Translated by: pokka

  Editor: Reckeva

  “Blackie, search this village thoroughly.” Bai Xiaofei summoned Blackie, his face serious.

  As Blackie fully melted into the surroundings, the information she discovered was quickly fed back into Bai Xiaofei’s mind little by little.

  Before long, his eyes lit up.

  “Found it, come with me.”


  With that, he ran out. Tan Xin hurriedly followed. The two arrived at a small forest where the resentment in the air was at least ten times heavier than in the fishing village!

  “They should be buried here,” said Bai Xiaofei.

  Tan Xin immediately moved. Her left hand pressed on the ground and her creation ability was activated, making the earth churn. A moment later, one corpse was sent up after another.

  Before Bai Xiaofei could investigate them, the bodies suddenly opened their eyes and rushed toward him like crazy.

  “Undead?!” This was the first thing that came to Bai Xiaofei’s mind.

  Tan Xin took no time to think about it. She launched her ability again, and the earth formed a bunch of cages that imprisoned the corpses. Although the corpses could move, the quality of their bodies was too weak to put up any resistance in front of Tan Xin.

  “Curb them, I want to have a look,” said Bai Xiaofei as he walked toward a body that looked more well-preserved than the rest. Before he entered the cage, however, a violent aura burst out from the corpse.

  “Careful!!” Tan Xin instantly appeared beside Bai Xiaofei and an earth barrier wrapped them up.

  The next second, a series of explosions echoed as the trapped corpses blew themselves up simultaneously. When Bai Xiaofei and Tan Xin emerged, there was not even a piece left of them.

  “What a cruel arrangement!” The feeling of seeing the clues slipping right through his fingers greatly agitated Bai Xiaofei.

  “Do you want to take another look? Since they can protect themselves, the puppet master who controls them should be around here,” Tan Xin said as she released her spirit to search the surroundings.

  Unfortunately, she found nothing.

  “Don’t waste your energy. At first, I thought they were undead, but from those explosions, they obviously had nothing to do with the undead.” Bai Xiaofei clenched his jaw. Every word seemed to be squeezed through his teeth.

  “Then, what were they? Are there other methods to control corpses besides making them undead?” Tan Xin grew more and more confused. The self-detonation of the corpses had cut off all possible clues.

  “Have you ever seen a puppet blow itself up?” Bai Xiaofei uttered after a long silence. Then, an ownerless white-grade puppet appeared in his hand. In order to let her understand more intuitively, he activated God Control, and the puppet in his hand flew out and blew itself up.

  It was the same explosion, not even a piece left behind!

  “They, they were puppets?!!” Tan Xin shouted in utter disbelief.

  Refining human bodies into puppets was taboo in the Starnet Continent! Whoever violated this would definitely be hunted down by the whole continent!

  “Since there’s no sample, I can’t be sure, but that would explain everything. The Ethereal Empire recently developed a kind of servant puppet with commands in their system. It all makes sense if that technology was used in those corpses just now.”


  Attack once found and self-detonate if detained. These were two simple commands.

  “In that case, someone’s violating that taboo?” Tan Xin had been in the Starnet continent for more than just a day or two. She knew very well what it meant to make humans into puppets. It was taboo because it had once spread chaos in the whole continent!

  Refining puppets from humans posed three big concerns.

  First, humans had strong autonomy. If the puppetsmith was skilled enough, they could even maintain the body’s combat experience and save the manipulator from having to command it.

  Second, human puppets still retained not only their combat experience but also their power, which included their rank, skills, and cultivation techniques. This meant they would become a kind of existence between animate and inanimate puppets.

  The third problem was the fact that there was no limit to the number of human puppets linked since a human puppet itself could link puppets. In other words, once a puppet master linked a human puppet, they could use the puppet to link more puppets and eventually create an army!

  In the history of the Starnet Continent, human puppets had only appeared once, when a puppetsmith used exactly that method to accumulate a terrifying army and destroy a country in one fell swoop! The whole continent hunted for him until they trapped him in a canyon, where a grand battle ensued and lasted for three days and three nights!

  In the end, after paying the price of human lives several times the number of human puppets, the puppetsmith was slain and the refining of humans into puppets became a taboo of taboos.

  “It has yet to be verified, but I really hope it’s not the case. Otherwise, judging from the time of death of those corpses, that puppetsmith, if he exists, may have become an invincible existence.” Bai Xiaofei gulped. For the first time, there was fear in his expression.

  “Hey…… How about…… Why don’t we……” Tan Xin tugged Bai Xiaofei’s shirt, hesitant to say something.

  “It’s impossible to ignore this. Even if we do, do you think we can still get away with it now? No one wants this kind of secret to get out. Only the dead can keep secrets.” Bai Xiaofei realized that they were in a very desperate situation.

  He had no idea who the enemy was, where they were, or even whether they existed. Worse, he might have to face endless attacks with unpredictable intensity from this moment on – No one knew if the enemy had high-ranked human puppets!

  “But we don’t know anything. Even if we want to interfere, what should we even do?” Tan Xin was helpless. Her weakened state was nearing, so she did not want to touch this matter at all.

  “Not really. Since the command technology has just been developed not long ago, the people capable of it should all be in Ethereal. The scope should not be very big!” Bai Xiaofei said.

  With that, the next stop was officially finalized – Ethereal!