hotmtlnovel Chapter 576: All Puppets Deployed
Chapter 576: All Puppets Deployed
This strange version of Ji Zixuan didn’t answer but instead stared back at him and asked:“You must have crawled out of the grave mound before me, right? The moment I climbed out, you knocked me on the head. Your movements were practiced, so you’ve knocked other heads before, haven’t you?”
“The creatures you encountered crawling out of other grave mounds probably didn’t look like me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have knocked my head directly.”
This analysis made sense.
At the same time, his words could be taken as an implicit admission to Jiang Ye’s question——
He had been trapped in the grave mound after falling behind, and when he crawled out, he was knocked on the head, then resurrected.
And having confirmed this point...
Just as this strange Ji Zixuan was about to continue asking Jiang Ye about more of his experiences after crawling out of the grave mound, Jiang Ye gripped the iron hammer tightly and smashed it against his head again.
Completely unexpected, a vicious blow with immense force.
Jiang Ye was thinking that this resurrected clone version of himself might have a harder head.
But that hammer blow still felt like striking air.
The strange Ji Zixuan’s head was still brittle as ever, easily crushed to pulp by the iron hammer.
At the same time, this bizarre Ji Zixuan once again rapidly dissolved into gray mist, melting back into the soil of the grave mound.
Jiang Ye didn’t dare let his guard down. He remained on high alert for over ten seconds, waiting until he was sure the thing wouldn’t resurrect again before finally letting out a slow breath of relief.
He looked once more at the grave mound soil that was slowly growing to fill the gap, and an inexplicable heaviness welled up in his heart.
Just like with Zhou Qiming, whom he had killed earlier, he still didn’t believe that this Ji Zixuan, who lacked clone connection, was really a clone.
To him, a clone without clone connection was no clone at all!
Even more so, through this encounter with Ji Zixuan, who shared the same appearance but couldn’t be sensed as a clone...
He strongly suspected that these things crawling out of the grave mounds weren’t even living creatures!
And the ones breeding these ghostly things were probably the grave mound soil itself!
With this thought, Jiang Ye stared at the grave mound for a few more seconds before finally making a decision——
He began to actively dig the grave.
But the soil he dug wasn’t piled to the side. Instead, it was all collected into the Clone Shared Space.
Of course, the moment the soil entered the Clone Shared Space, it vanished into thin air.
Jiang Ye didn’t pay it any mind. He worked at considerable speed, and in less than two minutes, he had razed the grave mound to the ground.
The flat ground looked like blackened soil, nothing special.
Jiang Ye stood on this leveled ground and swept his gaze around again.
The endless expanse of grave mounds still showed no abnormalities.
But the soil beneath his feet, Jiang Ye noticed, was growing at a visible rate!
It was as if the soil he had loaded into the Clone Shared Space, only to have it disappear, had returned here...
In less than thirty seconds, the grave mound he had flattened was rising again!
Jiang Ye followed the mound’s growth and stood at its peak.
He furrowed his brow, pondered for a moment, then used the Clone Shared Space to retrieve the bone ash box given by the administrator.
He dug up the grave mound again.
The same one, but this time, the soil he excavated was loaded into the bone ash box.
This time, the soil loaded into the bone ash box didn’t disappear!
And...
Logically, the size of the bone ash box couldn’t possibly hold all the soil from an entire grave mound.
But Jiang Ye indeed managed to fit all the soil inside!
At first, he suspected that the soil at the very bottom had disappeared again, which was why the box could hold so much.
Later, after careful observation, he discovered——
The soil entering the bone ash box didn’t seem to disappear at all. It was as if it had been compressed.
Thus, the grave mound was once again razed to the ground, with all its soil loaded into the bone ash box.
The once-light bone ash box now had an appropriate weight. Holding it in his hand, it actually felt like a box truly filled with cremains.
This feeling made Jiang Ye wonder...
Could it be that the soil in this endless grave mound zone wasn’t really soil at all, but actual cremains?
The thought flashed through his mind as he stood on the flattened grave mound soil, observing closely.
There was no change in the view from any angle, but the grave mound beneath his feet finally stopped "growing."
This... did it mean that one grave mound had truly been razed?
Jiang Ye’s mind stirred, and he took out another bone ash box.
Yes, he had two bone ash boxes in total.
One was given by the administrator to hold the prison watch.
The other was given by the administrator to open the coffin.
Though they looked the same, there was a difference between them.
The box used to open the coffin hadn’t absorbed any runes from the coffin.
But the box used to hold the prison watch had likely absorbed the coffin’s runes.
The box Jiang Ye had just used to load the soil was the one for opening the coffin, which hadn’t absorbed any runes.
The one he now took out was the one that had absorbed runes from holding the watch.
He walked directly to another grave mound nearby and, following the same method, razed it to the ground.
The soil from this mound was loaded into the box that had absorbed the runes.
He wondered if the box with runes and the one without might produce different effects.
But as far as he could see, there was no difference.
It still held all the soil from the entire mound, and this flattened grave mound also didn’t "resurrect."
Thus, in this eerie, endless grave mound zone, two incongruous flat patches of ground had appeared.
Jiang Ye stood on one of them, feeling a strange sense of unease——
According to the administrator, the grave mounds in this endless zone could certainly regenerate.
No matter how many times he dug up graves during each exploration, the mounds would always return to their original state when he re-entered.
But the problem was...
The administrator likely had plenty of bone ash boxes.
And he could freely enter this endless grave mound zone using the [Carefree Dao Stone].
If that was the case...
Hadn’t the administrator tried loading the soil into a bone ash box?
After the soil was boxed up, those grave mounds seemed unable to regenerate, didn’t they?
And what about the next time he came in?
Would those two grave mounds loaded into the boxes reappear?
Thinking this, Jiang Ye suddenly had a vague realization...
He might have touched upon a certain taboo!
The administrator held a compass and was warned to only explore in the direction it pointed.
So, the being who gave him the bone ash box might have also warned him not to use the box to load the soil from this endless grave mound zone.
The moment this thought crossed his mind, Jiang Ye tried to put both bone ash boxes back into the Clone Shared Space.
But...
The box that had absorbed the runes was successfully stored.
However, the one that hadn’t absorbed any runes refused to go in!
Not only that...
Jiang Ye felt the temperature of this box slowly rising!
It was as if...
Something inside was burning!
In that instant, something seemed to ignite in Jiang Ye’s mind too!
Though he had no memories, he vaguely recalled a fragment of a scene.
He...
Must have held a bone ash box before.
He clearly remembered that the temperature of the box was hot!
Because the cremains inside were usually fresh from the furnace...
As a blurry image flickered through his mind, the bone ash box in Jiang Ye’s hand grew hotter and hotter.
The atmosphere of this endless grave mound zone also took on an eerie quality.
Soon, Jiang Ye heard a rustling sound.
And he saw——
As far as the naked eye could see, the soil on every grave mound in this endless zone began to slide off!
This commotion meant something was crawling out of the graves!
Unlike before, where only one crawled out at a time...
This time, it seemed like something in every single grave was climbing out!
This realization jolted Jiang Ye’s heated mind back to clarity in an instant, sending a chill down his spine!
Soon, he saw——
Indeed, arms were emerging from the tops of the mounds, one after another.
Eyeless heads, following the gaps made by the arms, poked out from the soil!
They climbed out much faster than the strange figures Jiang Ye had just killed!
In just a few seconds, Jiang Ye saw...
Across this endless grave mound zone, countless figures were climbing out of countless mounds!
They had no eyes and seemed to have no consciousness...
And their faces... were all Jiang Ye!
The original Jiang Ye! The eyeless Jiang Ye!
The feeling of dread turned into an extreme threat of death!
This time, Jiang Ye didn’t dare underestimate these brittle-headed things in the slightest...
Not just because of their terrifying numbers.
But because each and every one of them gave him a feeling that they could instantly kill him!