Star Odyssey

Chapter 4476: The Cage

Anyone else could die, but not Lu Yin. As long as he stayed alive for even just one more day, human civilization would have hope for one more day.

They knew that the Trio could not escape from this calamity. Even just one of the supreme experts that had appeared was nearly impossible for humanity to resist, and yet they were facing three such powerhouses.

Lu Yin hated this situation. He hated that he had had too little time. If he had been given enough time, he would have been able to deal with these enemies one by one.

Both the Divine Realm and the Mudwater Dominion had long been on the list of enemies that he intended to deal with, as were with the seven Abysses of the Death Megaverse.

There had simply been too little time.

The glory of the Nine Ramparts had placed humanity in these people’s sights from the very beginning. They were like caged birds raised in captivity. No matter how high they flew, they could never escape from that cage.

From the bridge, a trident thrust out, slashing straight at Lu Yin.

He vanished, teleporting away to appear behind Ni Bieluo. However, the trident instantly appeared there as well.

Lu Yin drove forward as tri-color divine energy boiled around him. As he moved, the Duality Seal suddenly descended from above his head. He had no chance to even teleport and was struck down by that palm strike.

Ni Bieluo looked at Death's Dominion. “The Death Megaverse.”

“The Mudwater Dominion.”

“You came because of Obscura?”

“Because humanity must be destroyed.”

Ni Bieluo said in a low voice, “This human is my prey.”

Death's Dominion replied in an equally low tone, “He is also my prey.”

“Is that so? Then let us see which of us can take him first.” Ni Bieluo waved a hand. The trident vanished as though teleporting, stabbing at Lu Yin again. As that happened, the entire Nine Odysseys Megaverse was surrounded by a gigantic cage that started constantly shrinking.

Lu Yin looked up. It was an actual cage.

The cosmic law that Ni Bieluo resonated with was that existence itself was justified. Whatever it deemed to exist, it could manifest into reality.

The first time Lu Yin heard of this law, he had found it unbelievable. He had never expected to have to face it himself.

Ni Bieluo intended to catch Lu Yin like a bird, and so it had created a gigantic birdcage around the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

Death's Dominion turned their hand over. The Duality Seal extended out while black and white lines locked the shrinking cage in place. At the same time, the giant skeleton’s other hand reached for Lu Yin, only to be knocked aside by the trident.

Ni Bieluo and Death's Dominion were both trying to seize Lu Yin, and they were clashing against each other in the process.

Ni Bieluo wanted to record Lu Yin. The human had mastered far too many powers, especially karma, which was what Ni Bieluo valued the most.

Death's Dominion likewise wanted to bring Lu Yin into the Death Megaverse. This human was worth cultivating and would surely lead the eighth Abyss.

Lu Yin ended up besieged by two colossal monsters. He could not escape, as neither would allow that, while victory was even more impossible.

All he could do was use himself as bait and struggle to hold the two back. He could only try to buy his human civilization a sliver of breathing room.

Despite his best efforts, the mere aftermath of their battle had already killed many people.

This was the darkest day in the history of the Trio.

Lu Yin wanted to teleport and drag these supreme experts away. As long as he could move them elsewhere, they would not be able to return quickly, and then they could be dealt with one by one. That would at least give them a chance of survival.

But he could not do it. Previously, he had been stopped even from taking Ji He away from Crimson Starshade, let alone trying to move such overwhelmingly powerful beings.

Awe Gate thrust her spear at the trident. She only barely managed to track its path with the use of her gates, but the instant that the two weapons met, Awecloud shattered, and Awe Gate was blasted back.

Her strength was nowhere near sufficient to intervene in a battle of this level. Ni Bieluo would not even spare her a glance.

Awe Gate coughed up blood as she flew back. She steadied herself and prepared to strike again when a figure appeared before her. A flash of crimson sword light slashed diagonally downward. Blood sprayed through outer space. She stared blankly at the person before her as she slowly fell.

“Mother!” Qing Yun cried out.

Awe Gate kept falling. When she saw Qing Yun rushing toward her, she forced herself to turn around. She opened a gate and threw herself through it, catching Qing Yun. The two women crashed to the ground far away from that man.

That man was Hong Xia. He had actually arrived as well.

Hong Xia was holding a long sword in his hand. Blood dripped from the blade, scorching the void.

His attention shifted from Awe Gate to Lu Yin. Seeing the man being besieged and fought over by two terrifying powerhouses, Hong Xia’s eyes turned cold.

What he could not achieve on his own, Wang Wen could accomplish with ease. Was it because of his understanding of the Trio? No. It was due to his control of various civilizations. That was what allowed him to easily use the Mudwater Dominion, the Divine Realm, the Plume Immortals, and even the Death Megaverse.

This was what a Keeper of Balance truly was. Obscura’s Keeper of Balance held a very special position. The word “balance” sounded simple, but it was the hardest thing of all to achieve.

What the Keeper of Balance balanced was not merely various cosmic civilizations, but rather Obscura itself.

Hong Xia had once hoped to become the Keeper of Balance, but that position had always remained out of reach. He was far inferior to Wang Wen.

In fact, even Hong Xia’s presence on the battlefield was only possible thanks to Wang Wen, who had used his power to block Jiu Wen and the others. If not for that, if Jiu Wen had led Xi Shangfeng to fight desperately, Hong Xia would have been gravely injured the moment that seven anchors of his Path of Dispassion were broken.

He too had become something for the Keeper of Balance to use.

This was not even the first time, as Wang Wen had previously used Hong Xia to betray Hong Shuang. Things were simply repeating. No matter how much Hong Xia’s cultivation improved, that seemed to be one thing that would never change. Wang Wen was truly unfathomable.

But that did not matter. The Trio had to be destroyed. What did it matter if Hong Xia was used again?

Up above, the Blood Blade fell. Hong Xia casually raised a hand and slashed his own sword upwards.

The blade shattered, forcing Blood Tower to retreat multiple steps. A blood-red light radiated from his broken blade, layer after layer of the blood-colored radiance surging upward. Each layer turned into a hideous and terrifying blood-red creature. This was Greater Sancte Blood Tower’s unique world: the Nine Layers of Blood.

The Nine Layers of Blood used bloodless slashes to bring forth the blood of the nine most powerful creatures and transform into those very creatures. This was the true form of the Nine Layers of Blood.

Layer after layer of blood-colored light formed terrifying beasts that roared as they charged at Hong Xia. Each of the creatures possessed the destructive power of an ordinary Immortal, empowered by Blood Tower. This was his most powerful attack.

Hong Xia’s eyes grew icy. “Trash.”

With that, he slashed his sword down again. With a single slice, he tore apart the Nine Layers of Blood. The slash continued traveling towards Blood Tower.

The Greater Sancte raised his blade to block the attack, but the slash tore through the blade with ease, ripping open a massive wound on his body. He staggered further back and dropped to one knee.

Hong Xia stared at the man with cold eyes. “Neither you nor that woman can survive even a single exchange with me. If not for my concerns regarding my karmic chain, I would have already killed both of you. Get lost.”

Blood Tower lifted his head. His eyes were blood-red as he stared at Hong Xia. “Despite being human, you have betrayed us again and again and again. Hong Xia, you deserve to die!”

Hong Xia sneered. “You are not the one who gets to say that. This Trio will be completely destroyed today. In truth, as far as I am concerned, humanity should have never existed in the first place. Looking across the Aevum Inch, humans are nothing but an aberration.”

Blood Tower let out a roar of fury.

“Blood Tower, behind you!” Awe Gate shouted sharply.

Blood Tower turned around to see a skeleton behind him. It was an Immortal from the Death Megaverse.

Death's Dominion had several Immortal skeletons under his command, though none were especially strong. When they had fought against Blood Tower and the others earlier, given time, the human powerhouses would have eventually emerged victorious.

However, the arrival of one supreme expert after another had rendered their civilization utterly helpless.

Now, heavily wounded, Blood Tower could not deal with even a single Immortal skeleton. The Immortal skeleton stabbed the man, as if wanting to merge into him and tear his flesh open from within.

Gan Mo charged forward, slashing at the skeleton with a blade. “Get back!”

The Immortal skeleton suddenly twisted around. Even while tearing Blood Tower’s body apart, it split Gan Mo in two. Blood sprayed into the cosmos.

Blood Tower let out a low roar. He grabbed his broken blade and released a vicious slash at the skeleton, nearly cutting half of it off.

But the remaining portion of the skeleton still tore open the man’s flesh again.

Awe Gate coughed up blood as she tried to go to his aid.

In the distance, Ku Deng was facing two Immortal skeletons on his own. Originally, only one had been his opponent while the other had been fighting Awe Gate, but at the moment, both were attacking Ku Deng together.

Hong Xia’s gaze swept across the battlefield as red light kept flaring out from him. He was searching for the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow.

The Divine Crow had disappeared, which meant that Lu Yin must have hidden it.

Hm? Found it.

The man took a single step, heading for the Tianyuan.

Lu Yin could not spare any attention at all for Hong Xia’s arrival. The trident was seeking his life without pause, and beneath the Duality Seal, even his tri-color divine energy was suppressed. He kept coughing up blood, teleporting again and again to evade the various attacks, but he did not dare to go too far away from the battlefield. He needed to use himself as bait to pin the two supreme powerhouses in place.

His mind raced. He could not give up. There was no such thing as an impossible situation. Every desperate situation contained at least one thread of life.

Master Qing Cao watched everything, likewise searching for a way to break the current deadlock.

Lu Yin had guessed that Wang Wen was the Keeper of Balance long ago, while Master Qing Cao had known the truth for a long time as well. If Wang Xiaoyu knew, then so did Qing Cao.

But what did that knowledge change? Like Lu Yin, Qing Cao had wanted to delay the direct confrontation.

Wang Wen had existed for far too long. He was who he was, and no matter when they faced such an opponent, the level of power required for that confrontation would always push them to despair.

This time, when Wang Wen had taken action, he had unleashed the Divine Realm, the Mudwater Dominion, the Death Megaverse, and even Hong Xia. Even if humanity had forced the confrontation to take place sooner, the Divine Realm, the Death Megaverse, and Hong Xia would have still come. Even if the Mudwater Dominion were not a part of the assault, Wang Wen still could have drawn over another powerful force, such as the Plume Immortals.

That was why Master Qing Cao had been waiting, dragging things out so that one enemy after another could be eliminated. Whether it was Hong Xia or the Divine Realm Civilization, if either one had been eliminated, the pressure on the Trio would have dropped drastically.

But it was too late. Or rather, Wang Wen had never given them a chance at all. What he wanted was the total annihilation of the Trio.

Master Qing Cao had already done extraordinarily well. He had managed to banish Wang Wen from the battlefield, and the Keeper of Balance was a genuine invincible powerhouse. As long as he was present, the Trio would truly have no hope.

At the moment, while the odds were one chance of life to nine chances of death, humanity could still fight for that one chance.

Peering into the distance, Master Qing Cao saw that Lu Yin was in a more miserable state than ever before. In the past, even when his cultivation had been relatively weak, there had always been stronger individuals who had shielded him. But at this moment, he stood alone.

Master Qing Cao took a deep breath. He had also been preparing ceaselessly for this day, and yet Wang Wen had utterly destroyed those preparations by using Obscura’s White to incapacitate the gates.

No matter what preparations had been made, they could not possibly arrive in a short span of time. The only ones that humanity could rely on were themselves.

Lu Yin, if the Trio truly has no hope, you must survive. You must!

Master Qing Cao forced himself to stop watching. He instead moved to help Blood Tower, who was hanging on by a thread.

Lu Yin panted heavily, both arms upraised. His flesh had withered, and he was still releasing Stillness like mad in an attempt to resist Death's Dominion’s World of Death.

There was a bang, and he spat out another mouthful of blood. From behind, the trident struck him sideways, sending him flying. His body smashed to the ground.

Right after that, the trident was smashed down by a Duality Seal. Death's Dominion’s gigantic hand turned and reached for Lu Yin while the black plaza spun and slashed at Ni Bieluo like a card.

At that moment, the Duality Seal that had been supporting the cage shattered. The cage suddenly shrank, shattering the Nine Odysseys Megaverse’s Mother Tree. Above the canopy, the Frightened Sparrow Terrace and the Sea of Karma were torn apart. The entire Nine Odysseys Megaverse nearly capsized.

Facing the attack of the black plaza, Ni Bieluo formed two hands out of nothing. They pressed together before striking at Death's Dominion. “Endless Recall.”