Chapter 2175.2: Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s
Lu Yun left Dark City after three more days and some preparation.
Fengxian Wu was wholly unconcerned with affairs in the world of cultivation. She normally stayed in and refused to set foot through the Lu front doors. Instead of a tourist, she seemed more like a young lady sheltered from the world.
Only Lu Yun made the trip this time.
Profound Wing Empire was located to the north of Dark Empire; the two were the greatest va.s.sals of Darklake Empire. However, Profound Wing was less than Dark as the latter boasted of Lu Tianling.
Lu Tianling had fled to Dark Empire when he was gravely injured and hid his cultivation while he recovered. Dark Empire became his springboard into Darklake Empire. After arriving in Darklake, he leveraged his new position to secretly develop his faction and take revenge.
Lu Tianling exercised utmost prudence and avoided entering a higher level cultivation empire because those were directly controlled by the heavenly book in the Celestial Realm Battlefront. It would be very difficult for him to do anything under those circ.u.mstances.
While Darklake also fell under its purview, the book was weaker here and Lu Tianling could hide from its detection through special methods.
Since Dark Empire sheltered Lu Tianling in his time of need, he naturally returned the favor in kind. Dark Empire and Profound Wing Empire were the two major va.s.sals of Darklake Empire, but they shared an adversarial relations.h.i.+p with each other.
This was purposefully fostered by Darklake. For one, it was a constant drain on both sides and ensured that neither would ever be able to challenge Darklake’s control. Secondly, continuous warfare facilitated the rise of genius talent in both nations. Once they grew into their power, they were retrieved by Darklake to enhance the empire’s own strength.
As for how to keep these people in check and ensure that they swore fealty to Darklake—that was up to the methods and charisma of those who ruled.
Nascent soul cultivators were few and far in between in second rank nations. There were no more than five or six in the past thousand years.
Lu Yun’s goal was very apparent—the Iron PaG.o.da Mountain in the western reaches of the Profound Wing Empire. He flew on the back of his sword and barged about madly, making no effort to cover his tracks. The young man rather hoped that he’d run into more Origin Sect powerhouses along the way. More talisman puppets were always welcome.
Profound Wing Empire was five hundred thousand kilometers west of Dark City. Cultivators traveled fifty kilometers in one breath when they utilized a flying sword, so they covered thousands of kilometers a day in this transport mode.
Lu Yun’s Hongmeng qi was many times higher quality than regular true origin and could be expended without reservation. Thus, his speed was on par with latter golden core powerhouses.
Ordinary golden core experts needed roughly a month to travel from Dark City to Profound Wing Empire. Lu Yun was close to the western border of Darklake after approximately twenty days; he flew over mountain ranges that stretched on without end.
It was a barren place with few signs of inhabitation. Even qi was spa.r.s.e in the surroundings. The frontier was often hard and desolate territory, a far cry from the prosperity of the heartland.
“Oh?” Lu Yun paused in mid air.
Humm!
A loud hum exploded in the void as soon as he stopped and a strong surge of power gathered from all sides.
“Hahaha, little boy, didn’t your parents tell you that you can’t fly around in the mountains of Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s?” sounded an extremely rough force. Following that, more than one hundred cultivators appeared out of nowhere and blotted out the sky. A brute in black and sporting a curly mustache laughed loudly at Lu Yun.
“Oh? Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s?” Lu Yun blinked. “This is Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s, where the Darklake army slaughtered Tianlong’s million-strong armies?”
Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s was the site of the final battle between the Darklake and Tianlong Empire. There were nearly two million combined fatalities of cultivators over foundation establishment, which meant the pa.s.s should’ve been drowning in resentment. Contrary to expectation, all it was was just a little more barren than usual.
“Chief, the child seems scared stiff. Look at his clothes—they’re all fine rank treasures! He must come from a big family and they must be rich! He’s a fat sheep!” A middle-aged man with a sharp chin and hollow cheeks sized up Lu Yun, clucking his tongue with appreciation.
“Little boy, don’t think of using your background to scare me. There aren’t many people at Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s and if you die here, you die without anyone knowing, even if you’re one of Darklake’s princes! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand over your clothing and storage ring! I will consider leaving you with an intact corpse then!” Curly Mustache cut Lu Yun off when the latter opened his mouth to speak.
“Let me ask you something, how come there isn’t any resentment or yin qi in this pa.s.s when two million soldiers have died here?” Lu Yun asked curiously, ignoring the bandits.
“Huh?” Curly Mustache paused. What was the child asking this for? “Who am I supposed to ask about that?”
Curly Mustache was utterly confused. Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s was an ordinary place, made famous only because of the great battle between the two empires twenty years ago.
Just as Lu Yun said, any other locale would be a den of ghosts if two million cultivators had died there. But Tiger Suppression Pa.s.s appeared normal, completely sans malice.
“Chief, what are we wasting time with him for??” The skinny man next to Curly Mustache couldn’t sit still and approached Lu Yun in a flash of sword light.
“Heh heh, kid, you—” Terror filled the skinny man’s face. A fair hand was wrapped around his neck.
“A bandit of initial golden core? You train the most boring of methods, how dare you throw your weight around in front of this young master?” Lu Yun curled his lip. Not even the n.o.ble scions of Dark Orchid dared be this arrogant in front of him. How dare a mere golden core wandering cultivator saunter up to him for a robbery?
Curly Mustache’s eyes widened in dismay, but he wasn’t afraid of the lad since he was initial nascent soul.
“So you’re a tough mark. Let Xiuya go and we’ll let you go as well!” A keen light shone in Curly Mustache’s eyes.
“Let me go?” Lu Yun shook his head. “You people appearing so suddenly means that you own something like a s.p.a.ce treasure, and a high level one at that. Give it to me and swear you loyalty. I’ll let you live then.”
“Hahahaha!!” some of the cultivators burst into uproarious laughter. What had the boy just said to two hundred cultivators above foundation establishment, a dozen golden cores, and one nascent soul powerhouse? He was completely insane!
“I think you want to die, kid!” roared a latter golden core bandit. He ignored Xiuya in Lu Yun’s grip and fired a ray of sword light from his mouth, wanting to take off Lu Yun’s head.
“What a fool,” Lu Yun snorted. His right hand was preoccupied with Xiuya’s neck, so he gripped the sword light with his left. It was an upper fine rank flying sword.
Crack!
He crushed it to pieces with a slight clench of his hand.
Pfft!
A treasure was directly connected to a cultivator’s heart and mind. Hence, the shattering of the flying sword dealt grave injuries to the cultivator.
Cultivators and immortals of Great Xia wouldn’t rely on treasures so heavily, Lu Yun thought as he looked at the suffering golden core bandit. As much as a treasure could increase a cultivator’s strength, over reliance on them led to stagnation of the self.
A Great Xia golden core cultivator would dominate all cultivators in this world, up to and including nascent soul. Far from over exaggeration, it was a sign of how fatal reliance of treasures was. As opposed to humans utilizing treasures, it was more like treasures wielding humans. Flying swords were also part of supplemental dao.
The cultivators of Great Xia, however, focused more on cultivation of the body. Treasures were external items, after all, purely meant to be a helping hand. Of course, this didn’t mean that Great Xia cultivators didn’t use treasures, just that they didn’t rely on them as much.
Certain heaven-defying ones still elicited a b.l.o.o.d.y battle for them.
According to Lu Yun’s understanding, the current world of cultivation was in the basic stage of cultivation. Great Xia had started to evolve beyond that to reach a higher stage. He’d also risen beyond the basic stage when he reincarnated through his lives. Even when he reached Great Xia, he was invincible among his peers and could challenge those higher level than him. The experience of three thousand reincarnations and the power of Hongmeng qi were not to be underestimated.
Thus, he didn’t pay any attention to the two hundred cultivators below him.
“Who are you?!” Curly Mustache’s eyes almost fell out of his head when he saw Lu Yun crush an upper rank fine weapon with his bare hands. He wasn’t able to do anything like that!
“You’ll naturally find out when you swear allegiance to me.” Lu Yun casually threw Xiuya away. Given the man’s cultivation level, he would be fine despite the drop of three hundred meters.
Whoos.h.!.+
A black blade swung at Lu Yun’s face—Curly Mustache made his move alongside the cultivators behind him. A messy array of flying swords and weapons shot at Lu Yun.
The young man shook his head and twisted his body slightly. Countless sparks flared around him and formed blades of fire that radiated in all directions.
Pfft pfft pfft pfft!
The blades of fire easily rebuffed the treasures.
“It looks like you will not submit if I do not demonstrate my might!” Lu Yun snorted and formed hand seals, turning the blades of fire into a crimson whirlwind. It was nine meters across and three hundred meters tall. Whirling with baleful fury, it swiftly sucked into a few dozen cultivators and spat them to the ground in an incapacitated state.
“You court death!” Curly Mustache howled and smashed his weapon at the whirlwind.
BOOM!
etvolare"s Thoughts
Why yes, when I see a whirlwind of literal fire, my first instinct is to smack it with my blade as well. Wtf lol. This guy needs to be renamed to No Brains.
As opposed to humans utilizing treasures, it was more like treasures wielding humans. That"s deep.