"Old Sha, don't hurt it!"
Su Ping cried out instinctively.
The moment that figure appeared, Su Ping could sense that its strength probably wasn't very high.
Although a pet beast's combat power had nothing to do with its size, a little thing like this—only about as tall as an adult's calf under the moonlight—really didn't look very threatening.
What surprised him was that when faced with Old Sha's arrival, the figure showed no sign of panic or fear. It merely retreated a few steps and struck an extremely strange pose, one hand buckled at its waist.
Its body lowered slightly, taking on a stance that looked coiled and ready to spring.
Hearing Su Ping's shout, Old Sha slowed its charge and came to a partial stop. Those eyes, glowing with an eerie green light under the dark moon, remained firmly locked onto the little thing in front of it.
Only then did Su Ping finally get a clear look, with the help of the hazy moonlight, at what exactly this thing was.
A diminutive body—so thin it looked as though a gust of wind could blow it away—deathly pale in color.
Fold marks, a face painted with oily pigments, and what passed for clothing on its body.
All of this confirmed its identity.
It was a paper effigy.
From head to toe, it showed no sign of flesh and blood. It wasn't a ghostly elemental spirit, nor was it a skeleton.
Instead, it looked like a small figure folded from paper with exquisite craftsmanship.
There was even rouge painted on its cheeks, making it look especially eerie.
A normal-tier undead pet beast: a paper effigy.
It was infamously known as the shame of undead-type pet beasts.
It competed with skeleton soldiers for the title of weakest undead pet.
Even so, while skeleton soldiers were also weak and usually capped at the normal tier in terms of racial potential, they made up for it with sheer variety in their development and evolution paths.
As the most common undead-type pet beast, skeleton soldiers could evolve into skeleton archers, skeleton warriors, and even commander-tier variants. There were even legendary evolution paths said to reach the monarch tier.
Paper effigies also had a few developed paths, but in both reputation and practicality, they were clearly inferior to skeleton soldiers.
Su Ping had never imagined that the so-called "guest in the backyard" that had kept Old Sha on edge for days would turn out to be something this small.
This made him let out a small sigh of relief, but also left him somewhat disappointed.
He had thought there might be some unexpected surprise.
And this was it?
Still, under the dim moonlight, Su Ping quickly noticed that this little paper effigy was somewhat different from ordinary ones.
Setting aside its size, the most noteworthy thing was the posture it was currently holding.
Its body was slightly hunched, and the inverted triangular eyes drawn with black paint were lifeless, yet firmly fixed on Old Sha.
Both of its paper hands were pressed against the left side of its waist, as though it were clutching something.
Clutching what?
Su Ping narrowed his eyes slightly. When he finally saw it clearly, he couldn't help but feel both amused and baffled.
It was a sheath and hilt—something that looked like a blade, though he couldn't tell whether it was a sword or a saber.
The main ability of paper effigies lay in how their bodies could transform through folding.
Their methods of attack varied accordingly, but this was the first time Su Ping had ever seen a paper effigy like this.
Even so, Su Ping absolutely did not dare to be careless.
The reason was simple—he still hadn't figured out how this paper effigy had appeared in the first place.
"Old Sha, don't act rashly!"
After giving Old Sha that instruction, Su Ping slowly approached. He genuinely wanted to take a closer look and see what kind of secret this paper effigy was hiding.
The Eye of Truth slowly took shape.
However, the instant he stepped closer and activated it, the little paper effigy seemed to flash with a ferocious glint.
"Wu-wa!"
A strange cry rang out. Before Su Ping even had time to react, the little thing—only as tall as his calf—actually moved.
An indescribably sharp force burst forth from its waist. The wolfsmoke grass in front of it was instantly severed, forming a crescent-shaped vacuum.
Yet something moved even faster.
Old Sha stepped directly in front of Su Ping. Vines surged up like a wall, blocking the attack.
Bang!
The sound was especially piercing in the quiet night.
Then, just as Old Sha let out an enraged howl toward the moon, the vines shifted from defense to offense and swept toward the little paper effigy.
At that instant, the paper effigy's figure seemed to turn into a ripple in the air and vanished without a trace.
Just like when it had appeared, its disappearance came without the slightest warning.
What was going on?
Su Ping blinked. Old Sha rushed to the spot where the paper effigy had vanished, circling it repeatedly, yet finding nothing unusual at all.
White moonlight bathed the ground.
Su Ping did not move.
He still hadn't fully processed the strike from just now.
That attack had been far too powerful—far beyond his understanding of what a paper effigy should be capable of.
And if his foundational beast-taming knowledge was correct, that strike had been a metal-attribute attack.
The problem was that paper effigies didn't possess metal-attribute abilities.
If they did, they would never have been labeled the shame of the undead type or the weakest undead pet beasts by the beast-taming community.
And then there was the way it had disappeared.
Su Ping might not have personally encountered such a phenomenon before, but he knew exactly what it implied.
That was a spatial-type ability.
A paper effigy possessing metal-attribute power was already bizarre enough.
How could it also have spatial-type abilities?
Yet the reality was right in front of him.
Even the traces left behind by that attack were still visible on the ground.
Unfortunately, the Eye of Truth hadn't managed to capture any detailed information.
Still, Su Ping could tell that with such strong vigilance and killing intent, this paper effigy was almost certainly not a contracted pet beast.
It was far more likely to be a wild one.
But something this strange couldn't have wandered into Linzhou City from the wilderness on its own.
Combined with those abnormal spatial fluctuations…
All of a sudden, Su Ping seemed to understand something. A few days earlier, Qin Xiaoxue had mentioned that Dong Muyun, the chairman of the Tianyun Group, owned a spatial-type pet beast.
Given the situation in front of him…
Su Ping's brows knit together tightly. He suddenly understood why the Tianyun Group might be in such a hurry to purchase his family's land.
Clearly, it had something to do with what was happening here.
But what exactly was going on?
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