Empress Myrtlestar, Su Xiaoxiao, Xingzi, and even Chen Xiao and Qing Buyi all thought that the four pearls, Fusang Purewood, and the Ancient Tree of Life would be enough to defuse Qing Yu’s poison curse.

However, Zhao Qing had realized with a single glance that the most crucial thing was still missing: the essence of the Four Guardians! It was the true key to dispelling the poison! The reason being, Qing Yu’s poison curse was connected to the immortal dao. Any outbreak would taint dao itself.

Meanwhile, the Four Guardians were divine beasts born from nature and embodied the ultimate power of the four cardinal directions. In other words, their essence was the essence of nature in its most unadulterated form. Only such essence could dispel a poison so terrible that it threatened the entire world.

Zhao Wushuang gently opened her hand, collecting globes of azure, white, vermilion, and black light from her body and sent them slowly orbiting around Qing Yu. With that simple action, her face abruptly paled and her knees gave out from under her.

The essence of the Four Guardians was equivalent to her own core, so as expected, being separated from them greatly weakened her.

Lu Yun helped her up, then sent her out of the formation-constructed space. There would certainly be those who sought to stop him from dispelling Qing Yu’s poison curse. This place would become extremely dangerous in short order, and he didn’t want Zhao Wushuang to be caught in the crossfire.

……

“Be careful, I can feel someone spying on us,” Empress Myrtlestar suddenly warned. Scroll of Shepherding Immortals in hand, she stood in the middle of the great formation, the Imperial Star, Fire Starstone, and Big Dipper Starstone circling around her. Her strength had soared to an inconceivable degree as she stood guard over Qing Yu.

“Who is it?” Lu Yun scrunched his eyebrows.

“I don’t know, I can’t see what he looks like. He seems dead, yet also alive.” The empress shook her head gently.

Her alert gaze swept through the surroundings. Mo Yi, Lu Feng, Qing Buyi, and Chen Xiao sat cross-legged at the formation’s four eyes and likewise acted as Qing Yu’s guardians. They all knew that the curse involved more than just Qing Yu herself—the lives of every creature under the immortal dao were at stake.

Lu Yun hadn’t managed to locate Ghost Dragon and Ghost Phoenix in time, and Holy Lord Ashu no longer dared expose his presence without good reason lest he attract the attention of the underworld and be dragged back. Therefore, the only ones available to protect Qing Yu were those currently present.

Lu Yun had been tempted to look for Qi Hai, but was also concerned the man might do something insidious to sink his claws into Qing Yu and gain control over the immortal dao through her.

He brought out the three yet-to-be-incorporated fragments from the Gates of the Abyss and used the Tome of Life and Death to awaken the broken shards of hell within, while in the darkness, the Formation of the Ten Yama Kings lay primed and ready.

“I’ll have to trouble you then, senior.” Lu Yun nodded curtly. Undetectable enemies were the most fearsome ones… But since the empress could sense this particular enemy’s presence, he wasn’t particularly worried; someone that could be located could be dealt with.

Rumble!

Space shook violently as four giant coffins came into existence and merged with the sky. The Enneawyrm Coffinbearers, Nine-Phoenix Casket, Enneaqilin Coffinbiers, and Ninefooted Turtle Cist!

The four evil coffins had levitated into hell’s sky, then appeared inside the formation in a way Lu Yun couldn’t fully understand before fading into the atmosphere. He could vaguely sense that what lay buried inside the four coffins was no longer parts of the giant corpse, but four swords glowing with light as frosty as winter.

“Let us begin!” he took a deep breath.

Boom!

Space shook, and a giant forge of earth and sky came into view. The ultimate realm of equipment dao!

Like one would temper a weapon, Lu Yun began his pill refining… and by way of pill refining, he would cleanse the curse inside Qing Yu!

Qing Yu set foot into the forge of earth and sky, along with the treasures around her, whereupon raging blazes engulfed her figure.

A forge of earth and sky stoked no natural fire or hellfire. In a way, it was an external depiction of the strength of the land. With the sky as flame and the land as furnace, one could refine treasures through the world itself!

A trace of pain floated onto Qing Yu’s face as her figure was wreathed in a black fog. This fog, of course, was the terrible poison lying dormant inside of her. Any other pill furnace would long since have been corroded by the virulent poison.

Whoosh!

Lu Yun waved his hand and summoned the Poison Fiend to an empty spot next to him. The fiend opened its mouth wide and sucked in the poison inside the forge of earth and sky. Meanwhile, the various treasures inside the furnace melted into streams of light and flowed into Qing Yu.

Crackle!

An invisible fire lit up from her figure and began to expel the poison inside.

……

A human figure strode out of the void with a measured pace. He considered Lu Yun and the forge of earth and sky in front of the young man with a cool, detached expression. For some mysterious reason, no one out of Empress Myrtlestar, Chen Xiao, Mo Yi, Qing Buyi, Lu Feng, or the Yama Kings noticed his arrival. Thus unimpeded, the man arrived in front of Lu Yun as if on a leisure stroll.

“It’s... you,” Lu Yun suddenly noted.

“So it was you!” A second Lu Yun popped into existence as well and looked up at the tall figure, his eyes wide with shock.

“Lu Yun, you’re really a very lucky man. To think you’d find the proper way to eradicate the poison curse!” the newcomer sighed gently. “Therefore, I had no choice but to come to you.”

“Did Sword Divine… Dongfang Hao send you here?” Lu Yun’s brows knitted tightly together.

“Sword Divine? Dongfang Hao?” the man sneered. “That piece of shit?”

“Precisely!” Lu Yun’s forehead relaxed somewhat. His replica had reached peak golden immortal realm, and while he wasn’t as strong as one of those ancient monsters, he was strong enough to fear no one. At least… he didn’t fear arcane dao immortals.

As for the man facing him...

Lu Shenhou.

Lu Shenhou!

Lu Shenhou!!

How could it be Lu Shenhou!!

This was the same Lu Shenhou who’d originally discovered the void realm. Although dead, his lingering obsession had persisted and returned to bring the path of cultivation back to the world of immortals.

Lu Shenhou was also the first Sword Divine that Lu Yun had met, the one that’d made repeated appearances at the Sovereign Ranking Battles and the battle in Dusk Province. Now it appeared that all of it had just been an unimportant distraction.

Lu Yun had once thought Lu Shenhou to be Dongfang Hao’s subordinate—just like Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, and Zi Chen, that he was someone that Dongfang Hao had brought back to life through a special method and turned into a sword god in his service.

However, in the battle for Dusk Province, Lu Shenhou had displayed the body of a shamanic divine and led everyone to believe there were shamanic divines at Sword Divine’s command.

But now… his arrival lifted the curtains on a very different truth. Lu Shenhou had been the one who’d planted the poison curse inside Qing Yu!

Although he hadn’t been in Xiankan when Qing Yu had been poisoned, it now seemed almost certain that everything was a plan he’d set in motion. Weave by weave, twist after twist, from Donglin Taihuang to the cosmic constitution, he’d spun his plot like a giant web that caught the entire world.