Chapter 4368: Stone Monster

It was quite a while before Lu Yin was able to calm his emotions. The more that his killing intent filled the universe, the more that he had to endure loneliness. The Nine Ramparts had already fallen; humanity could not afford to lose again.

Making a mess for Vestigium, luring the Plume Immortals over, tacitly cooperating with Hong Xia—he was working on all of these projects. One day, it would be time to settle accounts with everyone in full.

He glanced back. “Why did you run so far away?”

Twenty-Fifth blinked. “Uh... Well, I wanted to fart. I was afraid I’d gross you out.”

Lu Yin just stared.

He put the two black plates away. With them, he now had fifteen of the hundred scales that formed the full One-Hundredth Seal. There was still a long road ahead of him.

He teleported away, heading straight for Manifest City. He wanted to see which side of the city Pan had once defended and try to retrace those fights.

However, after circling Manifest City once, he found nothing. On all sides of the city, there were countless battle scars. Too much time had passed, and there was no way to tell what belonged to who.

In the end, Lu Yin entered Manifest City. In the past, he had been afraid that he would not be able to leave after entering the mirebound artifact, and he had worried about various things. At this moment, he did not know why, but he was no longer worried. Manifest City was something that humanity’s forebears had sworn to defend with their lives. What did he have to fear?

He would take control of Manifest City. He would, no matter what.

This time, when he entered Manifest City, Lu Yin was different from before. He did not transform into an ant, but rather into a bird. He flew above Manifest City and looked down upon the entire thing.

He could see it clearly, all of Manifest City. It was so large. There were two main streets that intersected, and there were also city gates in all four directions. There was a gate at both ends of each of the main streets, but there was nothing outside of the city.

Had three of the gates been sealed?

Becoming a bird made leaving again easy. Manifest City externally manifested the inner aspect of whatever creature entered it. Before, Lu Yin had been an ant; his ambition towered to the heavens, with power far beyond ordinary understanding. However, he had been too small, and he had been unable to see the world clearly. However, after becoming a bird, he was able to see the entire thing clearly, and his will grew even more unyielding.

Freed of the earth’s shackles, he spread his wings and soared.

However, his existence was not without danger. An arrow shot past him. Lu Yin narrowly dodged it and dove away.

Someone had just shot at him. Arrows fired by ordinary people did not move fast, but at this moment, Lu Yin was only an ordinary bird, and that arrow had nearly killed him.

Fortunately, he had quickly dodged aside.

Hiding beneath the eaves of a building, Lu Yin looked down the street ahead of him. Compared to an ant, a bird drew far more attention and was in far greater danger.

How, exactly, was it possible to gain control of Manifest City? Could it be... that one needed to become human? Only humans could control a city.

Yes, it must be that one had to enter as a human.

But Lu Yin was already human. He had transformed into a bird, so how could he become human again?

A creature’s inner aspect changed with the state of their mind. His own mental state was still insufficient.

Still, since he had become a bird, he would get a clear picture of Manifest City. He would see things that he had not been able to see as an ant. As a bird, he could take it all in. There was no need to rush and leave.

The bird skimmed along the eaves and flew into the distance.

Lu Yin wanted to find an opportunity to take control of Manifest City. While it was very likely that the path to doing so was to enter the city as a human, what then? How would he control anything after becoming human? That was still a problem.

Moreover, there were many creatures within Manifest City that Che had thrown in for his tests. Lu Yin wanted to find them and learn about Che from them.

Soon, he took a bug out of Manifest City.

The moment the bug left Manifest City, it transformed into a creature that Lu Yin had never seen before. Staring at the endless cosmos, it let out an excited howl, only for Lu Yin to slap it into perfect obedience. He ordered it to respectfully stand to the side.

The creature was rather brainless, or could it have become stupid after spending so long as a bug in Manifest City?

The reason why Lu Yin had noticed this particular bug was because it had been too obvious. The bug had lain under some eaves and then stood up to look out.

When had an ordinary bug ever stood upright to get a better look? Also, when Lu Yin had arrived in his bird form, the bug had actually run, and very fast at that. If the bug was not a transformed creature, there would be no explanation for such behavior.

Upon leaving Manifest City, the creature showed such intense excitement, but being outside the city was far more dangerous than being inside.

“Tell me who you are. You get just one chance, or else I’ll throw you back in,” Lu Yin threatened. Compared to dying, creatures that had been stuck in Manifest City should fear being sent back in even more.

Sure enough, Lu Yin’s threat caused the creature to immediately spill everything it knew.

Lu Yin listened for a while, but it was all meaningless. The creature had not been aware when it had been thrown into Manifest City by Che. It had been asleep, and when it next opened its eyes, it had found that it had transformed into a bug. Luckily, it had happened to fall under the eaves, where it had been undisturbed. Having no natural enemies, it had managed to survive.

It knew nothing. For the creature, the entire world of Manifest City had only been that stretch of space beneath the eaves. It had wanted to escape, but it had only tried once. It had nearly been stepped on and squished to death. After that, it had stopped trying and had simply accepted its fate.

It was nothing more than a small nobody within some unknown civilization.

Disappointed, Lu Yin casually threw the creature onto a Zenith Mountain and continued. He re-entered Manifest City. Some time later, he emerged with another creature. This time, he had taken a chicken. The fact that it had survived its time in the city was unbelievable to Lu Yin.

“Thank you for saving me, my lord! Thank you for saving me, my lord!

“This lowly one was adopted. Luckily, the family’s master was kind and didn’t eat this lowly one but merely kept me as a pet. However, my poor elder brother... he was eaten just like that! Waah-”

Lu Yin looked at it. “Your elder brother was...?”

“Another chicken.”

They really were brothers. They even had the same inner aspect.

That said, what kind of inner aspect would turn someone into a chicken?

The creature also knew nothing. It was not an Immortal, and had been unqualified to know anything. It had simply been sent right into Manifest City.

Che had been experimenting, but for the creatures sent into Manifest City, it had been a catastrophic disaster. Perhaps... they were once part of a civilization.

Lu Yin entered Manifest City again and again, bringing more and more creatures out. Ten years passed. He emerged with many creatures, though given the vastness of Manifest City, they were only a drop in the ocean. During these years, he also managed to learn quite a lot about Manifest City, and most importantly, that the city was “haunted.”

As soon as night fell, Manifest City became haunted.

In truth, the haunting was the various transformed creatures. They had taken on forms of all kinds of living creatures and even objects, and they ran all about. Some knew that they could leave by touching a city gate, but others did not.

Che’s experiments seemed to involve telling the truth to one group of creatures while keeping another ignorant. All kinds of variations had been used. That was why Manifest City became “haunted” at night and the human occupants only dared to go out in groups. Sometimes, curfews were even put into effect.

The creatures that Lu Yin took out were also all different. Throughout the ten years, he remained a bird. He very carefully circled beneath the eaves of various houses in the city. Like the bug, if Lu Yin flew even a little higher, he would easily be noticed.

One day, as he was basking in the sun, he heard a commotion, which was quickly followed by a child’s crying.

Dumbfounded, he watched as a child crawled out of the pit of a latrine and ran to the nearby house, which led to yet another round of chaos.

Lu Yin sympathized. How miserable.

He spread his wings and flew higher so that he would not have to deal with the stink.

Not long after, the child fell in again. The adults’ scolding and the child’s cries were becoming a headache.

“Mother, I didn’t! I didn’t fall in on purpose.”

“Are you still saying that? Only our family uses that latrine. Your grandpa and your father have both used it since they were little, so how come they never fell in? You’ve just fallen in twice in a row! See if I don’t beat you to death!”

“Mother, I didn’t! I didn’t.”

A few days later, the child fell in yet again. Lu Yin was speechless. Even if the child said that it was not on purpose, no one would believe them. This incident led to yet another bout of scolding and beating.

Still, the family tore the latrine down and rebuilt it. A teacher said that it offended the local feng shui. The child claimed to have fallen in because pebbles had gotten into his eyes, so all of the surrounding stones were thrown away.

Late at night, when it was quiet, a stone moved within a pile of scattered rocks and rubble left beside the new latrine. It rolled round and round, pushing in one particular direction.

Claws descended from the sky and trapped that stone.

Lu Yin looked at the stone he held in his feet. He had felt that something was off. How could a child keep falling into the latrine? So this rock was at the root of it all.

Whose inner aspect was a stone? And how could they have been unlucky enough to become a stone inside a latrine?

This stone had been used to build the previous latrine. How incredibly unlucky. It could clearly move, and yet it had been stuck as a part of the latrine. Lu Yin could not even guess how long it must have been stuck.

The stone trembled nonstop within the bird’s claws, trying to break free.

Lu Yin held the stone as he flew up, heading for the city gate.

This night was especially quiet.

At that moment, the stone’s heart was filled with excitement. It was finally free! It was finally free of that latrine. Only heaven knew how it had endured for so many years.

After becoming a stone and getting stuck in the latrine, it had struggled through each day. Over the long years, despite clearly being able to move, due to being wedged tightly in place, it had never been able to get out. It could only grind, day and night. It had ground at the surrounding stones to carve out a bit of space. Then, when the child had gone to use the latrine, it had sprinkled a bit of grit and dust into the child’s eyes. Only in that manner had it been able to force the family to rebuild the latrine. Without that, who knew how much longer it would have taken it to get out?

It had suffered too terribly and truly gotten unlucky. Who else could have suffered more than it had? Now that it had finally gotten free, why was a bird holding onto it? Judging by the direction, are we headed to the city gate? No, this is no ordinary bird.

“Who are you? Why are you helping me?” the stone asked.

Lu Yin continued to shoot forward, racing for the city gate and the exit.

The stone grew increasingly excited as it watched the gate draw closer and closer. Out! It was finally going to get out!

They touched the gate and left.

Outside of Manifest City, Lu Yin returned to his normal form. He looked to his side to see a dark-skinned stone monster standing there. It was quite large and gave off a powerful and oppressive presence. It was clearly an Immortal.

Lu Yin was pleased to have finally caught a true powerhouse.

At this moment, the stone monster beside Lu Yin was also feeling quite pleased. It was finally free.

Both of them let out a breath of relief.

Then, the creature lowered its head to look at Lu Yin beside it.

Lu Yin looked up at it, but could not see a head. This stone monster had no head, though it had limbs and eyes. It was very strange. Also, judging by its gaze... It doesn’t seem very friendly.

The stone monster raised an arm and viciously swung it down at Lu Yin.

He arched a brow and took a step, dodging the blow.

Boom!

There was a tremendous crash, and the area just outside of Manifest City’s gate shook.

“Hey, be careful! Don’t smash the gate down onto yourself! That’ll just get you thrown back in again,” Lu Yin warned.

The stone monster instantly panicked. It hurried into the Aevum Inch to get away from the gate. Only then did it turn to look at Lu Yin. Its eyes curved. It was smiling, yet it was a fierce, cruel smile. “I should thank you. You’re the one who brought me out. Why did you help me?”

Lu Yin sized up the stone monster. It was an Immortal with some degree of strength, but not much. “I have some questions for you.”

“Easy enough. Ask,” the stone monster said, staring at Lu Yin. Who knew what this little thing might be thinking.

Lu Yin asked, “How did you end up in Manifest City?”

The stone monster’s eyes instantly flared. It raised a hand and swung it at Lu Yin. The palm carried immense power, shattering the void as it carved out a streak of darkness.

Lu Yin’s brow rose. Not very obedient.

He lifted a hand and grabbed out.

Bang!

The void trembled, and countless spatial tears spread out like lightning bolts that split the Aevum Inch apart. The stone monster’s gaze was initially savage, but then shock appeared, finally followed by disbelief. Its arm had been caught.

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