Star Odyssey

Chapter 4552: Hunting

Lu Yin broke through the mirebound artifact and rushed out. The moment he saw the Lepid, he attacked with Endless Recall while also unleashing the Yan Gate's First Needle.

The Lepid avoided Endless Recall, but it could not evade the First Needle. Once again, it was dazed.

Lu Yin descended. In an instant, stars swept out, and the Cosmic Art erupted once more.

There was an explosion, and a vast amount of Stillness turned everything dark as it enveloped the area.

By the time the seven Lepids managed to disperse the Stillness, the sourcebox array was still there, but Lu Yin was gone, and the tenth Lepid was dead.

Far away, Lu Yin had used the force from detonating the Cosmic Art to race across the landmass in one breath. He arrived at a planet above the landmass before he glanced back.

It would take some time for the remaining Stillness in the sourcebox array to dissipate, and there were still seven Lepids.

This last battle had broken his chest bones, and he had consumed enough Stillness to fill the Cosmic Art almost one and a half times. That was a tremendous amount of energy.

At the moment, he only had enough Stillness in the Three Death Arts to fully release the Cosmic Art about five more times. He did not know if that would be enough.

Letting out a breath, he knew that, although the Lepid he had just killed had been a one-law Immortal, it could not fully represent the strength of such a powerhouse.

Mister Mu was stronger than that Lepid.

The only complication was that its abilities, such as Butterfly Bloom and Bloomdance Transfer, were very troublesome to deal with.

His skeleton clone was already powerful enough to evenly fight against a two-law Immortal, and his clone was even approaching the strength that his true body had possessed as an Aberrant.

There was no chance that the war between the Grand Clarity Civilization and the Lepidarch Continent had only left one ruin. While there were very likely others in that same forbidden region, he could not go back there for the time being, so Lu Yin had to continue searching.

Before, he had searched in order to complete his mission, but now, his interest was genuine. He wanted to find more Grand Clarity sourcebox arrays.

The Grand Clarity Civilization stood alone as experts on the path of lockbreaking, and its sourcebox arrays offered endless variations. Lu Yin was very eager to study them.

The sourcebox array that he had activated during his last battle had only revealed a single variation. Its full potential had not been released, as he was not even capable of doing so. However, if he was given enough time, he should be able to discover something more from that array.

Hm? Just as Lu Yin was about to move on and continue searching, he suddenly noticed something strange. The seven Lepids outside the sourcebox array were frantically attacking it.

Why?

Earlier, when he had been fighting a fierce battle against the tenth Lepid inside the sourcebox array, he had not seen any of the Lepids outside act nearly this frantic. But at this moment, they were all attacking the sourcebox array like they had gone mad. Something was wrong. The Lepid inside was already dead.

Lu Yin stared at them.

In the air, the seven colorful Lepids were continuously attacking the Stillness with Myriad Metal Qi. Not one of them was trying to search for Lu Yin.

Their attacks continued to deplete the Stillness until the sourcebox array finally broke.

The seven Lepids hurriedly surrounded the dead Lepid and quickly buried it.

Lu Yin carefully watched and was reminded of the hypothesis that he had seen before. The Immortal Lepids did not get injured; they only died.

But were the Lepids truly dead? Burying them in the yellow earth was actually burying them inside the Lepidarch's body. Was the Lepidarch truly asleep? Why were there always exactly ten Immortal Lepids?

Lu Yin looked down at the continent, growing increasingly wary of the Lepidarch.

The more that things could not be explained, the more problematic they were.

In the end, everything pointed back to the Lepidarch. That creature was definitely not weak.

Looking away, Lu Yin resumed his search for more ruins from the war.

After the dead Lepid was buried, the seven surviving ones began to once again frantically search for the invader, and they scattered pollen across the landmass.

Just as Lu Yin had guessed, they focused their search on forbidden regions.

At the same time, they ordered all sapient creatures on the Lepidarch Continent to not move and to remain in place.

The Lepids wielded absolute control over the Lepidarch Continent. In this place, no creature other than the Lepids could break through to the Immortal realm.

Lu Yin moved with even greater caution.

In this manner, several more decades passed. Throughout these years, Lu Yin did not encounter any Immortal Lepids, and he had already grown used to moving through regions without any pollen.

After all, the pollen was just pollen. While it could cover the landmass, it also had its own limitations. As long as one could discover the pattern, the pollen could be avoided.

The Lepids had no intention of letting Lu Yin go and continued to frantically search for him.

One day, he arrived on a planet that hung beneath the edge of a massive mountain on the Lepidarch Continent. The planet was very inconspicuous, as it was hanging beneath the mountain’s cliff, entirely within its shadow where no light touched it. Without looking carefully, no one would discover it.

Lu Yin landed on the planet. It was pitch-black and completely covered in black rocks and metal. However, all of this metal’s Myriad Metal Qi had already been devoured, and it crumbled when lightly pinched.

His consciousness swept over the planet, allowing him to easily see everything on it. There was nothing special about this planet, but the place where the planet connected to the mountainside cliff was different.

Generally speaking, planets floated in outer space, and yet this one was hanging from a cliff. A substance within the planet had connected to another substance inside the mountain.

Lu Yin quickly found that substance. To his pleasant surprise, he discovered that it was actually the material used to make primal talismans.

He had not expected a planet that he had accidentally discovered to contain the material needed to make primal talismans. His consciousness extended into the mountain wall and continued probing.

Because of the Lepids’ constant presence, Lu Yin did not dare to release his consciousness too far. If not for those creatures, he could have easily scanned the entire Lepidarch Continent.

There was a considerable amount of the material used to make primal talismans. In fact, there was an entire vein. Unfortunately, perhaps due to the material being unaged, it was a grade inferior to what was used to make a true primal talisman.

Lu Yin stood beneath the cliff and touched the metal. It was entirely cold. What a pity.

Wait, it might not be a pity. Lu Yin looked at the vein of material again and was suddenly reminded of his die’s Enhance ability.

Enhance could improve the quality of a physical object, so couldn’t it improve the quality of this material?

After he left the Origin Universe, Lu Yin’s die had gradually lost almost all utility, but his breakthrough to the Immortal realm had triggered some changes in his innate gift. The most obvious was Pilfer. In the past, rolling one pip could only allow him to obtain things from cosmic rings that were in the same universe, but now he could obtain random objects from across the Aevum Inch, regardless of whether they were inside cosmic rings or not.

Since Pilfer had changed, then could Enhance have changed as well?

If the die's Enhance can improve these materials, then...

Lu Yin's expression grew contemplative, and he quickly left.

He could not allow this place to be exposed. If his guess was correct, then this material vein would become one of his sources of leverage when dealing with the Grand Clarity Civilization and the Death Megaverse.

In the blink of an eye, another twenty years passed. It had been fifty years since the last battle, and it had already been a century since Lu Yin had arrived on the Lepidarch Continent.

Lu Yin returned to the forbidden region. During the last twenty years, he had found a second battlefield. Unfortunately, that battlefield did not have any intact sourcebox arrays.

He was forced to continue searching.

The Lepids were not stupid. They could certainly guess what he was looking for, which meant that things would only become more dangerous from this point. He might as well hunt the Lepids.

There were seven Immortal Lepids. If he could eliminate a few more, he would make them afraid of him, and that would prevent them from obstructing him.

However, he could not hunt so many that the Lepidarch awakened. That would be far more dangerous.

The seven Lepids had to spread out to search for him, and Lu Yin decided to eliminate one first, which would force them to move about in pairs. That would make it much more convenient for him to act.

With this plan in mind, he deliberately went far from the vein of primal talisman material that he had found, and then he approached one of the Immortal Lepids.

Although the Lepids were scattered, they never went too far from one another so that they could support each other within just a few breaths’ time.

After all, the Lepidarch Continent was only the size of a single megaverse. That was not considered a large distance to Immortals.

That meant that Lu Yin had to kill one within a few breaths.

***

Lightning poured down. The sky and the ground below had both turned pitch-black. On the ground, stone houses shook. In the distance, a tornado was moving closer.

Beside the stone houses, some kind of two-legged creature was watching the distant tornado in fear. Lightning shot across the sky, illuminating the world and also illuminating a terrified gaze.

Overhead, a Lepid danced through the sky. It had ordered all sapient creatures on this world to not move so that it would be easier to search for Lu Yin.

Any creature that dared to move would have its entire species exterminated. Thus, even if an entire village was submerged by a flash flood, no creature would dare to move. They could only accept their deaths.

The Lepids did not care at all. All life on the Lepidarch Continent came from them. They could give life if they wanted, and they could take it away just as easily.

Lightning lit up the Lepid's body as it danced through the sky. Even the tornado fell into its shadow. The Immortal’s presence brought terror to this world.

A streak of white light suddenly appeared, shooting up at the Lepid from below.

At the same time, lightning raged, and dazzling light illuminated the universe, perfectly concealing the streak of white light.

The white light flashed and vanished. The Lepid froze high in the sky, completely motionless.

The next moment, the terrified creatures on the ground below watched as the terrifying Lepid up in the sky was torn apart, its flesh falling down with the rain and lightning.

The creatures’ mouths fell open, and they stared in horror at the terrifying scene.

A Lepid, which they had long regarded as a god, had been torn apart. It was like the sky itself had been shattered.

After instantly tearing the Lepid apart, Lu Yin fled far away.

One breath later, another Lepid appeared. A Butterfly Bloom flower mark appeared on Lu Yin’s body, but as he took his second step, that flower showed no reaction. He had moved too quickly. Although Butterfly Bloom had targeted him, he could not be attacked.

So long as he was not attacked, the Lepids would not sense his location.

The Lepid that had just arrived danced high in the sky. Seeing that its Butterfly Bloom did not absorb any power, it knew that Lu Yin had already fled far away.

Right after that, the other five Lepids all arrived, and they surrounded the Lepid that had been torn apart, burying it in the earth.

Lightning flashed. The atmosphere was oppressive and silent.

"He is moving even faster. We were so close, but we still could not offer any support."

"He slaughtered it in one seamless movement. He clearly has some means to freeze us in place for an instant."

"He is also moving faster and faster. He left the range of Butterfly Bloom in an instant. That is terrifying."

"From now on, we move in pairs. If we separate, it will be too easy for us to be defeated one by one."

"Agreed."

"Agreed."

Far away, Lu Yin watched as the remaining six Lepids paired up. This was good. This was precisely his goal. This would reduce the area that they could search with their pollen by more than half. He was free.

He continued to roam the land, making a special point to explore the various forbidden areas while searching for battlefields where Grand Clarity had fought the Lepidarch Continent.

This time, his efficiency was much higher. It took only a few years for him to find another ancient battlefield. Looking at the primal talisman in his hand, he saw that its Myriad Metal Qi had also been devoured. What a pity.

He found several primal talismans that had never been opened, but because their Myriad Metal Qi had been devoured, the sourcebox arrays within them had also lost effectiveness due to the passing of time.

Just how many creatures from the Grand Clarity Civilization were skilled at sourcebox arrays? Just on the Lepidarch Continent, he had already encountered numerous primal talismans. As far as he knew, each creature from the Grand Clarity Civilization only studied one sourcebox array throughout their entire lifetime. With so many primal talismans, and with each one representing a single sourcebox array, the number of creatures in the Grand Clarity Civilization who were capable of deploying sourcebox arrays was terrifying.