What Lu Yun needed to do now was to refine the Thunderstruck Wood through the Tome of Life and Death. Only in that way would he truly become the wood’s master.
If not, it would attack Lu Yun when it came back to life.
“But what does the god of Mount Tai have to do with the wood?” Lu Yun frowned faintly. There was an embryo of that god being suppressed in hell.
Each hell gave birth to a god of Mount Tai and Karmic Tree. Back in the day, the five gods had become one and was hailed the Great Peak of the Five Hells, utilizing the five hells to suppress the fourth realm.
Lu Yun wasn’t sure if the latest god was absorbing the power of all beings to resurrect the Thunderstruck Wood, or if he was planning something else.
……
Instead of returning to the Hongmeng, Lu Yun left the Plane of Fire for the nearest plane to refine his newest possession. He needed to call upon the Tome of Life and Death to do so, and he could only do so in the fourth realm.
He didn’t possess his cultivation level of the fourth realm in the Hongmeng, so he could only passively use the treasure’s power there. But in the fourth realm, the Tome of Life and Death was his nascent spirit and also a part of him. He could easily utilize the tremendous power within.
It was also unknown what the refinement process would bring. Thus, he dared do so only in the spacious and empty fourth realm.
Pitch-black emptiness reigned outside the Plane of Fire; it looked like nothing was there. Such was the power and level of “nothing”.
Lu Yun sat cross-legged in the void and expanded his body to its utmost, releasing all of his strength.
“Nihil World Sovereign is both a title and a cultivation level. They can create worlds as they will in the nothingness.” He was finally coming to terms with the capabilities of his level.
When Longshan Yan and Longshan Chi first met him, they’d blurted out Nihil World Sovereign not because of his cultivation level, but because of his condition. One who mastered the void was a world king, and one who mastered “nothing” was one of the greatest in the void—a world sovereign!
“But even Void World Kings can begin to create something out of nothing. It’s a cultivation level that can be seen by others, so me sitting here to refine the Thunderstruck Wood… that means a lot of people can see me.” Lu Yun looked around and discovered that many beings were scattering in all directions like startled birds. He ignored them all and began to refine his treasure.
Six flames burst from the Tome of Life and Death and surrounded the Thunderstruck Wood. Though it was thoroughly dead, it still contained frightening power.
Lu Yun could easily sense that this power exceeded the existence of “nothing”, entering an entirely new field. It must be the unknown cultivation level above Nihil World Sovereign. He couldn’t see it for now, only sense its existence.
The Tome of Life and Death projected its image into the air and sealed off the void. The six hellfires projected the six hells and vast power surged into the Thunderstruck Wood. It trembled violently, blossoming with black lightning. They seemed alive and swam through the void, seeking to swallow Lu Yun like venomous snakes.
His hellfires and hells had been completely subjugated by the Tome of Life and Death—they no longer needed support from the Karmic Tree. However, the Disordered Hell belonged to Lu Yun alone. Even if he somehow lost the tome one day, he would still retain that hell!
That was his path.
For the moment, he deployed the strength of the six hells to the maximum, blasting away the toxic lightning within the Thunderstruck Wood. They were the culprits for turning the wood into what it was now, and they remained within the wood, becoming its core essence.
When Longshan Yin weathered his tribulation, it’d been this black lightning that furthered the thunder tribulation and extended it beyond what was necessary.
Lu Yun wanted to refine the lightning so the Thunderstruck Wood could return to its origin and the original form of the Karmic Trees. Naturally, the roiling black lightning did everything it could to fight the young man and resist refinement from the Tome of Life and Death and six hellfires.
As a Nihil World Sovereign, Lu Yun’s core essence was too weak since he was just a superior realm cultivator from the Hongmeng. When it came to the most basic fundamentals, he couldn’t put up a fight against the lightning.
The merest strand lingering within the Thunderstruck Wood exceeded Nihil World Sovereign.
“Hang on.” A thought suddenly occurred to Lu Yun. “This black lightning… is a kind of heavenly tribulation, right? If that’s the case…”
He stood up and put away the six hellfires and Tome of Life and Death. Reaching out with a hand, he activated the death art Thunder Palmstrike.
Craaaaaackle!
After momentary struggle, the rampaging lightning gathered in Lu Yun’s hand as a black thunder bead.
“That’s it?” Lu Yun blinked. “Well, that was easy. The death arts are connate combat arts from the Tome of Life and Death… It seems to be a natural counter to heavenly tribulations.”
He stroked his chin. “Or is it that the death arts were created precisely for these types of circumstances?”
He quickly ran through all of the ones he knew.
“Since I’m a Nihil World Sovereign now, that means my bean soldiers…” He shuddered and cut off that train of thought. He could summon thirty-six Nihil World Sovereign bean soldiers at any given time! That was an absolutely horrific force in the fourth realm!
After he fully absorbed the black lightning, the charred Thunderstruck Wood reverted back to a piece of withered wood. It seemed perfectly ordinary, but Lu Yun knew that it was a seed—a seed for the real Karmic Tree!
He put the wood away in the Tome of Life and Death and used the treasure’s strength to turn the wood wholly into his.
“Young man, do you know that you’ve attracted misfortune?” A deeply resonant voice echoed from all sides and traveled into Lu Yun’s ears.
He whipped around and saw one huge eye looking unblinkingly at himself. Lu Yun was currently bigger than Dragonmountain Clime, to say nothing of the Hongmeng! The Hongmeng was now truly a speck of dust in his eyes. Yet he still couldn’t see the full body of the being behind him??
He only saw a large eye a hundred times bigger than his body!
He shot away for an indeterminable distance as fast as he turned around, finally seeing the complete entity after he had no idea how far he’d traveled. It was a gigantic giant, but he was encased in a titanic piece of ice. From the distance, it looked like a huge iceberg floating in the void.
“What… who are you?” Lu Yun shouted.
