Light danced in Mo Yi’s eyes as she listened to Lu Yun, but she didn’t offer an opinion of her own. Lu Yun relayed all of his speculations to her in an uninterrupted stream.
She quietly digested them, then said heavily, “Your path now has strayed from what Fuxi laid out for you. You are now your own true person, not someone’s puppet or tool.
“You accomplished that from the very beginning, and now you’ve journeyed through thirty-three reincarnations and seen thirty-three endings. You’ve also seen thirty-three failures, which means all of our paths were wrong.
“What you should do now is follow your own path and proceed according to your own thoughts and plans. Don’t be affected by our interference. We’ve already failed once—or rather, sixty-six times.”
When Lu Yun spoke of failure, he meant it in terms of him failing to make a change in their cycle. For Mo Yi and the others, failure had come first upon the destruction of the original Hongmeng, then again when their plans for Lu Yun failed.
“Perhaps I really should exile this withered wood into time.” Lu Yun’s replica in the Disordered Hell summoned the section of wood to him with a flip of his hand.
It looked very ordinary—just a simple piece of wood.
“In the previous thirty-three attempts, did you obtain the five hells and manifest the Disordered Hell?” Mo Yi quickly asked when something occurred to her.
According to Fuxi’s calculations, Violetgrave would collect the five hellfires and give them to Lu Yun, then have him create the last hell. Those were plans that would take effect after he reached the fourth realm.
To their great surprise, he’d gained the Hadal Hell when he was in the world of immortals and used his own strength to collect the other hells. Though this was the result that Fuxi wanted, it’d come too early.
“No,” Lu Yun shook his head. “Though I obtained the hell of human dao in the previous loops, the others didn’t come into my possession for various reasons. Violetgrave wanted to give me the Nether Hell, but she was the first to die.
“The node in the space over the world of immortals would suddenly explode and swallow her. She would be gone without redemption,” Lu Yun recounted with an unpleasant expression.
He knew that if he traveled to the world of immortals now to find Violetgrave, she would suffer certain disaster. All of it stemmed from him—the withered wood in his hand. She would be fine if he didn’t go. Her death was also out of a desire to protect Lu Yun; no one else was able to kill her otherwise.
“So you’re already halfway there, the Disordered Hell has appeared on your watch.” Mo Yi smiled brilliantly when she saw Lu Yun’s expression.
“Perhaps.” Lu Yun’s replica lifted his head, a motion echoed by his primary body outside. They looked to the endless fourth realm—the unknown spots of the realm.
“What a shame that we’ve never been the main characters.” He’d taken in what he could when he experienced the thirty-three reincarnations. Some existences had been so big that he hadn’t been able to see them, but from what he could see, neither he, Mo Yi, nor anyone else was the main character.
Even if these countless reincarnation cycles were a nefarious scheme, they weren’t one aimed at Lu Yun and those he cared about. They were caught in a plot for someone else and were just minuscule fish in a vast river. Lu Yun was one lucky enough to leap over the surface and glimpse part of the truth.
Fish were fish at the end of the day. They were no dragon or mythical beast in the waters. He and his were pitiful bugs swept up in the riptide. But now, Lu Yun sought to soar to the nine heavens and transform into a dragon! He would stir up this unchanging cycle and struggle free from endless reincarnation!
The cycles seemed endless, but there had to be a beginning and an end. Lu Yun’s future self had wanted to investigate the very beginning, but he’d only been able to see thirty-three repeats.
The road to even earlier resets had been severed.
Lu Yun’s thirty-three future selves had needed to erase their memories, but they hadn’t done so because they’d witnessed some part of the grander plan—it’d just been a hunch that this was the correct course of action.
Lu Yun… was likely a minor character as well. Though this character had traversed space and time to witness the truth of the endless reincarnations, it wouldn’t attract attention from the major players.
“You’re taking all of this easily,” Mo Yi smiled. “I think we should focus on facing our own enemy first. We should revitalize the original Hongmeng, suppress the fourth realm’s orders, and ensure that it won’t remain an empty void.”
“Mmhmm,” Lu Yun nodded. The fourth realm wouldn’t always be an empty void because there would come along a powerhouse to repair it in another tremendous fashion.
But to him now, every step he took was his own future. No matter what those previous worlds had turned into, the one he was in now was a blank canopy of possibilities. Why did he have to wait for a future savior to enter his world?
Recreating the original Hongmeng, or suppressing the fourth realm’s orders through another method, would be his success this time.
……
“We’re finally out of that forsaken place!” Xing Wuliang heaved a loud sigh the second they left the Tomb of the Hallowed Emperor.
The tombstone outside was drenched in blood. Countless beings had died on the premises, but the area was calm again. If it wasn’t for Xing Wuliang’s now grandmaster-level soul force, he would’ve thought that everything that’d happened was just a dream.
“What a pity that we didn’t get anything.” Jian Juexian smacked his lips.
Lu Yun glared at him. “Didn’t get anything?”
“I mean the Brightheart World King!” Jian Juexian corrected without missing a beat.
“A new experience is also quite valuable to me, at least my mental state is one step closer to Nihil World Sovereign,” Brightheart chuckled. “Wuliang’s soul force is in the grandmaster level. Once his mentality reaches the same level, we will have reaped rich rewards from this venture.”
“You really like to see the good in things, huh?” Jian Juexian flicked a glance at Lu Yun. “Are you sure you’re not coming back to Ingress Sword Island with me?”
“If I did, everyone there would have to call me forefather,” Lu Yun responded half jokingly.
“Forget it,” Jian Juexian curled his lip and then raised a cupped fist salute. “Folks, we’ll meet again in the future if we have the chance to.”
He vanished from sight as a streak of sword light.
“Are you really coming back to the Star Sect with me?” Xing Wuliang looked at Lu Yun with a complicated expression. He understood now that Lu Yun was no ordinary person, but the sect accepted all comers when it came to disciples.
“Yes.” Lu Yun smiled. “I’m very interested in the Star Sect’s supplemental methods. The General Principles of the Star Sect Formations and The General Principles of the Star Sect Talismans have only whetted my appetite.”
etvolare's Thoughts
Well, I suppose it's no longer a joke, the Tome of Life and Death really is the real MC!
