When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

Upon entering the palace garden, hundreds of soldiers scattered, beginning to eliminate dangers along the central line.

Horn and Patrick were surrounded by soldiers in the center, walking while admiring the near-ruins of the palace.

The entire palace garden covers an area of about 15-20 hectares, two-thirds of which is a park made up of fountains and hedge walls.

In the flower beds beside the hedge walls, exotic and precious flowers should have been competing to bloom, growing wildly.

But only a small portion of these flowers were well-maintained, while most had been drained of nutrients by wildflowers and weeds blown in by the wind, resulting in drooping or outright decay in the soil.

The flower bed's water supply is managed by a small Angel statue, just at the time of Horn's arrival, it was watering the flowers.

One side of the palace is a hill, from the top of which spring water flows into the palace via elevated aqueducts.

On both sides of the aqueduct stand several waterwheels, constantly turning driven by the water flow.

With the mechanical drive of the waterwheels, four small Angels beside the flower beds raised their second arms spinning crazily, even casting looped afterimages as spiraling streams of clear water were sprayed into the flower beds.

Standing in front of the flower beds, Horn even heard sounds akin to helicopter rotor blades.

Cleverly designed indeed, Horn exchanged glances with Patrick; these simple automatic mechanisms weren't something just a few people could create, and certainly wasn't delicate work zombies could accomplish.

To Horn's estimation, this would need at least seven or eight designers to plan, plus hundreds of artisans taking a long time to manufacture, yet they clearly already scouted the area, and there's not a single person here.

Where did all these people go?

"Your Majesty, with the exception of the tower whose closed doors you instructed us not to touch, we've checked through all other palaces and villas."

Victor's Child Soldiers Scout jogged and hopped over the hedge, bowing towards Horn as he spoke.

"Then let us go, to those palaces and take a look."

Passing through the hedge walls, behind them was a beautifully adorned palace, in front of the palace's fountain pool, several wooden or metal deer were dipping their heads into the water.

If you take a closer look, you'll find they're actually the outlets of the fountain, not drinking from the fountain, but spraying water.

"Brother, look over there." Jeanne pointed next to the tower after inspecting the palace and villas.

The area supposed to be a garden was planted with various herbs, and beside the garden, there were patches of fields growing seasonal cabbages.

As for the small zoo originally in the palace, it housed three to five sheep, and under the palace eaves there were unexpectedly hanging sausages and cured meats.

"Master Chrispa, does this vampire still need to eat?" Horn asked Patrick with a strange expression, looking at the swinging large sausages.

Patrick coughed: "If there's enough blood, they only need to eat a little to satisfy hunger.

But if they only drink beast blood, their body will be very weak, unable to use undead spells, thus needing to eat a lot, more than Knights advancing in breathing technique every day."

This vampire seems to have a hard life, isn't beastman's blood palatable?

If they don't offer beast blood, they'll kill people, so why not capture people back to the island for blood?

Walking to the palace eaves, Horn casually plucked a blood sausage, its smoked skin glowed faintly yellow.

"Clack clack clack..."

Horn quickly turned his head towards the palace interior, yet the seemingly hallucinated sound disappeared again.

This was the third time he heard the clicking sound, once on the way here, once at the entrance, and once again before the palace.

If it wasn't a hallucination, surely something was causing it.

Horn knew himself well; perhaps due to his mana being far greater than a normal Witch, he was more sensitive to mana's operation than any Witch.

There were surely some mystical artifacts related to mana here, such as the previous bone whistle or Blood Covering Cloud type items.

"Brother, what's wrong?"

Jeanne approached, looking curiously at Horn's solemn eyes as she inquired.

"Nothing." Horn dismissed her with a wave, calling Victor over, "Have you checked inside this palace?"

"We've checked, every room and every corner of the palace has been searched, not a single person is here," Victor hesitated, "If you want to enter, please allow us to search again."

"No need," Horn called a few Holy Gunmen, and with Patrick and Jeanne by his sides, began to head into the palace.

The interior of the palace was starkly different from the outside. Despite being turned upside down by the soldiers, it was quite clean—there were no weeds in the cracks or spider webs and dust. This ruin didn't look like a ruin at all.

On either side of the palace's hall were mosaic stained glass windows casting dim multicolored light onto the seamless marble floor.

Scattered around the marble floor were gears, springs, and various mechanical parts, with a wide workbench standing amidst them.

Standing in the middle of the hall, Horn's gaze was unintentionally drawn by the most eye-catching feature of the building: the puppet theater on the left side of the palace.

The theater had removed the wall of the villa's side chamber, revealing puppets and bronze statues almost as tall as humans behind layers of curtains.

It was more of a miniature version of a Nibelungen-style stage play than a puppet theater.

It was a panoramic perspective model, with nearly a hundred intersecting or parallel starry sky tracks at the back of the stage.

The cloud-shaped planks were painted white, the circular ones represented faces of the sun and moon, and several miniature taverns and houses stood on stage.

At the stage's edge, a miniature castle with mechanical arms rose from the ground.

On the plain around the castle, seven or eight half-meter high bronze swan ballet dancers stood on tiptoe, with their left legs resting on their right knees standing straight.

The knee of its left leg had a clear mechanical wheel joint, with a fine wire almost invisible to the naked eye attached to the wheel, seemingly to control the dancer's leg to straighten or bend.

In front of a miniature wooden house, a copper puppet carpenter dressed in woolen green stepped on a pedal, and a shepherd in a fur coat opened a mouth that could only smile.

Surrounding a shrunken bronze "wooden barrel," two soldiers with crescent-moon hats held cards in their hands, raising them high, ready to slam them down on the barrel as soon as the wire on their elbows was tugged.

In front of the tavern, on the painted stone path on the wooden board, were iron tracks painted in the same color, with a parade of flute players and lute players weaving through the crowd.

The entire scene looked as if a town had been shrunken down and transported here, with time frozen in place, waiting for a mechanism to start before it could continue to operate.

Turning his head, Horn peered through the cracks in the wooden boards inside.

Under the stage was a dizzying complexity of gears and mechanical structures, with countless intertwining chains wrapped around gears, and a metallic odor of lubricating oil seeping from the stage.

Horn took a few steps forward, walking around to the back of the stage, looking up to see how those tracks operated.

Then he saw a pair of scarlet eyes and a grayish-white bald head shining with luster, with sharp fangs poking from the corners of its mouth.

Blood Covering Cloud instantly unsheathed, Horn retreated a couple of steps, pointing his sword at the air, but that vampire-like thing remained motionless.

What is this?

He took two steps forward, squinting to look, and then smiled helplessly.

The "vampire" had claws made of assembled brass and iron bars, a wooden nose, and painted eyes—clearly a suspended puppet.

Beside it hung a mechanical angel with a sword, its wings' bends riveted, seemingly only half-made.

Horn awkwardly put down his sword, if there were a vampire here, those soldiers would have found it, wouldn't they have done so by now?

He himself was truly jumpy, even frightened by a mechanical puppet.

"What's wrong, Your Grace?"

"Nothing," Horn lightly coughed, sheathing his sword, turning around, "Let's go, let's go, let's check the master bedroom. I think I heard some sound from there..."

The turning of air currents and the sound of clanking gears resounded again. With countless experiences in battle, Horn instinctively turned without even thinking, blocking with his sheath in front of him.

"Who is it?!"

A strong wind lifted the veil on the "cloud," the curtains stirred, and a sharp-eared, fanged humanoid monster descended from the heavens, its face twisted, silently roaring as it pounced toward Horn's face.

Wasn't it supposed to be that vampire puppet?!

"Your Grace, look out!"

"Protect him, protect him!"