Necropolis Immortal

He’d survived due to a Lifeline Talisman that’d died for him.

Regardless, that horrific blow shattered his confidence and that of all the cultivators from the chief worlds.

Whether it was Lu Qing or the Demonic Vine, those two only took the outsiders down a few pegs. They’d never caused the invaders to lose their conviction because the latter knew that the Land of Reincarnation was a broken world protected by order. Once their experts found the right way to attack, the Land of Reincarnation would fall in the blink of an eye.

Lu Qing and the Demonic Vine were peerless geniuses, but talents of their caliber existed in the chief worlds as well. In fact, there were quite a few of them. It also wasn’t like the two won every single one of their fights—they were sometimes defeated too.

As long as they weren’t invincible, no one would put them on a pedestal and worship them like a god.

But that blow, that blow moments ago had been the full force of a supreme. But it hadn’t come from a supreme! It’d come from a treasure crafted by a formula dao cultivator!

Strong treasures required the hand of a powerhouse and only supremes could deploy a supreme-level treasure. But a puny native had forged an item on par with the supremes and could readily use it?

The blow silenced True Nihil Homeward. Elsewhere in the fourth realm, supremes on the hunt or busy setting up their own schemes also stilled. They uniformly looked toward the Dragon Cluster.

……

“How… is this possible? That was the strength of a supreme!” Greatred was as pale as a sheet. That blow had certainly been an attack from an elite supreme. Even if his primary body was here, he’d die to it all the same if he was caught off guard.

How did something like that exist in the Land of Reincarnation??

“Just our strength alone isn’t sufficient against those heavyweights. We have to release the old zombie.” The Golden Dragon King considered gravely. A mere projection of his will couldn’t withstand that immortal weapon of war. “Quan’er, how goes your study of formula dao?”

Ao Quan shook his head. “Formula dao is part of immortal dao. If I wish to study it, I must first cultivate immortal dao.”

His father knitted his brows together and said no more. The dragons cultivated sea dao—they would never pivot to immortal dao. There were no complete worlds in immortal dao, so once a cultivator switched and accessed immortal dao sequence, they would never break free from it. They would never be able to forge their dao palace and become a supreme.

Even if the immortal dao possessed complete worlds, the dragons would never cultivate another race’s great dao.

“Devious little bastard, no wonder he incorporated formula dao into immortal dao when he invented it!” rasped a man wreathed in shadow next to the Golden Dragon King. His features were indistinct and it was impossible to discern who was speaking. “Here I thought he was utterly selfless, but this is the height of selfishness! No one is able to practice formula dao unless they also cultivate immortal dao!”

“There is one person who can,” the Golden Dragon King uttered. “Chu Xingran.”

“So why did you let him go?! He is very possibly the heir of the ancestral god!” The person’s tone grew urgent and he seemed to be berating the dragon king.

“Torch dragon!” Ao Quan’s expression snapped with irritation. “Know your place!”

The torch dragon.

Born in a sea of hadal hellfire, he was eventually chained in the Xuan Yuan Tomb. Now free thanks to the Golden Dragon King, the latter had brought him here so that the torch dragon could return to his origins. He’d found himself again after all these cycles.

The torch dragon was a powerhouse of the dragon race in the chief worlds and could reverse yin and yang, delineate day and night with a blink of his eyes. He was very prominent in the dragon race, albeit on a lower standing than the Golden Dragon King.

He’d originally entered the Land of Reincarnation to search for traces of the azure dragon ancestral god. When he manifested in the sea of hadal hellfire, he happened to be enlightened by Lu Yun and somehow became humanity’s protector. His existence was thus tied to the human race.

It wasn’t until the Golden Dragon King arrived that he was surreptitiously released from humanity’s bonds and returned to being the torch dragon of old. While he was himself again, he cultivated immortal dao and had accessed eighteen levels of immortal dao sequence. He would have to return to the dragon race and submerge himself in the Metamorphoses Pool to recover his old strength.

When he entered this broken land, he’d done so with his primary body and dismissed his old strength. The torch dragon leveled a vicious glare at Ao Quan and remained ominously quiet.

“On your knees, Ao Quan!” the Golden Dragon King snarled.

“Royal father…” Ao Quan looked over incredulously.

“On your knees and apologize!” his father roared.

“This junior was impudent and humbly asks for the senior’s tolerance,” Ao Quan forced out somewhat reluctantly as he knelt on the ground.

The torch dragon nodded without responding.

“That was just one of Chu Xingran’s replicas and not his primary body. It wouldn’t do anything to capture him,” the Golden Dragon King mollified all parties involved. “He will also never speak of the ancestral god’s whereabouts. The other three ancestral gods vanished along with ours.”

The torch dragon lowered his head.

“Do… you know where the ancestral god is?” the dragon king quickly asked when he sensed something.

“Are you also here for God?” the torch dragon asked instead.

“No,” the dragon king responded frankly. “I am here for the dao palaces of the six supremes. Ao Chong accepting Chu Xingran as a foster son is the first happening of its kind among the azure dragons. I think he is more concerned about the ancestral god than I am. Do you know where the six dao palaces are?”

“Yes,” the torch dragon nodded. “That is no secret. Lu Yun has them.”

“Lu Yun…” the Golden Dragon King frowned ferociously. Twenty thousand years ago, the human named Lu Yun went on a rampage in the Hell Tomb of the Land of Reincarnation, seizing the world of sequence in front of everyone.

After that, the chief worlds thought they assigned enough importance to this human and land. But when they entered the land proper, they saw no sign of Lu Yun apart from a singular appearance at Mount Astronomia. That was when he joined hands with Jiang Kui to force the Corpse Refiners out. The joint bounty issued by a collective of supremes was nearly a joke these days.

Rumor had it that Lu Yun’s rise to prominence was a story written in the last one thousand years. More than twenty thousand years had passed in the Land of Reincarnation—how much stronger was he now? No one had seen him since or fought against him.

“That treasure is called an immortal weapon of war. Lu Yun modified it from an ancient invention in the world of immortals. Tsk tsk tsk, so it’s on par with the full strength of a supreme!” An odd smile crossed the torch dragon’s face hidden in the shadows. “Alright, it’s time for me to get back. I won’t return to the dragons until I’ve located the ancestral god.”

He rose to his feet.

“What just happened?!” The Golden Dragon King shot upright, confusion and incomprehension warring in his eyes. He looked at the Dragon Formula Academy.

“What is it?” the torch dragon paused.

“Yun Lang is dead… he is Yun Yi’s most beloved grandson. Based on what I know, he had eighteen Lifeline Talismans on him. Jian Bu’er just sliced through all of them with one stroke!” Shock and bewilderment filled his gaze.