Chapter 209: Too Much Calm Leads to Instability

Chapter 209: Too Much Calm Leads to Instability

Seeing Lily’s helpless expression, Zheng Yichen felt a bit conflicted inside. Did he come on too strong? No, no. Being lenient about such matters was what could cause problems, Zheng Yichen mumbled to himself as he looked at Lily again. “If I didn’t ask, how long did you plan to keep hiding it?”

“… I don’t know,” Lily shook her head.

Zheng Yichen sighed. Didn’t know? Probably until she couldn’t hide it anymore and he figured it out himself. He couldn’t tell exactly what Lily was thinking, but now that things had been laid out, some matters became easier to handle. For example, the very welcomed check-up… ahem.

Lily was no longer a normal person, so before he saw any definite harm in this change, he wouldn’t reject it outright. At least from the current situation, this change was beneficial to Lily. If it was beneficial, there was no need to completely stop it.

But as Zheng Yichen checked and tried to explore the anomaly in her body, a new situation arose. Maybe because he had been too idle for too long, the Prophecy Art — which Zheng Yichen still remembered but had set aside — suddenly took effect. Zheng Yichen stared in shock at the strange, pale-skinned woman who appeared before him. She looked with interest at the dragon and the nervous little girl. Several small animals lost their lives the moment she appeared, snuffed out by the Gray Mist Power passively radiating from her body.

“So that’s why a Corpse Puppet suddenly went out of control before. How did you do it?” The Undying Witch looked at Lily with great interest. She could detect when a Corpse Puppet died normally, but the situation with this Corpse Puppet was different.

She hadn’t died. Instead, she had broken free from her control and even developed some new changes that piqued her interest. Corpse Puppets could digest Life Force, but the Life Force they could digest could only come from their own kind — only Human Life Force was useful. Yet this Corpse Puppet had no such restriction. She could absorb all types of Life Force!

Once a Corpse Puppet started needing to absorb Life Force from the outside, it meant they would fall into an unstoppable Corruption, rapidly losing their sanity and turning into a Life-devouring machine until they were destroyed or harvested by her like crops… Corpse Puppets were a special preparation of hers.

And she had already perfected the research. But now, it seemed there was much more room for progress. This Corpse Puppet could not only absorb and digest various types of Life Force, but also retained her sanity. This was truly… a surprise!

The reason Corpse Puppets were so easily destroyed was purely because they turned brain-dead after their Corruption. Anything brain-dead, unless its power was despairingly strong and unkillable, could be easily dealt with in many ways. This was also true for Corpse Puppets.

“Could you enlighten your big sister, Little Dragon?”

“Why should I tell you?” Zheng Yichen rolled his eyes. He placed a claw behind his back and gently waved at Lily, signaling the stunned girl to return to her basket. Lily hesitated for a moment, then went back into the basket. She looked sadly at the small animals inside, all now dead. These little animals had brought her much joy these past few days, and their deaths saddened her.

“Then why shouldn’t you tell me?” the Undying Witch chuckled lightly.

“Because… I can run!” The claws behind Zheng Yichen’s back quickly wove a Magic Rune Array using Mana Threads. As soon as his words fell, the rune array erupted, turning the surroundings into a thick white mist, instantly blocking the Undying Witch’s vision… Unfortunately, it was useless!

A gray Death Ripple rapidly spread toward Zheng Yichen. The moment it touched him, he felt his body stiffen slightly. A strange force seemed to try to forcibly extract something from within his body. However, this force was assimilated by the Mana inside him as soon as it took effect, and the influence quickly vanished.

He glanced at Lily in the basket. The little girl was completely unaffected by the Death Ripple. Of course, her Soul was long gone. A power that seemed to act directly on the Soul couldn’t possibly have any extra effect on her.

Seeing her attack had no effect, the Undying Witch tilted her head slightly, feeling a bit surprised. She had held back, that was true. After all, this little dragon was special, and killing him outright wasn’t good. That level of attack should only have made him deeply unconscious, but it didn’t.

So she increased the attack intensity slightly, yet it still had no effect. Zheng Yichen seemed to completely ignore her ability. Even the hidden trace of her own Gray Mist Power lurking within the little girl Corpse Puppet wasn’t activated; it even seemed to be slightly absorbing the Death Ripple she released.

This meant the deepest imprint of her power within the girl was gone. No one would believe that… Each Witch’s Power was unique. No one else could master any power of the same origin. Even if someone stole a Witch’s Power through some method and used it, the deepest imprint of that Witch’s Power would never change.

It was like DNA in blood.

Yet, according to her Death Ripple probe, the power within Lily that belonged to her had completely changed.

It was exactly like her power, but it also contained elements that her own power did not have.

Before she could observe carefully, she sensed a surge of power she deeply despised emerging from the mist. It was like transformed White Moonlight. The Undying Witch waved her hand impatiently. The thick, hard-to-disperse mist instantly scattered, revealing Zheng Yichen’s slightly astonished dragon face… and some muttered words!

“This move… how about calling it ‘Dragon Fist’? The color seems about right.”

“…” The Undying Witch saw that Zheng Yichen’s wings, arms, and legs, previously hidden by the mist, were now fitted with some strange-looking devices. After the mist cleared, these devices erupted with intense Mana Fluctuations. Highly compressed, powerful Wind Element surged from the nozzles of these Propulsion Devices.

The force from the Propulsion Devices, combined with Zheng Yichen’s own burst of speed, turned him into a black streak of lightning, appearing beside the Undying Witch in an instant. His clenched right fist fiercely punched toward the pale-skinned, strange woman before him. While in the mist, Zheng Yichen hadn’t just equipped the Propulsion Devices; he had also drawn Pseudo Divine Power from the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Using his old method, he forced this power into a tight compression within his palm!

The highly compressed power uncontrollably leaked out, covering Zheng Yichen’s fist with a flickering aura resembling a flame.