“Parallel spaces.” Lu Yun suddenly understood. He could hear Jing Dichen, the Deaf Prince, and Beicang Xiong and their voices were very close, but he couldn’t see them for the life of him.

The only possible explanation was that they were in parallel spaces.

Just like in the yin and yang tombs, their physical locations overlapped with one another, but they existed in two separate pockets of space.

“Deaf Prince, Beicang Qiong, Dichen!” he called out.

“Stop!” Beicang Qiong shouted in his rough voice. “I think I heard senior brother Lu’s voice just now!”

“I didn’t hear anything?” the Deaf Prince yelled in objection.

“I also heard him.” There was a hint of joy in Jing Dichen’s cool voice. “It’s senior brother Lu, he’s come to save us! Senior brother Lu, where are you?”

“I shouldn’t be very far from you. Just stay where you are, don’t move!” Lu Yun tried transmitting his words, but then realized that while his voice could reach them, his consciousness was completely cut off, making it so that the Deaf Prince couldn’t hear him. The spatial configuration here was very strange. Sound could be transmitted, but vision and the consciousness were obstructed.

“Alright!” Beicang Qiong and Jing Dichen held the agitating Deaf Prince in a death grip and kept him in place.

“What are you two doing! We need to hurry and look for the World Chest! Little Lin, Little Bai, and Little Feng are still inside the monster’s belly!” The Deaf Prince was as loud as ever, his voice betraying his fretfulness.

“Senior brother Lu’s here!” Jing Dichen smacked the back of his head, hard, and grumbled, “Wait for him to get here first!”

“Ah?” The Deaf Prince froze. “Is senior brother Lu really here?”

On the other side, Lu Yun carefully made his way forward, guided by their voices.

Whooooooosh!

The sound of wind abruptly rose in the area, followed by a giant tornado churning his way.

“What the... wind?” Lu Yun froze. Before he could react, the decently powerful tornado engulfed his entire figure. Caught up in the whirlwind, immortal energy seemed to slice into his skin like blades.

“Bloody hell, it’s trying to assimilate me!” He suddenly recalled the humanoid statues. “Were they also done in by these tornados?”

With a thought, hellfire once again blazed up around him and incinerated the almost tangible immortal energy.

Boom!!

With a burst of concentration, he turned his body into a flaming torch of hellfire. The black fire instantly destroyed the fearsome tornado.

“So it turns out that hellfire can burn immortal energy.” Lu Yun sighed gently with relief. “But immortal energy is completely destroyed once burned. There’s nothing of it left behind.”

It’d been a close shave just now. Had he been a second slower, the violent storm would’ve infiltrated his body and turned him into a statue.

“These energy storms are definitely not a natural occurrence!” An awe-inspiring aura came bearing down upon him, but he couldn’t quite figure out where from.

“The power of space? It looks like there are quite a few parallel spaces around here.” Lu Yun frowned slightly as realization struck him. “Ah, right! There’s a mixture of natural and immortal energies here, so there’s definitely an earthen vein nearby! Perhaps it’s become a dragon vein by now, or something even higher level.”

In the world of immortals, various forms of natural energies, immortal energies, and an assortment of ores came from earthen veins or the higher-level dragon veins. When natural and immortal energies, or spirit stones and immortal crystals, appeared in the same place, it was a sure sign of an earthen or dragon vein close by.

When the Art Saint had laid out the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers layout, he’d destroyed the lifepoint of Dusk Province’s dragon vein, thus scattering the natural and immortal energies of the province. As a result, the province, one of the greatest in Nephrite Major, had declined into its current impoverished straits.

Such was the influence that earthen and dragon veins exerted on the immortal and natural energies.

“Since there’s a dragon vein here, that makes it all the easier for me!” A smile appeared on Lu Yun’s lips as he took out the feng shui compass.

Bzzt!

A ray of golden light flared from the compass before dissolving into an embryonic small world that revolved around him.

“Sure enough, there’s dragon veins here... and really powerful ones!” Lu Yun snapped to attention and inhaled sharply. “And… apparently I can only draw from the smallest one. If I mess around with the bigger ones, I’ll suffer backlash from the land!”

Dragon veins were taboos that not even celestial emperors dared touch. Back when he’d set up an immortal burial layout in Azure Province, he’d had to ask Wayfarer to seize sixty-four earthen veins so he could gradually evolve them into dragon veins.

Alas, their efforts had ultimately been for naught.

The palace inside the celestial master tomb was also home to dragon veins, and more than one at that. Given Lu Yun’s current strength, he could use the Dragonshift Method to only call upon the smallest among them. Even so, this so-called ‘smallest one’ still far exceeded his expectations.

“If not for the tomb being isolated from the outside world, I’d be killed by nature’s backlash if I so much as touched it.” He was rather glad of the tomb’s special layout now, so unique that it could even isolate those inside from immortal tribulations. Likewise, the small-scale dragon veins in this place had also been detached from the world at large. Only a bigger dragon vein could maintain its connection to the outside world.

“Rise!” Lu Yun waved his hand inside the small world born from the luopan, summoning a milky-white dragon vein from beneath the ground. It floated aloft, then coiled around him.

The space surrounding him began shaking, like the wrath of the heavens had descended upon the land and was trying to break through the tomb’s barrier and punish Lu Yun for his impudence.

But there was a mystical power inside that forcibly repelled the power that would uphold the rules of nature.

Dragon veins were the essence of the world and connected to nature itself. To tamper with them was to incite retaliation from the surrounding land.

The last time, he’d been aided by the Scroll of Shephereding Immortals when making off with the dragon vein in the North Sea, as well as the Azure Dragon King and Empress Myrtlestar residing inside.

The two ancient powerhouses had acted together to stop the rebounding force. Afterward, the Azure Dragon King had swallowed the dragon vein to mend his injuries.

This time, it was the celestial master tomb’s power that stopped nature’s retaliation.

“Only one who's surpassed dao immortal realm and reached the ingress realm can withstand this backlash from the world itself.” Further enlightenment filtered through to Lu Yun. “Too bad I’ve only touched upon the threshold of ascension. There’s three more months to go before I shed the shackles of mortality!

“But right now… shatter!” With an explosive shout, he waved his arm and sent an enormous white dragon shadow streaking through the air.

The space in front of him cracked like a mirror, revealing the Deaf Prince, Beicang Qing, and Jing Dichen.