The tattoo glow stopped when a mysterious voice echoed, "Rise, my child! Show you strength!"

Strings from the ceiling descended, entwining Ariadna's body like a marionette. Her once supple skin morphed into wood upon contact, her eyes losing their spark. She was no longer human. Rising to her feet, she grasped her head and fused it with the rest of her wooden form, then launched a punch at Bell Old City.

However, Bell stopped the fist with her sword and slashed Ariadna's head, falling to the floor. She moved, picked up her head, and restored it.

"It will be default. But I have to try."

Bell was using Hell's Unholy Sword to slash the marionette's head; nothing happened, so she tried using the Hevens's blade, but that one didn't also didn't work.

'Zombi strengthened the marionettes, so it's harder for my blades to slash it!'

'Fuck, whatever! Let's try punching it.'

Bell punched the marionette's body without any effect, only making it angry and attacking her back. The punch smashed into her stomach, and Bell threw up from the impact.

Another attack flew, but Bell blocked it with her swords and jumped backward to stop the pain. Light from the blade emerged from the blade when Bell stabbed herself in the gut, healing the pain she felt without causing new wounds to form.

'I need to figure out how to stop it until it arrives.'

Bell considered possibly defeating the puppet forever, and she knew it would take a long time to reach her. Every step Ariadna took vibrated the ground.

One thing Old City didn't expect from the wooden puppet was running toward her, taking its arm, and throwing it at Bell.

She blocked the arm from hurting her, but Ariadna threw a punch from her other hand, speeding up until it broke the sound barrier.

The sword Bell holds warns her by telling her where the attack is coming from. Ariadna's punch hit the blade's steel. It glued its hand back together.

Bell cuts her arm, which is glued back together again. Still, Ariadna, without a care in the world, punched her again. Alucard's right hand grabbed Hell's blade and threw it away from her.

'Zombi has even improved their intelligence, not just strength.'

Ariadna swung the Hell's Unholy Sword with her other arm; flames released from the weapon and went toward its enemy, Bell.

'But I was wrong about intelligence. It didn't learn from the past.'

She slashes the flames with her sword, destroying it, then zooms toward the puppet, swinging her sword at Ariadna's heart. However, she blocks Bell's attack with her sword. The puppet throws the Hell's Blade into the air and, at the same time, takes her head off and throws it at Bell.

Bell dodged the head and zoomed toward Hell Blade, grabbing it before Ariadna attacked her again. Then, she slashed her swords into the puppet's wooden skin.

Flames and light came from the blades after entering Ariadna's skin, weakening the marionette. However, it wasn't dying.

"Why don't you just die?" Bell tried her hardest to make the enemy die, but it wasn't attacking her, moving, or trying to attack. Was it because the blades were pierced into her skin, which made it freeze?

'Shit, why can't I take out my swords?' Despite her tries, Heaven and Hell Blades were stuck in the marionette's skin, and Bell couldn't remove them.

'What should I do? I don't want to leave my swords in her body when I finally hold them again, and also, how do I defeat this puppet without my swords? Could you punch it?'

'Bell, think what weakness these puppets have that Zombi changed.'

Bell thought so much that she didn't notice that Ariadna started moving again, and it threw a punch at her.

Bang!

Shells from a shotgun from a distance made a big hole in the wooden puppet's head, killing it and saving Bell from losing her head completely.

"Bell, your hero is here to save you!"

The one who used the shotgun was her husband, Mike, wearing sunglasses, a black jacket, and an oak tree shirt.

Before Bell could thank her husband, the same mysterious voices that turned Ariadna into a wooden puppet spoke. Their voice was echoing.

"Mike! Mike! Mike! Why do you always interfere with my fun?! I was going to kill your traitor's wife and make her my slave to kill you, backstabber!"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Well, stop hiding behind your marionettes and face me. Or are you too scared, Zombi, to meet me because you remember I beat your ass last time."

Mike heard no response from Zombi and said, "Well, it seems you are still a coward."

He approached her wife and said, "Bell, are you okay?"

"Do I look good to you?"

"No, you don't."

"Then why on Armora did you ask me that useless question?" Without saying a word, Mike lifts his wife's body with his arm and carries her.

Bell wasn't happy that Mike was carrying her without asking her, so she yelled at him, "Mike, what are you doing? I am not a little kid."

Mike puts Bell to the ground, and they look for James Ross, Hein Eduard, and the other cops. He grabs her shoulder to help her keep her balance.

***

Meanwhile, Alucard was using telepathy to talk to Zombi while walking back and forth in a big room full of pillars and windows, and he was biting his nails from hearing what Zombi had said.

"You are saying Ariadna died, and you controlled her and still lost? Stupid green skin, why are you even a Dragon Rider?"

"Alucard, you are the one who isn't talking. If it weren't for your dad, you'd never be a Dragon in the first place, and please train your useless Hatchlings better if you don't want them to be my slave."

"Don't talk about my dad without knowing he didn't help me my entire life of being born. I work for this position, Zombi. If you want to talk about being unfair, then let's talk about you. Getting promoted while doing nothing, letting your puppets do your work. So I don't need your help to kill those intruders."

"If you don't want my help, then die."

Zombi was about to stop telepathy with Alucard, but he remembered what he wanted to say to the Blood Dragon.

"Oh, forgot to mention, Healer, arriving at your skyscraper. You better clean up when she gets there."

Zombi left the conversation after delivering his message to the dragon.

"Ugh, today is turning out to be bad. First, it was that those goddamn cops infiltrated my den. Then Ariadna got killed by an older woman and an older man and turned into a mindless slave to that fucker green skin. And now that annoying bitch is coming here. Can this day get any worse?"

Hein Eduard was approaching slowly toward the Blood Dragon, but he was somewhere that Alucard couldn't see him. Only the blue gentleman could see the enemy.

He talked to a walkie-talkie in his hand, "Alpha one and two, this Hein Eduard. I see the Blood Dragon Alucard on the skyscraper's top floor. I will wait until a few shows up to fight Alucard together."

"Hahahaha, you would not hear from those cops, Mr. investigator!"

"Who are you, and what did you do to my men?"

"I didn't do anything to your men. Tell that to the Blood Dragon, and it's none of your business who I am."

The walkie-talkie carried a woman's voice, and Hein spoke to her. However, she dropped the walkie-talkie and broke it with her feet.

Hein Eduard's voice was still coming from it before it got destroyed. After destroying the walkie-talkie, she looked up toward the skyscraper. Her name was Healer.

Many orbs with different shapes and sizes circled the Healer's head, and she chose four orbs with her pink star-shaped fingernail and said, "My babies go and find Vicious One."

The four spheres circling her head flew into the skyscraper; when she saw the orbs enter the place, she also went toward the building.

Hein Eduard noticed no response from the woman, so he thought, "I guess she left me hanging, but who was that? Anyway, I hope what she said was a lie about my men."

"But if my men were alive, she wouldn't answer my call, and they would."

"I have to fight Alucard alone, but how do I cut him off guard?"

Hein Eduard figured something out when he entered the room where Blood Dragon Alucard was in. It didn't take the enemy long to see the blue gentleman.

"You thought you could do a sneak attack?"

Alucard launched into Hein Eduard, trying to stab him. However, the blue gentleman dodged the attack by slowing down time when he closed his eyes and kicked the enemy's high hip.

Alucard got flung far from Hein, but this did not stop the Blood Dragon from getting up with his two feet and zooming at his enemy again.

To Be Continued.