Star Odyssey

Chapter 3741: Tri-Azure Sword Intent

Lu Yin stared intently at the High Seraph. "Then let's see which of us can get closer."

"We will each rely on our own abilities, but I would suggest to not get your hopes up too high. While I cannot speak for the Greater Sancti, not a single Lesser Sancti throughout all of history has ever succeeded."

"And yet you still want to try?"

"Should I succeed, the Nine Odysseys Megaverse won't be able to stop me anymore. I will become the Spirit Nidus’s second Immortal after the invincible being, which will give the Spirit Nidus enough leverage to negotiate with them. Should I fail," the High Seraph paused and stared off into the distance before calmly stating, "It won’t matter, as I have never been accepted by the Nine Odysseys Megaverse from the beginning."

"Mo Shang," the Origin Progenitor suddenly interjected in a loud voice. "If you were given a second chance, would you still choose to slaughter the Heavens Sect and everyone at the Immemorial Citadel?"

The High Seraph turned to look back at the Origin Progenitor. "I truly envy you."

The Origin Progenitor frowned as he looked at the High Seraph in confusion.

The man calmly explained, "You are so assured in your role as humanity’s Origin that you can protect your own kindness, even when your kindness is pure stubbornness.

"Lu Yin would never ask such a childish question. However, since you want an answer, I'll give it to you."

The High Seraph's eyes turned frigid. "Absolutely."

The Origin Progenitor let out a breath and looked at Lu Yin, though the old man said nothing.

The High Seraph was right. Lu Yin would have never asked such a question. That was because Lu Yin knew that there was only one possible answer: yes. There was no other option.

The Origin Progenitor had devoted his life to suppressing the sequence strings beneath the Immemorial Citadel in order to protect the people of the Tianyuan Megaverse. For that, he deserved respect.

Similarly, the High Seraph had spent eons scheming for the sake of the Spirit Nidus. He had willingly spared Lu Yin and allowed him to brazenly roam about the Spirit Nidus, acting however he wished. Even if doing so had smeared the High Seraph’s reputation, he still deserved the Spirit Nidus’s respect.

However, the greatest difference between the High Seraph and the Origin Progenitor was this: the Origin Progenitor focused on protection, while the High Seraph focused on offense.

The Origin Progenitor would never harm another megaverse in order to protect his own, but the High Seraph was different. Given the chance, he would absolutely eliminate all foreign megaverses if it meant preserving the Spirit Nidus. The man was naturally aggressive.

Lu Yin was the same.

The High Seraph had slaughtered the Tianyuan experts with the goal of resetting the megaverse. Lu Yin had gone to the Spirit Nidus with similar intentions; retaliating an eye for an eye. Lu Yin and the High Seraph had similar mindsets, and they were essentially cut from the same cloth. They were fundamentally different from the Origin Progenitor.

It was because of Lu Yin that the Origin Progenitor could remain who he was. Without Lu Yin, would Tai Chu still be the Origin Progenitor?

The Spirit Nidus lacked a Lu Yin.

Despite understanding all of this, the Origin Progenitor had still asked his question, which was why the High Seraph had mentioned the Origin Progenitor’s stubbornness. The man sought an answer to his kindness.

He had suffered terribly for ages while suppressing the sequence strings, and yet he suffered worse pain after knowing of Lu Yin’s burden. The young man shouldered responsibilities far beyond what anyone his age should have to endure.

Outside in the Consciousness Megaverse, the Voidheart Mirror had continued to spread, but Yue Ya still could not find Lu Yin anywhere.

He cooperated with Yanbo Haomiao and the others from Ruler Garden to use their Nine Chi: Heaven-Defying Art and envelop the entire megaverse, but they still found nothing.

Even Old Chief and the other conscients’ consciousness methods were ineffective.

"Could he have hidden himself in a parallel universe?" Yanbo Haomiao asked, but Yue Ya did not respond. He had that same suspicion. As long as Lu Yin was not in a parallel universe, it would be impossible for Yue Ya and the others to have missed the young man.

Could Lu Yin have dared to take that risk? Did he not fear the possibility of Yue Ya leaving and destroying the Tianyuan Megaverse in retaliation?

Yue Ya had indeed been bluffing when he had threatened to destroy the Tianyuan. If he could really do it that easily, someone else would have attempted to do so long ago.

Throughout history, countless cultivators in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had become peak Dukkhans and dreamed of resetting a megaverse in order to enter the Immortal realm. Even so, the Tianyuan Megaverse had never been touched.

“Why not go to the Tianyuan?” Old Chief suggested. The conscients had already been planning to abandon the Consciousness Megaverse.

Yanbo Haomiao glanced over. “We can’t.”

Old Chief was puzzled, but Yanbo Haomiao did not explain. “Keep searching. We’ll definitely find him.”

The people of Ruler Garden were even more anxious than Yue Ya. If he did not successfully transform and become a Greater Sancte, Ruler Garden would be doomed.

Ruler Garden had entrusted all of their hopes in Yue Ya.

...

In the Willbound Spire, the pressure from the memories grew increasingly stronger, while Lu Yin felt increasingly helpless. His memory string grew tighter and tighter, though it had not yet reached the point of snapping.

If the High Seraph could endure the strain, then Lu Yin could endure even more.

For years, his die’s Possession ability had forced Lu Yin to endure countless memories of other individuals. That experience meant that his memory string was more tenacious than anyone else’s.

Even so, the continuing sense of powerlessness and confusion left Lu Yin feeling as if he might collapse at any moment.

He kept seeing Gui Shaoqing’s fate replaying before his eyes. Should his memory string snap, he would essentially be rendered brain dead, and such a possibility gave him chills.

Suddenly, the scenery before his eyes rapidly retreated. Lu Yin stopped moving, and he even took a step back.

That step caught both the Origin Progenitor and the High Seraph’s attention.

Lu Yin had been struck by a memory shock.

The Origin Progenitor shot to his feet, his eyes locked onto the High Seraph. The man’s Verdant Arsenal circled his body, threatening the High Seraph to not attack. Unfortunately, such threats were meaningless. As attacks drew closer to the palace, they would dissipate more and more. Only when two people were close to each other could they effectively attack, with a closer proximity resulting in more powerful attacks. The Origin Progenitor could only shout to give Lu Yin a moment’s warning.

The High Seraph did not attack, and he simply stared at Lu Yin for a moment before looking away and continuing forward.

Lu Yin watched as space flowed away from him, one universe after another slipping by, much to his shock. His pupils shrank to pinpricks. Was he watching a megaverse slip away, or was he watching time pass? Time could not pass this quickly, as how could someone possibly travel from one megaverse to another so quickly?

The vision vanished, and Lu Yin involuntarily staggered back several more steps, nearly collapsing as he panted to catch his breath.

“Pillar, are you alright?”

Lu Yin’s eyes were still flickering, but he waved the Origin Progenitor’s concerns away and looked at the High Seraph.

The man showed no reaction at all as he simply continued forward, albeit much slower than before.

Lu Yin looked away and let out a deep breath. He looked back up at the palace.

What had he just seen? Was it a memory? He could not tell.

The surroundings had moved away too quickly for it to have been a megaverse. Such speed was impossible.

After taking a moment to rest, Lu Yin continued on.

He had no idea how much time passed, but Lu Yin’s pace slowed greatly. He no longer looked at the High Seraph, and the High Seraph did not look at Lu Yin either. Even so, the two moved forward practically side by side.

While they had been walking for a long time and were making a genuine effort to reach the palace, from the Origin Progenitor’s perspective, the two men had not moved any closer to the palace. They continued forward, but there seemed to be a perpetual, small distance between them and the palace. It was a small space that was easy to measure at a glance.

Even an ordinary human could have crossed that distance long ago, and yet the path to the palace atop the cliff seemed like a chasm between worlds.

The High Seraph stopped. His expression was as calm as ever, yet beads of sweat were dripping from his forehead.

The Origin Progenitor observed the man. This time, it was real. Mo Shang had been struck by a memory shock.

Would Lu Yin attack?

Lu Yin had not even glanced at the High Seraph, so naturally, he was not prepared to attack.

The Origin Progenitor could have warned Lu Yin, but that also did not happen.

Right after that, Lu Yin also stopped moving.

The Origin Progenitor was taken aback. Could it be that the memory shocks became more frequent the closer one drew to the palace?

This time, Lu Yin saw three sword slashes traveling through outer space to strike a colossal beast’s claws.

Those claws appeared to be indescribable. They covered the sky and blocked out the sun, covering the stars as though the entire universe was in the beast’s grasp, about to be crushed.

While only the claws could be seen, it was clear that they belonged to an unimaginably monstrous beast. Lu Yin could not even fathom just how enormous the creature was.

Lu Yin had once seen a scene of Progenitor Chen playing with stars in his hand, and he had believed the man’s size to be immense. After that, Lu Yin had seen the ancestor of the super giants, who was even more tremendous in size. Even then, Lu Yin had never imagined that he would one day see a creature capable of grabbing an entire universe with a single hand.

How did he know that the claws were able to grab the entire universe?

Had he ever seen this universe for himself? No, and yet he knew it to be true. It was clear to him that even a single universe was too vast for him to see in one glance.

In that case, whose memory—or revelation—was this?

Who had released those three sword slashes?

Before Lu Yin could consider the matter any further, the three slashes sliced into the beast’s claws, and he seemed to vaguely make out the gargantuan creature’s roar of pain.

The claws were torn open, and the three slashes followed along the creature’s body, the attacks reaching beyond the universe. The sky collapsed, and the earth crumbled as space twisted and the universe shattered.

Unreasonable rage overwhelmed Lu Yin’s sense of reason, but to whom did the anger belong?

Right, those three slashes were Heaven’s Blade, the Middle Heaven’s Blade, and the Lower Heaven’s Blade.

He had just realized that the true technique was called the Tri-Azure Sword Intent.

He should be able to use that technique.

The vision disappeared, and Lu Yin remained dazed. No, he was still incapable of using the Lower Heaven’s Blade, even if he felt like he should have become capable of doing so.

The memories that he had seen did not belong to the megaverse itself, but rather to some creature. There was a being capable of wielding the Tri-Azure Sword Intent.

All the memories that everyone had ever witnessed in the Willbound Spire belonged to that same creature. There was an entity who had traversed the Aevum Inch and seen multiple megaverses and prevented them from being reset. They had nurtured mighty powerhouses, protected entire civilizations, all the while longing for beauty. But in the end, all had been lost.

Why were that creature’s memories in the Consciousness Megaverse? And why had they created the Willbound Spire?

Lu Yin stared at the still distant palace. If the Willbound Spire was truly formed from that creature’s memories, then that palace had to contain its most important memories. It was possibly the creature’s most carefully guarded place.

This creature had to have been an Immortal.

The memories that Lu Yin had witnessed had revealed extraordinary information to him. At the very least, he was not yet able to wield the Tri-Azure Sword Intent or slay an astral beast that could crush an entire universe.

What kind of being had that astral beast been?

He pressed on, determined to reach the palace and see the memories within it. If his hypothesis was correct, then the palace most likely did contain the creature’s memories related to Immortality.

The High Seraph had also confirmed some information from the memory shocks that he had endured. A feverish look appeared on his face as a slight bit of madness illuminated his eyes. He also pressed on for the palace.

Day after day passed, with only the Origin Progenitor monitoring the time.

It had nearly been a year, though that was quite a short period for cultivators.

But this year had felt unending for Lu Yin and the High Seraph, as they had lost even their sense of time.

During this period, Lu Yin had experienced five memory shocks, while the High Seraph had experienced four.

The Origin Progenitor’s guess had been wrong; there was no steady increase in the memory shocks’ frequency. In fact, there seemed to be no pattern at all that he could find.

He wondered how Yue Ya and the others were faring in their search.

In a universe of the Consciousness Megaverse, Yue Ya had long since lost his patience. Even if a year was a short amount of time, the past one had felt lengthy to him. He did not know if the Nine Odysseys Megaverse would reach out to deal with him, so his only desire was to find Lu Yin as quickly as possible and complete his transformation. Where has that man gone? Is he really hiding in a parallel universe?

Old Chief and his conscients had already searched every parallel universe that they knew of, and they still had found nothing. The only person that they had managed to locate was Yong Heng.

It was only at that moment that Yue Ya had realized that there was another peerless expert in the Consciousness Megaverse.

Yue Ya had announced his desire to work with Yong Heng, and Old Chief and the others felt that it might be possible. After all, Yong Heng was an enemy to both Lu Yin and the High Seraph.

Unfortunately, it did not take long for Yue Ya and Yong Heng to come to blows.

Old Chief and the others were ignorant as to the reason why the fight broke out, but the result was that Yong Heng vanished again, and Yue Ya returned.

When Yanbo Haomiao and the others asked about the fight, Yue Ya refused to speak of it.