Any icy-blue palm imprint struck Lu Yin’s First Sun, and the colors blue and gold intermingled as they tore across the void. After that, the two colors spread out in all directions. The surface of the lake froze over only to quickly thaw once again as the water became quite volatile.
Lu Yin exerted some strength through his hand, and his First Sun exploded, unleashing an unstoppable shockwave that blasted Young Master Changbai away.
The snowflakes that had gathered behind Young Master Changbai’s back continuously melted away, and he was forced 10,000 meters back before he was finally able to completely dissipate the force of Lu Yin’s First Sun. The young man’s face was pale, and he was breathing heavily.
Lu Yin frowned, as the power that this person had demonstrated so far was not as impressive as his rune lines. In fact, Young Master Changbai was quite lacking when compared to White Silkworm. Even though his Skylake Snowpunch was stronger than what Autumnfrost Qing was capable of unleashing, and even though he had been able to withstand Lu Yin’s First Sun, that was only because Lu Yin had not poured all of his star energy into the First Sun. If he had, then Young Master Changbai’s Skylake Snowpunch would not have been able to even delay it for even a second.
Young Master Changbai smiled bitterly. “Sure enough, under normal circumstances, I’m not your match. Although you have not reached the standard of a Realmling yet, you’re not far away. For a Cruiser of the Fifth Mainland to have such strength is shocking—not even the Ten Arbiters could have compared to you when in your realm. I’ve really struck it big this time, being able to meet a genius like you.”
Lu Yin was surprised. “Under normal circumstances?”
Young Master Changbai straightened his body and let out a deep breath. “The Bright Rainbow Realm is in the territory of the Progenitor of Secret Arts’ Brahman Realm. Do you know who the Progenitor of Secret Arts is? They are the Progenitor… of secret techniques.”
After that, the star energy on Young Master Changbai’s body twisted almost as if it was burning, and his face suddenly flushed red as he spat out a mouthful of blood. “Secret technique: Power Transfer.”
With a roar, veins bulged out on Young Master Changbai’s eyes as a terrifying aura surged and spread outwards.
Beneath the two combatants, Cang Mu hurriedly shouted at Lu Yin, “Don’t let him finish using it! That’s the Sixth Mainland’s secret technique, Power Transfer. It burns the user’s blood essence, and in exchange, increases their strength several times over!”
Lu Yin was astonished, and he instinctively launched an attack at Young Master Changbai. However, as a secret technique, it naturally was not easy to disrupt.
Young Master Changbai laughed. “Power Transfer was developed by the Progenitor of Secret Arts, and it can connect one to the strength of the Progenitor of Secret Arts! Some can even summon the Progenitor of Secret Arts to possess them! Although I can’t do that quite yet, I can still raise my strength a bit, like this-” He then raised a hand. “Skylake Snowpunch.”
A giant, icy-blue palm imprint swirled in the sky before slamming down at Lu Yin.
Before the palm had even finished descending, the freezing temperature had already chilled Lu Yin’s limbs to the bone, and its power had more than doubled compared to before.
Lu Yin himself had also comprehended a secret technique, but he seldom bumped into others who also had secret techniques. This was not because there were too few secret techniques, but rather because they were almost non-existent. Secret techniques were able to turn the rotten into the mysterious, and the Power Transfer secret technique did exactly that. This secret technique had forcefully raised Young Master Changbai’s power substantially, and Lu Yin was even forced to rely on Truesight to weaken the power of his attacks.
Young Master Changbai experienced the same sensation as the Fourth Stage Augmenter, and the ice-blue palm was penetrated as Lu Yin’s hand swatted down.
Young Master Changbai was sent flying once again, being pushed 10,000 meters away just like last time. He stared at Lu Yin, flabbergasted. “Was that a secret technique?”
“Weren’t you watching from the side?” Lu Yin barked. He then chased after his opponent as his pupils transformed into runes, weakening Young Master Changbai’s strength once again. Young Master Changbai almost spat out a mouthful of blood; he had been relying on his increase in strength from Power Transfer, but Lu Yin was using Truesight to cripple the youth. Although the increase in strength provided was greater than the amount that Lu Yin removed, Lu Yin had not weakened the overall strength of the attack. Rather, he had concentrated his efforts on just a certain portion of it.
This nauseated Young Master Changbai. Every aspect of his strength had been improved, but a specific portion had been weakened. And coincidentally, it was right where Lu Yin was targeting its attacks. It was useless even if Young Master Changbai’s strength had been improved several times over.
At this time he understood how the Fourth Stage Augmenter had been beaten to the point of spitting out blood.
Even if Power Transfer was able to improve a person’s strength, it was not very useful against this person.
Young Master Changbai was very decisive, and he immediately turned to escape. Since he was unable to beat Lu Yin, he would only be waiting to die if he stuck around.
Lu Yin chased after Young Master Changbai, and they quickly moved further and further away from the lake. At this time, a new battle broke out over the lake.
Two figures simultaneously appeared from the distance. One was determined to kill Elder Redmoon while the other had arrived to help her, and they both arrived at practically the same time.
Fortunately, Elder Redmoon was no weakling. Otherwise, the aftershocks from the battle taking place above the lake would have already claimed her life.
One of the two was another Fourth Stage Augmenter from the Toolcasting family while the other was Yan, a super powerhouse with a power level of 470,000. Yan was not from one of the various great powers of the Innerverse, but rather, was from Shamrock Enterprises. In fact, he was actually the secretary of Shamrock Enterprises’ Innerverse Chairman. His appearance was not a coincidence.
Yan’s innate gift complemented Elder Redmoon’s. According to the original plans, the two would have carried out a massacre of the Sixth Mainland’s transport crew. This was because Yan’s innate gift was fantasy gas.
Unfortunately, this plan had been ruined before it could even begin.
Although the Tong family and Sightless Clan had caused a bunch of cultivators from the Outerverse to suddenly appear and join this great raid to seize back the Innerverse’s resources, the appearance of these people had also disrupted the plans of Starsibyl’s team.
In the distance, the Toolwielder Realmling had been constantly searching for Wendy Yushan, intent on capturing her.
He did not end up finding her, but he did somehow bump into Lan Si.
The Realmlings and Ten Arbiters were natural enemies.
The battle of these two youths shocked all who saw them.
Even further away, countless Innerverse prisoners escaped while being pursued by Sixth Mainland cultivators.
Xi Yue’s face was pale and her clothes were in tatters, making her look quite pathetic. She had been one of the prisoners, but fortunately, she had escaped.
Behind her group, a Sixth Mainland Imprinter who had been standing guard over the prisoners this entire time took action. Nobody could stop the powerhouse, and even Cang Song, who was an elder from Chaosgod Mountain, was severely injured by the Imprinters attacks, his status unknown.
Xi Yue’s gaze revealed her terror, as she did not know if she would be able to escape. If she could not, then she would commit suicide, as that would be better than being sold as a slave. Lan Yue had already done so.
Many others held the same thoughts as Xi Yue. When they had been prisoners, they had not even been able to commit suicide, but then, they had managed to break their chains and flee. Even if they did not escape, they at least had the power to end their own lives now.
The escaped prisoners’ luck was not bad. Even though Starsibyl’s raid team did not have any Envoy-level powerhouses who could stop Imprinters, there were several such powerhouses among the Outerverse cultivators. Elder He appeared, and he blocked the Imprinter.
Lu Yin wanted to eliminate Young Master Changbai, as the youth was an elite genius from the Sixth Mainland, and taking care of one such person meant that there would be one less expert in the future. However, despite Lu Yin’s relentless pursuit, Young Master Changbai was able to use his secret technique, Power Transfer, to raise his speed to extraordinary levels. In the end, Lu Yin was unable to catch up, and he could only turn back helplessly.
Before long, he was drawn to another battle taking place rather close to him.
It was actually a fight between Starsibyl and an Imprinter.
The escort crew transporting the resources back to the Sixth Mainland did not have just one Imprinter among their forces. Starsibyl’s mission was to delay one of the Imprinters. Although her strength was not high enough to allow her to win, with the Starsibyl Sect’s mysterious divination methods, the Imprinter was completely stalled against the young woman.
Lu Yin was astonished, as he had seen one of the Starsibyls fight in the past, during the Tournament of the Strongest when he had still been in the Astral Combat Academy. With the power of divination, that girl had avoided attacks before they were even launched, and she had preemptively attacked empty areas where her opponent would then move to. Back then, Tian Hou had to attack the entire arena to force Starsibyl to admit defeat. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to determine a victor between the two of them, and Tian Hou had admitted it himself.
That was Starsibyl’s strength.
However, that had been the Starsybil attending the Astral Combat Academy, and there was not just one Starsibyl. At this moment, Lu Yin had run into the Starsibyl who was in the same generation as the Ten Arbiters, and she was against an Imprinter. Her divination abilities were effective even against an Imprinter.
Based on the rankings used by the Toolcasting family, the powerhouse who Starsibyl was fighting against was not an Imprinter, but rather a Seventh Stage Augmenter.
At this time, the Seventh Stage Augmenter was feeling rather depressed and sullen. The woman in front of him was like a mouse, and she dodged his attacks time and time again. It would have been fine if that was all that she did, as he could target an entire region with his attacks, which would definitely have resulted in the woman’s death. However, the Augmenter was frustrated because he could not unleash such an attack in this area, as there was a mountain of star essence beneath them.
Star essence was made of star energy, so if he attacked, the gathered star essence would release star energy and explode with a power level that easily surpassed 200,000. In addition, this was not some natural phenomenon. The moment the Augmenter attacked, the star essence would release a power level that surpassed 200,000, and he did not know if he would be erased by the Innerverse’s cosmic phenomenon. Thus, he did not dare to take such a gamble.
Starsibyl had made sure to choose this battlefield before having the confidence to hold back this Imprinter, as not even the Ten Arbiters were guaranteed to be able to stall an Imprinter.
The Ten Arbiters could fight against Imprinters, but that was merely exchanging blows, not true life and death confrontations. Achieving victory was even more impossible.
“Woman, can you only hide?” The Seventh Stage Augmenter was furious.
Starsibyl’s expression remained calm, and she looked at the old man as his hammer fell once again. She had already dodged it in advance, and the hammer merely blasted at where she had been previously standing. A wave rippled out from the hammer, but strangely, the young woman even dodged the ripple. It was not even able to affect her clothes.
“My apologies, Senior, but you can only remain here,” Starsibyl calmly replied.
The Seventh Stage Augmenter wanted to leave, but there were far too many star essence stored here, and it was too valuable. Nobody knew if this woman had brought a super-capacity cosmic ring with her that was able to take away all these star essence.
During all these years of war, this Augmenter had come to understand the Fifth Mainland cultivators quite well. Among them, there were many scheming individuals, and it would actually be fine if they lost the star essence, but he did not want to be fooled and laughed at by others.
Left with little choice, the Seventh Stage Augmenter could only accompany Starsibyl and waste his time in this place.
He had thought that he would waste a great deal of time during their battle, but he suddenly noticed Lu Yin out of the corner of his eyes and grew excited. He gave up on Starsibyl and dashed over towards Lu Yin. “Kid, you dare to come here? Time to die!”
Starsibyl frowned, as someone coming here would just be a hindrance to her. During the planning phase, she had clearly told everyone to keep their distance from this area, but it seemed that this person was from that Outerverse group. As she thought about it, she looked over, only to be rather astonished. It was actually him, that unequaled Limiteer.
This Starsibyl had a deep impression of Lu Yin, all because of Lu Yin’s answer to her question: with money, he could become stronger. This answer had left too deep of an impression on her. On top of that, she had tried to divine this person’s future, but she had not been able to come to any meaningful conclusions.
Out of all of the unequaled Limiteers at that time, Lu Yin had been the one whom she had paid the most attention to.
She had never dreamed that they would bump into each other here.
Starsibyl felt a pang of regret, as this youth would certainly die after drawing the Seventh Stage Augmenter’s attention. Even she could not save Lu Yin, as she was only able to save her own life.
Such a pity. This genius, if allowed to mature, might have been able to overtake the Ten Arbiters in the future.
The Seventh Stage Augmenter was an Imprinter, and once one was targeted by a powerhouse of that level, aside from the Ten Arbiters, only those like Starsibyl, who had divination abilities, would be able to stay alive. Lu Yin was just a mere Cruiser, and even Starsibyl did not believe that he would be able to survive.
Divination was not omnipotent, and its foundation lay in making countless analytical decisions, taking the current circumstances into account, and then choosing the one that had the greatest likelihood of occurring. These circumstances were not simply what normal people could see. Rather, they were more so what normal people could not see, and it involved the domain of mysteries.
However, what was even more mysterious was that, although divination was not omniscient or omnipotent, it could not calculate something that had never been seen before. That unequaled Limiteer from before had already matured to a level that was quickly approaching the Ten Arbiters.
Even Starsibyl could not have expected such a development, let alone the Seventh Stage Augmenter.
