Chapter 1289: Chapter 848: Puppet
Soon, the mist that spread engulfed Yang Xiao, and visibility was compressed to less than 3 meters while inside the mist.
At this time, Yang Xiao immediately remembered the girl’s warning before she left.
Someone had once encountered the strange mist near the Gu Sect Headquarters and witnessed dead people, dormant for over a decade, being resurrected.
Coupled with the stench of corpses Yang Xiao smelled, his unease intensified.
This ghostly mist is definitely triggered by something supernatural; the source of the corpse smell within the mist is where the danger truly lies. Empowered by spiritual power, Yang Xiao ignited the Ghost Lantern.
When the green light illuminated, the mist within a three-meter range was forced back, improving visibility significantly to around a 10-meter radius.
In fact, with Yang Xiao’s current strength of spiritual power, he could achieve more than this, but his condition wasn’t great at the moment; he needed to conserve some spiritual power to face the impending crisis.
Indeed, he had already sensed the scent of danger.
The anomaly began inside the building behind him. Dozens of Angel Envoys who had rushed into the building had been mostly slaughtered by the Mirror Ghost, and at this moment, the sounds of fierce battles had vanished, replaced by screams of terror.
Most of the screams abruptly stopped, which confirmed that those uttering them were likely doomed.
Yang Xiao’s thoughts flickered as he intended to summon the Mirror Ghost before him, but he failed.
Strangely, the connection between him and the Mirror Ghost still existed; it hadn’t gone out of control, and he could clearly sense the Mirror Ghost’s presence, yet it no longer responded to his call.
"Rustle... rustle..."
A slight sound emerged from deep within the mist, prompting Yang Xiao to extend the green light towards it, revealing a silhouette hiding in the mist, approaching him.
Soon, Yang Xiao realized the severity of the problem because there was more than one silhouette; this was just the beginning. Within his limited field of view, there were already no fewer than 10 ghostly figures.
Indeed, these guys were definitely not human, as their movements were wrong: each one stepped stiffly, like walking corpses.
"Bang!"
A muffled sound came from behind; turning back, he saw a corpse fall from the window upstairs.
The corpse, hitting the ground, resulted in a severed body, breaking at the waist, exposing decayed and foul-smelling organs and intestines.
The corpse turned its head, facing Yang Xiao directly, eyes wide open, mouth ajar, with a residual expression of terror on its face.
It was as if it witnessed an exceptionally horrifying scene before dying and screamed out loud.
Yang Xiao recognized that face; it belonged to a reasonably powerful Fierce Level Apostle.
"Rustle... rustle..."
Faint sounds approached from nearby; one by one, ghostly figures emerged from the mist; these guys were undoubtedly dead.
There were both males and females of varying ages; the only commonality was each wore an old-fashioned black funeral suit.
These living dead shuffled stiffly towards Yang Xiao, their slightly opened eyes showing pupils that had long disintegrated.
They were considered living dead because each emitted spiritual power fluctuations, strong ones at Ghost Level, weaker ones at the Upper Level of Severe Grade.
This scene reminded Yang Xiao of the Corpse Mirror depicted in ancient books kept in secret chambers, said to possess similar abilities, capable of converting deceased apostles’ bodies into puppets for use.
Upon this realization, cold sweat formed on Yang Xiao’s forehead. Although most of the corpse puppets had lower spiritual power than himself, they triumphed in numbers; each one would exhaust him to death.
For now, with the Soul-Capturing Mirror in hand, Yang Xiao wasn’t worried about escaping. He summoned the Human Bone Staff, striking the nearest corpse puppet, instantly rendering it lifeless.
After consecutively knocking down three, Yang Xiao roughly grasped the nature of these ghostly things. The situation wasn’t extremely dire as these guys weren’t as tricky as the Corpse Mirror.
After all, puppets converted by the Corpse Mirror could wield Magic Artifacts, almost indistinguishable from living people, whereas these ghostly things were much clumsier, apparently retaining only part of their spiritual power and a hunting instinct.
Using the Human Bone Staff thrice consecutively left Yang Xiao somewhat spent. These ghostly things excelled in numbers; he couldn’t possibly strike them all down.
Using the Human Bone Staff, he sensed nearby malice, revealing not fewer than 30 corpse puppets in this small area alone.
Regarding areas farther away, Yang Xiao couldn’t sense them—the ghostly mist seemed to have a suppression ability, limiting the Bone Stick’s detection capability.
Utilizing the Soul-Capturing Mirror, Yang Xiao attempted to leave the area of ghostly mist, but failed twice consecutively; he had been confined by this ghostly mist.
During his attempts to search through the mist, Yang Xiao unexpectedly detected Bo Yetong’s presence using the Human Bone Staff.
This fellow hadn’t left either, similarly trapped by the ghostly mist.
Yang Xiao doubted that Bo Yetong’s spiritual power alone could cause such a disturbance, manipulating so many corpse puppets; it wasn’t realistic.
Yang Xiao judged that this ghostly mist was likely caused by a runaway Magic Artifact, long hidden within the Gu Sect Headquarters, only activated during fierce enemy attacks, akin to defeating a thousand foes while suffering eight hundred losses.
In a fantasy novel, this would be called a Sect Protection Array.
Now, Bo Yetong’s ability to activate this against him indicated desperation.
Indeed, once this artifact is set in motion, it fails to distinguish enemy from ally; the entire headquarters could well be slaughtered clean by these corpse puppets.
