Blackwater Marsh

"Hall Master Zhang Bei." Lu Qingfeng looked at the man and nodded in greeting.

He had an impression of this Zhang Bei.

About thirty-some years ago, Zhang Bei had once served as a medicine-refining apprentice in Lu Qingfeng's Black Sand Alchemy Room. Later, showing non-ordinary cultivation talent, he was recommended by Lu Qingfeng to be accepted as a disciple by Yu Bufan.

From then on, his path was smooth sailing.

His cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds. Not only was he already at the True Qi Realm Peak, but he had also become one of the few hall masters beneath the rank of the thirteen seated elders of the Yuanyi Guild.

If he remembered correctly, Lu Qingfeng recalled that his assigned post was Hall Master of the Western Expedition Hall, responsible for scouting the movements of the Ghost Spirit Sect to the west.

"Elder Qingfeng, just calling me Zhang Bei will do." Facing Lu Qingfeng, Zhang Bei was quite respectful.

Without exaggerating, Lu Qingfeng had a grace of knowing and employing him. If not for Lu Qingfeng's recommendation, he could never have entered Yu Bufan's sect, nor would he be qualified to serve as a hall master.

"Hall Master Zhang be too polite."

This man's cultivation was much higher than his own, and Lu Qingfeng did not want to put on airs. He changed the subject with a puzzled expression: "Hall Master Zhang is in such a rush, could something have happened in the west?"

He had just seen Zhang Bei hurrying toward the back mountain, which should have been for reporting emergency intelligence. It was only because he saw him halfway there that he stopped to greet him.

"Indeed."

Hearing this, Zhang Bei's expression suddenly turned serious. He glanced at the surroundings and transmitted his voice to Lu Qingfeng: "The Ghost Spirit Sect is acting unusually, and it seems to be targeted at our Yuanyi Guild! This junior is heading to the back mountain to report."

"It's the Ghost Spirit Sect again!"

Lu Qingfeng furrowed his brow slightly and raised his head to say, "I will go to the back mountain with you."

The war began without warning.

The Ghost Spirit Sect took the lead in igniting the flames of war, once again launching an offensive against the territory of the Hundred Crafts Sect after decades of dormancy. The Yuanyi Guild, the Spirit Mechanisms Institute, and others bore the brunt.

The Yuanyi Guild's matters of founding the sect were shelved, and an emergency mobilization was launched to respond to the war. More than half of their forces set out, heading to the western outposts to meet the enemy.

The Black Sand Artifact Workshop.

Lu Qingfeng sat cross-legged in the center, his eyes half-closed.

His field of vision leaped, appearing within a desolate expanse of hills.

The desolation stretched for dozens of miles, and amid the undulating hills, movement suddenly arose.

A single figure appeared first.

Shortly after, a second and a third appeared not far away...

In the blink of an eye, twenty figures had appeared. Looking closely, one would discover that these seemingly human figures each flashed with a dark-black metallic luster.

They were no living people, but rather a row of puppets!

These twenty puppets were divided into two categories: one category held shields, while the other slung powerful bows with arrow quivers hanging at their backs. Standing rigidly beneath the blazing sun, they possessed quite an elite feel.

Puppet: Truth-Destroying Type One (Shield Combat Edition)

Type: Autonomous Type

Grade: Second-Rank

Sensing Range: Four thousand miles

Combat Strength: Second Layer of the True Qi Realm

Weapons: Black-Iron Heaven-Soaring Shield (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact), Formless Needle (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact), Golden Fu Mother-and-Son Blades (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact)

Puppet: Truth-Destroying Type One (Archer Edition)

Type: Autonomous Type

Grade: Second-Rank

Sensing Range: Four thousand miles

Combat Strength: Second Layer of the True Qi Realm

Weapons: Sun-Breaking Bow (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact), Formless Needle (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact), Golden Fu Mother-and-Son Blades (Second-Rank Talisman Artifact), Armor-Piercing Arrow, Shock Arrow

"Ghost Spirit Sect."

"Just in time for me to use you to practice!"

Far away on Mount Yuanyi, the corners of Lu Qingfeng's mouth curved upward. With a thought, the twenty puppets located who-knows-how-many-miles away immediately swept toward the west.

Not just this location.

Barren mountains, hills, marshes, dense forests!

Squad after squad of puppets swept forth, all rushing toward the west.

Over these years, Lu Qingfeng had refined puppets day and night, bringing the total to one thousand six hundred and twenty-nine. Among them, only six hundred or so were sold, while the remaining one thousand and twenty puppets were all Truth-Destroying Type One autonomous puppets that he had secretly refined himself.

Relying on ultra-long-distance sensing, these puppets were sent by Lu Qingfeng to hide in various secluded and unpopulated places.

Originally, this was to experience the joy of army-spawning and to secure a fallback option in case of accidents, but he hadn't expected to use them against the Ghost Spirit Sect first.

"Once equipped with talisman artifacts, in terms of strength, a Truth-Destroying Type One can match a cultivator of the Sixth Layer True Qi Realm or even the Seventh Layer of the True Qi Realm who lacks talisman artifacts."

Every single talisman artifact Lu Qingfeng refined had undergone five enhancements. The second-rank talisman artifacts he crafted possessed power that rivaled fourth-rank talisman artifacts. A Truth-Destroying Type One equipped with such talisman artifacts naturally experienced a massive surge in strength!

Of course.

Few True Qi Realm cultivators lacked talisman artifacts for self-defense, so the puppets still had to win through sheer numbers.

The Ghost Spirit Sect and the Hundred Crafts Sect were old rivals; both sides had engaged in infiltration warfare, offense-defense warfare, field battles, and more, contending for one resource point after another.

They had won and lost against each other.

Lu Qingfeng commanded the puppet army, continuously gathering them during their advance, heading precisely to deal with the Ghost Spirit Sect.

From their initial twenty-odd small squads, the puppets gradually converged into a hundred-soldier battle group. Full of vigor and high spirits, they plunged straight into the main battlefield of the Ghost Spirit Sect and the Hundred Crafts Sect—

The Blackwater Marsh.

The Blackwater Marsh was rich in spirit shells and spirit pearls, all of which were spiritual treasures beneficial to cultivation. Furthermore, this place was abundant in produce and rich in spiritual energy, making it a contested territory that both sects fought over since ancient times.

The puppets quietly penetrated deep inside.

"Not far ahead is a small shell field occupied by the Ghost Spirit Sect. This kind of shell field won't have very strong experts guarding it, but once there is any movement, it will immediately attract experts from the Ghost Spirit Sect's side."

"Therefore, we must make it a quick battle and a quick decision."

Lu Qingfeng shared the field of vision of a Truth-Destroying Type One, leading ninety-nine 'brothers' as they charged toward this shell field together.

The Spirit Turtle Shell Field.

Qian Sen sat cross-legged in the spirit eye region, his eyes closed in cultivation. Yin qi billowed densely around his body, accompanied by the sounds of ghosts weeping and wolves howling.

He originated from a subordinate branch of the Ghost Spirit Sect—the Might-Slaying Gate.

What he cultivated was the Ghost Spirit Sect's orthodox True Disciple technique, the "Myriad Spirits Scripture", and his cultivation had long since reached the True Qi Realm Peak. This time, ordered by the gate master to guard the Spirit Turtle Shell Field, it was both a challenge and a great stroke of fortune.

Where the shell field lay, spiritual energy gathered.

Cultivating atop the spirit eye of the shell field, even though Qian Sen had yet to reach the Qi Guiding Realm and could not draw the heaven and earth spiritual energy into his body, it still held immense benefits for his comprehension of spiritual energy and his advancement to the Qi Guiding Realm.

Qian Sen had guarded this place for merely three months when he already felt his bottleneck loosen, with the possibility of breaking through to the great Foundation Establishment realm at any moment, filling him with joy.

Yet before his cultivation session ended on this particular day, Qian Sen snapped his eyes open, his gaze flashing like lightning as he looked toward the eastern dense forest.

"Master!"

"Someone is approaching!"

A gray-robed disciple landed before Qian Sen, his complexion withered and somewhat ferocious.

"Notify everyone, prepare to meet the enemy."

Qian Sen abruptly stood up, tightly gripping a black pearl in his hand. He hesitated for a moment before deciding not to crush it.

Crushing this black pearl would instantly summon a Foundation Establishment stage senior from the Might-Slaying Gate to descend. However, if the invading enemy's strength wasn't high, wasting this black pearl and offending the seniors in the sect would be secondary; the crucial point was that Qian Sen would be stripped of his qualification to guard the shell field.

For Qian Sen, who was on the verge of a breakthrough, this was unacceptable.

"The invading enemy might not be all that strong!"

"Besides, the Lanshan Shell Field is just over ten miles away. If there truly is a strong enemy, on one hand I can crush the black pearl to ask the Foundation Establishment senior guarding the Lanshan Shell Field to save us, and on the other hand flee toward the Lanshan Shell Field. At most, within half a cup of tea's time, we can rendezvous!"

"With these disciples acting as cannon fodder to die in our stead, the time is definitely enough!"

Qian Sen swept his gaze across the dozens of disciples who were gradually gathering, his mind made up.

Although these disciples possessed ordinary strength, with fewer than ten having reached the True Qi Realm, he had cultivated these disciples precisely to use them as cannon fodder to block disasters at critical moments, so he naturally wouldn't spare them.

Soon.

Behind Qian Sen, all thirty-seven disciples had arrived, each either excited or apprehensive, with ghostly qi billowing from their bodies and gathering in one place to look terrifying.