Wu Er thought that Hua Wuzui had been asleep throughout the entire process, but he had actually woken up early and seen her.
The cultivators who helped Wu Er with her multiple spirit seed fusion experiments all knew her name, which meant that they could never leave this place, not even if they had succeeded in fusing with more than one spirit seed.
Lu Yin turned the body’s head to the side. Suddenly, a pair of eyes appeared, and they locked gazes with him.
His eyes narrowed as he stared into the slitted red eyes. They belonged to the withered old woman, Wu Er.
"I told you not to move," Wu Er said, her voice hoarse and grating.
Lu Yin silently turned his head back and held still.
She continued to stare at him for a long while. Finally, she turned and walked over to another floating coffin that was nearby. It was her own coffin, and unlike the others, it was red. It actually looked even more sinister and disturbing than the others.
When Wu Er arrived at the red coffin and grabbed it, Lu Yin expected her to enter it. Instead, she turned back to glance at him. With a wave of her hand, she tore the void open and vanished through it, along with the red coffin.
Lu Yin’s eye twitched. He had been caught.
Elsewhere, the Netherfiends were being targeted and dealt with on a large scale, and news had naturally reached Wu Er. She was an extremely cautious person, and the moment she sensed anything wrong, she had simply fled.
The black tree shook violently, and all the floating coffins in the surrounding area shattered, releasing the Netherfiends within. People scattered in all directions.
Lu Yin instinctively searched for a communication device, but the person he was Possessing did not have one. Helpless, all he could do was use the body’s own power and attack upwards in the direction of the sunlight.
Red energy shot straight into the sky.
In the Frightened Sparrow Terrace, Greater Sancte Awe Gate suddenly looked over. A single step caused her to vanish. When she reappeared, she was already above Lu Yin.
“Senior, stop them,” Lu Yin called out, even though this body was only capable of broken, halting speech.
Still, even if his manner of speech caused a brief delay, it did not matter. The fleeing Netherfiends were simply too weak compared to Greater Sancte Awe Gate.
But Lu Yin could not understand why Wu Er had not fled along with the Netherfiends. There only seemed to be one possible reason: she believed that the one actually targeting them was Greater Sancte Awe Gate. She must have feared that it was barely possible to escape on her own, let alone while trying to take others along.
The Netherfiends might be fierce and fearless in the face of death, but they were also not very bright. With more intelligence, those fleeing could have torn through the void and escaped when Lu Yin had been busy contacting Greater Sancte Awe Gate. Fleeing to a parallel universe would have prevented them from being caught this easily.
Lu Yin rushed through a gate, and Greater Sancte Awe Gate also tossed all the Netherfiends that she had captured through, delivering them to the location of Lu Yin’s body.
His mind returned to his body, and Lu Yin took control of the captives. He started to extract the red energy from them.
It took quite a while before he finally finished.
Greater Sancte Awe Gate waited the entire time.
“Thank you, Senior,” Lu Yin expressed his gratitude while watching the last Netherfiend melt away completely.
Greater Sancte Awe Gate offered a faint smile. “We should be the ones thanking you. We have never managed to capture so many Netherfiends at once before. This could be considered the destruction of their headquarters, couldn’t it?”
Lu Yin nodded. “More or less. The Netherfiends are divided into three groups: the first was Zhi, who did nothing but protect the gate.
“The second group is the Netherfiends who are scattered across the Nine Odysseys Megaverse that collect spirit seeds and cooperate with various people.
“The third group is the place we just raided. I don’t know if that was their most carefully hidden base, but it should be close to it.
“The truth is that, ever since Qi Xu died, the Netherfiends have been reduced to little more than a name. Protecting Obscura’s gate and experimenting with multiple spirit seed fusion were both tasks that Qi Xu gave them, but the Netherfiends themselves fulfill no real purpose in performing them.”
Greater Sancte Awe Gate replied, “But if Obscura manages to connect with the Netherfiends, things will change completely. That gate—you noticed it, didn’t you? Obscura could have opened it at any time.”
Lu Yin agreed, “With that gate destroyed, even if Obscura had no plans of immediately attacking our human civilization, the Netherfiends still held value, as they could have sent another gate over at any time. However, if Obscura had intended to strike immediately, the Netherfiends would have held no value at all.
“They can only be considered cannon fodder.”
“No, there’s another purpose: the method of fusing multiple spirit seeds,” Greater Sancte Awe Gate interjected.
Lu Yin nodded, his expression grave. “Spirit seeds are only used as a cultivation method here the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. If Obscura has never used spirit seeds to cultivate, then it means that this method doesn’t exist anywhere else. That’s also why, despite countless attempts over the years, the Netherfiends’ experiments have only succeeded on a few individuals. However, if the method is delivered to Obscura...”
He fell silent, as he was uncertain of what the exact consequences might be.
Would Obscura even care about this method? No could be sure.
If Obscura was powerful enough to simply disregard human civilization and casually guide a stronger civilization over to destroy them, then humanity’s cultivation methods might be useless to Obscura. However, that was not certain. It was possible that humanity’s cultivation method might be an alternative path that would cause a universal increase in combat strength.
Regardless of which was true, this cultivation method could never be allowed to fall into Obscura’s hands.
Lu Yin met Greater Sancte Awe Gate’s eyes. “I will do everything I can to find Wu Er.”
“Wu Er... is that the one Netherfiend who escaped?”
“Yes. She’s the one who’s been conducting experiments on multiple spirit seed fusion.”
Greater Sancte Awe Gate let out a long breath. “I never suspected her to still be alive.”
Lu Yin was surprised. “Senior, you know her?”
Greater Sancte Awe Gate nodded. “She was Qi Xu’s disciple.”
Lu Yin understood. This made sense, and it also confirmed some of his suspicions. The method of fusing multiple spirit seeds had originally come from Qi Xu, and it had been passed down to Wu Er. However, Qi Xu had died before the method could be perfected, so Wu Er was trying to finish the research.
“It won’t be easy to deal with Wu Er. You must be very careful. Before Qi Xu died, she was one of the most powerful beings in the entire Nine Odysseys Megaverse. Unfortunately, there was a gap between Wu Er’s disappearance and my rise to power. If not, Wu Er would have been my ultimate goal to challenge.
“In comparison, Qing Xing rose an entire generation later.”
“Wasn’t Senior Greater Sancte Mi Jin alive when Qi Xu appeared?”
“Not exactly. Greater Sancte Mi Jin wasn’t suited to teaching disciples, and he preferred to develop his own cultivation methods. On the other hand, Qi Xu had her own goals and purposefully accepted many disciples. Most of them died while following her, but Wu Er simply disappeared. She hasn’t shown herself at all during the years since, and we all thought that she was dead. But it turns out that she has merely been hiding. Such patience... She is truly ruthless.”
Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed. For someone to endure for so many years was indeed amazing forbearance.
It meant that Wu Er clearly knew about the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm and that its existence meant that there was no way for her to escape. So, she had hidden herself underground.