Star Odyssey

Chapter 1821: Praying To A Statue

Xia Yi looked up at the person who had just appeared and sneered. "Help me? Why?"

"Simply because I don’t like the Great Eastern Alliance."

Xia Yi stared at the person. "Can you even save me? Don't bother wasting your time. There are masters in Blazing Mist Flowzone with power levels of over a million. You can’t save me."

"I can briefly restore you to your peak strength. The Great Eastern Alliance hasn’t dispersed your stellular energy vortex, which means that you should be able to escape on your own." At that moment, the person raised a hand, and a green light enveloped Xia Yi.

About an hour later, the Ross Empire’s mobile fortress trembled and then cracked. Xia Yi shot out, nervousness clouding his face. He glanced around and then charged to the south.

An alarm instantly sounded in the Great Eastern Alliance.

Xia Yi's escape presented a grave threat to the Great Eastern Alliance. If news of the Great Eastern Alliance imprisoning the Xia family's patriarch leaked, the Xia family would not be willing to quietly endure such an insult. Lu Yin was currently absent, so this matter had to be kept hidden.

Wei Rong immediately called Liu Huang and the Second Nightking in hopes that the two would be able to stop Xia Yi.

Xia Yi had fled at his fastest possible speed, so Wei Rong did not know if even the two powerhouses could stop him. Xia Yi was not some average Envoy, but rather the patriarch of the Xia family. He definitely had some tricks hidden up his sleeves.

Xia Yi's escape shook Blazing Mist Flowzone, and both Liu Huang and the Second Nightking abandoned the exit gate they had been protecting just to chase after the fugitive.

At the same time, a figure appeared just outside of Lu Yin’s botanical garden and walked in. The big tree was still trying to escape. The intruder raised a foot and moved past the defensive boundary and to the escaping tree. Through the branches, it was possible to see Sapling, which was sleeping soundly within the big tree’s canopy. The person’s eyes suddenly went wide, and they stretched out a hand to grab Sapling from the big tree.

Sapling was completely clueless, but just as the person’s hand was about to make contact, the big tree’s branches moved and wrapped around them.

The ground shattered, and a terrifying shockwave swept out in all directions, stirring up the entire garden.

Balaror, who oversaw the botanical garden, was blasted back by the shockwave, and he fell off of his bed. He rubbed his head and looked out of his quarters.

The big tree was very famous throughout the Ross Empire’s mobile fortress, so everyone just assumed that the tree had gone berserk and tried to escape again.

No one noticed a figure hidden in a corner of the garden who was staring in the direction that the big tree had fled in disbelief. After a moment, the person coughed up blood.

***

In Burial Garden, Lu Yin was ignorant of everything that had happened within the Great Eastern Alliance, and he had no idea that the big tree had successfully escaped from the garden while carrying Sapling.

At the moment, Lu Yin was making his way through a wasteland and approaching an abandoned settlement. All he could see were dilapidated buildings, and it was clear that the city had been abandoned for a very long time.

Lu Yin entered the forsaken city. He reached out to touch a wall, but his touch did not cause the building to crumble to dust.

He also noticed footprints on the ground, which meant that he was not the first person to visit this place.

He slowly moved into the city. He could not figure out why, but this city gave him a familiar sensation, though he could not quite place it.

He eventually made his way to the center of the city.

There was a bang, and he looked to see that an abandoned long spear had fallen nearby and that the noise had come from it striking the ground.

Lu Yin glanced over, but he was unconcerned, so he kept moving. However, he did not take another step, but rather remained frozen as he slowly turned his head to re-examine the spear.

The shaft was riddled with holes that made it look ancient, but oddly enough, there was no trace of any corrosion. The pits and holes had not been caused by decay, but instead seemed like they had formed as the material naturally fell away from the shaft of the spear.

This strange sight reminded Lu Yin of the ruins that he had once seen from the Rune Civilization. He had come across a knife that had become pitted from age, but not from rust or corrosion. Instead, it had become pitted because some of its runes had vanished due to the passage of time.

Everything that he had seen in those ruins had been created from runes, and this spear looked almost exactly the same.

While considering this, Lu Yin's pupils transformed into runes, and he started to look around. He was shocked by what met his eyes, as he was once again able to see runes, but only within the small forsaken city. This place was another ruin of Rune Technology.

Excitement lit up Lu Yin’s eyes, as these ruins belonged to the civilization that the Rune Progenitor had created. Lu Yin practiced Truesight, and it had been of great help to him throughout his life and had saved him on multiple occasions. He had wanted to improve his mastery of Truesight for some time, but he had reached a bottleneck.

The only way to break through this bottleneck was for him to visit Gods’ Origin.

In the Outerverse, Lu Yin had learned that Amethyst Exchange’s Zi family had been ordered by Gods’ Origin to search for any remnants of Rune Technology or the Rune Progenitor’s civilization. They had found four such remnants, and all of them had been taken to the Neoverse by Gods’ Origin. Breakthroughs in Truesight were only possible with the assistance of remnants of Rune Technology.

Lu Yin had already been planning to make a trip to Gods’ Origin, and he certainly had not expected to stumble upon ruins of Rune Technology in Burial Garden.

When he looked across the small town, he noticed that the greatest concentration of runes was at the southeast.

He slowly approached the area, and he soon saw a statue of an ordinary looking man with nothing special about his appearance. However, Lu Yin’s transformed pupils twitched the moment he looked at the statue, and he gravitated towards it as though something was dragging him closer.

He noticed a large crowd of people kneeling in front of the statue, all looking as though they were praying to the statue, but these people were also statues themselves.

This was not an unfamiliar scene to Lu Yin, as he had seen a similar sight in the last Rune Technology ruins that he had visited. All of the people who had died and been reduced to bone had died in a posture of prayer. However, the statue that Lu Yin had seen in the last ruins had only been half of its body, while the statue he saw at this moment was whole.

Lu Yin approached one step at a time, worried that the statue or the praying figures might turn to dust if he disturbed them too much.

The closer he moved, the more indistinct the statue’s details. Lu Yin felt as though there was a veil concealing the statue’s features, and he no longer felt like he was looking at a face, but rather at a rune.

Lu Yin glanced around at the kneeling statues that were in positions of prayer. Who had carved so many peculiar statues in this place? What had happened to everyone who had visited this abandoned town before Lu Yin?

He looked down at his feet. There were other tracks on the ground, which showed that other people had visited this town, but all of the prints simply ended in the plaza with the statue.

Had the people disappeared? Lu Yin's heart dropped. Was this place dangerous? He remembered what he had seen in the tea hills, and he immediately turned to leave. It would be better to let someone else explore this place first.

However, he was already too late. Lu Yin had never noticed that the statue that all of the figures were praying to was not actually a statue. Rather, it was a wandering corpse that was covered with some kind of shell that made it look like a statue.

The moment that Lu Yin turned away, the wandering corpse made its move. It instantly appeared in front of Lu Yin without him sensing anything, and he could only watch on in horror as it reached out a hand to grab him.

His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and Lu Yin instantly took out the blood-red bell. He would never hesitate to use his most powerful means against a wandering corpse this powerful.

Unfortunately, he never even had the chance to ring the bell before the wandering corpse grabbed his shoulder. The world spun, and when Lu Yin could see clearly again, he could no longer move his body.

His eyes spun about, and he tried to move, but it was impossible. He looked forward and saw kneeling statues around him. Based on his own position, Lu Yin finally understood. None of these figures were statues, but were rather all people who had visited the abandoned town before him.

It was no wonder why the footprints just stopped in this plaza—everyone who entered this place had been turned into a statue. They were doomed to eternally worship the statue of what might have been the Rune Progenitor himself.

As for the blood-red bell, it had fallen to the ground where Lu Yin had been grabbed.

This place was no different from the tea hills! One wandering corpse planted people like tea bushes while this one forced people to become statues that worshiped another statue.

Lu Yin had managed to escape from the first one, but he had not been as lucky the second time around.

He tried to move around, but it was completely impossible.

His pupils transformed into runes, and he observed the entire area. The stone shell covering the wandering corpse that made it look like a statue was actually formed from runes, and when Lu Yin tried to erase a portion of the runes, he failed. It was clear that the wandering corpse had been a master of Truesight.

Suddenly, a jolt shot through Lu Yin's brain, his eyes became confused as he stared at the statue being worshiped by all of the kneeling figures. The face suddenly turned clear, and Lu Yin saw a strange sight as the number of runes started surging. He was looking at the next level of Truesight: Knowing.

A few people that participated in ZENITH had managed to reach the Knowing level of Truesight, but Lu Yin had no clue how he could reach that level of comprehension.

Truesight was not a cultivation art that required a person to comprehend it on their own like other techniques, but was rather a complete technology that had been used to found an entire civilization by the Rune Progenitor himself. He had been a Progenitor who was erased from history. No one was able to master Truesight on their own, and the only way to advance was to find an inheritance.

At this moment, Lu Yin was finally able to catch a glimpse of the Knowing realm of Truesight. Did he need to master that level before he could leave this place?

What about the other people who had been captured by the wandering corpse? Was it only possible for those who had trained in Truesight to leave this place?

Lu Yin took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He already knew how to train, so he would simply do so where he was.

Half a month quickly passed, and a new statue appeared next to Lu Yin. It was another person who had stumbled upon the abandoned town and been turned into a statue by the wandering corpse.

Training in Truesight was not unfamiliar to Lu Yin, and its difficulty lay in how challenging its profound depths were to comprehend. Once that was done, the cultivation itself was not too difficult.

It seemed possible that this was the main reason why the Rune Progenitor had been able to stand up against the Sixth Mainland by relying only on the members of the civilization that he had established. Just how many powerhouses had risen up within that civilization? Lu Yin could not even imagine it.

The Sixth Mainland had refused to keep any records of Progenitor Chen because Progenitor Chen had been an invincible powerhouse even amongst Progenitors. As for the Rune Progenitor, the Sixth Mainland had simply refused to admit that the powerhouse even existed. From this, it seemed quite likely that the Rune Progenitor had posed an even greater threat to the Sixth Mainland than Progenitor Chen.

Soon, another half a month passed. Lu Yin had been practicing here for a month, and his experience in the Knowing realm was steadily increasing. Since Jin He and God Taiyi could reach this realm, he could too.

Two more statues were added beside him.

Ten days passed and then another ten days passed.

On this day, a man came and slowly approached the statue.

Lu Yin was able to move his eyes, and his position allowed him to see where he had entered the plaza, the blood-red bell lying on the ground, as well as a bit further beyond.

He was startled when he saw who had entered the plaza. Was it really him?

This man was Mr. Lifeview, one of the Sixth Mainland's Four Empyreans. He was the master of the Sage Martial Realm's Higher Temple, as well as also Xiao Qing’s master.

Lu Yin was shocked that such a powerhouse had actually entered Burial Garden. Something truly amazing must have been found if even the Four Empyreans were willing to enter.action

Mr. Lifeview saw the central statue, as well as the various kneeling figures, and he immediately stopped moving.

Lu Yin's eyes flickered. He could not decide if he actually wanted Mr. Lifeview to enter the plaza or not. He had no idea how strong the wandering corpse pretending to be a statue actually was, and while the various people would most likely be saved if Mr. Lifeview was stronger than the wandering corpse, that would not necessarily work out in Lu Yin's favor.