Cult of the Sacred Runes

Chapter 73 – Golden Puppets

For any Students, five-star and seven-star breakthroughs are the most challenging. Whereas the breakthrough to the six-star level is much simpler. When one’s Qi reserve reaches a certain level their meridians will expand and widen. This is the definition of a six-star Student.

Now though neither of those are a big problem for Ye Wei. He could not imagine that the iron talisman would help his cultivation, especially not this significantly.

Ye Wei now possessed the body strength of a seven-star Student, and he could probably take on any seven-star Student in a fight as they usually don’t know any powerful stances.

‘Just one more breakthrough then I can try learning mystic stances!’ Ye Wei was ecstatic. Any stance, even just a low-level Spirit stance is more powerful than an ordinary physical attack. As the saying goes, ‘You’re not a cultivator until you’ve mastered your first mystic stance.’

After absorbing the rush of energy that was inside Ye Wei’s body, the iron talisman stop spinning. It was now just floated quietly in front of him and twelve out of the eighty-one grooves on it lit up with a silver glow.

“Stop its attack!”

“If we don’t work together we will all die!”

As the energy within Ye Wei stabilized, his head stopped humming. He could hear the shouting and rumbling through the thick red cocoon. Eager to try out his strength, he threw a punch and broke the cocoon open effortlessly.

He walked out gracefully and retrieved the talisman floating in front of him. He could feel that the talisman was filled with primal energy. Realizing it saved his life by neutralizing the Blood Devourer crystals’ energy and helped him breakthrough, he started to wonder and narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you? I am pretty sure you’re not a Mystic Arm…’

Ye Wei then looked up to evaluate the situation. All he could see was brown rubble on the ground and fallen fighters. There were only about five hundred people left standing from the thousand who entered.

There were a few hundred puppets that were shattered at this point, and half of them were destroyed by Hong Xun, Lu Chao, and Xue Yao.

With broken puppets came rage crazed fighters. The crowd didn’t show any mercy to them after seeing Song Gui lose his mind and realizing they were not able to save the fighters who were affected by the crystals. In the end it was their lives at stake so they didn’t try to help. With the sacrifice of the fallen, all the silver puppets were finally shattered.

‘These golden puppets are on a different level!’ As Ye Wei was shaking the flakes of the bloodmist cocoon off his clothes, Lu, Hong, and Xue lead everyone else to attack the golden puppets. Despise the organised attack the puppets showed no sign of slowing down, their attacks were as strong as when they were just activated.

From what Hong Xun could see four of the golden puppets were as strong as a seven-star Warrior while the biggest and strongest one had the strength of an eight-star Warrior. Even Hong Xun, strong as he was, couldn’t deal with it alone. Lu, Xue and him were handling the biggest one while they commanded the rest what they could.

The survivors organised themselves into four groups of around one hundred by Hong Xun’s order. Each group kept one golden puppet under control. They couldn’t really harm the puppets, but handling them with a big group was the only way to survive. They were just waiting for the three temporary leaders to finish the strongest puppet so they could combine their forces and deal with the rest.

“Let’s not play the long game; we can’t just tire it out. The crystals inside them can keep them running for days. We have to give it our all and finish them. Our bodies will never outlast theirs.” Hong Xun said as he strengthened his body with the Golden Bell stance. His body was covered by a layer of golden Qi and his empowered fist knocked the strongest puppet off balance.

“Nice!” Lu Chao and Xue Yao could also feel that the prolonged fight has taken its toll on their bodies. They all came to the same conclusion, that they would not have any will-force or Qi left if the fight lasted much longer.

Lu Chao grunted and quickly drew a rune sequence. It wrapped around his legs forming his strongest stance, Tempest Kick. Behind the bright green light of the runes, a tornado was brewing. Then he unleashed his spinning kick mercilessly towards the golden puppet.

Meanwhile Xue Yao was also not holding back. She finished drawing the last rune of her sequence and activated the Lotus Sword Dance. A green spectral lotus appeared and the six petals detached themselves from the flower transforming into six swords that flew towards the puppet at different angles.

“Golden Drill!” Hong Xun shouted then drew some runes around his body. The runes started spinning around him and the bell shaped Qi armor around him also started rotating and vibrating. With a humming sound the golden bell tore through air and flew directly towards their common enemy.

Although Hong Xun was the last person to attack, he was the strongest among the three. His stance was not only the most powerful, it was also the quickest therefore the Golden Drill was the first stance to hit the puppet.

The Golden Drill shattered upon connecting with the puppet. The sharp debris of the drill carried on attacking the puppet chipping off little golden pieces of stone. Hundred of cracks and cuts were forming on the puppet but it felt no pain, nor was it worn down any. It continued waving its fists around and charging towards Hong Xun.

Seeing that Hong Zun’s stance left cracks on the puppet, Lu and Xue redirected their stances toward the weaker inche deep cracks on the puppet’s surface.

The green tornado and the six spectral swords landed on the puppet’s left shoulder and right arm respectively. While the impact of Lu Chao’s kick not only expanded the cracks rapidly, but with the help of Xue Yao’s swords they successfully stopped the puppet’s attacks and also broke its arms off.

Hong Xun could not relax just yet, “Don’t let your guards down!” Although it’s armless, the puppet was still charging towards him and approaching with a spinning kick.

Now that the puppet’s attacks slowed down Hong, Lu, and Xue took the chance to take a deep breath and regained a bit of energy. Energy they put towards their final strike.

“Hold on guys! The strongest puppet is about to go down, we just have to keep these weaker ones under control for a bit longer!” Encouraged by the sight of the armless puppet, the morale surged.

Ye Wei couldn’t really contribute at this point. He was just observing from the side and thinking about Ye Zhong. ‘Compared to Green Moon City these youngsters from Frozen Sun City are very strong. I think cousin Zhong is talented enough, with my help he should be able to catch up with Hong Xun maybe even Luo Wu Xue!’

‘I need to go deeper into this labyrinth to find some Welkin Leaves! But we won’t be able to search for the path ahead until we neutralize these statues!’ With that in mind, he jumped into one of the groups and tried to make himself useful. He was kind of glad that everything seemed to be under control, or else he might have to use yet another scroll to help defeat these puppets.

After a brief moment of rest, Lu, Xue, and Hong used their best stances again and this time they targeted the puppet’s legs, which turned into rubble as the stances connected. The trio was exhausted, but their effort paid off. The puppet was now no longer a threat.

Having used high-level Spirit stance multiple times in such quick succession, Lu Chao and Xue Yao pretty much drained their will-force and QI. Their faces were pale and their breathing was a bit heavy.

It was not much better for Hong Xun, although he was an eight-star Warrior, he was mentally and physically worn out as he had to pay attention to the other four puppets and tell the groups of cultivators how to deal with the stone fists. He did this all while leading Lu and Xue to defeat the strongest puppet.

“Guys! Just hold on for a couple more minutes!” Hong Xun shouted as he took a pill out of his bag. He used the pill then sat down to regain some Qi and body strength.

Lu Chao and Xue Yao too took their time to recuperate hoping there would not be more casualties before they could eradicate the rest of the puppets.