“More tests?” Lu Yun blinked when he heard Ying Luo’s words.
“Not a test.” She shook her head. “Just a path we must take, but I can’t pass it with my current level of strength.
She’d arrived here earlier than Lu Yun and explored the premises. If the intrepid wished to advance, they would have to travel a certain way. Up till now, Lu Yun was the only other living soul that she’d seen, which was why she’d approached him as soon as he appeared.
“Is there no one else here?” He was quite taken aback.
“There is.” Ying Luo nodded. “Someone came before me, but he’s dead now.”
Lu Yun inclined his head.
“Let’s go take a look then.” He felt kindly toward Ying Luo because of how she’d approached him earlier. At the same time, however, he wasn’t a young boy fresh behind the ears and kept his guard up around the girl.
This attitude was similarly reflected in Ying Luo. Though she sought help from Lu Yun, she maintained a safe distance from him throughout.
In the chaos, easily trusting a stranger was simply nursing a death wish.
……
Bloody waves surged across an endless expanse of liquid. What’d once been a bloody ocean with a visible end in sight was now incomparably unfamiliar to Lu Yun. It was tens of millions of times bigger compared to its great wilderness version.
The two followed the coastline and came up to a tiny isle. It floated roughly fifty kilometers away from the shore and spanned a few meters across, looking rather like an enormous skull.
“That’s it!” Ying Luo stopped and pointed at the skull. “This is an opening that leads to the inside of the Tomb of Heaven and Life. Or should I say another test?”
Scanning the skull floating in the Blood Sea, Lu Yun saw a corpse standing in the center of the isle. It was a handsome young man wielding a precious sword glinting with a frosty light; he retained the posture of stabbing forward even in death.
He was completely dead, his soul entirely scattered and leaving nothing behind.
A black light flashed through Lu Yun’s eyes as he surreptitiously called upon the Spectral Eye.
“Mo Ke?” He blinked. “Genius of the water origin land, second level mortal realm. Failed his attempt to reach the depths of the Tomb of Heaven and Earth and killed by the beings in the Blood Sea.”
Second level mortal realm?
According to the cultivation realms in the chaos, Lu Yun was also second level mortal realm, on par with an ordinary immortal in the world of immortals. Ying Luo by his side was also second level mortal realm, but her cultivation was much stronger than Lu Yun’s. She was a lot closer to third level than he was.
Third level mortal realm was the equivalent of a dao immortal.
In the chaos, one couldn’t withstand a chaos tribulation without reaching the chaos realm. Thus, finely dividing the cultivation realms beneath chaos realm was a meaningless exercise. Mortal realm beings were babies in the chaos, only when one reached chaos realm did one count as an adult.
The first batch of connate demon gods to be born in the worlds was chaos realm—a unique perk of the worlds.
“His cultivation is the same as ours?” Lu Yun turned around and looked at Ying Luo.
“Yes, he’s also second level mortal realm. I know him—Mo Ke of the water origin land. He had the potential to become a sovereign, but… to think he died here.” She bit her lip gently.
Mo Ke wasn’t part of the sacred clan, but he was stronger than her. If even he’d died here, Ying Luo knew that she wouldn’t be able to pass through this area. Of this, she knew full well and didn’t try to pretend otherwise.
She was part of the sacred clan and thus started at a higher point in life compared to Mo Ke. It was a given that she would reach dizzying heights in the future. But she was currently the same level as him and unable to rival him in such circumstances.
“I’ll go take a look.” Lu Yun took to the air so he could visit the island. Fifty kilometers wasn’t a far distance for him—easily surmounted by one step.
“Don’t!” Ying Luo rushed up and pulled him back. “Mo Ke is very strong. If even he died there, we need to work together!”
She secretly released Lu Yun’s hand at the same time.
“Don’t worry, I’ve more or less guessed what’s going on.” Lu Yun smiled when he read Ying Luo’s expression. “This is also a test, but one of life and death! We will enter the tomb proper if we pass it and die if we don’t.”
“Eh?” Ying Luo blinked.
“You, me, and the dead Mo Ke are all second level mortal realm!” explained Lu Yun. “But there were at least several hundred with me earlier, and I see none of them here. Therefore, I’m thinking that this is a test that only second level mortal realm beings can access.
“Only those of the same cultivation level will appear in the same location. As difficult as this test may be, it shouldn’t exceed our level of tolerance. We met the three-headed lizard earlier, so we should be able to pass here as well if we’re careful.”
“Is that so?” Ying Luo’s brows furrowed slightly. “Just us three? This conclusion is… a little presumptuous.”
Lu Yun smiled confidently. Of course he hadn’t just determined this based on their presence. He’d gleaned some clues from the surroundings and theorized all this through formula dao.
The layout of this tomb was similar to one of the yin and yang, but tombs of the yin and yang were arrayed in a much more sophisticated fashion. Countless layers of parallel planes overlapped each other for those tombs.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” He took to the air again and streaked to the skull island, landing beside Mo Ke.
Lu Yun reached out and wrapped his hand around the genius’ sword, yanking it from the young man’s grasp.
Whoosh!
Mo Ke’s body dissolved into a pile of dust.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Strange buzzes sounded in the air as a dense cloud of crimson mosquitoes mysteriously burrowed out of nowhere. They descended upon Lu Yun as a carpet of crimson thunderclouds.
They weren’t big, the largest of them a centimeter long. However, they were also second level mortal realm, the equivalent of peak peerless immortal.
There were more than a hundred thousand mosquitoes, making for a hundred thousand similar level opponents swarming Lu Yun at the same time. Even the greatest genius would instantly fall to these numbers.
However, he’d anticipated their existence from his calculations earlier, so he didn’t panic when they appeared. He immediately deployed Wandering Step and backed out of the island.
In his absence, the mosquitoes lost their target and circled aimlessly in the air for a while before vanishing just as eerily as they’d appeared.
