A faint figure flew out of the horizon and instantly appeared before Lu Yun.
“You’ve come back,” sounded a light, ethereal voice.
Summoned by the voice, the little fox burrowed out of Lu Yun’s robes and looked a bit confusedly at the person in front of them… at this very good looking woman… Her eyes grew bigger and bigger before she finally sank back in.
“I…” Lu Yun opened his mouth and made abortive attempts to speak. He settled for staring wordlessly at the woman’s face.
“Do you think I look a lot like someone?” She wore a layer of white silk that floated around her like moonlight, teasingly obscuring the shapely curves of her body. Exceedingly beautiful, she was as gentle as a ray of soft moonlight.
Lu Yun nodded. “But I don’t believe that you also traveled to the future and became her.”
“Indeed I didn’t. I have always been me, the me you see now.” The woman nodded. “However, Ah Zhi told me what my fate is to be… You told me too, the last time you were here.”
Lu Yun fell silent. He’d guessed who this person was. Changxi, the connate demon god of the Taiyin Star.
Residing on the Taiyin Star, Changxi rarely set foot in the great wilderness. However, many were those who knew that there was such a lady ruling over the Taiyin Star.
“I’ve erased my memories of this place,” Lu Yun said gravely.
“Mm, I guessed you would do so.” Changxi nodded and waved a flying sword that resembled a butterfly into her hand. “This is Diexi. You may use it for now as you have no suitable treasure to call your own.”
A violent tremor ran through Lu Yun’s body.
Diexi!
Indeed, the Changxi before him, or rather her body, would be the Diexi of the future!
He didn’t know what he’d shared with the lady of the Taiyin Star last time he visited, but his heart still churned with pain when he saw the shortsword called Diexi. Sometime in the future, Changxi would become a zombie and return to yang as a zombie king. Would she actually be Diexi’s spirit then, or the shortsword’s spirit, or still possess her own spirit?
Diexi had already arrived at the World Gates before he traveled to the great wilderness. She’d shouldered the duties of protecting them, along with Yueshen, Ruyi, and Violetgrave.
“My deepest thanks!” Lu Yun raised a cupped fist salute to Changxi.
“What for? You will save my life in the future.” Changxi smiled. “I am here on Leizhe’s orders to stand guard over Taiyin Star. I cannot leave, so I can’t help you this time.”
“That’s no matter.” Lu Yun waved a hand. “I can handle my own matters. I’ll be taking my leave then.”
Changxi nodded and slowly faded away. The shortsword known as Diexi transformed into several butterflies that flitted around Lu Yun’s body and brought him into the cosmos. So it turned out that Diexi was a connate treasure that was extraordinarily powerful! That made sense, as she’d slain Zhao Qing with one blow sometime in the future.
……
The void of stars was boundless and the celestial bodies radiant. Lu Yun followed the star map to where his replica was located. However, space was so limitless and incalculable that it’d take him tens of thousands of years at his current pace.
Granted, he wasn’t in a hurry. Escorted by the Diexi shortsword, Lu Yun took in the sights as he strolled along the cosmos.
“I wonder what method Bai Zhaoju is using to get to Taiyi’s corpse… It’s at the center of space and much further away compared to my replica. Wait… these stars don’t seem like stars either.” He suddenly halted mid-stride.
He was very far away from the planet that was the great wilderness and had penetrated deep into space, but he could still glimpse where he’d come from when he turned back, despite being hundreds of millions of kilometers away. Being Changxi’s treasure, Diexi was imbued with her strength and moved at a very fast speed.
He fixed his eyes on a big celestial body in front of him. Yellowish-brown, it appeared the same as its fellows hanging in space, but he adroitly captured some differences with this one.
“This is… a corpse!” Shock flashed through his eyes. “A master expert of combat arts died among the stars and turned into one of them upon death!”
He quickly scanned the premises. There were countless stars like this one in this patch of space alone! Terror jolted his gaze.
What the great wilderness hailed as great masters of combat arts were empyrean realm cultivators, and at least great emperors in his time! Only these kinds of experts grasped a great dao of their own and possessed the right to have their corpses become a star.
“This cosmos… is it one of stars, or a graveyard? These experts wouldn’t have ferried their own corpses into space, so the only possible explanation is that a terrible war once ravaged the void, one so ferocious that countless masters perished.” Lu Yun’s heart skipped a beat. “Does this have something to do with me erasing my memories?”
He shook his head fiercely. The closest sun to him was also formed out of the corpse of a great master, and he was certain that this master had reached the chaos realm when alive.
There were countless suns like that one floating in space.
Lu Yun swallowed hard and took out the golden spirit pearl, placing it on top of his head so that its curtains of blinding radiance would cascade protectively around him.
“Is the night sky of the future also like this?” he murmured to himself.
“It is. The skies of the future world are also comprised of an endless tide of bodies.” A voice suddenly popped out of the pearl—Fuxi.
“So you did come with me.” A look of expected confirmation appeared over Lu Yun’s face.
“I wouldn’t have been able to enter the cosmos if I didn’t go with you.” Fuxi’s body materialized inside the pearl and he stretched, taking the shape of a formation, one that looked like a snake’s body with a human head.
Fuxi was born an empyrean cultivator, but his skills of comprehension were exceedingly strong. He’d observed the movements of the celestial bodies, trajectory of the sun and moon, and cycles of the lakes and mountains to grasp his own methods and break through to the chaos realm.
It was just that he usually presented the side of a good-for-nothing to the world, so there were very few who knew of his real strength. The demon god that’d visited Mount Buzhou to make trouble for him last time had been smacked to death the second he learned of Fuxi’s true strength.
“You set up Great Yi’s tomb and the formation of the four directions. But you find it difficult to enter space?” Lu Yun was taken aback. “Great Yi’s tomb isn’t the only way into the stars, is it…”
Fuxi shook his head. “There are indeed more ways than one, but the safest and most reliable method is through the tomb. The great wilderness has been sealed off and the connate demon gods have surrendered to the realm monsters to become their tools. They are now cancerous tumors preying on the great wilderness, and they must be excised.”
Lu Yun shuddered despite himself. Excise connate demon gods?
He was rather dumbfounded by this crazy notion.
