Chapter 4593: Brutal
Chapter 4593: Brutal
His body slowly moved. Step by step, he walked towards his goal.
The Lepidarch could not believe it. How was this possible? How could the skeleton still move? This should be impossible.
Lu Yin was indeed moving, but not by relying on his physical strength. He was relying on his consciousness.
The skeleton clone had not cultivated consciousness. Lu Yin's consciousness was entirely contained within his Investiture of the Gods, and the Investiture of the Gods was with his true body.
However, the Eternal Consciousness Realm existed within his memory.
At the critical moment, Lu Yin had thought of the Eternal Consciousness Realm. It existed within his memory, and his memory existed within his sense of self. That sense of self was his awareness, his conscious self, and Lu Yin only had one of those. No matter how many clones he might have, he retained a singular awareness, which meant that he only had one set of memories.
The Eternal Consciousness Realm allowed Lu Yin's skeleton clone to possess the power of consciousness. Although that consciousness was not much, it was enough to drag his bones along.
Butterfly Bloom could devour his physical strength, but it could not also devour his consciousness.
No matter how small the lingering consciousness might be, it was enough to drag Lu Yin to his goal.
He crashed into the ground, facing where the tenth butterfly had been buried. Then, he released the Three Deaths Art.
Overwhelming Stillness surged out from the Three Deaths Art, aiming for the center of the Lepidarch’s back. In an instant, the ground and the sky above it turned pitch-black. Endless Stillness surged forth, shocking the Lepidarch.
At the moment, Its combat strength far surpassed that of Lu Yin and the other two, but Lu Yin's Three Deaths Art still contained a shocking amount of Stillness. Out of every creature in the Death Megaverse, no more than three possessed more Stillness than this skeleton clone.
Endless Stillness surged into the Lepidarch's body, and it was pouring into the exact center of its body. This was like forcefully filling an ordinary human with water. A certain amount was fine, but once that amount was exceeded, their stomach could burst.
That was exactly what the Lepidarch felt like at this moment.
It struggled frantically, its efforts tearing open Old Sixth's mouth even worse and also knocking Furball away. The massive dining table shattered. The butterfly’s entire body writhed and thrashed as it tried to throw Lu Yin off and eliminate the Stillness that was flooding into its body.
However, Lu Yin used his consciousness to firmly cling to the Lepidarch's body, and Stillness continued to pour in.
Lu Yin had already infused three times the limit of the Cosmic Art into the butterfly, yet more continued to pour in.
Four times, five times, six times.
The Lepidarch let out a roar of fury. It could no longer endure the Stillness. Its entire body turned dark, and black smoke spewed out everywhere. It started frantically thrashing in every direction.
Old Sixth and Furball hurriedly retreated, warily watching things play out.
This was too brutal—truly, just too brutal.
Pouring that much Stillness into a creature that did not cultivate it was more than any being could withstand.
As the Lepidarch frantically flailed about, Lu Yin's consciousness was finally unable to endure. He let go and was flung far away.
The Lepidarch no longer cared about the skeleton at all. It simply fled, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Still in the same place, Old Sixth and Furball looked at each other. Should they pursue or not?
If they pursued, they had no idea what condition they would find the Lepidarch in. If they truly enraged it and it fought with its life on the line, it would not be worth the effort. On top of that, even if they could catch up and kill the Lepidarch, who would deliver the killing blow?
If they did not pursue, the battle would have been fought for nothing.
Right, they first needed to find Chen.
Lu Yin felt dizzy. He had no idea how far he had been thrown. When he finally managed to stop himself, his head was still spinning. Old Sixth and Furball arrived. "How are you? Are you all right?"
Lu Yin was still exhausted, and his voice was weak. "I'm fine. Where is the Lepidarch?"
"It ran away," Furball said.
Lu Yin stared off into the distance, not saying anything.
Old Sixth's eyes shifted. "Judging by the situation, the Lepidarch is still extremely powerful... Why don’t we stop fighting it?"
Furball also did not want to continue the fight.
Lu Yin glanced at them and helplessly said, "Pouring that much Stillness into it wasn’t enough to severely injure it. If we pursue and try to kill it, both it and us could very easily suffer heavy losses, or we could even all die. Forget it. We’ve already done our best. Thank you both."
Old Sixth and Furball both heaved sighs of relief at the same time. As long as they did not have to pursue and kill that butterfly, things would be fine.
Although Lu Yin could not order either of them around, if he was determined to pursue and kill the Lepidarch, neither would really be able to just stand aside and do nothing.
Still, no one was willing to face a crazed old monster.
"What a pity. It didn’t flee towards that Human Trio. If it had, it would have caused some trouble for that despicable human," Furball lamented.
Old Sixth gave the green giant a strange look and then glanced at Lu Yin. This green fellow really dared to say anything. If they knew that the one standing beside them was Lu Yin himself, even their massive body would not be enough to handle the following beating.
Soon, Furball and Old Sixth left.
Lu Yin stared into the distance. The Lepidarch was extremely fast. After all, at this moment, it could be considered a three-law Immortal. It could easily leave his Mirrorlight Art’s vision range. His main body needed to act.
The skeleton collapsed. At where Lu Yin was in seclusion in the Tianyuan, his true body’s eyes opened, and he instantly appeared beside his bone clone. He first took care of the clone, and then he looked in the direction that the Lepidarch had fled in before teleporting away.
He was in no hurry to act. A vast amount of Stillness had been injected into the Lepidarch's body, surpassing even Withered Requiem’s reserves. It would not be easy for the butterfly to remove that Stillness. Lu Yin would wait until the butterfly exhausted its strength. He was essentially fishing. A large fish in the water could be strong enough to drag the fisherman under. Only by hooking the fish and then gradually depleting its strength could it be ultimately reeled in.
With the Mirrorlight Art and teleportation, the Lepidarch could not escape no matter what it did.
However, even if Lu Yin would not act just yet, he could at least interfere and alter the butterfly’s course a bit to herd it in the direction that he wanted it to go in.
Thinking of this, Lu Yin teleported repeatedly, passing by the Lepidarch to arrive ahead of it, where he released a slight trace of his aura.
Flying through the Aevum Inch, the cracks across the Lepidarch's body were growing larger and larger. Its insides churned, and the Stillness left it vomiting blood.
The moment it suddenly sensed the aura of an Immortal being, the butterfly changed direction.
At this moment, it did not want to face any Immortal being, regardless of their strength.
Lu Yin watched the Lepidarch change direction. This had worked perfectly. He had thought that he would need several attempts to guide the Lepidarch in the direction that he wanted. It was unexpected that he had succeeded on the first try.
From his current location to that other point, it should be a distance of about 1,000 years’ travel. With the Lepidarch's current speed, even while it was trying to wear down the Stillness within its body, that distance could be traversed in no more than a year.
Sometimes, certain grudges were not left unavenged; it was simply not yet time to settle past affairs.
Time passed slowly. Soon enough, more than half a year had gone by. For the Lepidarch, this time felt incomparably long. The Stillness inside its body was continually damaging it, causing severe injuries. To wear that Stillness down, the butterfly was constantly using its own power, rendering it very weak.
It wanted to find a place to stop, but it could not stop yet. There was always the gaze of some hidden powerhouse on it. The butterfly could sense it.
Who did the gaze belong to? Was it that deathly civilization or that monstrous faction that moved through gates? It did not know. All it knew was that it could not stop. If it stopped, it could be surrounded and attacked.
In the distance, Lu Yin's gaze passed beyond the Lepidarch to peer even farther away. Soon. Just a few more days, and the Lepidarch would cross enough distance for the other side to detect its presence.
He had also waited for this day for a very, very long time.
Several days later, the Lepidarch flapped its wings, causing a violent aura to sweep across space, nearly overturning the cosmos.
"Beep, beep, beep. Warning! Warning! Presence det—"
Bang.
Bang, bang, bang.
The sounds of countless explosions were drowned by space being overturned. The Lepidarch paid them no attention at all.
A violent force was released into the distance. A single flap of the Lepidarch’s wings took its body across a vast distance, and what approached it was a Cosmic Shear.
Space stretched out. The release of Cosmic Shear was still just as shocking as ever. It looked as if the entire cosmos was being stretched out in one direction.
Anticipation filled Lu Yin's eyes. It was time.
This was the technological fishing civilization. He had been forcing the Lepidarch to head towards the technological fishing civilization.
From the time that civilization had first been discovered by humanity, it had repeatedly become entangled with humanity. First, Lu Yin had used the civilization. Later, it had tried every means possible to locate the Trio and launched an expedition to destroy the human civilization, only to be frightened away by Lu Yin.
However, the location of the Trio had been exposed. As long as the technological fishing civilization believed that it had a possibility of victory, it would definitely return.
Lu Yin wanted to deal with this civilization, though he also wanted to use its abilities to elevate humanity's technological means and hopefully calculate additional layers of the Mirrorlight Art so that he would not have to work so hard.
Moreover, a technological fishing civilization’s attacks had no karmic chain restrictions. That was their most terrifying trait.
Lu Yin could just imagine what it would feel like to have enough resources to be able to unleash an endless number of Cosmic Shears.
It was for his ambitions for that future that Lu Yin had guided the Lepidarch in this direction.
He would have to trouble the butterfly to help humanity deal with the technological fishing civilization.
Cosmic Shear could not threaten the Lepidarch at all, but the butterfly was not stupid. As its wings pressed down on the Cosmic Shear, it realized that it had encountered a technological method. Its heart dropped . No one in the Aevum Inch would be willing to confront a technological fishing civilization. Victory would mean an increase in one’s karmic chain while a loss would mean having one's entire body be potentially dismantled. There was nothing restraining such a civilization from attacking.
Thinking of this, the Lepidarch immediately tried to leave.
Lu Yin arched a brow. You want to leave? Can you?
After more than half a year of being worn down by Stillness, the Lepidarch's wings had reduced from nine pairs to just three pairs. Although it still possessed formidable combat power, it now lacked the strength of a three-law Immortal. Its current power meant that Lu Yin would not struggle to suppress the butterfly.
However, there was no need for him to act.
He looked over, taking his time. Lifeforce erupted, surging like a sea of clouds that spread across the nine heavens.
The Lepidarch instantly trembled and looked over, sensing the strength of Lu Yin's Lifeforce. This was a being powerful enough to fight the butterfly to the death. This was not the Lifeforce of an ordinary Immortal being.
The Lepidarch sensed that this Lifeforce belonged to the same hidden being who had been watching it all along. It spoke, its voice spreading across the Aevum Inch, "May I ask who you are? Why are you watching me?"
Lu Yin did not answer. He slowly raised a hand, his five fingers curling. As they bent, cracks appeared in the void, and they spread in the Lepidarch’s direction, tearing the entire Aevum Inch apart.
The spatial cracks extending towards it caused the butterfly to stare in horror. It sensed an unparalleled, terrifying strength. This was enough power to easily tear it apart.
This was an absolute powerhouse, a supreme expert.
Moreover, this was a being that the Lepidarch had never encountered before. There was no Stillness. This was an unfamiliar Immortal being, yet it was also an old monster.
"May I ask who you are? Have I offended you?"
Lu Yin still did not answer. He simply stared at the Lepidarch. The pressure that he gave off caused the cosmos to grow darker.
The Lepidarch did not dare to do anything reckless. It did not want to fight the technological fishing civilization, but neither did it want to upset this unknown powerhouse, so it stayed where it was.
Lu Yin did not force the Lepidarch. No one who reached that level of power was foolish. The Lepidarch had surely already guessed Lu Yin’s intentions.
But that did not matter. Even if the Lepidarch did not move, the technological civilization certainly would.
Technological civilizations were not restrained by karmic chains. That was their greatest advantage, and it was precisely that advantage that gave them the courage to attack any living being. It was the same level of disregard as the Plume Immortals' random teleportation. It was actually a huge gamble; they might win, or they might lose.
The more unrestrained something was, the more likely it was to meet with total catastrophe, because the more things it disregarded, the less reverence it held.
This was fairness.