“What’s so good about the Star Sect? They’re just a bunch of powerless supplemental masters. The unorthodox paths don’t amount to much in the fourth realm.” The young man used “fourth realm” and not Boundless Planes, thereby confirming his identity from the Hongmeng and that the Ingress Sword Island was in the third realm.
“Because I’m also a powerless supplemental master!” Lu Yun smiled radiantly as a supplemental grandmaster and Void World King dangled from each of his hands.
The young man’s lips quirked into a smile.
“What might I call senior brother?” Lu Yun asked with a smile.
“Jian Juexian,” the young man gave his name.
Lu Yun did a double take. Jian… as in sword. Jue… as in the end of something. Xian… as in immortal? Sword End Immortal? Is he sure he’s not actually called Immortal’s End?
One of Ge Long’s swords was called Immortal’s End.
Lu Yun opened the Spectral Eye and took a very careful look at Jian Juexian. The young man was definitely a real living being and not the manifestation of a treasure or sword spirit. But there was also the shadow of Daoist Ingress on him. Or perhaps Ingress Sword Island was one of the daoist’s legacies?
“Feng Feifan,” Lu Yun responded with his current moniker.
Jian Juexian looked Lu Yun up and down before inclining his head. “Are you really not going to come with me?”
“Nope.” Lu Yun shook his head, the look in his eyes resolute.
“Keep the Metal Virtue Orb. If you ever change your mind, you can use it to enter the island.” Jian Juexian returned to watching people fight over treasures. “What’s the point of obtaining these worldly possessions?”
Lu Yun maintained a death grip on his companions and shook his head gently. “This isn’t them, they can’t control themselves.”
“They wouldn’t lose control if there wasn’t greed in them.” Jian Juexian understood what his new friend meant. “Even the tiniest bit of greed will be infinitely magnified by this world’s layout, becoming raging desire that cannot be slaked. How do we break it?”
“Supplemental masters… have very limited power,” Lu Yun responded hesitantly.
Jian Juexian stared at him.
“Breaking the layout will mean destroying the tomb,” Lu Yun continued. “That means the end of the Hallowed Emperor’s legacy—a Nihil World Sovereign’s legacy!”
“Each Nihil World Sovereign finds their own path. There are hundreds of millions of Nihil World Sovereigns in the fourth realm, and no path has ever been the same as another.” Jian Juexian flicked a sideways glance at Lu Yun.
“…hundreds… of millions…” Lu Yun’s eyes bulged.
“Do you know how big the fourth realm is?” Jian Juexian chortled when he saw Lu Yun’s expression. “This is the intersection of boundless time and space.”
He reached out a hand and made a circle with thumb and slender index finger, raising it into the air. “Do you see this circle?”
Lu Yun nodded.
“You see the fourth realm through this circle. The space inside my fingers contains hundreds upon hundreds of millions of clusters of planes like the Eastern Planes. And this is just one circle.”
Lu Yun didn’t know how big the Eastern Planes cluster was, or how many planes it contained. He’d traveled from Ice to Fire and then the Broken Primeval Plane, crossing about a dozen planes in between. He’d been wandering through a tiny section of the Eastern Planes all along; a dozen planes wasn’t sufficient to be called a cluster.
“There are four hundred and eighty million planes in the Eastern Planes cluster.” Jian Juexian studied Lu Yun’s face intently. “And it’s only a small cluster in the fourth realm. Are a hundred million Nihil World Sovereigns a large sum for the fourth realm?”
“No, not at all.” Lu Yun’s throat was a bit dry. The fourth realm was so big, too big for his comprehension. Despite being a Nihil World Sovereign, he wouldn’t make it out of the circle of fingers even if he spent the rest of his life traveling.
“Too big… the fourth realm is too big,” Jian Juexian murmured to himself. “Even someone who’s activated sequence doesn’t know what this fourth realm is really like.
“So is it a pity?” he asked again. “The Hallowed Emperor is just the hint of a speck of dust in the endless fourth realm. Is it a pity to destroy his legacy?”
“Yes,” Lu Yun answered quickly. “It would be a tremendous pity and sinful waste.”
Jian Juexian’s jaw dropped. Lu Yun didn’t elaborate, instead focusing on everyone else on the scene. Greed and desire intersected in the air, a concoction of negative emotions bubbling to the fore and forming a faintly visible face in the void.
As it sharpened into focus, it became a human face that nobly lorded over everything in its purview.
Lu Yun and Jian Juexian’s hackles went up the moment the face appeared.
“Can you use your full strength?” Lu Yun suddenly asked.
“I can’t,” Jian Juexian responded subconsciously, then looked at Lu Yun with surprise.
“I can.” Lu Yun grinned radiantly. “Take care of these two for me, they’re my ticket to the Star Sect.”
He loosened his grip on Xing Wuliang and Brightheart, pushing them into Jian Juexian, who stared blankly back at him. The two were unconscious.
A pair of ice-blue hammers blazing with flame appeared in Lu Yun’s hands, whereupon he began to grow bigger.
“I’ll suppress this tumor and you destroy it. You’ll be able to use your full strength then,” he called out to Jian Juexian. The young man with a sword was also a Nihil World Sovereign.
The face growing out of the negative emotions was also a poisonous tumor. This was a very sophisticated scheme that could ruin all of the layouts in the tomb. Once it came into being, it could seize control of the tomb and its legacy, creating a new Hallowed Emperor and even Cloud Sovereign.
This strangely brilliant plan made anyone who entered this world lose their reason. The resulting power of greed and desire was also its intended outcome, one that was effective against Nihil World Sovereigns.
This was a layout of certain death, ergo, the Cloud Sovereign would never be its maker. In a land reserved for a legacy, he would leave a ray of hope no matter what, preventing this land from becoming a true zone of death.
The plotter hadn’t counted on two freakish abnormalities wandering it—Lu Yun and Jian Juexian were completely unaffected.
Lu Yun was going to break the layout before it fully materialized and solidified. The Glacial Fire Hammers could deploy their full strength only in the hands of a Nihil World Sovereign, and the method from the overlord of Ice was one that could activate sequence.
The doors to sequence opened with a rumble and the boundless order of time intersected as purple chains. They manifested a world that was solely of time.
The Glacial Fire Hammers and method of nothing deployed at the same time, making room for the purple chains to extend from the world and churn toward the sharpening face.
Jian Juexian reeled with disbelief.
