Chapter 962: The Cosmic Sea

When Starsibyl saw Lu Yin, the corner of her mouth twitched triumphantly. “I’ll remember all of you. We really have to leave now, so please try to buy us some more time. The longer you stall for, the more meritorious your achievements will be. Don’t worry—I promise that your achievements will be delivered to your heirs. Remember, stall for as much time as you possibly can.”

This woman was not merely abandoning the Outerverse cultivators to die. At this time, she was actually taking advantage of the Outerverse cultivators to buy her more time to escape.

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed. This altar seemed to be quite similar to the one that the Skyblaze Dojo had used. It had to be said not even Madam Hong had been able to react to the Skyblaze Dojo’s altar, and it had also been near impossible to damage it whatsoever. Madam Hong was a Cosmic Imprinter, which was the equivalent of a Ninth Stage Augmenter.

This was Starsibyl’s last ploy. They had never had any intention of dying when they planned this sneak attack on the transport crew. Starsibyl had made many backup plans.

Lu Yin’s brain ramped up into overdrive; he could not allow anyone from the Innerverse to leave. Otherwise, even if Yuan Shi remained behind, the rest of them would all be destined to die without any hope of escape. Keeping the people from the Innerverse behind on the transport continent was their only hope of survival.

As his mind raced for a solution, inspiration suddenly struck him. Lu Yin pulled out an item from his cosmic ring: Starsibyl’s invitation letter.

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Starsibyl’s invitation letter was a very strange item, and it was unknown how Starsibyl Sect manufactured these invitations, but they were able to tear open the void and travel straight to Starsibyl.

When Bai Xue had spoken to Lu Yin in the past, she had told him that her sister, Bai Qian, had run into Qingyu Daynight on Neptune. After that discovery, they had used a letter to open a portal in the sky. At that time, Lu Yin had not understood what letter she had been referring to, but now, he understood exactly what Bai Xue had been talking about. It was likely one of Starsibyl’s invitation letters.

Later on, Lu Yin had asked a few others about the matter, and he had received the same answer from all of them: Starsibyl’s invitation letter could take the owner right to Starsibyl’s side. It was very mystical, and it was one of the many mysterious methods of the Starsibyl Sect.

In the distance, Starsibyl watched as Lu Yin took out her invitation letter, and her face went pale. She had given Lu Yin that invitation letter back at the Sea King’s Dome. Back then, she had had a vastly different goal, and she became very worried as soon as she saw Lu Yin take it out.

“Lu Yin, don’t try anything funny!” Starsibyl yelled frantically.

Lu Yin smiled before disappearing, only to reappear right next to Starsibyl. The altar, which had been glowing, started to warp, almost as though it had encountered a foreign object. After that, random light beams shot out in all directions, and everything that the light touched instantly disappeared.

“Lu Yin, you’ve gone mad! We will be blown to pieces by spacetime itself!” This was the first time that Starsibyl had ever lost her poise. Everyone who had met her knew that the woman never lost control of herself; she was always calm and in control of everything around her. However, her current facial expression betrayed her rarely seen panic.

Shivers ran down Lu Yin’s spine, and he immediately tried to flee. All he had wanted to do was damage the altar, and he had not expected the consequences to be so severe. In retrospect, had he damaged the altar, or had it been the invitation?

Right when Lu Yin was about to speak, beams of light flashed, and the two youths disappeared. Far away, Ling Que, who had been chasing after Lu Yin all the way to the altar, was also struck by a random beam of light, and he disappeared as well. The only thing left behind was the Seventh Stage Augmenter.

…

Their surroundings were pitch black, broken only by an occasional lightning strike. Perhaps they were caught in a crack in the void.

Lu Yin felt like his body was about to be ripped apart as an immense pain raged through his entire body. Despite that, he thought back to Starsibyl’s last words. Were they really about to be torn apart?!

With a thud, an icy sensation slowly spread through his body, and Lu Yin’s breathing grew sluggish. He opened his mouth, but his mouth somehow ended up filled with a massive amount of water. He had fallen into a body of water, so was he alive? But before he could celebrate, a loud crack of thunder shook the sky as a barrage of lightning strikes struck him in a merciless manner. It left his entire body numb, and his skin even started to smoke.

Fortunately, the lightning was not strong enough to injure him at all.

With great difficulty, Lu Yin finally managed to get a good look at where he was. He… seemed to be in the middle of an ocean? As far as Lu Yin could see, in all directions, there were only dark blue skies and drifting clouds.

He raised his head when he saw more streaks of lightning split the sky. Although the sky was clear, it was still filled with lightning, oddly enough, they seemed to come from nowhere. More bolts of lighting struck down rather close to Lu Yin, and the water conducted the electricity, electrocuting him and leaving him numb once more.

“Fuck!” He heard a miserable shout, and it was a familiar voice.

Lu Yin turned around and saw that Ling Que had been similarly shocked by the lightning bolts. The young man leaped out of the water like a rabbit and then stood on the surface while rubbing his bottom. The lightning had struck Ling Que’s butt, leaving that area a bit charred.

Lu Yin leaped out of the water and then looked at Ling Que with a puzzled expression. “Why are you here?”

Ling Que grimaced from the pain. “I should be the one asking you that! By destroying the altar, you brought me here!”

Lu Yin glanced around the area. If Ling Que had also come here, then Starsibyl should be nearby as well.

Just as Lu Yin thought about Starsibyl, the void above him tore open as a person tumbled out.

Lu Yin reflexively caught the falling body and held it close. Sure enough, it was Starsibyl.

Starsibyl’s appearance was truly stunning, and the sky seemed to dim from her beauty. Holding her felt pretty good.

However, Starsibyl was in very bad shape at this moment. She had lost a tremendous amount of blood, and her snow white skin had been torn open in multiple places, just like Lu Yin and Ling Que. However, she looked to be in far worse shape than either of them two, and she had also just emerged from the void, unlike them.

Starsibyl knitted her brows, and her entire face twisted into an expression of pain. As soon as she realized that Lu Yin was carrying her, her eyes turned cold. “How much longer do you intend to hold me?”

Lu Yin released her, and with a plopping sound, Starsibyl fell into the ocean. Right after that, lightning fell from the sky once more, but Lu Yin did not move an inch. Instead, he allowed the lightning to strike the water in front of him and shock Starsibyl.

Starsibyl was instantly electrocuted.

In the distance, Ling Que watched the scene, completely stunned. He then gave Lu Yin a thumbs up. “Bro, you’ve got balls!”

Lu Yin lowered his gaze as Starsibyl slowly rose out of the ocean, breathing heavily. She then took out a pill from her cosmic ring and swallowed it without saying a word.

Due to the issue with the altar, she had suddenly become enemies with Lu Yin.

Lu Yin was absolutely furious that Starsibyl had wanted to use the Outerverse cultivators as cannon fodder to buy the Innerverse cultivators a bit of time. She had completely disregarded those people’s lives.

In turn, Starsibyl was terribly upset that Lu Yin had ruined her plans, and he had almost killed her in the process. However, what made her even angrier was the fact that Lu Yin’s actions had been outside of her divinations. She had even been able to predict that Seventh Stage Augmenter’s actions, but she had not been able to predict Lu Yin’s actions. That invitation letter had been given to Lu Yin by Starsibyl herself, and logically speaking, such an outcome had been easily foretold through her efforts. However, she had not been able to predict Lu Yin’s move.

This was what left Starsibyl the most upset.

If there was no suppression from the cosmic phenomenon in the Innerverse, then her inability to divine information about beings who were in the Envoy realm and above would be of no surprise. However, Lu Yin was nothing more than a mere Cruiser, so why couldn’t she make any predictions regarding him? She could not understand this.

Ling Que stared at both people with open admiration. One had just thrown a beautiful girl into the water to be struck by lightning while the other was not upset even after being shocked. These people were crazy!

“Where is this place?” Lu Yin asked calmly.

Starsibyl looked around and became shocked at what she saw. “This is probably the Thunder Zone in the Cosmic Sea.”

“We made it to the Cosmic Sea?” Lu Yin asked, flabbergasted. He was shocked by just how far they had traveled.

Starsibyl calmly answered, “Our initial escape destination was a place in the Cosmic Sea. What you used was a treasured item of mine, but you’ve destroyed it.”

“I won’t let you use my friends and loved ones as sacrifices to buy you time,” Lu Yin steadfastly replied.

With a nasty tone, Starsibyl shot back, “I already told you, it was for the greater good.”

“Whatever,” Lu Yin dismissively answered.

Starsibyl was frustrated, “It is pointless to talk about any of this now.”

The exchange between the two of them had taken place very calmly, and it sounded as if nothing had just transpired between them. This confused Ling Que, who approached and spoke up. “Sorry to interrupt, but do either of you know where to go? I’m pretty sure that we’ll be struck by lightning again if we don’t do something.”

Lu Yin looked at Starsibyl.

Her feet left the water, and she rose into the air as she scanned the surroundings while moving forward.

Ling Que’s eyes lit up. “Do you know the way?”

“No, I don’t,” Starsibyl replied apathetically.

Ling Que was flabbergasted. “Then why do you look so confident?”

Starsibyl shot Ling Que a dirty look. “I can figure it out.”

Well then, those words were very reassuring. People from the Starsibyl Sect were known to be trustworthy, and they would keep their words. At least, that was Ling Que’s point of view.

Lu Yin rolled his eyes, as divination was useless in his eyes. Things would end up the same no matter which direction they chose to go in. With the war having spread to the Cosmic Sea, there were bound to be people all over the place. Lu Yin was simply hoping that they would not end up walking into one of the Sixth Mainland’s bases.

It seemed that the fiercest fighting between the two mainlands had been taking place in the Cosmic Sea.

Starsibyl led the way as she moved to the front, and Lu Yin and Ling Que simply followed behind.

Ling Que moved over to Lu Yin’s side and asked in a hushed voice, “Bro, what did Starsibyl’s hands feel like?”

“Soft,” Lu Yin replied curtly.

Ling Que grew excited, and he hurriedly caught up to Starsibyl. “Starsibyl, you must be tired and injured. Should I carry you?”

Starsibyl’s expression turned icy. “You must want to die.”

“I’m sorry,” Ling Que earnestly apologized as he moved back next to Lu Yin with a reluctant look on his face.

Lu Yin did not bother with the other man as he checked his cosmic ring. As he did so, his face revealed his conflicted feelings. He was happy that he had managed to grab about nine million star essence in such a short amount of time, and it was the largest sum of money he had ever managed to gather so far. However, he was unsatisfied that he had only managed to grab nine million, as it was nothing compared to all of the star essence in the mountain range on the transport continent.

He blamed that old Seventh Stage Augmenter. If not for that old fart, then Lu Yin would have been able to grab much more. It was a pity, as such chances to gain large amounts of wealth would be hard to encounter in the future.

Lu YIn felt it was a pity that he had not been able to take all of that star essence for himself. If he had managed to do such a thing, then he would be a wealthy man at this time. What cost him the most resources to do was rolling six pips: Possession. He believed that it could even send him past the Upper Three Gates for a short amount of time.

It was such a pity.

The three youths flew along for more than twenty minutes, but they still did not encounter anyone.

Ling Que traveled close to Lu Yin and bombarded him with countless questions.

Lu Yin’s excitement from seeing the vast piles of star essence in his cosmic ring faded and was quickly replaced by worry for the people back on the transport continent moving the resources to the Sixth Mainland. He hoped that the Outerverse cultivators had managed to escape.

He felt a little guilty towards the people from the Innerverse, but he had had no choice at that time. Them staying behind meant that the people of the Outerverse would at least have some hope of escaping. If the Innerverse cultivators all fled at once, then the people from the Outerverse would have absolutely all died. Lu Yin had done the only thing that he could have done.

“How did you cultivate in the Outerverse? It’s amazing that you were able to fight against a Seventh Stage Augmenter! Even Starsibyl had no choice but to escape,” Ling Que exclaimed excitedly. He had wanted to ask Lu Yin about his cultivation for a long time.

In front of the two young men, Starsibyl was paying close attention to their conversation, as she was also curious to hear Lu Yin’s answer.

To most people, the Outerverse was seen as a destitute region that had no cultivation resources. There were very few star essence in the Outerverse, and there were not many lucky encounters there either. However, Lu Yin’s current strength was just too shocking. To put it bluntly, no other Cruiser at five cultivation cycles could defeat Lu Yin, not even the Ten Arbiters when they were at that realm.

Starsibyl was also curious as to how Lu Yin had escaped from her divination.

However, Lu Yin did not respond.

Ling Que continued his barrage of questions, and it seemed as though he would not be satisfied until he heard an answer.

Not knowing how to respond, Lu Yin simply changed the topic. “Actually, I visited the Innerverse once during this time, and I also went to the Starfall Sea.”

“When was that?” Ling Que asked, astonished.

Lu Yin thought about the time that had passed and then said, “Around two years ago.”

Starsibyl turned to look at Lu Yin. “You visited the Starfall Sea?”

Lu Yin nodded.

“The Starfall Sea has been completely taken over by the Tong family. The Sea King’s Dome has also been reduced to nothing more than a mine, and the seventy-two dojos of Grayweed Continent have also been destroyed. How did you escape?” Starsibyl asked.