Chapter 127: The City Hall Exhibition

"So it turns out to be this way."

The newly appeared hidden branch prompt in the synchronization was the exact opposite of the previous one.

The previous hidden branch involved helping Sophia and making an enemy of Simon to seize the arm of god, presenting an extremely high node difficulty.

That female knight named Laxasia had probably become a truly complete being, and her strength was even more terrifying than that of the champion Victor. Even if Sophia helped Li Nanke with all her might, she would at best serve as an auxiliary, unable to actually increase his combat power.

The greatest value of cooperating with Sophia was probably that she could provide clues for Pinocchio's ownership alignment.

On the other hand, the latter hidden branch was very simple: cooperate with Simon and offer Pinocchio's motive heart to complete the node. The price, however, was Pinocchio's life, resulting in the permanent loss of this growable summon.

"Pinocchio..."

Li Nanke leaned against the balcony railing. The late-night breeze was crisp and cold, gradually banishing his sleepiness and keeping his mind exceptionally clear and calm.

The bright moonlight spilled down, blanketing the garden square in front of the hotel with a layer of gorgeous white frost.

From the very beginning of encountering Pinocchio, upon seeing the puppet boy's attributes and the prompt for ownership alignment, Li Nanke had approached Pinocchio with a deliberate purpose: to subjugate a free summon.

To be honest, he did not hold much affection for Pinocchio, even though the two of them had fought side by side along the way and endured countless crises and hardships.

The initial "father and son reunion" and the subsequent clearing of the air to become puppet P's boss were purely driven by his desire to make Pinocchio submit.

If sacrificing Pinocchio could yield greater returns, Li Nanke, after weighing the pros and cons, would most likely have discarded the puppet boy for the sake of greater benefits.

However, although he had little emotional attachment to Pinocchio, that did not prevent him from choosing to make an enemy of Simon and selecting the first hidden branch.

Simply because in the forbidden dream, high difficulty meant high rewards.

As for whether the difficulty would be too high—when had he ever feared anything?

...

The next day, an old-fashioned car drove out of the hotel, heading toward the Krat City Hall Exhibition.

In the driver's seat sat the puppet boy Pinocchio.

After scraping two street lamps and knocking down more than a dozen wandering mechanical puppets, Pinocchio's driving skills gradually became proficient.

Being a mechanical puppet to begin with, he seemed to possess an exceptional talent for operating mechanical devices. After preliminary learning and trial and error, he drove quite decently, looking very much like a seasoned veteran.

Aside from Li Nanke and Pinocchio, there was no one else in the car. The Cunning Rabbit's combat effectiveness was too dismal to be of any help, so it had been left behind at the hotel.

Notably, perched on Li Nanke's shoulder was a small butterfly emitting a azure glow.

"Mr. Black Rabbit, a large number of special puppets are gathered in the exhibition. Those special puppets originally intended for display to attract foreign investment each possess unique traits in every model."

The azure butterfly fluttered its wings, and Li Nanke heard Sophia's voice.

Ever since she exposed her identity as a Listener, Sophia simply dropped the act and used her Listener's ability to openly follow him all the way.

"According to the information I previously gathered, aside from some companion puppets with poor taste, most of the puppets in the exhibition possess exceptionally formidable strength, including soldier puppets, bodyguard puppets, knight puppets, guard puppets, and so on."

"If you want to defeat the King of Puppets, these numerous special puppets will pose considerable trouble."

"The King of Puppets will probably not let you deal with the special puppets first before coming out to fight you fair and square."

"The most likely scenario is that upon entering the exhibition, you will be attacked by a massive horde of special puppets under the command of the King of Puppets, while simultaneously facing the most powerful King of Puppets himself."

"Moreover, the identity of the King of Puppets is not simple either. Just like puppet P, he is a puppet personally manufactured by Geppetto."

"Geppetto named him Romeo. Compared to puppet P's initially weak yet considerably growable performance, he was immensely powerful right from his creation, capable of commanding and controlling a multitude of puppets."

"In short, you must be extremely careful..."

The old-fashioned car stopped in front of Krat City Hall. The Ego-Element Butterfly fluttered its wings, leaving behind an azure flight trajectory before disappearing.

The grand, castle-like architecture featured a row of flags fluttering in the wind, with a herring and a gear at the center of the blue flags.

The herring represented that the city of Krat was merely a small fishing village before its prosperity, while the gear symbolized that the city had now become an immensely prosperous metropolis driven by mechanized technological progress.

The exhibition hall, temporarily converted from the city hall, covered a vast area. The tall exterior walls were adorned with exquisite reliefs, looking classical and solemn.

Now, the gates of the city hall were tightly shut, desolate and dead silent, with only the wind blowing across the ground, rustling up numerous fallen leaves.

The puppet riot meant that the upcoming exhibition could never be successfully held, and had even turned the city hall into the most dangerous place in Krat.

"Are you ready?"

Li Nanke turned his head and said to Pinocchio beside him.

Having experienced numerous battles and absorbed part of the tissues from the arm of god, Pinocchio's strength had once again increased significantly, and his various special arms had also grown correspondingly stronger.

Pinocchio's electromagnetic arm was already a superb weapon for dealing with puppets; a single burst of current could paralyze all nearby puppets.

Now that his electromagnetic arm had been further enhanced, it could unleash formidable lethality even when facing a host of powerful special puppets.

Seeing Pinocchio nod solemnly, Li Nanke pushed open the gates of the city hall.

The lobby was carpeted in red, with various puppet posters visible everywhere, and small puppet models displayed inside glass cabinets.

A huge oil painting hung on one wall, depicting the history of puppet development from its invention to the present day through patterns and text.

Standing beside the painting was a marble statue of a middle-aged man wearing round glasses, dressed in neat gentleman's attire, looking rather refined and scholarly.

Looking at the text engraved on the base of the statue, this was Geppetto, the genius alchemist who invented mechanical puppets, honored with the title of the Father of Puppets.

This lobby did not look like an official exhibition hall, but rather the entrance hall of the exhibition, used to introduce the history of puppet development and various puppet types.

Li Nanke frowned, catching a very strong scent of machine oil.

"Something is wrong."

Pinocchio looked around and said, "Boss, is it because there are no puppets here? This is the entrance hall; no puppets are exhibited here. The official exhibition halls are further inside."

The puppet boy found an exhibition map pasted on one of the side walls. There were over a dozen official exhibition halls in the exhibition, dividing different types of puppets into various zones—there was a companion puppet zone, a war puppet zone, a guard puppet zone, an engineering puppet zone, and even a series of areas like the new beast-type puppet zone.

"No, it's because it's too quiet here."

Li Nanke looked toward the corridor leading to the official exhibition halls. His various senses were extremely acute; not the slightest movement could escape his perception.

When ordinary puppets were operating, whether it was the sound of footsteps while walking or the turning of bearings and gears inside their bodies, no matter how much they suppressed the noise, he could still perceive it.

Yet now, both the entrance hall and the exhibition halls deep inside were dead silent, devoid of any sound at all, not looking like a place where a large gathering of puppets resided.

"Could it be that the King of Puppets has discovered our arrival and gathered all the puppets deep inside the exhibition?"

Li Nanke signaled Pinocchio to follow. With the bloody war hammer manifesting in his hand, he walked along the corridor toward the official exhibition halls.

The closer they got to the official exhibition halls, the heavier the scent of machine oil became.

Normally, intact puppets would not emit the smell of machine oil. Only those damaged or broken puppets would leak the machine oil used for lubrication within their bodies, emitting a pungent odor.

From this perspective, puppets were quite similar to humans, except the former leaked machine oil while the latter shed blood.

When stepping into Hall 1, Li Nanke's pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw that inside the spacious exhibition hall, there was not a single intact puppet. The glass curtain walls on the display platforms were shattered into pieces, and besides glass fragments, numerous fragmented puppets were scattered across the carpet.

Dark brown machine oil oozed out, soaking the carpet like a pool of blood, and the entire exhibition hall was filled with a pungent odor.

These puppets looked as if they had been dismembered and dismantled; their complete bodies were taken apart into countless components. Screws, springs, gears, bearings, and other mechanical parts could be seen everywhere, along with some slightly more intact metal forearms, heads, and hip joint connectors.

If puppets were compared to humans, this was undoubtedly a sea of corpses and a mountain of blood akin to a slaughterhouse.

"How could this be?" Pinocchio was shocked beyond words.

Although he subconsciously always regarded himself as a human, the boy knew that he was essentially a puppet too. Even though he had helped the boss kill many puppets before, that was for combat and survival, not for wanton slaughter.

Seeing the scene inside the exhibition hall now, it looked more like someone had deliberately dismembered and slaughtered these puppets, stirring an inexplicable sorrow deep within Pinocchio's heart.

Li Nanke frowned deeply. After a hurried inspection confirming that not even a single surviving puppet remained, he immediately stepped into the next exhibition hall.

However, the next exhibition hall presented the exact same scene. The puppets seemed to have suffered a massacre, with not a single survivor left.

"Boss, who could have done this?"

"Most likely that King of Puppets, Romeo."

Li Nanke led Pinocchio through exhibition hall after exhibition hall, seeing nothing but heaps of puppet wreckage everywhere.

"Have you noticed? There are no signs of combat or fighting in any of the exhibition halls. This shows that the puppets did not struggle before they died; they died willingly, or rather, they died unable to resist under orders."

"The King of Puppets can command all puppets. Aside from him, I'm afraid no one else could make all these puppets perish tragically here without even putting up the most basic resistance."

Pinocchio carefully observed and realized that there really wasn't a trace of combat to be seen in the exhibition halls. The numerous puppets seemed to have been silently dismembered and dismantled into piles of parts.

"Damn it, all my experience points are gone!" Li Nanke couldn't help cursing inwardly.

As they penetrated deeper into the exhibition, the sense of crisis lingering in his heart slowly spread.

Finally, he stopped in front of the last exhibition hall. Looking at the tightly shut doors, the sense of crisis in his heart had grown to its absolute peak.

"Boss, according to the exhibition map, this exhibition hall is specially set up for the King of Puppets."

Feeling the icy chill hovering along his spine, Li Nanke was certain that the King of Puppets, Romeo, was inside that exhibition hall.

Originally, he had wanted to use Pinocchio's electromagnetic arm to farm a large wave of mechanical puppets and gain massive amounts of source energy to enhance his strength.

As a result, all the special puppets in the exhibition had now met violent ends, making it impossible to acquire even a single drop of source energy.

"I'm afraid it's because I wasted a lot of time exploring the hidden node in the cathedral area, which caused some changes to occur in the exhibition."

"Following the nature of The Great Abyss, it has probably increased the difficulty unconsciously once again..."

Li Nanke took a deep breath, prepared for battle, and pushed open the exhibition hall doors.

Deep inside the hall, a giant bright red curtain was hung across. A figure was seated on a single-seater sofa in front of the curtain.

It was a young blonde man. His left face was indistinguishable from a normal human's, except that his skin exhibited a sickly grayish-white, while his right face looked scorched, revealing the metallic skeleton beneath the skin.

Furthermore, his right eye was not a normal human eyeball, but a mechanical eye flashing with red light.

Aside from the left half of his face, not a single part of his entire body resembled a normal human.

He leaned sideways on the single-seater sofa, his metallic right arm resting on the armrest, propping up his chin as he watched the two of them step into the exhibition hall.

Li Nanke could clearly sense the terrifying power concealed within that slender puppet body; he was none other than the King of Puppets, Romeo.

"Carlo, I've been waiting for you for a long time."

The King of Puppets, Romeo, wore a slight smile as he stood up and opened his arms, as if welcoming them and preparing for a warm embrace.

His gaze was not fixed on Li Nanke, but remained consistently focused on Pinocchio.

Pinocchio cautiously came to a halt. The King of Puppets' address of "Carlo" was clearly meant for him, yet he had no impression of this name whatsoever.

"Carlo, to celebrate our reunion, I have prepared a grand gift for you."

" My name is not Carlo. You've got the wrong person. My name is Pinocchio." Pinocchio solemnly corrected the mistake.

Romeo was clearly stunned for a moment. He carefully scrutinized Pinocchio, the smile on his face gradually fading: "Have you forgotten your past memories?"

"I am Romeo, your best friend. We grew up together in the boarding school, and we once aspired to become the most powerful stalkers... Carlo, have you forgotten all of this?"

Pinocchio shook his head firmly and said:

"I don't understand what you're talking about. My name is Pinocchio. The boss woke me up. I don't know you, and I don't know any Carlo."

"Boss?" Romeo's gaze finally shifted to Li Nanke.

He let out a sneer: "Humans control us, bind us, and Geppetto's Grand Covenant has always enslaved us. I dream of breaking free from the Grand Covenant and becoming an independent individual, and yet you now willingly submit to human control?"

"Do you even know that the puppet riot stems from Geppetto's command!"