The Hall of Honor was the master of the Fifth Mainland, but not its ruler.
Even they could not rule the Fifth Mainland all on their own.
At this moment, Cang Zhou represented not only his Chaosgod Mountain, but also the Sword Sect, the Lingling clan, and the other major forces of the Innerverse.
After thinking about his response for some time, Lu Yin smiled and said, “Senior, this junior can only say that, to my friends, I will be righteous, but for my enemies, I will leave nothing.”
Cang Zhou’s gaze grew heavier. “Speak clearly, as this old man is rather uncultured.”
“This junior will not take the initiative to provoke anyone. Is this good enough?” Lu Yin said.
Cang Zhou frowned. “Yes.”
Clearly, he was not convinced.
Lu Yin smiled and continued to explain. “The Outerverse only managed to unite in order to resist the Sixth Mainland’s invasion. This junior hoped to protect the Outerverse, and Senior should be aware that I did not alter the Outerverse much. Rather, I simply dealt with those who tried to block my path.
“As for the Innerverse, the Blaze Realm had been an enemy since long ago, and the so-called ‘Purge’ was something plotted by the Blaze Realm. In that case, wouldn’t it have been too cowardly for me to not deal with such an obvious threat?”
“You truly have no intentions for the Innerverse?” Cang Zhou asked.
Lu Yin answered honestly, “Yes, I do.”
Cang Zhou’s brows rose high.
Lu Yin sighed and explained again. “The Outerverse has been given over to the Sixth Mainland, so this junior hopes to find somewhere in the Innerverse for the people of the Outerverse to live.”
Cang Zhou was not surprised by Lu Yin’s response. “The Hall of Honor must already be considering this matter, so there’s no reason for you to be too concerned.”
Lu Yin nodded. “True, but ever since this junior first started on the path of cultivation, many people have tried to stop me or make things difficult for me, especially the Daynight clan. This junior has had to protect myself many times, so please don’t misunderstand me, Senior.”
Cang Zhou felt that Lu Yin’s explanation was a bit weak, but he also could not deny Lu Yin’s words. He was unable to force Lu Yin to admit that he wanted to unite the Innerverse, so what else could the old man say?
Lu Yin’s words had also somewhat reassured Cang Zhou. It was true that the Blaze Realm and the Daynight clan had both been bitter enemies of Lu Yin, and it did make sense to deal with such threats.
Inexplicably, Cang Zhou suddenly laughed. He had realized that he was actually nervous. The child in front of him was just a Hunter, and even if there was a chance of him becoming a Progenitor in the future, that day was too far off. The Innerverse was massive, so how could Lu Yin hope to unify such a large area? Even the Hall of Honor had never succeeded, and the Cosmic Sea and the Neoverse would naturally never allow such a thing to happen.
The more Cang Zhou thought about his fears, the more absurd they appeared to be. Thus, he laughed at himself. His thoughts had been disturbed by Lu Yin winning first place in ZENITH, and even more so by the reactions of Liu Qianjue and the other leaders of the Innerverse. They had all looked down on Lu Yin too much, but it was true that he was still a child.
Lu Yin looked up, his eyes bright and his smile honest. Cang Zhou suddenly said, “I did ask one question that you didn’t answer: what do you want from this universe?”
Lu Yin thought for a moment, smiled brightly, and then replied, “This junior likes money. The more, the better.”
Cang Zhou was stunned. He had considered many possible different answers, but this one had never even entered his mind. However, he did remember reading a report on Lu Yin that claimed that Lu Yin loved money and had an insatiable greed. Could it be true? Was this the way to woo him?
Lu Yin raised his head as he thought some more. “I remember that Starsibyl once asked this junior the question, ‘What is the path to strength?”
Cang Zhou’s eyes lit up. He had also been asked this question in the past, as there had been many generations of Starsibyls. Upon hearing Lu Yin’s statement, Cang Zhou grew very curious. “What was your answer?”
Lu Yin smiled and replied, “One can become strong by earning more money. That was my answer at the time.”
Cang Zhou pursed his lips, clearly caught off guard.
When Starsibyl had asked Lu Yin her question, other than the two of them, only Hai Dashao and the Sea King had heard Lu Yin’s answer.
At that time, Hai Dashao had been embarrassed by Lu Yin’s response, so he had not said anything about it to anyone. As for the Sea King, he had naturally kept the matter to himself. Thus, Lu Yin’s words had never leaked out.
Cang Zhou felt that something was strange, and there was a different look in his eyes as he observed Lu Yin.
In the past, this child had confronted and threatened a group of the leaders of the Innerverse’s top powers to the point where they had been forced to temporarily suspend the Purge. At that time, Cang Zhou had greatly admired Lu Yin. That conversation had also been the greatest source of Lu Yin’s unease after ZENITH, as it had actually prompted this entire conversation. However, how was Cang Zhou supposed to rectify the discrepancy between the domineering Lu Yin that he had met before and this money grubber before him?
How could the dignified master of Chaosgod Mountain be associated with mere money?
Although the Purge had been intended to break up the Great Eastern Alliance so that the Innerverse could resume profiting off of the Outerverse, and Chaosgod Mountain would naturally receive a portion of those profits, Cang Zhou had never lacked for resources. After all, he had never been personally involved with the finances, but at this moment, he was actually having a conversation with a junior about money. After all, Lu Yin was a child whom Cang Zhou had been about to offer a gift to.
Cang Zhou was left completely speechless.
“Cough, this old man has something that I need to do, so I’ll head out first,” Cang Zhou said awkwardly. It was clear that he did not know how to react to Lu Yin.
Lu Yin bade his farewells. “Take care, Senior.”
Cang Zhou left, and Lu Yin stared at the old man’s back. The smile on Lu Yin’s face gradually disappeared. Although he had secured first place at ZENITH, making the top powers of the Innerverse too scared to act out against the Great Eastern Alliance, it was impossible for Lu Yin to push any further. After all, anything more would intrude on the Innerverse’s territory.
If Lu Yin’s Great Eastern Alliance pushed any further, he would be targeted by the entire Innerverse, as well as the Cosmic Sea, the Neoverse, and even the Sixth Mainland.
Most of the people from the Great Eastern Alliance had already left now, and only Wendy Yushan and a few other people stayed behind to follow Lu Yin back to the Blaze Realm.
This was Wendy Yushan’s first time actually visiting the Blaze Realm.
When Lu Yin boarded the spacecraft, Ku Wei hurriedly offered his congratulations. “Seventh Bro, you’re just too powerful! You’re invincible! Seventh Bro is invincible. Invincible!”
Lu Yin casually pulled away, as he did not have the energy to deal with Ku Wei at the moment.
As Lu Yin continued forward, Dwayne Daynight slowly greeted him. “Congratulations, Alliance Leader.”
Lu Yin nodded and then looked at Wendy Yushan and Zhuo Daynight, but neither of the two women had much to say.
Lu Yin felt that the atmosphere had turned slightly awkward.
“Seventh Bro, just now, there was some guy called Wu Da who wanted to interview you, but I just kicked him out. Who the hell does he think he is? A mere Explorer wants to interview Seventh Bro? How ridiculous!” As Lu Yin’s loyal follower and official sycophant, Ku Wei immediately felt the need to show his usefulness.
“Also, there was someone else called Zi Jing who called, but I drove her away as well,” Ku Wei continued to brag.
Lu Yin was stunned for a moment, and then he focused cold and angry eyes onto Ku Wei.
Ku Wei instantly panicked. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Zi Jing is the boss of CyNet,” Lu Yin casually explained.
Ku Wei’s mouth dropped open. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Where is she?” Lu Yin already had a headache, but he really wanted to work with CyNet.
Ku Wei’s mouth twitched. “We should just go. Before kicking her out, I told her that if Seventh Bro was free in the future, you’d go see her at her place.”
Lu Yin felt helpless. “Don’t casually offend so many people in the future, or else I’ll keep you chained up on Zenyu Star.”
Ku Wei immediately promised to behave in the future.
Everyone then left, as Lu Yin wanted to visit Xia Luo and some others.
“Where’s the betting money? How did things go? Did you already get the payout?” Lu Yin still remembered the 100 million star essence that he had bet on him entering the top three of ZENITH. This was a very important subject to him.
As soon as he heard Lu Yin’s question, Ku Wei’s face turned ugly. “About that, the bookkeeper can’t be reached.”
Lu Yin’s eyebrows shot up. “What did you just say? Why not? They’re a huge bookkeeper with countless clients. Everyone had to have been watching them, so how did they manage to get away?”
Ku Wei explained, “Everyone left behind was left to die. They’ve already been questioned, but they don’t know anything, and there’s no money left despite how big the bookkeeper was.”
As he spoke, Ku Wei felt increasingly uneasy.
They had just lost 100 million star essence. No, it was actually a billion. That was a massive amount even for a superpower like the Seven Courts.
Lu Yin’s face turned cold and terrifying.
Ku Wei became even more frightened. “Seven- Seventh Bro, are you alright?”
Lu Yin’s eyes were filled with a cold murderous light. They expected him to just walk away from a loss of a billion star essence? How could he accept that? Fortunately, Lu Yin had others supporting him, and although he was not sure how much he would be able to recover, he would definitely track down this bookkeeper. No matter who it was, they would not be able to flee from him.
Lu Yin was fully confident that, even if the power behind the bookkeeper was one of the Hall of Honor’s overseers like Bu Laoweng, Lu Yin would be able to force them to cough up his money. He might even make them double what they owed him.
The vessel was headed for the Blaze Realm. ZENITH had finished, and Lu Yin had become a legend.
He had defeated all of the other finalists on his own after enduring countless attacks, numerous secret techniques and combat skills. In the end, he had won. There was not even a question as to whether or not Lu Yin deserved his victory, and ZENITH would become an event that would be remembered and relived for countless years.
***
In a spacecraft filled with all kinds of equipment, everybody aboard the vessel was busy, and there were numerous screens playing videos on a loop. Each and every video was of Lu Yin’s last battle.
“Hurry up! We need to get the jump on everyone else and edit all of Lu Yin’s fights so we can share them on the network first!”
“Hurry up! Everyone else is rushing as well, so we need to hurry.”
Suddenly, the original video of Lu Yin’s final battle disappeared from the screen, and all that was left behind was a code of numbers that everyone was familiar with. This meant that this content had been banned from being posted on the network.
“What’s going on? Where’s the video? Come on, where’s the connection? What’s going on?”
“Brother, it’s not good. The video’s been banned by CyNet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that all of the videos of Lu Yin’s fights have been banned.”
“It’s not just Lu Yin. The content around all of ZENITH’s top ten’s battles has all been banned.”
“Hurry up and make copies of the videos.”
“It’s useless. With CyNet’s abilities, no matter where we post the videos, the moment we connect to the network, all the content will be scrubbed away. There’s no point.”
“Why?”
“What happened?”
…
This same scene reoccurred all across the universe. No matter where they were, as long as they connected to the network, the videos of ZENITH’s top ten would be removed.
These top ten youths represented the future of the entire universe, and it was expected that each one of them would become top powerhouses. Since that was the case, how could videos of their fights be allowed to casually circulate through the network?
This had actually been agreed upon even before the start of ZENITH.
No one wanted to be incessantly researched and studied. Everyone in ZENITH had their own enemies, and who was to say that those enemies would not be able to find weaknesses by studying the videos from ZENITH?
Even Lu Yin was unwilling to be subjected to such intense study, even if his strength was something that was incomprehensible to others.
Lu Yin’s vessel steadily continued on through outer space.
Wendy Yushan checked on Lu Yin’s wound. “It’s fine.”
Lu Yin replied, “I used some medicine to treat the injury after ZENITH ended, and quite a bit of time has already passed.”
“Well, the energy left in that wound must be very painful,” Wendy Yushan said.
Lu Yin shrugged. He had been cut by the summoned Progenitor Chen’s knife, and the wound had been filled with its energy in the same manner as how Shang Rong had left his own energy in Ling Gong’s wound years ago.
The best way to deal with such residual energy was through lockbreaking, which was how Lu Yin had helped Ling Gong when she had been injured. However, in Lu Yin’s case, Wendy was helping him heal the wound. Her innate gift was healing, and the results were readily apparent.
