Sam looked at the dark mass of energy and was stunned. It struggled like crazy as it tried to get out his grasp. It is like a sentient creature trying to get out his grasp. But he didn't let go and used the golden flames to burn it down.
But as the golden flames hit it, the dark energy tried to absorb the energy and in fact it did, but only half of it was absorbed and the other half made the energy turbulent. It is as if its screaming in pain due to the torture of being burned.
Sam tired many methods and every elemental energy that was being injected into it is being absorbed, but due to the superiority of Sam's elemental energy that was obtained due to the bloodlines of the beasts, the energy is being tortured.
After some thought, Sam took out a container used to make medium sized liquid energy cells and forcefully placed it inside before sealing it.
The energy struggled for a long time and after some futile attempts, it became dormant.
Sam then looked at Markan who is sweating. He is still in that cross-legged position as he started cultivating. Years of suppression and now his core is back to normal. There is no way he would be able to stop himself from cultivating and this is actually the best chance for cultivating. His body and core would be like dry land absorbing every bit of water that was thrown at it, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he would be able to achieve a few breakthroughs consecutively if he tried hard enough.
While he is cultivating, Sam left the spot to recover. He really wished that Markan's problem is solved, because he needs to busy himself.
He left the team and the prisoners there to go to the capital of the third puppet realm to see if he would be able to get any information regarding the situation. But to his surprise, even the third realm capital is on a completely lockdown.
They did the same as the second puppet realm branch. They hired a bunch of mercenaries and they called for all their subordinates across the realm and fortified the city a bunch of formations.
Sam couldn't help but feel a bit exhausted.
If things go this way, he would have to directly attack the organization to get any results.
He returned to the second realm that very day and explained the situation to the rest of the teammates.
"The remaining players must have already left to the other organizations, since they don't have much help like me, they would need some decent time to make preparations. But still we cannot afford to waste too much time here.
We need to finish this as fast as possible. But both of these guys are tough nuts to crack. Either battle is not something we could finish off in a day or two.
The only advantage we have is that we are small in number. We are much smaller target compared to them."
Sam said as he looked at his teammates.
After some thought, he said.
"Paras and Night Ghost, both of you go to two different sides of the city wall. Don't deliberately try to hide your presence. Test how good these scouting puppets are and what these things are good at.
Vidyut, you stay a point from where you could support both of them. Three of you take the transference scroll so that you can return to the camp if push comes to shove.
Don't attack fiercely. It is only a probe at the moment."
Three of them nodded and left. He then turned to the rest of the group and said.
"I want you guys to be on the top form on all times. You should be able to attack whenever I ask you to."
They nodded and left while sat in front of the surveillance equipment. He looked at the Night Ghost and the other two moving. Those three are the strongest he had under him now. They are the best candidates to test what the Puppet Organization has in store with the guarantee that he doesn't suffer any losses.
Soon, Paras and Night Ghost appeared at two different locations almost at the same time.
There are a bunch of stationary puppets on the city walls that are looking at the surroundings. As soon as Paras was within the 'visible range' of this stationary puppet, it started glowing a bit and immediately surrounding puppets that are mobile, rushed to his direction instantly without any delay.
There are three kinds of puppets that came and two puppets for each kind totaling six puppets.
The first kind is a large humanoid puppet that looked cylindrical. The two puppets stood at a distance from him and activated two formations which are meant to keep him there. They also started shooting metallic projectiles.
The second kind are also humanoid and they seemed to be good at throwing punches. Their knuckles have extremely sharp metallic accessories and do does the rest of the body.
And the third one are flying puppets that are attacking with projectile weapons from the air.
Looking at Sam instantly understood what their purpose is, they are not here for killing Paras even though, they would do so if it is possible. But rather, they are here to make him stay for as long as possible so that the reinforcements will arrive.
Sam looked at the surveillance more puppets as well as some cultivators are coming to this section of the city wall. But they still didn't descend from the city wall.
It is possible that the cultivator's job is only to check the cultivation level of the intruder and Sam's guess was right. The three cultivators who came immediately retreated after looking Paras and they took out communication tokens to inform someone.
Instantly, Sam saw some movements in the city as three figures along with their puppets making their way towards Paras.
"Paras, retreat."
Sam ordered and Paras who is on defensive since the start finally made a move. His ax shined with energy as it cleaved through the first humanoid puppet punching at him and he destroyed the second puppet with an upward swing.
The head of the puppet hit the bird puppet in the sky making it crash.
He then moved towards the large puppet and instead of directly attacking it, he used it as a footing to jump upwards.
As he kicked on its head, the head was crushed and with that he used the recoil to leap high into the air and cleaved down wards heavily and in a single motion the bird puppet and the large cylindrical puppet were both destroyed and the cleave ray swept the approaching puppets from that side.
Paras made his escape while destroying the puppets that are about to follow him and at a perfect time, three lightning arrows were shot destroying the three remaining puppets on his tail.
Paras escaped.
Meanwhile, Night Ghost was a little hard to detect.
Even though Sam said that he doesn't need to hide himself deliberately, that doesn't mean he should reveal himself directly.
He just moved at his natural speed without bothering to hide himself.
But his speed was still too much for the stationary puppets and he was only detected when he was almost near the city wall and that too by a mobile puppet which is the humanoid one that is good at punching.
The signal was once again sent and many puppets started running towards him.
The situation is similar to Paras. He tried to defend and didn't destroy them outright. But as soon as the cultivators saw him, their eyes widened and they took out a flare and fired it into the sky.
The whole city seemed to have shaken from the flare as even the branch leader became vigilant.
All of a sudden, the formation of the city seemed to have changed immediately and Night Ghost could feel something targeting him.
"Night Ghost, Retreat."
Sam ordered instantly and Night Ghost retreated with Vidyut's help.
Two minutes after Night Ghost's retreat, the branch leader and the elders arrived on the city wall and looked at the area.
The branch leader even jump off and crossed the formation as he observed the signs of the battlefield.
He immediately retreated with his elders and went back to the estate.
He entered a special room which has a large formation and millions of spirit stones loaded over it.
He activated the formation.
"What happened?"
The third branch leader's voice appeared from the other side.
"The other party has an Astral Plane Consummate level cultivator. Initial stage." The second branch leader replied in a solemn tone.
"Are you sure?"
The third branch leader asked.
"Yes. There is a high possibility that there is one. We need to speed up the plan."
"Should we just go for Black Ghosts once again? They also do mediations, right?"
"I don't see any other option. We can only do that."
