"Let's begin," Grandmaster Gu Yan said.
The four Array Grandmasters sat around Lu Yin and began explaining everything they knew about opening sourcebox arrays.
Lu Yin did not expect them to be able to help him open the Four Locks Array, but gaining insights from their lockbreaking expertise would still be valuable.
Given his current strength, there was not much experience that Lu Yin needed to glean from others.
Several days passed as the four grandmasters shared their knowledge and experience before Lu Yin finally opened his eyes. He looked down at his hands and feet.
"Is there a way?" Grandmaster Gu Yan asked.
Lu Yin shook his head. “It’s not enough to break this Four Locks Array.”
Grandmaster Xiu Ming’s expression turned heavy. “It’s possible that only Progenitor Hui can undo this array. Using a person’s own abilities in place of a sourcebox’s danger zone to seal that same person… Who came up with such an array? Even the Origin Progenitor was unable to avoid it.”
"Absolute power won’t be enough to break it either. If that were attempted, the process would shatter your own abilities, Dao Monarch," Grandmaster Li interjected.
Grandmaster Gu Yan stared at Lu Yin’s hands. “If all else fails, I’ll attempt to break through to the Progenitor realm myself. Then, I’ll see if I can solve it.”Lu Yin glanced at the man. “Without opening your three meridian points, it’s impossible for you to become a Progenitor.”
Grandmaster Gu Yan knew that this was accurate and let out a helpless sigh.
As the men spoke, Grandmaster Qiu Ling did not dare to utter a word.
Lu Yin rose to his feet and looked at Grandmaster Qiu Ling. “When did you become a Redback?”
This question startled both Grandmaster Gu Yan and Grandmaster Xiu Ming. A Redback?
They both turned to stare at Grandmaster Qiu Ling.
Grandmaster Li showed no sign of surprise. When Lu Yin had asked the man to keep an eye on Grandmaster Qiu Ling, he had already started to suspect her.
The woman’s face turned pale, and she dropped to her knees. “Dao Monarch, I wasn’t willing! Please, spare me, Dao Monarch!”
Lu Yin looked at the kneeling Array Grandmaster without any hint of pity.
Even if he disregarded the damage that she had done to humanity as a whole as a Redback, the way that she had schemed against Lu Yin himself in the past was something that he would never forgive.
As he had once told Little Lian and those with her, if his past self appeared, would he forgive those who had wronged him?
Lu Yin’s current self did not have any right to forgive what had been done to his former self.
As one walked down the path of cultivation, every step was fraught with danger. A single misstep could lead to complete ruin.
There was no reason to forgive those who had harmed him.
Grandmaster Qiu Ling died, and her death surprised no one. No one begged for her life. All Redbacks had to die.
There were still many matters that needed to be dealt with. While Aeternus’s most powerful experts were all trapped within the Six Paths of Reincarnation Realm, they were not dead.
On top of that, both Tian Ci and Tian En needed to be found and dealt with as well.
True God’s comments left Lu Yin uncomfortable. Just how powerful was the megaverse that Tian Ci had come from?
Logically, they should not have the strength to overwhelm Lu Yin’s megaverse, or else they would have already done so. However, they were also foreigners from another megaverse. What would happen if they did arrive? Lu Yin needed to consider the possibility.
First, he needed to figure out how to resolve the Four Locks Array. If he could not do that, he would forever remain a half-formed Progenitor.
In the Perennial World, Lu Yin arrived at the Wang family’s continent.
This floating continent was part of the Origin Progenitor’s hand. Since the Origin Progenitor had also been sealed by the Four Locks Array, Lu Yin wanted to see if that array still existed at his hand.
The floating landmass was completely desolate. Everyone who used to live here had either fled or been captured and imprisoned beneath the Middle Ocean.
After it became public knowledge that Wang Fan had betrayed humanity, the hunt for other members of the Wang family had greatly intensified.
The Wang family had produced Wang Miaomiao, who was one of the Seven Skygods. There was also Wang Xiaoyu, who had triggered the war between the Fifth and Sixth Mainlands, which had led to her becoming one of the most infamous Redbacks in human history. Finally, Wang Fan had also come from that same family.
No one trusted the Wang family anymore.
As for the Wang family’s floating continent, it was currently being managed by the Lu family, and it essentially belonged to them.
When Lu Yin arrived, the present members of the Lu family quickly bowed to him.
He waved them off and proceeded to walk across the continent alone.
While the land was desolate, it was not completely uninhabited. Most of the people still living there were not members of the Wang family, but rather fortune seekers who were there because of the Wang family’s past as one of the four ruling powers.
As he strolled along, Lu Yin saw quite a few cultivators.
The Lu family had not stopped these people.
Every cultivator hoped to get lucky, even if there was danger associated with such opportunities.
Of course, there were specific places that these wandering cultivators were not allowed to enter. One such region was the Tri-Petal area, which was where the Wang family’s youths had once trained. That particular area was off-limits, not because of the Lu family, but rather because Wang Jian had sealed it off.
Despite the total collapse of the Wang family, there were still specific people that the Lu family had not touched, such as Wang Jian and Wang Miaomiao.[1]
There were rumors throughout the Perennial World that Wang Miaomiao had had an affair with Lu Qi, and thus no one dared touch her. While Lu Yin knew about these rumors, he had not said a word.
For many years, Lu Qi had refused to accept Wang Miaomiao’s affections, due to his powerful feelings for Lu Yin’s mother, even if Lu Qi did not show it.
Lu Qi was a complete person who lived his own life, and Lu Yin did not interfere with his father’s affairs.
Wang Jian was only able to live in the Tri-Petal area thanks to Wang Miaomiao. If not for her, even if the Lu family had not done anything to the man, he would have been sent to the battlefield and died there long ago.
The other place that off-limits was restricted because of the Lu family, and that was the mines.
The mines, which was how the Wang family had referred to the area, was where they extracted the Yellow Springs.
The Yellow Springs was incredibly important, and for that reason, the Lu family had sealed off the area.
Lu Yin entered the mining region and looked into the depths below. He was unable to see any Yellow Springs, or even detect it with his domain or spiritual force, but he knew that it was there. The Wang family had harvested the liquid for years without exhausting the supply.
At one point, he had believed the Yellow Springs to be the Origin Progenitor’s blood, but he had later realized that that assumption was wrong.
After all, the Origin Progenitor’s blood was still red.
This Yellow Springs was clearly not blood, but in that case, what was it?
On the day that the Lu family had been banished, Ancestor Lu Yuan had been asleep, while Ancestor Lu Tianyi had been restrained by Wei Nu. The rest of the family’s experts had not been able to do anything because of the Yellow Springs. It had drained their power and left them helpless.
Lu Yin was just about to descend into the depths when he suddenly turned to look at something in the distance. Then, he vanished.
Far away, a figure was crouching below a rock. They looked anxious and occasionally peeked through a crack in the stone to look towards the mine.
"Looking for me?" a voice asked.
The figure quivered and then slowly turned around to see Lu Yin, who was standing right beside the person.
Lu Yin looked at the man and said, "I didn't expect you to still be here, Xiao Can."
The man behind the rock was indeed Xiao Can. This was the same man who had traded a Root of Intelligence for an early dismissal from the rear battlefield, only to be captured by Wang Xun and taken to the Wang family’s continent.
Lu Yin remembered the man well, as he had bought a Root of Intelligence from him.
During the time he had been disguised as Hao Yu, Lu Yin had seen Xiao Can in the mining area of the Wang family’s continent, and that had strengthened his impression of the man.
He had assumed that, after the fall of the Wang family, Xiao Can must have either been caught up in the chaos and killed, or had fled. Surprisingly, he was still on the floating continent and even close to the mines.
Why? Why did he remain here?
Lu Yin realized that it was quite possible that he had overlooked Xiao Can. Despite the strong impression that the man had left on Lu Yin, he had never paid any real attention to Xiao Can. In fact, all that had ever really happened was that Lu Yin had wanted to get Roots of Intelligence from the man.
Upon discovering Xiao Can close to the mines, Lu Yin knew that the man had to be hiding something.
Xiao Can stared at Lu Yin in stunned silence. He had never imagined that Lu Yin himself would suddenly appear, much less discover him. Xiao Can had thought that he had been quite well hidden.
Ordinary people could not hope to comprehend the power of cultivators, and the gap between Xiao Can and Lu Yin was greater than the gap between an ordinary human and an Explorer. Ordinary humans could never travel freely through outer space and traverse the universe, nor could they comprehend how other humans could do such things.
Still, none of that mattered. Lu Yin had already found Xiao Can.
"Lu… Lord Lu- greetings, Lord Lu." Xiao Can bowed respectfully while struggling to regain his composure.
Lu Yin observed the man and said, "I can see every micro-expression that crosses your face and hear every breath you take."
Xiao Can's heart dropped. He did not dare to move a muscle.
"I can probably even guess what you're thinking. The entire megaverse, the Origin Universe, the Sixverse Association, parallel universes beyond those, even Aeternus’s six Scourges, are all under my control. How can you hope to hide from me?" Lu Yin asked calmly.
Xiao Can immediately knelt on the ground, his face already pale. "I… I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't dare hide anything. Please, Lord Lu, see for yourself."
Lu Yin chuckled as he looked down at the man. "How long has it been since we first met?"
Xiao Can swallowed as he thought back, "About… about seventy years."
Lu Yin clasped his hands behind his back as he also remembered the time gone by. "Yes, seventy years… You've matured a great deal since we first met on the rear battlefield. At that time, you were young and skinny, like a deer that had wandered onto the battlefield. You looked like you were about to be devoured at any moment."
Xiao Can trembled. "Lord Lu, you haven't changed at all."
Lu Yin looked back down at the man. "My heart has grown colder."
Xiao Can pressed his hands to the ground. Slowly, they clenched into fists as he squeezed the soil between his fingers. He gritted his teeth, as though enduring the greatest torment the world could offer him.
Life and death. Dangling between the two was the greatest torture that any person could suffer. For Xiao Can, he had no hope that Lu Yin would show mercy. There was nothing that Xiao Can could say to deceive the Dao Monarch.
The only way to get through this encounter was if Lu Yin decided that he did not care, but how was that possible?
Xiao Can had been captured by Wang Xun and dragged to the mines in the Wang family’s continent. He had been sent to harvest the Yellow Springs. After the fall of the Wang family, there had been no one to oversee things at the mines, and all the other workers had fled. Why had Xiao Can stayed behind?
The mines should be a painful memory for him, a place he never wanted to approach for the rest of his life. Despite that, he had remained, observing the area for quite some time. What was he watching? The only thing in this area was the Yellow Springs.
Could Xiao Can know something? Or was it possible that he was trying to obtain something?
The Yellow Springs was not an ordinary treasure. Even Lu Yin cared about that liquid, and he was far more curious about what Xiao Can might really know.
Xiao Can said nothing, and he simply remained kneeling on the ground. He was doubled over in a pathetic posture.
Lu Yin looked down and said, "Whatever you hope to gain here is worth less than a single word from me. Just one word from me can ensure that you enjoy endless blessings in the future, or send you into the endless abyss. Nothing in this place will help you achieve anything at all. If it could, the Wang family wouldn't be in their current situation."
Xiao Can closed his eyes, clearly miserable. He did not care about Lu Yin’s threat, but the fact that Lu Yin had said anything at all was proof that he would not simply let Xiao Can go. His persistence was meaningless before Lu Yin.
There was a soft sound as Xiao Can’s strength fled him, and he silently collapsed to the ground.
Lu Yin was in no hurry. He remained standing where he was, observing Xiao Can while occasionally glancing around. Lu Yin had visited this place before with his alias as Hao Yu. How many years had it been since then?
1. Just a reminder, but there is Forgotten Ruins God (Wang Miaomiao - 王淼淼) and Lu Qi's girl (Wang Miaomiao - 王妙妙). ☜
OMA's Thoughts
Translated By: OMA
Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox
TLC'ed By: OMA
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