Chapter 4080: The True Body

Lu Yin did not waste any more time talking. He simply threw karma straight at Jiang Qi. As before, the karma veered around the man, as though karma was simply unable to touch Jiang Qi.

How could such a person exist?

During his time in the Spirit Nidus, Lu Yin had seen many strange constitutions. Qing Yun’s physique had been especially memorable, and he had not been able to understand it at all back then.

Her body acted as though she was constantly being burned by flames. If he interpreted her situation through karma, it was essentially effect without cause.

Only after seeing the murals on Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s stone wall had Lu Yin understood.

Qing Yun had been split. By cultivating some kind of cloning technique and using Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s mastery of karma, her physique had been split in two, resulting in a cause-body and an effect-body.

The cause-body was burned from within by flames, yet would not die.

The effect-body moved towards death, yet carried no flames.

Had Qing Yun not been split in such a manner, her physique would have already reduced her to ash. Splitting her apart had allowed her to survive.

Understanding what had been done was one thing, while being capable of replicating it was something else entirely.

Lu Yin readily admitted to himself that he was incapable of doing such a thing. He could not use karma to split someone’s physique. Greater Sancte Green Lotus walked a completely different path of karma, and he was also far stronger than Lu Yin.

While he had come to understand Qing Yun’s constitution, Jiang Qi’s still left him baffled.

No matter how Lu Yin wielded karma, not even borrowing the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm allowed him to understand Jiang Qi.

There was no sense to it at all.

It was like a master chef who was capable of recreating any dish, only to be faced with a block of wood. Such a thing was not food, and it would be impossible to turn food into wood, no matter how much time one spent trying.

Jiang Qi was like a block of wood. He was simply completely unrelated to karma.

The thing was, this “wood” mattered. It should be impossible for anyone born in the cosmos to be without karma.

Jiang Qi waited anxiously. After a while, Lu Yin had the Second Nightking escort the man out.

“Why did you summon that man?” Long Xi asked, curious.

“He’s odd. He can avoid karma.”

Long Xi was taken aback. “Avoid karma? Such a person exists?”

Even someone like Long Xi, who had not comprehended karma, was amazed. That just went to show how bizarre Jiang Qi was.

Lu Yin told her not to speak of the matter. He still had not been able to find why Jiang Qi was able to avoid karma. Was it his physique? There did not seem to be anything unusual about it.

Jiang Qi hid under his blanket because of the fear that he had felt from sensing the walls of karma in the Spirit Nidus.

Imagine living every day beneath towering walls with an inverted funnel covering the sky; what would that do to a person?

They would end up like Jiang Qi.

The man was quite pitiful.

Progenitor Chen continued to search for Master Qing Cao. In that manner, another half year passed.

One day, after leaving the River of Aeons in the Mirari Realm, Lu Yin went to visit the Immemorial Citadel. He wanted to speak with his master, but he also did not want to disturb him.

The Immemorial Citadel had been the site of the final battle fought in the war over the Tianyuan.

It was the place where humanity had defeated Aeternus. If not for the Spirit Nidus’s invasion, the Tianyuan would have stabilized long ago, and there would have been no need to revert time.

Reversing time by thirty-seven years had saved countless lives.

Experts still filled the Immemorial Citadel. Most of them had once fought there, and they had managed to survive until the end.

If they returned to their own universes, they would be regarded as leaders and ancestors. Most of them no longer felt like they belonged in their native universes. Instead, they felt a strong sense of belonging to the Immemorial Citadel.

Lu Yin heard loud laughter ring out. It was the ancestor of the super giants. His massive figure was impossible to miss.

He was drinking with some others.

“What a pity that old Zhong Tou and the rest aren’t able to see this. We’re able to enter the Mirari Realm and cultivate there, and we’ve even had breakthroughs. Such a thing was unthinkable for so long.”

“Babal, Jian An, Bai Mu... ah...”

“A toast to our fallen brothers!”

“To them...”

Lu Yin’s expression remained calm. He had not known Bai Mu and the others well at all, but any who had fought to defend the Immemorial Citadel deserved respect.

“Behave! Are you still wriggling about when your master’s gone?” The ancestor of the super giants smacked the ground, shaking the entire Immemorial Citadel.

Qiu Buman grumbled, “Old man, be gentle! The Immemorial Citadel’s brittle now. Don’t break it!”

The ancient giant just snorted. “I’m just disciplining that little thing so that it will behave a bit better.”

When he lifted his hand, he revealed a writhing black cloth that seemed to be alive.

The others nearby were all used to seeing the cloth.

The cloth was a member of Aeternus by the name of Qi. It had been sent to the Immemorial Citadel to participate in Aeternus’s Divine Selection, only to be captured by the ancient giant. Even after so long, the cloth had still not been released, and it was often smacked around.

“Aeternus is already gone, so this thing should behave.”

“If it doesn’t, just tear it apart. Why bother keeping it, old man?”

The giant grinned. “It’s a foot rag.”

His response caused several nearby people to retch and step away in disgust.

“Hahaha! Look how squeamish you all are! Even I find it filthy. I just keep it for fun. A sapient bit of cloth? Unique, isn’t it?”

“That’s true enough.”

“So, have you figured it out yet?”

“Let me see.”

The giant casually tossed Qi over. Anyone who wanted to examine the cloth could. He did not care at all.

Suddenly the ancient giant felt that something was off, and he turned around. He was met with the sight of Lu Yin observing the interactions with an odd expression.

Everyone nearby immediately stood up. “Lord Lu!”

“Greetings, Lord Lu.”

The ancient giant bowed. “Lord Lu.”

Lu Yin nodded, but kept his eyes on the cloth. “Qi... do you remember me?”

The cloth twisted about and shook. After a moment, it assumed a humanoid form, though it was nothing more than a bit of black fabric wrapped about itself. The figure bowed low. “Greetings, Lord Lu.”

Of course it remembered Lu Yin. The man had once infiltrated the Scourges by posing as Ye Bo, and he had even participated in the Divine Selection. While Qi had never spoken to Ye Bo, it had a strong impression of the man.

In particular, Qi had seen Lu Yin determine the final outcome of the last battle at the Immemorial Citadel and even fight against True God. Qi had been shocked by all that it had seen at that time.

Since then, Lu Yin had become the ruler of the entire megaverse. Supposedly, he was even able to fight against Immortals, which was a level that not even True God had ever reached. It was beyond terrifying.

“Where do you come from?” Lu Yin asked. He could sense Immortal matter from Qi.

“A shroud.”

Lu Yin was surprised.

A shroud?

If he remembered right, a member of the True God Guard had possessed an innate gift that was a black cloth that he had controlled. It was shocking for a piece of cloth to actually gain life.

Qi did not dare to attempt to hide anything. Aeternus had been thoroughly destroyed, and Qi could only hope to survive.

It shared its origin completely.

The story then led Lu Yin to Aeternus’s Second Scourge, where Qi had once lived.

“Right here- Why is it gone? Did True God take it? Or did she?” Qi muttered, puzzled.

There should have been a corpse in that location. It had not belonged to a human, but it had possessed a humanoid shape. Qi had once been that corpse’s shroud.

According to Qi, the corpse must have belonged to a terrifyingly powerful expert. Since even its shroud had gained sapience, the original being’s strength could only be imagined.

Karma pierced through Qi so that Lu Yin could view the scenes of the past, including the corpse.

Sure enough, it had not belonged to a human.

For their shroud to have developed sapience...

Lu Yin knew that, even with his strength, if he died, his shroud would likely not gain sapience.

By that reckoning, the corpse had very likely belonged to an Immortal.

But why would Aeternus have been in possession of an Immortal’s corpse? It was rare for any Immortal to die. For such a corpse to have existed, the Immortal or their corpse had to have arrived there, but surely Greater Sancte Green Lotus and the other human Immortals would have known about such a visitor.

Suddenly, through the scenes in Qi’s karma, Lu Yin saw someone: Bai Qian.

She had actually visited this location and even interacted with the corpse.

“What happened with this woman?”

Qi answered respectfully, “I left for Xu Jin’s home to train for the Divine Selection. During that time, this woman arrived here for some unknown reason. After encountering the corpse, she stayed here.

“When I returned and saw her, I wanted to slap her dead, but I couldn’t.

“It was as if some unseen power was protecting her. I tried several times, yet always failed. Then, the Divine Selection started, so I had to leave. I stayed at the Immemorial Citadel after that, so I know nothing beyond that.”

Lu Yin was caught off guard. So this corpse was how Bai Qian had survived the Scourge and been able to leave alive.

After being captured and taken to the Scourge, she had vanished, apparently in the Second Scourge. Certain death had been avoided by encountering the corpse, and she had obtained a chance to live.

In that case, why had she not appeared back when the Second Scourge had been destroyed?

Fate and opportunity were hard to pin down.

“Why didn’t you report the fact that she made contact with the corpse?” Lu Yin asked.

“I was afraid that doing so would affect the Divine Selection.”

Lu Yin nodded. “Did Yong Heng know about the corpse?”

“He did. True God came here, though not often. He didn’t seem to care much about it. On the other hand, Xu Jin visited frequently, for unknown reasons.”

Something suddenly stuck out to Lu Yin, and he looked over in the direction of where Xu Jin had once lived.

Xu Jin was a creature of consciousness...

Yue Ya was a being of manifested thought...

Could it be...?

He took Qi back to the Immemorial Citadel, delivering the cloth back to the ancestor of the super giants. That done, Lu Yin went to Earth to speak with Bai Xue.

He asked her for a drop of blood.

While Bai Xue did not know why her blood was being requested, she did not refuse.

Lu Yin wanted to use Bai Xue’s blood to find Bai Qian.

If his guess was right, that corpse might prove useful to him.

He reached through the void and grabbed hold, causing the sequence strings to quiver as karma passed through the droplet of blood, starting the search for Bai Qian. Once again, the megaverse started rumbling.

Beneath the Immemorial Citadel, Wilderness God was left speechless. Ever since Lu Yin had returned, the sequence strings had seemed to grow unsteady. If they were tugged too hard one day and snapped, Wilderness God would not be able to catch hold of them again.

Universes thundered as karma spread out, seeking Bai Qian.

However, she was nowhere to be found.

Lu Yin’s head throbbed. He was unable to find anyone scheming against him because of the hidden Obscura expert keeping things concealed, but why was he unable to find Bai Qian as well?

It appeared that his suspicions were accurate: the corpse that Bai Qian had encountered was indeed the corpse of an Immortal, and this Immortal was most likely the source of the manifested thought that had become Yue Ya and the consciousness that had become Xu Jin.

An Immortal had died within human civilization, and their manifested thought and consciousness had dispersed before eventually giving rise to Yue Ya and Xu Jin.

After all, if the Immortal had died outside of human civilization, how could Yue Ya have appeared?

Yue Ya’s very existence indicated the death of an Immortal.

However, a corpse was useless to Immortals. Both the Immortal’s manifested thought and consciousness had dispersed, and the body alone had likely held no draw to either of the resulting entities.

However, Bai Qian might have been of interest to them.

Or perhaps she had simply been too insignificant for either of them to notice?