Chapter 1508: A Commandant All By His Lonesome (II)

Having decided on a plan of attack, Li Hao sprang into action. He captured a dark puppet—the first rank one—and killed it over and over again. The puppet neither defended itself nor attacked the young man. All it did was keep an eye on the Utmost Dark exalted emperor.

For Li Hao, this dark puppet was just target practice. A first rank target was too weak in his eyes. What kind of powerhouse was this if they just stood there for him to hit?

He obliterated the first rank dark puppet again and again. He would repeatedly kill this puppet until it dropped its dao foundation crystal. If he couldn’t do so, then he would wear this thing down and expend a great deal of its energy.

Demon Summit’s energy would run out at some point. It wouldn’t require exalted emperor blood essence to activate otherwise. From this, it could be seen that the dao remnants here were a far cry from yesteryear. They could only materialize with blood essence as a catalyst.

Once energy ran out, the outside world would have to keep Demon Summit supplied with exalted emperor blood essence. If the Dragon Observatory leader refused, then there might be no more echoes of dao remnants in the future.

Li Hao ran through many possibilities and their ramifications in a very short period of time. On the other hand, the fleeing exalted emperor had no idea there was another person behind him, furiously killing one of his dark puppets. All of his attention was spent on saving himself, he didn’t have effort to spare for anything else.

Whenever he sensed a disturbance behind him, he treated it as commotion from his pursuers. He didn’t dare turn back, for fear that it would delay his fleeing. He wanted to find Drouth more than ever; the fifth rank would be able to save him!

Four exalted emperors ran for their lives within the Hall of Thunder. Li Hao continued to kill that one dark puppet; dark energy surged within its body each time Li Hao interrogated it. At the same time, the young man found this arrangement to be far from ideal.

Thus, he attacked other dark puppets while waiting for the first one to recover. It wasn’t like these things would attack him in return. Who’d set up those rules in this place? Did the hall master wish for everyone to be of one heart?

Li Hao had no idea, but he did know if there were two more Utmost Dark exalted emperors in the hall, they might be able to also use his idea to resolve the dark puppets. Yet, in this critical moment, these exalted emperors were too busy being scared. Who would be in the mood to help someone else fend off their dark puppets?

It was only Li Hao who looked at the puppets greedily, wanting them for the crystals they carried. He wouldn’t pursue this idea otherwise either. These guys wouldn’t be grateful to him even if he rescued them.

The chase continued!

Li Hao encountered another third rank during this time, but the other turned tail and ran as soon as he saw a bunch of dark puppets in the distance!

He didn’t dare draw close. There were two dozen dark puppets teeming in the distance! It looked like they were all after Drouth!

......

The chase continued for half a day. The first dark puppet dissipated with a sharp crack after Li Hao’s latest execution. Contrary to its previous deaths, the dark energy around them did not surge into it when it fell apart.

Rather, there was a change in the energy quality as a dao foundation crystal dropped to the ground.

Li Hao raised an eyebrow at it.

One hundred times?

This was the puppet’s one hundredth death, wasn’t it? That led to its annihilation, as opposed to revival.

Hot damn! What normal person would kill an exalted emperor one hundred times??

The first instance of resurrection induced despair. The second would dissuade anyone from killing them a third time. It was obviously a waste of time and energy that could be better spent running away.

Ninety-nine percent of people would forsake killing the puppets when they came back from their third death.

Killing the dark puppets one hundred times... only Li Hao would do so because he wanted to exhaust the dark energy here.

But, there were benefits to his course of action. Although it had been very tiring, it’d resulted in a first rank dao foundation crystal. This was a nice find!

The young man had consistently depleted his reserves of energy during this process in order to build bridges of life and death. By now, there were 250 bridges under his command.

And now there was one less dark puppet chasing the Utmost Dark third rank.

Li Hao turned his attention to the other dark puppets. His motivation burned fiercely now that he had concrete answers to his questions. It didn’t matter if the puppet still had energy or not—it would fully die after its one hundredth death.

This was a stroke of good fortune for the young man. Dark puppets that did not fight back were very easy to kill! The process was simple and the rewards great. While killing each one a hundred times was a tiring endeavor, it only consumed some stamina and didn’t pose any danger.

This would even help him hone his sword technique.

Li Hao continued to cut down the dark puppets. Once, twice, thrice... Everything went smoother now that he had the benefit of experience.

Up ahead, the fleeing third rank was nearly collapsing from exhaustion. He turned back to look with eyes full of despair. ...there seemed to be fewer dark puppets in the gloom!

Joy brightened his face, but then his expression froze. Due to his pause, Li Hao paused as well. The dark puppets chasing the young man caught up to him, mixing with those after the Utmost Dark third rank. There were suddenly several dozen growling at the man!

The third rank was nearly beside himself with terror. How were there even more now?!

He tarried no further and started running madly for his life again.

Li Hao didn’t care about him at all; he resumed hunting the dark puppets. These were walking treasure chests! The dao foundation crystals contained the dao comprehension of an eighth rank. Whether he refined them himself or brought them back to Silver Moon, the pure energy within would be sufficient for a long duration of cultivation.

Sadly, the dao comprehension inside would only be useful to another dark attribute cultivator. Li Hao didn’t have much use for it.

So long as I don’t die to the puppets chasing me, this is a nice treasure hunt that I’m on!

The young man wasn’t really acting brashly. He was certain that there was limited energy in this place, that it could not be infinitely depleted. Even if these dark puppets didn’t drop treasure of their own, he would hunt them down nonetheless.

Continuously running around like a chicken with its head cut off was not the answer. As an exalted emperor, his thoughts should not be consumed with escape. He should be considering how to strike back, how to whittle away at his enemy’s resources.

As for how the other two Utmost Dark exalted emperors would choose, that he was unaware of. But the one in front of him insisted on fleeing and didn’t bother striking back—he didn’t reduce their numbers in the slightest. If this continued without Li Hao’s intervention, it would take a day at most for the man’s strength to flag. The dark puppets would catch up to him then and tear him to pieces.

I’m saving this guy!

Li Hao had already killed three dark puppets. There were five more after the man, which wasn’t that many. These five had died quite a few times already. They tended to die faster towards the end.

......

While Li Hao continued his treasure hunting trip, the dark presence within the hall notably decreased. Each of his executions wore away at the presence. After the dark puppets revived one hundred times, their dao foundation crystal ended up in the young man’s hands.

In this way, the energy concentration within the hall fell rapidly.

Counterattack and depletion was the key to this test. Purely running for three days straight was a tall order. Being able to identify the key to danger and possessing sufficient decisiveness to strike back was a critical component of this trial.

Killing someone else’s dark puppets was another key, but very few accomplished this.

Most exalted emperors were lone wolves that relied on their own ferocity and tenacity. Individual strength and determination was what carried them through the test.

When the dark envoy originally set up the Hall of Darkness, he wanted to test teamwork, personal decision making abilities, strength, decisiveness, and incredible stamina. These were the pivotal characteristics to passing the test. Somewhat fulfilling a portion of them was sufficient.

But even so, many couldn’t do it.

The dao foundation crystals that resulted from killing a dark puppet one hundred times were a small reward that the dark envoy had set up. However, even fewer were those that obtained it. Only so many could persist until they killed the same puppet one hundred times.

Of the four exalted emperors in the hall, two were dashing around madly, one was busy killing another’s puppets, and the fifth rank Drouth chose to fight back at this time!

As a fifth rank, he could call upon sufficient determination at a critical moment. He also knew that they could not continue in this vein. Thus, even though the puppets were undying, he chose to go on the offensive.

The man was also speculating that these dark puppets didn’t have an inexhaustible source of energy. This was corroborated by the decline in energy levels that he sensed within the hall. Clearly, these dark puppets pulled from the environment around them.

And with that, Drouth counterattacked, thereby decreasing even more energy within the hall.

......

After a day.

The exalted emperor in front of Li Hao ran at a much reduced speed. There were no dark puppets after him anymore; all of the active ones were Li Hao’s puppets.

The man panted for breath. He’d encountered an Utmost Dark comrade once in this full day and night of running, but the two quickly split up before they had a chance to talk. They were deathly afraid that the other’s dark puppets might join the entourage behind them.

“Whew...” The man’s chest heaved violently. He could still sense the tireless dark puppets behind him. Thankfully, he could also sense some other changes around him, such as a decrease in the dark energy in this place.

Who knew why that was happening?!

All he knew was that he might survive if he held on a bit longer. The caveat was, all of the dark energy had to be gone by then.

He lumbered into motion again, but at his slowest pace yet. When he slowed even more so, a thin sword soundlessly sank into his back.

After taking care of the dark puppets, Li Hao wouldn’t actually let this exalted emperor off the hook. The man was at his weakest after running for a full day and night.

Li Hao could also sense the depletion in the surroundings. The general gloom might recede soon. If he didn’t kill this guy and he reconvened with the other Utmost Dark exalted emperors, he would have created another enemy for himself.

In that case, he would turn Drouth into a commandant operating all by his lonesome!