Lu Yun deployed the Boundless Step as soon as he captured the Spacetime World King and vanished on the spot. The Curse King slowly materialized after his disappearance, his face dark.
“He’s only just pierced through the Hongmeng barrier, so how is he suddenly a Nihil World Sovereign?” Plainly, the Curse King had no idea what Lu Yun had encountered before.
“He can freely travel to and from the Hongmeng! Damn it, he’s hidden the mistress of the realm in his world.” The Curse King gnashed his teeth. “But it doesn’t seem that hard to handle an Immortal King—ah, Immortal Potentate who’s just set foot into Nihil World Sovereign.”
A dangerous sentiment curved his lips. “Those old things who destroyed the original Hongmeng don’t seem to have fully died out. If they learn that a Nihil World Sovereign has emerged from that part of the Hongmeng…”
He vanished in the void.
Lu Yun hadn’t discovered traces of the Curse King before leaving—the latter seemed to have been an image that’d become one with the void.
……
When Lu Yun reappeared, he was where he’d previously met the overlord of Ice. An enormous iceberg hovered in the air and a massive figure sat cross-legged within it.
Lu Yun didn’t fully release his strength this time, but he could still clearly see the figure within. It was a young man with icy-blue hair, his skin as fair as jade and a noble air marking his brows.
His eyes were tightly shut, as if he’d fallen asleep.
“This junior greets the overlord of Ice.” Lu Yun raised a prim cupped fist salute after he placed the Spacetime World King, big-headed doll, Ghost Dragon, and Ghost Phoenix on the ground.
If it wasn’t for the Glacial Fire Hammers and the method of nothing, Mo Yi would’ve revealed herself ahead of time and been gravely injured. The Dao King would die in her stead and she would have to fake her death to hide from the world. Everything would then proceed according to the previous thirty-three cycles before the great devastation.
The big-headed doll, Ghost Dragon, and Ghost Phoenix were at a loss for words. There seemed to be nothing but empty space in front of them. When one placed ants beneath the Himalayas, they saw only the rocks in front of them and not the great mountains towering overhead.
“Send the Spacetime World King away. The karmic repercussions associated with him are too great. You can’t afford to be entangled with him, and neither can I,” the overlord suddenly said.
“What??” Lu Yun’s eyes widened. The overlord had grasped sequence and was one final step away from opening the door to enter the next level. Even if he couldn’t afford to be involved?
Who is the Spacetime World King?
Lu Yun nodded and obeyed the instructions, randomly tossing the world king away into the distance somewhere.
“This junior has come to ask the great overlord to protect these three for me,” Lu Yun gravely raised. “They are too important, they are—”
The overlord’s eyes opened before he finished speaking and he swept a gaze over the big-headed doll.
Crack!
The eternally frozen iceberg fractured with a tiny fissure. To the doll, Ghost Dragon, and Ghost Phoenix, it was as if the void had suddenly split open.
“I know now, you may go,” the overlord rumbled after a long period. “A scheme targeting you has unfolded, you must be careful. If you cannot overcome your enemies, you can use that withered wood.”
He fell silent and closed his eyes again.
Lu Yun nodded, having a few guesses of his own despite the lack of explanation from the overlord. The Spacetime World King was probably one of the Curse King’s. Capturing him would mean the Curse King would be aware, and while Lu Yun wasn’t afraid of any karmic repercussions from the act, he had to consider the overlord’s straits.
He raised another cupped fist salute at the iceberg and left with a turn.
……
Lu Yun did not return to the Hongmeng. Qing Yu, the little fox, Lu Qing, and his two thousand and nine hundred ninety-nine disciples were there. Everything proceeded on the proper path and the situation did not require his attention.
On the contrary, he would attract incredible trouble if he stayed in the realm. Prodigious issues would arise one after another, all having to do with him. Again, he wasn’t afraid of dealing with trouble, but it would affect everyone else around him.
In the thirty-three eras before the great devastation, he’d witnessed plot after plot rise against him and how he’d rammed through all of them with sheer strength. While he didn’t suffer any harm from them and even grew stronger from these trials, those around him were also caught in them. They died, one after another.
Something had changed in this era. A rock thrown into a swift river could cause an imperceptible ripple; it needed to be a massive mountain if it were to change the flow of the entire river. What he needed to do now was to turn himself into the mountain—a mountain so mighty that it was capable of destroying the entire river!
He didn’t go after the eleventh key to the Hongmeng Tower. He wouldn’t even touch the eleven keys of the past on the ten potentates.
He’d made plans for those long ago.
The eleven keys of the future beneath Mount Cloudcover had nursed treasure spirits of their own. When Lu Yun wanted to save the city lord of the lost ancient city from the attacks of the other five, the Dao King had told him not to.
The Dao King had given the key to the sequence of space to Cang Ling, thereby massively enhancing her strength. She could easily handle the city lords under the Curse King’s control, and could do so easily if Lu Yun wasn’t present. If he went to her, that would turn the plot against her into one of absolute death.
Everything stemmed from Lu Yun and Mo Yi. Any place they set foot in would turn into a layout of certain death. Though they could escape from it, anyone else caught in it would die.
Over the past thirty-three great devastations, Lu Yun had only been a life form of the Hongmeng. He had the power to pierce through the realm’s barrier only when he called upon the two great dragons. Once the dragons left him, he was just a powerful potentate struggling in the great cage with nowhere to go.
But now, he could travel through the fourth realm and take in his fill of these Boundless Planes, thereby evading all of the plots that would come for his head.
He had to do so not only for himself, but for those he cared about.
In those thirty-three cycles, he’d seen himself sit at the end of the void, alone until the day he died. And those were only the thirty-three that he’d bothered taking a look at.
Lu Yun was afraid.
Not of death, but of loneliness.
