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The puppet was grotesquely shaped, resembling an upright lizard — short, stunted forelimbs paired with enormously developed hind legs. Its entire body was shrouded in an indescribable aura of menace.
The instant its gaze fell upon Yang Kai, it wrenched its mouth open and spat a beam of crimson light.
"A casual strike with the power of the Dao Source Realm? These puppets... are no ordinary creations!" Yang Kai sensed the surge of energy within that beam of light. His expression shifted slightly, and he immediately dodged to the side.
Whoosh...
The beam grazed past Yang Kai's body and struck a warrior who had entered the hall right behind him.
That warrior was actually somewhat lucky, because before stepping inside, he had already activated a defensive Artifact that resembled a suit of armor and equipped it on his body.
His original intention had been to guard against a sudden ambush by Wuchang — he never expected that this precaution would end up saving his life.
Boom!
The warrior staggered backward several steps, the armor on his body flashing wildly with light. Startled, he cried out, "What the hell was that?!"
Right at that moment, a large group of people surged through the entrance, and even Gong Wenshan, who had been guarding the rear, revealed himself.
It could be said that of all the warriors who had lingered outside the Temple of Time, aside from the few who had been killed by Wuchang, only three had failed to make it inside.
As the scent of living beings grew denser, the puppets that had been besieging Xiao Chen and the others scattered in all directions to seek new enemies. The pressure on Xiao Chen's group dropped instantly. Venting all the frustration they had been bottling up, they unleashed a flurry of killing moves, sending the nearby puppets tumbling in disarray. Again and again, puppets shattered into fragments under the force of devastating attacks, scattering across the floor.
And inside each destroyed puppet, there was invariably a crystal roughly the size of a fist, pulsing with dense waves of energy.
"A Spirit Core!" someone exclaimed, eyes gleaming with greed as they stared at the crystal.
Yang Kai's heart stirred. In an instant, he realized exactly what this thing was.
A Spirit Core — the essential core component of every puppet. Without it, no matter how lifelike a puppet might appear, it was nothing more than an inanimate object. Only once a Spirit Core was installed could a puppet truly be brought to life.
However, Spirit Cores were extraordinarily difficult to refine. It took the collaboration of a master artificer and a puppeteer standing any chance of success, so their value had always been considerable — especially high-grade Spirit Cores, which were next to impossible to come by.
Inside the great hall, there were over a hundred puppets, every single one of them at the Dao Source Realm or above. In other words, there were over a hundred Spirit Cores right here!
If he could carry out every last one and then find a puppeteer to craft bodies and install them, he could produce an army of Dao Source Realm puppets!
Warriors like Xiao Chen, Kong Qi, and Xiao Baiyi, who hailed from top-tier powers, might not think too much of the value of these Spirit Cores — but those from minor sects and small clans were a different story entirely. In those factions, producing a single Dao Source Realm cultivator was a grueling endeavor, yet a single Spirit Core was equivalent to the fighting power of a Dao Source Realm expert.
For that reason, there was no way these warriors weren't going to fight tooth and nail for them. Even if their sects couldn't craft puppet bodies on their own, a Spirit Core could be sold for a hefty sum of Source Crystals.
So after the initial wave of panic, every warrior who had burst inside was fighting as though blood-drunk. They summoned their own Artifacts and unleashed devastating techniques, hammering the puppets from every direction.
Though the puppets were numerous and individually formidable, without a driver directing them, they could not bring their full strength to bear — and so they began to crumble, one after another.
The warriors, however, paid no quarter. Some formed groups of three or five to siege a puppet; others, brimming with confidence, went one-on-one. Nearly every moment, another puppet was shattered. The cost borne by the warriors was negligible — only a handful suffered serious injuries, and not a single death had occurred.
Yang Kai took the opportunity to cut down a few puppets of his own, collecting several Spirit Cores and tossing them casually into his spatial ring.
As time passed, the number of puppets in the great hall dwindled steadily. The warriors, meanwhile, fought with mounting ferocity — the annihilation of every last puppet was merely a matter of time.
And then...
A dazzling burst of light suddenly erupted from somewhere in the crowd. Everyone started and turned to look, focusing intently.
There, hovering in midair, a five-pointed star of light spun several times in a lazy rotation — and then, with lightning speed, it transformed into a stream of radiance and burrowed straight into a male warrior's arm.
That warrior seemed not to have registered what had just happened. All he felt was a searing, burning pain in his arm, which startled him into a cry.
"A Five-Pointed Star Mark!" Lan Xun's beautiful eyes lit up as she called out.
"A Star Mark on these puppets...?" Xiao Chen's expression was complicated. He turned his gaze toward the remaining puppets, scanning the hall for any other Star Marks.
He had already destroyed at least six or seven puppets, yet this stroke of fortune hadn't fallen to him — and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of dissatisfaction.
"Wait — *this* is a Star Mark?" The male warrior, having heard Lan Xun's cry, stood stunned for a moment before breaking into a wide grin. "I actually got a Star Mark! Hahaha — looks like heaven itself is looking out for me!"
Beaming with delight, he threw his head back and laughed.