"Landuo, I heard you say before that you're good at making mechanical puppets. Can you deal with those puppets?"
In the grass, Chen Mu pointed at the mechanical puppets in the distance and asked Landuo, who was beside him.
"They're a little too far away. I'll need a closer look before I can judge."
Landuo didn't dare pretend to be capable and answered cautiously.
Chen Mu removed the sight from the Rune Gun and handed it to Landuo.
"Use this to look."
Landuo took it as instructed and held it up to his eye to look into the distance. He was astonished; it was the first time he had seen a magical treasure like this.
Could this be the legendary Thousand-Li Eyes?
A moment later, he couldn't help letting out a soft gasp.
"What is it?" Chen Mu asked curiously.
Landuo lowered the sight and sighed, his expression somewhat complicated. "What a coincidence. The leader directing the attack is from my Wumeng Tribe. His name is E Bei, and those mechanical puppets are my handiwork too."
As he spoke, Landuo revealed the tribal tattoo on the side of his neck.
Only then did Chen Mu remember that Wu Tong seemed to have a tattoo like that on his neck too. He hadn't expected them to be from the same tribe.
Now that he thought about it, Ghost Yin Mountain and the Wumeng Tribe lay in the same direction, less than a hundred li apart. It was only natural to run into someone from the Wumeng Tribe there.
"Hahahaha! I wore through iron shoes searching in vain, only to find it without any effort! In that case, Landuo, you can control that batch of mechanical puppets, right?"
As a Talisman Master, Chen Mu knew full well that ultimate control of mechanical puppets lay with the Talisman Master who made them.
"Yes!"
Now that he was serving under Chen Mu, Landuo couldn't concern himself with old ties. After all, he had no choice.
"But you'd better think this through. If I make a move, the Wumeng Tribe will very likely find out I'm here.
"Wu Longjin went to such lengths to help me obtain the Holy Soul Grass. Now that I've defected, he absolutely won't let me off."
After listening, Chen Mu shrugged indifferently.
"The Wilderness is so vast. Can he be sure you're the one controlling the puppets?
"Besides, as long as I keep everyone from the Wumeng Tribe here, even if rumors reach the tribe afterward, they won't necessarily believe them."
He stood up, patted Landuo on the shoulder, and smiled confidently.
"Don't worry! You have to believe in Chen Village's potential. Just give Chen Village a few more years to develop, and I won't be afraid of the Wumeng Tribe or any Baimeng Tribe!"
Landuo nodded after hearing this and said no more.
"Let's go! In a moment, Landuo, take control of the mechanical puppets and surround and kill the Wumeng Tribe's people. A Huo and I will back you up. We can't let a single person from the Wumeng Tribe escape."
With that, Chen Mu led the two men toward E Bei like a sharp sword.
After Chen Mu broke through to Eight-Rune Talisman Master, his warrior cultivation had also reached the seventh stage, and his speed had increased considerably. Before the tribespeople on the outside could react, the three of them had already charged to a spot not far from E Bei.
"Which tribe are they from?"
Since the warriors here came from several allied tribes, none of them made a move before determining whether the newcomers were friends or foes.
Only when they saw the decoration on Chen Mu's clothes clearly-a red blade-did they react.
"Chen Village! They're from Chen Village!!"
But it was too late. Landuo had already used his Divine Soul to contact all the nearby mechanical puppets and reclaim control of them.
"Kill them!!"
Without delay, Landuo gave the order, and the mechanical puppets began turning on the Wumeng Tribe's people.
E Bei, who had been stunned when the mechanical puppets slipped out of his control, finally noticed Landuo in the crowd.
Master Landuo? Why is he here?
As soon as the thought arose, three or four mechanical puppets near him began attacking. Caught off guard, he suffered a serious setback.
Chen Mu, meanwhile, reached the Soul-Bewildering Array's flags and destroyed them all with the Rune Gun.
The Soul-Bewildering Array was extremely difficult to break from the inside, but doing so from outside was simple: one only had to destroy the array flags.
After the Soul-Bewildering Array was broken, the Wumeng Tribe and several experts from small tribes were attacking the defensive formation Chen Hongjie had put together. Chen Mu and A Huo immediately attacked a few unlucky men whose backs were turned to them.
Screams rang out one after another. The mechanical puppets on the outside and the cavalry led by Chen Hongjie caught the Wumeng Tribe's warriors and the small tribes' experts in a pincer attack. With nowhere to retreat, they were scattered and suffered heavy casualties in no time.
"Landuo, how dare you betray the tribe!!"
Only now did E Bei finally understand what had happened. Seeing that all was lost, he turned and fled without hesitation.
Although the mechanical puppets were impervious to blades and spears and possessed formidable combat power, their movement techniques were still somewhat inferior to those of warriors. Despite the best efforts of two ninth-stage mechanical puppets to stop him, he broke through.
"You just wait!! Our Wumeng Tribe will never let you off!! Haha..."
He laughed wildly, moving like lightning. He was about to dart into the woods beside him.
Bang!! Bang, bang!!
Chen Mu's Rune Gun sounded at just the right moment. He fired a succession of aimed shots, not directly at E Bei's body, but to block his escape route, leaving him unable to enter the woods.
"Damn it!"
E Bei was strong enough to roughly track the bullets' paths. He knew that even he would be seriously injured if he took a shot, so he could only dodge.
Soon, the two ninth-stage mechanical puppets surrounded him again and attacked.
After a long, fierce battle, he was beginning to tire. Finally, a moment of inattention allowed Chen Mu's bullet to strike his thigh, and the two mechanical puppets hacked him into a bloody mess.
Although E Bei was fairly strong, Chen Mu had no interest in him and simply had Landuo kill him.
"Kill!! Let's go help the chief!!"
Many of Chen Village's people had seen the battle from the watchtower. Although they didn't understand why the situation had suddenly turned around, none of them were cowards. They opened several side gates, and two or three hundred people charged out.
Chen Mu's younger sister, Chen Duo, also charged out on an Azure Moon Wolf. She was still young, and the village had originally refused to let her fight, but at a time like this, no one was stopping her anymore.
The experts from the lower tribes who had been surrounded by the mechanical puppets were killed one after another. The ordinary tribespeople lost their will to fight and began fleeing in all directions.
"Don't kill me! You can't kill me! My father is Wu Hongtian, the chief of the Wumeng Tribe..."
The shout from a distance caught Chen Mu's attention. It was Wu Tong, and several Chen Village warriors were surrounding and attacking him.
Boom!!
Chen Mu fired at once, shooting him through the heart and killing him on the spot.
There was no room left for reconciliation with the Wumeng Tribe. Leaving Wu Tong alive would only bring trouble, so Chen Mu held nothing back.
"Those who surrender will be spared!! If you don't want to die, raise both hands and surrender!!"
At Chen Hongjie's shout, nearly all the tribespeople who couldn't escape knelt and surrendered. At last, the great battle once again ended in a complete victory for Chen Village.
"Haha... A Mu! I knew it was you who had come back!"
Chen Hongjie saw Chen Mu and happily patted him on the shoulder.
"Third Uncle, are you hurt?"
Though Chen Hongjie's voice was still booming, Chen Mu keenly sensed that he had an internal injury.
"It's nothing. I exchanged a few moves with E Bei earlier, and he injured me. I'll recover quickly after a few days of rest."
Hearing Chen Hongjie say that, Chen Mu finally felt relieved.
Just then, however, Chen Mu saw that his sister was actually bandaging A Huo's wound.
Startled, he hurried over to check A Huo's injury.
But after examining him, he found that A Huo had only scraped his arm and had barely shed a few drops of blood.
Looking at the anxious Duoduo beside him and the bewildered A Huo, he could only rub his forehead helplessly, a doting, auntie-like smile appearing on his face.