Mortal: Fairy Song Yu has issued you a task.

Chapter 50 The Puppet Show

The String Puppet Show is a unique treasure of the Thousand Illusions Sect. It is made primarily from century-old ebony wood, making it hard and indestructible, impervious to water and fire, and difficult for ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators to handle.

More importantly, it allows him to control his opponent from thousands of miles away using secret techniques. Although the power of the magic transmitted during control is only half due to the distance and the limitations of the secret techniques, greatly reducing its power, Du Dong's cultivation at the late Foundation Establishment stage is more than enough to control his opponent.

Du Dong forced out a drop of his essence blood, which dissolved into the puppet. The puppet's limbs and head immediately twisted and twitched strangely, and eight thin, purple spiritual threads extended from the vital points of the puppet's joints, silently disappearing into his brow.

After a moment's thought, he realized that the young man surnamed Lin was slippery and cunning. Just in case, he took out two more magical artifacts that shone with spiritual light. One was a silver wheel that exuded cold energy and had sharp edges; the other was a glass gourd with seven-colored flowing light.

Both of these items are top-tier magical artifacts! In particular, the wheel is the Du family's most treasured artifact, the Cold Moon Wheel, which was used to wipe out the entire Du family decades ago!

With a flick of his finger, he replaced the swords and axes in the hands of the four puppets with the Cold Moon Wheel and the Glass Gourd.

The next moment, Du Dong made a hand seal and activated the mark planted on Lin Jingchu's body.

He tossed it up with a flick of his wrist!

"Whoosh—!"

The puppet transformed into a purple meteor and sped through the air, its speed even faster than the Core Formation cultivator's escape light from the previous cultivator surnamed Zhao.

"Kid, let's see where you can run to!"

……

Hundreds of miles outside the Qin family's spirit stone mine, a half-zhang-long azure-winged boat flapped its wings and sped forward.

The moment his clone vanished, Lin Jingchu summoned the Azure Wing Boat and sped towards the meeting point he had agreed upon with Song Yu.

While waiting for the materials to be used in the array at the Shen family's residence, he had secretly surveyed the directions and ends of the several branch paths in the Shen family's spirit mine on several occasions.

Today, the two acted separately. Lin Jingchu used a clone to infiltrate the enemy's lair, while Song Yu used the name "Covering Array" to enter the Shen family mine and secretly escape through a discovered side passage.

Just as Lin Jingchu was concentrating on flying the boat, he suddenly felt a strange sensation on his right shoulder.

He suddenly ripped his right sleeve apart, revealing smooth skin on his shoulder with no abnormalities.

Lin Jingchu felt uneasy. Du Dong had bumped into his shoulder during the meal, so he immediately gathered spiritual light in his left hand and pressed it down.

The next moment, a purple rune faintly appeared.

He immediately channeled his spiritual power to attack the rune, but the seemingly faint and extinguished mark was extremely stubborn and could not be erased for a short time.

"No! This is too slow!" Lin Jingchu hardened his heart, his left hand forming a sword shape, and swung it across his own shoulder without hesitation.

A crescent moon flashed by, and a piece of flesh the size of a copper coin was neatly sliced ​​off, blood gushing out instantly.

The flesh bearing the runes fell down into the vast, desolate forest below.

Lin Jingchu breathed a sigh of relief, enduring the pain as he steered the boat at breakneck speed while applying the medicine.

However, just as he was preparing to bandage it, a purple meteor streaked down from the horizon and abruptly stopped in front of the Azure Wing Boat. In a burst of spiritual light, it instantly expanded into a ferocious four-armed puppet that was three zhang tall.

Lin Jingchu hurriedly controlled the flying boat to stop. He saw that the puppet had a purple face with black patterns, held a sword and mace in both hands, and held a cold moon wheel and a glass gourd in the other two hands. Eight purple spiritual lines extended from its back and gradually faded into the void.

What is this?

Lin Jingchu knew the visitors were up to no good, so he immediately changed course and tried to go around them.

The puppet transformed into a blur and pounced, but Lin Jingchu steered his boat and tumbled, narrowly avoiding the successive sweeping attacks of a giant sword and mace that were thicker than a person.

He patted his storage bag, and several low-level fireball talismans shot out, exploding on the puppet.

The puppet, its skin blackened by smoke, burst forth from the fireworks, its Cold Moon Wheel spinning rapidly, as countless ice birds formed from condensed cold air swooped down from the sky.

Lin Jingchu suddenly lowered the bow of the boat, and the Qingyi boat rushed straight towards the mountain forest below.

The Azure Wing Boat excels at carrying people in flight, but it is extremely inflexible in aerial combat and cannot utilize the Wind-Stepping Shadow-Splitting Boots. It can only win by fighting on the ground.

The blue-winged boat crashed into the forest, the sound of branches snapping echoing everywhere.

As soon as Lin Jingchu stepped onto the deck and retracted the flying boat, he plunged into the dense canopy of trees.

The flock of icebirds that followed quickly shredded the towering ancient tree into a shower of ice shards.

boom--

The three-zhang-tall puppet crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. It spun around and swung its sword and mace, a fierce force sweeping across the forest, causing swathes of ancient trees to crash down.

Amidst the swirling dust, a blur of motion shot upwards as Lin Jingchu, wielding the Leaf-Shattering Blade, darted behind the puppet.

A huge, bright silver blade of light swept horizontally towards the eight spiritual lines.

however--

The spiritual thread was like an illusion; the cold moonlight blade swept past it and flew into the distance.

Du Dong, who was controlling the puppet hundreds of miles away, let out a cold laugh.

If the spiritual thread is so easily severed, how can the suspended puppet be worthy of being called a secret treasure of the Thousand Illusions Sect?

Unfortunately, one cannot be distracted while controlling this treasure, otherwise one could have caught up with the man surnamed Lin while he was being entangled.

Seeing that his attack had failed, Lin Jing immediately withdrew and retreated, while simultaneously slashing out a beam of cold moonlight from his sword at the back of the puppet's head.

But then the puppet's head suddenly turned half a circle to look directly at him, its purple face turning gold, and it opened its mouth to shoot out a bolt of golden lightning.

Lin Jingchu was terrified and quickly summoned the Mist Mirror to shield himself.

A burst of golden light erupted, and the Mist Mirror, crackling with electricity, flew out and crashed to the ground, momentarily out of control.

The cold moonlight, passing by the lightning, cleaved a half-foot-deep gash on the puppet's face.

Ignoring the heavy blow, the puppet spewed out colorful clouds from the mouth of the glass gourd in its hand, heading straight for the retreating Lin Jingchu.

Although he managed to cover his mouth and nose in time, his mind went blank the moment he was hit by the rosy clouds, and his body rolled to the ground due to inertia.

Just as his body came to a stop rolling, he instantly sprang away, narrowly avoiding the swirling, slashing Cold Moon Wheel.

It turned out that at the critical moment, the jade pendant on his chest flashed with spiritual light, helping Lin Jingchu break the illusion instantly and avoid being cut in half at the waist.

Du Dong, who was controlling the puppet, was secretly shocked. He hadn't expected that this Lin fellow would possess a protective treasure capable of instantly breaking the Illusionary Rainbow Gourd. Coupled with the astonishing speed of the flying boat earlier, he was definitely no ordinary Foundation Establishment disciple.

Du Dong's murderous intent and greed intensified: This kid must be captured!

Lin Jingchu broke out in a cold sweat as he saw the puppet's face change again, turning from gold to deathly white, and it opened its mouth to shoot out countless water needles, raining down on him like a dense storm.

He stomped heavily on the ground and fled sideways.

The puppet's head spun, and a dense barrage of needles relentlessly swarmed after Lin Jingchu's afterimage.

Wherever it went, trees and rocks were riddled with holes, its power terrifying.

Just as the needle curtain was about to reach him, Lin Jingchu waved his hand, and the Mist Mirror, whose arcs of electricity had finally dissipated, flew back in front of him, barely blocking the torrential attack.

During a brief respite, Lin Jingchu realized that things couldn't continue like this. Since the spiritual threads couldn't be severed, he decided to dismantle the puppet directly.

The thought had barely formed when a loud clang rang out—

The Cold Moon Wheel, swirling amidst the needle curtain, slashed fiercely at the Mist Mirror.

A huge gap was cleaved into the back of the Misty Mirror, running nearly halfway through the mirror, revealing the Cloud-Woven Robe hidden inside.

Even though the Cloud-Weaving Robe absorbed most of the enormous impact, it still caused the mirror to shatter.