The original repairer

Chapter 298 Gatekeeper Puppet

The hidden entrance was found. Shi Chen stood in front of an entrance that was transparent and shimmering with faint light, like rippling water. The surrounding sea water was isolated. He took out a formation flag and refined it into a pass through the palace formation.

The runes on the formation flag flashed a faint light the moment they touched the entrance, as if communicating with the power of the formation at the entrance.

As the light flickered, the ripple-like entrance gradually became stable, like the calm surface of a lake. Shi Chen took a deep breath and stepped forward cautiously. The moment he stepped through the entrance, it was as if he had entered a whole new world.

He scanned with his spiritual sense and found that he could only detect a range of ten feet. To the naked eye, under the dim light, the palace looked like a small city, and its architectural style was similar to that of the Western Region of Earth.

The pointed-roof buildings were scattered in an orderly manner, and the domes were inlaid with colorful gems, sparkling with mysterious brilliance under the reflection of spiritual power.

The streets are paved with special jade, which is smooth and slightly cool. On both sides of the streets are intricately carved stone pillars, which are engraved with patterns of exotic flowers, plants, rare birds and animals. They are lifelike, as if they can jump out from the stone pillars at any time.

Walking slowly along the street, he could sense the ancient atmosphere emanating from the surrounding buildings. Not far away, there was a particularly tall building, its gate tightly closed. Intricate patterns carved into the door resembled mysterious runes, seemingly imbued with powerful power.

A pair of Qilin guardian puppets at the entrance suddenly started up, their eyes rolled, and they blocked Shi Chen's way, speaking in human language: "Outsider, this is a forbidden area, leave quickly, otherwise don't blame us for being rude." The voice was like the collision of metal and stone, with unquestionable majesty.

Shi Chen frowned slightly. His purpose in this trip was to explore the source of the strange phenomena, find the origin of the realm, and save all the living beings in the cultivation world. How could he be easily persuaded to retreat by this puppet?

He cupped his hands and said, "I mean no harm. I wish to find the source of the strange phenomenon in this palace, or a treasure that can regenerate my spiritual roots. I hope you will do me a favor."

"This is the resting place of King Gongshui. It is guarded only by us puppets. Anyone who trespasses will die!" The Qilin puppets said in unison, the spiritual power fluctuations on their bodies becoming stronger and stronger, as if they would launch a fatal attack at any time.

Shi Chen's heart trembled, but his eyes were firm and he did not back down.

"In this case, we have no choice but to force our way in." Shi Chen pinched his fingers together and said forcefully.

Seeing this, the two puppets immediately launched an attack. One of the puppets suddenly raised its front claws and slapped Shi Chen. The sharp claw wind was accompanied by a whistling sound. Shi Chen quickly dodged to the side, and at the same time, a spiritual power shield instantly appeared in front of him.

Seeing that their attack had missed, the Qilin puppets immediately launched an even more fierce attack. They coordinated with each other, one puppet spewing out blazing flames while the other shot out sharp wind blades. The flames and wind blades intertwined to form an enormously powerful attack wave.

Shi Chen gritted his teeth and continuously injected spiritual power into the shield, barely resisting this wave of attacks.

Shi Chen knew that passively accepting the attack was not an option. He had to find a way to break through the puppet's defenses. He glanced around, trying to find a flaw in the puppet.

The two puppet Qilins guarding the city gate are only equivalent to the cultivation level of a cultivator at the stage of Divine Transformation. Shi Chen does not want to dismantle them violently. With his current cultivation level of the initial stage of fusion, he can break up the structure of the puppets with a few powerful spells.

The two puppets coordinated perfectly, attacking simultaneously, leaving Shi Chen in a difficult position. Shi Chen did not panic. While fending off the attacks, his mind raced, thinking of a strategy to defeat the enemy.

In a normal battle against a puppet, if both players are equally strong, you need to defeat the puppet and delay its time so that its spiritual energy dries up, and the puppet will automatically stop functioning.

This point was improved by the puppeteer. Usually, high-level puppets will have a spirit gathering array. As long as there is spiritual energy, it can be supplied to the puppet. It is difficult for the cultivator to exhaust the puppet's spiritual source. If the puppet's spiritual source is exhausted, the cultivator's own spiritual power will also dry up.

The simplest and most effective method is to cut off the puppet's spiritual source.

However, only the puppeteer himself knows where the puppet's spiritual core is, and it is difficult for monks to find and dismantle it.

Violent dismantling is the best way to fight against puppets and is most commonly used by monks.

However, at the end of the dismantling process, many puppets will self-destruct, which makes the monks love and hate them. They love it because they don't have to fight them with caution, but they hate it because after the puppet self-destructs, nothing is left, and sometimes the puppet itself is affected and injured.

After defeating the puppet, I didn't get any spoils and even lost the healing pills.

Seal them with a formation? Or confuse them?

This palace complex is like a city. I don’t know how many puppets there are and how many formations are needed to reach the palace in the middle.

Violently dismantle and directly destroy their core?

No one knows where their core is. The core of each puppet is not in the same place. It will take a long time to find them one by one.

While dodging the combined attack of the two puppets, he was thinking about how to get rid of the puppets as quickly as possible.

The two puppets were extremely powerful, casting various spells continuously. Every time they were activated, the runes on their bodies shone.

Hmm? Runes? Shi Chen had learned the Five Elements Sect's basic puppet-making techniques. A puppet was the equivalent of a formation, a talisman, and a weapon. The combination of these three, activated through the formation and runes, made the weapon a cultivator's best helper.

The key is the runes. Shi Chen stared closely at the shining runes on the puppet.

Suddenly, Shi Chen had an idea. He thought that since these runes could light up when the puppet launched an attack, they might be closely related to the puppet's spiritual power operation or core control.

If these runes can be stopped or destroyed, will the puppet lose its function?

The more Shi Chen thought about it, the more he felt that this idea was feasible.

While he continued to dodge the puppet's attacks, he carefully observed the patterns of these runes.

In the intervals between the puppets' attacks, he discovered that the light of some runes would flicker, as if they were transmitting and transforming spiritual power.

Shi Chen decided to take a risk. He seized an opportunity. When a puppet had just launched an attack and was in a brief period of recovery of its spiritual power, he quickly condensed the spiritual power at his fingertips and directed it towards a key flashing rune point on the puppet.

The moment the spiritual power at the fingertips came into contact with the rune, the light of the rune suddenly dimmed, and the puppet's movement also showed a slight sluggishness.

This discovery made Shi Chen very happy. He knew he had found the right direction. So, he began to look for opportunities more frequently to disrupt the normal operation of the runes on the puppet.

As Shi Chen interfered with the runes, the attack rhythm of the two puppets was gradually disrupted, their coordination was no longer as tacit, and their power was weakened.

However, the puppets did not stop attacking because of this, they seemed to have a self-repair mechanism.

Shi Chen knew that simply interfering with the runes was not enough to completely defeat the puppet. He had to find a way to permanently disable the puppet.