Chapter 1579: Abnormal Computing Power

Chapter 1579: Abnormal Computing Power

Inside the brilliantly glowing Great Spirit Stone Tomb, amidst the Mechanism Passage rife with a mix of water, fire, and toxic needles:

The life-and-death struggle between the Golden Core Cultivators and the eight Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors was still underway, but the tide of battle was turning increasingly grim.

Bai XiaoSheng fared reasonably well. As a Late Golden Core Stage cultivator with profound cultivation, his mastery over the ancestral sword techniques of the Bai Clan were exceptionally solid.

Each of his moves appeared plain and unremarkable, yet his Sword Qi was extraordinarily solid and condensed.

Even with the ferocious might of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors, he was capable of taking on two at once.

Gu Changhuai, on the other hand, was having a slightly harder time.

It was not that his cultivation was lacking; on the contrary, although he was only in the Golden Core middle stage, he possessed a Superior-Grade Spiritual Root, cultivated a Superior-Grade Cultivation Method, and practiced Dao-Enhancing Methods. In terms of raw strength, he was even slightly superior to an ordinary native Late Golden Core Stage cultivator of Qingchou.

The problem, however, was that he could not go all out.

He could not openly display his superior Dao Arts, and he had to keep his Seven-Colored Peacock Feathers Treasure Fan half-concealed as well. He feared that if he revealed obvious lineages of his Dao Arts, someone with an eye for detail might notice and spread the word, leading to disastrous consequences.

Bai XiaoSheng was in essentially the same boat as Gu Changhuai.

Yet, Bai XiaoSheng at least possessed exquisite sword techniques; even without his Lifebound Sword, he could still manage with an ordinary Spirit Sword to deal with the situation.

Gu Changhuai was different. His entire repertoire of abilities was tied directly to his Lifebound Magical Treasure.

Once a battle began, he had no choice but to use this Magical Treasure, yet he could not wield it freely. Half-hiding and half-using it left him feeling exceptionally stifled.

However, the two of them had no other choice.

If they truly cast aside all restraint, unleashing their Dao Arts with full force and baring all the trump cards of their inheritances, it would invite immense trouble once their fame spread afterward.

If others were to see that a direct descendant of the Bai Clan and a Dao Court Archive Officer abandoned their proper, upright stations to become Protectors of the Tongxian Cult, following some 'Esteemed Master' of dubious origin and unknown background to lead a mob of rioters... Even if the two jumped into the Yellow River, they would never wash themselves clean.

Furthermore, these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors were clad in heavy gilded armor with astonishingly high magical resistance. Wind Blades could not cut through it, nor could Magic Spells penetrate it.

Gu Changhuai's frustration mounted as the fight dragged on. He could only suppress his temper, relying on Wind Escape and Wind Blades to play a drawn-out game of cat and mouse with a single Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior.

Even Bai XiaoSheng and Gu Changhuai were in such a state.

The other native Golden Core Cultivators had it even worse.

Great General Chang had spent years fighting on the battlefield. He was skilled in commanding troops, bold and valiant in charging the front lines, and possessed the might to shatter armies, yet he was not adept at individual dueling.

Moreover, he was advanced in years; his Blood Qi had begun to decline, and he was far past his prime.

He could only rely on the profound, solid nature of his innate Earth-attribute Spiritual Roots and Cultivation Method, wielding the Mountain-Suppressing Spear to engage in a head-on war of attrition against the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior.

Pei Tanggong was likewise elderly with a head full of white hair, and his cultivation was not particularly outstanding.

However, he possessed immense financial wealth. His Three Origins Spirit Treasure Sword radiated dazzling treasure light; one could tell at a glance that it was a Lifebound Magical Treasure forged at exorbitant cost. He hacked directly against the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior, sparks flying wildly as he barely maintained a stalemate.

Wen Zhuangzhu's Cultivation Method Inheritance was rather peculiar; his Magical Treasure leaned more toward a summoning type of inheritance.

When unleashed, the three jade serpents at the head of the Jade Serpent Staff seemed to come alive, slithering out from the staff and transforming with the wind into Emerald pythons. Flickering emerald-like tongues, they bit and grappled with the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior.

The emerald pythons were formidable, coiling around the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior with tremendous constricting power, and their dripping green tongues likely harbored potent venom.

With the Jade Serpent Staff acting as the primary offensive force, Wen Zhuangzhu supported from the side with Magic Spells.

Against an ordinary cultivator, Wen Zhuangzhu's Magical Treasure would have been thoroughly sinister and vicious.

With three serpents and one man besieging the target, they could constrict, control, and poison, all while Wen Zhuangzhu remained free to move on his own.

Unfortunately, what they faced was a Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior, impervious to blades and spears, too hard for the serpents to bite, and completely immune to the venom.

Even with his deep cultivation, Wen Zhuangzhu's expression turned grim.

As for Lü Jingxiu, he had been taught from childhood to cultivate character and nurture restraint. His Jade Ruyi Magical Treasure was more than adequate for self-defense, but severely lacked lethal power.

That he managed to keep his life under the battle-axes of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior was entirely thanks to the care of Pei Tanggong and Wen Zhuangzhu, who occasionally found a moment to defuse his crises.

Six Golden Core Cultivators against eight Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors, the battle fell into a tense deadlock.

Inside the Mechanism Passage, beneath the butcher's blades of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors, flashes of sabers and swords mingled with bursting spiritual light, crisscrossing Magical Treasures, and incessant rumbles.

Yet, as time ticked by, the situation grew increasingly disadvantageous for the six Golden Core Cultivators.

Cultivators were ultimately human, flesh and blood. Once engaged in battle, their Blood Qi and Spiritual Power were continuously depleted.

Once their cultivation drained to a critical threshold and they could no longer activate Dao Arts, the situation would rapidly deteriorate, leaving death not far behind.

The Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors on the field, however, were not only cold and vicious, but their internal Spiritual Power also seemed inexhaustible. Fighting all the way to this point—three or four hundred exchanges in—their strength showed not the slightest hint of decline, nor did the speed of their attacks slow by a fraction.

They truly resembled cold, tireless, perpetual slaughtering machines.

Yet this defied common sense. There was no such thing as perpetual motion in this world; a Puppet could not possibly battle endlessly without depletion.

If their combat power suffered no decay, the only reason was...

Something is constantly supplying energy to these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors?

Bai XiaoSheng's brows knitted tightly.

Having cultivated the Dao for two to three centuries, being born of a great clan, and having wandered all over the Cultivation World to cultivate his Dao of All Living Beings, he was knowledgeable and well-traveled. In an instant, the truth dawned upon him:

It's the Great Spirit Stone Tomb!

The entire Great Spirit Stone Tomb is supplying energy to these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors, allowing them to engage in continuous slaughter to execute any invading enemies.

At this thought, Bai XiaoSheng sucked in a slight breath of cold air.

The entire Great Spirit Stone Tomb... what a staggering reserve of Spiritual Power that was.

With such a vast supply of energy, within the confines of this tomb, it was no exaggeration to call these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors perpetual slaughter machines.

Could all of them really end up ground to death right here?

Just as he was pondering this, one of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors transformed its arm into an axe and swung it violently at Bai XiaoSheng's back.

Keeping his wits about him, Bai XiaoSheng dodged instantly, whipping his sword around to slash at the warrior's neck.

The Sword Qi struck the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior, leaving only a faint white scratch before fading into nothingness.

"What a rock-hard monstrosity..."

Bai XiaoSheng's face darkened. He hesitated inwardly over whether he should draw upon his Lifebound Magical Treasure, unleash his ancestral sword techniques, and simply cleave these golden lumps to pieces.

If he truly went all out, these warriors would never withstand his strikes, no matter how tough they were.

Yet, to pull out his trump cards just to deal with inanimate objects of metal and stone, wouldn't that be rather beneath him?

Moreover, if he caused too great a commotion and others caught wind of it, how would he explain himself upon returning to the clan?

Wouldn't the elders scold him to death?

Not worth it, not worth it at all...

Mere Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors aren't worthy of that.

There must be another way to disable them. They're just Puppets; how could they have no weaknesses...

The battle remained chaotic and deadlocked. Bai XiaoSheng pondered for a moment, then released his Divine-Sense. As he traded blows with the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior, he split his attention to observe its attack patterns and perceive the flow of its internal Spiritual Power.

This deeper perception sent a faint chill through Bai XiaoSheng's heart.

The Great Spirit Stone Tomb was essentially an enormous Spirit stone in itself, and thus its interior was filled everywhere with dense, chaotic Spiritual Qi.

This Spiritual Qi was unrefined, meaning cultivators could not absorb it directly.

Yet these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors had no such qualms. It was as if they were submerged directly in an ocean of Spiritual Power, naturally granting them an endless stream of kinetic energy.

The question was, through what means did they absorb the Spiritual Qi within the tomb?

On the outside, these warriors were clad in heavy armor, fitted seamlessly without a single gap.

There were no visible organs or structures for absorbing Spiritual Qi.

Bai XiaoSheng looked closely at the warrior before him once more, but still failed to find anything abnormal on its body.

His pupils contracted slightly as he magnified his Divine-Sense perception nearly a hundredfold.

Upon this penetrating observation, his expression finally shifted.

The heavy armor of these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors was extraordinarily tough, and indeed fitted seamlessly.

However, after magnifying his Divine-Sense a hundred times, he could see minute, imperceptible pinholes scattered across the most minuscule regions of the heavy armor.

The Spiritual Qi of the tomb was penetrating the bodies of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors through these very pinholes.

The holes themselves were far too tiny, obscured by the radiant gleam of the golden armor. In the midst of a perilous, life-or-death battle, spotting them was virtually impossible.

An ordinary cultivator, hacked to death by the warriors' flurry of blades, would likely never realize this subtle method of energy intake.

These tiny holes were just like...

Bai XiaoSheng furrowed his brows in deep thought, his heart suddenly skipping a beat:

"Acupoints?"

The minute holes on these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors were strikingly similar to the acupoints of the human body, even matching them position for position.

For the craftsmanship to be this exquisite...

Even Bai XiaoSheng felt a wave of astonishment.

If that was the case, then the weaknesses of these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors should lie within these acupoints?

Destroy these acupoints?

No, a single warrior has hundreds of acupoints spanning its entire body. How could one possibly destroy them all?

Then that means... there are certain fatal points?

Humans have fatal points, so Puppets should have fatal points as well. But these fatal points aren't literal ones; rather, they are crucial junctures in the Puppet's Spiritual Power circulation, serving as hubs to sense external Spiritual Qi and regulate internal Spiritual Power.

Destroying a fatal point would surely inflict severe damage upon the Puppet...

But where is the fatal point?

After brief contemplation, Bai XiaoSheng shifted his sword's angle, gathering Sword Light, and cleaved straight toward the Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior's Baihui point.

The Baihui point, located squarely at the center of the crown of the head, belonged to the Governing Vessel. It was the convergence point of the Divine Soul and one of a cultivator's fatal points.

An ordinary cultivator stabbed through the Baihui point would essentially be dead.

Yet, when the Sword Qi pierced through this warrior's Baihui point, its head merely gave a slight twitch. Far from dying, it seemed even more invigorated.

Seeing this, Bai XiaoSheng cursed inwardly. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Gu Changhuai condensing a Wind Blade into a small dagger, slashing toward the Shanzhong point of another warrior.

That warrior merely shuddered once, suffering no other impact.

Evidently, the Shanzhong point was not a fatal point either.

Gu Changhuai frowned and glanced toward Bai XiaoSheng.

Both were exceptionally clever individuals. Meeting each other's gaze, they instantly realized they had shared the exact same train of thought, both having deduced the matter of the acupoints.

They had even attempted similar tests.

And the result was identical...

They had guessed the wrong fatal points.

Gu Changhuai's brows furrowed deeply.

Bai XiaoSheng looked equally disgruntled.

Judging from the outcome, the fatal points of these damned Puppets differed from those of humans. A human's fatal points could not be applied directly to them.

If struck incorrectly, not only would it fail to harm the warrior, but it might even end up infusing energy back into it.

The slight head twitch earlier was likely just the warrior digesting his Sword Qi.

A flicker of irritation rose within Bai XiaoSheng.

If that were the case... then the fatal points of these Puppets would have to be calculated precisely based on their internal structure and the circulation of their Spiritual Power.

Perhaps the fatal point differed for each and every Golden-Armored Puppet.

Or, worse yet, taking things to an even more perverse level...

Could these fatal points be dynamic?

Every so often, the fatal point of a Golden-Armored Mighty Warrior might change dynamically alongside the circulation of its Spiritual Power. If one did not perform precise calculations and judgments at the exact right moment to shatter its fatal point, penetrating the warrior's defense would be impossible.

Once that window passed and the fatal point shifted, all prior calculations would become useless.

At this thought, Bai XiaoSheng's scalp went numb.

Just who on earth forged these Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors?

Wasn't this sheer malice?

Under these conditions, if one wanted to deduce the fatal points of these warriors, they would need to grasp their internal structure and discern the flow of their Spiritual Power in a remarkably short time.

For such complex Golden-Armored Puppets, they had to be driven internally by Formations.

One would then have to deduce the central hubs based on the Formation structure, link the hubs to the acupoints, and precisely calculate the fatal point's location based on the flow of Spiritual Power within those acupoints. Only by piercing that fatal point could they break through its defense...

Calculate? Calculate my ass!

Bai XiaoSheng inwardly coughed up blood.

Was this something a human brain could possibly calculate?

One would need an inhuman monster to figure this out.

Bai XiaoSheng immediately turned his gaze toward Mo Hua in the distance.

At this moment, Mo Hua was standing far off, observing the battlefield. Although his face was hidden beneath his hood, making his expression unseen, Bai XiaoSheng instinctively felt that under that hood, Mo Hua's face was bound to wear a look of keen, curious enjoyment.

And in the depths of Mo Hua's eyes, there had to be that indescribably eerie light flickering once again.

With this thought, Bai XiaoSheng felt a sudden jolt:

Right!

Puppets, Formations, hubs, Spiritual Power flow, fatal points... Even he and Magistrate Gu had managed to deduce a thing or two about these complex elements.

So with Mo Hua's monstrous talent and those uncanny eyes of his, he had probably seen through it all long ago.

In fact, could he already be calculating the warriors' fatal points?

Or could he have already figured them out completely?

That... surely couldn't be...

Something so complex, profound, and dynamic... even for Mo Hua, could he really calculate it in such a short time...?

Then again, that's Mo Hua. The way his brain is wired isn't quite like normal people to begin with...

Thinking up to this point, the more Bai XiaoSheng looked at Mo Hua, the more he felt that Mo Hua wasn't calculating anything right now at all; he was purely watching the show, appreciating it.

Appreciating a Spell Duel between cultivators, or perhaps appreciating...

Some kind of flawless toys?

Bai XiaoSheng was rendered speechless.

While the rest of them were fighting such a grueling, bloody battle, this brat was actually enjoying the show?

And not just watching, but watching from an appreciative perspective.

That meant he had already grasped the answers long ago.

How infuriating!

Bai XiaoSheng was thoroughly irked. Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and called out:

"Esteemed Master Mo, Lord Mo... stop watching... This Protector's cultivation is lacking, and I can hardly hold on much longer!"

Naturally, he could hold on, but the subtext was clear: if you, Great Esteemed Master Mo, don't make a move soon, I'm tossing aside my duties and quitting on the spot.

As for this Protector role, find whoever else you want for it.

Hearing this, Mo Hua was slightly taken aback. He sighed, feeling a pang of pity.

He had been watching with great relish, preparing to observe more, calculate more, and record more of the Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors' movements and internal Spiritual Power trajectories. That way, he could dissect their core hub structures and Formation principles on a deeper level.

Opportunities like this, where Golden Core experts fought with all their might against Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors in a battle to the death, were exceedingly rare.

The more intense the battle, the more information was exposed.

The internal Spiritual Power circulation structure of the Puppets would also be fully drawn out.

There might not be another chance like this later on.

Still, watching the show while others were fighting their hearts out was indeed a bit hard to justify.

Feeling a tiny sliver of guilt, Mo Hua let out a soft sigh. Hesitating no longer, he announced the answers he had deduced long ago:

"The eight Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors each possess a single fatal point:"

"Right Protector, attack the Qingming point of the warrior on your left; for the one on your right, strike its Fengfu point..."

"Left Protector, strike the Juque point..."

"Great General Chang, strike the Guanyuan point..."

"Pei Tanggong, strike the Zhongji point on the left, and the Qugu point on the right; Wen Zhuangzhu, the Yamen point; Family Head Lü, the Jizhong point..."

The moment Mo Hua spoke, the expressions of everyone struggling bitterly in the quagmire of battle shifted in shock, a faint wave of awe rising within their hearts.

Bai XiaoSheng was both startled and exasperated. Finally, he let out a helpless sigh, thinking to himself:

Just as I thought...

The construction of these eight Golden-Armored Mighty Warriors was indeed perverse.

Yet the brain and computational power of a certain little monster were even more perverse...

(End of Chapter)