Chapter 27: Sequence 137 - Marionette
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The scene unfolded with startling abruptness.
The two fallen squad members were foaming at the mouth, their eyes rolled upward.
Xiaoyu hurriedly crouched down to examine them.
She first reached out and checked whether they were breathing.
“They’re still breathing. They must have passed out!”
Dart crouched down as well, his face filled with confusion.
Just then, another squad member collapsed with a thud.
Immediately afterward, Glimmer and Slick fell to the ground as well.
All five displayed exactly the same symptoms.
As Dart sank into thought, he felt his mind beginning to slow.
At the same time, his hands and feet grew stiff.
In an instant, he understood.
“S137—Marionette!”
“J01 Containment Facility!”
Dart’s eyes reddened slightly. His limbs had stiffened to the point where he could no longer move, and he toppled heavily to the ground.
Hearing Dart’s words, Xiaoyu, who had been busy attending to the others, suddenly understood.
Her hands continued making mechanical movements without pause as she backed away from the other unconscious squad members.
Elsewhere, Lu Xiao stopped. His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the six people lying on the ground.
Xiaoyu caught sight of Lu Xiao stopping from the corner of her eye and hurriedly shouted, “Keep moving! Don’t stop!”
“This is S137—Marionette!”
“Within a fifty-meter radius of it, anyone whose hands stop moving for five seconds will be taken over!”
But it was already too late.
Lu Xiao felt his hands and feet growing heavy, while his thoughts seemed to congeal.
In an instant, his mind went completely blank.
It was as though his soul had left his body, watching himself from above.
Click, click, click!
The unconscious squad members rose to their feet.
Their eyes rolled upward, and their bodies twisted in bizarre postures. They looked exactly like puppets.
Still moving her hands, Xiaoyu rushed toward Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao had not yet been taken over by the Marionette. As long as she could force his hands to keep moving, the control could be broken.
Within Lu Xiao’s field of vision, the scene seemed to be slowly freezing. The once-fluid images now looked as though his graphics card had malfunctioned.
Everything had become a stop-motion sequence, frame by frame.
At the same time, the bones inside his body began to tremble faintly.
The alchemical formations Ivan had engraved onto his bones had been activated.
In that instant, Lu Xiao felt his thoughts return to his brain.
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His little finger bent ever so slightly.
Although this was the absolute limit of what he could do at that moment, that tiny movement interrupted the Marionette’s control over him.
A stronger force immediately followed, as though trying to manipulate his limbs.
Lu Xiao understood that he had bought himself another five seconds.
For him, five seconds were more than enough.
As Xiaoyu drew nearer in his field of vision, the corners of Lu Xiao’s mouth slowly widened.
Thud!
Xiaoyu threw herself into Lu Xiao’s arms.
The two of them fell to the ground together.
Not far away, seven figures emerged from the darkness.
Each held a gun in one hand while the other performed a repetitive, circular motion.
Even the hand holding the gun kept moving up and down.
The seven people stood in a circle, within which lay a wooden coffin half a meter long.
Ropes had been used to suspend the coffin from their waists.
With Xiaoyu’s help, Lu Xiao had broken free of the control.
“Hey, who are these people?” Lu Xiao asked Xiaoyu as he flexed both arms.
Xiaoyu gritted her teeth and replied coldly, “S137—Marionette is contained in the J01 Containment Facility!”
“Obviously, they’re the J01 prison warden squad!”
Lu Xiao continued, “Where is the J01 Containment Facility?”
“J01 is in Japan,” Xiaoyu answered coldly.
“Oh? What a coincidence!”
The expression on Lu Xiao’s face became wonderfully vivid, constantly shifting between a smile and something close to madness.
“Hey! As long as we keep our hands moving, that’s enough, right?”
Hearing Lu Xiao’s voice, Xiaoyu nodded.
“S137’s characteristic is that everyone within fifty meters of it must keep their hands moving at all times!”
“Otherwise, they’ll be controlled by the Marionette!”
“If someone is taken over, then everyone within fifty meters of that controlled person must also keep their hands moving!”
“In other words, if someone were controlled every forty-nine meters, then theoretically, the Marionette could control the entire world!”
“However, once a controlled person moves more than fifty meters away from the Marionette, the control will be severed!”
As a member of the prison warden special forces, Xiaoyu knew the characteristics of these contained anomalies by heart.
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Likewise, every member of the special forces was required to remember them.
Lu Xiao somehow produced a bone spike.
It was covered in exquisite, intricate patterns, and a large azure gemstone was set into its tip.
Lu Xiao grinned. Then, with a sudden downward motion, he drove the bone spike into his own thigh.
The entire spike disappeared into Lu Xiao’s leg.
Baptized by his blood, the azure gemstone at its tip emitted a burst of dazzling light.
A white halo then expanded outward from the gemstone.
Just as Xiaoyu was wondering in astonishment why Lu Xiao had committed such an act of self-mutilation, her eyes rolled upward and she fainted.
At the same time, the seven special-forces soldiers carrying the Marionette also collapsed.
But Dart and the others, who had already been taken over by the Marionette, remained standing where they were.
They slowly raised their guns and began firing wildly toward Lu Xiao.
For a moment, the entire manor was once again engulfed by gunfire.
Lu Xiao endured the dizziness churning in his head and fled the spot using both his hands and feet.
With the bone spike clenched between his teeth, he crawled rapidly along the ground.
Before long, Lu Xiao passed Dart and the others and charged toward the J01 prison warden squad in the distance.
Countless bullets struck the ground behind him.
At that moment, the squad also slowly rose to its feet. Seven black gun barrels spat tongues of flame at Lu Xiao.
At the same time, the sound of grenade pins being pulled rang out.
Dart and the others had thrown them.
Lu Xiao did not even spare them a glance. He charged straight toward the J01 squad.
A wet ripping sound!
Then came a deafening explosion!
The grenades detonated behind him.
The bone spike instantly pierced the first man’s heart.
The bulletproof vest worn by the soldier was as useless before the bone spike as a piece of tofu.
Yet the soldier whose heart had been pierced did not die.
His eyes rolled upward, exposing large expanses of white, while saliva dribbled from the corners of his mouth.
One hand clamped tightly around the bone spike embedded in his chest, while the other, still holding his gun, suddenly opened fire at Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao tried to pull the bone spike free, but the soldier’s grip was astonishingly powerful.
For a moment, Lu Xiao could not extract it.
At the same time, every gun on the scene was pointed at him.
That included Xiaoyu, who had just risen to her feet.
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