Chapter 3273: The Spirit Nidus

As Lu Yin watched, the butterfly shrouded itself with light and then transformed into Ming Yan.

"Big Brother Lu."

Lu Yin froze. That simple "Big Brother Lu" pulled him back to when he had been on Shenwu Continent and first laid eyes on Ming Yan; her breathtaking beauty had been a lotus emerging from the water. That sight had left an indelible mark on his heart. It had been the first time he had felt his heart stir. Just that one look had made him fall for her. He had gotten lost in her bright, shy eyes.

He was on a battlefield. He was fighting the butterfly. Yet, as he looked at the distant Ming Yan, Lu Yin’s heart could not deny that he was looking at Ming Yan. Even while his mind kept warning him that this was not her, but an illusion conjured by Tian En, for the moment, it really was Ming Yan.

"Big Brother Lu, you look tired." A soft voice brushed over him like a gentle breeze, and Lu Yin let his hand drop. Yes, he was tired. So, very, very tired.

He could not even understand when it had begun, but at some point in time, he had picked up the burden for all of humanity.

That was not the kind of person Lu Yin was by nature. He was selfish, ruthless, and opportunistic. He was not the type of person who would sacrifice himself for others, much less carry a burden of righteousness.

When had all of that changed?

He had become the vanguard for everyone. When had Aeternus started to believe that, if they killed Lu Yin, humanity would fall? He did not know.

He was so tired. He had survived countless life-and-death battles, overcome countless breakthroughs, and at the moment, deep in his heart, he was still terrified of the unknown Fated One. He was very worried about the future.

Lu Yin’s arms fell as he gazed at Ming Yan. “Yan’er, I’m really am tired.”

"Yes, Big Brother Lu, you’re tired. Rest for a while," Ming Yan spoke softly as a hand rose to caress Lu Yin's face.

He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired. I just want to rest. I want to go fishing with someone. I want someone to drink tea with. Someone to share my joys and sorrows with. I want someone to always be waiting for me under the light of a candle. That’s what I want, a home. Yan’er, I want to have a home with you.

"The simpler the wish, the harder it is to fulfill. All I want is to give you a peaceful life, and for us to raise children and have a future together. That’s all.

"Sadly, I can’t do that right now. I don’t dare to bring you back because I don’t know if I can even survive. Yan’er, promise me that you will live and wait for the day when we might be able to reunite. Promise me."

A gentle voice replied, “Alright, I promise you.”

Lu Yin’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and his expression turned fierce. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

As he spoke, he lashed out with a palm strike. Terrifying power shook the universe, and his hand touched something soft. It was the butterfly's wing. Lu Yin had only barely avoided being struck by them.

The butterfly let out a wail as she staggered backwards. Again, light flashed from her body.

Energy surged around Lu Yin, stirring up space. It felt as though a giant had risen as Lu Yin’s fury mounted. “You shouldn’t have used Yan’er against me, Tian En! You’re asking to die!”

His inner universe was released, and it filled the entire parallel universe.

At that same moment, the light vanished. The light came from Tian En's sequence particles.

Garan Zhiluo had warned Lu Yin before that, while Tian En was not a skilled combatant, her sequence particles were the most difficult to deal with out of all the Boundary Guardians. They were invisible and untouchable, but they could penetrate anywhere, allowing Tian En to deliver a lethal strike when someone was the most vulnerable.

Tian En was the most insidious of the Boundary Guardians.

In the past, Lu Yin had not noticed, especially during the last two battles, as Progenitor Ku had held Tian En back. It was only at this moment that Lu Yin understood how dangerous the butterfly could be.

Without his ability to repel sequence particles, Lu Yin was uncertain just how badly Tian En’s attacks would affect him.

Everyone had weaknesses, especially humans, whose emotions were too powerful. Ming Yan was not the only option against Lu Yin; Big Sis, Leon’s Armada, or the Lu family could have appeared as well. It could be anyone whom Lu Yin cared about.

This was the most difficult kind of attack to defend against, which made it the most deadly.

In a manner that was similar to cultivators who had comprehended sequence particles that prevented close combat, Lu Yin’s inner universe possessed an overwhelming sense of dominance.

A palm struck the butterfly, which opened up cracks on her wings. She had already been forced to endure numerous attacks during the battle at the Immemorial Citadel, where she had faced off against Progenitor Ku and Garan Zhiluo. Tian En was grievously injured. Lu Yin’s palm strike had made it impossible for her to escape, as only one wing was even able to move at this point.

Lu Yin stepped onto the butterfly’s back and stomped down. He forced her to move lower and lower.

The butterfly shrieked. Her voice was no longer gentle, but instead hoarse and filled with hate. “Humans! You will suffer retribution! Your entire species will perish! All of them will die! You will all surely perish!”

“Before we die, I’ll kill you.” Lu Yin grabbed one of the butterfly’s cracked wings and yanked on it, tearing it apart.

The butterfly’s scream pierced the universe.

“You ambushed the Origin Progenitor, tried to kill Progenitor Ku, and have been slandering humanity. You’re just a butterfly. Who gave you the courage to do all this?” Lu Yin tore off Tian En’s other wing.

The butterfly kept dropping down. Light appeared again, and it shot at Lu Yin in a desperate attempt to attack him, but Tian En’s strength had already fallen to a pitiful level.

Lu Yin was confident that he had become strong enough to deal with even Tian Ci on his own, let alone Tian En.

The butterfly had never been a skilled fighter. In the past, even Great Elder Shan Gu had forced her back, which had caused Tian Fa to come and fight him in Tian En’s place.

"Dao Monarch Lu, you can’t kill me! If you do, you will suffer retribution! You know this," the butterfly screamed, despair filling her voice.

Lu Yin looked down at the butterfly. “Who’s behind you?”

The butterfly shuddered as she froze in place. “Dao Monarch, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but there are certain questions that you shouldn’t ask. Can you bear the consequences?”

Lu Yin’s eyes turned cold. “How do you identify creatures that aren’t from this megaverse?”

“We pass over this megaverse’s boundary,” the butterfly answered without any hesitation. With Lu Yin standing on her back, she felt as though she might be torn apart at any moment. It was a feeling that she had not suffered since reaching the Origin realm. She had been a Boundary Guardian for so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to be pushed to the brink of death. The sensation was being etched deep into her memory.

“The megaverse’s boundary?”

“Yes. Only by leaving this megaverse and returning can we develop the sense to feel creatures that don’t belong to this place. It becomes an aura that blazes as brightly as a beacon. With our strength, we can track down such beings even across multiple sequence strings. That’s why Tian Fa was always able to find Shan Gu, the Lost Clan’s Great Elder, and also how Tian Ci was able to find their hiding places.”

“What is Tian Ci’s goal? What’s your relationship with Aeternus?”

“We and Aeternus are merely using each other. When humanity was at its peak, they forcibly took over the Mirari Realm. The Mirari Realm doesn’t belong to any megaverse. What Tai Chu did crossed a line, and he needed to be punished. Back then, we could also see that, if humanity was left unchecked, they would definitely break past the limits of this megaverse, which is why we started cooperating with Aeternus. Those corpse kings will never break free of the controls placed on them.”

“And what is Tian Ci’s goal?”

“Tian Ci? He wants to lead his megaverse to this one. It’s because his megaverse is no longer suitable for life.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed and he punched the butterfly’s back, who let out another scream of agony. “Dao Monarch, that’s all I know!”

Lu Yin sneered. “Alright, then here’s another question: Why does Aeternus need to destroy the sequence strings?”

The butterfly hesitated for a moment.

“Don’t tell me you don’t think the Origin Progenitor already knows, do you?” Lu Yin scoffed.

Tian En replied, "To reset the megaverse so that he can become an Immortal. That’s Aeternus’s goal, as well as Tian Ci’s."

That made sense. Lu Yin looked down at the butterfly beneath his feet. "The power of Aeternus combined with the Boundary Guardians could have allowed you to destroy the Immemorial Citadel or even all of humanity in this megaverse decades or even centuries ago. There was no reason to let me grow and lead humanity’s counterattack. Why didn’t you act sooner? A hundred years is nothing to cultivators."

The butterfly let out a helpless sigh. "We need to follow our own rules, Dao Monarch. Whether you believe me or not, no matter how badly Tian Ci wanted to destroy humanity or destroy the sequence strings, he never dared to do so. All he could do was act within his role as a Boundary Guardian, as that is in line with our rules.

"We can't act recklessly, and that applies to Yong Heng as well."

"Why?" Lu Yin stared at the butterfly.

"I don't know. I really don’t. Often, rules are incomprehensible. We can't ask about them, and we can't even speak of them. We can only simply follow them. These are the rules, and they weigh heavily upon us. If we break them, we will cease to exist."

Lu Yin frowned. He could tell that the butterfly was telling him the truth. This was no different from how she did not dare to say anything about the entity behind her.

The whole situation was quite bizarre. The Boundary Guardians had always been observing the megaverse, and its existence had been known for a very long time before that. Even if that were not true, they had to have noticed when the Heavens Sect had reestablished itself. At that time, any one of the Boundary Guardians could have easily wiped out the entire Heavens Sect and killed Lu Yin. However, none of them had taken action. They had only done so after the Heavens Sect had grown strong enough to be a threat, not before.

It did not make any sense.

Rules? Did the Fated One set those rules in place? Why?

Lu Yin recalled something that he had once said to Great Elder Shan Gu. The old man had shared what he knew about the invincible being from the Lost Clan’s original megaverse. At the time, Lu Yin had not paid much attention to the details. He had been focused solely on connecting the Lost Clan’s universe to the Origin Universe and on comforting Shan Gu. Lu Yin had brought up the idea that, even if such a being did exist, they must be restricted by certain limitations. After all, the Origin Progenitor had said that there were no absolutes in the megaverse.

Thinking back to that time, Lu Yin felt that his words had been more to comfort his current self.

Was the Fated One really limited in their actions? They had to be. If not, why would they have allowed the Origin Progenitor to live? Why would they have allowed humanity to rise back to power? Why had Lu Yin been allowed to kill the Boundary Guardians?

The Boundary Guardians were just four creatures who were too scared to face Dukkha. To Lu Yin—and probably to the Origin Progenitor as well—those four were slaves to the Fated One. Their deaths likely did not even matter to the Fated One, but in that case, what did the Fated One care about? When would that individual appear, and what form would they take?

"What was Tian Feng?" Lu Yin asked again.

The butterfly showed terrible fear. “Didn’t you see it?”

"That sword?"

"Dao Monarch, I’ll tell you whatever I can, but please, spare me! If you kill me, it will bring disaster upon you! Humanity won’t survive that disaster."

Lu Yin responded coldly, “Tian Fa is already dead, and Tian Feng was destroyed. What makes you think that you’re indispensable?”

Tian En asked, “What will it take for you to spare my life?”

"What is the megaverse behind Tian Ci?"

“The Spirit Nidus. That old monster, Yuan Qi, at the Immemorial Citadel is from the Spirit Nidus. It’s a completely different megaverse from ours.”

Lu Yin's expression grew cold. "Didn’t Yong Heng say that Tian Ci would bring the Spirit Nidus here to destroy us?"