“Remember, dig a tunnel that’s only two meters wide. You just need to make enough room for safe passage for one person at a time!” Lu Yun reminded solemnly.
Bai Zhaoju nodded and waved a hand, sending his sword to where the human was pointing in a burst of light. Brilliantly flashing across the air, it quickly opened another passageway.
Whoosh!
A ball of blackish-red flames burst out of the new tunnel.
“That’s right, the real tomb is below. We need to hurry down there, we won’t make it if we’re too slow!” Lu Yun urged.
Hummm.
However, a bloody light erupted on his body first and a hazy figure barreled out from his figure, darting into the newly opened tunnel before them.
Poised to act, Bai Zhaoju immediately filled the passage in again when the figure rushed into it.
“Let’s go!” Lu Yun yelled.
Bai Zhaoju grabbed Lu Yun and hurtled toward the surface. At the same time, he kept brandishing his sword to collapse the thieves’ tunnel. By the time they returned to the surface, the passageway was entirely gone.
Lu Yun fell to a sitting position on the ground and panted heavily for air.
“Finally managed to get him!” He heaved another long sigh of relief and looked at where his feet rested.
“Who was that?” Bai Zhaoju’s heart also pounded fiercely. That bloody shadow had been too terrifying as it was on the level of a chaos realm powerhouse.
“Luo Houluo,” Lu Yun whispered. “Let’s go, we need to head for that mountain.”
“Lie Shan, I’m going to kill you!!” The earth quaked as Luo Houluo’s roar echoed from underground, full of terror and fuming with rage. That hadn’t been a thieves’ tunnel toward a tomb just now, but an express passage to a horrifying zone of danger.
Bai Zhaoju immediately picked Lu Yun up a meter off the ground and flew toward the mountain not too far in the distance. The ground continued trembling as they traveled—there seemed to be two enormous creatures fighting to the death in the plains. All sorts of lifeforms on the ground scattered and ran for their lives.
“Luo Houluo? That’s one of the most dreadful demons in the great wilderness! How did you manage to provoke him??” Bai Zhaoju shuddered and subconsciously picked up speed. His flying sword exploded in a shower of light and formed a protective silver dome around him. Anything that dared block their way was slashed to pieces by the magnificent sword light.
For some reason, the central zone of Suncrows Plain was in utter disarray. A mere celestial divine like Bai Zhaoju was nothing in the face of this violence.
“Calm down and don’t panic, I’ll share a sword method with you!” A sudden thought struck Lu Yun and he transmitted the Vast Dragon Seaturner, a method he’d invent in the future, into his partner’s mind.
Bai Zhaoju jerked.
“Sword dao! The sword as dao!” Great surprise welled up from his heart.
Sword dao naturally existed in this era as well, but this was a time in which primitive force reigned supreme. Directly manipulating the energy of all beings was the method of choice, and though sword dao was practiced by some, it was infinitely harder to walk the path of sword dao in an age of the unpolished, primitive great dao.
The sword dao of this era was that of primitive sword dao, and wielders deployed mighty primitive energy when they called upon it. After Lu Yun found his way to the path of sword dao, Vast Dragon Seaturner had transformed into a combat art of sword dao. This was also the first sword technique he’d ever invented, his very first foray into sword dao.
Bai Zhaoju had reached celestial divinity before the age of a hundred, marking him to be a stunning genius of his time. Vast Dragon Seaturner was a key that would open the door of sword dao for him, enabling him to set forth on his own path. Lu Yun had no intention of forcing a titan of the human dao era down someone else’s path.
Hummmm.
Sword aura flared from Bai Zhaoju’s body and formed an enormous dragon of sword qi next to him. Scales glistening and claws gleaming, it wrapped around him and Lu Yun, then shot forward with abandon.
Along the way, even celestial divinities stronger than Bai Zhaoju had no other choice but to throw themselves out of the dragon’s path.
In only a dozen breaths, the two made it through countless obstacles and arrived at the foot of the mountain. Constantly exuding an ominous presence, no lifeforms in its vicinity dared approach, so things were relatively calmer here.
“You’re right, this mountain is a huge corpse!” Bai Zhaoju panted heavily—deploying sword dao consumed too much of his internal energy. He had to sit down at this point and briefly meditate to recover.
Lu Yun took advantage of this time to closely observe this titanic corpse. Though it’d been covered up and looked to be a huge mountain, it didn’t fool him. The little fox was fully curled up in Lu Yun’s robes, and he could clearly feel that she was shivering.
“This sword dao is yours, not mine.” Bai Zhaoju opened his eyes after a long moment and exhaled slowly. “But your sword dao has given me a lot of inspiration and illuminated the road ahead. I know how to move forward now, thank you!”
He rose and gave Lu Yun a deep bow.
This was a courtesy that Lu Yun had no qualms accepting. Since he’d passed on sword dao, that made him Bai Zhaoju’s master. No matter how legendary Bai Zhaoju would become in the future or what great feats he’d achieve, Lu Yun was still worthy of this bow.
His sword dao stemmed from Violetgrave’s anyhow, and he’d slowly forged his own way after imitating hers. It was the same process that Bai Zhaoju would now undergo.
“At this rate, I’ll be able to develop my own sword dao in less than ten years. When I reach divine king realm, I’ll be able to grasp my own great dao in the shortest amount of time possible and set foot into the empyrean realm!” Great delight danced in Bai Zhaoju’s eyes.
After the celestial divinity realm came the divine king realm, which was also called the human king realm in the future. These three levels mapped to the final three realms of immortal dao—the supreme pure, jade pure, and grand pure realms.
In this era, empyrean realm came after divine king, and would later be known as the great emperor realm. However, there were no such things as great emperors at the moment. Reaching empyrean realm meant one was generally called a supreme expert of combat arts. One reigned supreme in the great wilderness and commanded all races.
After that realm was the chaos realm, second only to creators and the current mightiest experts in the great wilderness.
If Bai Zhaoju pursued his own sword dao, he would be able to search out his own great dao when he was a divine king and directly set foot into the empyrean realm.
“This one has nothing with which to repay Lie Shan’s boon… please accept my core essence. Though it’s not very useful right now, no matter where you are, you’ll be able to summon me to your side when I reach empyrean realm.” Bai Zhaoju handed a shimmering golden ball of light to Lu Yun with all due ceremony.
At the same time, tremendous confidence flashed through his eyes. The empyrean realm once seemed so unreachable to him. But now, he brimmed with absolute surety that he’d be able to reach it within a hundred years! He would be the youngest empyrean heavyweight ever in the entire history of the great wilderness!
“Then, it would be quite disrespectful to decline.” Lu Yun accepted the core essence. “Let’s head into the tomb then.”
“You can’t!” The little fox suddenly burrowed out and jumped onto his head. “Someone’s guarding it, we can’t go in!”
