Chapter 127 – Warring Puppets

“How mysterious – I still can’t tell how formidable he is,” thought all the cultivators as they looked grimly at Gu Suihan. The cultivators grouped together according to which sect they were from and began to scan their surroundings like they were prepared for a great battle.

Perhaps the darkness unsettled them greatly. The cultivators seemed to be competing with one another on who could illuminate the place better as they cast illuminating spell after illuminating spell, which made the place as bright as day.

They now realized that they were in a huge hall, which had 18 pillars that were so wide, it would take more than just a few people to hug its entire circumference. Carvings of all sorts of demonic beasts adorned each pillar, baring their teeth and claws as though they were real.

At the other end stood a gigantic rock platform that was dark gray in color. An elegant and intricately designed compass was on top of it. There were nine flights of stairs leading down from the rock platform.

At the bottom of each pillar stood a statue of a human who looked extremely realistic. They were all dressed in black and held all sorts of weapons in their hands, their weapons gleaming brightly in the light.

“This is the legacy we were after? It seriously almost got us all killed. More than a thousand of us tried to enter but only a tenth of us survived. I’m not sure if this person was even trying to choose an heir to this legacy,” mumbled a cultivator from the Vast Sky Sect. His pupils constricted as he looked around at those domineering statues and thought of how those dead things had overwhelmed them earlier.

Li Xiaoyao threw the cultivator a fierce glance, but his expression remained indifferent as he seemed to understand what was going on now. “The legacy does exist, but it was not meant for us.”

“That’s right. The illusionary formation at the door, the trap mechanisms and those gross things that came out from underground were all attempts to sift the sand and eliminate anybody clearly not up to par,” Wan Xin’s bright voice echoed eerily in the large and quiet hall, making their hair stand on end.

Zou Kai scratched his head and laughed hollowly, “I think that the legacy left behind by this powerful cultivator senior was meant for a cultivator at Origin Core. Foundation Establishment cultivators like us are only going to end up dying from all the tests and traps in this place.”

“And you think we can get out of here at this juncture?” Xi Ran looked in despair as the dead things outside slowly stepped over the line they had previously kept and moved closer to the people inside. Then he looked fearfully at the completely silent statues in the hall and felt terribly depressed.

The cultivators were not fools. The compass on the rock platform was definitely no ordinary compass, so they all began to wonder if those statues were really just décor or if there was more to them than met the eye.

Yet, even though everyone was excited to explore this place and check out the compass, nobody dared to be the one to take the first step forward. Nobody wanted to take this risk and end up dead.

“That cultivator designed one ploy to lead to another. A cultivator at Origin Core might be able to break through all these challenges, but we’re only at Foundation Establishment, so we’re not good enough to get through this,” said Gu Suihan in a calm voice even as the look in his eye darkened. “But we’ve come to a point where we’re going to die either way, so we might as well try and force our way out.”

His sword immediately started ringing as he placed his slim fingers on the hilt, ready to strike anytime. He slowly took a few steps forward and kept his eye on the murderous-looking magical beasts that adorned the huge red pillars. Surprisingly, he ignored the more obvious statues at the bottom.

“The demonic beasts on the pillars are alive,” said Gu Suihan suddenly as he stood at the foot of a pillar and looked carefully at the carvings.

“They’re alive?” exclaimed everyone who had heard those words. They weren’t ignorant fools who knew nothing about such beasts. The carvings on the pillars included jiaolongs, venomous snakes, whales, and more. They did look extremely realistic, but nobody expected them to actually be alive. What did that mean?

That meant that the person who had left this legacy behind had to be a truly formidable character. Many of these beasts had already disappeared off the face of this world, but the legends they left behind continued to remind the later generations about how terrifying and powerful the demonic race used to be.

At the same time, someone who could capture such creatures and embed them into these pillars to be mere decoration had to be even more powerful.

“We can only advance and we can’t go back, so we’ve got to try and find a way to survive no matter what. Speculating is pointless. We just need to give it a shot and we’d know if there are any traps here.”

Zou Kai’s knuckles cracked loudly as he clenched his fists tightly. He grinned and marched over to one of the pillars. He carefully calculated the distance between himself and the statue there, then gave a low shout. The tattoo of the ferocious beast on his arms seemed to come alive. It had a cold gleam in its eyes and Zou Kai slowly emanated an air of tragedy from his body, which made everyone turn and look at him.

“Seven Steps of Warring Heavens – Beast’s Soul into the Sky!” yelled Zou Kai as his fists turned red and gave off smoke. He threw a punch that was as powerful as a mountain coming down, as powerful as a tank rolling along. There was an obvious vacuum left behind where his fists once were as they carried huge amounts of murderous qi and smashed into the pillar.

“There’s a formation.” Gu Suihan slowly moved backward with some surprise as he looked up at the demonic beasts that seemed to have been agitated by that punch, letting out copious amounts of murderous qi as they growled ferociously.

“And there are trap mechanisms too!” The sword will in Li Xiaoyao’s eyes stared at the crack that Zou Kai’s punch had created, which revealed many intricately designed and constructed metal parts inside.

“Not bad. Combining traps and formations is a school of thought on its own,” said Gu Suihan as he gave an approving nod. He drew his sword out of its sheath, thrusting the darkened blade gleaming with blood toward the crack that Zou Kai had made.

Bam! Pak! The sound of something breaking resounded in the air as countless parts came flying out from inside, creating sparks along the way.

“The statues are moving!” someone exclaimed as he pointed a trembling finger at the statues that creaked as they came to life.

“Warring puppets? This cultivator was really generous, huh.”

Zou Kai was like a ferocious beast himself, his steps echoing loudly as he ran as quickly as the wind back into the crowd. His mouth gaped as he saw the gleaming runes swirling around the blackened nails of the statues.

“It’s best to attack while they haven’t fully regained consciousness,” called out Wan Xin. She ran her hand over her seven-stringed glass zither, causing colorful and fiery energy to explode from within her and making the song of a phoenix resound from the instrument. As the agitated and resolute sound of the zither suddenly filled the air, it also made everyone feel an urge to rise up and kill something. Their eyes turned red as they glared fiercely at the statues and pounced toward them.

“Women are the most vicious of creatures, eh?” Gu Suihan looked at the riled-up cultivators as they attacked like they had lost their minds and took several steps away from them. He had a grim look in his eye as he went past Wan Xin’s back.

This girl seemed to have undergone some sort of trauma after she returned to the Wonderful Sound Sect. Her personality had changed almost entirely and she was nothing like the way she used to be. She had just sent her own juniors into battle without regard for their lives and was very proud of doing so too. Before this, he was sure that she would never have allowed such a thing to happen.

“It’s best to stay as far away as possible from an unpredictable variable like her,” thought Gu Suihan as he quietly hid in an inconspicuous part of the hall and watched the fight expressionlessly.

After the warring puppets had been struck repeatedly by all sorts of talismans, the place where their eyes should be shone a bright red through the helmet. They shouted loudly, “Intruders must die!” and started brandishing their spears, sabers, axes, and other crazy-looking weapons.

“You’re just an ordinary soldier and you think you can break through my qi barrier? You…AHHH!” A Vast Sky Sect disciple had a mocking look on his face for just one second before the warring puppet’s sword sliced his body into half without facing any resistance at all.

“The weapons are made from qi destroying metal!”

Everyone paled as they hurriedly dodged the weapons the warring puppets used to attack them.

“Move further away from them!” yelled someone as he tried to fly upwards. But he suddenly felt his body become heavy and it was difficult for him to control his qi. He had only risen ten meters into the air when he ran out of qi and was shot in the head by the arrow of a warring puppet, which exploded his head and killed him instantly.

“There are qi scrambler stones on the floor!”

Everyone was filled with both anger and horror as they tried to retreat but stumbled over their own feet. After reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, they had become too used to flying, so having to run around on the floor was something they hardly did anymore and they felt like their bodies were so heavy, unlike how light their bodies felt when they flew in the air with the support of qi.

The warring puppets soon caught up with the retreating cultivators, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. The huge hall resounded with nothing but the sound of people killing and getting killed.

Xi Ran and the rest were very glad that they hadn’t rushed to the front like the rest, or else they would have died an even more tragic death. Before coming in here, Zhou Xing had died. As a jiangshi, he was difficult to injure with ordinary weapons or even spiritual weapons, but his lack of speed had always been a weakness. He had been too slow in running and ended up dying from suffering too many simultaneous attacks.

So now, Xi Ran only had the extremely cautious and cowardly Wang Mingzhi as well as the perpetually depressed Taohua with him. The three of them snuck away and hid somewhere, not daring to fight at all. In such a situation, they were happy to just get out of this place alive, never mind getting the legacy.

“My dear fellow cultivator, why don’t we seize this chance to sneak up there?” Wang Mingzhi looked at the gleaming compass above the stairs and tried to instigate Xi Ran.

“Are you joking with me now?” Xi Ran glared back at Wang Mingzhi and said sternly, “Look at Li Xiaoyao and the rest! They might look like they’re fighting with everything they have now, but nobody knows what trump cards they’re hiding in their sleeves. And so what if you manage to get your hands on that thing? Do you even know how to use it? Do you even know what it is? Worse, you might fail to steal it AND lose your life!”

Meanwhile, Taohua scanned the area and could not find Gu Suihan among the crowd, which made her heart shudder. She knew very well how her previous employer worked. She could still remember clearly what happened on the day Lihua died.

Gu Suihan had pretty much left the Seven Kill Sect and was now a wandering cultivator, but based on the cultivation techniques he had taught her, she knew very well that Gu Suihan not only knew complete techniques, but his techniques were way better than the methods the Seven Kill Sect disciples knew. That was how he could control the entire area in Qingguo back then within just a few years.

“Young…I mean, Gu Suihan has gone missing,” whispered Taohua.

Xi Ran’s eye twitched as he immediately exchanged glances with Wang Mingzhi. Their expressions were grim as they used their spiritual sense to try and locate Gu Suihan. They had interacted with him for a short period of time before this and that was already enough to make them wary and afraid of him. Now that they had Taohua with them, they weren’t sure if Gu Suihan might get angry with them and smite them.

“Gu Suihan’s gone!” Wan Xin had noticed this too. She couldn’t believe that the man in such a conspicuous large black embroidered cloak could have disappeared from under her nose. This threw her into a slight panic and she began to feel uneasy.