Caught in the Mirror Lake vortex, the puppet's movements were restricted. Yang Kai's Sky Covering Hand landed squarely on its body with a thunderous boom. The force sent the already unsteady puppet crashing to the ground.
Yang Kai immediately retreated two steps without following up with another strike.
For him, the priority now was to keep the puppet occupied. Until he found the sliver of spirit soul driving it, any attack was meaningless.
Cai He and Du Sisi had clearly grasped his intent. They seized the moment to intensify the power of their respective formations. More vortexes suddenly appeared on the Mirror Lake's surface, and the sky was filled with an even denser shower of shimmering light.
Restrained by both formations, the puppet was unable to get up for the time being, the crimson glow in its eyes flickering ceaselessly.
Yang Kai's expression was placid as he observed the puppet's movements. Inwardly, he was monitoring the artifact spirit's progress while channeling a strand of Divine Sense to continuously scan the puppet's body.
In his mind, if a sliver of spirit soul was hidden inside the puppet, there would surely be some anomaly—and such an anomaly could only be detected with Divine Sense.
Just as he was scanning, another change erupted. The entire lake surface suddenly churned with violent agitation. The puppet, furious at being unable to rise immediately, began swinging its pitch-black great staff wildly in every direction.
Such attacks posed little threat to Yang Kai, but Cai He's face drained of color upon seeing this.
The reason was simple: to maximize the formation's power, the range of his concealed formation tools was not large. If the puppet's wild swinging happened to destroy any of those hidden implements, the entire formation would collapse.
Moreover, the sheer force generated by the puppet's frenzied attacks was already affecting the formations slightly. Left unchecked, they would likely unravel on their own before long.
In desperation, Cai He had to ease off some of his restraint on the puppet in order to keep the grand formation running. Du Sisi was in the same situation—weakened the Draw Ground as Prison Formation's power as a last resort.
They had never encountered anything like this before and couldn't help but feel thoroughly exasperated.
The firefly-like lights filling the air and the vortexes on the Mirror Lake immediately dwindled. With less restraining force, the puppet indeed stopped its wild swinging. Using both hands and feet, it scrambled to its feet. The moment it stood upright, its gaze locked onto Yang Kai. It stared down at the Mirror Lake beneath it, and an expression of contemplation crossed its face.
Then it opened its great maw, and with a buzzing drone, a swarm of wasp-like creatures poured from its mouth. Each one was roughly the size of a fist, but there were well over a hundred of them. They gathered into a cluster, spiraled briefly in midair, and then dove straight at Yang Kai.
Yang Kai's eyes narrowed, shock overtaking his features.
This was the first time he had learned that this puppet possessed such an uncanny ability. During his earlier probing, the puppet had never released these wasps.
One sweep of his Divine Sense, and Yang Kai's expression darkened. He discovered that every single wasp was a miniature puppet in its own right, and each one radiated an eerily sinister aura.
He naturally had no intention of letting them get close. Demonic flames churned on his palm as a pitch-black longsword materialized in his hand. With each swing, arcs of sword energy lashed outward.
Boom, boom, boom…
An unexpected sight unfolded. Despite their impressive appearance, the wasps detonated the instant the sword energy reached them, as though they were utterly fragile. Yet Yang Kai's frown only deepened.
Because these wasps had not been destroyed by his attacks—they were self-destructing by design.
Each detonation unleashed a pulse of energy that made one's heart skip a beat. On top of that, after the wasps shattered, billowing clouds of yellow mist appeared in the air. The mist spread and connected, rapidly engulfing the entire space.
Yang Kai inadvertently inhaled a mouthful and instantly felt dizzy and disoriented. Startled, he bellowed: "It's poisonous! Hold your breath!"
As he spoke, a sphere of pitch-black demonic flame appeared in his hand and smashed into the yellow mist. Wherever the demonic flames passed, the yellow mist was swept clean. Though the poison was vicious, it could not withstand the burning of demonic flames.
Only then did Cai He and Du Sisi let out a sigh of relief. The moment they heard Yang Kai's shout, both had been terrified of some unforeseen complication. Seeing the yellow mist burned to nothing filled them with delight, and they immediately focused their full attention on driving the formations.
Yang Kai, however, showed no sign of relaxing. Arc after arc of sword energy flew out, detonating every last wasp-puppet, then the demonic flames incinerated the remaining yellow mist.
If this puppet had such tricks up its sleeve, it undoubtedly had even more powerful ones waiting. The longer this dragged on, the more things could go wrong. Yang Kai was growing quietly anxious.
In a short while, over a hundred wasp-puppets had been obliterated and completely cleared away.
Just at that moment, Yang Kai's expression shifted subtly before brightening with surprise. A thread of information had come through from the fire bird artifact spirit.