“Hahaha, the top youth sovereign of the world of immortals is mine!” Bloodlust glinted in Jiangchen Wushang’s eyes. His goal had always been to refine Lu Yun into a battle zombie! Everything he’d done so far was for this moment!
“Dammit!” Yuying and the other three envoys had allowed themselves a short reprieve for recovery when Jiangchen Wushang fought the Mo Clan, but the man and his zombie’s sudden shift to Lu Yun caught them off guard.
“Grawl!” The skeletal ship struggled upright again, despite the heavy beating it’d taken. Six thick femur bones erupted from the bilge to prop its giant body up.
Whoosh!
Throwing restraint out of the window, Yuying unleashed a fire art with the Emerald Mistfire, directing a giant fire dragon at Li Wushang and Jiangchen Wushang.
Hum!
With a shake of his hand, Jiangchen Wushang manifested a grayish-yellow sack over his head; it reeked of a pungent, rotting smell and saw corpse energy spiralling around it. Energy from the sack doused the fierce dragon formed by the Emerald Mistfire!
Dispersal of her art hit her like a thunderbolt. Somehow, the corruption spread to Yuying as well, and patches of her body seemed to fester, taking on the same hue as a zombie.
“What, what is this?!” Yuying couldn’t believe what was happening. The Emerald Mistfire was among the top fires of the world of immortals, and its fire arts had never failed her before. But that strange sack had put out the fire and was now attempting to turn her!
Fortunately, her immortal fires burned away the strange power as soon as it burrowed into her body. Still, it didn’t change the fact that Jiangchen Wushang had broken through her defenses for a moment.
Meanwhile, Xuanxi had reverted to her mermaid self and brought down a great river from the sky. The Dusk River!
Tall black waves crashed into Li Wushang. As the Dusk river god, she could redeploy the river as she saw fit, as long as she remained in Dusk Province. Frothy dark waters churned into a vortex and trapped Li Wushang, preventing him from approaching Lu Yun.
Bam!
Bam!
Two collisions sounded in quick succession as Jiangchen Wushang blasted Huangqing and Aoxue away, the Cauldron of Invincible Constitution circling around him in the form of golden runes.
The dragon and phoenix snarled and shrieked, crimson ripples emanating from their bodies, a sign that their true form was about to manifest. However, this was the precise moment in which the skeletal monster, transformed from the fortress ship, charged up to them and stomped them underfoot, interrupting their flow of power.
Hum.
The grayish-yellow sack hovered in midair, generating a suction force to devour Lu Yun’s body. It was the Bag of Corpse Refinement, one of the greatest treasures of the Corpse Refiners. Once swallowed by the sack, a living being would be refined into a zombie—one that retained its consciousness, but unconditionally obeyed the owner of the bag.
Lu Yun’s four envoys struggled with all of their might, but Li Wushang and the white skeletal ship unleashed their full strength to stop them. Aoxue and Huangqing were pinned down by the ship, while Xuanxi was manipulating the Dusk River against Li Wushang. Yuying was too busy fighting the corruption in her body to do anything else. They could only watch as the sack sucked Lu Yun in.
“Wow, look at the big yum-yum!!” An excited voice filled with delight traveled in on the air, quickly followed by a giant head bouncing through the void and flinging itself toward the skeletal ship.
Crunch!
A three-hundred-meter-tall head bit into one of the ship’s legs, resulting in a sound that numbed one’s teeth. It was Ge Long.
“What a tough snack! My poor teeth!” the head wailed and flew away in retreat. The skeletal ship teemed with yin energy, marking it as a great delicacy for Ge Long. However, it was far too sturdy, and the old servant had ended up breaking his teeth on it.
Jiangchen Wushang tensed; Lu Yun had disappeared from the sack at some point.
Bam!
A terrifying power suddenly slammed into his abdomen and scattered the golden runes surrounding him. With a cry of pain, he staggered backward.
Bam!
The same terrifying might reappeared, this time smashing him in the back. He slammed into the ground, creating a human-shaped crater.
“Who is it?!” he snarled, looking around with wide eyes, but spotted no one. He couldn’t find anything with his consciousness, either! Fear snaked up from his heart at the bizarre development; this was rather eerie.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Powerful strikes landed all over his body, hammering him further into the ground. Blood welled from his mouth as he resisted with all of the strength in his body, but he couldn’t fend off the attacks no matter how hard he tried.
He couldn’t even see his attacker.
He attempted to channel the Cauldron of Invincible Constitution, but his inner energy was scattered whenever he gathered some.
“Rrrawl!!” The zombified Li Wushang broke free of the Dusk River and rushed to his master, emitting powerful howls.
Xuanxi threw up a mouthful of blood. Li Wushang had broken through the river with raw power alone!
Rattle rattle rattle!
A black chain flew through the sky before Li Wushang could draw close, the shackle at the end clamping onto him. He snarled and struggled, but to no avail. The chain pulled a faint soul out of the zombie’s body, immediately halting its movements. The soul looked just like Li Wushang, and he bore a smile of immense relief. Finally, he could be at peace.
Swoosh!
The soul disappeared, and Li Wushang’s giant body keeled over lifelessly.
“How is that possible?! That chain....” Jiangchen Wushang struggled to wrap his mind around what he’d just witnessed, his face overtaken with disbelief. Had his strongest battle zombie really been taken down so easily?
Bam!
A giant foot dropped down from the sky and smashed him with a stomp, interrupting his train of thought.
“Nothing is impossible,” Lu Yun said coolly. A trace of black fire was dissipating from his new three-hundred-meter-tall body. It was the first display of his new death art: Size Manipulation!
When he’d absorbed the goodwill received for guarding the Dao Flower, it propelled him to refined spirit realm. It’d also completely healed him and granted him a new death art. With that, he could change his size at will, altering his body to be the tiniest particle of dust, so small that even the consciousness couldn’t detect him, or to tower like a giant and rear into the sky.
That was how Lu Yun had caught Jiangchen Wushang off guard and attacked the man out of left field. The man was too powerful. Though he was only a peak transformed spirit cultivator, he could beat back both Huangqing and Aoxue at the same time. It was clear that he was stronger than Lu Yun and would come out ahead in a direct toe-to-toe confrontation.
“Give that here!” He quickly shrunk to his regular size, a foot still on Jiangchen Wushang’s back to pin his opponent down. Reaching down, he yanked the golden cauldron from Jiangchen Wushang’s body, accompanied by a loud rumble of thunder.
“Ahhhh!” Jiangchen Wushang flailed desperately, trying to stop Lu Yun from taking the cauldron from him, but the circulation of his inner energy was disrupted by the foot pinning him down. He couldn’t break free. He could only watch as Lu Yun extracted the treasure from his body.
Hum.
The hovering Bag of Corpse Refinement shot out a beam of corrupting light, and the skeletal fortress ship started moving as well. Its giant hull scuttled toward Lu Yun, trying to save its master, but—
Wham!
The heavily damaged ship trembled and hurtled backward. Under Lu Qingshuang’s steering, her fortress ship had knocked the skeletal ship away. At the same time, a black and white orb shimmering with gray radiance slammed into the sack. It was the Formation Orb!
Lu Yun’s ascension had called upon the power of the Tome of Life and Death. Not only had Ge Long been resurrected, but so had the recently fallen Feinie. She unleashed the orb’s power in a vicious swipe at the sack.
Boom!
The sack fell to the ground, leaking corpse energy everywhere.
“Waugh waugh waugh!!” Piercing howls and guttural screams came from the sack as nearly a thousand zombies crawled out and lunged at Lu Yun, hands curved into claws and teeth bared.
“Young master!”
“Miss!”
“My disciple!” Eyes shot open so wide that their corners threatened to split. The newly-revealed zombies were all genius cultivators who’d recently gone missing from Dusk Province! Many were top geniuses who’d earned great fame during the governor reselection tournament!
With the path of cultivation restored, it was only a matter of time before these people would’ve entered the void realm. Many had thought it was Lu Yun who’d imprisoned the geniuses, since rumors flew thick in recent times that the young governor was arresting cultivators left and right.
Now the truth was revealed! They’d all been refined into zombies!
“Corpse Refiners!” shrieked an old man. “The Jiangchen Clan! The Soaring Wing Sect will not permit you to coexist beneath the same sky!!”
“I’ll kill you!!” A mass of enraged, howling immortals charged the Jiangchen immortals with reckless abandon.