Chapter 4437: Music Alone Must Never Be Betrayed
Chapter 4437: Music Alone Must Never Be Betrayed
Lu Yin gazed at the castle, hoping that the next creature he Possessed would be inside of it.
Withered Requiem? He remembered the skeleton that wore sunglasses with colorful cords, a bright green hat on its head, and strange patterns carved into its bones. Lu Yin had no idea how strong that being actually was.
However, he was finally about to rip off the Death Megaverse’s veil of mystery.
Unfortunately, the skeleton that Lu Yin had Possessed was too weak and knew too little. Its location could even be considered the most remote location in this world.
The music suddenly stopped. Every skeleton became motionless, and even the skeletal fish leaping out of the lake were suspended in midair. At this moment, the wind ceased and even time itself seemed to freeze, as though it did not dare to cross the line.
Lu Yin wanted to move, but his body did not. Was it an instinct born of fear, or was there a flaw in the life granted by Bone Script?
A moment later, starting from the castle at the center, a tide of darkness swept across the sky, covering the earth. The ground, the mountains, and even the sky all grew transparent. It was as if everything had suddenly teleported into outer space. Aside from the skeletons and the black castle, Lu Yin could also make out a megaverse in the distance, home to a cosmic civilization.
Outside of that megaverse stood a silent figure. They were an Immortal, and they were staring at the castle with both vigilance and awe.
Inside the megaverse, countless figures stood beneath the stars, waiting for a great battle.
The music suddenly changed. It was no longer thunderous brass, but rather elegant strings. The rhythm was produced by the darkness itself and accompanying it was a beautiful melody played by a figure above the castle. The music was calm yet edged with killing intent. It grew impassioned at times and then gentle the next. As one figure after another stepped onto the top of the castle, the ensemble rose, proclaiming the arrival of war.
Countless skeletons charged into the distance.
The expression of the Immortal outside the megaverse twisted viciously as they attacked.
The Immortal stepped forward, and the rhythm of the music guided life to a new destination. Suddenly, white bones pierced through the Immortal being's flesh, as though they had been imprisoned for endless years and were finally able to crawl free. The scene was bloody and terrifying, and it shocked countless creatures from the cosmic civilization, sending them fleeing in madness.
The music grew louder and louder, as though proclaiming the advent of a new member.
The world beneath Lu Yin’s skeletal feet entered the megaverse, causing the entire thing to twist and collapse. Countless white bones crawled out of the bodies of living creatures, one after another. They all danced to the music and happily started running towards the castle. They had been granted life.
As for the music itself, it grew ever more fervent, proclaiming victory.
Lu Yin silently watched. This war was simple, astonishingly so. No one had actually attacked at all, and yet an Immortal had died. Well, they had not truly died, but rather transformed into a new manner of life that joined this strange world. They also longed to run toward the castle.
Countless skeletons had just joined this world.
A sigh was heard from nearby. “Another competitor has appeared.”
It was a skeleton, the one closest to the skeleton that Lu Yin had Possessed, and it looked rather troubled.
Lu Yin looked at his neighbor, and it looked back at him. It grinned, bones parting as it tried its best to look friendly. “Do you want to form a band? I have a great natural talent for music!”
Lu Yin looked away and stared back at the castle. The figures above it sank out of sight one by one, disappearing.
All of those figures were skeletons. The one that had stood at the top from the very beginning was Withered Requiem. They were a skeleton with the form of an upright dinosaur, but the moment that the music changed, that skeleton had become incomparably elegant. They had conducted the music while conducting the war, erasing an entire civilization and transforming the native creatures into their own vassals.
This was the way in which the Death Megaverse conducted war.
Withdrawing from the Possession, Lu Yin opened his eyes and stared off into the distance. It was the direction of Withered Requiem, though who knew how long the Abyss actually was.
Lu Yin’s mood grew heavy. Withered Requiem would be extremely difficult to deal with. Putting aside their personal strength, just the Immortals under their command were already a serious problem.
With a method like Bone Script, no one knew how many Immortals an Abyss might truly have. Even if those Immortals were unable to display their full power after losing their flesh and blood, they were still Immortals.
On top of that, because they used Bone Script, the creatures of the Death Megaverse’s karmic chains barely advanced. They did not kill but instead bestowed life to bones and then controlled that new life. How was anyone supposed to deal with that?
If Withered Requiem went to war with the Trio, would that same scene play out there as well?
Lu Yin also knew Bone Script and was confident that he could prevent a number of people from being controlled by it, but his strength was far inferior to Withered Requiem's. There was no way that he could protect everyone.
What mattered the most right now was to determine Withered Requiem’s exact location, as well as what sort of power they possessed.
There was one more thing that Lu Yin had forgotten, though he should have considered it long ago: his die's Possession ability. Since it also involved sending out his consciousness, just how far away could he Possess other creatures? How did his die manage to project his consciousness to a place that was unimaginably distant?
Lu Yin stared deeply at his die while he continued rolling it. He wanted to gain as clear an understanding of the Death Megaverse as possible.
Rolling his die was a matter of luck. When fortune favored him, he could immediately gain the outcome he wanted. He had once rolled Possession several times in a row, but when his luck was poor , he might roll it ten or twenty times in a row without getting six pips even once.
Qian Shu was currently within a Zenith Mountain. Lu Yin had once promised the man that, as long as he wrote five Luck (运) characters, he would be released. The first character had taken Qian Shu fifty years to draw, but each one after that had become harder and harder. Both Lu Yin and Qian Shu had once assumed writing a character depended on the cultivator’s strength, but they had since come to understand that it also depended on the character itself.
The Autumnspring Slip had only acquired eight Luck characters, even after countless years. However, if one considered the matter carefully, Qian Shu, a peak Dukkhan, had taken fifty years to write one Luck character; how could Autumnspring Slip have only produced eight characters after so many years? If it took fifty years per character, then eight characters should only take 400 years to produce. However, Autumnspring Slip’s legacy stretched back far further than a mere 400 years, or even 4,000 or 40,000.
The reason why they had only collected eight Luck characters through the ages was quite simple; after each character was written, writing the next had become more difficult. It was as if something unseen existed that made each additional character more difficult than the last.
Qian Shu had already finished three Luck characters (运), but no matter what he did, he could not begin the fourth.
In the past, Lu Yin had not been able to understand this, and he had also wondered what these Luck characters had actually brought to Autumnspring Slip, as well as what sort of connection a person's luck had with karma and fate. He had since seemed to gain a bit of understanding; if there was a main stream of the River of Aeons, a great Dao of karma, and a great Dao of consciousness, then there should be a Dao of luck as well.
Of course, these great powers were only Lu Yin's own conjectures. No one had confirmed their existences for him.
Writing the Luck character touched upon the great Dao of luck. Touching it once or twice was naturally possible, but the more that one tried to touch it, the harder it became. On top of that, touching the great Dao of luck also required one to pay a price, and the price was heavier than the benefits brought by luck itself.
Take the Autumnspring Slip for example. By relying on luck, Ming Xiaochou had been won over, and they had even sought to replace Everchange Valley. But ultimately, Lu Yin had been drawn over, which had brought about the destruction of Autumnspring Slip itself.
Was their luck ultimately good or bad? Could luck seized by force bear an even heavier price?
That was also why Lu Yin had never dared to use any of the Luck characters.
As for Xiang Siyu, he had relied on her many times. Her luck was truly incomparable, and he had no idea what was going on with the woman. Lu Yin thought highly of her. She had risen from being an ordinary person to a peak Dukkhan without encountering even the slightest obstacle, and yet she could not find her own Dukkha. She had never suffered at all in life, but that became her greatest struggle. Once the woman identified her own Dukkha, there was a very strong chance that she would break into the Immortal realm on her own.
His human civilization had no shortage of such talented geniuses. What they lacked was merely time.
While mulling things over, Lu Yin continued rolling his die, again and again. He only stopped to rest between rolls. There were several times when he rolled Possession, yet he failed to see any orbs of light. It was only after several months passed that he finally saw one in the strange dark space.
He hurried over and merged into it.
The familiar thunderous music roared around him, as if it wanted to shake his body to pieces. Flesh and blood could not endure this place, but it was a paradise for bones.
The skeleton that he had Possessed this time had once belonged to a beast, a savage and ferocious beast of enormous size. When Lu Yin entered its body, it had been in the middle of accompanying the music.
That was right, it was accompanying the music.
This bestial skeleton was a member of a band. The band consisted of four skeletons, one of which was human.
Both the memories that he had obtained from his previous Possession and the memories of the bestial skeleton told Lu Yin the same thing: there were many human skeletons throughout this world. He did not know if these human skeletons were from civilizations destroyed by Withered Requiem or if they were from people who had once belonged to the Nine Ramparts. Regardless, once their life was transferred into their bones, the creatures effectively became immortal. With the power of Stillness, their bones were also nearly indestructible. The only ways they could truly die were for the Stillness to completely dissipate from their bones, or for those bones themselves to be shattered and lose all value.
Lu Yin's Possession caused the beast’s accompaniment to stop. The human skeleton beside him complained, “Big Head, how did you mess up? This won't do at all! At this rate, when will we ever be able to enter the castle?”
“That's right. You're our band’s passion. Don't mess up again!”
“You're hurting our morale!”
Lu Yin just stared.
“Again.”
As the music resumed, Lu Yin ended the Possession. This beast skeleton had even fewer memories than the previous skeleton that Lu Yin had Possessed, and it was also much weaker. But there was nothing that he could do. There were only so many orbs of light that he could see in the dark space, and this beast skeleton had been one of the brightest ones.
Elsewhere, Lu Yin opened his eyes and continued rolling his die.
Time continued to pass, and another year went by. During that time, Lu Yin Possessed several more creatures of the Death Megaverse, but all of them were perfectly ordinary skeletons that were unable to enter the castle.
He decided to move closer to the location of the Death Megaverse’s Abyss. As he drew nearer, he hoped to see more orbs of light, as well as brighter ones.
The thunderous music caused the sky and the earth to churn. The castle had started to perform, and all of the skeletons stopped what they were doing to look up in awe. It was as if they were feeling the power of the music itself.
Music my ass. I don't like music at all. It's disgusting. That was what the skeleton that Lu Yin Possessed had been thinking the moment he entered it. More accurately, it was the same thought that every skeleton that he Possessed had.
They had cultivated for so many years, but who had ever cared much about music? Sure, there were a few individuals, but even that was just listening to a little tune or watching a little dance. Who would sing themselves? But after arriving in this place, they found that music actually ruled above all. What the hell?
While that was what they all thought, none dared to reveal such thoughts.
Withered Requiem loved music. If one wanted to win the favor of this Abyssal, the fastest route was through music. It was said that one member of Withered Requiem's own band had originally been a mere Explorer, but because of their extraordinary achievements in music, they had won Withered Requiem's favor. Withered Requiem had personally helped that skeleton raise their strength and had forcibly pushed them to the pinnacle of strength beneath the Immortal realm. Such cases could be found everywhere.
Examples of the polar opposite were also just as clear. Some Immortals did not favor music and were not allowed to even enter the castle simply because they knew nothing about music.
How could this sort of culture exist in any other civilization? And yet, in this place, it was reality. Music alone must never be betrayed. That was Withered Requiem's creed.