Necropolis Immortal
chapter-2004

"Deal!” Lu Yun took out the Tome of Life and Death without second thought and threw it at the mother altar. His reaction scared the person behind the face. It violently jerked backward and Lu Yun summoned the treasure back to him with a beckon.

"See, I gave it to you, but you don’t dare take it,” he sighed. “So c’mon, what do you really want? Or should we fight it out?”

"Do you know that you once walked a section of the true path, then lost your way, but now you’ve created another true path from your deviation?” The face spoke of something else entirely.

"What true path?” Lu Yun blinked.

"Cultivating nothing,” the face chuckled. “I am actually a Nihil World Sovereign.”

Lu Yun’s eyes widened. A Nihil World Sovereign! That was the cultivation method that the tree god had passed down in the Land of Reincarnation. Cultivating nothing would steadily enlarge one’s body until one day, the cultivator poof’ed straight out of existence and left no trace of themselves behind.

Lu Yun understood the tree god to be a benevolent soul. He was the patron saint of the human race and would never do something that would benefit himself at the expense of others. Since he’d passed the method along and created this great dao, that meant there were unexpected surprises waiting at its end.

Nihil World Sovereign!

The final realm before accessing sequence was Nihil World Sovereign. It wasn’t an end since if one didn’t access sequence, the Nihil World Sovereign would become true nihil and vanish from existence.

The existence in front of them labeled it as the true path? Cultivation into nothing?

Lu Yun suddenly thought back to when he’d first entered the fourth realm. The realm had been completely empty to his eyes then, devoid of everything!

Or had that been a trap set by the tree god so the true path could be laid out in front of cultivators? Was the Land of Reincarnation truly meant as a place of rest and recovery, or was it…?

Or was the existence in front of him saying these things on purpose to confuse Lu Yun? But the true path that he mentioned, was it the decision to forgo the dao palace and directly become a supreme?

Lu Yun didn’t know if his thoughts were still in order, but formula dao was well and truly in disarray. He couldn’t deduce if this entity spoke the truth or not.

"I’m just an inconsequential ant myself—Nihil World Sovereign is just the beginning,” the person continued.

Lu Yun narrowed his eyes.

"But to all of you, I am an inviolable, lofty figure on high. There is nothing in your patch of existence that interests me apart from these beings of flesh and blood. Your bamboo scroll is the only exception. However, I can’t protect it if I bring it back with me. It will bring me disaster instead.”

Lu Yun remained silent as the sacrifice continued. The Master of Darkness was blood red and the ten Yama Kings had returned to hell through the Gates of the Abyss. Wayfarer, his comrades, and Shu Yan had long since disappeared. He didn’t know if they’d left the burial mound or were hiding in some place where the power of sacrifice couldn’t reach them.

"Are you really just an ant?” Lu Yun jerked his head up and looked at the face close at hand. There were some things he didn’t understand, like why there were living beings in the nothingness. Judging from what the face said, there was more than one person present.

But he also didn’t need to understand this as a crazy thought popped into his mind—make the person or the thing in front of him stay!

Lu Yun still possessed his own judgment as the Tome of Life and Death protected his heart and mind. Perhaps the thing in front of him was lying, so he had to capture it and verify how much of what it said was true. Of one thing he was certain, and that was that it coveted the Tome of Life and Death. Thus, the treasure became perfect bait.

An oversight had finally appeared in Yun Yi’s plot because she couldn’t calculate the existence of the Tome of Life and Death. Even though she could see it, judging from current circumstances, she’d still underestimated it.

"That’s right, I’m just an ant.” The person smiled superciliously at Lu Yun, seemingly having guessed what the young man would do next.

"Then get down here!” Lu Yun reached out and formed the power of reincarnation into a massive hand, clawing at the face.

Sadly, he closed on empty air.

"I am a Nihil World Sovereign, formless, intangible, and present in all locations. How can fools of the existence touch me?” The face swayed back and forth, looking at Lu Yun with derision.

At the same time, Lu Yun discovered that the power of sacrifice was fading away. The power of reincarnation could break through sacrifice! Chen Xiao and the others were being protected by reincarnation, but they could neither see nor hear. Their five senses had been stripped from them, just like when Daoist Ingress slashed the Jade Record of Creation with his Qingping Sword.

It was a condition between reality and nihil that appeared again when the power of reincarnation negated the power of sacrifice.

"You don’t want the book when I give it to you, so c’mon, what will it take for you to let my people go?” Lu Yun suffused the world beneath the ground with the power of reincarnation. It even seeped through the Sword Formation of Immortal Condemnation into the primordial world of immortals to prevent the regular operation of the sacrifice.

He would be able to destroy this rite given enough time, but he was so weak that the power of reincarnation he could deploy paled in comparison to the power of sacrifice. Reincarnation could negate the sacrifice, but it couldn’t keep up with the rate of the sacrifice’s expansion. Before he fully erased it, everyone here would be completely consumed.

"A few less people doesn’t mean anything to you,” he continued.

"I can forgive your show of disrespect if you offer something extremely important to you as a hostage. When you are strong enough, you will enter nihil with your bamboo scroll and come find me,” the person said after momentary thought.

"Something… extremely important to me?” Lu Yun frowned slightly and reflexively looked at the Imperial Seal. Yun Yi had given it to him and it was without question, very important to him. It was the key to completing Yun Yi’s plot.

But to Lu Yun, lives were more important than a dead treasure.

The person also saw what was in his hand and smirked, “Give that to me.”

Lu Yun sank into deep contemplation, a reaction that prompted a broad grin from the person. It would be very suspicious if the young man also handed the treasure over without hesitation.

"Very well then,” Lu Yun replied solemnly. “Yun Yi set up this plot with her life and this Imperial Seal is the key. If I give it to you, I may return to being a pawn.”

The face stared at the time in his hand and closed its eyes, calculating something.

"It is as you say, you aren’t lying. Then give me the seal,” he chuckled. “It’s just a treasure, a symbol. If that woman from earlier really wanted to elevate you from being a pawn, she wouldn’t bet everything on this seal.”

Lu Yun nodded mutely and waved the seal to the face. He then closed his eyes and sent over the images of a few people.

The face kept its word—it was situated in nothing and looked down over existence. It could not move against Lu Yun and it coveted the Tome of Life and Death. It had to reach an agreement with the young man to ensure that he willingly entered nihil.

The moment he did, everything would be within the face’s control. Time that flowed within existence meant nothing to the owner of the face. Lu Yun’s development would occur in a seeming split second.

It wasn’t afraid that Lu Yun would renege on his words either because this seal was just that important to him.