“Junior brother Lu Yun!” Ying Luo’s surprised voice came from behind Lu Yun.
He whirled around to see a somewhat pale Ying Luo beam at him delightedly. She was plainly suppressing her urge to vomit, but that bout with the stench of decay inside the realm monster had toughened her up.
Lu Yun had thought that they would be randomly scattered after entering the massive burial pit, yet Ying Luo still remained by his side. Sounds of violent retching echoed around them before he had a chance to respond.
“Wang Shu’s here too! Then what about senior sister Leng Xian and Jin Gushen?” Ying Luo frowned—both of them recognized the origin of the nauseating vomit.
“Eurpppppp what kind of smell is this?! Why does it smell so baaaaaauuuughd!! Help paughhh!” Wang Shu cried as he emptied all the contents of his stomach.
How would he ever have had to endure something like this as the son of the Burgeon monarch? This awful putrid air was impossible to defend against; it seemed to burrow into his body through every pore and sweat gland.
“Senior, senior brother Lu Yun, could you lend me another talisman…” Weeping from the force of throwing up so hard, Wang Shu looked piteously at Lu Yun.
Lu Yun had dismissed the Shapeshifting death art and returned to human form.
“There are other people here and even a little girl like Ying Luo can withstand this stench. What’s a grown man like you afraid of?” Lu Yun hectored. “If you can’t stand even a bit of corpse smell, don’t even think about challenging me until your next life.”
Wang Shu snuck a peek at Ying Luo. Though her face was pale, she proudly arched her neck at Lu Yun’s praise and radiated self assurance.
The young lord of Burgeon Palace heaved a few more times before becoming more accustomed to the air.
“I’m not going to turn into a zombie, am I?” he asked gingerly.
“No. Though the air here is foul, there’s no poison in it.” Lu Yun grabbed a random ball of putrid air and peered at it closely, enabling Wang Shu to relax.
“Are you alright?” Lu Yun asked Ying Luo.
“I’m fine!” Ying Luo nodded firmly. “Is this like the second test, where only those of the same cultivation level can appear in the same spot?”
She looked around and saw orange air in all directions. She couldn’t see beyond their immediate surroundings, and she’d completely lost contact with Leng Xian. She didn’t even know where Jin Gushen was, which was what prompted her suspicion.
“Mmhmm,” Lu Yun confirmed. “Our opportunity should be here, at the source of this foul air!”
“Junior sister Ying Luo!” Wei Yuan called out with great joy after Lu Yun finished speaking. “So you’ve made it here as well!”
His expression immediately took a downward turn when he saw Lu Yun next. This Inception disciple had beaten him on the shores of the Blood Sea and told him to retread the bloody path. Though Wei Yuan had grown stronger for it, he’d viewed Lu Yun as the enemy all this time.
It wasn’t a death feud, more a reluctance to accept how things had turned out and a desire to beat Lu Yun, to wash away his previous humiliation.
Lu Yun nodded at Wei Yuan without saying a word.
“Haha, Wei Yuan! I’ve heard your name long ago as the most treasured disciple of Nirvana Palace! Come come come, let the two of us fight and see if the combat arts of your Nirvana Palace are stronger, or mine of Burgeon Palace!” Wang Shu lit up when he saw Wei Yuan and unsheathed his sword, charging at the newcomer.
“Wait!!” Wei Yuan knew of Wang Shu and was familiar with his personality. He quickly backed a few steps away. “This isn’t a place for us to fight!”
“Stop!” Lu Yun roared at Wang Shu, which did successfully stop the genius mid charge. That drew a sideways glance from Wei Yuan.
“This is indeed not a good place to fight among ourselves.” Lu Yun frowned and rumbled, “Be ready for combat. There are other things in the putrid air and I don’t know what they are.”
Wang Shu blinked while Ying Luo brought out her chain, scanning the premises alertly.
“There seems to be some sort of wild beast that’s a zombie in the area, a… zombie beast?” Wei Yuan came over to stand by them as well. Even a fool could tell from Wang Shu’s attitude that this young lord of Burgeon Palace was beginning to treat Lu Yun as his leader.
Plainly, the many things they’d met with before had convinced Wang Shu and Ying Luo of Lu Yun’s abilities.
This caused Wei Yuan to be highly put out. Ying Luo was the greatest beauty of the six sacred palaces and the foremost expert within second level mortal realm. Though her current potential may not be as ferocious in the future, the monarch of Creation Palace would certainly find ways to enhance it. Ying Luo was presently the dream lover of many sacred palace youths.
“A zombie beast?” Lu Yun naturally read the unfriendliness in Wei Yuan’s eyes, but he didn’t care. He was an imposter to begin with. Once they left this tomb, none of this would have anything more to do with him.
“Help! Help!” Another voice traveled in from the distance and… it was another familiar one—You Huoran of Opposition Palace.
He was extremely bedraggled and his pristine white robes flapped around him as tattered rags. A dense crowd of… things snarled behind him in hot pursuit. When he saw the crowd here, it seemed like the light of salvation had dawned on him and he shot toward them for dear life.
“Bastard!” Wei Yuan’s expression turned extremely ugly. Instead of crossing the zombie sea, he’d taken another route to arrive here even earlier than Lu Yun and the others. He’d been careful to give the zombie beasts a wide berth all along and never purposefully provoked them.
But this little bastard here had appeared out of nowhere and led a pack of zombie beasts straight to them!
Lu Yun stared fixedly at what was chasing You Huoran; his jaw dropped when he identified the creatures.
“These aren’t zombie beasts, they’re ghouls!” He shuddered.
In the world of immortals, he’d once seen ghouls at the bottom of the Abyss of Divine Burial in Dusk Province. However, the ghouls there were hundreds of times weaker than the ones here.
The ones in front of them were all peak second level mortal realm. Their limbs rotated in all directions, enabling them to assume bizarre positions on their backs and scuttle quickly across the terrain. One of them quickly pounced on You Huoran, but a great treasure on his body immediately flared with snowy radiance, blasting the ghoul back.
“Junior sister Ying Luo!” You Huoran lit up when he saw Ying Luo and yelled, “Save me, junior sister!”
Scrambling on all fours, he ran over to the group.
