It was quite a while before Lu Yin was able to calm his emotions. The more that his killing intent filled the universe, the more that he had to endure loneliness. The Nine Ramparts had already fallen; humanity could not afford to lose again.
Making a mess for Vestigium, luring the Plume Immortals over, tacitly cooperating with Hong Xia—he was working on all of these projects. One day, it would be time to settle accounts with everyone in full.
He glanced back. “Why did you run so far away?”
Twenty-Fifth blinked. “Uh... Well, I wanted to fart. I was afraid I’d gross you out.”
Lu Yin just stared.
He put the two black plates away. With them, he now had fifteen of the hundred scales that formed the full One-Hundredth Seal. There was still a long road ahead of him.
He teleported away, heading straight for Manifest City. He wanted to see which side of the city Pan had once defended and try to retrace those fights.
However, after circling Manifest City once, he found nothing. On all sides of the city, there were countless battle scars. Too much time had passed, and there was no way to tell what belonged to who.
In the end, Lu Yin entered Manifest City. In the past, he had been afraid that he would not be able to leave after entering the mirebound artifact, and he had worried about various things. At this moment, he did not know why, but he was no longer worried. Manifest City was something that humanity’s forebears had sworn to defend with their lives. What did he have to fear?
He would take control of Manifest City. He would, no matter what.
This time, when he entered Manifest City, Lu Yin was different from before. He did not transform into an ant, but rather into a bird. He flew above Manifest City and looked down upon the entire thing.
He could see it clearly, all of Manifest City. It was so large. There were two main streets that intersected, and there were also city gates in all four directions. There was a gate at both ends of each of the main streets, but there was nothing outside of the city.
Had three of the gates been sealed?
Becoming a bird made leaving again easy. Manifest City externally manifested the inner aspect of whatever creature entered it. Before, Lu Yin had been an ant; his ambition towered to the heavens, with power far beyond ordinary understanding. However, he had been too small, and he had been unable to see the world clearly. However, after becoming a bird, he was able to see the entire thing clearly, and his will grew even more unyielding.
Freed of the earth’s shackles, he spread his wings and soared.
However, his existence was not without danger. An arrow shot past him. Lu Yin narrowly dodged it and dove away.
Someone had just shot at him. Arrows fired by ordinary people did not move fast, but at this moment, Lu Yin was only an ordinary bird, and that arrow had nearly killed him.
Fortunately, he had quickly dodged aside.
Hiding beneath the eaves of a building, Lu Yin looked down the street ahead of him. Compared to an ant, a bird drew far more attention and was in far greater danger.
How, exactly, was it possible to gain control of Manifest City? Could it be... that one needed to become human? Only humans could control a city.
Yes, it must be that one had to enter as a human.
But Lu Yin was already human. He had transformed into a bird, so how could he become human again?
A creature’s inner aspect changed with the state of their mind. His own mental state was still insufficient.
Still, since he had become a bird, he would get a clear picture of Manifest City. He would see things that he had not been able to see as an ant. As a bird, he could take it all in. There was no need to rush and leave.
The bird skimmed along the eaves and flew into the distance.
Lu Yin wanted to find an opportunity to take control of Manifest City. While it was very likely that the path to doing so was to enter the city as a human, what then? How would he control anything after becoming human? That was still a problem.
Moreover, there were many creatures within Manifest City that Che had thrown in for his tests. Lu Yin wanted to find them and learn about Che from them.
Soon, he took a bug out of Manifest City.
The moment the bug left Manifest City, it transformed into a creature that Lu Yin had never seen before. Staring at the endless cosmos, it let out an excited howl, only for Lu Yin to slap it into perfect obedience. He ordered it to respectfully stand to the side.
The creature was rather brainless, or could it have become stupid after spending so long as a bug in Manifest City?
The reason why Lu Yin had noticed this particular bug was because it had been too obvious. The bug had lain under some eaves and then stood up to look out.
When had an ordinary bug ever stood upright to get a better look? Also, when Lu Yin had arrived in his bird form, the bug had actually run, and very fast at that. If the bug was not a transformed creature, there would be no explanation for such behavior.
Upon leaving Manifest City, the creature showed such intense excitement, but being outside the city was far more dangerous than being inside.
“Tell me who you are. You get just one chance, or else I’ll throw you back in,” Lu Yin threatened. Compared to dying, creatures that had been stuck in Manifest City should fear being sent back in even more.
Sure enough, Lu Yin’s threat caused the creature to immediately spill everything it knew.
Lu Yin listened for a while, but it was all meaningless. The creature had not been aware when it had been thrown into Manifest City by Che. It had been asleep, and when it next opened its eyes, it had found that it had transformed into a bug. Luckily, it had happened to fall under the eaves, where it had been undisturbed. Having no natural enemies, it had managed to survive.
It knew nothing. For the creature, the entire world of Manifest City had only been that stretch of space beneath the eaves. It had wanted to escape, but it had only tried once. It had nearly been stepped on and squished to death. After that, it had stopped trying and had simply accepted its fate.
It was nothing more than a small nobody within some unknown civilization.
Disappointed, Lu Yin casually threw the creature onto a Zenith Mountain and continued. He re-entered Manifest City. Some time later, he emerged with another creature. This time, he had taken a chicken. The fact that it had survived its time in the city was unbelievable to Lu Yin.
“Thank you for saving me, my lord! Thank you for saving me, my lord!
“This lowly one was adopted. Luckily, the family’s master was kind and didn’t eat this lowly one but merely kept me as a pet. However, my poor elder brother... he was eaten just like that! Waah-”
Lu Yin looked at it. “Your elder brother was...?”
“Another chicken.”
They really were brothers. They even had the same inner aspect.
That said, what kind of inner aspect would turn someone into a chicken?
The creature also knew nothing. It was not an Immortal, and had been unqualified to know anything. It had simply been sent right into Manifest City.
Che had been experimenting, but for the creatures sent into Manifest City, it had been a catastrophic disaster. Perhaps... they were once part of a civilization.
Lu Yin entered Manifest City again and again, bringing more and more creatures out. Ten years passed. He emerged with many creatures, though given the vastness of Manifest City, they were only a drop in the ocean. During these years, he also managed to learn quite a lot about Manifest City, and most importantly, that the city was “haunted.”
As soon as night fell, Manifest City became haunted.
In truth, the haunting was the various transformed creatures. They had taken on forms of all kinds of living creatures and even objects, and they ran all about. Some knew that they could leave by touching a city gate, but others did not.