Chapter 1243: Besieging Cities and Claiming Territory
“Indeed, this was created from premium crystal veins.” The Meteorite King nodded. “My master used a hundred and eight thousand veins of premium purple crystals to refine this mountain. It is an honor to your names that you can die to it.
“Go!” He sent the mountain hurtling forward with a wave. Whistling through the air and armed with turbulent power of wind and thunder, it crashed down on the three.
“Run!” Tiger Butcher, Silver Leopard, and Purecloud screamed at the same time. They deployed all of their strength and split off into three directions. As mighty as the mountain was, it was easy enough for kings such as they to escape out of its range.
If only…
If only there was no one else here apart from the Meteorite King.
“Run? Where to?” The Redbud King’s two replicas suddenly appeared and sealed off the area, kicking Tiger Butcher, Silver Leopard, and Purecloud back to where they were.
Aghast, color drained out of their faces as the three stared at the mountain descending upon them.
“Hahaha!!” Purecloud laughed ghastly. “Ancient Beast is dead, so what point is there for me to remain alive on my own? What a pity that I can’t drag this lord of the City of Immortals down with me!”
A green light expanded within her consciousness—the sign of self detonation. She’d come with the resolution to die and had chosen the city lord residence as the perfect location!
“Self detonation right in front of me?” snorted Redbud’s two replicas. They reached out at the same time and dispersed the green light over the Purecloud King with casual palm strikes, then pressed Purecloud down into the dirt.
Boom!
The purple crystal mountain arrived.
……
The magnificently sized residence wasn’t a true world, nor was it a real residence. It was a huge formation.
Lu Yun’s grasp of formations had reached the level of Returning to Origin and refining illusion into reality. This was a ma.s.sive Great Formation of Myriad Returns, and its core was the purple crystal mountain.
On the other hand, the numerous treasures that filled the residence were indeed real. Apart from what’d once lain in the Starcloud treasury, Lu Yun had collected many more items from the Redbud King.
Given that she was the number one tyc.o.o.n of the Hongmeng, there was nothing that she didn’t possess. One word from Lu Yun resulted in her bringing nearly half of her vaults in support, and he accepted it all without protest.
In his words, these treasures were good for nothing but collecting dust in her vaults, while they would be utilized to their true value with him.
……
Lu Yun and the little fox reclined leisurely next to an artificial mountain. The little fox held her chin with both hands and splashed bare feet in a tiny pool. Lu Yun had relied on her quite a bit to set up a Great Formation of Myriad Returns in two months. After all, it’d been the fundamental formation of the monster spirit sacred land on Levitating Island.
“Strange, why are only two dead? Where’s that Purecloud King?” He frowned slightly and stood up to approach the purple crystal mountain.
The Meteorite King lifted it with another wave of his hand. It was incredibly heavy; a hundred of him wouldn’t have been able to s.h.i.+ft it by a single millimeter. However, since Lu Yun was its creator and he was Lu Yun’s Infernum, that relations.h.i.+p was the basis by which he could manipulate the mountain.
It soared into the air and returned to where it’d originally rested. Beneath it, Tiger Butcher and Silver Leopard were two flattened pancakes and deader than dead. The Tome of Life and Death had absorbed their souls, turning them into Infernum. They now crouched as s.h.i.+vering figures in h.e.l.l.
But, there was no Infernum of the Purecloud King! Neither her corpse nor her soul was present. She’d wanted to self detonate at first, but the Redbud King had interrupted her.
That meant only one thing—she wasn’t dead.
“This is my oversight… Rumors say that her primary body is a cloud. Her self detonation attempt was just a distraction so she could get away.” Redbud’s replicas shook their heads in unison and retreated back into their tokens.
What was next to come was Lu Yun’s personal affair and she didn’t want to pry into his secrets. He’d already displayed too many stunning methods in her vicinity; as inexperienced as she might be with relations.h.i.+ps, she understood that some matters took greater precedence.
With the two replicas back in the token, that was the equivalent of the Redbud King dismissing her thoughts. They would reappear only when Lu Yun and the little fox next used their tokens.
“Not even a mountain of purple crystal could kill her?” Lu Yun regarded the development wordlessly.
“She’s a little different… We’ll get her next time we run into her!” The little fox waved her fists around.
Tiger Butcher and Silver Leopard walked out of h.e.l.l and fell to their knees in front of Lu Yun. “This servant greets the master and mistress.”
“Who’s your mistress?!” The little fox glared at them.
They hung their heads without a word.
“Alright, you may rise.” Lu Yun waved a hand. “The two of you and the Meteorite King will immediately return to Tiger Butcher City and start a war against the weaker cities around you. Conquer the southern belt of the Mult.i.tude Region with the fastest speed possible!”
“Understood!” Startled, the three roared their understanding. Tiger Butcher was more delighted than anyone.
He was the strongest in the region’s southern belt to begin with and the only third step king. He’d always wanted to conquer his surroundings, but lacked the strength to do so when there was only a Silver Leopard King under his command.
Now with Lu Yun as his backer and a Meteorite King with Quiet, he could absolutely conquer the entire southern fringe in the shortest amount of time possible!
……
“Are you really thinking of starting an empire here?” asked a surprised little fox after the three kings left.
“Go and carefully search through the Mult.i.tude Region. Bring back any treasure you find!” Instead of answering, Lu Yun pulled out the Treasurehunter Rat in his robes and issued commands for the rat as well.
“Squeak squeak squeak!” The rat waved his claws with gusto and vanished in a whoosh.
With that, Lu Yun finally straightened his back and breathed out with ease.
“Why not?” He looked to the north, to the depths of the Mult.i.tude Region. “As opposed to us searching out Little Yu, why not have her come to us when she hears about us?
“If we go to her and Jin Naluo picks up on something, that will be bad for her. It’s different if she’s the one who comes to us.”
His lips curved upward into a confident smile. “Besides, isn’t carving out our own territory in the vast Hongmeng and establis.h.i.+ng a kingdom that belongs to the world of immortals a tremendous accomplishment?
“Once the world of immortals expands to a.s.similating the chaos, the Hongmeng will certainly move against it. We’ll become part of that effort as well! They say that the master of the immortal dao will be the master of the Hongmeng, but the immortal dao was ours to begin with.
“Lu Qing is still in the chaos, he needs a home here too.”
The little fox shook when she heard her son’s name and she nodded gently.
There was another matter that Lu Yun didn’t speak of. He wanted to comprehend the sixth h.e.l.l and combine the fires of the five to create the flame of the sixth. Only then could he transcend beyond everything and truly set foot upon his own path.
He didn’t know how to materialize the sixth h.e.l.l, but he understood the notion that any great dao was created step by step through one’s own efforts. The same held true for his own. In his eyes, creating an indomitable faction was also a certain kind of cultivation experience and exploration of dao.
“The City of Immortals is the first flag we’re planting in the Hongmeng. In the near future, the entire Mult.i.tude Region will be renamed to the Immortal Region!” Lu Yun said confidently as he lifted his eyes to the sun high in the sky.
“Uh huh!” The little fox nodded adamantly.
……
Instead of occupying the City of Immortals, the Tiger Butcher King abruptly returned to his own city and attacked Skyfall City. He used less than a month to breach it, and most incredulous of all was that his army had become populated by hundreds of half step kings at some point in time!
The half step kings were completely fearless in battle and even clashed directly against the Skyfall King in his home ground. When a mysterious first step king under Tiger Butcher’s banner killed the second step Skyfall King with a single sword stroke, Tiger Butcher City devoured Skyfall City!
etvolare"s Thoughts
Those half step kings... can"t be Infernum. Infernum can die too, Lu Yun wouldn"t waste them like this..?