Necropolis Immortal

nety years left to him, but that still wouldn’t be enough for the endeavor.

The lotus flower lacked a name and had always been in Hongjun’s possession.
Apart from Wahuang and a few others in the great wilderness, no one else knew of its existence.
One had to know that the Chaos Lotus, first of the nine great spirit roots, occupied only thirty-six ranks when evaluated.
This lotus flower was a full hundred and eight!

……

The road to netherdark was a winding path beneath Mount Buzhou.
A section of endless darkness stretched ahead of them as they followed the path; the little fox had burrowed deep into Lu Yun’s arms and wouldn’t take a look no matter what.

“Aren’t you sad at all now that Taiyi’s really gone?” Lu Yun dragged her out and placed her on his shoulder.

“He could never bear to really die,” the little fox snorted.
“He prepared the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates a long time ago and took advantage of the situation to pull a disappearing act, just like a cicada sloughing off its skin.
He’s just waiting for human dao to be established so he can be reborn as a human.

“In the future, someone will bring out the diagram for the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates and seal away the great wilderness planet.
Someone also sets up the great formation in the Xuan Yuan Tomb.
Who do you think does all that?”

Incredulous silence blared from Lu Yun.

“That guy went to the trouble of ruining my reputation so he could get my Bell of Chaos.
He said I was his consort! Hmph! Hmmmmph hmph hmph!!” The little fox polished the bell hanging from her neck.
“The bell was mine to begin with! That person gave it to me!”

That person was the one who’d enlightened the little fox—very possibly Hongjun.

“Ah, right.
I once heard that in the time before Emperors Fall, the great masters rarely revealed their real names out of concern that someone would be able to attack them with that knowledge.
Why aren’t the masters of the great wilderness like this?” Lu Yun was rather confused.
This had been one of the reasons why he’d gone to the effort of creating the Lie Shan moniker.

“We are in the age of the primitive great dao, a time in which many combat arts and cultivation methods are ridiculously crude.
Even an empyrean cultivator like you can smash a chaos realm demon god to pieces.
What kind of intricate art do you think those brutish and absentminded demon gods can come up with?” The little fox rolled her eyes.

“All of that will happen after the human dao is established, and most of the uncanniest combat arts will be invented by the humans.”

Lu Yun rubbed his nose.
He was just chitchatting because their surroundings were growing increasingly sinister.
An evil wind howled on both sides of the path, and ghostly faces seemed to fade in and out of existence beside them.

The netherdark was the world of the dead.
Unless one happened to be a great master, dead souls would all be inevitably drawn to this world.
He and the little fox had entered it at some unknown point in time.

The path beneath their feet twisted and turned, exuding a faint haze of light.
It was their only source of light in this world.

“This path will likely become the Path of the Dead in the future.” Fiery sparks flashed through Lu Yun’s eyes—hellfire was biding its time and just scaring off the things around them for now.

“But the netherdark should be a world of its own, which isn’t the case here.
So… we aren’t really in the netherdark yet,” he murmured to himself.

“Lie Shan of the human race, why do you trespass into the netherdark?!” An intangible voice demanded by his ear.

“What trespass into the netherdark?” A cold smile quirked Lu Yun’s lips.
“This your home?”