Rise of The Demon General

Chapter 365: Chapter 365. New Warden

Back at Shi Zi’s mansion, the old puppet maker returned to work immediately after sending off his guests. He was excited to finally complete his great project. Once operational, this battle puppet would be the first runic-level battle puppet in this era. His name would be forever remembered by the people of this epoch!

He continued to toil until late at night. He was already in the final phase. He had worked on this battle puppet for a very long time. He only needed the power source to complete it, which he now had. What he had done since yesterday was calibrate the battle puppet to accommodate the power source acquired by Amon.

After nonstop work, he finally had the battle puppet ready before midnight. He inserted the power source into the battle puppet. The inside were complex clusters of cables and wires. He carefully attached these cables and wires to the power source one by one.

After everything was attached, he checked them to ensure there was no mistake. Finding no error, he proceeded to fill the fuel pod with lots of aer stone. He inserted the fuel pod into the allocated slot. The cables connected to the pod started glowing. The glow flowed through the cables into the power source, which also started to glow.

Shi Zi climbed onto a prepared chair to reach the control input.

”Alright! Time to program you with some commands,” he exclaimed with excitement.

He felt a prick in his neck.

”Bloody heck! Why is there a mosquito in here?” He cursed. His hand instinctively reached for the spot where he felt the prick. What his fingers touched was a thin needle.

”What the...,” he pulled out and looked at the needle. His blood dripped from the needle’s sharp end. Covered in his blood, he saw that the sharp end had a black substance on it.

He watched his hand holding the needle start trembling, and then the entire room shook.

Except it was not the room that shook. It was Shi Zi’s perception. His body quivered as he fell from the chair he stood on. He started vomiting black blood.

The nearby worker puppets rushed to his aid. They checked his pulse and applied first aid. They gave him recovery and curative pills. Yet, they were ineffective. Black blood started pouring out of his nose, ears, and eyes. Before long, he stopped moving.

The worker puppets continued their attempts to help him for a few more minutes. When his life reading hadn’t improved after five minutes since it stopped, they stopped the rescue attempt. They rose and resumed their previous tasks, which were cleaning and tidying the place.

After the worker puppets were gone, Amon came out of hiding. He stood over Shi Zi’s corpse. The needle on the floor flew up and entered a small box in his hand.

Amon climbed up the chair Shi Zi was standing on a moment ago. He was now accessing the control input of the battle puppet. He had studied this control input intensively yesterday, with Shi Zi unknowingly helping him understand. Even so, he could only input simple commands. His puppet-making skills and knowledge were not yet enough to input complicated programs. That was okay, though. He currently only needed this battle puppet for a simple task.

After inputting the commands, Amon assembled all the outer shells of the battle puppet. The battle puppet now looked complete. Finishing the task, he gave the battle puppet a command.

”Activate.”

The battle puppet’s eyes shone with a red glow. It stood. At full height, the battle puppet measured almost five meters tall. It was bigger than the warden puppet inside the pocket dimension. Amon asked Shi Zi about this during their yesterday conversation. Shi Zi explained that the bigger size actually made his puppet inferior. This was because he compensated by using a lot of second-grade materials when building this puppet. He had to use thicker plates when he could have used thinner ones if he had the proper materials.

Shi Zi said that the size made the battle puppet heavier and thus, slower. It also consumed more energy to move, reducing its power output. All in all, it was a slightly inferior version of the warden puppet. Nevertheless, it had the raw power of a Lord Stage cultivator.

It was not an effective combat tool, though. He had to improve his skill in battle puppet programming if he wanted to properly utilize this battle puppet in combat. That would be for later. For now, he had only one task for this battle puppet.

He instructed the battle puppet to follow him. When he passed Shi Zi’s corpse, he picked up the old man’s space ring.

He then walked toward the portal box and activated it. The portal, which he entered yesterday, came back into view. He reentered this portal.

*

Yuka was pulling at the glowing chain behind her, straining it to its maximum length. Her face showed savage excitement. She knew she couldn’t break this chain, but sooner or later, the energy sustaining the chain would run out. When that happened, it would be her freedom. After millennia of imprisonment, the thought of freedom felt too tempting. She couldn’t wait for it to happen.

”Hm...?” She sensed someone approaching. She recognized the aura of this incoming person.

Amon appeared from the hallway. ”Still hard at work, I see,” he remarked.

”What are you doing here? I thought you would only come next month?” Yuka asked.

”This prison of yours is mine. I will come whenever I wish,” Amon answered.

’Such arrogance. I will very much enjoy eating him when I’m free,’ Yuka thought in her mind.

Amon walked to the pedestal where the control panel was. He interfaced with it.

”What are you doing?” Yuka asked.

”I am changing this place’s entry setting. Currently, it only allows someone with the cultivation of the Transformation Stage or weaker to enter. I am removing the limitation so I can enter even after my cultivation increases.”

”Hmph,” Yuka decided to ignore Amon. She returned to her effort in straining the chain.

”There is one thing that comes to my attention,” Amon said, which made Yuka turn to him again. ”You lied to me.”

”About what?” Yuka asked.

”Your prison chain. You said before that you need one hundred years to break it by straining it the way you do it now. That is a lie. I can see the power reading of the chain from this control panel. One hundred years is the time it takes to break if you don’t do anything to it. The energy that supported that chain is much more deteriorated than it looked. If you kept it strain, you probably only need one year to break it.”

The woman’s face of Yuka displayed a wide smile. ”So what, demon cultivator? You can’t do anything about it. Don’t worry. I will uphold our bargain. I will give you my blood every month. You can collect my blood eleven more times.”

”Eleven? Because if I come another time, you will be the one who has my blood?” Amon asked.

”Hehe. Don’t worry too much about things that have yet come to pass. It is not guaranteed that I want to harm you,” Yuka chuckled. ”If you don’t trust me and are afraid that I will harm you, you can always leave my prison box somewhere far away from you. I will not know where you are, and we will not trouble each other.”

”Again, you lied to me,” Amon said.

”How so?” Yuka asked.

”While it is true I found no information about your kind in the current time, I did find some information about Zuanze Butterfly inside the database of this control panel,” Amon said. ”Your captor must have written down the information about your kind to look for clues on how to break you. It says here that your kind is an excellent tracker. Once you meet someone, you can remember the person’s aether signature. You can know his position from half a world away. Which means I will never be free of you once you escape this prison.”

”Hehe. Again, so what? What are you going to do? The wisest thing you should do now is to get on my good side. Maybe, just maybe, if I am satisfied with your service, I will let you live when I’m out. How about that? It’s a good offer if I may say so myself.”

”I have a different proposition,” Amon said. ”How about you remain here for a hundred years?”

Yuka was confused about what Amon meant. She then noticed two red glows from the hallway.

”Contain,” Amon said.

While Yuka was still puzzled by Amon’s words, something large burst out of the hallway. She failed to react because it was too unexpected. A metal fist slammed into her woman’s face. The power was so devastating she was sent flying back.

Before she could regain balance, another powerful punch slammed into her. She was forced a few meters back again.

”Damn you...!!!” Yuka yelled furiously. Her butterfly wings flapped. The hands of her woman’s body thrust forward to engage her attacker, but that hand was easily swatted. She received another punch. She crashed into the inner side of his prison diagram.

Her attacker, who was a giant battle puppet, stopped then. The battle puppet stood by the edge of the circular diagram, ready to beat her back if she dared set foot outside the diagram again. This battle puppet was her new warden.