Chapter 901: The Akasha Ghosts in Rearbow
So it was extremely likely that Pangu had gone to the future and entered the wheel of reincarnation! Lu Yun mentally flipped through all of the experts he knew of, but couldn’t determine who was most likely to be the reincarnated great god.
However, he wasn’t in a rush. Since Hongjun and the others had made all the preparations already, he didn’t need to worry about this.
After departing the netherdark, he paid another visit to Wahuang.
“What did you say? The great Pangu’s Worldcarver is in the tomb beneath the sacred land?” Wahuang goggled at him. “Hongjun told you to come retrieve it?”
“Well, I think it was him…” Lu Yun wasn’t quite sure since it hadn’t been Hongjun who’d personally told him this. However, given Daoist Yuyu’s future status, Lu Yun didn’t think there was anything to be skeptical about.
“In that case, go on then, but be careful. Fuxi and I established the human sacred land here both to protect the tomb of Pangu and also to safeguard the lifeforms in the vicinity. There’s a great danger in the tomb, and many demon gods have perished inside,” Wahuang remarked despondently.
Lu Yun nodded. If his speculations were correct, the great god's tomb should be the most exceptional of its kind beneath the heavens. Formed by passage of the winds and flow of the water, it was an example of naturally occurring feng shui beneath heaven and earth.
As for what level the feng shui in the tomb was at, Lu Yun had no way of knowing. It was likely that Fuxi had drawn inspiration from the tomb to create the dao of formations and feng shui.
Meanwhile, Wahuang had no intention of following Lu Yun down into the tomb. She’d once explored it with Fuxi and they’d almost died for their intrepid adventure. Hongjun had saved them moments before they were swallowed by the jaws of danger—but since he’d also authorized Lu Yun to retrieve Worldcarver, there should be no issues there.
“In addition, you need to be careful since it's very possible that Pangu’s corpse has transformed into a zombie or corpse demon. You must be careful not to let it out,” reminded Wahuang.
“Eh?” Lu Yun blinked and said sheepishly, “I thought the great god's corpse had transformed into the land of the great wilderness.”
Bestowing upon him a fierce eye roll, Wahuang couldn't be bothered with further conversation. The great wilderness was the core of this realm and the origin of all beings. Not even eight hundred copies of the great Pangu would be sufficient for this vast cosmos, to say nothing of one alone.
……
This journey of his to the great wilderness had upended many of Lu Yun’s previously held beliefs. Once again, it was driven home that history and truth were separate, distinct entities. Contrary to commonly held views, the two simply couldn't be viewed as one and the same.
The great Pangu’s tomb was located beneath the human sacred land; Lu Yun entered via a thief’s tunnel.
This was the largest tomb he'd ever seen, whether in terms of feng shui layouts or architecture. It was apparent that this wasn't the final resting place of a single entity, but more a burial ground for an entire world.
Despite everything he’d encountered so far, Lu Yun still cherished the belief that the ancestor god of the human race was a world in and of himself.
“Lie Shan, Lie Shan!” An inordinately terrified thought traveled out of Rearbow stored in Lu Yun’s body. The blood demon sealed within was howling and shrieking with madness, trying to charge out of the seal.
However, hellfire had fully refined the bow and activated all of its restrictions. With all three of its forms at the ready, the bow’s power was on par with the Bell of Chaos. The blood demon wouldn't be able to regain his freedom given his current strength.
“Lie Shan, where are you right now?? Don’t go, don’t take another step further!!” Unable to break through the bow’s seal, the blood demon screamed with urgency and threw itself against Lu Yun’s mind.
The boy paused and split off a projection to enter the bow’s world. Since Rearbow was also a supreme connate treasure, it also nurtured a world within itself. However, calamitous changes had occurred inside of it—countless ghostly faces were taking shape to wreak furious havoc on whatever they touched.
Upon demolition of the world inside the bow, the treasure itself would be destroyed as well.
For once, the cause of the tumult wasn't the blood demon. That troublemaker was currently sealed in the center of the world, fully splayed out on the ground and eyes wide with terror.
“What are these things? They are like realm monsters, but they're also not realm monsters…” he looked at Lu Yun with pleading eyes as soon as the boy arrived.
“Akasha ghosts.” Dismayed, he surveyed the world roving ghost faces. One third of the world’s energy had already been gobbled down by these ghosts!
Rearbow was a connate treasure born of nature; the world inside of it was a real world, replete with the complete power of a world. It could even give rise to living beings of its own and form a complete system with the energy of nature.
But these akasha ghosts had guzzled down a third of the weapon’s strength! This meant that Rearbow was now thirty percent weaker than before!
His face dark, Lu Yun stuffed the world full of hellfire and exterminated the intruders. He hadn't been able to use hellfire against the akasha ghosts back in the world of immortals, but in the great wilderness, he was one of the greatest masters around.
Hellfire blazed to its greatest potential in his hands and deployed its greatest strength. These akasha ghosts were no match for it at all.
“How did they get in here?” Lu Yun frowned at the helpless blood demon on the ground. He was counting his lucky stars that he hadn't stored anything of importance in the bow. This development might have spelled the doom of all of his recent efforts otherwise.
“I should be asking you!!” Though the blood demon struggled, he got nowhere with his restraints. Panting on the ground, his scarlet eyes glared at Lu Yun. “Where have you gone to allow these things to barge inside?! This seat is the most magnificent supreme ruler of all demons and I was almost eaten by those things!”
“You don't know what akasha ghosts are?” Lu Yun frowned instead of answering the blood demon’s question.
“Akasha ghosts? Not a clue!”
This kind of suffering was the height of humiliation for the blood demon. If he was able to move or to fight back, he wouldn't be afraid of these things that the human called akasha ghosts. But suppressed at the center of this world as he was, he wasn't able to even twitch a muscle. He could only watch on with petrified horror as a horde of those intangible things—so closely resembling dead spirits—gnawed and nibbled away at his body.
“I thought you’d be the one to create them in the future.” Lu Yun fell silent. “You’re something created out of the combination of Luo Houluo and Darkriver, so you should possess Luo Houluo’s memories. Let me ask you this: what are the realm monsters doing and what do they want?!”
The first time that Lu Yun met Luo Houluo, the latter had walked out of the eye of a realm monster. Granted, Luo Houluo had already allied with the realm monsters by then. Asura may not be Luo Houluo, but he’d inherited Luo Houluo’s status and identity.
“I—” The blood demon looked dumbly at Lu Yun. He'd been defeated by the human more than once in this era, but Lie Shan never closed in for the kill. The boy had only continuously restricted his strength; the blood demon’s hatred for Lie Shan went far beyond the grudge he nursed against Daoist Yuyu for sectioning him.
“The realm monsters’ ultimate goal is the world of celestials, but a great master has blockaded their door to it from the chaos. Therefore, they can only look to the great wilderness and enter it through Mount Buzhou and the Builder Tree,” the demon answered truthfully.