Chapter 3603: Escape?

The short, chubby man’s face fully displayed his misery. He did not want to cultivate. He just wanted to live a happy life, slowly gaining weight. That sounded pretty good to him.

He had intentionally not harmed Zi Yi at the Nine Horizons. He really had just wanted to not expose himself.

It’s all

Boundless

's fault! Why do they have to go around bullying people like that? They changed the atmosphere of the entire Heavencraft Domain! Even Grandmaster is staring at me, wanting to place the future of the domain on my shoulders! But how old am I?

It’s also the fault of those older apprentices and uncles. Grandmaster doesn’t value any of them, which is why I’m here underground, having to suffer.

Consciousness. I have to train my damn consciousness

. His consciousness was already quite decent, even if it was not as strong as the arrogant people from the Consciousness Domain. Still, it was certainly not bad.

He carefully walked forward amidst the flickering candlelight. The young man trembled again as he continued his slow walk.

Half an hour passed, but the short, chubby man had only covered a short distance.

A low female voice called out, "Chubby little boy, who sent you here?"

The young man really wanted to snap back.

You’re the chubby little one! Your whole family is a bunch of chubby little ones!

However, he did not dare to make such a comment. Instead, he put on a simple, earnest smile. "Grandmaster is the one who sent me. Are you Lady Jing?"

"Who’s the current Grandmaster? Ling Zuo?"

"Yes."

"Hurry up and come over here. You look so timid."

The young man nervously swallowed and then quickened his pace.

He soon saw cages with various creatures held inside. Everything he saw was a conscient.

As the short, chubby man looked at the conscients, they all looked back at him.

Some of the conscients had defined forms, while others’ appearances changed based off of the young man’s unconscious perception of conscients. The only commonality was that all of the creatures were sluggish.

They had been imprisoned in the depths of the Heavencraft Domain for far too long.

The Heavencraft Domain was not like the Consciousness Domain. In the Consciousness Domain, Wu Wei’s presence meant that the conscients were allowed to freely roam about. They were even allowed to cultivate and help the disciples of the Consciousness Domain with their training. In contrast, there was no powerful conscient like Wu Wei in the Heavencraft Domain, which meant that the simplest and most reliable method to suppress the captives was to prevent them from regaining their strength.

The Heavencraft Domain had continuously requested consciousness cultivators to consume the consciousness of the captive conscients.

For cultivators, consciousness was just another power that they could cultivate, but for conscients, consciousness was their life. From their perspective, they were being kept in a wounded condition, or even in a state of near death, never able to recover.

The strongest consciousness cultivator here was named Qi Jing, and she was a member of the Qi family. The Heavencraft Domain had paid an exorbitant price to have a powerhouse from the Qi family stay here. Her consciousness had reached the Stellar realm, which was as powerful as a sequence powerhouse.

Qi Jing was from a branch of the Qi family, which was why the Qi family had not particularly cared when she had been hired. After leaving the Consciousness Domain, she would never be allowed to return to the Qi family. The Qi family had sold the woman for resources from the Heavencraft Domain.

The short, chubby man trembled as he continued deeper into the area and finally saw the woman. Her face was withered and her skin was pale, but her eyes were fierce. She was also smiling, though her smile made the young man’s scalp tingle.

He quickly bowed. "This junior is Ling Tong. Greetings, Senior."

Qi Jing observed the fat young man. "Despite your young age, you’ve already become a master craftsman, haven’t you?"

"How did you know, Senior?" the young man asked.

Qi Jing snorted. "If you weren't a master craftsman, Ling Zuo would have never allowed you to come here. After all, this is a forbidden location."

The young instantly responded with a bit of flattery, "Senior, your insight is as bright as a torch, and you can see through everything. I greatly admire you. With you overseeing the Heavencraft Domain, these conscients will never be able to rise up. Thank you, Senior, for all that you have done to help the Heavencraft Domain."

"Shut up. Don’t try that on me!" Qi Jing spat out coldly while glaring at the young man. "Tell me, who attacked the Heavencraft Domain recently?"

"Emperor Slayer."

Qi Jing was caught off guard. "Emperor Slayer? Why did he attack the Heavencraft Domain?"

The fat young man had no idea how to answer that question, so he took a moment to consider things. Right when he was about to speak, one of the underground cages shattered with a loud noise, startling him.

Qi Jing was also startled, and her consciousness erupted as she moved to suppress the disturbance.

What is happening?

The imprisoned conscients also had no idea what was going on.

Up above in the Heavencraft Domain, Ling Zuo was dazed, and he stood up, staring at the sky. His expression changed drastically.

How could this be?

An overwhelming consciousness descended from the starry sky above. It was like the descent of an endless ocean. The conscient coldly stared downwards. "You want to imprison my fellow conscients? You are courting death!"

Ling Zuo immediately reacted. "Spirit Threads Rule the World!"

The consciousness crashed down from outer space, shaking the entire domain. At that instant, everyone lost consciousness, aside from Ling Zuo. The old man remained awake, and he was horrified as the conscient descended. He dropped to one knee, confusion covering his face. Where had such a powerful conscient appeared from in the Spirit Nidus?

Underground, Qi Jing spat out blood as the consciousness swept past her. It stole away all of the imprisoned conscients. In an instant, Qi Jing also lost consciousness, the short chubby man having already passed out.

Soon, peace returned to the Heavencraft Domain.

Ling Zuo was the only one still conscious. He stared at the ruins of his Heavencraft Domain, overcome with both grief and rage. He spat out a mouthful of blood before collapsing.

On a distant planet, Lu Yin opened his eyes.

He was the source of the consciousness attack that had assaulted the Heavencraft Domain. His level of consciousness allowed him to easily alter his consciousness, which could make him appear as a conscient to others.

When Lu Yin had scanned the Heavencraft Domain, he had not only taken away the captive conscients, but had also examined the domain itself.

He had clearly seen the process of producing spirit threads, and he had found that the materials were nothing special. While rare, there was nothing unique or special about the materials. If anything was special about the spirit threads, then it was the Heavencraft Domain’s unique methods that were used to produce them.

The Heavencraft Domain possessed a unique method for producing spirit threads, and outsiders were unable to produce their own because of that method.

However, Lu Yin had also examined their production methods, and there was nothing special about them either.

Had he overlooked something?

The conscients that he had taken were all extremely weak. Given their condition, Lu Yin would gain almost nothing from devouring their consciousness. They needed to first recover.

Lu Yin shifted his attention away from the Heavencraft Domain to another place. His next target was the Ark Domain.

Just like the Heavencraft Domain, the Ark Domain was also severely damaged by Lu Yin’s consciousness, and it was quickly followed by another nearby domain.

Lu Yin's speed allowed him to sweep through five domains before anyone could react. As soon as they did, the entire Spirit Nidus was thrown into an uproar.

The Heavencraft Domain, the Ark Domain, and three other domains had actually been attacked by a conscient. Such a thing had never happened in all of history.

As the news spread, the various organizations that had been hoarding conscients hurried to contact the Consciousness Domain, hoping to send their conscients to that domain.

There were many conscients hidden in the Spirit Nidus, and they had been there for an unknown length of time. According to Ling Zuo, the conscient that had attacked was quite powerful. In a brief amount of time, the Heavencraft Domain and Ark Domain had both been sealed and attacked, which indicated some measure of knowledge. Everyone was afraid of being the next target.

When the Consciousness Domain learned of the attacks, Shi Xiu’s first thought was of Sage Qian.

If there had been any doubts before, there were no longer any. There were conscients hidden in the Spirit Nidus, and they were starting to attack.

Just where were the conscients hiding? They might need to ask Seraph Lu.

Lu Yin had already returned to

Boundless

, and everyone believed that he had been in seclusion the entire time.

He lifted his head and brought out his die. He tapped it and rolled Timestop with his first attempt, which put a smile on his face. He had gotten exactly what he had been wishing for. Timestop was what he needed at this moment.

After entering the Timestop Space, Lu Yin released all the conscients that he had captured.

There were quite a few of them, and the Heavencraft Domain had actually had the most. There was even a Celestial realm conscient, though they were also in miserable condition.

When all of the conscients were released, they gathered together and created a bit of distance between themselves and Lu Yin.

"Human, why did you save us?" a Celestial realm conscient asked.

Lu Yin observed the conscients. "There are still not enough and too few powerful ones. Still, this is better than nothing."

"Human, what does that mean? Why did you save us?" The many conscients continued to stare at Lu Yin.

He slowly sat down. "Hurry up and recover."

"Did Wu Wei send you to save us?" the Celestial realm conscient asked.

Lu Yin was caught off guard. "Wu Wei would save you?"

"I’m not sure, but Wu Wei is the only one of the Thirteen Luminaries in the Spirit Nidus. As for you, you're very strong. Aside from Wu Wei, I can't think of anyone else who could have made you save us."

Lu Yin stopped speaking. There was no need to speak any further with the conscients.

After all, they were emotionless creatures.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Human, we will definitely repay this favor."

Lu Yin paid them no mind. While conscients had no emotions, they could mimic them. Conscients were still living creatures, and as such, they possessed the desire to survive. This was not wrong, but they saw nothing wrong with doing absolutely anything, as long as it was done in order to survive.

As for Lu Yin, he was also not wrong in his actions, because he was also a living creature who had people to protect.

Soon, the year was over.

The conscients had recovered quite a bit during that year, though not nearly enough.

Lu Yin considered taking them out and rolling the die again, but this time, the conscients refused to listen.

"Human, we don’t know where we are, but please let us leave. We will surely remember the favor that you have shown us," the Celestial-level conscient said. Many of the surrounding conscients grew alert when they heard this comment.

Lu Yin chuckled. "I’ve been giving you time so that you can recover. What? You don’t trust me?"

"It’s not that we don’t trust you, but rather that this is already enough. Human, we should leave."

Lu Yin looked at the crowd of conscients before him. "Can you leave?"

"Human, you?" The Celestial realm conscient suddenly attacked. Trust? That was a foreign concept to conscients. There was no trust even among their own kind.

All of the conscients attacked as one, using their consciousness to attack Lu Yin.

Just a short time later, Lu Yin ended his seclusion.

As soon as Old Tao saw Lu Yin, he stepped forward, eager to share news of what had happened recently.

No was aware that Lu Yin was capable of devouring conscients’ consciousness, though this was not because Lu Yin had deliberately kept it a secret.

There had been no conscients in the Tianyuan Megaverse aside from Blackless God and Whiteless God. At best, Progenitor Xi could be added to the list. There had been no need for Lu Yin to mention what he could do. However, after arriving in the Spirit Nidus, he was becoming increasingly aware of the importance of his abilities. Once it was exposed, he would become not only the Spirit Nidus’s enemy, but also the entire Consciousness Megaverse’s enemy.

He would never underestimate the Consciousness Megaverse, not just because it was inhabited by a different form of life. The fact that the Consciousness Megaverse had managed to endure for so long despite the Spirit Nidus’s constant pressure was evidence enough. On top of that, their megaverse had their Thirteen Luminaries, whose mere existence was proof that the megaverse was not nearly as weak as it was portrayed to be.

The Spirit Nidus had also regarded the Tianyuan Megaverse as weak, but Lu Yin had revealed his megaverse’s strength to all.

Trying to understand the relative power of the three megaverses from the Spirit Nidus’s information alone was impossible, as it was too subjective and one-sided.

"So, have all of the thirty-six domains sent their conscients to the Consciousness Domain now?" Lu Yin asked.

"That’s right," Old Tao replied. He let out a sigh. "I never imagined that such a powerful conscient could be hiding in the Spirit Nidus."