Grasping Evil

A Big Present of Spiritual Puppets!

Xu Wei slapped his storage pouch and three black shadows appeared in front of him in succession. Meanwhile, when Xu Dian performed a hand seal, five black spiritual puppets within the storage pouch of the corpse on the ground flew out as five rays of black light, surrounding the area in front and at the back of Ning Fan.

All eight of them were Divine Transformation Realm spiritual puppets with five of them being Early Divine Transformation Realm puppets while the remaining three of them being at the Mid Divine Transformation Realm. Adding Xu Wei who was an expert of the Mid Divine Transformation Realm and Xu Dian whose demon soul was attached to a spiritual puppet which had the same cultivation level as Xu Wei into the equation, Ning Fan was surrounded by ten Divine Transformation Realm experts at this moment!

“There are actually ten Divine Transformation Realm beings!” Lu Ao’s expression became stern while Lu Sheng’s face was grave. However, they did not look worried about Ning Fan.

After all, they had heard that Ning Fan possessed a Half-Step Void Refinement Realm refined corpse. Moreover, he seemed to have also deployed in the past the Early Divine Transformation Realm Stone Warrior as well as a Mid Divine Transformation Realm female corpse. In short, the fighters he had were not any weaker than Xu Wei’s.

To their surprise, Ning Fan did not act according to what they had expected by calling out his black dragon refined corpse and other fighters. Instead, he looked at each of the Divine Transformation Realm black puppets in a scornful manner.

“So what if you have a lot of… spiritual puppets?!”

The next moment, Ning Fan moved his ten fingers to perform a hand seal. An immeasurably strong aura force gradually gathered in his eyes.

With just a glance, the eight spiritual puppets which had no spiritual intelligence gently trembled as if they were afraid.

As Ning Fan continued to change the pattern of his hand seals, traces of black qi began to encircle the tips of his fingers. At the same time, a black mark the shape of a crescent moon surfaced on the left part of each of the spiritual puppets’ face!

Right at the moment when the black crescent mark emerged, a strange yet startling phenomenon happened!

The eight Divine Transformation Realm spiritual puppets broke free from the Xu brothers’ control and knelt down and kowtowed towards Ning Fan.

Even the Late Divine Transformation Realm black puppet which was blasted into the huge pit climbed out from it and kowtowed towards Ning Fan.

Xu Wei was completely stunned whereas Xu Dian began to feel terror and panic!

After Xu Dian’s demon body was killed instantly, his demon soul resided within a Mid Divine Transformation Realm puppet. However, when Ning Fan completed his hand seal, a black crescent mark actually manifested on the left part of the puppet’s face as well. At the emergence of the black mark, the body of the puppet no longer heeded Xu Dian’s commands and knelt down at Ning Fan’s direction like the others puppets!

“Why would it be like this? How could my spiritual puppet which was made using the secret arts of my Puppet Spirit Race be a turncoat? Lu Bei! What exactly have you done?!” Xu Wei shouted angrily.

“You will never know!”

Ning Fan’s eyes were indifferent and cold. This technique was of course, the Grievance Technique: Life Imprisonment, a technique imparted to Ning Fan by Luo You.

This technique was flawed as it was just an incomplete part of the technique. Even so, it was enough to allow Ning Fan directly subdue a Mid Divine Transformation Realm spiritual puppet at a distance!

Although it was difficult to subdue a Late Divine Transformation Realm puppet, if he was able to have physical contact with it, he would then have a chance of subduing it.

Xu Wei and Xu Dian were members of the Puppet Spirit Race. They had tons of spiritual puppets. However, to Ning Fan, as long as it is not a puppet of the Peak Divine Transformation Realm, there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Ten spiritual puppets. This gift sure is big… Now, die!”

When Ning Fan uttered the word ‘die’, Xu Dian’s demon soul which was staying within the Mid Divine Transformation Realm puppet was literally erased by a black power of the moon. After emitting a cry of pain, his soul flew away and scattered!

“Second Brother!”

Xu Wei’s eyes were filled with fear. At first, he thought that by taking out all their spiritual puppets, they could still put up a fight against Ning Fan. However, he had never anticipated that as soon as they summoned their puppets, the situation would completely reverse…

The members of the Puppet Spirit Race were weak and feeble in nature. But they had a unique natural talent in using and manipulating spiritual puppets. In spite of that, once they lost their puppets, their talents could be considered useless…

“I’ll die… I’ll die! This Lu Bei was already able to kill Wang Xiao by himself. Today, he seized my ten Divine Transformation Realm puppets and kept them for himself. Additionally, he still has a Half-Step Void Refinement Realm refined corpse by his side… I’ll die today!”

“Die… Haha. I really did not think that I’m going to die so soon! Fine. Fine… Then, I shall fight you to death! Blood Sun Technique: Broken Sun!”

At this moment, Xu Wei ignited his demon blood. With a hand seal, he detonated his own demon soul!

A self-detonation by a Mid Divine Transformation Realm expert was no trifling matter.

Xu Wei let out the last roar of anger in his life. It roared like thunder, shaking the entire heaven and earth. The aura of his self-detonation turned into a demonic blood light and formed a wild gust of wind. From afar, Xu Wei’s body seemed to have turned into a dark red sun, radiating a blinding blood light!

An ear-splitting sound of an explosion reverberated throughout the massive palace instantly hundreds of times, as if the sky had collapsed. With Xu Wei’s demon body being at the center, the blood-red sun melted into fire waves, blasting every part of the hollow space into pieces!

Xu Wei was dead! However, the force produced by his self-detonation was more than enough to cause a Late Divine Transformation Realm expert to suffer grievous injuries!

Lu Ao’s countenance changed drastically. What he had just witnessed earlier was that Ning Fan actually cornered a Mid Divine Transformation expert to the point of choosing to detonate his own demon soul without attempting to resist. In his entire life, such a scene was absolutely rare!

As for my decision to detonate my own demon soul earlier, I only resorted to that means knowing that I am going to lose anyway, after fighting with all my might…

But this Xu Wei straight away detonated his demon soul without even trying to retaliate. That was enough to prove how fearful he was of Lu Bei as he did not even have the courage to fight him…

Ning Fan’s eyes narrowed with seriousness. He lifted his palms high as the second blood-red star on his glabella shone. A power that erodes sunlight surged in his palms, forming a bottomless vortex.

“Eroding Yin!”

The power from the self-detonation which was capable of grievously wounding a Late Divine Transformation Realm expert was bizarrely eroded and weakened by the small vortex on his palms.

Within just a brief moment of time, the force produced by the self-detonation was greatly reduced as it could now just hurt a Mid Divine Transformation Realm expert.

Ning Fan did not utter a single word. He slapped his storage pouch and took out a dark golden snake statue which was a few cun* long and hurled it to the center of the explosion.

As it moved along the wind, it grew and eventually turned into a massive black dragon. Its eyes were empty. Facing the force created from Xu Wei’s self-detonation, the black dragon opened its mouth and sucked every last bit of it into its abdomen.

“Return!”

After blocking the power from Xu Wei’s self-detonation, Ning Fan kept the dragon corpse. With a flick of his sleeve, he produced a gust of wind that blew away the dense blood mist in the air.

The hollow space recovered as a gentle breeze blew past. Ning Fan dismissed his demon form and dispersed his aura force. His black hair was flying in the wind as he stared at the ten new puppets and indifferently said, “The Puppet Spirit Race has really given me a great gift…”

Indeed, it was a precious gift. Even the generals from the Upper World could not easily have ten Divine Transformation Realm spiritual puppets, let alone experts in the mortal world. Perhaps Xu Wei and Xu Dian must be quite reputable among the Puppet Spirit Race for them to have these spiritual puppets. Sympathetically, they met Ning Fan, a person who specialized in restraining spiritual puppets. Naturally, these puppets now belong to Ning Fan.

Lu Sheng and Lu Ao were both stupefied.

The ten Divine Transformation Realm spiritual puppets were all subdued by Ning Fan! The lowest cultivation level among them was the Early Divine Transformation Realm while the highest cultivation level was the Late Divine Transformation Realm.

Moreover, he had even neutralized the power produced by a Mid Divine Transformation Realm expert’s self-detonation with ease!

Lu Sheng and Lu Ao exchanged looks with each other. Both of them could notice a hint of respect towards Ning Fan from each other’s eyes.

“This Lu Bei certainly is a monster. Although he is just at the Early Divine Transformation Realm, he is already this powerful. If he breaks through to the Mid Divine Transformation Realm or the Late Divine Transformation Realm, he probably will be unrivalled among the experts below the Void Refinement Realm…”

“Come to think of it, Lu Bei, do you know what this place is? According to what I heard from the Wild Beasts, this place seems to be known as the Star Palace!” Lu Ao asked.

“Wild Beasts?” Ning Fan’s gaze scanned across the area and discovered the four massive corpses of the beasts which were killed by Lu Sheng and Lu Ao earlier.

However, when he took a closer look at the appearances of the beasts, Ning Fan’s eyes were immediately filled with shock.

“They are not Wild Beasts!”

“What? If they aren’t Wild Beasts, why would they produce demon pills?” Don’t tell me they are something like refined corpses or spiritual puppets? I heard that some historical remains would have these creatures as the guardians of areas like these…” Lu Sheng hesitated.

“No. These four ferocious beasts are not Wild Beasts, refined corpses nor spiritual puppets. If I am not wrong, they are… star spirits! Star spirits are a type of creature that inhabits the Stars of Fiendgods which used to be the place for the strong experts in ancient times…”

However, Ning Fan was unable to understand why the creatures that could only live in the Stars of Fiendgods would appear in the Star Palace!

Once these creatures left the Stars of Fiendgods, they would immediately die.

“Is it possible that this Star Palace is one of the Stars of Fiendgods itself… If that’s the case, perhaps the demon star from the Celestial Emperor’s left eye has manifested into the Star Palace?”

Translated by Tommy, edited by Roel

Note:

1. Measurements: a. li(里) = 500 m b. zhang(丈) = 3.13 m c. chi(尺) = 30.7 cm d. cun(寸) = 3.33cm e. jin(斤) = 0.5 kg