Death arts, formations, talismans, and feng shui layouts.

Lu Yun wanted to combine all four of them into a brand new supplemental path, an achievement on par with the invention of the weapons of war. Its creator had been a heavyweight of immeasurable power, though, and Lu Yun was far from their level.

“Talismans and formations are intricately linked with each other. The patterns of talismans and etchings of formations capture the principles of heaven and earth, hinting at the grand order of creation….”

Lu Yun took out a formation stone and started etching lines into it, like he would with talismans. In the next instant, the power of hell converged on the stone and carved lines of purple-black talisman runes.

Crackle!

However, the premium formation stone, used in creating immortal-grade formation disks, shattered into fine pieces with a loud crack.

“Oh? That didn’t work?” Lu Yun paused. “No, that’s not it. This is hell, a fragmented world. The principles of heaven, earth, and creation are broken as well. If I etched that into a formation disk....”

Comprehension suddenly struck him. He stared dumbly at the shattered formation disk, his expression alternating between befuddlement and realization.

“The formation stone shattered, not because the rules are incomplete here, but because a power descended that can shatter it!” Lu Yun’s eyes gleamed.

When he’d previously drawn talismans out of thin air in hell, those hadn’t broken down. But when he etched the same lines into formation stones, he’d somehow summoned or attracted an unknown power.

“Broken down? Destroyed? No, that’s not it....” He fell into deep thought again, meditating cross-legged on the ground. Time flowed differently in hell, so he wasn’t worried about wasting it.

“Talismans and formations both delineate the rhythm of heaven and earth, but if the two are combined....”

Incomprehension once again flashed through his eyes as he gazed at the dark, lifeless sky of hell. The Tome of Life and Death manifested from his body and radiated black light to protect him. His brain was running on overdrive, and if this continued, his head might explode.

“It seems that if something is drawn that approaches the essence of heaven and earth... no matter what kind of a talisman or formation is created, it attracts the core energy of the world...!”

He shot to his feet.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Enormous formation stones dropped around him and he began etching talisman runes into the boulders. However, he didn’t draw complete runes into one single stone, but instead split each pattern across ten stones.

Ten stones formed a complete talisman unit, and a hundred and eight sets of them would create a complete talisman formation.

Bam!

As soon as the thousand and eighty formation stones were assembled to form a complete talisman formation, a loud rumble exploded in the air. The unexpected might slammed Lu Yun into the nearby Enneawyrm Coffinbearers.

Whoosh!

Purple flames burst out from the stones and blazed fiercely, almost igniting the ground beneath them.

“What the hell?!” Lu Yun gaped at the intense fire with shock. He sensed an instinctual fear from the Tome of Life and Death upon facing the flame’s existence. This purple flame... had once destroyed hell! And after hell’s destruction, it’d integrated with the netherworld and become part of its essence.

Bam!

The Nine-Phoenix Casket shook and suddenly opened. An enormous, skeletal leg stepped out of the casket and stomped on the fire, putting it out. The leg then slowly retracted, and the casket lid grated back into place.

Lu Yun paused, shellshocked. There was a disoriented something, a chaotic thought from the void mumbling at him. He knew in his heart that it was the existences within the two coffins warning him against making similar attempts.

“It’s not just due to the combination of formations and talismans, but because this is hell, and I am its master. The talisman formation just now was amplified to its maximum, thanks to the power of hell, which is why it summoned the fire that destroyed this netherworld.”

He turned to the pitch-black pit of nothingness in hell.

There’d always been strange creatures lurking there, struggling to escape, but now they’d all scattered back to the depths and vanished. It would seem the purple fire scared them as well.

“Are they not on the same side?” Lu Yun was feeling out of his depth. “Perhaps I’ll only figure out the truth of hell after I’m powerful enough.”

He sighed and left with a turn.

No sooner had he departed than a tremor passed through the void in the deep depths of hell. A giant eye slowly opened, its intense gaze fixed in the direction where Lu Yun had departed.

“Get going,” a frosty command abruptly issued from the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers, and a tongue of dark-crimson fire burst forth from the Nine-Phoenix Casket.

Derision flashed through the eye before it slowly melted back into the depths of hell. It seemed as if the darkness were its eyelids.

Neither the Infernum, Lu Yun’s envoys, or Yueshen, Ruyi, or the others noticed the exchange.

……

“Finally!” Lu Yun wiped sweat off his forehead and cracked a smile. “That ought to do it.”

He’d settled down on an island in the imperial sea for further experimentation. After a few days, he finally hit upon the right method.

Drawing the runes of combat art talismans onto formation stones wasn’t the way to go. The correct way was to set up the formation with talismans. He’d drawn thirty-six hundred and fifty Size Manipulation Talismans and used them as the eye of a formation, arranging them according to how the death art functioned.

“Let’s give it a try!” Excitement surfaced Qing Han and Su Xiaoxiao’s transformed faces.

“Shrink!” With a wave of his hand, Lu Yun activated the talisman formation.

In the blink of an eye, the island shrank from fifty kilometers wide to roughly eighty meters.

“You did it!” Qing Han’s eyes shone brightly.

“It’ll hold for about ten breaths of time!” Lu Yun stared fixedly at the talisman formation. It shattered after ten breaths, and the island returned to its original size.

Size Manipulation could be used on inanimate items, but the death art had to be sustained by energy. After ten breaths, the power within the talisman formation would be exhausted and the death art would dissipate. When attached to a cultivator or an immortal, the talisman could be sustained by the individual’s inner energy, but that wasn’t the case for objects.

“Come on, let’s go to the palace!” With a wave of his hand, Lu Yun shrunk the three of them into dust particles and vanished.

Within hell, Xuanxi had drawn thirty-six thousand and five hundred Size Manipulation Talismans for Lu Yun.

“Strange, where did those three go?” A dumbfounded fish monster spirit surfaced from the water and looked around in confusion. “Did the island get smaller just now? It’s big again…. What’s going on?”

……

The North Sea Palace was on high alert.

The great formation defending the palace was operating at full capacity, and layers of detection formations covered twenty-five hundred kilometers around the palace. Even the smallest plankton had been driven away.

Admiral Turtle, a peerless immortal, was the only expert left holding down the fort. It could be said that the North Sea Palace had never been so vulnerable.

Although there were millions of soldiers and officers milling around, the peerless immortals leading them were nowhere to be found. Thus, they could no longer assemble into battle formations.

Without those battle tactics, the soldiers were as weak as a swarm of flies. A swat would be more than enough to crush them all. And unfortunately for them, the layers of defensive formations didn’t work at all on Lu Yun.

They were as small as particles of dust and managed to slip through the cracks of the formations and reach the palace’s front door.

North Sea, Home of Worms!

The giant plaque remained nailed to the light barrier, right over the front gates.

“Open!” Lu Yun commanded before an almost unnoticeable crack on the barrier.

Rumble.

The formation circling the palace began trembling.

“What’s going on?!” Fretfully hiding in the palace, Admiral Turtle jumped into the air with fright. “Dammit, they’re back!”

He swiftly activated another formation as soon as the outside barrier shook and disappeared from the palace.

Back when Lu Yun had come with the troublemakers to seek revenge against Beigong Chonglou, he’d chosen not to break the barrier because he didn’t want Beigong Chonglou to escape.

Crack.

An ugly scar manifested on the barrier. This had been the demise of two generations of dragons. Enemies of the ancient dragon palace had once torn the formation open, leaving the giant crack, and the blackwater snakes had invaded the palace through this same crack.

“Emergency, Admiral, emergency! The formation defending the palace has been broken!”

“Admiral? Where’s the admiral?”

Chaos and panic engulfed the palace, then a familiar fragrance wove through the air and wafted into their nostrils. Unconsciousness rippled through the crowd, resulting in everyone collapsing to the floor.

Thirty-six thousand and five hundred talismans circled the palace.

“Shrink!” Lu Yun exclaimed.

Hum.

The two hundred-fifty-kilometer-wide palace disappeared, leaving only a defensive formation guarding an empty hole.

“It’ll only hold for three breaths....” Scowling, Lu Yun walked up to the palm-sized palace and grabbed it, but it wouldn’t budge.