Lu Yun’s body expanded to the limits of his current abilities and diluted his immortal force to the utmost. If he grew even a little bit bigger, his nascent spirit would lose control over his body. Hellfire blazed ferociously inside his body, replacing immortal force as his only source of power.

As a connate chaos treasure, Quietus expanded accordingly with its wielder. Terrifying killing intent danced over it; Lu Yun raised it with both hands and brought it heavily down on the Bridge of Forgetfulness.

Highly affronted by the attack, an enormous mouth opened on the bridge and spewed orange liquid at the gigantic Lu Yun. Repulsively pungent, the liquid was highly corrosive and gave rise to a stinging sensation on Lu Yun’s skin before it even came near him.

Though he was a titanic giant, he remained agile and nimble with the help of his death arts. Just as the orange liquid was about to touch him, he shuffled sideways and adroitly evaded the rush of liquid.

“Corpsewater! This is corpsewater!” Lu Yun blinked as he watched the liquid vanish into thin air. “How can zombies be alive? They’re rejected by heaven and earth and roam outside the three realms. [1] They are denied by the five elements… Wait, hold on a second. This is the fourth realm, something that doesn’t exist between heaven and earth and is outside of the reach of the three realms. There’s no such thing as being abandoned by heaven and earth here!”

Lu Yun suddenly identified the flaw in his thinking. Zombies were indeed ostracized by heaven and earth and rejected by the very world itself, which was why they didn’t count as life forms in known space, but something existing between life and death.

But there was no such concept here in a place lacking heaven and earth, so zombies were naturally alive, and a very special existence at that!

The zombie that the bridge had turned into was a life form of the highest order, an advanced entity far more sophisticated than what could be found beneath the heavens or in the chaos.

While these thoughts quickly flashed through Lu Yun’s mind, they didn’t affect his movements. His body splintered into ten thousand copies of himself and charged the bridge from all directions.

At the end of the day, the Bridge of Forgetfulness remained just that at its core. No matter how it’d evolved in the fourth realm, it’d once been part of the human dao hell. The Tome of Life and Death perfectly countered everything in that hell.

Immortal force receded from Lu Yun’s body to be replaced by hellfire churning through his meridians and body. Even the six paths of his nascent spirit retreated, the Tome of Life and Death filling its place.

Bam—

Bam—

Bam—

Quietus slashed repeatedly at the bridge, blasting the structure with force and hacking all of the corpseflies buzzing over it to bits.

The Bridge of Forgetfulness roared with indignity. It considered itself the most highly developed life form in all four realms, with even the little girl in the red dress a few steps below it. How dare this ant of a human harm it, and not with the sword he wielded, but the book that had replaced his nascent spirit!

Hellfire might be the greatest flame beneath the heavens and in the chaos, but it didn’t amount to much in front of the bridge. It knew what hellfire was, but it’d never seen the book before.

Most important was that the spirit born within it was insufficient to command its body—the bridge was too strong. It couldn’t even shift it an inch to the side, much less call upon its full power. The only methods of attack it possessed in its current state were the corpseflies that it housed and the corpsewater within it.

Even that had been enough to consolidate its superior position. There wasn’t much in the realm of heaven and earth, the chaos, Hongmeng, or the yet unnamed fourth realm that could harm it, but along came this human freak!

Unrelenting, Quietus slashed again and again into the bridge while Lu Yun looked coldly at it. He no longer had the feeling that he was gazing upon a more sophisticated organism, but that he was contemplating something on the same level as him, or even lower!

……

“How is this possible?!” The little girl in a red dress looked dumbly from where she stood. At a complete loss for what to do now, she stared at the two mammoth figures battling in the distance.

“There’s nothing impossible about it.” Qing Yu sighed with relief and sat down cross legged on the ground, looking at her man with pride and joy.

“Weirdos, you’re all weirdos!” grumbled the little girl as she summoned the protectively hovering pennant back into her hand.

……

“Don’t kill me”! A human face suddenly appeared on the bridge. “Don’t kill me, I know you’re the master of the human dao hell. I was once part of it and I am willing to surrender to you. Don’t kill me!”

Fear had truly crept in by now. Though the sword was just a connate chaos treasure and couldn’t harm it, the strange attacks and hellfire could somehow pierce through its body and crash against its spirit.

The bridge would die if its spirit scattered. Or rather, it would return to its origins as an unliving fragment of human dao hell.

Lu Yun viciously stabbed his sword into the void when he heard this and looked at the face on the bridge.

“I know you can change into different life forms. Return to a normal one instead of a zombie,” he commanded coolly.

The bridge had turned into a zombie for self defense. Whether it was the corpsewater or corpseflies, or the ghostface maggots within its body that had yet to be released, they were all tools for defense.

There were actually countless numbers of incomparably strong entities in this seemingly empty fourth realm.

“I—” The bridge looked at the black radiance shimmering over Lu Yun’s body. It clenched its teeth and whisked away the few remaining flies, stirring ghostface maggots, and corpsewater. A beam of jade-like splendor flashed over it.

It could clearly sense the killing intent from the new master of human hell. If it dared disobey, then its painstakingly nurtured spirit would be swiftly exterminated. Others might not be able to harm its spirit, but that ancient bronze book certainly had the power too.

Lu Yun swiftly shrank smaller as well, returning to his normal size. The familiar immortal force and six paths of his nascent spirit retook control over his body. The Bridge of Forgetfulness also diminished from a titanic bridge into a regular stone one.

1. The three realms here are not the newly introduced third and fourth realm, and this is why I contemplated using “plane” for the third and fourth realm. Too many concepts are being expressed with this singular character. The three realms here are the typical realms found in xianxia of demon, human, and heaven.