Dual Cultivation God Returns

Chapter 530 Can\'t complain

"Only one Monarch of the five returned, and there is no status on the ships...

The survivor is reporting some kind of C-..."

The Monarch hesitated for a bit but urged by the eyes of the alchemist gulped and continued speaking.

"C-corpse Pupper, sir"

"Corpse Puppet?!... Corrupt Path? Nonsense!

They wouldn\'t interfere with our affairs. We had a deal"

Gu Zhen spoke with disregard to the assumption, but a doubt still appeared within his eyes.

"I-It could be a normal puppet... I am not sure... but... the survivor is reporting that he had a talisman hanging over his face..."

"And?!"

"W-what?"

"And what did that puppet do?!"

Gu Zhen barked at the mumbling subordinate.

"I-it reportedly killed three Monarchs in a matter of moments... the other two fled, unable to contend with the puppet.

The one who returned reportedly tried to contact the other one, but was unable to so he is either simply gone AWOL, deserted, or dead.

Ah! The method of fighting was reported to be incredibly brutal, tearing into them with bare hands, and even breaking an low-level 8th-tier treasure weapon with them, which was why they thought it was a corpse puppet..."

The Monarch spoke with stumbling words, as he tried to remember all the details of the jumbled reports he received.

\'Hmm, that does sound like a corpse puppet... they have enhanced physiques by using special methods to strengthen the body beyond its limits when it was alive, and depending on the corpse they were manufactured from could be insanely durable, but are quite bad for manipulating Spiritual Qi techniques...\'

"Though they also said something about moving blood..."

The man next to him then added words that caused him to widen his eyes.

"Moving blood? A corpse puppet controlling blood? Are you sure?

Screw that! Where is the survivor now?! I have to personally hear what he has to say in person! And what the hell happened with the ships?"

Gu Zhen was getting increasingly annoyed at the incoherent mess of information he was receiving, finally being fed up and flying toward the north.

"The information on the ships is currently unavailable... but... it is presumed they cannot survive an attack from someone who so easily overwhelmed the Monarchs...

As for the remaining survivor, h-he is currently with Lord Nuo who did break the Sect Protective Formation with his long-shot arrow as instructed, reportedly inflicting massive damage to the structures and possibly producing quite a number of casualties...

Lord Nuo wanted to go see the situation and possibly deal with the... presumed Corpse Puppet himself but was persuaded by the panic-stricken survivor to first contact you, so they are awaiting your orders"

The Monarch, afraid to have not reported the situation correctly, tried to supplement it and hurriedly cried out, causing Gu Zhen to slow down, letting him catch up.

"Hmm, sound judgement"

As Gu Zhen heard that the Brilliant Sun Temple received at least some level of damage he finally slightly calmed down. His rational thinking starting to take over.

"Haa~, go back to the Tower on your own, I will hear the rest from the survivor and Nuo Yan themselves"

He sighed, coming to a decision, and then his figure started distorting as it was replaced by flames that flared up a little and then started to dissipate.

The real Gu Zhen\'s eyes opened up in a heavily fortified cultivation chamber. He unsealed the door and came out, greeted by two Seven Profound Realms subordinates who were always tasked with this place\'s protection, and went up through a series of secret passages into his office overseeing the Alchemy Tower headquarters.

He took out a communication talisman, and sent a message to the Seven Profound Realms cultivator who attacked the Brilliant Sun Temple, Nuo Yan, to come back with the survivor, and looked out of the window with a pondering expression.

\'A Corpse Puppet... with blood manipulation powers... if it truly was one... that rat Do Bishui might\'ve made more trouble for me than I initially thought.

If he is now producing Blood Vitality Pills hand in hand with that Corrupt Path bastard while also aiding that old hag...\'

"Damn it!"

*whoosh* *crash* *THUD! thud, thud*

He swiped his hand, and a decorative vase launched across the room into a wall with a loud crashing sound, the small decorative table it stood on falling to the floor and bouncing a few times.

"If you really conspired... fear me... all of you!"

His gaze full of flames turned to the horizon on the Eastern Side, where the Independent Island Nation of Lihai was located.

He now recognized what a massive exposure he opened up himself to by allowing one of his alchemist subordinates who were hereto completely loyal to him to escape his grasp and fall into the hands of the other factions, something he successfully avoided for all these thousands of years, yet in his recent excitement over the new game started to neglect.

---

Wu Long met up with Madam Liang, thanking her for cooperation, and then his illusion once again went under control of Madam Liang as she received his Spatial Ring to give Ye Ling later.

In the Northern Sea he left the ship of Grand Elder Ro, the last one of the ships at this same moment.

His initial plan was to let two of the Mortal Transcendence Realm go and completely sink the ships.

But there was a small hiccup in his plan, as he also wanted to test the power of the Blood Rune.

He saw that two of the five had special bloodlines, but he failed with the one he killed first, since the moment he extracted the blood and the man died, the Blood Rune stopped reacting even though he extracted Blood Essence as well.

The second and third were in positions for him to strike down efficiently, as they were slow to react and enhance their Protective Qi so he went for them.

Thus, having to kill one more of them to experiment.

The fleet was decimated using the power of his Dao Runes, and even though if he left survivors, they were unlikely to be able to accurately tell what was going on, he did not like any chances.

After all, he fought in that style with the five in the air on purpose, utilizing a profound technique called the "Divine Armament Body Transformation" that was a massive drain on his Spiritual Qi and stamina, but was very potent and had a remarkable resemblance to the way corpse puppets fought with their bodies.

One condition to use this technique was a bloodline that could handle such power, and he almost exhausted one of the suitable for this technique Demonic Beast bloodlines currently in his bloodstream in that short confrontation.

There was also an option to attack the ships without breaking \'character\', but that would have left him exhausted and with severely depleted Spiritual Qi, as well as draining most of the Demonic Beast blood he accumulated, and which he still needed for his experiments, as he would have had to keep using Divine Armament Body Transformation.

His relationship with the Brilliant Sun Temple, although was likely to massively improve after this, was still not that great to trust them with his back in such a state.

And though he still used a lot of power to attack the ships, it was much less than what he would have used otherwise.

He did not bet too much on having Gu Zhen think about the other factions on other continents, but planting a seed of doubt or uncertainty was all it took for the latter to become disoriented and possibly prolong the period during which he did not see the situation clearly.

It was a small touch that had almost no cost to it, as it did not alter his main course of actions.

"Hmm, can\'t complain", Wu Long chuckled pondering the whole situation.

Overall, he was satisfied with the outcome as there were no surviving ships and he did let one of the five go to tell Gu Zhen what happened.

The fact none of the ships survived made sense as none of them had the capacity to contend with the \'corpse puppet\'.

His greatest loot from this battle was that he achieved a great success in understanding more of the Blood Rune\'s powers.

As he used the Blood Rune on the last cultivator, he felt it extract the power of bloodline, and using it to enhance one of his own bloodlines, including the Demonic Beast bloodlines he had which were temporary.

It was not very useful to enhance his own bloodline as he did not have any special traits to enhance, it would at most enhance the power of his blood to fight off illnesses and toxins or similar traits, which was useful, but not as much as the possibility to enhance one of the bloodlines that had special characteristics.

And as he enhanced one of the Demonic Beast bloodlines, he was incredibly satisfied with the result, even though the enhancement was not that great since the cultivator he extracted the bloodline power from did not have anything too special.

But the most significant appeal to Wu Long was that once he would have a truly valuable bloodline of his own, there was now the possibility of enhancing it.

\'And then there\'s these\'

He also looked with a chuckle at the more material and minor loot, namely the Spatial Rings of the four he had killed in his hand.

A sudden thought came to his mind, and he transferred everything from three of the rings to one, and then, lowering the altitude he was flying at started filling the three with sea water.

"Haha, I guess I have to learn from Water Attribute Cultivators"

He chuckled, remembering that they always had a dedicated "Water Ring" much like Archery Cultivators had their dedicated Arrow Rings.

There were of course other examples, as he himself always carried talismans in a separate Spatial Ring like all Symbol Cultivators who specialized in or used talismans.

Though in this case he decided to make two spares as well.