Chapter 668 - To Lay Down Arms Is True Strength, and So He Sleeps Again - Part 2

Li Yuan ended up staying for half a month.

During that time, Tang Eleven retrieved vast quantities of soul-forged iron.

Normally, these rare metals were kept frozen beneath the surrounding black ice, in an effort to slow the loss of their unique properties.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Now, she halted nearly all operations within the Tang Sect. Most of the disciples were ordered to leave the main building, leaving behind only a handful of high-ranking members, and the handful of master craftsmen capable of forging large-scale constructs.

A massive amount of soul iron was rapidly turned into components. Tang Eleven poured her entire being into carving intricate patterns into the metal’s surface.

Each groove, each line, was a glimpse into the brilliance of the bygone transcendence era.

They were the veins of life itself.

And during this time, Li Yuan found himself pondering a question.

Where did a puppet’s soul come from?

After much thought, Li Yuan guessed the answer lay in something akin to the Celestial Transformation, or perhaps some secret soul-summoning art. After all, the art of puppetcraft had always carried a strange, mystical aura.

As for the soul itself, he had glimpsed the Soul Furnace once long ago.

When a person died, their soul didn’t enter the furnace immediately. Instead, it had to wait in line, like some cosmic bureaucracy, slowly making its way toward the final burn.

But now...the Soul Furnace was malfunctioning. It couldn’t even fully burn the souls of powerful cultivators. That meant the queue must’ve gotten even longer.

In theory, that also meant that if a soul hadn’t yet entered the furnace, it could still be called back.

Under the full effort of the Tang Sect, it took only seven days to forge two colossal soul iron puppets, each towering nearly ten meters high.

Meanwhile, a system of mobile pulley tracks had been built to connect the central tower to one of the Tang Sect’s four towers.

On one side, Tang Fang directed the loading of the giant puppets.

On the opposite end, near the central tower, only Tang Eleven and Li Yuan stood waiting.

“Three., two, one, release!” one of the senior Tang artisans operating the contraptions shouted.

With a loud clunk, the pulley mechanism engaged, and the massive puppet, strapped onto the carrier, began its slow glide across the air-suspended track. Twin iron cables ran along both sides of the car, double-reinforced for safety.

A sharp screech of friction echoed across the cliffs, but the first transport made it across without incident.

Tang Eleven and Li Yuan worked together to unload the puppet, wheeling it onto a cart and unfastening the cables.

Then the cables swung back, adjusted up top, and began hauling the second puppet across.

This time, something went wrong. The puppet almost slipped off the track and plummeted down the cliffside, but they managed to recover it just in time.

By the time both puppets were across, the sun had begun to dip behind the clouds. They had spent the entire afternoon on the task.

Li Yuan pushed the cart and turned toward the tower.

Tang Eleven followed close behind.

The rest of the Tang Sect watched the two of them vanish into the mist that veiled the central tower, their curiosity nearly burning a hole through the fog.

Who exactly

was

Lord Yu, the man who had shaken the entire world?

And what was his connection to their leader?

More importantly...what were the two of them planning?

Mystery clung to the central tower like the mist itself.

Around them, clouds swirled and clung to the cliffs like waves crashing against an island.

“Madam Bright Moon has ordered that from this day forward, the outside remains normal. But within the central tower, lockdown is in effect. No one is to approach under any circumstances. Trespassers will be executed without mercy,” a cold-faced elder announced.

Everyone else had clearly received similar instructions.

They dispersed quickly, and soon inner sect disciples were stationed in shifts around the base of the tower, each armed and ready, standing guard before the four suspension chains anchoring the tower.

The defenses were so tight that not even a fly could get through.

Within the tower, at the very base of the structure, where the cliffside met the earth deep within the mountain, the two soul iron puppets had already descended, bypassing spiral staircases layer by layer, until they reached the bottommost chamber.

The hollowed-out mountain peak was merely a shell, the exterior of the tower.

This was a relic from the transcendence era. Only top-tier martial artists of that age could’ve built something so impossibly grand.

In the faint blue glow, the clatter of turning mechanisms echoed steadily through the silence.

The woman sealed in the ice was carefully moved out. Her limbs were still warm to the touch, something that should’ve been impossible.

Once placed inside the soul puppet, her body was gently returned to the ice column.

Meanwhile, Tang Eleven held a perpetual flame lantern in hand, shut the iron door behind them, and stepped into the second soul iron puppet. She took her place beside Li Yuan...and blew out the last flicker of light.

Darkness swallowed everything.

In that utter blackness, Tang Eleven’s voice rang out, solemn and steady, “Your Majesty...it’s ready.”

The last of this world’s soul iron had gone into crafting these two puppets. Now they stood, worn like armor, by Tang Eleven and Tang Nian.

Puppets within puppets.

And now, the tide of spiritual energy was about to return. It would flood them both...like a wave washing over two fish who had nearly perished of thirst.

In the pitch black, Tang Eleven saw a faint glimmer blossom like a star suddenly flaring in the night sky.

A single red lotus petal appeared, then twelve, then thirty-six.

The lotus split into three hues, crimson, black, and gold.

From the tri-colored lotus radiated a force so immense it defied belief, a power drowned long ago in the flood of heaven and earth.

An era long buried...was returning.

Out of nothing, the spiritual tide surged into being.

What is this...?

Tang Eleven’s pupils constricted. She looked up in disbelief as the lotus slowly rose into the air, its radiance pouring down with the thundering yin and yang forces of heaven.

This was power that defied the natural order. Power that

shouldn’t

exist. And yet Tang Nian’s father was wielding it freely.

The twin flows of Yin and Yang rushed down, pouring through the channels carved into the soul iron puppets, like blood flooding back into a heart that had gone cold.

Li Yuan stood beneath the lotus he’d summoned into the sky, guiding its energy with the force of his domain, concentrating it entirely within this space.

Here, the spiritual energy had reached a density beyond comprehension.

He remained motionless, staring quietly at the numbers hovering beside him.

96k~4.5mil (23:49:56)

First of all, it was now clear that reclaiming his true form had to be all or nothing. The idea of

just taking a little

was...wishful thinking at best.

Second, the process of fully retrieving his body would take one day, 24 full hours. But how long it would take him to recover after that, he still didn’t know.

In this moment, Li Yuan felt more powerful than he ever had in his life.

He sat in the darkness, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness settled in.

A stray thought drifted across his mind.

Do gods feel loneliness too? Is that why they must learn to let go of emotion? The Way of Severing Emotion isn’t a path to enlightenment. It’s just a kind of helplessness, isn't it?

He looked up, the light of the tri-colored lotus casting monstrous shadows on the giant puppet forms nearby.

When Nian Nian wakes up... When I find Sheng’er and Ping’an... When the realms of the living and the dead are joined... When I see Yan Yu again... That will be...a good day.