Lu Yin could feel his star energy being thrown off, and he hurriedly tried to interfere, but it was already too late. He had underestimated the Cruiser’s recovery speed. Despite periodically injuring his captive, the man had still managed to recover enough energy to the point where he could break free of Lu Yin’s star energy restraints. The Cruiser had only been enduring his captivity from the beginning, and he had escaped as soon as he was confident. By now, it was only a short distance to the mountain.

Lu Yin helplessly watched on as the man slipped away like a fish and sighed. Forget it, I just lost some fish bait. He then raised his head and looked up at the mountain, the place where he intended to go next.

The path of cultivation was fraught with dangers, but that danger was unavoidable.

Lu Yin glanced at his right arm. Actually, he still had another piece of bait.

“Seventh Bro, I suddenly noticed that you are very handsome.” The monkey suddenly flattered Lu Yin, who grinned. This damned monkey was too shrewd.

Lu Yin could not head back at this point and started moving towards the mountain.

The Cruiser male hid within the ocean off in the distance, watching as Lu Yin headed towards the mountain. Only then did he finally relax. His gamble had paid off, and this person wouldn’t pursue him in this vast ocean.

It was possible that the only exit from this space was atop that mountain, so the Cruiser needed to follow Lu Yin. The situation had reversed, and it was now Lu Yin’s turn to act as bait.

As he approached the mountain, Lu Yin was able to more acutely sense the gathering aura. Lu Yin did not know how exactly to describe the sensation. Tyrannical, sharp, unparalleled; he could think of many adjectives that were close to fitting, all of which involuntarily popped into his mind since he had never come in contact with such an aura before.

The mountain was cylindrical, and it almost looked like it had been directly tossed into the seabed.

When Lu Yin reached the side and looked up, he could not see the peak. He then raised his hand, struck the mountain wall, and found that it was very sturdy. He used a bit more force but was still unable to damage the wall.

The durability of the mountain could be easily imagined if he could not affect the wall even with his current strength.

Endless rune lines had converged upon a mountain, so what exactly was this thing? Lu Yin’s eyes grew heated, and he started manually climbing up since he could not fly in this space.

“Seventh Bro, do you think that this mountain is safe?” the monkey asked nervously.

Lu Yin shook his head. “I don’t know, but it doesn't matter if it’s safe or not. We have to climb it since this is the only path.”

As Lu Yin started climbing, the Cruiser on the seafloor started gradually coming up, all the while maintaining what he felt was a safe distance from Lu Yin.

“Seventh Bro, that bastard’s coming over to the mountain.”

Lu Yin grunted. “When he starts climbing, go ahead and make a move. You can capture him, and we’ll use him as fish bait again.”

“Alright!” The monkey was excited but also a little afraid since he had nearly been used as fish bait himself. This Cruiser bastard had to be caught, as that person was the only one who deserved to be bait.

The man’s eyes trembled as he watched Lu Yin climb higher and higher up the mountain. He soon grabbed a hold of the wall with both hands and started to climb himself.

Suddenly, the man’s pupils shrank, and an intense fear filled his eyes. His entire body started vanishing.

“Se- Se- Seventh Bro, look down!” the monkey shouted anxiously.

Lu Yin lowered his head and his expression changed. “What’s going on? What did he do?”

“Nothing! He only touched the mountain!” the monkey shouted, completely terrified.

Lu Yin’s scalp grew numb as he stared at the disappearing man.

At the bottom-most part of the mountain, the Cruiser completely vanished from sight, bit by bit, until it was as if he had never existed. It was an extremely horrifying scene, as anyone would despair if they had to watch themselves vanish from existence.

The Cruiser never could have even dreamed that he would die in such a manner. Even though it was a painless ordeal, the desperation and terror that he felt in his final moments surpassed everything else.

It wasn’t just the Cruiser who was terrified, but also Lu Yin. When his hand made contact with the mountain wall, he had felt like he was in front of the underworld. He realized that the Cruiser’s existence in this space had been thoroughly rejected. This was what happened when someone fought against the cultivation path of the Runemasters; their very existence was directly erased from the universe in an act of complete destruction.

It was a rather strange and terrifying battle style.

A healthy, living person, and a Cruiser at that, had soundlessly vanished in an instant. He had only touched the wall, just the side of a mountain! No one could have expected that a mountain would possess such an attack. It was so odd that it toppled everyone’s common sense.

“Seventh Bro, I feel like we should go now.” The monkey was starting to panic; he had almost used his innate gift of shadows to touch the wall. He was now terrified since he felt like he had nearly doomed himself to oblivion.

Lu Yin nodded, as the cold cliff now felt like a freezing slab of ice, and he could not wait to stop touching it. It felt like he was holding a grenade that could go off at any moment, or that he was walking along the edge of a precarious cliff. He was certain that he would never forget this feeling for the rest of his life.

Lu Yin released his grip on the mountain with both hands and was just about to jump into the ocean, but at that same instance, his face went deathly pale. His clothes started disappearing.

He instinctively grabbed the wall with both hands again and saw that the vanishing process had stopped.

“Seventh Bro, what’s going on?” The monkey was still in terror.

Lu Yin was also at a loss. “I can’t let go! If I do, I might vanish!”

“That can’t be—it’s the reverse?! That bastard vanished when he touched the wall, but you can’t let go of it. What kind of trick is this? Try again! We can’t die here!” the monkey shrieked.

Lu Yin frowned and released one hand from the mountain wall. He was fine. But when he slowly pulled his other hand away from the mountain, his clothes immediately began to disappear. He hurriedly grasped the wall with both hands again and grimaced. “I can’t remove both hands at once. Monkey, it looks like our only choice is to climb up if we don’t want to die.”

The monkey fell into despair. “During the many years I’ve roamed the Astral Beast Domain, I’ve gone to many strange places and read many famous journals. I once even visited an Envoy’s grave, and I managed to live through all that. I’ve never heard of a mountain that can cause people to vanish, and I never dreamed that I would appear in such a place. My dear Feng Jiu, my Celestial Ice Phoenix harem! Seventh Bro, this is all your fault!”

“Alright, enough with the melodrama. Why don’t you come up with a way to help me climb up? The exit might actually be at the top.”

“Let’s hope so. Seventh Bro, our destiny will determine whether or not we survive.” The monkey was extremely depressed.

Lu Yin took a deep breath, and his expression firmed. Since he had to climb, he would go all-out. He refused to believe that he would actually die here.

Lu Yin didn’t know exactly how tall the mountain was; he only knew that he could not see the peak and that he had no other fate besides climbing up.

Eventually, he even lost sight of the ocean’s surface. He could only make himself look upwards.

One hour, two hours… One day, two days…

Lu Yin climbed for five days, only occasionally taking a break whenever he became tired and exchanging some words with the monkey before continuing on with the climb. The scenery along the way remained completely monotonous. The higher he climbed, the further he could see. He could see the forest, the white beach, and once in a while, he could even see a black dot that represented either a person or a war spirit.

The people in the forest definitely could not see Lu Yin, and none of them would have ever thought that there was someone climbing up the sheer face of that tall mountain.

As Lu Yin continued to climb the mountain, the Great Yu Empire’s war to recapture Frostwave Weave was coming to a conclusion.

The captains of the Great Yu Empire’s Thirteen Imperial Squadrons were all at least at the Cruiser realm, and there were few in the entire Frostwave Weave who could rival them. When Undying Yushan had been in power, he had worked hard to formulate a strategy to unite the entire Frostwave Weave under the Great Yu Empire’s rule. Just as when the empire eliminated Firesmelt Planet, everything had already been planned out.

As long as no other powers entered the fray, it would be nearly effortless for the Great Yu Empire to unite Frostwave Weave.

Unification relied on military force while governance relied on stability and economy. The Great Yu Empire was experiencing an economic depression, and even though it received the financial support from Innerverse powers like the Watermoon Mountain, its military power was too great, causing the surrounding weaves to coordinate and embargo its economy. This led to Frostwave Weave’s economy remaining handicapped, to the point where even if they managed to unite the entire weave, the empire would still crumble and decline because of the failing economy.

Huo Qingshan and the others had tried to contact Lu Yin for several days to ask Lu Yin to make an executive decision, but they were unable to reach him.

As for Wendy Yushan, she had gone into seclusion to practice the Yu Secret Art.

Under these helpless circumstances, the Great Yu Empire’s only choice was to slow down on their plans to unify the weave and begin to take advantage of the many captured planets in order to maintain the economy.

The Chaos Flowzone was one of the Innerverse’s eight great Flowzones, and it was also the place where the Innerverse’s dark side gathered. Within the Chaos Flowzone, order was disorder. and the cultivators there only respected the strong.

There was a planet in the Chaos Flowzone called Deep Crimson Planet that was governed by the Deep Crimson Hall, and it was also the hall’s headquarters. Deep Crimson Hall was one of the powers living in the Chaos Flowzone, but it only governed one territory. It was nothing compared to Chaosgod Mountain, and it could be destroyed at any time. But even still, it had its own methods of survival.

Within a giant city on Deep Crimson Planet, there was an unending flow of flying machinery. The traffic was especially intense at night when the routes around the city were sealed in order to be used as race tracks.

Everyone knew that this city’s owner, Wu Pa, enjoyed exciting aircraft competitions and raced every night. The races featured modified aircraft, and this night was no different than any other.

Dozens of vehicles shuttled back and forth, causing the air to distort before vanishing further down on the race track.

Wu Pa’s face revealed an excited expression as his aircraft zoomed about, overtaking three of his competitors, one after another. He laughed maniacally, as none of the other machines gave way to each other, but no one would compete with Wu Pa.

Wu Pa’s flying style was extremely brutal; he had a penchant for crashing into others, which caused the other racers to take extra care not to fly too close to him.

Gradually, Wu Pa took the lead.

Just as Wu Pa assumed that tonight’s race was concluded, one aircraft suddenly shot past the rest to violently slam against him.

Wu Pa was stunned that someone on Deep Crimson Planet would actually dare to ram him. His position in Deep Crimson Hall was not low, and he governed an entire city. On top of that, he was an Explorer whose power level was almost at 50,000. Thus, he was only a single step away from breaking through to become a Cruiser. He was among the top ten combatants even within the entire Deep Crimson Hall, and no one had ever dared to ram into him during one of these racing competitions. Despite that, something new had just happened.

Wu Pa licked his lips and ruthlessly flew his aircraft over. “Interesting.”

Boom!

Bang!

The two aircraft violently crashed against one another on the track, and sparks shot out.

The racers following behind them were stunned. Someone actually dared to openly ram into Wu Pa? Are they looking to die?

There was a mountain path ahead, and the two aircraft collided once again, and brilliant sparks sprayed out from the collision as the two vehicles streaked along the mountain path.

The moment the two aircraft went around a curve, Big Pao looked up from within the aircraft that had rammed into Wu Pa’s, and his eyes flickered with cold killing intent. His demeanor was completely different from back at the academy, and it seemed as if he had changed. He raised a hand, and star energy surged as he shouted, “Firesoul Gun!”

Big Pao shot out a star energy bullet that was boosted by two-lined battle force, and it squarely struck Wu Pa.

Wu Pa did not think that anyone would try to assassinate him here, and he reflexively raised a hand to block it. The bullet easily pierced through Wu Pa’s palm and continued traveling through his arm. It tore through the void and split the mountain route behind him in two.

Behind the two aircraft, many other racers hurriedly stopped their vehicles and sluggishly watched on as the entire mountain crumbled.