Tinglan and Guanqing’s memories held no location of Su Xiaoxiao’s final whereabouts.
Lu Yun couldn’t help his disappointment. As this was a water tomb, they were surrounded by sea water with countless floating corpses forming an obstacle course of sorts, and even more terrible things lurked about. Yin and yang were even more chaotic in the real tomb, which interfered with his Spectral Eye. They would have to search carefully to locate Su Xiaoxiao’s resting place.
He took point with his luopan, while the Deaf Prince drove away the surrounding miasma of yin energy via the golden radiance beaming brightly from his gleaming armor.
“That is the Celestial Exorcism Armor of the ancient heavenly court’s celestial masters, capable of countering all things yin and evil in the world, similar to the Azure Dragon’s cleansing thunder,” Empress Myrtlestar’s voice suddenly rose. “The East Sea has always claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient heavenly court, and it seems that they do have something to validate their claim.”
“Compared to the ancient lords, how powerful were the ancient court’s celestial masters?” asked Lu Yun.
“There were four leading celestial masters serving the ancient heavenly court. Every one of them surpassed dao immortal, and they held higher status than the Sugato Lord.”
During Qing Han’s stay with the Qing Clan, the empress had acquired a wealth of knowledge and common sense about the current world of immortals. She now referred to her own era as the ancient times, like the contemporaries did.
“There were many lords back then, but only four celestial masters. All four of them were—” She stopped suddenly.
“Were they all ingress realm immortals?” Lu Yun asked without thinking. “Or primordial or principal realm?”
“How do you know that?” Surprise colored Empress Myrtlestar’s expression. From what she’d learned from Qing Han, the immortal dao of the current era had been severed. All realms after the dao immortal realm had been erased, so no one in the world of immortals should know what they were. Yet Lu Yun had blurted out the three realms seemingly without thinking.
“There truly is something unusual about you…. The Sugato Lord was a peak ingress realm immortal and wielded the Sugato Sword, the top man-made treasure of the realms. He was the foremost lord of the heavenly court,” Empress Myrtlestar sighed. “However, while many lords served the ancient court, there were only four celestial masters. They were all primordial realm immortals who served the court as guardians. Despite their lower cultivation, they were no less powerful than principal realm immortals.
“The East Sea court must have inherited the heritage of the Monster Celestial Master, one of the four great celestial masters.”
The ancient heavenly court had been a tremendous entity that’d ruled over the entire world of immortals. Back then, there were no differences between the various races and factions. Everyone served the heavenly court, be they human, monster spirit, demon, divine, dragon, phoenix, qilin, or other. All race patriarchs were officials of the court, and the Monster Celestial Master was a heavyweight of the monster spirits.
“The armor the xiangliu wears was crafted by the Monster Celestial Master,” explained Empress Myrtlestar.
“Do you know Doctor Poison Su Xiaoxiao?” asked Lu Yun.
“I do,” she responded. “She was a master of both medicine and poison. In some areas, she had exceeded even her master, Qi Hai. One time, she refined the Poison Wheel and summoned the Poison Fiend within, killing all beings across eighteen major worlds. That was why Qi Hai crippled her cultivation and disowned her.”
Lu Yun was rendered speechless. Eighteen major worlds in a row…. From what he knew now, each major world would rival a facet in the current world of immortals.
After committing genocide in eighteen worlds, Doctor Poison’s bad karma should’ve coalesced into the worst retribution, and the resulting tribulation should’ve struck her down straight into ashes. However, according to Empress Myrtlestar, Su Xiaoxiao didn’t seem to have been sentenced to such retribution. Something else must’ve happened then.
That was beside the point, though. Lu Yun needed her expertise in poison and medicine to treat Qing Han. Qing Han’s poison was bone deep. Although it was being suppressed by two connate spirit roots, no one knew for sure if the poison would consume them one day.
Rimesnake venom wasn’t that potent, nor was the poison of the Poison Fiend enough to destroy connate spirit roots. All of the destruction that’d been wrought stemmed from the mutated accursed spirit root; the poisons were merely catalysts.
……
With the Deaf Prince’s armor, Lu Yun and his companions made their way through the corpse formation without much difficulty. When they looked back, they saw the swarm of bodies staring at them with empty gazes.
“There’s someone there!” Lips thinned, Qing Han turned and settled his gaze on the heart of the body of water. There was a navy-colored bubble there, within which were a good number of people moving about.
“Fucking hell, that’s Beigong Chonglou!!” The Deaf Prince flew into a rage, veins popping out of his forehead and cheeks flushing beet red.
“Beigong Chonglou, the first prince of the North Sea Court!” Lu Yun and Qing Han exchanged a look. The Deaf Prince and his friends had come to Levitating Island to exact revenge on Beigong Chonglou.
Jing Dichen, the third princess of the Unsullied Sea, had had a talented and outgoing younger sister. During one of her adventures in the North Sea, she’d acquired a great treasure, then ran into Beigong Chonglou on Levitating Island. She refused to surrender the treasure, which resulted in Beigong Chonglou killing her then and there.
The murder had enraged the dragon king of the Unsullied Sea, but even though the young princess had died at Beigong Chonglou’s hands, there was no evidence proving his crime, especially given the pirate-infested waters of the North Sea.
After several attempts to seek justice for the princess failed due to Beigong Chonglou’s position in the North Sea court, the dragon king had eventually been forced to let it go. Jing Dichen and the others, however, had never given up on revenge.
“Kill, kill, kill! I’m going to kill that bastard!!” The Deaf Prince’s eyes were bloodshot as he manifested the silver box containing his crystal mountain.
“Wait!” Lu Yun grabbed the prince’s wrist before he could do anything. “Their bubble is a standalone minor world. Your crystal may be powerful, but it’s not enough to destroy it!”
The prince slowly calmed down when he heard his idol’s words.
“But how am I going to kill that bastard?!” The Deaf Prince’s chest heaved violently. Everyone in their little alliance cared deeply about the little princess, or they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to destroy Myriad Returns Market.
“Yin and yang are in chaos here, and heaven and earth are reversed. Everything we see is fake!” Lu Yun spoke quickly through transmission, lest the Deaf Prince lose his head and launch a reckless attack. “This is the real tomb, while the minor world within the bubble lies in the fake tomb. We can see it, but we can’t enter it from here!”
“Then what do we do?” the prince asked dejectedly.
“It’s simple.” Lu Yun bared his teeth in a leer. “We’ll summon Guanqing… and poison them to death!”