Chapter 4142: Prior Arrangements

Mu Zhu looked around. The darkness stretched out without end.

In the Aevum Inch, all were insignificant, even Immortals.

Lu Yin took out the Blood Tower. The gray power of time still flowed through it, anchored in place by Greater Sancte Blood Tower. It was clear that the time inside the Blood Tower was separate from the Aevum Inch. It had likely come from a River of Aeons.

This suggested that Greater Sancte Blood Tower might have control of a branch of the River of Aeons.

Lu Yin was reminded of what he had heard about the Great Master’s native megaverse. She had mentioned that their River of Aeons had rejoined the main stream of the River of Aeons, but was that really true?

The Blood Tower grew until it enveloped both Lu Yin and Mu Zhu before shuddering.

Mu Zhu’s face turned pale as she was struck by the same sickening sensation as before. It left her dizzy.

Fortunately the sensation only lasted for a moment. When their vision cleared, they were back in the meteorite field, the Night Pillar clearly visible ahead of them.

While the possibility of someone randomly stumbling upon the Night Pillar were remote, seeing it intact still caused Lu Yin to exhale in relief. Even the smallest mishap could make returning to human civilization exceedingly difficult.

“Let’s go home, Senior Sister.”

Mu Zhu softly agreed, feeling a measure of relief herself.

While in the Thread of Heaven, she had felt like she was confronting the great enemies of her native megaverse. The suffocating feeling that came from being so close to her hated foes was something that she had not experienced in a very long time.

The Hui-Silver Sky Army... your day of reckoning will come.

The Night Pillar sped back the way it had come. In the blink of an eye, more than two years passed. Lu Yin saw Greater Sancte Blood Tower standing in the emptiness of the Aevum Inch with the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm spread out behind him.

The Greater Sancte had already spotted the Night Pillar and was smiling.

“You were gone for seven years. From what I understand, that should be four years in transit, so you only stayed in the Thread of Heaven for three years, right?” Greater Sancte Blood Tower asked as he looked at Lu Yin.

“We learned what we needed to. There was no point in staying any longer.”

“Good. Let’s head back. We’ll brief Senior Green Lotus and the others together.”

Lu Yin nodded and then calmly looked ahead as a single green lotus carried them back to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

About five years later, they arrived at the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

Their journey from the megaverse to where they had parted with Blood Tower had felt very unfamiliar, but the return trip made the same path feel warm and familiar.

They were back beneath the shelter of the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.

They had been gone for a total of seventeen years, but upon their return, it felt like nothing much had changed. It had not been a very long trip.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus and the others had not expected Lu Yin to return so quickly. They had assumed that he would spend decades there.

Lu Yin and Mu Zhu shared everything that they had done in the Thread of Heaven, leaving Green Lotus and the others stunned. It felt like blind luck had allowed Lu Yin to hit the mark. At the same time, they felt as though everything had fallen within Lu Yin’s calculations, which created a curious contradiction.

They could not help but feel a flicker of sympathy for the Hui-Silver Sky Army, despite the fact that they were mortal enemies.

“If we’re lucky, the Seven-Treasure Anuras won’t be in a hurry to cause trouble for us,” Lu Yin said.

Green Lotus and the others exchanged looks. “Other groups recognized both the Hui-Silver Sky Army and the Seven-Treasure Anuras in that Thread of Heaven, but not Obscura, the Nest civilization, or the Death Megaverse. It seems that the Thread of Heaven doesn’t possess much knowledge and that it hasn’t wandered much around the Aevum Inch.

“That suggests that its range might precisely coincide with the range within which the Hui-Silver Sky Army and the Seven-Treasure Anuras operate.”

Greater Sancte Awe Gate gravely commented, “The Hui-Silver Sky Army is part of Obscura, and Obscura operates on a truly vast scale.”

“Did the creature trying to get information about the Seven-Treasure Anuras say anything else in the end?” Greater Sancte Blood Tower asked, clearly intrigued by the being who had immediately claimed to be Lu Yin’s son.

Lu Yin shook his head. “They just kept waiting for my reply. They’re probably waiting even now, I’d expect. They most likely didn’t expect me to leave so soon.

“Right up til the end, I was hesitating about telling them about the connection between the Tricolor Skyborne and the Seven-Treasure Anuras, but I ended up not.” He shrugged. “We can’t afford to take that bet. If they’re allied with the Seven-Treasure Anuras, they could find us through the snails. Any civilization that is capable of befriending the Seven-Treasure Anuras must be extremely powerful.”

“That seems unlikely,” Ku Deng commented.

Green Lotus clasped his hands behind his back. “If there is even a one in 10,000 chance, the risk is not worthwhile. Our strength currently means that we can stand up to a single Seven-Treasure Anura. They will not send everyone to us, and they also need to consider their karmic chains. However, if another enemy civilization is added to the mix, then things will change.”

Greater Sancte Blood Tower frowned. “Know your limits.”

Lu Yin’s eyes flickered. Yes, knowing one’s limits was essential.

Without knowledge of their opponents, the human civilization had no right to try to leverage others. They could not afford such risks.

“Still, with the Tricolor Skyborne's location exposed, someone might try their luck. Since those coordinates appeared at the same time as the picture of Astral Anura, someone might infer our hostility toward the giant snails and find us through them. I wasn’t able to keep that hidden,” Lu Yin warned.

Green Lotus smiled. “Don’t overthink things. You could not have anticipated encountering such a creature. Consider it a coincidence.”

Greater Sancte Blood Tower snorted. “In the worst case scenario, we fight. During the dozens of years that I wasn’t around, there were so many battles here. If I don’t get to do something soon, people will start thinking that Blood Tower’s dead.”

Greater Sancte Awe Gate stared out at the stars. “Living in constant fear is exhausting. There’s no need to dwell on this. If humanity’s doom is fated to be, we won’t be able to stop it.”

Her eyes suddenly grew cold. “Though I don’t believe in fate.”

Ku Deng sighed. “If I can contribute even a little when our civilization is struggling, this old man will be satisfied.”

Looking at human Immortals, Mu Zhu felt as though she was seeing her old friends, the ones who had once willingly marched to their deaths, each one becoming a brilliant flare in the night. She prayed that such a tragedy would not reoccur.

Master, please! Break through and become an Immortal. You must succeed!

Lu Yin took his leave after sharing the coordinates that he had obtained with Green Lotus and the others, asking them to determine the location.

Because of the vastness of the Aevum Inch, only Greater Sancte Blood Tower could make that calculation. He had anchored time itself, which allowed him to approximate the location of the coordinates’ reference point, which was the Thread of Heaven.

In anyone else’s hands, the coordinates were useless.

Greater Sancte Blood Tower reassured Lu Yin that he would quickly determine the location and create a new set of coordinates using the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm as a reference point. That would provide them with a rough approximation of the direction towards Mister Mu’s megaverse.

After leaving the Immortals, Lu Yin and Mu Zhu also separated.

Mu Zhu had her own cultivation to focus on.

Lu Yin went to check on Tuo Lin and Yan Ruyu. After all, Yan Ruyu was one of the Nest Civilization’s Verdant Sages, which made her very important.

But before Lu Yin could find Tuo Lin, someone else reached out to him: Wei Rong.

“Dao Monarch, I have something to report, something important.”

If Wei Rong had directly reached out to Lu Yin, that indicated that the matter was of unusual importance. Lu Yin immediately changed directions to meet with the man.

Wei Rong offered a solemn bow. “Dao Monarch, do you remember how, when the Spirit Nidus attacked our Tianyuan, I made certain arrangements?”

Lu Yin shook his head. “Not exactly. You’re referring to...?”

“I staged a betrayal. I had a group of people act as traitors to the Tianyuan to ‘cooperate’ with the Spirit Nidus.”

Lu Yin then remembered. Before the temporal reversion had rolled back time by thirty-seven years, the Spirit Nidus had invaded the Tianyuan. After multiple battles, the Spirit Nidus’s forces had collapsed, and many of their cultivators had hidden themselves in parallel universes.

At the time, Wei Rong had done something that had seemed superfluous, but Lu Yin had already developed some expectations.

A betrayal had been staged. Arrangements had been made for a group of people to pretend to defect from the Tianyuan. The goal was not important, nor even the results. What mattered was that Wei Rong had simply done it, without reason or even a set goal.

At the time, Wang Wen had mentioned to Lu Yin that Wei Rong was the kind of person who would prepare for events that had absolutely no chance of coming to fruition.

“Opportunity favors the prepared” was a phrase that did not quite apply to Wei Rong. He did not need opportunities; he prepared for preparation’s sake.

There were times when his preparations left everyone completely baffled.

At the time, Lu Yin had hoped that Wei Rong’s arrangements would offer some positive turn in the war against the Spirit Nidus. As time passed, those preparations seemed to be meaningless, especially after the High Seraph invaded the Tianyuan and Lu Yin had reverted time by thirty-seven years. Because of all that had happened, Lu Yin had completely forgotten about Wei Rong’s preparations.

Without Wei Rong’s reminder, Lu Yin might have never remembered.

“Even though time was reverted, I still carried out the necessary preparations, and unexpectedly, I received a pleasant surprise.” A smile touched Wei Rong’s lips, producing a look that gave Lu Yin a glimpse of the youth who had once plotted against the greatest powers of the Outerverse.

It felt like the blink of an eye, but so many years had passed.

...

My name is Luo Yan. Though my name contains the character for “speech,” I’m a man of few words.

[1]

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

I was born in the Tianyuan, in the Origin Universe’s Frostwave Weave, in the Great Yu Empire. I’m a native of Zenyu Star.

Before Lord Lu rose to power, our understanding of the universe was limited to the Innerverse and the Outerverse. Later, we were connected to countless more places and parallel universes, and even figures from our ancient legends returned. All of this filled me with great admiration for Lord Lu. I would gladly die for him.

One day, someone with an unfathomable smile approached me, asking me to work with him and stage a play of resentment towards Lord Lu and hatred for the Heavens Sect.

I couldn’t do it. My admiration for Lord Lu comes from the heart, and it’s so obvious that even a blind man could see it.

But that man said that what he wanted was precisely my admiration. He did not want me to hide or even suppress anything at all. I should show admiration when it was appropriate and resentment when it became necessary. Only, I should conceal my resentment so it wouldn’t readily show, only leave hidden traces.

That was too complicated for me. Only a professional could pull off such impressive acting.

Since I couldn’t manage it, he stayed with me, working with me again and again. He helped me time after time, saying that it was what Lord Lu needed me to do. I was given a great mission: undercover work.

Yes, undercover. Hearing that thrilled me. Despite being as insignificant as an ant, I was qualified to go undercover for Lord Lu. If Lord Lu needed me, I would give it my all.

I rehearsed the act with that man and then followed his plan, doing my part. Day after day, year after year.

When Lord Lu left on an expedition to another megaverse, I watched. There was no need to conceal my admiration.

Because of this sacred and important undercover mission, I was provided with both resources and training. Step by step, I rose to higher positions and often met with important figures. After seeing such people for a long time, they became nothing special. I merely hoped that Lord Lu would return.

1. The character “言” (yán) in his name means “speech” or “words,” creating a contrast with his quiet personality. ☜