The Bridge of Forgetfulness circled the void in front of the grave and pierced through space, departing from the Hongmeng.
If it continued to remain in the third realm, its true spirit might really scatter and it’d completely lose itself.
……
The Gates of the Abyss slowly closed on the ninth floor of the Immortal Pagoda.
“Who was that child?” Qing Yu looked askance at Lu Yun.
“An akasha ghost.” Lu Yun looked very unhappy. “The bridge couldn’t smash him, which means he possesses strength from the fourth realm. Maybe he’s the source of the akasha ghosts, or maybe he’s not.”
He threw two pieces of paper away. One of them was Ghost Dragon and the other the Fire Parasol Tree that was the current form of Ghost Phoenix. Neither of these were them—it was just drawings.
“The child used Ghost Dragon to lure me to the mountain and wanted to use me to dismantle the grave,” Lu Yun murmured to himself. “He put the chaos dragon zombie there for me to break the layout with.”
The huge grave’s layout was both intricate and uncanny. If not for the warning from Lu Yun’s future self, he would’ve used the dragon zombie to break the grave wide open.
Thank goodness his future self could borrow a certain power to contact Qing Yu and pass on a message that way! It was because of this hint that Lu Yun fully came to his senses and realized there was another seductive power at play. He couldn’t see through everything before he became a titled king.
Ghost Dragon had appeared in Coiling Dragon City both for the Dragonling Assembly and to lure him to Mount Cloudcover.
“What’s under the big grave of the mountain and who’s… Meng?” Lu Yun shook his head with incomprehension. He’d left a back door in the grave, one different from the mark that he’d left in the lost ancient city. This time, he’d left a miniature Gates of the Abyss.
It was through the gates that he heard the little boy’s final roar.
“It looks like the waters are very deep in the Hongmeng. The boy would be an absolute heavyweight in the fourth realm, but even he doesn’t dare do as he will here.” Lu Yun stood in front of a window and looked at Haotian Tower across the way.
Shenyu was also looking at him from the tower.
Qing Yu and the little fox didn’t disturb Lu Yun. They stood quietly by his side, flanking him.
“Do you know the truth about the Hongmeng?” Lu Yun suddenly asked slowly.
Shenyu started, then shook his head. “I don’t know, and neither does my master. We’re all birds in this cage and everything we do is to open its doors so we can soar freely into the sky.”
……
Six months passed by very quickly.
Lu Yun spent this time with Qing Yu and the little fox. He didn’t cultivate or oversee any matters. He merely spent his time sightseeing on pleasure trips and completely relaxing. These six months were his most relaxed since arriving in the third realm.
The trio traveled through half of the Hongmeng during this time. They journeyed through nearly a thousand major regions and fully took in the vastness and might of this realm. These were all observations that he couldn’t make from the fourth realm.
Despite their utter lack of training during this time, setting their minds at ease actually resulted in significant increases to their strength.
Lu Yun’s flame of order now boasted of twenty-five tendrils, more than double what it was before. Twenty-five wisps of flame propelled his strength to new heights, but they didn’t change it on a fundamental level like they had before. Rather, it was his sword dao that benefited from his relaxation.
The second technique of Dragonsoar once more appeared in his path, and these six months rather felt like a moment of stolen leisure among extreme busyness to Lu Yun.
……
On this day, Lu Yun bid farewell to Qing Yu and the little fox. Traveling alone, he came to Coiling Dragon City of Azure Dragon Region.
“You heartless scoundrel—you left for six months, just like that, and didn’t send any word whatsoever! I thought you’d come back a few days earlier to visit my sister!” Azureclad bounded out of an unknown location as soon as Lu Yun arrived in his tiny residence in the Coiling Dragon city lord’s manor. He grabbed Lu Yun’s collar and lectured him without further ado.
Lu Yun discovered that the faint trace of arrogance that’d been present on Azureclad before had vanished. It’d been replaced by a weighty steadiness, and the duke was much stronger as well.
Plainly, something special had happened to the Azureclad Duke during these six months.
“Eh?” Lu Yun blinked. “Don’t you want me to stay away from your sister?”
“Of course! You’re not allowed near my sister!” Azureclad responded matter-of-factly. “But you haven’t sent word at all during this half year and didn’t come visit my sister. Do you think she’s mediocre, that she’s not good enough for you?”
Lu Yun didn’t even know how to react anymore, what the heck did this Azureclad Duke have for brains?
“Let go, let go. People might think you have feelings for me if they see us,” he complained impatiently.
Azureclad’s eyes widened. “Not, not only do you have designs on my sister, but me too?!”
Bam!
Lu Yun kicked the duke in the chest and threw him out of the residence.
“Leave me alone!” he shouted.
A sheepish Azureclad crawled up from the ground.
“I came to tell you that my sister’s reached a critical point in her cultivation, so don’t disturb her!” Azureclad ran off after delivering this important message.
“That kid’s damn strong, he’s also improved in these six months! We’re going to Dragonhollow Mountain tomorrow, so I need to think of a way to get even stronger!” Wiping away the mischievous expression on his face, Azureclad mused carefully over the days to come.
Just like he’d said, Qing Ting didn’t visit to welcome Lu Yun back to Coiling Dragon City. She must’ve reached a critical moment in her cultivation.
……
“Though there’s no order of time in the Hongmeng, I can’t believe that they don’t have a calendar. When I’m strong enough, I’m definitely going to establish a calendar for them.”
The next day, Lu Yun was part of Coiling Dragon’s entourage as they set out for the east toward the Hongmeng Sea. There were three days until the Dragonling Assembly.
Though the city’s protagonists for the assembly were Lu Yun, Qing Ting, Azureclad, Leng Che, and You Cang, they were accompanied by tens of thousands of others from the faction. Apart from some superior realm followers, just the kings alone numbered almost one hundred.
When Lu Yun first arrived in the Hongmeng and viewed the realm from the eyes of an inferior realm cultivator, he’d felt that the one hundred and eight kings that the Enforcer Alliance possessed made them the dominating heavyweight of the realm.
But as his cultivation level increased and his range of experience broadened, he finally saw how titled kinghood was only the beginning in the Hongmeng. Large cities such as Coiling Dragon possessed countless kings.
Their immense entourage was headed by the Dragonfeather King and two other kings; the small army’s main goal was to prevent ambush from others. Competition was devastatingly fierce for Dragonling Assembly, many were those who didn’t mind eliminating some competition along the way.
After all, the profits of the assembly weren’t limited to one’s usage alone, but to the benefit of multiple major factions.
