Star Odyssey

Chapter 4221: Interested

As for the time when Lu Yin had tried to search Yong Heng’s karma and been injured by the hidden Immortal, that had happened due to proximity.

Lu Yin had been in the Consciousness Megaverse, while the mysterious Immortal had been in the Tianyuan. In fact, it was even possible that, at that time, the Immortal had been quite close to Lu Yin.

He cast out karma again and again, constantly examining Kui’s past.

The Blacklight creature felt the sensation of being pierced grow clearer and clearer.

It still did not know what Lu Yin was doing, but it was becoming increasingly uneasy.

From reading Kui’s past with karma, Lu Yin saw the Blacklight Civilization’s hiding place: a megaverse. However, he was unable to determine the coordinates of the megaverse, as Kui did not know them.

Lu Yin saw Huo. He also saw Hong. He saw the Blacklight Civilization’s growth and cultivation arts. He saw scene after scene of the Blacklight Civilization destroying other civilizations.

The way that Kui had dragged out Old Fourth’s attacks had been taken from one of those destroyed civilizations.

But that method was only a minor technique. All of the Blacklight creatures cultivated the Darksky Seal, regardless of their individual strength or weakness.

Lu Yin studied Kui’s past for a long time. Multiple days passed. Eventually, he spent more than half a year observing all of the karmic scenes, despite them containing very little value.

At first, Kui continuously questioned Lu Yin, searching for answers. Lu Yin ignored the creature, and it eventually fell silent. Instead, it looked around, only to discover that everything had been sealed away by Lu Yin. There was nothing to see at all.

Was Huo simply too cautious? Not even an Immortal like Kui knew how to get from the Blacklight Civilization’s megaverse to the seven-colored land of the Seven-Treasure Anuras. If Lu Yin could find the path, he could find that megaverse.

He had left a pathfinding stone with Duan, but upon returning to the seven-colored land, Lu Yin had no longer been able to sense the stone.

“If you could stay alive, what price would you be willing to pay?” Lu Yin asked suddenly.

It was his first time speaking to Kui in more than half a year.

Kui’s half eye turned to look at Lu Yin. “What do you want?”

“What can you offer?”

Kui was baffled. “You brought me here, so there must be something you want. Tell me. What do you want? I can give you everything.”

Lu Yin shook his head. “I’m not satisfied with that answer. Regardless of what you can offer, you might need to die.”

As he spoke, Tri-Azure Sword Intent appeared behind him.

“Wait!” Kui panicked. “I’m an Immortal! I can definitely be useful to you.”

Lu Yin just shrugged. “You won’t be the first Immortal I’ve killed. You being useful doesn’t matter. Besides, a dead Immortal is also valuable.”

Kui was caught off guard by Lu Yin’s genuine desire to kill it. Everywhere in the Aevum Inch, an Immortal was considered invaluable, and yet this creature asked for nothing at all and instead wanted to go straight for the kill!

“Oh right, your karmic chain has almost nothing on it. It really would be a pity for you to die now. You can only blame your bad luck for ending up in my hands,” Lu Yin coldly proclaimed.

Kui frantically begged, “Don’t kill me! I can stay alive! I can stay alive!”

Lu Yin calmly stared at the creature. He had already seen its past with karma, and there was truly very little value that Kui could offer.

“I’ll take you to our civilization’s megaverse!” Kui offered.

Lu Yin blinked. “The megaverse where the Blacklight Civilization currently is?”

“Yes.”

“That place is the future of your entire civilization, your kind’s inheritance. Even if Huo and the rest of the Blacklight creatures die in the seven-colored land, as long as your megaverse isn’t found, the Blacklight Civilization will one day rise again. And yet you’re willing to expose it? You really don’t care about your own civilization at all?”

Kui’s expression turned savage, vicious and cruel. “Huo didn’t care whether I lived or died! They tore me apart! In that case, I won’t care about anything else either.

“Besides, what does the inheritance of my civilization have to do with me? I want to join your civilization. I’m an Immortal and can be useful. My karmic chain is also very small. As long as you allow me to join you, I can definitely be of help.”

Kui’s words truly did sound like something a creature blinded by hatred would say. However, Kui did not even know the location of its own megaverse. How could it reveal that information to Lu Yin?

For it to show such confidence in telling that information meant that there was only one possibility: it was a trap.

Lu Yin’s eyes flickered as his mind turned back to the battle fought on the seven-colored land. He recalled every detail.

From the first Blacklight creature that had been sent to test Lu Yin and been killed, to when Huo had torn Kui apart without showing any hesitation, everything seemed like the creatures did not care about their own kind. It had all seemed quite reasonable. That was why Lu Yin had not considered the possibility of a trap.

However, what if the trap had been laid from the very first move that the Blacklight Civilization made?

What if they had deliberately allowed that first Blacklight creature to die in order to create an illusion that led Lu Yin to believe that Kui had been truly abandoned?

Was such a thing possible?

The odds were not good, as no one knew what the outcome of that battle would be, nor that Kui would be torn apart. At least, that was not unless Kui had been intended to be used in such a manner from the very start.

Only if that was true could it be possible. Only if, from the very start, the Blacklight Civilization had intended to use Kui as bait that could be discarded at any time.

Was that really the case?

Lu Yin suddenly remembered the creature in the Thread of Heaven who had called him “father.” That should have been a Blacklight creature. If that was true, then such a plot was not impossible.

The Blacklight Civilization was not nearly as simple as it appeared. The creatures were patient, had no bottom lines, and were also very intelligent.

Lu Yin stared intently at Kui.

The creature warily met his gaze. “I can help you, really. The Blacklight Civilization is developing quickly. You don’t want to leave such a powerful enemy to grow further, do you? Sooner or later, they’ll find you.”

Lu Yin smiled. “That’s true enough. In that case, give me the coordinates, and I’ll go destroy the Blacklight Civilization.”

Kui hesitated. “If I give them to you, will you let me live?”

“Don’t underestimate the value of an Immortal. Or could it be that you don’t think you’re qualified to live?”

“No! Of course I should live! Fine, I’ll tell you, but I’ll also warn you not to antagonize Huo again. They are very strong. If they hadn’t been busy imprisoning the Seven-Treasure Anuras’ old monster, they would have been able to use far greater strength than what you saw.

“Wait. Wait until there is absolute certainty before trying to kill Huo. I want revenge. They tore me to pieces, so I’ll tear them to pieces too!”

Lu Yin’s tone softened greatly. “Thanks for the warning.”

Kui soon gave Lu Yin the coordinates. By using the seven-colored land as the reference point, Lu Yin was able to calculate the location of the megaverse. It was very far away. It was no wonder why it had taken so many years for the Blacklight Civilization to find the Tricolor Skyborne, and through them, the location of the Seven-Treasure Anuras.

Setting a trap so far away presented its own problems. Lu Yin would need to continue observing.

“One more thing. I’m very interested in that Darksky Seal you cultivate.”

Kui was not surprised. “Any civilization that has made contact with our Blacklight Civilization grows interested in our Darksky Seal. Unfortunately, it is based on our own natural power and is not something that can be learned.”

“Your own natural power?”

“Correct.” As Kui spoke, the black hexagonal plates that were stuck to its shattered body rose off and floated before Lu Yin’s eyes. “This isn’t a cultivated power, but rather our scales. They are formed from the power that we are born with and carry within our bodies, which is why the Darksky Seal doesn’t require any cultivation. As our personal strength improves, we naturally grow to master the technique. So even if you ask me to teach you how to cultivate it, I can’t.”

Lu Yin was already aware of all of this. He had sensed as much the first time he had been imprisoned within a seal. “So can only your kind use the Darksky Seal? No other creatures?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about the One-Hundredth Seal?”

“The One-Hundredth Seal is an exception, as well as a legend. I don’t know how the Blacklight Civilization of the past made it, and neither does Huo. It simply happened to have the right aptitude, as well as the ability, to flee with the One-Hundredth Seal. If you asked us to make another One-Hundredth Seal, we couldn’t.”

Lu Yin stared at Kui. “If the One-Hundredth Seal falls into my hands, do you think I could control it?”

Kui fell silent. It could not offer an answer, as it had never controlled the One-Hundredth Seal before. In principle, Blacklight creatures should only be able to use their own scales to activate the Darksky Seal, and yet Huo could simultaneously control the One-Hundredth Seal while still using its own scales. Huo had used its own power and scales to seal Old First.

The One-Hundredth Seal’s special nature was beyond what Kui could understand.

“I can’t give you a definitive answer, but since Huo can control it, you might also be able to,” Kui finally answered in a low voice. It was thinking about the coordinates that it had just given to the unknown creature. This answer would stir up an even stronger desire to kill Huo, as well as a greater desire to go to the location of those coordinates.

Lu Yin understood. His Champions’ Stage Purgatory appeared beside him. He grabbed hold of Kui and tossed it right in.

“What are you doing?!” Kui panicked, terrified of being killed.

“Relax. Every creature has to go through this once.” With that, Kui fully entered the Champions’ Stage Purgatory, and Lu Yin’s Karmic Dao surged explosively.

Kui was an Immortal. Whether its combat power was average or exceptional, it had still lived for a very long time.

The Karmic Dao kept increasing. Its range had long since surpassed the area of a single megaverse. Lu Yin did not even know exactly how vast it had become, but he did know that the size of his Karmic Dao was steadily approaching that of the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm. With the karma of a few more Immortals, it might even reach the same scale.

That was terrifying.

How many years had Greater Sancte Green Lotus spent cultivating his Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm? He did not have a shortcut like Lu Yin’s Champions’ Stage Purgatory, which could rapidly increase his karma.

Lu Yin was taking a clever shortcut and using his Champions’ Stage Purgatory to endlessly reduce the gap between his own power and the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.

When the day came that his Karmic Dao truly became a match for the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm, if he then unleashed the Karmic Heavenwheel, the power of that attack might not be much weaker than Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s. Lu Yin’s karma might even experience a transformation.

After some time, Kui was released from the Champions’ Stage Purgatory. Lu Yin studied the creature, curious as to whether its experiences within differed from a human’s.

Kui’s reaction was... how to put it? The creature was very calm.

“How did it feel?”

When Kui turned to look at Lu Yin, there was a different kind of shock in its eye. “Karma.”

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed.

“This is the power of karma. This whole time, you’ve been using karma on me,” Kui continued.

Lu Yin slowly smiled. “Correct.”

Kui stared at Lu Yin. Karma. It really was karma. No wonder it had not been able to see the power used against it. Not every Immortal was able to perceive karma. The Blacklight creature’s half eye trembled. It wanted to say something further, but it could not find the words. It fell into internal conflict and confusion.

“Let me guess. What you really want to know right now is what I actually saw in your karma, isn’t it?”

A quiver ran through Kui’s body, but it did not answer.

Lu Yin continued, “After all, you don’t even know the location of your civilization’s megaverse.”

Kui’s pupil shrank as the half eye snapped back to Lu Yin.

Lu Yin met its stare. “I’m very curious: was this the plan all along? To use you as a sacrificial pawn? Or are all Blacklight creatures intended to be sacrificed as a part of this plan?”

When Kui finally replied, its voice was far drier than before. “Right now, all I want to know is what civilization you come from and what manner of creature you are.”

Lu Yin chuckled. “To be honest, I don’t believe that you are able to send anything that you’ve seen here back to Blacklight Civilization, but I’m not willing to take that risk. For that reason alone, you will never see me, and neither will you learn anything about me.”