Chapter 402: Killing the Enemy and Exterminating the Species, Obtaining Treasures and Inheritances

The Dust Tower Master soon discovered that his performance was completely useless!

Because that massive amount of Geng Metal killing Qi was not heading toward him at all; it was merely continuously destroying and pursuing those dust-micro puppets.

"... You actually noticed? A creation that has existed for a mere few days, and you could actually notice?!"

He was unwilling, he did not believe it, and he was indignant.

"Why! Why! Damn you, to squander heaven's gifts like this, to wantonly squander your own authority, yet in the end, you are able to make puppets better than I can!!!"

He glared at the Holy Spirit, causing her gaze to flicker slightly, as if she were innocent.

But Du En was not here to listen to his words of impotent rage.

He raised his hand and beckoned; two flowers bloomed, and the true killing move was unleashed by him.

Annihilation Sword! The moment it appeared, it made the frenzied Tower Master calm down.

That light was swallowed, that darkness was extinguished; everything, tangible or intangible, as long as it had substance, dissipated and turned into a void upon contact.

The terrifying magical treasure had already taken shape, and the Tower Master was just about to launch an offensive.

But Du En did not give him the chance.

Another flower blooms! Eternal Frozen Coffin!

Known as the method of absolute defense, capable of completely severing connections between the inside and outside... under the blessing of Dao Might, this was finally manifested, and it became the coffin to lay the Dust Puppet Tower Master to rest! He was too careless, he was too greedy; originally, Du En had thought that his true body was not the cloak before him, or rather, that he was not hiding in the gaps to control the cloak.

—The human face from just before was actually, in essence, a Nascent Soul and primordial spirit; those substitute puppets refined by the people of the Puppet Sect were not his true body at all, but his true body was not hiding anywhere else either; it was right under his nose.

In the cracks and gutters that the Fiery Eyes could not see; however, it didn't matter if he couldn't see it, as long as he could confirm he was there.

Under the Annihilation Sword, all living things are equal! The Dust Puppet Tower Master looked at the descending sword, just about to unleash another move, but he never expected that the Eternal Frozen Coffin was actually the sword itself! The faint light shifted, thousands upon thousands, formed in an instant, and directly transformed into a terrifying annihilation hole, catching him completely off guard; he had no defense at all! "You... think, that this, can kill..."

The Dust Puppet Tower Master was trapped in the hole, exhausting all his strength, erupting with Dharma power, and from the core, he forcibly squeezed out lumps of ugly, diseased cystic flesh, roaring and going mad; he was worthy of being a fellow about to leap over the Dragon Gate, as he actually had the posture to break free a portion and make a comeback.

For a fellow like this, Du En simply let the Great Seal cover him with white light, suppressing the killing intent in all directions, inside and out, and severing the interlayer.

"This, is not, enough, ah! Ah! This, what is this?!"

Flowers, one after another, bloomed in his field of vision, bloomed in his divine sense.

As small as dust, incredibly tenacious, and most crucially, it—they—were draining his Dharma power, the only remaining Dharma power he had left to struggle with!

Dao Art, Slender Flower! The reason he had flicked the Holy Spirit Hanging Lamp away earlier was mainly to let her carry the seeds, find the right moment, locate the true body, and plant them on the enemy.

Thus, she feigned a posture of eruption, which indeed lured the ambitious Tower Master, who then rambled on and on, revealing a pile of openings, successfully allowing the seeds to scatter and take root.

At this very moment, with white light on the outside blocking the source of the disease, and Slender Flowers on the inside draining his Dharma power, the fate of the Dust Puppet Tower Master, who did not possess endless Dharma power like him, was naturally self-evident.

"Ah!!!"

"I, am not reconciled..."

Regretting his idle chatter, he was completely swallowed by the annihilation hole, reduced to zero, and vanished entirely.

Although the enemy was dead, neither Du En nor the Holy Spirit relaxed.

Because there was still one situation that was arriving right on schedule!

An Undying Seed suddenly protruded from the zero point of the annihilation hole, as if it were suffering from indigestion and could only vomit it out; it was extremely chilling.

It squeezed out, it was not destroyed, it...

Clang, clang, clang! The White Cave Great Seal suddenly erupted, and streaks of golden weapons gathered and condensed, slashing over directly; it was truly fierce and murderous, without hesitation, like rain hitting banana leaves, continuously killing toward the Undying Seed.

It was not truly undying after all; it had actually suffered damage in the annihilation hole, but the Dust Puppet Tower Master, acting as a shell, had taken the brunt of the damage for it.

So at this very moment, facing the White Cave Golden Domain blessed by the embryonic form of Dao Might, it could not hold up either, and was chipped away bit by bit by the slashing golden weapons.

Each time was only a little bit, but the White Cave Golden Domain continued without stopping, at a super high frequency, like a continuous tsunami, and could also quickly accumulate significant damage.

The Undying Seed struggled forward, still wanting to charge toward Du En.

It actually managed to withstand the destruction of the Golden Domain and arrived in front of him! And then, it was directly annihilated by the Annihilation Sword!

This time, it was truly annihilated! Clearly, after the experience of the previous two times, Du En had now found a non-conventional means to shatter and grind away the Undying Seed.

The transformation of the magical treasure blessed by the embryonic form of Dao Might, under two layers, was enough to grind it away; if all three flowers were released, it would be even easier... it was just not very cost-effective.

After all, the embryonic form of Dao Might could not be used recklessly; it was still just an embryonic form.

And the side blessed by the White Cave Seal was fine, but the key was the Annihilation Sword; this thing was strengthened every time it changed, and even the natal magical treasure and the power of the primordial spirit had to be annihilated and returned to zero to branch out once.

Fortunately, his natal magical treasure was a part of himself, and fortunately, his primordial spirit was also an endless, glowing brilliance, so it was only a self-inflicted loss of three hundred, otherwise, he could not pull off this kind of operation.

"The fellow on this side is all taken care of, but I wonder if there is still any dust ash?"

The Holy Spirit relaxed from her tension of wanting to strike, flew back and circled, shining her light on Du En once more, and looked into the dilapidated Puppet Sect tower with some worry.

Because the Dust Puppet Tower Master had clearly refined the dust ash into new puppets, and their goal at the beginning of this trip was to obtain one of the types of dust ash—the one with the highest inertia and the most stable properties.

Du En deactivated the transformation of the White Cave Seal, and after catching his breath a few times, his body gradually recovered and entered a process of rapid restoration.

He stepped forward, left the top of the tower, and came to the front of the tower below.

First, he took the dilapidated Puppet Sect tower into the air.

Amidst a rumbling sound, the entire tower, which was nothing but a frame, was pulled up from the ground.

It was as if the hand of an invisible giant had grabbed it.

The only remaining defensive measures were directly removed.

Then he shook it fiercely, and all kinds of remaining debris fell out from inside.

He cut off the parts of the tower body contaminated by the disease, melted the rest into a ball, and stored it in Empty Mulberry Mountain as a trophy.

Being able to remain in the previous land, sea, and air battle, the strength of this remaining main body was actually quite significant; after melting it, it was a fifth-grade top-tier treasure material, whether used for refining tools himself or cut into small pieces to be used as equivalent currency, both were fine and no problem.

As for giving it to Meng Changqing?

Doesn't the landlord's family have plenty of surplus grain now? So why give it to him? Last time, it was because he wanted him not to be stingy, to repair Mo Ju City as completely as possible, and to have him pay attention to digging up information, which was why he gave him a little sweetness.

Right now, it was unnecessary.

A certain quasi-True Monarch did not know the thoughts here and thought that this was saving up family assets for his own faction, nodding repeatedly as he watched, especially when looking at the side of True Monarch Bu Yi; although this little bit of stuff didn't count for much, getting the other party's things for free was just satisfying! In short, the Puppet Sect tower thus completely became a thing of the past.

Next, Du En and the Holy Spirit Hanging Lamp began to clear out the debris. Very quickly, a sealed box appeared before their eyes.

"Fortunately, the nature of this dust is too stable to carry disease, and since he needed to utilize the heaven and earth's pathogenic Qi, he could only abandon it instead of preserving it, which is why it wasn't destroyed."

Only after the Holy Spirit was truly certain did she heave a sigh of relief.

Du En also nodded, then crushed the box, which turned into a large handful of dust.

That's right, the box itself was made of that dust; because its nature is very stable, it was only natural for it to be used as a container shell.

However, it was clear that the Dust Puppet Tower Master truly didn't put much heart into it; this box wasn't any kind of magical artifact, nor had it been refined—it was simply a shell molded from dust, containing four ancient jade slips inside.

"I've been curious about this thing for a long time!"

The Holy Spirit, whose actual experience was not particularly vast—or rather, who had very little knowledge of the cultivation world—was currently quite intrigued; she plucked one from the air and began exploring how to use it.

She had previously observed people from the Puppet Sect using similar things, and as the strongest being on this star, it was naturally very easy for her to figure out how to use it.

Du En followed suit, and after putting the dust away, he picked one piece and pressed it to his forehead, reading the contents inside with his divine sense, which could not leave his body.

Unsurprisingly, it was the ancient Puppet Sect heritage that the Dust Puppet Tower Master had scoffed at and felt should be buried in the ground.

The vast, cloud-like array of puppet-making methods, while overall quite outdated, had a foundation of the Puppet Dao that was exceptionally solid; combined with the portion of Mo Ju mechanical arts he already knew, Du En learned new entries almost in the blink of an eye.

【Hundred Arts: Puppet Making (Novice 0/10)】

Trying again with earth and wood items from the miscellaneous goods, he quickly brushed up his proficiency.

First-tier puppet, anyone can do it.

Second-tier puppet, easy as pie.

Third-tier puppet, simple and effortless.

Fourth-tier puppet, a bit difficult, mainly because the materials were running out.

Come to think of it, puppet refining is actually a different kind of artifact refining; it is a technique derived from artifact refining itself. Of course, due to many additions over the ages, it had long since become quite different, but at the very least, Du En had the refining of puppet bodies down pat.

As for control and the like, relying on his current realm, he could also use brute force to overcome any obstacle.

In short, learning this new craft was really not a problem at all.

【Hundred Arts: Puppet Making (Small Achievement 58/100)】

After using up the miscellaneous goods, a pile of puppets—some human-shaped, some beast-shaped, and some with strange appearances—littered the surroundings, turning waste into treasure.

"These things are great! They were never willing to take them out before, but now that we have them, the various reconstruction tasks later will be very easy!"

The Holy Spirit was full of enthusiasm about this, even scattering blessings while using the puppet-control technique she had just learned to drive the various puppets.

Amidst the *da-da-da* sounds, the human-shaped puppets moved freely, the beast-shaped puppets ran and jumped, and various strange-looking puppets—which were actually just tools equivalent to unmanned tractors and transport vehicles—were already running at full power, leveling the ground, filling pits, and digging out a road here.

After the previous battle of giants, this new seaside was now pitted and scarred, without a single patch of good soil, as if ravaged by a meteor shower.

The Holy Spirit controlled them quite comfortably, casually swapping the jade slips to read them.

What she had just been looking at was, naturally, the puppet-control technique.

As expected of the ancient Puppet Sect, it was indeed quite ancient; its classification for puppet-control techniques was different from the eight major categories of current Daoist methods and spells, being divided into only four grades, and looking at the descriptions, it seemed to also contain elements mixed with secret methods and arts.

In short, the highest is the Top-Grade Puppet-Control Technique.

Anyway, it was just an extra perk; even if the numbers were huge, Du En's divine sense was now terrifyingly strong, and controlling tens of thousands of fourth or fifth-tier puppets at once was easy—grinding this up could be described as simple.

As long as there are puppets... converting artifacts into puppets, or combining artifacts into puppets, was not impossible.

He pondered this, and casually learned a Top-Grade Puppet-Control Technique.

【Spells: Top-Grade Puppet-Control Technique (Novice 0/10000)】

He went to look at the remaining two jade slips.

One recorded the fundamental method of the ancient Puppet Sect.

"Dao Puppet Scripture"

It sounded quite impressive by name, just like the other ancient sects, but when compared, it was only at the level of an ordinary precious manual, capable of cultivating only to the peak of the mortal world, the Mahayana stage, and was far from being worthy of being called a "Scripture."

A method that couldn't lead one from Qi Refining all the way to becoming an immortal, and they had the nerve to call it a scripture? Du En read it a few times, just to enrich his foundation and knowledge.

In the future, he would be better able to make and control puppets, as well as master Mo Ju City.

The final jade slip recorded the past of the ancient Puppet Sect.

All about how prosperous they were in the past, how incredible they were, how all directions came to pay homage, how they were the masters of puppets in the world—all sorts of exaggerated rhetoric appeared one after another, and the various songs of praise were truly endless.

When it came to their destruction, it was all about how the Rotten Forest Immortal Sect didn't follow immortal ethics, actually coming to cheat and ambush them, and so on; they glossed over it in two or three sentences, and then began to cry about how difficult it had been for them, the remnants...

Du En watched, only shaking his head to himself, and tossed it to the Holy Spirit.

She, however, read it with quite a sense of empathy; after all, her Holy Kingdom had also been running smoothly and was incomparably flourishing, but suddenly it suffered a great disaster and ended up in its current miserable state.

"However, one cannot change their persistence just because of suffering..."

The Holy Spirit spoke to Du En, like a nagging old mother.

He remained calm, merely scanning and observing the surroundings to ensure there were no remaining issues, then took over control of the puppets and began to open up a road, heading toward the location of the next wonder.

The Holy Spirit did not continue to preach, because she had started reading the last jade slip.

"Dao Puppet Scripture?"

The jade slip bobbed up and down in the hanging lamp, and her gaze, which was transmitted through it, also became filled with diverse emotions.

Simply put, she, who had previously relied entirely on her own exploration for all her methods, was impacted by the proper system of the cultivation world, and for a moment, her heart was naturally surging, feeling as if her eyes had been opened to a new world.

Until finally, she looked upward, toward the space outside the star.

The world outside was indeed, as the Dust Puppet Tower Master had said, unexpectedly vast... yet, even having felt it in reality, it would not cause her Dao to deviate.

(End of chapter)