noise is too big, even if it's not in the central city, the night watch team should have reacted."
As she spoke, she raised her head and looked at the mansion not far away.