Chapter 403: The Holy God's Garden, a Tough Nut to Crack

The sunlight is dim, the roaring incessant.

"Ah!!!"

On the land of the Holy Kingdom, there is no knowing exactly how many infected are wandering everywhere, searching for a way to vent the ever-growing agony within them.

Or rather, hostile targets! As time passes, even those who are fellow infected no longer have any regard for one another; when they meet, they slaughter each other.

The wailing is incessant, the agony unceasing.

And because of this, more and more individuals possessing the combat power of the Spirit Transformation realm have been bred.

They have gradually ceased to have human forms, instead turning into bloated, mutated, and twisted lumps of flesh, mixed with clusters of fluorite crystals; the deep purple is exceptionally ominous, and some have even begun to turn black.

Right now, there is one such infected who has cleared and devoured eighteen villages and three cities, a total scale of four hundred eighty-five thousand three hundred and eleven infected, allowing itself to successfully become the sole King of Gu in this local territory! It can no longer be called human; it is simply a carrier of the fluorite disease, infected and beyond saving from the inside out, and its strength is terrifyingly high, reaching the peak of the Spirit Transformation realm of a powerful genius. Even the Holy God can only exert effort to strengthen the defenses of the nearby Spirit Spring Village and is forced to divert attention to guide it, lest it continue to expand further.

Thus, it has arrived at this place at this moment.

Seeing things that are completely different, it erupts in a roar; already unable to restrain its madness, its great power is frenzied, capable of destroying mountains and overturning rivers, and it is about to destroy everything to the ground! Then, everything suddenly falls silent.

This place sinks into stillness, until new movement arrives once more.

Dust rises in a clamor.

On the land of the Holy Kingdom, at this moment, a vast and mighty army of puppets appears, marching with uniform steps, or rolling on wheels, emitting rumbling vibrations as they advance toward the increasingly approaching target location.

Those that fly in the air, those that run on the ground, those that swim in the water, those in the form of normal animals, and those in the form of various abnormal war machines—it can be said that everything is there, forming a truly terrifying army.

Moreover, the weakest among them possesses the quality of a Tier 4 supreme treasure, comparable to an ordinary peak Nascent Soul!

Of course, what makes the Holy God Xuandeng appear somewhat uneasy now is their parts that flash with deep purple, and the few fluorite crystal clusters attached to their bodies.

Fluorite disease infected bodies!

"Is this really okay?"

She cannot help but ask.

Du En shakes his head slightly.

In his eyes, there are entries with obvious changes.

【Hundred Arts: Puppet Crafting (Mastery 78/300)】

Because the Holy Kingdom has mines, and a great many of them, Du En only used one he found on the road to forge such a massive puppet legion, pushing his puppet crafting skill to the level of Mastery.

And this was actually not something he requested proactively.

Now that his divine sense is sealed, he has no way to accurately probe the surroundings, so it would have been impossible to happen upon those spirit mines.

Therefore, this was a matter the Holy God proactively proposed to him.

Originally, she wanted him to use the ore that had not yet been infected by the disease to forge a batch of usable and reliable puppets to deal with the situation ahead.

From her perspective, the place they are going next, the location of the strange object, the Rift Flower, is now an extremely dangerous place that must be treated with caution.

The Holy Kingdom Garden, or rather, the Holy God Garden! Located in the southeast of the Holy Kingdom, it was originally the place where she concentrated the various rare flowers and plants she favored, as well as those on the verge of extinction in the world, and special spirit plants.

It also has another name: the Land of Silent Hundred Flowers.

Of course, there is no need to think to know that this place has definitely been infected by the fluorite disease. Although she has not yet gone to take a careful look, in her general observations beforehand, she could still feel all kinds of fierce and evil auras entrenched and raging over there.

It is obvious that the place has become extremely dangerous!

There is a massive quantity of various rare flowers and plants, and at the same time, inside the garden, there is an Apostle Lie who chose to step back to the second line—not because of injury, but simply because he wanted to be a gardener... But, it is unclear exactly what happened; she guided that one infected to this place, originally wanting to throw a stone to ask the way, but it ended up disappearing without a trace, and nothing was probed at all? In her anxiety, she happened to obtain a legacy from the Puppet Sect, and since it would be a waste not to use it, and her own side is not without mines, that is why she made that proposal.

However, Du En is somewhat self-willed; he sets the uninfected ore aside and only uses those lightly infected spirit ores, which are the most abundant, as the main raw materials.

In any case, this degree of infection and erosion, to him, who is illuminated by the Holy God Xuandeng, will only be a catalyst for his spirit body and will not cause any problems.

The Holy God cannot sway him and remains worried.

Du En just glances at another entry.

【Spells: Supreme Puppet Manipulation (Proficient 3580/50000)】

With the progress of controlling the army of tens of thousands of puppets, the proficiency is rising rapidly.

If one asks how to control them without divine sense?

It is the method of combining implements!

That is to say, they look like puppet frames, but they have the spines of magical implements. In any case, the Supreme Puppet Manipulation technique itself has a form controlled by mana leads; it does not necessarily require divine sense, it is just that in that state, it is easy for movements to be inflexible, reactions to be untimely, and for them to bump into each other everywhere.

But after stuffing a magical implement spine into them, they immediately become as responsive as an arm, and the most critical thing is that the thing is also a self-destruct plug-in that leads directly to the puppet's core!

In any case, self-destruct means must be installed to be used for a final mutual destruction.

Rumble, rumble, rumble...

The puppet army is still advancing, and the proficiency is still rising.

The Holy God is also somewhat helpless regarding this last apostle of hers who likes to act on his own, and then, she has to stare at the target location that appears within her field of vision ahead.

Her own garden.

At first glance, the outer perimeter has layers of twisted, pitch-black strange trees, grown to a hundred feet tall, like people who are twisted, struggling, wailing, and screaming; a heavy sense of painful oppression rushes toward them.

But there is no sound at all; it is an alternative land of silence, enough to make one feel suffocated.

Under the illumination of the dim sun, it is like a silent tumor sprawling on the surface of the earth! The air, land, and sea puppet army stops its steps, and the rumbling sound immediately vanishes without a trace.

Without the tearing of external sounds, that dead silence suddenly covers all directions, making the dust seem afraid, hurriedly falling back down as soon as it floats up a little.

Whoosh~ The remaining breeze lingers and stays by the ears, appearing exceptionally reluctant to leave.

The corners of their clothes have fallen flat, not fluttering in the wind. The calm Du En examines the dead silence before him, while the Holy God sighs with regret mixed with unease.

Her garden seems even more unsafe than she imagined!

Seeing that Du En seems to be pondering something, she does not disturb him, but silently gathers her strength, feeling that her remaining power should be put to use this time.

After a long while, Du En has finished his observation.

A perfect, ultimate spirit-seeking technique! That is the method he just used, peering at the dead spirit garden before him, trying to find the most suitable gap to cut into! This garden is indeed terrifying at the moment; the whole thing seems to have merged into one. Those rare flowers and plants, which originally had vastly different properties, have all fused together after being infected by the fluorite disease, and relying on the fact that the spirit plants and rare flowers themselves were rooted in an environment of spiritual energy, it is simply a match made in heaven.

A solid iron plate! From the sea of disease in the interlayer between the surface and the interior, to the spiritual energy meridians on both sides of the surface, to the current background of the world's disease, these infected spirit plants are directly grafted onto this whole, appearing flawless. Any rash move will only result in being swallowed in one bite; there is no room for resistance at all! Even if the puppet army Du En is currently controlling were to swarm up in a flock, even using self-destruct tactics, they would not be able to shake this iron plate!

However.

Found it.

Relying on his consummate Spirit-Seeking Technique, Du En still managed to find that faint gap through the various Qi meridians within the surface!

Perhaps it was because the pathological individual, Apostle Lie, was too strong and out of sync with the whole, or perhaps for some other reason—such as that exotic item, the Gap Flower; it is said to be a flower that grows in the gaps of the human heart, existing yet not existing, which even the pathological world cannot infect, belonging to a point of blankness within it.

In short, there existed a slight discrepancy in the flow of pathological Qi! Du En directly opened his hands, the soil flowed backward, Earth-Wood Sacred Refining, and a specially refined javelin instantly took shape; like his outstretched hand, responding to the Spirit-Guiding Method and carrying other techniques, it was thrown out and quickly landed on that point.

The Spirit-Gathering Method of the Appraisal Technique! Being also practiced to the point of consummate perfection, it showed its capability at this moment, instantly gathering that piece of space at the point of impact, turning a single point of discrepancy into a blank space! Then the spirit-guiding began, the javelin self-destructed, transformed into a giant hand, and pushed violently; just like pushing over dominoes, starting from this piece, it formed a collapsing ocean!

Rumble...

Invisible, at the deep, invisible level of the Qi environment, a tangled collapse began!

And now, because of its own weight, it was pushing its own collapse! For a time, it was simply impossible to stop!

"This is?"

Sacred Goddess naturally noticed the movement here too, but for a moment she couldn't quite understand: how did Du En's one spear strike cause the whole thing to start an invisible collapse?

Du En, however, did not let down his guard.

Sure enough, as ripples began to appear in the background of the pathological world, another invisible giant hand attempted to set things right and block this chain collapse! How could Du En give the opponent such an opportunity? He immediately spread his hands wide, and the Dharma-power guiding threads on his five fingers spread out—one divided into two, two into three, three into ten thousand—directly connecting to all the puppets, like a car filled with gas, started, put on the road, and then slamming on the accelerator!

The eyes of each puppet immediately flared with purple light, and with a boom, they stepped forward wildly, bringing about a loud sound like an earthquake, instantly tearing apart the tranquility here.

Woo woo woo! Because the influx of Dharma-power was too fierce, they even erupted with tearing air currents from the gaps in their puppet bodies, as if ghosts were crying and wolves were howling, or as if they were equipped with thrusters, suddenly accelerating violently.

Bang! Before the person in the garden who intended to stop the collapse could really take any actual action, a puppet had already crashed into the twisted trees on the periphery.

Once that strange pathological tree was touched, it immediately seemed to come alive, stretching out its ferocious branches and leaves to wrap around the puppet.

Originally, because the whole thing was connected like an iron plate, it could rely on this; even a strong genius at the peak of Deity Transformation could be easily wrapped, dragged, and swallowed.

But now, even a single Tier 4 puppet made it sway unsteadily, unable to wrap it up for the moment.

Then, the puppet exploded! The use of Tier 4 puppets was only here; after all, their combat power was truly too weak. In a battlefield where Deity Transformation stage was the norm, they were just cannon fodder, much like the frontal battlefield of the Immortal Sect, their only role being to sacrifice themselves to see if they could become a small bargaining chip.

If one piece didn't work, use another! Under Du En's control, the Tier 4 puppets had no thoughts; they were just self-destructing artifacts, wave after wave, blowing up the strange trees on the periphery until they swayed incessantly and scattered their branches and leaves.

The Tier 5 puppets, which were truly usable, immediately charged over violently to fill the gaps.

Bang! Crack!

This was the straw that broke the camel's back, directly tearing open gaps in the periphery, and then more Tier 4 puppets scrambled to rush in and self-destruct to clear the way! In an instant, the entire battlefield was filled with rolling smoke, and the explosions simply did not stop.

There were also those flying in the sky, swimming in the water, and starting to burrow underground; these three types of puppets began their attack.

"Ugh ah!!!!"

A roar came from within the garden.

The person who was originally going to block the invisible collapse was now distracted by these movements.

And following the roar, the originally tranquil garden also began to boil.

Behind the peripheral trees were all kinds of exotic flowers and plants; as a deep purple ominous light emerged, they began to bare their fangs, hissing and roaring as they fought the puppets!

Their number and scale far exceeded the puppet army that had finished its first round of self-destruction! For a time, the puppets that had just charged in were forced to retreat quickly!

Just how much did you like raising and planting flowers back then?

Du En couldn't help but glance sideways at Sacred Goddess Xuandeng.

She, the goddess herself, immediately felt a bit guilty and shifted her gaze away a little.

Who would have thought of this back then? Besides, many of them were on the verge of extinction; it's normal to concentrate them for conservation, right? Indeed, most of their flowers are beautiful, but they are also very practical; basically, they can all be used as medicine!

That was true; exotic flowers and plants, all of them graded, were precious and needed to be conserved and cultivated.

It was just a twist of fate; no one would have thought of this situation at the beginning.

Du En only glanced at her, then urged his Daoist arts.

Wood Domain!

Rumble...

A new vibration sounded; now that the iron-plate-like opposition was already seven or eight parts destroyed, the squeezing and crushing of the Wood Domain was the final straw that broke it! At the same time, the lush green trees also contained various exotic flowers and plants, all spirit items that Du En had handled before; now they also came alive, joining the battlefield to fight against those pathological spirit plants.

Pitch black and deep purple, lush and verdant, they intertwined and crushed each other, and the land, sea, and air puppet armies took the opportunity to charge in further, and the scene immediately became a chaotic mess.

Du En was still adding more fuel!

After a flash of fire, the wood and spirit herbs in the Wood Domain transformed into Dharma artifacts and joined the battlefield, their main role being to replace the Tier 4 puppets that were about to finish exploding.

In this way, it was three against one!

The violent crushing of quantity against quantity had no formation at all, nor was it needed; they just needed to pour out their attacks! It was exceptionally intense; if an ordinary Deity Transformation stage cultivator fell in from the sky now, they would be ground into pulp in minutes!

(End of this chapter)