Departure

Deep in the dungeon.

Luo Chen held a little black wooden figure shaped like a one-armed, one-legged club and murmured under his breath.

To his surprise, the little black figure suddenly opened its eyes. Its gaze was remarkably lively.

Though those eyes held a hint of age, they also shone with a middle-aged man's ambition.

It was Han Zhan, who had supposedly died earlier!

The black wooden figure's lips moved, and he spoke. "You think I faked my death? Under that powerful attack from the Thunder Prison Divine Peng, I truly did take a trip to the gates of hell. If I hadn't had this Nascent Soul Stage puppet, bound to my life and cultivated alongside me, I would likely have died on the spot."

A Substitute Puppet?

Luo Chen had long heard that the Han Family of the Fallen Cloud Sect possessed an ancestral Substitute Puppet secret art.

Back in his Great River Market days, he had seen Gao Tingyuan use it on the Dao Discussion Stage to "kill" Broken Blade Xu Renke.

Later, in the Bai Ye Cave Mansion, Han Zhan's own grandson Han Zheng had also used a Substitute Puppet.

But this time was completely different!

Before, it had always been the puppet that died.

This time, unless Luo Chen's eyes had deceived him, Han Zhan's Nascent Soul had truly been destroyed by the Thunder Prison Divine Peng's attack!

Perhaps sensing Luo Chen's confusion, Han Zhan explained, "It wasn't a Substitute Puppet technique. It was a Second Incarnation technique. A puppet incarnation and a Second Incarnation are two different things. The former is an inanimate object; the latter carries my own Nascent Soul's will. You can think of him as another me."

"Another you?" Luo Chen frowned. "Then you still possess Nascent Soul Stage strength. The Thunder