“This is the underworld?!” While Qing Yu had never visited the underworld before, the little fox in her arms had. The celestial master tomb she’d constructed in the Primordial Era was located in the underworld.

She jumped out of Qing Yu’s arms and peered intently at the charred earth, then shook her head fiercely.

“How is this possible? How can this be the underworld?” Still, she didn’t believe her eyes.

“I was once one of its holy kings, and while I can’t say that I know it like the back of my hand, I am certain that this is the underworld.” Lu Yun’s eyes stared fixedly at a certain spot of this burnt land. There seemed to be a towering mountain there that pierced straight through the chaos and extended elsewhere.

This was the holy mountain of the underworld, the place where one could look into the river of time and view the past of the world of immortals. One of Ashu’s favorite pastimes had been to stand at the peak of this mountain and view everything about the past, and in doing so, recover his history as well.

“It really is the underworld.” Seated at the banks of the sea of Hell Flowers, Ashu stood up and looked out a crack that Lu Yun opened. “So the underworld isn’t in the world of immortals, but in the chaos.”

After finding himself, Ashu returned to being Ling Weiyang. But compared to that weighty and ponderous identity, he much preferred being Ashu. His words reassured Lu Yun of his own conclusions. Currently, only the underworld was in sight and not the world of immortals.

“If the chaos creatures use the underworld as a base with which to attack our world…” A horrible thought suddenly struck Qing Yu.

“Then our world would be in danger,” Lu Yun took in a deep breath. “However, there are also powers that protect the underworld. The holy lords and kings of the underworld are its guardians. While they aren’t very strong, this is their home territory.”

He suddenly thought of what the three holy kings had once said to him. Every time great happenings occurred in the realms, so, too, would the underworld also be attacked. The holy lords and kings perished in great numbers during those conflicts.

After all those battles, only Holy Kings Atrophy, Antiquity, and Desolation were left. They were later on reinforced by Lu Yun’s Xing Chen replica and Violetshade, breathing some new life into the underworld.

“But what is the underworld doing here?” The little fox couldn’t understand it. When they’d last been here, there’d been nothing around. However, the underworld was now present with the tomb.

“Watch over me.” Being a great emperor, Qing Yu could use formula dao to derive the truth behind the underworld being here.

Lu Yun snapped to attention and stood by Qing Yu’s side, silently operating the Tome of Life and Death and protecting her within.

With the changes in the tomb, it often released a strength that devoured all life force. That cleared out the premises as ordinary life forms didn’t dare approach. This region had become a taboo, so Qing Yu would certainly face recoil if she tried to probe its secrets. Lu Yun set aside everything else for now and focused on protecting her with his greatest ace.

……

Rumble.

Just as they expected, the void darkened the moment Qing Yu called upon formula dao. A layer of scarlet clouds gathered over her head as lightning the color of blood roared within it. The few cultivators still daring to linger outside the tomb ran for dear life the second they saw the bloody clouds.

“What is that?” Lu Yun tilted his head up to the clouds and stared at the terrifying lightning howling within. He’d never seen this kind of thunder and lightning before. It wasn’t a heavenly tribulation or judgement, but something even more ominous.

If he had to compare it to something… then the black lightning that’d struck when he first deployed the Death Spike art and nailed the Exalted Immortal Sect to its doom might possibly compare to the scarlet lightning at hand.

Both were uncanny and threatening, suffused with a destructive presence. The black lightning, however, was much weaker than this scarlet one.

Qing Yu sat cross-legged in the void, silently deriving the truth behind the underworld in front of them and seemingly oblivious to the clouds, lightning, and thunder dancing in frenzied fury over her head.

Rumble!

An ear-splitting crash of thunder exploded as a bolt of scarlet lightning three thousand meters across descended from above. It crashed down upon Qing Yu like a mountain of electricity, so enormous that she was a tiny ant in comparison.

Within her arms, the little fox tensed nervously. She fully flared the presence of a chaos realm powerhouse and attempted to defy the incoming lightning.

“Don’t move.” Lu Yun floated into the air and rebuffed her power. He reached out a hand and splayed his fingers outward.

Death art—Thunder Palmstrike!

Hummm.

Hellfire blazed fiercely to bolster the death art, enabling it to swallow the dreadful lightning whole before the lightning could entirely release its aura.

Lu Yun flushed from the effort to contain the lightning’s power. It was so strong that Thunder Palmstrike barely managed to condense it into a thunder bead and send it to his dantian.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

A second, third, and fourth bolt came down in quick succession after Lu Yun absorbed the first bolt. He didn’t hold anything back—propelling hellfire to greater heights, he deployed Thunder Palmstrike with every bit of strength he could muster.

Bolt upon bolt of lightning redirected themselves into the palm of his hand, condensed into a thunder bead, then deposited themselves in his dantian.

“This lightning is too strong! If this continues on, I’ll pop from everything I’m absorbing.” The power of the lightning was far beyond the limits of his tolerance. He could digest one, two, or even three bolts, but there was far more than that in the void.

“Feinie!” he called out.

“Sir.” Feinie’s figure walked out from behind him. The Formation Orb flew out of her hands and shone brilliantly with the light of a hundred and eight thousand defensive formations as they snapped into existence around Qing Yu.

Each of his ten Yama Kings were all great emperors now since Lu Yun’s own cultivation advancements also impacted his Yama Kings. Every time he made a breakthrough, so, too, did his Yama Kings advance explosively.

Since his current cultivation resided in the principal realm, that made them great emperors.

Once a hundred and eight thousand defensive formations locked into place, Lu Yun acted with complete freedom. He shot into the air with his fingers splayed out, releasing the thunder beads resting in his dantian.

Scarlet lightning ripped out of his palms and crashed into the scarlet bolts descending from above.