Xuanqing Guard

Chapter 259: Chapter 259: Tomb Beast

Shen Hao knew there was an unorthodox Magic in the Cultivation Realm called Puppetry Skill, and cultivators who specialized in this kind of Magic were usually called Puppet Masters.

Very few people practiced unorthodox Skills like this; anyway, Shen Hao had never actually seen a Puppet Master. He’d only read about them in some miscellaneous books and old records.

Puppet Masters also needed to practice Cultivation Techniques, but their Magics were weird and formed a whole different branch: they gave up on researching and making use of the Five Elements and instead explored the mysteries of Arrays and the recreating of things themselves.

In Shen Hao’s mind, Puppet Masters were kind of like applied scientists with crazy hands-on abilities.

Mysterious Magic theory plus all sorts of Artifact Refining methods and wild ideas—the sheer chaos of the knowledge threshold was the greatest barrier to becoming a Puppet Master. You could say a Puppet Master was both an Artifact Refiner and a theory expert in cultivation. On top of that, they had to be imaginative as hell. Basically, every one of them was top-tier in the Cultivation Realm.

The books said that Puppetry Skill could make puppets for amusement or for fighting. Just about anything a person could imagine, a puppet could probably do for you.

This was also the first time Shen Hao had seen a real puppet, and it was completely different from what he’d pictured.

These Tomb Beasts looked bizarre as a whole, but they definitely didn’t look man-made. They were more like some type of monster than "objects."

Nie Yun didn’t keep going forward, instead staying about twenty zhang away from the entrance to the village.

"As long as we don’t enter the village’s boundary, they won’t attack us on their own."

"They’re that dumb? Can’t we just stand outside and bombard them from afar, then wipe them out easy?"

"Keep dreaming. Try it yourself and you’ll see."

Shen Hao glanced at Nie Yun and saw he definitely wasn’t joking, and he didn’t seem malicious, either. So Shen Hao drew his Yanji Saber from his waist again, took a few steps forward, gripped the saber with both hands, filled it with True Qi, and chopped down hard.

Instantly, a sweep of Blade Aura shot from the Yanji Saber, aimed right at that hunchbacked, shuffling Tomb Beast a dozen or so zhang away. But...

The Blade Aura disappeared into thin air just a few feet away from the saber.

"What..." Shen Hao’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe his Blade Aura just vanished like that. He quickly swung a few more times, but the results were all the same: every Blade Aura fizzled out a few feet from his blade, as if it had never existed.

Shen Hao’s face was so full of dumb shock, it was actually pretty hilarious. Nie Yun, standing nearby, burst out laughing so hard he bent over double. ƒrēewebnovel.com

"Hahaha... Bro, now you know you can’t cheese it from a distance, right? Forget your Blade Aura—even Artifact Manipulation Techniques won’t work here, unless you go into the tomb. Otherwise, you have to fight up close."

"Nie, what’s going on here, exactly?"

"Inside the Cloud Sword Domain, any Magic where True Qi leaves the body is forbidden. If you want to use it, you have to actually go in through the tomb entrance."

"So, what about inside the village?"

"The village itself is just the area around the tomb entrance. You have to properly enter to be out of the Cloud Sword Domain—then you can use all your Magic normally."

"So, are we still going in?"

"I’m definitely going in. The Cloud Swords inside are much better for my trials. You can follow me. I’ll take you in. The closer we get to the entrance, the better the overall quality of the Cloud Swords compared to outside."

Shen Hao thanked him and stuck close behind Nie Yun as they started walking forward.

Honestly, he didn’t have much choice. If he didn’t go into the village, all he had in his Storage Bag was a little emergency rations, enough for maybe three meals. If something went wrong and he ran out, he’d be too weak from hunger to handle trouble.

So even though Shen Hao was still on his guard against Nie Yun, he obediently followed right behind him anyway.

In such a dangerous place, why make things harder for myself? Might as well hug the big guy’s leg now and think about other stuff once I’m sure I can survive.

As they got closer, the Tomb Beast at the village gate finally reacted—growling in warning at Nie Yun, body snapping from lazy to alert, hunching its back, flexing those past-the-knees arms with ten razor claws, and baring a mouthful of dagger-like fangs.

Nie Yun didn’t stop; he kept walking forward. Shen Hao noticed Nie Yun’s palms were now swirling with wispy white mist, twisting around his hands like water-bands.

Is this a Five Elements Water Attribute Technique? Is the mist water vapor? Or icy shards?

Before Shen Hao could dwell on it, Nie Yun stepped right into Caiyuan Village’s entrance. Nearly instantly, the Tomb Beast that had been staring them down pounced—too fast to see, it was just a blur, and in a blink, its claws stretched out, mouth snapping at Nie Yun.

Nie Yun’s steps were calm and unhurried. With two light, crisscrossing strides—smooth as flowing water, slow yet fast—he easily sidestepped the attack with a twist and sideways step, dodging everything.

Shen Hao watched in a daze, and out of nowhere, the word "graceful" popped into his head. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

No flashy Magic, just pure close-quarters fighting; a pair of bare hands, enhanced with that icy mist, neatly slapping the Tomb Beast again and again.

Shen Hao’s eyes struggled to follow. He ended up counting the number of heavy thumps he heard—Nie Yun struck the Tomb Beast three times total.

Bam... just in that brief exchange, the Tomb Beast crashed to the ground and stopped moving. A couple breaths later, its entire body quickly melted into jet-black liquid and vanished into the ground.

Was this the "returning to the core" immortal Tomb Beast technique Nie Yun mentioned earlier?

"Let’s go. Keep by my side, don’t get more than a zhang away. I’ll cover you," Nie Yun’s voice was still calm and breezy, though his pace did quicken a bit.

The road ahead was still dicey. There weren’t tons of Tomb Beasts, but not too few either—a new one or two every twenty zhang or so. Not that any of them could touch Nie Yun; three strikes, one Tomb Beast down, all while easily protecting Shen Hao and barely slowing down.

Which left Shen Hao telling himself, over and over, based on the Tomb Beasts’ speed, the force of their leaping, and the swoosh of their claws ripping the air—it’s not that these Tomb Beasts aren’t monsters. It’s just that Nie Yun is way too overpowered.

Once inside the village, he started seeing corpses—freshly dead, clearly just country folk, all tossed about in terrible shape. Obviously, these were Caiyuan Village’s residents, all wiped out in some freak disaster.

There were even more Cloud Swords inside the village—bigger ones, scattered everywhere, some just the size of a fist hiding in corners. Total numbers were way higher than outside.

Nie Yun pointed to a big house off in the distance. "That big house up ahead’s our stop. Not many Tomb Beasts nearby, plus it’s close to the entrance so we can get inside the tomb quick when needed. You can try your luck finding a Cloud Sword, too."

"We’re near the tomb entrance already?"

"Yep. Used to be a fish pond behind the house, but unlucky for us, it’s right at the mouth of the tomb passage."

Shen Hao said nothing more and just followed Nie Yun, fighting all the way to the big house. Compared to outside, it was way cleaner inside the house—no corpses at least. Maybe Nie Yun had cleaned it out earlier, hard to say.