Chapter 243
“This is a Bronze Serpent Puppet. It’s one of the masterpieces left behind by the senior who once owned this cave dwelling in the Dao of Puppetry.”
Long Yiran was startled but quickly gave a short explanation.
Pulling Wang Yu along, she continued flying forward at high speed. Her sudden action truly shocked him—just a bit more, and his Soul-Shattering Finger would have struck out.
They were still within the same bronze corridor, as though they had leapt from one passage into another. In essence, they remained trapped inside the Bewildering Maze Formation.
The only difference was that a gigantic bronze serpent puppet had joined the pursuit behind them.
The serpent puppet’s speed was not too fast. With the escape speed of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, a slight boost of true essence was enough to surpass it. This showed that the core purpose was still to break through the Bewildering Maze.
The rumbling noise behind merely added pressure.
Wang Yu pulled his hand free from Long Yiran’s grip and said softly, “Fellow Daoist Long, please refrain from touching others casually. In the Crimson Kite Demonic Domain, such things can be fatal.”
Long Yiran froze for a moment. “…U-understood.”
Clearly, she was also a cultivator from the Taihu region. Otherwise, she would not be so forthright. He did not dislike dealing with straightforward people. Long Yiran probably had not stayed long in the Crimson Kite Domain, and most of her time must have been spent wandering in uninhabited regions. Ten or twenty years at most.
Wang Yu guessed that her background was not as high as that of the noble women from Taihu. She was likely just a rogue cultivator from that area who came here to complete a missing inheritance. Perhaps, during the journey, she became involved in some matter with the Ruan Clan of Poison Scorpion City.
After all, her temperament, habits, and instinctive reactions in moments of crisis were inherently different from those of cultivators born and raised in the Crimson Kite Domain.
At times like this, Wang Yu could not help thinking: if, back when he returned to Stone Lake City, he had met a cultivator with such a temperament, he might never have returned to Crimson Kite. That possibility was great indeed.
Unfortunately, he had met Chang Xi and Lan Boting instead.
“Brother Wang,” Long Yiran said, “this must be a triple-layer Bewildering Maze. At most, three overlapping layers. We have already passed the first and are now in the second. Give me a little time.”
“Very well.”
The wide bronze passage was nearly filled by the pursuing serpent puppet. With a wave of Wang Yu’s hand, sheets of ice crystals formed throughout the corridor.
Soon, they turned into a wall of ice. Using only a small amount of true essence, he created a forest of hard, sharp ice spikes.
When the Bronze Serpent Puppet charged forward with overwhelming force, it shattered the ice wall completely. However, its speed decreased significantly.
As it slid forward again, it was caught by a mass of dark ice spikes.
After breaking through the foremost obstacles, its forward momentum nearly came to a stop.
The darker the ice crystals, the more true essence Wang Yu had infused. The higher the density, the harder the ice became. This was a result of tempering his true essence through both the Power of the Yellow Springs and the Profound Ice Bed.
It was his latest technique for utilizing true essence—perfectly displaying its extreme cold properties and amplifying offensive spells to their utmost potential.
The same spell, when used by him, was far stronger than when used by others. This was the fundamental difference between them—a manifestation of the refinement and quality of True Essence itself.
“Crack… crack… crack…”
The Bronze Serpent Puppet emitted the sound of inner gears turning. A rune appeared upon its head, and its segmented body began to rotate.
Its adaptability was indeed formidable.
“Found it!”
At that moment, Long Yiran cried out. She rushed over, wanting to grab Wang Yu’s wrist, but hesitated at the last second, recalling their earlier exchange.
Wang Yu quickly said, “I will follow your lead.”
Long Yiran breathed out in relief. “Good. Move seven steps north using the Seven-Star Pattern, halt at Kaiyang, then eight steps southwest with the Eight Trigram Steps—Li Two, Xun Five—Primordial Unity, begin!”
Wang Yu found it somewhat confusing, but since he only needed to follow, it was manageable.
Just as the Bronze Serpent Puppet broke through the black ice barrier, the two of them passed through the second layer of the Bewildering Maze and vanished into the wall ahead.
The third layer was no longer an endless bronze tunnel.
It was a square bronze chamber resembling a secret room. Each of its four walls displayed massive bronze serpent statues.
“This place… those four aren’t also serpent puppets, are they?”
Long Yiran quickly rotated the Heaven-Earth Branch Compass in her hand and said urgently, “Ten breaths! I only need ten breaths!”
One by one, intricate runic characters spread out, forming a large positional formation under their feet. The true essence-made pointer began spinning rapidly.
Wang Yu held his breath. On the surrounding walls, the serpent statues’ eyes lit up with crimson light. Within two breaths, they rumbled to life.
Creak… crack…
Black ice spread outward from Wang Yu’s position. He swallowed a supreme-grade Spirit Recovery Pill, empowering his extreme-cold true essence through the Ice Coffin Curse. Five thick black ice walls rose and closed around them like a cage, shielding both from all sides.
By the end of three breaths, the four Bronze Serpent Puppets simultaneously slammed against the cage. The brute force they released was comparable to that of third-rank entities. Cracks instantly appeared on the icy barrier.
By the sixth breath, with the serpents’ tails striking from all directions, the four walls tilted inward and began to collapse completely.
The ice had not shattered yet, but its structural integrity was compromised.
He should have formed triangular slopes instead of the square shape of the Ice Coffin Curse…
In this critical moment, Wang Yu raised the Ghost-Weeping Flute and activated its ghostly domain. The moment black ripples spread out, hundreds of Soul-devouring Crows, formed from both human and beast souls, flew forth with shrill cries.
Most of them carried second-rank auras. Seeing this, Wang Yu infused his divine sense into the artifact.
Together with his true essence and the hundreds of soul crows, they formed a terrifying wail—the Heart-Rending Blade of Despair. If anyone had witnessed it from afar, they would be overcome by sorrow, unable to hold back tears.
That was the true nature of the Heart-Rending Blade—it awakened the deepest grief buried in one’s heart.
Unfortunately, its opponent was an ancient puppet. Against such a foe, only raw power would work.