163: Chapter 163 Thunder Spirit Puppet

He withdrew his consciousness from the connection to the spirit control tower.

His fingers felt the hilt of the Thunder-Striking Thorn inside his sleeve, his fingertips tracing along the anti-slip grooves one by one.

His heartbeat steadied, and the thumping sound in his chest changed from a fast rhythm to a slow drumbeat.

The first Puppet moved.

Its activation had no warning.

There was no warning from its body movements—its shoulders didn't sink, its center of gravity didn't shift, and its knees didn't even bend once.

A moment ago, it had been as still as a statue, the sound of the electric current inside its body as steady as snoring.

The next instant, it transformed into a purple-white afterimage, charging directly at Lin Xuan's face.

The stone slab beneath its feet exploded into a shallow pit the size of a bowl the moment it pushed off; before the debris could even fly up, its fist had already arrived.

It was fast. Faster than he had expected.

But not so fast that he couldn't react.

"Extreme Speed" brought more than just running speed—it enhanced his entire body's response time.

Before his brain could make a judgment, his body had already begun to Move based on his dynamic vision.

Lin Xuan pushed off with both feet, the stone slabs beneath his soles emitting two dull thuds as his body shifted three feet to the left.

The Puppet's fist grazed past his right ear. The fist wind wasn't wind—it was a scorching, burnt-smelling turbulence created by Thunder Spiritual Energy searing the air, like someone swiping a red-hot blade past his ear.

The spot on his ear that had been grazed burned intensely—not the pain of being hit, but the pain of a radiant burn, and a tiny blister formed on the surface of his skin in that instant.

There was no time to breathe.

The Puppet missed its strike, its right fist slamming into the stone wall.

The stone wall didn't just crack—it exploded.

A bowl-sized crater exploded on the wall, and debris shot out in all directions. A few finger-joint-sized stones hit Lin Xuan's back, and even through his robes, he could feel a stinging pain like being hit by a slingshot.

The Puppet didn't pull its fist out; using the force of its fist embedded in the stone wall, its entire body spun half a circle with its right arm as the axis, and its left leg swept towards Lin Xuan's knees.

When that leg swept over, Lin Xuan heard a sound of breaking air—not the sound of wind, but a sharp whistling caused by air being compressed to the extreme.

He jumped to avoid it, knees brought up to his chest, his soles less than two feet off the ground.

The Puppet's left leg swept beneath his feet, the low-pressure zone created by the leg wind causing his pant leg to be sucked forward and flutter.

Then he noticed a detail.

As the Puppet swept its left leg out, the position of its upper body was wrong.

Normally, when a person sweeps their leg, their upper body must tilt in the opposite direction to maintain balance.

But this Puppet's upper body was almost completely vertical, its center of gravity not shifting to the left—it was only exerting force with its left leg, while a very hidden electric current was gathering in its right leg, flowing from the knee toward the toes.

The current flowed through its right leg at an Extreme Speed. Lin Xuan could see that purple-white light surging from the base of the thigh toward the ankle, exploding into a small patch of electric arcs on the instep.

A feint.

Lin Xuan didn't have time to dodge. In mid-air, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, pouring Thunder Spiritual Energy crazily into the inner side of his arms.

The muscles in his arms, from shoulder to wrist, hardened like iron blocks under the infusion of spiritual energy, and a layer of pale purple lightning glowed on the surface of his skin—this was the automatic defensive reaction of his Body Refining Level 6 Peak Physical Body.

He could even feel the hairs on his arms standing on end within the lightning glow.

The Puppet's right leg kicked solidly into his crossed arms.

The force was so great that his soles slid over a zhang across the stone floor.

The friction between his soles and the stone slab emitted a piercing creaking sound—not the sound of shoes scraping the ground, but the sound of the Materials of his soles beginning to melt after being heated by high-speed friction.

A charred drag mark remained on the stone slab.

A large part of his robe sleeve was shattered; the fabric from wrist to elbow broke into a dozen fragments, fluttering in the air for a few turns before landing.

The pale purple lightning still circulated on the surface of his exposed arm, but the arm itself was burning—not the heat of spiritual energy infusion, but because his blood vessels were expanding crazily after the heavy blow, and the muscle tissue under his skin was rapidly engorging with blood.

It was sore. It felt like being hit head-on with an iron rod, the soreness traveling from his wrist all the way to his shoulder.

But he clenched his fist, and all five fingers could bend normally; the flexibility of his knuckles hadn't decreased. His bones hadn't cracked.

The Puppet lunged again.

Its attacks had no Move, no pattern, and one couldn't even speak of any structure.

A left punch missed, followed by a right punch; a right punch missed, followed by a left leg sweep; after the left leg sweep, a knee strike; when the knee strike was avoided, it used an elbow smash without waiting to retract.

It was a purely beast-like fighting style—a beast condensed from lightning, every strike aiming for vital points, never holding back, never probing.

But it was precisely this chaotic style of attack that was the trickiest. The Puppet didn't need to think, didn't need to adjust its breathing, and didn't need to worry about exhausting its stamina.

It could continuously punch and kick until the Thunder Spiritual Energy inside it was exhausted.

A pure killing machine that only attacked and never defended.

After dodging a dozen strikes in a row, Lin Xuan's back was already pressed against the corner of the Stone Chamber.

The Puppet's fists and feet rained down; he dodged a punch to the left, ducked an elbow by dropping his shoulder to the right, crouched to avoid a sweep, and back-stepped to clear a straight kick. Each dodge was minimal—not because he didn't want to create distance, but because this Stone Chamber was too small, ten zhang square, and three back-steps were enough to retreat from the center of the room to the corner.

In this corner, his back was against two stone walls; the Puppet couldn't attack him from behind, but he had nowhere left to retreat.

The eleventh punch missed. The twelfth punch missed.

The thirteenth punch—the Puppet's left fist slammed into the stone wall to his left, debris splashing onto half of his face. Then, a half-breath pause.

Lin Xuan had noticed this pause when he blocked the first strike.

The rhythm of the Puppet's punches wasn't random, but a fixed cycle—left punch, right punch, left punch, half-breath pause, right leg sweep.

The interval between each cycle was precise to an uncomfortable degree, as if the attack pattern had been locked by some kind of program.

That half-breath pause was to switch attack modes; in that instant, the large amount of Thunder Spiritual Energy inside it would transfer from its arms to its legs, and the flow of the current would have a very brief interruption.

Lin Xuan could see the lightning light at its shoulder dim for a split second—very short, at most one-third of a breath, and then the lightning light on its legs brightened for a split second at the same moment.

The Puppet's left fist slammed into the stone wall again. Debris splattered, and stone dust kicked up, blurring half his vision.

A half-breath pause.

Lin Xuan advanced instead of retreating.

His right foot kicked hard against the stone wall; as his sole pressed against the stone, he could feel the rough surface piercing through his shoe into the center of his foot.

His body catapulted out from the corner, not retreating, but rushing forward.

The Thunder-Striking Thorn slid from his sleeve into his palm, the anti-slip grooves of the hilt fitting perfectly between his fingers, and the tip of the blade lit up with a dazzling purple light—not the gentle purple light of his usual practice, but a blinding, near-purple-white radiance after pushing his spiritual energy to the limit; the electric arcs dancing on the tip of the blade surged from the size of a grain of rice to the size of a fingernail.

He slashed at the current node on the Puppet's right knee.

The moment the tip of the Thunder-Striking Thorn made contact with the Puppet's knee, it didn't emit the sound of metal cutting into flesh, but a sharper, ear-piercing cutting sound, like a steel saw cutting through an iron pipe.

Purple-white lightning burst from the cut, striking the back of Lin Xuan's hand holding the blade, and he could feel his skin being burned.

The current circuit inside the Puppet's knee had been severed—those bundles of electric current woven into the texture of muscle fibers snapped one after another, emitting crisp snapping sounds as they broke, like strings being cut.

A large cloud of white smoke emerged from the cut; it wasn't water vapor, but an ion mist formed by the instantaneous expansion of highly compressed Thunder Spiritual Energy after losing its restraint.

The smell of ozone in the air became several times stronger in an instant.