Chapter 4014: A Kind Of Life

Lu Yin met Hua Wuzui’s eyes. “Your value has run out.”

Hua Wuzui’s eyes bulged. “Huo Chong! Huo Chong is a traitor! There’s a traitor in the First Night Pillar! Mr. Lu, you can’t-”

There was another soft sound as Lu Yin tapped out with a finger. The red energy surged out from within Hua Wuzui and tried to melt him, even as the spirit seeds that he had fused with completely split apart.

Lu Yin released his inner universe and drew in the red energy to replenish the ring around his star of divine energy. His eyes blazed as he focused on Hua Wuzui’s spirit seeds.

Just as expected, he saw the truth behind multiple spirit seed fusion. He could finally see things clearly.

Hua Wuzui was dissolved by the red energy, but even at the moment of his death, his eyes were still filled with disbelief.

He could not understand why Lu Yin did not care about anything he said. It defied all reason.

As soon as Hua Wuzui was dealt with, Lu Yin called Awe Gate and informed her what he had learned about Huo Chong.

The Immortal could hardly believe what she was hearing, and yet she had no choice but to accept it.

“Huo Chong is even my senior. I never would imagined that he would join the Netherfiends.”

Lu Yin said, “That’s only normal. There will always be surprises. If not, the Netherfiends would have been exterminated long ago.”

Awe Gate’s expression grew complicated. “According to you, Hua Wuzui knew nothing about Obscura, so how did the Netherfiends convince Huo Chong? Was it just because of that red energy?”

“The human heart is the hardest thing to understand. Oftentimes, the smallest incident will spark a great calamity. Wherever the heart turns, the person will follow,” Lu Yin replied.

Awe Gate met Lu Yin’s eyes. “Seeing what you’ve accomplished, I find myself suddenly feeling that power itself is not frightening, but rather the methods employed.”

Lu Yin’s eyes flashed. He had accomplished something that even the Immortals had failed to pull off. That proved the importance of one’s methods.

Awe Gate stared at him for a long time. “I hope that your ‘illness’ becomes ever more severe.”

With that, she ended the call.

Lu Yin was left speechless for a long time.

...

Across the land of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, people headed for Lu Yin’s location from every direction.

Several major battles had been fought there. As the Netherfiends were repeatedly dragged out of hiding, many of the factions and independent cultivators who had worked for them were also exposed, which had led to widespread attention.

Lu Yin had spent more than a year rolling his die. He did not know how many Netherfiends remained, but there should not be too many left.

To avoid any potential leaks, Awe Gate started to close the net.

There were independent cultivators from major cities, members of various sects and clans, the Aqualis Clan and Artifex Clan of the Spirit Coalition, and most notable of all, the Huo family; all of them were captured, much to the shock of countless people.

The Huo family had enjoyed a special status. During the war against the Nest civilization, Huo Chong had made an appearance, and while he had barely spoken, he had been recognized, which caused his family’s status to continuously rise higher.

Even so, the Huo family still ran into trouble.

Deathmound moved openly, and countless people sensed that something was amiss as a result.

People were reminded of the thunder that had filled the sky, the repeated battles that had been fought at Lu Yin’s current location, and the blue sword that had appeared. It seemed as if wherever Lu Yin stood was the center of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. Events gravitated more towards him than even the Frightened Sparrow Terrace.

Because of that, many started traveling towards Lu Yin’s location.

They wanted to know, as soon as possible, what had truly happened.

This was within Lu Yin’s expectations. He released his consciousness so that no one could find him.

He did not intend to leave his location. People could come. He would force the Nine Odysseys Megaverse to remember him, just as he was remembered in the Tianyuan. He would change the cultivation landscape of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

...

When Awe Gate appeared on the First Night Pillar before Huo Chong, his expression grew bitter, and yet he said nothing.

He already knew that his family had been captured by Deathmound. There was nothing left to hide.

“Old Huo, why?” Qin Wudi roared while clenching his fists and glaring angrily at Huo Chong.

At the side, Master Xian, Granny Three Heavens, and the others watched in confusion. They felt as though they were meeting Huo Chong for the first time.

They had known the man for countless years. They had fought side by side, cultivated together, and survived for so long.

Of their former comrades in arms, only the seven of them remained.

None of them had ever imagined the possibility that Huo Chong could be a Netherfiend.

Huo Chong numbly glanced around the First Night Pillar. “Do you... like this place?”

Granny Three Heavens answered in a low voice, “This is our home.”

Huo Chong sneered. He showed a smile that betrayed nothing but bitterness and helplessness. “I don’t like it. This place is a cage, and I’ve been trapped here.”

“If not for the First Night Pillar, you would have died long ago.”

“By joining the Netherfiends, I can live much longer,” Huo Chong growled. His eyes grew fierce as they swept over the others present. “Why is Qing Cao allowed to become an Immortal? Why does he get to outlive us all? Why is my junior brother able to live a carefree life, while I waste away in my twilight years, doomed to die trapped in this place?

“Why? Tell me why!

“Why must I live for others? Can any of you give me an answer?”

His companions stared at him in a daze. They had all considered such questions in the past, but they had found no answers. Even so, none of them had fallen into the same confusion as Huo Chong.

He mocked himself. “You never had a junior brother like mine, nor were you courted by the Netherfiends. That’s the only reason you can stand there and condemn me with such righteousness. If you had been in my place, you too would have chosen to join the Netherfiends, to side with a stronger civilization, and to live longer.

“From the moment we’re born, death is inevitable. The only choice left to us is how we make our way through that process. But once you’re dead, what meaning does civilization hold? Everything dissolves into smoke. The cosmos endures forever, while humanity is nothing but a fleeting blossom.

“Your perseverance is laughable in the face of time itself.”

The others stared at Huo Chong with conflicted expressions. Civilization, purpose... was it all nothing more than a joke?

“Life is nothing more than the pursuit of your own desires, nothing more.” Huo Chong shook his head. Those bleak words were the last he left behind before turning to walk towards the gate.

Greater Sancte Awe Gate stood by the gate, watching his every step. “You’re not wrong. It is just a process.”

Huo Chong froze and looked up at the woman.

The others also turned to look at her.

She spoke slowly. “But in this process, I can choose to live in mediocrity, or I can choose to live brilliantly. I can choose destruction, or I can choose to protect. When you die, that is not true death. True death comes only when no one in the cosmos remembers you.”

“Are you trying to lecture me?” Huo Chong scoffed, his tone dripping with disdain, as though he had already seen through all of reality.

Awe Gate’s voice was calm. “There is a life called Huo Chong, and there is a life called Lu Yin. Which will you choose?”

Huo Chong trembled. He stared ahead, his eyes blank. He looked like he had just suffered a crushing blow that left him paralyzed.

Qin Wudi and the others exchanged glances, their expressions showing their conflicted feelings. If life really was meaningless, wouldn’t there be no difference?

But who would not choose to be Lu Yin? Even Huo Chong himself would rather be Lu Yin.

A single question had shattered his delusions.

Master Xian stared intensely at Greater Sancte Awe Gate.

So this is why she could become an Immortal.

She can see farther than any of us

.

...

Soon, another half year flashed by. During this time, any time Lu Yin Possessed a Netherfiend, he had immediately used Greater Sancte Awe Gate’s ability to send them within five meters of his own body so that he could extract the red energy.

From Hua Wuzui, Lu Yin had managed to understand the method behind fusing multiple spirit seeds. With that knowledge, he was able to better restrain the red energy, slowing the melting process for captured Netherfiends. That allowed him to siphon off even more energy.

Still, he was incapable of preventing the Netherfiends from melting away.

He had come to understand that what was actually melting the Netherfiends cultivators was not the energy inside of them, but rather the mysterious red line.

That red line which was invisible even to Greater Sancte Awe Gate.

The operations taking place throughout the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had forced the Netherfiends to go deeper into hiding. The moment that the Huo family and others had been captured, the Netherfiends had ceased all activity.

But even those efforts were useless. They were still unable to escape discovery, nor were they able to prevent Lu Yin from Possessing them.

...

In a mortal city, Yong Heng quietly enjoyed a bit of wine with a vacant expression.

Outside the city, two cultivators were engaged in a fierce battle, which kept the ordinary humans inside of the city too frightened to step foot outside.

The two cultivators had only just reached the level where they were able to freely move about the universe, which meant that they were creatures whom Yong Heng could snuff out with a glance. Despite that, he watched their fight with great interest.

He never looked away until the match was decided.

Recently, more and more Netherfiends had been found and captured. Yong Heng had assumed long ago that Lu Yin was Possessing the Netherfiends with the help of his mirebound artifact.

Without something like Yong Heng’s own mirebound artifact to counter Lu Yin’s ability, so long as Lu Yin could wield the Netherfiends’ power, they would not be able to escape from him anywhere in the same megaverse.

Yong Heng shook his head. It was a pity, but the Netherfiends were no longer reliable.

Obscura had already set their sights on the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, which meant that Yong Heng could only do his absolute best to uncover Silent Death.

Would Lu Yin become arrogant enough to try to use divine energy with his mirebound artifact to seek Yong Heng out? The man found himself rather looking forward to that possibility.

...

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Black droplets fell to the ground with soft splashes.

Looking upwards, the drops could be traced to a black branch of what looked like withered wood. It did not hang straight down but was instead coiled around a floating coffin in multiple layers.

It was a dark, shadowed place that looked like the ravine of a mountain. Faint beams of sunlight shone down, reflecting off of the falling droplets to produce a soft glow.

The floating coffin was bound in place by the branches. Within the coffin lay a desiccated body.

Suddenly, the eyes of that withered body opened. Within the red slitted eyes flickered the faintest ripple of emotion.

Where is this? A floating coffin?

It was Lu Yin looking through those eyes. He had Possessed this withered body.

Memories began to surge; there was numbness, monotony, and an endless waiting. Emotions started to overlap. The owner of the body had been gone for an unimaginably long time, which meant that his memories related to the outside world were only of the distant past.

He was in this coffin to participate in the Netherfiends’ experiments on fusing with multiple spirit seeds.

Excitement blossomed in Lu Yin’s heart. He had finally found the place.

Fusing with multiple spirit seeds was not a natural extension of cultivating spirit seeds. It was a technique that had been researched and developed. Lu Yin had Possessed so many Netherfiends, but only a rare few had been capable of fusing with multiple spirit seeds. Each one had been a name to remember. What of the rest? Had they never even attempted such a fusion, or had they failed?

Failure had to be the answer.

According to the memories of those who had failed, Lu Yin had managed to identify several experimental sites, but all of them had been moved. It had appeared that the experiments had been discontinued long ago.

It also seemed possible that they had never stopped, but regardless of whether the experiments had succeeded or failed, none had been released. As a result, Lu Yin had been unable to locate the current location of the Netherfiends’ experiments on fusing multiple spirit seeds.

Until now.

He was Possessing someone inside a floating coffin. There were multiple coffins around him, each of which had the black branches of a towering tree wrapped around it, and each of which contained a Netherfiend that was being used as a test subject for multiple spirit seed fusion. Two had succeeded, but just as Lu Yin suspected, they had not been allowed to leave the place yet.

The one presiding over the location was an old crone named Wu Er.

None of the memories revealed the old woman’s background, and Lu Yin had never heard of her name in the outside world either.

Still, Wu Er had lived for an unfathomably long time. Her image was the same as the figure that Lu Yin had seen in Hua Wuzui’s memories. She was the one who had experimented on him and enabled him to fuse with multiple spirit seeds.