“You never know what might exist in the chaos.” Though Lu Yun agreed with Ying Luo, he still had to frame his response this way.

Ying Luo nodded.

“A creature not of the chaos doesn’t mean that it can’t enter the chaos and hurt you. Therefore, you need to be strong enough to handle anything that might happen.” His longsword lit up again as he spoke.

As its primary attribute was ice, it flared with rays of frigid air whenever it was activated. Though Lu Yun couldn’t fully deploy its entire strength, this was the most suitable treasure for him under the circumstances.

Arctic blasts of air resolved into a golden dragon wrapped around him. No longer hiding the power of inception on him, he combined it with the Dragonquake Scripture to transform it into something from the power system of the chaos. In doing so, he perfectly concealed the presence of the realms that others might detect from him.

Hummmm.

He slashed forward, sending out the enormous sword dragon.

The rotten kun that’d been bearing down on the two shrieked ghastly as grayish-yellow liquid spurted out from its body, giving rise to an even more pungent stench than before.

Her little face beet red with exertion, Ying Luo resolutely ground her teeth together to prevent herself from vomiting again.

Expression unchanged, Lu Yun raised a curtain of pale-gold light around him. Piercing dragon howls echoed through the patch of turbulent space. Bounding upward with Dragonrise, he called upon his sword dao so that he stabbed out tens of thousands of times within the span of a breath. There wasn’t a single repeated stroke in all of them, an indicator of tens of thousands of different sword combat arts.

The rotten kun breathed its last as its body spontaneously disassembled into fleshy chunks the size of a palm.

Lu Yun remained standing where he was, calling upon the Spectral Eye to observe the rotten chunks on the ground.

“It’s from the underworld, alright,” he murmured to himself and thought of that special place in the underworld—their holy mountain.

It was the most unique spot in the underworld; one could follow the river of time and look into the past if they stood upon its peak. Everything that had ever happened was available to be observed. In fact, Ashu had once enjoyed standing upon its peak to peer into the past.

This also meant that there was no concept of time on the holy mountain. One could look into the past as long as they called upon some special techniques.

So was the chaos a place like that. Sovereigns of the chaos could absolutely gaze into the past of the realms and see what had once taken place in distant history.

“Or… or is that holy mountain located here?” The sudden possibility occurred to him. “If this is the holy mountain, then what is the underworld?

“...the holy mountain?!” The view in front of him suddenly opened up as a towering mountain appeared before his eyes.

There were several beings standing at its peak, looking into the distance. Lu Yun could even make out Ashu’s figure. As Xing Chen had once been a holy king of the underworld, Lu Yun had naturally seen the holy mountain before.

“Lu Yun!!” Ying Luo’s voice suddenly rang in his ears. 

Jerking violently, the holy mountain disappeared from Lu Yun’s view and the view returned to being an indistinct gray. Cold sweat rolled down his back.

“Damn! There’s something here that can pick up on the openings created by my thoughts!” He once again turned the Spectral Eye onto the chunks at his feet, but saw that the detail regarding the underworld had vanished from the death information in front of him.

Plainly, some mental power had spied on his weakness just now and created a mental illusion to entrance him.

However, the close encounter also enlightened him as to the nature of this illusion. It was a subjective illusion, one that formed based on his own mental state. In other words, what the illusion portrayed wasn’t based on the wielder, but on the victim’s own thoughts and emotions.

As the illusion came from the victim’s heart, it was flawless and undetectable. This was what made it so terrifying.

……

“Should we go back?” Ying Luo’s heart pounded to see Lu Yun in his current state. If both of them were caught up in the illusion at the same time, they’d probably be dead in short order.

“Take a look, does a way back still exist?” Lu Yun pointed behind them.

The girl looked down, feeling slightly wronged.

“Are you regretting your actions?” Lu Yun asked with a smile.

“You’re not even afraid, so why should I feel any regret?” Ying Luo lifted her slim chin. “I am Ying Luo, the future princess of Creation Palace!”

“Then, oh future noble princess, shall we be on our way?” Lu Yun swept a grand gesture forward.

Ying Luo tilted her head proudly, puffed out her chest, and strode out confidently ahead of him.

After taking down the rotten kun, nothing else appeared in the turbid area. The mental power that’d suddenly appeared earlier also vanished entirely, as if it’d never existed in the first place.

Lu Yun and Ying Luo had no idea what wielded that power. Thus, both of them were on high alert, keeping their thoughts firmly in check and their mental states coolly composed.

“This doesn’t seem to be as large as I’d imagined,” Ying Luo murmured as she looked around. “It’s probably split into many sections and we’ve accessed only one of them.”

“Mmhmm.” Lu Yun nodded. Though they couldn’t see around them, their senses were uncommonly keen.

It was very big inside, but not as vast as a world. Their surroundings were also turning colder, which meant that they were drawing nearer to the heart of the realm monster. If this truly was another test, they should be able to leave after obtaining the fragment of the realm monster core.

“Be careful!” Ying Luo suddenly shouted and latched onto Lu Yun with a surge of power, dragging him back.

It looks like she’s discovered something dangerous… But strangely enough, as Lu Yun was hauled backward, he saw Ying Luo beside him still continue forward.

“Who is it?!” He frowned and flared with a surge of his own energy, pushing away the power dragging him. He whipped around to see Ying Luo looking at him with panic.

“What’s going on, why are there two of you?!” she shrieked before Lu Yun had a chance to speak.

He whirled around and saw that there was another Ying Luo in front of him, walking next to… another him.

Lu Yun felt like his mind was about to explode. He was dead certain that that one was also him!

“After them, or we’ll both die here!” Lu Yun yelled and dashed forward, tugging Ying Luo behind him.

However, the two figures in front of them were starting to blur.

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