Chapter 399: Infected Without Knowing, Purging the Puppet Sect

The sea breeze and waves suddenly calmed, and the mechanisms behind the door fell into a deep silence.

Looking at the puppet dog parts shattered all over the floor, which bore the flickering, deep-purple characteristics of the Fluorite Disease, both the deity and the man grew grave and serious.

Holy Spirit Xuandeng leaned in to observe, her tone extremely solemn, a certain gaze emerging.

A gaze that wished to execute divine punishment and annihilate them! Because they understood in an instant what these people from the Puppet Sect were doing right now! They were researching the Fluorite Disease!

It was not because they were afraid of the world's malaise, nor because they were infected, that they had changed their past ways; rather, it was because they viewed the Fluorite Disease—an artificially spread catastrophe—as a subject of study, an opportunity. They had sealed the doors, set up arrays, and hidden away to study it themselves, intending to turn it into nourishment for the growth of their puppet arts.

In other words, if the Holy Spirit wanted to completely eradicate the Fluorite Disease, cleanse the world, and set everything back on the right track, then this place was a malignant tumor that needed to be cleared away as well! She did not hesitate or waver in the slightest! "Let's go! Before they ruin the situation, wipe them all out!"

The matter of the dust had instead become secondary.

At the same time, she could not help but mutter a little to herself.

Could it be that every one of these beings from outside the domain is a Heavenly Demon?

The evil-seeded great flood dragon from before, the crazed puppet masters now—they are all just a bunch of fellows who only know how to stray from the path!

Du En raised his eyes slightly, his expression unchanged.

Before, it was calm and natural; now, it was feigned indifference.

Because he was also from outside the domain, and he was even from the same sect as the originator of the world's malaise. If this were known, the Holy Spirit would probably beat anyone suspected of being an outsider to a pulp before speaking to them from now on.

In short, they proceeded in silence.

The interior of the Puppet Sect Tower was pitch black, permeated with a thick sense of danger.

Applying construction methods of spatial compression, the overall space was hundreds or thousands of times larger than it appeared from the outside. Naturally, all kinds of mechanical puppets were densely packed and visible everywhere, and at this moment, due to the intruders' advance, they began to awaken from their slumber.

Then.

Boom! Bang! Crack!

Du En walked and dismantled along the way, leaving piles of debris with ease. If he were more reckless, he could even ignore everything and just rely on running and crashing to smash the fourth-tier creations here into a pulp, all while remaining unscathed himself.

Compared to the encounter at the Holy Capital's Holy Mausoleum before, this was mere child's play! "Stop!"

The people of the Puppet Sect hiding in the shadows finally could not help but reveal themselves. Looking at the first to third floors that had been smashed to pieces in such a short time, their hearts were bleeding.

"Look at what you have done!"

"Is this the way you, Holy Spirit, treat your guests!"

"Does this not violate the contract we established in the beginning!"

They directly seized the initiative, questioning the Holy Spirit Xuandeng.

She was no pushover; she immediately intended to use the original Divine-Human Contract to enumerate the Puppet Sect Tower's violations following this great Fluorite disaster.

Her approach was one of righteous grandeur! Then, Du En directly teleported over and slapped the Puppet Sect member, sending them flying and smashing through another three floors; he had no intention of engaging in any verbal sparring.

"That... works too, I suppose."

The Holy Spirit was a little disappointed. Mainly, throughout this journey, she, as a mother and mother-god, had not shown much reliability in front of Du En, so she had wanted to be more formal and proper to show that she was actually quite capable.

With a flash of light, Xuandeng appeared on his shoulder.

With a bang, the Puppet Sect member, who had taken Du En's slap and somehow not died, rushed out from the ruins and debris, shrieking in madness: "Abominable wretch! How dare you hurt me! Die!"

Their aura was arrogant, their clothing torn, revealing the true body beneath.

A puppet! A legendary living-person puppet!

It was clear that when faced with the Fluorite Disease, their original, normal bodies could not withstand it at all, so they needed to discard their fleshly shells and turn themselves into puppets to avoid the malaise! If it were only this, it might be understandable; after all, as long as the craftsmanship was superb, a living-person puppet could be made to look exactly like a human.

But it was obvious that these Puppet Sect members had impure intentions. Thinking they were safe and sound, they began to court death, choosing to research the application of the Fluorite Disease.

The result was that they probably didn't even know themselves that puppet bodies, such as living-person puppets, could not resist the Fluorite Disease at all! One must know that it was a terrifying disease that, once certain conditions were met, could even infect things like spatial secret passages; it was truly the most overbearing thing, gathering the mother-source of the supreme flesh!

So, quite naturally, beneath the cracked puppet shell of the Puppet Sect member before them, clusters of fluorite crystals had long since grown into their core, further twisting their mind and infecting and deforming their divine soul!

Du En threw another punch directly, coated in the indestructible Vajra.

"Ha!"

The diseased puppet did not show weakness, shouting loudly as they also threw a punch.

It was clear that the disease had reached their brain; they were brain-dead! A puppet master who had turned themselves into a puppet—why would they start with melee combat? Of course, they should be using puppet-manipulation arts to conduct a group siege! Especially in this massive puppet-mechanism structure, where there were things they could manipulate everywhere.

So, this diseased fellow was indeed brain-dead without a doubt! Du En did not hold back; with an endless, surging force boosting the indestructible Vajra nature, he smashed this fellow into a pulp with a single punch, easily ending the battle.

One wave subsided, another rose! The previous shriek and the commotion of destruction inside the tower had already alarmed the puppet masters within. They emerged one after another from the rooms where they had been in seclusion studying puppet arts, and upon seeing Du En, their eyes all glowed with a deep purple.

The disease had reached the marrow; not one was spared! Thus, they were all enemies! Among them were leaders who were not quite as brain-dead, so the situation began to turn tense and unfavorable.

Rumble, rumble, rumble! The Puppet Sect Tower seemed to awaken like a giant beast. Various mechanisms and arrangements were reviving within the flickering, multicolored light-webs. Fortunately, Du En had already smashed the lower three floors and destroyed another three, so it could not encompass the whole.

Even so, it was not a situation to be taken lightly! He immediately struck first, a burst of Nascent Soul might erupting as his Radiant Dharma Domain bloomed with a roar! "What?!"

The puppet masters were shocked. Those brain-dead diseased ones, the Nascent Soul stage cultivators who charged too fast, were directly submerged by the light and dissolved in an instant. At the same time, the radiance began to surge out from the tower to the outside.

If one were standing outside the Puppet Sect Tower at this moment, they would see seven or eight-tenths of the tower, from bottom to top, begin to burst with rays of light from the seams of the wall joints, followed by a fierce, roaring explosion that triggered a silent dissolution.

When the radiance dissipated, five-tenths of the entire Puppet Sect Tower had completely vanished. The whole thing was tattered, like a rickety stack of building blocks.

The various mechanisms and puppets inside were cleared out by seven or eight-tenths, and at least half of the puppet masters were dead! However, using such a move in the current diseased world was a significant burden for Du En, who had not yet fully recovered; his calm face turned slightly pale.

Of course, this was a highly cost-effective matter, as could be seen from the reaction of the surviving Puppet Sect members.

"Damn it! Damn it! You damn fellow, look at the good deeds you've done!"

"Ahhh! It's gone! It's all gone!"

"My puppets! My mechanisms!"

"Woooo!"

A chorus of wailing and endless cursing ensued. Because Du En's actions were even more painful to them than killing their entire families! The most critical point was that their personal rooms for researching the Fluorite Disease had been targeted and hit, completely dissolved in the radiance, leaving not a single scrap behind! The secondary targets were the various suspected fifth-tier means of the Puppet Sect Tower, which were given no chance to show their power and were directly cleared out by at least eight-tenths!

"Kill him!"

"Kill you!"

"Die!"

The crying and cursing Puppet Sect members quickly became murderous, each unleashing their own offensive.

The rest are all at the Spirit Transformation stage!

Du En had already quickly recovered; he raised his hand and opened it, a faint light appeared, and a bright red Guan Dao was already gripped in his hand.

He swung it down, breaking through the air, arriving first despite starting later!

A member of the Puppet Sect tore open their tattered clothes; the pathological puppet body had just split open and had not yet transformed into its strongest state when they saw him already appearing before their eyes.

The heart after puppet-transformation, that puppet core, could not help but shrink and tremble.

Then there was no need to be terrified anymore, because that blade strike happened to open them up, exposing the core and finishing them off cleanly.

Taking advantage of the time bought by a companion acting as a meat shield, a Puppet Master had already finished transforming their form.

"Roar!"

A mechanical flood dragon soared into the air, deliberately drilling outside the tower to utilize the spatial difference between the inside and outside to launch a sinister attack; it could be said to be impossible to guard against!

Crack!

Within its gaping maw, thunder erupted.

Whoosh-rip!

Within its lashing tail, a gale was like a blade.

Furthermore, scales spread out and shot forth violently, each one comparable to a low-grade Tier 5 magical artifact, covering the area along the battered gaps of the tower body toward Du En, who looked like a tiny dot inside and, at this moment, seemed unable to accurately track them due to the spatial displacement.

This was a mid-stage Spirit Transformation Puppet Master; even though the various puppet mechanisms they had deployed outside and had authorization to control had all been destroyed by Du En, as a modern disciple of the ancient Puppet Sect, they still possessed various methods that could be called excellent! "So what if you are a heaven-gifted talent! Puppet mechanics were born precisely to make up for the gap in talent!"

They were shrieking and clamoring, but before they could see the results of their various attacks, they first saw a black dot approaching at high speed, passing through the gaps in the tower body and suddenly magnifying thousands of times; it was precisely the Senior Brother puppet that had been converted into a heavy-armored tiger.

"Wh, what?"

At the critical moment, they hurriedly twisted their body, avoiding this Senior Brother puppet body.

Looking closely again, that Senior Brother puppet body had exhausted all its means, only to have its chest smashed, its core dug out and crushed, dead as dead could be.

Carried by immense force, it crashed onto the ground with a boom, forming a crater containing only a pile of parts and fragments.

The mechanical flood dragon's forehead even broke out in cold sweat; it subconsciously performed a spatial shift, and before it could catch its breath to carefully observe the scene, it saw a majestic mountain suddenly appear before it, and its soul nearly fled in terror.

Flash! Dodge! Avoid! Swimming to dodge, spatial shifting, mechanical maneuvering to avoid.

In the blink of an eye, it used three types of methods, only then avoiding the strike of that majestic mountain meteor hammer.

However, although it had avoided it, a Rabbit Puppet—a Junior Sister of theirs—who was the main target of the attack, had just tunneled out of the ground only to watch helplessly as the majestic mountain crashed down; with nowhere to hide, she was turned into debris along with a section of coastal reef.

Pitter-patter, scattering in all directions.

The massive majestic mountain suddenly disappeared again, retracting back into the tower.

It transformed into a great halberd, the Cease-War Halberd, and engaged in a fierce battle with a group of warrior puppets, followed by various severed limbs and arms flying everywhere.

The leader of the Puppet Sect, currently controlling these few remaining Tier 5 puppets, felt incomparably heavy-hearted, their rage gradually being extinguished and drowned by fear.

What kind of monster is this? Clearly only at the mid-stage of Spirit Transformation, how could they be this strong?! They were at the late-stage of Spirit Transformation and controlled dozens of mid-grade Tier 5 puppets, but they were simply no match; in the blink of an eye, half of the puppets were already gone! It wasn't that they hadn't thought of long-range attacks, but they had seen the offensive of their Junior Brother, the mechanical flood dragon, clearly.

Thunder?

Just a tickle.

Wind blades?

Didn't even break a hair.

Those scale magical artifacts—Du En didn't even close his eyes, letting them harass him.

What stood out was an exaggerated physical defense, indestructible as diamond!

These guys, worthy of being from the "ancient" Puppet Sect, only follow that outdated set of ideas! Du En couldn't help but think this.

Because in the modern world of cultivation, the skills of the hundred arts have already been incorporated into the category of talent; in other words, the idea that one can rely on puppets, magical artifacts, etc., to offset the gap in talent is a situation that has been obsolete for ten thousand years!

You can only reach the level that your own capabilities allow! The talent of a heaven-gifted genius is a cliff-like superiority over ordinary geniuses; otherwise, they are not worthy of being called heaven-gifted. A bunch of bones in a grave, go be buried along with that outdated concept.

He lunged in front of the leader, making the opponent's puppet body tremble and attempt to fawn and beg for mercy, then had their head exploded by a punch and their puppet core torn apart by a palm.

After killing all these remaining Puppet Masters inside the tower, he turned his gaze toward the mechanical flood dragon cruising outside the tower.

"Don't, don't kill me!"

They screamed in shock and immediately performed the Water Cloud Escape Technique, carrying a faint great might, escaping a thousand miles in one go.

Seeing no one and no attack appearing around them, they had just secretly rejoiced when, the next moment, a white silk ribbon broke through the air and followed, directly binding them; with a violent twist and a crackling sound, only a pile of fragments remained, dead as dead could be.

Du En, having dispelled his magical treasure transformation, could not help but reveal a trace of doubt.

The escape technique of that mechanical flood dragon when fleeing for its life, along with the faint great might of its primordial spirit, all indicated that the abilities of this ancient Puppet Sect were truly too poor! The escape method only reached a thousand miles, and the great might of the primordial spirit was not obvious; what kind of shoddy Spirit Transformation stage is this?

Isn't the normal starting point ten thousand miles?

Isn't the Great Might Dao Domain a standard feature?

Furthermore, if the construction of the Puppet Sect tower had taken this into account, how could he have made it riddled with holes with just one burst of power! Therefore, there is a problem!

Because even if their methods and puppet arts are outdated and behind the times, the uniqueness of the Spirit Transformation stage, as a dividing line and watershed in cultivation, has been very consistent from ancient times to the present! (End of chapter)