Chapter 189 Mechanical Theater and Gear Puppet

After entering the garden palace, hundreds of soldiers spread out and began to eliminate danger along the center line.

Horn and Pasrick were surrounded by soldiers, walking and admiring the palace which was almost in ruins.

The entire palace garden covers an area of ​​about 15-20 hectares, two-thirds of which is a park consisting of fountains and hedges.

In the flower beds beside the hedge wall, there should have been various precious flowers competing with each other in beauty and growing wildly.

But only a few of these flowers were well preserved. Most of them had their nutrients sucked away by wild flowers and weeds blown by the wind, and could only droop or simply wither and rot in the soil.

The water supply of the flowerbed was taken care of by a little stone angel. When Horn arrived, it was the time when the little angel was watering the flowerbed.

On one side of the palace is a hill, and gurgling spring water flows from the top of the mountain into the palace through an elevated canal.

There are several water wheels on both sides of the canal, which are constantly turning under the drive of the water flow.

Driven by the waterwheel machinery, the four little angels beside the flower bed raised their hands and spun wildly, even leaving circles of afterimages, and sprinkled streams of clear spiral water in the flower bed.

Standing in front of the flower bed, Horn even heard a sound like a helicopter propeller.

The idea is quite ingenious. Horn and Pasrick looked at each other. These simple automatic machines did not look like something that could be made by just a few people, let alone delicate work that zombies could complete.

According to Horn's estimation, it would take at least seven or eight designers to design it, and hundreds of craftsmen to spend a long time to manufacture it, but they had clearly searched the area nearby and found no one.

Where did all these people go?

"Your Majesty, except for this spire with the tightly closed door that you instructed not to touch, we have checked the rest of the palaces and villas."

The child scout sent by Victor trotted over the fence and bowed to Horn and said.

"Then let's go and take a look at those palaces."

Behind the hedge wall is an exquisitely decorated palace. In front of the palace, several wooden or metal elks stick their heads into the water in the fountain pool.

But if you look closely, you will find that they are actually the water outlets of the fountain. They are not drinking water from the fountain, but spraying water.

"Brother, look over there." After inspecting the palace and villa, Jeanne pointed to the side of the spire.

What was supposed to be a garden was now planted with all kinds of herbs, and next to the garden, there were actually several vegetable plots planted with cabbages in season.

As for the small zoo that originally existed in the palace, there were three or five sheep in it, and there were even sausages and bacon hanging under the eaves of the palace.

"Mr. Chrispa, does this vampire still need to eat?" Horn asked Pasrick with a strange look on his face.

Pasrick coughed and said, "If there is enough blood food, they only need to eat a small amount to satisfy their appetite.

But if you only drink animal blood, your body will be very weak and you won't be able to use necromancy. You will need to eat a lot, and eat more food every day than a knight who has reached the promotion stage of the breathing method."

This vampire must be having a hard life. Doesn't the blood of beastmen taste good if he doesn't drink it?
If you kill people without offering animal blood sacrifice, why don’t you capture them and bring them back to the island to drink their blood?
Walking to the eaves of the palace, Horn picked up a blood sausage. The smoked skin of the blood sausage glowed with a faint yellow light.

"Click click click..."

Horn quickly turned his head towards the inside of the palace, but the sound that seemed like an illusion just now disappeared again.

This was the third time he had heard the clicking sound, once on the way here, once at the door, and once again in front of the palace.

If it wasn't an auditory hallucination, then there must be something else.

Horn knew his own business. Perhaps because his magic power was much greater than that of a normal witch, he was more sensitive to the operation of magic power itself than any witch.

There must be some strange objects related to magic power here, such as the bone whistle or blood cloud mentioned earlier.

"Brother, what's wrong with you?"

Jeanna came closer, looked into Horn's solemn eyes, and asked curiously.

"Nothing." Horn evaded the question and waved to Victor. "Have you explored this palace?"

"We have checked every room and every corner. There is no one in the entire palace." Victor hesitated. "If you want to go in, please let us search again."

"No need." Horn called a few holy gunners, and Pasrick and Jeanne walked into the palace on the left and right. The palace was very different from the outside world. Although it was messed up everywhere by the soldiers, it was still cleaned up quite neatly. There were no weeds in the cracks of the ground, no spider webs and dust. The ruins did not look like ruins at all.

On both sides of the palace hall are mosaic windows that cast dim colorful light on the ground, while the floor is smooth marble with seamless joints.

Scattered gears, springs and various mechanical components are placed on the marble floor, and a wide workbench stands between the parts.

Walking to the center of the hall, Horn's eyes were unconsciously attracted by the most eye-catching part of the building, which was the puppet theater on the left side of the palace.

It tore down the walls of the side rooms of the villa, and behind the layers of curtains were puppets or bronze statues that were almost as tall as a person.

Rather than a puppet theater, it is more like a scaled-down version of the Nibelungen-style stage play.

It is a three-dimensional model with panoramic perspective. Behind the stage are nearly a hundred intersecting or parallel starry sky tracks.

Wooden boards carved into cloud shapes were painted white, circular ones were the sun and moon with faces, and several miniature taverns and houses stood on the stage.

At the edge of the stage, there is a miniature castle with mechanical arms growing out of the ground.

On the flat ground outside the castle, seven or eight bronze swan dancers, more than a meter and a half tall, stood on tiptoe with their left legs resting on the knee of their right legs, which were standing upright on one foot.

The knee of its left leg has an obvious mechanical wheel joint, and a thin filament that is almost invisible to the naked eye is connected to the wheel, which seems to control the dancer's leg to straighten or bend.

In front of the miniature wooden house, a bronze puppet carpenter in green woolen clothes stepped on the pedals, and a shepherd in a fur jacket opened his mouth, which could only smile.

Surrounding a shrunken copper "barrel", two soldiers with crescent-shaped moustaches and wearing brimless hats held playing cards high in their hands. As long as the thin wires on their elbows were pulled, the cards would hit the barrel heavily.

In front of the tavern, on the flagstone road painted on the wooden board, there was an iron track painted the same color, and a parade of people playing flutes and lutes was passing through the crowd.

The whole scene is like a small town that was shrunk and moved in, and then time was frozen. It can only continue to run when the mechanism is activated.

Turning his head, Horn looked inside through the gap in the wooden board.

Under the stage are dazzlingly complex gears and mechanical structures, with countless intertwined chains wrapped around the gears, and a stinking iron smell of lubricating oil oozing out from the stage.

Horn took a few more steps forward, around to the back of the stage, and looked up to see how the tracks worked.

Then he saw a pair of bright red eyes and a shiny gray bald head, with sharp fangs protruding from the corners of the mouth.

The Blood Cloud was unsheathed in an instant. Horn took two steps back and pointed the sword in his hand into the air, but the vampire-like thing did not move.

This is?

After taking two steps forward, Horn squinted his eyes and looked at it, then he smiled helplessly.

The claws of the "vampire" were made of brass and iron bars, the nose was made of wood, and the eyes were painted. It was obviously a hanging puppet.

There was also a mechanical angel holding a sword hanging next to him, with rivets on the bend of its wings, as if it was only half made.

Horn put down his sword awkwardly. If there was a vampire here, the soldiers would have discovered it long ago. Would they wait until now?
I was so scared that I was actually scared by a mechanical puppet.

"Your Majesty, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Horn coughed lightly, sheathed his sword, and turned around. "Let's go, let's go to the master bedroom. I think I heard some noise coming from there..."

The sound of airflow and gears clicking sounded again. After many battle experiences, Horn didn't even have time to think. He turned around subconsciously and blocked the sword with the scabbard in front of him.

"Who?!"

A strong wind blew up the veil on the "cloud", stirring the curtain, and a humanoid monster with pointed ears and sharp teeth fell from the sky. He had a ferocious face and pounced on Horn's face with a silent roar.

It was that vampire puppet? !

"Your Majesty, be careful!"

"Escort, escort!"

(End of this chapter)