Humm.
A tiny disturbance undulated from Chi Wuxia’s body and rebuffed the fire origin prime’s blow. Dressed in a black silk dress, the Nirvana princess walked out of the chaos.
“Mother.” Thick sorrow brimmed in Chi Wuxia’s eyes. He still couldn’t move, but breaking through was the furthest thing from his grief-stricken mind.
“Silly child, continue doing what you should be doing.” The princess stroked Chi Wuxia’s hair that had turned the purest of black. “How could I possibly bear to let your father die? I surreptitiously lit a soul lamp for him when we met, he just has no idea about it.”
She smiled as Chi Wuxia’s eyes lit up. Turning away from her son, she drew herself up straight and looked at the fire origin prime.
“Kakakaka—” he cackled weirdly while looking back at the Nirvana princess. A blood-red tongue darted out of his gash of a mouth and licked his ear.
Frowning ferociously, something suddenly occurred to the Nirvana princess and she hastily scanned her surroundings. Apart from the eight primes, the remaining sovereigns of the nine sacred lands were also undergoing a similar metamorphosis.
Their faces turned into ghostly faces that laughed and cried at the same time. Black fur sprouted over their bodies and baleful black flames ignited between the tufts of fur. Ghostly faces the size of a palm swam in and out of the fire.
The phenomenon jumped from the heavyweights of the sacred lands to the closest sacred land cultivators like a virus. As the infection ran through the assembled, their resistance against the sacred slowly ceased with ominous foreboding.
The chill of horror wrapped around the Nirvana princess.
“Everyone, back to the palaces! Don’t entangle yourself with those things! Those of the nine sacred lands have been possessed by the demons in the tribulation!” She shrilled and flourished her sleeve, rolling up Chi Wuxia and vanishing from the premises as a streak of black light.
Her command sent general panic through the scene. Everyone ceased fighting and fled back to their respective palace while uncanny laughter crescendoed in the pure black chaos.
Everyone knew that there were demons and unholy things in the chaos tribulations. Whenever one descended, the six palaces, nine sacred lands, and various factions of the chaos would send out their experts to bring back mortal beings for protection.
Some wandering cultivators would also seek out larger factions and ask for shelter.
Apart from the dreadful black electricity in a chaos tribulation, demonic entities shifting between the real and intangible were also a key component.
They roved through the darkened chaos, searching for life to kill and devour. They didn’t number that many, so it wasn’t a common occurrence to run into them in the boundless chaos. But once someone bumped into these demons that seemed infinitely close to akasha ghosts, extermination was the only possible outcome.
Even sovereigns perished when faced with them.
Now, however, they were everywhere and fully attached to the sacred land cultivators, indistinguishable from the chaos creatures as a brand new monster.
Sacred palace morale immediately plunged to a low.
Instead of immediately advancing in an offensive, the horrendous creatures simply surrounded the six palaces and cackled with unearthly sounds. None of the monarchs were present at the palaces and only the Nirvana princess had returned out of all of the sacred princes and princesses. There was no leader among the six palaces at all.
……
Tremendous sacred force ballooned from the six palaces, forming airtight defenses. Doing so, however, shook the order of space present in the area. Once that order disappeared, they would return to being scattered throughout the chaos. The united front of the six palaces would be gone and they would be in real danger.
“What, what are those??” Terror-stricken Ying Luo and the others stared at the freakish monsters wailing outside of the sacred palaces. At their level of cultivation, they could clearly discern that those demonic things could easily make them suffer through a life that was worse than death!
If they ended up in those things’ hands, they would beg for death but never attain it!
“Vengeful spirits,” Lu Yun responded calmly. “This is what becomes of the lingering resentment and malice of those who’ve died in the chaos tribulation. All wrongs have their source, so the spirits came looking for someone from the nine sacred lands, latched onto whoever they found, and turned into this.
“This should be a type of ghost, I think?” He thought with a frown and continued in a different tone, “The cultivators of the nine sacred lands hold deep bitterness and hate toward us, which is why the spirits have yet to depart.
“I’ll go out. I’m the reason why the chaos tribulation was ignited, so only I can take care of this!”
Black fire rose in his eyes; hellfire seemed even more profound in the rampaging tribulation and darker than the abyss.
“I’m going too!” Ying Luo clenched her teeth, but a white shadow darted out from Lu Yun’s body and pressed her and the others down to the ground.
“Don’t add to the mess,” said the little fox in human form. “You safely remaining here would be the best help you can give to him. He can advance and retreat at will if you’re not by his side, no one will be able to harm him.”
If it hadn’t been for Lu Yun focusing most of his efforts on protecting the Six Royals, he would’ve sensed Huo Shentong’s ambush, opened the abyss, and taken care of him right there and then. There would be none of everything that came after.
Despite that, Lu Yun cared deeply about their friendship, so he didn’t mention any of it.
None of that mattered to the little fox; she didn’t understand the ways of the world at all. How else would she kick up a fuss in front of Qing Yu and call for Lu Yun to take responsibility for his actions?
Ying Luo paled and Lu Yun sighed. “Stay here, I have something more important that I need everyone’s help with.”
“What is it?” Ying Luo brightened.
“Teach others the Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals! I don’t know if I can dispel the resentment outside, so the six palaces must grow stronger if we wish to defend ourselves! The formation is our only tool at the moment!”
“Okay!” The other five looked at each other.
Lu Yun vanished on the spot after taking another deep look at them. When he next reappeared, he was in front of the endless pack of vengeful spirits.
“Young lord, I’ve asked the ghost ancestor. It doesn’t know how these things came to be either,” the lizard-dragon’s voice echoed in Lu Yun’s mind. “Simple resentment shouldn’t result in such terrifying spirits like these.”
The lizard-dragon was a being from the third realm second to only its kings, but it was also using “terrifying” to describe the vengeful spirits!
“I see,” Lu Yun nodded.
