Chapter164

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...

The golden little bug merged into her body.

Right after it did, Elara immediately felt the power of the Sacred Spirit Blood within her reacting like it had seen some great nourishment. It rushed toward the golden bug and swallowed it up in the blink of an eye.

[Hey, System 92, take a look. Is my Sacred Spirit Blood about to level up?]

After devouring the golden bug, Elara clearly felt the Sacred Spirit Blood inside her had reached a bursting point, like it could break through to the next stage at any moment.

But just as she asked, before System 92 could even answer, she suddenly sensed a new kind of presence within the countless puppet minds connected to her.

She followed these new signals and saw something that left her completely stunned.

Because of the earlier chaotic battle, both her side and the Sect Leader's puppets had suffered major losses. The ground was covered in corpses.

Normally, the puppet sect could only control living beings. A puppet had to be alive to be used. Once dead, it couldn't be controlled anymore.

Yet now, Elara was watching those clearly dead puppet corpses tremble and move again.

Like broken machines being reassembled, the puppets stood up again, even though they were clearly dead.

Their lifeless, empty eyes turned toward her, and an eerie force full of death surged toward her mind. It was not the will of the living but of the undead, and they were pledging loyalty and trying to get close to her.

The undead bodies made low growling sounds from their broken throats. Slow and steady, they moved step by step toward her.

Elara stared at this scene like something out of the underworld, completely shocked.

[Seriously, System 92, you still believe there's no mystical energy in this world?]

If this wasn't mystical energy, what else could make dead corpses stand up and act like living puppets again?

[It really isn't, Host!]

System 92's voice sounded surprised too, but quickly calmed down and explained.

[Though Sacred Spirit Blood isn't exactly within my domain and I can't fully analyze it without more information, I can say for sure: congratulations! Your Sacred Spirit Blood has definitely leveled up!]

[Remember how that freak Sect Leader said combining his mother bug with the Sacred Spirit Blood would allow control of true death puppets? Now that his mother bug is inside you and merged with your Sacred Spirit Blood, these reborn dead puppets must be what he meant by the army of the underworld.]

[They're not moving because of mystical energy. It's the bugs inside their bodies. After your Sacred Spirit Blood merged and upgraded with the golden mother bug, its control over the bugs became much stronger. So even after death, these puppets can still be controlled by you. They've truly become an immortal undead army.]

System 92 paused for a moment, then added hesitantly, [Besides this, your upgraded Sacred Spirit Blood may have more powers, but I can't detect them right now. You should ask Oswyn once you return. He should have a more complete understanding. Once you figure it out, this might become another powerful hidden card for you.]

After hearing all that, Elara didn't even have time to be happy about this new powerful defense and attack force. She immediately asked System 92 again.

[So what you're saying is, that crazy Sect Leader wasn't talking nonsense? He also said that once the Sacred Spirit Blood merges with the mother bug, it can live as long as heaven and earth. Since mine already merged, does that mean I'm no longer bound by the country's fate value? That I can break free from this short life and finally live long?]

System 92 gave an awkward "uh." [Not quite, Host. Your body is different from normal people's. Though the Sacred Spirit Blood combined with the golden bug brings huge benefits—like greatly extending lifespan, possibly living hundreds of years like the White-haired Master in the Divine Doctor's Valley—for you… hmm, you're not ordinary. That particular effect can't fully apply to you. At least for now, I can't detect it. Your current lifespan is still tied to the days you gained through fate value exchange.]

Elara hadn't had high hopes, but hearing this still made her sigh inside.

Fine. If she wanted to live, she still had to honestly keep earning fate value.

But this time, she had taken down Youdan. With such a big shift, the fate value she earned should definitely be much higher than before.

Right as that thought landed, a mechanical voice different from System 92 rang in her mind.

[Ding. Congratulations. You've successfully eliminated one major threat around Plumera: the puppet sect of Youdan. This has altered Plumera's future fate trajectory. Fate value gained: 666 points. Current total: 726 points.]

Half a month ago, Elara had almost run out of lifespan and used 30 fate points to exchange for more time. That left her with only 60 points.

Now a month had passed and that lifespan was nearly used up.

[Ding. Congratulations. You've successfully expanded Plumera's territory by 105,000 square kilometers and increased its population by around 600,000. This has slightly boosted Plumera's national strength and changed its future fate development. Fate value gained: 500 points. Current total: 1226 points.]

From the battle at Anqu Town, Elara had fully realized how crucial fate value was.

Before, she'd only get a few dozen or maybe a hundred points. Now she was getting five or six hundred at once.

And System 92, unusually generous this time, even counted defeating and conquering Youdan separately. That let her get two sets of rewards, and her total fate value shot up past a thousand points.

It was her first time seeing this much fate value, and she was thrilled.

Still, it only translated to three years of life.

And Elara couldn't afford to use all of it for lifespan. This was a precious item that could save her life at a critical moment, so she had to save as much as possible.

But since the lifespan she previously exchanged was nearly gone, with less than ten days left, Elara still spent 90 fate points to buy three more months.

[Ding. Successfully exchanged for 90 days of lifespan. Remaining lifespan: 97 days. Remaining fate value: 1136 points.]

After checking her fate value and exchanged lifespan, Elara finally looked around.

Besides the shocking undead army, the other surviving puppets were healing quickly with the help of the bugs.

Other than Tres and Blackmane, who had come into direct contact with the Sect Leader, no one else was seriously injured.

Elara walked over to Blackmane and Tres. She pricked her fingertip and let a drop of blood fall onto a pill, then handed the pill to both of them.

Perhaps because her Sacred Spirit blood had advanced again, its healing properties had greatly improved.

After taking the pills, the wounds on Blackmane and Tres healed rapidly, visible to the naked eye.

Elara could feel the hundred thousand life-and-death puppet soldiers now under her control, and she gave a preliminary order for them to quickly clean up the battlefield.

The moment all one hundred thousand began moving, the efficiency was naturally extremely high.

Soon, the once chaotic battlefield had become nearly spotless, revealing the original appearance of the area.

And after Elara had taken control of the puppet army, the puppets that had died on the battlefield came back to life and stood up again. The ground was left with only a few scattered corpses.

After scanning the entire cleared battlefield and sorting through the information the puppets had gathered, Elara led the Tres family and the army to sweep through the Puppet Sect. They looted everything valuable from inside and out.

Then, she gave the second order to the puppet army: put out the fire at the grain depot outside the Puppet Sect and salvage as much grain as possible.

At the same time, she released several black hawks to deliver the same message to the other two granaries in the Youdan region.

Now that she had taken control of the Youdan puppets, everything in Youdan was hers. The three granaries originally meant to pressure the palace with fire should naturally be saved, and as much grain as possible recovered.

After giving all these instructions, Elara told the army to continue collecting all usable goods that could be brought back.

The Puppet Sect, being an evil sect ranked above the royal family in Youdan, had an overwhelming number of treasures in its main base. It was as if the national treasury had been moved here.

Not to mention the rare Gu insects, just the silver, gold, and jewels hidden within the sect already totaled over a million.

There were also all kinds of rare treasures, along with various toxic herbs and spiritual medicines sought by Oswyn and the other disciples of the Divine Healer Valley.

Whether for trade or other uses, these things would definitely earn a great profit later.

Elara felt her mood improving as she looked at the looted spoils.

She had the army continue their raids and harvests, while she led the Tres family toward the nearby royal palace.

...

Inside the Youdan royal palace

As she had expected, in this nation ruled by the Puppet Sect, the queen insect inside the Sect Leader had already taken control of the entire royal household.

When Elara entered the palace, there was no resistance at all. Instead, everyone from the emperor, royal family, nobles, to the imperial harem and servants, stared at her with unnatural desire and eagerness.

A simple scan allowed her to sense the deeply embedded Gu insects inside them.

Especially within the Youdan royals, many of the insects had been implanted when they were very young. Now, they had fully fused with their bodies and couldn't be removed.

The current emperor of Youdan was a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old boy, about the same age as Shera.

Perhaps raised by the Puppet Sect as a pet puppet, the boy was unusually delicate and pale, with refined, beautiful features. He looked like a carefully pampered pet. If he hadn't been wearing a yellow robe, Elara might have mistaken him for the star performer at a small parlor.

Besides him, there were seventeen or eighteen other boys in the palace who looked quite similar. It was obvious they were also royal blood, even siblings of the young emperor.

After examining the emperor and the group of princes behind him, Elara stood in the center of the palace and looked over the entire place.

When she finished, she intended to visit the other buildings. But just as she turned, the young emperor, who had been looking at her with desperate longing since she entered, suddenly ran to her and stripped off his loose robe. He exposed his pale, slim body and crawled at her feet, wrapping his arms around her legs and pressing a kiss to them.

"Master... please, show me mercy..."

After the emperor lay there naked, the rest of the princes did the same, crawling to Elara in unison.

Dozens of eager, hopeful eyes stared at her. Elara looked at their beautiful young faces and felt a strange emotion stir inside her.

The Puppet Sect had truly turned the Youdan royal family into a den of pleasure slaves.

This scene—how could this even be called a palace? It was no different from a high-class brothel.

What concerned Elara most was the strange shape of their bodies. After they took off their robes, the originally flat stomachs of the boys had subtle to clear swelling.

Some of them were already as large as watermelons. If not for their gender, they would look like women seven or eight months pregnant.

Inside their abnormal bellies, Elara sensed a familiar presence.

They were filled with Gu insect eggs. It seemed the Puppet Sect hadn't just used them for pleasure, but also as hosts to breed Gu insects, similar to the "pregnant men" Elara had seen in the poisonous spider nest in Anju Town.

Now that the control over these hosts had transferred to Elara, she could clearly sense that before long, these "pregnant" Youdan princes would start laying insect eggs continuously.

It was a disturbing image, and Elara didn't know what to say for a moment.

She looked away from their swollen stomachs and decided to let Oswyn handle them later.

Ignoring the desperate gazes of the pretty boys, she walked past them and continued deeper into the Youdan palace.

As expected, the treasures in the royal palace couldn't compare to what the Puppet Sect had hoarded.