Compared to Aoxue, the man in gold would rather stay with Lu Yun.
A blood dragon, even one in the august immortal realm, was a great threat to him, while a nascent spirit realm cultivator like Lu Yun was nothing. Even if the young governor was good enough to kill peerless immortals, those were ones with their cultivation sealed to august immortal. Suppressing their cultivation made those immortals trash, but Lu Yun was bound to fall if he met true geniuses.
The White Tiger descendant was not only a peerless immortal, but a genius among his peers. Despite his sealed cultivation, he could make quick work of any mere cultivator.
……
The tomb keepers opened a pathway through the eight doors formation that led to the Sword Barrow. They might not understand feng shui, but their very existence had become a part of the tomb, which allowed them to control the fringe formations and layouts. The Sword Barrow deep within the tomb, however, was beyond their reach.
They deactivated what defense mechanisms they had authority over, making way for the human who was their only hope of resurrecting their queen.
……
The further Lu Yun and the divine ventured into the tomb, the higher the ambient temperature grew. Every once in a while, ghostly figures appeared in the labyrinthine underground tomb, all of which were zombified flying swords.
Strangely enough, though the zombies flickered in and out of visibility, seemingly keeping watch on Lu Yun and the man in gold, they never attacked the intruders. The two were allowed to make their way to the Sword Barrow in peace.
“Who is Yuchi Hanxing to you?” Lu Yun asked suddenly.
The man in gold started and violently turned his head in the human’s direction.
“No one!” he responded harshly.
Lu Yun stopped and looked back with a half-smile. “Shouldn’t you ask me who Yuchi Hanxing is?”
The man’s expression was as black as charcoal.
“I would’ve killed you, had you nothing to do with Yuchi Hanxing,” continued Lu Yun.
The man took a few steps back. “You think a nascent spirit realm cultivator like you can touch me?”
“Of course not. Relax.” Lu Yun smiled faintly. “I’m just asking.”
He turned around and kept on walking, but the man in gold wanted nothing more than to swat Lu Yun dead. After a long pause, he answered, “Yuchi Hanxing is my daughter. How could you tell?”
“There’s a trace of pure White Tiger bloodline in her body. House Yuchi… there wasn’t a House Yuchi five, or even ten thousand years ago.” Lu Yun responded as he walked, “Someone specifically established House Yuchi for her.”
Wushen Ruyi had finished refining the Divine Spymirror not too long ago, acquiring the memory of the treasure slave within it. That was how Lu Yun learned the man in gold was related to Yuchi Hanxing.
She served Lu Yun as the commander of the Dusk Phalanx. Since the man in gold was her father, Lu Yun wouldn’t hurt him, for the moment. If he left the man to the tomb keepers, they would certainly kill him.
“You refined my treasure slave?” The man’s expression darkened. That slave had known almost all of his secrets.
Lu Yun shrugged. “I didn’t. Someone else did.”
“What do you want?!” Agitation brewed and stirred in the gold-clad White Tiger descendant.
“All that is left of the White Tiger divine race is you. ...no, you and Yuchi Hanxing.” Lu Yun turned to look at him. “Yuchi Tianhuang, I want you to swear fealty to me!”
“In your dreams!” Yuchi Tianhuang immediately snapped. “I am the divine king of the White Tiger race. I will never serve a pathetic human like you!”
Silvery light shone out of his eyes and terrible killing intent surged within his body. “Don’t even think about threatening me with Yuchi Hanxing.”
He would love to kill Lu Yun now, but he couldn’t. Yuchi Hanxing was the last hope for their kind. If Lu Yun died here, she would suffer the consequences.
“In addition to the White Tiger, she’s also a descendant of the Black Tortoise.” Lu Yun remained unfazed beneath Yuchi Tianhuang’s murderous glare. “After I taught her the method of the Black Tortoise, she imparted it to the Dusk Phalanx’s formation, imbuing it with the soul of the divine beast. It even transformed the image of the Black Tortoise into a real one.
“She doesn’t know who she is, does she?” the governor surmised.
Yuchi Tianhuang didn’t respond.
“Hahaha, the divine race betrayed the clans of the four cardinal directions! Your own kind is the reason for your people’s downfall. You conceal your identity not because you’re afraid of the human immortals in the world, but because you fear the existing divines!
“Remember the Skandha Extinction Tomb?” Lu Yun took a step toward Yuchi Tianhuang to stare at the man squarely in the eyes. “Empress Myrtlestar’s people aren’t the only ones cursed by the tomb, but also your tribe!”
The White Tiger descendant backed away, panic growing on his face.
“Not just your kind, but all four of the divine cardinal tribes! The curse will destroy your bloodlines!” Lu Yun advanced again. “When you slipped into the Skandha Extinction Tomb, you were seeking a way to break the curse, weren’t you? Sadly for you, you didn’t know there were five tomb realms in addition to the five tombs, which were where the real curse was set up!
“The Skandha Extinction Tomb being a curse on a people, born from burying five generations of the same bloodline? The truth is so much worse.” Lu Yun scoffed. “You should’ve headed to the tomb realm of the western tomb. There, you’ll find the body of your great ancestor—the White Tiger Divine King. He might be alive. He might be dead.
“Regardless, the real curse will end your bloodline and even prevent your dead from reincarnating. Your tribe will disappear from the world forever. The best way to achieve this is to anchor the curse to your ancestor!”
Color drained from Yuchi Tianhuang’s face, turning the man almost translucent.
“Empress Myrtlestar and her people were merely burial goods for the four cardinal tribes, sacrificed for no reason in the making of the five tomb realms.”
Within Violetgrave, the dread zombie fell silent. Meanwhile, Empress Myrtlestar’s expression clouded over as she listened in from within the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals. Lu Yun was still within the range of her consciousness.
“How do you know all this?” Yuchi Tianhuang looked at Lu Yun with shocked disbelief. Through the Divine Spymirror, he’d perceived that the Skandha Range of Dusk Province was the source of the curse against his kind. That was why he’d come to the province.
The tomb in question, however, housed only Empress Myrtlestar’s people. It seemed to have nothing to do with the divine race. He’d thus departed from the tomb without learning anything. But Lu Yun had enlightened him with the full truth. The Skandha Extinction Tomb existed only to create the five tomb realms, where the four divine kings were buried.
“The four divine kings are merely your ancestors. Their parents—the true Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise—should be resting within the tomb realm of the central tomb.” Lu Yun didn’t answer Yuchi Tianhuang’s question. It was the Sal Tree of Life and Death that’d recorded what he’d said just now. It wasn’t sentient, but its body instinctively remembered the past.
It was also this tree that’d preserved a sliver of hope against the curse of the Skandha Tomb and its five tomb realms, allowing Yuchi Tianhuang to survive, and it’d even permitted the birth of Yuchi Hanxing.
What is the Dusk restriction protecting, that it appeared so suddenly a thousand years ago? Who is the dead of the ancient tomb, the one that fought Aoxue and Xuanxi? This Sword Barrow wouldn’t have appeared in Dusk Province for no good reason.
Lu Yun had a prickly feeling that he would discover a great secret in the Sword Barrow deep within Cloudwater Lake.
A secret regarding the Skandha Extinction Tomb and the Dusk restriction!