“I can save her. I can save her,” murmured Lu Yun as he gazed upon the woman’s fading figure.

He knew that if she vanished into the depths, so would her reason and memories. She would return to being a dead spirit inhabiting a skeleton, one that guarded the chaos dragon zombies within the zombie sea.

The mountain of white bone projected by the dragon pearl would also collapse, condensing into a tiny dot of power and entering Aoxin’s body to become his cultivation potential.

Lu Yun was an orphan. Raised by his master, he’d never been familiar with the concept of a mother. He craved to have someone to call that, and it was the greatest regret of his life that he would never be able to fulfill this wish. He didn’t want the same to happen to Aoxin.

Blazing hellfire flickered to life around him as the Tome of Life and Death materialized over his head. Profound black light covered the white bone mountain, forcefully pulling back the figure that’d just left.

“What are you doing?!” Dread flashed through the woman’s eyes; she sensed a presence from Lu Yun that shook her heart! She was a dead spirit instead of a zombie—in other words, something truly dead. Anything dead fell under Lu Yun’s purview.

“Your soul has scattered and there’s only a trace of your true spirit left. But for me…”

“Stop!” the woman shrieked. Though she was still a skeleton, emotion somehow floated onto her face. “Please… he is my only hope… As long as he lives, I will disappear content, even if I am to suffer in the depths of the hadal hell…”

If she came back to life, she would attract the attention of many existences in the tomb. They would search out Lu Yun, even if they had to turn the chaos upside down to find him. Her son would be implicated as well.

The curse afflicting the chaos dragons in the Tomb of Heaven and Earth was too horrifying to comprehend. Once it was known that Aoxin was a descendent of the chaos dragons, he would fall to its cruelty.

“Hadal hell?” A sudden thought struck Lu Yun and he smiled. “Then, off you go!”

Whoosh.

The enormous Gates of the Abyss suddenly appeared upon the bedrock of the zombie sea, next to the mountain of white bone. They swung ponderously open to the Hadal Prisons, radiating the aura of what the woman called hadal hell.

As the aura filtered through the area, the zombie sea churned and surged while hordes of zombies fled in all directions with gibbering panic. Even the three-headed lizard in the air squawked with terror and shot for the other end of the waters.

Ready to commence heroic battle, Jin Gushen’s jaw dropped and he stared blankly at the agitating waves below, not sure of what to do. He could keenly sense that a titanic being was slowly awakening at the bottom of the zombie sea; its fearsome thought ripples emanated in all directions.

He’d only ever felt such immense mental strength from a sovereign before, and the thoughts of this one were deeply tinged with fear!

A sovereign powerhouse was afraid!

……

“The hadal hell… This really is the hadal hell…” 

An enormous suction force devoured the mountain of white bone before the large door slowly creaked shut. Aoxin and his mother now resided in hell.

“The Hadal Prisons intimidate even sovereigns! Just what are they and what is imprisoned within them?!” Lu Yun was a newly formed speck of dust in the zombie sea. He looked dumbly at his empty surroundings, unable to believe what’d just happened. It was exceedingly hard for him to open the Gates of the Abyss within the chaos and even more impossible to summon anyone from hell.

But after entering the Tomb of Heaven and Earth, he could easily call upon the gates and bring Aoxin here. The second time he’d opened them, he’d set their destination to the fringes of known hell, where the deep void started.

He’d never fathomed that the presence of the Hadal Prisons would startle the terrifying being at the bottommost depths of the zombie sea!

Nervousness set in upon this new revelation and a new worry presented itself—was it a good idea to connect the Hadal Prisons with the world of immortals and use them to make the thirty-three layers whole again?

The immortal dao wouldn’t be able to fully exert itself if the world of immortals remained incomplete. When the World Gates opened and the final battle commenced, it was highly likely that the world would be broken again.

Apart from the Hadal Prisons, Lu Yun really didn’t know what else he could use to make the world of immortals whole.

“I’ll visit the prisons with the bridge once I return and get to the bottom of what it is once and for all!” He and Qing Yu had followed the edges of hell and the Hadal Prisons last time to search for fragments of human dao hell, but somehow made their way into the fourth realm instead.

“They’re still here!” He immediately spied the fish-shaped submarine still in the same spot. He smiled ruefully, he didn’t dare become further entangled with Ying Luo.

He was a being of the worlds and she a chaos creature. He wouldn’t be staying in the chaos, and neither could she enter his world. Even if his heart wasn’t occupied by Qing Yu, nothing would ever be possible between him and Ying Luo.

Though she didn’t bear any romantic inclinations toward him at the moment… It was only a matter of time before the innocent little girl formed feelings for him. He wouldn’t be worried if it was Leng Xian they were talking about.

“Jin Gushen hasn’t left yet either. The three-headed lizard was also scared off by the Hadal Prisons.” Lu Yun heaved a sigh of relief to confirm that Jin Gushen was fine. The same could hardly be said for the zombie sea.

When the aura of the Hadal Prisons traveled through its waters, ordinary zombies scattered in hysterical alarm while some of the local tyrants took shelter as well. In other words, it was currently the safest time for them to cross the zombie sea.

Lu Yun flashed back into the submarine.

“What are you waiting for? Go!” he roared.

“Junior brother Lu Yun!” Ying Luo lit up and bounded to his side, grabbing his arm.

Though Leng Xian didn’t know what had taken place outside, she didn’t hesitate. Acting with swift decisiveness, she steered the treasure forward.

Lu Yun put thought of Jin Gushen out of his mind. That dude’s an eternal overlord, he’s totally fine as long as he’s not surrounded.

“Eh? Did something just leave?” Jin Gushen spent a while longer in baffled incomprehension before vanishing from the premises in a streak of golden light.

“I can’t forget about the Untroubled Blood Ganoderma that I promised junior brother Lu Yun. There should be one around here somewhere…” Jin Gushen mumbled as he flew to the other side of the zombie sea.

In the chaos, all of Lu Yun’s thirty-six golden warriors used his name.