After moving to one of the nearby caves, Gu Ten Long revealed a huge smile on his face.

He turned his head, side to side until finally he found a bat hiding there.

Quickly, he rushed towards the bat, he punched and kicked it until it stopped moving.

Then, after making sure it was death, he took a tiny drop of his own blood and poured it onto the bat.

Many sparkles of light appeared on the bat's body, which began to tremble violently.

Gu Ten Long frowned lightly.

"It seems I miscalculated, the strength of my soul is too low to form a real connection with the body of the Bat in my current level.

I'll need to use a bit more of that Magnetic Powder to stabilize the will I poured inside the bat, then I must suppress it's brain activity."

When one was doing this for the first time, everything was hard and counterintuitive.

The tricks that worked on leeches may not work on flies, and those same tricks may fail in bats.

Therefore, ideally he had to construct a completely different Cultivation technique everytime he strayed away from his supposed specialty.

This may not seem too troublesome at first, but any and all Puppeteer techniques contained at least a fraction of the power of Soul Path, therefore every time he modified the technique he was blindly playing with his own soul.

But, even though he knew this, he still recklessly modified his techniques.

For he knew that to achieve his extraordinary goals, he'd require extraordinary courage.

Gu Ten Long took a tiny diary he wrote his new insights inside it and then closed it.

"No matter how small, to learn one requires time.

Even if one learns quickly is due to one's own previous knowledge and foundation, nothing of importance can be won easily."

Abruptly, a tingling sound extended through all his spine.

The sound instead of growing dimmer as the time passed it seemed to grow stronger.

All of his bones were trembling violently.

Before he realized he felt a sharp pain extending through his hand.

"W-What is this?" He said bewildered.

"Somehow...It feels as if every bone in my body, was dislocated but just slightly.

Less than a millimeter.

Not enough to be seen clearly, but enough to destroy the body!"

Another creaking sound extended through his body, this time his legs began to tremble, as if they had turned into jelly.

"My muscles...They're disjointed.

They are aching...

The friction is painful."

He touched his trembling legs, immediately his expression turned ghastly.

Before the damage got worse, he decisively took used his dagger to slash his own skin.

Then, he saw how his exposed flesh suddenly combusted.

Finally, he took a bottle of water and verted all of it's contents in his exposed flesh.

"This is no coincidence...

Somehow, a creature manipulated the sound waves in the environment to produce friction inside my muscle fibers, this friction combined with the iron and oxygen in my blood combusted, creating tiny sparkles of light.

If I hadn't destroyed the flames, my body would spontaneously combust on the spot!

And that's not all...If my veins hadn't been strengthened due to my blood's Cultivation I'd die of aneurysm..."

Gu Ten Long gritted his teeth, with bloodshot eyes he turned his head rapidly.

"WHO IS IT?

WHO THE HELL TRIED TO MURDER ME?

COME HERE, COWARD, COME IF YOU DARE!" He shouted loudly.

All while internally analyzing his opponent.

"I've heard of a few Sound Path abilities inside the sect, however they're nothing like this!

Thereafter it can only be an external attack of a righteous sect."

After scoffing at his opponent for a few seconds, he snorted coldly and said.

"If you won't reveal yourself, I don't see any point in remaining here.

Bye, bye." Gu Ten Long then proceeded to run away.

As he retreated from the cave, he turned his head back from time to time, all in an attempt to catch off guard any possible attacker.

At the end, while he was halfway at the road he finally noticed the threat.

It was a tiny bat, of less than 10 cm of height.

The bat was moving it's wings rapidly as it charged towards him.

"Seriously, a bat?" He muttered.

Actually, that wasn't that surprising, if humans could grow stronger through Cultivation so could wild beasts.

It was pretty common to find a wild beast who was tens of times stronger than others of its size.

Creatures like the Spear-Dao Fly were prime examples of this.

The bat unaware that he was being looked down by it's prey, triggered yet another attack.

It screeched loudly.

This sound, was like a potent drum that was hitting directly his head.

His whole head began to tremble, principally his ears.

The liquid inside his eardrums moved chaotically, and he lost his sense of balance.

His body began to fall.

But at the last instant he awkwardly moved his other leg to prevent this.

Yet even after returning to his original position nothing felt right.

He felt that he was constantly falling down, he was constantly slipping.

"I can't allow that creature to keep messing with my body." Gu Ten Long thought, then without any further consideration he charged directly towards the bat.

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The bat in question looked rather peculiar, his wings were covered in a thin strange crystalline membrane.

Inside the crystals, there was a cracking sound.

Suddenly, many shards of a dozen of crystals were shoot directly aiming at Gu Ten Long's face.

Instinctively, Gu Ten Long closed his eyes and raised his hands in a desperate attempt to block all the projectiles.

Before he even realized the bat reached his chest.

It's mouth aimed directly towards his heart.

And suddenly it screamed loudly.

So loudly, that Gu Ten Long's heart began to throb loudly, it trembled and shook down hitting the cage of the flesh.

Many internal veins were punctured and slashed, by this invisible wave.

Normally, most of the prey struck by this would die.

After all, this screech not only affected one's body, but also one's mind and soul.

This screech also paralyzed the target and made them twist in pain, even if their hearts were strong enough to endure the pressure for a few seconds, they'd slowly succumb.

Due to Gu Ten Long's starting Blood Cultivation, he managed to rearrange his internal veins to reintegrate the lost blood inside his body.

But it couldn't stop yet another attack of the mad bat.

With his claws, and a wind cutter, it slashed directly towards Gu Ten Long's chest.

His blood escaped out of his body as he was struck, the bat's whole body was covered in fresh blood, which deepened the bat's confidence and surging hunger.

Gu Ten Long raised his two arms, he slashed with his pair of daggers at the bat, but it simply dodged him nimbly and retreated a few meters back.

At this point, it's victory was but a matter of course.

As long as it struck a few more times with his sound techniques it would be able to break whatever's strength he still had.

However in the moment, the bat moved far enough a tiny smile appeared on Gu Ten Long's face.

He threw his daggers out of his hands, then he raised his palms.

"Taking my blood before my heart?

You really, really shouldn't have done that."

With the same method as the last time, he activated an invisible mechanism.

Suddenly, the crystal's bat body began to twitch violently, as it was slowly possessed.

Half a minute later it collapsed onto the ground, whilst Gu Ten Long dragged the tiny corpse of the bat and with even more of his blood reanimated it.

"Huff, huff...

If it was that hard to hunt a mere bat, I cannot imagine the difficult of hunting a deer.

But, heh, is not like I can back away of this deal.

Who knows what the deity would do if I pull off that stunt."

After saying those words, he collapsed to the ground due to his exhaustion.

Despite everything, he actually felt thrilled.

Finally, he had a Puppet with prior Cultivation base!

This would surely increase his Cultivation speed tremendously.

"Sorry to leave you alone, I was taking a bath how are you doing?" Wu Yong voice resonated through the cave.

He took a tiny torch and suddenly his smile stiffened.

"What the hell happened while I was not there?"

...

Meanwhile.

Standing at the oriel of the Bing's clan mansion there were two persons looking down at a horde of Cultivators.

They're Bing Tou Yang and his son, Bing Shang Hung.

The father wear his typical battle armor, traditional of the Bing Clan.

Most people at the Bing Clan were taught since they're young to live for fighting.

To train their people they even sent them as foreign mercenaries working for countries in small-scale wars or on typical protection missions, all in an attempt to strengthen their resolve.

As for Bing Zhang Hung...

He was an strange case to say the least.

Since the birth of that child, he always had been an extraordinary prodigy.

In what you may ask?

In everything.

From forgery, to alchemy, to soul-Cultivation, to body-Cultivation.

On every scale you could measure him, he was exceptional.

For example, there is an strange Cultivation Path known as Luck Path.

Luck Path can be said to be the easiest and hardest Path to Cultivate.

The reason of that is simple.

Luck is like a magnet, but instead of attracting materials with an opposite charge is instead attracted by the 'similar', by the 'equivalent.'

A person with good luck attracts good luck, a person with bad luck attracts bad luck.

A person with a bad luck like Zhen Yiyi, upon Cultivating a Luck Sutra would only shoot himself in the foot, as it would merely attract a ten-fold of bad luck over themselves, whilst a lucky person may double or triple their luck in a few Cultivation sessions.

Not only that, but the luckier they're the better their Qi is Circulated and the less effort they have to put in their Cultivation to progress.

As for the quantity of luck of Bing Zhang Hung?

Well, one time he snored off while Cultivating a Luck Sutra, and not only he didn't suffer from Qi deviation, but his Qi circulation actually became far more effective.

This means that by relying on his sheer luck he actually could Cultivate any Luck Sutra effortlessly.

And that wasn't even his greatest talent!

He was far more talented in forgery.

The little kid yawned calmly, he rubbed his brown hair, that had a few red strands.

His eyes were those of a lizard, with large pupils that seemed to pierce through anything.

With a graceful armor, that he had created with his own two hands.

His armor had a myriad of crystals and gems, that were shining, revealing all kinds of enchantments.

Together they formed a rainbow fog that covered his body.

He also had a red cape, from where magma was constantly flowing through.

With a slight smile on his face, he turned towards his father.

"I wonder...

Do you think there is someone in my generation able to entertain me, to compete with me?"

Clear arrogance could be heard on his words.

Bing Tou Yang patted the head of the little kid, and pinched his cheeks.

"Hah, no one can compare to you, my little volcano." He said.

But Bing Zhang Hung felt dissatisfied, he frowned lightly.

"But then, how can I develop my self-made Volcan Path, or better yet my 'Freedom' Path?"

Bing Tou Yang raised his brows while asking.

"Huh?

You didn't had enough to become the pioneer of a pathway, but now you want to create two?

Funny, what is the essence of that path?"

Bing Zhang Hung smirked lightly.

"Freedom, the path devoid of restrictions.

Anyone who Cultivates Freedom, wants to be unrestrained by anyone or anything.

No rules, no restrictions.

A Freedom Cultivator can't be restrained by the ground, and can fly unhindered by anything.

A freedom Cultivator cannot be caught in a web, nor they can be shackled by anything.

Freedom can only be Cultivated by those unfettered!"

It took a moment for Bing Tou Yang to comprehend the implications of his words, he asked cautiously.

"That path...

How are you going to going to become my successor if you Cultivate such an...Unorthodox Path?"

The kid however ignored him, he took a tiny toy and simply muttered.

"I'm bored.

This whole war speech is too long!

Instead of saying things like 'For the honor of my ancestors, bla bla bla, who died for who knows what', what if we simply tell them.

'Hey, we're about come there and murder a bunch of people, we're going to take their land, treasures and possibly their women.'

Wouldn't that motivate our troops more?

Anything would be better than this, bla, bla, bla, responsibility, compromise, who the hell buys all that bullshit?

Certainly I do not."

Bing Tou Yang stared at him blankly, speechless.

...

Meanwhile.

The sect leader walked inside one of the core areas of the Formation, while checking compulsively every of it's components.

Obviously, he knew for certain that among his files there were many spies.

Generally, that wasn't too much of an issue to him.

Keep your friend close, and your enemies even closer.

But now, he was making preparations for war, his intentions were completely different now.

He couldn't allow anyone to sabotage his Formation before the battle started.

Or at least those were the reasons he listed, before as an excuse to his confidants and elders.

All of that was a huge lie.

There was only one reason why he was here.

The Formation was merely half-done.

That's right, the Formation with so many abilities was actually incomplete.

To truly bring it's fullest potential, another Formation had to be drawn.

This Formation had been created secretly by him many years ago.

But how he could keep it's existence a secret to everyone involved in the creation of the original Formation?

It's simple, the blueprint was hidden inside one place no one ever could decipher.

His mind.

Thus, without the righteous coalition even realizing they had already fallen prey to Zhen Yiyi's machinations.

Thinking of the whole situation, Zhen Yiyi couldn't help but laugh.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Now I that I think about it, there's something quite hilarious.

To reach the Void Realm one needs to turn's whole aura into something perpetual, eternal.

This feat is almost impossible, as for the next Realm, this is considered to be ten times harder.

To achieve this Realm one needs to raise the quality and quantity of the aura to an unbelievable degree, to the extent where to hold such quantities of Qi, another dimension must be created the 'Qi Sea Dimension', a dimension where Qi is constantly being produced in masse.

For others, this feat may be inhumanly hard, requiring absurd quantities of Qi for a breakthrough, but for me...

I only need to acquire enough blood to fill a sea.

Isn't that too easy?"

The righteous coalition and the Twilight of the Blood Crown, those two sides were already preparing for war.

Whilst most of the people at the righteous coalition were already informed of the war, most people living inside the Twilight of the Blood Crown sect, were still unaware of the storm that was approaching.

A war that would last for years, perhaps even decades.

A war that in the future would be known as 'The crown war.'