End of the Magic Era

The fights between low level puppets was over this kind of territory. Those with the biggest territory and the most Rust Eaters would find more high grade parts and would level up faster.

Gandaph led Lin Yun out of this dozen-kilometer-wide wreck. On the edge, they saw a dozen puppets around level 10 fighting. They were clearly fighting over territories.

Those puppets were completely different from human-made puppets. Their bodies were covered in welding marks and the parts didn’t fit with one another. The weapons and shields they wielded were made of relatively large parts and looked very crude.

The battle ended quickly and the victorious puppet didn’t even care about its own injuries as it rapidly tore open its opponents bodies and dismantled their parts to upgrade its own parts.

Lin Yun and Gandaph turned invisible and walked through these ruins only to see an endless black earth spreading in front of them. Large chunks of steel could be seen exposed on the ground. In many locations, the purity of the ore had already reached a very high degree and the ground over a few kilometers already looked like pure black steel.

They kept walking over the black earth and would see mountains of parts every few kilometers. There was even a mountain range spreading over several dozen kilometers.

Gandaph was right, this was indeed the safest entry point. They flew at a low altitude for a few dozen kilometers and could only see a pure forest of steel. The strongest puppet they saw was only at level 33.

They saw a steel tower over a kilometer in height after flying over seventy kilometers. Terrifying energy flickered at the peak of the steel tower and lightning condensed into a several-dozen-meter-big sphere of lightning which then shot into the sky.

“This kind of scene is hard to come by.” Gandaph sighed.

He stood where he was and looked towards the depths of the sky.

Three seconds later, Lin Yun saw a meteorite falling down from the sky with a terrifying speed, it was at least seven kilometers in width. At that time, the several-dozen-meter-big sphere of lightning came in contact with that meteorite.

The lightning bolts were like countless sharp blades flashing and instantly wrapping around the meteorite before cutting it into countless pieces.

Those countless fragments scattered and fell over a few dozen kilometers. Over that range, and with the size of the fragments, the damage to the earth would be almost negligible.

Gandaph glanced at the fragments and said with a regretful tone, “Did you see that meteorite’s color? It seemed to have been carrying some rare metal, this should be Eternal Dark Gold. Unfortunately, the sky of the Puppet Plane has no anti-meteorite defense. It could be said that the Puppet Plane’s anti-air defenses are very weak, and thus, meteorites are frequently falling down.

“Those lightning towers are built by Heaven Puppets as anti-meteorite defenses. This should be the territory of a Heaven Puppet. Seeing a lightning tower means that we aren’t far from a city of steel. Let’s wait, since there is a kilometer-tall lightning tower, that means that the steel city shouldn’t be small. It might have many Heaven Puppets.”

Lin Yun didn’t say anything and observed the lightning tower instead. Just now, the power of that several-dozen-meter-big lightning sphere was comparable to a Heaven Rank powerhouse’s all-out spell. But that lightning tower only took a second to condense that lightning sphere and it perfectly deduced the meteorite’s trajectory.

Seeing Lin Yun’s appearances, Gandaph didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Sir Mafa, I urge you not to attack the lightning tower. If you do so, we might end up attracting a puppet army and a terrifying puppet might appear.

“Alright, here it is!”

As soon as Gandaph’s words echoed, Lin Yun looked into the distance and saw a seven-meter-big puppet flying in the air and rapidly catching those falling fragments of meteorite. Every piece was flickering with metallic luster, clearly containing highly pure metal.

Gandaph scattered his invisibility and calmly floated in the air. At that moment, that seven-meter-tall four-arm puppet turned towards them, its blue crystal eyes flickering with light as it immediately discarded the ores in its hands. Four 5-meter-long greatswords slashed towards Gandaph.

Gandaph calmly hovered, looking at that level 43 puppet. An impressive blue law rune suddenly shot out of his fingertips, turning into a light blue radiance flashing towards the puppet and trapping the puppet in a dozen-meter-big sphere of water. No matter how much the puppet struggled, it was no different from an insect that stepped in glue.

Gandaph floated over, put his palm onto the surface of the water sphere and the rays of light flickering within the puppet’s eyes instantly dissipated.

Lin Yun wasn’t too surprised by the fact that Gandaph easily took care of that puppet, with Gandaph’s strength, getting rid of a level 43 puppet shouldn’t be too difficult, even if it had an ability rune. But Lin Yun didn’t even see how Gandaph got rid of that Heaven Puppet…

As he descended, Gandaph casually threw a few law runes to cover over a hundred meters, sealing everything.

At the same time, several dozen small streams of water formed within the sphere of water before transforming into knives or tools. Using the streams’ continuous power, that Heaven Puppet was slowly dissected.

But every water knife was vibrating at an inconceivable frequency, shortening the meticulous work to a few seconds. And using that method to dismantle the puppet didn’t cause any harm to the components. Instead, it cleaned the rust of some components, making the parts stronger.

The puppet’s four limbs were disassembled into parts, each of which was undamaged. These parts floated within the water sphere, very close to their original emplacement, making it look as if the puppet hadn’t been dismantled.

Gandaph was very fast and the puppet’s movement parts were dismantled one by one. But seeing the circumstances within the puppet’s body, Lin Yun could no longer remain unperturbed, he was surprised.

Gandaph’s dismantling skill didn’t look like much, but as a Peak Artisan, Lin Yun could see the technique contained within, Gandaph wasn’t relying on strength…

This kind of dismantling could also be done by Lin Yun, dismantling inside a sphere of water could undoubtedly bring many benefits and wouldn’t damage the components, it would even polish old parts.

But Lin Yun couldn’t do what Gandaph was doing, transforming several dozen water streams into tools every second. Moreover, these tools were continuously changing, they were formed from streams. This tested alchemy proficiency and knowledge of puppets.

What tool needed to be used where, this kind of basic knowledge had become the most difficult part here. The way Lin Yun dismantled puppets in mere moments was actually a kind of violent dismantling. In order to get all of the parts, that kind of dismantling wouldn’t be chosen, it would only be used in battle.

Because forcibly dismantling a puppet in a moment would damage some weaker components. But what really shocked Lin Yun wasn’t the dismantling technique Gandaph was displaying, but the fact that this puppet was in perfect condition.

All the parts of the puppets, all the systems were in perfect condition. In other words, this puppet was still alive, this was the true dismantling technique able to keep all the parts in perfect condition.

Gandaph dismantled the torso of the puppet little by little and every part remained in perfect condition. The control system, mechanical system, wisdom system, weapon system,… Everything was in perfect condition. Even after the puppet’s head was dismantled, Lin Yun didn’t discover any damaged part.

This was the most terrifying part, letting a Heaven Puppet live while all of its components were dismantled.

Lin Yun stared blankly. With his current strength, he wouldn’t be able to flawlessly dismantle a puppet and keep it alive during dismantling, even if he disassembled a level 30 puppet.

He could see Gandaph’s experienced movements, this was clearly a new developed technique in the Starry Sky College.

After Gandaph thoroughly dismantled every part, the puppet only looked slightly bigger. After a careful examination, one would discover that although every component was at their original spot, there was a very small gap between them.

If Gandaph wanted to, he could instantly reassemble this puppet and revive that level 43 puppet. But because all the parts had been processed and some of the old parts had been polished and strengthened, the puppet’s strength might still be stronger than before.

After finishing his dismantling, Gandaph shook his head and released the water sphere, letting it collapse to the ground with the parts.

“Not this one, let’s go…”

Then, without throwing a second glance at the parts, he turned around to leave. Lin Yun’s mouth was wide open. He glanced at the parts and conveniently collected them.

Gandaph didn’t care about these parts, but that didn’t mean that it was the same for Lin Yun. He had previous gotten rid of quite a few Heaven Puppets, but due to the battles, the components of these Heaven Puppets had been unusable and could only be treated as raw materials. He hadn’t been able to gather some of the more fragile key components in a long time.

It’s been a while since the patched puppet got an upgrade, he had been unable to upgrade it recently, but he now had intact components from a Heaven Puppet, it could definitely make the patched puppet recover its Heaven Rank strength.

And thus, Lin Yun collected these components without shame and kept following Gandaph. As for what Gandaph wanted to do, it wasn’t important anymore. Lin Yun would get a few intact Heaven Puppets to upgrade his patched puppet.

After flying over thirty kilometers, they encountered a puppet army of thirty four thousand Level 25 to Level 39 puppets led by a Level 42 Puppet. These puppets looked extremely strange.

Human-shaped puppets were actually a minority, most of the puppets were beast-shaped, and many of them were in the shape of spiders, ants, and other insects. The Heaven Puppet leading them was an extremely large beetle over a dozen meters in length. When lying on its stomach, it was close to two meters in height. A huge rune the size of an adult head could be seen atop its carapace.

That was one of the rare defensive Heaven Puppet’s ability rune. It’s just that its specific effect was unknown, even if the ability rune was the same, the effect would vary from puppet to puppet.

Gandaph was hovering in the air and released a barrier covering them.

“There is no other Heaven Puppet within thirty kilometers, only that one.” Gandaph casually said.

It sounded as if that army, which could wipe some of the Andlusa Kingdom’s middle-sized forces at will, could casually be erased.

Gandaph looked at the sky and threw a blue rune. The rune transformed into a blue ray of light that flew into the sky. It instantly roused the Puppet Plane’s rarefied atmosphere and started condensing a dozen-kilometer-big black cloud in midair.

After a few seconds, black drops of water started dropping from the sky and dripped onto the earth. Upon contact with the ground, the black drops created wisps of white smoke, as if they were made of acid.

This was the characteristic of the Puppet Plane, the atmosphere was rarefied and when looking up, they could still see a scorching sun in the depths of the void. The rain was also completely made of acid, even if it was in very small quantities.

As the rain fell, the ores spread over the black earth slowly started melting. Once the rain evaporated, what remained would form a flat and smooth steel ground.

The acid rain was the thing puppets disliked the most, especially low level puppets. Many of their components would be corroded by the acid rain and their durability would decrease after the rain, increasing the damage over time. To some low level puppets, the acid rain was even deadly.

This puppet army encountering an acid rain was like a swarm of insects encountering a deadly crisis, the army instantly fell into chaos.

And at that time, Gandaph extended a finger and threw a blue law rune. The vapor coalesced on the ground rapidly condensed and several thousand blue water spheres suddenly appeared on the ground, each of them containing a puppet.

From the Heaven Puppet to the lowest Level 25 puppet, they were all wrapped inside the water spheres. Aside from the Heaven Puppet’s, streams of water started frantically revolving inside the water spheres.

Whether they were Level 25 or Level 39 puppets made no difference, in less than a second, several thousand puppets were forcibly dismantled into piles of components, and most of the components were distorted until they couldn’t be used anymore.

Seeing Gandaph and Lin Yun floating down, the eyes of that beetle-like Heaven Puppet started frantically flickering. It also let out roars which created shockwaves that continuously attacked the water sphere, which in turn reflected back to the beetle.

The rune on the back of the beetle suddenly shone brightly and a layer of dark silver light enveloped its entire body, thoroughly protecting it. It looked as if the beetle had completely turned dark silver and his defensive ability rose by one level.

Lin Yun indifferently looked at the beetle, he didn’t think that this pitiful beetle could stop Gandaph’s dismantling.

Sure enough, Gandaph extended his hand and touched the surface of the twenty-meter-wide water sphere. Like before, it took an instant for the eyes of the puppet to lose their radiance and for its mana fluctuations to dissipate. The ability rune on its back also darkened.

Lin Yun frowned as he saw Gandaph’s movements, even after seeing it twice, he still didn’t know how he did it. He didn’t feel any Extraordinary Power fluctuation, nor did he feel any mana fluctuation. This was obviously not the result of Gandaph’s physical strength, but rather a kind of mix of power and powerful alchemy mastery allowing him to perfectly dismantle the puppet’s core.

But it was clear that Gandaph didn’t plan on giving that alchemy technique to Lin Yun for nothing. But it didn’t matter if Lin Yun saw the later dismantling steps, after all, any skilled alchemist could do that.

Gandaph once again performed the perfect dismantling of a Heaven Puppet as if it was a performance.

But this time, his expression changed as he reached the last step and that huge blue water sphere changed shape.The parts other than the core of the puppet were separated and thrown aside like trash. Gandaph didn’t even spare a glance at that carapace with the ability rune.

In the end, the water sphere was completely dispersed, only leaving a 1-meter-big part of the torso of that beetle puppet. Gandaph took out a pair of mana insulating gloves and a dozen kinds of tools before solemnly and cautiously using both hands to dismantle it…