Chapter 518: Bullying with Numbers
The smile faded from the lady sect elder’s face as Aksai finished speaking.
Her brows tightened, and a deep frown settled over her face. Her voice turned cold, sharp like the edge of a blade.
“It seems you don’t understand the good intentions behind my proposal, you little brat,” she said, her tone laced with quiet anger.
“The only reason the Iron Mountain Sect hasn’t attacked Erald Cove directly is because of that lass Nuya’s ties with the Purple River Sect… and the neutrality agreent your people signed with Haan Di.
But don’t take that as a sign of our weakness.”
She took a step forward, and the ground beneath her feet cracked slightly as she channeled her Spirit essence. A powerful pressure rolled out from her body.
Her cultivation aura surged as she revealed her true strength—9th stage Foundation Building realm. It was not sothing she had shown before, but now she let it flood the area without restraint.
Her voice grew colder still.
“The Iron Mountain Sect can employ other thods to deal with the likes of you. We don’t need to strike you openly. Assassins. Poison. Black-market bounty hunters.
We can make you disappear quietly and still smile in front of the Purple River Sect. Maybe we’ll get a slap on the wrist. Maybe they’ll scold us for a while.
But we both know how sect politics works. After a few months, it’ll all be forgotten. And your island? It’ll be under new ownership. No one will even find your body.”
As if her words were a signal, the other three elders stepped forward too. Each of them released their own auras. Sparks danced in the air, flas flickered at the edges of their robes.
The lady elder narrowed her eyes.
“I know you’ve got tricks up your sleeve. We all felt the difference in your technique. It’s not sothing a regular cultivator should have access to. And yes, we wanted to act cautious.
But don’t mistake that for fear. We are not afraid of you.
So what if you blocked our way out? So what if you have so strange ability to sense our thoughts? That won’t help you once the fight begins.”
Her voice rose.
“We’ll just hit you with everything we have. Together. Again and again. We’ll exhaust you. Grind you down. You won’t have ti to think, let alone read our minds. You can’t read a blade coming for your throat if it’s already halfway through your neck.”
The third elder laughed then. He was a stout man with short graying hair and a scar running across his nose behind his mask. He cracked his knuckles and grinned wide.
“Hehehe. Our leader is right. I never wanted to run away from a fight with you in the first place,” he said, his voice full of amusent.
“It’s four against one. I’ll admit—your barrier is a damn good one. It’s tough and fancy, I’ll give you that. But you made one mistake. You locked yourself in here with us.”
His grin widened as he pointed at Aksai.
“You want to fight? Fine. Let’s fight. Don’t bla us for bullying you with numbers. You made your choice. Just don’t cry later when the Iron Mountain Sect adds your na to the list of the dead.”
Aksai chuckled as the third sect elder finished his mockery. His eyes sparkled with amusent, and the corner of his lips curled into a half-smile.
“Bullying soone with numbers, huh?” he repeated, shaking his head as if the thought was a little sad, a little funny. “Not a bad idea. Well… two can play that ga.”
He lifted his right hand slowly and snapped his fingers.
The sound echoed softly within the wooden do that still trapped them all. At first, nothing happened. The sect elders tensed, waiting for sothing—anything—to strike.
But it wasn’t an attack. It was summoning.
One by one, figures began to appear from the shadows behind Aksai out of thin air.
Twenty in total.
Tall and broad-shouldered, so slim and lithe, others heavily built—these beings looked exactly like Spirit cultivators.
They wore simple robes, and their eyes glowed with a dull, lifeless light. Their faces were smooth, calm, and expressionless. They didn’t blink. They didn’t breathe. And they didn’t speak.
But they stood like living warriors, staring at the sect elders with cold, unwavering gazes.
Their skin, though, told a different story.
Their skin was pale and stretched strangely in places. So parts had clear stitch marks, like old cloth patched together. Their limbs moved smoothly, but the way their bodies were sewn at the joints made it clear they were not entirely natural.
Aksai had created these disposable fiends while traveling from the Eternal Beast Dynasty to Rai City. Fortunately, he had encountered many demonic cultivators along the way—those who had dared to target him for various reasons.
They had made excellent “raw material” for the new batch of Sentient Scarecrow Fiends he had been planning to create.
Of course, Aksai had improved his fiend creation process once again. By this point, he could fuse many “raw ingredients” together to increase the puppets’ potential.
As a result, all 20 puppets now possessed Foundation Building realm power. Their bodies had also been strengthened through the Bronze Body realm Qi cultivation concept, giving them additional durability as both at shields and frontline puppets.
The sudden appearance of 20 Foundation Building-level puppets was a ga-changing event inside the wooden barrier do.
The four sect elders stepped back on instinct. The pressure these creatures released was thick and oppressive.
Every single one of them radiated power at the level of a Foundation Building expert—so early stage, so mid stage. The air around them warped slightly as their auras flared.
The second sect elder, a thin man with dark rings under his eyes, looked at Aksai in disbelief.
“You… You’re a puppeteer?” he asked, his voice low and uncertain.
But before Aksai could reply, the man shook his head and corrected himself.
“No. That can’t be. Even the most gifted puppeteer can’t control this many Foundation Building puppets at once—especially not while still being in the sa realm as them.”
He looked again at the creatures, eyes wide with confusion and fear.
“They move too naturally… They respond like real people. But… they’re not alive. Are they puppets? Or sothing else entirely?”
He looked at Aksai again, his voice dropping into a whisper.
“What… what the hell are those things? And what the hell are you?”
===
AN: Two more chapters will be uploaded within a few hours. 🙂
Eragon was written by a teenager.
Christopher Paolini was only 15 when he started writing it and self-published the first edition.
User Comments
0 comments from readers