Chapter 3946: Born Beneath Heaven And Earth, How Could One Ever Find Peace?

Suddenly, Lu Yin’s karma started to be consumed at an accelerated rate. Ten percent of Lu Yin’s total karma instantly disappeared. He did not even have a chance to feel distressed about the loss, as his karma itself had been disturbed.

Somewhere, a pair of eyes opened. They were empty and terrifyingly dark. They peered through karma to lock eyes with Lu Yin.

Lu Yin saw those eyes across time and space, staring straight at him.

Were those human eyes? No, they were the eyes of death.

Those eyes were not even looking at Lu Yin, but rather at his death. They were seeing the inevitable demise that loomed behind him. Compared to the skeleton which wore new “clothes,” these eyes were far more terrifying.

Clenching a fist, Lu Yin allowed his karma to continue being consumed. He was determined to find the white skeleton’s location.

All of a sudden, Cheng Hongyuan’s skeleton disintegrated into ash. It happened abruptly and was over too soon. The ashes scattered into the wind, vanishing into the distance.

Lu Yin was stunned. Without Cheng Hongyuan’s skeleton, the karmic trail that he had been following also vanished. Everything took place in the blink of an eye.

He had only met those skeletal eyes for an instant, yet a deep voice echoed in his ears:

“Enter my death. Bestow death. Undying, imperishable; forever shall I exist.”

That other being had sensed Lu Yin.

Karma could be used to examine the past or peer into the future, but such actions could also be noticed by others. The one on the other end had to either possess astounding cultivation or have a unique ability, such as being able to perceive or even wield the power of karma.

Someone with an unfathomable cultivation? That was unlikely. Lu Yin had already reached the peak of power beneath the Immortal realm, which meant that the other party had to be a true Immortal.

However, if that were the case, then it would not have been just Cheng Hongyuan’s skeleton that turned to ash; Lu Yin would have also been in grave danger.

Additionally, if that being really was an Immortal, there was no way that the three Greater Sancti would have failed to notice their existence.

That meant that the only option was that the skeleton was somehow special. There was something so unique about it that it could detect and even disrupt the power of karma.

Lu Yin stood where he was, those few words echoing in his mind.

“Enter my death. Grant death, becoming undying and eternal. I shall exist forever.”

Is it a warning from that skeleton, or something else?

Death?

The Great Master had once mentioned that the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had faced a deadly crisis.

Meeting the skeleton’s gaze had felt like staring straight into death itself.

Was it possible that death was not a condition, but an actual existence?

Lu Yin rose into the air to look down at the city. Wails of fear and mourning echoed everywhere. None of these people had done anything to warrant such an attack, and yet they had suffered this calamity for no reason. Who would pity them?

Decades later, the events of this day would end up as nothing more than a few lines in the city’s history.

However, Lu Yin was able to see things clearly, given that the tragedy was still fresh.

The memories of pain would live on in the hearts of those who had survived, but where were the dead? Had anyone seen what had actually happened?

After observing for some time, Lu Yin turned and left.

In the Tianyuan, he had once said that he wished to guide people toward goodness. But that was not something words alone could achieve; mere speech was not enough restraint. Perhaps one day, with a single thought that spanned all of heaven and earth, he could bind cultivators and shield mortals. That, too, could be called an aspiration.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Born beneath heaven and earth, how could one ever find peace?

Lu Yin soon returned to Cragpeak.

The mountain itself was gone. Even Skyveil City had suffered from the aftershocks of the recent battle. There were many places where the ground had been shattered.

Members of both the Jue and Yu families had arrived at the edges of where Cragpeak had once stood to speak with Li Guo. A few words were exchanged, but the families learned little.

Lu Yin’s arrival confused everyone. Hadn’t he gone to help defend the Consciousness Megaverse? Why was he at Skyveil City?

Lu Yin landed on the ground and found the shattered flesh that had been abandoned by Cheng Hongyuan’s skeleton. He gathered the blood, hoping that it really was Cheng Hongyuan’s.

Cheng Hongyuan’s daughter was still alive, and that woman was following Yong Heng. It might be possible to use Cheng Hongyuan’s blood to find his daughter.

Still, this was not the time for that. There was no doubt that Yong Heng would be extremely wary at this moment. Lu Yin would have to wait for the proper moment.

There were certain things that could only be accomplished by surprise.

“Where’s Cheng Hongyuan?” Li Guo asked, dismissing the nearby people, including those from the Jue and Yu families.

“Dead.”

Li Guo raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t capture him for questioning?”

Lu Yin met the old man’s stare. “It was useless.”

Li Guo frowned. “Not even karma could reveal something?”

Many people now knew that Lu Yin had comprehended the power of karma. It was no longer a secret.

Lu Yin shook his head. He had paid dearly to use karma to investigate Cheng Hongyuan, but all that he had gleaned from his efforts was a single brief glance with a skeleton. He rather regretted his actions.

How hard was it for him to strengthen his power of karma?

He had even considered tossing Li Guo and a few others into his Champions' Stage Purgatory, just to boost his karma by a bit.

Fortunately, the transparent moth from the Allsense Megaverse had granted Lu Yin a massive amount of karma not too long ago, so this recent loss was not as terrible as it could have been. Without that boon, he would have been far more upset.

Lu Yin stared at Li Guo. “Have you spoken with the Great Master?”

Li Guo nodded. “I was told to inform you to reach out as soon as you returned.”

“Why did Cheng Hongyuan go after you?” Lu Yin was not in a rush to speak with the Great Master.

Li Guo answered with a shrug, “How should I know? From what I could tell, he was determined to capture me, which means that I’m in a great deal of danger right now.”

“What is your value?” Lu Yin asked bluntly.

“...I feel like you’re looking down on me.”

Lu Yin held the old man’s gaze. “This is extremely important. I need to report to Greater Sancte Awe Gate, as this concerns the skeleton on the final page of the Cheng family’s secret manual.”

Li Guo’s eyes bulged. “You found a clue?”

“No, which is why I want to use you to find one.”

Li Guo leaned against a stone. The old man looked completely exhausted as he pointed at himself. “If I knew any clues, I’d already be dead. Besides, talking to you makes my teeth ache.”

Lu Yin stared at Li Guo’s mouth. “You already have a toothache.”

Given that Li Guo’s jaw had been pierced by his own bones, of course he was in pain.

Li Guo curiously asked, “Why are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to be defending the Consciousness Megaverse? Don’t tell me you knew that all of this was going to happen and still allowed me to suffer and nearly die.”

Lu Yin casually replied, “When I killed Baisha Tiancheng, I examined him with karma and discovered that there were several descendants of the Cheng family which he didn’t know about.”

Li Guo understood. “Which made you think that there was something off.”

“Baisha Tiancheng was the patriarch of the Cheng family. He was a domineering man who wielded absolute control over his family. Despite that, the family had descendants that he didn’t know about, while Cheng Gong did know of them. Clearly, there was something off with that. There’s someone else behind Cheng Gong,” Lu Yin explained.

Li Guo snorted. “I knew that! There’s no way Cheng Gong could have exterminated all of his family’s descendants so easily. This makes more sense.”

Lu Yin had no interest in the family’s affairs. No matter what, even if there were some members of the Cheng family who were still alive, they were nothing more than ants. Even if they had not been members of the Cheng family, someone else would have acted on the skeleton’s behalf. Lu Yin was only interested in learning why Li Guo was important enough for Cheng Hongyuan to try so hard to capture him.

“What is so important about you? Or could it be something that you possess? Like a mirebound artifact?” Lu Yin asked.

Li Guo rolled his eyes. “I’m not important, alright?”

“Alright, I’ll just tell Greater Sancte Awe Gate that,” Lu Yin bluntly stated.

Li Guo’s mouth fell open. After a moment, he grumpily said, “My value lies in spirit treasure formations. That’s my greatest and only value. Truthfully, almost no one throughout the entire history of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse has surpassed me in this field, aside from the Greater Sancti.

“Of Skyveil City’s three great clans, the Cheng family used the Void Wall to learn to carve spirit treasure’s danger zones. We can ignore that for now. Also, we can ignore the possibility that the Jue family is hiding the Immobile Skyveil Formation since that’s a relic of the Skyveil Megaverse. I’ve also mastered their Linear Insight. As for the Yu family’s Script Arrays, I only need to see those once to understand them.”

Lu Yin arched a brow.

Li Guo proudly continued, “I even created my own Script Array. Heaven, Earth, and Man: Threefold Link. There’s no doubt that the Yu family has stronger spirit treasure formations, but all of those were inherited from the Skyveil Megaverse. I created my own and was almost able to wipe out both Cheng Hongyuan and Jie Zun with it. Heh, impressive, isn’t it?”

Lu Yin had already seen the Heaven, Earth, and Man: Threefold Link, and it was indeed formidable.

While he was capable of breaking the spirit treasure formation, it would be much, much harder for him to learn it. As for creating it from scratch, that would require an immeasurable amount of time.

There was no denying that Li Guo possessed a truly extraordinary talent for spirit treasures formations, surpassing that of anyone Lu Yin had ever heard of.

No, that was not quite true; Progenitor Hui was an exception. His cultivation had been low, and he had also never had the time to research as he had wanted. He had prepared plans that had taken eons to play out, and he had been involved in far more than just spirit treasure formations.

If Progenitor Hui had solely devoted himself to studying spirit treasure formations, who knew what he might have created?

At that moment, Li Guo’s communication device vibrated. When he answered the call, the Great Master’s voice came through. “Tell Lu Yin to go to the Frightened Sparrow Terrace.”

Li Guo looked over at Lu Yin, who glanced up towards the Frightened Sparrow Terrace. Right when he was about to leave, a gate appeared in front of him.

Li Guo was envious. Greater Sancte Awe Gate was personally summoning Lu Yin. Just what was his status in the eyes of the Immortal Greater Sancti?

Lu Yin passed through the gate and immediately arrived on the Frightened Sparrow Terrace.

He had expected to find the Great Master there, but Greater Sancte Awe Gate was the only one standing on the plaza.

She looked at Lu Yin. “Your thoughts?”

“Are you aware of the battle that just occurred in the West Domain, Senior?” Lu Yin asked.

Greater Sancte Awe Gate nodded. “Naturally.”

“Then why didn’t you take action?”

“It would’ve been pointless.”

Lu Yin stared at the Greater Sancti, and she calmly explained, “Netherfiends have appeared on multiple occasions in the past. We’ve taken action before, trying to find that gate, but we were never able to stop those people from dying. As for the ones sent by that skeleton—oh, yes. We call that skeleton and those it controls Silent Death.”

“Silent Death?” Lu Yin was reminded of the skeleton’s gaze. “Quite fitting.”

The Greater Sancte continued, “There is also nothing to be gained from Silent Death. Both groups cultivate methods entirely alien to our Nine Odysseys Megaverse. One comes from the Immortal who perished together with Greater Sancte Mi Jin, and the other comes from a foreign civilization that threatened to completely destroy our Nine Odysseys Megaverse. Neither is easy to handle.

“Within the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, hidden darkness and threats linger, which we have not yet been able to eliminate.”

At this point, she pointedly stared at Lu Yin. “Twice you’ve traveled aboard a Night Pillar. What’s your opinion of the Aevum Inch?”

Lu Yin replied gravely, “It’s extremely dangerous. The Nine Odysseys Megaverse made the right choice to stay hidden and to eliminate anything that might expose this megaverse.”

“Is that all?”

“There is one more thing. There are civilizations out there fishing.”

The Greater Sancte stared up at the stars. Her focus extended beyond the Nine Odysseys Megaverse and into the vast and unfathomable Aevum Inch. “We’ve encountered fishing civilizations before. The original springboard and certain spirit treasures are both examples of their efforts. Any civilization that dares to fish in the cosmos is beyond terrifying. We have no desire to come into contact with such civilizations.

“That skeleton was released from a spirit treasure, which was bait released by one such civilization. At first, we didn’t pay attention to it, but fortunately, we managed to discover it in time and were able to deceive that civilization after making adequate preparations.

“We call that civilization the Death Megaverse.”

Lu Yin’s expression turned solemn. “Death... Megaverse?”

He was yet again reminded of the words that he had heard the skeleton speak.