Star Odyssey

Chapter 2243: Blood Array Base

Wu Yao's expression grew dark as he mentioned the slaughter. "This is the ancestor’s intent. Over the years, my four ruling powers have successfully captured most of the surviving remnants of the Lu family and those who were close to them. All of them will be sacrificed during the Xia family’s ceremony of ancestral worship. After the ancestor is worshiped, all the prisoners will be executed in the Higher Realm. They will kneel at the edge so that their blood can rain down onto the Middle Realm and flow into the Lower Realm. We will use the blood of the Lu family to wash away the sins of all of humanity."

Qing Chen's eyes narrowed. This was excessively cruel and unusual.

On the ground below, Zhuo Si’s fists clenched tightly as he stared up at Wu Yao in disbelief. The Semi-Progenitor had spoken without any hesitation, as though he were simply making an announcement to the entire Perennial World. It was clear that Wu Yao was hoping that the information would reach Lu Xiaoxuan, who was possibly in the Perennial World. This way, even if Lu Xiaoxuan was not drawn out, the event would still be extremely humiliating towards the Lu family, and the four ruling powers would definitely mark the day down in history.

The Higher Realm, Middle Realm, and Lower Realm would all be stained with blood as the Lu family was forced to atone for their crimes. This was how the Celestial Frost Sect intended to handle matters.

Wu Yao’s gaze swept past Zhuo Si, giving him a cold look and a sneer before leaving.

This was the first time that Xia Ziheng had heard of the Celestial Frost Sect’s intentions, and even he felt that they were being too cruel. Still, it should be highly effective. Even if they did not force Lu Xiaoxuan to personally appear, they would still likely force a group of loyalists to show themselves. Truthfully, something like this should have been done long ago.

Semi-Progenitor Chai and Qing Chen glanced at each other before Semi-Progenitor Chai also left.

Qing Chen looked down at Zhuo Si. "Go heal yourself. I need to speak with Progenitor Mu about your situation."

"Thank you, Supervisor." Zhuo Si bowed, though his voice sounded burdened. He felt that something big would happen soon, and he was worried about the Perennial World being stained with the blood of the Lu family.

Was Lu Xiaoxuan really in the Perennial World? Zhuo Si had no idea, but he remembered the youth that he had known as Lin Jianyi, who had later been exposed as Lu Xiaoxuan himself. Although Lu Xiaoxuan had spent a very short amount of time in the Perennial World, he had taken center stage during that brief moment and had completely overshadowed even the four Junior Progenitors. It was such a pity that he had been born in the wrong era.

***

In Virtue Archives, Lu Yin spent several days considering things, and while he finally came up with an idea for saving Star Alliance, it depended almost entirely on luck.

Since the Celestial Frost Sect wanted to push all the recent crimes onto Forgotten Ruins God and falsify a guilty party, then why couldn’t Lu Yin do the same?

The flames of the Dark Undying Bird replaced those of the Undying Bird in the sky above the academy, plunging the area into darkness so that only the stars shone down.

Lu Yin moved through the academy and set up a sourcebox array to conceal himself before he raised a hand and brought out his die. It was time to roll again.

There were times when Lu Yin considered the fact that, without his die, he would have never been able to rise to the top of the Fifth Mainland. So many things would have been impossible for him to accomplish without his die.

As it slowly stopped spinning, it landed on four pips: Timestop.

Lu Yin did not waste the opportunity to train in his Timestop Space. He immediately extended the time to nearly a year before focusing on practicing the Cosmic Art while reciting the Origin Progenitor’s Sutra.

Almost one year later, he left the Timestop Space, and he resumed rolling his die. His next roll was Enhance, so Lu Yin waved a hand to dismiss the two screens of light. Again.

He needed to roll six pips.

Luck was with him, as his fourth roll was Possession. Lu Yin's consciousness entered that mysterious dark space, and he started searching for the brightest ball of light, but all of them were quite dim. He had no choice but to merge with what was available.

When he opened his eyes, Lu Yin was startled by the sight of a corpse in front of him. Memories started to pour into his mind, and he heaved a sigh of relief. There was a corpse here because he had just Possessed an Envoy from the Sixth Mainland’s Justice Manor.

Wait, how expensive was it going to be to Possess someone in the Sixth Mainland while he was in the Perennial World?

Lu Yin wanted to end his Possession immediately, but he first made sure to check on the state of affairs in the Fifth Mainland.

Briefly skimming through the Envoy’s memories proved that things were peaceful in the Fifth Mainland and that nothing had happened in Lu Yin’s absence. Well, if anything had happened, a mere one-tribulation Envoy like the man that Lu Yin had Possessed was completely unqualified to have heard about it.

Lu Yin quickly ended the Possession. As soon as he was back inside his own body, he checked his cosmic ring. Luckily, he had not burned through too much star essence. With his current wealth, such an expenditure was negligible.

Since Lu Yin had already rolled his die four times, he needed to rest for ten days. As it happened, he had to give a few lectures during this waiting period.

Lu Yin was not in seclusion, as all members of Virtue Archives’ faculty needed to give notice for their training times, and there was also no need for Lu Yin to do such a thing.

The necessary ten days passed quickly. Lu Yin was visited by both Nong Siniang and Bai Weiwei, which meant that everything was proceeding according to Lu Yin’s normal routine in the academy.

As the Dark Undying Bird’s flames once again dominated the sky, Lu Yin set up a sourcebox array to isolate himself before summoning his die again.

Pilfer caused something useless to fall out, while his second roll was another Enhance. As for his third roll, it was Possession again.

As soon as Lu Yin saw a bright orb in the distance, he shot towards it and merged with it. It was not perfectly compatible with him, as it was still a bit dim, but it was the third brightest orb available. The two brighter orbs had given him a nervous feeling, as he had never Possessed anyone with such a bright light before. Those orbs had likely belonged to Semi-Progenitors.

Lu Yin opened the body’s eyes and looked around. Was he on the rear battlefield?

Sure enough, Lu Yin had appeared on the Perennial World’s rear battlefield. It was the only place in the universe where so much violence could be seen. What the rest of the Perennial World knew was a gentle illusion, as they were not allowed to know about the true bloodbath that filled the rear battlefield.

Memories continued to pour in. Lu Yin stood frozen in place. He found himself inside a stone house that was full of thorns. It was his first time seeing such a place.

Skimming through the memories, he understood that he had Possessed a colonel stationed on the fifth array base. This particular array base was also known as the blood array base.

The rear battlefield had five array bases. Lu Yin had spent some time on the second array base, but he had not visited the other four. Because each array base had a different general, the defenders of each array base also employed different combat tactics and fighting styles. The fifth array base of Ceaseless Impetus was the worst of them all. This was because its general, a man named Kuang Yan, was known by all as a madman.

The parts of the fifth array base where people walked were all filled with sharp thorns that could stab people at any moment. As soon as the human defenders fell to a disadvantage, General Kuang Yan would manipulate the ever-present thorns to stab out. Casualties and targets were not considered important, and more humans died on the fifth array base than any other array base. However, Aeternus’s monsters also perished in the greatest numbers there as well.

At the moment, the fifth array base had but one colonel, and that was Colonel Lan, whom Lu Yin had just Possessed. All the other colonels had either died or been transferred to other places. The fifth array base was famous across the entire rear battlefield for being a graveyard. Lu Yin had not expected to appear in such a place.

From Colonel Lan’s memories, the man greatly admired General Kuang Yan. The general always stood on the front lines of the battlefield, and his methods were beyond cruel. He was one of the Semi-Progenitors who was most feared by Aeternus’s forces.

The stone hut where Lu Yin found himself was Colonel Lan’s personal residence. Looking out, everything in sight was filled with countless, neatly arranged stone huts that covered the fifth array base. Everyone, from General Kuang Yan down to the lowest grunts, lived in the same kind of stone hut. Each one was filled with sharp thorns, which meant that everyone was ready to die with a corpse king at any given moment.

Lu Yin had witnessed many bloodthirsty actions, but he had never seen such an excessive kill switch.

General Kuang Yan’s hut was rather close to Colonel Lan’s, but the general was almost never in his home. Kuang Yan practically lived on the front lines of the battlefield, always staring down at the New World. The general was the fifth array base’s first line of defense.

In the opposite direction from the general’s home was Elder Qiu’s stone hut.

Yes, it was Elder Qiu, the founder of the Dealcut Association. A powerful Semi-Progenitor.

No one knew that Elder Qiu had established the Dealcut Association, not even Kui Luo. Lu Yin had learned of this matter from Bai Teng, and that was only because Bai Teng was one of the select few people who was qualified to form a partnership with the Dealcut Association.

Cultivators constantly entered and exited the stone huts. Nearly all of them looked numb and indifferent to life and death, though a few also looked nervous and scared. Those few exceptions were clearly new arrivals, and they were eager to achieve great things on the rear battlefield so that they could trade their merit points for protective equipment.

The target of Lu Yin’s Possession, Colonel Lan, was not a good person. Like many cultivators, the colonel was willing to do absolutely anything if it helped raise his cultivation or providee him with more resources. Unfortunately, the colonel’s talent was rather mediocre. He had reached his limit after passing this third stellular tribulation.

Lu Yin also learned that the colonel had not volunteered to serve on the rear battlefield. Rather, he had been condemned to serve there after offending the Lu family when they had been in power.

All who served on the fifth array base were either independent cultivators or people who had offended someone they should not have. Colonel Lan had offended the Lu family. At that time, there had been no Star Alliance, so the man had been sent to the fifth array base.

The fifth array base was essentially the precursor of Star Alliance. It was nearly impossible for anyone to leave this place alive.

Colonel Lan had managed to survive for so long because he was willing to do whatever it took to survive on the battlefield, including sacrificing his own comrades if it ensured his own survival.

Memories continued to pour in. Lu Yin found one of a grand spectacle put on by the Lu family, as well as a memory of his past self.

Lu Xiaoxuan and the rest of the Seven Heroes had been extremely famous throughout the Perennial World, and Lu Xiaoxuan had once visited the fifth array base. At that time, Colonel Lan had wanted to kill Lu Xiaoxuan, but the colonel had overestimated himself.

From what Lu Yin had already learned, he had almost sent Colonel Lan’s body flying off the array base to fight in the New World until he died.

However, Lu Yin suddenly saw memories of two familiar figures. These two were Envoys who had been guardians of the Junior Progenitor Planets, and they were known as Senior Yi He and Senior Jun. One of them had protected the White Dragon Clan’s planet, while the other had been a guardian of Shenwu’s Sky’s Junior Progenitor Planet. Why would the two Envoys appear on the fifth array base?

It made sense for the guardians to leave the Junior Progenitor Planets after all the resources had been stolen, but it did not make sense for them to be sent to the fifth array base. The fact that these Envoys had been qualified to guard the Junior Progenitor Planets proved that they had a close relationship to the four ruling powers. Additionally, it had already been proven that the guardians had had nothing to do with the heist. The only possibility was that the Envoys had been sent to the rear battlefield on some sort of mission.

Lu Yin searched the colonel’s memories for more information about the two Envoys, and he found that they had made it a point to choose stone huts close to Elder Qiu’s. What’s more, they also took turns keeping an eye on the Semi-Progenitor’s residence.

This would not be suspicious at all if one did not know that Elder Qiu was the founder of the Dealcut Association, but given Lu Yin’s knowledge, the Envoys’ actions were only too obvious. The four ruling powers had sent the two men to the rear battlefield to keep an eye on Elder Qiu.

Given the Envoys’ presence, it appeared that the four ruling powers had learned that Elder Qiu was the master of the Dealcut Association, though it was possible that there were other reasons.

Regardless, their presence was a lucky break for Lu Yin.

He had initially wanted to end the Possession, but learning about the two Envoys provided Lu Yin with exactly the opportunity that he had been hoping for. He had wanted to find people with a connection to the four ruling powers so that he could pass some specific information to them.

…

After Lu Yin’s consciousness returned to his own body after the Possession ended, he did not immediately check his cosmic ring to calculate the costs as he normally did. Instead, he reviewed what he had just learned and said. Given the recent developments, whether he could successfully trick the four ruling powers depended entirely on luck.

At the same time, on the fifth array base, Yi He and Jun stared at each other in shock. They had indeed been sent to the fifth array base to monitor Elder Qiu, but there was no need for them to watch the man’s every move. In fact, they just needed to send reports of people who met with the Semi-Progenitor.

They had never expected to coincidentally discover a secret about Colonel Lan; the man was a Redback! On top of that already shocking revelation, he had revealed something that happened to perfectly match some recent discussions within the four ruling powers.

"We can’t delay. Send the report now," Yi He urged.

Jun nodded. "I'm sending it to Shenwu's Sky."

Just a short while later, Xia Xing and Xia Ziheng met each other in Shenwu's Sky. "I never even thought that Forgotten Ruins God was actually behind everything, but given the information that our people on the fifth array base accidentally uncovered, it seems that the Skygod has indeed been targeting Star Alliance. If we hadn’t seized the initiative and moved everyone, she might have already used the restriction method to take control of them."