Chapter 1507: A Commandant All By His Lonesome (I)

In the depths of the Hall of Darkness.

The place containing the seat cushion was as quiet as always. Within the four images around it, three people were searching for treasure and one young man had sat down cross-legged in cultivation.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Some motion disturbed the pin-drop silent great hall.

“Cultivation?” Someone had come here to cultivate? The one who’d come with the strength of three envoys was certainly an interesting one.

Was this a purposeful show of composure? Or did he know that there were certain things within the Hall of Darkness, so he wanted to stand out in this way and obtain some particular attention?

Powerhouses were prone to thinking too much at times.

There were currently three cultivators of darkness in the hall, with the fourth one being... a cultivator of life and death. That was a good dao, but only just good enough. If one could not become a high rank exalted emperor, then life and death would simply be one of the stronger great daos.

The greatest dao of this place was naturally that of darkness.

“Is he being deliberately mysterious?” rang the voice from the seat cushion. It seemed to be more interested now. There was no need to pay attention to the others. Only the one who bore the presences of three envoys merited some extra concentration.

A dark ripple oscillated out of the hall.

......

Li Hao’s heart suddenly skipped a beat during his meditation. A sound echoed through the air. When he tilted his head for a look, his scalp crawled with horror. A dozen dark puppets had appeared out of thin air in the previously empty hall!

A dozen of them! They were all exalted emperors! Even if they were only first rank, they would be an enormous problem if they attacked together.

The dark domain spontaneously appeared around the young man. How were there so many dark puppets here??

The dark puppets seemed to lose their target when the domain appeared and wandered off elsewhere. Li Hao heaved a sigh of relief and patted his chest. However, this reassurance was short-lived.

The dark domain began vibrating and the dark energy in him threatened to rage out of control. That created cracks in his domain, drawing back the dark puppets that’d already left.

Li Hao frowned. It wasn’t possible for his strength to leave his grasp—he was a third rank. While he wouldn’t say that he could easily wield anything he put his mind to, at the very least, he wouldn’t lose control.

Something was wrong!

There was no time to consider the possibilities as the dark puppets were already charging toward him. In the absence of his domain, that meant he wouldn’t be able to isolate them from their undying properties.

In that case, one puppet was enough to plague him, much less a dozen.

Something had changed in the Hall of Darkness. This shouldn’t have taken place before, or anyone who ventured into the dao foundation site would be doomed.

Does it have something to do with me?

Or did it have something to do with those from Utmost Dark? Regardless of the reason, it wouldn’t have happened without cause. Li Hao was certain that some sort of conditions had been triggered to set this event into motion.

He rather wanted their dao foundation crystals, but the crystals of a dozen undying puppets... Never mind that!

......

It wasn’t just Li Hao that abruptly noticed the appearance of multiple dark puppets—the other exalted emperors widened their eyes as well. Drouth nearly burst into audible curses.

There weren’t as many dark puppets around him, just five, but they were all mid rank. Seeing as these things were undying, one was headache enough. Five?

There was nothing he could do but run!

Drouth set aside everything else on his mind and fled.

The enormous Hall of Darkness was suddenly livened up by four fleeing exalted emperors. The dark puppets followed them like their personal shadows.

Laughter could be heard in the depths of the hall.

Cultivate? Putting on mysterious airs? Try surviving three days first, then we’ll talk!

Such was the ruthlessness of the dark attribute. They would engage in a conversation only after their target survived various trials. If not, there was no need to interact.

As for who it was that would survive... that would be up to luck.

There were ways to resolve the dark puppet problem, but very few could carry out the answer. This Hall of Darkness was once a testing ground that the dark envoy sent his disciples into. Skyward had stood for endless eons and the dark envoy was so formidable that he had innumerable disciples. This was just the first test, but it was enough to make one despair.

Few were those who could pass the trial. After countless years, those that’d passed could be counted on with two hands. It went without saying that they all went on to become elite geniuses of the world.

With that in mind, the existence in the hall disappeared.

I’ll come back for a look after three days.

If these trespassers were all dead after three days, even the fellow with the presence of three envoys on him, then they could only fault their own lack of skill.

There was a unique characteristic about the dark puppets chasing them, and that was that they were a bit slower than others of the same level. The dumbest way to pass the test was to run for three days straight. If the cultivator kept up peak speed, they might win enough breathing space for themselves.

The caveat to that was that they were able to maintain such enormous resource depletion. Being able to do so for three days meant that one had very deep foundations. That was a type of genius, in its own way.

No one had ever succeeded with this method. Even premier exalted emperors were hard pressed to maintain top speed at every second for three days.

......

Within the hall.

Li Hao wanted to curse noisily as well.

Damn it!

There was absolutely something wrong here. A dozen puppets were after him and his domain had lost its effectiveness. This place didn’t seem to permit him to use it. He was unable to conceal his presence and thus, unable to shake off these things.

“Why is this happening? ...is the core of Demon Summit suppressing my domain?” That seemed to be the only possibility.

Any domain that he tried to form raged out of control and shattered. Not only could it not conceal his presence, but it leaked even more of his energy and further attracted dark puppets.

How unlucky!

That was one aspect. The other was that Li Hao suspected there was a sentient being in the Hall of Darkness doing this on purpose.

This wasn’t baseless speculation. Everything had been fine before; sudden changes often represented anomalies.

With the dao foundation crystal in hand, he could still see far enough. Sudden movement caught his eye—an exalted emperor seemed to be running for his life. There were many dark puppets chasing after him.

Is that one of the Utmost Dark exalted emperors?

Li Hao quickly changed direction, not wanting to come in contact with him.

After he was clear, Li Hao suddenly changed direction again and followed the other. Could he redirect the dark puppets after him into following the Utmost Dark exalted emperor instead?

Don’t chase me, chase him!

None of those from Utmost Dark were anything good. They were his enemies, so it would be much more preferable if they died instead.

However, the dark puppets tailing him seemed to have locked onto him. Even though the other guy raised a huge fuss as he ran, none of the dark puppets behind Li Hao wavered in concentration.

Very strange.

So this meant that everyone in the hall had a pack of dark puppets behind them, ones that couldn’t be distracted? If that was the case... they were in trouble.

This was similar to the chaos tribulation in terms of specific targeting. Would someone else’s dark puppets attack him if he attacked their target?

Li Hao really was curious about this question. They would ignore him, right?

“Undying...” He thought of another characteristic of the dark puppets. Since his domain was out of commission, the dense energy in this place would swiftly recover any puppet that he managed to kill.

Various ideas rose in his mind as Li Hao continued to extract dark energy to build his bridges. He settled on one of the dark puppets and swiftly caught up to his quarry. The dao foundation crystal in his hand extended its energy over him.

This hall seemed infinitely big—perhaps that was another function of the domain. The domain within the hall formed its own world.

Li Hao swiftly caught up to the other; this was just a third rank. He didn’t have as many dark puppets behind him, just seven or eight. All the same, this was unbearable for a third rank. There were four third rank puppets after this guy, with the remainder being first or second ranks.

After catching up, Li Hao drew his sword without a word or sound.

Ghost Shadow Sword intent!

He stabbed the sword into a dark puppet, commanding immense strength to erupt within it. An eruption ripped through the dark puppet. It didn’t even look at Li Hao and let the young man attack it as he would.

Li Hao also looked at the other puppets in the group. They, too, were ignoring him in favor of the other exalted emperor.

The dark puppet that’d been blown to pieces continued to overlok Li Hao. It dragged its tattered body forward, swiftly recovering and chasing after the third rank again.

As I thought!

Li Hao turned to look at the dark puppets chasing him. If Drouth could help him with these dark puppets, none of them would be a threat to him as he dispatched them. Despite their overwhelming strength, they needed energy to recover.

They wouldn’t be truly infinite in the Hall of Darkness. He just needed to attack them so much that his hand ached in order to possibly deal a true death to them.

Sadly, this didn’t seem to be a very practical solution. Would Drouth help him?

Not a chance.

Granted, that was Li Hao’s conclusion. What if Drouth suddenly lost his mind or was interested in collecting dao foundation crystals? He might help Li Hao then.

What the young man elected to focus on for the moment was to kill the third rank dark puppet. If attacking him once didn’t work, then he would attack again. He would keep attacking until the puppet crumbled away. The dao foundation crystal may be his then.

And if he could infinitely replicate these crystals... Wouldn’t life be grand then!

Li Hao quickly came to a decision. As for letting the Utmost Dark third rank escape due to the opening... What did that matter?

It was easy for Li Hao to kill him.