Chapter 185

Chapter 185

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“Damn it!”

Jeremy quickly grabbed the nearest teacup he could reach, then slammed it onto the table. He knew there was little time to waste as he had just seen a Castro bravely charge head-on toward the enemy only to have his abdomen punctured mercilessly.

The Black Master threw one of the broken shards from the tabletop like a dagger and hit the nearest would-be assailant in the dead center of its eye. To his dismay, it continued to move despite the shard protruding from its eye socket. It was clear that it hadn’t even noticed the attack had left it half blind.

“What the hell is that thing?!”

“Did you just see that?! They aren’t actually holding any weapons!”

Indeed, their attackers were not carrying any weapons as it was their very limbs that had been forged from scraps of metal. Without any proper weapons or shields to defend themselves, those within the garden were left defenseless against the approaching horde.

“Just who the hell are you people?! How dare you intrude upon this place of peace!”

A few clan members who had yet to fully grasp the severity of the situation barked at the creeping, creaking figures. Even so, their faces grew paler with each shout. It was almost immediately obvious that the individuals would not offer any sort of response. There wasn’t any time to ponder what had led to their current predicament as the creatures had successfully flooded in through the canopy entrance and commenced their assault.

“Aaah!”

Bam!

One nameless clan member lifted a chair high into the air, then smashed it over one of the attackers’ heads. The puppet, however, merely tilted its head in a sort of mock confusion after sensing the impact of the lawn furniture colliding with its skull. It then proceeded to swing its blade-like arm about viciously.

Blood splattered all over the grass at its feet accompanied by brief shrieks of agony.

“What in the goddamn world is going on?!” Jeremy spat curses left and right as he threw the table nearest him between himself and even more of the creatures.

Slash!

Boom!

It too was almost instantly sliced in two before landing loudly on the grass. Just as he turned his head, the young clan leader felt a prick on his cheek. He then withdrew the sharpened candlestick he had prepared the very moment he reached his assigned quarters at the castle. Meanwhile, his siblings also proceeded to take out their own hidden weapons from inside their sleeves and under their gowns.

“When the hell did those bastards hide all that stuff?!”

Despite having just done the exact same thing, he ground his teeth due to their blatant disregard of his orders. Not only that, members from the other clans were present and had a clear view of the Black clan disobeying a major tenet of the neutral territory. Nevertheless, it was not the time to concern himself with such trivial matters.

Everyone was too busy trying to stay alive to notice them. If anything, they were likely to believe the Agrece children had just been faster to retrieve the silverware left on each of the tables.

To hell with it then!

“You there! Duck!” Jeremy kicked the leg of a Fipellion who was standing frozen in place next to him.

In the blink of an eye, a blood-drenched blade slashed the air just above where the man’s body had just fallen over.

Shnk!

The young clan leader then sank his fingers deep into his target’s eyes. His plan was to crush its skull from the inside, but the sensation on his fingertips was nothing like he had ever felt within one of his victims’ skulls before. His face contorted as he withdrew his hand from the creature’s cranium.

Fwoosh!

He swiftly dodged the metallic limb of the puppet beneath him that was intended to pierce through his jaw, then twisted his own body to pin his enemy to the ground.

Crack!

He exerted just enough force to completely rip the doll’s lethal arm off. For good measure, he proceeded to do the same to the remaining limb as well. In a matter of seconds, the puppet’s greatest advantage became decent weapons in Jeremy’s possession.

“Here, take this!”

He threw one of the limbs to the nearest of his half-siblings while a fear-stricken member from another clan gagged repeatedly at the sight. It took less than a minute for the other Black clan members to follow in their young leader’s footsteps to literally disarm their enemies.

Many of the siblings had already been outperforming the warriors from the other clans thanks to the weapons and other useful belongings they had smuggled into the castle. Charlotte in particular seemed especially ecstatic as she flung the whip she had hidden beneath the waist ribbon of her gown to and fro. As her red curls swung about, she could have been mistaken for a mermaid playing in the sea rather than a teen girl battling against a nearly invincible opponent.

Jeremy had moved on to crushing the skull of the puppet he had stripped of its limbs under his boots and cursing vehemently to himself all the while. After everything he had done to reshape the Agrece clan’s image, all his efforts had turned to dust in a matter of minutes. But seeing as the assorted clan members were facing the same deadly predicament, there was no avoiding it. Then without warning, something grabbed one of his ankles.

“What th—?!”

Creeeak.

Astoundingly, the now armless doll had begun to slowly rise from the ground despite its smashed skull.

“Damn it! What the actual hell are these things?!”

He sliced its head off entirely, but it continued to drag its feet toward him as if it hadn’t even registered its decapitation. He couldn’t help shuddering at the sight before kicking the accursed creature’s chest in. The blood had drained from every single face that had just borne witness to the horrific exchange. Even so, his situation was no better than anyone else’s in the garden.

“Damn it! These must be Vertium puppets!” Hiakin Fipellion was in the middle of his own fight against one of the warrior puppets, but his voice reached Jeremy’s ears.

Jeremy spat out blood that had splashed into his mouth. He was certain that whatever he had felt when he sank his fingers into that first doll’s eyes was nothing like the innards of a human. On top of that, he was becoming painfully aware that the damned things were potentially immune to pain entirely.

Although the toys he and his family would craft back at the Black mansion also exhibited a similar sort of imperviousness, it was merely the result of their masters keeping them drugged around the clock. It was painfully clear that the current situation was nothing like that. It was another question entirely if such things were even capable of being affected by drugs.

Well, that much is obvious. I mean, seriously! Who the hell ever heard of a creature that could still move after having its head sliced off?!

Pow!

Boom!

Snap!

By then, he had completely disregarded how the other clans might be perceiving him and ferociously attacked yet another approaching puppet. He assailed it with such violent fury that those who did see him would have likely assumed he was trying to rip it to tiny pieces.

Surely these damn puppets won’t bother trying to shed any more blood if I tear their flesh from their bones.

However, the creatures further proved that they were the furthest things from humans as they simply refused to fall. Before long, it became apparent that there was little use in continuing that line of attack. His sister’s butterfly had remained perched on him all that while and began to give him a new signal.

“You lot deal with the rest!”

He yelled to his half-siblings to take over as it was becoming clear that he couldn’t afford to waste any more time there. As cruel as his order may have sounded to the other clan members, the Agreces had been raised on the principle that they were each responsible for their own survival. He didn’t even bother to wait for a response as he refocused all of his remaining energy on escaping the garden.

With Jeremy gone, the best fighters left were his siblings.

“Leave their torsos! Just destroy everything else!”

The half-siblings had already determined that it was best to completely nullify the puppets’ offensive abilities and thus proceeded to sever all their limbs through swift and meticulous attacks. Even their sister, who had been whimpering about the ankle she had supposedly sprained during the earlier shouting match with the irate Fipellion, was now busy rampaging all over the garden.

Those without any fighting abilities and had hidden themselves away as soon as the intruders arrived, as well as those who were too injured to fight any longer, stared in blank awe as they watched the Black clan members at work. They failed to notice that some of the Agrece siblings had cast passing glances at them as though they were eyeing potential prey.

We should be throwing those sniveling idiots at these damned things to serve as bait. Or at the very least, use them as meat shields! However, the young fighters suppressed their dark impulses as they grabbed bystander after bystander and threw them behind the defensive line they had created rather than forward into the bloody battle.

“You useless maggots should just stay back and out of our way!”

Even if they were prepared to destroy all proof of their wrongdoing by killing every last one of the people in the garden, the Agreces knew the aftermath of the battle would be much more complicated to deal with if they were the only ones who came away unharmed later.

Thus, it was only natural that all those who had taken refuge behind them viewed the Black clan members as the least expected of saviors. Of course, they would never know that those same fighters were scoffing inwardly as they regarded each of the people they were reluctantly protecting as a pesky pebble they had to kick out of their way.

All the while, Hiakin Fipellion was confronting his own internal conflict. Those who had lost their will to fight even after receiving minor injuries were no match for the seemingly invincible puppets. As he battled with his indecision, more and more continued to fall around him like toppling bricks. With the cries of his own people ringing in his ears, it was apparent that he no longer had any other choice but to act.

“All of you, stand back!” He braced himself as he prepared to break the sacred secret passed down to every White Master and their heir since the founding of their clan.

Shatter!

A colossal demon monster with a blue mane crash-landed into the garden and began attacking the rampaging dolls as if following secret orders.