Lu Yun was at a complete loss for what to do next.
âIâm paying way too high a price to capture this kui.â Dismay and distress crept in.
Advantages went hand-in-hand with disadvantages when returning to hell. For one, he couldnât advance his cultivation when inside. He could only research the supplemental paths and others, or restore his energy and stamina.
To use it as a means of escape was even less feasible, since heâd return to the outside world at the exact moment heâd gone inside. The same danger would reappear in front of him once more.
âWell, letâs forget about that for now. I need to deal with Kui first. Resurrection!â A bolt of black brilliance shot from his fingertip and sank into Kui, generating an imperceptible ripple that softly shook the creatureâs giant frame, whereupon it opened its eyes.
âIâm not dead?â Kuiâs muffled and somewhat naive voice sounded out. âNo, I did die, but Iâve come back to life! What happened? Where am I?â
The creature scrambled back to its foot and studied the surroundings with its dark golden eyes.
âAre you the reason behind all this?â It immediately spotted the bug thatâd tried desecrating its body earlier: Lu Yun. It certainly recalled the human.
Back in Azure Province, itâd been this very youth whoâd used the Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder to lure it out of the celestial master tomb. Though Kui had already been a corpse divine back then, it still retained its memories from that time.
âHow did you become so powerful?â The aura Lu Yun was currently exuding made it tremble and quake. The humanâs strength looked to be at peak origin dao immortal realm, but there was a certain power lingering around him that seemed to depict the will of the entire world.
âDie!â Lu Yun wasted no time in nonsense. Violetgrave in hand, he unleashed a dazzling ray of violet sword radiance.
Swish!
In a flash of dream-like brilliance, Kuiâs tremendous frame was instantly split in two.
Death!
Am I dead again? was Kuiâs final thought before passing away. All in all, this was its third time experiencing the afterlife.
The first time was its death inside the celestial master tomb during the primordial times. The second time was at the hands of the silver scarlet ape. And this time around, itâd been felled by Lu Yunâs sword, making it three.
But the next moment, its halved body started knitting together, and before long, it stood back up with an expression of confusion.
âIâm alive again? Ah, master! This servant greets the master!â
Thonk!
Kuiâs lone leg bent as it knelt to the ground and fearfully kowtowed to the young man floating in the air.
âThis servant wasnât aware of your arrival, master, and made you fall into a trap. Master, please allow me to atone for my sins by killing myself!â Kuiâs muffled declaration of contrition spread through hell.
âYou want to die a fourth time?â Lu Yun snorted. âTake humanoid form while we talk.â
âAt once, at once!â Purple-golden lightning crackled around Kuiâs apprehensive figure as it transformed posthaste.
In humanoid shape, Kui was a bulky figure, coming in at ten meters tall and clad in purple-golden immortal armor. A single horn adorned its bald head, and its features lent it a ferocious air.
Its current cultivation level was merely origin dao immortal, comparable to celestial emperors of eld. In contrast, its physique had already reached the ingress realm. But ingress realm body or not, a single blow from the silver scarlet ape had punched a hole through it all the same.
âYou died inside the celestial master tomb?â Lu Yun glanced at Kui with a frown.
âMaster, your servant did indeed die here,â the creature answered.
âFor what reason did you die?â
âTo be buried alive with the Monster Celestial Master!â Kuiâs response greatly startled Lu Yun.
âWhat did you say?!â
âYes, to be buried alive with the celestial master.â Kui nodded. âI wasnât the only one. Fengbo and Yushi were also buried here for the same reason.â
Kui was a primordial thunder god, the strongest in the immortal courtâs service. It was a leader among thunder gods, and the one and only kui in the world. There had also been two other figures of the same level, both reaching peak principal realm: Fengbo and Yushi! [1]
Just like him, both were unique existencesâconnate divine spirits, the entire lot of them. And thanks to Su Xiaoxiaoâs memories, Lu Yun knew of them as well.
âWhy and how?!â Lu Yun cried out in spite of himself. âThe Monster Celestial Master was of the primordial realm. Why did you three have to be buried alongside him after his death?â
âMaster, the Monster Celestial Master isnât dead!â Kui shook its head rapidly. âEach of the four celestial masters possessed power that nearly rivaled that of the immortal emperor. Itâs true their cultivation was at the primordial realm, but it wouldâve been childâs play for them to kill us!â
âBuried alive?â Lu Yun shook. In the ancient times, Kui had been a peak principal realm existence, a step removed from emperor realm. But the Monster Celestial Emperor could have easily killed it?! Just what kind of freaks were these four celestial masters?
âCorrect, buried alive! Whatâs more, me and the others were perfectly willing to sacrifice ourselves.â Trepidation flashed through Kuiâs eyes. âThe four celestial masters had long foreseen the imminent advent of a cataclysm. The Monster Celestial Master chose to defy the heavens by his own power, so that the court might have a chance to survive the disaster. Alas, it seems that it ended in failure.â
As a god in the ancient dynastyâs service, Kuiâs loyalty naturally belonged with the ancient immortal court.
Lu Yun frowned slightly. There were many rumors regarding the four ancient celestial masters, but no one knew the cause of their demise. They were incredibly secretive figures that even Empress Myrtlestar knew very little about.
The four masters came from the human, divine, monster spirit, and demon races, respectively. Theyâd always been shrouded in mystery, with perhaps no one but the ancient immortal emperor knowing the truth about them.
What stunned Lu Yun even more was that the Monster Celestial Master had predicted the future, then chosen to bury himself alive to safeguard a wisp of fortune for the immortal court!
This was clear proof that the four celestial masters were proficient in feng shui⊠or at least, the Monster Celestial Master was. By burying himself alive, heâd attempted to leverage a special kind of layout to steady the immortal dynastyâs fortunes so that it would survive the oncoming cataclysm.
But that layout had plainly been wreckedâsomeone had modified the entire celestial master tombâs layout. For its part, the ancient dynasty had long been destroyed, and its immortal emperor was now ashes in the wind.
âŠâŠ
âFengbo, Yushi, Thunder GodâŠâ Lu Yun bowed his head in thought. The shadow of the Tome of Life and Death flickered in his eyes, and his feng shui compass floated by his side to aid him in deducing this destiny-bolstering layout.
A feng shui layout that employed live burials and sacrificial goods of connate divine spirits was one that could rebel against fate, allowing an entire faithâor an immortal dynastyâto exist forever.
âThe three of you werenât the only ones buried, correct?â He suddenly opened his eyes and looked up at the river of stars in the netherworldâs sky. After a round of inference, heâd pieced together the tombâs original layout. In the process, heâd discovered that it was intimately related to the power of the stars.
âMaster possesses unparalleled wisdom.â Kui wasted no time in flattering him. âInside this tomb, the three of us are nothing but minor characters. The real centerpiece is the three hundred and sixty-five star divinities of the immortal court.
âThe star divinites are connate divine spirits born from three hundred and sixty-five major stars in the outer realms. Each possesses an ingress realm cultivation, and when they all act together, they can manifest a myriad of cosmic phenomena that can vie with emperor realm powerhouses.â
1. Fengbo, the characters for âEarl of the Windâ, is the Taoist deity of the wind. In ancient times he was depicted as a grotesque deity with the body of a deer, the head of a bird, horns, the tail of a snake, and the patterns of a leopard.
Yushi, the characters for âMaster of the Rainâ, is the assistant to the Taoist god of thunder. He is known as the one who causes downpours by dipping his sword in a pot.
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