Chapter 1378: Bronze Ring

Wu Yu moved forward in his journey through the Endless River of Stars.

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He transformed into his smallest size using the Lawful Embodiment of Heaven and Earth. Hence, no one would be able to detect him as he zipped forward at high speed.

Wu Yu had improved tremendously in terms of speed. He was now one of the fastest among the 100 million immortal lords. His extreme speed gave him an edge for the contest for the ninth-grade Mark of an Immortal King.

He had risen straight from being one of the weakest to being one of the strongest. Now he could fight even the most powerful immortal lords in the Endless River of Stars.

The Dancing Flame Phoenix Lord could defeat him in the past, but now, the opposite was true. Wu Yu could easily obliterate her. He believed that this swap in their balance of power would shock her to the core.

She had already found out Wu Yu’s true identity and naturally knew about his great gains in strength. Wu Yu’s rate of improvement was rare.

"She already knows who you are, what are you going to do now?"

"I will cross that bridge when I get to it. There must be some way to resolve this."

Wu Yu was not frightened by the Dancing Flame Phoenix Lord’s words. He did not fluster, but faced her calmly and thoughtfully. There might still be hope to revive Nangong Wei.

Xu Zidong continued to send Wu Yu Immortal Message Talismans, directing him to their position. Not long later, Wu Yu found the star that they were hiding in. The star was small and dark grey in color. It was a star that was easily overlooked. That was also the reason why Xu Zidong’s group was safe there.

The strongest of their group was only a 7-realm immortal lord, and they were in possession of a relatively high grade Mark of an Immortal King. Hence, they were actually in quite a dangerous position. It was a blessing that they understood their perilous position and hid.

Wu Yu followed Xu Zidong’s directions and found a crack in this star. He burrowed deep into the crack and found a huge, dark cavern. There was only darkness in the depths of this crack. Wu Yu continued to burrow deeper. The cavern was not only spacious, but had a complex landscape. There were oddly-shaped rocks, walls, and complex twisting tunnels. When Wu Yu finally reached Xu Zidong and his group, he guessed that he was actually near the center of the star.

"This star is basically hollow."

He could tell that this place was a mere skeleton of a star.

Xu Zidong and the others were beside an underground river when Wu Yu found them. The water gushing in the underground river was stinking with the stench of rotten fish. Other than that, it emitted a unique aura. Wu Yu thought hard and guessed that this might be an aura of death, or rather, the aura of corpses.

Why would there be such a river in the Great Void Immortal Path?

Xu Zidong and his group were by the river, and they were elated to see Wu Yu after such a long time.

"We’ve finally met up. It’s been too long. We were all afraid and worried for you. After all, you are alone outside in the Great Void Immortal Path," Xu Zidong said.

Yang Wenlan grinned. "Boss, there’s no need to worry. He has better survival skills than us. He is probably better off running about alone."

Wu Yu was relieved upon seeing all eight of them safe and sound.

"Oh right, where is the item that you mentioned?"

Xu Zidong’s smile immediately faded and he replied, "That is really something weird. Follow me."

After speaking, the entire group moved off. They walked along the river and ventured deeper into the cavern, entering a dark cave. Half of the floor of this cave was formed by the gushing underground river. Wu Yu realized that the river water here was grey in color. Something was off. As they neared the source of the river, the grey color of the water deepened. At the river’s source, the water became a murky yellow color. Also, the aura of death, corpses, and blood became even more prominent. There was even an air of despair.

"We are nearing it. The river became like this because of that," Qin Chuan said.

Wu Yu saw, to his surprise, that the river in front of him flowed with clear water. There was a dividing point between the clear and murky river water. That dividing point was their destination, and it was because of this dividing point that the bottom half of the river was so murky.

Wu Yu spotted that item with one look. It was a round ring with a diameter of around one zhang. He could not identify the material that it was made of. It seemed to be some rusty bronze material. It looked very ancient. It was precisely because of this one-zhang-wide bronze ring that the river water flowing around it had changed.

There was a subtle ripple emanating from the middle of this ring. From within, a sinister and bloody aura spread out, accompanied by gruesome howling. This was the true source of terror.

This bronze ring reminded Wu Yu of his Gateway to the Ancient Demon Realm. When his Gateway to the Ancient Demon Realm opened, it looked like this.

"Our guess is that this is some door. Previously, we witnessed someone entering this bronze ring, but they did not come out. But that thing remained here."

"We dare not enter it, because we have already accomplished our goal of hiding in here. There is no need to risk it and venture into the unknown. Also, that thing is filled with the aura of ghostly immortals and hell. We don’t think that it will be something friendly. Previously, some 8-realm immortal lords entered it but never came back out. My guess is that they are most likely dead or trapped."

"But this may be a place hiding a Mark of an Immortal King. We don’t want to miss this opportunity, so we started wondering if there is a safe way to enter this ring to scout it out. That’s when we thought of you. After all, you have the ability to release lots of doppelgangers."

Wu Yu had used his Unshackled Doppelganger at the Sublime Gracious Sky. They were very impressed with that mystique.

"Understood."

Wu Yu was also filled with curiosity about that place. However, he had reached his goal too, capturing the Dancing Flame Phoenix Lord. Hence, likewise, he did not want to risk entering a place where he might get trapped. After all, he had other, more important matters to attend to.

Wu Yu studied the ring and then turned to the group. "That item doesn’t look like an immortal treasure. I don’t know what it is, but there is definitely some immortal design there. It should be a door. Big brothers and sister, please wait out here. I shall enter and take a look."

"Sure. "

Wu Yu did not enter with his real body. At this point, Wu Yu had one million doppelgangers. He was very cautious and picked three doppelgangers for this scouting mission. The three of them could protect each other. They stayed close to each other and jumped down, splashing right into the middle of the bronze ring. As guessed, when the three doppelgangers hit the water, they did not hit the river water, rather, they touched the door of this bronze ring!

In an instant, Wu Yu went through that door.

The scenery before his eyes changed at once. Wu Yu appeared somewhere new and foreign. Of course, it was his three doppelgangers that appeared in the new place, not his real body.

Right away, this place gave Wu Yu an odd feeling.

That was because this place was totally different from the sky palaces, even though it was enormous too.

It was only now that Wu Yu realized that the desperation, disgust, blood, and corpse aura that he had sensed in the river were child’s play. That muddled, disturbing aura came from a tiny river. However, right now, Wu Yu was in the middle of an endless sea. Despite looking around from all angles, he could not see the edge of the sea. The seawater was also extremely deep. Wu Yu had no way of judging the depths of this sea. At least his doppelgangers were unable to see the depths nor the end of this sea.

From the top, bottom, left, and right of his doppelgangers, Wu Yu could only see endless, murky yellow seawater. The seawater was still without waves or ripples. It was like a dead sea. When Wu Yu looked down, he could see many corpses floating in the shallow levels of the sea, not to mention the larger number of corpses hiding within the depths of this sea.

"Where am I?" Wu Yu was stunned. Usually, when one entered a secret place hiding a Mark of an Immortal King, that place was not so grand and large. This place was practically like a real world!

Even the previous hiding place of the ninth-grade Mark of an Immortal King was not as large as this place. Hence, he was really stunned at this point.

And he had an important question.

For instance, when he went through the Gateway to the Ancient Demon Realm, the Gateway to the Ancient Demon Realm had followed him to the new world.

But when he entered this place through the bronze ring, he realized that the bronze ring was nowhere to be seen here. He could only stare blankly at his surroundings with no idea of how he was going to return to his original world.

This meant that he was right not to enter this place with his real body. Otherwise, who knew what sort of trouble he would have to go through in order to return.

"This shouldn’t be the venue of the trial for the 10th-grade Mark of an Immortal King! No matter what, the legendary 10th-grade Mark of an Immortal King wouldn’t be at such an open world, nor would the Ancient Ink Camp be able to find it by coincidence. The chances of the 10th-grade Mark of an Immortal King being here are slim."

Wu Yu was still a little excited. After all, if there really was a 10th-grade Mark of an Immortal King here, he would still want to grab it.

However, he thought that the possibility of that was low. The endless sea here was a dead sea. It was dark and sinister. The aura of ghostly immortals filled the space between the heavens and earth. This was a world that was the opposite of the Sky Palaces.

Wu Yu reacted after recovering from his surprise. He quickly dispersed his three doppelgangers and explored the surroundings. At the same time, he sent 30 more doppelgangers into the bronze ring. As expected, all of them entered and reached the new world with no way of return. Wu Yu controlled his doppelgangers and explored the new world. Some of them even dove into the seawater.

Outside, Xu Zidong and his group asked questions as Wu Yu described the world to them. Upon hearing Wu Yu’s answers, they were also at a loss and did not know what was going on.

In this new world, Wu Yu’s doppelgangers had spread out widely. His doppelgangers were as strong as xuan immortals.

Besides, Wu Yu’s doppelgangers knew the same Immortal Lord Realm techniques as his real body, and possessed an equivalent proficiency in them. They were more than enough to match even the strongest xuan immortals.

As he explored, Wu Yu realized that the rotting, sinister, deathly aura in this world surpassed his imagination.

"Where am I...."

He could not figure it out.

At this moment, he suddenly spotted someone! He immediately gave chase. That person was actually not fast, and after Wu Yu caught up to him, he realized that this person was only at the Longevity Immortal Realm.

Most importantly, this person was not an immortal, but a ghostly immortal! This was an elderly Longevity Ghostly Realm ghostly immortal. Wu Yu’s doppelganger quickly caught hold of him. The other party immediately knelt and cried out pitifully, "Esteemed immortal, please don’t kill me!"

Wu Yu suppressed this ghostly immortal and said, "Answer my questions or I will kill you!"

"Yes, yes, esteemed immortal, please ask!" This elderly ghostly immortal was scared out of his wits.

"Where are we?" Wu Yu asked.

The other party raised his head in surprise. It was only then that he saw Wu Yu clearly and gasped in a shocked, trembling voice: "Heavenly immortal, you are a heavenly immortal...."

"I’m asking you to answer!" Wu Yu glared at him.

The ghostly immortal shook uncontrollably and knelt. He said, "Esteemed immortal, you must be joking.... This is - this place is the first level of the 10,000 Levels of Hell, the Hell of the Netherworld...."