Lulu started to get excited as she listened to Lu Yin’s words. “You’re really Lu Yin?”
She leaped up and embraced him fiercely. “You really are Lu Yin! This is great! It’s you, Lu Yin!”
Lu Yin hugged Lulu back. “Alright, calm down. We need to hurry up.”
Lulu quickly calmed herself, though her face was still flushed from the excitement. “Lu Yin, why are you here?”
Suddenly, her expression changed completely, and her eyes grew fierce once more. “Did you betray humanity?”
Lu Yin was left speechless. “What are you talking about? No one here knows who I am, so don’t expose me!”
Lulu felt confused. “No one knows who you are?”
Lu Yin lifted his chin. “I’m Lie Yanzi! I’m from one of Grayweed Continent’s seventy two dojos: Skyblaze Dojo. Make sure to refer to me as Senior Lie Yanzi for now.”
Lulu was completely baffled. “You’re Lie Yanzi? What in the world’s going on?”
Lu Yin coughed. “Why do you have so many questions? Basically, don’t let anyone know who I am or else neither of us will be able to escape.”
Lulu suddenly understood, and she pointed a finger at Lu Yin. “Were you also unlucky enough to go through the wrong exit gate?”
Lu Yin rolled his eyes. “I did it deliberately in order to take some risks and enjoy some excitement. Got it?”
“You were just unlucky like the rest of us, only you didn’t get caught,” Lulu stated firmly.
Lu Yin pursed his lips. “Anyways, that’s enough about that. Just keep my identity a secret and don’t expose me.”
Lulu nodded obediently.
“In four days, we’re going to go through the gate that you came out of, so just act like you’re a part of the group,” Lu Yin said. He made no attempt to ask Lulu about what she had experienced in Burial Garden.
Lulu pouted. “That’s just stupid! They won’t let us do that without being able to control us somehow.”
“Yep, poison,” Lu Yin agreed. “I’ve already been poisoned.”
Lulu’s expression changed. “Then you’re done for. No one can remove the Aeternals’ poison. Lu Yin, you’re already dead.”
Lu Yin stretched out a hand and flicked her forehead. “Who says that I’m dead? I’ve got a plan, though there’s no real guarantee that it’ll work. Still, there’s a good chance to have the poison removed. What about you? What are you going to do now? Risk being poisoned along with me, or wait here to be slaughtered? You could also reveal that you’re a part of the Mavis family, and that guy might not kill you.”
Lulu immediately replied, “I’m going to get poisoned too.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Didn’t you just say you’ve got a plan to get rid of the poison?”
“I also said that there’s no guarantee.”
“That can’t be helped, and it’s still better than dying right now. At least we can put up a fight.”
…
For Lulu, Lu Yin’s appearance was like the rising dawn. This was going to be just like when all of Astral-10’s students had gone to Chaos Flowzone and the Starfall Sea! Even if they were about to be poisoned and eventually die, Lulu was still happy to see Lu Yin.
At this moment, Ku Lei was experiencing the complete opposite emotions of Lulu.
“You recognized me.” This was the very first thing that Lu Yin said to Ku Lei when the two of them met.
Ku Lei’s eyes flickered. “Who are you? I don’t know you.”
Lu Yin’s voice dropped low, “When you first saw me outside Burial Garden’s gate, your eyes changed. You weren’t able to hide that from me, and no one can get you out of here other than me. What do you think will happen to you without me? Your choices were to either die or betray humanity, and the second option has been taken away because I’ll kill you right now myself.”
Ku Lei’s eyes narrowed, and a cold glint appeared in their depths, though he remained silent.
Lu Yin stared at him. “Do you still not want to admit it? It looks like you want to die, so I’ll help you along.”
Lu Yin raised a hand and swung his hand down. Just as he was about to strike Ku Lei, the young man shouted, “Lu Yin!”
Lu Yin’s hand instantly stopped. The wind from his movement caused Ku Lei’s hair to flutter, and he was even pushed a few steps back. “You really did recognize me.”
Ku Lei’s eyes flickered. He knew that Lu Yin was testing him, but he was also certain that Lu Yin would not hesitate to actually kill him. Lu Yin was both a cultivator and a ruler of countless people. Ku Lei could not afford to gamble with his only life with such a person.
“How did you recognize me?” Lu Yin asked. He was very curious about this, as not even Envoys were able to see past his current appearance. Lulu, who had been his close classmate, had not recognized him either. Despite that, Ku Lei had recognized Lu Yin despite the two only seeing each other a handful of times.
Ku Lei softly said, “You’re using our ancestor’s battle technique. If I’m right, it should be the legendary Extremes Must Be Reversed.”
Lu Yin’s eyes instantly went wide as he remembered that the Ku family was Progenitor Ku’s descendants.
“You can recognize Extremes Must Be Reversed? Does your Ku family still have this battle technique?” Lu Yin was surprised.
Ku Lei shook his head, and envy filled his eyes as he looked at Lu Yin. “No, we don’t. If we did, we would have never been forced into a corner where we don’t even have the right to deal with a member of our own family!”
He was referring to Ku Wei and how the Ku family had wanted to punish Ku Wei, but Lu Yin used the Lockbreakers Society to force them to release Ku Wei.
“It sounds like you’re saying that, if your Ku family gets this technique, they won’t have to submit to even the Lockbreakers Society, right?” Lu Yin sneered.
Ku Lei remained stoic. “Even if you’ve trained in the technique, you still don’t know much about the technique itself. Lu Yin, make a deal. If you give my Ku family Extremes Must Be Reversed, you can have all of the resources at our disposal! Anything you want, so long as we have it, it will be given to you!”
Lu Yin laughed. “Can you represent the entire Ku family?”
Ku Lei was dead serious. “Yes, as long as you agree to return the battle technique to us.”
Lu Yin put up a hand to interrupt Ku Lei. “Alright, the first thing that we need to do is fix your phrasing. I never took anything from you at all. I happened to learn this technique, and at best, it’s an inheritance from Progenitor Ku that has nothing to do with your Ku family.”
Ku Lei said, “Regardless, Progenitor Ku is my Ku family’s ancestor, so it’s only natural for his battle techniques to be returned to my family.”
“Then it’s also only natural for me to kill you right now. What the hell gave you the balls to speak back to me at this place?” Lu Yin asked coldly.
Ku Lei was rendered speechless.
After a period of silence, he replied, “Let’s make a trade. Lu Yin, you won’t suffer from giving us Extremes Must Be Reversed. After all, you’ve already learned it, and after you teach it to my Ku family, you can ask for the Ku family’s entire wealth. Do you want star essence? My family has loads of it.”
Lu Yin said, “Let’s not talk about this for now. You just told me that I don’t even have a real understanding of the technique, so I still need to train it further. You also said that gaining this technique would allow your family to ignore the Lockbreakers Society. So tell me, just how powerful is Extremes Must Be Reversed?”
Ku Lei frowned.
“What? Do you not want to talk now? Then no deal. I’ve always been wondering just how valuable this technique that I picked up is, so don’t try to keep this from me. Back then, it wasn’t just the Lockbreakers Society that interfered with Ku Wei’s matter, but rather the president of the entire Lockbreakers Society, Xiu Ming himself. He’s an Array Grandmaster, which places him on the same level as a Semi-Progenitor. This means that this Extremes Must Be Reversed will give your family the leverage to ignore a Semi-Progenitor, which means that you’ll step onto the same level as the Xia family. Why? The Xia family has their status because they descended from Progenitor Chen,” Lu Yin spoke slowly, his voice dripping with contempt for Ku Lei’s attempt to hide things.
Ku Lei was an arrogant person, and he sneered at Lu Yin’s words. “What about Progenitor Chen? Progenitor Ku and the Xia family’s Progenitor Chen each controlled one of the Nine Mountains and Eight Seas, which means that their status was equal! Progenitor Chen was considered invincible just because of his nine clones, but Progenitor Ku was also very powerful as he possessed the power of time.”
This was the first time that Lu Yin had heard such a rumor regarding Progenitor Ku, but he remembered that someone in the Perennial World’s Dominion Ream had once mentioned that the more powerful the Progenitor was, the further within the Dominion Realm their territory would be. Progenitor Ku’s territory had been close to the edge of the Mother Tree, which indicated that he had not been particularly powerful. However, Ku Lei was saying that Progenitor Ku had controlled one of the Nine Mountains and Eight Seas.
Lu Yin had once believed that the Nine Mountains and Eight Seas were nothing more than a showpiece that Progenitor Hui had left behind to deceive the Aeternals and the Sixth Mainland. But later, Lu Yin had entered a part of the Mountains and Seas in the ruins of the Fifth Mainland’s Daosource Sect. There, he had learned that the Nine Mountains and Eight Seas truly did contain the inheritances of Progenitors.
Had Progenitor Ku been one of those Progenitors?
If that was true, then Progenitor Ku had certainly not been weak.
“What’s the power of time?” Lu Yin asked.
Ku Lei hesitated for a while, but he finally said, “I don’t know the details, but my Ku family is absolutely certain of one thing: when the Daosource Sect still stood, Progenitor Ku’s position was not at all inferior to Progenitor Chen’s. If Progenitor Ku’s inheritance had been perfectly preserved, then the Xia family might not have ended up the leaders of the Seven Courts.”
In truth, Lu Yin did not believe this. The Sixth Mainland actually denied acknowledging Progenitor Chen’s mere existence and had tried to blot him out of history. That required a level of invincibility that no one else could compare to. However, if Progenitor Ku really did have the power of time, then things might not be so straightforward.
There was Progenitor Ku, Progenitor Chen, the Rune Progenitor, and more. With so many peerless experts, it made absolutely no sense for the Fifth Mainland to have lost to the Sixth Mainland.
“Brother Lu, my Ku family will be open and honest when negotiating with you,” Ku Lei said as he looked at Lu Yin with a powerful anticipation lighting his eyes.
Lu Yin did not agree to making a deal, but he also did not refuse. This was how he had managed to drag the Wen family along for so long, and he intended to do the same thing to the Ku family.
However, in order to work with the Ku family, Lu Yin first needed to get word back to the family, which meant that Ku Lei could not die and had to return to his family.
“We’ll set the battle technique aside for now, as any sort of deal means nothing if we can’t get back,” Lu Yin said.
It was only then that Ku Lei remembered he was in the Starfall Sea and that he had been captured by the Aeternals. This really was not the time to be lusting after Extremes Must Be Reversed.
There were only two options available to everyone who came out of the exit gate in the Aeternal Kingdom: cooperation or death.
In the end, Ku Lei could only choose to cooperate. However, Lu Yin made no mention about the possibility of removing the poison to Ku Lei. The young man knew that he would die, but he was determined to send a message back to his family. As for whether or not he also shared Yang Kong’s matter with them, Lu Yin did not care. Yang Kong’s life meant nothing to Lu Yin.
Also, Lu Yin was under no illusions that Yang Kong would ever provide him with the antidote to the poisons.
The other two people also chose to cooperate and be poisoned, as they feared death as well.
…
Only two days remained before the appointed time to enter Burial Garden.
The day before the planned excursion, Lu Yin received word from Yang Kong that everyone who had come out from the gate needed to be eliminated.
Lu Yin was startled. “Eliminated? What are you talking about?”
Yang Kong solemnly said, “We don’t need any of them.”
“But they’re willing to accept the poison. I even convinced them like you said,” Lu Yin protested.
“There’s no need. After all, they could easily expose us, so we need to get rid of them all. These are my father’s orders.” Yang Kong immediately hung up.
Lu Yin suspected that this decision had not been made by the city master, but rather by the Aeternals, as they were extremely cautious.
They had built up the Neohuman Alliance in the Fifth Mainland and cultivated Redbacks and traitors in the Perennial World. The Aeternals had always excelled at remaining hidden, and sure enough, Ku Lei intended to inform his family of Extremes Must Be Reversed and the Aeternals’ plans to hunt down the ancient bloodlines within Burial Gate as soon as he returned.
It was also possible that other people had the same intention, and if Lu Yin were in the Aeternals’ position, he would also rather kill some people than risk them leaking sensitive information.
