A strange fatigue filled Lu Yun’s body as both immortal force and nascent spirit seemed insufficient to satisfy his mind. For a split second earlier, he’d reached a plane of being that was wholly different from when Xing Chen had reached creator realm.

As strong as the creators were, their strength was a function of their cultivation level. There was no intrinsic difference between them and Lu Yun. But when the Tome of Life and Death became his nascent spirit and hellfire his source of strength, they’d changed his level of existence on a fundamental level.

It wasn’t a function of strength or cultivation level, but a metamorphosis of the sophistication of his kind of life form.

Lu Yun stood blankly in place for a very long time before recovering from this peculiar exhaustion. The little girl in a red dress was gone again and the Bridge of Forgetfulness had quietly returned to hell. The bridge… His level of existence just now had been greater than the bridge’s.

“What just happened?” He asked Qing Yu, dumbfounded.

“The Tome of Life and Death should be an item from the fourth realm,” Qing Yu responded. “Only something from the fourth realm can alter your level of existence on a basic level. Of course, that also means you can evolve only here.”

When he’d been staring off into space, Qing Yu had already employed formula dao to calculate the ins and outs of everything.

“Hellfire is born of the fourth realm as well, you’ve just been unable to utilize it to its fullest strength,” Qing Yu added after some more thought.

Lu Yun had always thought that hellfire was born of the world and reigned dominant in the chaos. But when it flooded his body to replace immortal force, Lu Yun and Qing Yu realized that their understanding was very wrong.

Qing Yu’s Sol Truefire was the flame of the immortal dao and the light of the heavenly palace. However, it was a completely different concept from hellfire and the two existed in completely disparate levels. It was impossible to compare the two.

The heavenly palace, Sol Truefire, and the blank book that’d been born in the heavenly palace were all creations of the world of immortals. Though the catalyst had been the Tome of Life and Death, their level was still subpar to a treasure of the fourth realm.

“Do we keep looking for more?” Qing Yu asked carefully as she looked at her beloved.

“No! We enjoyed the blessings of the heavens to find one Bridge of Forgetfulness. We probably really will die here if we keep looking for more,” Lu Yun chuckled ruefully.

This fourth realm was simply too mysterious; it’d transformed the Bridge of Forgetfulness into an incomprehensible existence. If there was any life to be found here, it would absolutely be stronger than the bridge. After all, the bridge had to turn itself into a zombie to be able to protect itself in this realm.

“Let’s go back to our world for now. We’ll return when we’re strong enough to plumb its depths.” Lu Yun grabbed Qing Yu’s hand and called upon the Tome of Life and Death, forcing it to communicate with hell and safely transport the two of them out of here.

He was unable to open the Gates of the Abyss while in this realm, and he was completely cut off from hell. If it wasn’t for the book, he would’ve tucked tail and ran away from this uncanny world a long time ago.

……

“Hell is gone… this is a world that’s stronger than hell!” Landing on the outskirts of hell, the Bridge of Forgetfulness quietly took in the netherworld. “Um, this place is still too weak for me. If I release my presence now, I’ll blow this fragile world to pieces…”

A human face floated onto the bridge’s surface, one filled with nostalgia. Hell was its home and it’d been born here. Though it was no longer the hell it knew, it wasn’t that much different in its eyes.

The flow of power within the netherworld circulated more smoothly after the bridge’s appearance, swelling ever more closely to great perfection. However, there was still a gap between its current state and true great perfection, which meant that hell was miles away from being truly complete.

“The six paths of reincarnation have become the nascent spirit of the master of hell… The six paths may not be as strong as their previous iteration, but they have more potential now.” When the bridge looked upon Lu Yun’s nascent spirit, it was reminded of the human youth who’d grown even bigger than it in the fourth realm.

“Alright, talk. What do you know?” Lu Yun and Qing Yu arrived before it. Though the bridge had birthed a spirit and was alive now, there was no inherent good or evil to it. It was just living according to its own thoughts and impulses.

It wanted to kill Lu Yun and Qing Yu only for the insignificant speck of power to be gleaned from their bodies. Any increase it could add to its spirit meant a greater chance of controlling its body meant greater ability to survive in the fourth realm.

With the Tome of Life and Death hovering over Lu Yun’s head, the bridge instinctively shrank back on itself when it saw the book.

“I, I don’t know either,” it responded with bafflement. “I was already in that world when my consciousness formed. Though human hell still lingered in my memories, someone had smashed all of them to pieces.”

“What’s the deal with the fourth realm?” Lu Yun asked.

“The fourth realm?” The bridge paused before understanding. The fourth realm was the world it’d previously resided in. “I don’t know… that world is too strong and too terrifying. I had to turn into a zombie there to have a chance to survive.

“And, you don’t need to search for more fragments in that realm. More than me was blasted into that world in the final battle, but I’m the only one that survived.”

Lu Yun opened his right hand when he heard those words and activated black radiance from the Stone of Three Lives. They stretched in the direction of the fourth realm, but there were no answering ripples this time.

“If they’re all dead… doesn’t that mean hell will never be perfected?” Lu Yun frowned slightly.

“Honestly, it’s not a bad thing if it can’t reach great perfection.” Qing Yu patted his shoulder. “If there’s no end to improvement, that means it possesses unlimited potential to grow. Your disciple was the one who built the hell of human dao, so everything here is arranged according to his thoughts. You won’t be less than your disciple now, would you?”

She looked mischievously at Lu Yun, who grinned wryly in response.

“You’re right, how could I be any less than my disciple?”

“Flame Emperor…” The bridge finally understood who the young man in front of it was. The Flame Emperor, master to the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak, Great Emperor Tianqi!