Chapter 476: Ruins 20

If this is not Luo Qi, why does he have Luo Qi's appearance?

This sentence reminded Du Zhengyi, like a spark of hope suddenly emerging in deep water. He looked into the little puppet's eyes; this Luo Qi did not feed him back any information, his blank eyes staring straight through him, looking at the void behind him. Through these eyes, he could not see the existence of Luo Qi no matter what. He pondered for a moment and said, "A puppet would not want to save me. He first warned me, then blocked a blow for me. I think only Luo Qi would do that."

"Or the master behind him made him do it," Xiang Qian said.

"Do you think Luo Qi's consciousness is linked to him?" Du Zhengyi shook his head. "If that were really the case, he would have brought us to Luo Qi's side immediately." He actually looks very much like the real Luo Qi, very much like someone whose mind was controlled and turned into a puppet, yet who could still leave a shred of his own consciousness behind.

"Then I don't know. I don't understand much about those things regarding Mind Mages..."

Du Zhengyi suddenly raised a hand in a gesture for silence. In his field of vision, the force field was slightly distorted. He was familiar with this change in power; a new space was about to connect.

Xiang Qian felt a bit annoyed; she had been distracted just now and hadn't sensed the change immediately. Besides, she was indeed old, no longer possessing the reaction speed of a young person, and she was not as sensitive to changes in the force field. She felt once again that it was truly time for her to retire. That young Battle Mage looked at her abruptly, his gaze sharp and containing hidden murderous intent. She was slightly startled; clearly, there was nothing there. She had always believed that no one could truly predict the entry point of a space. A Mage using Teleportation could appear at any point in the target space; before the space connection occurred, there would be no disturbance in the target space, and Mages could only compete on speed after the Teleportation Mage appeared. This was also the advantage of Teleportation Mages; they always held the initiative in battle.

A ghostly figure suddenly appeared beside her. Du Zhengyi had been staring accurately at this position before he appeared. Xiang Qian couldn't help but swallow in horror, unable to say whether the battlefield was more dangerous or Du Zhengyi was more dangerous. It was likely that Du Zhengyi was more dangerous; after all, on such a battlefield, a High-level Combat Mage could still retreat unscathed, but Du Zhengyi's power was even more unfathomable. It seemed that everyone feared the unknown.

The moment the figure appeared, several things happened at once. Although many thoughts flashed through Xiang Qian's mind, as a veteran Mage who had been through many battles, her hands did not delay. Her long blade thrust out, and the ground suddenly turned into a mud swamp. It was not easy to kill a puppet that was already dead, but at least she had to hold it down.

But the puppet turned ghost-like in front of her; in his lifetime, he was likely an extremely terrifying Battle Mage as well. He closed in on Xiang Qian, as if he were going to attack her first, but then headed straight for the puppet Luo Qi.

Xiang Qian's long blade pierced the puppet's abdomen, but it failed to weaken its fierce offensive; its body did not make any stress response to the damage and crisis at all. Xiang Qian couldn't help but curse, and before the curse had faded, another figure silently closed in. She almost didn't see how Du Zhengyi had gotten behind the puppet; he was too close, which was very dangerous in close-quarters combat. However, she realized in a flash that puppets were different from real Mages after all; although they were fearless, they were not flexible enough because they had lost their autonomous consciousness. They focused on executing the instructions received in their minds, but they could not process surrounding situations in parallel like a real person.

Du Zhengyi silently clung to the puppet's back, his expression calm, his movements methodical, neither hurried nor slow, not even a hint of murderous intent visible. He had an inconspicuous rope in his hand, which he neatly and decisively wrapped around the puppet's neck and tightened from behind. The killer puppet, which had been ghost-like just a moment ago, went limp within seconds. Du Zhengyi maintained his grip with an unchanging expression for a while, until the puppet had completely breathed its last, before he let go and threw it on the ground. Du Zhengyi went over and pulled out the little puppet, who didn't know how to escape and whose knees were already stuck in the mud, and casually canceled the swamp trap on the ground.

Xiang Qian could not have imagined that at her age, she would still experience the kind of frustration that most Battle Mages who worked with Du Zhengyi spoke of. It wasn't that they couldn't solve the problem, but Du Zhengyi was always more efficient and accurate than them. They might use Magic to destroy this Sandbox to solve the problem, but Du Zhengyi might solve the problem inside the Sandbox with a single rope. This was perhaps why, even after Du Zhengyi was severely injured, Pei Shu still kept him in the Battle Mage ranks.

"Injuring them is useless; you must cause brain death as quickly as possible to end it," Du Zhengyi said concisely, his tone flat.

Xiang Qian didn't want to say anything; this brat's non-show-off personality was even more annoying than those brats whose show-offs reached the heavens.

"I understand why Luo Qi wanted to make this puppet look like him," Du Zhengyi said suddenly.

"The first attack target of that puppet just now was Luo Qi," Xiang Qian also realized. "Luo Qi must have done something to make this Sandbox designate him as the primary threat. This is a Strategic Sandbox; I'm afraid that on this chessboard, the Sandbox thinks Luo Qi is the King. What did Luo Qi do?"

"He didn't have to do anything; as long as he is active here, he will be considered the King. You said it yourself, this is a Strategic Sandbox," Du Zhengyi said.

"That's true. It seems we also have to hurry up and be active for a while to lower the threat level of Luo Qi and the others," Xiang Qian said. "Did this little puppet get snatched by Luo Qi from the Sandbox? People say puppets are marionettes; you said you couldn't feel Luo Qi? Why would the strings and the puppet be disconnected?"

"If it were connected the whole time, it would require Luo Qi to provide Magic support constantly, and the Magic power required for that would be too great; Luo Qi isn't that strong," Du Zhengyi said calmly. He knew what was going on; he remembered those simplified versions of Luo Qi that Luo Qi had scattered everywhere, the fragments of Luo Qi stored in Amulets.

"Then he is also very impressive to be able to control this puppet so stably without strings. And how did he add the Illusion Magic of Mental Induction to this puppet? I still haven't been able to break through this layer of illusion," Xiang Qian said.

Du Zhengyi thought of the thought fragments that Luo Qi had copied; one couldn't even describe them as mere thought fragments. The portion of himself that he added to the puppet's brain must have been very significant.

"I think this puppet was sent to test the end-level at the time," Xiang Qian said slowly. "The real Luo Qi shouldn't be too far from the central plaza."

"You are right."

"If he knew you were here, he would probably be looking for your presence in the Mind Network, right?"

"His mental detection range is not that large," Du Zhengyi said flatly. "So we can only go find them."