Chapter 1784: Not Willingly
“Kekeke, you’re mine now!” A weird cackling sounded in Lu Yun’s ears and a plethora of random thoughts bounced into existence. All sorts of negative emotions swirled and an inexplicable fire rose from his heart.
“What is it?” Busy absorbing energy from the darkness, the Demonic Vine jumped with shock. Violetgrave hastily blocked her hand when she reached out to touch Lu Yun.
“There’s two ghosts hiding in the shadows, waiting to ambush Lu Yun. He purposefully relaxed his guard to lure them out.” Holding firmly onto the girl’s hand, Violetgrave backed both of them away.
The young man remained sitting cross-legged in the void, gray flames glowing out of his body. They enveloped the space around Lu Yun and slowly floated upward, forming a strange female face. She should’ve possessed beauty that could capitulate cities, but all she retained now was eeriness and unnaturalness. Her fire cast a gray radiance on the pure black of the center of the Dao Flower.
“There’s only one of me, but two of you. How will you split me up?” Lu Yun opened his eyes with a hint of amusement.
“Two?” The ghostly face paused as a figure walked out of the void. The newcomer was a tall and slender man with long hair flowing past his shoulders. In a similar vein, his face that should’ve been undeniably handsome was nothing but a bloodless, stark white.
He was a ghost, whereas the woman attached to Lu Yun was a yin spirit. These two were the origin of the ghost race and yin spirits, two of the original tomb owners buried in the tombs of hell. They’d completely fallen to death, their ethereal and corporeal soul parts separating into ghosts and yin spirits. Only a tiny bit of their core essence remained to become the kings of their new creations.
Lu Yun refining the land of darkness alerted them—they’d been waiting for this moment. This was when they’d use Lu Yun’s body to come back to life.
“Are you trying to fight me for this body?!” the woman rasped with violent threat.
The man shook his head, then nodded. “You can have his body, I want his soul.”
“Deal!” the woman snickered as gray flames burned even more hotly on Lu Yun, trying to melt his flesh.
Violetgrave stopped the Demonic Vine again when she wanted to act.
“If you scare these two off, they’ll become bigger threats in the future. Lu Yun will have to be on constant guard against them. Therefore, we need to pull them up by the roots right now. Otherwise, they’ll cause issues for us again and again like the Curse King,” she admonished.
“The Curse King is a good man!” the vine grumbled softly. “He took care of a lot of problems for us.”
“That’s Chu Xingran, not the Curse King.” Violetgrave rubbed her forehead. Chu Xingran had inherited the Curse King’s destiny; while he’d been able to undertake some of his own preparations, he was unable to shake off his fate at large.
“Hush!” She suddenly clapped her hand over the vine’s mouth. Both of them vanished from the flower at the same time.
A third existence was on the scene.
A ghostly face that laughed and cried at the same time snapped jarringly into view over Lu Yun’s head. It opened its mouth and bit down on the woman’s face, sucking in fiercely to swallow even the gray flames she’d summoned.
“Your turn.” After he devoured the woman, the ghost ancestor stepped forward to sneer at the tall man. “Since my old friends are dead, you lingering pieces of obsession can disperse as well.”
He split himself into thousands of akasha ghost-like faces before the man could respond. They latched onto the limber ghost king at the same time and nibbled away at him.
Lu Yun’s eyebrows rose as he watched the mighty ghost ancestor wreak havoc on their enemies.
“So Moran Dongning subdued the ghost ancestor a long time ago. Whether it’s the akasha ghosts or ghost ancestor, it only appears on the surface that they’re formed from the resentment of my future self. In actuality, they’re all inspired by the Time Guard mask.” Lu Yun shook his head gently. The ghost ancestor had appeared in the Land of Reincarnation probably because Moran Dongning had beaten him into the chaos long ago. He first turned into a joke for others, was then captured by Lu Yun, and finally turned into what he was now.
The basis for Moran Dongning overcoming the ghost ancestor was the capabilities of her mask. Meanwhile, the basis for Lu Yun defeating the ghost ancestor was the Tome of Life and Death. The ghost ancestor’s name was now written in the treasure, so no matter who he’d been before, he was only the ghost ancestor now.
The ghostly face gnawed at the man for an indeterminate period of time. When the ghost ancestor slowly came to a halt, the terrifying leaders of the ghost race and yin spirits were no more. No one else could manage this feat other than the ghost ancestor. If Lu Yun used hellfire against them, they would simply be reborn in another patch of the unknown expanses. Such had been the conclusion that formula dao showed him.
“Master.” The ghost ancestor took human form and knelt on a single knee. “They will not trouble you again.”
“Were they your friends in the past?”
“They were my family.” A deep trace of sorrow flashed through the young man’s handsome face. “We weren’t willingly buried here. Someone killed us and put us here—we were blood relations.”
Lu Yun’s heart spasmed painfully. As he thought, the original tomb owners weren’t voluntarily buried in their modified tombs! All of the problems and disquiet had been the result of not finding peace or rest in death. Not everyone was like Leize’s family, willing to sacrifice themselves so they could help the natives create a world of sequence.
“I just ate my older brother and sister,” the ghost ancestor sighed. “They were both already dead and what remained was their resentment and obsession. By absorbing them into my body, at least they can find some peace.”
“I see,” Lu Yun nodded. “You may go, I grant you your freedom. You can go anywhere you’d like, and I’ll erase your name from the Tome of Life and Death if you wish.”
“No,” the ghost ancestor shook his head. “Having my name in that treasure is an opportunity I can only hope for…”
“Then go wherever you’d like. I can tell that your heart is not in this land.” Lu Yun waved him off, the scene of Di Yin setting foot onto the Bridge of Forgetfulness coming to mind. The same kind of bleak heartbreak was present in both of them, emotions that could not be described with words.
The ghost ancestor and his kin hadn’t died natural deaths. Perhaps the rest of their family and loved ones were all buried there as well, long since consigned to oblivion.
……
Five hundred years was neither a long period of time, nor was it a short one. Seas changed into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into the seas on Earth. Fundamental changes rocked the planet numerous times. While Earthlings were firmly on the path of cultivation, they were unable to fully acclimate to being cultivators or the life of immortals.
Lu Qingtian set foot on the path of cultivation and made his way to golden immortality. Lu Yun still avoided his master, an attitude that was echoed by Lu Qingtian. He even refused contact with any of Lu Yun’s people and refused to learn anything having to do with his disciple. After he ascended to golden immortality, he understood the cause and effect of everything and felt only guilt toward Lu Yun.
At the same time, he knew that the young man felt guilty toward him, so it wouldn’t be a good thing if the two met. He hid his name and identity, living quietly on Earth for five hundred years.
The land of darkness disappeared after these years, replaced by a vast emptiness. It contained order, rules, and laws, but there were no planets or stars. The large emptiness separated the primary and secondary worlds.
Lu Yun’s Disordered Hell reached great perfection after devouring the entire land of darkness. Its residents had slowly matured during this time and their natures fully settled down. They all recognized Lu Yun as their master and no longer harbored any ulterior motives.
etvolare’s Thoughts
This weirdness with his master is going to be an issue at some point, isn’t it?
I feel bad for the ghost ancestor. Having to end your own family is always a heavy thing, whether for friend or foe.
