âIs that really you, Uncle Feng?â Dumbstruck, Yuchi Tianhuang stared at the man with widened eyes.
Lu Yun looked between them, confounded.
âYouâve finally come, Tianhuang.â Fengboâs lips curved into a gentle smile. âIâve been waiting for you for the past hundred and fifty thousand years.â
With a wave of his hand, an elegant and exquisite palace replaced the surrounding darkness.
âUncle Fengâs Wind God Palace...â murmured Yuchi Tianhuang.
âPlease, take a seat.â Fengbo waved two chairs into existence and made a gesture of invitation.
âWhatâs going on? What happened?â Yuchi Tianhuang looked at Fengbo, dazed. âAre you not dead, Uncle Feng?â
âNo, I am indeed dead.â Fengbo shook his head. âLeigong, Yushi, Fengbo⌠Both of my peers have turned into corpse divines and await resurrection. I alone am truly dead.â
Fengbo was a corpse divine as well, but Lu Yun could see a difference between him and the others. Those were possessed by lingering obsessions and retained only a shred of their sanity.
The Earl of Wind, on the other hand, couldnât come back to life or find a scapegoat. His soul had scattered, leaving behind only part of his spirit. It preserved his entire consciousness and enabled him to âliveâ in the body of a corpse divine, but forever barred him from entering the cycle of reincarnation.
When he said Leigong, he meant Kui. Leigong, God of Thunder, was Kuiâs title.
âHow can this be? Why have things turned out like this?â Yuchi Tianhuang clutched his head with distress. Heâd once travelled back a hundred and fifty thousand years to the Primordial Era and met many people, Fengbo being one of them.
At the time, he hadnât realized that heâd travelled back in time. Heâd thought heâd merely stumbled upon an ancient secret realm that was isolated from the outside world.
âAiâŚâ Fengbo sighed, casting his eyes toward Lu Yun. âI have always been here, and I knew of your existence as soon as you set foot into the tomb. You are the king of the netherworld who walks the world of immortals.â
Lu Yun nodded. Ghosts were yin spirits of the dead. They could naturally sense Lu Yun, and the terrifying presence radiating from him. Weak ghosts wouldnât dare approach him, while powerful ghosts wouldnât find him worthy of any attention, given the pitiful amount of strength he wielded at the moment.
Fengbo was the single most powerful ghost Lu Yun had encountered since arriving in the world of immortals. His mind and thoughts were as clear as those of a living being. It would be more apt to call him a ghost kingâa ghostly counterpart of zombie kings.
Moreover, Fengboâs yin spirit was trapped in the body of a corpse divine. Being both at the same time granted him greater strength than regular corpse divines and ghost kings. He could sense an energy on Lu Yun that was both oppressive and fatally alluring to ghosts.
Incidentally, his knowledge and experience allowed him to easily determine what Lu Yun was. Fengbo was too powerful, and Lu Yun too weak to tap into much of the power of the Tome of Life and Death. It would be impossible for the youth to defeat a ghost king like him.
Fortunately, Fengbo didnât seem hostile.
âŚâŚ
Fengbo fell silent when Lu Yun confirmed his speculations, his face inscrutable.
âWhatâs going on here, Uncle Feng?â Yuchi Tianhuang shifted impatiently. He knew Lu Yun wanted to ask the same question, but didnât know how, so he had to be the one to ask it.
âIt was because of you,â Fengbo sighed. âWe thought weâd be able to at least preserve the status quo even if we lost the war, but then you came to us from a hundred and fifty thousand years in the future and took from us all hope. Thus, the tomb was built.â
Yuchi Tianhuang fell silent.
Fengbo and the others had realized early on that Yuchi Tianhuang was from the future, and theyâd obliquely gathered information from him about the impending war. Unfortunately for them, the answer came that there would be nothing left of the Primordial Era, and that the immortal dao itself would be severed!
There was no hope at all if even the immortal dao was broken. Adding further horror to the heap was that the world of immortals would be shattered into twenty-four facets!
Therefore, the immortal court began executing their plans before war broke out. If it would be impossible to survive the war alive, then they would make it through dead, preserving some of the courtâs fortunes.
Not even all of the emperor-level heavyweights acting in concert would be enough to break apart the world of immortals and sever the immortal dao. That alone told them how powerful their unknown enemies were.
Thud!
Yuchi Tianhuang fell to his knees before Lu Yun and entreated in a trembling voice, âMilord, milord, please resurrect Uncle Feng!â
He could feel Fengboâs pain. Being a yin spirit trapped in the body of a corpse divine resulted in an endless torment that constantly pushed him into a bottomless abyss. He could never come back to life, but he couldnât die, either. Death was a luxury he would never possess, and he had no hope of reincarnation.
Lu Yun turned to Fengbo.
âNo need.â Fengbo shook his head. âI will be your servant once you resurrect me, and I will no longer serve the immortal emperor.â He rose and put his hands behind his back, looking up at the void over his head. âTianhuang, Sir Lu Yun, I have materialized to request a favor.â
âPlease go ahead, senior.â Lu Yun nodded. To each their own. Fengbo had convictions and principles he wouldnât give up, and Lu Yun wasnât going to force him to change his mind.
âStop Yushi and Leigong from coming back to life,â said Fengbo, his tone turning serious. âYushi, Leigong, and I werenât really buried here. We count as tomb keepers at the very most.â
Tomb keepers! Lu Yun shook.
They were living souls trapped in dead bodies to guard a tomb forever and ever. Huangqingâs tomb had also been guarded by such a group of tomb keepers.
So this was why Fengbo had retained his mental faculties after his soul turned into a ghost, and his body into a corpse divine after his death. He was a tomb keeper. There was still an oddity here, though. A tomb keeperâs soul should be alive, while Fengboâs soul had died and become a ghost king.
âLeigong and Yushi have betrayed the immortal emperor. They have been corrupted by our enemies.â Fengbo shook his head with a sigh.
âEnemies? Who were they? The great war of immortals wasnât a war between immortals like the legends say, was it? Who were you fighting?â Lu Yun honed in on the word âenemiesâ. If they had destroyed the primordial world and severed the immortal dao once, they could do the same thing again.
He had to be prepared.
âI was buried here fifty thousand years before the great war.â Fenbgo gave Lu Yun a half-smile. âDo you think I would know the answer?â
âWere there any signs beforehand?â Lu Yun didnât care about the corruption of Leigong and Yushi; the unknown enemies were far more concerning.
âThere were.â Fengbo nodded. âBoth Empress Myrtlestar and Truemartial died, and Emperor Polaris was gravely injured. The four divine kingsâAzure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoiseâwent missing. The patriarch of the water qilin was killed...
âIn only the short span of ten thousand years, over half of the most powerful immortals in the world had either gone missing or died.
âThus marked the beginning of the end.â
Previous Chapter Next Chapteretvolare's Thoughts
Whew, the shoe. drops. We finally know what caused the Great War (TM) that everyone mentions and is referenced in the synopsis itself. It looks like it wasn't some crazy infighting at all...?
And that really is something, to realize your visitor is from the future and indirectly gather enough knowledge to be able to do something worthwhile with it. "If I can't make it through alive, then I'll make it through dead instead!"