Chapter 1579: Immortal Artifact Sect: Flesh-and-Blood Puppet Immortal Dao Industrial Revolution

Layer upon layer, the Six Paths of Reincarnation enveloped the cultivator's divine soul, imprinting the cultivator's entire life, then departed without a sound, changing nothing.

Jiang Ding's gaze settled on the eighteen Jin Dan–rank flesh-and-blood puppets surrounding the red-haired burly man, and he examined them carefully.

"Twenty thousand years ago, within the Immortal Artifact Sect there existed a struggle between the 'Dead Puppet Faction' and the 'Living Puppet Faction,' and the struggle was extremely fierce—Heavenly Humans bled, and some even nearly fell…"

Jiang Ding slowly recalled the events of twenty thousand years ago.

Back then, within the Thunder Flame Domain he had annihilated all the top-tier sects' Void Refinement cultivators, and these Void Refinement cultivators in turn had countless ties to the Immortal Artifact Sect, so he obtained a great deal of intelligence.

"It seems now that the factional disputes within the Immortal Artifact Sect have come to an end."

"The fusion of living puppets and dead puppets is truly cruel."

"Within them, the ethics, morality, and emotions of human society are almost nonexistent—even the vicious evil of the Mo Sect is absent; they are like non-humans, devoid of feeling…"

Jiang Ding stood above the karma of the human world, touching nothing, changing nothing.

Yet he could not help feeling a touch of sorrow, and he sighed.

No matter how hostile, they were still a human sect, weren't they?

Even the Mo Sect ought to represent humanity's evil, humanity's many desires, shouldn't it?

And yet the Immortal Artifact Sect now…

Jiang Ding saw, on these eighteen Jin Dan–rank flesh-and-blood puppets, that their bodies had been implanted with lengths of metal, lengths of wooden strips, vines, and yellow-red spirit soil, each replacing parts of these beings' original bones, meridians, and flesh, vastly strengthening the power of these Jin Dan cultivators.

No—these were Foundation Establishment peak cultivators' power.

This one Jin Dan flesh-and-blood puppet had originally been merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator with a somewhat resilient divine soul; through all manner of water-and-fire refinements, his meridians, bones, and dantian were all replaced by terrifying Immortal Dao flesh-and-blood puppet techniques, his strength multiplied dozens of times over, becoming a Jin Dan Chu Qi–level combat power.

He was still alive.

His divine soul was refined together with the divine souls of his children, parents, and his entire clan of tens of thousands, continuously purified, until his divine soul likewise swelled explosively, and in the end he actually managed, with a Foundation Establishment soul, to successfully control a Jin Dan body—such was the uncanny craftsmanship, containing terrifyingly supreme Immortal Dao puppet techniques.

This was still a living puppet.

He could actively cooperate with the array master to exert tremendous power, greatly reducing the burden of control, allowing the red-haired burly man—who was not particularly skilled in array Dao—to easily control eighteen Jin Dan puppets, plus tens of thousands of Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining puppets, unleashing power far beyond his usual self.

The most crucial point was that the raw materials were renewable, and the cost was still low.

Yes, these flesh-and-blood puppets contained exquisite Immortal Dao techniques, yet their cost was still low, and the refining procedures were not necessarily even complicated!

The Immortal Artifact Sect, over these twenty thousand years, must have undergone some kind of puppet—

—a major technological breakthrough.

"If this is truly the case, then the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm's failure might be understandable…"

Jiang Ding muttered to himself, and departed without a sound.

……

The life of the red-haired Jin Dan cultivator of the Flesh Puppet Sect unfolded within the Six Paths of Reincarnation.

He was born into a Li-surnamed Nascent Soul family in the Immortal Artifact Sect's Red River Domain, the son of the clan chief, named Li Jiu Liu Sanqi—the strongest son of the Li family's ancestor. Among that generation of Li family children, only he survived, because his talent was strong enough and his fortune and aptitude were good.

The remaining children of that entire batch were all refined into flesh-and-blood puppets, or became raw materials for flesh-and-blood puppets, or were refined into many productive flesh-and-blood puppets—for instance, a tiny component part of a large-scale automatic weapon-refining treasure.

Many Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment flesh-and-blood puppets were manufactured by those giant worm-like large-scale automatic weapon-refining treasures—low cost, high efficiency, long service life, very little spirit-stone consumption, and they could even automatically draw on the world's spiritual energy to recover; compared to traditional puppets, one could say the advantages were extremely numerous.

There were also many large-scale automatic sowing treasures, large-scale automatic alchemy treasures, large-scale automatic talisman-making treasures…

One could say that flesh-and-blood puppet treasures were applied in every aspect of the Immortal Artifact Sect, enormously liberating the productive forces.

In Jiang Ding's rational assessment, the Immortal Artifact Sect had in fact even set off a 'Flesh-and-Blood Puppet Immortal Dao Industrial Revolution'!

From ten thousand years ago, when the Immortal Artifact Sect's flesh-and-blood puppet techniques were formally born and rolled out, the output of spirit stones, elixirs, and heavenly materials and earthly treasures in every domain and every Minor Thousand Worlds of the Immortal Artifact Sect grew rapidly, doubling again and again.

The purses of the upper-level powerholders quickly swelled, and material abundance grew enormously.

This war between the Immortal Artifact Sect and the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm in the Golden Sea Domain was precisely such a case.

The Immortal Artifact Sect's flesh-and-blood puppet Dao soldiers came in overwhelming, endless numbers, cooperating in perfect coordination, heedless of life and death, never fearing, and could even form grand arrays; controlled by top-tier experts, they influenced the outcome of the highest-level battles.

They were like a colossal flesh-and-blood war machine, crushing the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm's defenders and recapturing the domains that had been steadily seized by the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm over the past ten thousand years.

Now, in the Upper Realm, the fearsome reputation of the Immortal Artifact Sect's 'Flesh-and-Blood Heavenly Demon Puppet Dao Soldiers' shook all directions, drawing the attention and wariness of many Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong and quasi-immortal clans; the Thunder Yang Heavenly Sword Realm, which had originally been preparing to dispatch troops to support the Immortal Artifact Sect under their alliance pact, even temporarily slowed the pace of its reinforcements.

Flesh-and-blood puppets—

This was a technology profound enough to deeply alter the situation of the Upper Realm.

Then what was the price?

The fate of the red-haired Jin Dan burly man had already made it clear.

Starting from the small local families, aside from a very few of the most exceptionally talented existences, all cultivators had to be refined into flesh-and-blood puppets, or into a component part of some large-scale treasure, and thus spend their entire lives—

?? worn out, they were destroyed and replaced with new flesh-and-blood puppet components.

And the red-haired Jin Dan cultivator, who had stood out from among countless peers—had he escaped his fate?

No.

He still found himself within a new fate, though he himself might not know it.

But at some suitable moment, he would become a higher-grade flesh-and-blood component than his siblings, used in the Immortal Artifact Sect's higher-grade flesh-and-blood puppets—perhaps a Nascent Soul–grade flesh-and-blood puppet, or even a Soul Transformation flesh-and-blood puppet, for all one could say.

Extrapolating from this, at higher grades still, what was the fate of the many Void Refinement and Dao Merging cultivators that all Immortal Artifact Sect cultivators looked up to?

Would they be exempted from such a fate?

The memories contained within the red-haired Jin Dan cultivator were too few to allow an effective deduction.

"The Upper Realm's waters run too deep."

"No matter how much I detest it, the Immortal Artifact Sect has in substance launched an Immortal Dao technological industrial revolution, with productivity increased as never before…"

Much wariness arose in Jiang Ding's heart.

He had an inexplicable premonition that the battle between the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm and the Immortal Artifact Sect was bound to escalate further; more Heavenly Human battles, and even Jiang Jiang Jinxian–level experts' battles, could all appear—this place was growing more and more dangerous.

He had to leave as soon as possible!

Even if it required taking some risks, he still had to leave as soon as possible.

Jiang Ding no longer hesitated; he pushed his Six Paths concealment power to the utmost and flew straight toward the center of the Golden Sea Domain.

When a Void Refinement cultivator leaves the realm, a heavenly phenomenon is inevitable; this is one of the rules that the Upper Realm cannot exempt!

Therefore, he needs a Void Refinement cultivator, one who is utterly heinous and deserves death, and then this Void Refinement cultivator will walk out of the Golden Sea Domain and naturally trigger a heavenly phenomenon.

Everything is so utterly ordinary, attracting no further attention whatsoever.