Outside the Blood Tower, Hong Xia’s expression grew as dark as water. Who, exactly, was plotting against him?
All of a sudden, his expression changed as he abruptly turned around and left.
Jiu Wen watched Hong Xia’s back as the man left, and a smile slowly spread across Jiu Wen’s face. He knew that Green Lotus and the others were finally beginning to break Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion.
However, the fact that Hong Xia could sense the breaking of his Path of Dispassion from so far away proved that his power was indeed as unfathomable as they had suspected.
Hong Xia arrived beside an orange coffin and entered it. He was going to Vestigium.
Far away, Lu Yin emerged from the Mirari Realm while holding He Xiao. The man was in the same state as Bing Xu: muddle-headed, dazed, and seemingly insane.
In fact, compared to Bing Xu, He Xiao might have endured even worse torment.
Bing Xu’s had relived the torture of the own family members, while He Xiao had suffered the torment of every woman to whom he had ever offered genuine feelings. Each betrayal of true affection had allowed him to walk farther down the Path of Dispassion. Such bonds were no weaker than familial love.
However, family was limited, whereas the women to whom He Xiao had given his true heart were potentially countless. The last woman He Xiao had loved before he broke through to the Immortal realm had been Ba Yue, but he had betrayed a total of 3,821 women. That number far exceeded the number of Bing Xu’s relatives.
He Xiao suffered far worse torture in the Champions’ Stage Purgatory because he had truly given his heart to those women. If not, he could not have walked the Path of Dispassion.
Unfortunately, He Xiao provided about the same amount of karma as Bing Xu: far less than an ordinary Immortal. They were nothing more than Hong Xia’s tools.
Meiren Dan saw Bing Xu and He Xiao’s state and knew that she could not escape the same fate. “Mr. Lu, could you do me a favor?”
“Don’t bother asking to be released,” Blood Tower jumped in.
Awe Gate was speechless; not even an idiot would say something like that.
Lu Yin looked at Meiren Dan. “Tell me.”
“If I go mad, please just kill me,” Meiren Dan said.
Lu Yin glanced at Bing Xu and He Xiao. Although they had both fallen from the Immortal realm, they were still very powerful Dukkhans. Unfortunately, the torment of reliving karmic cycles had essentially ruined them.
Meiren Dan would be the same.
Lu Yin did not know whether to regret this outcome or feel something else. Crippling three Immortals was far too wasteful.
“Alright,” he agreed.
Meiren Dan was grateful. “Thank you.”
As she spoke, she took out a hexagonal plate of armor from her cosmic ring. “This is something that I recently obtained, but I can’t make any sense of it. I also can’t destroy it, but it should be useful. Consider it payment, as thanks for granting my request.”
Lu Yin and the others stared at the hexagonal plate in surprise. “A scale from the Darksky Seal?”
Even Green Lotus froze for a moment. It was actually a plate from the One-Hundredth Seal. No one had expected Meiren Dan to bring one with her.
Meiren Dan was puzzled. “You know what this is?”
Lu Yin smiled, genuinely pleased, as he accepted the plate. “You’ve given me a surprise. Do you have any more? If there are enough, it won’t be impossible to spare your life.”
Meiren Dan let out a helpless sigh. “Just this one.”
“And the others?”
“I don’t know.”
Lu Yin regretfully said, “If it weren’t for the need to break Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion, there would be no need to treat you like this.”
With a casual wave, he heavily injured Meiren Dan and tossed her into the Champions’ Stage Purgatory before taking her to the Mirari Realm.
Meiren Dan had killed countless people, but given the rules of the Dispassion Valleys, if she had not killed others, they would have killed her. What disgusted Lu Yin was her reason for killing everyone: she refused to tolerate anyone from her generation becoming stronger than her. This was what had made Lu Yin see her in the same light as Bing Xu and He Xiao.
But did her thoughts not match those of many others? Who wanted to be surpassed? Meiren Dan had simply taken things to the extreme, as she had possessed the means to do so.
Lu Yin soon returned with Meiren Dan; she had not gone mad.
Unlike Bing Xu, she did not experience torment from family or kinship, and unlike He Xiao, she did not experience the torment of love.
In her karmic cycles, she faced those that she had killed. Those people were unable to inflict the kind of emotional damage that could drive one into insanity. Even so, just like the other two who had entered the Champions’ Stage Purgatory, she simply lay on the ground, gasping for breath.
Her Path of Dispassion was also broken, and her realm had fallen, but Meiren Dan was already content; at least she was not dead. She could live on as a Dukkhan.
“What a pity. If only you could still anoint champions and confer gods,” Mister Mu lamented. He had personally witnessed the uses of the Lu family’s Investiture of the Gods and Champions’ Stage, whereas the people of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse and Spirit Nidus rarely saw either one.
Shortly after Lu Yin had first arrived in Spirit Nidus, his Investiture of the Gods had broken through and transformed into his Karmic Dao, whereas his Champions’ Stage Purgatory was able to increase his karma.
The old means of conferring gods and anointing champions were no longer possible for Lu Yin.
Lu Yin shrugged. “When I first failed to anoint Feng Bo, I knew that I couldn’t do so for creatures from outside my own megaverse. I tried again later, but every attempt failed.”
“Have you ever considered that merely anointing champions and conferring gods might be limited in scope?” Mister Mu said.
Lu Yin froze. He had not considered that.
Mister Mu continued, “Why is conferring gods and anointing champions limited to creatures of the Tianyuan Megaverse? If you apply that limitation to cultivators, then only Immortals can freely roam the Aevum Inch, while realms beneath that level cannot. So... once you break into the Immortal realm... will that change?”
Lu Yin was thrilled. “Would I be able to confer and anoint again?”
Mister Mu smiled. “It’s merely a possibility.”
“Even a possibility is wonderful,” Lu Yin said. He had never forgotten the help that his gods and champions had once granted him.
Just imagine: conferring Green Lotus and the other Greater Sancti, anointing every Immortal he killed. Then, he would be able to instantly release more than ten Immortals. In that scenario, he would dare to challenge even Hong Xia on his own.
Green Lotus and the others exchanged glances.
They had researched the Tianyuan’s history and thus knew about the Investiture of the Gods and the Champions’ Stage. These two innate gifts were, quite frankly, outrageous. But in their understanding, they were limited to Tianyuan cultivators. If what Mister Mu said was true, and if Lu Yin was able to confer gods and anoint champions throughout the entire Aevum Inch, it would be beyond terrifying.