Having dismissed their disguises, the trio and rat were back to their regular sizes. The Treasurehunter Rat put itself forward and walked carefully at the head of the group.
Lu Yun looked wordlessly at it, but didn’t say anything. The little creature was a basket of paradoxes. It was cowardly and afraid of death, but could also be audacious to the extreme. In Mount Cloudcover, the gifts of its race bestowed it with strength rivaling a sixth step king, but it’d still been terrified of the python in the magma river.
The end of the thieves’ tunnel opened up to a huge clearing. A million kilometers across, it was plainly another pocket of space entirely. An enormous scroll painting stood unfurled in the center. It depicted a boundless sea, so vivid that Lu Yun could sense the sheer vastness and magnitude of the deep blue just through a two dimensional painting.
Instead of a rich blue, its waters were deep green and a great tree towered in the center of the waves. Red and black blossoms of fire wreathed its branches.
“This painting…” Miao identified involuntarily. “I’ve seen it before! I founded the sacred land of monster spirits in the North Sea of the Primordial Era. I remember that painting once appeared in the North Sea!”
Gravity filled her face.
“That’s no painting, that’s Ghost Dragon and Ghost Phoenix,” Lu Yun inhaled deeply. “It seems that the two treasures have swallowed Ghost Dragon and Ghost Phoenix, turning them into unparalleled treasures themselves. No wonder no one can tell that he’s a ghost as he walks through the Hongmeng.”
“What? What two treasures?” Qing Yu widened her eyes and quietly called upon formula dao. She was no closer to an answer after a round of deduction.
“The sea is the soul of a sea as projected by a layout. That tree is the ultimate treasure of the phoenix race—the Fire Parasol Tree.” Lu Yun nodded. “Don’t bother trying to figure them out, you won’t come to any conclusions. They’re part of the natural order of the world.
“I’d thought that they’d be in the depths of Mount Cloudcover, but they didn’t enter the enormous grave at all. So who’s buried in here?”
The soul of a sea was the true core of a sea. Wherever its soul landed would be a stretch of boundless waters. The soul of the sea that was Ghost Dragon had reached an incredibly mighty height. If freed from the painting, it would transform into an enormous body of water that covered several thousand major regions in the Hongmeng.
“What about the being at the end of the path?” It suddenly occurred to the little fox. “Shouldn’t there be an awful creature here?”
“It’s in the soul of the sea in the painting and quietly observing us.” Lu Yun looked at the scroll in front of them.
The soul of the sea was Ghost Dragon’s true body. Ghost Phoenix seemed to have suffered some injuries and was fast asleep, but Lu Yun was guessing that Ghost Dragon had sensed their arrival.
“Come on out, Ghost Dragon, I know you’re in there,” he shouted at the mammoth painting.
Rumble.
The enormous sea trembled as a man in long black robes appeared in front of the trio.
“I was wondering who saw through to my true form and ruined my plans… so it’s you.” Ghost Dragon nodded at Lu Yun and looked at the human without any enmity.
“What happened?? Why did you enter the Nihil Hell? Are you being controlled by something?!” Lu Yun asked urgently when he saw his old friend.
“Controlled by something?” Ghost Dragon shook his head. “Lu Yun, you shouldn’t fancy yourself so clever. Don’t think that you’re the smartest person in all of the realms just because you’ve accomplished something in the world of immortals. Some things are completely different from what you think.”
“The source of evil in the world of immortals lies in the Nihil Hell. Endless yin and dead spirits flood out from it and nearly destroyed the worlds at one point,” Qing Yu spoke up. “The Nihil Hell is also the source of ghosts in the Hongmeng. These ghosts are a violation of order itself and pose a fatal threat to the realm.
“You’re now a ghost through and through—don’t try to explain it away as if you’re a living being who infiltrated the enemy. Lu Yun put himself in danger for you and entered Mount Cloudcover for you. You should know good from bad.”
She was indignant at Ghost Dragon’s words. If it wasn’t for Lu Yun seeing him as a friend, there wouldn’t be any reason for her beloved to risk traveling to the mountain. This was a place that even characters like Dragon Butterfly didn’t want to approach!
“Put himself in danger?” Ghost Dragon’s expression wavered and he burst out laughing. “This is a place of danger to Lu Yun? Do you know where the ‘yun’ character in Cloudcover comes from?”
ROAR!!
A tremendous snarl echoed in the void at his words, plainly not wanting him to speak further. Dense black smoke suddenly billowed from the painting and filled the air before an enormous dragon with three heads, three tails, and twelve claws barrelled out of the sea. It slammed a claw down on the trio.
“A chaos dragon!” Lu Yun gasped at the unexpected sight.
Qing Yu shouted with anger and flared scintillating sword light out of Quiet, slashing at the chaos dragon. The dragon wasn’t a living one, but a zombie!
Clang!
A blinding shower of sparks sprayed out when Qing Yu’s sword met the dragon’s claw. She flew backward—Quiet’s edge hadn’t been enough to slice through the dragon’s claw!
Despite that, she was still a fearsome ninth step king and knocked the dragon zombie back with her stroke. A tiny dribble of blood bubbled out of her mouth; she’d been sorely injured.
Miao released her Mirage Sand and circulated it around Lu Yun, protecting him within. She could tell that the dragon zombie was aiming for him.
After the chaos dragon recovered its balance, it charged again and broke through the little fox’s sand with dense corpse qi, pouncing onto Lu Yun.
Qing Yu and Miao shouted angrily and rushed forward to stop the dragon. It was too strong! Though both of them were ninth step kings, they couldn’t put up a fight. This was a dead end and a path of death… If nothing else happened, they would all die to the dragon zombie!
“Back away!” Lu Yun bounded forward and crushed the gourd holding ten inches of time. Silver river water met his flame of order and transformed into purple radiance.
Purple was the color of the order of time. Unorganized time was silver—the color of order. When time met order, it turned into the purple order of time.
Lu Yun separated the two women from the dragon zombie with a wave of his hand. At the same time, he accelerated the flow of time around him and rushed to the front, using time as a sword and swinging at the centermost head.
No earth-shattering collision ensued. The head, and its two claws, simply faded out of existence like they’d never been.
“You’re right, this is no place of danger to me,” Lu Yun said frostily as he softly landed on the ground with a handful of time.
