Demon-Subduing Warrior

"East Forest Garden, sounds a bit like a flower garden. Tsk, doesn't sound like much."

Clicking his tongue in disappointment, Li Hai looked up at the entire main hall in front of the desk.

Then, he saw that the black mist which had been permeating a doorway on the left at the far end of the hall was now nowhere to be seen.

In its place was a long, narrow stone corridor.

Without further hesitation, Li Hai flashed across the hundred-zhang distance and flew into this suddenly appeared narrow corridor.

Then, after traveling another few hundred zhang, he reached the end of the corridor.

When Li Hai pushed open the bronze door at the end, a vast yet desolate wilderness came into his view.

Though it was called a garden, there wasn't a single decent tree to be seen as far as Li Hai's eyes could reach.

There were only sparse, yellowed withered grasses and cracked earth crisscrossed with gullies.

In short, it was a scene of bleak desolation.

"Must be because no one has maintained it."

Li Hai stepped into the wasteland, walking slowly while looking around, hoping to find anything unusual.

But he was disappointed.

After that, Li Hai walked for a full ten miles.

Yet, apart from a few scattered pieces of completely rotten dead wood and several crooked, crumbling stone tablets with blurred inscriptions, he found nothing of value.

However, although Li Hai was already impatient, a faint throb in the dark "told" him to keep going.

Just hold on a little longer; if you keep walking, you will find something.

Li Hai knew clearly that this was a mysterious precognitive ability born from the intersection of his Level 2 Wildness and Level 2 Spiritual Inspiration.

He guessed that neither the Level 2 Wildness trait nor the Level 2 Spiritual Inspiration trait alone would have produced such an effect.

But with both, they influenced each other and triggered some kind of marvelous reaction.

That faint, hazy throb was the result of this reaction.

"Fine, fine. Since I'm idle anyway, I'll keep walking and see what I encounter."

Thinking this, Li Hai suppressed his impatience and continued on.

After walking another five or six miles, he finally saw something completely different from dead trees, withered grass, and broken tablets.

It was... hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldier corpses clad in profound black heavy armor and holding various weapons, looking deathly still yet neither rotting nor decaying.

At first glance, they looked like a group of routed soldiers who had all died in battle after a fierce struggle.

They lay quietly across the vast wilderness in front of Li Hai, ninety-nine percent of them in a damaged state—missing arms, legs, heads, or severed at the waist.

Only a sparse few corpses barely maintained their physical integrity.

Even so, the armor and weapons on these corpses were covered in cracks and holes, looking quite miserable.

But this was only what Li Hai saw; the truth of what had happened had long since vanished into the mists of history.

"A pile of corpses... what value could they possibly have?!"

Li Hai furrowed his bald brows in annoyance, but he still walked into the field of remains, looking left and right, hoping to find some useful items.

Perhaps some martial arts manuals or secret techniques, or even just some gold and silver would do.

But he was disappointed once again.

Forget about manuals or secret techniques; Li Hai wandered around for a good while, rummaging through over a dozen corpses, but he couldn't even find a single copper coin.

However, he did make an unexpected discovery: these so-called corpses... were not human at all.

No, that wasn't quite right.

It should be said that these corpses were essentially things similar to robots.

Previously, the distance and the withered grass had obscured his view, so Li Hai hadn't seen clearly, but once he got close, he realized.

Inside the damaged gaps of these corpses, there were no flesh, blood, or tendons, but rather complex and precise mechanical devices.

Furthermore, what connected and wrapped these mechanisms were not colorful wires or circuit boards, but pieces of jade of various shapes, sizes, and colors, all engraved with extremely intricate symbols and patterns that looked both mysterious and ancient.

It wasn't just the jade that had these runes; the mechanisms around them, whether intact or broken, also bore runes, though they were fewer and sparser compared to those on the jade.

At the same time, the precise mechanisms within the holes of these corpses were not entirely made of metal; they were mostly composed of strange materials like bone, wood, porcelain, and even stone, with metal accounting for only a small portion.

"What does this mean? Ancient robots? Automaton puppets?"

Seeing this, Li Hai couldn't help but think of a web novel he had read in his past life—Infinite Terror.

In it, there seemed to be something called a Yellow Turban Warrior, cobbled together by cultivators using some kind of rune technology.

Li Hai suspected that these corpses in the wasteland were something similar to a Yellow Turban Warrior, a combat tool manufactured by the Naihe Mansion.

"But regardless, these robots are all damaged now. To me... what use are they? Sigh, what a waste of time."

Shaking his head, Li Hai sighed and slowly walked out of the field of remains.

However, after walking a few steps, as he passed a hulking corpse missing half its face and clutching a door-sized broadsword, the corpse suddenly snapped its eyes open and sat up rapidly.

"Huh?!"

Li Hai's footsteps halted instantly, his eyes widening as he stared at the half-faced corpse that had awakened. "You... you can actually wake up? Is it because you were close enough to me to be activated?"

Upon hearing the voice, the half-faced corpse immediately turned its head toward Li Hai.

The next moment, it swiftly pushed itself up from the ground and dropped to one knee before Li Hai with a heavy thud, saying in a muffled, gruff voice:

"Guiyou Grotto-Heaven Demon-Subduing Warrior No. 3970, greets the Master!"

"...Very good, very spirited."

Having gained a subordinate out of thin air, Li Hai felt a secret thrill and smiled broadly. "I want to know, is your recognition of me as your master due to the Seed Project of the Naihe Mansion's upper echelons?"

"Reporting to the Master."

The Demon-Subduing Warrior said in a deep voice, "This subordinate has lost all past memories and does not know what the Seed Project is. I only know that you are the master of the Guiyou Grotto-Heaven, and therefore, my master."

"Fine."

Li Hai clicked his tongue. "It seems there's no way to learn about the past affairs of the Naihe Mansion for now. By the way..."

He then gestured to the Demon-Subduing Warriors lying scattered in every direction and said, "Among these companions of yours, are there any others who aren't broken like you? Can you find them? It's too much trouble for me to walk over and activate them one by one."

"Reporting to the Master."

The hulking warrior said respectfully, "This subordinate can locate and activate all functional Demon-Subduing Warriors. Please wait a moment, Master."

With that, he turned and sprinted toward a certain direction, leaving behind a trail of afterimages and sonic booms. His speed was so swift that it was in no way inferior to Li Hai, a top-tier Steel-Grade Martial Artist.

Thus, in terms of martial technique and physical strength, the hundreds or even thousands of Demon-Subduing Warriors on this wasteland were likely... not weaker than Li Hai himself.