“Eh? Corpse Refiners?” Lu Yun started when he saw a few battle zombies furiously throw themselves at the dead spirits and carve out a path in the sky. Apart from the boundless dead spirits, he was the only in the area. Plainly, the Corpse Refiners had come to save him. What a surprising turn of events.
He didn’t have a good impression of this sect. Jiangchen Wushang, Jiangchen Xie, Jin Heyi and other members had all refined living people into zombies. Their transgressions were so severe that they’d once elicited massive punitive expeditions from the rest of the world of immortals.
That matter had been resolved only when the celestial emperor of Truespirit Major passed his throne onto the sect master of the Corpse Refiners.
However, what happened after changed his mind about them. The sect master of the Corpse Refiners and celestial emperor of Truespirit Major had… sacrificed himself to protect Exalted Major.
That was why Lu Yun had agreed to let Yin Jiuying incorporate corpse refining as one of the great daos beneath the immortal dao. The Corpse Refiners was a full illustration of how good and evil existed in people, and not dao.
Now that their disciples rushed to save him, he mentally revised his feelings about the sect once more.
“How dare you travel to the Quiet Realm by yourself?? You court death!” A battle zombie with a stiff expression on its face spoke human language in a girl’s voice. She snapped at Lu Yun, “Follow me!”
The hovering battle zombie spat out dense corpse energy and forced back the dead spirits around them. It then shot toward the continent protected by the boundary while Lu Yun leisurely followed behind.
“Gyak gyak gyaaaak!” A strange cry came from the air before a scarlet yin spirit suddenly materialized and bit down on the battle zombies.
“It’s scarlet bale spirits!” Though the battle zombies in midair didn’t have any expressions on their face, their masters were greatly dismayed.[1]
Scarlet bale spirits were far more terrifying than the black dead spirits or gray yin spirits. They understood the existence of a battle zombie and thus always delivered resounding defeats to the Corpse Refiners. Otherwise, this sect swept through the opposition with ease in the Quiet Realm. They hadn’t thought that they’d run into the dreadful scarlets on a simple rescue mission!
In the ten years since the Ascension Pool was rebuilt, immortals who’d been completely ignorant of dead spirits had slowly built up general knowledge about them after a decade of campaigns.
The weakest among the enemy were the gray yin spirits. The prolonged tides of yin spirits in Nephrite’s Dusk, Azure, Crimson, and Argent Provinces were mostly comprised of these spirits.
One step above them were the dead spirits that were most often mentioned. Black in color and stronger than their gray brethren, they were faster and wielded an infinite supply of death energy. Even immortals with an internal world frequently lost to these dead spirits.
If one couldn’t shake off these dead spirits, it was only a matter of time before the immortal was picked clean.
A further step up were the scarlet bale spirits. These ones seemed to possess some sentience and intelligence as battle zombies ignored by the yin and dead spirits would register to these bale spirits. Not only were the scarlet ones stronger than the previous two, they possessed the ability to control their inferiors.
Aimlessly drifting tides of yin and dead spirits swiftly formed terrifying armies when directed by the scarlets. When directed by an intelligent mind, the spirits swiftly redoubled in awful might. As for even more horrifying existences… no immortal had ever lived to tell the tale, so no one knew much about them.
During the yin spirit tide in Azure Province, Lu Yun had seen gray, black, scarlet, and even a few purple bale spirits. However, he’d been preoccupied with setting up the bronze palace with Wayfarer so they could seal those things outside the world of immortals. Otherwise, he might’ve taken a closer look at them at that time.
Those of the world of immortals felt very lucky that the descent protocol had appeared for them to visit the lower worlds and get to know their enemies. Otherwise, if their first close encounter with dead spirits was during that final encounter in seventy years, half of the world’s immortals would probably die in the first engagement.
……
Surrounded by an enormous entourage of dead spirits, the scarlet bale spirit bit down on one of the battle zombies and ripped its arm off. The dead spirits around it flooded over and devoured the zombie clean.
Within the boundary, the disciple that the zombie had belonged to paled with anguish. Though he was a peerless immortal, his cultivation was concentrated on his battle zombie. With its destruction, more than eighty percent of his battle strength was also gone.
He was just an ordinary disciple and didn’t possess a great formation of corpse refinement or a treasure like the Bag of Corpse Refinement. Who knew when he’d be able to refine another battle zombie?
“Go!” The girl from earlier spoke again. Her battle zombie grabbed Lu Yun’s clothes and threw him at the boundary. With a loud howl, the zombie then charged at the newly materialized scarlet bale spirit.
“All of you, get out of there!” she shouted. “I’ll go kill that scarlet!”
Her gaze was determined and though she wasn’t a city-toppling beauty, a unique bearing marked her movements. She floated in the air and fully concentrated on directing her battle zombie against the enemy.
“Senior sister Luan!” her peers cried out. They didn’t want to give up their personal battle zombies, but they didn’t want to leave one of their own behind either.
“Charge!!” a young man suddenly roared. “We Corpse Refiners retreat and advance as one! We won’t leave senior sister Luan behind!”
Their battle zombies snarled and howled, charging furiously into the unending tide of yin and dead spirits.
“You bastard, what are you still doing there?? Get over here!!” Senior sister Luan yelled angrily when she turned around to see Lu Yun still standing in the air, dumbfounded like he was scared witless.
Weren’t they sacrificing their battle zombies for this person who had nothing to do with them? But this guy was standing there like a block of wood, wasting their efforts!
“You guys… really have a one track mind.” Lu Yun cocked his head in thought. “The formation of heaven and earth is mainstream knowledge in the world of immortals, is it not? So why don’t you etch it into your zombies?”
“Huh?” The Corpse Refiners looked blankly at him.
Etch the formation of heaven and earth into their battle zombies? Then they would have an internal world inside of them and become… as strong as void-ascended immortals!
What the Corpse Refiners used for battle zombies now were the corpses of primordial immortals excavated from ancient tombs, or converted the zombies already present within the tombs. The primordial immortals also possessed formations of heaven and earth. Though that still made them less than contemporary void-ascended immortals, they were close enough.
However, their internal worlds dispersed upon their death.
Recreate the formation of heaven and earth in our battle zombies?
A window onto something new seemed to open in some of the disciples’ minds.
Lu Yun then made his move—a watery ripple flowed out of his hand and slaughtered all of the spirits on the scene.
1. Bale: Evil as a destructive force
