“Senior brother Huo Jun, surely you know the consequences of this as well. The princess of Ethos Palace holds the same status as your princess of Inception Palace. They’re both the daughters of their respective monarch!

“If this heathen doesn’t die, Her Highness… Ethos Palace won’t just simply look the other way!” repeated the woman in blue.

Huo Jun turned around to look at the sword in Lu Yun’s hand. Icewater wasn’t a premier connate treasure, but it bore a remarkable affinity for Mo Ke’s nature and was the weapon most suitable for him. Its rank would increase with his cultivation, ultimately surpassing the limitations of a connate treasure.

The Ethos princess had once trekked all over the chaos in search of a treasure like this for her son.

But apart from this, Mo Ke’s development remained uninfluenced by Ethos Palace. Everything he’d accomplished was the result of his own efforts. He and his sword alone had built the foundations of a future sovereign realm expert.

He was the greatest pride of the Ethos princess and she’d wanted to light a soul lamp for him multiple times. However, he’d always turned her down. In his words, he would never become a true powerhouse if he never really experienced the possibility of death.

If he’d grown into his own and become an eternal overlord, he would’ve been stronger than Chi Wuxia and even rivaled Qiu Luoyu.

……

“Did you kill Mo Ke?” Huo Jun’s brow was tightly furrowed. It’d be another matter if anyone else was dead, but Mo Ke’s background was too great… even greater than usual sacred clan members. He was a direct grandson of the Ethos monarch.

“No,” Lu Yun heaved a slight sigh of relief. He hadn’t thought that picking up a random sword would bring such trouble. Thankfully, with Huo Jun now on the scene, those of the nine sacred lands didn’t dare say a word or twitch a muscle.

Huo Jun ranked at the top of the mortal realm. Among the mortal realm disciples of the six palaces, he was solidly in the top twenty.

“Mo Ke died outside the Blood Sea, drained by its mosquitoes. I picked up this sword from his body.” Lu Yun looked up at the woman with cerulean hair and smiled coldly. “The water origin land and the nine sacred lands sure have a big temper. They tried to kill me without even giving me a chance to explain.”

Horror ricocheted around the scene at his words.

“You r-really didn’t kill my junior brother?” the woman tripped over her words. If Lu Yun hadn’t killed Mo Ke, then Inception Palace would never forgive the sacred lands for besieging one of their disciples!

This boy had withstood two strikes of her combat arts through he was second level mortal realm. He was absolutely an extraordinary genius of Inception Palace!

“This sword records Mo Ke’s cause of death. Take a look for yourselves.” Lu Yun didn’t want to face further hunts from the sacred lands and tossed Icewater to the woman.

“Disciples of Inception Palace do not need to explain themselves to anyone,” Huo Jun suddenly said. “I will report this to Her Highness. The matter will be settled if you die here, but if you dare make it out alive…”

His gaze suddenly turned as sharp as an eagle’s and scanned everyone in the crowd, committing the faces of even pure bystanders to memory.

Color drained out of everyone’s faces and they all turned as white as a sheet. This was a blatant threat. Huo Jun had just pronounced the death sentence for them!

“Senior brother…” The woman didn’t have a chance to finish before Huo Jun interrupted her.

“Don’t try to intimidate me with the Ethos princess. Inception Palace has never been afraid of trouble. Even if he had killed this Mo Ke, that kid would’ve fully deserved it.” With that, Huo Jun sent the woman flying backward. She spat out a mouthful of blood and sagged weakly to the ground.

He didn’t follow up to kill her. Sometimes, death was a release. It was far more dreadful to live in constant fear. With a wave of his hand, he vanished on the spot with Lu Yun.

Those from the nine sacred lands wished that the earth would swallow them whole. Also struggling with a mix of complicated emotions was Lu Yun. He’d made great use of the Inception disciple identity all throughout the tomb and had ultimately run into the genuine article.

Just as he was debating how to get out of the situation, Huo Jun stopped.

“I’ve never seen you before, you’re a secluded disciple? And you practice the chaos dragon combat arts?” Huo Jun smiled at this mysterious junior brother.

“Yes.” Lu Yun nodded. Though he was a bit nervous, he’d encountered these sorts of situations before and handled it with aplomb.

“You managed to take two combat arts from a sixth level mortal realm cultivator—you’ve got quite some potential. You must be a secluded disciple that the palace highly treasures.” Huo Jun nodded with satisfaction as he looked at Lu Yun. “You should share in the opportunity within the tomb.”

“No!” Lu Yun turned tense and he quickly explained, “Opportunities elsewhere in the tomb are fine, but we can’t take the one here!”

“Oh?” Huo Jun blinked.

“That corpse has turned into a zombie and the sword over its head is keeping it suppressed. If we pull it out, the zombie will break free and—” Lu Yun took a deep breath.

“Hahahahaha!!” Huo Jun laughed uproariously. “If even a little fellow like you can tell, how would we not?”

“Eh?” Lu Yun started.

“Haven’t you noticed that those fighting over the sword are people from the sacred lands? The experts of our sacred palaces aren’t in the field at all.”

It was precisely because of this that those of the nine sacred lands had the misconception that they’d outmuscled the sacred palaces, that the opportunity to ascend beyond the chaos was within reach. That was why they’d dare set up a formation and block all comers, even when sacred disciples tried to gain entry.

“I see.” Lu Yun closed his gaping jaw.

This wasn’t the world of immortals, where he stood at the top. Though he was weak, his vision and knowledge surpassed everyone else in the world.

This was the chaos where experts abounded and masters were too many to be counted. Just as he could use a death art and the Dragonsearch Invocation to see through the truth of the corpse, so did the experts of the chaos have their ways to plumb the depths of the zombie.

The chaos wasn’t the world of immortals; it was much more vast and prosperous. The cultivation methods and combat arts that could be found here were unmatched by anything in the worlds.

“It’s too dangerous for you to wander around alone, I’ll take you to the others.” Huo Jun led Lu Yun to a formation formed by the power of inception. There were at least five hundred Inception disciples within it.