Ye Feng narrowed his eyes at the two puppets emerging from the wooden doors, then coated his sword with saint force. In the next instant, the dagger-wielding puppet shot toward him with astonishing speed. Ye Feng's eyes widened—its movements were so fast he could barely track them. In a blur of flashing steel, the puppet's daggers slashed across his body with ruthless precision, carving shallow cuts into him one after another.
Ye Feng couldn't react in time—he was simply too slow to keep up with the puppet's relentless assaults. All he could do was grit his teeth and endure the pain. "Damn it…"
In the next heartbeat, the puppet drove a dagger deep into his stomach. A sharp jolt of agony shot through him, but Ye Feng forced himself to move. He seized the puppet's arm with his free hand before it could withdraw the blade, locking it in place.
With a fierce growl, he swung his saint-force-coated sword, the glowing edge cutting cleanly through the puppet's arm.
After chopping off the puppet's arm, a bo staff slammed on Ye Feng's cheek out of nowhere and sent Ye Feng flying. Ye Feng used his coated sword to stab the ground, and he stopped his backward momentum.
Ye Feng yanked the dagger from his stomach and let it clatter to the ground. Blood poured from the deep stab wound, soaking the front of his abdomen. The white robe the middle-aged woman had given him before he entered the pagoda was now nothing more than shredded, blood-stained scraps hanging off his body.
The short puppet didn't give Ye Feng a moment to breathe—it shot toward him with incredible speed. But this time, Ye Feng was ready. He braced himself in a defensive stance, his sword coated in saint force. Even so, the puppet's dagger sliced across his chest. Ye Feng gritted his teeth, seized the puppet's arm with his free hand, and then swung his empowered sword in a sharp horizontal arc, cleaving the puppet cleanly in half at the waist.
After the two halves of the short puppet crashed to the ground, Ye Feng caught a blur of motion at the edge of his vision—a bo staff shooting straight toward his face. His instincts kicked in. Ye Feng snapped his coated sword to the side just in time, and intercepted the incoming strike.
"CLANK."
Ye Feng quickly made some distance between himself and the puppet. The puppet began spinning its bo staff in its palm with incredible speed, building up momentum. Then, without warning, it lunged forward—thrusting and swinging the whirling staff at Ye Feng in a relentless barrage.
He struggled to dodge the bo staff, each movement barely enough to escape the strikes. The staff was swung and thrust at him with incredible speed, precision, and momentum. "SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH." Ye Feng couldn't get close to the puppet at all; its mastery of the bo staff forced him to keep his distance, leaving him with no opening to counterattack.
Ye Feng narrowed his eyes, a small, excited smile tugging at his lips. "Here goes nothing."
In the next instant, he shot forward at full speed. The puppet reacted immediately, its bo staff whipping through the air in a blur as it resumed its relentless swings and thrusts.
But this time, Ye Feng met every strike head-on. His coated sword flashed, parrying each blow with crisp, ringing precision—clang, clang, clang—as he forced his way through the storm of attacks.
Ye Feng closed the distance in a heartbeat, his body twisting with an almost unnatural fluidity as he drove his coated sword straight toward the puppet's chest.
After driving his coated sword into the puppet's chest, Ye Feng yanked the blade free. The puppet staggered for a heartbeat before collapsing to the ground with a dull thud. Ye Feng exhaled in relief—finally, it was over.
But then.
CLICK.
A sharp, mechanical click echoed through the air. Ye Feng's eyes darted toward the source, and he saw four walls lifting as if by invisible hands, revealing four wooden doors standing ominously in the air.
The four wooden doors creaked open one by one, revealing four puppets of varying sizes that stepped out, their movements eerily precise. Ye Feng cursed under his breath, frustration flashing across his face. "Are you kidding me? Seriously?!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the hall.
The first puppet stepped forward, its right hand encased in a monstrous steel gauntlet. The gauntlet resembled a beast's claw, sharp and menacing, covering not just the puppet's hand but its forearm as well. The puppet itself was short, much like the one Ye Feng had faced earlier—the same one that had wielded the twin daggers with deadly precision.
The second puppet wielded a massive battle axe, yet it carried the weapon effortlessly in one hand, a testament to its enormous size and strength. The next puppet was of ordinary height and average build, equipped with a bow, arrows neatly strapped to its back, ready to strike from a distance. The final puppet stood with a menacing presence, gripping a colossal black blade with a matching black hilt. The blade towered beside it, nearly as tall as the puppet itself—around 5.8 feet of sheer lethal steel.
Three of the four puppets surged toward Ye Feng, weapons poised to strike. Only the archer puppet held back, nocking an arrow and aiming his bow directly at him. Charging relentlessly were the blade-wielding puppet, the massive axe-wielder, and the gauntlet-equipped fighter, each closing in with lethal intent.
Ye Feng instinctively coated his entire body—and his sword—with his saint force as he saw the three puppets charging at him. A bright blue aura enveloped him, shimmering across his sword as well. The moment the puppets lunged forward together, Ye Feng seized the forearm of the gauntlet-wielding puppet and flung him straight into the path of the axe-wielding puppet.
The two puppets collided with a deafening crash, their momentum sending splinters flying. Ye Feng barely had time to react as the blade-wielding puppet swung at him—he slammed his coated sword against the attack, producing a sharp, metallic CLANK. Without missing a beat, Ye Feng propelled himself forward, dashing straight toward the gauntlet-wielding puppet he had hurled earlier into the axe-wielding one.
The gauntlet-wielding puppet had its back turned to Ye Feng. Seizing the moment, Ye Feng lunged forward and drove his sword straight into the puppet's back. With a heavy thud, the puppet collapsed, lying motionless on the ground.
Ye Feng caught sight of two arrows streaking toward him from the corner of his eyes. Without hesitation, he snatched the gauntlet puppet's body and raised it as a shield. The arrows struck with a sharp PENG, PENG, bouncing off harmlessly.
The arrows slammed into the puppet's body, turning it into an improvised shield that fully absorbed the archer puppet's assault and kept Ye Feng unharmed.
The axe-wielding puppet brought its axe down in a vicious vertical chop, ready to split Ye Feng in two. Ye Feng seized the gauntlet puppet's body again and hauled it up as a barrier, the blow crashing into the lifeless puppet instead of him.
The axe cleaved the gauntlet puppet in half, and Ye Feng seized that brief opening. He lunged forward and drove his sword straight into the axe-wielding puppet's throat.
Ye Feng yanked his sword free from the puppet's throat, then immediately slashed horizontally at its waist, cleaving the puppet clean in half. But before he could steady himself, the blade-wielding puppet lunged in and swung its massive blade in an attempt to bisect him. Ye Feng sprang backward in a quick backward flip, the edge of the blade slicing through the air where he had been standing just a moment earlier.
The puppet relentlessly chased after Ye Feng, swinging its massive blade in a frenzy to cut him into pieces. Ye Feng met every strike head-on, his sword ringing with each clash—"CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK."
From a distance, the archer puppet unleashed arrow after arrow at Ye Feng—"SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH." Ye Feng cut through each incoming arrow with swift, precise swings of his sword. Meanwhile, after Ye Feng bypassed the blade-wielding puppet, it sprinted after him at full speed, rapidly closing the distance between them.
Ye Feng clicked his tongue in irritation. "Damn it, that archer puppet is too annoying. I need to take him out right now."
Suddenly, Ye Feng spun to face the blade-wielding puppet. As it lunged within striking range, he swung his sword in a sharp vertical arc. The puppet was a fraction too slow—Ye Feng's blade sliced through it, cleaving its body in two.
Four arrows streaked toward Ye Feng, aiming straight for his back: "SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH." Yet the radiant cloud of saint force surrounding him acted like an impenetrable shield. The arrows struck the energy barrier, scratching his back as they pierced the shimmering force, before clattering harmlessly to the ground.
After dealing with the blade-wielding puppet, Ye Feng turned his attention to the archer puppet. He charged forward at top speed, weaving and slashing to deflect the arrows raining down from the puppet's bow. As he closed the distance, Ye Feng raised his sword and swung with precision, severing the puppet's head in a single, decisive strike.
After decapitating the archer puppet, Ye Feng gasped for breath, his body trembling. The bright blue saint force cloud that had coated his sword and shielded him slowly dissipated into the air. Just as he tried to steady himself, a sharp, metallic sound echoed through the hall: "CLICK."
The wall in front of Ye Feng slowly rose into the air. Nervously, he tensed, expecting yet another group of puppets but then he noticed a flight of stairs leading upward to the next level. Relief washed over him, and he exclaimed loudly, "Looks like I've cleared all the puppets on the first level of the pagoda!"
A chuckle escaped him as he added, "If the first level was this tough, I can only imagine what the others hold." Ye Feng's lips curled into a vicious smile. 'This is going to be exciting,' he thought. With that, he stepped toward the stairs, ready to face the second level of the pagoda.
______
Outside the Pagoda
Outside the pagoda, all the academy students were in an uproar because one of the students in the pagoda was entering the second level of the Azure Fang Pagoda.
On the pagoda, three specks of light could be seen. Each speck of light represents a student who is still fighting inside the pagoda, and only three students are left inside the pagoda. 197 students were teleported outside the pagoda after getting injured or because they gave up. The injured were sent to the medical bay to get treated by the radiant saint masters of the academy.
One of the specks of light that could be seen on the pagoda was reaching the second level. This only happened twice in the history of Azure Dragon Academy.
The brown-bearded middle-aged man stroked his bread and smirked, "This is getting interesting. I wonder which kid is going to challenge the second level."
Ye Long smiled, and Su Hau asked him, "Do you think it is your fifth brother who is going to challenge the second level?" Ye Long shocks his head: "I'm not sure; , fifth brother is considered a genius back in the clan, but all of us know how difficult the pagoda is; it is hard to say for sure." His friends nodded their heads, agreeing with what Ye Long just said.
______
When Ye Feng reached the second level, he saw a puppet with an average build and height wielding a black sword. The puppet's eyes shone brightly after 2 seconds, and it charged at Ye Feng with its sword. The puppet swung its sword at Ye Feng with the intention of cutting Ye Feng in half. Ye Feng raised his sword to block the sword attack "CLANK.".
Ye Feng gritted his teeth because of the heavy sword swing from the puppet, then kicked the puppet after coating his foot with saint force and sending the puppet a couple of feet backward. Ye Feng smiled strangely at the puppet and said, "This is really going to be interesting. This puppet is much stronger than those I fought in the first level. Let's dance, puppet.".