Chapter 1964 – Dao Bones
Lu Yun had long lost any sense of direction in the burial mound of the empyrean supreme. It seemed to be perfectly orderly, but it didn’t follow the chief worlds’ order, nor did it follow disorder.
The avenue slowly dwindled into a small road in the direction that Chu Xun pointed them in, reverting back to a tiny path of a meter wide.
When Lu Yun looked back in the direction they’d come from, the vast avenue was gone. It was replaced by a winding path that led to an unknown destination. There was no sign that anything else had ever existed. He shuddered despite himself.
“What’s going on? Is the path behind us an illusion, or have we barged into another place?” he wondered with shock.
Chu Xun’s face was also devoid of color and she stammered, “B-big brother, should we go back for a look?”
“C’mon, let’s go back and see!” Lu Yun set his jaw and they doubled back on their route. However, they saw no sign of the avenue from earlier after walking for forty-five minutes. Goosebumps of horror traveled down Lu Yun’s spine.
“Only prey can enter…” he realized. “The two of us… thank goodness the two of us don’t have enough meat!”
Their bodies being the size they were, they lacked sufficient meat for the giants to eat. Thus, they emerged just as safely as they entered the premises. Lu Yun was beginning to think that his horrific hunch was true—that it wasn’t the land of darkness who’d compelled Land of Reincarnation cultivators to cultivate nothing and enlarge their bodies. It was these giants behind it.
“Big brother, those were great paths,” Chu Xun suddenly offered quietly.
“Yep, those were very big paths,” Lu Yun nodded.
“No, not paths to walk on. Paths to cultivate!” the little girl hastily corrected. “The giants we saw were walking on dao and we were walking on one too.”
Lu Yun’s jaw dropped and he didn’t know what to say. Great dao?
Having repaired immortal dao and created formula dao, he naturally knew what great dao was. But he’d never physically set foot on one before. So the little girl was saying that the incredibly durable paths they’d been on were… great daos?
Great daos were supposedly formless and intangible. Everyone knew that they existed, but no one had ever seen one with their own eyes.
“Wait, I know! It’s dao bones!” Chu Xun said. “Great daos that died! I traveled the great dao of the chief worlds with my dad once. During my cultivation, I saw the real great dao and dao bones of withered paths. That was a dead great dao and its bones!
“There’s more than one path here, which means… many dead great daos have fallen here to become roads…”
Lu Yun shuddered again; Chu Xun also looked around with fear.
“Big brother, do you think those giants… also eat great dao?” she asked carefully.
“We need to forget that for now. The peak grand supremes and empyrean supremes will take care of it.” Lu Yun suddenly covered Chu Xun’s eyes and sprinted down the path with her in his arms.
A giant’s face had appeared in the sky at some point in time and was tracking the two. It was the one who’d killed the Fire Qilin Grand Supreme with one blow.
……
“Big brother, the treasure is ahead of us!” Chu Xun lifted her head from Lu Yun’s embrace. She’d seen the giant’s face too, but Lu Yun covered her eyes before she could clearly make it out.
A massive tree that soared to the heavens appeared in front of Lu Yun. It was enormous—bigger than any major world that he’d seen to date. He was several hundred million kilometers from the tree, but he could only barely make out that it was a tree and not a mountain.
“Is the tree the treasure?” Instead of rushing to it, Lu Yun observed it from a distance. There were numerous powerful auras ahead of them—some grand supremes and some high supremes.
He also finally saw some traces of living people.
“No!” Chu Xun shook her head. “The treasure’s on the tree!”
Green light sparkled from the eyes of the doll she carried, as if it sensed something. This doll was her greatest treasure.
Lu Yun furrowed his brows. He didn’t see any treasure, but he could sense tension so thick that one could almost cut through it. Many grand supremes had released their personal forcefields and were a hair's breadth from drawing swords on each other.
He also registered something with surprise. An item in his possession that’d lain quiet for a very long time had just suddenly moved!
The section of withered wood.
It was the remnants of a divine tree from the original Hongmeng, supposedly the first spirit root to form in the previous world of hell sequence. Once that world was destroyed, it turned into a tree god and took root in the original Hongmeng.
The tree god perished on the eve before the original Hongmeng’s destruction. Resentment from all living beings in the realm gathered on it and a thunder tribulation smote it into Thunderstruck Wood. Lu Yun had returned it to its origins as withered wood.
He used it to light true hellfire in the World of Myriad Sea and create a general concept for the origin hell that would arise from the six hells.
Once could say that Lu Yun’s hell dao was a result of the tree god, but it’d been obliterated. Only half of a withered trunk was left and there was nothing he could do about it. But somehow, the section resting in the Tome of Life and Death had just stirred!
Lu Yun’s heart skipped a beat, understanding that the giant tree in front of them likely had something to do with the tree god. But he didn’t leap into action. He used the Tome of Life and Death to conceal the withered wood’s ripples before walking toward the tree with Chu Xun in his arms.
“Don’t move,” he quickly transmitted when she struggled to get down. “I’m using my power to conceal you at the moment. You’ll be in danger if someone finds out that a supreme is here!”
He was holding her so a little bit of reincarnation aura from the book could cover her presence. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the grand supremes to guess who she was if she revealed herself.
It’d be one thing if the grand supremes of the chief worlds found out, no one would dare touch her. But there was more than just the chief worlds here—grand supremes from the land of darkness, Select Cosmos, and Principal Spirit Pivot were most certainly here as well.
Being the daughter of peak grand supremes, Chu Xun would innately carry the weakness of those peak grand supremes. If she was discovered, it might implicate her parents.
The little girl settled down when she heard Lu Yun’s transmission.