Lu Yun’s words awoke all of the third realm’s beings no matter what they were doing, planning to do, or if they were in seclusion unto death.
The little fox and Qing Yu jerked their heads up in the direction of Azure Dragon Region, their backs drenched with sweat.
“I… I missed it. I was breaking through when he needed me the most…” Qing Yu trembled.
“No, he chose to undertake this when you and I were in closed door cultivation.” Miao shook her head. “He would’ve been distracted if we were present. We wouldn’t have been of any help in that fight and would only hold him back.”
Qing Yu fell silent for a very long time before a smile crept over her face. “He’s not too far, he’s not too far ahead of me. There will come a day when I stand side by side with him and face all challenges together.”
“Me too!” Miao energetically waved her fists around.
……
Lu Qing was a little nervous and stuck close by his father’s side. He’d sailed through the threshold of the next cultivation level in that fight and become the first potentate of the new generation in the Hongmeng. Lu Yun had cleanly absorbed his son’s heavenly tribulation with Thunder Palmstrike. Even now, no one realized that Lu Qing had become a potentate.
If Lu Yun was to establish order in this disorderly mess and repair the last segment of cultivation for the Hongmeng, he would certainly attract some sort of terrifying misfortune.
There was also a spirit in the disorder. If he wanted to set things right, the spirit would definitely attack him so it could maintain the status quo.
The battle was not yet over; danger still snaked through the surroundings. At the same time, it only appeared that the Curse King had retreated—he remained quietly observing from the sidelines. The Dao King also remained sitting cross-legged and unmoving in his spot.
……
A tiny spot of black appeared in the nine dao rules and slowly crept through them like a spreading crack. What’d been dao rules of purple suddenly turned into a jarring black, and Lu Yun’s pristine white robes also morphed into black brocade robes. It would seem that his demonic future self had replaced the present Lu Yun.
……
“I see now, I see…” Meng was as pale as a sheet in the mausoleum of the stars. He began to tremble and his teeth chattered together. “I, I, I… I’ve doomed him.”
“What is it?” Hong frowned to see the little boy in this state.
“The cultivation method of the three lives is to ensure that the past is as solid as Mount Tai and stable, whereas the future self is nimble and agile, knowing all cause and effect through the changes that are to come.
“His future self traveled to the past to sever the source of our present disorder!
“The era that he returned to was the most jumbled time period of them all. The spirit of disorder was also born then. If I hadn’t stopped the future self and sealed him under Mount Cloudcover, he would’ve already killed the spirit of Hongmeng’s disorder and we wouldn’t be in such a mess in the first place!”
Regret, distress, and all manner of negative emotion flourished in his heart. Hong reached out and knocked him unconscious with a chop to the neck.
“I told you not to do anything and now look at you. See? You only made things worse.” She dropped Meng on the ground and looked down at Lu Yun. “There’s a good saying in Lu Yun’s homeland—what is lost at sunrise can be gained at sunset. It may not be a bad thing that his future self didn’t cut down the source of disorder in the past.
“After all, he cultivates the disordered hellfire…” Her eyes turned into crescents from the force of her smile. “Oh Curse King, you probably never thought that when you persuaded Meng to suppress Lu Yun’s future self—so you could keep the source of disorder safe—that would end up benefiting Lu Yun instead. Disorder is exactly how he found his own dao!”
The source of disorder had taken shape as a spirit and if the muddled situation of the Hongmeng continued, it would one day materialize as a potentate of disorder. Even the potentates of the divine nations would have to bend the knee then.
But the source of disorder was so strong that it’d essentially formed an ‘eye’ of disorder in the Hongmeng after all these eons. It was completely removed from the world and found it beyond difficult to materialize outside. It would need to undergo another degree of time as lengthy as the period from the shattering of the original Hongmeng to present day.
But that didn’t mean that the source of disorder lacked the strength to fight back.
The spot of black was its manifestation; it would erode Lu Yun’s dao rules and turn him into a disordered entity. If he became an existence that violated the realm’s orders, that would ensure that disorder lived on in the Hongmeng.
Now that the last section of the cultivation path was complete, a brand new order was confirmed. All confusion would slowly dissipate from the realm and the source of disorder would be annihilated under the new order. As it possessed a tiny bit of its own thoughts, the source of disorder would never allow this to happen.
It wouldn’t have touched Lu Yun if he hadn’t gone after the source of all that was wrong in the realm and sought to build a new order. But since he’d brought the fight to the cause of it all, the disorder would naturally fight back.
……
“Are you attempting to corrupt me so that I also become something that violates the rules of the realm?” Lu Yun raised his head and looked noncommittally at his black dao rules. A layered tone of entrancement edged his words; he sounded like a demon from the deep.
“I can sense the strength in you that can devour disorder,” the spirit’s voice sounded like a young child just learning to talk. “If I permit you to continue, you will find and kill me even if I don’t come for you.”
The era that the future self had visited had existed before the mythological realm. That was when the spirit was born and though it wasn’t fully developed yet, it was inexplicably powerful to Hongmeng denizens.
“Your spirit has come into being through long and arduous effort, I never thought of killing you. My Disordered Hell lacks a spring and you’re the perfect choice.” Lu Yun continued to look over his dao rules.
“Disordered Hell?” The childlike voice paused, confusion seeping in.
Lu Yun sent up a silver bead from his hand, one that gradually expanded until pure silver radiance surrounded his dao rules.
“What is this place?!” Some terror gripped the spirit. “These flames… stay away from me!”
Lu Yun was now pure black and blazed with demonic flame. This was the demonic dao he practiced in the future; it contained the endless disorder that he’d absorbed under Mount Cloudcover.
When he opened his arms, the silver disordered hellfire swallowed his dao rules. The source of disorder had infiltrated his dao rules, so the hellfire followed the disturbance to its core.
……
The Curse King showed himself once more, but he didn’t do so to attack Lu Yun.
A faint smear of a figure had appeared in front of Lu Yun’s Disordered Hell—a young girl dressed as a man. She casually held Lu Yun’s Glacial Fire Hammers and looked at the Curse King with amusement.
The mistress of the Hongmeng.
The legendary mistress had finally come.
