This outcome of the Inception prince challenging the nine divine sects was wholly unexpected. He’d picked a fight with the Nirvana princess over a friend!

The delegations of the six sacred palaces exchanged awkward glances while the nine divine sects delighted in schadenfreude. The only one unhappy was the fire elemental divine sect, since it was their greatest genius under Lu Yun’s foot.

“You’re a stubborn one.” Lu Yun increased the pressure on his foot and ground Chi Wuxia’s head into the mud. “I’ll let him go if you let Wei Yuan go.” He stared coldly at the Nirvana princess.

The six sacred monarchs didn’t say anything, but the Nirvana monarch looked murderously at the princess, a glare that was tinged with deep resignation. He’d personally ordered that Wei Yuan be sent to the Nirvana Sea of Flames for further cultivation, but he hadn’t thought that the Nirvana princess would appear to agree, only to imprison the boy.

However, he didn’t thunder into an immediate rage. He wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to see how many stood on the princess’ side.

Quite a few sighs of relief could be heard in the Nirvana contingent when their monarch remained quiet. The monarch was such a noble and exalted being—how could he possibly take up arms for a mortal realm disciple? The Inception prince interfering with internal Nirvana affairs was a provocation in and of itself!

“Wei Yuan betrayed the palace and lied to the monarch. As the princess of Nirvana Palace, I naturally have the right and obligation to punish him. You have defeated my son in the arena. Kill him or humiliate him, do as you will.” The Nirvana princess looked tenderly at her son. “Wuxia, do you remember what you once said? Everything you’re experiencing now is just tempering for your heart and mind. It will strengthen you and build you up. Everything remains possible as long as you are alive.

“I will protect your soul force well. Fret not, you will one day win back vengeance with your own hands. If he destroys your bloodline, then I will make it whole with Wei Yuan’s.” She’d stripped Wei Yuan of his nirvana phoenix bloodline to prepare it for her son.

“Mmhmm!” Chi Wuxia’s mouth was a mess of blood and bone after Lu Yun knocked out all of his teeth. However, unyielding ruthlessness glinted out of his eyes. He swept a glance over Lu Yun and nodded firmly.

“In that case, you can’t blame me for this then.” Lu Yun could tell that, in order to obtain the Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals, the Nirvana princess would stop at nothing and never let Wei Yuan off the hook.

“Your Majesty of Nirvana Palace, Chi Wuxia isn’t one of yours. Nothing I do today should count as an insult toward Nirvana Palace, correct?” he suddenly called out to the towering figure among the Nirvana delegation.

“He is a Nirvana disciple only after becoming a sovereign,” the monarch responded expressionlessly.

“That’s good.” Lu Yun took a deep breath and his voice took on a hollow, ethereal quality. “I recall a combat art that draws upon the retribution within a life form’s body to destroy its five senses and six sensory organs.”

The five senses were of taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell, while the six sensory organs were the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and consciousness.

When Wayfarer—Fuxi—arrived in the world of immortals and ran afoul of its demon, he’d had to cast off his own senses and organs, allowing them to become living entities of their own. Only his consciousness had remained with which to perceive the world around him.

The Nirvana princess shifted slightly uneasily at Lu Yun’s words, but she remained unmoved. Someone had once used the same method to try and locate a weakness in the nirvana phoenix art of rebirth. But once a nirvana phoenix was reborn, all previous injuries and wounds were erased.

Thus, the nirvana phoenixes were almost an indestructible race within the chaos. They could be weakened, but never fully exterminated. As long as a strand of soul force remained, they could be reborn an infinite number of times and continuously erase any injuries they’d received.

A wily hare has three holes to his burrow, so nirvana phoenixes would separate out nine strands of soul force and hide them in nine different places. Given how fragile soul force was, most of them were hidden within Nirvana Palace. The Nirvana princess had located all nine of Wei Yuan’s and destroyed them all.

Within the Tomb of Heaven and Earth, Wei Yuan had always acted like he feared death the most out of the group. But after the Six Royals swore friendship to each other, he was always the first to charge forward to protect the others in crucial moments.

Lu Yun wouldn’t have set himself against the Nirvana princess like this otherwise.

……

The Nirvana princess still didn’t think much of Lu Yun’s words, but Chi Wuxia registered them with great dismay.

Retribution!

When Lu Yun destroyed Chi Wuxia's weapon, he’d done so by reducing it to ashes through triggering the latent retribution in the weapon. Chi Wuxia had gotten a handle on how Lu Yun’s art operated, which was why he set foot in the arena with full confidence. As long as he hid his own retribution, Lu Yun wouldn’t be able to use the same art on him.

Thus, all of his hairs stood on end when Chi Wuxia heard the word “retribution”. Lu Yun’s discovered the retribution I’ve hidden in my body!

Only one thing was on his mind now—self detonation. He could be reborn through one of his strands of soul force and escape this situation.

But just as the thought occurred to him, Lu Yun stomped on his chest and broke apart the agitating ball of energy within his body so that Chi Wuxia couldn’t self detonate.

“Princess of Nirvana Palace, your son is afraid. He wanted to self detonate just now. Do you really not want to think things over a bit more?” Lu Yun asked again.

“Hmph!” A cold snort was his only response.

“Chi Wuxia, the method beyond the chaos that you practice is the one contained within the treasure that cursed the chaos dragons. Its sharpest edge comes from the power of retribution.

“Last time, I destroyed the weapon by igniting the retribution within it. And now, though you’ve concealed the retribution within your body, I can fish it back out again.” Lu Yun leered at Chi Wuxia with an incredibly sinister smile.

“Mother!! Save me!!” Chi Wuxia suddenly screamed, a pleading note in his voice.

He really was afraid. He knew that Lu Yun truly did have the ability to strip away his five senses and six sensory organs, and to take them away forever. While he would still be alive and could be reborn, he would be essentially the same as dead! His consciousness would be banished to complete nothingness.

A faint black sparkle was already materializing on Lu Yun’s finger tip. Since he was now in the empyrean realm, his death arts had evolved a number of times. The originally one note Judgement of Life and Death now possessed many more nuances to it.

The Judgement of Life and Death wasn’t an art to kill someone, but to deliver punishment. As long as there was retribution in Chi Wuxia’s body, Lu Yun could use it to carry out numerous punishments on him. Stripping him of his senses was one such punishment, and a rather cruel one.

“Don’t worry, my son. There is no one in the chaos or even the third realm beyond who can bypass our art of rebirth,” the Nirvana princess reassured with equanimity. “The Nirvana monarch wanted to kill me a long time ago, but he can’t overcome my art. Therefore, I remain the princess and he the monarch.”

The Nirvana monarch’s face spasmed after these words and shocked gasps echoed through the Nirvana crowd.

“Since the Nirvana princess has said as such, then I won’t hold back.” Lu Yun pointed at the center of Chi Wuxia’s brows.