Knowing Hu Yue was safe, Lin Xiao relaxed— the blood on her was all someone else’s.
At the scene, Huandie’s retreat and the strength Lin Xiao and Hu Yue displayed deterred the crowd— no one dared challenge them.
To avoid further trouble, Lin Xiao led Hu Yue away from the onlookers, flying deeper into the mass graveyard.
Now, Hu Yue needed no help— the Spirit Illusion Moon Robe was miraculous, letting her fly without vital qi wings, just like Lin Xiao.
“What does this Spirit Illusion Moon Robe do?” Lin Xiao asked curiously, eyeing the robe beneath her feet.
Hu Yue glanced down at it, a satisfied grin on her face, “Heh, it’s got loads of uses! It lets me fly, conjures three decoys, masks my aura massively— perfect for my assassin techniques. Plus, its defence is top-notch and boosts my combat power by a whole realm.”
“No wonder you took down Yunlian!” Lin Xiao marvelled. He hadn’t expected the robe to offer so many perks— it was a tiger’s wings for Hu Yue. Her killing Yunlian made sense now.
An invisible assassin with such a treasure was a nightmare for foes.
“Most importantly, it holds a Spirit Illusion Secret Technique— probably why Huandie wanted it,” Hu Yue said frankly, hiding nothing from Lin Xiao.
Lin Xiao’s heart raced— he’d witnessed Huandie’s illusions, eerie and unpredictable.
The robe’s secret technique must be extraordinary. If Hu Yue paired it with illusion attacks, her lethality would skyrocket, reaching a terrifying level.
“There are indeed good opportunities here— we need to speed up our search,” Lin Xiao said eagerly, accelerating over the corpse-strewn ground ahead.
“Oh, heavens, look over there!” Hu Yue suddenly yelped, nearly jumping as she pointed below.
Lin Xiao followed her finger— the sight made his hairs stand on end.
There, a figure crouched, clad in ancient garb, shrouded in yin qi. Unbelievably, it was gnawing on another corpse.
“My God!” Lin Xiao’s scalp tingled, his stomach churning.
The figure paused, sensing them, and turned its head.
“Ah!” Hu Yue shrieked.
Its face glowed an eerie green, eyes the same— no trace of life. It wasn’t human— more a ghost.
Or a corpse.
“Haa…” Seeing them, the green corpse exhaled, a gust of yin qi billowing from its mouth.
Lin Xiao and Hu Yue shuddered, vital qi surging, ready to act.
Yet its eerie green face and lifeless eyes showed a flicker of confusion. It glanced at them, then turned back to gnawing the corpse, as if they held no appeal.
“Bloody hell!” Hu Yue gasped.
“This must be a mutated corpse puppet— it might have gained sentience,” Lin Xiao speculated. Normal puppets had only combat imprints, no such reactions or instincts like eating.
This one seemed to have faint sentience.
If true— a dead thing gaining awareness— it was chilling.
“It’s probably strong— good thing it’s not interested in us,” Hu Yue whispered.
Lin Xiao’s eyes lit up, “Let’s go check it out.”
“What?” Hu Yue blinked, stunned.
“If it’s a normal puppet, I’d be helpless, but with faint sentience, I can use a secret technique— Soul Control— to tame it, like I did with Mei Tianmo,” Lin Xiao explained.
Though it looked ghastly, controlling it could be a boon.
“You want to control it?” Hu Yue’s jaw dropped, pausing before muttering— whether in awe or disdain unclear— “Brilliant idea…”
Lin Xiao sighed, then cautioned her, slowly approaching the green puppet.
It didn’t react— he landed a metre away.
The puppet glanced at him, bewildered, then resumed eating.
“Hu Yue, guard me— I’ll try the Slave Control Technique!”
After instructing her, Lin Xiao channelled spiritual power towards the puppet’s brow.
Spirit controllers, at a certain level, could control minds weaker than their own.
Lin Xiao’s current spiritual tier wasn’t there yet.
But before becoming an eighth-tier spirit controller, the Swallowing Heaven Spirit Emperor had encountered a dormant Martial Saint and devised a method to control the strong with the weak.
Lin Xiao had used this to infiltrate Mei Tianmo’s mind during her slumber, blending spiritual power into a pseudo-consciousness, lurking there to achieve control.
In the Feng family battle, he’d dominated her mind, forcing her to block Feng Yuntian.
Mei Tianmo’s power was vast— he could only hold her for a quarter-hour before she awoke.
To re-control her, he’d need to command her back to sleep before she woke, waiting half a month to try again.
Back then, danger forced him to flee without re-sleeping her— she’d surely awakened fully.
With the Emperor’s secret and prior success, this should go smoother.
The green puppet wasn’t asleep, but its dead-like state and faint sentience suggested the technique might work.
“Hiss! Hiss!”
Lin Xiao cautiously fed spiritual power into its mind. There, he found its combat imprint gone— replaced by a faint spark of life, slowly circulating.
