CHAPTER 431: CHAPTER 282: DOG PULLING LILY

As the duel progressed, Zhuge gradually started to take things more seriously.

He formed a hand seal, summoning a gust of wind that blew away the talismans. Without getting too close to Xiaomei, he used two Golden Light Curses to scatter the two mischievous Five Elements Miaomiao, who were running around firing the Thousand Machine Cannon aimlessly.

Then, he saw Xiaomei throw out two more Cat Talismans.

"Meow?"

These cats were very slow and usually posed almost no threat, but in the limited space of a duel arena, they were incredibly annoying.

They could fire randomly, but you couldn’t dodge randomly.

Zhuge adjusted his strategy. He widened the distance again, then cast two talismans to summon two spirit monsters.

One tall and one short, one fat and one thin, both were broad-mouthed, big-eyed Catfish Spirits.

"Bengbo, Benba, go, take them down."

Zhuge pointed with a raised hand.

The two Catfish Spirits glanced in the direction Zhuge pointed, counted the opponents, then ran behind Zhuge and hugged his leg, looking like they wanted to go home.

It was utterly embarrassing.

But it was to be expected; after all, little brothers follow their big brother’s lead. Zhuge’s laid-back nature clearly couldn’t train them to fight on the front lines.

Bengbo and Benba usually did chores like serving tea, so sending them onto the battlefield was indeed a bit demanding.

Zhuge sighed and kicked away the two worthless beings, "Then stand to the side and clean away those talismans, cheer me on."

"Got it, big brother, watch us."

After receiving their instructions, Bengbo and Benba ran happily to the sidelines. Bengbo took out a broom, while Benba held a lute, looking like a low-budget version of the Four Heavenly Kings from afar.

"Your apprentices?" In a rest area prepared for elders from various sects, an elder from the Beast Taming Sect nudged the chubby Celestial Master from Dragon Tiger Mountain.

"Just watch." Faced with his disciples’ embarrassing behavior, the chubby Celestial Master was sweating a bit.

But after all, Zhuge was a top disciple of Dragon Tiger Mountain, so he didn’t entirely embarrass himself. He changed his finger technique again, gathering spiritual qi around him. Two faceless Taoists appeared behind Zhuge.

Their aura and cultivation level matched Zhuge’s perfectly.

This at least regained some footing in terms of numbers.

The Qimen Array reactivated beneath his feet, and Zhuge appeared beside Xiaomei. The two Sword Spirits were held back by the faceless Taoists summoned by Zhuge. His hands glowed with golden light as he reached for Xiaomei’s gloves.

He had to give it a try.

Then, he was forced back again.

But this time, what surprised Zhuge wasn’t the peculiar gloves, but the two bizarre, four-legged Thousand Mechanism Puppets beside Xiaomei.

Under Xiaomei’s control, these two Thousand Mechanism Puppets acted like turrets, continuously firing various Taoist Arts.

These Taoist Arts showed no warning before being released, and there was no interval between the releases — even the ones that seemed unconventional were the same.

Zhuge felt a bit of a headache. After all, this was a duel, not a life-and-death struggle, so he couldn’t use some of his techniques.

He flashed aside, dodging a wild shot from the Thousand Machine Cannon, pulling back, and started a talisman shootout with Xiaomei.

The scene was back-and-forth, Taoist techniques flying everywhere, leaving those who didn’t understand dizzy.

All eyes in the arena were on them.

Meanwhile, Bengbo and Benba, who had been loafing around on the sidelines, exchanged a glance, sank their bodies, turned into a puddle of water, and infiltrated toward Xiaomei’s side along the edge of the field.

Their target wasn’t Xiaomei but the two Thousand Mechanism Puppets by her side.

"Bengbo!"

"Benba!"

"The time for us two brothers to make our mark has come!" x2

Bengbo and Benba leapt out of the water, pouncing on the two Thousand Mechanism Puppets that hadn’t moved an inch.

Then they pounced on nothing as the Thousand Mechanism Puppets shimmered with golden light and instantly swapped places with two Five Elements Miaomiao.

"Meow?" The Five Elements Miaomiao tilted their heads, seeing Bengbo and Benba pinning them down.

"Cats count too, even small accomplishments are accomplishments!"

But before they could seek reward from Zhuge, the cats beneath them started glowing white from the inside out.

The cats exploded on them.

At the moment of the explosion, the cunning Bengbo and Benba immediately dissolved into a mass of foam, dispersing amidst the chaos, filling the field with smoke and chaos.

Coincidentally, the two Thousand Mechanism Puppets, like machine guns, paused for a moment and expelled a melted Thousand Mechanism Array Talisman from their back necks, just like the magical gloves.

Seeing the two array talismans fall to the ground, Xiaomei’s eyelid twitched.

"A month’s allowance... although it’ll be reimbursed, still, it’s a whole month..."

Seizing the moment when Xiaomei was dazed, Zhuge appeared beside her again, intent on destroying those mysterious gloves.

Xiaomei’s expression was very interesting at that moment, very conflicted.

She indeed had a way to counter it, but she couldn’t control the power, or rather, the fact was that from the day Lily developed these gloves, controlling power was never a consideration.

The patterns on the gloves shifted from red to black, but Xiaomei gave up on maxing out the power; instead, like last time, she punched toward Zhuge.

"Be careful, senior brother." She warned again.

At the moment of impact, Zhuge swapped his body with the faceless Taoist he had summoned.

The faceless Taoist, identical to Zhuge’s real body, was smashed in half like tofu.

This time, Zhuge clearly saw a twisted vortex forming on the front end of Xiaomei’s gloves.