With the [Survival of the Rain Dragon] ability about to crumble, Zilan understood that he would need to take some kind of action soon.
He never expected this ‘test’ to be so ruthless. It was practically impossible to pass.
Just to get through the first seven minutes he was forced to use two lifesaving trump cards and even despite doing that, he was still stuck in a bad situation.
“These creatures, they’re very similar to the [Life puppets] described by Zaum in the Book of Path however, their behaviour is completely different.” Thought Zilan.
Life puppets were seen by practitioners as extremely devilish existences. The reason for this?
It was because to make them meant stealing or grabbing a soul out of a living being before forcing it into a husk.
These husks were naturally, very special since they required rare and valuable ingredients to create not to mention the expertise of both high-level alchemists and spirit Masters.
Without these things it was impossible to bring a Life puppet into existence. However, if successful then one would be able to have an absolutely loyal servant who would do everything his/her Master ordered. Their intelligence wasn’t too remarkable though, but they could still understand and obey somewhat complex orders.
These were the characteristics of Life puppets however, the mechanical creatures that were currently harassing Zilan couldn’t be described as part of them.
Their behaviour was simply too strange. For one, they were able to communicate with one another, fought amongst each other instead of working together and even seemed to bare emotions such as anger, pride, envy and arrogance.
These sort of actions were impossible for Life puppets, which therefore led Zilan to believe something else.
“They’re definitely not Life puppets. Haha, this is really interesting, their souls have been transplanted into these superbly crafted mechanical bodies and for some reason, they are living their lives normally. It’s like the mechanical husks are their true, natural bodies!” Zilan couldn’t help but marvel as he watched these things interact with one another as if it were natural.
“The level of craftsmanship needed to so effectively manipulate these souls into believing they’re actually in their true bodies is just…it’s otherworldly. This has to be his work! He’s the only one capable of such a feat! The modification, planning, experiments and knowledge needed to create the ‘perfect’ body. I can’t even imagine.”
As for why exactly these creatures who seemingly possess free will are attacking him, Zilan didn’t know but he could make an educated, close to the truth guess.
If someone had enough strength to drag you into an unknown domain and then proceeds to teach you your place or rather tame you.
Then when time comes that said person requests you to move in and act, what would you do? Would your fear of that person force you to take action? Or would you take action because of the fear that person makes you feel?
Intelligent beings will always respond to fear and that is because they’re smart enough to feel fear. The mechanical monsters could be said to be living beings, just that they’re lives have been manipulated by the great invisible hand of the Chairman.
In a way they were still puppets despite not being [Life puppets].
And alas, Zilan couldn’t be bothered to feel even a tiny bit of remorse or sadness for these monsters and that was mainly due to the fact that they were currently trying to kill him.
“Not good!”
Just as he was still pondering on what his next move should be, a gigantic fireball suddenly came flying towards his position.
Staying immobile was no longer an option. Thus, without even turning to take a look at the origin of the fireball, Zilan stood up and dashed at his full speed towards the weakest point of the encirclement.
*Boom*
The trees behind him were burnt to ashes in an instant however, despite the explosion being so eye catching, the numerous monsters didn’t even glance sideways at it.
Instead, their focus was completely captured by the figure of a fleeing Half Breed.
“Garrghhhh!”
“Yeeiiing”
“Boooryttt.”
Strange sounds and roars echoed throughout the forest, causing many of the mechanical creatures to dash straight towards Zilan.
All of the conflicts seemed to have been forgotten in an instant, leading Zilan to inwardly curse at them.
“Why can’t you be stupid when I need you to be stupid!?”
Left with no choice, another one of his trump cards needed to be revealed.
“Prana…” He whispered, as his eyes half closed. It was almost as if he had entered a trance state.
And at that exact moment, his speed drastically improved, to the point that only blurry after images could be seen with every step he took.
Unfortunately, his increase in speed didn’t mean much since five different attacks were currently coming at him from all different directions.
Zilan expectedly did not panic, he actually seemed calmer and much more composed.
The five different attacks weren’t approaching at the same speeds which meant there would be a delay before each one reached him.
Calculating this amount of time and then planning his countermeasures, Zilan took action not slowing down one bit.
The first one to arrive was a five foot long spike that had serpent like electricity coiling around it.
Without giving much thought to it, Zilan reached out and grabbed the spear like spike. Immediately after, the scales around his right hand all unconditionally exploded.
Despite how tough they were, the power contained in the spike was too much for them bear, causing large amounts or red blood to spray out, staining the ground.
Enduring the pain though, with a scary calm, expressionless face, Zilan didn’t let go of the spike. Using its forwards momentum, he twisted his body at a weird angle sending the spike flying in another direction.
Coincidentally, the second attack was coming from that same side, and as per his calculations, the electric spike soon collided with a twenty foot tall humongous metallic ball whose weight could only be imagined.
Not slowing his feet for even one second, Zilan continued running towards the weakest part of the encirclement.
Three of the five attacks still remained though and with no hesitation whatsoever, he swiftly took out his last two Tembu pain’s from his voidless sack, hurling them towards a six foot wide chakram coming from the east and a fifteen foot long Dragon beard hook coming from the west.
*Boom*
The explosion was not only louder than the one produced by the fire ball but its force was also many times more powerful, destroying the two weapons on impact.
However, due to a slight miscalculation, Zilan was caught by the force of the explosive, throwing him far to the side.
Luckily he was only clipped and therefore didn’t sustain any serious injuries.
*Swish*
Just as he relaxed his head to take a breath, the fifth attack which arrived in the form of a tiny shuriken shrouded in pitch black gas, flew right above him, grazing his hair.
It then stabbed into a nearby boulder which shockingly melted as soon as it was touched.
Cold sweat poured down Zilan’s back. He couldn’t help but think about what would have happened if the shuriken had stabbed into him instead.
He then slowly turned to look behind him only to see a frightening scene.
The Tembu pain truly lived up to its name. Almost the entire area was engulfed in a sea of flames and raging lava.
The approaching monsters that tried to get through were immediately dealt a fiery death, thus causing the others to hesitate, opting to go around instead.
Unfortunately, for Zilan this did not necessarily mean good news. After all, he now had nowhere to retreat to.
Also, despite the land creatures failure to get through, the flying monsters could still attack him.
………………….
Seeing this all transpire in an unknown place, was the red squirrel. He was quite excited getting to see the many trump cards Zilan was employing and each time he thought he had the kid, something interesting would happen.
Which now leads us to the current situation where little red was getting bored with all the running.
“More Action! Hehe, if the little ones can’t catch you then let’s see if you can outrun this next wave.”
He then slowly waved his tiny smoking pipe and a moment later, the domain began trembling.
As if they were melting, the earth, the mountains, the hills and even the water bodies started deforming. Like pieces of clay being moulded they slowly but surely turned into humanoid golems of varying sizes.
This time though, the numbers of the new arrivals could only be described with one word.
Perverse!
“SCREEE!”
Once again, as if to notify everyone not to forget about it, the earth shaking screech echoed out. It was getting closer!
An,
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