Goddess Kaleidoscope

Because of his reclusive personality, Dick always kept to himself and was disliked by the other elders. He was always ostracized, so even though he had the title of senior council member, not many people in the Brotherhood were willing to associate with him. He could only hang out with ghosts every day.

Shirley pinpointed the crux of the problem.

Lude remained completely unfazed. Instead, he looked up and silently stared at Shirley until she seemed somewhat puzzled, at which point he smiled and spoke.

"So even someone as well-informed as you has things you don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"Those who understand, understand; you wouldn't understand even if I explained. In short, I've come to visit you in person for only one purpose: to give you, Lady Sherry, a tremendous opportunity. You say I lack influence, and I know that, otherwise why would I be seeking you out?"

"Huh? By the God of Thieves! Dick, I did admire you a little before, but I never expected you to be so... narcissistic? Who do you think you are? Why should I help you? Because your thing is bigger than most people's?"

"You'll see. I'll be back in three days. Goodbye."

"You come and go as you please? Do you take me for... a human being?"

She wanted to sneer a few more times, but in the blink of an eye, "Dick," who was surrounded by a group of female warriors, disappeared into thin air. This greatly surprised Shirley, who was a top expert, because even an assassin-type warrior like the old butler Sajin, who was known for his speed, could not do such a teleportation without being noticed.

Shirley's feelings were quite complicated. She suddenly had a bad feeling that she probably couldn't stay out of this election for president.

End of this chapter

As the saying goes, the most exciting thing is to show off and then leave!

Disguised as a necromancer, Lude first went to the Silver House alone to meet Shirley, and then disappeared into thin air amidst a group of mixed-race female warriors, successfully establishing a mysterious image of "unfathomable strength" in front of Shirley, leaving her astonished.

However, in reality, Lud did not possess any overpowered skills like teleportation or time stop. Instead, inspired by Aina and Shanis's creation of the divine messengers, he developed a new skill on his own—cloning.

Although he possesses complete authority from Aina and the others, allowing him to use divine power without restriction, some skills seem to be unique to the gods themselves, and Rude either cannot use them or uses them incompletely.

For example, the creation messengers, even a simpleton like Aina, can understand things instantly. The messengers they create have self-awareness as soon as they open their eyes, are loyal to their creator, and also have the ability to learn.

Lud's repeated attempts to imitate always ended in failure, at most creating soulless shells, like a bunch of unspeakable dolls. So much so that before he could change his approach, he was ridiculed by the smug Aina, who would point fingers and try to teach Lud.

“Master, listen to me, it’s not like that. You have to do it like this first (gesturing wildly)... then like this (gesturing wildly)... and finally like this (gesturing wildly again)... Do you understand? (hands on hips)”

After several unsuccessful attempts, Lud realized that the key to the problem was that he could not use his divine power to construct the soul of the divine messenger, so he could only create empty shells. However, he soon discovered that although these empty shells with human appearances could not move on their own, they had a mysterious spiritual bond with him, their creator, allowing him to possess and control them.

Following this discovery, Ludwig developed a new divine spell called "clone," which uses divine power to construct a controllable empty shell.

Lude can freely adjust the gender and appearance of this clone, and can even use divine magic when controlling the clone. The only difference between the clone and the original body is that the clone does not have the primordial fire inside, so it does not have the cheat of being immune to divine magic. In addition, there is a distance limit to controlling the clone. The farther away from the original body, the slower it becomes, feeling like network latency.

In actual testing of this new skill, Lude's clone could barely maintain control at a distance of 10 kilometers from the main body, but the overall movements were as uncomfortable as having a ping value of 999. Any further and it would "disconnect".

So when Lude used his clone to meet Sherry, his real body was actually in a small house on the west bank of the river. After the conversation ended, he made the clone disappear on the spot, leading Sherry and the others to mistakenly believe that it was a teleportation skill.

After ending the skill, Lude got up and stretched a bit. After using the clone for a long time, returning to his original body would feel a bit uncomfortable.

Lude approached Shirley this time with the intention of dragging her into the mess.

Although this woman had told the other elders that she would remain neutral in the struggle for the presidency, Lude believed that there must be many spies planted by the other elders around her silver house, like cyber police, watching this brothel 24 hours a day.

Before long, the important information about the necromancer's meeting with Shirley will be known to the other four elders.

Lude plans to use the guise of a "necromancer" to muddy the waters within the Brotherhood of the Black Hand, so as to take the opportunity to manipulate the faith, incite the believers to split, and thus separate Hume from the imposter. He will prioritize ensuring that Hume's existence will not be replaced, and then deal with the imposter.

After all, it is very difficult to truly kill a god. No matter how weak the opponent is, she can continue to eke out a living until she loses all her followers and is completely forgotten by mortals.

"Now, let's see how the others react."

In the following days, Lude lay low and observed the situation. The sudden appearance of the necromancer indeed caused quite a stir, and the other four elders, apart from the snake witch Shirley, reacted differently.

Even the Navarro family, who had a grudge against the necromancer, did not publicly declare their intention to do anything to Dick. They claimed that the bigger picture was at stake and hoped that Dick would hand over the God of Thieves artifact in his possession as soon as possible. But it was clear to everyone that they were not making any definitive statements for the time being, lest Dick completely side with their competitor.

During this time, Lud wasn't just hiding in the shadows watching the excitement; he also met with Servis several times in private. But just as he was preparing to hand over the official script of "The Count of Monte Cristo" to her, some news that caught the Rainbow Dance Company somewhat off guard suddenly reached Servis's ears.

Their rivals suddenly launched a new play called "Water City Merchant," which was a huge success upon its premiere and caused quite a stir.

However, the team members who went to investigate reported back to Servis that not only was the name similar, but the plot and even the characters' lines were exactly the same as "The Merchant of the Sea City," which they had been secretly rehearsing.

What angered them was that at the end of the premiere, the other party also promoted another upcoming play called "Goldilocks and the Seven Dwarfs," with a plot summary that felt very familiar.

Upon hearing this, Servis's expression changed drastically. She hurriedly ran back to her room, retrieved the safe she had carefully hidden, and discovered that the most important original script was indeed missing!

This scene struck like a bolt from the blue, nearly causing Servis to faint. She had been so busy working on the new play Ludwig had given her that she hadn't checked on it at all, simply collapsing into her room and falling asleep immediately.

Servis realized that there must be a traitor within her group!

After the incident, Servis was initially furious, wishing she could immediately grab two cleavers and rush over to Katie's house to chop that despicable bitch into mincemeat. But she quickly calmed herself down, because arguing there would be pointless. She had no way to prove that the script was hers, and even if she went to court, she probably wouldn't be able to win against Katie's extensive connections in Flamewood City. In the end, she might even be bitten in return.

Faced with this situation, Servis suddenly felt a little fortunate that Lude had come a few days ago and brought her a new script; otherwise, she would have been in despair right now.

After a moment's thought, Servis decided that the most urgent task was to find the mole within the troupe to prevent the new play from being leaked again. So when she met with Ludd again, Servis explained her situation in detail and asked for his help.

Servis is now hesitant to trust anyone in her troupe, but she can completely trust Rudd, who gave her a second chance at life.

End of this chapter

Having learned the details of what happened from Servis, Ludwig wasn't surprised at all that there was a mole within the troupe. Based on the information he currently had, it was entirely within the capabilities of that Katie.

Therefore, Lude advised Servis not to panic, saying that they had only lost points and were far from truly losing the game!

"Master, I think we must find the traitor before the new play begins. Do you have any good ideas?"

“There is indeed a solution… Here’s what we’ll do: go back today and prepare as I’ve instructed…”

While Lude was arranging a plan for Servis to catch the mole, on the other side, at the Rainbow Dance Troupe, whose premiere was a resounding success, Katie was holding a celebratory banquet. In the luxurious restaurant, the members of the Rainbow Dance Troupe toasted their leader, showering her with flattery and praising her wisdom and prowess. Some of the more savvy members even took the opportunity to belittle the Rainbow Dance Troupe and Servis, mocking their overestimation of their abilities.

Among the crowd, only Sanz remained expressionless, observing the farce unfolding in the distance from a corner. Some members of the troupe, unaware of the situation, came up to toast him, praising his script as excellent. Sanz merely glanced at them and then coldly retorted with a question.

Do I look like a thief to you?

Sans was extremely disappointed by Katie's behavior. He wrote the script for the Fei Xia Dance Troupe not because Katie offered a high price, but because their troupe was indeed talented. But now it seemed that Katie's character was far inferior to her acting skills.

Sans doesn't consider himself a decent person. He's done countless absurd things in his life, and at one point, he was hunted down by his own people all over the world for offending the public. But he has always had his own bottom line, and Katie's behavior is undoubtedly a serious offense to him.

At this moment, Katie, already somewhat drunk, approached Sans and pulled him towards her, wanting to have a drink together. Sans frowned at the woman and said with a look of resistance.

"Katie, we need to talk."

"What are you talking about? Have you finally figured it out?"

Looking at Sans, who seemed hesitant to speak, Katie's face revealed a flirtatious smile. She had once seduced Sans using the same methods she used on other men, wanting to bind him firmly to her dance troupe and squeeze every last drop of essence from his mind and body.

To Katie's utter astonishment, the tricks that had worked on countless men were completely ineffective on Sans. This led Katie to suspect that at least one of Sans's sexual orientations or his genitals was problematic.

Even today, Katie still can't forget about seducing Sans. Rather than saying that Katie really developed feelings for the playwright, it's more accurate to say that she's still bothered by the fact that her charm didn't work on this man.

Despite Katie's deliberate flirting, Sans remained unmoved, even more resistant than usual. He brushed aside the glass Katie offered, revealing an unusually serious expression.

“Katie, you’ve disappointed me. You don’t respect me. You can ask me to write a script for you, but you shouldn’t put my name on someone else’s script, especially since it was stolen. I must tell you clearly, what you’ve done has made me very angry!”

Hearing the obvious reprimand in Sans's tone, the drunken Katie's smile vanished instantly, her face turning cold, startling the troupe members standing nearby. Anyone who had stayed with the Feixia Dance Troupe for more than a month knew that when the troupe leader showed this expression, someone was bound to be in trouble.

The group members looked at each other in bewilderment for a moment, and finally a senior member stepped forward to try to smooth things over.

"Mr. Sans, are you drunk?"

“I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol, and you know I can’t get drunk.”

"..."

This completely killed the conversation on the spot. The old member who came out to smooth things over was practically in tears, thinking to himself, "Brother, you can't do this! If you're going to self-destruct, at least let us innocent bystanders stay far away!"

Now look what happened! He brought this on himself by trying to smooth things over, but instead of saving face, he dragged himself into the mess. Katie just gave him a death stare; he's definitely not getting any juice now.

At this moment, the other members in the hall also noticed that the atmosphere here was obviously wrong. The sound of everyone talking and laughing gradually became quieter and quieter until it was completely silent. Everyone was watching this side nervously.

Some were worried, while others were secretly gloating.

“Sans, I’ve always respected you as the most famous playwright in Yanmu City, but lately, haven’t you been getting a little too cocky?”

"I'm not the one who's getting carried away! Katie, I can turn a blind eye to everything else you do, but you steal other people's work and then use my name to swindle without even asking. That's disrespectful and an insult to me!"

"Hahaha! Insult? If you could write a better script, would I have to do this? It's clearly your incompetence that's the problem! If you think I don't respect you, then leave! Let's see if you still have a place in Yanmu City!"

Under the influence of alcohol, Katie, agitated, unleashed her violent side.

Despite her seemingly glamorous life as the head of the Feixia Dance Troupe and the most popular actress in Yanmu City, Katie believes she has made enormous "sacrifices" to achieve her current status. To ordinary audiences, she is a dazzling stage goddess, but in front of those important figures, she is nothing more than a plaything that moves on its own.

So no matter how submissive she was in public, or how much she suffered injustice, Katie would seek compensation from her subordinates when she returned to her own territory. Over time, this twisted her personality to an extreme degree. Therefore, Sans's direct confrontation was like a taut string in her brain, causing her to unleash all her pent-up resentment in a fit of rage.

Looking at the hysterical Katie, Sans suddenly smiled and said.

"You know, Katie, you used to be like a little devil, willing to do anything to survive. I didn't actually hate you for that. But now, you're starting to reek of nauseating rot... You were absolutely right, I'm just a dummy in a new place. Goodbye!"

In front of Katie and the rest of the troupe, Sans bowed to Katie as an actor takes a bow, then turned and left the hall without looking back, leaving the stunned troupe members and Katie, whose eyes gleamed with resentment, speechless for a long time.

End of this chapter

Because Katie, after sobering up, imposed a gag order on the entire troupe, the news of Sans's falling out with the Flying Chapel Dance Company did not spread. The truly important figures would not care about a disagreement that broke out within a small dance company, so the incident did not cause any ripples.

Ultimately, although Sans was famous and had been touted by the Feixia Dance Troupe as the strongest playwright in Yanmu City, for most ordinary audiences who just wanted to enjoy the show, the playwright was often the person they would most easily overlook. What they remembered were actresses like Katie, who were young, beautiful, had good acting skills, and were willing to show their bodies on stage.

However, for industry insiders, excellent playwrights are even rarer talents than good actors. Therefore, many well-informed second- and third-tier song and dance troupes have set their sights on Sans, who was assigned to the Feixia Song and Dance Troupe. However, due to Katie's intimidating presence, they dare not make a move in the short term.

Meanwhile, at the Rainbow Dance Troupe, Lu De, using the pseudonym "Hugo," officially joined the troupe as a specially appointed playwright.

When Servis introduced him to the troupe members, he was presented as "a disciple of the great writer Shakespeare" and a top-notch creator specially recommended by Master Ludwig! This time, he joined the troupe with his own investment to collaborate with the Rainbow Dance Company, just to bring Shakespeare's posthumous work, "The King of the Cave," to the stage.

With a series of added status, plus the personal endorsement of the guild leader Servis and Master Lud from thousands of miles away, even though many in the guild felt that this young man named Hugo was a bit too young, they all expressed that they would do everything possible to follow Master Hugo's guidance.

The first thing Ludwig did upon his arrival was to gather all seventy-plus members of the Rainbow Dance Troupe and announce a reorganization of the troupe's structure. The members were divided into three departments based on their abilities: performance, music, and logistics. The logistics department had the largest staff and was further subdivided into four groups: props, stage management, publicity, and daily life.

Before this, the Rainbow Dance Troupe was just like most second- or third-tier dance troupes with limited personnel. The whole troupe was in disarray and without any order. Due to the shortage of manpower, many members were forced to become "jacks-of-all-trades," like a brick in a socialist system, moved wherever needed.

After the reorganization, the Rainbow Dance Troupe has each department with its own specific duties, and everyone has a clear responsibility, allowing them to focus on doing their best job.

It is worth mentioning that, according to this reorganization plan, the entire Rainbow Choir needs to be expanded from the current seventy people to at least one hundred and twenty people. The increase in personnel also means that expenses will increase. Some of the old members who have gone through the hard times with Servis are worried that this will overwhelm the Rainbow Choir's financial problems, which have only been improving for less than a year.

In response, Lude simply brought out a box and publicly displayed the "capital" he brought into the group—a full five thousand gold coins that dazzled all the group members. All their worries vanished in an instant, and they felt there was nothing to be afraid of anymore!

The recruitment process went smoothly because the fifty new staff members were mainly assigned to the logistics team, allowing the actors and musicians to be freed from various miscellaneous tasks and focus on improving their professional skills. With ample funding, the staff was complete in just one day. Grandma Marilyn from the Sky Opera House also provided considerable assistance, introducing Servis to many reliable individuals.

With all personnel in place, the next step is to prepare for the new play. As per Lu De's request, the acting and music teams will undergo a week-long closed-door training camp. During this period, all trainees are not allowed to leave the camp, and the logistics team will be responsible for ensuring their living needs during this time.