Chapter 656 “Invasion”
Chapter 656 “Invasion”
Mistress is coming, on this cold afternoon.
The sound of the pencil rustling across the paper, the lines of varying shades stretching across the paper as if they had a life of their own, forming an image, Richard was fully engaged in this “greeting”, and a sense of reassurance and anticipation gradually filled his thoughts.
Before he knew it, the cold had faded, the inexplicable feeling of emptiness that had always been present lately had disappeared, a smile appeared on his face, and the only thought, the only image, remained in his mind – she was coming.
The beautiful lady, the hostess whom he had never met, whom he admired and looked forward to with joyful anticipation …… Would the hostess like the place? Would she like her arrangement? Will she smile and honor the rag doll’s loyalty?
Rustling …… pencil swept briskly across the white paper, and his hostess’s gentle gaze came from the paper, watching him with a smile on her face.
Excitement and leaps of joy surged up, but Richard’s hand was steadier and faster than ever – he couldn’t even remember when he had gotten so skilled at drawing that he could outline these wonderful lines so quickly, and finally he even picked up the pencil with his left hand as well, and between the two hands he waved it so quickly that it vaguely carried a The residual shadow ……
Yet footsteps suddenly came from the direction of the corridor, thud, thud, thud, thud thud thud, the rush was like a heartbeat, bringing with it a distracting clutter.
“They’re coming for you, sweet rag doll ……”
The soft, thin voice in his head blew by like the wind, carrying if anything a noise on the wind.
That annoying, familiar cold feeling came back, and Richard felt a layer of irritation well up in him; someone was coming to disturb him, to interrupt his moment with his Mistress, and they were almost at the door – but he hadn’t finished painting yet.
He picked up speed once more, waving his hands over the paper like a dance, while the annoying footsteps came sooner than expected.
The footsteps stopped at the door, and with little delay, there was a knock on the door of the room.
The thumping of the door echoed through the modest room as if it were a direct blow to the heart, at first peaceful, but in the blink of an eye it became urgent.
“Richard, are you in there?” Someone’s voice came through the door, sounding with a somewhat nervous twang of ‘politeness’, “The Saints have called a meeting and are sending everyone to the assembly hall.”
“Don’t go, it’s a trap.”
Richard heard the warning ring out in his head momentarily, he couldn’t tell if it was the Rabbi’s voice or his own thoughts – he rightly ignored the voice at the door and simply continued to immerse himself in the painting in front of him.
The silence in the room brought an even more urgent knocking on the door, a continuous thumping soon followed, and the man in the hallway raised his voice as he rapped hard on the door panel, “Richard, we know you’re in there, this is an important meeting, you’re not still sleeping, are you!”
It was so close, so close.
Richard frowned tightly, his arm shaking like a spasm, and his hostess blinked at him, eyes that had been as animated as living creatures in the black-and-white lines outlining the image.
But still, he was close, he still had the most important few strokes left to finish ……
The knocking on the door stopped abruptly, and a brief pause was followed by a vigorous thump.
“Bang-clang!”
The single wooden door was roughly slammed open, and Richard’s movements stiffened for a brief moment – and it was in that brief moment that someone had already rushed into the room, while a huge, spectral hound swooped in from mid-air and tackled him straight to the floor.
Was that last stroke in the right place?
Richard struggled to look up, but the power of the Phantom Hound prevented him from moving at all, and he fought to support his arms, but all that came out of his throat were hoarse, strange grunts and low growls that could only fill his mind with indignation-
He hated the Profound Hound, he hated the Profound Hound as a rude and violent monster.
Someone yanked his arm from the side and tied the rope quickly, followed by another who gagged him to prevent him from using the power of the spell – the man who had burst into the room dragged Richard from the floor, snatched his pencil, and yanked him roughly towards the door.
Richard gave up resisting the moment he left the room, his thoughts seemed to be interrupted, his mind was as muddled as cotton wool, and he walked down the corridor like a zombie, held from side to side by a few of his “compatriots”, silent and unmoving.
“Wait a minute,” one of the Annihilationists holding Richard’s arm suddenly stopped and looked up at another who was walking next to him, “What was he doing when we rushed into the room just now?”
“Seemed to be drawing,” the other Annihilationist frowned in recollection, “There was a large sheet of paper spread out on the bed, but I didn’t see what he was drawing.”
“…… Something’s not right, I’ll go back and look.”
The Annihilationist who had initially spoken up spluttered, then turned and ran back into the room they had just left, he stepped over the wooden door that had been smashed in and walked quickly to Richard’s bed, looking at the large piece of paper spread out on the bedpan.
It was just a blank sheet of paper.
The Annihilationist frowned, feeling a twinge of uneasiness for some reason, and driven by that uneasiness, he raised his head and looked around the room quickly – but found nothing.
A muffled grunt escaped the cultist’s throat, and then out of an abundance of caution, he bent down and picked up the piece of white paper, rolled it up casually, and tucked it back into the hallway. “It’s just a blank piece of paper,” he said to the others waiting in the hallway, “let’s go.”
A blank piece of paper.
Richard, who was being held down by his compatriots on the shoulders and controlled in his movements, looked up sluggishly, with confusion in his eyes, at the blank roll of paper displayed in the hands of the vaguely familiar man across the room, and after a moment of staring blankly, a small smile finally appeared on his face.
However no one noticed his smile.
The sound of disorganized footsteps was far away from the corridor.
More footsteps then quickly reappeared elsewhere on this ship.
The Annihilists, instructed by the Saints, were already on the move, and these clerics were now walking through the long, dimly lit corridors, the freshly tallied lists in their hands, hurriedly knocking on doors and removing from their rooms every one of their “compatriots” who had been in the Dream of the Unknowns.
A kind of tense atmosphere began to spread on the whole ship, some people noticed that the situation was different, while others noticed that the ship had stopped sailing at some point, those who had not been taken away quietly gathered in the rooms, nervously discussing and guessing what had happened, while those who had been taken away had already arrived at the assembly hall one after another.
The saint fell into a brief trance on the raised platform in the center of the hall, his mind feeling tired from the long hours of spying on his destiny, and he suddenly felt a little nostalgic for the old days, for the time when he still possessed a human body – even though that body was filthy and frail, it was a time when he could still lie comfortably in a bed, and when his own mind didn’t always come with Various cryptic whispers and confused hisses ……
He sank in this trance, his memories gradually weaving themselves into a hazy curtain, in the depths of which eternal peace seemed to beckon him.
The “peace” was a tall shadow burning with green flames.
The saint awoke with a start at this warning from destiny, and a searing tingle ran through every nerve and blood vessel in a convulsion.
“Your Excellency the Saint,” a voice came from the side, an upper cleric was reporting to him, “the men you asked for have been brought.”
The acolyte raised his eye stalk, his gaze sweeping over the congregations gathered in the assembly hall, either terrified or bewildered.
Shadows so thick they could not be melted shrouded the entire hall.
The gloom of fate obscured all his vision.
“The intruders are boarding!”
……
It was only after everyone had left that a sudden, imperceptible draught appeared in Richard’s room – followed by the sudden appearance of a figure next to the bed.
It was as if a “picture” that had been placed flat on a certain plane suddenly “flipped” and “rose up”, and Lucrecia’s figure emerged from the air.
She had been standing right in front of the Annihilationist, only about half a meter away at the closest point – only, she was on her side.
There was no thickness to the image, and the eye in three-dimensional space could not see the “image” parallel to the gaze.
Lucrecia exhaled softly, looked at her hands, and then picked up the pencil that had been thrown nearby and made two random strokes on her palm.
Then she waved her hand, and the “thin” figure transformed from a picture without thickness into a normal entity.
She turned her head to look at the empty floor, “Rabbi, I know you’re in the room.”
Almost at the same time as her words fell, a voice as shrill as a little girl’s resounded abruptly in the room, “Oi oi oi! It’s the Mistress coming! The rabbi will be right out!”
Accompanying this shrill and tender voice, countless white flotsam appeared abruptly in every corner of the room!
Shadows in the corners of the walls, crevices in the furniture, holes in the roof, cracks in the floor, in all the places that could be used to hide “fibers”, countless quantities of cotton wool began to swarm out, as if the room itself were frantically discharging a foreign substance, the cotton wool filled Lucrecia’s field of vision in the blink of an eye, and then they quickly gathered in the center of the room and gradually transformed into an object that would become the center of the room, and then into the center of the room. Then they quickly gathered in the center of the room, and gradually transformed into a rabbit that was completely formed by cotton balls without an “outer skin”.
Then, this rabbit-shaped cotton wool began to “flip” from the inside out, and green and flowery fabrics drilled out from its stomach, wrapping it up in an instant and turning it into a large rabbit doll with a bizarre and frightening shape.
This thrilling doll shook in place twice, and happily pounced on Lucrecia: “The rabbi is here, the rabbi is here! Welcome, welcome, warmly rejoice ……”
“Shut up,” Lucrecia casually grabbed the rabbit pouncing in mid-air, her tone icy, “Keep quiet.”
(End of chapter)