66 Chapter 1223: Celestial Designer Lock (1/2)
Hu la!
Right after Zhang Xuan said those words, a dark mist abruptly burst forth from him. In the blink of an eye, a massive group of inner demons had rushed into the surroundings.
There was more than a hundred of them.
Back then, in the Combat Master Hall's Heart Division, Cang Xu's fragmented soul hidden within his body had resulted in the generation of a huge army of inner demons in the Trial of Inner Demons, and Cang Xu had attempted to use them to kill him. Eventually, he had managed to tame those inner demons, and he had kept them inside a jade bottle ever since then.
Tzzzzzzzz!
The hundred or so inner demons immediately rushed for the puppets.
”This is mine, don't you dare snatch it from me!”
”Hey, I was the one who saw it first…”
”I am Demonsee, and he's Demondee. We're inner demons who were personally named by our teacher! Nameless small fries like the rest of you should know your own place and go to the back of the queue!”
Upon seeing the huge army of puppets before them, the inner demons immediately charged forward to claim a body for themselves. Before the hundred puppets could even cause a shred of damage, every single one of them was already lying powerlessly on the ground.
”Y-you…” Vicious nearly lost his mind.
Only he knew how much time, effort, and precious materials he had spent on forging each and every one of those puppets. Those puppets were to become the invincible army that he would command upon his return, and he had been confident that they would easily kill the young man before him.
Yet, who could have known that the young man had prepared a hand for this as well!
To actually have more than a hundred inner demons in your possession… Does your family actually deal in inner demons?
”You bastards, get up and kill him!” Vicious bellowed wrathfully.
But plagued by inner demons, the eyes of the puppets were glazed. They remained motionless on the ground, as if lifeless corpses.
Reverting back to its usual, imposing presence, the Golden Origin Cauldron stepped forward and spoke confidently. ”Master, let me smash all of them to smithereens! Otherwise, once the puppets struggle free of their inner demons, they will surely pose a threat to us once more!”
At the same time, it glared down on the puppets on the ground, seemingly wanting to suffocate each and every one of them with its massive bottom.
”Smash them to smithereens?” Zhang Xuan shook his head. ”While they are only puppets, they do have their own consciousness. It would truly be a huge pity to kill all of them.”
Just like the Golden Origin Cauldron, these puppets had spirits of their own. It would have been cruel to massacre over a hundred of them just like that.
”But…” the Golden Origin Cauldron frowned.
Even if they were to spare the puppets, it was not as if the puppets would spare them once they struggled free of the inner demons. Faced with more than a hundred Leaving Aperture realm puppets, it would only take moments for them to be pummeled to death!
”Jeez, I guess I have no choice then!” Shaking his head, Zhang Xuan waved his hand grandly with a deeply reluctant look on his face.
Huala!
All of the puppets lying on the ground were packed into his storage ring.
Those puppets were currently in a state of confusion, so they could not resist being pulled into the storage ring at all. Furthermore, as artifacts, they would not suffocate to death in the storage ring either.
”…” the Golden Origin Cauldron.
”…” Vicious was so choked up that he could not speak a word at all, and he even nearly spurted a mouthful of blood.
Those puppets are mine! Mine!
This is robbery! How can you steal my possession right before my eyes?
You planned for this right from the start, right? Right?
Vicious was livid with rage, but there was nothing he could do in the situation.
All his puppets had been incapacitated, so he no longer had any subordinates who could possibly stop Zhang Xuan.
Ignoring the speechless Golden Origin Cauldron and clone, as if not feeling the slightest guilt for his actions, Zhang Xuan remarked leisurely, ”I'll have to preach to them later on and have them renounce evil for good. It seems like I have unwittingly made another huge contribution to the Master Teacher Pavilion!”
With a few steps, he walked over to the door where the puppets had emerged from and walked in.
Once again, there was another flight of stairs leading downward. Just like before, he had his clone lead the way.
This time, they did not encounter any danger on the way. Before long, they reached the end of the passageway.
”This is… a labyrinth?” the Golden Origin Cauldron asked.
This time, instead of a vast hall, they were met with countless smaller rooms densely packed together. There were many possible paths to take, just like in a labyrinth.
More importantly, when Zhang Xuan scanned the area with his Spiritual Perception, he realized that it was not able to reach the end of the labyrinth. It was as if the entire labyrinth stretched across the whole island!
”This… What is this supposed to be used for?” Zhang Xuan's clone was bewildered.
In fact, even Zhang Xuan himself was taken aback.
He scanned the room with his Eye of Insight, and he realized that each of the small rooms was forged out of a unique material, making the walls particularly resilient. He could hardly imagine how much it would have cost to build such a gigantic labyrinth.
To make a comparison, the cost of crafting these rooms was at least a hundred times the price required to forge all the puppets he had encountered earlier.
”Are these residences for those puppets?” the Golden Origin Cauldron asked after a moment of contemplation.
”Residences? Would a hundred puppets require this many residences?”
Scanning the area with his Spiritual Perception, Zhang Xuan could perceive at least ten thousand rooms. Putting aside the question of if the puppets would require a room for themselves, surely there was no need to construct so many of them!
Unable to make sense of the bizarre labyrinth, Zhang Xuan shook his head as he began heading down one of the paths. ”Let's not bother with that for the time being. Make sure to keep your guard up; don't give Vicious an opportunity to assault you…”
If it had been anyone else, they would have swiftly lost their way due to the identical rooms everywhere. However, through his Eye of Insight, Zhang Xuan was able to vaguely perceive an extremely thin strand of thread in the air. After walking for around ten minutes, passing by countless rooms in the meantime, they finally arrived before an open stone door, which revealed another passageway that led further downward.
Since they had already come this far, the two men and one cauldron walked into the passageway without any hesitation, heading downward once more.
As soon as they reached the end of the passageway, they immediately felt a concentrated burst of killing intent gushing their way, threatening to tear their consciousness into shreds.
Having practiced the simplified Heaven's Path Soul Art, Zhang Xuan's clone was still able to withstand the overwhelming killing intent. However, the Golden Origin Cauldron shook feebly in the face of the fearsome killing intent, unable to stand against it.
Despite having reached Leaving Aperture realm advanced stage, it was ultimately still a mere spirit and not a soul. Inevitably, its ability to withstand the powerful killing intent of the Otherworldly Demonic Tribe was lacking.