The puppets stood in front of the disciple from the Thousand Hand sect. They were about 3 meters tall and had long slender arms and legs and a head that was just a massive oval with no feature.
They were made up of wood but were reinforced by metal on the joints.
The first puppet held two short swords in its two arms. The 2nd puppet wore blue armor and also held a bronze shield on its left arm.
The final one held both a shield and a short sword.
Once the disciple from Thousand Sect heard the match start, he immediately controlled the puppets and made the two with the sword jump forward.
Du Yuhan slashed as he pulled the sword from the sheath and launched a flying attack towards the puppet with two swords.
The puppet attacked with its two swords and dissipated most of the incoming attack, and what remained wasn't enough to harm it at all.
Seeing that he didn't stop the puppet's momentum at all, Du Yuhan suddenly started swinging his sword in an infinity shape pattern.
Dozens of minor slashes rained down on all 4 of his opponents. While they weren't very strong on their own, the disciple didn't dare dismiss these attacks as they came from a person that knew sword intent.
The defensive puppet got in front of the disciple and put the shield up. The other puppet with a shield also got in front of the puppet with the swords and blocked most of the attacks.
The puppet landed in front of him and both of them attacked him. However, the attacks were very simple and Du Yuhan easily dodged them. They had lost their previous ferocity.
The disciple hiding behind the defensive puppets peeked and looked at where Du Yuhan was. At that moment, the ferocity returned and they started making more varied attacks that Du Yuhan couldn't easily escape from.
However, even then, the blades of the puppets couldn't touch him at all. He weaved and moved through every attack.
"Oh, he knows it too?" Alex looked at Wen Cheng with an inquisitive look.
Wen Cheng just shrugged and said, "What can I say? After learning that you had a 5 Elemental root, I immediately thought of Yuhan, so when I needed to give you books, I gave you the ones that had helped him."
"Oh, so he's still hiding a lot then?" Alex asked.
"No, not really. Somehow you can make great use of your abilities despite having a poor spiritual root, but Yuhan can't do that. So he only knows a few of the techniques you know, and even then he can't use it all that well," Wen Cheng said.
Du Yuhan kept dodging and launching attacks whenever he got the chance. If he could take out the master, the puppets would follow suit as well.
So, he had been continuously attacking the cultivator as well. After doing that for a while, he had come to realize that the puppets didn't function as well when his opponent couldn't see the battlefield.
He needed to know what was happening to give accurate commands. Otherwise, it was just 'Hit him' or 'stab him' most of the time.
Du Yuhan immediately launched another attack towards his opponent and just as the opponent hid again, he slid behind the sword puppet and started barraging its back with attacks.
The puppet took some damage, but it still turned around to hit him, however, by that time Du Yuhan was far away and was readying his next attack. His sword suddenly started glowing green and the next second, he launched the attack.
The green slash flew through the air towards the damaged sword puppet. Suddenly, the defensive puppet jumped forward and got in front of the sword puppet to take the damage in its place.
BANG
The shield on its left arm got cut in half and it even lost its arm. There was also a deep gash on its chest, but it managed to survive thanks to its armor.
Du Yuhan ignored it and sent a white slash towards the unguarded master, but the third sword and shield puppet jumped forward and blocked him. Since the attack wasn't as strong as before, he only left a little mark on the shield, amongst the dozens he had left already.
For the first time since he started fighting in the competition, Du Yuhan frowned. He had expected the Top 16 fight to be hard, but not this troublesome. The puppets were genuinely no joke.
"Sigh," he let out a sound and suddenly took in a deep breath. The air around him started distorting the image around him as his Sword Intent reached to the extreme. The sword he was holding started collected Qi and turned pure white.
"Oh no. ATTACK HIM!" he ordered all three of his puppets. The three puppets left their place and converged on Du Yuhan.
Du Yuhan didn't send out an attack either. This time, he himself launched forward.
SLASH
Du Yuhan landed in front of his opponents, while the puppets landed behind him. Du Yuhan raised his sword again and his opponent got scared.
"Come back," the opponent ordered his puppets. He was scared that he was going to get attacked without any defense.
However, Du Yuhan didn't attack him. He instead looked at his sword and saw that it was all chipped and unusable now. So, he put the sword back into his sheath.
CLACK
Just as the sound of the sword entering the sheath rang out, the three torsos of the puppets behind him slid down from the waist. They had been cut in half.
Even their weapons and shields had been destroyed, as well as their arms. There was not a single part of their body that came in contact with the slash and survived.
Du Yuhan stared directly into his opponent's eyes and waited.
"I— I give up," the opponent didn't hesitate any more and forfeited the match then and there. The referee announced the results and Du Yuhan walked out of the stage.
During all that, not a single sound escaped from the audience as they were all shocked to speak after such a spectacle.
