Star Odyssey

Chapter 2247: Seemingly Fair

This day would be remembered as a shocking one for many in the Nong family. There were many descendants of the family out in fields, and they witnessed the bloodthirsty aura of an attacking corpse king for themselves. Some people even questioned if the corpse king might have had the strength of a Progenitor.

They were not alone, as even Nong Ya, the patriarch of the Nong family, was questioning the strength of the corpse king as he stared at the rapidly approaching creature. The patriarch eyed the corpse king, and then he quickly sent word to their ancestor.

Out in one of the family’s fields, Nong Sanniang and Nong Lie stared at the corpse king in a daze.

Suddenly, a green leaf sprouted from the ground. It swept through the sky as though it were carried on an autumn wind and then wrapped around the corpse king.

Lu Yin wanted to first get some idea of the Nong family’s power, so he lashed out with a punch. The corpse king’s fist struck the green leaf floating in the wind, but there was no reaction. There was no change in momentum and not a mark to be seen on the leaf. However, the corpse king was tightly bound. First, the creature’s muscles were restricted, then its bones, and finally its internal organs.

After spending a bit of time shrouded in darkness, Lu Yin's consciousness returned to his body. The black and white mist within his chest trembled and strengthened. He had once again experienced death, and this time, he had been killed by the Nong family.

A single falling leaf had been enough to instantly overpower and suppress a corpse king with the strength of a seven-tribulation Envoy, quickly killing the creature. This showed the foundation of the Nong family.

It was possible that the leaf had been powerful enough to defeat more than just the corpse king that Lu Yin had Possessed. Perhaps even Semi-Progenitors would find themselves helpless before that green leaf.

Lu Yin would never dare to underestimate the top powers of the Perennial World. After all, anything that the Nong family was capable of, so too were the four ruling powers.

Once again, Lu Yin felt incredibly grateful that he had managed to escape from Dragon Mountain with the assistance of Kui Luo and the Seven Skygods. Without them, he would have never been able to escape.

At the same time, far away in Seed Garden, countless people were staring at the fallen leaf in a daze as it drifted down to the ground. Nothing was left behind, and the green leaf was actually a bit more vibrant than before.

Nong Lie blinked. What had he just seen?

"Sister, could I have seen things wrongly just now? Did a corpse king just come charging towards us?"

Nong Sanniang pursed her lips. "Yes."

"And it died within seconds?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Nong Sanniang could not think of a single answer. "I don't know."

She removed the cloth on her head and used it to clean the sweat from her face. "I have absolutely no idea."

No one could understand what had just happened. Why had a corpse king so desperately charged towards Seed Garden?

There was an extremely solemn expression on Nong Ya's face at this moment. A corpse king felt no emotions, so it should not have been seeking death. There had to be a reason behind its actions. Why would such a powerful corpse king have committed suicide by attacking Seed Garden? What purpose was served?

Could it be a message? Was Aeternus preparing to attack the Nong family?

Also, where in the world had that corpse king come from?

It was at this time that Nong Ya received a report informing him that the corpse king had originally come from the farmed civilization of a specific nearby family’s pond. The order was given to erase the family and eliminate the entire civilization that they had been grooming.

Things were growing increasingly odd. If the corpse king had been hidden so well, why had it deliberately exposed itself?

Nong Ya could not make sense of what had happened, and neither could anyone else from the Nong family. When the news reached the four ruling powers, they were also unable to make any sense of the strange happenings.

All that anyone knew was that there was a feeling that things had recently been growing increasingly strange in the Perennial World.

In Virtue Archives, Lu Yin stared at his cosmic ring in agony. He had actually burned through more than 60 billion star essence during that Possession. 60 billion, not 600 million.

This was part of the cost of Possessing such a powerful expert, but the other matter was that Lu Yin had forced the corpse king to travel all of the way to Seed Garden, which had taken a bit of time and had contributed to the astronomical cost.

No matter how Lu Yin examined the matter, it was disheartening to spend so much.

He finally decided to just forget about the matter and treat the cost as a gift to humanity. No matter how hard humanity worked to dig out traitors and uncover corpse kings, the Perennial World could always use a wake-up call that Aeternus had various means to hide themselves.

Although Lu Yin had unexpectedly managed to roll Possession on his fourth roll, it had been useless. Thus, he was forced to wait another ten days before he could try again.

After a few days, Nong Siniang asked Lu Yin to help her open another sourcebox. Nong Siniang gave Lu Yin the most sourceboxes to open out of all the students.

"Professor, have you heard about all of the weird things that have been happening lately?" Nong Siniang asked while observing “Yu Hao” work at lockbreaking.

Lu Yin was only working on a Perceptive Intermediate sourcebox, so he could afford the distraction of a conversation. "What kind of strange things?"

"The patriarchs of all of the four ruling powers have gone missing," Nong Si Niang said.

“Yu Hao” was surprised to hear this. "All of them disappeared? I thought that only Xia Xing had gone missing, no?"

"He’s not the only one. Rather, he was simply the first. After him, Bai Teng disappeared, and then so did Wang Zheng and Long Ke. All of them deserve it! I have no idea who attacked them, but as long as it wasn’t Aeternus, we're all happy about it," Nong Siniang stated indifferently.

Lu Yin replied, "If even the leaders of the four ruling powers can disappear, then things really are getting chaotic. We’re lucky that the God of Food will be around when I escort you and the other students on the training excursion. Otherwise, we’d face a great deal of danger. Your family would normally be fine, as they’re no weaker than the four ruling powers, but if even Xia Xing was captured by Aeternus, your Nong family should also be careful."

"You’re quite perceptive, Professor. Something did happen to us as well," Nong Siniang said solemnly.

Lu Yin feigned surprise. "What happened?"

Nong Si Niang bit her lip. "I don't really understand it, but apparently, a corpse king charged at Seed Garden as though committing suicide. It was instantly crushed to death by a fallen leaf that was left for us by our ancestor. It was very odd, and the four ruling powers even sent some investigators to look into the matter. We think that we’ll be attacked by the Aeternals soon.

"The Liu family is very nervous right now, and they’ve called back all of their people who were away from home."

Lu Yin let out a sigh. "It really does sound strange. For anyone to attack your family’s Seed Garden, they can only be looking for death."

"However, that corpse king caused my Nong family to find a large number of corpse kings hidden in a civilization inside a pond, which triggered a massive cleanup. My sister tells me that she expects to see the four ruling powers do a mass scouring of all of the farmed civilizations that various families and sects are raising. This matter is going to create a lot of problems," Nong Siniang murmured.

While the girl was just speaking random thoughts, Lu Yin was eagerly listening. While rearing civilizations was a very common practice in the Perennial World, it was not something that people would reveal to outsiders. In fact, basically all organizations with an Envoy in them would rear a civilization as a source of soldiers, slaves, guards, and for other, more unspeakable purposes. If the four ruling powers demanded to start overseeing and regulating these farmed civilizations, the impact that it would have on other powers would be massive.

Making such a demand was nothing less than stripping away fanciful clothes people wore and exposing everything hidden beneath the surface.

Lu Yin's eyes flashed. Things were not at all simple this time. While Virtue Archives did not have any farmed civilizations, Seed Garden absolutely had one, and the same had to be true of the Li family as well. Just these two families alone would be gravely impacted by such a regulation, but if one took all the various powers throughout the Perennial World with six or seven-tribulation Envoys into consideration, then the effects of this decision would ripple out to affect nearly the entire Perennial World.

Still, this was a good thing.

If Lu Yin were the one in control of the Perennial World, he would also want to eliminate the practice of rearing farmed civilizations. How was it reasonable to raise people in captivity? How was that any different from treating people the same as animals? The people who grew up in those civilizations were really being raised for the slaughter by the different families and sects. This fate was beyond tragic. If the four ruling powers did away with such a practice, then it could only be considered a good thing.

"Does your Seed Garden have ponds with civilizations?" Lu Yin asked casually.

Nong Siniang nodded. "Yes. We have a very large one that has countless people in it. If people can reach a certain level of strength, then they’ll be able to break free of the pond and will be allowed to join my Seed Garden, and they will even be treated the same as any other cultivator. We aren’t as cruel as the other families."

How was this not cruel? Those people trained desperately, and when they were finally able to leave their relatively primitive civilization, believing that they would ascend to a greater world, they would emerge only to learn that they were nothing more than servants or slaves. This could only be considered a terrible blow.

The Nong family believed that their treatment was good and fair, but their idea of fairness was tainted by the perspective of the rest of the Perennial World. Sadly, anyone from the Fifth Mainland would be able to understand the people from the farmed civilizations, but the members of the Nong family themselves could not.

This method of rearing farmed civilizations could be seen as a cancer in the Perennial World. Lu Yin truly hoped that the four ruling powers would do something good and eliminate the cancer.

A short time later, Lu Yin finished opening the sourcebox, and a weapon emerged. It was a power vessel, but it was so old and decayed that it had no power left in it.

Still, Nong Siniang was not at all disappointed. "Professor, there are only a few days left before we’ll leave on the excursion. Mr. Tang has been helping us by answering all of our questions. When will you head over to join the rest of the group?"

"I’ll wait a few more days," Lu Yin replied.

Nong Siniang left without making any fuss.

Two days later, Wu Taibai arrived to visit “Yu Hao.” While he found it to be a pity that he would not be joining the students and chaperones, Wu Taibai made no complaints about Liu Que.

Prof. Zheng also stopped by to remind “Hao Yu” of the importance of maintaining Virtue Archives’ reputation. Regardless of anything else, this was still the first time that the academy’s students would be visiting the rulers of the Perennial World ever since the Lu family had been exiled. It was impossible for there to be a fair comparison between the youths of the four ruling powers and Virtue Archives’ students, as the students were simply too far behind.

Several more days passed, and after a total of ten days, Lu Yin returned to his chosen room and raised a hand. His die appeared, and he tapped it again.

This time, his luck was incredible, as his very first roll landed on six pips. His consciousness entered the mysterious dark space, but when he looked around, he only saw one bright ball of light. This particular orb was very bright, even more so than the one that had represented the corpse king that Lu Yin had last Possessed.

Lu Yin’s heart was swayed as he stared at the ball of light. While the intensity of the light indicated that Possessing this person would be a challenge, a six or seven-tribulation Envoy stood near the peak of the Perennial World. Someone who was beneath only Progenitors and Semi-Progenitors was a very attractive target for Lu Yin.

He stopped hesitating and merged with the orb. While failing to Possess the person would be rather serious and would burn through a chunk of Lu Yin’s star essence, if he succeeded, the potential benefits far outweighed the risks. He could not afford to worry about a potential failure.

Throughout the Perennial World and the Fifth Mainland, even if one went back to the Heavens Sect era, no one had ever consumed star essence as quickly as Lu Yin. Even more importantly, no one had any idea what he was doing with so much star essence.

His consciousness merged into the Possessed body, and there was a burst of dizziness. Lu Yin felt out of breath, which was a sign of a forced Possession that exceeded his abilities. Luckily, he was able to weather the slight backlash.

When his eyes opened, he saw the familiar sky of the rear battlefield. He was standing on the Mother Tree above the rear battlefield, looking down on it. Lu Yin had Possessed Grandmaster Qiu Ling.

Grandmaster Qiu Ling was the first Array Grandmaster that Lu Yin had encountered in the Perennial World, as the White Dragon Clan had asked her to take Long Qi as her apprentice when Lu Yin had been disguised. When she had examined him on Dragon Mountain, she had introduced Lu Yin to the game of Stable Zone. It was a famous game played only by Array Masters.

That game had left a deep impression on Lu Yin, as it had provided him with a much greater understanding of the abilities of an Array Grandmaster.

It was completely shocking to Lu Yin that he was able to Possess an Array Grandmaster.