Over the course of the countless years that the Spirit Nidus had been at war with the Consciousness Megaverse, only two of the Seven Seraphs had ever been lost. There had been no other losses among their ranks.

Yuan Qi had fought at the Immemorial Citadel with Aeternus for eons without any issues.

Seraphs were very hard to kill, especially those who wielded a sequence base.

Bao Qi had been in control of the Cauldron Bell, and with it, despite only being an Ortuser, his strength had been comparable to the other Seraphs. Despite that, he had still been killed.

“What about the president?” Palace Master Yao asked while staring at Lu Yin.

Lu Yin put the Cauldron Bell back away. “He ran, but he won’t get far. As long as he’s in my Tianyuan Megaverse, he’ll die.”

Palace Master Yao looked away, still dazed by the news.

The news of a Seraph’s death would inevitably send shockwaves through the entire Spirit Nidus.

Their megaverse only had seven Seraphs, and with one dead, as well as a sequence base lost, the Spirit Nidus had suffered a nearly irreparable loss.

Every sequence base took an immense amount of time to create.

When the Heaven-Devouring Umbrella had been stolen, a Seraph had threatened countless lives throughout the Tianyuan Megaverse to force Lu Yin to return the sequence base.

Sequence bases were vitally important to them.

The Cauldron Bell might not suit most people, but if another cultivator who matched the sequence base appeared, they would be able to almost instantly become a Seraph.

Bao Qi had taken the position through a shortcut, but even so, there had been no denying his strength.

“You killed Bao Qi, so why come see me? I can’t find the president.” Palace Master Yao forced her voice to sound calm as she suppressed her shock at Bao Qi’s death.

Lu Yin replied, “I’m very curious. With a Seraph dead, how many people are going to fight to take his open position?”

Palace Master Yao looked surprised. “Who told you about that?”

Lu Yin met the woman’s gaze. “I’m even more curious about what changes may have occurred in the Spirit Nidus between when Yuan Qi was last there and now.” ȓΆＮΟβĘ𝒮

Palace Master Yao stared intently at Lu Yin. “Bao Qi was very arrogant, but in a different manner from Yuan Qi or myself. While both of us have reasons to continue living, Bao Qi was able to face death head-on because he fought his way up from among those people.

“He took a shortcut, but not exactly. By becoming the master of the Cauldron Bell, Bao Qi overpowered the madness of all those people. With him dead, they will lose their minds again.”

Lu Yin focused on Palace Master Yao. “Who are they?”

“Heavenspire and the Gate of Laws.”

“What does that mean?”

“Heavenspire is where the High Seraph himself trains. We don’t know much about it, and not even the Seraphs are well informed about the place. We only know that it always produces powerful cultivators.

“Those people also belong solely to Heavenspire. Many in the Spirit Nidus want to know where they train, no one has ever been able to find the place.

“To raise a person up from an ordinary human to become a sequence powerhouse, it takes an extraordinary amount of resources and experience. However, there is absolutely no trace of such a thing for the cultivators from Heavenspire.

“Many people claim that the High Seraph is able to bestow power onto others, which might be the only reasonable explanation. Like your Great Sovereign…” Palace Master Yao slowly trailed off.

Lu Yin’s eyes flashed. Heavenspire, given that its experts rose up from nowhere, had to be connected to the Small Spirit Megaverse. An entire megaverse, even if it was not as powerful as the Spirit Nidus, must have produced a number of exceptional powerhouses over countless ages.

The Tianyuan Megaverse was vast, and the Origin Universe was just one parallel universe within the megaverse. Even so, that solitary universe had given birth to the Heavens Sect, which included the Origin Progenitor and the Three Realms and Six Daos. If they had not restricted themselves because of the Origin Progenitor’s warnings, the Three Realms and Six Daos would have all become Ortusers long ago.

The High Seraph had consistently diverted resources to the Small Spirit Megaverse to prepare it to be reset, which consequently produced many experts. The more peak powerhouses that appeared, the more parallel universes the megaverse could produce.

Lu Yin had been wondering why, despite the fact that there were people from the Small Spirit Megaverse among the Spirit Nidus’s forces, none of them were anywhere near as powerful as Palace Master Yao or Tian Ci. He finally had an explanation; the megaverse’s true experts were members of Heavenspire.

Such cultivators definitely knew that they were not a part of the Spirit Nidus. The High Seraph controlled them within Heavenspire to prevent information about the Small Spirit Megaverse from leaking.

Only weaker cultivators could be allowed to leave Heavenspire.

“Was Bao Qi from Heavenspire?” Lu Yin asked.

Palace Master Yao shook her head. “Heavenspire does have people strong enough to compete for the position of a Seraph, though I don’t know exactly how many. It’s not a lot, and they’ve ultimately failed to become a Seraph. The strongest among them might be about as strong as me.”

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Lu Yin frowned. Was that really true? It seemed far more likely that the High Seraph was preventing anyone from Heavenspire from becoming a Seraph.

Yuan Qi knew about the Small Spirit Megaverse, and the High Seraph, being wary of Yuan Qi’s position as a Seraph, had not killed the man. This made it clear that the High Seraph was not the absolute ruler of the Spirit Nidus, as he did not have total control over the Seven Seraphs’ lives.

If someone from the Small Spirit Megaverse became a Seraph, the High Seraph would have quite the dilemma.

It was quite likely that there were people in Heavenspire who were strong enough to become a Seraph, but they were being suppressed by the High Seraph. Palace Master Yao was simply unaware of it.

“Bao Qi was from the Gate of Laws,” Palace Master Yao said in a measured tone. “The Gate of Laws is where sequence bases are made.

“To produce a sequence base, there must be sequence powerhouses. The Gate of Laws has more sequence bases than the ten known sequence bases. While I don’t know how many, there are a few in the Ascendant Hall who do. Bao Qi was from the Gate of Laws, and he specialized in the Sound Sequence Technique, which granted him a shortcut to the strength he needed to defeat other experts. Without that, he would not have been able to become a Seraph so easily.”

Palace Master Yao looked at Lu Yin. “Heavenspire and the Gate of Laws are the two places where people want to become a Seraph the most. There are others, but none of them are as much of a threat.

“If news of Bao Qi’s death reaches the Spirit Nidus, people from those two places will certainly make their moves. No one in the vanguard to invade your Tianyuan Megaverse was from either of the two places, aside from Yan Zhan, who was from the Gate of Laws.”

Lu Yin asked, “What about your Bifrost Palace?”

Palace Master Yao smiled in a self-deprecating manner. “The Bifrost Palace is mine, and all of the experts in it are my disciples. Heavenspire belongs to the High Seraph. I’m not on the same level as him. As for the Gate of Laws, it belongs to the Spirit Nidus as a whole. If the Ascendant Hall were to ever break apart, Heavenspire and the Gate of Laws would be able to rival the Ascendant Hall, while my Bifrost Palace would be forced to choose a side.

“However, the Ascendant Hall will never split. It belongs to the Fated One, who is the true ruler of the Spirit Nidus. A single word from them can decide the life or death of any Seraph, even the High Seraph.”

This made Lu Yin realize that he had been underestimating the Ascendant Hall.

The Spirit Nidus possessed a unified cultivation system, and they had been developing with it for countless years. They had amassed an astounding number of experts.

The Tianyuan Megaverse had used a tremendous amount of resources and universes where time passed more quickly to produce Progenitor-level combatants. In comparison, the Spirit Nidus had no need for such methods, as their accumulation of experts since ancient times was sufficient.

Besides that, the Spirit Nidus was not alone, as there was also the hidden Small Spirit Megaverse, which had been receiving endless resources from the High Seraph.

The Ascendant Hall possessed an overwhelming number of experts. Lu Yin understood the expression “Limits and Sanctis” that described the Ascendant Hall. The Ascendant Hall did not rely on quality, but rather on pure quantity.

“There are just too many cultivators there.”

“While the Ascendant Hall has many experts, none surpass the Seraphs,” Palace Master Yao declared.

She glanced over in the direction of Yuan Qi. “You managed to capture Yuan Qi and kill Bao Qi. Clearly, you have the strength to suppress such experts.”

Lu Yin’s eyes flickered. “The problem is that there are simply too many of those experts.”

Palace Master Yao did not disagree. She had just shared information about two places that hid numerous cultivators capable of vying for the position of Seraph. While none of them could individually compare to Lu Yin, since he was capable of fighting against a Seraph with a sequence base, the number of such experts would still be a terrible threat. This was especially true if they spread across the Tianyuan Megaverse.

As soon as word that there was an opening among the Seven Seraphs spread, countless cultivators from the Spirit Nidus would see the Tianyuan Megaverse as a stepping stone to rise up, and the megaverse would be swarmed. It would be impossible for anyone to stop the flood.

Lu Yin understood what Bao Qi’s death heralded. His death had unleashed a horde of mad dogs upon the Tianyuan Megaverse, each of whom wanted to drag it down.

This had been done by Bao Qi, and it matched Lu Yin’s initial impression of the man.

However, it would not be easy for news of the Seraph’s death to reach the Spirit Nidus. Meng Sang was already creating a diversion, and even if Meng Sang successfully escaped to the Spirit Nidus, he did not know that Bao Qi was dead.

Lu Yin left the Heavens Sect and went to the megaverse’s boundary. Meng Sang should be finishing his project soon.

Elsewhere, Astral Anura had already left the Mirari Realm, and he immediately returned to his nest. While Lu Yin had already raided that place, they were no longer enemies, so Astral Anura was eager to find if anything valuable had been left behind. After that, he might search for a more suitable nest now.

He still had various creatures under his control, both human and otherwise.

Just like Mr. Daheng. It was a shame that Mr. Daheng had died.

Astral Anura’s nest was in a parallel universe known as Deep Marsh. It was filled with swirling currents that filled both the land and sky, reminiscent of the Fifth Mainland’s Innerverse. However, instead of the Astral River’s tributaries that made up the Innerverse, Deep Marsh was filled with nothing but maelstroms.

The sight of the whirlpools that lay scattered across the universe made Astral Anura feel at home, and he dove into a vortex and started moving towards his nest.

Suddenly, the toad froze, and his eyes grew vicious as he stared forward. There were humans in his nest.

Far away, beneath a large whirlpool, two men and a woman were sitting cross-legged rather close to each other. They appeared to be recovering from injuries.

They were doing so in Astral Anura’s nest.

Originally, the toad had protected his nest with a sourcebox array that had been designed by a human Array Grandmaster that he had captured. Afterward, he had killed the Array Grandmaster to prevent anyone from breaking in too easily. It had been a unique sourcebox array that had been created on-site by the Array Grandmaster, ensuring that no one else knew about it.

When Lu Yin had visited the toad’s nest, he had shattered the sourcebox array and stolen Astral Anura’s hoard.

If not for that, the toad would have refused to help Lu Yin against Tian Fa.

With the sourcebox array broken, the three humans had easily entered Astral Anura’s nest.

The toad restrained his aura and shrank down until he was the size of a human’s palm. Only then did he move closer, carefully observing his nest.

“Who’s there?” the woman shouted, waving her hand. A blade shaped like a full moon spun in her hand, a slash directed at Astral Anura.

He was surprised that anyone had noticed him.

He opened his mouth and bit down on the blade, breaking it with a crunch.

The woman was horrified. What sort of creature was this?

At the same time, the two men also attacked. One used a powerful finger strike with a battle technique that pierced the void. Each puncture through the black void connected, and the entire technique spread towards Astral Anura.

OMA's Thoughts

Translated By: OMA

Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox

TLC'ed By: OMA