By this time, the Saint Son of Falling Star had heard all kinds of rumors about Ding Hao.
“Haha, after having been bestowed with the mandate of heaven, I have experienced countless calamities. I’ve been favored by fortune in the Sage Battlefield, traveled thousands of miles, and seen many geniuses in other provinces, but I’ve never heard of any of Ding Hao’s achievements. It is likely that he simply remained hidden in a remote corner and survived half a year. How could he be so shameless? To boast about himself like this…”
He sneered disdainfully.
“Ding Hao is just a lowly impostor who is no match for you, Young Master,” the old servant with white hair said, “Now you have been favored by the Divine Lord and have become his adopted son. In the entire Northern Region, few people would dare to compete with you.”
Another mysterious old servant claimed assertively, “That’s right. The four of us followed the Young Master to Snow Province in order to help you eradicate all your enemies and take revenge. We will also take over the Falling Star Sect and resolve this matter once and for all, so that we can return to the Holy Palace to practice the supreme martial arts. Shall I go alone to the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect now to kill Ding Hao, so that he’s no longer an eyesore?”
The Saint Son of Falling Star shook his head and said, “In my eyes, Ding Hao is just an ant that can be crushed to death at will. If I go to him, won’t I lose the moral high ground? No worries. When he leaves the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect and shows up for the Fight of the Frozen Peak, I will take the chance to kill both Ding Hao and Mu Tianyang there. By then, the Snow Province will know my strength!”
The strange white-haired servant said casually, “In that case, let Ding Hao live for a few more days!”
They spoke publicly with no intention to conceal their plans. The words fell into the ears of countless experts around Mirror Lake, causing waves of exclamation and shock.
Obviously, the Saint Son of Falling Star had some great encounters in the Sage Battlefield.
After he came out, he was chosen by and accepted into a super sect with a rather high status.
Such a thing had happened in the Sage Battlefield before.
There had been young geniuses of Snow Province, who walked out of the Sage Battlefield alive with incredible luck and talent. They became too ambitious, reluctant to be trapped in a small and poor place like the Snow Province. They accepted invitations of super sects in the foreign provinces one after another, leaving their sects to join the more powerful ones.
At the moment, the Saint Son of Falling Star had also been fortunate enough to get a similar opportunity.
It seemed that a new legend was about to emerge.
More importantly, the Saint Son of Falling Star had claimed that he had experienced a lot in the Sage Battlefield, but he had never heard about Ding Hao’s achievements, which indirectly confirmed that it might be as many people speculated: Ding Hao had fabricated his glorious record to deceive the world.
Otherwise, with the brilliant record of having killed a Demon Royal at the Martial Emperor realm, he shouldn’t have been unknown in the Sage Battlefield.
“Who among them is lying to the public?”
The person who had doubted Ding Hao’s feat had just found an even better reason to question it.
“Haha, I knew Ding Hao couldn’t be that strong. You must have been deceived by this guy!”
“Ding Hao came back from the Sage Battlefield crestfallen, while the Saint Son of Falling Star has formidable followers. In comparison, words of the latter seem to be more credible!”
“Now, there will be some fun in the Fight of the Frozen Peak!”
“There’s still no news about Mu Tianyang. Did he die in the Sage Battlefield?”
“Haha, the Saint Son of Falling Star threatened to kill Ding Hao and Mu Tianyang. No matter whether Mu Tianyang honors the appointment or not, Ding Hao will appear at that time. By then, there will be a fierce battle between the Saint Son of Falling Star and Ding Hao!”
“In the past, it might have resulted in a fierce battle. But now, it may be one-sided. Now that the Saint Son of Falling Star has become so powerful, Ding Hao may not have a chance to survive!”
All kinds of rumors were spread again, adding even more chaos to Snow Province which was already in a state of unrest.
Everyone realized that the world was about to sink into turmoil.
It was a time of great change. Choosing which sect to side with became the most important topic of all the sects. It wasn’t clear who would become the final winner: the Tranquility Academy, the Saint Son of Falling Star, or Ding Hao. Rumors kept spreading around. The future was unpredictable.
At this time, many strangers appeared on the bank of Mirror Lake.
Those people arrived at Snow Province in several groups one after another. They didn’t seem to be on good terms and were on guard against each other. Their ages varied, but without a doubt, they all looked down on the people from Snow Province with open arrogance.
Each of them exuded an extremely powerful aura, which was far beyond that of ordinary experts in Snow Province. Among them, there were even experts closer to the Martial Emperor realm or above.
“Where is Ding Hao?”
“Where is the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect?”
They began to inquire about Ding Hao and the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect as soon as they arrived in Snow Province. Judging from their expressions and tone, those newcomers were hostile and aggressive.
After learning the specific location, they turned into flowing lights, rushing to the direction of the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect at lightning speed and disappearing in an instant. The strong aura left lingering marks in the sky, making all creatures tremble.
Many experts in Snow Province looked at each other in astonishment.
“Those strangers were definitely super experts from foreign provinces. Why did they come here?”
“Did it have anything to do with Ding Hao?”
It had been a long time since such powerful experts arrived from other territories.
“It’s done!”
Ding Hao laughed.
After an entire day, he had finally managed to transform a stone puppet.
It was extremely difficult to make the giant battle puppet distinguish friend from foe.
Because this would be tantamount to bestowing sentience to a stone.
That was a domain only the gods could achieve.
At the moment, Ding Hao could not fully understand how the Fake God’s Characters worked in this aspect. The suggestions of the Saber Master and the Sword Master were also proven to be infeasible as Ding Hao had yet to reach the level required to perform the magic skills. He had made many attempts but all of them had failed.
In the end, Ding Hao decided to change the way of thinking and stopped using inscriptions to solve everything.
After roughly modifying the Fake God’s characters, he designed a new inscription formation inside the stone puppet.
That formation allowed him to control the stone puppets with his divine senses.
Boom!
The stone puppet, who was more than 10 meters tall, punched out. The air vibrated as if it were about to explode.
Led by Ding Hao’s Divine Senses, the stone puppet was able to nimbly complete a lot of attacks, including complicated martial arts moves which it had failed to perform in the past. Of course, the signature move, shooting out the Light of Destruction with one eye, was kept.
His attack and combat strength were equivalent to that of a seven-apertured Martial King realm expert.
The only flaw was that the stone puppets didn’t have their own consciousness and had to rely on the Divine Senses of a martial artist.
However, this was hardly a defect for the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect, because there were many masters with strong Divine Senses in the sect. Pairing each stone puppet with a handler could still be as effective as Ding Hao had expected, and even better in terms of flexibility.
From a certain point of view, Ding Hao had turned the stone puppets from automatic guardians to weapons.
With the success of the first test subject, the following modification went smoothly.
There were roughly more than 20 Giant Rock Puppets in his storage space. Counting the ones that had been destroyed in the experiment and the ones in front of him, there are 19 left. Ding Hao had spent about half a day and had successfully transformed 15 of them.
The other four were the strongest stone puppets.
They were the giant beings at the peak of the Martial Emperor realm who had been rescued by Ding Hao from the lava when the Fake God City was about to be destroyed, before he left the Sage Battlefield. Each of them was at least a hundred meters tall and was also covered with faint patterns of Fake God’s characters. They had begun to show traces of intelligence, which were fearsome.
Fortunately, Ding Hao had merged with the divine fire and gained their recognition, so he would not be attacked.
Ding Hao carefully took them out of the storage space and placed them on the giant floating mysterious crystal.
Those were four huge combat monsters. Their horrendous physique carried a traumatizing visual impact. Even though Ding Hao was mentally prepared, he still had a sense of awe in his heart whenever he faced them.
That was the highest-level battle puppets of the Fake God City, created by the Fake God City civilization.
Every part of their bodies had been designed to be optimal for combat. Equipped with all kinds of barbs and joints, and endowed with an indestructible defensive ability; they were the epitome of battle puppets.
Ding Hao believed that if he didn’t have a forbidden weapon like the rusted sword or the magical saber in his hand, he would have had run for her life when, facing any of the four stone puppets. He was no match for them at all.
There was a faint beam of red light in the single eye of the stone puppets.
Their enormous bodies released wisps of feeble divine sense fluctuations—that was the most primitive form of consciousness, similar to that of the newborns.
Ding Hao tried to communicate with them with his Divine Senses.
Sadly, besides a faint feeling of kindness, they couldn’t have in-depth conversations, because the puppets could not release any consciousness clips of more than three words.
Ding Hao speculated that this burgeoning consciousness had not been given by the creators of the Fake God City.
It was the rare change that occurred over the countless years: having absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, the inscriptions of the Fake God’s characters inside and outside their bodies had evolved into a very shallow low-level consciousness. They could barely recognize threats, seek security, and avoid danger. This low-level consciousness could not be called wisdom.
