novelraw Chapter 142: Corpse Puppet Army
Chapter 142: Corpse Puppet Army
The savage banging on the door downstairs carried the momentum of a death drum, shattering the tranquility within the third-floor hotel room.
The fanatical roars mixed with German dialects and the thunderous crashes of heavy boots stomping on the wooden staircase announced that the entire town's mad hunt for their three "top-tier sacrifices" had begun its bloody overture.
"Damn it!" Julian's face displayed an expression of irritation and fury.
He pulled the terrified, sobbing disabled boy Hans behind him and drew his heavy black cane in a backhanded motion.
Though not adept at direct combat, the Curator's extensive experience in "academic fieldwork" had honed his street smarts, enough to handle sudden emergencies.
William's response was more direct and deadly, without a trace of panic.
He simply reassembled the Winchester he had just repaired with fluid, practiced motions, chambering a round.
The crisp *click-clack* of the action being worked was oddly reassuring against the backdrop of the increasingly close, chaotic roars.
He walked to the heavy wooden door connecting the room to the corridor and used his iron-tower-like, burly frame to firmly block the entrance.
His eyes held no fear, only the absolute calm and focus of a professional soldier heading to a banquet of blood and fire."Lin Jie," he asked without turning his head, "The plan."
Yes, the plan.
In this isolated hotel surrounded by dozens of fanatical enemies, facing a desperate breakout battle with a staggering enemy-to-friend ratio, what they needed most right now was a plan from their "sharpest mind" to tear through this net of death.
Lin Jie's gaze swept rapidly over the room's layout.
His mind, under pressure, operated at a speed beyond normal, calculating all variables.
The hotel was a three-story wooden structure, flammable but not easily defensible.
Windows could serve as alternative exits.
The enemy was numerous, but their essence was still "ordinary people."
Their weapons were mostly hunting smoothbore guns, woodcutting axes, and hayforks for harvesting crops.
Their combat skill was undoubtedly that of a rabble.
Their greatest advantage was the fanatical, fearless zeal bolstered by their "faith."
Their own advantages lay in superior equipment and combat skills far exceeding the norm.
"William!" Lin Jie's voice was decisive. "Hold this door!"
"Julian!" His gaze turned to the cane-wielding Curator. "Your task is equally important!"
"You need to protect our only 'witness'." He pointed at the boy Hans.
"And I... I need to prepare a little escape route for us."
As he spoke, he rushed to the room's window, yanking down the heavy, dark velvet curtain.
Then, with a few quick motions, he tore the large piece of fabric into several strips of varying lengths.
"BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!!!!!"
At that moment, the sturdy wooden door of their room finally groaned under the repeated impacts of a battering ram wielded by the fanatical townsfolk, emitting the sound of splintering wood.
"Time's up." William raised his Winchester.
A terrifying smile of someone relishing a fight appeared on his face.
"The feast begins."
He kicked the already teetering door from the inside, shattering it into pieces.
Wood splinters and dust erupted in a cloud.
The narrow corridor outside, already packed with dozens of townsfolk holding torches and crude weapons, was instantly exposed to the muzzle of his gun.
Those fanatically screaming townsfolk, upon seeing the iron-blooded, death-emanating giant at the door and the dark, metallic muzzle of his gun, saw their faith-stirred false courage immediately replaced by the immense fear of death itself.
"BOOM!!"
William fired.
......
Just as the narrow third-floor corridor became a living hell of blood, screams, and death, a more bizarre and grander "march" was quietly unfolding at the other end of the town.
In the empty exhibition hall of the Theater Museum, the "Bible story" puppets that had been quietly displayed in glass cases during the day, playing "Jesus" and the "Twelve Apostles," had actually begun to move on their own.
Their movements carried the unsettling, reverse-jointed quality of marionettes, stiff and twisted.
In a horror-movie-like manner, they emerged one by one from the glass cases that had opened from within.
Their glass eyeballs reflected a deathly pale, fish-like glow in the dim light.
With rigid, uniform, and ritualistic steps, they walked out of the museum's wide-open main door.
Then they joined the siege army composed of the fanatical townsfolk.
A "puppet legion" composed of the living and the dead was launching a grand hunt toward the three sacrifices designated by the "Master Craftsman," in an unstoppable manner.
...
Third floor of the hotel.
Like a Spartan king holding the Hot Gates, William used his body and the rifle that claimed a life with every roar to forcibly turn the narrow corridor into a bridge no fanatic could cross.
Spent shell casings piled into a thick layer at his feet, the pungent smell of nitroglycerin smoke enveloping the entire corridor.
But there were simply too many enemies.
William soon found himself embroiled in a terrible war of attrition.
And at that moment, reinforcements arrived.
"Thud... thud... thud..."
Heavy, stiff, rhythmic footsteps came from the direction of the stairs.
A large puppet over seven feet tall, playing the role of "Goliath the Giant," appeared at the end of the corridor.
In its hand, it held a huge, stage-play-style spear made of wood and leather.
Behind it were more of its kind, of various forms but all exuding the same aura of death.
They had arrived.
This elite force composed of the "dead" had reached the battlefield.
William frowned. With the gun in his hand, effective against the living, it was simply impossible to inflict meaningful damage on these pain- and fatigue-ignorant puppets made of corpses.
He also raised Zulu's Gaze, wanting to see if these damned corpse puppets harbored weaknesses similar to "grudges" that could be harmed by his "Spirit-Banishing Rounds."
But when he looked at the approaching puppets through the two eerie purple lenses, his face showed shock and disbelief.
Because he saw that the puppets walking toward him in their terrifying manner were empty inside.
There was no independent spiritual core resembling a soul or a grudge.
Inside them were only physical corpses that had already lost their life force.
But William also saw the true power source driving these corpses to move.
Connected to the puppets' limb joints and the backs of their heads were several fine threads barely visible to the naked eye, these threads shimmering with faint light.
The common origin of all these threads came from the same direction.
As he roared this discovery to his companions in warning, Lin Jie's calm voice rang out with precision.
"William! Julian! Retreat!"
"The rope is ready!"
Hearing this, William and Julian immediately looked toward the other side of the room. The window facing the narrow alley behind the hotel had been opened by Lin Jie. In the few short minutes William had been holding the door and Julian calming the boy, Lin Jie had efficiently crafted his ingenious escape tool.
He had torn the velvet curtain he pulled from the window, along with all the bedsheets and covers in the room, into sturdy strips of uniform width. Then, using professional knotting techniques like the "Double Fisherman's Knot" and "Alpine Butterfly Knot" he had learned in the 21st century, he securely linked the strips together, braiding them into a simple escape rope strong enough to bear an adult's weight and dozens of feet long.
One end of the rope was tightly tied to the thickest, solid oak bedpost in the room, the other end thrown out the window, dangling just a few feet above the ground.
"Julian! You take Hans down first!" Lin Jie's instructions were clear.
"William! Use your last bullets for suppressive fire! Buy them time!"
"What about you?!" William roared back loudly while using his gun to blast back the Goliath puppet charging at the front.
"I'll cover our retreat!" A cold glint flashed in Lin Jie's eyes. "I need to leave a farewell gift for our generous 'artist' landlord!"
As he spoke, he pulled out two things: one was the Bavarian rye liquor provided by the hotel, the other was the carbide lamp he carried for illumination.
Julian and William immediately understood Lin Jie's plan.
Julian helped Hans up, then assisted him out the window. The two quickly slid down the lifeline Lin Jie had woven.
William let out a roar, emptying the remaining few Spirit-Dispersing Explosive Rounds from his magazine. The searing silver-white flames, though unable to destroy the corpse puppets, successfully checked their forward momentum, buying the team a precious final five seconds.
Within those five seconds, Lin Jie had completed his destructive artistic stage setting. He unscrewed the bottle cap and poured the high-proof, potent alcohol all over the room's carpet, beds, and the torn curtain strips.
"William! Go!" Lin Jie bellowed.
After firing his last bullet, William turned without hesitation and leaped out the window.
The instant his body left the room, Lin Jie moved.
He didn't jump down immediately. Instead, he gently tossed the carbide lamp in his hand—its valve open and emitting a hissing sound—toward the wooden floor soaked in strong alcohol.
Only then did he turn, grab the eaves, and, using the rope, swing and leap a few times along the hotel's wooden exterior wall, landing steadily on the ground.
The moment his feet touched the earth.
"BOOM!"
A massive, orange-red fireball exploded from the third-floor window they had just escaped.