Just in time, the Substitute arrived behind him, grabbing his collar and, with an unexpected Power that did not belong to her frail body, carried him away.

"Roar!" The Heavy Knight shouted with blood-red eyes, swiftly pursuing the two.

With a wave of his finger, countless puppets charged from all directions, chasing after them.

Accompanied by countryside music, the speed of those puppets significantly increased, and the Substitute ran ahead carrying Chen San, whose legs hovered mid-air like reeds swaying, creating a rather amusing scene.

The puppet army with glowing red eyes frantically chased behind, continuously, two fast ones almost caught up, swinging sharp claws and nearly scratched a chunk of flesh off Chen San.

Chen San was desperate, clutching his pants tightly, preventing the puppets from tearing them off, shouting in the communication channel, "Is it enough now!?"

"Not yet, it's just the beginning, hold him off, I believe you can do it."

A youthful and slightly uplifting voice responded through the communication screen.

"You're settling personal grudges!" Chen San's habitual poker face cracked, looking as awful as could be.

He watched as the distant Heavy Knight let out a roar, performing a massive leap into the air, descending toward their direction like a meteor!

Amidst the explosive loud noise, large sections of the ground cracked.

The rampaging monster broke through the rising dust, furiously charging toward them again, crushing and tearing apart all the puppets in its way.

The ground shook violently, and a terrifying aura approached directly.

Chen San gritted his teeth, thinking he wouldn't die disgracefully, decided to fight back, raising his sniper rifle and shooting at the monster ahead without aiming.

Sparks flickered, white light scattered everywhere, and gunfire persisted.

Listening to the voice in the communication channel, Xu Xiaoyou nodded satisfactorily.

Chen San almost single-handedly diverted all the puppets near the Church, allowing them to enter the Church smoothly without any puppets noticing them.

Supposedly, they were still within the Puppet Master's blind spot.

From the opponent's perspective, they appeared in the snowy Second District last time, and in the blink of an eye, they had entered this guy's lair, directly striking at the heart.

The entrance to the underground of Donglin Church was in the confession room, with murals obscured by ivy and vines covering the walls. In the center of the room lay the corpse of the previous sniper, this person wasn't a puppet, but a devoted follower of the Puppet Master.

At this moment, he still clutched the heavy sniper in his arms, his face showing disbelief and extreme fear from before his death—probably shocked by the sight of the blonde girl he previously sniped, who climbed back up from the snow like an Evil Ghost in the blink of an eye, striking at his young mind.

Xu Xiaoyou stepped over him, casually picked up the heavy sniper he dropped, and walked into the confession room.

The years had stripped this confession room of its intricate and beautiful patterns, with vessels that used to be displayed long gone since the disaster arrived, leaving it looking like nothing more than a mere large wooden box.

In the center of the confession room was a secret cellar leading underground, and after traversing a dark and deep pathway, they arrived at the underground of the abandoned Church at last.

The underground held a massive circular platform, its near-black dome pressed down, and supported by four giant stone pillars at each direction surrounding the platform.

The frescoes on the dome and walls had long blurred, vaguely depicting ancient myths, and a figure stood at the end of this realm. Hundreds of puppets were prostrate on the ground, seemingly worshipping that figure, with expressions of piety and respect.

"Puppet Master," Xu Xiaoyou softly whispered.

They were above the underground platform, directly facing the distant shadowy figure, matching the image in the communication—a man in a long black men's suit, wearing an intricate bowtie, his head wrapped in black plaster, each of its five facets hosting a bizarre eye.

Behind the man, they saw a giant puppet monster, its body devoid of skin and flesh, revealing a massive chest cage under shadow, sheltering the man within. Several spider-like sharp limbs extended from the cage's back, waving in the air, with a woman's head connected to the top of the spine, her long, dry hair hanging down, covering her face.

It was the Puppet Mother that Jian Liu mentioned before, and this form reminded Xu Xiaoyou of an organ.

She resembled a massive organ made of flesh and bone, with veins clinging to her chest cage acting as pipes, growing a piano made of flesh and organs at the lower end of the skeleton, which served as the keyboard. The spine functioned as a tracker, each rib acting as organ stops, altering sound colors with contraction and twitch.

Her entire chest was a giant bellows, and her lament was the music played by this organ.

No doubt, this organ-like Puppet Mother was the Puppet Master's Mimicry.

How distorted and abnormal must one's mentality be to create such a form and appearance of a Mimicry.

At this moment, the Puppet Master showed urgency on his face, with hands tucked in pockets, eyes closed tightly, transmitting commands via Spirit and intent to the Puppet Mother behind him. Scarlet spots slowly illuminated along its spine.

Countless invisible threads ascended to the sky, piercing the deep near-black underground dome, while its ribs contracted and wriggled, the Puppet Mother's will descended upon every Puppet Nail positioned outside the Church, controlling the puppet army searching desperately for their location in the snowfield.

The Puppet Master attempted to regain their view and control the battlefield.

Tang Xin arrived just in time, with some injuries from bumping while repositioning.

She lowered her voice, "Don't worry, I wasn't discovered by those puppets."

Xu Xiaoyou nodded at the girl, handed her the heavy sniper rifle after chambering the bullet and unlocking the safety, pointed at the Puppet Master shielded by the skeleton below, then tapped her temple, gesturing a shooting motion.

"Only one chance," Xu Xiaoyou said.

Tang Xin nodded without hesitation, directly taking the heavy sniper rifle.

The distance from them to the Puppet Master was no more than over a hundred meters; at such range, facing a stationary target she was trained well for, she was confident of hitting it without fail.

Setting up the gun, aiming at the enemy as before, the girl took several deep breaths before pulling the trigger.

The heavy sniper roared, its bullet shattered the rib of the Puppet Mother, and blasted the Puppet Master's head apart!

Under the might of a 0.5 caliber heavy sniper, a headshot would cause the brain to explode like a watermelon, scattered everywhere.

"Ouuu!"

The lament of the Puppet Mother echoed throughout the underground, just as Xu Xiaoyou expected, the headless body of the 'Puppet Master' slowly ascended to the high, controlled by threads, dim and dull.

Of course, that cunning guy wouldn't expose himself so openly—this was merely one of his puppets.

This kind of person would only disguise as an ordinary puppet, indistinguishable from others, akin to those Puppet Nails.

"The way of greeting is indeed unfriendly, barging into someone's inner sanctum like this is rather rude."

The Puppet Master's voice reverberated across the underground, with an uncontrollable excitement in his tone, like a grand play about to begin.

"Ladies and gentlemen, how have you been?"

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