Mortal: Traveling Between Two Realms with Mei Ning to Pick Up Trash

He sat there for almost half a day, but the people in front of him still showed no signs of waking up.

Zhou Yu thought for a moment, then decided that he couldn't wait any longer.

He stood up, looked around, and gazed at the end of the road, which was still shrouded in mist.

After thinking about it, I realized that since this was a formation, it meant that there was at least something like a formation eye that I couldn't wake up. The same would happen if I destroyed the formation.

He glanced at Mei Feng, Hu Biao, and Miss Liu.

They headed straight into the depths of the mist.

Footsteps echoed through the passageway, and the fog behind them grew thicker and thicker until Mei Feng and the others were swallowed up, their spiritual pressure becoming undetectable.

After walking for about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, the passageway came to an end, and a bright and open space suddenly appeared before us.

A huge stone chamber appeared before them, several feet high and a hundred paces in circumference. Several fist-sized luminous pearls were inlaid on the dome, illuminating the entire chamber.

The floor of the stone chamber was paved with a single piece of bluestone. At each of the four corners of the chamber stood a stone pillar, engraved with runes, from which a faint spiritual light flowed. In the very center of the chamber, several figures stood quietly.

They are not human, they are puppets.

Zhou Yu stopped, placed his hand on his sword, and scanned the puppets one by one with his gaze.

The two figures at the front, one on the left and one on the right, resemble two door gods. They are entirely black, made of a material that is neither iron nor wood, with a faint sheen on the surface. They are humanoid, about seven feet tall, with fine gears and runes at their joints, and their heads are bowed.

Each of them had a long black iron sword hanging at their waist, with the scabbard integrated with their bodies. Their spiritual pressure was not weak, indicating they were in the late stage of Foundation Establishment.

Zhou Yu's pupils contracted slightly. There were two late-stage Foundation Establishment combat puppets. The three puppets behind them were smaller, only about five feet tall, and were also jet black. Their spiritual pressure was only at the mid-stage Foundation Establishment level.

Zhou Yu stood at the entrance of the stone chamber, not in a hurry to go in.

He carefully examined the puppets, calculating in his mind: two late-stage Foundation Establishment puppets and three early-to-mid-stage Foundation Establishment puppets. With this configuration, even a late-stage Foundation Establishment puppet, let alone a mid-stage Foundation Establishment puppet, would have to think twice.

But puppets are just puppets after all; they have no intelligence and only act according to a pre-set program. As long as we figure out their behavior patterns and find their weaknesses, we may not be unable to defeat them.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the stone chamber.

The first step landed, the stone slab made a crisp sound that echoed in the empty stone chamber, and the heads of the five puppets rose up at the same time.

Then they moved.

The two combat puppets at the front stepped forward simultaneously, their figures swaying as they moved to the left and right, flanking Zhou Yu.

Its speed was astonishing, completely unlike what one would expect from such a clumsy puppet.

Their black iron longswords were drawn from their waists, and a flash of light appeared on the blades, revealing that they were imbued with some kind of sharp rune. Before the blades even arrived, the wind from them had already reached them.

Zhou Yu did not take the blow head-on. Instead, he retreated rapidly, drawing an arc with his sword in front of him. The sword light split into four beams, slashing towards the joints of the puppet on the left.

The Taiyi Dividing Light Blade unleashed four beams of light, precisely striking the puppet's shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints.

Sparks flew as the blade shattered at the puppet's joints, leaving several shallow white marks. The puppet's movements only paused slightly before the long blade was already slashing towards Zhou Yu.

Zhou Yu dodged to the side, the blade grazing his robe and carving a deep groove in the bluestone ground.

His peripheral vision swept over the puppet's joints, and the Taiyi Dividing Light Blade struck them, leaving only white marks. The puppets' material was much harder than he had expected, and ordinary attacks couldn't break through their defenses at all.

As he dodged, he observed the two late-stage Foundation Establishment puppets working in perfect harmony, one on the left and one on the right, one attacking and one defending, sealing off all his escape routes.

The attacking longsword swept across, forcing him to dodge to the left. The defending sword, already waiting on the left, slashed down, forcing him to retreat to the right. With each advance and retreat, his space for maneuver became increasingly smaller.

Zhou Yu gritted his teeth and stopped retreating. He flipped his sword, and the silver-white light on the blade surged. A light blue blade light shot out from the tip of the sword, piercing straight for the head of the puppet on the left.

The puppet's head suddenly tilted to the side, avoiding the blade's edge. But that was exactly what Zhou Yu wanted. Its body lost its balance slightly during the dodge, its left shoulder slumped down, revealing a gap under its armpit.

Zhou Yu's blade slid into the gap and precisely struck the joint of the puppet's left arm. With a crack, it wasn't the sound of metal breaking, but the sound of gears dislocating.

The puppet's left arm suddenly tilted, the long sword slipped from its hand and fell to the ground with a clatter. Its movements became noticeably sluggish, and its left arm hung limply at its side, swinging back and forth.

effective.

Zhou Yu didn't give it a chance to repair itself. He moved swiftly, circled behind the puppet, and slashed at the back of its neck with his sword.

That was the crucial point connecting the head and body, and also the weak point of most puppets. As the blade struck, sparks flew, and the puppet's head snapped to the side. The aura around its neck flickered violently a few times before extinguishing.

A puppet fell down.

However, three other mid-Foundation Establishment puppets had already surrounded them. They were not as fast as the late-Foundation Establishment puppets, and their attacks were not as fierce, but they had the advantage of being numerous.

Three short spears pierced him from three different angles, one above, one below, and one in the middle, sealing off all his room to dodge.

Zhou Yu parried with his sword, blocking one blade, then dodged the second. The third blade grazed his ribs, tearing his robe and leaving a shallow bloodstain on his skin.

Without even flinching, he swung his sword horizontally, the blade striking the leg of the nearest puppet. The puppet's leg twisted, and it fell to one knee. But another puppet pounced on him, its short spear aimed straight at his face.

Zhou Yu took a half step back, avoiding the spear tip, but the third puppet's short spear had already pierced from the side, at a tricky angle and extremely fast.

He didn't have time to dodge, so he could only raise his left arm and use the armor on his arm to block it.

The short spear pierced his armor, the impact numbing his entire left arm. Zhou Yu grunted, then swept his right hand across the puppet with his sword, forcing it back.

His breathing became erratic, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Although the three patrolling puppets were no match for him in a one-on-one fight, they cooperated perfectly. When one was repelled, another immediately took its place; when one was wounded, another had already reached him, leaving no gaps.

Zhou Yu gritted his teeth and fought his way back to a corner of the stone chamber.

The stone wall behind him blocked his retreat, but the corners of his mouth curved slightly. Since there was nowhere to retreat, he would not retreat.

He sheathed his sword, formed hand seals, and the Binding Immortal Net flew out of his storage bag. The golden net exploded in the stone chamber, covering the three puppets.

They lacked intelligence and didn't know how to hide, so they were caught in the Binding Net.

The golden net tightened, and the puppets struggled, making creaking and groaning sounds. The gears at their joints squeaked under the immense pressure.

One patrolling puppet's arm was severed by the netting and fell to the ground, still moving. Another puppet's leg was entangled in the netting, causing it to fall to the ground and unable to get up. A third puppet was still struggling, wildly swinging its short spear, but it no longer posed a threat.

Another late-stage Foundation Establishment puppet moved, and it was faster than the previous two, so fast that Zhou Yu could hardly see its movements.

The black iron longsword drew a dark red arc in the air, carrying a sharp blade wind, and slashed straight at Zhou Yu's crown.

Zhou Yu didn't dodge; he retreated to the corner of the wall, where he had nowhere else to go.

Then he squatted down.

The long sword swept over his head and struck the stone wall behind him, sending shards of stone flying and leaving a deep groove in the wall.

Zhou Yu crouched on the ground, holding the sword horizontally with the tip pointing upwards. The instant the puppet swept over his head, he thrust the sword upwards with deadly force. The tip of the sword pierced the puppet's abdomen precisely, not a vital spot, but Zhou Yu's aim wasn't to pierce it; he wanted to pin it down.

The sword was stuck in the puppet's abdomen, causing the puppet's body to suddenly freeze and its movements to pause briefly.

That one moment was enough. Zhou Yu released his horizontal sword, grabbed the puppet's arms with both hands, poured spiritual energy into his palms, and twisted sharply. With a snap, the puppet's right arm was dislocated from the joint.

With another snap, its left arm was also severed. The puppet's body trembled violently, and the dark red light in its eye sockets flickered wildly, as if something had gone wrong. Its program told it to attack, but since it no longer had its arms, it didn't know what to use to attack.

Zhou Yu took a step back, picked up the horizontal sword, and slashed it across the back of the puppet's neck. The spiritual light disappeared, and the puppet's body froze in place, motionless.

The stone chamber fell silent. Of the five puppets, four lay on the ground, and one stood, but was dead. Scattered on the ground were parts: severed arms, severed legs, broken gears, and shattered rune plates—a chaotic mess.

Zhou Yu squatted down and began to collect the remains of the puppets. Every single one of them was a valuable item; if he took them out to sell, he could get a lot of spirit stones.

The most valuable items were the energy cores of the two combat puppets. They were about the size of a fist, entirely crimson, and covered with fine runes. He carefully put away the two energy cores and then rummaged through the scattered parts for a while, finding the control cores of the three puppets.

The control core is much smaller than the energy core, only about the size of a thumb, and is entirely silver-white.

Zhou Yu put the three control cores into his storage bag, stood up, looked at the remaining parts, thought for a moment, and then picked out a few more good-quality rune plates and joint bearings and stuffed them into his storage bag.

Zhou Yu looked inside the stone chamber ahead and saw another door. He walked towards that door.