“An akasha ghost!” Lu Yun’s eyes twitched when he saw the face that was both laughing and crying.

Akasha ghosts were an enormous shadow that constantly shrouded him. From the very first layout of death that he’d encountered, to this face—they were everywhere.

Now that he saw it again, he seemed to see a child behind that eerie face. Am I seeing things?

Unbidden, a brush appeared in his hand, one that still dripped of fresh blood. Qing Han had once used this brush to turn her corpse into an akasha ghost. Plainly, this brush contained the core essence of these ghosts.

Qing Han didn’t know where she’d obtained it either. It’d already been in her hand when she’d recovered her own consciousness.

When Lu Yun brought it out, he felt a certain thought ripple appear from the akasha ghost’s face. But before he had time to determine what that meant, it vanished without a trace, and the ghost’s face slowly retreated into the fissure.

……

“What rotten luck. We’ve just been freed from our post after reaching an agreement with the demon of immortal dao, but here we are, facing this,” grumbled God.

“You two reached an agreement with the demon?” Lu Yun blinked.

“Yes,” Pangu replied in a low, muffled voice. “Although he’s a demon, he’s a demon beneath the immortal dao. If the immortal dao is destroyed or falls into the hands of those weird things, he won’t end up with a good ending.”

“Thus, the demon’s retracted his power from the world of immortals and won’t try to seize the immortal dao in Mount Xuanhuang any longer,” finished God.

“That’s good, then.” Lu Yun breathed easily with relief. It wasn’t Hongjun or the three founders who most understood the immortal dao now, but Qing Yu and the demon of the immortal dao.

They would really be in trouble if the demon became a chaos creature or a lackey of the heavyweights in the Hongmeng.

Thankfully, the demon seemed to possess its own values and principles. Although he’d created no end of headache for them once, he hadn’t seemed to ally with the chaos creatures. Now that he’d reached an agreement with the two guardians, he wouldn’t renege on it. If he did, the immortal dao would abandon him and he would cease to exist.

“Alright, don’t cause more trouble for us here. Go do what you should do.” Pangu turned around to look at Lu Yun.

“Me? Cause more trouble?” Lu Yun’s expression sank.

Who was he? The headmaster of the Dao Academy, the sacred prince of Inception Palace in the chaos! He was a great personage in both the world of immortals and the chaos, his every move scrutinized by all parties around.

But he was just a troublemaker in Pangu’s eyes??

“That’s right, you just cause trouble.” God swept a glance at Lu Yun. “If my guess is right, you went into the fissure. There wouldn’t be an akasha ghost there otherwise.”

“Eh?” Lu Yun started, seeming to understand something. Akasha ghosts have something to do with me?

“Alright, alright, you should get out of here. If you don’t, the two of us won’t be able to hold onto this part of space. Mm, you and your little lover can be at ease. The yin spirits won’t be as rampant as before with the two of us here.” Pangu looked at Lu Yun with some impatience.

Lu Yun didn’t mind at all. He bowed respectfully and took out a few karmic fruits.

“Karmic fruit? Now that’s a useful treasure.” God and Pangu regarded the fruits with delight and quickly shoved them into their robes.

Karmic fruit was useful for creatures of any cultivation level—even chaos realm masters and heavyweights of the Hongmeng. But, their use was also limited. Most creatures would receive boundless benefits if they ate one, and the effects would decrease with each additional one they ate.

In Lu Yun’s eyes, however, karmic fruit was pure energy of virtuous merit that wasn’t meant for consumption. It was much more useful when burned—that increased his strength and the power of his death arts.

There were also two little monsters by way of the Carmine sisters in hell. They ate karmic fruit like candy.

“Ah yes, there’s four Abysses of Divine Burial in the world of immortals. Go fill them in,” God suddenly said to Lu Yun with utmost gravity. “Those abysses were created to negate my power. If they remain in the world, my strength will be eroded and the divine race I created will be affected as well. They’ll slowly betray the immortal dao.

“Also, don’t investigate where the akasha ghosts come from for now. You’ll naturally learn of some things when the time is right. Purposeful investigation won’t be any good for you.”

“Ah, I see.” Lu Yun blinked, putting away the brush and left.

Where Qing Yu sat was now graced with an enormous resplendent sun. Blazing Sol Truefire unfurled from the sun and set the cosmos on fire. Qing Yu couldn’t do this, not with her current level of strength. It was certainly Violetgrave behind it.

Lu Yun raised a cupped fist salute at the sword before finally returning to the world of immortals.

He’d planned on joining the research efforts on how to use the supplemental paths against the yin spirits, but his first task at hand now was to fill in the abysses. Though the ghost ancestor’s replica was in them, he couldn’t be concerned with that now.

The situation in the world of immortals was becoming ever more complicated and he wouldn’t allow such a poisonous tumor to continue festering in the world.

Though the ghost ancestor had retreated to the abysses, it hadn’t given up on destroying the world over the past ten years. The four great oceans were now pure black and a ghostly domain.

Most importantly was that the ghost ancestor was attempting to corrupt the netherworld at the end of the East Sea. If it was successful, then that realm would become the new launching point for the chaos creatures.

……

By unspoken accord, the Abysses of Divine Burial were the foremost nests of evil in the world of immortals. It wasn’t that the immortals didn’t want to fill the landmarks in, but that there was nothing they could do. The abysses situated at the ends of the North, South, East, and West Seas were more terrifying than the Blood Sea that’d once existed in Life Province.

They were the four forbidden areas of the world, the seas included.

But on this day, the skies over the East Sea turned bright scarlet, as if they’d been dyed red with fresh blood.

“The Blood Sea?” Within the abysses, the ghost ancestor’s replica shot to its feet and looked up at the sky. The firmament had disappeared, replaced by a boundless Blood Sea.