The second star’s explosion sent Yi Ren hurtling backwards, coughing up a mouthful of blood as he flew. His eyes opened while he was still tumbling through space, and one of them took on a blood-red color. At this moment, Yi Ren looked exactly like when Yang Yi had seen him underground.
But this time, fluctuations started to ripple within the blood-red eye. Suddenly, a tentacle tore out of the eye and shot towards Lu Yin. At the same time, more tentacles wrapped around Yi Ren’s body, binding him within a tight cocoon.
Lu Yin hurriedly dodged the tentacle. What the hell were those things?
The tentacles were a muddy brown color, and they were also covered in a disgusting layer of slime. The near endless number of runes that Lu Yin observed from the tentacles were in no way inferior to Yi Ren’s own.
Lu Yin looked over at the Progenitor of Bloodlines and saw the old man’s confused expression. “I’ve never seen Yi Ren display an ability like this.”
Lu Yin continued to detonate one star after another while simultaneously manipulating runes to erase Yi Ren’s power.
Yi Ren's power was continuously weakened by the Progenitor-level runes, and due to that, the explosions that struck his body had the ability to severely injure him. His strength was merely comparable to Progenitor Xia Shenji's clone’s. However, the revolting tentacles were never completely destroyed, despite the force of the various explosions, as they were able to regenerate after breaking apart. On top of that, their resilience was remarkable, and often endured the force of the explosions.
Everyone gaped at the cocoon of tentacles. How did a Progenitor end up looking like such a freak?
The disk suddenly broke free from the restraints of the Progenitor-level runes. Within the slimy mass of tentacles, one of Yi Ren’s arms reached out and grabbed hold of the disk. The tentacles began to unwrap from his body.
As soon as Yi Ren was exposed, everyone who saw him shuddered in horror as a cold chill ran down their spines.
A squirming, wriggling mass of tentacles stretched out from one of his eyes.
Si Xiao’er felt her stomach heave, and she vomited on the ground within the Aeternus Kingdom. The grotesque sight left her stomach churning in revulsion.
Other onlookers were overcome with the same inclination to empty their stomachs’ contents.
Yang Yi’s face grew pale from fear. Master, what has become of you?
Bu Kong’s face had a similarly ugly expression. He clenched the shaft of his spear so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
Yi Ren fixed a death glare at Lu Yin. The Progenitor was fully aware of just how nauseating his appearance was, but there was no other way. The strength that Lu Yin could unleash by borrowing Progenitor Chen’s power meant that Yi Ren had to exert his full strength.
He shoved his hand into his eye socket, grabbed it, and ripped the scarlet eye out. The tentacles were rooted within the eyeball itself. “This is called Decaying Diablo. Heaven only knows where Shaman God found it, but regardless, he gave it to me. With this, I’m strong enough to fight against Xia Shang! It might look disgusting, but it’s rather useful, as well as very obedient.”
With the eyeball removed, Yi Ren no longer had such a hideous appearance. He was just a man who was missing an eye.
Of course, that was also assuming that he did not replace the eyeball.
“I never expected that a junior who once competed with my own disciple would one day force me to such a point.” Yi Ren stared at Lu Yin. “Since you are able to use Xia Shang’s power, then killing you means that I’ll finally avenge my Yi family!”
The eyeball then turned around so that the pupil faced Lu Yin. Swarms of tentacles surged out, converging upon Lu Yin.
Lu Yin was well and truly grossed out by this point in time. He accessed his cosmic ring, retrieved the slipper, and then tossed it to E Chi. The champion stood with a serrated blade in one hand and the slipper in the other. Both weapons lashed out at the approaching tentacles.
The moment the slippers came into contact with the tentacles, even though they were durable enough to withstand the multiple star explosions, they instantly shattered.
Yi Ren’s remaining eye bulged out of its socket from shock. Impossible! That’s impossible!
E Chi continued to attack with the slipper, and he completely smashed all of the approaching tentacles.
At the same time, Progenitor-level runes continued erasing Yi Ren’s power while the jiao clawed at the Progenitor from behind. Besieged from three different directions, even someone like Xia Shenji would struggle, much less Yi Ren.
He raised his disk over his head, and it rapidly expanded. The might of a Progenitor surged out to encompass the entire Starfall Sea. The waves grew, and the water became turbulent.
Right when everyone was anticipating the Progenitor’s next attack, the entire disk vanished, as well as the man himself. The only trace that remained of Yi Ren was a pitch-black shadow that instantly shot off into the distance.
The void was completely empty. There was no sign of the disk, Yi Ren, or those tentacles. All was still and silent.
Within the Aeternus Kingdom, Yang Yi felt as though he had just been doused by a bucket of ice water. Gone! His master had just abandoned them and left by himself.
Everyone had seen Yi Ren escape.
However, all this remained within Lu Yin’s expectations. After all, even Xia Shenji had been helpless against Lu Yin. If not for the tentacles, Yi Ren himself would have been destroyed.
There was no denying that the Sixth Mainland’s three Progenitors were far weaker than Xia Shenji or any of the other Progenitors from the Perennial World. At best, the three were around Bai Sheng’s level of strength.
However, even Lu Yin would be hard-pressed to actually stop a Progenitor who was determined to escape.
Progenitor Chen’s power was not without limits.
“Senior, why did Progenitor Chen wipe out the Yi family?” Lu Yin asked the Progenitor of Bloodlines out of curiosity. Lu Yin’s impression of Progenitor Chen was that he was a man who had been unrivaled throughout the universe, someone who could easily extinguish the lives of other Progenitors. That was not someone who would use their power to wipe out an entire family for no reason.
The Progenitor of Bloodlines sighed. “The resentment between him and that family ran too deep, and it was impossible for them to ever resolve those grudges. Back then, the Sixth Mainland had declared war and even vowed to not cease until either they or their enemies died. Progenitor Chen had a faithful group of followers who were practically his disciples. All of them participated in the war, and during a battle at Fan Qingshan, almost all of those people were slaughtered. The ones who killed them were from the Yi family.
“If they had merely died on the battlefield, things would simply have ended there, but the Yi family decided to drive their spears through the bodies and stake them to the ground. It was a cruel form of torture, and the bodies all shriveled up as the elements stripped them bare, and they dried out. Some were subjected to even worse horrors, such as being impaled within the bodies of astral beasts. Just thinking about the torment that those people suffered makes me shudder.”
A thought flashed in Lu Yin’s mind.
“The ancient centipede!” he blurted.
The Progenitor of Bloodlines was startled. “A centipede? That’s one of the astral beasts that the Yi family reared as a pet.”
Lu Yin let out a long breath as everything suddenly clicked into place. Many things finally made sense.
Progenitor Chen’s followers were defeated at Fan Qingshan, and some of them were impaled to the ground to weather the wind and rain, while others were impaled within the ancient centipede’s body. It was no wonder why Lu Yin had seen dead bodies pierced through with spears within the body of the ancient centipede when its corpse had appeared many years ago. Those dried up bodies had all been impaled by spears, which had made for a heart-wrenching sight. Before they passed on, those victims had written the words, “My only regret is that I am not able to protect our master while awaiting for the rain to end! Hate! Hate! Hate!!”
Lu Yin finally understood that the “master” mentioned in their messages referred to Progenitor Chen.
Progenitor Chen had loved Wang Xiaoyu, and he had often stared out at rain that fell onto blossoms. Lu Yin finally understood the full meaning of that message.
“There is no right or wrong in war. Dying on the battlefield is simply expected. However, the unspeakably cruel way that those people were tortured drove Xiao Shang to the point of insanity. Like a madman, he sought out every last member of the Yi family, and he successfully killed almost all of them, except for Yi Ren alone. Despite never openly expressing his hatred for Xia Shang, Yi Ren has kept all of his emotions hidden in his heart, unlike Jiu Xiang.”
“Jiu Xiang was always exceptionally wary of the Fifth Mainland, and that was why he tried all different methods to weaken or enslave the Fifth Mainland. Eventually, he even took matters into his own hands. On the other hand, Yi Ren decided to betray humanity. The darkness in his heart is as deep as an abyss,” the Progenitor of Bloodlines explained.
Lu Yin did not offer his own opinion. In war, opinions were the last thing that mattered.
“Senior, in that case, is it true that Shaman God gave him that eyeball?”
The Progenitor of Bloodlines immediately grew solemn. “I’ve never seen it before, so it’s possible that he spoke the truth. I cannot say.”