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Chapter 1787: One Chess Move Per Cycle
Since the corpse demon had devoured corpse dao and become the foundation of corpse dao in the Land of Reincarnation, the cavern was naturally suffused with corpse dao and crowded by zombies.
If Lu Yun and Hongjun hacked their way through, they’d be completely depleted of strength and stamina by the time they made it to the corpse demon. Even if they could seal it away, it would be a pyrrhic victory.
Sneaking in undetected was thus the best option.
Hongjun wasn’t so inflexible as to insist otherwise. He and Lu Yun immediately turned into a mote of dust; hadal hellfire roared to conceal their vitality, making it seem like they were nothing more than two dust particles on the zombie’s body.
The hellfire also concealed the ripples of the Size Manipulation death art. If Lu Yun used Shapeshifting after that, however, it would prove too much for the hellfire to conceal. His grasp over the death arts was yet to reach perfection. If it reached those levels, then all telltale ripples from his arts would fade away. Everything would be flawless, as if they were naturally part of the world.
But Lu Yun’s cultivation was far from those levels.
The corpse demon in front of them was just another obstacle. Granted, it was an obstacle that Hongjun, the Dao King, and others had spent endless reincarnation cycles planning for. No anomalies had appeared in the previous loops, so everything proceeded in orderly fashion. The one fated to assemble the Cosmic Battle Flag and kill the corpse demon was Dongfang Mo, but Lu Yun strongly suspected that he always failed the task.
Spirit dao would perish as a result. The corpse demon wouldn’t appear in successive loops if he succeeded, and changes would sweep through the Land of Reincarnation as well. Since the corpse demon had been the owner of the land, the Land of Reincarnation would be affected if it was destroyed.
After Lu Yun changed the appearance of the twentieth level sequence zombie into a completely different zombie, they continued diving into the depths of the cavern. As expected, zombies loomed out of the gloom after another ten thousand kilometers. They drifted about aimlessly, all of their eyes burning with green fire that set them apart from regular zombies.
“So this is where those zombies come from!” Lu Yun suddenly saw a very familiar zombie—the kind that assimilated anything it touched, killed, or touched it. He’d committed their unique presence to memory and had come across them in the Hongmeng as well. Their origins were mystifying and unfathomable, and now, he’d finally found where they originated from.
The specimen he saw was a massive being five thousand kilometers tall. It emanated a terrifying aura that far outstripped the one exuded by the zombie that Lu Yun and Hongjun rode on. In fact, the twentieth level sequence zombie was trembling with fear.
Zombies possessed a certain nebulous sentience; they could also project something akin to fear. Strictly speaking, they weren’t dead. They were neither dead nor alive, exiled by heaven and earth and cast out by order.
Zombies were considered alive in the fourth realm since there was no power of heaven and earth there. However, heaven and earth were the ultimate peak of existence for order, so all normal worlds possessed such energy.
Thus, zombies were doomed to eternally wander between the boundary of life and death, neither dead nor alive and constantly tormented by abandonment.
“Quiet.” Hongjun shook his head and transmitted, “The source of all zombies in the Land of Reincarnation is in this cavern. Jiang Chen started making his arrangements when he first arrived in this land. Compared to the crystal coffin in the Major Cycle Worlds, this place is the Corpse Refines’ true target.
“No matter where they succeed, it’s a victory for the sect and Jiang Chen as long as they do. But in the same vein, we started making our plans when the loops first started. That was when destiny was decided.”
Lu Yun nodded, thinking of the three hundred and sixty-five Diexi’s who’d made her way through life and ultimately became part of the zombie king formation. On the other hand, those such as Hongjun and Jiang Chen were perhaps on the same level as the owner of the Land of Reincarnation. The cycle of reincarnation could affect them, but it couldn’t toy with them. Thus, these great personages viewed the reincarnation cycles as their game board and made one move per cycle, ultimately giving rise to the situation facing them today.
The end of the Land of Reincarnation.
In the previous loops, including the thirty-three that Lu Yun had seen for himself, Lu Yun was just one of the failures of the era. Hongjun and Fuxi had jointly helped him, expending a heroic amount of effort to bring him to the great wilderness so the young man could observe the cosmos over it.
But Lu Yun had still failed, due to the Imperial Seal and the withered wood that nursed boundless curses.
Not only did he fail, but so were Hongjun, Fuxi, and the others affected. They ultimately perished for their involvement, vanishing into the void until the current cycle ended and the next one began. A new game of chess commenced and another move could be made.
“We have to succeed this time,” Lu Yun set his jaw.
“The land has come to an end with this cycle. If we fail again, we will not be reborn through reincarnation,” Hongjun sighed.
The zombie continued diving down. No one could tell how big or deep the cavern was. Lu Yun fully deployed the Tome of Life and Death as his eyes, probing their surroundings so they wouldn’t get lost in the endless darkness.
They finally set foot on solid ground after seven days.
“Don’t move!” Hongjun sharply transmitted. “We might be standing on the corpse demon right now!”
“We’re not,” Lu Yun shook his head. “A ginormous zombie lies here, the corpse demon is further down. It’s the foundation for corpse dao for the Land of Reincarnation, but I don’t sense any corpse dao from the zombie beneath us. The corpse demon has discovered us and sent the zombie to intercept the intruders.”
Boom!
A gale of pungent wind descended from above as a mountain seemed to come down over them. It was the zombie’s palm.
“Then let us fight.”
Hummm.
Purple energy shot into the air from Hongjun’s body and condensed into a sharp blade. One single slice was all it took to cleave the mammoth zombie in two.
“Let’s keep going!” Hongjun grabbed Lu Yun and prepared to keep diving, but the young man made sure to put away the twentieth level sequence zombie.
“This zombie is the key to bringing down the corpse demon, we can’t throw it away!”
Another caterwauling zombie rushed out from below before he finished talking. Hongjun released Lu Yun and slashed downward with another flash of purple light, but this time, the zombie smashed right through it.
“Jiangchen Xie of the Corpse Refiners greets Senior Hongjun. Long time no see, Lu Yun.”