He was brought back from his unconscious state by the pain that assaulted every part, every bone, every fiber of his body. Still dizzy from the sudden and unwelcome awakening, he could not even order his consciousness to suppress the pain.
Even opening his eyes took an almost impossible amount of effort, but he persevered until he did. For a few breaths, his vision was blurry, and he could not even understand where he was.
His body had been flung by the force of the explosion, and he took the airs for a few moments before crashing on the ground. And so now, that he managed to open his eyes and take a look around, he found himself in the center of a crater.
Even if his head was about to explode and he could not feel anything except for pain from his entire body, he was slowly regaining clarity.
"Did I manage to..?" He murmured while recalling what had happened before...
________________________________________________________________________
Wu Guang stood in the middle of the now slowly calming battlefield. With the remnants of the first and second lines slowly retreating, the enemies decided to not push their luck either, staying still or taking a few steps back. And it was a wise decision, as Wu Guang stood amid dozens of slashed, torn, burned, and crushed corpses... All of which was his doing. He could not deal with the remaining odd 200 Spirit realm cultivators alone, but neither of them wanted to be one of the many corpses to be added to the already laying ones before he fell from exhaustion.
"And not that they know if I will" Wu Guang had to acknowledge the fact that dealing with them by using purely means dependant on his cultivation would be impossible, but if he was forced to... He could always resort to other means.
His gaze darted towards the source of a newly faded presence, noting that Ren Ah had, at last, claimed the life of the weakest of the three enemies he was fighting against with his inseparable partner. Now the two of the Discipline Palace disciples had only two 2nd level of the Soul realm opponents, and they seemed to be ready to deal with them as well.
"Hmm?" A sudden feeling of danger assailed Wu Guang's senses, and he immediately turned all of his attention towards the three cloaked enemies that still had not made any movement, or they had?!
A pair of strange-looking sticks or scepters appeared in the hands of the two figures to the sides and slightly behind the 2nd level Sage cultivator. But nothing about them seemed special, Wu Guang even could not feel any qi seeping from them. In that case, why he was feeling an enormous danger approaching?
Wu Guang concentrated all his senses on the objects that they were holding...
"Rune activators?!" It did not take him long to first sense, and then break through an extremely well-done concealing set, but... It was simply too late.
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When a cultivator said the words 'Puppet', one normally referred to inanimate constructs. In some extreme cases, it may be a 'Corpse Puppet' made from a person or creature that had just died, but... There was also a manner to create a puppet from a living being, one that not even the most wicked cultivators allowed themselves. After all, not only one would need to be fairly stronger than the puppet material, but it would also require an enormous amount of resources to keep the being alive while carving and etching runes or formations on all of his innards. Not to mention that such practice was considered evil by most of the cultivators in the universe, and would lead to the user's condemnation, or even execution by a righteous power.
________________________________________________________________________
"Make them run" Du Tao repeated his command.
***
As 15 enemy cultivators, ones that Wu Guang had ignored until now because they not only were extremely weak, only at the beginner stages of the Spirit realm but also had not joined the fray and stayed behind the enemy lines began running...
"What kind of demon could do something like this?!" He could not help to exclaim. With the runes now active, and the full of strength of his senses concentrated, he managed to see through the bodies of these men and found that not only there were runes carved on their bones and muscles, allowing the cloaked Eagle Kingdom demons to control them, but they were also had dozens if not hundreds of 'Destruction' rune-sets carved! And not simple ones, but ones infused with spirit stones etched directly in the bones of the still alive, and without any means to control themselves, men.
*Swoosh*
Without thinking, Wu Guang launched forward with all of his speed, intending to try and stop them before they closed the distance. At the same time, he sent quick qi transmissions to everyone he could reach without distracting himself.
"Lord Xiao! The 15 men that are running towards our positions are bombs, they carved destruction runes inside them!" He immediately cut the transmission without waiting for a response, considering that Lord Xiao would understand how to act.
"Lan Yanzhi, take both of them and break away! If any of the 15 men that are running approach more than 150 feet, you are dead! Use the statuette if needed!"
"Xiao Feng, the approaching men are bombs. I will try to stop them, but if they approach, disband the line and make everyone disperse!"
He also repeated the same message to Lang Juan, who had approached enough, and to Kuang Xioalan, who on the other hand had not yet reached the forming up defense line.
***
"Hoh? So he sensed something? Amazing... Make them disperse, I want every group of Soul realm cultivators to receive three, and the rest go to the weaklings. Ignore the commander" Du Tao noted Wu Guang's movements and ordered.
"Yes!" Both the man and woman voices responded in unison, and at the same moment, the 15 men began separating, with each of them assuming a different route.
***
Wu Guang would have liked to curse, but he simply had no time to do even that.
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He rushed through the enemies, sending a pair of them flying and forcing his way through.
And when he was past the remaining enemies, he found himself just three hundred away from the nearest 'Puppet'.
"Imperial Blade!" He sent his martial skill flying, and it flew even quicker than before...
*Slash*
Cleanly cutting the man's legs.
*Drop*
The latter fell to the ground silently, seemingly without having even the ability to scream.
But Wu Guang did not even acknowledge the fact, turning towards the next target.
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It could be not held against him, as he had simply too many things to keep an eye on to spend the time and effort to examine every cultivator individually. And there was no actual reason for him to do so. He did have a thought about runes or explosives, but after spreading his senses and not finding any, he simply discarded it. Not that he could have even thought about someone being crazy, deranged, and... inhumane as to create living puppets from men and carve dozens of 'Destruction' runes on their bones.
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Even while under control, a puppet could not exert more than its maximum abilities, and so Wu Guang had an absolute advantage in speed. Not to mention that any rune required qi to function, and runes inside someone's body would leech it from the host, making them even weaker than normal. Still, the controllers were good, and Wu Guang could not divide himself...
And neither he could allow himself to approach more than 200 feet from his targets, making him able to only attack them with 'Imperial Blade', which even underpowered required a fair amount of qi, qi that he had not yet recovered enough to sustain such usage.
But still, Wu Guang did what he could...
"Counting Steps!"
"Imperial Blade"
"Flaming Impulse!" This one was to disperse the enemies that for some reason decided to block him.
"Imperial Blade!"
***
"Seems that enough of them are strewn near our dear soldiers, so I need to stop him now" Du Tao laughed before beginning to prepare a spell.
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Even now, Wu Guang could not recall the last moments of that frantic attempt to stop the bombs before they reached his friends and the men that fought alongside him this day.
He knew that he had downed at least five, but at the moment he intended to hit the sixth, one that was dangerously approaching Lord Xiao, who could not yet manage to retreat with his three enemies crazily clinging to him...
*Bzzzzam*
Wu Guang's reaction was instinctive, and he practically flew to the side as soon as he sensed an approaching lighting bolt from behind, but he was a bit slow, allowing the latter to touch one of his fingers...
"Argh" He groaned in pain, sensing how the mind power behind the spell invaded and numbed his arm, trying to make way and damage his meridians.
Wu Guang's mindpower was vastly superior to the 2nd level Sage who attacked him, even the weaker one that he allowed himself to use normally. And so, it took him only a few moments to purge the hostile energy from his body, but those were moments that he simply could not have lost...
*BOOOM*
The first explosion came from behind, from one of the five 'puppet' men that he had already downed. He wasn't in the supposed range either, but the sheer force behind the explosion hurled him forward, not allowing him to restart his planned pursue of the others.
And then, what could be said hell descended on the battlefield...
*BOOOM*
Each explosion covered an area of about 150 feet towards each side, and anything inside their zone was either destroyed by the released qi or swept away...
And so, one of the downed puppet's was flung right towards Wu Guang
"SHIT!" Just having managed to stand up, and trying to find where to go in the rain of blood, gore, earth, extremities, dead and alive enemies that had begun falling, Wu Guang had no other choice to brace up. He recalled his aura covering himself with a tight cocoon of qi, as well as activating a mind-power ward. Whit his life in danger, there was no reason to conceal anything anyway...
*BOOOM*
The explosion was extremely strong, and Wu Guang received the brunt of it. And even if his defenses resisted most of it, he could not do anything about the force that lifted him...
________________________________________________________________________
While he recalled what had happened, Wu Guang's state had stabilized enough for him to attempt to stand up. And after a few failed attempts, he, at last, managed to do it and half-crawled half-climbed from the 10 feet deep crater that his body had made in the bland earth of the wildlands after falling.
"Where I am?" Before anything, Wu Guang wanted, no needed to know what had happened. Did his friends and allies manage to avoid the explosions? Were they all alive? And what did the three demons do after that?! Could they have...
Dozens of similar thoughts floated in his mind, and so he started by trying to find his bearings.
He had been flung for a pair of miles to the east from the beach, but before moving out, he had to check on himself.
His aura had resisted the physical brunt of the explosion, and the mind power ward mitigated the qi damage, but even so, his entire body was covered in bruises. That was an acceptable exchange for being able to survive such an explosion, but...
Wu Guang had pulled all the stoppers on instinct, and so he had severely overtaxed his body. This meant that he was now forced to exercise complete caution when fighting, or he may cripple himself.
"Time to move out" After confirming his condition and noting the limit, he prepared to return to the beach.
***
"WASN'T MAKING LIVING PEOPLE INTO PUPPETS ENOUGH FOR YOU!!!" Wu Guang roared furiously.
But a few moments later, he suddenly calmed down.
"It's the heavens will..." He muttered and turned towards the north, beginning to run towards the 'Demonic Plateau'.