Di Yin didn’t possess major ambition—all of his attention was focused on revitalizing the Di Clan and bringing back this once glorious faction, the one who’d ruled the original Hongmeng, to the Boundless Planes.
But his goal obstructed too many people and at the same time, too many blocked his path, including Lu Yun.
Lu Yun had guessed this might be the outcome before they entered the Tomb of the Hallowed Emperor, but he hadn’t been able to do anything different then. And now, he couldn’t express any weakness whatsoever.
He’d also guessed that Di Yin would first set his sights on his previous benefactor once he came into his own. Lu Yun’s easy control of the Imperial Seal had undoubtedly ignited Di Yin’s desire to kill him. However, his karmic relationship still existed with Lu Yun at that time. To kill him would be the height of ingratitude—even the nebulous emperor of the original Hongmeng wouldn’t forgive him if he’d done so.
……
Di Yan didn’t reject Lu Yun’s demand. He gestured invitingly and led the trio into the vast Eastern Cluster.
Though the cluster was enveloped by the tomb’s orders, it hadn’t fully transformed into the Tomb of the Hallowed Emperor yet. It was still a plane cluster, but it wasn’t far from becoming a real tomb.
“Where is your primary body?” Lu Yun suddenly asked as they traveled.
“Buried in the tomb to raise my strength,” Di Yan answered frankly. He was still grateful to Lu Yun as, if it hadn’t been for the latter, the Dragonmountain family would've perished a long time ago. “Honorable world sovereign, my clan’s strength is far greater than what it was before and my father views you with enmity…”
“That’s enough, you don’t need to speak on.” Lu Yun waved him off. “When your father let us go last time, that was the last of our karmic relationship. Whether we meet as friends or enemies this time is up to him.”
Di Yan fell silent.
The Broken Primeval Plane was now a bonafide tomb. The Tomb of the Hallowed Emperor stood at its center and was the source of burial laws floating through the land. They slowly assimilated the Eastern Cluster and transformed its denizens into inhabitants of the tomb.
Although Lu Yun was headed to far off Ice instead of the Broken Primeval Plane, his heart hardened the further in they traveled. Killing intent wafted from him and the other two glowered as well. They hadn’t thought that Di Yin would dare turn an entire plane cluster into a tomb!
Di Yan could sense their killing intent, but there was nothing for it. His father had suffered endless humiliation for countless eons, even to the point of almost sacrificing his life just so the family could live on. Revitalizing the once royal clan of the realm had been his dearest wish.
Now that he’d obtained the ancestor’s power, his bottled up feelings were released in full. However, his mindset had been warped to the point of viewing everything in the fourth realm as his enemy.
Thus, he would turn everyone in the Eastern Cluster who was not of the Di Clan into dead spirits.
The Fog, Corpse, and Shadow Sovereigns had yet to fully resurrect. They couldn’t leave the tomb, which was why Di Yin thought of irradiating the entire cluster with the tomb’s rules so that it would become his territory.
He didn’t care about the orders of the fourth realm or the Central Hongmeng. He had eyes only for his clan. If he could sacrifice even his own life for the Di Clan, what were other lives worth to him?
“Where is the overlord of Ice?”
When they reached Ice, the overlord was nowhere to be seen. Everything that’d once inhabited Ice and its neighbor Fire was gone. Only a lonely Hongmeng hung by itself in the plane of Fire.
Di Yan remained silent.
Puff!
Lu Yun reached out and popped Di Yan’s replica with a squeeze. This was an indication of his sentiments and an official declaration of hostilities with all of the Di Clan in the Hongmeng.
“Should we go to the Broken Primeval Plane?” asked Jian Juexian as he scanned the cluster blanketed by the tomb’s rules.
“Yes,” Lu Yun nodded. “If Di Yin doesn’t give me an explanation, I’ll raze the Di Clan out of existence!”
He still had a hidden ace up his sleeve that he’d wanted to save for the Luminaries. Who would’ve thought that Di Yin would get up to trouble before Lu Yun ran into them?
“There’s no need for you to travel further. Let us settle all grudges and hatred here.”
An endless horde of corpses suddenly appeared in the void. They were the original inhabitants of the Eastern Cluster that’d been affected by the tomb’s rules—they were all zombies now. There were World Manifests and Void World Kings among them, and even two Nihil World Sovereign from other clusters.
They were all under the Corpse Sovereign’s control.
The Corpse Sovereign cultivated the great dao of zombies. He’d even changed his life form into a zombie and forever remained a zombie. Though he was now dead, it didn’t matter to him. What was the difference between a living and dead corpse?
The plane of Ice was immediately filled with endless zombies. They were corpses that the sovereign had refined with his great dao, making them more terrifying than regular zombies. All of them screamed at the same time, making it impossible for Lu Yun and Jian Juexian to determine who was the real Corpse Sovereign.
“Di Yin, it looks like there’s nothing to talk about between you and I.” Lu Yun remained calm and coolly addressed the vast tide of zombies.
“There could have been, but you became my clan’s enemy the second you touched the Imperial Seal—my ancestor’s only inheritance,” Di Yin’s voice traveled from another direction. He didn’t seem inclined to show himself. He knew that Lu Yun intended to kill him, and that he’d be the first target if he dared materialize.
“Kill him and don’t bother leaving his corpse behind. Destroy everything about him,” his voice came again.
“Roar!!” the zombies howled in unison and shuffled out of their random positions into a strange formation. The great dao of zombies surged forward as they charged the trio like the floodwaters.
Though the three were Nihil World Sovereigns, they still felt pressure from the bizarre formation. As the weakest among them, Brightheart’s skin fractured from the pressure.
Bam!
Lu Yun reached out and smashed a mammoth item into the void next to him. It clanged into the air with a muffled thud as a cloud of eerie black fog wafted from it.
It was an enormous coffin that was gray all over and roughly forty-five thousand kilometers tall, the first poisonous tumor that he’d removed from the tomb. He’d kept it in his inner world and fixed the ugly fracture on it, bringing it out for the corpse formation. This was the hidden ace that he’d wanted to save for the Luminaries!
