The doll from Soul Extendere Wood wasn’t something to be casually refined either—Lu Yun’s master’s date of birth and the eight characters of his horoscope needed to be inscribed on it. The requirement sent Lu Yun down memory lane; it was like he’d returned to Earth!
The date of birth and eight characters of one’s horoscope were related to the heavenly stems and earthly branches of the sexagenary cycle. [1] The cycle pertained to astrology and the operation of the great cycles, and all of it had to do with the three hundred and sixty-five Major Cycle Worlds that supported the primary worlds.
The heavenly stems and earthly branches were a way to keep time, and they also existed in the worlds of the outside realm. This reminded Lu Yun of certain things that he’d once derived, that no matter where one was, the development trends of life and evolution of a world was more or less the same…
So then was the outside realm similar to the fourth realm, but one that was whole and complete?
If that was so, then it was possible Lu Yun could derive certain things about the outside realm from his position in the Land of Reincarnation—including its great dao.
Date of birth, the eight characters of a horoscope, and the heavenly stems and earthly branches were an important combination for Lu Yun to theorize about the great dao of the outside realm. Additionally, he also possessed the powerful Kinship of Heaven and Earth.
The tomb to bury the doll couldn’t be a hastily constructed makeshift affair, it had to be a resurrection tomb etched from a resurrection layout! Only then would that revive Lu Yun’s master and dispel the demon of malice.
“You can leave right now if you’d like to go. If not, you can wait with Dongning and leave together when her clan sends someone.” Lu Yun understood Xie Tianxun’s current frame of mind, and the latter accepted without hesitation. He neither wanted to die nor be at the behest of another. It’d only been a transaction between him and the Esteemed Nebula, nothing else.
……
Having obtained the method to exorcise the demon of resentment, Lu Yun immediately returned to his primary body.
“Do you know what it is now?” Jian Bu’er asked when his consciousness detected the young man’s new expression.
“I do,” Lu Yun nodded and looked at the Demonic Vine. “This is also a fortuitous opportunity for her. If the vine can seize it with both hands, she might rise up to become the true master of demonic dao.”
“I don’t want to be a demonic master!” She waved her fists with a prideful look. “I’m going to be the lady of the sword master!”
The sword master was naturally Jian Bu’er; he was now the master of sword dao beneath the immortal dao. The position had once belonged to Zhao Wushuang, but when sword dao from Fairylands appeared and became part of the immortal dao, she resigned from her title. Her sword dao came from the divine race, which was a far cry compared to the dao from the world of sword dao. She’d also just barely reached the Hongmeng with her cultivation level, whereas Jian Bu’er was an immensely mighty heavyweight.
Although the Demonic Vine wielded demonic dao, the real master of the dao was the demon of immortal dao in the Tome of Life and Death. Her efforts were also focused on pure demonic dao, so she didn’t count as the demonic master under immortal dao.
“That has to wait until you grow up, but perhaps you’ll instantly grow up after you become the master of demonic dao,” Lu Yun chuckled. He rose to his feet and exhaled slowly. “Come, it’s time to leave.”
“Wait!” Jian Bu’er called out. Radiance similar to sword light sparkled in the unending darkness; a resplendent halo descended from above and landed behind his head, illuminating the premises.
Breakthrough.
Jian Bu’er set foot into twelfth level sequence after two hundred years of sitting in one place in the darkness. He accessed not the sequence of metal that he’d once cultivated, but of immortal dao!
Twelfth level immortal dao sequence!
He couldn’t help a broad grin. “We can go now!”
Lu Yun put away the Dark Dao Flower and shook his head. “I’m afraid we won’t be going anywhere.”
Hordes of endarkened had already surrounded them.
The Dao Flower could conceal Lu Yun and the Demonic Vine’s ascensions when they broke through because they cultivated hell and demonic dao. Both paths were related to the darkness, and the flower completely hid all the signs from the senses of everything else.
But when Jian Bu’er wielded the sword dao that was beneath immortal dao, his dazzling sword light could be seen from miles away. Those who lived in the darkness could naturally see it too. They hated light, so they instinctively sought to smother all unknown sources of light.
“Get ready to fight.” Lu Yun manifested Argent Snow with a wave of his hand.
The six great soul weapons had all become treasures of formula dao—they’d been the first paths of supplemental dao to be consolidated. Mo Yi had created five of them, and God created the last one. It was due to leading roles from the six soul weapons and the Soul Dominion that other supplemental daos had been peacefully incorporated into formula dao.
While Lu Yun cultivated hell dao, he was still strongest in formula dao. Silver snowflakes danced through the void, each one burning with disordered hellfire and forming a realm of snow that tore apart anything that rushed in.
There was no other order present in the surroundings apart from darkness and opposition, so creatures of the dark came in all shapes and sizes. But to Lu Yun, they were all pieced together from corpses or soul fragments.
The terrifying ghosts of the Hongmeng and unending tides of yin spirits from the world of immortals didn’t appear in such large numbers in the dark. It seemed that someone had rounded them up to be henchmen.
“Don’t stay and fight, we need to go!” Lu Yun jumped with shock when he saw that Jian Bu’er was about to make a move. “You’ll attract even more enemies when you deploy your sword methods. Only cannon fodder’s here and we won’t be able to leave if you catch the eye of fifteenth level monsters!”
Spectacular glory would accompany Jian Bu’er’s sword dao; they wouldn’t be able to hide it even if they tried. It wouldn’t matter if they were anywhere else, but it would be their doom in the land of darkness. His light was different from Lu Yun’s disordered hellfire since hellfire was part of hell dao. Though it also emitted radiance, that illumination was the same as the gloom to the endarkened.
Lu Yun’s Argent Snow realm churned through countless creatures before it suddenly winked out. The three of them were long gone from the scene.
“Something big has their eye on us!” the Demonic Vine quietly transmitted. “A ghost that’s activated fifteen levels of sequence!”
“A ghost??” Lu Yun saw nothing when he looked back, even his consciousness swept through empty void. The vine, however, clearly saw a vicious ghost approaching them at high speed.
1. The sexagenary cycle, also known as the Stems-and-Branches, is a cycle of sixty terms. Each term corresponds to one year, and thus one cycle is a total of sixty years. It is historically used for recording time in China. ☜
etvolare’s Thoughts
I’d love to see an illustration of silver snowflakes burning with hellfire. Betchu it’d be gorgeous.
