Chapter 173 - 130: Lu Changyuan Takes a Wife

Chapter 173: Chapter 130: Lu Changyuan Takes a Wife

"Hm?"

Lu Changyuan sheathed his sword, eyeing the monster that had just formed before him with great interest.

’Dream Race? No, something more ancient, perhaps?’

The Dream Race in the Cultivation Realm all tended to take human form, but this one clearly wasn’t. It was an illusory shadow, an incorporeal form like a cloud that would scatter with the wave of a hand.

The Nightmare Ghost suddenly contorted into a massive, twisted face. It opened its vast, ethereal maw and pounced at Lu Changyuan, letting out a sharp shriek that assaulted his Divine Soul directly.

Lu Changyuan felt a wave of dizziness as countless negative emotions—shock, fear, despair—surged over him like a tide, threatening to drown his sanity.

Illusions bloomed before his eyes, making him feel as if he had fallen into the Purgatory of the Red Dust, never to awaken.

As Lu Changyuan stood frozen, the Nightmare Ghost was already upon him, its massive maw descending.

Kabeng!

It saw Lu Changyuan smiling.

"If I still had the Supreme Pure Spirit Forget Immortal Technique, you wouldn’t have even gotten close. Things are a little more troublesome now."

Lu Changyuan flicked his sword tip upward, splitting the Nightmare Ghost in two. It dissolved into drops of ink-wash.

Although Lu Changyuan no longer had a Heart Method, he still wielded Broken Thought. A moment ago, he had used it to briefly sever the negative emotions conjured by the Nightmare Ghost, allowing him to dispatch it with ease.

"It can’t even pull people into dreams? Even today’s Dream Demons are better than this," Lu Changyuan remarked.

Casting his thoughts aside, Lu Changyuan remained standing and gazed at the empty mountainside.

Broken Thought rose into the air, its length parallel to the sky.

Then.

"Imperial Decree!"

Pure Yang!

The sky tore open like a giant curtain, a rift stretching from east to west. But behind the rift, there was no familiar starry sky—only an endless, profound blackness.

Lu Changyuan laughed in exasperation.

’So damn cautious.’

This damned Painting Demon had created a painting within a painting. This place was just a smaller painting inside the main one, and Lu Changyuan had only pierced the first layer.

"SKREEE!"

An extremely sharp, scalp-numbing cry erupted from the rift as a dark shadow lunged at Lu Changyuan in an instant.

Lu Changyuan barely managed to knock the monster back with Broken Thought, his hand stinging from the impact. Only then did he get a clear look at it.

The monster’s body was encased in a dark purple, almost ink-black carapace, its surface gleaming with a cold, hard, enamel-like sheen. Its head was devoid of any normal facial features, save for a gaping vertical maw. Two rows of stark white, bone-like teeth lined its interior, and bizarre, curling tendrils twisted atop its head.

’Truly disgusting. A monster born from a Desire Demon?’

Lu Changyuan frowned. He had seen monsters like this before; some Cultivators transformed into such things after they had Fallen into Demon.

’What’s a Desire Demon doing in this Painting Demon’s scroll?’

"SKREEE!"

The massive, dark purple, bat-like membranes on the monster’s back slowly unfurled, their edges terrifyingly sharp, like blades. With a sudden WHOOSH, it was upon Lu Changyuan again in an instant.

Lu Changyuan reacted in a flash, parrying the monster’s wing-blade. Sparks flew from Broken Thought as if metal were grinding against metal.

’Pretty fast.’

Miao Yu’s Thirteen Swords—Wind Rises Beyond the Clouds.

This was the ninth of Miao Yu Palace’s Thirteen Swords. Lu Changyuan had learned it simply because he liked it.

The essence of this sword technique was a flurry of strikes as dense and unpredictable as the wind itself.

A continuous CLANGING echoed as the monster was struck by countless blades in an instant. Even its incredibly tough carapace was slashed open, revealing blackened flesh and inky blood beneath.

"SKREEE!"

The fleshy folds around the monster’s maw writhed madly, and the inhuman, frenzied sounds that escaped it grated on the nerves.

’Not as tough as the Stone Race. I could hack at one of them for half a day and not even break through their defense... But you’re actually a living thing?’

In this world within a painting, all the monsters should have been creations of the Painting Demon. But when this one was injured, it didn’t dissolve into ink. It actually bled; it was truly wounded.

"SKREEE!"

’Perhaps this thing is a "living painting" the Painting Demon created in the Ancient Era, preserving a creature from that time until now. It’s not as tough as the Stone Race, but it’s still ridiculously durable.’

It wasn’t unkillable.

Killing it would take time, and time was what the Painting Demon needed most right now.

The monster let out a grotesque laugh, as if mocking Lu Changyuan. But soon, the laugh froze on its face. "Sk... reee?!"

Shrill screams erupted ceaselessly from its throat, hammering at Lu Changyuan’s eardrums.

The Five Desires and Six Dust Heart Transformation Technique wove together chaotic Thoughts, which Lu Changyuan channeled into the monster’s body through its wounds. Unlike the single-minded Stone Race, this chaotic monster was the perfect target for an attack using the Five Desires and Six Dusts. Without Lu Changyuan needing to exert much effort, the creature’s mind began to collapse.

THUD!

The monster’s bone-like teeth fell out one by one as it collapsed to the ground, twitching. Lu Changyuan slowly walked over and plunged his sword down into a pulsating red vein on its neck. With a sickening tear, flesh was rent and inky blood gushed out. Soon, the monster stopped moving.

"What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?"

As his words faded, a beam of sword light shot into the sky. This time, there were no surprises.

The world constructed by the Painting Demon began to dissolve. The sky-curtain tore apart, revealing the dark night. The true scenery filled in around them, and the grave reappeared before Lu Changyuan’s eyes.

Grave of the Physician, Lu Ping.

The tombstone Lu Changyuan had erected with his own hands now lay toppled on the ground. The grave itself had been dug up and was completely empty.

Lu Changyuan narrowed his eyes and looked toward the sky.

There, an eyeless, spherical creature—black on its left side and white on its right—hovered. Beside it was a black lacquered coffin, now mostly open. The moment the Painting Demon saw Lu Changyuan emerge, it scrambled inside.

The Fairy in the black dress rushed over, frowning. "What happened?"

Lu Changyuan shook his head, sensing something extremely strange. He turned back to her and asked, "How are you?"

Actually, the Moon Fairy’s dress was perfectly neat, and she didn’t have a single scratch on her. It was obvious that she had completely overpowered the massive monster.

Qiu Yuehan was a bit taken aback by his sudden concern. "I’m fine," she said. "I killed it more than ten times."

’You killed it over ten times in just that short a while?’

The Moon Fairy looked at the Painting Demon, readying her sword. "What’s its condition?"

"It must have exhausted all its strength trying to stop us. We can kill it easily now," Lu Changyuan said confidently. "It’s pinning all its hopes on whatever is inside that coffin."

Qiu Yuehan blinked, wondering why he hadn’t already attacked to seize it. "The old man’s corpse?" she asked. "Why would it covet a corpse so much?"

"It might not be the corpse."

"Then what else could it be?"

"I don’t know," Lu Changyuan said, his eyes fixed on the coffin.

He still remembered that afternoon. He had gone to wake the old man from his nap, just like any other day, only to find him lying quietly in bed. His complexion was ruddy and peaceful, as if he were merely asleep. At first, Lu Changyuan just thought the old man was sleeping in due to his age.

So when he returned half an hour later, he discovered the old man was no longer breathing. After a long silence, he took the burial clothes the old man had long ago prepared for himself from a cabinet and carefully dressed him.

At the time, he hadn’t recovered his memories, and his disposition was that of a teenager. So Lu Changyuan remembered being heartbroken—so heartbroken that even now, he was unwilling to recall that day.

But he had endured his grief until the old man was buried and in the earth.

"GA-HA!"

The Painting Demon in the sky let out a wild laugh.

Lu Changyuan couldn’t understand its cry, so he looked to Qiu Yuehan.

The Moon Fairy’s expression turned grim. "It’s saying we’re too late."

"Too late? I don’t think so."

Qiu Yuehan expected Lu Changyuan to attack, but instead, he stood perfectly still with his sword on his back, even uttering a threat. "Whether the old man is dead or not, you are definitely dying today."

The Painting Demon said no more. It tossed the coffin aside, and its tentacle-like hands lifted up a bowl.

Lu Changyuan moved—not to attack the Painting Demon, but to catch the falling coffin.

Inside the coffin lay a skeleton, the flesh long since rotted away.

"Old man." Lu Changyuan let out a breath and carefully placed the coffin on the ground. "I... I really thought you weren’t dead."

Qiu Yuehan couldn’t see his expression clearly, but the sight of him now was heartbreaking. An indescribable wave of sorrow seemed to wash over the area.

She couldn’t help but think.

’If it were Feng Xianlong lying there... if her hope that Feng Xianlong was alive had just been rekindled, only for her to see her remains, she would probably look the same.’

Lu Changyuan closed the coffin lid and patted it. "Oh, well... Just consider it your bad luck that you won’t get to see me get a wife."

’Get a wife?’

Qiu Yuehan’s thoughts were suddenly cut short. She looked at Lu Changyuan nervously, only to see that he had already turned his gaze back to the sky.

"GA-HA! GA-HA-HA!"

Lu Changyuan’s voice was quiet. "Translate."

Qiu Yuehan obliged. "It says it’s going to eat us."

"It won’t."

The Painting Demon shattered the bowl with a single crunch, and all the scarlet liquid within poured into its massive maw.

It was a bowl of blood!

After swallowing the blood, the Painting Demon’s aura surged. Its power, which had been about to fall to the Fifth Realm, instantly stabilized in the Sixth Realm. It then climbed with ease to the peak of the Sixth Realm, nearly breaking through to Yao Guang.

The wind and the very momentum of the world fell still, as if in fear.

Qiu Yuehan’s pupils shrank to pinpoints. She prepared to invoke the Path of Death, but then she saw Lu Changyuan shake his head.

’Why isn’t he attacking? This isn’t like him. He wouldn’t waste time with so much talk. He should have attacked the Painting Demon directly, before it could drink from that bowl!’

The Moon Fairy’s question was answered a moment later.

She heard Lu Changyuan speak in a tone thick with mockery:

"How does my blood taste?"