Chapter 185: The Puppet

"Cover your face," Du Zhengyi said in a low voice.

Luo Qi took the outdoor scarf he almost never left home without out of his trouser pocket and pulled it over his face.

Du Zhengyi did not bother to check the figures in Huangcun. Luo Qi heard Du Zhengyi begin to chant the most ancient of Spells, strings of Secret Language spilling from his mouth. Surging power welled up from the deep underground of the valley, from beyond the stars. Luo Qi felt this nearly tangible power rising with trepidation; this was the primal power that had lain hidden beneath the earth and beyond the starry sky since the primordial age, now being summoned forth. This power was enough to open the gates of space, enough to give birth to all things. Luo Qi had only ever touched the threshold of this power, and he knew Du Zhengyi had already traveled very far down this path; the Secret Language inscribed in his genes made Du Zhengyi better suited to harness this great force.

The great fire burning around Huangcun soared toward the starry sky, and countless ancient fire spirits faintly revealed their forms within the blaze, intertwining as they leaped toward the higher night sky. A dry, hot wind was born from the fire, striking Luo Qi's face and exposed arms like a hot, sandy wind blowing from the desert. Luo Qi widened his eyes in astonishment; he had never seen such grand and primal Magic power. He could feel the wild, restless energy, and he could hear faint whispers chanting in an ancient tongue.

In truth, he had never imagined that Du Zhengyi had already come this far. He knew Du Zhengyi was a Mage rarely seen, but he had suspected that only ancient Mages could summon such power. At the same time, he felt a jolt of fear; Du Zhengyi was usually stingy with his use of power, and he would not use his true strength without a massive threat.

Du Zhengyi took a step forward, and Luo Qi heard a thunderclap from deep within the earth responding to him, though he simultaneously suspected that neither this thunder nor the violent shaking of the valley existed in the dimension where humans lived. Luo Qi also understood that the contest had surely already begun; the chanting from deep within the earth echoed in his mind, and if other Mages were standing here, he believed they would feel it too. Such a contest was no longer a problem his little parlor tricks could solve.

Du Zhengyi was chanting a request, a request for the sleeping Yajian to return to its ancient slumber. Luo Qi did not open his Consciousness Barrier, but he could already feel that Yajian, which brought him such fear, knocking at his door. He kept his consciousness tightly shut and ignored it. The starry sky flickered above the flames over his head, its trajectory seemingly shifting, and for a moment, he suspected he was looking at a strange, unfamiliar sky.

A black figure finally walked slowly out from behind a wall. The humanoid creature looked at them woodenly from behind the shadow of the broken wall, and Luo Qi did not know if it was still human.

Du Zhengyi stopped his steps and ceased his chanting. Luo Qi did not see clearly how a short blade had appeared in his hand.

"Come out," Du Zhengyi said.

Luo Qi realized he understood this sentence Du Zhengyi had spoken. Du Zhengyi was not speaking a human language; it was the language of ancient Mages, which had completely devolved into Spells used to drive Magic. Luo Qi thought briefly: when the language spoken by a Mage was a command of freedom, what kind of glory had the world of Mages once possessed?

The thing walked out in response, its movements mechanical. Luo Qi had once thought about what the living dead looked like, but that thing was different from what Luo Qi had imagined, at least not as sluggish as described in human movies. Luo Qi observed the thing nervously; its motor nerves showed not the slightest abnormality, and those few steps it took looked more standard than most people's.

A thought suddenly exploded in Luo Qi's mind: Du Zhengyi called that thing a puppet. He hadn't called it a living dead or a zombie, surely because the thing wasn't stiff at all. He felt that the puppet walked more standardly than most people because it was, in fact, more standard than most people.

Ordinary people always have their own little quirks when walking, most typically being pigeon-toed or duck-footed, or other subtle characteristics; some people have a habit of bouncing, some drag their feet, some hunch their backs, and some love to stoop. But the way that puppet walked was extremely smooth and stable, just like a robot with a pre-set program.

Luo Qi knew this was the problem. A so-called robot is a humanoid machine that has had its humanity erased; a puppet is like someone who has had all their personality erased.

The biggest problem lay right here: it was still a person.

The puppet walked into the area covered by the firelight, and Luo Qi saw it was wearing a familiar brownish-yellow monk's robe. Luo Qi opened his mouth in shock and looked up; a layer of shallow stubble had grown on the puppet's head—it must have been bald just a few days ago. Luo Qi felt as if he had been struck hard by a club; it was the fake monk from Jingtu Temple, alive, yet at the same time, it was as if the monk were already dead.

It looked at them, its almost unblinking eyes reflecting the sky full of fire, as if that were the last glimmer of wisdom it possessed as a human. It watched them silently, unafraid of the power Du Zhengyi had summoned that seemed to come from hell. Ironically, before the Karma Fire of hell, its expression was as serene as if it had finally attained enlightenment.

Luo Qi was almost about to scream. He turned to look at Du Zhengyi and saw hesitation in his otherwise calm, ripple-free eyes. Sweat dripped from his temples, and the veins on the hand gripping the knife were bulging.

A faint, ethereal sensation brushed past Luo Qi's consciousness. He suddenly shouted out. A cold light flashed in the monk's hand, and it lunged forward with a speed impossible for a human, charging recklessly toward Du Zhengyi. Luo Qi knew that momentary sensation was a driving impulse to attack; a puppet always had a control source.

Du Zhengyi's response was swift. All of the puppet's nerves were stimulated and amplified to an extreme level, like an athlete on the limit of drugs, exerting the greatest potential of the human body. Its strength and speed approached the level of a Mage, but it was a blind attack after all, and there were levels to combat skill. The short blade in Du Zhengyi's hand was sharper than Luo Qi could have imagined; he parried with one stroke and slashed the monk's wrist, cleanly severing one of the monk's hands.

Luo Qi held back from screaming, but perhaps what he saw next was even more terrifying than the brutal fight. Blood flowed from the monk's wrist like a fountain, but the monk had no reaction, as if pain and blood loss no longer had any effect on him. The knife in his other hand stabbed swiftly toward Du Zhengyi.

Du Zhengyi no longer held back. Fire erupted in his left hand, which he threw directly at the monk's face, then he kicked the monk away and pulled Luo Qi back a few steps.

The fire Du Zhengyi ignited burned more fiercely than ordinary flames. The monk's clothes caught fire first, and his head was engulfed in flames. Luo Qi smelled the nauseating odor of burning fat and flesh, yet even in such a state, the thing still charged toward Du Zhengyi and Luo Qi, covered in flames.

Fortunately, Du Zhengyi had already pulled him back repeatedly. After running a few steps, the monk finally collapsed. Luo Qi suspected it wasn't because of pain, exhaustion, or fear, but simply because the fire had finally reached its brain. It fell to the ground, and within minutes, it turned into a charred corpse and dry bones.

Luo Qi now understood: all of the puppet's feelings of fear and pain had been turned off, its motor nerves had been amplified to the maximum, and the impulse to attack was hardwired into its brain.