Chapter 2689: Puppet Wall

Previously, Xu Huo had searched everywhere, and there was no dedicated garbage disposal site in Circus City. Generally, items in need of repair and broken things would be gathered at a transit station, repaired if possible, and if not, they would end up as spare parts.

Even decorative items were put to use as waste products, focusing on local disposal. However, these human-like dolls emerged from the city center, heading towards what seemed to be the outskirts of the city.

Avoiding those living props as much as possible, Xu Huo followed for a while longer, but after a gigantic living prop clad in colorful clothes swept past, those battle dolls alongside the "celebration supplies" disappeared without a trace.

He didn’t linger long at the spot, as that colorful living prop set its sights on him. As it spread its arms, the air was filled with ribbons of various colors, hanging densely in the air, ready to entangle any moving object that touched them and drag it up into the sky.

At the end of these ribbons was a black hole, where anything drawn in would immediately disappear, as if it was a bottomless pit.

The nearby puppet people seemed accustomed to it. As the ribbons dangled down for only a short while, everyone stood still, neither moving nor speaking, making the moving Xu Huo remarkably conspicuous as bunches of ribbons came flying towards him, forming a vast barrier like worms blocking his path.

Black Blade’s attack range was limited, utterly insignificant under the rain of ribbons, and soon, he was completely wrapped up along with his Defensive Barrier.

Feeling his body rising, Xu Huo gauged the distance well and, taking advantage of the moment when the ribbons were less focused on him, swiftly made cuts above and below, throwing up the Space Bombs he had prepared!

The explosion blasted apart the tightly bound spherical cluster of ribbons, and as he fell along the shockwave, Xu Huo saw the black hole in the sky rapidly shrink and then abruptly vanish.

The nearby ribbons lost some vitality with the explosion, enabling Xu Huo to take the opportunity to make a quick transfer through the Mental Portal. Similarly, this living prop did not restrict the venue, allowing him to escape easily.

"Clang!" came the sound of something being tripped over not far away. It sounded a bit like a metallic object, and he paused his steps, turning around to head towards the source of the sound.

A Mental Portal suddenly appeared inside the mechanical workshop, remaining motionless for three seconds before it opened, and Xu Huo emerged, quickly surveying the surrounding area—those battle dolls were already gone, with only a few boxes of "celebration supplies" arranged behind the workshop door.

There were quite a few boxes like that.

After making some precautions, he pried one open, and with a burst of ash-like dust emerging, Xu Huo stepped back, waiting before approaching again to check.

The box contained some dolls.

More accurately, they were some damaged dolls, with several missing limbs and many parts deformed; they seemed more like half-finished products. The spray earlier was the material used for the dolls’ skin.

There were still some remnants on the doll’s skeleton; wiping over it, the skin-textured fragments flaked away like dried shell, shattering quickly.

Still human skin.

With a peculiar fascination for making dolls out of living people, seeing human skin on dolls was not surprising. Xu Huo’s attention was on the metal used to make the dolls.

He dismantled a bone and found small crystals mixed within the metal. However, it appeared these weren’t originally in the metal, as the areas with dense crystals showed instability in the metal’s structure, with slight indentations and gaps.

Were these failed doll creations?

Xu Huo picked a few small metallic bones, placing them in his backpack and inner coat pocket respectively.

After checking, he opened a few more boxes, most containing incomplete dolls, but when he opened the seventh box, inside were two corpses.

A male and a female corpse, their faces and bodies were almost indistinguishable from normal humans. Presumably, special materials had been used for preservation, but gaps were present at their joints. Upon dismantling, it was found that their bones had been replaced with metal.

Cutting through the skin and flesh attached to the metal skeleton, Xu Huo discovered these metal bones almost perfectly replicated human bones, even fused with the surrounding network of nerves. However, aside from a few crucial joints, there were no other surgical marks on these bodies.

Pressing on the abdomen of one of the bodies, it was surprisingly soft inside.

This meant that the internal organs were preserved just like the skin.

Standing in front of the box, Xu Huo frowned as he looked at the player’s unique number on the back of the corpse, recorded it with the Communicator, and then quickly checked the other boxes.

More than half of the boxes in this mechanical workshop contained such bodies and deformed metal dolls, while some were dolls contaminated with toxins and pathogens, specifically sealed.

The workshop floor showed signs of frequent movement, indicating this should be Circus City’s real waste disposal site.

The nature of the crystal metal was unclear, but from the physical characteristics of the corpses, it was evident they were from different areas. It was unknown what criteria the Suitcase Man used for selection, and most of the boxes near the door were recent, indicating he never gave up on using living people to create dolls.

The twisted thoughts were always different from ordinary people’s, impossible for normal people to understand. After making records, Xu Huo covered all the boxes back and continued towards the city center.

After the first morning bell rang, Circus City’s night mode ended. Thanks to Yan Jiayu’s shared experience, Xu Huo, having found the Girl in the painting, Dai He, and others, managed to escort them to the agreed location more smoothly. Zhu Bo’s team had become three people.

A group of people, all wearing puppet costumes, stared in astonishment at the massive wall in front of them, at least two hundred meters high.

"Such a high wall, it’s surprising it can’t be seen from other parts of the city!" Dai He was amazed at the wall’s peculiarity, "Does the Super Dungeon significantly differ from other instances even in terms of the venue?"

The Super Dungeon venue is certainly unlike ordinary instances, but this wall should be a Special Item, with a height of two hundred meters; without a proper Hovering Item, players couldn’t get past it. Additionally, from a distance, the wall couldn’t be seen at all, whereas the castle inside was visible. It’s hard not to suspect it’s a trap.

Of course, what’s even more surprising is the Puppet Wall. This wall seems to surround the entire castle, its length impossible to estimate, but the wall comprises of puppets. Various types of puppets were cast together with black material, making the original look almost indiscernible, only their shapes stack together. Limbs are skewed, some extending from the wall, others climbing, appearing as if countless living people were sealed.

There might really be lots of living people inside.

"Those few... puppets, they should be puppets, right? Why place them separately?" Qi Cong asked.

Near the location where Xu Huo and the others stood, there was no door, but opposite the southern wall, thirty meters above the ground, there was a specially smoothed-out area roughly twenty meters long. Five puppets were posted there: one in a skeleton form, two adult males, two children – a boy just over ten years old and a girl five or six years old.

Because they were covered with something, only a rough outline was visible, but being singled out here meant they must hold special significance to the Suitcase Man.

"Perhaps they’re the family of an enemy," Zhu Bo guessed. "With the Suitcase Man’s style, it wouldn’t be surprising if he killed an entire enemy family."