One day, the squad of people were resting atop a piece of bark sticking out from the trunk of the Mother Tree. While it was nothing more than bark, it was still large enough to support an entire city.
Lu Yin leaned against the bark as he looked around. From this vantage point, he could see a dark starry sky, and overhead, there was the slope of the huge array base that was also
the most intense battlefield.
“Ah Qi, how many terror ants have you taken care of so far?” Shen Hai asked as he approached Lu Yin with a smile on his face.
Initially, the old man had hated Lu Yin’s carefree attitude, but after spending some time clearing out the terror ants on the trunk, Shen Hai had gradually come to learn that Lu Yin was always prudent with his actions and never behaved recklessly. On top of that, the youth obeyed orders, and possessed an amazing strength. All in all, the old man had completely changed his attitude towards Lu Yin, and there was now even a bit of respect.
Lu Yin smiled. “A million. I still have a long way to go before reaching my quota.”
Shen Hai nodded as he emotionally replied, “True, that’s very far away. With our current speed, we’ll need to spend at least a year to complete our given task, but that’s not too bad. It’s better to be sent here to clear out terror ants than have to fight the monsters on the battlefield. When I was fighting up there, I watched with my own eyes as an Envoy fought against a corpse king, only to be randomly smashed to pieces by an unknown power.
“We’re much better off here. All we need is time to deal with these terror ants. As long as we don’t run into a large group of corpse kings, we shouldn’t face any real danger.”
Lu Yin replied, “Actually, I feel like we’ve been going quite fast. I wonder how the other squads are doing.”
Shen Hai smiled. “They can’t compare to us. We’ll be able to finish in no more than a year.”
“We come here one batch after another, but I have no idea when these terror ants will be cleared out,” Lu Yin lamented.
Shen Hai helplessly answered, “They’ll never be completely cleaned up. Those monsters keep improving their ways of releasing the bugs. On top of that, there will always be traitors sneaking more ants past the Tree Realm. Honestly, what we’re doing right now is completely pointless. I have no idea what Humility’s Gate is doing.”
Lu Yin fell silent.
Half an hour later, the squad set off once again. This time, they happened to encounter a swarm of terror ants. Terror ants were able to devour spiritual force and domains. Individually, their strength was negligible, but they were always grouped up in a swarm.
The moment the squad saw the terror ant swarm, every single member instantly attacked after setting their communications crystals to record them slaughtering the ants.
Thus far, they had only encountered smaller terror ant swarms. The one that Lu Yin had run into in the Lower Realm with Long Xi had been quite large, at least ten times larger than the swarms that the squad had encountered on the trunk so far. Back then, Lu Yin and Long Xi had been left with no choice but to flee from the ants.
Right after they finished eliminating all of the ants in the swarm, Lu Yin’s expression suddenly changed drastically. Out of habit, his domain was always active in order to help them avoid any nearby people, and he had spread it out across a vast distance in all directions.
He had just detected a large group.
“Run! There’s a large number of corpse kings coming!” Lu Yin shouted fiercely.
Shen Hai was shocked, but he showed no hesitation in ordering the squad to flee in the direction that Lu Yin had indicated.
At the same moment that Lu Yin had sensed the corpse kings, they had also sensed him and his squad. Thus, they immediately gave chase.
While the group of corpse kings was of comparable strength to Lu Yin’s squad, the corpse kings had not exerted themselves while Lu Yin’s group had just finished wiping out a swarm of terror ants. In this situation, the humans were already tired and could not run very far before they were forced to turn around and confront the corpse kings.
Shen Hai immediately engaged a corpse king whose strength was infinitely close to that of an Envoy while the rest of the corpse kings fell upon the other squad members. Lu Yin was forced to reveal his strength, and he attacked with more than ten Vacuum Palms in a row, eliminating a corpse king with each attack. Even Shen Hai was shocked by Lu Yin’s true strength.
The corpse king fighting against Shen Hai turned its scarlet eyes onto Lu Yin and immediately shot past the old man. It raised a hand and punched at Lu Yin, but Lu Yin merely waved a hand and instantly crushed the corpse king’s head, killing it.
The other people in the squad were all horrified, and they stared at Lu Yin in disbelief.
Shen Hai was just as stunned as everyone else. He had never even considered the possibility that Lu Yin might be keeping such a terrifying level of strength hidden. Not to mention, the youth was still just an Enlighter. Shen Hai’s cultivation far surpassed Lu Yin’s.
Half of the corpse king’s body was still intact, so Lu Yin raised a hand to unleash another Vacuum Palm. As he did so, the middle-aged woman in the squad suddenly attacked him from nearby, but Lu Yin lifted his hand and fluidly caught an arrow. It had been a powerful attack, but Lu Yin had easily stopped it, and now, he turned to stare at the middle-aged woman.
The middle-aged woman went pale before turning and trying to flee. However, it was useless. Lu Yin raised a hand and launched an attack that struck the woman’s back, killing her.
Shen Hai shouted, “She’s a traitor! She’s definitely a traitor.”
Lu Yin replied, “And she’s already dead.”
Shen Hai complained, “That’s a pity. You can always turn in a traitor for a great deal of merit points no matter where you are. You shouldn’t have killed her.”
Lu Yin was unconcerned. He had been sent here to capture or execute traitors, and he would still receive credit for his kills.
The last few corpse kings were quickly dealt with, as Lu Yin took action. Besides the middle-aged woman who was already dead, none of the other members of the squad were traitors.
Lu Yin’s Vacuum Palm was too fast, and his domain had enveloped the entire area. Whenever someone was in danger, Lu Yin would always be there to save them with a Vacuum Palm. It could even be said that he had managed to save all of them.
After the battle, everyone looked at Lu Yin in a completely different manner. They could guess that Lu Yin had to be someone with an unimaginable background.
Shen Hai still remembered Lu Yin’s behavior when the squad had first been put together. It was no wonder why the youth had been so relaxed back then. Not only was he powerful in his own right, but he definitely also had very powerful items. It looked like they would have no trouble clearing out the ants to fulfill their quotas.
Lu Yin had revealed his strength, which left the others much more confident in their squad’s ability to fulfill their terror ant quota. However, that was only because they did not know that Lu Yin would be leaving soon.
In the second array base’s headquarters, in Xia Yan’s office, the command token vibrated. The command token was the general’s symbol, but it also let the general communicate with their colonels so that reports could be submitted even during a heated battle.
Xia Yan glanced down, only to be surprised. “Already killed a traitor? His efficiency isn’t too bad.”
With that, he resumed his work.
Several days passed by in the blink of an eye. Shen Hai continued to lead the squad to search out and eliminate terror ants. Even though Lu Yin had revealed his terrifying combat power, he did not make the others feel superfluous, challenge Shen Hai’s command, or even intervene in decisions. Shen Hai became more and more satisfied with the youth, and he could not help but want to introduce his granddaughter to Lu Yin.
Lu Yin felt quite helpless with no other option but to refuse several times. However, Lu Yin was very interested in Shen Hai’s cultivation realm. This was not because the old man was incredibly strong, but rather because he only needed to take one final step to become an Envoy. The problem was, Shen Hai did not dare to attempt that last step.
“I won’t say that I don’t dare to make the attempt, but rather that I am just a bit scared,” Shen Hai admitted.
Lu Yin laughed despite how tragic his words were. “Scared of the stellular tribulation?”
Shen Hai nodded. “Everyone fears the stellular tribulation. Disciples from big families like you are stronger than your peers, but because of that impressive talent, elites like you absorb more star energy and have greater reserves, which means that your stellular tribulations will be far more terrifying. Ordinary cultivators have smaller star energy reserves, so our tribulations are not as bad. Still, we receive fewer resources and are relatively weak.
“The power of the tribulation is directly proportional to one’s star energy reserves, so for stellular tribulations, all are equal regardless of their status.”
Lu Yin asked, “Senior, are you not confident in being able to survive your stellular tribulation?”
Shen Hai nodded in response. “I have no confidence at all. The tribulations do not have a fixed form. Someone once claimed that the true universe has its own awareness and that the stellular tribulations are actually an expression of battles that people have once fought in the true universe. They may have used sword qi, a battle technique, or an innate gift. This essentially means that facing a tribulation is equivalent to fighting against an Envoy, and how can we, as Enlighters, survive such a fight?
“However-” As he spoke, Shen Hai’s voice filled with anticipation. “As long as one survives their stellular tribulation, their lifespan and strength will rise sharply, which is what everyone desires.”
“There might not be a lot of Envoys around, but there will always be at least some who are able to survive their tribulation,” Lu Yin stated.
Shen Hai nodded. “True. A single Envoy may rise out of a hundred Enlighters. That is the generally accepted ratio.”
Lu Yin had not expected Shen Hai to speak so much about the topic due to his fear of the stellular tribulation. “There’s a legend that, many years ago, there was a senior who passed his tribulation, and he did so by opening his mouth and roaring so loudly that he blasted the tribulation away.
“There was another senior who passed his tribulation by waving his hand and willing it away, but I don’t know how that worked.”
“The most shocking legend that I’ve ever heard of is an account that I read about in a certain ancient record. Long ago, an ancient powerhouse attempted to survive his stellular tribulation, but do you know what form his tribulation took?” Shen Hai stared at Lu Yin as he asked this question.
Lu Yin shook his head, though he was very curious.
Shen Hai stated, “It was a person. The tribulation took on the form of a person.”
Lu Yin was stunned. “Tribulations can have humanoid forms?”
Shen Hai nodded as he stared straight ahead. “According to what I read, that particular senior might have been too powerful, making the true universe feel as though there was no attack that could destroy the man. So instead, the true universe simulated ancient powerhouses to fight against that senior, and their battle was earth-shattering. A large region was destroyed, and no one knew how much of the void was shattered. Still, in the end, that senior failed and was taken out by the humanoid stellular tribulation.”
Lu Yin’s gaze turned sharp.
Shen Hai sighed from his various emotions. “That senior was incredibly talented. According to the records, there was a horrifying amount of star energy within his body, and it was at least a hundred times that of what normal cultivators possessed. The true universe was too enraged by the man’s existence, and thus, it strove to eradicate him.”
Lu Yin gulped. A star energy reserve a hundred times that of an average cultivator’s? That was it? Then what about him? Lu Yin had at least two hundred times the amount of star energy as an average cultivator. If this story was true, then how could Lu Yin survive?
The more Lu Yin heard, the greater his panic became. He squinted as he stared at Shen Hai; was this old man trying to intimidate him? Was Shen Hai so scared of his own tribulation that he liked making others afraid so that he would not be alone? That had to be it.
“Unfortunately, a little while ago, an old friend of mine failed his stellular tribulation in Flying Armor Pass. Ah…” Shen Hai sighed as he remembered.
Lu Yin’s eye twitched. “Someone who recently failed a stellular tribulation in Flying Armor Pass? Was that person an old friend of yours?”
Shen Hai was taken aback. “Brother Qi, you saw that as well?”
Lu Yin nodded.
“What a coincidence. I was also there, and I pity his granddaughter.” Shen Hai then looked back at Lu Yin, the old man’s eyes even more emotional than before. “Brother Ah Qi, this old man’s granddaughter is both beautiful and very well-behaved. Let’s talk. I can promise that you’ll struggle to find another woman as virtuous as her. She is simply a model of what makes a good wife and mother.”
Lu Yin pursed his lips. “But I like seductive types.”
Shen Hai choked on his words and stopped talking.
The next day, as the squad searched for more terror ants, they came across a large number of corpses, and there were both ant and humans among the bodies.
“It’s another squad that was sent to the trunk at the same time as us,” someone commented.
Shen Hai’s face twisted as he squatted down to examine the wounds on one of the human corpses. The longer he stared at it, the darker his expression became.
Lu Yin spoke up quietly, “These wounds came from humans.”
“It’s another traitor,” Shen Hai confirmed.
