Chapter 2046: Fear
The palm strike that Highsage Grandmaster had used was one of the seven unique battle techniques that Eversky Island possessed. While it was very powerful, it was far from being able to injure a Semi-Progenitor to this extent. In the end, it had been the needle-like weapon that had shattered Wang Si's inner world, and an inner world was to a Semi-Progenitor like what a stellular energy vortex was to an Envoy.
Highsage Grandmaster had not ever expected this needle to prove so powerful, but it had stabbed right through Wang Si's body.
Wang Si had also not expected Highsage Grandmaster to actually be able to locate her inner world so accurately and then shatter it. This precision was the true reason why her wound was so serious.
Ni Huang raced over to Wang Si's side, as did Xia De and Bai Laogui. The three Semi-Progenitors protected their wounded comrade from three different directions while warily staring at Highsage Grandmaster. In particular, they focused on the needle-like weapon in the man’s hand.
There were simply too few power vessels or other treasures that could threaten a Semi-Progenitor, and such items would only be encountered on rare occasions. No one had imagined that Highsage Grandmaster had one.
Wang Si struggled to recover and coughed up blood. She turned to stare at Highsage Grandmaster with a pale face. Resentment filled the old woman’s eyes. "How did you find the location of my inner world?"
Highsage Grandmaster said nothing.
"I found it," Lu Yin interrupted.
Wang Si and other Semi-Progenitors all looked over at the youth in shock. "You did?"
Lu Yin answered in a deep voice, "Old bitch, you never even thought about it, but I found where your inner world was located, and that needle also belongs to me."
"Impossible! How could you be responsible for locating my inner world!" Wang Si answered so quickly that she spat out even more blood. She had lost all face in this instant defeat, and her hatred for Lu Yin had intensified even more than before.
"Have you been watching all of us?" Ni Huang stared at Lu Yin and slowly asked. If Lu Yin had spent his time during each battle staring at a single person, it would be relatively easy to find a flaw in that person. In particular, Envoys instinctively protected their stellular energy vortices, and so it was possible to locate such a weak point.
Lu Yin looked over at Ni Huang. "You are my enemy."
Ni Huang smiled, and when he next spoke, self-mockery and sarcasm could be heard in his voice. "I never thought that we would be toyed with by a junior as young as you after living for as long as we have. We plotted against you, and you did the same to us. From the moment we first stepped foot onto the battlefield together, you’ve been watching us and analyzing our fights so that you could determine the locations of our inner worlds. Unless I’ve guessed incorrectly, you didn’t only find Wang Si’s weakness, but you’ve also seen through the other three of us as well."
Xia De turned to stare at Lu Yin in shock. If Ni Huang’s words were true, then Lu Yin was beyond terrifying. His ability to predict the future had to be absolutely monstrous.
Even Jue Yi suddenly became far more solemn than before.
Lu Yin let out a long breath. "I couldn’t help it. I'm just a weak little Envoy, and my brain is the only thing that I can rely on to compete against experts like you. You came to this Fifth Mainland to kill me, so I naturally need to put in more effort than anyone else if I want to be able to protect myself."
Ni Huang responded with a wry smile. "We’ve been dealing with the threat of Aeternus and have repeatedly been on the verge of death and annihilation, and yet you still had the time to simply watch the four of us?"
Lu Yin remained calm. "Most of the time, I didn’t fight in the battles, as I’m not strong enough to do so."
Bai Laogui spoke up in an icy tone. "Lu bastard, you are beyond despicable!"
Kui Luo shouted back, "This is what’s called combat wisdom. You just wanted to use hostages to force him out so that you can kill him—doesn’t that make you despicable? The methods that you used to deal with the Lu family are 10,000 times more despicable than anything that whore Wang Si brought up."
Wang Si resentfully glared at Lu Yin. She could not accept that she had been played by this most hateful child.
Lu Yin turned to look at Lu Buzheng. "Catch Wang Si, and then we can talk about the other three."
Wang Si was already seriously injured, so even if she wanted to use her inner world against Lu Yin, it was impossible. She could not even release enough power to trigger the mental network’s restriction. The three protecting her were different, and Ni Huang and the other two were still able to escape or put up a desperate fight. If they found themselves trapped in an impossible situation, they could just escape by being captured by the mental network.
There was no way the mental network would last forever, so there would naturally be a way to eventually escape.
Lu Buzheng looked at Lu Yin with a complicated expression. While Lu Buzheng felt that the Lu family had no shortage of gifted strategists and brilliantly intelligent individuals, how many were on the same level as Lu Yin and able to scheme against Semi-Progenitors as just a one-tribulation Envoy? This was too rare an ability, and Lu Yin’s value rose tremendously in Lu Buzheng’s eyes.
After all, most people from the Lu family did not rely on their minds for success.
"Do it!" Kui Luo yelled loudly as he enthusiastically launched an attack towards Ni Huang and the other two Semi-Progenitors.
Lu Buzheng used the Immovable Heavenly King Elephant visualization method and then threw another punch.
At the same time, Highsage Grandmaster made another move.
At first, there had been four Semi-Progenitors on Ni Huang’s side, but with Wang Si being taken out of the picture, they had instantly fallen to a disadvantage. Their trouble stemmed from the fact that they had to protect Wang Si, as well as the fact that all three of them relied on stellular energy far more than either Kui Luo or Lu Buzheng.
Lu Buzheng possessed a terrifying strength with just his Immovable Heavenly King Elephant while Kui Luo could just fight with his spiritual force. On the other hand, Ni Huang, Bai Laogui, and Xia De were only able to use battle techniques that utilized stellular energy, which meant that they had no stamina in this fight. Any stellular energy that they expended would be lost forever.
Upon seeing Lu Buzheng's impending attack, Ni Huang wanted to escape.
At this moment, Jue Yi moved, and his death energy formed chains that shot towards Lu Buzheng. "Lu Buzheng, I’ll be your opponent."
Lu Buzheng looked at Jue Yi while dodging the chains of death energy. "Don't you hate deceptive tactics more than anything?"
Jue Yi remained indifferent. "Hating them doesn't mean that I'm an idiot. If those three people leave, how am I supposed to be able to clean house?"
Ni Huang and his two companions all heaved massive sighs of relief. They felt incredibly lucky that Jue Yi was not too stubborn.
With Jue Yi holding Lu Buzheng back, the tides of the battlefield reversed yet again. Ni Huang and the other two hoped to just replace Wang Si with Jue Yi, but things almost instantly changed yet again: Lan Xian and Herb Immortal moved out to attack Jue Yi.
No one had expected anyone from the Sixth Mainland to suddenly jump in and help Lu Yin.
Not even Lu Yin himself had expected this to happen. Everyone here should be trying to save their own stellular energy reserves, and any fighting would naturally leave people weaker than before.
Lan Xian wanted Lu Yin's blood, and Lu Yin finally understood that his blood might be even more important than he had previously considered if Lan Xian was so desperate to get her hands on it.
In that case, what about Herb Immortal? What had dragged him into the fight?
Music played from the three-stringed instrument, and it was accompanied by Lan Xian's pleasant voice as her beautiful eyes swept over towards Lu Yin. "You owe me a drop of blood."
Despite the fact that Lan Xian and Herb Immortal were both much weaker than Kui Luo and everyone else participating in the fight, the gap was not overly exaggerated when no one was able to use their inner world. Even if the two Semi-Progenitors from the Sixth Mainland were not able to hold back Jue Yi when working together, they were at least capable of handling Bai Laogui or Xia De, which freed up Kui Luo.
As for Kui Luo, he was absolutely strong enough to block Ni Huang.
The Semi-Progenitors’ battle caused everyone to forget about the horde of corpse kings gathered in front of the blocked passage to the Starfall Sea, and it did not take long for the countless corpse kings to start scattering and heading into the Fifth Mainland in all different directions.
Lu Yin had agreed to allow the Ghost Monkey onto the back of Ancestor Tortoise, and as soon as the monkey arrived there, he started endlessly flattering Lu Yin, and the name “Seventh Bro” never stopped.
"How many powerhouses are among those corpse kings?" Lu Yin suddenly asked in a sharp tone.
The Ghost Monkey’s head ducked back. "A lot. There are no less than fifty Envoys. I have no idea where the Aeternals managed to find so many freaks. If they scatter, the Fifth Mainland is going to suffer a huge disaster."
Lu Yin frowned, but this was still not the biggest disaster. He looked over into the passage to the Starfall Sea. There was still a hand firmly wedged in place there, and it could open up enough of a gap to allow Aeternus’s true experts to freely enter and leave the Fifth Mainland.
Something suddenly occurred to Lu Yin, and he turned to look at Yunying Mavis. "Senior, all of humanity has the common responsibility of protecting the Fifth Mainland, and not even your Mavis family is exempt from that, right?"
Yunying Mavis instantly became wary. "What are you talking about?"
"Have Ancestor Tortoise block that gap."
"Impossible." Yunying Mavis instantly denied Lu Yin’s proposition, but then she seemed to realize that her response did not sound good for her family, so she quickly explained, “It's not that we don't want to, but rather that Ancestor Tortoise will refuse. You should already understand he won’t move any closer to Corpse God."
"Just give it a try. If you can plug that gap, your Mavis family will have made the greatest achievement in the entire Fifth Mainland," Lu Yin said.
Yunying Mavis had no choice but to try to get Ancestor Tortoise to move closer to the passage to the Starfall Sea. As they moved along, Lu Yin would instantly attack and kill any corpse king that drew close while also dealing with his pounding headache. Lu Buzheng had already mentioned that Lu Yin would suffer from his innate gift’s backlash for some time and that the pain would be excruciating; Lu Yin was starting to realize how much suffering he would have to endure.
Every time he attacked, the pain in his head grew worse. He knew that he needed to quickly find a chance to enter seclusion so that he could retreat into the Timestop Space to rest and recover.
A pair of slitted, scarlet eyes flickered up ahead, and a corpse king moved to block Lu Yin’s path.
His heart sank. He could not deal with a corpse king with a power level of a million. The corpse kings were continuing to scatter and sneak into the Fifth Mainland. There was no telling what sort of disaster they would carry with them.
Suddenly, a set of scales appeared beneath the powerful corpse king’s feet, and then a monster with a power level of over a million instantly shattered.
Lu Yin was ecstatic. This was Judgement. The Chief Justice had finally arrived.
The next moment, Arch-Elder Zen, Chief Justice Qing Ping, and Xia Ji all appeared. They saw Semi-Progenitors fighting in the distance, as well as a horde of corpse kings fleeing.
Arch-Elder Zen and the others did not move to attack anyone. Just like Jiu Yao and several others, the newcomers all understood that if they fought at this moment, they would deplete their stellular energy reserves, which would leave them too weak to do anything when the Aeternals launched another invasion.
Of course, Lu Yin also understood this matter. He had only been using Overlaying Stacks to attack, and he had also held back from using anything that used stellular energy.
The Aeternals had left this horde of corpse kings behind just to drain the humans’ strength, and so they could only allow cultivators weaker than Semi-Progenitor to deal with the horde.
"What are you looking at? Why don't get over here and help?" Kui Luo called out to Arch-Elder Zen and the others.
Bai Laogui instantly threatened, "The New Corridor that connects to Sky Creation Academy will soon be repaired, and once that happens, my Perennial World will be reconnected to your Forsaken Land. If you dare to attack us, you will be dealt with by the four ruling powers!"
Lu Yin instantly mocked the old man, "Who’s going to deal with us? Your Progenitors? Do you really think that we’re stupid enough to not realize that your four ruling powers’ Progenitors will never make a move because they fear the Progenitor behind me? This is our ancestral land! The Fifth Mainland! The Sixth Mainland’s Progenitor of Combat tried to invade, and he was seriously injured. When their Progenitor of Secret Arts betrayed humanity and tried to attack Burial Garden, he was also badly wounded. The moment a Progenitor appears here, they will trigger the dormant power here, which is why no Progenitor is bold enough to come here. Why else would the Aeternals spend so much time and effort to defeat us instead of just sending in one of their Progenitors?"
This was something that Lu Yin had only recently realized. He had previously been terrified that the four ruling powers would eventually overcome their wariness of the Progenitor that they believed to be supporting him and would send out one of their own Progenitors. They would then discover that there were no Progenitors in the Fifth Mainland.
However, with his recent revelation, Lu Yin would be shocked if a Progenitor entered the Fifth Mainland.
Each of the Seven Skygods was a peerless and powerful existence, and one of them had even been a Dao Monarch. Another was the founding ancestor of an ancient family, and they were all exceptional individuals from the most ancient of eras. Blackless God was naturally no exception to this, so why had the Progenitor of Combat and the Progenitor of Bloodlines been able to block Blackless God and keep him out of the Fifth Mainland?
There were strong and weak individuals among Semi-Progenitors, and the same held true in the Progenitor realm. Lu Yin refused to believe that the Progenitor of Combat and the Progenitor of Bloodlines were capable of standing up to Blackless God, even if they worked together. No matter how much weaker Blackless God might be, he still had to be nearly as powerful as Progenitor Chen had been, and Progenitor Chen had been able to face off against multiple Progenitors on his own.
Clearly, it would not have been difficult for Blackless God to force his way into the Fifth Mainland, but he had never done so. Neither had Corpse God. He instead simply held the passage to the Starfall Sea open so that more of the Aeternals’ weaker monsters could flood in from beyond. There had to be something in the Fifth Mainland that even Progenitors were fearful of.
The Aeternals were afraid of it, and so were the four ruling powers.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶