The scene in front of him was just an illusion, it wasn’t real. But as Lu Yun watched the children playing around, he couldn’t muster up any hatred within him against the chaos creatures. They were just protecting who they needed to protect.

There was no right or wrong at play here, just different perspectives.

There was no energy of a realm within the world of the dao palace—any of the ancient immortals who’d never experienced the void realm would suffocate to death in a place like this. But after ascending from the void realm, immortals possessed a minor world inside their bodies and could draw upon the energy of a world at any time. There was no difference to them standing here than in the outside world.

“Are you humans?” Something suddenly occurred to Lu Yun as he looked at the beings in the scene.

Since this was an illusion, it was based on reality. The beings in the mirage were just ordinary life forms who would present their true selves to whoever looked at them and not take the form of whichever race was looking at them.

“Humans?” sounded the female voice again. “We call ourselves the sacred race. Our form isn’t that much different from yours.”

Faint ripples spread throughout the air as a young woman with cerulean hair, dressed in a blue silk dress, quietly appeared beside Lu Yun.

He understood; there were commonalities between life in all aspects. If humans existed in the realms, then there would be corresponding human-shaped lifeforms in the chaos.

“Since our shapes are similar, why can’t you exist in our realm?” Lu Yun frowned.

“And why can’t the ordinary people among you survive in our chaos?” the young girl quietly returned. “If we depart this zone in which the boundary of a realm extends into the chaos, we enter a territory in which nothing else can survive other than what you call chaos creatures. Even you wouldn’t be able to.”

“But does that mean we have to be mutually exclusive? Does it have to be either your death or mine? Isn’t there any other way to resolve this?” Lu Yun’s frown deepened.

“Indeed, we’ve asked ourselves this question many times before and tried proceeding in that direction. But the end result is always death, no matter if we enter a world or have you enter our chaos. The injuries that backlash onto us are far more serious as well.

“Beings from your worlds that have reached the chaos cultivation realm can survive in the chaos, but for us, we are always immediately slain by the energy of a realm no matter how high we reach,” the girl murmured to herself. “This dao palace was created a very, very long time ago by several masters of the sacred race. It was the last shelter of our race… in a time when the entire chaos was almost swallowed by an unfathomably vast realm. Back then, we would’ve died the second we left the dao palace.

“Do you find our actions reprehensible?” The girl smiled. “You’ve done the same to us first, and on a worse scale. The beings of that vast realm sought to ensure the development of their world and quash our resistance. To that end, they entered the chaos and tried to exterminate us through genocide.”

Lu Yun fell silent.

“But we were victorious in the end. Masters from our six great tribes sacrificed themselves to destroy the boundless realm that’d almost snuffed out the chaos. That was how we managed to survive.

“We learned our lessons from that experience, that we should spare no effort to destroy any worlds that are born from the chaos,” the girl’s tones were calm. “We are not enemies, you and I, just competitors in our bids for survival.”

It is either your death, or mine.

Lu Yun looked at the young girl in front of him. She, too, was an illusion—her true body wasn’t here or even inside the dao palace. She was likely in the far off chaos and one of the ultimate masters she’d spoken of.

After an indeterminable moment, the illusory world in front of him faded away, revealing a palace built from bones. Massive and pure resentment floated within the stark-white bones, nurturing a gigantic spirit of resentment that sat on top of a throne of bone, loftily looking down on Lu Yun.

The spirit had manifested a physical body and gray, black, scarlet, and purple lights sparkled over it. Dead spirits traveled in and out of its form.

“You’re the thing next on the hierarchy after the purple bale spirits.” A harsh light flashed through Lu Yun’s eyes, replacing the resignation from earlier. A wrathful killing intent blossomed in his heart, the only thing on his mind now to kill the enemy in front of him.

He could be resigned and pity the other party when it came to immutable positions, but when it was down to the life or death of an enemy… Well, it was either their death or his.

Then, it better be your death.

Lu Yun summoned Quietus with a shake of his wrist. Though the spirit in front of him was overtaken by endless malice, it was intelligent and hadn’t lost its ability for independent thought.

“This sword has never appeared in this realm before… Is it a newly born connate treasure?” Instead of being in human form, the spirit took the shape of the origin divine.

It possessed four heads and eight arms, but its power didn’t come from the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. Rather, it stemmed from the radiance of gray, black, scarlet, and purple that represented the four types of dead spirits. Its four heads also followed the four different colors.

“Earth, air, fire, and water came after, you’re the true form of the origin divine!” Lu Yun suddenly understood what the origin divine was. It wasn’t a creature of the world of immortals or even of the realm, it was something created by the chaos creatures based off of this spirit.

Those who could create another life form would be in the creator realm, which made the origin divine a pawn of a chaos creator.

The spirit refrained from extraneous small talk with Lu Yun; it released a tide of dead spirits from its body with a small shift of its body. They split into four currents and pounced on Lu Yun.

In the outside world, their colors denoted their strength. But in front of the spirit, they were all as strong as the scarlet bale spirits. Representing four different powers—gray of evil yin, black of death, scarlet of slaughter, and purple of destruction—they bore down on Lu Yun like four keen blades.

Boom!

A blazing sun of intersecting black and white suddenly rose over Lu Yun’s head. Two vicious swords with intense killing intent materialized in the void and cut down on the spirit.

The blood demon! It’d suddenly appeared and made a move against the enemy.

“What are you doing out here?” Lu Yun relaxed from his stance and retreated beneath the blazing sun.

After the blood demon refined the sun of hellfire that Rearbow transformed into, he’d combined it with his Hadal Bonefire and the two swords. The three treasures together made for greater might than before.

“That’s my food! If I can eat it, I might be able to revitalize my core essence!”

Strictly speaking, the blood demon was currently a weapon spirit. He could at most be counted as a connate treasure that could take human from, one that could deploy a connate treasure’s strength.

He wasn’t alive, which made him different from Situ Zhong. Situ Zhong was one with his treasure, but the blood demon had first become the weapon spirit, then become one with its core essence, and finally become the treasure itself. If he could devour this spirit and refine the dense resentment and malice inside of it, he could come back to life again!

The blood demon craved being a living being again, but since he was a weapon spirit, it couldn’t be done unless the connate treasure fell apart. Hope bloomed anew in the form of the spirit of pure resentment in front of him!

If he could devour it and boost his core essence to incredible heights, he’d be able to break free of the shackles of a connate treasure!

Since he was now Lu Yun’s treasure spirit, he possessed a connection to Lu Yun. This connection enabled him to walk straight out of hell without passing through the Gates of the Abyss.

Having understood the blood demon’s intentions, Lu Yun didn’t disapprove. He sent nine karmic fruits into the blazing sun of black and white that held the blood demon’s core essence.