Chapter 3123: Liberation

Hongyan Mavis was impressed. "An inner world should be stable, and a transformation should only be possible when you become a Progenitor. However, you’ve already managed to transform it. Why did you shape it into a boat?"

Lu Yin suppressed his excitement enough to answer, "Because one day, I hope to sail it up the River of Time."

Hongyan Mavis was stunned. "You want to take your boat on the River of Time?"

Lu Yin smiled at her. "That’s just a dream, but sometimes, setting a grand goal is already worthwhile. Even if you don’t reach your dream, even just getting close is a success."

Hongyan Mavis laughed. "Do you really think that this is some sort of negotiation?"

Lu Yin had managed to reform Lightstream into the shape of a boat, but it was still extremely unstable.

Time passed, and Lu Yin focused on fine-tuning Lightstream. Whenever it appeared, it had the same appearance as before, but when Lu Yin tried to peer back in time, it would transform into a boat. This was all that Lu Yin could do as a Semi-Progenitor. If he wanted to proceed further, he would need to first become a Progenitor.

He was eager to test the newly transformed boat, and Lu Yin looked forward to using Lightstream against Feng Bo. The old man would be a perfect sparring partner, and given how perfectly he matched up against Lu Yin’s abilities at the moment, it would be a waste not to take advantage of the opportunity.

After some time, Lu Yin finally managed to stabilize his transformed inner world. Now, it could instantly take on the form of a boat. It was time to challenge Feng Bo.

Lu Yin stepped out of the bamboo forest, and with Hongyan Mavis's directions, Lu Yin already knew of Feng Bo's location. "Old man, let's fight! Hongyan Mavis won't get involved, so let's see if I can kill you or if you can kill me."

"Boy, you're courting death!" Feng Bo threatened Lu Yin, but he did not attack. Despite the old man’s absolute confidence that Lu Yin could not defeat him, Lu Yin’s knowledge of the old man’s techniques and abilities meant that he was a very difficult opponent for Feng Bo. Thus, the old man preferred not to fight.

However, while Feng Bo was hesitant, Lu Yin was not.

Lu Yin launched an attack. The grass that Hongyan Mavis had given him protected him from the mist’s effects. Lu Yin threw a number of frantic attacks towards where Feng Bo was hidden.

Lu Yin had recovered from his earlier exhaustion, and his attacks felt stronger than before.

Feng Bo was forced out, and retaliated against Lu Yin.

Both men knew the other's techniques quite well, which resulted in a prolonged fight where attacks rarely landed on either man. Everything either had its power dispersed, or was avoided with the power of time.

Feng Bo started insulting Lu Yin. "Boy, don't start thinking that you can hold me off. If I wanted to avoid you, you'd never be able to find me. Do you think that you can kill me by cooperating with that woman? Dream on!"

Lu Yin remained silent, his inner world swirling around him. Feng Bo was highly cautious of it, as he already knew that Lightstream could reverse time by a second, which countered his own ability. This meant that whoever used their ability to manipulate time first would fall to a disadvantage.

"Boy, if you help me kill that woman, I can promise you that you'll become the second most powerful being in Aeternus! You will answer only to True God. I promise on my life that, given your talent and True God's guidance, you will definitely be able to go past the peak powerhouse level. You will become a Dukkhan, or even maybe an Immortal. Why restrict yourself to the human form?" Feng Bo shouted.

𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Lu Yin laughed. "Old man, you can’t still think that I would ever join Aeternus, can you?"

If Feng Bo were aware of Lu Yin's history and how he had been attacked by True God himself, he would not have wasted his breath. Someone like Lu Yin would never betray humanity.

Due to being stuck in the Mirari Realm, Feng Bo knew nothing about recent events.

"So young and yet already so stubborn! How long has the universe operated according to the current rules? How long have humans existed for? Before humans, there were countless other civilizations, and many other creatures thrived. Every creature is nothing more than a natural creation of the megaverse. Only by breaking free of the megaverse’s shackles and transcending the biological limits can one achieve Immortality. Don't you want to see what becomes of the megaverse after humanity has perished? Don't you want to become a creator, someone capable of creating civilizations?"

"Old man, if there were no humans, you'd have no one to talk to. Do you have descendants? Clearly, you don't need them. When the next species emerges, you can be their creator," Lu Yin replied, watching as Feng Bo expanded time. Lightstream transformed into a boat and proceeded to effortlessly sail across the expanded time and crash into Feng Bo.

Feng Bo watched as an indistinct boat moved closer to him. He could not tell what it was, so he pulled his fingers together and attacked.

This was the same attack that had once injured Lu Yin to the point of nearly incapacitating him.

This time, the attack pierced Lightstream’s boat form, which had somehow managed to appear just beyond the region of expanded time. Not even Lu Yin had anticipated that Lightstream would be able to traverse the expanded time so easily. The moment he had thought about pulling the boat back, it had instantly returned. It was as if time simply did not exist when the boat returned. It had moved as though teleporting.

Feng Bo’s attack missed, and he stared at the boat in confusion. What was that thing?

Lighstream shot forward again, hurtling towards Feng Bo.

Feng Bo attacked repeatedly, but the boat evaded every single attack. Lu Yin kept testing things, slowly uncovering the boat’s capabilities.

Slowly, Feng Bo came to understand what was happening. The brat was using the old man as a sparring partner. The boy, who had already been able to control the power of time, was further developing and pushing it through a transformation in a manner that reminded Feng Bo of when he had created his own battle techniques.

This could not be allowed to go on.

Feng Bo did not want to fight anymore, and he continuously fell back. Despite receiving directions from Hongyan Mavis, Lu Yin eventually lost track of the old man.

"Forget it. I can't catch him," Lu Yin muttered before returning to the bamboo forest.

"How did it go?" Hongyan Mavis asked, curious. She was quite interested in learning about Lu Yin’s inner world that had taken on the form of a boat.

Lu Yin smiled wryly. Lightstream was still swirling around him, sometimes in the form of a boat, other times not. He was still refining his inner world. "Oh, nothing special. It just seems to be... unaffected by time."

Hongyan Mavis's eyes bulged as she stared at Lu Yin as though seeing a monster. "That's not special? The fact that it’s unaffected by time means that you might really be able to sail it in the River of Time one day!"

Lu Yin chuckled. "That’s why I'm not disappointed."

Hongyan Mavis was speechless. She felt a sudden urge to beat the young man. He really did possess a unique power.

After failing to defeat Feng Bo, Lu Yin returned to cultivating True God’s Natural Art.

This battle technique was exceptionally difficult to learn. It was very rare for Lu Yin to encounter something as challenging to learn as the Natural Art.

He felt like he had no way to even start.

Perhaps, the technique was simply not suitable for him.

"Senior, keep an eye on him. Don't let that old man escape," Lu Yin reminded Hongyan Mavis.

The woman immediately reassured him. "Don't worry, he can't escape. At least, not unless he dares to push into one of the forbidden zones."

It was some time later that Lu Yin opened his eyes. He was exhausted and had once again failed to learn the battle technique. While he knew that it might require divine energy to cultivate, Lu Yin was not comfortable using divine energy in front of Hongyan Mavis.

The woman was not Ancestor Lu Yuan or someone else who unconditionally trusted Lu Yin. Despite having a good relationship, Hongyan Mavis’s trust in Lu Yin was based on the fact that he really was someone from the Lu family, as well as the fact that he had tried to kill Feng Bo. If it were revealed that Lu Yin cultivated divine energy, the woman’s attitude might change completely.

She was ruthless enough to trap herself in the Mirari Realm for countless years, just so that she could drag down a more powerful opponent, even if it meant barely living.

If Hongyan Mavis lost her trust in Lu Yin because of his divine energy, he had no doubt that she would trap him here forever.

This thought caused Lu Yin to sigh.

"What's wrong?" Hongyan Mavis asked.

Lu Yin’s presence made the woman’s days more bearable, as she at least had someone to talk to.

She had been lonely for so many years in the Mirari Realm.

Lu Yin did not dare to tell her the truth, so after thinking for a moment, he said, "My trouble with that old man is that I can't see his sequence particles. Your warnings are too late for me to react, which makes it impossible for me to break past when he expands time. Thus, I can’t land any solid hits."

Hongyan Mavis felt helpless. "One has to reach the Sequence Progenitor level to see sequence particles. It's normal for you to not be able to see them. Even knowing about them at your level is already impressive."

Lu Yin smiled bitterly. "I've seen them before."

Hongyan Mavis was caught off guard. "You've seen sequence particles? How?"

Lu Yin looked over at her. "I once possessed Wu Tian's Heaven’s Sight, which allowed me to see sequence particles."

Hongyan Mavis was astonished. "Big Thug’s Heaven’s Sight? How did you get that? Shouldn't it be with him?"

Lu Yin replied with his own question. "Where was Wu Tian when you entered the Mirari Realm?"

"I don't know. Everyone was fighting everywhere."

"Then I guess you don't know that Wu Tian was betrayed." Lu Yin had already shared Wu Tian's current situation with Hongyan Mavis, as he had hoped to learn from her why Wu Tian had refused to leave the Third Scourge. Unfortunately, she had not known anything.

Thus, she only knew that Wu Tian was a prisoner in the Third Scourge, and she had not known that Wu Tian had lost his Heaven’s Sight, or what had happened for him to end up in the Third Scourge.

On the other hand, Lu Yin knew that Wu Tian had been betrayed by Old Mo.

"Too much has happened outside of this place. I stayed here, hoping that they'd come back some day," Hongyan Mavis said with a sigh. "When you told me that Wu Xing became one of the Seven Skygods, I couldn't believe it. How could Wu Xing ever betray Big Thug?"

Lu Yin grew curious. "You don't believe that Wu Xing would betray humanity?"

Hongyan Mavis shook her head. "Betray humanity, yes. Wu Xing's mind was always unstable. Sometimes he was sane, but at other times, he was mad. That's why Big Thug named him Wu Xing. It’s certainly possible for him to have betrayed humanity, but he would have never betrayed Big Thug. Wu Xing sees Big Thug as a father figure, and both his sane and insane personalities respected Big Thug. All of us could see that. He shouldn’t have betrayed Big Thug."

"But he said that he wanted to kill Wu Tian before he died himself," Lu Yin murmured. Wu Tian was imprisoned in the Third Scourge, so why would Undying God, one of the Seven skygods, have been so insistent on killing Wu Tian?

Hongyan Mavis gave Lu Yin a grave look. "Maybe he wanted to free Big Thug."

Lu Yin was taken aback, and then he felt confused.

Hongyan Mavis smiled. "That’s just a guess, so don't treat it too seriously. Still, knowing Wu Xing as I do, I can tell you that he thinks differently. While others might try to save Big Thug, Wu Xing might very well want to free Big Thug by killing him."

Lu Yin considered what he was hearing. It did not sound impossible. Undying God had referred to himself as a traitor to humanity before he died, but he had never said anything about betraying Wu Tian. The man had even taught Lu Yin a modified version of Inverse Step, shared that Wu Tian was in Third Scourge, and warned Lu Yin of the danger of Wei Nui.

Perhaps, as Hongyan Mavis believed was possible, Undying God had genuinely wanted to free Wu Tian.