Chapter 724: The Dao Tree
Wu Tulong’s spear landed the moment his voice fell; Lu Yun leaned slightly to the side to evade the foreboding edge.
Boom!
The spear buried its tip in the ground in a massive cloud of gray dust.
Retrieving his spear, Wu Tulong didn’t press on any further. Hovering in the sky, he looked down at Lu Yun as Mo Qitian and Zi Chen came into view. Both wielding keenly honed divine swords, they looked at their former companion with cold, ruthless eyes. Evidently, they intended to keep him cornered here and prevent him from entering the circular area a hundred kilometers across.
“Senior brothers, so we meet again.” Lu Yun made a deep bow of greeting. “Unless I’m mistaken, all of you have freed yourselves from the soul seeds and regained your autonomy. Why then do you still let Dongfang Hao order you around?”
“Dongfang Hao?” Zi Chen’s expression remained chilly, a hint of derision flashing in his eyes. “Who is he to control us?”
Lu Yun’s heart sank upon hearing the response. Since it wasn’t Dongfang Hao.. then it had to be Lu Shenhou!
In Lu Yun’s eyes, Dongfang Hao was little more than a lucky bastard who’d chanced upon the Sword of Chaos. But Lu Shenhou was different. He was the real enemy, someone the primordial immortal emperor himself had considered an enemy!
He was a character who’d played a part in the fall of the Primordial Era! Compared to Dongfang Hao, Lu Shenhou was the one to guard against!
“I see, so Dongfang Hao is also being played by Lu Shenhou!” Lu Yun’s eyes narrowed.
“Lu Yun, it’s time we finish the battle we postponed all those years ago.” Wu Tulong’s spear vibrated as its light rose again, glinting viciously at Lu Yun. “You two, don’t interfere. He’s mine.”
Both Zi Chen and Mo Qitian nodded. Forming a triangle with Wu Tulong that trapped Lu Yun in the center, they showed no signs of participating in the fight to come. However, if Lu Yun tried charging out of the encirclement, they would surely retaliate with no reservations.
“Under any other circumstances, I would’ve been happy to settle the question once and for all, Senior Brother Wu. But forgive me for lacking the time to play with you right now,” Lu Yun replied slowly.
“Do you think you can leave?” Mo Qitian snorted coldly. “We’ve sealed off the entire area, not even a speck of dust can slip out.”
Offering no reply, Lu Yun sat cross-legged in the empty air.
Hum!
A second, identical Lu Yun walked out over the seated one and halted over his head.
“The nascent spirit?” His three opponents blinked. “Do you think to overwhelm us with just your nascent spirit?”
Nascent spirits could only unleash their proper battle strength by remaining inside the body and acting in concert with the flesh. For example, the Exalted Immortal Sect’s Method of the Great Peng could transform one’s nascent spirit into that of a great peng, but the user’s own immortal force was needed to deploy the mythical bird’s combat arts.
To fight with the exposed nascent spirit alone was only possible when one held an overwhelming cultivation advantage. Take the previous shamanic divine as another example; he could easily overpower everyone in the realm, which explained why he’d felt safe sending his nascent spirit piecemeal into the central world.
historical
Under the immortal restriction’s influence, Lu Yun’s nascent spirit was restricted to the true immortal realm, just like Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, and Zi Chen, so to face them with his nascent spirit alone was simple suicide.
What they didn’t realize was that the “nascent spirit” they saw wasn’t Lu Yun’s primary one. Rather, the energy leaking out of his nascent spirit in hell had formed a replica spirit within Lu Yun.
Shaped after the six paths of reincarnation, his nascent spirit was too powerful for his body to accommodate. Even a single strand far surpassed the nascent spirits of other immortals.
“Senior brothers, this inept Lu just comprehended a brand-new great dao not long ago. I look to you for some guidance.”
His replica spirit opened its eyes and gathered its will. With the nascent spirit as the altar and will as the god.. it conceptualized the world!
Boom!
Space fractured as a world slowly came into being.
“The world of immortals! This is the world of immortals! His nascent spirit’s transformed into an entire world?! Impossible!” The normally-unruffled Wu Tulong completely lost his composure, eyes bulging in disbelief.
Boom!!
Manifesting the twenty-four facets, Lu Yun’s nascent spirit engulfed Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, and Zi Chen.
“Though I’ve created a nascent spirit observation method, its combat arts and fighting techniques aren’t yet complete. Since you senior brothers have come, please graciously help this little brother perfect the style of fighting with one’s nascent spirit.”
A long peal of laughter sounded out even as Lu Yun conjured a myriad of variations and relentlessly pummeled the three peerless geniuses.
The world created through nascent spirit observation possessed power beyond compare.. but even so, it wasn’t a fighting technique in the truest sense. By acting together, the three geniuses could easily ward off its attacks.
However, escaping from it was another story entirely.
As long as Lu Yun’s nascent spirit lived on, it could split into endless replicas to maintain the might of the twenty-four facets, unless the opponent possessed a nascent spirit stronger than his and could break the projected world through brute force.
In the meantime, Lu Yun’s physical self finally set foot into that circular area.
“His nascent spirit method is very strange. It isn’t particularly lethal, but it comes in wave after wave and keeps us trapped inside.” Wu Tulong growled deep in his throat. “We need to be careful just the same. He’s using us as grinding stones to hone this method!”
....
“What?!” The scenery underwent a radical shift when Lu Yun set foot in the new area, and he saw something he hadn’t expected even in his wildest dreams. “So it was this thing! No wonder, no wonder!”
His chest heaved fiercely up and down, and his heart pounded loudly in his chest. “With this in his possession, it’s no surprise the immortal emperor became the lord of the multiverse, the emperor of all!
“In anyone’s hand, it would be a sword hanging over the immortal dao’s proverbial head!
“The Immortal Subjugation Seal is little more than a fragment of the immortal dao, a weapon that can subdue those who belong to the immortal dao. But this thing.. this thing is the truest supreme treasure of the immortal dao!”
Lu Yun’s eyes were glued to the immensity in his vision. Seen from the outside, the area measured only a hundred kilometers in width, but once inside, there was another dimension entirely to it.
In the sky, the Skyturning Seal and Sugato Sword repeatedly smashed against each other with tremendous force, while a throng of mighty immortals below was either busy tearing into each other or trying to refine the treasure.
“They’re dreaming if they think they can refine it.. Who under the heavens possibly can? Not even the immortal emperor truly did so!” Lu Yun took a deep breath. In the depths of his consciousness, the Tome of Life and Death vibrated and released ice-cold waves to protect his clarity of mind.
“It must be a trap set by Lu Shenhou.. Otherwise, how could this thing even be here?!” Lu Yun had once spoken the name of this treasure aloud. In fact, every immortal had done so at some point the past. Never a taboo before, it was now impossible to voice its name because so many knew of its location and that it could be found right here. The world’s inexorable laws had acted swiftly to shield its existence and censor its name.