How Did You Get This Pathetic After Just a Few Days?

Night Owl and Blood Hound went rigid at the cold rebuke and Blood Puppet's miserable state. Their steps unconsciously slowed, and they even retreated several paces.

That was a Scavenger Fourth Rank Blood Puppet!

In Yin Mountain City, a Scavenger Fourth Rank Mythic Walker was already a prominent figure worthy of the stage. They normally remained stationed in the Celestial Circuit Realm and disdained staying in the present world.

Blood Puppet was even a core member of the Investigation Bureau. His methods were bizarre and unfathomable, and the various curse arts of the Curse Suppression Codex had terrified countless people at the mere mention of them.

Yet such an expert had been sent flying with a single blow!

In those brief few seconds, Yellow Wind Little Sage rode the breeze and vanished completely from everyone's sight.

Boom!

A dull, thunderous crash came from inside the building whose wall had been smashed through.

A great quantity of shattered bricks and stones burst from the hole. Blood Puppet charged out of the rubble and landed back on the street.

He no longer bore that arrogant, confident appearance from before.

Blood Puppet's eyes were pitch-black and hollow. His eyeballs had been completely destroyed by the wind and sand, leaving only empty sockets, while blood streamed from them and dripped down his cheeks onto the ground.

His entire body was drenched in blood. Half of his body was covered in countless tiny holes, wounds left behind by the wind and sand piercing straight through him.

Sunlight passed through those holes, casting specks of light across the ground. Through them, one could even see the street on the other side.

Blood Puppet's clothes had long since been shredded to scraps. Most of his skin had been stripped away, exposing vivid red muscle to the air, while white bones stood clearly revealed.

"Lord Blood Puppet!"

Night Owl was the first to react and hurried forward, but when he saw Blood Puppet's wretched condition, his footsteps halted again. He had no idea what to say.

"A-Are you all right?" Blood Hound carefully followed, his voice full of unease.

Blood Puppet did not answer. His hollow eye sockets turned toward the two of them. Though he had lost his eyeballs, Night Owl and Blood Hound could both feel that icy gaze.

Blood Puppet raised his left hand and tremblingly took a new Straw Man from his robes.

This Straw Man was clearly of a much higher quality. Its straw weaving was finer, and it wore a tiny red cloth garment. The talisman nailed to its head was not ordinary yellow paper, but one painted with intricate runes in cinnabar.

Blood Puppet raised his right hand, dipped his fingertip into the blood running down his face, and drew an even more complicated incantation on the talisman.

The moment the incantation was completed, the talisman ignited. Blood-red light spread from it across the entire Straw Man, enveloping it completely.

The next moment, something bizarre happened.

The countless holes in Blood Puppet's body began healing at a visible rate. Fresh flesh grew from the edges of the wounds, swiftly filling the gaps.

His destroyed eyeballs regenerated as well, whites and pupils reappearing within the dark sockets.

But the Cost was equally obvious.

The exquisite Straw Man in his hand had become ragged and ruined. Its once-fine weaving had loosened, while its red cloth garment was covered in holes and scorch marks.

This was the core ability of the Curse Suppression Codex—the Death Substitution Technique. So long as one prepared enough Straw Men, the user could transfer their injuries onto them, achieving an effect close to immortality.

But this ability came with a Cost. Every Straw Man capable of bearing injuries required complex rituals to create and consumed a great quantity of precious materials.

Moreover, the quality of the Straw Man determined the upper limit of the damage it could bear. That strike just now had nearly exhausted one of Blood Puppet's most precious Straw Men.

Only after finishing all this did Blood Puppet turn to look at the empty alleyway.

Complex emotions flickered in his restored eyes: shock, wariness, fury, and profound confusion.

"A mere Scavenger Second Rank possesses spatial abilities and high-order Wind Arts traits. Since when did Yin Mountain City produce such a person? And he is connected to Xie An as well. Could he be from one of the Five Great Academies?"

At that thought, Blood Puppet frowned deeply.

If they had truly drawn the attention of the Five Great Academies, the Investigation Bureau's blockade would likely fail before long.

As a core member of the Yinshan Investigation Branch, he was responsible for overseeing the Night Banquet Gang and the black market. Yet such a massive oversight had occurred under his watch. He would not escape responsibility.

"Forget it! Report this matter. Whether the branch's forces are deployed to search for the two of them or the exploration of the new area is accelerated, leave the decision to those above.

"As long as we block the channels of information, no matter how far-reaching their connections may be, they will find it difficult to put them to use."

Blood Puppet's gaze then fell upon the two Night Banquet Gang members beside him, whose faces were pale and whose bodies trembled faintly. Undisguised disgust appeared in his eyes.

During their brief exchange earlier, he had seen Night Owl and Blood Hound's little schemes clearly enough. If the Night Banquet Gang still had not been useful, he would have killed the two of them on the spot long ago.

"The gang's Aberrants are nearly depleted," Blood Puppet said coldly, without a trace of emotion in his voice.

"Those above will allocate another batch of resources to prepare the rituals and nurture new Aberrants."

Night Owl and Blood Hound both turned pale at those words.

The success rate of the Aberrant ritual was less than one in ten, and the failed subjects met exceedingly miserable ends. They either died violently on the spot or became uncontrollable monsters and were executed.

"Surveillance of the Yinshan Black Market cannot be relaxed," Blood Puppet continued, sweeping his gaze over their faces.

"You must maintain a sufficient number of Aberrants and prevent the black market from making any moves. I do not care what methods you use. Within two days, I want to see at least thirty new Aberrants."

Night Owl's face turned even paler upon hearing this.

He stammered, "L-Lord Blood Puppet, those thirty-seven Aberrants from before have already consumed more than half of my Night Banquet Gang's members."

"The gang has suffered devastating casualties now. They all know what becoming an Aberrant means. The remaining people likely will not be willing to risk undergoing the ritual."

Blood Puppet's gaze instantly sharpened, and a flash of bloody light passed through his eyes.

The pressure of a Scavenger Fourth Rank burst forth without restraint. That terrifying oppression descended upon Night Owl and Blood Hound as though it had substance, instantly stiffening their bodies.

The air seemed to freeze, and even the temperature on the street dropped several degrees.

Night Owl felt as if an invisible giant hand had seized his heart tightly. Every beat became incomparably difficult.

"Since when did you develop the illusion that you could bargain with the Investigation Bureau?"

Blood Puppet's voice was icy as he slowly approached the two men before him.

"I do not care what methods you use, whether coercion or temptation.

"Whether you consume your gang members, your family, or ordinary civilians dragged in from the streets, I do not care!"

Six kilometers away from the Yinshan Black Market lay an abandoned construction site.

This place had originally been the site of a major construction project, but the project had been forced to halt when its funding chain broke.

It had now been abandoned for more than two years. Unfinished building frames and rust-covered construction equipment stood everywhere.

Inside an abandoned building, Yellow Wind Little Sage, who had sprinted all the way here, finally stopped. At this moment, he could no longer suppress the surging urge to vomit.

"Bleurgh!!!"

A figure flew from Yellow Wind Little Sage's mouth, tracing a parabola through the air before the severely injured body hit the ground. The burn wounds that had only just begun to heal split open once more, and blood seeped out.

Xie An lay sprawled on the ground. His severely burned face, nearly unrecognizable in its original form, had turned a dark purplish red.

Those several dozen seconds inside Greedy Space had been torture straight out of Hell.

The compression of space had made him feel as though his body would be crushed into a meat patty. The lack of air had nearly suffocated him, while the violent dizziness caused by spatial transit had thrown his mind into chaos.

Worse still, the Mythic Factors within him had long since been exhausted. His body was badly burned, and he had completely lost the ability to resist.

Going through such an ordeal in that condition was simply gambling with his life.

Xie An gasped for breath, each inhale sending searing pain through his burned windpipe. Yet the sensation of breathing fresh air again filled him with unprecedented joy.

Beside him, Yellow Wind Little Sage clung to a pillar and dry-heaved, managing to spit out only a little saliva. It took him quite some time to barely recover.

After glancing inside Greedy Space and confirming that no suspicious vomit had been left behind, Yellow Wind Little Sage moved over a stone and sat down boldly in front of Xie An.

"Boss Xie, how did you get this pathetic after just a few days?"