Chapter 3910: Severed

Wu Cheng, Bai Xia, and the others also nodded to Lu Yin before leaving.

None of them wanted to offend Lu Yin, but they also did not want to get too close to him. He had both brains and brawn and was extremely intimidating, especially since he had an entirely different position than any of them.

None of them were certain that Lu Yin had been honest when he had claimed to place the human race first. If the day came when he needed to sacrifice either the Tianyuan Megaverse or the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, what choice would he make?

There was a chance that that day would eventually come.

In the end, only Lu Yin and Lesser Sancte Dan Jin remained on the Frightened Sparrow Terrace.

The woman stared at Lu Yin for a long time and then slowly said, "I maintain my previous statement. Lu Yin alone is worth ten Tianyuans."

Lu Yin arched a brow. “You flatter me too much, Senior.”

Dan Jin averted her gaze, and when she spoke next, her tone had grown bitter. “The human race first... What a grand concept. I always hoped to maintain the stability of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, which is why I sought to replace the High Seraph and stabilize the Spirit Nidus. But even my perspective seems to be short-sighted. Mr. Lu sees beyond individual megaverses to see the entire human race, whereas I only saw the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.”

Lu Yin had more or less determined the woman’s perspective. Dan Jin was stubborn and convicted, focused entirely on protecting the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. In the past, she had felt like she could sacrifice the Tianyuan Megaverse to be reset because her own value surpassed that of the Tianyuan. When she had saved Xing Fan, Dan Jin must have even harbored some level of killing intent for Lu Yin, since his demonstration of power on behalf of the Tianyuan had shaken the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. However, his most recent statement had confused Dan Jin.

There was nothing that those with strong convictions feared more than confusion. Of course, it was far from easy to confuse such people, but Lu Yin was more than qualified to do just that.

In fact, Xing Fan had seen things more clearly than Dan Jin; Xing Fan was certain that Lu Yin had been lying and was absolutely certain he was unable to abandon the Tianyuan. On the other hand, Dan Jin had been shaken by his words.

Dan Jin was worthy of respect, but if she became obsessed, she would be far more harmful than Xing Fan ever could manage to be.

Lu Yin observed Dan Jin. “Senior, if we are certain of our enemy, what else matters?”

His words caused Dan Jin’s body to tremble, and she turned back to stare blankly at him.

After a long while, she inhaled deeply, bowed to Lu Yin, and said, “Thank you.”

With that, she left.

Lu Yin did not know what kind of impact his words would have on her. Hopefully, it would not be a bad one.

Everyone had left. Lu Yin glanced around the Frightened Sparrow Terrace again.

The terrace encompassed a quarter of the Mother Tree’s canopy, which meant that it was beyond vast, sprawling out much farther than Skyveil City. It was impossible to take in the entire place at a glance.

Far in the distance, many figures could be seen. They were most likely Greater Sancte Awe Gate’s people.

Lu Yin did not bother going over to see the people, and he instead left the Frightened Sparrow Terrace. He found a skyswing and planned to descend down it.

He had reached the Mother Tree’s crown through a gate, but no such gate appeared for him to return to the ground. It would take too long to travel that far on his own, which meant that the skyswings were the quickest option.

That was the quickest way to reach the North Domain, and from there, Lu Yin could head straight to the Skyward Gate. He needed to learn more about the current situation so that he could decide how best to deal with the problems in the Spirit Nidus.

Before he could leave, a gate suddenly appeared in front of him.

Lu Yin looked at the gate and then subconsciously glanced back. The towering gate behind him remained closed, and there was no one around, but it was clear that the new gate had come from Greater Sancte Awe Gate. Where did it lead to?

Lu Yin faced the massive gate and offered a slight bow. “Thank you, Senior.”

He then turned around and stepped through the gate provided for him.

One step opened up a new vista before his eyes. He saw a familiar place: the Skyward Gate.

The gate had directly delivered him to the Skyward Gate.

Lu Yin was amazed. These gates were far too convenient, and they seemed to offer even faster travel speeds than Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s lotus leaves. Was this what Greater Sancte Awe Gate was capable of?

After all, a gate was supposed to connect the inside to the outside, but passing through Awe Gate’s gates allowed one to cross a seemingly infinite distance.

However, Lu Yin could not sense any special power at work, which was far more intimidating.

Delivering him directly to the Skyward Gate had not just been about saving Lu Yin some time; it was also a warning from Greater Sancte Awe Gate. This was a clear demonstration of the gap between Lu Yin and an Immortal.

Greater Sancte Awe Gate... Greater Sancte Green Lotus... Lu Yin’s eyes flickered. If Greater Sancte Awe Gate was able to open gates that could allow people to travel even faster than what Green Lotus could enable, then was it possible to instantly reach the Consciousness Megaverse?

Probably not. If that really was possible, why would the people of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse need to rely on Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s lotus leaves and spend an entire year traveling to the Consciousness Megaverse if they could instead simply step through a gate?

Greater Sancte Green Lotus relied on his Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm, which encompassed the three megaverses as well as the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. The fact that the gate allowed for such rapid transportation suggested that it was also the result of an unseen world, one that only Greater Sancte Awe Gate could see. However, it was also possible that her unseen world did not encompass the three megaverses.

If it did, then Greater Sancte Awe Gate was absolutely terrifying.

At the moment, the Skyward Gate was being protected by the Rift of Suffering, and Lu Yin’s sudden appearance startled many of the defenders.

Despite the fact that some of the Rift of Suffering’s people were lying about, sitting, or even standing on their heads, they were extremely vigilant. They immediately surrounded Lu Yin when he appeared. There was even a peak Dukkhan present, which Lu Yin immediately took note of.

As he roamed about the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, Lu Yin had yet to encounter a single faction within the Temporal Heavens who had two peak Dukkhans who had achieved their strength solely through their own efforts.

While the Autumnspring Slip, Everchange Valley, and other sects had possessed multiple peak Dukkhans, nearly all of them had accepted a Seed Transfusion to reach that level. At best, only one had reached that level through pure cultivation.

On the other hand, people who joined the Rift of Suffering did not accept Seed Transfusions. That meant that their second peak Dukkhan had also cultivated to that level on his own.

The Rift of Suffering truly deserved its reputation as the strongest faction in the North Domain.

“Mr. Lu? Why are you here?” Ku Cheng asked in surprise as Ku Nan arrived beside him.

Lu Yin looked over at Ku Cheng. “Greater Sancte Awe Gate has tasked me with dealing with the issues in the Spirit Nidus, so I came to take a look.”

Ku Cheng was surprised. “In that case, where is my senior brother?”

“He’s already left the Frightened Sparrow Terrace, but he’ll probably need some time to return,” Lu Yin replied. He then looked at the nearby man in white clothes, who had matching white eyebrows and beard. He was the Rift of Suffering’s second peak Dukkhan whom Lu Yin had just met, and his aura was no weaker than Ku Ji’s.

Ku Cheng quickly introduced the two men. “Mr. Lu, this is Senior Brother Ku Han. Just like Senior Brother Ku Ji, he is at the Ninth Abyss. Senior Brother Ku Han, this is-”

“Mr. Lu, I’ve long since heard of you,” Ku Han greeted Lu Yin with a bow.

Lu Yin smiled and nodded. “The Rift of Suffering truly deserves to be called the strongest sect in the North Domain. I’m impressed to see that your sect has two peak Dukkhans who have both reached that level through their own efforts.”

Ku Han smiled. “Even that is nothing compared to Mr. Lu cutting down opponents in all four domains at the same time and nearly killing a Lesser Sancte. Should there be a chance, I would like to learn a move or two from you. I might be able to take another step forward.”

“You flatter me, Senior. Should the opportunity arise, I’d actually like to study your Heartrift.”

“You would like to study the Heartrift? You’ll need to wait another twenty-two years, but when it is time, we’ll take a group of people to the Mindscape Megaverse. If you’re free at that time, you are welcome to join us.”

Lu Yin smiled. “In that case, you have my thanks in advance.”

Ku Han chuckled and waved to dismiss the Rift of Suffering disciples who had surrounded Lu Yin.

Lu Yin then followed the man to the Skyward Gate.

In the past, Lu Yin had been stopped outside the Skyward Gate by Luo Nanshen and then attacked by Granny Ya. Lu Yin had been forced to retreat without ever truly stepping into the Skyward Gate. At this moment, he was truly inside it.

He wondered what the Luo family must have felt when they had faced that Immortal monster.

They had probably been terrified.

However, the Luo family no longer existed.

At one time, the Skyward Gate had been covered with mist, filled with multicolored lights that had illuminated outer space, and had chimes ringing out that cleared the mind.

The seven-colored light had filled the sky and covered the ground as cranes soared through the air and strange beasts leapt about, creating a seemingly divine image.

While the Skyward Gate was still the same majestic structure, with impressive patterns carved across its stone pillars both inside and out, it was completely different from before.

The Rift of Suffering’s people had erased the Skyward Gate’s solemn atmosphere, and instead, the place almost felt abandoned.

On top of that, the presence of the Spirit Nidus cultivators outside of the gate had ruined the place’s auspicious aura. The cranes that had once soared were now nowhere to be seen, and the seven-colored light had been replaced by darkness.

As Lu Yin looked out from the gate, he saw groups of people sitting around cross-legged, staring at the Skyward Gate with openly hostile eyes.

“The Skyward Gate has already been attacked once, and not just from outside. There is evidence that there were also attackers from within. There was nothing that we could do, as the people who had been hiding in the Spirit Nidus were not of low status. The Spirit Nidus has been planning for this for a very long time,” Ku Cheng explained, “That is also how the Luo family was destroyed. Luo Nanshen died here, as the family’s home was shattered. No one escaped. It’s possible that Luo Ning is the only family member who survived.”

Lu Yin looked out from the Skyward Gate, his hands clasped behind his back.

Were the people of the Spirit Nidus wrong? Of course not. They simply did not want their lives to be controlled by others. They dedicated their entire lives to cultivating, only for their spirit seeds to ultimately benefit a complete stranger in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. No one could accept such a fate. In particular, after Xing Fan had stripped the spirit seeds from all the cultivators in several different domains throughout the Spirit Nidus, claiming their lives in a manner where they had been unable to even resist, conflict could not be avoided.

Was the Nine Odysseys Megaverse wrong? Also no. They were strong, which gave them the right to do as they pleased. It was the principle of the strong ruling over the weak. When considering the matter carefully, the Great Master had said it well: the Nine Odysseys Megaverse understood the cosmos too well. If they were not strong enough, how could they protect the Spirit Nidus? Left to its own devices, the Spirit Nidus would have been annihilated long ago.

Both sides had reasons to take action from their own perspective, and neither side’s reasoning was wrong.

Lu Yin did not pity the Spirit Nidus, as they had also attempted to take the role of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. If the Spirit Nidus had not tried to reset the Tianyuan Megaverse, then why would so many have risked their lives to board Boundless and travel to the Spirit Nidus? Why would Lu Yin even be in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse?

There had been a time when the Boundary Guardians had served the Spirit Nidus’s efforts in the Tianyuan, suppressing the megaverse’s cultivators, ambushing the Origin Progenitor, and supporting Yong Heng to slow the Tianyuan’s development. They had scattered the Three Realms and Six Daos and been responsible for countless deaths, erasing entire eras from history.

If who was right and who was wrong was to be objectively determined, then the Tianyuan Megaverse had never harmed anyone.

But there was no right or wrong in the cosmos; survival was the only correct choice.

For the Tianyuan, defeating the Spirit Nidus meant their own survival. For the Spirit Nidus, defeating the Nine Odysseys Megaverse meant survival. For the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, gaining strength was survival, as was possessing self-awareness.

Everyone wanted to live. Using survival as a reason to plunder others was pure hypocrisy. However, if that reason was abandoned and plunder was not justified, then it would truly be the rule of the strong.

Ultimately, strength was necessary.

Lu Yin stood inside the Skyward Gate, observing the cultivators from the Spirit Nidus. None of them could see him. They simply saw the Skyward Gate itself as the entire Nine Odysseys Megaverse and were utterly ignorant of the true gap in power between the Spirit Nidus and the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

Dealing with the unrest in the Spirit Nidus was not merely about suppressing the group outside. Even if the megaverse’s current generation of cultivators was dealt with, what about the next generation? And the one after that?

If the Spirit Nidus lost faith in the pursuit of cultivation, how many people would continue to follow that path?

Who would willingly walk a path that ended in a broken cliff? People would prefer to only proceed halfway, rather than be forced to jump.

To the Spirit Nidus, the path of cultivation that they currently saw only led to a broken cliff.

Their path... was broken.

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