The great battle subsided, yet not a drop of blood had appeared.
Lu Ye raised a hand and drew over a fragment of the Body Cultivator's remains. Upon closer inspection, it was no corpse at all, but plainly a piece of wood.
Moreover, at the instant the enemy had died, Lu Ye had clearly sensed an arcane force surging in from some direction. It was as though, in that instant, the Body Cultivator had switched places with something.
A Death Substitute Puppet!
Lu Ye immediately understood what it was.
Lu Ye had once seen records concerning Death Substitute Puppets in the Little People Race's Abyss of Information Pavilion. This thing could be called the most powerful life-saving treasure, because it could die once in place of the cultivator who refined it.
However, such things were extraordinarily complicated to forge, and the required materials were unimaginably rare. There were not many of them in the entire Starry Sky. Even when they did exist, their owners treasured them like worn brooms, and ordinary people rarely ever saw one. Only the most outstanding descendants of certain major powers would be equipped with one, to guard against unforeseen misfortune.
The Little People Race had a kind of Spirit Talisman called a Death Substitute Talisman. Its effect was nearly identical to that of a Death Substitute Puppet, but it was a Red Talisman that only Sunlight powerhouses could forge.
In comparison, the Death Substitute Puppet was undoubtedly more effective, because a cultivator could place the puppet beforehand somewhere safe. When they were about to die, they could switch places with the puppet and let it bear the calamity in their stead.
A Death Substitute Talisman could not do that; it had to be refined into one's body.
Simply put, even if a cultivator possessing a