Mechanical Alchemist-Chapter 366 - 365 The Fear Dominated by Su Lun

Having obtained detailed intelligence about the North Sea’s eighteen fleets in advance, Su Lun’s plan had considered almost everything that could happen at the moment.

A strategic "combination punch" caught the enemy off guard. Before the pirates could even react, three warships had been sunk with crew members thrown overboard.

After he had wielded his black scythe to swiftly kill two fourth-tier squad captains and a bunch of underlings, it was only then that the remaining squad captains realized what was happening.

’Drunkard’ Roberson was the fleet’s lead squad captain, wielding a Void Claw with strong armor-piercing capability and few equals in his tier. It was his weapon, the Void Steel Claw prosthetic, that had sliced off several of the kraken’s tentacles, preserving half of the ship—although it was later breached by a sword qi strike from Qiantiao, his strength was beyond doubt.

As everyone knows, the most direct way to deal with a Puppet Master is to kill the controller.

Roberson’s eyes were cold as he stared at Su Lun on the sea surface and bellowed, "Kill that Puppet Master first!"

With those words, he exchanged glances with the nearby fourth squad captain ’Whaler’ Aireno and ninth squad captain ’Python Fist’ Teck.

The three Tier-Five experts instantly understood each other and charged forward.

....

Su Lun’s Puppet Theater was positioned cunningly, covering the area of the three sunken ships, where the crowd was densest.

Qiantiao and Barrett had already joined forces to push the sixth-tier Dorosel far outside the range of the sunken ships, allowing Su Lun to freely manipulate his puppet legion in combat.

The black umbrella enhanced his Soul Perception range; he could see all the souls on the sea surface and below, their fluctuations were crystal clear. The Dead Herald birds circling in the sky shared their vision with him, allowing Su Lun to see everything happening on the sea. His ability to multitask also enabled him to maintain perfect control of the entire battlefield.

This also meant that he was simply impossible to ambush!

Even without using his eyes to see, a casual swing of his black scythe was bound to strike its target.

This near-complete sensory coverage left the enemy with no defense. No line of sight to capture, no perception of malice, no breath targeting... one could never know where the next spatial fissure would appear.

With a swing of the black scythe, a random "lucky one" was taken away.

As if Death itself was following at their side, nobody knew when the black scythe would reap their life.

The cursed object of sealed-item grade truly demonstrated its equivalent rank of lethal prowess at that moment.

Unstoppable!

No one dared to stand where the scythe’s blade pointed!

Panic spread rapidly.

And just then, Su Lun sensed that the fifth squad captain had vanished from his perception, and his gaze suddenly sharpened.

He identified that the leading figure was ’Drunkard’ Roberson, an Assassin by profession.

"Void powers" and Assassin professions were a perfect match, allowing their stealth to be more than just optical disappearance; it was slipping into the void itself.

Su Lun tended with no less caution.

Suddenly, he perceived a spatial fluctuation behind him and without any hesitation, he used a "Flash" to dodge away from his original position.

Almost at the same time, the afterimage he left was caught by five void fissures and dispersed.

"Such a sharp assassination technique!"

Su Lun’s pupils contracted sharply because an arrow barrage was heading his way.

The one attacking was the fourth squad captain ’Whaler’ Aireno, a master archer, whose weapon was a rare cursed object capable of firing void arrows. Continue your journey at novelbuddy

Su Lun had glanced at it earlier and recognized it on the spot. Harvested from ancient ruins, with an effective range of three hundred meters, it could ignore armor defenses.

Another very troublesome cursed object.

And what’s worse, in the blink of an eye, Su Lun noticed a figure stepping on air, charging towards him vigorously. It was none other than the Ninth Squad Captain, ’Python Fist’ Teck, whose Stepping on Air was combined with Void Displacement, moving so fast that several afterimages remained in the field of vision.

Three tier 5 professionals were working together seamlessly, nearly cutting off all of Su Lun’s avenues of escape.

Su Lun looked at the dozens of Spatial Arrows mere inches away, a flash of cold light in his eyes.

Instead of avoiding them, he suddenly took out a black-and-white chessboard.

Faster than the arrows, a beam of light shot forward, hitting the ’Whaler’, Aireno Mei, who had been shooting from cover.

When it came to cursed items, Su Lun had more than these pirates could handle!

In an instant, the surroundings flickered with light and shadow, and suddenly he was in the enclosed space of the black-and-white chessboard.

...

The firepower of archer professionals was formidable, and they possessed a terrifying ability for long-range sniping.

But usually, if a profession has strengths, it inevitably has weaknesses.

And most archers’ physical combat capabilities were weak!

Therefore, professions like archers and snipers were generally the key protection targets within a team.

Just like now, this guy was guarded by an entire small squad.

But Su Lun’s [Stanitz’s Chessboard] was meant for one-on-one duels, pulling people in unreasonably directly.

The scenery shifted all around.

Aireno Mei’s face turned pale as well.

His reaction was quick; raising his hand, he drew his longbow, and several more Void Arrows materialized.

Su Lun gave him no chance, pinching a sorcerer’s seal, and a layer of dark golden runes appeared on his body as he softly commanded, "Hormonal Outburst·Quadruple Dissolution!"

The spell rapidly took shape, and his muscles swelled instantly. With a fierce stomp on the ground and a "crack" sound, he shot forward like a cannonball.

Aireno Mei was horrified and puzzled: How could a Puppet Master possibly be this fast?

But his hands didn’t stop moving, firing three arrows in quick succession.

Su Lun didn’t dodge at all, charging towards the incoming arrows.

Just as the arrows were about an inch from his forehead, [Flash] was ready for use once more.

In this constrained space, Su Lun’s exaggerated speed allowed him to close the distance abruptly, appearing right in front of Aireno Mei’s face.

At this very moment, the pirate squad captain’s face was a mix of disbelief and terror.

The spatial chessboard couldn’t restrain those who were capable of Spatial Displacement, but unfortunately for Aireno Mei, he couldn’t use it!

His path of advancement wasn’t Spatial Displacement. In order to use that cursed longbow in his hands, he put all his advancement options into "output."

Under normal circumstances, a professional in a team doesn’t need every member to be all-around capable.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

As long as the healer has enough healing power, the tank can take damage, and the damage dealers can strike... that’s enough.

Everyone complements each other, allowing collective combat power to multiply exponentially.

But now, turned into a "1V1" by Su Lun, Aireno Mei was completely flustered.

He had just stripped enough "grey mist" from the corpses of those pirate lackeys, allowing Su Lun to understand the capabilities of the various squad captains like the back of his hand.

Multi-tasking and extremely high brain capacity development were utilized to their fullest in such complex combat, making Su Lun’s brain operate like a high-speed computer that could quickly process newly acquired information.

It was precisely because he had mastered these pieces of intelligence that he didn’t hesitate to opt for close-quarters combat.

Once he got close, his black scythe slashed horizontally, and Aireno Mei’s frail body meant he couldn’t perform extreme dodges right after shooting arrows and could only watch helplessly as a spatial rift appeared at his waist.

The leather armor he was wearing wasn’t ordinary either. Under normal circumstances, it could protect him from fatal injuries, even if he faced an opponent of the same level.

Unfortunately, what Su Lun wielded in his hand was a "sealed item."

It was a smoothness without the slightest pain, and Aireno watched as his upper body separated from his lower, his life force rapidly fading away.

It wasn’t that the squadron captain wasn’t strong enough; from beginning to end, he was calculated to death due to the asymmetry of information.

...

"You have stripped ’Aireno Mei’s soul."

"You have gained a large amount of casting skills for ’spatial spells’, experience +751"

"Your comprehension of the Space Law has been enhanced..."

"You have stripped some information: ’The death rate of fusing with the void is extremely high, but at least I finally pulled through. All the companions that were once with me are dead, only I am left...’"

"..."

After slaying his target, Su Lun stripped away that mass of gray fog.

The comprehension of the laws by a fifth-order professional was incomparable to that of lower-order professionals; this mass of gray fog brought him improvements many times greater than the dozens of other mass he had stripped before—enough to save him ten years of arduous cultivation.

Squadron captain-level pirates would possess more secrets, and Su Lun also learned about the situation of the "void fleet" from this guy’s soul.

This fleet was formed over a mountain of bones.

Not everyone is suitable for fusing with the void profession, but human life isn’t worth much in this world. King Oleg of the North Sea tried with a large number of people, numerous deformations, and deaths later, and only one in a hundred survived. Only then did this "void fleet" come into being.

Without the time to think deeply, Su Lun didn’t even look at the spoils of war, but stuffed the corpses and arrows into his storage space.

The scenery around him changed once more, returning him to the surface of the sea.

...

The pirates had no clue what had happened, watching Su Lun vanish into thin air and then reappearing similarly out of nowhere.

The whole process took less than ten breaths of time.

What was key was that the Fourth Squadron Captain ’Whaler’ Aireno who vanished with him never reappeared!

The pirates understood all too well that the squadron captain was probably more unlucky than not.

Meanwhile, Qian Tiao and Captain Barrett, who were fiercely battling in the distance, also saw what happened here.

Although it seemed that these two high-ranked fighters were the biggest factors influencing the outcome of this sea battle, they both understood that the actual, most important variable was "Su Lun."

The battle changed in the blink of an eye, and in just this short period, so many unexpected things happened. Barrett was so utterly shocked he couldn’t speak.

Previously, when he saw those dozens of mechanical octopuses appear, he thought Su Lun was a [Beast Tamer].

But now, looking at the sky filled with silken threads and runic puppets, he realized, was he actually a Puppet Master?

But even so, he never could have imagined that Su Lun alone could oppress over a thousand people in battle?

Which Puppet Master could control hundreds of puppets at once?

He could still afford to be distracted while fighting several professionals a whole major rank above him, and even managed to counter-kill one?

Barrett’s gaze was complex as he looked at Su Lun in the distance, with the specter of a scythe-wearing death reaper looming behind him.

Emperor Luying’s domain was a place where talents converged, with all sorts of rare A-tier and B-tier talents; what hadn’t he seen before?

But this death reaper phantom wielding a black scythe, he truly had never seen before.

He had not even heard of it!

Yet, that did not stop him from discerning that this was an extremely rare "S-rank" talent.

Moreover, the fact that the specter was externally manifested also meant that it was a talent at its second awakening.

Barrett felt that today, he had exhausted a lifetime’s worth of shocks.

He had just witnessed a second awakening of Rakshasa Woman, which he thought was one in a hundred million, only to encounter another talent that was even more unique.

Barrett himself was a second awakener of the "Talent C-071-Ape"; how could he not know, the higher the rank of a talent, the more difficult it was to develop?

Without exaggeration, could a normal person who hadn’t been through several near-death experiences awaken such a high-level talent’s second form?

But these two guys in front of him both were...

Forget it, incomparable.

For the first time, Barrett felt that his former reputation as the "prodigy graduate of the Imperial Capital Military Academy" was so dim and dull in the presence of these two.

It was said that they also had a very powerful and mysterious leader.

Barrett couldn’t help but wonder, just who exactly are these people in the "Dawn Group"?

....

As Su Lun left, the Puppet Theater lost its support, and runic puppets floated all over the sea.

After he appeared on the sea’s surface, the sorcerer’s seals were joined once more, and the cross in the sky again began to slowly condense.

Watching Su Lun act so brazenly, how could those squad captains stand it?

Just at the moment Su Lun materialized, the "Drunkard" Roberson emerged once again from the void and reached out for another grab.

Su Lun too caught the glimpse of a soul fire that had appeared behind him.

This fellow was truly a professional assassin; he had chosen a very tricky moment to appear, exactly when Su Lun was concentrating on his spell. Under normal circumstances, this grasp, even if it did not injure someone, could interrupt the casting of the spell.

And the killing intent did not come from just one direction.

On another front, "Python Fist" Teck also teleported and burst through the air, swinging a heavy punch.

This combined attack maneuver was all too familiar by now.

Su Lun knew clearly that his chessboard couldn’t keep these two guys under control.

This time, however, he did not make any superfluous movements. The sorcerer’s seals in his hands continued to condense, but a certain thread pulled by the spider spear behind him moved ever so slightly.

The crows in the sky that herald death could clearly see that the assassin behind was aiming a grasp at the back of his head.

Su Lun tilted his head slightly, splitting open the grasp.

The cooperation between these two squad captains was extremely synchronized. Under normal circumstances, as long as he chose to dodge, he would definitely face the oncoming heavy punch.

But at that moment, a bizarre scene occurred!

The "Python Fist" Teck was originally aiming to bash Su Lun with a punch, but for some reason, his fist unexpectedly veered off, as if he had suddenly changed his mind, and he charged straight towards the "Drunkard" Roberson instead.

The moment that was captured was Su Lun just managing to crane his neck away from the claw when Teck’s heavy fist eerily landed on Roberson’s head.

With a "thud," the sound was like a hammer smashing a watermelon.

This punch, entwined with distorted space, hit right in the face.

Luckily for him, the assassin’s extraordinary reaction speed allowed Roberson to lean back to the extreme, unloading seven or eight parts of the force.

Otherwise, his head might have been blown apart by that punch.

Even so, the punch still sent the Ninth Squad Captain flying out like a cannonball.

Seizing the opportunity, Su Lun rapidly retreated dozens of meters, and the sorcerer’s seals in his hand were also successfully condensed.

A hundred meters away, Roberson, with a face blurred with blood and flesh, climbed up from the seawater, outraged, "Teck, what the hell is he doing?"

This punch had nearly taken his life!

Teck looked at his own fist as if he had seen a ghost, confusedly saying, "I... I don’t know!"

He was clearly aiming for that guy, so how did he end up hitting his own partner?

All the pirates’ gazes collectively turned toward the expressionless man.

....

The cross in the sky had once again condensed.

Su Lun breathed a sigh of relief.

With "Puppet Mastery: Slaughter Theater," he felt once again as if everything was under his control.

Looking at the pirates who had yet to react on the opposite side, he murmured to himself with an indifferent expression, "Didn’t kill him... that’s a bit of a pity."

However, the next second, a murderous intent suddenly surged!

A cold glint flashed in his eyes, his left hand suddenly made a grabbing motion in the air, resembling the act of pulling on threads, while the scythe in his right simultaneously swung down.

Teck, who was still in a daze, saw the dark scythe far away swinging toward him and showed an expression of horror.

An instinctive sense of danger made him stomp on the wooden board beneath his feet, trying to use the force to dodge.

In a normal situation, such an obvious attack trajectory could never harm him.

But in that split second of dodging, he suddenly felt his body stiffen, and the spiritual power inside his body uncontrollably paused for a moment.

"Not good!"

Teck realized the abnormality in his body and understood what had just happened: someone had taken control of his body!

How could this be?

He hadn’t fallen for any illusion technique, so how could his body be controlled?

But reality left no time for further thought; he clearly sensed a spatial rift appear above his neck.

In that instant when death approached, Teck twisted his body to the limit, narrowly avoiding the spatial rift.

Did he avoid it?

No, he hadn’t!

Su Lun hadn’t unleashed a single strike, but two!

At that moment, Teck also sensed another spatial rift appearing in his perception.

The opponent had even calculated that he would move to the right!

With a face full of despair, Teck realized he had already lost his balance and couldn’t dodge any longer.

He could only watch in horror as the spatial rift sliced off half of his head, plunging his vision into darkness.

From afar, Su Lun watched impassively as that head was split in two, whispering to himself, "Skilled in heavy side kicks with the right leg, which means the left leg is often used as the supporting leg to generate force... He most likely would dodge to the right."

He had determined this from the intelligence he had obtained and from observations he made earlier.

The guy was wearing shorts, revealing the muscular patterns on his legs, which were uncovered. Fighters, in their professional tier, could deduce force habits from certain details of the body’s muscles.

Once figured out, some impulsive reactions could be predicted.

Moreover, Su Lun had taken one more precaution: he manipulated the tilt of the wooden boards on the water’s surface with threads, which was difficult to notice.

In order to maintain the force and balance, the guy would most likely move to the right as well.

So, it was a one-strike kill.

As for why the Ninth Squad Captain had hit the wrong person before, and why his body had tensed up for a moment, it was because of the "Soul Perception."

Did the Puppeteer only control puppets?

No, wherever his gaze fell, all became puppets!

Su Lun was well aware that it was almost impossible for him to control high-ranking professionals with "Soul Perception" at the moment, but changing a little bit at a critical moment was still achievable.

Soul Perception was a form of physical control, like inserting silver needles to instantaneously block the blood flow, sending false signals to the nerves, which was indeed achievable.

Just before, he had stripped a fifth-tier professional in the chessboard space, so now Su Lun’s understanding of the "Space Law" had reached that of a fifth-tier professional. This meant he could break through Teck’s protective void barrier with threads without drawing much attention.

This, too, led to the moment earlier, when the guy was misled by the wrong neural signals, thus losing control of his body for an instant.

On the battlefield, such a mistake was enough to cost him his life.

...

Each phase of the plan was linked to the next.

He had been holding back his "Soul Perception" control ability for so long, just to set a trap for a high-tier professional.

Now it seemed, it worked just perfectly.

Although Su Lun was just standing there, his body was surrounded by countless translucent energy threads, and if one could sense the energy fluctuations, they would realize he resembled a jellyfish.

By this time, the lower-ranking lackeys’ bodies were already pierced with various "thread ends."

Those hair-like threads were difficult to detect.

"The Wailing Witch’s Infinite Hair" had an outstanding discontinuous property, which is to say, it could be connected at any time.

Now that the "Soul Perception" was exposed, Su Lun wasn’t planning on hiding it anymore.

At that moment, a sinister and ferocious look appeared in his eyes. With ten fingers making a grabbing motion in the air, he pulled countless threads and exclaimed, "Puppet Mastery: Slaughter Theater!"

...

Three fifth-tier squad captains attempted to kill a fourth-tier individual, but instead of succeeding, two were killed in two rounds.

Witnessing this scene, the pirates could not help but feel a chill.

More than a thousand people looked at the solitary figure standing on the sea, the Harpoon Reaper, with eyes full of terror, as if time itself had stopped, and everyone had forgotten to attack.

They truly didn’t know how to kill the man before them.

He was clearly just a fourth-tier, so why was he so terrifying...

He had too many inconceivable methods at his disposal.

And then, an even more horrifying scene unfolded.

The moment Su Lun’s spell was one percent complete, countless threads fell, and the pirates thought they were about to face a puppet army again, but without warning, their comrades suddenly drew their blades and stabbed at them.

"Mark, what are you doing!"

"I... I don’t know! My body isn’t under my control!"

"Damn it, don’t come near me!"

"Be careful, that guy has the ability to control the target’s body... Everyone, stay out of the range of that cross."

"..."

Firearms discharged wildly, cannons thundered and exploded.

The low-ranking lackeys were like puppets on the front line, each turning to shoot and slash at their own comrades.

Their minds were clear, but their bodies were uncontrollable.

For a time, it was extremely chaotic.

This group of pirates was experiencing the horror of being dominated by a "Puppeteer" for the first time.

It was like when Su Lun had first crossed over, witnessing in "Storm Villa" Pestoya manipulating the puppet for the first time.

That type of fear from the unknown was truly terrifying.

Was it truly one against a thousand?

No, from the start of the fight, it was destined to be legion against legion.

Su Lun’s "Mental Tentacles" could turn enemies into his puppets.

As soon as they were controlled, they would immediately "mutiny."

This move directly resolved Su Lun’s situation of fighting a lone battle.

The pirates had only needed to defend against Su Lun alone; now, they had to beware of the people beside them,

Even those squad leaders of the fourth and fifth tier instantly lost their will to fight.

They then realized that from the start, that man’s face was always incredibly calm.

It was a kind of despair... that no one could resist!

Like the mastermind behind a puppet theater, he was composed,

He was in control of everything.

....

As Su Lun manipulated the pirates to slaughter each other, members from the "Dawn Group" and the "Judgment Group" also gathered around from a distance.

They hadn’t imagined that in the short time it took to charge, "Mister Su Lun" had already secured the victory by himself.

But on everyone’s face was a look of horror.

Even the members of the Dawn Group.

A thousand people slaughtering each other, the blood dyed a large area red, what an appalling sight?

Beyond the shock, the crowd roared excitedly, chasing after the fleeing pirates to kill them.

...

On the other hand, seeing this from afar, Barrett also heaved a sigh of relief.

Su Lun fought against three squad leaders, killing two of the fifth-tier.

He also caused chaos among the thousand pirates with his strange controlling techniques.

Barrett was numb with shock...

Drawing in a cold breath, he exclaimed, "This fellow’s combat power... is equal to that of an entire legion!"

Barrett didn’t fail to see that the extremely meticulous battlefield calculation was the most terrifying part...

Like a dance of swords, any mistake could mean irreversible doom.

And yet, he had done it.

He was eerily calm.

Despite his astonishment, Barrett felt a surge of elation.

He knew that under the current situation, as long as he and the Thousand Stripes Miss could continue to hold on, the pirates of the "Demon Hand" Doloress would inevitably be defeated, and their Dawn Group would finally turn the tide.

But Doloress had extremely strong spatial displacement abilities; Barrett knew that he couldn’t keep him here and would ultimately have to let him escape.

Just then, Thousand Stripes’ communicator seemed to receive a message.

She slashed out a Sword Qi, retreated a great distance in a burst, then cried out to Barrett, "Captain Barrett, get ready to make your move!"

"???"

Upon hearing this, Barrett was bewildered for a moment.

What did she mean?

Weren’t they in the middle of a fight?

He thought he had misheard.

But then, under his astonished gaze, he saw that Thousand Stripes, who had already been quite impressive, suddenly had her aura shoot up dramatically.

Looking again, the shadowy six-armed Rakshasa behind her slowly condensed into a golden statue-like form.

"This... this... this!"

Barrett cried out in his heart,

He might not have seen this before, but he already had a guess in his mind.

This was definitely not the Rakshasa Woman in her second state!

So, could it possibly be the third state?

He then realized, from the beginning to the end, she had not really shown her true power?!