Su Xiaoxiao’s words swayed Lu Yun; he’d originally planned to lay claim to just the millions of monster spirit troops in the palace.
Being the elites of the army tasked with defending the imperial sea, their conversion into Infernum would not only weaken the North Sea monster spirits, but also empower Lu Yun.
During the previous raid, Bing Xuan had returned too soon in his haste to capture Lu Yun and the others. That meant Su Xiaoxiao had only managed to reel in a few of the big fish and had to leave behind the small fry.
There were an endless number of water spirits in the North Sea, and hundreds of millions of monster spirit soldiers in its waters. To Lu Yun, just taking all of the soldiers wouldn’t be enough to destroy the North Sea monster spirits.
Now however, he changed his mind.
The North Sea Palace had once been the home of the ancient dragons, and the North Sea monster spirits—be they from ancient times or present—had never gained full control over it.
In fact, the North Sea Emperor, Beigong Xuan, had poured all of his efforts into exploring the skydragon tomb, mainly to find the key to the dragon palace.
Once unlocked, the North Sea monster spirits would be able to truly dominate the North Sea. They could then crush Ingress Island and the Dark North Sword Sect, becoming the real master of the deep blue.
“If we’re gonna do it, we’ll do it right,” Lu Yun declared. “Let’s take the entire palace!”
The entire palace!
“What? How?” Qing Han goggled at Lu Yun, dumbfounded. Even the Azure Dragon King and Empress Myrtlestar were flabbergasted.
The palace appeared to span only two hundred and fifty kilometers, but there were many pockets of other dimensions within. Completely unfolded and integrated with the same space, the palace would span over five thousand kilometers.
“Feinie once set up a formation to move a city spanning five thousand kilometers, along with the earth vein underneath. I can certainly do whatever she can do!” Lu Yun grinned savagely, showing his teeth.
“But she was using the Formation Orb...” whispered Qing Han.
“And I can do it without the Formation Orb!” He inhaled deeply. “I’m going to set up a layout!”
Feinie had set up a formation, while he planned to set up a feng shui layout.
Although he had the same level of mastery over formations as Feinie, his true expertise lay in feng shui. In fact, he’d long incorporated his knowledge of feng shui layouts with formation dao. He could now easily switch between the two and identify the relationship between either one.
He also possessed numerous premium formation stones from the palace vault. They ranked even higher than the ones he’d received from Qing Xun back on Levitating Island.
“I… I don’t think that’s necessary.” Qing Han cocked his head thoughtfully as he watched Lu Yun busy himself with formation stones. “Why don’t you try creating an even larger Size Manipulation Talisman, one that’s powerful enough to shrink the palace?”
Lu Yun paused, his expression as still as his halted movements.
“When you used the talisman on me, I sensed that it would be voided if I resisted it. However, the palace itself isn’t capable of fighting back. I believe the talisman will work on it.
“Well, that is, if Su Xiaoxiao can knock out all of the living beings in the palace and stop them from resisting.”
“That I can do!” Su Xiaoxiao piped up. “I still have 150 grams of Far-Reaching Captivating Fragrance, which is enough to knock out all living beings within five thousand kilometers!”
“Five thousand!” Qing Han jumped. “That’s what you used to knock out the entire palace, isn’t it?”
“Mmhmm.” Su Xiaoxiao nodded, then remarked with some disappointment, “It’s a shame that the ingredients of the fragrance no longer exist in the current world of immortals, or I would be able to refine more.
“What I have now is enough, though.” She beamed with satisfaction. “There’s a lot of ingredients now that we didn’t have back then, either. Perhaps I’ll be able to come up with an even more powerful fragrance.”
Meanwhile, Lu Yun mused on how he could improve or strengthen the Size Manipulation Talisman, which was based on his corresponding death art. Unlike other, similar methods in the world of immortals, Size Manipulation could not only change something’s volume, but also the magnitude of its strength.
Lu Yun could increase or decrease his own power by ten times with his death art, and so could his talisman.
“Let me try something....” He manifested a small talisman with a single thought and attached it to a boulder next to him.
“Shrink!”
Whoosh!
With a slight tremor, the rock instantly shrank down and became a fist-sized stone.
“It works!” Eyes bright, Qing Han bent down to pick the stone up, which put a frown on his face. “The weight remains the same despite its smaller size, though.”
“Shrink!” commanded Lu Yun once again.
“It’s lighter now,” Qing Han quickly said, “by about ten times!”
“Let me try something else. The palace’s structure is much more complicated than a simple rock...” he murmured, entering the Gates of the Abyss.
Within hell, the City of Life had reached an impressive scale. Many Infernum went about their daily business within the city and had all settled down, making lives for themselves.
“Shrink!” Lu Yun stuck a talisman to the city.
Rumble!
The city trembled, then slowly decreased in size until it was only about as big as Lu Yun’s palm. The Infernum had shrunk along with it, since they couldn’t defy Lu Yun.
The city spans roughly five hundred kilometers. If all of the spatial formations within it were unfolded, it’d cover about four thousand kilometers. Meanwhile, I’ve amplified the strength of the Size Manipulation Talisman three thousand times over with the power of hell.
If I want to miniaturize the North Sea palace, I need it to be at least five thousand times stronger! Lu Yun frowned slightly. How am I going to increase a talisman’s power by that much....
Formation dao and equipment dao can be combined to create fortress ships and weapons of war, and Mo Yi managed to meld her combat arts into formations…. Why don’t I combine talismans and formations to create a Size Manipulation Talisman Formation?
Lu Yun’s eyes lit up. If formation stones can be used to set up formations, then talismans should be able to replace the stones and set up talisman formations! They can even be used to set up talisman layouts!