The massive mahogany bookshelf, which looked incredibly heavy, slowly slid to one side amidst a tooth-grating sound of grinding gears, revealing not the deep secret passage to another location that Jill had expected.
Behind the bookshelf was a recessed wall.
The material of the wall was completely different from the black marble of the outer corridor, presenting a warm milky white color with a surface polished as smooth as a mirror.
Right in the center of this wall, on a small pedestal also carved from milky white stone, a circular metal piece was quietly embedded.
Complex and delicate musical notes and staff patterns were engraved on the metal piece, reflecting a dim and ancient silver luster under the soft light of the study.
The third, and final, Music Box fragment.
Found it.
The expected joy did not well up in Jill's heart; instead, she began to feel nervous.
Her gaze became sharper than ever as she scanned this luxurious and eerie study.
The painful experiences in the Spencer Mansion had long since left an indelible mark on her heart.
Those seemingly harmless furnishings and the deadly traps hidden beneath the ornate decorations had once forced her companions to pay a price in blood.
She didn't believe the Ashford Family would so easily place such an important item in such a conspicuous spot.
This was too unusual.
The simpler it was, the more dangerous it became.
Jill didn't immediately step forward to take the fragment.
She slung the ump9 submachine gun back over her shoulder and began a second, more meticulous inspection of the entire study.
With her fingertips clad in black tactical gloves, she lightly brushed over the ceiling beneath the ornate crystal chandelier overhead.
No hidden compartments, no loose panels, and no concealed spray nozzles.
Her gaze fell again on the massive bookshelves that seemed to have stood there since time immemorial.
She rhythmically and gently tapped on the thick mahogany with her knuckles.
"Thump... Thump... Thump..."
The dull, solid sound echoed in the quiet study.
Every part was solid.
Finally, her gaze rested on the walnut door she had opened with her superb skills.
She crouched down, carefully inspecting the internal structure of the door lock and its connection to the frame.
It was a pure mechanical lock, unconnected to any electronic circuits, let alone pressure sensors that could trigger a mechanism.
Everything seemed so normal.
So normal it was unnerving.
Could she be overthinking things?
Jill slowly stood up, her B.O.W. furrowed.
She didn't believe her intuition could be wrong.
But in this study, there truly wasn't anything that could be called a trap.
Perhaps... perhaps the real trap wasn't in this room.
A thought flashed through her mind like a bolt of lightning.
She walked back to the recessed wall, her eyes fixed on the silver fragment within arm's reach.
Jill took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
She reached out, her fingertips pausing for a moment just millimeters away from the fragment.
Then, with a sudden burst of strength, she pried the cold metal fragment from its base!
Dead silence filled the room.
Nothing happened.
No expected poison gas sprayed out, no ceiling came crashing down, and no deadly blades extended from the walls.
Only the sound of her own heavy breathing.
Jill's tense body finally relaxed slightly.
She let out a long breath of stale air and looked at the exquisitely crafted silver fragment in her hand, a wry smile appearing on her face.
It seemed she really was being too paranoid.
However.
Just as that thought crossed her mind.
"CLANG—BANG—!!!!"
An extremely piercing, loud crash of metal colliding and grinding violently erupted from the corridor outside!
The sound was violent and filled with a sense of raw power!
It was as if an ancient behemoth were using its massive body to frantically ram the iron-cast gate!
Jill's expression instantly froze on her face.
She spun around, lunged behind the walnut door, pressed her body tightly against the wall, and aimed her ump9 submachine gun at the dark hallway outside.
"Damn it!"
She cursed under her breath, a layer of fine cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.
"What is it this time!"
The crashing sound rang out only once before falling silent again.
The corridor outside plunged back into that suffocating silence once more.
Jill waited patiently in the study for a full five minutes.
There was still no movement outside.
She frowned and cautiously pushed open the heavy walnut door just enough to look through a sliver of an opening.
Holding her breath, she looked out at the corridor illuminated by her flashlight beam.
The corridor was empty.
That thick, strange smell of blood mixed with formalin seemed to have grown even stronger.
But what made her pupils shrink was...
The iron-cast gate, which had been tightly closed, was now completely raised!
Behind the gate was a bottomless, pitch-black opening.
Like the mouth of a man-eating beast.
Thick, tangible darkness surged out from the opening, as if trying to swallow the entire world.
The white beam of the flashlight shone in, but like a stone dropped into the ocean, it was instantly absorbed by the boundless darkness.
Nothing could be seen.
"Whatever is in there, I'd better get out of here before it comes out..."
Jill's B.O.W. furrowed deeply.
A strong sense of crisis, born from a hunter's instinct, made the hairs on her body stand on end.
She no longer hesitated, turning immediately to head back to the Mirror Palace to open the Music Box first.
However.
She had only taken two steps.
"Hoo... hiss... hoo... hiss..."
A heavy, oppressive breathing sound, like a worn-out bellows, suddenly rang out from behind her!
The sound was so close to her!
Jill's back was instantly enveloped in a bone-chilling cold!
Her body reacted entirely based on her well-honed combat instincts!
Without turning around!
She lunged forward in a roll, her body forcibly twisting in mid-air!
The ump9 submachine gun in her hand and the powerful flashlight on her tactical vest were simultaneously aimed at the pitch-black opening that had just been empty!
The white beam of light illuminated what lay ahead,
and a hideous, distorted face instantly burst into her view!
It was a Tyrant of a bizarre design she had never seen before!
Although its body wasn't as massive as the "Pursuer," it was sturdier and more solid.
It had no skin.
Its entire body was composed of bloody muscle tissue, as if it had been flayed.
Beneath the dark red muscles were hideous blood vessels knotted together like pythons.
On its face was a pair of large, cloudy, pale white eyeballs.
What made her heart skip a beat most were its hands.
They hadn't mutated into sharp bone claws like other BOWs.
Instead, they were two massive, disproportionate, deformed lumps of flesh like battering rams!
The surface of those meat hammers was even encased in a layer of hard, thick, pale white bone armor, like a cuticle!
It just stood there quietly.
Those massive eyeballs stared fixedly at Jill.
No roaring, no snarling.
Only that suppressed breathing sound, like a worn-out bellows.
But that silent pressure, existing purely for slaughter, was more terrifying than any deafening roar!
After a brief pause, Jill's heart began to race madly again.
But there wasn't a trace of fear on her face.
In its place was a cold, contemptuous sneer.
"You're nowhere near as good as 'Nemesis'."
"Trash."
Before the words had even faded!
The samurai edge in Jill's hand had already let out a crisp roar!
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three specially modified 9mm bullets formed a triangular pattern, flying accurately toward the giant eyeball on the Tyrant's forehead!
The Tyrant's reaction was startlingly fast!
The moment Jill raised her hand, its two malformed arms, like giant hammers, had already crossed in front of its face!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The three bullets slammed hard against that layer of pale, hard bone armor!
Bursts of dazzling sparks exploded!
The powerful kinetic energy of the bullets only caused its massive body to sway slightly!
The defensive power of that bone armor far exceeded Jill's imagination!
Roar—!!!
The attack completely enraged this silent killing machine!
It let out a dull roar filled with fury.
Its thick legs suddenly pushed off the ground!
Its entire body turned into an out-of-control heavy truck, charging violently toward Jill!
Those two massive meat hammers traced two lethal trajectories through the air, accompanied by heavy wind pressure!
A trace of cold killing intent flashed in Jill's eyes.
Without any hesitation, she lunged to the side, dodging the heavy frontal collision.
At the same time!
The muzzle of her ump9 submachine gun had already swung around!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!!!
An entire magazine of bullets poured accurately like a violent storm onto the Tyrant's thick thighs, which were unprotected by any bone armor!
The bullets tore through its tough muscle tissue, exploding into burst after burst of dark red, foul-smelling blood mist on its legs!
Squelch! Squelch!
The Tyrant let out a pained howl from this sudden and violent counterattack!
Its high-speed forward momentum instantly lost balance, causing an extremely brief moment of stiffness!
Now's the time!
Jill didn't hesitate for a second, pulling the single-shot Grenade Launcher from her back!
Chamber, aim, pull the trigger!
The entire sequence was as smooth as flowing water!
Boom—!!!
A high-explosive grenade whistled out with unparalleled kinetic energy!
It accurately hit the Tyrant's massive head, which was twisting in agony!
Following a dull explosion, like a heavy hammer smashing a watermelon...
The entire head of that Training-type Tyrant, along with its pair of giant eyeballs, was instantly blown into a shower of red shredded meat mixed with white brain matter!
Its massive, headless corpse twitched violently on the spot for a few moments before falling heavily onto the cold marble floor.
The foul-smelling blood flowed out in gurgling streams like a creek.
Jill slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air smelling of gunpowder.
She didn't spare the corpse another glance, turning and walking quickly back into the strange palace composed of countless mirrors.
Before the alcove housing the ornate Music Box...
She took the three silver fragments, stained with blood and conspiracy, and embedded them one by one into the circular gaps on the Music Box's surface in the correct order.
When the final fragment fit perfectly into place...
Ding— Dong—
A crisp, pleasant note rang out softly from inside the Music Box.
Immediately following...
A beautiful yet inexplicably deep and melancholy piano melody slowly echoed through the empty and silent Mirror Palace.
The melody was like a Soul imprisoned in a magnificent cage, weeping silently at midnight.
Sorrowful and desperate.
The music gradually faded away.
The large floor-to-ceiling mirror in front of Jill made a slight sound of mechanical gears turning.
Then, it slowly rose upward.
Revealing a brightly lit, magnificent passage.
The walls on both sides of the passage were covered with photos of various sizes in golden frames.
In the photos were two children.
A boy and a girl, a pair of twins.
Jill held her gun ready and walked cautiously into the passage.
Her gaze swept across the photos one by one.
The photos recorded the entire growth trajectory of the siblings named Alexia and Alfred from childhood.
The first photo.
They were probably only four or five years old, wearing identical small white formal suits, sitting side-by-side at a black grand piano.
Their faces bore the innocent smiles characteristic of children.
The smiles were as pure as a blank sheet of paper.
The second photo.
They were about seven or eight years old, standing in a beautiful garden full of blooming flowers.
The girl held a small bird that had just died in her hands.
The boy stood beside her, looking at her with a gaze full of doting and tenderness.
Only, in the depths of their eyes, the innocence belonging to children seemed to have begun to quietly fade.
In its place was a calmness and indifference that was extremely inconsistent with their age.
The third photo, the fourth... Jill walked forward step by step.
The siblings in the photos on the wall were also growing up bit by bit.
The smiles on their faces grew fewer and fewer.
Their gazes also became colder and colder, more and more insane.
Until the final photo.
It was a massive group photo.
The adult Alexia and Alfred stood side-by-side, wearing magnificent and vintage noble attire.
Behind them were countless Researchers in white coats, looking up at them with a gaze bordering on fanaticism and worship.
While the two of them looked back at the camera with cold, arrogant eyes, like gods looking down at ants.
In those eyes, not a single trace of human emotion could be seen anymore.
There was only pure distortion and spine-chilling madness.
Jill didn't look again.
She quickly passed through this corridor of growth that recorded sin and madness.
At the end of the corridor was a pair of large double wooden doors.
The doors were carved with reliefs of demons and angels intertwined.
There was no lock.
Jill took a deep breath and pushed the doors open with force.
Behind the doors was a circular Ballroom so large it was almost exaggerated.
The entire Ballroom was divided into two levels, built entirely in the style of a medieval European court.
The dome was high, and the floor was paved with black marble that could reflect a person's shadow.
On the surrounding walls hung massive oil paintings depicting mythological wars.
However, the lighting in the entire Ballroom was dim.
The only light source came from the faint glow emitted by the massive chandelier in the center of the ceiling, composed of countless crystal pendants.
On both sides of the Ballroom stood a dozen figures quietly.
They were dressed in all kinds of magnificent formal wear.
There were waiters holding trays.
There were dancers striking elegant poses.
There were nobles holding goblets, engaged in conversation.
Even on the balcony of the second floor, which looked like a royal box, stood a King and Queen wearing crowns.
The King wore a cyan formal suit, while the Queen was in a crimson dress.
They stood there motionlessly, maintaining various vivid poses.
It was as if a grand ball had been frozen here forever by time at a certain moment.
Jill's heart suddenly leaped into her throat.
Because she saw clearly.
None of those were people.
They were lifelike wax figures!
In the dim light, their skin appeared a sickly, lifeless waxy yellow.
In those open eyes were embedded lifelike glass eyeballs.
Yet they were as hollow as an abyss.
Just then!
Snap!
A light sound.
The magnificent, massive crystal chandelier in the center of the Ballroom ceiling suddenly lit up!
The dazzling, pale light instantly illuminated the entire Ballroom as bright as day!
At the same time!
An androgynous, sharp laugh, full of madness and excitement, suddenly echoed through the entire space via speakers hidden in the Ballroom!
It was Alfred's voice!
"Hahahahahahaha!"
"Now!"
"Let the show begin!!"