End of the Magic Era

“Stop it.” Lin Yun shouted.

He charged towards the casting puppet. The best opportunity to attack it was after it shot its ray of light. Or it could be said that it was the best opportunity to dismantle it.

It would be a shame if he didn’t dismantle a puppet with spell strengthening ability.

As Lin Yun rapidly approached the casting puppet, that dual-wielding puppet immediately left Laibo behind to dash towards Lin Yun.

Laibo sneered and a white light appeared on the edge of his black sword. His body instantly disappeared as he sent a dozen Aura Slashes in a row.

The shuriken-like Aura Slashes were revolving as they appeared before the dual-wielding puppet, intercepting it. The huge deathly still aura burst out and greatly slowed the speed of the dual-wielding puppet. That puppet’s speed greatly slowed down and the light of the Lightning Speed rune slowly darkened, seemingly suffering from the corrosion of that deathly still aura.

On the other side, Lin Yun was already getting close to the casting puppet. Enderfa’s elemental storm and Syudos’ flood of flames were already flowing over and suppressed this puppet who could burst at any time.

Lin Yun kept spitting law runes and these law runes transformed into a flood and carved themselves onto the puppet’s body, making strange patterns emerge alongside these law runes.

The mana within the puppet’s body kept resisting, but its speed couldn’t keep up with the speed of Lin Yun’s law runes. The huge amount of law runes instantly submerged this casting puppet.

The law runes severed the mana supply coming from its arms, severed its four limbs’, before finally severing its torso’s. All of its mana was suppressed into its mana reactor through force. After finally cutting off the puppet’s control over its body, Lin Yun placed his hand on it.

After three seconds, the puppet exploded into components which piled on the ground.

When Laibo, who was still fighting in the distance, saw this scene, his hand couldn’t help shaking and the dual-wielding puppet attacked his Battle Aura Armor. A crack appeared on the grey battle armor and even the protection he was wearing ended up with a crack.

‘What a monster… That guy actually tore apart a Heaven Puppet with his bare hands. Is there a puppet this guy cannot dismantle?

‘He is only a 9th Rank Archmage… What a monster… Have the people living outside really become that powerful?

‘Even if they aren’t necessarily as scary as this guy, they shouldn’t be too far behind. No good, I have to do everything I can to persuade the Abbot to end the seclusion once I’m back!’

Lin Yun rapidly ended the battle. The casting puppet, which posed the biggest threat, had already been turned into a pile of components and Laibo no longer needed to focus most of his attention on it. He turned and faced the dual-wielding puppet.

A 2nd Rank Heaven powerhouse full burst wasn’t something this 1nd Rank Heaven Puppet could contend against. Especially with Laibo’s Deathless Aura, he had a huge restraining effect on these puppets.

The fighting style of the Secret Monastery wasn’t to rely on formidable defenses, but to excel at blocking during battle. It was the first time the dual-wielding sword puppet’s attack landed, and it was due to Laibo being distracted.

The fierce deathless aura burst out. The surrounding elemental power and mana started being silenced. After the dual-wielding puppet entered the ten meters area around Laibo, its speed was clearly reduced and the movement of its mana slowed. The rune on its forehead was also affected by the deathless aura and slowly dimmed. The dual-wielding puppet’s speed grew slower and slower.

Half a minute later, the aura released by Laibo slashed at the dual-wielding puppet three times in a row. In an instant, the rune on that puppet’s forehead stopped shining and the speed buff thoroughly disappeared. Laibo’s black sword slashed from a crafty angle and pierced through the small crack on the puppet’s neck. With a slight shake of his wrist, the longsword completely sliced through.

The dual-wielding puppet’s head flew off and the grey deathless aura rapidly infected the entire puppet’s body.

In less than three seconds, the energy emitted by the puppet turned deathly still. Aside from the mana reactor still emitting energy, all of its components had turned deathly still and no longer operated.

As for the control center of the puppet, it was located in its head and was infected by a huge amount of deathly still aura. Those flickering scarlet eyes were now grey as the control system was completely at a standstill.

Lin Yun walked over from behind and tore that puppet apart with one hand.

All the puppets had been eliminated, either turned into scrap metal or into components. The entire process didn’t last more than three minutes.

Lin Yun put away all of the components he dismantled and put special attention on the pieces of the Heaven Puppets, storing them aside. Their ability runes had to be carefully studied to see if it was possible to transplant them.

Many alchemists would research this in the future. In the Puppet Plane, the loser of a battle might lose their special ability rune while the winning puppet could transplant the loser’s ability rune onto themselves.

But alchemists had yet to find a way to transplant these runes. After a puppet died, the rune would only be worth for research, they simply couldn’t be transplanted. There had been successful transplants later on, but they weren’t able to display the runes’ full power.

For this reason, some people ended up attacking the Puppet Plane to obtain the successful transplant method of the puppets.

But it was unfortunately left unsettled since the development of alchemy techniques would focus on large scale weapons, mana crystal cannons, magic battleships, and huge defensive mage towers in the future. Those were most important during that era.

And as mages became more powerful, especially after the appearance of the Mana Baptism Potion, Archmages became as numerous as dogs and Heaven Mages were everywhere. No one would spend a lot of effort to create a puppet which wasn’t as good as mages.

Not to mention, it was a lot harder for a puppet to advance to the Heaven Rank than it was for mages, which was why this technique hadn’t been fleshed out by the time Noscent’s mana disappeared. It only had a very low success rate and the power wasn’t great.

Once Lin Yun put away all those components, Laibo pointed at a collapsing building in the back.

“My junior disciples should be in an array behind that building. I could possibly tear that array apart, but something happened when I tried earlier and a few of my junior disciples ended up poisoned. I don’t know how it is now…”

Laibo had a worried expression but Lin Yun didn’t mind.

The location Laibo pointed to was the place where the puppets underwent their final tempering and debugging. Many of the puppets would already be activated when walking out of there.

According to the map, that was a poison tempering factory, tempering some of the puppets’ weapons in poison. On the map, the danger symbol was second only to the easternmost part of the ruins in terms of danger and the area was completely covered by an array.

After passing through the ruins of the building and leaving their current location, they saw a zone covered in a dark mist, making it impossible to see the inside.

And outside the array, there were a few huge runes floating. When they were a hundred meters away, those runes immediately transmitted information in their minds.

These were warning runes, it warned all approaching people that something had happened, the poison mist was leaking, and that until this was handled, approaching was forbidden.

Lin Yun was speechless before he even approached. This wasn’t an offensive array, it was actually a kind of defensive array. Moreover, it wasn’t defending against the outside, but it was defending the outside from what was inside. As long as the array was active, the inside would be separated from the outside. Even the air and the elements would be firmly trapped inside.

And through the cover of light, Lin Yun was able to see through the mist with one glance. That was a complex type of poison containing a few kinds of deadly toxins.

If anyone else under the Heaven Rank was stuck inside, they would have absolutely died. However, the monsters of the Secret Monastery wouldn’t die from poisoning.

But if this went on and they were trapped for ten days to half a month, they would definitely be screwed. Their huge vitality wasn’t limitless, they can’t resist forever.

“Sir Mafa, can you break through this array? There is still poison inside, my junior disciples wouldn’t die from the poison, would they?”

Laibo was nervous. As a swordsman, he simply couldn’t understand these kinds of things. Recalling his previous domineering actions, he felt somewhat regretful.

Lin Yun shook his head.

“It’s fine, it’s just a small problem. This array’s defenses are targeted towards the inside, not the outside. But the poison gas is already leaking, this array doesn’t have the power to resist, as long as it’s not an attack.”

After saying that, Lin Yun slowly extended his hand and touched that membrane. Laibo’s eyes widened as he saw Lin Yun’s hand easily pass through the light membrane and enter the array before he slowly pulled it back..

But he ended up catching a faint layer of dark green mist. The layer of dark green mist lingered on top of Lin Yun’s hand and it looked like it was trying to spread to Lin Yun’s body but was blocked by some sort of power.

Lin Yun frowned as he sensed the poisonous gas. The Magic Array revolved and calculated how many kinds of poisons the dark green mist contained.

“Sir Mafa, how is it? This poison gas…”

Lin Yun faintly shook his wrist and a wisp of power swept across it, instantly dispersing the poison gas on his palm.

“It doesn’t matter too much. The poison might be very complicated, contain many kinds of poisons, and require a long period of detoxification, but your Secret monastery people won’t die within ten days.”

Laibo sighed in relief, he was completely oblivious to the fact that Lin Yun’s words showed a deep understanding of their Secret Monastery.

“Sir Laibo, you take care of attacking the array.”

Laibo was startled.

“Sir Mafa, what are you thinking? Poison spread last time I attacked…”

Lin Yun frowned and scowled.

“Sir Laibo, the poison there has already turned into a mist. No matter how much you attack, nothing else would appear. I’m only letting you attack so that the people trapped in the array get notified and approach. Then, I’ll cut open an exit in the array to let them out, but the poison mist has to remain locked. If this array was broken, the poison mist would spread through the entire ruins.”

Laibo awkwardly smiled and didn’t dare to say anything else.

“I’ll do as you say, Sir Mafa, even if I don’t understand…”

Laibo swung his black sword and a grey Aura Slash fell onto the array. The deathly still aura spread and a dozen-meter-wide area of the barrier dimmed, it even spread through the array.

Laibo looked at this scene and his eyes flashed with amazement. Lin Yun’s hand could casually pass through the light barrier, but his attack was completely stopped.

Lin Yun didn’t have time to care about Laibo’s surprise. He observed the array and directly took out crystal pens and Star Ink before starting to decipher the array.

He controlled four Mana Hands to hold four crystal pens which flowed like running water. In less than three minutes, the floor within ten meters was covered in numerous cracking runes.

But Lin Yun didn’t stop once he was done, he had left a blank space in the center of the cracking runes, in the most important location. The crystal pens didn’t stop, but Lin Yun changed the ink to a kind of Mana Ink.

The crystal pen covered in Mana Ink kept writing and mana condensed runes floated in the air. The runes were only a finger away from the array. At this distance, the stable mana wouldn’t make the array react.

After five minutes, ten meters of the light barrier were completely covered in a layer of illusory runes.

These runes looked like an entrance, and in the entrance was a blank space that had yet to be filled.

“Sir Laibo, please attack and confirm that they are here. This won’t last long, if they don’t show up within three minutes, then they can only remain trapped inside.”

Laibo immediately let out three small Aura Slashes, and a few seconds later, the light membrane fluctuated. It seemed that someone was attacking the light membrane from the inside.

Lin Yun controlled the crystal pen and wrote the most important runes within the cracking array. In an instant, the numerous characters on the ground faintly shone and countless runes appeared to be alive. At the very center, the rays of light converged into a blade of light that fell onto the light membrane.

At the same time, Lin Yun’s crystal pen wrote the last few runes. The string of magic runes transformed into a light membrane that slowly attached to the array’s barrier.

The cracking array’s light tore a breach through the light barrier, and everything within four meters thoroughly melted.

But at the same time, the light membrane covered the ray of light and stabilized the ray of light.

Lin Yun spat out a rune and the double door opened on that light membrane. Moreover, a faint layer of power was restraining the poisonous gas inside.

Panicked voices echoed from within.

“Senior Brother Laibo, is that you? Save us quick, we have been poisoned and it won’t be long before we can no longer resist…;”

“Senior Brother Laibo, we will die soon, we are all dying…”

Laibo immediately shouted as he heard those voices.

“Hurry up and come out! Hurry!”

After yelling, he seemed to remember something and promptly asked Lin Yun, “Sir Mafa, can they come out now?”

Lin Yun remained silent and nodded.

Those radiant doors opened and five young Sword Saints staggered out.

After these guys came out, Lin Yun immediately sealed the doors and kept the poison within the array. As long as this array had energy, this poison would remain sealed inside. These ruins had been abandoned for such a long time yet it was still full of energy. Lin Yun wasn’t worried about the poison gas leaking.

Those five young Sword Saints rushed out, covered in a layer of their own power, but their skin was dyed green and wisps of green smoke was lingering on their bodies. It was odorless but carried a terrifying toxicity. Their clothes had been ruined beyond recognition by the poison and even their weapons were infected by the poison.

Four of them were sitting on the ground as if paralyzed, all of their strength used to resist the poison with deathless aura. As they resisted the poison, their lifeforce was being ignited and kept healing their corroded bodies.

One of them had a completely dark green skin and was exhaling dark green air. The lifeforce burning within his body kept weakening and the deathless aura was becoming weaker and weaker.

The deathless aura’s deathly still pressure coupled with their monstrous vitality allowed them to resist. Once their lifeforce was exhausted, they would die from organ failure and no one would be able to save them. The poison they suppressed would burst out like a volcanic eruption and destroy their bodies.

“Senior Brother Laibo, please save me! I won’t be able to last long…”

That poisoned youth seemed to be in his late twenties and was the one who was poisoned the worst. He was now resisting by burning his lifeforce and deathless aura, while the other four were sitting on the ground and focusing on their deathless auras.