Lu Yin was startled to see the sheets of white liquid suddenly transform into blades that held immense power. Together, they rivaled the strength of Xia Shenji's Shenwu World. This had to be The Abandoned's most powerful knife attack. This attack brought out dozens of blades at the same time, and they attacked from every direction.
How had the man pulled this attack off?
Hongyan Mavis looked up as she took a step forward. Ripples spread out from her body, and they swept through the entire cave, shattering all of the short blades that had formed from the white liquid.
In a corner of the cave, The Abandoned's pupils contracted. He could not win. He quickly stepped back onto the teleportation device to escape, but the grass covering the device prevented it from activating. When the man tried to tear the void open in order to escape, a hand was already gripping his shoulder.
Lu Yin had caught The Abandoned.
The Abandoned could stay one step ahead of his opponents, but Hongyan Mavis's strength had already pushed all of the sequence particles away, which meant that The Abandoned could not use them. He was no longer able to perceive Lu Yin when the young man moved at the speed of time.
The moment the man sensed Lu Yin’s hand on his shoulder, The Abandoned froze. He could tell that it would be impossible to overcome the young man’s strength. The Abandoned had always been able to stay one step ahead of his opponents by using his sequence particles, but without access to his law of the universe, he lacked the power to make up for the difference in raw strength.
The Abandoned lowered his arm, a cold expression on his face.
Lu Yin continued to hold the man’s shoulder. "I tried talking to you nicely, but you wouldn't listen. Aeternus has declared a Divine Commandment, and they are gathering their full power to destroy all human civilizations. Do you really think that you can keep fighting on your own? If multiple experts as strong as Arrow God ambush you, do you think that you can escape?"
The Abandoned replied in a mocking tone, "I've always known that I'd eventually die. It doesn't matter."
"Then make your death mean something. I can find a place worthy of your death. For now, you can't die. Join us in fighting against Aeternus. I’ll let you keep targeting Arrow God, and there will even be someone to protect you from her attacks. As for killing her, that will be up to you." With that, Lu Yin released the man’s shoulder.
The Abandoned looked over at Hongyan Mavis. "Who’s she?"
If not for Hongyan Mavis, The Abandoned was confident that Lu Yin would not have been able to stop him from leaving.
Making a display of physical strength visible was relatively simple, but having the raw strength to repel sequence particles was absolutely terrifying. The Abandoned had never encountered anyone with such formidable power before.
Lu Yin laughed. "How could I get you to stick around without bringing a powerhouse with me? Come with me to the Heavens Sect."
The Abandoned sighed. "Do I even have a choice?"
"I remember now! This is Mirrorbane," Hongyan Mavis commented excitedly as she stared at the milky white liquid on the ground.
Lu Yin was puzzled. "What's Mirrorbane?"
Hongyan Mavis turned to The Abandoned. "Is this the substance that returns your exact attack back to you if you hit it?"
The Abandoned nodded. "Yes. I discovered it by accident. It's rather odd, but no one besides me seems to know how to use it."
The man grew much more curious about Hongyan Mavis. She had mentioned earlier that it would be appropriate to call her “Ancestor” due to her age. Just how long had she lived for?
Hongyan Mavis smiled. "Sure enough, it's Mirrorbane. I never thought that I'd see this again."
"Senior, can you explain?" Lu Yin asked curiously.
Hongyan Mavis answeed, "We call this substance Mirrorbane. It's the pettiest substance in existence. If you hit it, it will always retaliate perfectly. If you stab it with a knife, it will transform into a knife and stab you back. That's why so many knives appeared earlier, which I understand now."
She looked back at The Abandoned. "You really know how to use this well."
Lu Yin's eyes lit up. "Is what you said true?"
Hongyan Mavis flicked a drop of the liquid into the air, where it transformed into a flat plane.
Lu Yin bent a finger and flicked the liquid. The moment his finger struck, the plane transformed into a bent finger that struck back at Lu Yin.
The force of the counterattack was exactly the same as his own. This was truly remarkable.
He looked at The Abandoned. "I understand that the blades that appeared are the attacks that you used earlier, but aren’t the attacks supposed to target whoever made them? Why did it attack us?"
He suddenly realized something. "The direction?"
The Abandoned nodded. "It's not alive, and there’s no intelligence behind its reactions. It simply retaliates in a given direction. When I attacked it, I attacked it from your direction, so its retaliation was aimed towards you."
Lu Yin was amazed. There truly were countless wonders in existence, and this Mirrorbane was clearly one of them.
"In the past, whenever we got bored of cultivating, we all played with this stuff." Hongyan Mavis grew nostalgic as she crouched down and pulled up a bit of the liquid. "But as time passed and our cultivation improved, this stuff wasn’t able to keep up. It couldn't withstand the power of our attacks later on, so we eventually stopped playing with it."
Lu Yin asked, "What's the maximum amount of force that it can counter?"
The Abandoned replied, "It can withstand my full-strength attacks, but when I tried attacking it twice at the same time, it could no longer handle it."
Lu Yin was taken aback. "That's still very impressive. After all, you're a sequence powerhouse, and there’s not much that can withstand one of your full-powered attacks."
Hongyan Mavis jumped in. "While it’s better than nothing, it’s useless against people at our level of strength. I’m just taking a bit for the memories."
Lu Yin also collected some of the liquid. He was able to upgrade things, so if he could Enhance the white liquid to the point where it could withstand attacks from the Three Realms and Six Daos, or even stronger attacks, it would become invaluable.
He was curious to see if it could be improved.
After leading The Abandoned back to the Heavens Sect, Lu Yin decided to check on the Nine-Star Civilization, as he had no idea how they were doing.
He was particularly interested in their nine-star technique, Restart. If Kakawen had not used Restart, destroying his universe in the process, Xu Jin would not have been gravely wounded, and it would have been far more difficult for Lu Yin to have killed the eyeball.
The Nine-Star Civilization was fundamentally different from Ye Wu and The Abandoned.
Their universe had been utterly destroyed. It had been reduced to a dark, chaotic realm that was devoid of anything. It was as though Restart had taken everything in the universe away with it.
The Nine-Star Civilization had moved to a parallel universe that was connected to their old universe, though the only thing that remained was their Star Capital.
Star Capital was a vast city, but it had been impossible to save everyone in the Nine-Star Civilization from the destruction of Restart.
The civilization had suffered unbelievable losses.
Lu Yin's arrival created an uproar in the Nine-Star Civilization. Everyone felt grateful to him, as if not for his efforts, all of them would have been captured by Aeternus.
"On behalf of the Nine-Star Civilization, I, Mimina, welcome you, Lord Lu!" Mimina announced.
"Welcome, Lord Lu," everyone in Star Capital echoed the woman’s words.