Chapter 1856: Chapter 1058: Out of Control (Part 2)
Yang Xiao didn’t waste words. He is a steady person, never engaging in uncertain matters. He truly felt his progress, though he didn’t understand why controlling this puppet suddenly became so easy.
But no matter what, this was definitely a good thing. Yang Xiao suspected that his good sister had lent him a hand.
Last night, his good sister helped him under the guise of humiliating him, enabling him to break through the governor and conception vessels, causing his Corpse Control Technique to improve rapidly.
"Ha, women!"
Yang Xiao sneered inwardly; why not say she’s helping directly, preferring instead to help him in a roundabout way while flaunting a proud feminist attitude, leaving Yang Xiao embarrassed to expose her.
Could this be part of those flirtatious games? Suddenly Yang Xiao didn’t dare to think further, who knows how freakish the games were that his good sister and the renegade Hanjiang Jun played back then.
With a thought, Yang Xiao blurred the courtyard in mist, controlling the samurai puppet to activate its abilities.
The Ghost Fog surged aggressively, quickly engulfing the figures of Yang Xiao and Beiyu Ye, making Beiyu Ye instinctively retreat a few steps to distance himself from the puppet.
It’s not that he didn’t trust Yang Xiao, but it was just the experience accumulated from years of battle.
The Ghost Fog roiled fiercely, severely limiting Beiyu Ye’s vision while simultaneously, Yang Xiao felt another sensation.
He too was within the fog yet almost unaffected, and both he and the puppet had their movement speed increased in the mist.
The puppet’s speed increased greatly, moving like the wind with barely a sound.
"What a good treasure!" Yang Xiao was elated at the sight; with this puppet, he felt confident in sparring with masters at the peak of Ghost Level, even higher-level experts, and if he couldn’t defeat them, he could at least escape.
Before Yang Xiao could savor the puppet’s wonders, the dense fog thinned abruptly, revealing two figures in the sparse area.
One was Beiyu Ye, and the other, standing behind him, was a tall and robust puppet.
Yang Xiao instantly recognized it; this puppet was the one that gave him considerable trouble in the Secret Realm.
"Hoo—"
"Ha—"
With this puppet constantly breathing, the Ghost Fog, toxic to ordinary people, was inhaled by it, creating an extremely thin mist vacuum beside Beiyu Ye.
This puppet also had the power of Half-step Nether Realm, but Beiyu Ye’s spiritual power surpassed his, enabling the puppet’s combat performance to exceed that of his own puppet.
Moreover, Beiyu Ye was a legitimate heir of the Taoist Dragon Tiger Sect with corpse control techniques far beyond Yang Xiao’s reach.
"Yang, not bad." Beiyu Ye placed his hands behind his back, eyes narrowed with a smile, utterly disregarding the puppet’s threat.
Yang Xiao noticed that this guy wasn’t looking at the puppet but at himself hidden within the Ghost Fog, indicating he had a way to see through the mist; the Taoist Dragon Tiger Sect was indeed extraordinary.
Yang Xiao didn’t respond but attempted maneuvering within the fog. Soon, Beiyu Ye realized this as well, and Yang Xiao saw him take out a bronze compass from his pocket.
The compass’s edges were rusty, evident of its age, and after Beiyu Ye gazed at it for a moment, he lifted his head and again locked onto Yang Xiao’s position.
The issue became clear; the compass had enemy-targeting capabilities similar to a Human Bone Staff.
"Yang, are you ready?" Beiyu Ye was eager, fearless toward the samurai puppet, as he was a corpse control prodigy wanting to personally test Yang Xiao’s puppet.
"Bring it on!" With the samurai puppet in hand, Yang Xiao’s confidence soared.
The next moment, under Beiyu Ye’s control, his puppet made a bold move, stomping like a cannonball towards the samurai puppet.
Yang Xiao also refused to be outdone, controlling the samurai puppet to strike back, both puppets charging at each other, the samurai puppet landing a mighty punch on the opponent’s shoulder, sending it flying.
However, what Yang Xiao didn’t expect was that even though he hadn’t seen the opponent’s puppet make a move, the right arm of the samurai puppet seemed to have been slashed, severely injured, nearly cutting off the entire right arm.
Bear in mind, this was even with arm armor protection; without it, the damage would have been worse.
In contrast, the opponent’s puppet, having successfully struck, immediately returned to Beiyu Ye’s side, like the most loyal guard, protecting its owner’s safety.
It seems this is the ability of the opponent’s puppet; it has an invisible means of attack, and without knowing the details, one would likely suffer greatly.
This was only a puppet being attacked; if it were a human, they might have been severely injured or even killed on the spot with just that one hit.
But the samurai puppet had no sense of pain, and without any apparent movement, the wound on its right arm was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Within just a few breaths, the wound had mostly healed, and simultaneously, the ghostly mist beside the puppet became somewhat thinner, indicating the cost.
The core of this puppet’s ability lies in this ghostly mist, using its power to nourish itself and heal injuries.
But the cost is the depletion of the ghost mist, which means its regenerative ability is not limitless.
As the ghost mist was consumed, Yang Xiao also felt affected, his spiritual power being partially drained.
This was consumed through the Human Bone Staff, as he was using this magic artifact to command the puppet.
Additionally, Yang Xiao noticed something else: the puppet could heal but not completely, even with ample ghost mist; it could only recover about 60-70% in a short time. This seemed not to be a puppet issue, but rather his own problem.
Currently, his spiritual power level was weak, and the puppet was too strong, with a huge gap between them. It was difficult to perfectly control it with his capability. Still, he was quite satisfied with what he had achieved.
Seeing that the puppet’s injuries had mostly healed, Beiyu Ye nodded slightly, revealing a wicked smile, "Interesting."
He didn’t completely see the puppet as an enemy; otherwise, he wouldn’t allow it time to recuperate. He wanted to help Yang Xiao adapt to this puppet and fully harness its ability.
With the puppet guarding his side, Beiyu Ye seemed like a different person, wildly arrogant, hands tucked in his sleeves, squinting his eyes, with a demeanor of a Martial Arts Grandmaster advising younger generation: "This puppet has fine abilities, but it’s a pity it’s you controlling it. If it were me, with these two puppets, I, Beiyu Ye, would be the unparalleled below the Half-step Nether Realm."
Yang Xiao disliked others showing off in front of him because if others did it all, he’d have nothing left to show. He immediately decided to surprise this youngster, to show him there are always people better and Yang Xiao beyond them all.
The next second, Yang Xiao decisively acted, throwing out the Ghost Lantern, trapping the puppet Beiyu Ye relied on.
Under the illusion-breaking ability of the Ghost Lantern, Yang Xiao finally saw the mysterious nature of the puppet; it held a half-transparent scimitar.
This blade only became visible under the Ghost Lantern’s ability, otherwise completely invisible to the naked eye.
Although it was just a momentary entrapment, it was enough time for Yang Xiao. The next second, the prepared samurai puppet burst out from the mist behind Beiyu Ye, smashing a fist towards the back of Beiyu Ye’s head.
This punch was swift as the wind. To his credit, Beiyu Ye reacted quickly, almost instinctively ducking to evade, yet the wind from the punch still tore through Beiyu Ye’s hair tie, letting his long hair scatter in the wind.
Beiyu Ye tumbled across the ground several times before barely standing up, dusty and disheveled, nothing left of the Dragon Tiger Mountain master’s bearing, glaring furiously at Yang Xiao: "Damn, Yang Xiao, are you freaking serious?!"
Beiyu Ye, being the one directly involved, knew that if he hadn’t dodged quickly enough, that puppet’s punch would have been lethal.
He didn’t expect that while he was just sparring with Yang Xiao, the other genuinely seemed intent on taking his life.
However, what Beiyu Ye didn’t know was that Yang Xiao was panicking as well because the puppet’s action earlier wasn’t controlled by him at all.
"Beiyu Ye, be careful, this thing is acting strangely!" Yang Xiao loudly warned, as the samurai puppet once more strode towards Beiyu Ye.
Simultaneously, the ghostly mist around the puppet thickened considerably, overpowering the dispersal effect of the Ghost Lantern.
The blue-gray mist completely enveloped the small courtyard, as if separating it from this world and plunging the two into hell.
