Midnight Masquerade

"Sebastian, you mentioned something like Cursed puppets, What are cursed puppets?"

"Cursed puppets are regular puppets that became cursed and thus became stronger," Sebastian said with a smile.

"No, what I meant is what separates normal puppets from Cursed puppets?"

"This... I cannot tell you the difference since I don't even know the difference myself." He said with an apologetic smile. "After all, I'm not a professional puppeteer."

"But I think the mansion in the middle might have the answer to your questions. After all, this place might be the workshop of a puppeteer in ancient times."

John nodded and then released the raven puppet and they continued walking toward the mansion.

After three minutes of walking, they finally arrived in front of the mansion.

This mansion is designed gloomily with a tall four-sided pagoda in the middle. At the top of the Pagoda is a big raven that occupied the whole pagoda roof to itself. It has a pitch-black body, Golden beaks and claws that shines with sharpness.

Most important of all is its blood-red eye which seems to have a swirling red moon inside.

After entering the mansion, they found out that it now looks like a normal mansion inside than being weird and gloomy like the exterior.

"The owner of this mansion must really like ravens," John said as he looked at all the decorations inside this house which are all ravens.

"Well, some powerhouses are eccentric and have weird likings and hobbies, but as long as they are strong no one will dare to complain." Sebastian said

This made John remember the seven Hokages of Konoha, and indeed they have really weird personalities.

The first Hokage is a gambler, the second Hokage is a madman obsessed with developing forbidden techniques, the third Hokage is an expert in Damaging his own force, and The fourth Hokage has a horrible naming sense of technique.

The fifth Hokage is nicknamed the White Sheep of the gambling world, The sixth Hokage is a closet pervert, And the seventh Hokage loves work more than his family.

But did anybody complain to them about what they are doing? Clearly, as long as you are strong enough nobody cared about the strange things you do unless you're a pedophile, then you'll surely be punished no matter how strong you are.

After a bit more walking the two of them finally reached the center of the mansion where the pagoda visible from the outside is built.

This is a 4 story four-sided pagoda at the top is naturally the big raven that occupied the whole roof. On the floor below that are four ravens that are a circle smaller than the one on the rooftop sitting on the four corners of the pagoda.

On another floor below are 20 Ravens arranged on the edge of the pagoda roof, on the roof of the first floor are another 75 puppets that are only slightly larger than the ravens outside arranged in different positions with some flying and some sitting.

Looking at all this, John gulped and turned to ask Sebastian on the side with evident shaking in his voice.

"Sebastian, are those Ravens on the pagoda what I think it is?"

"It is indeed what you think it is."Sebastian nodded." All of the Ravens on this pagoda are really cursed puppets similar to those ones outside."

"But fortunately for you that these puppets are greatly damaged and cannot even display a percentage of their power."

"Let's enter the pagoda and see if there's any information about this place."

After entering the pagoda what was presented to them was piles of materials scattered on the ground, different parts of puppets can be seen piling up on the floor of the first floor.

However many parts turned into dust with the slightest body contact with them. Leaving only a few parts that are relatively more sturdy than the others.

Seeing that there are no information about the place inside the first floor they then went up to the second floor to see that the second floor has been modeled as a workshop.

All the tools in this place have been well preserved in containers that caused them to not look like thousands of years have passed.

John is very happy with these tools, now he has a complete workshop on where he can make better puppets.

After inspecting the tools, they went upstairs again to see that the third floor has been remodeled as a living room where they thought the puppeteer will rest after he was tired of making puppets.

There was no information here so they went upstairs again reaching the top of the pagoda.

The inside of the top floor is a big room with a big stone table in the middle of the room with big words written in an unknown language.

"Sebastian, do you understand the words on the tablet?" John asked.

"If I'm not wrong then the words written on the tablet are Midnight Masquerade!"

[Black-robed person: Come to the dark side, We have cookies!]