Necropolis Immortal

An ugly smile appeared on Yuwen Zhuifeng’s face while hatred brimmed in his eyes. He’d left home at a young age, leaving behind his parents and family. This had been a long anticipated visit after many, many years of absence and he’d come back to see his father trampled to death right in front of him. How could he bear it?!

He was rage incarnate and wanted nothing more than to swallow Lu Yun alive!

“DIE!”

Magnificent splendor intensified the closer the sword light drew to Lu Yun. But in the next moment, Yuwen Zhuifeng saw the scene clear in front of him. The immobilized young man was suddenly gone.

Pfft!

Yuwen Zhuifeng felt himself rise into the air with a crisp snap, going higher and higher. He caught a hazy glimpse of a body falling forward before his consciousness went black.

Lu Yun kicked the falling head away and rummaged through his opponent’s corpse for the young man’s storage ring and mid spirit rank flying sword.

“Ai, I would’ve needed to expend some effort to kill you, but you relied too much on your backer. Placing your hopes in others ultimately leads to your own downfall instead.”

Yuwen Zhuifeng was quite strong; he was even slightly stronger than Sui Ge. But he trusted the powerhouse behind the pressure too much and didn’t expect that Lu Yun would suddenly strike back. That was how the Lu young master killed him with one stroke.

“You! You killed Feng’er!” A terrifying aura washed over the scene as an elder with a white beard wearing long black robes appeared in front of Lu Yun. He frostily regarded the Lu young master.

“You’re that guy’s master?” Golden light flashed through the young man’s eyes. The old man was an empyrean immortal!

To think that there would be more than a true immortal in Dark City! He looked to have come last night, after Terra Demon entered seclusion to refine the Hongmeng Fruit. Hence, the latter failed to detect this immortal’s arrival.

“I’m right here, you can take revenge for your disciple now.” Lu Yun proudly lifted his chin.

The empyrean immortal was taken aback at how devil-may-care Lu Yun was. Shouldn’t any cultivator be terrified at the sight of an immortal? Hence, he quickly thought of something else.

“I am an empyrean immortal of Jade Ruins Realm. Although the heavenly book suppresses my cultivation, it will not do anything to me if I truly take action.”

“Then hurry up and get on with it.” Lu Yun curled his lip. “I want to go home for dinner. Or don’t tell me, a lofty empyrean immortal doesn’t dare take revenge after this young master killed your disciple right in front of you?”

An empyrean immortal’s aura was vast and profound. Everyone within five kilometers, including Bloodbath, was pressed to the ground. They didn’t have the strength to lift their heads.

Lu Yun, however, faced the vaunted personage with ease and confidence. He was wholly unconcerned with the pressure from an empyrean immortal, like he faced a mortal instead of someone much more superior to him.

The Jade Ruins Realm was a world of cultivation—a place for cultivators, in other words. The rules as set by the heavenly book meant that any cultivator who ascended to empyrean immortal was restricted by the treasure.

Most chose to leave a world of cultivation after reaching immortality, setting out for Great Xia or other places meant for immortals.

Immortals from other locales were monitored by the heavenly book when they entered the world. Any who dared to cause a disturbance in the Jade Ruins Realm were punished by the treasure. Even immortals originally from the realm were treated as outsiders if they later returned.

Thus, someone calling themselves an immortal of the Jade Ruins Realm meant this was someone who’d never left the world after reaching immortality. In other words, someone who didn’t have the courage to set out for other places.

Empyrean immortals were invincible in a world of cultivation, but they were the lowest of the low in a world of immortals like Great Xia. An empyrean immortal without an illustrious background or patron might die or be enslaved at any time.

Based on this one’s style, Lu Yun could tell that he was a coward who immensely treasured his life. Therefore, the more at ease Lu Yun was, the greater his background and backer potentially was. It would make the immortal incredibly wary.

“You may go upon leaving my disciple’s body and personal effects,” the immortal finally said after his expression flickered through a variety of changes.

“Pfft.” Lu Yun curled his lip and walked up to Lu Xiaochi and Bloodbath, gently caressing their shoulders. Hongmeng qi surged into them and freed them from the immortal’s pressure with a shudder.

“Let me leave you a word of advice,” Lu Yun suddenly turned back. “Leave Dark City as soon as possible. The murky waters here are not for the likes of you.”

He ignored the immortal and left with his people.

……

The Yuwen trading headquarters were a pile of rubble and whatever was left had been collected by the sword pagoda that Lu Yun surreptitiously sent out. He didn’t leave anything behind for the Yuwen Clan.

Yuwen Zhuifeng’s master watched the trio leave, raising his hand a few times and putting it back down. Ultimately, he swept a glance at his late disciple and vanished into the air.

The gray jiao stuck its head out of Lu Yun’s sleeve, disappointment writ large in its eyes. It’d wanted to test its strength against the empyrean immortal!

It was like Terra Demon—foreign to the Jade Ruins Realm. But its nascent soul was strong enough that it forcefully hewed through the heavenly book’s power and forced it back. While the jiao would also be restricted by the book if it wanted to take action in this world, it wouldn’t suffer to the same degree as immortals.

Lu Yun heaved a sigh of relief. While he wasn’t afraid of the immortal, certain trump cards would be exposed if they clashed. It would help his enemy take preemptive action. An ace like the gray jiao rivaling a true immortal was something he wanted to keep secret for as long as possible. It would lose effectiveness as soon as the enemy detected something like that existed.

The cowardly empyrean immortal had plainly been a pawn in the hands of the Yuwen true immortal, sent to test the Lu Clan.

……

“Father, your son has been unfilial and caused you to worry!” When Lu Xiaochi saw Lu Tianling sitting in the main hall after they returned, he immediately fell to his knees.

“Never mind that, you’re all back safe!” A faintly smiling Lu Tianling heaved a long exhale to see all three of them back.

“An empyrean immortal as timid as a mouse was used by the Yuwens this time,” Lu Yun interjected. “He was so cowardly that he didn’t dare do anything to me.”

“An empyrean immortal?” Lu Tianling gasped with surprise.

Even Lu Xiaochi and Bloodbath were shocked as their senses had been obstructed when the empyrean immortal’s aura overwhelmed them. They didn’t begin to recover until they returned to the Lu residence, so they weren’t very clear on what’d taken place.

“No wonder there was such a presence coming from the southern quadrant. An empyrean immortal has come,” Lu Tianling mused over the unwelcome revelation. So immortals were already moving against the family!

“Don’t worry, grandpa, he didn’t do a thing. If he did, I would make sure he’d never twitch a finger ever again.” Lu Yun laughed easily when he saw the expression on Lu Tianling’s face. “Don’t forget whose disciple I am, grandpa. My master won’t agree to an immortal disturbing the peace in the capital. Not to mention, He Shanlian should be arriving in a few days. Who will dare touch us then?”

Lu Tianling relaxed only when he heard the law enforcer’s name—he quickly thought of Terra Demon. Although the Lu patriarch had never seen this personage in action, the unconscious projection of the latter’s aura still made Lu Tianling, an awakened powerhouse, jolt with alarm.

It wasn’t the aura that a cultivator could emanate.

“Master, young master, there’s two people outside. One of them calls themselves your disciple!” A servant quickly rushed in with a bow.

“Let them in!” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up.

“Understood!”

Kong Mengqian and Gui Xie walked in soon after the servant left.

“Young master!” Gui Xie called out respectfully when he saw Lu Yun.

“…master!” Kong Mengqian clenched her teeth and reluctantly performed a grand gesture of greeting.

“Good, good, very good!” Lu Yun understood why they were late when he saw Gui Xie. The man had broken through to tribulation realm! The two were most likely undergoing a tribulation somewhere when they were yet to arrive.

“Yun’er, who are…” Lu Tianling asked with confusion. Who were these people? One was tribulation level and the other latter soul separation.

A sixteen year old soul separation cultivator?

The Lu patriarch felt a distinct lack of sufficient mind capacity for use.

“Gui Xie greets the patriarch. Gui Xie has received great favor from the gentleman and has come to show my gratitude,” Gui Xie said before Lu Yun explained.

While Lu Tianling looked to be latter nascent soul, his vast aura stunned Gui Xie to no end. He didn’t believe that Lu Yun’s grandpa was only a nascent soul cultivator!

“Kong Mengqian greets… the martial great grandfather!” the girl nearly cried. “I am master’s disciple.”

……

The Lu Clan set up a grand banquet to welcome Kong Mengqian and Gui Xie. It was beyond Lu Tianling’s wildest dreams that his grandson had accepted such a young soul separation cultivator! With his ability, he could tell from a single glance that Kong Mengqian must come from a distinguished background. Her identity was even more mysterious than Fengxian Wu’s.

After helping Gui Xie and Kong Mengqian settle in, Lu Yun returned to the secret vault. He took out some paramount rank spirit stones and redecorated the area, then took out the Nineheavens Brahman Formation disk.

“The Nineheavens Brahman Formation… If I etch the runes for the Connate Great Dao of the Five Elements into it and turn it into a formation of connate li fire… What will happen then?”

Lu Yun gave it some thought, but ultimately dismissed the idea. His current cultivation was insufficient for spending an entire month etching the runes for a combat art. Not to mention, the Connate Great Dao of the Five Elements was a heavenly dao art. He might not succeed even if he was an immortal himself.

“I should focus on how to refine the formation disk into a treasure…”