“All of this is a result of that brush.” Lu Yun looked at the akasha ghost—or rather, the brush in her hands. That was the source of everything and it currently dripped with viscous ink that looked like blood.

“No!” He received a nasty shock when he looked up again. The akasha ghost had somehow arrived in front of the giant zombie and was raising the brush to its face.

The copy of the akasha ghost in front of Wahuang and the Burgeon prince was slowly fading away.

“Don’t let her succeed! If that zombie turns into an akasha ghost, the sword will no longer be able to keep it down!” Lu Yun’s voice rose an octave in his urgency.

“What?!” Shock filtered through the crowd at his words. Turn the zombie into an akasha ghost?

The faceless woman was confined to sixth level mortal realm because it was affected by the rules of trial. However, as the mission of the trials, the zombie was under no such restriction!

“Stop her!” Wahuang yelled and flashed in front of the ghost, blasting out with the Myriad Inception Fist.

Unfortunately, there was another layer of light around the ghost now that protected her. Wahuang’s attack didn’t even shake it.

The Burgeon prince and the others quickly strode forward, but all was too late. Sixth level mortal realm strength couldn’t touch the ghost anymore.

“The sword!” shouted the Ethos princess and she flew toward the sword in the zombie’s head.

Bam!

The layer of light surrounding the akasha ghost swiftly enveloped the rest of the zombie. When the Ethos princess rammed into it, she bounced right back. Despite that, none of them gave up. The six of them attacked the curtain of light in a frenzied rush, but to no avail.

Despair crept into their expressions after another round of futile hammering.

“Retreat, retreat out of the tomb! We need to leave before the zombie turns into an akasha ghost!” shrieked the Creation princess. She was truly afraid. An akasha ghost beyond the chaos could destroy them with a simple thought!

“Run? Where can we run to?” snorted Wahuang. “We can’t escape an existence beyond the chaos just by leaving the tomb.”

……

“Hmph!” Lu Yun struggled out of the formation and deployed the Boundless Step. The curtain of light that could withstand six sovereigns didn’t seem to exist to a death art. He immediately landed on the zombie’s head.

“RAHHHHH!!” he roared and smashed his palm down on the sword.

Hummmmm.

An enormous pillar of sword light descended from the skies and pierced through the zombie’s head. Ugly fractures snaked down from the point of impact in the zombie’s crown.

“Waugh!!” Concentrating on drawing the ghostly face, the akasha ghost wailed with sudden anguish as blood flowed out of her orifices.

The sword that’d immobilized the zombie seemed to be bolstered by a new strength. Brilliant splendor erupted from the blade as it threatened to slice the zombie in half.

Lu Yun’s hand remained on the sword’s edge while he furiously circulated the power of inception, feeding it into the blade. The brighter the splendor grew, the more it cut into the zombie.

The akasha ghost that the faceless woman had transformed into suddenly floated to the zombie’s head, her eerie face staring right into Lu Yun’s face.

Everyone present held their breath. They couldn’t do anything, not with the curtain of light there. Lu Yun had bypassed it with a death art and the strength of the Tome of Life and Death, but there was nothing that anyone else could do.

Wahuang was the palest out of them all. If Lu Yun died here… she wouldn’t know what to do. Setting aside how important he was to Inception Palace and the immortal dao, she w]couldn’t let him die purely on the basis of their friendship.

The situation looked incredibly dire for Lu Yun at the moment. One had to continuously supply the sword with energy if they wanted to use it. All of his previous efforts would be wasted if he let go, and the zombie on the verge of death would recover as well.

“Release the brush and return to who you were, the real you. I’ll reform your soul for you,” Lu Yun huffed at the akasha ghost approaching him.

The faceless woman had something to do with the zombie, so the sword slicing into the zombie also injured her to a certain degree. But still, there was nothing he could do to deter her. Though bloody tears trailed down the woman’s cheeks, her steps remained firm and she resolutely approached Lu Yun.

“Wait, wait!” he protested at seeing her come closer. “Even though the zombie is one with you, you’ve broken free of it. You’ll remain alive even if it dies!”

She completely ignored him. Now thirty meters away from him, this was a distance that didn’t even register for an akasha ghost. Her hand gently lifted up, terrifying power already concentrated on its palm.

Now that he was no longer part of the Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals, Lu Yun was only second level mortal realm. This strike would completely obliterate him.

The akasha ghost’s true cultivation level was beyond the chaos, so her attack would be intimately connected to karma. She’d be able to shatter even the six paths of his nascent spirit located in hell!

However, her hand froze a hair’s breadth away from Lu Yun’s head and deep fear burrowed out of the face that was both laughing and crying at the same time.

A tiny door had opened in Lu Yun’s left hand, and from it wafted a presence that completely terrified her. The presence of the hadal hell!

“Ahhh!!” she screamed and whirled around, vanishing on the spot.

Hummm.

Great sword energy blossomed from the sword in Lu Yun’s hand and finished slicing the zombie in half. Still reeling from shock, he slowly closed his left hand and dismissed the tiny Gates of the Abyss.

“It’s over? That… worked?” he gingerly breathed out, not anticipating that a desperate gamble of the hadal hell would actually rebuff the akasha ghost. “The akasha ghosts in the world of immortals have no idea what that hell is. It would seem that only the chaos creatures are afraid of it…”

The sword that’d restrained the zombie returned to a regular weapon size and landed in Lu Yun’s hand.