Necropolis Immortal

The world of immortal dao had finished dispersing; Jian Bu'er, the Demonic Vine, and the Sea Lord had returned to their homes. Dongfang Mo had departed as well.

The Army Pagoda hovered over Lu Yun's head, trailing down curtains of light that kept him protected.

"Where's the Soldier King?" Lu Yun raised a brow when he saw that there was only one soldier standing in front of him. There was nothing else present on the scene apart from the tower and that soldier.

"There's been some developments inside Ruina. The king and the other soldiers have all gone inside." The soldier raised a cupped fist salute at Lu Yun. "Since the young lord has awakened, I will seek out my liege. Farewell."

He vanished as a streak of light while Lu Yun rubbed his aching temples.

"Developments in Ruina huh? Probably nothing good…" He engaged formula dao on the newest problem, but gave up when he couldn't calculate anything. "I've broken through World Manifest to become a Void World King. That cultivation level makes me a titan in the fourth realm, but it's worthless here."

Lu Yun sighed and deployed Boundless Step to leave as well. Though he couldn't determine what was happening inside Ruina, it appeared that more than eighty percent of the strongest presences in Myriadsea World had vanished. They'd likely all entered the mysterious heart of the world.

Instead of heading in himself, he traveled to Immortal Nation. The new Immortal Myriadtree spanned spatial barriers; half of its roots were planted in Ruina, the other half in Lu Yun's dantian. Thus, it was rooted to wherever he traveled to.

However, he refused to completely store the tree in his body. He didn't want to become a human-shaped Immortal Myriadtree.

The immortal dao was still expanding; more than eighty percent of former demonic dao territory now belonged to it. Immortal dao was gradually becoming the greatest dao in the world, second to only sea dao.

Monster spirit, martial, shamanic, and many other supplemental daos backed away, not wanting to provoke the rising star. Immortal dao beholder Dongfang Mo had only needed five rays of immortal light to trounce martial dao beholder Wu Di. Who dared trouble immortal dao after that?

Most importantly was that many dao beholders in the world had disappeared. Apparently, they'd all entered Ruina to fight for that last wisp of opportunity.

Now that immortal dao occupied more than eighty percent of former demonic dao territory as well as having devoured eighty percent of demonic dao, it'd raced ahead of the other great daos. The few dao beholders who didn't enter Ruina gave a wide berth to this dao, and the altar that the Curse King had destroyed reappeared again.

"This altar is quite unusual… It's very possible that I arrived in this world because of it." Lu Yun quickly derived a bit of cause and effect as he looked at the newly reappeared altar.

The altar was the oldest existence in Immortal Nation and had been present before Truecloud Nation was established. It'd been so ordinary and commonplace that it'd never drawn much attention.

After the nation's founding, generations of kings regarded the altar as their foundation and renovated it. When the Truecloud Sect appeared, the altar became a bridge between Myriadsea World and the Truecloud Sect's world of immortals.

Upon crafting the worlds of immortals, Dongfang Mo also fashioned the anti-reversion passages so that immortals couldn't easily leave their worlds. This was done to protect them; if they wandered Myriadsea World willy-nilly, it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered by cultivators of the other great daos and hunted down.

No one had ever discovered the wonders of the altar. Not even Dongfang Mo or the Sea Lord knew of its secrets. It wasn't until the altar mysteriously reappeared after its destruction that Lu Yun realized there was something special about it.

"It's not a mother altar like the one God created, but some other kind of altar…" Lu Yun closely observed it, discovering that his core essence was tightly integrated with this world of sequence. Somehow, the altar appeared insignificant despite plainly being momentous. It was a great art that'd somehow concealed itself.

Lu Yun jumped up and returned to the altar, taking a cross-legged position and operating formula dao with all of his strength, focusing it on the altar. Though he couldn't deploy formula dao to its utmost since he was no longer reinforced by the six orders of the highest degree, the altar wasn't so extraordinary that he couldn't probe its secrets with his skill alone. Formula dao also wasn't its former self, where one needed an exceedingly high cultivation level to be able to use it at certain heights…

In its current iteration, cultivators only needed to be skilled in the various calculation methods and formulas to start with elementary formulas. They could then progress from the most basic existences to the more sophisticated.

However, an enormous amount of concentration and time was still required for this process. Setting one foot wrong was to set all steps wrong. The final result would be impacted, so utmost care and caution was required.

Thanks to the Tome of Life and Death and being one of the founders of formula dao, Lu Yun's calculation speed was a hundred million times faster than ordinary cultivators.

"What is it?" He abruptly stilled his mind and opened his eyes, glancing at a Qi Fengyun who'd stood at the bottom of the altar for a long time. The man had returned to Immortal Nation after Dongfang Mo entered Ruina and continued to be Marquis Windcloud, conquering more territories for Immortal Nation.

"In response to master, curse dao has attacked us." His response was short and to the point. He was an immortal now and many times stronger than regular immortals. He was a peerless genius that Lu Yun and Dongfang Mo had created together.

Being highly versed in formula dao, Qi Fengyun knew what actions were appropriate for the times. He would never have disturbed Lu Yun if it hadn't been an emergency.

"Has the beholder of curse dao come?" Lu Yun recalled the woman in an outfit of multicolored feathers who'd stood with the Curse King.

"Yes," Qi Fengyun nodded. "She wants to see master, but senior brother Dongfang has blocked her."

Dongfang Ao was also in Immortal Nation and could hinder a dao beholder after undoing his seal.

"Since fellow daoist has come, why trouble yourself with these juniors?" Lu Yun stood up on the altar and called out to a corner of the sky.

"Hehehehe—" Giggles tinkled from the air as the feathered woman sashayed into view.

The one fighting with Dongfang Ao suddenly turned into a feather and drifted to the ground. Expressionless, Dongfang Ao turned around and landed at the foot of the altar.

The armies of curse dao had swept in from the previous world of demonic dao and slowly invaded the sphere of immortal dao influence. And yet, their leader had already reached immortal dao's heartland!

The curse dao beholder had previously been the Curse King; the feathered woman had naturally become the new beholder upon his death. When she first appeared in Myriadsea World, Lu Yun had suspected that the Curse King had known he'd die on this excursion. Thus, he'd brought her along to familiarize herself with the lay of the land.

"This humble Qinglie greets the beholder of immortal dao." The woman swept a graceful curtsy at Lu Yun.

Lu Yun frowned slightly, then relaxed his brow with a smile. "So you're called Qinglie, I'd thought you'd be called Chickadee or Tit, or something like that."

Qinglie remained smiling merrily in spite of the obvious offense. Since she was here to kill Lu Yun, he was firing back with no holds barred.

etvolare's Thoughts

TIT IS ALSO A BIRD NAME, JUST FYI.

It was the first result for the Chinese, actually...