bookbashuk Page 108
Page 108
Lydia stopped talking abruptly, then casually lowered her head, picked up her knife and fork, cut off a scone, and put it in her mouth.
Seeing her reaction, Orange felt a little strange, then realized what was going on, and looked at Lydia with a wry smile, saying, "Hey, hey, hey, this is an airplane, you didn't bring your own tea leaves, did you? And these tea leaves were given to you by Pearl?"
"Shut up, shut up..." Lydia, her pink lips parted slightly after being exposed, and said weakly.
Seeing her blushing face, Orange began to doubt whether the person in front of her was really the Lydia she knew.
After all, Lydia was known in the magic world for being arrogant, willful, capricious, and even reckless. There wasn't much information about this in Lingjun's manuscripts, and Youzhu hadn't told Chengzi about her friend in detail.
So when Orange discovered this previously unknown side of the other person, she found it very refreshing.
Although she really wanted to take the opportunity to go deeper, just then, a subtle magical fluctuation made Orange stop her plan.
She glanced at Lydia, who was still nonchalantly eating her scones, and then chose the most convenient cookie from the cheesecake, butter cookies, and Portuguese egg tarts on the shelf.
Orange wasn't sure if Lydia had noticed the magical fluctuations, but she figured Lydia knew, and her lack of action meant she wouldn't interfere.
This was exactly what Orange wanted; if Lydia acted carelessly, all her arrangements would be in vain.
Orange didn't plan to make any moves before the enemy broke into the luxury cabin, leaving everything to the bodyguards she had hired at great expense.
After all, she had spent a considerable amount of money to invite the other party, both in terms of money and other information.
Just ten minutes ago, in economy class, several men in various seats seemed to have received some kind of instruction and left their seats, ignoring the flight attendants' words.
"I'm sorry, this plane is currently under our control." The leader was a well-dressed blond man. After he finished speaking, the flight attendant who had stood in front of him to stop him suddenly lost her eyes and collapsed to the ground as if she had lost consciousness.
At the same time, five more people left their seats. Four of them stood in the four corners of the cabin, while the remaining person stood guard behind this person like a bodyguard.
Strangely, the person speaking stiffened slightly when the bodyguard-like man walked to their side.
The man who walked to the four corners of the cabin took out a small bottle from his pocket, opened it, and applied a layer of ointment with a pungent smell directly to the four corners of the cabin.
That was a magical potion made from the sword of the Goddess of War, Bellona.
The core ingredient is belladonna, the herb of the Goddess of War, mixed with mature datura, along with a series of hallucinogenic drugs such as physostigmine and tetrahydrocannabinol, and finally manufactured using a magical ritual.
The effect is to transform ordinary people with no magical resistance into warriors who break through physical limitations in a short period of time, obeying the orders of those wearing special spices.
The reason for using such complicated tools to manipulate ordinary people is to identify who the magicians are here.
However, as the odor spread, none of the passengers on the crew exhibited the normal reactions one would expect.
Normally, when ordinary people smell this odor, their eyes would roll back, their bodies would convulse, and they would gasp for breath. But now, most of the crew members sat quietly in their seats like puppets, with only a few people looking around with strange eyes.
Undeterred, the man took out another bottle of the same ointment, applied it to the nose of the flight attendant lying in front of him, but she did not react at all.
"What's going on?!" The leading man was stunned for a moment, then looked at the bodyguard beside him in a panic.
The bodyguard looked around, puzzled. Before he could even speak, the flight attendant, who had been motionless, began to creak and groan as her limbs twisted in a way that defied biological logic, and she finally stood up.
"Giggle giggle"
The flight attendant's skin began to peel off, her head and neck formed a strange angle, her eyes darted around, and finally she stared at the man in front of her.
"Damn it! It's a doll!"
Chapter 246 The Puppet Master (Part 2)
"Damn it! It's a doll!"
Upon seeing the woman who had suddenly transformed, the man felt a chill run down his spine and shouted.
At the man's shout, his accomplices panicked slightly. According to the original plan, most of the passengers in the cabin should have become combat puppets under their control. However, reality had slapped them in the face. Judging from the current situation, their previous plan was a joke.
Even the leader was already wondering if their target was just laughing and enjoying their humiliation, waiting for their deaths.
"Calm down!" The bodyguard standing behind the man pressed down on the retreating leader and shouted sternly, "What about the noble honor of you Ferro!"
Hearing the bodyguard's words, the leading man from the Ferro family forced himself to calm down. Yes, he carried the honor of the Ferro family on his shoulders, and this mission was to make Aozaki Touko pay the price for what she had done before.
As a member of the Italian Mafia, whose family has long controlled the Italian underworld, he now has no way out.
His family has only existed for a century, making them virtually unknown in the Clock Tower, which prides itself on its noble lineage. However, thanks to their legendary ancestor, they enjoy an unimaginably high status in the underworld. It is precisely for this reason that they, being from the underworld, endlessly crave recognition and greater power.
His ancestor, Vito Cascio Fello, was the founder of the Sicilian Mafia. Throughout the late 19th century, Sicily revered him as a god, and wherever he went, the streets were packed with people who treated him with utmost respect. He was respectfully called "Don".
The world of filmmakers even made a legendary movie about their family history, which is "The Godfather".
Controlling the entire Italian underworld, the Mafia began to encroach on the surface world. Then, one day, vampires, who originally only existed in fairy tales, attacked them. When they were helpless against these monsters that could not be killed even with guns, the Church of Saints and the magician Powder appeared.
A dreamlike battle made the Firro family realize that this was just the tip of the iceberg of the world, opening a door to a more mysterious world than the underground world they controlled—the truth known as the Underworld.
Vampires, magicians, magic, sorcery, the real church, the true rulers of all of Europe—everything left them bewildered.
Cautiously venturing into unfamiliar knowledge, the ancestors, realizing their own shallowness and ignorance, resolutely plunged into this so-called "mysterious" inner world.
In the Mafia textbook, Vito Cascio Fello is a great, immortal, and daring founder and godfather of the modern mafia.
As the son of a farmer in Palermo, he was undoubtedly a typical "phoenix that rose from the ashes." Although he could not recognize many characters, his tall stature, elegant and sophisticated clothing, and humble and steady demeanor gave him an extraordinary air of authority. Coupled with his long white beard, Vito looked just like a prophet.
Even after learning of the existence of the underworld, during the last period of his life spent in prison, he still led his family into that mysterious world. It was because of his unique foresight that the Ferro family became the true underground emperors of Italy.
Using money as a stepping stone and power as bait, the ancestor quickly won over a group of less successful magicians. After all, magicians are human too, and studying magic requires many things, not just money.
As members of the Mafia, they can easily obtain "things" that are not money, and their familiarity with the dark side of human nature allows them to thrive in the magic world.
However, having only recently entered the world of magic and focusing primarily on Europe, they initially had no idea just how terrifying Aozaki Touko from the Far East truly was. After all, figuring out the vast and intricate relationships among the magic nobles of Europe had already completely consumed the Ferro family's energy.
It all started with a small underground auction. At the time, Aozaki Touko was a newcomer with no reputation whatsoever, or rather, although they had heard of her name, they had never seen her in person.
And then, misfortune began.
The dispute was over a page of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscript from the late 15th century, during the Renaissance period.
Although the auctioneer did not specify what was written on it, one of the absorbed magicians from the Ferro family said that this item was not to be missed.
In the end, however, they missed out on the manuscript because the family had diverted some funds to deal with the matter, resulting in a failed bid. But at the time, he didn't think it mattered, because as a mafia member and magician, he had plenty of ways to get things done.
The situation unfolded through a classic case of intimidation and kidnapping. As a European, he naturally looked down on Easterners, since modern history was written with Europe at its center. He considered himself a superior European by nature. When he saw that the person who bought the manuscript was an Easterner, he didn't even bother to investigate before sending his men to politely "invite" the person back.
In his eyes, it was an ordinary matter, and he expected things to get a satisfactory answer as usual.
Little did they expect that this would be the beginning of a nightmare.
Aozaki Touko, who had just turned sixteen, was "invited" to an abandoned warehouse. There, she faced more than a dozen armed men and, without saying a word, took them all down in an incomprehensible way.
Having extracted the information she wanted from these peripheral members, she went straight to him without hesitation and instantly killed the two magicians protecting him right in front of him.
He still remembered the incredibly cold gaze of Aozaki Touko with her glasses on, the snow-white wall behind her that had been repainted with blood, and the magician with only two legs beside him.
There were no grand magic tricks, no loud sounds; everything happened silently, and even he himself was unaware of what was happening for a moment before the result was revealed.
His last memory of that day was Aozaki Touko's words, "It seems the effect is still a bit lacking. I guess I still need to practice my skills. Hmm, in that case, I'll try again next time."
After leaving behind this ambiguous remark, Aozaki Touko turned and left.
He couldn't understand what the other person wanted to do at the time, but he soon found out that every now and then, Aozaki Touko would suddenly appear in front of him and kill the magician next to him without saying a word.
Yes, it was as cruel as a cat playing with a mouse, each time only killing the magician next to him and leaving him alive.
After the third time, the family finally lost their patience and ambushed Aozaki Touko. The ambush was successful; they killed Aozaki Touko with pistols and bombs—at least that's how it seemed at the time.
At the celebration banquet the next day, just as the Ferro family gathered together, Aozaki Touko reappeared in the banquet hall.
This time, everyone in the entire Ferlow family except for themselves disappeared, leaving only the ceiling painted with red "paint".
"Hmm, this time it's perfect. We can move on to the next project." That night, Aozaki Touko took off her glasses, a gentle smile on her face, looked at the bright red ceiling, and said something he still couldn't understand.
The day after the Ferro family was wiped out, a high-ranking magic nobleman who was very interested in them took him in and even transplanted the magic crest that his family had always wanted onto him.
The other party didn't ask him to do anything, but only instructed him to manage the soon-to-be-destroyed Fello family well. It was only then that he learned who Aozaki Touko really was.
You could say he was a stone pushed out to be tested, and the magic mark he received was compensation for that test.
He knew this was not out of pity, but out of aristocratic principles, a reward from superiors to those who had rendered meritorious service. It was only then that he truly realized what the world of magic was all about. The family's operating principles, which his ancestors had initially established, were perhaps more cruel and bloody than his ancestors had imagined.
As a subordinate, he could only silently lick his wounds in a corner, develop his strength, and hope that one day he could take revenge on an entity that he himself did not know which one to take revenge on.
A year after that nightmare, he received orders from his superiors to take revenge on Aozaki Touko once again. Regardless of whether he succeeded or not, he would be given a magic lesson to pass on as a legacy.
This was a deal he couldn't refuse. For him, Meyer Firlow, the wish etched in his bloodline had become an inescapable curse the day his ancestor Vito Cascio Firlow decided to make his family a sorcerer's family.
On this day, on this plane, he once again acted as a pawn, sent to test the anomaly named Aozaki Touko.
After taking a few deep breaths, Meyer Firlow looked at the puppet in front of him that hadn't moved an inch and was just swaying its body in place, and managed to calm down.
He really wanted to pull out his gun and smash the strange puppet in front of him, but ever since he entered the world of magic, his family's atmosphere had become very strange. On the one hand, they tried their best to get closer to this mysterious world, so they became just like magicians and despised firearms.
On the other hand, as members of the mafia, they cannot possibly abandon firearms. Because of this, they can only use firearms and ammunition in the normal world, which is unrelated to magic. This awkward way of life makes them oscillate between normal and abnormal.
"What are you waiting for? Let's continue." The bodyguard behind him urged again. In fact, this ordinary-looking man was sent by the demonic nobleman. He was called a bodyguard, but in reality, he was the supervisor of the plan.
The original plan was to use the crowd to storm the luxury cabin, using the lives of ordinary people as a test, but now that step of the plan is impossible, so the second plan has to be carried out.
The purpose of the first part of the plan was to confirm whether Aozaki Touko was really on this plane. After all, they had clearly killed Aozaki Touko during the previous ambush and had seen her body with their own eyes, but she reappeared unharmed afterwards.
This kind of anomaly only occurs in the world of magic, so this time he will kill his opponent through magic.
The other magicians in the cabin remained silent. Apart from Meyer Firlow, who had already surfaced, none of them were sure if everyone inside was an enemy of Aozaki Touko, so for the time being, they chose to wait and see.
"Use the cursed doll!" Myle Fello shouted, and the four men standing at the four corners of the cabin simultaneously pulled out an exquisitely crafted doll and a piece of cloth with a strange smell from their pockets.
Because Ferro had no magical background, all the spells he collected were common ones, such as the most famous Voudou spell they were preparing now.
The so-called Voudou spell involves creating a doll that resembles the enemy, then destroying or torturing the doll to inflict the same damage on the enemy's real body. This kind of magic is actually very common in Tibetan culture. It usually requires attaching the enemy's hair or clothing to the doll, and these were precisely the items that Meyer Firlow had collected at the time.
Although the body that was suspected to be Aozaki Touko mysteriously disappeared later, the pieces of clothing and hair that had fallen were still collected. In order to make the spell more powerful and achieve the purpose of killing, those folded pieces of cloth were very important props.
As the four magicians unfolded the white paper in their hands, a man with long reddish-brown hair and a villainous appearance, sitting in the back of the cabin, pushed up his sunglasses and said in a tone that was hard to tell whether it was an exclamation or contempt, "Voudou magic, ah, that cloth is a genuine high-quality product. How wonderful it would be if it were given to me, a real necromancer."
Then, ignoring everyone's strange looks, he stared at the paper and laughed, "Draw a red crescent-shaped magic pattern on a consumptive ghost's shroud, write that person's name and family tree, use the blood of a dark-skinned little girl as ink, and brandish a dagger made of the consumptive ghost's bones in your hand, stab it into that person's doll, severely injure her, and kill her! Haha! What a convenient and simple magic trick!"
"I didn't expect to see you here. Who paid you a high price to kill Aozaki Touko?" The bodyguard behind Meyer Firlow—or now we should call him the project supervisor—asked the man who called himself "the real necromancer" in a strange tone.
"Haha, how could I possibly tell you my employer's information? But don't worry, I won't interfere until your operation fails. After all, my employer made that clear beforehand." The man, who looked like a thug, straightened his black jacket, stroked his stubble, and looked at the magician who was already casting a spell.
He didn't mention which side he was on; the only one present who knew was the Asian-looking man sitting near the front of the cabin.
The man grasped the hand of the woman sitting next to him and said, "Don't move, Mami, it's not the right time yet."
Upon hearing the command, the woman with sharp eyes relaxed and withdrew her hand that had been extended to the outside of her thigh.
Chapter 247 Everyone Takes the Stage (Part 1)
Inside the luxury cabin, Orange's mouth never stopped, constantly feeding herself Lydia's afternoon tea.
Seeing that the pastries were almost completely eaten, Lydia, sitting opposite, helplessly waved to the servant beside her, signaling him to go and get some more.
“You really don’t seem worried at all.” Lydia picked up the silver pot, filled her cup with tea, and looked at Orange with an appraising gaze.
"Worry? What's there to worry about?" Orange swallowed the last scone in her mouth and licked her lips without a care for her image.
“I am fully aware of what is happening outside, and in general, everything is under control. I think you and that person over there are also aware of this, right?”
Actually, there were other people in the luxury cabin besides Orange and Lydia. Before they entered, one of the five compartments was already occupied, and the person there made no attempt to hide it. After hearing Orange's words, they turned around and greeted them with a smile.
She was a beautiful woman with chocolate-colored skin and dressed in an Arabian style. In front of her, a crystal ball placed on a cushion was displaying the situation in economy class.
"Which side do you think she's on?" Lydia glanced at the woman and then looked away, while her servant pushed a new food cart over.
"Probably the forensic department," Orange replied in a nonchalant tone. Judging from the fact that the other party was openly monitoring the outside situation with a crystal ball without any attempt at concealment, they were definitely neutral.
"Moreover, this matter should be the final test of my color rank assessment." Orange held a small fork in her hand and drew a circle in the air. "After all, to be granted the title of [Red], this final test procedure is unavoidable."
"Huh, you know about this? Oh, but that makes sense. If your master is that old lady, then this kind of unspoken rule isn't exactly a secret." Lydia was a little surprised at first, then suddenly realized.
There are various testing rules for the granting of color positions. Although the ranks of the Clock Tower are not graded according to the magician's combat power, there are different requirements for the determination of the [color]. For example, the [red] that orange obtained is ultimately evaluated based on combat power.
Thinking about this, Lydia understood that the reason why Aozaki Touko went home so openly this time, without any intention of hiding anything, was probably because she wanted to take this opportunity to finalize the evaluation as well.
After all, compared to the association assigning tasks for testing or conducting surprise inspections, this kind of action, which takes the initiative, is certainly much safer.
It seems the association was just giving Orange's teacher face, and went along with it by making this the final evaluation.
"Lydell, once you get to Japan, what are your plans for the rest of the trip?" Without any hesitation, Orange took a slice of blueberry cake, gently cut it with her fork, and ate the small piece of cake.
Seeing Orange's nonchalant attitude, Lydia felt relieved of her worries. "Of course, we'll stay in the most expensive and best hotel. Oh, and if you're already homeless, I wouldn't mind leaving you a sofa to sleep on."
"Oh dear, I thought we'd stop by Misaki Town on our way to Japan. Turns out you're staying in a hotel?" Upon hearing the words "homeless," Orange's eyes flashed with a strange light. Then, in order to punish this arrogant young lady, she decided to pull out some trump cards.
"Hmph, I already said I'm going to Japan to check on the upcoming concert setup. How could I possibly have time to visit Alice, let alone stay at her place?" Lydel snorted and turned her head away. When Orange mentioned Misaki Town, she thought the other person was going to talk about Kuonji Yuzu, but what Orange said next caught her off guard.
"When did I say you were going to stay at Ayumi's mansion?" Orange revealed a malicious smile. "What I meant was, you're going to Japan and instead of staying at your fiancé's house, you're going to stay at a hotel that countless people have stayed at before. Is that really a good idea?"