The Combat Body was modeled on a Keen Warrior. Li Chen had also fitted it with a mechanical head so he could operate it without going out himself. Unlike the Wooden Soldier, however, it had not been disguised with the Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting secret art, but appeared openly in its mechanical form.
Its grade was higher than the Wooden Soldier's, making swift travel much easier.
The Combat Body opened its mouth and inhaled, drawing back the Void Gate. It reverted to a spirit ring, which the Combat Body swallowed and concealed in its throat.
A moment later, a thunderous sonic boom rang through the air as it sped toward the detected aura faster than sound.
Before long, the Combat Body reached the place where that abnormal aura had been detected.
To be safe, Li Chen did not rustle the grass and startle the snake. Instead, he used the target's location and approximate route to approach quietly from another direction.
When it came within roughly ten li, the Combat Body descended. Looking down from the high ground, it indeed spotted gray-black demonic baleful energy spreading like smoke through a nearby valley, looking very much like the thick smoke rising after a wildfire had swept across the land.
Red light seemed to flicker in the Combat Body's protruding eyes.
Anyone watching it closely would have seen crisscrossing lines appear within its pupils, forming a grid.
Wherever the Eye Crystals looked, the sky, ground, and mountain forests were all divided into individual grid squares, with constantly shifting numerical values appearing within them.
Through Spirit Awareness Array detection methods such as spiritual-wave sensing, spectrum analysis, and concentration assessment, the Puppet Core soon marked out the route along which the demonic energy had spread a little under half a quarter-hour earlier.
As though time were flowing