Star Odyssey

Chapter 3840: Tolerance

Compared to the Fifth Night Pillar, which had sent multiple Ortusers and Dukkhans to stop Jian Hong, the Sixth Night Pillar was pathetically weak.

"Jian Hong, you’ve finally arrived." Liu Li spotted Jian Hong the moment she landed, and she was visibly relieved.

Jian Hong showed a bitter smile as he slowly bowed. "I was delayed by two years, but please don’t blame me, Senior Liu Li."

Liu Li’s voice also grew bitter. "It was our Sixth Night Pillar which failed to receive you. Our incompetence is to blame. In fact, I even contacted the Seventh Night Pillar a year ago, agreeing to submit it to the Fifth Night Pillar, but you are too stubborn."

Jian Hong's expression grew solemn. "I know that you were concerned about me, Senior Liu Li, but this needs to be given to the Sixth Night Pillar. I would rather die than allow it to fall into the hands of the Fifth."

Liu Li sighed. "Stubborn child..."

The woman then turned to Lu Yin. She took a step back and offered a deep bow. "The Sixth Night Pillar’s Liu Li thanks you, sir, for your immense kindness and generosity in saving Jian Hong’s life."

Everyone standing behind her also bowed to Lu Yin.

They had been observing him with open curiosity. While the man had not been in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse for very long, he had emerged from the Sea of Karma, interfered with the competition to decide the Four Commands Grand Swordmaster, and destroyed the Autumnspring Slip; these feats had shocked everyone. These people had been curious about Lu Yin for a long time.

When they had heard that Lu Yin would be escorting Jian Hong to the Sixth Night Pillar, every single one of the people present had felt relieved.

If even the man who had single handedly destroyed the Autumnspring Slip was unable to safely deliver Jian Hong, then the Greater Sancti might be the only individuals in the entire Nine Odysseys Megaverse who could.

The Fifth Night Pillar did not yet possess such strength.

Lu Yin replied, "It’s fine. Would you say that he’s now been safely delivered to the Sixth Night Pillar?"

Liu Li smiled. "Of course. Thank you, sir."

Lu Yin exhaled. This request had turned out to be rather simple.

Truthfully, unless a request involved a Greater Sancte, they could not be genuinely difficult.

Helping Lu Sizhan had only been a minor nuisance at the beginning, and destroying the Autumnspring Slip had merely taken a bit of effort.

However, Lu Yin’s third request had left him feeling genuinely disgusted. After he learned that the Fifth Night Pillar had started war preparations even before a foreign megaverse had been discovered, he realized that he had made the wrong move; he should have allowed the Fifth Night Pillar to go to war. That way, the three megaverses would be much safer.

After all, at no point in history had the Nine Odysseys Megaverse ever waged war on two megaverses simultaneously.

War preparations were not just token efforts. The arrangements took a very long time.

If the Fifth Night Pillar was sent to exterminate the unknown megaverse, there was no question that the three megaverses would be much safer.

Still, all was not lost. So long as the Sixth Night Pillar could take the Fifth along to war, it would be enough.

Yet the more that Lu Yin considered the situation, the more difficult things became. Under normal circumstances, it was absolutely impossible for the Sixth Night Pillar to bring the Fifth along.

“If you don’t mind, sir, may I give you a tour of the Sixth Night Pillar?” Liu Li offered warmly.

Lu Yin had just been wondering how to bring that up, so of course he agreed.

“Just one moment. I need to call someone first.”

Liu Li motioned for him to do so and then watched as Lu Yin vanished. She assumed that this had something to do with him escorting Jian Hong to the Sixth Night Pillar.

Truthfully, no one understood why Lu Yin had suddenly decided to deliver Jian Hong to the Sixth Night Pillar. The matter should have had nothing to do with him, and even if it did, why had he not gotten involved two years earlier? Instead, he had allowed Jian Hong to be hunted and driven to despair.

Liu Li had someone escort Jian Hong to where he could rest in the Sixth Night Pillar while she waited where she was for Lu Yin.

Elsewhere, Lu Yin used his communication device to contact Lu Siyu. “The request’s been completed. What’s next?”

Lu Siyu blinked. “That fast?”

“Go ahead and ask your father. How many people are keeping an eye on the Sixth Night Pillar right now?” Lu Yin replied.

Lu Siyu actually did go ask, which left Lu Yin speechless. The girl clearly did not trust him.

She returned a short while later and stared at Lu Yin. “I reached out to Sixth Sister, and she asked me to thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So what’s the next request?” Lu Yin asked.

Lu Siyu spread her hands, revealing them to be fair, slender, and beautiful. “No idea.”

Lu Yin nodded. “Alright. Please help me to nudge them along.”

Lu Siyu readily agreed this time. “Don’t worry. You’ve completed every request so far so well that my sisters have changed their opinion of you. They’re going to do their best to help you become a part of the Sea of Karma.”

With that, she ended the call.

Lu Yin exhaled. Become a part of the Sea of Karma? That was certainly what he should be striving for, from an objective standpoint. The problem was, he already had a master. Without Mister Mu, Lu Yin would have never managed to achieve all that he had. Becoming someone else’s disciple was out of the question, though there was no problem with learning a thing or two from them.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus was not a petty man, after all.

Soon, Lu Yin ascended to the Sixth Night Pillar, accompanied by Liu Li. He stepped into another of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse’s worlds, the world of the Nine Odysseys.

The entire pillar was covered with battle scars. There was evidence that all kinds of strange creatures had once fought on it.

“Our Sixth Night Pillar participated in the destruction of both the Orchid Megaverse and the Skyveil Megaverse,” Liu Li explained. “While that might sound like just two megaverses, each one was home to a truly endless number of diverse creatures. Every region of this pillar was stained with blood. The number of cultivators who’ve died on the Sixth Night Pillar can never be counted...”

Liu Li shared stories of how both foreign megaverses had been destroyed. From the perspective of those megaverses, the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had been the invader and a terrible enemy. However, for the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, they had simply been trying to survive.

Any war would invite reflections on morality, though such considerations would change nothing about the war itself.

Before a war began, people could be the master, but as soon as a war started, people became slaves to it.

The cosmos was a cold and indifferent place. There were some paths that, even if they had been taken in error, had to be followed to the end.

“Have you ever considered joining the Sixth Night Pillar, Mr. Lu?” Liu Li asked. If she was honest, this question was the most important reason why she had asked him to tour the Sixth Night Pillar.

At the moment, the Sixth Night Pillar was the weakest in the Nine Odysseys. They had not even been able to help protect Jian Hong. However, with the foreign creature having already been delivered to their door, war was near, and experts were needed.

Lu Yin calmly said, “If I join, you’ll lose your chance to become an Odyssey Commander.”

Liu Li showed a bitter smile. “I never wanted that position. I obtained my cultivation through Seed Transfusion, and I am not particularly powerful. Even if I had personally gone to retrieve Jian Hong, I have no confidence that I would have been able to bring him here safely. How could I possibly claim the title of Odyssey Commander?

“If you’re willing to join the Sixth Night Pillar, no one here will compete with you for the title. You, Mr. Lu, would be our Odyssey Commander.”

There was no denying that Liu Li was a selfless person. When Lu Yin met the woman’s gaze, she never flinched. She truly intended to give him the position of Odyssey Commander.

War was nigh, and the position meant immense authority, and yet she was still willing to pass it up. That earned Lu Yin’s respect.

It was also a tempting offer. Becoming an Odyssey Commander had always been one of Lu Yin’s goals.

“I’m from one of the three lower megaverses. Do I even qualify to become an Odyssey Commander?”

“Of course. The Nine Odysseys Megaverse embraces all people.”

Lu Yin chuckled. “No, it looks down on all people.”

Liu Li hesitated and observed Lu Yin as he slowly moved away. “It is precisely because our megaverse looks down on others that it can embrace them. Those two positions do not contradict each other.”

Lu Yin clasped his hands behind his back and stared out at the starry sky. “We’ll see.”

The two then proceeded to explore the Sixth Night Pillar in silence. Lu Yin thought about how to bring up the idea of the Sixth Night Pillar declaring war and taking the Fifth along. Becoming an Odyssey Commander was one option, but he still preferred the possibility of becoming a Lesser Sancte. As for Liu Li, she was pondering how she could convince Lu Yin to join the Sixth Night Pillar.

There was a distant region of the Night Pillar that was smooth and flat, and it looked like a corner of the stone had been sliced off by a blade.

Lu Yin instantly appeared atop the severed region. He crouched down and touched the ground, his expression growing grave.

Liu Li was close behind him, and her expression grew conflicted as she looked at where he stood.

“What happened here?” Lu Yin asked.

Liu Li’s voice grew bitter. “The Sixth Night Pillar helped to destroy the Orchid and Skyveil Megaverses. We were once strong. Have you ever wondered why we’ve fallen so far?”

Lu Yin turned to look at her. “Was it because of what happened here?”

Liu Li nodded. “Once, while we were returning to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, the Sixth Night Pillar encountered an unknown creature. This part was sliced off by that creature, seemingly by a blade or claws. Several of our top experts were here at the time, but instantly, the entire region was gone. They never even had a chance to react before they were completely erased in the Aevum Inch.”

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed and he pressed a hand to the ground. This cut was far too smooth, and there was also a pressure to it that was practically imperceptible. Ordinary cultivators would never be able to sense it, but it was the pressure of an Immortal.

“Everything happened in an instant, and all of the Sixth Night Pillar’s top experts were simply erased. I was lucky. I arrived a moment too late, but as a result, I managed to avoid that disaster. No one knows if those people are dead or alive. I only managed to get a single glance of the creature, yet that glance felt like a thousand years. There was nothing left.” Liu Li sat on the ground, ignoring her dignity. She ran a hand along the ground, a bitter expression on her face.

Lu Yin stood back up and glanced around. The entire rear of the Sixth Night Pillar had been cut off. The casualness of the attack, the complete disregard, and the suffocating pressure all left him feeling twitchy.

Humanity was not the only form of life in the Aevum Inch, nor was it the strongest.

“Did the Greater Sancti investigate?”

“They did, but they found nothing.”

“So it was an Immortal creature.”

Liu Li nodded. “That’s right. There’s no doubt that it was an Immortal creature. What could we have done? If it had shifted even the slightest bit, the entire Sixth Night Pillar would have been split asunder. I still can’t say if I was lucky or not.”

Lu Yin thought back to the Immortal monster that had once chased after him. His desperate escape was still fresh in his memory.

He had no confidence that he would have been able to stand up to the Immortal that had attacked the Sixth Night Pillar, even with his current strength.

Even among Immortals, there were differences in strength.

The severed region symbolized the blood and tears of the Sixth Night Pillar, and it also served as a warning to the other Night Pillars and their cultivators.

“This incident is no secret. Every so often, people come here to see it, especially those who are interested in joining the Nine Odysseys. They’re brought here so that they can understand that the Nine Odysseys is not a paradise, but rather a hell,” Liu Li said with a complicated expression.

“That’s why the number of cultivators in the Nine Odysseys has dropped sharply in recent years,” Lu Yin interjected.

Liu Li nodded. “There are some people who can see only the profits of war, but not its cruelty. This place serves as a mirror that shows the truth of war, and it has managed to awaken many people.”

Lu Yin looked at her. “Do you want it to be like this?”

Liu Li replied, “It’s not about what I want or don’t want. If they join us, we welcome them. If not, it’s fine.

“No matter the foreign megaverse that we go to war with, there’s never any guarantee of victory. Even the Greater Sancti can’t see through the Aevum Inch. The fewer who join us, the fewer who die.”

Something stirred in Lu Yin’s heart. “Have you ever considered allowing your enemies to share the burden of war’s cruelty?”

Liu Li looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean, sir?”

“Why not allow the Fifth Night Pillar... to join the war?”