160: Chapter 160 Bronze Golem

“Huff... huff... huff...”

Big Fool and Wulu looked as if they had been fished out of water, their bodies thoroughly soaked in cold sweat.

They panted heavily, their faces still bearing the lingering, indelible traces of fear and dread.

Just now, they really felt like they were about to die.

That extreme pain of having their Soul torn apart and devoured bit by bit was ten thousand times more terrifying than any injury to the Physical Body!

“My Lord... th-thank you...”

Gong Qianxue's pretty face was also deathly pale.

She looked at the man who still stood as straight as a pine, as if that terrifying outburst, which had been like that of a god or demon, had caused him no exhaustion at all.

Her normally cold, clear eyes were filled with endless gratitude and a strange, brilliant luster.

Gao Feng did not speak; he merely slowly restrained the massive blood energy on his body that had not yet fully calmed down.

His complexion was also slightly pale.

That move just now looked domineering and peerless, executed with effortless ease, but in reality, it had almost drained nearly seventy percent of the blood energy in his body!

This was the first time he had felt so weak since his Breakthrough to the Fifth-Rank Peak.

“It seems this Tongtian Pagoda truly lives up to its reputation.”

He muttered to himself, raising the danger level of this ancient ruin to a whole new Rank in his mind.

Just at this moment, with a “hum,” a slight energy fluctuation came from the end of the corridor.

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw that at the end of the circular corridor, on an ancient bluestone altar, a soft white beam of light shot up into the sky!

Inside the beam of light, a strange precious pearl, about the size of a fist, crystal clear and seemingly condensed from the purest moonlight, exuding an aura capable of soothing the heart and nourishing the Soul, was floating quietly.

It seemed to be a reward for them successfully passing the first layer's trial.

“This is...”

A flash of surprise appeared in Gao Feng's eyes!

He had seen records of this item in the “Record of Rare Treasures Under Heaven” he had obtained from the Tianshan Alliance treasury!

“Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl!”

“Legend has it that it is a supreme treasure refined by ancient gods who collected the Taiyin Star Core from above the Nine Heavens and the ten-thousand-year Soul Jade from the depths of the earth!”

“This item can not only protect the mind and spirit, resisting all Mental Energy attacks and Heart Demon invasions! It can also, in a subtle way, continuously nourish and temper the wearer's Mental Energy and Soul Origin!”

“It is the supreme amulet that all Martial Artists with weak Mental Energy dream of!”

Gao Feng looked at the Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl emitting a soft white light, his heart burning with intensity!

This was simply a supreme treasure tailor-made for Big Fool!

He did not hesitate at all, immediately stepping forward to take the Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl from the stone altar, then turned and walked over to Big Fool, who was still in fear and weakness, and hung it directly around Big Fool's thick neck.

A miraculous scene occurred!

The moment the Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl touched Big Fool's skin, a soft and cool, strange energy instantly surged into his body!

His head, which had been aching and splitting due to the overdraft of Mental Energy, was, at this moment, like a drought meeting sweet rain, instantly restored to clarity!

His eyes, which had turned blood-red due to fear and pain, also quickly faded of their blood color, returning to their usual simple and clear state!

Even his usually somewhat muddled and simple temperament gained a trace of unprecedented composure and wisdom!

“How do you feel?” Gao Feng looked at him and asked with a smile.

“So... so comfortable...” Big Fool touched his head, which was no longer in pain, and then touched the precious pearl on his chest that was emitting a cool aura, smiling foolishly.

“I feel like my brain has never been this clear before!”

Hearing this, Gao Feng also nodded with satisfaction.

He knew that with the protection of this Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl, Big Fool, the top “humanoid Vicious Beast” under his command, had finally filled his last shortcoming!

In future battles, he would no longer fear any Mental Energy attacks!

He would become a truly impregnable war beast!

And this was just the harvest from the first layer of the Tongtian Pagoda.

Gao Feng raised his head, his gaze burning as he looked toward the deep stairs leading to the second layer.

His heart was filled with endless anticipation!

What other surprises would this ancient pagoda, filled with endless danger and supreme Opportunity, bring him?

“Let's go, let's go up and take a look.”

Gao Feng did not linger any longer; he took the lead and was the first to step onto the bluestone stairs leading to the second layer.

Big Fool, Wulu, and Gong Qianxue also immediately followed, each of their faces carrying a trace of undisguised excitement and vigilance.

The stairs were not long, spiraling upwards, and after about a hundred steps, a more magnificent and spacious giant space appeared before their eyes.

This was a huge circular plaza, its area as wide as several football fields.

The floor of the plaza was paved with a single piece of unknown black metal, smooth as a mirror, exuding a cold and hard texture.

On the dome, countless night-luminescent pearls emitting soft white light were embedded, illuminating the entire plaza as bright as day.

And on that empty plaza, over a hundred bronze creations, each a zhang tall, stood neatly.

Those bronze creations looked no different from real people, wearing heavy bronze battle armor and holding various heavy weapons such as sabers, spears, swords, halberds, giant axes, and long lances.

They just stood there quietly, motionless, as if they had been sleeping here for who knows how many tens of thousands of years.

A cold, murderous, and oppressive feeling filled with the aura of iron, blood, and war rushed toward them from these bronze creations, making the four people who had just stepped into the plaza feel a palpitation.

“These... are Puppets?” Gong Qianxue looked at those lifelike bronze creations, her cold, pretty face filled with disbelief.

The craftsmanship of these bronze Puppets was truly too exquisite!

Whether it was every scale on the armor or every pattern on the weapons, they were all carved so finely and so realistically, simply like perfect works of art!

“Such a strong sense of oppression!” Wulu's complexion also became extremely grave.

He could clearly feel that within these seemingly dead bronze Puppets, there was a terrifying power contained that was enough to make even him feel heart-trembling fear!

“Everyone be careful, these things are not simple.”

Gao Feng's eyes narrowed, and the sky-splitting star river blade in his hand had already quietly unsheathed.

His deep eyes, like a hawk's, vigilantly scanned every bronze Puppet on the plaza.

He had a strong premonition that these bronze Puppets were probably far more troublesome and lethal than the previous Yin soldiers!

And just at the moment the four of them stepped into the central area of the plaza!

A sudden change occurred!

“Hum——!!!!!”

The entire huge circular plaza trembled violently without warning!

The mirror-smooth black metal on the ground instantly lit up with countless dense red patterns filled with a sense of energy!

Those patterns, like the meridians of a human body, spread rapidly and finally converged at the feet of those hundred-plus bronze Puppets!

“Click! Click! Click!”

A burst of teeth-aching metallic friction sounds rang out!

Those hundred-plus bronze Puppets that had slept for who knows how many tens of thousands of years had their eyes light up at the same time, all in unison, with two points of scarlet light like the flames of Hell!

A cold, ruthless, and terrifying will born only for slaughter descended with a bang!

Those hundred-plus bronze Puppets seemed to have been injected with a Soul at this moment!

The sabers, spears, swords, and halberds in their hands were all raised in unison, pointing at the four figures in the center of the plaza, which appeared incomparably small in their eyes!

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

The heavy footsteps, like the beating of war drums, were uniform and deafening!

The hundred-plus bronze Puppets formed terrifying battle formations, eerie and filled with the aura of iron and blood, and took heavy steps, launching a ruthless death charge toward Gao Feng and the other three!

Although their speed was not as eerie and swift as the Yin soldiers on the first layer, every step they took seemed to make the entire earth tremble!

That overwhelming and terrifying sense of oppression gathered by the hundred-plus steel beasts was enough to make any elite army tremble with fear and collapse instantly!

“Damn it! The strength of each one is comparable to a Fifth-Rank ‘Bone-Refining’ Great Master!”

Gao Feng's complexion became unprecedentedly grave at this moment!

He could clearly feel that these bronze Puppets, whether in strength or defense, had reached an extremely terrifying level!

What was even more terrifying was that there were a full hundred of them!

And they also knew how to form battle formations and cooperate with each other!

This was simply a death legion composed of over a hundred tireless, fearless Fifth-Rank Great Masters!

“Big Fool! Wulu! Hold them off!”

Gao Feng let out a thunderous roar!

He knew that when facing this kind of frontal charge, like a torrent of steel, any movement technique or skill would appear so pale and weak!

The only thing he could do was to resist head-on!

Using stronger power and harder defense to forcefully withstand this first and most lethal death charge!

“Roar——!!!”

“Leave it to us!”

Big Fool and Wulu looked at each other and simultaneously let out a sky-shaking roar like beasts!

There was not a shred of fear in their eyes, only that endlessly burning Battle Intent!

They handed the “Soul-Stabilizing Divine Pearl” they had just obtained to Wulu, whose Mental Energy was also not strong, to wear.

Then, both of them simultaneously drove the massive and vast blood energy brought by the “Blood Qi Vermilion Fruit,” which was like a furnace, to its extreme without reservation!

“Boom!”

“Boom!”

Two blood-colored “Great Suns,” even more solid and violent than the one Gao Feng had manifested before, rose up from behind them with a bang!

Their bodies, which were already as sturdy as mountains, swelled up by another circle at this moment!

The muscles all over their bodies bulged high like coiled dragons, filled with explosive power!

They were like two invincible war gods who had walked out from the ancient primordial era, firmly holding the very front of the team!

“Come on! You bunch of scrap metal!”

Wulu let out an arrogant roar filled with wildness and disdain!

And just at this moment, the torrent of steel composed of over a hundred bronze Puppets finally rushed to their front!

Rushing to the front were ten heavily armored Puppets holding bronze giant axes as large as door panels!

The giant axes in their hands were raised high, carving chilling glints filled with the aura of death and destruction through the air.

With terrifying power capable of splitting mountains and shattering rocks, they hacked down forcefully towards the two figures, who appeared as insignificant as ants in their eyes!

"Clang—!!!"

A deafening, terrifying sound of metal clashing, as if it would completely tear apart one's eardrums, exploded!

Big Fool used his massive tower shield, crafted from elite black iron mixed with meteorite iron from beyond the heavens, to forcefully withstand the full-force hacks of five of those giant axes!

Sparks flew everywhere!

A terrifying, visible wave of air exploded outwards!

Big Fool's mountain-like, steady body was actually shaken by that overwhelming, terrifying force, causing him to stagger back three large steps—"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Each step left a terrifying footprint several inches deep on the incredibly hard black metal ground!

The web between his thumb and index finger holding the tower shield burst open instantly, and blood stained the entire surface of the shield!

On the other side, Wulu was even more miserable!

Although he relied on his beast-like combat intuition to narrowly avoid his vital points, two giant axes still hacked fiercely into his shoulder and back!

"Clang! Clang!"

Two dull, loud sounds, like axes striking steel, rang out!

His strong Physical Body, comparable to a Sixth-Rank Grandmaster, had actually been hacked into by these two axes, leaving two terrifying dents deep enough to see bone!

Although he wasn't bleeding, the piercing, bone-deep pain still made him let out a painful grunt!

His entire body, like a kite with a broken string, flew backwards in a sorry state!

"Wulu!"

Gong Qianxue saw this and let out a cry of alarm!

Without a second thought, she drew the bow in her hands!

"Hum—!"

A special arrow, crafted entirely from thousand-year cold iron and quenched with her unique Ice Soul True Qi on the arrowhead, was nocked onto the bowstring!

"Ice-Sealing... Arrow Rain!"

She poured all of her True Qi into this single arrow!

"Swish—!"

The arrow, containing extreme chill, flew off the string!

In mid-air, it split into ten, and the ten turned into a hundred!

Instantly, it formed a rain of death composed of countless ice crystal arrows, enveloping the ten heavily armored Puppets like a deluge!

"Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!"

However, a despairing scene occurred.

That terrifying Arrow Rain, capable of freezing rivers and piercing city walls, only erupted in a series of dense, crisp sounds when it struck the bronze Puppets!

Then, it bounced off powerlessly!

It merely left insignificant, shallow white marks on their heavy bronze armor, not even leaving a decent scratch!

"Ho... How is this possible?!"

Gong Qianxue stared at the unbelievable scene before her, completely stunned!

Her full-force strike, capable of severely injuring a Fifth-Rank Peak Great Master, couldn't even break through the defense of these Puppets?!

What kind of monsters were these?!

And at this moment of distraction, a Puppet holding a bronze spear had silently appeared on her flank!

The sharp spear tip, flickering with a chilling glint and carrying an aura of death capable of piercing everything, stabbed fiercely towards her slender waist!

Too fast!

Too sudden!

Gong Qianxue had no time to react at all!

She could only watch helplessly as the cold, deadly spear tip rapidly enlarged in her pupils!

For the first time, her face turned deathly pale with what could be called "despair"!

However, at that critical, hair-breadth moment, a ghost-like black figure appeared before her without any warning!

"Clang—!!!"

A crisp sound of metal clashing rang out!

The bronze spear, capable of piercing mountains, was effortlessly blocked by a dark golden longblade that shimmered with the brilliance of a galaxy!

"Qianxue, fall back!"

Gao Feng's cold, yet reassuring voice whispered in her ear.

"Leave this to me."

Before the words faded, the sky-splitting star river blade in his hand flicked upwards, and a masterfully crafted spiral force erupted!

The bronze Puppet holding the spear was actually made to stagger by this strange force, falling to the side!

Gao Feng seized this fleeting Opportunity!

He did not attack the Puppet's thick chest armor.

He executed the "Phantom Steps Without a Trace" under his feet, his figure turning into a blurred afterimage, instantly circling behind the Puppet!

The sky-splitting star river blade in his hand, like the most precise scalpel, stabbed fiercely into the joint connecting the Puppet's neck and shoulder at an extremely tricky angle!

"Shhh—!"

A very faint sound, as if a hot knife cutting through butter, rang out!

The indestructible bronze joint was silently severed by the supreme sharpness of the sky-splitting star river blade!

The bronze Puppet's giant arm, along with the spear in its hand, instantly separated from its body!

"Just as I thought!"

A shocking brilliance erupted in Gao Feng's eyes!

In the lightning-fast exchange just now, he had already discovered the weakness of these bronze Puppets!

Although they were powerful and had astonishing defenses, their movement patterns were slightly rigid!

Moreover, to ensure flexibility of movement, their joint connections must be the weakest part of their entire bodies!

As long as he could find and destroy these joints, these seemingly invincible steel beasts would become a pile of harmless scrap metal!

"Big Fool! Wulu! Attack their joints! Knees! Elbows! Necks!"

Gao Feng let out a thunderous roar, telling the two who were still struggling to hold on about his discovery!

"Understood! My Lord!"

Upon hearing this, Big Fool and Wulu were invigorated!

They no longer engaged in meaningless head-on clashes with the Puppets!

Instead, they began to use their agility, which far exceeded that of the Puppets, to skirmish and maneuver around them!

Big Fool used his massive tower shield, sometimes blocking, sometimes bashing, constantly disrupting the Puppets' attack rhythm and creating attacking opportunities for Wulu!

Wulu completely transformed into the most cunning and lethal prairie wolf king!

Relying on his beast-like combat intuition, he dodged the Puppets' lethal attacks again and again, picking up two board axes to smash fiercely into the fragile knee joints of those Puppets!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

For a time, the battle situation on the entire plaza reversed instantly!

Although Gao Feng and the other two were still at an absolute numerical disadvantage, they relied on their tacit cooperation and battle wisdom that far exceeded the Puppets to force those hundreds of steel beasts to run around in circles!

One by one, the bronze Puppets, under their precise strikes, were dismantled into piles of scattered parts, collapsing to the ground, unable to move again!

Gao Feng was even more like a god of slaughter shuttling across the battlefield!

He executed the "Phantom Steps Without a Trace" to the extreme, his entire person turning into black afterimages that were almost impossible for the naked eye to capture, shuttling back and forth within the airtight Puppet battle formation!

Every time the sky-splitting star river blade in his hand swung out, it would inevitably kick up a cloud of shiny metal shavings!

Every time it flashed, a bronze Puppet would inevitably be hacked to pieces!

He was like the most efficient and cold-blooded butcher, elegantly dissecting these steel beasts that had long since become lambs for the slaughter in his eyes!

"Damn it! This can't go on like this!"

Although Gao Feng was constantly dismantling these Puppets, his expression became increasingly grave!

Because he discovered that the number of these Puppets was simply too great!

Moreover, they knew no fatigue, no pain!

But they were flesh and blood!

Their physical strength and True Qi were limited!

If they continued to consume like this, they would sooner or later be exhausted to death here!

"Must find and destroy their energy core!"

Gao Feng's gaze, like the sharpest falcon, swept rapidly across the hundreds of identical bronze Puppets!

He was searching!

Searching for the only formation core hidden within this massive Puppet battle formation!

Finally, his gaze locked onto a bronze Puppet that was completely different from the others, guarded at the very center by dozens of the tallest shield-bearing Puppets!

That Puppet's entire body presented a noble dark gold color!

It held no weapons in its hands.

However, its pair of scarlet electronic eyes were brighter than any other Puppet, and even more filled with the light of wisdom!

It just stood there quietly, as if a supreme king planning strategies, coldly commanding its army of death!

"It's you!"

An unprecedented, brilliant killing intent erupted in Gao Feng's eyes!

He no longer had any hesitation; he poured all the remaining power in his body without reservation into the sky-splitting star river blade in his hand!

"Big Fool! Wulu! Gong Qianxue!"

"Create an Opportunity for me!"

He let out a thunderous roar that shook the entire plaza!

"Yes! My Lord!"

The three roared in unison!

As if they had a tacit understanding, they made the same choice at the same time!

They actually gave up all dodging and defense at the same time!

With a near-suicidal, resolute posture, they launched the craziest charge towards the dozens of shield-bearing Puppets guarding the formation core!

They wanted to use their flesh and blood to smash open a path to victory for their king!

And Gao Feng seized this only Opportunity created for him by his companions with their lives and blood!

His entire person turned into a stream of dark golden light that was brilliant to the extreme!

With a terrifying speed that transcended sound and transcended everyone's understanding, he instantly penetrated the gap in the defensive line that had been forcefully smashed open by Big Fool and Wulu with their bodies!

Appearing before that dark golden core Puppet!