"I'm not sure either. Vanessa's condition hasn't been very good recently, but it's not particularly serious that can be seen with the naked eye."
Miss Lathers' tone was quite worried:
"I want her to inform the Witch Council, but Vanessa doesn't like to bother others all the time and thinks this is just a small matter... Mr. Watson, since you also know other great witches, please persuade Vanessa after you rescue her."
"No problem. Also, my real name is Shad Hamilton."
Shade said, Miss Lathers nodded, and then the puppet's head suddenly raised and looked at him:
"Hamilton? It is said that Miss Carina..."
The rumor spread farther than Shade had imagined.
"Act 3: Royal Knights and Foreign Knights
The knight from a foreign land and the loyal maid fought against the forest giant, gained the giant's power, defeated the evil wizard, and took away the wizard's ring. For the princess, they continued their journey. Even though they had feelings for each other, they still came to the gate of the castle for the imprisoned princess.
Amidst the funny singing, the two returned to the fork in the city and were brought to the bottom of the castle by the change of venue. This is a typical fairy-tale-style castle, surrounded by a moat - a ditch made of wooden troughs, and the drawbridge was not lowered at this time.
The puppet form's movements were hampered, and even though both of them could swim, there was no need to risk swimming across the river. Shade used Silver Moon Slash to cut the suspension bridge rope, and after finding that the bridge deck still did not fall, he cast a spell to summon the dilapidated wooden boat, and then took the wooden boat with Miss Lathers to cross the narrow river.
There is a mechanism on the wall of the castle model. After rotating the turntable, the drawbridge is lowered and the entrance to the castle is finally opened.
Although the castle model occupies a much smaller area than the "Giant Forest" and "Abandoned Royal Capital" areas, the level of detail inside the castle model cannot be compared to the rough scenes outside.
The buildings in the city model are hollow inside, but inside the castle, there are almost real rooms, corridors, staircases and even secret doors. There are oil paintings on the walls, kerosene lamps and decorative red carpets, which make people wonder if they have really come to the puppet kingdom.
The enemies blocking the road are the wild wolves in the forest and the thugs in the city, while the enemies in the castle are the knights in armor.
They were hollow wooden models, most of them holding wooden one-handed swords, their swordsmanship and defense were extremely amazing. A few enemies also held shields, and even fewer enemies used two-handed swords or spears.
They exist in almost every corner of the castle model, and although they only carry out close-range attacks, once they form a cluster, they will be troublesome for Miss Shad and Lassers.
They could only fight as quietly as possible, and this was when Shad's swordsmanship came into play. Although he would not call himself a master of swordsmanship, the swordsmanship he learned from the Night's Watch was equally amazing, and with the three great swords summoned by the Blade of Chaos Time, Miss Lathers was almost unable to play a role. Every time, Shad would rush forward with the Moonlight Greatsword in his hand, and then defeat the enemy in front of him after a swordsmanship competition.
To reach the top floor, you just need to take the stairs, but just like what the puppet said, the door at the top requires three items to open. Even Shad's "Key to the Door" cannot force the door open in puppet form. After all, this is the basic rule of the sage-level relics.
By collecting small notes left in the castle, Shad and Miss Lathers pieced together some information. They helped each other along the way and finally learned the location of the "controlled Royal Knight" puppet through fragmentary information.
The secret door is located in the kitchen on the second floor. You have to go back to the first floor through the secret passage, and then go around the bookshelf behind the study to see the stairs leading upwards.
The Royal Knight puppet was waiting for the two of them in the hidden hall at the end of the stairs. It was about the same size as the armor puppet in the castle, but the surface paint and helmet style were more gorgeous.
He held a half-height silver shield in his left hand and pulled out a one-handed silver sword that was inserted into the gap between the carpet and the "floor tiles" with his right hand. He was like standing in the arena, waiting for the arrival of the two.
"Silver Moon Slash!"
After pushing open the door, Shade still started with a long-range attack, wanting to test the opponent's defense strength. But he didn't expect the knight puppet to not dodge at all, but raised the silver shield and swung it. The bright arc-shaped light blade touched the silver shield, and then returned to the original path as if reflected by a mirror.
If Shade hadn't pulled Miss Lathers to the side in time, the two of them would have probably been cut in half.
"What's going on?"
Xia De was very surprised, as he had never encountered such a situation before. Even though the power of his spell was weakened in puppet form, its essence was still "Moonlight Slash".
"Fireball!"
While thinking, Miss Lathers also raised her right hand, and as the red copper ring glowed, a fireball about the size of a puppet's head flew out. The silk thread above the knight puppet trembled, and the silver shield in her left hand swung out again, and the fireball was immediately counterattacked back.
Fortunately, the two were well prepared this time, and the fireball only hit the wall, penetrated the wall, and flew out of the castle model until it hit the wall of the box, making a slight sound and emitting a ball of sparks before disappearing.
The sound was not loud, and could even be said to be completely drowned out by the hoarse singing of the bass in the opera house. The opera outside was playing at the scene where the male protagonist was rejected in love and was alone by the river, feeling sad.
"Meow?"
But next to the box where Shad was "adventuring", the cat, who was taking a nap alone on the sofa, twitched its little ears a few times, obviously hearing the abnormal sound.
The cat was very alert, so he lazily stood up and looked at the wall that made the noise. He shook his tail with the Huasheng ring on it, jumped from the sofa to the back of the sofa, looked around, but didn't see Xia De.
"Meow~"
The cat stretched itself with its butt sticking out and its mouth wide open. It jumped onto the soft carpet and came to the closed door. It pushed its head twice and confirmed that it could not open the door, so it turned around, adjusted its position, and rushed towards the door.
The claws grabbed the door panel nimbly, and after just two leaps up, the nimble orange cat had already grabbed the metal door handle with its claws.
But unfortunately, the cat was not heavy enough to pull the door handle down, so it squirmed a few times, and as the door handle was pulled down, the door creaked open.
Mia swung a few times before jumping onto the floor again. She poked her little head out of the crack in the door and looked around. Then, her pink nose twitched a few times, catching Shade's scent. Then, half of the cat's body squeezed out of the narrow crack in the door like a stream of water, looking at the half-open door next door.
The cat smelled Shad and was worried about Shad, so he trotted over.
clang!
The Moonlight Greatsword and the Knight's Silver Sword collided with each other, and tiny pieces of silver light flew everywhere. Even though Shad's strength increased with the ruby, he still couldn't gain the upper hand in the fight with the "Royal Knight" puppet.
Since the spell would be rebounded, Shade asked for the ruby and engaged in close combat with the Royal Knight. The Royal Knight held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, and his attack and defense were so flexible that he didn't look like a puppet. Even his strength was similar to that of Shade, who was wearing the "Forest Giant Ruby".
But fortunately, it is just one person after all, and using the combination of sword and shield to fight Shad means that it cannot defend against Miss Lathers' fireballs.
Therefore, when Shade's Sin Chains finally succeeded in binding the Royal Knight's right foot, slowing down its movements and forcing it to use sword and shield to defend against Shade's four moonlight greatswords at the same time, Miss Lathers' fireball hit its back head-on.
The Royal Knight's body's defense was not outstanding. Although it was not damaged after being hit by a fireball, its body movements became more inflexible.
“Good opportunity!”
In his left hand, Shade stabbed at the gap between the knight's sword and shield with the yellow "Moonlight Greatsword", and in his right hand, he held the knight's shield with the silver "Moonlight Greatsword", not giving it a chance to fight back. Miss Lathers endured the weakness caused by the huge consumption of mental power and used fireballs to sneak attack the knight from behind. After five consecutive fireballs hit the target, the "Royal Knight" finally knocked Shade away and turned around to charge at Miss Lathers with the shield.
This was not a simple charge. At that moment, Miss Lathers actually felt that she was trapped in place and unable to move, but the shield knight had almost turned into a silver chariot and rushed over.
"Mr. Hamilton!"
"don’t worry!"
The figure of the Shade puppet used "Ragray's Leap" again and appeared between Miss Lathers and the Royal Knight. At this moment, he also felt that his body seemed unable to move, but he did not need to move:
"Hedon Seal!"
A golden shield emerged from his body, blocking the charging knight. The light from the exploding shield also caused the knight to fall to the ground. With such cooperation, Shade finally threw out the chain to wrap around the knight's sword, and after taking away the sword, the royal knight finally stopped moving.
"Are you okay?"
Miss Lathers hurriedly supported Shad. Although the Heaton Seal was cast successfully, the shield was actually shattered. Shad suffered the backlash and was a little unsteady on his feet, but the situation was not very serious.
"It's fine for now."
As they were talking, with a loud "boom", the wall on the east side of the battle space appeared as if it had been hit by a sledgehammer, revealing a cracked hole. After the wall collapsed, a shortcut leading to the top floor stairs was revealed, so they no longer had to go back along the secret passage:
"That's convenient..."
"You don't look like you're okay."
Miss Lathers asked worriedly. There were now three obvious crack marks on Shade's puppet body. Those marks were caused by the silver sword in his hand at this time. However, compared with the previous two props, this sword was mediocre and had no other effect except being sharper.