Necropolis Immortal

Lu Yun was beside himself with horror. A coffin was the last thing that should be here!

As opposed to being a tomb, it would be more accurate to describe this place as an enormous seal in the layout of a tomb, one that confined the Fire Virtue Potentate through the way of burial.

Burial was an act that sought to bring peace to the deceased's soul and help them slumber for eternity. A coffin was their bed and also projected a kind of underworld waiting room, one in which the deceased could rest and quietly await reincarnation. It carried the living's hope and goodwill.

But a burial that was actually a seal sought to keep the deceased trapped for eternity. There was no tranquility to be found, only endless opposition and destruction as was present in this tomb. A layout for rebirth would never be laid down in conjunction.

The layout they were in was more frought with danger and ruthlessness than the Duality of Dragon and Tiger that Lu Yun had encountered in the world of immortals.

A coffin, appearing here?

Its owner was definitely not the Fire Virtue Potentate. Perhaps the potentate had already broken free!

Even sending out just a tendril of his soul would turn him into a terrifying creature of destruction. He'd be invincible here and could instantly execute even the rulers of the ten divine nations.

"The coffin's following us!" Feng Qi stared fixedly at the coffin and his Adam's apple bobbed slightly. "It looks very delicious… I really want a bite!"

"Snap out of it!" The Fish King gave him a solid thwack on the head. "There's a terrible existence inside the coffin, we're all dead if it catches up to us!"

Fear colored her face—she could clearly sense the dreadful presence that the coffin exuded at every second. It was like the ghost race, but infinitely stronger than ordinary ghosts. It was so strong that it caused someone like the Fish King to shrink back with fear.

Whoosh!

The crimson coffin, so bright that it seemed to be on fire, suddenly disappeared on the spot.

Lu Yun immediately halted in his tracks, an unpleasant expression spreading across his face. The vanished coffin was right in front of him.

Twisting his lips, Lu Yun tightly gripped the Army Pagoda. He would call upon it as soon as the coffin showed hints of anything out of the ordinary. More than its own power, there were armies of fearsome soldiers within that he could deploy.

Rumble—

The coffin shook as its lid rose with violent force. A ghostly face that seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time suddenly appeared in front of the group.

"Waugh!!" came a piercing shriek. Lu Yun jumped with shock and scuttled backward.

"An akasha ghost!" he cried out hoarsely and didn't dare make any rash moves. The akasha ghost's face slowly condensed in the air, coming together as a little boy roughly eight years old. He had a slightly large head—or rather, looked like a big-headed doll.

His features were delicate and there was no trace of malice or the akasha ghosts in them, but he held a brush in his hand.

This was the little boy that'd appeared in Mount Cloudcover—Ghost Dragon and Ghost Phoenix's master.

"Well? Surprised? Shocked? Well well?" the big-headed doll leered at Lu Yun.

"It's you!" Lu Yun's brows smoothed out when he saw the newcomer. He'd once ambushed the doll with the Bridge of Forgetfulness, but hadn't crushed him. The doll plainly possessed the strength of the fourth realm as well, but Lu Yun didn't read any malevolence from him. He didn't seem to bear any hostility toward the young man.

"You ambushed me with a bridge last time, I haven't forgotten or taken my revenge for that yet!" The big-headed doll wore a red bib and was pale and plump, like he was carved out of jade. Surprisingly, there was no trace of an akasha ghost or hints of a violent air when he was present in this environment. He was completely different from the last time they'd met.

"What are you?" Lu Yun frowned at him. "And what do the akasha ghosts have to do with you?"

"Heh heh heh, I should ask you what I am, and you know better than me what akasha ghosts are!" The doll grinned toothily at him.

"…you're not my son, are you?" Lu Yun suddenly thought of a crazy possibility. The Mount Cloudcover that the doll had first appeared in was also where his future self was. Can this doll be a result of his future indiscretions?

"Ya ahhh ahh!! You piss me off!" The doll jumped a meter in the air and stabbed the brush at Lu Yun.

He could clearly tell that this brush was similar to the one that Qing Han wielded. A faint ribbon of thread also interwove through its ink, as if the blood of some being.

Qing Han had once drawn an akasha ghost's face on her face with the brush, turning herself into one of them. It proved to be capable of marvelous uses in the doll's hands. He didn't draw ghosts from it, but drew real life forms and other entities. It seemed to follow a certain rule that Lu Yun couldn't make out yet.

Unbidden, he materialized another brush with a flip of his hand.

The big-headed doll shot backward when he saw the brush, his delicate features contorting with emotion.

"And you say you don't know what I am!" he snarled.

"Uhh, what are you?" Lu Yun blinked.

"Who is he?" whispered the Fish King as she swallowed apprehensively.

The gesture was echoed by Feng Qi, who was still staring at the coffin behind the doll. He really wanted to take a bite out of it.

"I don't know." Lu Yun shook his head. "He's really strong, whoever he is, probably stronger than the rulers of the ten divine nations. He's probably stronger than the Fire Virtue Potentate."

The Fish King's eyes shot wide open.

The doll stuck out his chest when he heard the compliments. "Those eleven rulers are meh, but the potentate sealed here is mm mm mm! He's one of the strongest experts of the fourth realm. He'll turn this Hongmeng into a hell of fire virtue if you let him out, and the patch of the fourth realm closest to us will also be visited with a ton of trouble."

"So he really does have the strength to threaten the fourth realm?" Lu Yun paused. "If he's that strong, how did the four ancestral gods of the Hongmeng seal him away?"

"He wouldn't think anything about those ancestral gods and six supremes in his prime, naturally, but the Fire Virtue Potentate—er, that's not his name either—was gravely injured then. He was only as strong as a potentate." The big-headed doll thought for a bit. "It took the four ancestral gods of the Hongmeng, six supremes of the chaos, and ten powerhouses infinitely close to the fourth realm to barely manage to take him down and bury him here.

"He's dead now and completely turned into a ghost. No one in the realm will be able to keep him in check if you let him out. Those eleven rulers are more than just a little bit weaker than the four ancestral gods and six supremes."