Chapter 1725: Emperor of the Original Hongmeng
Brief calculations showed Lu Yun that although his jumbo-sized donkey’s hoof could contain the zombie, he would do so at the cost of his own life. Ao Qin had just broken through to eighteen levels of sequence and would die a grisly death if he went. Thus, the best option was to find the dragons and have them send someone.
Just as the trio were about to move, a faint smear of blood suddenly appeared in the void and surrounded them. Not even Ao Qin had the room to resist before the smear of blood took them away.
……
“Don’t move and don’t make a sound!” A tired voice traveled clearly into Lu Yun’s ears. When the bloody cast faded away, a wan young man dressed in purple robes sat in front of him. Chu Xingran and Ao Qin were nowhere to be seen and the jumbo-sized hoof was in the young man’s hand.
“…emperor of the original Hongmeng?” Lu Yun asked curiously.
“How did you guess?” The purple-clad young man blinked, then nodded in confirmation.
So the original emperor was alive after all.
“The two little guys guarding the burial mound over the Hongmeng—Hong and Meng—are they your children?”
“Yes.” The young man nodded again.
The ruins in the Central Hongmeng, the lost ancient city, and the mausoleum among the stars were all remnants from the battle that shattered the original Hongmeng. Hong and Meng guarded the mausoleum since countless heavyweights of the original Hongmeng were buried there.
“Although you’re not dead, you’re as good as dead.” Lu Yun frowned at the young man in front of him.
“Yes, I’ve become a ghost. The Hongmeng is no more and the world of immortals is about to assimilate the Central Hongmeng. It will soon become the eternal world of immortals of the fourth realm. There is no need to mention the title of the original emperor ever again.” The young man shook his head. “Past lives and present are all but a dream. What joy is there in living? What pain is there in dying?”
Lu Yun took a close look at the young man and sneered, “So should I call you Meng Wang from now on?”
The young man’s eyes widened and he nodded mechanically. “How did you guess even that??”
Meng Wang…
The brave hero and brilliant strategist of a hundred thousand years ago, the Immortal Emperor!
After he relinquished his identity and became the luopan’s weapon spirit, Lu Yun had sent his fragmented spirit to the bank of Hell Flowers when the compass was destroyed. There, he could regather his soul and be reborn.
In life, Meng Wang fulfilled the role of a sage in the Dao Academy. His grasp of formula dao was second to only Lu Yun and Qing Yu, placing him above Lu Yun’s fifth disciple—Qi Fengyun. Incidentally, he had the unique talent of keeping such a low profile that others often involuntarily overlooked him.
Lu Yun never imagined that when he next saw Meng Wang, the man would somehow be the original emperor! So the emperor had been in the world of immortals all along and never went to the unknown expanses! He’d traveled to the world of immortals to become the Immortal Emperor!
What’s with these high and mighty people turning themselves into insignificant cogs? Are they so bored that they want to observe the many aspects of life?
“Ah,” Meng Wang chuckled ruefully when he saw disdain creep across Lu Yun’s face. “What other choice did I have? The Curse King would’ve killed me if I didn’t do so, the withered wood was also too horrifying. I was heavily injured and had to enter the cycle of reincarnation in the world of immortals.
“Di Ling brought her clan to the Hongmeng and then to the world of immortals not just to protect the world. They also did so to escort my fragmented spirit to safety and then jointly erased the memory from their minds…
“I lost myself in the world of immortals and repeated the cycles of reincarnation until Fuxi and the others arrived. They helped me rise up and soar to the position of Immortal Emperor. I began to find myself again after encountering you and became that person of the Hongmeng once more.”
As the emperor of the world of immortals, Meng Wang had labored beneath the curse targeting the “emperor” title. He’d used it against the Curse King’s curse to help maintain his true being. Fuxi and the others had known who he was early on, which was why they’d helped him.
“So does this mean that when you took Di Yin and the Imperial Seal away, you didn’t do so from this yang tomb? You did it as a matter of convenience on your way from the world of immortals to the unknown expanses?” Lu Yun’s eyes widened.
Meng Wang nodded. “How would I possibly have so much strength?”
Lu Yun carefully thought through everything. That had indeed been the first time he witnessed the original emperor’s might. Prior to that, he’d only heard of the august personage, but never even seen traces of his existence.
Apart from the Imperial Seal.
Perhaps this character wasn’t as fearsome as previously thought.
Currently, Meng Wang was dead. The eighteen sequence experts had jointly beaten him to death, but he was so strong that he’d preserved his entire soul and become a ghost. They were in a tomb—becoming a ghost was the only way to survive.
“I thought finding you meant finding a backer. It turns out you need my protection instead.” Lu Yun grimaced at the man and tossed a karmic fruit to him. Resurrecting Ao Qin had consumed all of his fruit and goodwill, but since formula dao had matured and Formula Academies thrived throughout the fourth realm, goodwill constantly streamed toward the Karmic Tree.
Meng Wang relaxed slightly when Lu Yun brought out the karmic fruit. He blazed with scintillating golden light after swallowing it and regenerated his physical body. Death receded from him, replaced by life.
For one at his cultivation level, life and death was but the matter of fortuitous opportunity so long as their soul was completely preserved. The karmic fruit that contained boundless virtue and carried the presence of the Tome of Life and Death was that opportunity.
“You’ve accessed nineteen levels of sequence?” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up as he looked at Meng Wang in his current state.
“Mm.” The man nodded. “When I was surrounded, the final moment between life and death helped shatter the last obstacle to that level. I broke through as an immortal ghost.
“You should avoid that zombie, it’s not nineteen levels. It’s twenty levels. The Corpse Refiners are sinister and insidious—those geniuses you killed were meant to be sacrifices. If the summoning formations you destroyed had activated, they would’ve brought a nineteenth level zombie. But since it was the one of death that activated, another one came.”
Lu Yun shuddered involuntarily. “No wonder my calculations kept telling me that Ao Qin would die horribly if he tried with the donkey’s hoof. So what now? Do we just let the Corpse Refiners have the world of sequence?”
He really didn’t want to settle for that. The sect was so uncanny that if they obtained the world of sequence, it would be a disaster for the realms of his home too.
Meng Wang remained silent.
“What, the original emperor isn’t a coward, is he?” Lu Yun sneered.
etvolare’s Thoughts
Damn, the Corpse Refiners are actually pretty smart. I hope they stay that way, it’s nice to have a smart villain.
