094. Puppeteer's Successor (1)

Fundamentally, a puppeteer was a type similar to a summoner or spiritist. Just as they borrowed the power of summoned beasts or spirits to enhance their own combat prowess, puppeteers modified and strengthened the dolls they created to boost their abilities. In that sense, they shared common traits.

But Arkys was entirely different.

Her own body was essentially a doll, granting her personal combat power that brooked no rivals.

Eunhyeon's basic strategy was always the same.

Just as he had targeted the core of the battle against the gumiho by fighting nine of her Hundred Ghosts Night Parade, he aimed to strike at the heart of this fight first.

And that meant the girl perched atop the dolls' heads—the girl seated on the jade throne. Seizing Arkys's heart would end this battle in all but name.

The moment the fight began, Eunhyeon invoked Verdandi's authority and activated Phantasmagoric Shift, darting toward the jade throne with blinding speed.

He left an afterimage in his wake and reappeared before the throne, but the dolls' eyes tracked his movements as if equipped with ultra-high-speed cameras—they couldn't quite catch him, yet they pursued relentlessly.

Spotting Eunhyeon reaching for their queen, the dolls sprang into action, following the pre-programmed behavioral patterns etched into their cores.

The dolls, loaded with commands and behavioral patterns, moved with ruthless efficiency.

A doll with meticulously braided hair in an updo appeared at Eunhyeon's side, dual-wielding short swords. It slashed viciously to sever his entire arm as he reached for the heart in Arkys's chest, but Eunhyeon—having anticipated the move through Detection—yanked his hand back, preserving his right arm.

As the doll's upward slash whistled through empty air, Eunhyeon seized its rising wrist and kicked its leg with all his might.

The joint strained under the impact, throwing off its balance. Eunhyeon grabbed its head and slammed it downward toward the floor with brutal force.

Crunch!

Even as one doll—practically a comrade—had its head shattered, the onslaught didn't falter.

It was only natural.

These dolls possessed no emotions, no self-aware ego to generate thought.

Memories and experiences didn't accumulate, so no feelings arose from them.

Thus, they felt no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rage or sorrow at a fellow doll's destruction.

But that didn't mean Eunhyeon could smash through Arkys's legacy—her children, in a sense—without a pang of remorse.

'Let's subdue them without breaking them as much as possible.'

Yet even with arms and legs shattered, the dolls charged silently, fixated on eradication. Subduing them intact amid the relentless assault was a tall order.

He dodged, smashed, and parried as their numbers surpassed twenty. Then one doll summoned a sphere and hurled it into the air.

Boom!

A small explosion erupted, and dark purple smoke began infiltrating the palace interior from the epicenter.

Eunhyeon, well-versed in Arkys's puppet tactics, knew exactly what it was.

'Poison gas.'

Inhaling it alone rotted the lungs and ravaged internal organs.

This overwhelming lethality—capable of killing via breath alone—was a horrifying method usable only because the wielders were dolls, not humans.

It was a simple basic spell even Erin could cast, but Eunhyeon's gale-force wind was on another level entirely from a novice's attempt.

The whirlwind he conjured mercilessly scattered the toxic fog throughout the palace.

"Phew!"

Eunhyeon, who had held his breath against the barrage until the gas dispersed, finally exhaled.

"Not on my watch."

Eunhyeon flanked the upper-tier doll acting as Elderbrain—the command hub issuing orders to the rest—and seized its head with both hands.

"Sorry. You don't harbor malice. I might not restore you to factory new, but I'll fix you for sure. You're Arkys's children, after all."

Crackle!

He channeled mana through his fingertips directly into the doll's core.

Just as overloading a machine on Earth with excessive voltage shortened its lifespan, the dolls—powered by steady mana output—found surplus mana a lethal poison.

All their drive and actions stemmed from mana signals.

The Elderbrain doll convulsed violently from the influx, seizing up before slumping like a powered-down switch.

With the command doll disabled, the surrounding puppets froze in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠standby.

This was a many-against-one brawl, yet far smoother than the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade. The puppets lacked ego.

The ghosts had followed their swordmaster leader but possessed intelligence to think and act independently.

Arkys's dolls, despite triple the numbers, devolved into panic without their Elderbrain—mere pawns awaiting orders.

Eunhyeon exploited that brief void, hurling a sphere from his inventory at the palace center. He then summoned a massive shield large enough to cover his body, slamming its protruding stake into the floor to anchor it.

'3, 2, 1.'

Kaboom!

A colossal gale ravaged the palace interior.

Sheltered behind the shield, Eunhyeon gripped the handle with iron strength, bracing against the push.

As the tempest subsided, he rose and surveyed the devastation he'd wrought.

Pillars, walls, and pod chambers—everything near the blast epicenter struggled to retain shape.

Sparking dolls slumped on the floor began convulsing en masse.

"Mana Pulse… I made it with Iliana as a test, but the power's solid."

It mimicked a grenade: pure, compressed high-density mana sealed in a gem with a safety lock.

The effect? A powerful mana shockwave from the detonation, neutralizing mana-powered dolls.

Just an Arkena-style EMP using mana instead of electromagnetism, but Eunhyeon was pleased with the prototype grenade.

"I dialed the power down to minimum anyway. I can amp it up anytime. Just needs refining now."

Fine-tuning injection volume would control blast radius and force.

Eunhyeon turned from the crippled dolls to Arkys on her untouched jade throne.

He approached unhindered, footsteps echoing.

"……."

Staring at the frozen doll girl with bowed head, he knelt to meet her gaze from below.

"You had me on the blacklist, huh."

Perhaps Arkys had anticipated Eunhyeon coming not to claim her legacy for another, but to seize it himself.

An indescribable, ambiguous feeling stirred in him.

Disappointment? He couldn't quite say, lost in the odd sensation—until another mana pulse drew his eyes upward.

A magic circle formed on the wall fresco depicting a massive sun emblem above the throne. A girl's face materialized at its center.

Eunhyeon blinked in shock at the familiar face—one he knew well, yet hadn't expected.

"Ark…ys…?"

Arkys spoke in a flat tone matching her impassive expression.

"……."

For a doll, not a human, Arkys mimicked facial muscles with eerie precision—her hollow chuckle felt utterly natural, indistinguishable from a real person's.

"What…?"

Eunhyeon gaped at the unexpected response.

Then why the blacklist? Why preset the dolls to kill him?

"Spot on. Learn mind-reading before you died?"

Her pre-recorded final words couldn't respond to his dark joke.

But what truly irked him was what followed.

"……."

Eunhyeon recalled rejecting Arkys's past offer to teach him puppetry.

With so much on his plate, crafting dolls demanded immense time and effort—luxuries his overburdened past self lacked.

Above all, Eunhyeon lived farthest from death yet always closest to it.

Arkys's wish was to pass on her embedded knowledge of puppetry and more to posterity. Even accepting the successor role, he couldn't fulfill that.

She'd evidently sulked over it.

Speechless, Eunhyeon fell quiet, gazing at her face in the magic circle.

After meeting Eunhyeon and spending much time together, she'd recognized his talent and character, secretly marking him as her successor in her heart.

To impart all her knowledge, power, and skills—to aid his path even a little.

But he'd missed her intentions and refused.

Human and machine, different races—yet bound by immortality's strange commonality.

Values, lifestyles, motivations clashed entirely, but sharing eternal life forced understanding.

"No. Don't apologize."

Eunhyeon shook his head.

"Same here. My own duties blinded me to your feelings."

He'd never imagined she'd want to pass her puppetry and essence to aid him.

Who could call her a mere doll?

No blood flowed in her veins, yet her caring heart was profoundly human.

Arkys was his immortal comrade, a human, a friend.

"…Damn it."

He'd thought it broken.

That his parched heart had dried up for good.

Yet emotions welled, and a single tear traced down Eunhyeon's cheek.