Wang Shu was one of the sacred palace disciples that Lu Yun had run into earlier. Though the boy looked like a useless fop, he was actually obsessed with cultivation. Running into someone of the same cultivation level as him sparked his interest and he pestered Lu Yun endlessly for a match.
When Lu Yun defeated him, he pestered endlessly for a rematch.
Lu Yun’s random jaunt through a number of burial chambers was in large part because of this Wang Shu.
……
Wang Shu was also in the tomb on a solo expedition, like Lu Yun. He looked at the Inception disciple with ardent eagerness for another fight.
“It’s not a good idea to spar here.” Lu Yun could already sense something different about this burial chamber. It was much more dangerous than other ones. “Why don’t we go for another round after we leave?”
Wang Shu was the stickiest kind of toffee; Lu Yun could neither kill him nor get the boy off his trail. It was the first time ever that he felt such a deep sense of helplessness.
“After we leave?” Wang Shu shook his head. “You’re a secluded disciple of Inception Palace. How am I supposed to find you if you hole up in your palace once we’re outside?
“No no no, we’re having another fight right here, right now. There’s no way that Burgeon combat arts are less than Inception’s!”
Champing at the bit, battle intent flared in Wang Shu’s eyes.
“Senior brother Wang Shu, why don’t we spar?” Ying Luo stepped forward and summoned her snake-like chain.
Wang Shu looked at Ying Luo, first trembling, then beaming brightly.
“Sure!” His eyes shone with excitement. “Junior sister Ying Luo is the strongest of our generation. I’ve long wanted to witness your techniques!”
Compared to Lu Yun, Ying Luo had a far greater reputation. Not only was she the foremost beauty of the sacred palaces, she was also the strongest of everyone in the second level mortal realm—no one could put up a fight to her.
“Ying Luo!” Leng Xian tsk’ed disapprovingly when she saw that the two were about to face off. “Wang Shu. There’s something terrible lying in wait in this burial chamber. Even I won’t be able to protect myself if it awakens. You better not fight here!”
“What’s the worst that can happen? We’ll come back to life through the soul lamps if we die, it’s no big deal,” Wang Shu grumbled.
“You can resurrect from the soul lamps, but what about your treasures?” Lu Yun snorted with laughter. “Your sword, for instance. If you lose it here, you’ll lose it forever.”
Wang Shu blinked, then quickly hugged his sword close to him. This was an ultimate connate treasure, one on par with the Bell of Chaos. He never would’ve gotten his hands on it if not for being the young lord of Burgeon Palace.
“And, dying is easy, but what if you can’t?” Ying Luo added mischievously. “If that thing catches you and won’t let you die, you’ll have to stay here forever.”
Wang Shu trembled in dread while Leng Xian’s eyes went wide with astonishment. She hadn’t thought that the biddable Ying Luo would ever be able to say something like this to scare Wang Shu. She glared reflexively at Lu Yun, this was plainly the boy’s bad influence!
Ying Luo also realized that she’d said the wrong thing and shrank in on herself, sticking out her tongue.
Wang Shu stared agog at them all.
Lu Yun felt the force of Leng Xian’s unfriendly glare, but he didn’t say anything.
“Alright, it’s too dangerous here, far more dangerous than we think. I’m taking you to your palaces, so don’t go wandering off now.” Leng Xian frowned. “Those of the six palaces are all within this burial chamber, let’s head over to them.”
Her tone brooked no disagreement.
It wasn’t just the six sacred palaces, everything that’d entered the Tomb of Life and Death was congregating in this burial chamber. There was another large tomb here acting as a coffin. One would reach the heart of the Tome of Life and Death beyond this burial chamber and the millions that had been buried here.
The creation seed was there, and so was the fortuitous opportunity to ascend beyond the chaos realm.
Paling, Ying Luo struggled to conceal her emotions. She didn’t know what to do now.
Lu Yun’s expression was as usual, but he quickly ran through possibility after possibility to get him out of this predicament.
“Careful!” He suddenly hopped forward and yanked Ying Luo back.
At the same time, numerous white arms shot out from the earth like tentacles, waving and grasping at the air. Leng Xian reacted swiftly and hacked down at the arms with cutting sword energy, cutting them all to pieces.
“There’s a zombie pool ahead filled with all sorts of zombies, be careful!” Cold sweat beaded her forehead.
Zombie pools were exceedingly terrifying landmarks. They looked the same as everything else, but countless zombies were buried within. However, they were unique in that they didn’t attack anything outside of the pool.
If it hadn’t been for Lu Yun’s quick reflexes in pulling Ying Luo back and sending Leng Xian on the alert, both of them might’ve been mired in the zombie pool.
“What’s going on? This wasn’t here when we arrived.” Leng Xian looked darkly at the churning soil in front of them.
“Space is disorderly in this burial chamber.” Lu Yun’s eyes narrowed and he made a few quick calculations. “The world here is completely dead, but there’s a bit of spatial energy left that keeps changing. The direction you just came from is no longer what it was.”
A dragon sleeps in mountains coiled, those deathly cliffs with mysteries roiled.
Lu Yun chanted silently, his eyes briefly lighting up with golden light and the image of a luopan flashing through them.
“The road ahead is inaccessible now, this is no longer a zombie pool, but a zombie sea. Everything within fifty million kilometers is a zombie sea.”
“Can’t we fly across it?” Wang Shu shuddered. He was dead certain that if it’d been him in the lead just now instead of Ying Luo, Lu Yun would’ve never saved him.
“Fly across it? Why don’t you give it a try?” Ying Luo flicked a sideways glance at the now mute Wang Shu.
“If it’s just a zombie pool, we could fly across it at the fastest speed possible. But if it’s a zombie sea… then we really can’t,” Leng Xian took a deep breath in. “Let’s go back and try another way. The three of you need to stick close to me!”
