Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 134

“We have no choice but to count on him.” Gu Suihan looked toward Xi Ran, who was fighting six warring puppets by himself. He looked a mess compared to his opponents, but this was only because cultivators were simply flesh and blood while these warring puppets were encased in almost perfect armor. It was not surprising that he was losing, given that he was fighting six at once.

Wan Xin and the rest started getting worried when they realized that Xi Ran was beginning to lose the fight.

“Use the fiendish murderous qi inside your dantian! If you’ve already gathered dantian fire, use that to burn their spirits!” yelled Zhang Yan with a nasty look on his face.

“Dantian fire?” Xi Ran laughed sadly to himself. He was merely a wandering cultivator, after all. If he hadn’t gotten a chance encounter in that secret realm and managed to reach Origin Core through a series of coincidences, he would still be merely at Foundation Establishment now. His current level was still unstable, so there was no way he had been at Origin Core long enough to gather dantian fire.

“Calm your heart down and use your spiritual sense to amalgamate and attack the warring puppets!” yelled Gu Suihan. This was not the time to hide any secrets or techniques he knew.

“Amalgamate?” Xi Ran seemed to understand what Gu Suihan was saying as he unleashed his spiritual sense to fill the hall, then slowly gather it back together to form an area of sorts.

The warring puppets suddenly stopped moving as quickly as before. Every time they swung their weapons or took a step forward, they looked extremely stiff and unnatural. The formation lines beneath their feet started spinning and the reddish glow from the lines suddenly brightened as the reddened eyes of two of the puppets slowly dimmed. On the contrary, the other four puppets suddenly became stronger and moved more aggressively than before.

“Sacrificing their lives to help their comrades? These warring puppets fight pretty hard too,” muttered Gu Suihan as he raised an eyebrow.

There was little more he could do now. Unless Xi Ran could suddenly understand how to use his spiritual sense to form his own area with its own rules, or understand the Way of these puppets, get into their universe, and suppress the puppets, there was no other way of getting out of this mess.

“Wait, that’s not right.” Gu Suihan’s eyes flickered as he looked intently at the worried-looking surviving Seven Kill Sect Peak Leader. “You used a technique to split your soul, so you’re not at Origin Core yet, but you’re still much more powerful than all of us still struggling at Mid to barely Advanced Foundation Establishment. Also, when we were fighting just now, you spread your icy domain around as well.”

“I…” The Peak Leader looked like he had just swallowed a fly. It was true that he had used a technique to split his soul, but he was still only at Foundation Establishment. The domain he could gather was only at a tenth of what he was capable of creating when he was at his peak, so he was now not much better of than Xi Ran, who was just beginning to understand how to even make this work. Moreover, he had just intended to be a bystander and see if he could pick up some benefits or spoils from the fight without having to actually fight. He didn’t expect Gu Suihan to expose him so easily.

“What are you waiting for? Waiting to die?!” said Zou Kai angrily, the veins on his forehead bulging like they were about to explode. He could see exactly what this Peak Leader was thinking.

“Two of the nine warring puppets have already lost the warring spirit controlling them, so things aren’t so bad now. Take this chance to kill off those two soulless puppets and break their formation,” yelled Zhang Yan as he spotted the two warring puppets that were moving very slowly and had no more light in their eyes.

“We’ve got to do this quickly. If the three on this side meet with them, we’re in trouble,” said Li Xiaoyao after he had comforted Shuang’er. Immediately after he said that he flew toward the puppets like a beam of light.

“Come on!” The rest glared at the Peak Leader who was slowly making his way toward Xi Ran and hurried him before running toward where Li Xiaoyao had gone.

“Kill them all!” The bloodied symbol in Gu Suihan’s eyes started rotating and turned into two blackened whirlpools. The suction power from his eyes made the two puppets subconsciously meet his eyes.

A bloodied flare flickered like candlelight in the wind. The murderous qi from fighting a hundred valiant battles seemed to be attracted to those eyes like it was a magnet and Gu Suiha absorbed everything.

Zhang Yan’s magistrate pen tip tapped lightly on a gap between the warring puppet’s armor as it stopped moving like he had pronounced judgment on it.

A soul was absorbed, a spirit taken and forced back into Samsara.

The mysterious runes suddenly brightened and the power from the laws governing it exploded. A powerful suction force that could not be shaken off started sucking powerfully even as the warring spirit roared indignantly. And turned into a black liquid as black as ink on the tip of the pen.

“There’s one more.” Gu Suihan looked in surprise at the gleeful Zhang Yan as well as that mysterious metal pen in his hand. His gaze flickered as if he were thinking about something.

Just like the previous time, Wan Xin and the rest helped to stall the other warring puppets from coming to this one’s rescue. Gu Suihan controlled the last warring puppet, which took a lot of energy out of him, then got Zhang Yan to suck out its warring spirit and extinguish its consciousness.

“Again!” Zhang Yan’s face was red from excitement as he kept touching the flickering metal pen he kept in his belt.

“Again my ass,” spat Gu Suihan as he ran further into the hall.

To him, Zhang Yan was drunk on success he did not achieve himself. He was already lucky enough to have looked like he had made a great contribution, but now, he wanted to fight the rest of them as well?!

“He must be an idiot,” thought Gu Suihan.

Gu Suihan was headed instead for the mysterious items on the platform that the nine warring puppets had been guarding so fiercely earlier on.

He had noticed earlier on that while the nine platforms didn’t look like much, each was individually protected by its own formation. In fact, he didn’t think that they were protected by only one formation. He had not forgotten how the designer of this place was also an expert in trap mechanisms.

But now, this was one of the few possibilities of getting out of this place alive. The rest of these people were not easy to deal with. Secretly killing them like he did the last couple of times wasn’t going to work anymore, so the only thing he could do now was to try and break away from them.

“He’s trying to steal the things while we fight ourselves to death!”

Gu Suihan’s actions alarmed the rest as the same thought popped up in their minds at the same time.

“We can’t let him have his way!”

Li Xiaoyao and the rest immediately abandoned the warring puppets and flew toward where Gu Suihan was.

“shit!” Xi Ran had barely dodged a sword that came his way and noticed what was going on. He flew into a rage and slapped the warring puppet in front of him away, went around another warring puppet in the way like a cloud of smoke, then ran like a storm toward the deeper end of the hall as well.

“Their reactions are really quick!” Gu Suihan groaned as he saw them coming after him. He pushed himself to go faster toward the platforms.

“Humph!” Xi Ran was at Origin Core after all, so no matter how formidable Gu Suihan was, there was no way he could outrun Xi Ran. He could only watch as Xi Ran scoffed, overtook him, and flew onto the platform.

“The soldier that advances first could end in glory or end in tragedy.” As Gu Suihan watched Xi Ran overtake him, he slowed down instead of speeding up and made a comment as he paused to watch what would happen to Xi Ran.

“You hoped to steal the spoils while we were all fighting away? You can…WHAT THE HELL?!” Xi Ran had just made it onto the platform and started mocking Gu Suihan when he exclaimed from shock at how the platform was suddenly transforming.

“I was right.” Gu Suihan watched carefully as a brilliant gold light shone from behind the cracks in the platform that formed after Xi Ran stepped on it. The outer layer of the seemingly normal-looking rocks started to peel away like it was molting.

Boom! Boom! A sound that resembled the sound of a heart beating suddenly resounded in the quiet hall, the deep and slightly muffled thump echoing nonstop.

“What’s that?!” Xi Ran got angry and gathered qi in his palms before raising his arms to bring it down hard.

But that attack never came to fruition.

Xi Ran’s face paled as he stared at the skinny claw that was holding onto his wrist.

That’s right. Xi Ran could confirm that the word “claw” was the right one to describe this thing gripping him. It was a hand that was so skinny that it had no trace of flesh or blood and was nothing more than skin wrapped around bones. It seemed fragile and weak, but it held his furious attack back without any problem.

The rest looked at this scene in front of them and gulped. All of them quickly came to a stop and looked on as if they were waiting to witness a good show.

Crack! Another arm as skinny as a matchstick emerged from the platform and made its way toward the immobile Xi Ran’s neck.

Xi Ran’s life was hanging by a thread.

He used his other hand to stop the arm from coming any closer and yelled, “Thousand Ghosts and Evil Spirits Flag! Now!” His storage ring sparkled as a pretty but eerie little flag swirling with yin qi appeared suddenly.