Chapter 1847: Dog of War
Lu Yun inwardly cursed himself for being an absolute moron. He’d invested a great deal of resources to refine the great axes, which was why he hadn’t thrown them away or destroyed them when he gave up the disguise of the muscular man.
Well then, hello trouble.
He remained coolly collected and decided to bring the axes back out. He struck a pose, as if waiting for the crowd to rush him.
No one actually suspected that Zhu Lingyan was the enigma stone thief. Shapeshifting combat arts could change one’s shape, but their use was made obvious by the ripples they exuded. The shapeshifting arts were a minor dao in the chief worlds, used only to conceal one’s original appearance.
But whether it was the brute from earlier or Zhu Lingyan now, there were no ripples of shapeshifting arts on either of them. Thus, the crowd was more willing to believe that Zhu Lingyan and the oaf were working together.
The truth was unnecessary sometimes. All that was needed was a goal and an excuse. The goal was the empyrean crystal and the excuse was that the disciple of a supreme was a co-conspirator of the enigma stone thief!
The spatial tide was in full force and a chaotic melee about to break out. If Zhu Lingyan died in the madness, the Myriad Spirit Supreme wouldn’t be able to say anything or take revenge. If he did, other supremes would take him to task for it.
Greed and malevolence targeting Lu Yun rose and circulated around him. However, the spatial tide surged at this moment. Numerous blue dots of light glowed in the black dandelion and vigorously shot in every direction.
They pierced through a number of cultivators that couldn’t react in time. Heavy wounds were the best outcome and outright death the worst. Even more people came back with newfound treasures from the light.
Although their gains weren’t as marvelous as the empyrean crystal, they weren’t far off. Some grabbed powerful natural resources that could reforge a cultivator’s foundation and grant them the strength to reach for thirty-one levels.
This seemed to be an opening act… an opening act to a bloody slaughter.
Cultivators united as one against a common enemy abruptly turned on each other in fierce battle. No one knew who struck the first blow, but a rhythm of violence swiftly occupied the atmosphere.
Lu Yun’s eyes were also bloodshot and a savage impulse rose from his heart, nearly setting his heart afire.
“What the heck?!” he gasped and quickly called upon the power of the Tome of Life and Death to suppress the uncanny wave of emotion.
Arf!
Arf!
Arf!
The dog’s barking grew so loud that it pounded the assembly’s ears like a drum. Not only did it stimulate their hearing, but it also spoke to their hearts. Everyone’s emotions were goaded by the dog’s barking. It magnified the tiniest bit of greed into unquenchable lust that could not be slaked.
Lu Yun was reminded of Yun Zhongzi and how the man had set up a similar layout in the Tomb of the Hallowed Emperor. He’d stoked the flames of people’s greed and drove them to lose themselves in a world of imaginary treasure. Anyone caught in the layout forgot who they were and killed everyone in sight, perceiving them to be competitors for the same treasures.
Even Lu Yun was having difficulties holding on. The strange barking pierced through the power of reincarnation from the Tome of Life and Death and drummed into his mind.
“Sir!” the demon of immortal dao suddenly spoke up from the inner world. He was full of confusion and bafflement. “Where are you? Why do I sense myself?”
“Sense… yourself? What do you mean?!” Lu Yun grit his teeth. He’d turned himself into a dust particle to suppress the greed and bloodlust brewing in his heart, letting the void carry him to where it would.
“I mean, me! I think I see myself! Arf!” Black light bloomed from the demon’s body and he transformed into a bulky black dog, lifting his head to howl at the sky. “I see myself through the river of time. I see myself!”
He barked thunderously and ran around wildly, trying to break through the world wall of the Tome of Life and Death!
The barking outside could filter into the world inside the book and affect the demon of immortal dao. The demon’s true form was a dog!
Having reverted to his primary body, he was a black dog as stocky as a cow and identical to the one present in the ruins.
The demon was going crazy. He couldn’t break through the world inside the Tome of Life and Death, so he jumped up and down and flung himself around, destroying everything he’d ever created. Only the Imperial Seal remained intact and hovering in the air.
The seal remained still and unaffected by the barking, but Lu Yun suddenly grasped something himself. The demon of immortal dao wasn’t subordinate to the god of Mount Tai. He probably came from the Firmament Prison along with the seal. When the mountain god gained the Imperial Seal, he discovered the demon inside and modified him to become the reincarnation guardian in the god’s stead.
Meanwhile, the image of a black dog that’d appeared with the spatial tide was the demon of immortal dao—or rather, his past self.
This spatial tide—a spacetime tide, to be more exact—originated from a certain point of time in the past. The so-called phenomenon were things that once existed in the past being reflected through the tide. Perhaps they’d long disappeared from existence, but the ever repeating tide preserved their image, manifesting it again and again.
The phenomenon that appeared this time was the primary body of the demon of immortal dao!
Lu Yun furiously controlled his raging bloodlust and greed, forcefully operating formula dao to analyze the demon in front of him.
It went very smoothly.
With the Imperial Seal and demon as the medium, Lu Yun determined everything about the big black dog. The wall of karma around the Firmament Prison had disappeared.
“A dog of war?” Lu Yun’s eyes narrowed.
A dog of war’s barks echoed like thunder to boost morale. In the era of the heavenly court, these dogs were the battle drums of the army. Back then, they’d barked with another sound other than the typical dog bark. While this one’s bark still reverberated in the ears, it’d returned to its origins through the ebbs and flows of the tides.
Lu Yun’s heartbeat raced at the same frequency as the dog barking and he was no longer able to control his impulse to kill.
A variety of phenomena appeared in the spacetime tide, usually of powerhouses in the primordial times or their combat arts. The appearance of a dog of war was a first.
