Book 9: Chapter 45: Infiltration

“American black humor?” Lancelot frowned, his eyes gleaming with cold disdain. “A clumsy trick. The self-proclaimed righteous Avengers would never do such a thing.”

“Sir, Integra is dead. What… what should we do next?” Father Jack asked helplessly.

They had come to capture Integra, both to ensure the safety of Van Helsing’s descendants and to resolve the River of Death after Alucard’s liberation. But with Integra dead, everything became meaningless.

“It doesn’t matter. I can sense turmoil in the River of Death, heading this way. Jack, bring the vampire girl. Let’s wait outside the manor. I want to see what makes this vampire so special that Van Helsing abandoned his principles to secretly raise her!”

Lancelot’s expression returned to calmness. He solemnly made the sign of the cross over Integra’s body and turned to leave the hall.

“Won’t waiting outside the manor be misunderstood?” Father Jack glanced back at the gruesome remains of Integra and smiled wryly. However, he felt reassured when he saw the vampire girl on the floor, who was about to wake up. When she awoke, the truth would become clear.

“Father Jack, please go outside and accompany Sir. I will tidy up Lady Integra’s remains,” the nun said calmly, bowing to the priest.

“Yes, I leave it to you!” Jack had no suspicions. He sighed at Integra’s body, picked up Seras, and turned to follow Lancelot.

But after the two ascetic monks left, the nun who began tidying the remains showed a grave expression. She stared intently at the bloody words on the corpse’s back. Among the three of them, only she understood the true meaning of those words.

Because the blood writing was blurry, Father Jack’s translation was inaccurate. It wasn’t a single line of text but three separate words. “The ugly man” referred to the Joker, and “dissect” wasn’t a verb but the noun “Dissector.”

As for the last word “beauty,” both Father Jack and Lancelot assumed it referred to Integra. However, the nun in front of them knew that this “beauty” referred to herself.

“The two bosses have indeed entered the Divine Comedy World!” The nun pulled down her white veil, revealing her true face under the dim light of the desk lamp. It was Lili, who had once entered the World War II World with Qin Lun and the others. Her nickname in the Star Void was “Beauty.”

Lili’s intervals between missions in the Star Void were longer than those of the other serial killers, but she had already passed through six or seven Quest Worlds, greatly improving her combat strength. Although she hadn’t undergone a Class Change yet, she had gained immense benefits by taking turns following the serial killers on missions. Her strength was no worse than that of an ordinary Professional Apostle.

Lili didn’t simply rely on the serial killers when accompanying them through Quest Worlds. On the contrary, since the serial killers initially saw her only as bait and cannon fodder, she faced more life-and-death trials than ordinary Apostles, and they were even more dangerous.

It was precisely because of her hard work and her repeated struggles to survive dangerous situations, successfully completing the tasks assigned by the serial killers, that she gradually gained their recognition and was no longer treated as disposable cannon fodder.

Since the serial killers improved their strength very quickly and didn’t formally team up, they basically let her choose whether to follow them on missions.

Before entering this world, Lili didn’t follow any of the serial killers because she was worried about encountering Reincarnators in an external war. But to her surprise, she was still dragged into a war world against Reincarnators.

After entering this world, Lili immediately realized that Reincarnators might exist here. The reason was simple: her mission timeline was similar to Qin Lun’s. Since this was a second exploration, Qin Lun and Grant might have also entered this Divine Comedy World.

Based on the information about Disciple Hansen and Firecracker Rand, there was over a 90% chance that Qin Lun and Grant would participate in the war against the Reincarnators. So the answer was clear: the Divine Comedy World was one of the Low Magic Worlds invaded by Reincarnators.

After careful consideration, while feeling frightened, Lili also realized this was her opportunity. Perhaps because she hadn’t completed her Class Change and her strength evaluation was below average, the timeline point where she entered this world was actually a week earlier than Qin Lun and the other’s.

The Star Void assigned Lili the Plot Identity of a nun nurse in a church hospital. Notably, this church hospital was a subsidiary of the church where Lancelot belonged.

Although Lili’s sexual orientation was different from most people’s, she was very intelligent. Especially after repeatedly following the serial killers through life-and-death situations and crawling out of near-fatal hells, her endurance was exceptional. The only thing she might lack was experience in making her own decisions, and her decisiveness was slightly weaker.

The church of the Ascetic Monks where Lancelot belonged was a key point. There were five other Apostles and two Reincarnators performing missions in this area.

Having been influenced by the serial killers, Lili deeply understood the importance of concealing her identity. Adopting a mindset of seeking no merit but hoping to avoid blame, she basically ignored the Main Plotline. Even though she knew Lancelot was an important figure, she didn’t deliberately approach him but observed the situation from the shadows.

Perhaps precisely because of this attitude, the other Apostles and Reincarnators overlooked her. After several days of initial probing, the two hidden Reincarnators finally decided to attack the Apostles.

However, at the final stage of the Reincarnators’ success, Lancelot, who had received subtle hints from Lili, discovered the rats hiding near the church. Under the thunderous wrath of the Knights of the Round Table, except for one Apostle who barely escaped, the other four Apostles, including the two Reincarnators, all died in battle. Lili became the sole victor.

While reaping a large number of spoils, Lili also gained Lancelot’s recognition and was eventually brought by the Knight of the Round Table to the London battlefield.

Having obtained two Bloody Cubes and the dropped equipment from the several Apostles killed by the Reincarnators, Lili was already very satisfied and even abandoned the Main Plotline.

After the Battle of London began, she had no intention of participating and always stayed close to Lancelot. With this extremely powerful shield, her safety was guaranteed, and she simply waited for the battle to end and return to the Star Void.

“What should I do? The two bosses are definitely targeting Lancelot and the Relics. Now it’s impossible to peacefully wait for the battle to end.” Lili covered her forehead with a frustrated expression, her delicate face scrunching up.

“The two bosses haven’t seen Lancelot in action. However, Boss Qin Lun is very cautious and wouldn’t do anything he wasn’t sure about.” Lili’s eyes flickered as she examined Integra’s body. “If they wanted my cooperation, a simple glance would suffice when we meet. There was no need to leave written hints. There must be something else unusual about this corpse.”

Lili carefully observed the body, even using the Star Void’s appraisal glasses, but still found nothing. This corpse had already been examined twice by Father Jack. If there were any abnormalities, Jack, who came from the Inquisition, would have discovered them.

“Nothing! Could it be the other corpse?” After confirming, Lili slightly furrowed her delicate brows and looked at Hawkeye Clint’s body, but immediately shook her head. “Impossible, Hawkeye’s body was also searched by Jack.”

“Wait, there’s one more thing Jack didn’t carefully examine…” Lili suddenly remembered something, her eyes lighting up as her gaze moved to Integra’s head. The woman’s head had previously been taken down from the chandelier by Father Jack. It was covered with a priest’s coat and placed respectfully beside the body.

Lili lifted the priest’s coat, turned the severed neck upward, and without hesitation, directly inserted her slender hand into the cranial cavity. After some searching, a hint of pleasant surprise soon appeared on Lili’s face. Carefully, she used her fingers to pull out a slender syringe filled with a blood-red liquid.

The bright red blood inside the syringe wriggled and churned as if it were alive, looking mysterious and eerie.

“This is…” Lili was momentarily stunned by the prompt in her Apostle Soul Mark, but soon showed a look of understanding.

…

“How were your gains, Sirs? Hehe!” Lace’s playful laughter came through the Team Channel.

“Heh, you look very happy. How is the situation over there?” Qin Lun asked softly with a smile, crossing his arms.

“That metal woman was taken care of by us. She even dropped a Metalization Bloodline, but unfortunately, Malone bought it at a high price,” Lace said regretfully.

The Metalization Bloodline had high potential and was very valuable for physical close combat. Although there were significant restrictions on its subsequent advancements, it was still an excellent bloodline ability. It could be exchanged for something very good at the Devil’s Horn auction house. But since Malone and Bakh were now fighting together, adhering to the team principle, they had to accept internal consumption.

“You didn’t forget my share, right?” Qin Lun asked with a light laugh.

“Tch, cheapskate!” Lace’s voice paused, and she muttered somewhat unwillingly. However, she still transferred 20,000 Shattered Crystals to the Team Warehouse. “By the way, the fighting on our side is basically over. The Reincarnators were defeated, and only a very few escaped the battlefield…”

“So quickly?” Qin Lun’s heart stirred as he listened to Lace’s narration.

According to Lace’s battlefield reconnaissance, there were approximately 15 to 20 Reincarnators gathered in London, while the number of Apostles was between 50 and 60, a ratio of three to four times.

Although the Reincarnators were generally stronger than the Apostles, the Apostles who received inside information instead seized the initiative, and the roles played by the two sides were reversed. In the first round of premeditated attacks, apart from elites like Uka and the metal woman who had exceptional strength, most other Reincarnators suffered varying degrees of injury.

Under these circumstances, the Apostles, who held an overwhelming numerical advantage, quickly gained the upper hand and rapidly expanded their success. Apart from a very few Reincarnators who didn’t come to London or used special items to escape, the other external enemies who entered this world were almost completely annihilated.

However, after eliminating the Reincarnators, the Apostles themselves fell into brief chaos. Some even fought each other over the spoils.

The reason was simple: since they chose to attack Reincarnators from the same faction, they were essentially traitors in the eyes of the Plot Characters, and their Main Quests were doomed.

The problem was that there were too few Reincarnators, so most Apostles gained nothing. Ordinary Novice Apostles like them couldn’t all offset the penalties for failing the Main Plotline, leading inevitably to internal strife.

However, the infighting among the Apostles didn’t last long and soon subsided. One reason was that most of these Apostles had formed alliances to deal with the Reincarnators, and killing each other in this world yielded no benefits.

Another reason was that the British army’s final defense line at Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park was finally breached by the Church’s Mobile Crusaders…