Chapter 2046: Corpse

Other powers might not be able to scatter the souls of peak grand supremes and empyrean supremes, leaving them without a corpse in death, but the Dragonquake Scripture could. The combination of Dragonspike and Dragonshift called upon the core essence of heaven and earth. It was one of the most formidable powers out there.

Those were Lu Yun’s thoughts as well. Although the Dao King had set up the layout, he’d lost control over it after such a prolonged period of time. All he could do was open the door for Lu Yun after the young man understood things.

He wouldn’t have shown himself if Lu Yun hadn’t grasped the connection between Ancestor’s tomb and the world of immortals. The bronze doors wouldn’t give way no matter what was tried. Only when Lu Yun understood could the Dao King use the young man’s heart and mind as a bridge to come to the tomb.

It was an undefinable connection that had Lu Yun failed to grasp, he would’ve used another way to break through the separation stone. However, that would possibly entail a different outcome for his actions, one that was ideal for neither him nor the Dao King.

Thus, the Dao King had taken a gamble to see whether or not the young man could see through everything.

Thankfully, he had after the Disordered Empyrean Supreme’s reminder. He’d identified that the bronze doors were the World Gates of the world of immortals.

....

Lu Yun set foot into a real tomb. He could see the layout of a tomb inside. As he thought, the interior had grown out of the Dao King’s control and all he could do was open or close the separation stone layout. The man had also lost control over the world of immortals.

He’d set up the layout of a tomb over the world of immortals with the goal of protecting the world. Yet if it wasn’t for the Land of Reincarnation continuously repeating everything, the world of immortals would’ve long ceased to exist and all of its inhabitants would be dead.

“The void as a tomb!” Lu Yun inhaled sharply. He saw an expanse of pure darkness ahead of him. There was nothing else mixed in with it, just empty void.

It was the kind of layout for a tomb—the void was the tomb.

This kind of layout was recorded in the Dragonquake Scripture as a tomb for unparalleled powerhouses. It was both a place of burial and a seal. Powerhouses buried in the darkness of the void would forever remain here, never to undergo reincarnation.

Lu Yun’s eyes were fixed on something in front of him as he set foot in the air. It was a corpse, a shriveled, rotted corpse. It’d come back to “life” and was looking silently at the young man with a pair of vibrant green eyes.

“The Dao King made a bet with me that someone would come back to save me. It turns out my savior is you.” The corpse, or rather zombie, sighed with the relief of an enormous burden being lifted off his shoulders.

“You are.. Jiang Chen?” Lu Yun stared incredulously. “So your primary body is..”

“I am not Ancestor.” Jiang Chen, the ancestor of the Corpse Refiners, was a zombie. The one that walked through the chief worlds was his replica. “My name is Corpse.”

“Corpse.. and here I thought your primary body really was a zombie from the Abyssal Hell.” Lu Yun breathed out more easily, understanding more of what he was seeing.

A zombie once crawled out of the Abyssal Hell that the god of Mount Tai had forged. It’d developed into Jiang Chen, which looked to be the replica of the Jiang Chen in front of Lu Yun now.

As for why the zombie had crawled out of the Abyssal Hell—that was Corpse’s doing. Only a powerhouse of his level could struggle free of the order that suppressed all dead bodies governed by that hell.

Lu Yun couldn’t identify what cultivation level Corpse was at, but he could sense that the pressure the other gave him far exceeded what emanated from the nihil heavyweight that’d reached an agreement with him.

“You should still call me Jiang Chen.” Jiang Chen looked at Lu Yun without the slightest hint of violence in his eyes.

Zombies were a type of living being in the fourth realm and the fourth realm was patterned off of the nothing. In the nothing, Jiang Chen was a normal living being.

“Okay,” Lu Yun nodded. “So.. you didn’t infiltrate the world of immortals to turn it into a world of the dead?”

“What good would that do for me?” Jiang Chen shook his head. “I put on a show for the benefit of others, so that they would think enemies abounded in the world of immortals and that it could be destroyed at any time.

“The enemies you see are not necessarily your enemies. They may be allies in disguise instead.

“Of course, some of them do mean everything they do. The gremlins that developed later on, for example. They do wish to destroy you dao forms.”

Being a nihil level heavyweight, Corpse saw no difference between all living beings in existence. But to Lu Yun, there was a difference between dao forms and latter-day beings such as the so-called gremlins.

At least in the chief worlds, or the part of existence that the chief worlds resided in, dao forms were continuously hunted down. But in the sanctuary of the Three Thousand, dao forms were the masters and the gremlins were likely what the Disordered Empyrean Supreme called vicious beasts.

“Let’s get back to the topic at hand.” Seeing that Lu Yun was lost in thought, Jiang Chen raised himself upright and transformed himself into a handsome young man with the flash of a water ripple. “I am the last line of defense in Ancestor’s tomb. The overseer of the Three Thousand has constantly sought to break into the tomb during all of these eons. He wants Ancestor’s body, but little lass Yun Yi severely injured him recently. He’s gone into seclusion to rest and recover, or you would’ve been captured the second you arrived in this world.”

“What?!” Lu Yun’s eyes shot wide open. “Yun Yi.. severely injured the overseer of the Three Thousand? There really is an overseer?”

“Yes,” Jiang Chen nodded. “He was the one who defeated Ancestor and Forebear back in the day, expelling them from the Three Thousand and taking it for himself. He carved out sanctuary with his bare fists, forcing the gremlins out and intimidating them into giving this area a wide berth.

“Sanctuary is the land of great dao in the Three Thousand, the true core of heaven and earth. In Ancestor and Forebear’s eyes, all life was equal. There was no distinction between dao forms and gremlins, but the overseer disagreed.”

Despite being rocked with waves of shock, Lu Yun nodded. Yun Yi.. severely injured the overseer? The overseer that’d defeated Ancestor and Forebear, throwing them out of the Three Thousand, the liege lord of this heaven and earth who forced the vicious beasts out of the land of great dao?

It was surreal.

“Is Yun Yi.. still alive?” Lu Yun’s breathing sped up.

“..she’s probably dead now,” Jiang Chen shook his head. “The overseer wouldn’t possibly let things rest if she is not. It is because she’s dead that he is willing to enter seclusion.”

Lu Yun nodded mutely. He didn’t know how Yun Yi had done it. She’d sacrificed herself to summon the nihil powerhouse and resurrect the primordial world of immortals. He’d thought that her ultimate goal was to have him propagate dao in the Three Thousand, creating a new utopia for the chief worlds.

It turned out that he’d underestimated Yun Yi after all.

Had she injured the overseer of the Three Thousand just to facilitate Lu Yun’s arrival? Or more specifically, his visit to the tomb? Fuxi, the Dao King, and everything Yun Yi had done.. Was it all for this final moment?

And Jiang Chen, the protector of the tomb, willingly played the role of a villain. He was a scourge upon the world of immortals and chief worlds again and again through endless reincarnation loops. He didn’t even mind becoming a humiliated clown and the joke of the chief worlds.

Jiang Chen sighed, seeming to sense the incredulity filling Lu Yun’s face. “You’ll understand when you see Ancestor’s body. Come with me.

“Ah, you need to be careful here. I can kill outsiders, but I cannot withstand the strangeness that existed in the tomb to begin with.”

“I understand,” Lu Yun nodded. “You’ve become one with the tomb and share the same origins as the demonic things from the void. Attacking them means attacking yourself.

“You purposefully become one with the tomb. If I break it, you’ll be able to devour the demonic things inside and strengthen yourself!”