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The city gates were Jinghzou City’s greatest weakness and thus the main target for the ghost zombies; casualties here were the heaviest whenever they attacked. Countless beings used their bodies to blockade the gap and forestall the attacks. Other openings in the formation were inconsequential.
Lu Yun charged out with his fists and beat the horde into retreating!
Correct, retreating. The ghost zombies couldn’t begin to approach the city gates.
“What are you guys standing around for?” Lu Yun roared. “The ghost zombies have turned their attention to other parts of the city. Are you going to just sit back and watch the show??”
His shout brought the crowd back to its senses and people hastily streamed off in other directions to fend off their attackers.
“He’s weaker than me and his blood and qi less developed. Why can he kill a ghost zombie with one blow?” Yuan Yi was also shocked. As she watched Lu Yun cut large swathes through the ghost zombies, a strange feeling rose from the bottom of her heart.
She didn’t know what it was as she’d never felt it before. It felt like… light was about to shine on her.
It was hope, something that the living of this world had never possessed.
Hope!
Lu Yun’s blood and qi blazed, forming roiling currents that obliterated ghost zombies with every punch he deployed. His blood and qi were very weak, but the power of reincarnation that it simulated could perfectly counter dead entities.
By now, he was certain that the ghost zombies were derived from the dead spirits!
The dead spirits that invaded the fourth realm were more terrifying and uncanny than the ghost zombies. They could be suppressed by the power of heaven and earth or burned by the flame of order to supplement order. These ghost zombies, however, required the power of reincarnation to defeat.
Lu Yun was so familiar with this power that he could mimic it by burning his own blood and qi. Otherwise, he would’ve been torn apart by the enemy a long time ago.
All the same, he was at the end of his rope and growing incredibly weak. Setting his jaw, he hung on with gritted teeth.
He wouldn’t survive in this world suffused with despair if he was the only one who was strong. He needed to bring hope to others and give them motivation to live. That would bring hope to the entire world and lift the atmosphere of despair, thereby giving rise to civilization.
All of this was so that he could go home.
WHOOSH.
Blackish-red flames ignited in Lu Yun’s eyes. His blood and qi were fully alight and the Method of Life and Death formed a true system that circulated throughout his body.
Being a cultivation method, the Method of Life and Death required external resources for cultivation. But since there was no power of heaven and earth here, Lu Yun could only refine his own blood and qi. He refined them as he would the energy of heaven and earth and concentrated them on himself.
This was a way of forging himself into heaven and earth. It was far more difficult than all of the cultivation methods in the nothing, but Lu Yun possessed prior experience! He’d once refined a body of heaven and earth when he collected the ten connate spirit roots and organs of the world of immortals into his replica. It later became the cosmos of the world and the tool with which he excised the cancerous Dao Tree from immortal dao.
Refining that replica was the experience that he drew upon now, which was why his refinement of blood and qi went so smoothly. If blood and qi could form a circulatory system in his body, one of reincarnation, then he wouldn’t need any external supplement.
He was cultivating as he mowed down the enemy, making his own body into that of heaven and earth.
Lu Yun suddenly understood that everything he’d experienced before, from the world of immortals to the nothing, had been an endless series of tests. He’d never encountered any real enemies. Everything had been preparation for his visit to reality. All that he’d learned and endured had been for this place.
It looked like he’d come wholly unprepared when, truthfully speaking, he came equipped with immense experience, ample knowledge, and incredible practice. He was well fortified for everything in this world.
“The cultivation method of heaven and earth… with blood and qi as the energy of the world, tempering the self and manifesting the flames of reincarnation…” Lu Yun closed his eyes.
Bam—
The circulatory system within his body exploded with a dull roar and expanded outside of his body, forming an even bigger cycle of motion. It vaporized all of the ghost zombies that it touched.
……
The night passed. In the morning, an inexplicable emotion rose from the battered metropolis when they saw that Lu Yun had defended the entire city by himself.
The ghost zombies had attacked them last night, but not a single person died. Hope bloomed starting from yesterday night.
“Who… who are you!” Yuan Yi asked incredulously when she walked up to Lu Yun.
“I am me,” Lu Yun smiled. “I’ll teach you how to cultivate. I can teach the entire city how to cultivate.”
“You can’t,” Yuan Yi shook her head. “Cultivation requires dense qi and blood. Those who lack it in sufficient quantities will consume it all during cultivation and die…”
“My cultivation method doesn’t require that,” Lu Yun smiled. “Anyone can practice it and become a cultivator.”
He sent the cultivation method into Yuan Yi’s mind with a point of his finger, turning qi and blood into will. She stared incredulously at him. Although she was also a cultivator, she didn’t possess this kind of ability.
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“Al… right!” Yuan Yi nodded slowly after she spent a while digesting the cultivation method. “Do you know that I’ve only ever known despair from the moment of my birth? The instinctive desire to live is the only thing that’s kept me going to this day—the desire to live a bit longer in the darkness.
“But now, you’ve shown me hope.” She took a deep breath.
“Just from a cultivation method?” Lu Yun sighed. “It is but candlelight flickering in the storm and not worth mentioning.”
“But you’ve lit a candle in a storm and given everyone hope. Look!” Yuan Yi pointed at the city. The citizens who normally spent the day resting or staring off in a wooden, numb haze slowly gathered around them. For once, some other emotions flickered on their faces. While it wasn’t as strong as what Yuan Yi felt, it was cracks in their bleak miasma all the same.
“I’ll teach all of you how to cultivate,” Lu Yun roared with laughter. “Everyone will be as strong as me after you learn! You’ll all kill a ghost zombie with one punch!”
He punched forward and vaporized the remaining corpses at the city gates.
Lu Yun had to change this world if he wanted to survive. Otherwise, he would be a skiff bobbing on top of the waves, ready to capsize at any second. When in the world of immortals, he utilized the Karmic Tree for cultivation and devoted himself to good deeds in order to collect goodwill. He’d disseminated all of his cultivation methods and battle techniques also in preparation for today.
Those actions prompted by the Karmic Tree fostered habits that eventually earned Lu Yun the title of “Dao Saint”.