Chapter 951: Influence
The forces that had gathered in the astral cemetery were also capable of launching special attacks. The Neo-Vestige Sect, the Dark Phoenix family, Millions City, and the Hall of Honor all had their own methods, not to mention the Sea King’s Dome and powerhouses like Elder He. The Outerverse’s strength did not appear to be weak at all.
Lu Yin had arrived at the astral cemetery half a month ago, and he was feeling a great deal of pressure. Everyone else who had gathered here was simply wondering if war would actually break out, and even Yuan Shi was no different. Lu Yin was the only person who was absolutely certain that war was about to start. The Tong family had invaded the Starfall Sea, and now that the Starfall Sea had completely fallen under their control, they had accomplished the objective of their invasion. In this situation, it would be perfectly normal for them to redirect their attention towards the Outerverse, as there were no other places within the Innerverse that they could step in.
But Lu Yin was not as certain about the Sightless Clan’s situation. They might be in the same situation as the Tong family, or they might have just been invited by Ancestor Tong.
No matter what, it was guaranteed that the Tong family would eventually invade the Outerverse. Otherwise, Madam Hong would have never allowed Mr. Yi and Mr. Da to cross the Astral River.
That order that had been given out on the spur of the moment was enough to show that the family had already been considering invading the Outerverse.
Speaking of those two, Lu Yin wondered how they were, and he thought of Mr. Yi.
There was a saying that thinking of someone would cause them to appear; right as Lu Yin was thinking about Mr. Yi, the Imprinter’s rune lines appeared.
Lu Yin stared blankly at where the man was standing proudly in s.p.a.ce. Lu Yin blinked in surprise, lifted a hand, and then contacted Elder Daggs.
“Elder, has Mr. Yi surrendered?” Lu Yin asked.
Elder Daggs replied, “Not quite. He is willing to lend his strength to resist, but he will not take the initiative to attack anyone from the Sixth Mainland.”
Lu Yin grunted in acknowledgement. He then ended the call and flew over towards Mr. Yi. Lu Yin wanted to get a handle on Mr. Yi’s emotions, as this person held a unique place in Lu Yin’s heart. When he had stood at the highest point in his entire life, he had been led there by Mr. Yi.
This man was an Imprinter whose power level was even greater than 600,000, and there was no one in the entire Outerverse who could match up to such an expert aside from Yuan Shi. However, the Imprinter had been repeatedly driven back by Lu Yin, which was something that no one would believe without seeing. Lu Yin missed that invincible feeling, and as he thought about that time, his hand felt itchy, and he even felt an impulse to bring out that stinky fruit.
Mr. Yi had long since noticed Lu Yin, and a nauseous feeling had reflexively welled up, but he had forced himself to pretend to not see Lu Yin.
“Mr. Yi?” Lu Yin probed.
Mr. Yi looked over with a cold expression and snorted. He then looked elsewhere.
Lu Yin moved closer. “It’s been a long time. How has Mr. Yi been doing?”
Mr. Yi frowned and turned to stare at Lu Yin. “Go away.”
Lu Yin mocked the Imprinter, saying, “About that, Mr. Yi, let me ask you some questions. When you charged into the Astral River back then, how was the Sea King?”
Mr. Yi sneered. “Dead.”
Lu Yin was taken aback. “Dead? How could he have died so quickly?”
Mr. Yi looked away and did not answer. However, he released a terrifying might from his body that caused Lu Yin to be pushed away.
When facing a top powerhouse whose power level had almost reached 700,000, Lu Yin was not even able to react before he was sent flying far away. Fortunately for Lu Yin, Mr. Yi was still scared of Yuan Shi, so he did not harm Lu Yin. Otherwise, even if Lu Yin had been wearing his universal armor, he would have been instantly killed.
Lu Yin was furious, and he really wanted to take out the stinky object now. However, after thinking it through, he decided not to.
In the Innerverse, Lu Yin had been able to use the stinky fruit to deal with Mr. Yi purely because both sides’ power level had been suppressed to under 200,000. Under those circ.u.mstances, Lu Yin had been able to rely on his secret technique to endlessly hara.s.s the Imprinter. But now, in the Outerverse, Mr. Yi had no such restrictions, so that odious fruit simply would not even be able to approach the powerhouse.
Lu Yin felt depressed, and he decided to forget about it and to stop trying to speak with the old man. Next on his to-do list, Lu Yin was to take a trip to Central Coalition and evaluate them since they were now allied troops. But at that moment, his gadget suddenly beeped; it was a call from Elder Daggs.
Lu Yin accepted the call, and Elder Daggs’s voice called out, “Alliance Leader Lu, may I ask if you still have any of the poison from before?”
Lu Yin’s eyes grew bright. “Yes! How much would Elder like?”
“How much do you have?” Elder Daggs asked.
This sentence was too generous, and Lu Yin quickly did some brief calculations. He still had some portions of Elder Wu"s poison left, and each one cost him 600,000 star essence to upgrade. With his current star essence stores, Lu Yin had enough to upgrade no more than four bottles at this time.
“Junior still has four vials,” Lu Yin replied.
Elder Daggs replied, “We’ll buy all of them.”
There were not many poisons that could pose any sort of threat to experts with power levels of more than 300,000. At the very least, such poisons were rarely ever found in the Outerverse. As such, these powerful poisons could be used to incite panic in their enemies in the upcoming battle.
Elder Daggs was willing to purchase anything that could bolster their strength regardless of its price tag.
Lu Yin grew emotional, and he quickly agreed to a time for them to carry out the transaction. He then spent some time calculating the numbers only to realize that this deal would allow his net worth to surpa.s.s four million star essence, which was almost too wealthy.
Not long after Elder Daggs contacted Lu Yin, the Neo-Vestige Sect’s Gong Ling also contacted the youth, asking about purchasing more of those high-quality arrows.
In the past, the Lu"s Grand Auction had sold off some arrows that had been upgraded by Lu Yin, and they had been too perfect a fit for the Neo-Vestige Sect. Now that a b.l.o.o.d.y war was about to start once again, Gong Ling also hoped to improve his sect’s strength.
Reportedly, the arrows at the Neo-Vestige Sect’s Arrow Mountain were nearly gone, as the cruelty of the border invasion had shocked the Neo-Vestige Sect. All of their qualified disciples had visited Arrow Mountain to search for arrows in hopes of increasing their chances of survival on the battlefield, even if it was only a small bit.
Lu Yin really wanted to do business with the Neo-Vestige Sect, but this was not a suitable time. It would be very easy for others to realize what he was doing, so he could only reluctantly decline Gong Ling’s proposal.
With the Outerverse’s full strength gathered in one place, battle naturally broke out on a daily basis. There were internal conflicts within every weave, and the interweave conflicts were even more common. The Hall of Honor was forced to send out many people on a daily basis to deal with the constant conflicts, and they were barely able to maintain the peace.
It had taken a tremendous amount of resources to mobilize all of these troops, and this was acutely felt by each organization since the resources were shouldered by each individual power. Each day, someone would ask Elder Daggs when the battle would start, as well as who had provided information concerning this upcoming war.
Elder Daggs did not dare answer, as he himself was hoping that the war would never happen. As for who had provided the information, if he shared that Lu Yin had been the one to supply the news, then it would definitely incite great dissatisfaction if an invasion did not occur.
Lu Yin was not afraid of other people being unhappy with him, and he actually looked forward to finding an excuse to fight his way further westwards. However, Elder Daggs did not want to be the fuse for an internal war within the Outerverse.
Eventually, the elder closed his doors and refused all visitors. He used Yuan Shi as an excuse for many things, and so n.o.body dared to say too much.
However, gathering countless troops from all over the Outerverse to the astral cemetery became increasingly troublesome as more time elapsed.
Disagreements constantly arose, and there would also be fights, not to mention the appearance of some weirdos as well.
One such example was Zhu San. He seemed bent on completely letting himself go, and he completely disregarded what others thought of him. Now, he no longer wore anything other than feminine clothing as he incessantly chased after Qiong Xi"er. His actions actually led many people to a.s.sume that they were allowed to bring their partners on this military campaign, which led to even more incidents.
Qiong Xi"er herself was no better, and she spent all of her days teasing various maids.
In the end, Elder Daggs had to order Qiong Xi"er to not leave Millions City until the war started. This was the only way to deal with the strange pair.
Wei Rong had also been conscripted, as his suggestion had been adopted during the defense at Endless Weave’s border warfront with great success, and his military contributions had ranked quite highly, which attracted Elder Daggs’s attention. This, combined with his efforts against Lu Yin in the war for Armament Weave, allowed Elder Daggs to understand Wei Rong a little better. This time, Elder Daggs had recruited Wei Rong to the astral cemetery and even given the young man certain special privileges that allowed him to directly meet with Elder Daggs, as the elder hoped to receive some good suggestions.
However, Wei Rong made his att.i.tude very obvious; he would only report to Lu Yin about any matter.
During this time, Angie also met with Wei Rong once, and although n.o.body knew what the two had talked about, Angie’s expression had been very dark when she left.
More and more s.p.a.cecraft gathered in the astral cemetery.
Lu Yin observed the Astral River every day, and it was impossible to tell if he was hoping that the other side would force their way over or that they would not.
At one point, he even made it a special point to tour through the Central Coalition, and his presence there attracted everyone’s eyes.
Central Coalition had been specifically established to curb his ambitious activities, and he was the enemy of all these troops. And yet, n.o.body dared to stop him.
In another place, Wei Rong was stopped by Elder Tie.
At one point in the past, Lu Yin had arranged for the people from the Mt. Stacks Dojo to create some trouble for Wei Rong so that Lu Yin would be able to subdue his former rival. However, because of w.a.n.g Wen, although that plot had never been carried out, the conflict between Wei Rong and the Mt. Stacks Dojo had not been resolved yet. At this time, after much difficulty, they had finally found Wei Rong, and Elder Tie’s group was not going to let the youth off so easily.
Ever since he declared his allegiance to the Great Yu Empire, Wei Rong had remained on Zenyu Star, and Elder Tie did not dare to go to that place and make trouble. However, at this moment, they could finally settle things.
Wei Rong looked at Elder Tie’s group in a calm manner. “You guys really don’t know how to give up.”
Elder Tie’s expression grew cold. “I’ll give Lu Yin a bit of face, so follow me back to the Young Master and kowtow to him in apology. Then, we can let go of this matter.”
Wei Rong did not reply. Instead, Aden and Cai Jianqiang suddenly appeared from the side and faced Elder Tie. Along with Huo Qingshan and the Blind Monk, they were the four Thirteen Imperial Squadron Captains who had been drafted.
More Hunters similarly appeared behind Elder Tie.
In terms of Hunters, unless the Great Eastern Alliance or the Rapid Response Team was dragged into this confrontation, then the people behind Wei Rong could not compare to the Mt. Stacks Dojo’s numbers.
Furthermore, the people from Mt. Stacks Dojo were all from the Innerverse, and they possessed a certain unspoken arrogance towards the denizens of the Outerverse.
Elder Tie coldly looked at Aden and Cai Jianqiang. “Do you guys intend to become enemies with my Mt. Stacks Dojo?”
“So arrogant! This is the Outerverse, not the Starfall Sea,” Cai Jianqiang replied.
Elder Tie’s gaze turned sharp. “Since that’s how it is, then don’t say that I didn’t show Lu Yin any face. Capture them all and bring them along.”
At this moment, the Neo-Vestige Sect’s Gong Chou and his people pa.s.sed by, and they hurriedly caught up as soon as they caught wind of what was happening. They moved to stand beside Aden and the others to confront Elder Tie’s group.
It was not that Gong Chou was actually close with the people from the Great Yu Empire, but rather, they were all a part of the Great Eastern Alliance. If they remained indifferent while their own allies were bullied, then they would be the ones who would end up being embarra.s.sed.
Next, quite a few other experts from the Great Eastern Alliance arrived and also confronted Elder Tie’s group.
Elder Tie was about to act, but at that moment, a cold killing intent locked onto him. It was from Black Mask, who had also arrived. At the same time, from another direction, the old lady who was supported by the Nalan family, Mr. Tradeo from Amethyst Exchange, and the Windflower Crew from Endless Borders also arrived.
The astral cemetery was not very large. Thus, Enlighters could easily see what was happening in various places.
Elder Tie’s scalp went numb. Although he could easily disregard one or two Enlighters, there was no way he could ignore this many. Moreover, there were even powerhouses among them whose power levels were greater than 300,000, and all of these people seemed to be siding with Wei Rong.
Elder Daggs also rushed over. Since this incident had attracted this many experts, he could not continue to remain in hiding.
“What’s going on?” Elder Daggs had an ugly expression.
Wei Rong bowed and respectfully answered, “A small misunderstanding has dragged Elder out. I am truly sorry.”
Elder Daggs turned to look at Elder Tie. “Is there any issue here?”
Elder Tie did not even have a chance to reply when Lu Yin arrived. He glanced over the gathering, nodded towards those like Black Mask and Mr. Tradeo, and then looked at Elder Tie. “You’re still holding on to matters from back then?”
Elder Tie frowned. “Alliance Leader Lu, this matter concerns the reputation of our young master, who’s one of the Ten Arbiters. Some Explorer from the Outerverse dared to try to use one of the Ten Arbiters, and if it was you, you would not let such a thing go easily either.”
“And what if I said that those accusations were false?” Lu Yin responded coldly.
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