Chapter 2606: Bureau
The fundamental nature of the Voidforce Universe’s energy was different from the Fifth Mainland’s. That, combined with the cultural differences, meant that the two universes had distinctly different architectural styles among other aspects. Even so, there were many consistent features, such as the fact that cultivation civilizations and technological civilizations in the Voidforce Universe were separated. This was something that Lu Yin had not expected. He had thought that everyone in the entire Voidforce Universe would cultivate voidforce energy.
"This civilization hasn’t even touched outer space. They can only rely on their own abilities to leave their tiny world. One day, they will find us and consider us aliens. Only after that can they truly understand the universe." Xu Lie and Lu Yin were looking at a dark-red planet that had only just started to develop their technology. They were still in the process of fusing cold and hot weapons, which meant that they would need at least a few hundred more years, if not more, before they were able to leave their planet.
Lu Yin had observed similarly developed civilizations from afar on more than one occasion before. To these civilizations, people who were not from their planet were aliens and also unreachable existences. If cultivators showed themselves, they might even be regarded as gods. However, once a civilization truly stepped beyond their own planet, they would discover that many of the differences between them and the “aliens” could be attributed to the differences in their cultivation. There were no intrinsic differences between them and people from other parts of the universe.
Lu Yin often wondered if there were eyes watching him from a higher level of existence, observing as the universe developed. As Seruzen had said, everything could be analyzed and measured. If there was an outside observer, then they might be able to influence anything that was quantifiable. Did such a being exist? If not, then where had Seruzen's innate gift Karmic Fruit come from? Where did Lu Yin’s own die come from? If such a being did exist, then what kind of creature was it? How great was their power? They might wield power akin to a god’s in the eyes of the universes that Lu Yin knew, but if he could ever step beyond the universes that he knew and make contact with such a being, then would he learn that there were no qualitative differences between him and them? Would the only difference lie in their cultivation levels?
If that was true, then could there be another level above the Progenitor realm?
Lu Yin looked up at the dark starry sky, lost in thought.
After that, Xu Lie led Lu Yin on a tour of the Voidforce Universe, which was something that Lu Yin had not expected to receive from such an aloof individual.
"I intend to send some people to the Sixverse Academy, and the more the better," Xu Lie explained.
Lu Yin kept rather quiet. While it was true that he had helped the two clans, that did not give him the right to poke his nose into the Void Yin clan's business.
After a few days of looking around, Lu Yin started to lose interest, and the two people returned to the clans’ territory. As they headed back, they passed by the planet that was in the infancy stage of technology, and Lu Yin suddenly asked, "Do you think anyone will interfere with this world?"
"What do you mean?" Xu Lie asked, puzzled.
Lu Yin said, "I mean visit this place and interact with the people. Basically act like a god."
Xu Lie’s eyebrows rose. "I doubt it. Who has that much time to waste? Besides, if they were discovered, it would be incredibly humiliating."
"It's a means of escaping reality," Lu Yin commented.
Suddenly, his expression changed, and he looked to his right. The next moment, Xu Lie looked over as well, and her eyes grew large. "Not good!"
Voidforce energy surged from her as her white tiger emerged from its void nest and roared at the sky.
"What's wrong?" Lu Yin asked, feigning ignorance.
Surrounded by her voidforce energy, Xu Lie had no time to answer. Some distance away, a pair of slitted scarlet eyes were staring at the two. Suddenly, those eyes disappeared.
The white tiger voidforce puppet roared again before pouncing at the figure with its claws extended. The figure appeared in front of the tiger, and the resulting collision caused the void to twist and erupt. A terrifying power tore the void, and countless spatial cracks filled the area.
Lu Yin gasped, stunned by the sight. "Aeternus?"
Xu Lie's expression fell. "Protect yourself. Take your puppet out!"
Despite the fact that Xuan Qi had already defeated her, Xu Lie questioned the young man’s combat abilities in a real fight. Against her, Xuan Qi had used his bone pike, which was a power vessel, as well as Spiral Domain. There was no way for Xu Lie to know if the youth could keep himself alive against Aeternus.
A duel was completely different from a life and death battle.
The white tiger’s claws slashed out frenziedly as the beast leaped at the corpse king. The monster’s eyes changed colors several times as it underwent a Corpse King Transformation. Finally, the fluctuations stopped when the irises were red. The corpse king's already impressive physical might had increased to a level that was now comparable to Xu Lie’s cultivation, and the white tiger was now unable to quickly kill the monster, despite possessing many times more voidforce energy than Xu Lie.
Xu Lie frowned. The sight of the corpse king's red eyes caused her heart to drop. Usually, when voidforce energy cultivators fought on a battlefield, they would be in the back while their puppets were at the front. The Aeternals’ most effective strategy against the Voidforce Universe’s cultivators was to send corpse kings that could use the Corpse King Transformation. When the corpse kings increased their physical strength ten or a hundred-fold, they became an insurmountable challenge for the voidforce puppets, even when the puppets possessed several times more voideforce energy than their summoners.
After countless years of war, both the Sixverse Association and Aeternus were very familiar with each other's tactics.
As the red-eyed corpse king launched an attack, Xu Lie understood that this attack was a planned ambush.
"Let me," Lu Yin declared as his bone pike floated in front of him. Xu Lie did not try to stop him. While she did not trust Xuan Qi’s ability to respond to an ambush, as long as he was attacking, things would be fine. Not even she could block that power vessel’s attack, and the corpse king would not be able to either.
The exact moment the bone pike shot forward, Xu Lie felt a spike of danger. She spun around and shouted, "Watch out!"
Lu Yin had sensed the danger a moment earlier than Xu Lie, and his bone pike was not targeting the red-eyed corpse king, but rather someone hidden behind the two of them.
At the same instant that Xu Lie turned around, Lu Yin did the same. His bone pike pierced the void, instantly shattering an unknown, mist-like formation. The moment the formation was destroyed, the bone pike vanished once again.
Xu Lie had not expected Xuan Qi to react so quickly.
The moment the bone pike pierced the void, it also pierced a skull. Blood splattered into outer space.
At the same time, the white tiger roared as it slammed into the corpse king with a thunderous sound. The red-eyed corpse king was pushed back. The voidforce energy that shrouded the tiger’s sharp claws tore the corpse king in half, but doing so consumed a great deal of the voidforce puppet’s energy reserves.
Lu Yin waved his hand, and the bone pike flew towards the red-eyed corpse king. Before the monster could even react, its skull was pierced, killing it instantly.
This was the power of the bone pike that Wu Tian had personally left behind as a reward for whoever successfully crossed the Void Pass.
Since Wu Tian had left it behind, there was no chance that the bone pike was an ordinary item, as Lu Yin was seeing for himself in his first real battle with the power vessel.
The bone pike had the special ability to ignore distance and defenses. With the addition of the voidforce energy that Lord Xu had infused into the pike, as well as Lu Yin's ability to control a voidforce puppet with twenty times his own energy reserves, the bone pike could release an attack comparable to a Semi-Progenitor’s. On top of that, the bone pike’s attacks were guaranteed to land.
Two corpse kings had been slaughtered in an instant, and both deaths were the result of Lu Yin taking action.
Xu Lie was shocked. She had already known that the bone pike was a powerful voidforce puppet, but seeing it in actual combat allowed her to realize that she had still been underestimating the power vessel. If she had not conceded in her match with Xuan Qi, she would have suffered the same fate as the two corpse kings.
With the bone pike hovering at Xuan Qi’s side, Xu Lie suppressed her shock to ask, "Your voidforce puppet...?"
"Senior Xu Wuwei gave it to me." Lu Yin just tossed Xu Wuwei's name out as an excuse.
Xu Lie nodded. "Only a powerhouse at the level of Senior Xu Wuwei could create such a powerful voidforce puppet."
She stared at Lu Yin for a moment. "I'm sorry. I put you in danger."
Normally, Lu Yin would be suspicious of Xu Lie. The woman had led him away from the Void Yang and Void Yin clans without any real reason or purpose, and she had even led him into an ambush. After Lu Yin sensed the appearance of the first corpse king, he had made sure to watch Xu Lie's reaction. When the woman sensed the corpse king, she had immediately moved to protect Lu Yin. Such a reflexive reaction could not be faked. She had genuinely thought that Xuan Qi was unable to sense the danger before them, so there had been absolutely no reason for her to fake such a reaction.
A person's subconscious could reveal their true thoughts.
"It's fine. I’ll just consider it training," Lu Yin replied.
Xu Lie clenched her fists. "I will definitely investigate this carefully, but I promise that I had nothing to do with it."
"I know."
Xu Lie frowned. "You know? Normally, you should be suspecting me right now, since I’m the one who brought you out here."
Lu Yin laughed. "You didn't force me to come out here with you, and I wouldn't have followed you if I didn't want to. Don't worry, I know that you had nothing to do with this attack."
Xu Lie could not really understand Xuan Qi’s reasoning. Was he just pretending, or was he genuinely confident that she had had nothing to do with the ambush?
"Then again..." Lu Yin's expression grew serious.
Xu Lie stared at him, and Lu Yin met her eyes. "We are in the heart of the Voidforce Universe, and yet Aeternus was able to attack us. Is Aeternus really that good at sneaking in, or is the Voidforce Universe terrible at protecting itself?"
Xu Lie's face soured. "This doesn’t only happen in the Voidforce Universe, as similar scenes will occur no matter where you go in the Sixverse Association. Anyone who’s considered important people or talented will undoubtedly have to deal with Aeternus’s assassination attempts at some point or another."
"Why?" Lu Yin was puzzled. If a spy had tried to assassinate him, he would be able to understand it, but two corpse kings had been sent instead. Those scarlet eyes were too conspicuous for such an attack to have any chance of success.
Xu Lie's expression grew disturbed. "I'm not sure how to explain this to you, but you'll understand in time. Simply put, this is just how things in the Sixverse Association are right now, and they won’t be changing anytime soon."
"Why doesn't the Sixverse Association have a specific group that hunts down spies and corpse kings?" Lu Yin asked.
"There is," Xu Lie replied, "The Bureau."
"The Bureau?" Lu Yin arched a brow. That actually sounded rather impressive.
"Unfortunately, they’re completely useless." Xu Lie shook her head. "The Sixverse Association created the Bureau to find corpse kings and Aeternal spies, but due to various complications, they haven’t been very effective at all. Part of the problem is the internal conflicts between the Sixverse Association's different members, but the Aeternals’ tactics also complicate things. Basically, the more universes that get involved, the harder it is to find any spies.”
"Xuan Qi, you need to be careful whenever you move around in the Voidforce Universe in the future. Since Aeternus has tried to kill you once, they'll definitely do so again."
Lu Yin felt rather irritated. "There’s already the Endless Frontier and all the other barriers that the Sixverse Association has put up to stop Aeternus, but they sneak in anyways. That Bureau really is useless. Who created it?"
"Forget about that. Let's head back. Not many people knew that we were heading out, so we can definitely find out who’s working with Aeternus." Xu Lie's eyes grew cold and started blazing with a powerful killing intent.
Even ignoring how important Xuan Qi was for the Void Yang and Void Yin clans, if Aeternus successfully killed him, Xu Lie herself would be doomed. After all, Xu Wuwei also stood behind Xuan Qi, as well as the Transcendent Universe. He was no ordinary man.
Xu Lie's hatred for the spy who had leaked their excursion was etched into her very bones. She wanted nothing more than to return to the Void Yin clan and find out who the culprit was.
After returning, Lu Yin was unable to leave again for a while, which left him with nothing to do other than to go into seclusion and train.
Xu Lie arranged a quiet location where Lu Yin would not be disturbed. After settling himself in, Lu Yin took out the bone pike and started to examine it. This power vessel had allowed him to kill two corpse kings with practically no effort whatsoever. Killing a Semi-Progenitor with it would likely be just as easy, given the level that Lu Yin’s cultivation with voidforce energy had reached.
He found that voidforce energy was very useful, and he intended to continue cultivating it. The voidforce energy that Lord Xu had infused into the bone pike was substantial, and Lu Yin wanted to reach the point where he could fully utilize both the energy and the weapon.
The bone pike was set aside, and Lu Yin started rolling his die. It had been quite some time since he had last rolled it, and he wanted to hit an Enhance so that he could try upgrading the bone pike. If it could reach the same level as the slipper, he'd be able to kill a Progenitor as powerful as Xia Shenji in one strike.
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