Chapter 4082: The Unbreakable Fishhook

“Hehe, what did I tell you, Eldest Sister? He definitely looked at third sister first. I win!” Lu Siyu shouted, her cheeks flushed red.

The Great Master rolled her eyes at Lu Siyu before looking at Lu Yin. “Lord Lu, can’t you show a bit of restraint and not gawk at my third sister?”

Lu Yin arched a brow. He wanted to retort, but given the situation, anything he said might be used against him.

He never wanted to visit the Sea of Karma’s lotus pond ever again.

Jue Qing and Ming Xiaolong watched on calmly, while Yu Xiang'er was staring at Lu Yin. This man owed her an explanation.

Qiunan Hongye, her eyes still covered with a black cloth, bowed to Lu Yin. “Mr. Lu, we meet again.”

Lu Siyu giggled and ran over to Lu Yin’s side. “Mr. Lu, isn’t my third sister beautiful?”

Lu Yin shot her a sharp glare. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Nonsense? What are you saying? That my third sister isn’t beautiful?” Lu Siyu retorted.

Lu Yin looked at Greater Sancte Green Lotus in a helpless manner, only to find that the man was staring out at the Sea of Karma, completely ignoring the interactions taking place.

It was true that the Third Fairy was quite beautiful; all of the Seven Fairies were. Still, compared to the others, their third sister possessed extra charm due to all the red that she was wearing. Her expression remained as calm as placid water. Even when she looked at Greater Sancte Green Lotus, there was an unnatural serenity.

“Seventh Sister, come here,” the Great Master called.

Lu Siyu giggled and whispered to Lu Yin, “My third sister’s name is Hong’er. Back when I heard someone shout, I’m sure it was her voice.”

Lu Yin wanted nothing more than to smack the girl; she just had to bring up that incident.

The woman in red approached him. “Hong’er offers greetings, Mr. Lu.”

Lu Yin smiled. “You’re too polite. There’s no need for such formalities.”

It was at that moment that Greater Sancte Green Lotus finally looked over. “Now that you all know each other, it is time to extract Qi Xu’s emotions from all of you. I hope that you won’t blame your master for making you endure pressures that should have never been placed upon you.”

The Seven Fairies bowed as one. “Master overstates the matter. To be able to contribute even a little to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse is an honor to us sisters.”

Even Lu Yin was taken aback. There were seven peerless beauties before him, fresh from a bath. Such temptation was not something that anyone could easily resist. Especially when knowing that, if he agreed, he could immediately take them all away.

Ahem

. He was overthinking things.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus lightly tapped at the void, touching each women’s head with each finger tap. When his fingers rose, seven beams of different colored light shot upwards, like dragons racing across the universe, struggling to break free.

“Now.”

Lu Yin immediately released his Karmic Dao and his Champions’ Stage, which slowly rotated.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus forced the seven beams of light to enter the Champions’ Stage Purgatory.

The moment that happened, the Champions’ Stage Purgatory started to shake. Lu Yin had to firmly press a hand against it to suppress the force.

Qi Xu had undoubtedly been an Immortal, but she was already dead. Forget the leftover power of a dead Immortal—even if Qi Xu was still alive, Lu Yin was confident that he was strong enough to stand up to her.

He was infinitely close to possessing the power of an Immortal.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus left, along with the Seven Fairies. Lu Yin was left to deal with everything on his own. All he could do was forcefully try to overpower the seven streams of emotion. Gradually, his karma started to surge, strengthening his Karmic Dao at a speed that was even faster than when he had absorbed Yue Ya or the transparent moth’s karma.

Seeing this thrilled Lu Yin. He had expected his karma to increase, and from what he was seeing, it would not be a small gain.

Emotions stemmed from karma, and he was dealing with the emotions of an Immortal. He did not know how much this would improve his Karmic Dao, but he hoped that he would at least regain the karma that he had expended to save the Tianyuan.

He had far too little karma at the moment.

Day after day passed as Lu Yin stood beside the lotus pond, strengthening his karma.

The endless karma warped space and clashed with the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm. While Lu Yin’s karma was miniscule in comparison to that power, his karma had already taken shape, surpassing its previous limits.

He had not expected the seven emotions to produce such an explosive amount of karma for him. His improvement might be even greater than what Greater Sancte Green Lotus had anticipated.

“It’s possible that he might actually overtake me on the path of karma,” Greater Sancte Green Lotus muttered, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked up at the sky.

Behind him, the Seven Fairies were somewhat different from before, though not drastically so. Each one directed curious glances towards the lotus pond. While none of them were able to see the karma itself, they could sense the oppressive aura that emanated from that direction. It felt as though an unseen monster was lurking there.

At last, some time later, Lu Yin exhaled slowly. “Senior, it’s done.”

“Release them.”

Seven streams of emotions shot out from the Champions’ Stage Purgatory, scattering in all directions.

In the past, one of the emotions had escaped from the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, but fortunately, Greater Sancte Green Lotus had managed to merge it into Hong’er. If not for that, Obscura would have noticed Qi Xu’s death long ago.

Given that Obscura was already aware that Qi Xu had died, there was no longer any reason to preserve her seven emotions.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus raised a hand. A lotus appeared above his palm; it was the Thousand-Petaled Lotus Hand.

Lotuses blossomed throughout the universe and then folded back on the seven streams of emotion. As the petals closed, the emotions were ultimately absorbed into the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.

The next moment, Lu Yin could no longer feel those seven emotions. They had all been erased.

From that moment on, Qi Xu’s power was forever gone.

This was the advent of a new start to the struggle between human civilization and Obscura.

Putting away his Champions’ Stage Purgatory, Lu Yin let out a long, satisfied breath. His karma had recovered and even managed to improve. This was the most karma that Lu Yin had ever gained at once.

If not for all the karma that he had previously consumed, his Karmic Dao would have expanded to cover a vast region of the cosmos, even if it would still only be a very small region when compared to the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.

Such an improvement enabled him to feel quite secure for the time being.

“Thank you, Senior Green Lotus, for this opportunity,” Lu Yin said gratefully.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus lowered his hand and turned to look at Lu Yin with open admiration. “While we have taken different directions on the path of karma, neither is better than the other. When the day comes when your Karmic Dao rivals my Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm, it is possible that our human civilization will also be able to fish across the Aevum Inch.”

Lu Yin was stirred.

A fishing civilization?

Such a claim demonstrated Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s confidence. A second human with comparable power was enough for human civilization to become a fishing civilization.

Behind Greater Sancte Green Lotus, Hong’er’s eyes flickered as she stared intently at Lu Yin.

The idea of humanity becoming a fishing civilization was too far off to consider for the time being. Instead, Lu Yin wanted to focus on resolving hidden threats, such as Zhu's Stillness, Yong Heng, and the red line of Obscura.

The red line was too much of a problem. Not even Greater Sancte Green Lotus could deal with it. For that reason, Lu Yin wanted to stay far away from anything related to Obscura, especially that red coffin.

Obscura was a fishing civilization, as was the Death Megaverse.

Compared to Obscura, the Death Megaverse’s influence in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse was only Stillness, which was too weak. If Lu Yin could find Zhu, that influence would be eradicated from the roots.

“There’s something else bothering me. Long ago, Stillness hid that sourcebox array beneath Blackmarsh and managed to deceive all of you seniors in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. They referred to it as the darkness beneath the lamp, but that shouldn’t have been able to deceive everyone.” Lu Yin mentioned his doubt.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s brow furrowed. “I have been marked by Stillness.”

That comment caused Lu Yin’s expression to change. While he had already heard this from Awe Gate, hearing it directly from Greater Sancte Green Lotus was still hard to believe.

When Lu Yin had first heard that Green Lotus had been marked, he had not felt that there was anything extraordinary about the matter, but things had changed. Lu Yin had come to understand just how vast the gap between Greater Sancte Green Lotus and ordinary Immortals was. The two could not even be compared.

For such a powerful individual to be marked by a creature who was not even an Immortal, especially since Greater Sancte Green Lotus cultivated the power of karma, was completely incomprehensible.

Seeing Lu Yin’s expression, Greater Sancte Green Lotus just smiled. “You don’t believe it?”

“I can’t,” Lu Yin admitted.

He nodded. “That’s natural. By the way, have you ever fished?”

Lu Yin arched a brow. Was he about to hear another metaphor about life? He had been given such explanations by many others in the past. “I have...”

“Have you ever seen a fishhook be bitten through?”

“What are you saying, Senior?”

“Zhu is a fishhook.”

That allowed Lu Yin to understand. When fishing, a person’s rod and hook served as their tools to contest with a fish. A person could not directly capture a fish, but with a hook, it became possible. But if the hook was easily bitten through, a fish would never be caught.

How could it be so easy to break a fishing civilization’s hook?

Since the Death Megaverse dared to fish for foreign civilizations, they were absolute confident that the hook would hold on. As long as the hook remained, human civilization would eventually be caught.

Zhu might not be an Immortal, but since he was the Death Megaverse’s hook, he had to have the capabilities to stay alive, even if up against an Immortal.

If the human civilization had no Immortals at all, then it would have been destroyed long ago by the Death Megaverse.

For the Death Megaverse, the civilizations that they took the effort to fish for had to at least possess an Immortal. Thus, Zhu’s existence, even if it seemed unreasonable, was actually perfectly reasonable.

“The Death Megaverse granted Zhu the power to protect himself, a method to contact them, and methods to hide, all of which are essential for a hook. In comparison, Obscura’s Netherfiends were not qualified to serve as hooks,” Greater Sancte Green Lotus explained.

Lu Yin replied, “It’s also possible that Obscura doesn’t need hooks.”

Greater Sancte Green Lotus chuckled. “True. They’ve had their eyes on our human civilization for a very long time. Our location is no secret to them, and they don’t need to fish for us. On the other hand, the Death Megaverse does not know that much about us.”

Lu Yin rubbed the sides of his head. “If only the Death Megaverse and Obscura went to war against each other. It would remove two plagues from the Aevum Inch.”

Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s face grew solemn. “We have yet to see a war between fishing civilizations. For now, all we can do is try to protect ourselves.

“Do you want to search your own karma to find Stillness?”

Lu Yin’s expression grew heavy. “I’ll never know peace unless I can root out all of these threats.”

Greater Sancte Green Lotus let out a long breath. “The truth is that neither the Netherfiends nor Stillness pose much of a threat to our human civilization right now. Obscura will eventually make their move, while Stillness will never be able to make contact with the Death Megaverse. Still, the debts that they’ve accumulated cannot be ignored. The harm that they’ve done to our civilization must be repaid tenfold.”

As he spoke, his Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm roared, shaking the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

Lu Yin released his Karmic Dao, merging it with the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm. Greater Sancte Green Lotus waved a hand, sending down spirals of karma from the sky to connect with the earth below. They pierced through Lu Yin, searching for who in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse might be plotting against him.

Even if minor characters were scheming against Lu Yin, they remained irrelevant and unworthy of karma’s attention. Only Stillness or Yong Heng qualified.

Right as Greater Sancte Green Lotus was helping Lu Yin to examine his own karma, deep beneath the land of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, Yong Heng’s eyes opened. “Now.”

With that, a Five-Leaf Clover appeared in his hand. The last leaf fell from the stem as he closed his eyes. Behind him was half a skeleton, its back to Yong Heng’s. That skeleton was Zhu, the master of Stillness.

As the final leaf of the Five-Leaf Clover fell, stone quickly enveloped Yong Heng and Zhu, completely sealing them both. A massive force rose from beneath them, erupting from a Morrow Behemoth.

In an instant, the stone that had engulfed Yong Heng and Zhu was hurled into outer space, flying off in a specific direction.