"Besides the core, do other things in the circus that have been 'infected' need to be dealt with?"
Shade asked again, and Tifa thought about it:
"If they don't move, we don't have to pay attention to them. Let's go find the fortune teller. The young lady asked us to focus on this matter. I wonder if she foresaw that the core of the circus's advent could have a huge impact on what happens next. After all, she is a fortune teller, so she might know something."
Shad suspected that the great witch of time had foreseen the return of Rusty Edwards.
The tiger's body was set on fire on the spot. After it was completely burned, the maids returned to the circus camp with Shad.
After a short absence from the camp, I came back and found that not much had changed. The only thing worth noting was that the magician who had just been practicing throwing darts on the low wooden stage now had his head turned 180 degrees to face behind him, so he was practicing throwing darts in a difficult posture with his back to the target.
As for the target that was originally hanging, it has now turned into a living person with fifteen steel nails nailed to his body and limbs. Judging from his appearance, he seems to be the original magician's apprentice.
The boy, who looked no more than 17 or 18 years old, stood on his left foot with his right foot raised, with a red apple on his right foot, two hands and head. His eyelids were propped up by matchsticks and he couldn't close them. His mouth was sewn shut with a thread and he couldn't speak. At this moment, he could only look at the magician with his head tilted back in horror. Several throwing knives had been stuck into the boy's body, but they just avoided the vital parts.
It was Thursday morning, and the weather outside the city was very good. All this happened under the bright sun, but except for Shade and the girls behind him, the other people in the camp seemed to be completely unaware of the scene in front of them. Even with the slight sunlight, it still made people feel a chill down their spines.
The strange magician didn't provoke the group, but Shad still stopped. He looked at Tifa, and the black-haired girl's big eyes also looked at him:
"You decide..."
She lowered her voice slightly:
"Owner."
The girls behind Tifa all laughed again, and "she" smiled softly in Shad's ear, and Shad felt his ears turn red. However, he did not walk over immediately, but asked Rust who was floating on the side:
"Should we save him?"
The little girl blinked at him and thought for a moment:
"Save him! Save him!"
"Why?"
"Because Giles will compliment me!"
It seems that in addition to the living members of the Edwards family, there are also people among the dead Edwards who stand on Shad's side.
Xia De told the maids not to do anything, and he walked to the platform and jumped on it. The wooden stage seemed to be two different worlds above and below. After stepping onto the stage, it was as if the whole world was covered with a gray filter, and the coldness immediately rushed from the soles of the feet to the chest. But Xia De also felt that ordinary people would not be able to detect what happened on the stage unless it made too much noise, but because of this, he could not let go of his hands and feet like he did when fighting with the tiger just now.
The magician who was about to throw the knife did not move his body at this moment, but turned his head 180 degrees back to the original position and looked at Shade. His face was bleeding from all seven orifices, and the malice generated by his gaze at that moment even made Shade feel the pain of the knife tip piercing his skin.
The magician asked in a hoarse voice:
"Do you want to give it a try, too?"
"What rules?"
Shade asked calmly.
"The target is an apple. If you hit the target all three times, you win. If you lose, you will stay with me as an apprentice or a target."
The magician answered, and Shad nodded and took a step forward, and the wooden stage made a loud creaking sound.
Suddenly, the magician threw a flying knife towards Xia De's forehead, but Xia De caught it easily. He held the heavy flying knife in his hand and looked at the young man twenty steps away. On the latter's face, there was a complex expression of fear, pleading and despair mixed together.
Although the apple was not big, if the distance was just this far, even if it was twice as far, Xia De would not have missed the target.
"Apprentice or target..."
Taking a look at the magician's head that had temporarily returned to normal, Shad realized that this place, like the fishbone pirate ship he and Leicia had encountered before, had a tendency to assimilate normal people as part of itself.
"Okay. But if I win, I want this."
He pointed at the young man who was the target. The magician thought for a few seconds and nodded:
"Can."
He turned his head 180 degrees again, and turned his head backwards again. Then he walked away from the red line on the stage and gave his place to Shade.
As Shade walked over, he pinched the tip of the knife with his hand and made a throwing motion, but then stopped:
"Can I not use the throwing knife?"
His eyes were full of meaning. Tifa, who was watching from the audience, smiled. She knew what Shade was going to do. The ordinary people in the camp were also attracted at this time. Of course, they couldn't see the actual situation. They just thought that the young people from outside wanted to challenge the circus magician. People started to make a noise, not knowing that the target was a living person.
"Throwing knives is too easy. I prefer something more challenging. How about throwing cards?"
The look of fear on the face of the young man on the target faded a little. If it was a card, at least he wouldn't be hurt. The idle people watching from the audience cheered loudly, happy to be able to see such an interesting thing without spending any money.
He turned his head towards the magician behind him and nodded again.
Xia De smiled, took out his deck, flipped the first card and threw it casually, the card flew out in the air parallel to the ground. But immediately another silver light appeared, and the magician threw a flying knife at Xia De's card.
"I see."
The flying knife was extremely fast. It flew smoothly over the cards thrown by Shade and then broke into two pieces. Then it fell to the bottom of the stage with a clang and even hit the crowd watching the excitement, but people didn't pay any attention.
The cards pierced the apple in the target's right hand, and Shad's first card hit the target. People cheered loudly - including Miss Rusty Edwards, who praised it as more fun than throwing knives.
Xia De didn't say anything, and the second card flew out of his hand. Almost at the same time, the second flying knife flew sideways -
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
This time the flying knife was completely different from the last time. It even created sparks after hitting the rotating cards, which caused another round of cheers and applause from the crowd.
Xia De was very curious about what these ordinary people saw.
Shade, who controlled the Dark Originator, felt a strong force and tried to deflect the flying direction of the cards. However, these cards were as easy to control as his hands and feet. In the end, the cards that kept clanging against the flying knives finally hit the apple in the boy's left hand, and the flying knives that were knocked away pierced the target boy's right arm, becoming another "decoration" on his body.
"good!"
“It’s wonderful!”
“Again!”
"The circus should use cards next time!"
“Give me back!”
"not enough!"
Amid the chaos of people's booing, Shade held the third card and glanced to the side:
"Um?"
The magician with his head tilted back had already raised his arms, holding eight shining throwing knives between his fingers, ready to throw. He was also looking at Shade, obviously waiting for Shade to make the first move.
Even though Xia De knew that he was cheating, he couldn't help but be shocked at this moment:
"Even if you want to play tricks, at least cover it up."
As he spoke, the third card in his hand flew out. In an instant, eight flying knives flew from the side, turning into silver rays and colliding with the cards. Xia De, who had just made the cards fly smoothly as if they were really thrown, finally manipulated the cards to draw a complex "8" shape in the air.
The cards flew in front, and the eight flying knives quickly caught up from behind. They blocked the cards' path with their numerical advantage, and the cards flew higher, colliding with the flying knives above their heads.
For a moment, amid the cheers and applause of the people, the cards and flying knives above the stage jingled together, the girl's soul clapped excitedly, she looked very happy, Tifa and the other two maids had smiles on their faces, even the boy who became the target couldn't help but stare at this astonishing scene with wide eyes... ... although he had no choice but to look.
The flying knives kept colliding with the cards, and the cards with the property of not being damaged were slightly better in the end, and it was obvious that Shade had better card control ability. After a five-minute confrontation, the cards found the right time and stabbed the red apple on the target boy's head from the eight flying knives. As the Genesis Knowledge continued to buzz, it also meant that Shade's three throws all hit the target.
"good!"
There was another round of applause and cheers from the audience. People who saw the wonderful performance praised the strange young man loudly, and some even threw coins onto the stage. In order to verify whether the people in the audience really could automatically filter out any unreasonable things, Xia De even used a spell to pull the coins into his pocket. Sure enough, no one was puzzled by this.
"I won."
Shade said to the magician, and waved his hand, and the three cards flew back into his hand. Then, he pointed at the target boy who looked relieved:
"According to the agreement, he belongs to me!"
The magician, whose head was facing behind him and bleeding from all his orifices, nodded, left the stage, and sat down on a bench in the sunlight at the side of the stage. He lowered his head and stopped moving, looking like he had been hit.
Shad breathed a sigh of relief. He first asked the crowd to disperse and told everyone that he would not stay in the circus. Then, when he was about to help the boy who was still nailed there to heal his wounds, he suddenly saw that three of the four apples that had just been penetrated by the cards had rotted and turned black, and the last intact apple turned into a dazzling golden color and rolled to his feet.