“Sir Lu, we arrived at the tomb three months ago and then were trapped here…” A golden immortal looked up at Lu Yun in confusion.

“What?! Three months? What are you talking about?! We came here three hundred years ago!” A peerless immortal gawped in shock. He’d been an arcane immortal when he’d first entered the tomb, but had reached peerless immortal realm in the three centuries since.

Moreover, he knew the golden immortal who’d spoken before him… After entering the celestial master tomb, they’d come across each other a few times.

Panic and confusion began percolating through the crowd. 

“Time! This minor world is special, time inside doesn’t flow at the same rate as outside!” Lu Yun sighed gently with immediate understanding.

The flow of time was different where they were. More specifically, it went by faster! One day in the outside world might equal several years inside, or perhaps even several decades. This place... was likely another special feng shui layout.

“A layout involving time, or rather, a time formation,” Lu Yun inhaled sharply. “So it turns out there really are people in this world who can manipulate time, or command it.”

“How is that possible?” The crowd found this conjecture incredibly hard to believe.

They were inside an ancient tomb, after all. Immortals were willing to temporarily overlook grudges and feuds when facing common enemies, but at almost any other given time, they were highly wary of their fellow man.

More importantly, who’d ever think there was a time difference at play here? Who would mention how long they’d been inside after making it to this part of the tomb?

Furthermore, three hundred years wasn’t a long time for immortals. Being stranded inside a secret realm, even for several thousand years, was a common occurrence when exploring ancient tombs.

Quite a few had noticed the existence of some kind of treasure in the abandoned city, so they’d been reluctant to leave. This city should be one of the tomb’s chambers, and it hadn’t been here before the fusion of the yin and yang realms.

“A treasure that can affect time?” someone whispered softly. “Time flows differently here than in the outside world... Doesn’t that mean that whoever obtains this item can save a considerable amount of cultivation time?”

Shifting away defensively, immortals started looking differently at the people around them. They’d faced the faceless ghosts together not too long ago, but now, hostility and wariness blazed out of every eye.

“Lu Yun’s the greatest threat. He’s not an immortal yet, but he rivals many peak peerless immortals! More importantly, if we kill him and refine his nascent spirit, we can obtain his formation of heaven and earth!” The strongest peerless immortals present quietly concealed their killing intent.

The faceless ghosts were extremely strong. Felling one of them with a single strike? It wasn’t something that even the peerless immortals here could achieve.

“Where’s the lair of the faceless ghosts?” Lu Yun suddenly asked.

“Eh?” Horror skittered across hearts at his words.

“Are you going to look for them?” A peerless immortal stared blankly at him. “Sir Lu, I am Zhang Shuo, a monster king from the West Sea. I know where the lair is, but that place really is too dangerous!”

Zhang Shuo came from the monster court of the West Sea, but he’d chosen to take human form. Clearly, he hadn’t flocked to Levitating Island’s banner or submitted to the monster factions of the ten lands.

Apart from the North Sea, the monster spirits in the other three seas also possessed extraordinary strength, so the courts of the ten lands weren’t mighty enough to subdue them. Although the golden scarlet ape rapaciously eyed the other three seas, it couldn’t swallow them either.

“Danger?” Lu Yun nodded. “The treasure here, the one that can influence time, should be inside their lair.”

He wanted to find out what kind of object could swallow an immortal’s soul and transform them into a faceless ghost, a fate he himself had only avoided by a hair.

His reasoning wasn’t wrong, in any case. If treasure there was, it had to be in the faceless ghosts’ lair. A winged gold coin appeared in his hand: the Treasurefall Coin.

After spinning in his palm, the coin remained idle.

Clearly, there was indeed treasure in this place, but something was concealing its presence. As a result, the coin could sense the item’s existence, but couldn’t pinpoint its location.

From what Lu Yun knew… there was only one thing capable of hiding a treasure’s presence: corpses.

The immortals here had long realized the existence of such a treasure. However, though some among them had been here for three hundred years—more than long enough to overturn every roof tile and scour every inch of soil—they were still empty-handed.

So, if this treasure truly existed, it had to be somewhere none of them dared venture. Namely, the faceless ghosts’ lair.

“Well…” Zhang Shuo and the other peerless immortals looked at each other. “Very well!” He grit his teeth. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained! I will accompany Sir Lu Yun!”

As a monster king, he was roughly on par with the Scaled-Dragon King’s past self, Beigong Yu, or Zou Longxiu, who’d joined Lu Yun’s camp.

It wasn’t just any peerless immortal who could be titled a king; one had to possess a certain standard of strength. Accordingly, any monster king in the immortal world was one of the strongest existences below the dao immortal realm.

“I’ll go as well!” shouted another tall and bulky peerless immortal. “I've been stranded here long enough, I want out!” There was a touch of madness in his eyes. “I’m not interested in the treasure, I just want to leave!”

Several peerless immortals promptly stepped forward as well, proclaiming their willingness to participate in the expedition. Originally, they’d split themselves into more than a dozen small groups and there’d been no real unity or solidarity between them.

But now that Lu Yun had come, they’d suddenly found their leader—or so it seemed… Many in fact harbored malicious intentions and were setting their own plans in motion. There was possibly a formation of heaven and earth in the young man’s possession, and obtaining it after killing him wasn’t an impossibility.

Outside the tomb, they naturally wouldn’t have dared try anything of the sort. To target Lu Yun would be to paint a giant target on one’s back, and one would end up being hunted down by various powerhouses.

Formations of heaven and earth absolutely couldn’t be allowed to end up in the hands of a single person or a faction. But they were currently inside a tomb where no one would be the wiser to what any of them did… and while Lu Yun was very strong, he wasn’t yet an immortal, after all!

Quite a few people had begun secretly communicating via transmission, ready to pounce on an opportune moment. 

……

A hundred and fifty kilometers east of the abandoned city towered a giant mountain peak. No one knew what it was made of. Glittering with faint rays of silver light that illuminated the entire small world, it was the one and only source of light.

It was also the lair of the faceless ghosts.

“Senior brother Lu, you must be careful. Many people here are plotting against you.” Jing Huaci transmitted cautiously as she walked behind Lu Yun.

“Mm, I know. Pay attention to your own safety.” Lu Yun nodded slightly.

While he was an initiate in the dao of the sword and possessed a cultivation of returned void realm, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that he’d be able to withstand the combined assault of a group of peerless immortals all by himself.

Of course, he was somewhat relieved to find out that not every peerless immortal wanted him dead. For example, he’d obtained a trace of goodwill from Zhang Shuo. Clearly, this monster spirit felt grateful to him. Perhaps Lu Yun had once inadvertently helped him in some way.

“So many faceless ghosts!” His figure shook when he saw the dense throng of innumerable faceless ghosts crawling over the peak.    

Plip! Plop! Plip!

Once more, the familiar sound of dripping water reached his ear.