Chapter 2594: A Familiar Power
It did not take much longer before the gap extended to a full ten meters. Xu Leng was overjoyed. "I won! I won!"
She gave Lu Yin a grateful look.
Lu Yin chuckled. "Seniors, please proceed to the left. This junior will move to the right from here. After a day's time, I can assure you that you'll have a peaceful environment for your conversation and won’t have to deal with any disturbances."
"There’s no need for that, young man," Xu Heng said from behind, "You can listen. It's fine." The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.
Xu Leng cast a cold glance back towards Xu Heng. "I’ve won, so does our first bet still count?"
Lu Yin had been unaware of any bets that had been made regarding the two’s competition before he arrived, but he also did not care. Since Xu Heng had also thanked Lu Yin, it mattered even less.
Xu Heng laughed. "Of course it counts. Leng'er, you’ve won."
Xu Leng's lips twisted into a smirk. "You can start talking now. I can put up with an hour of your nonsense."
Xu Heng gave Lu Yin another look of gratitude before clearing his throat and speaking, "Then I shall begin, Leng'er."
Xu Leng snorted disdainfully, but she did not speak a single word or make any attempt to interrupt.
"First of all, my Void Yang clan does not have the Yin Yang Sword," Xu Heng began. Every time he had tried to explain this in the past, Xu Leng had immediately interrupted. Even at this moment, Xu Leng was tempted to speak up, but she restrained herself and instead listened quietly, despite not believing a word that Xu Heng said.
"I know that you won't believe me, so let me start from the beginning. Initially, there were two direct family lines that descended from Venerable Xuyi: the Void Yang and the Void Yin clans. The founding ancestors of the two clans were brothers, and they both..."
As Xu Heng began his hour-long speech, he failed to notice how Lu Yin's expression shifted the moment the Yin Yang Sword was mentioned.
The Yin Yang Sword? There’s no way that that’s the sword I picked up... right? What are the odds?
Lu Yin had intended to move ahead while the two spoke, as even an hour was enough for him to put some distance between himself and the two. However, the mention of the Yin Yang Sword changed his mind, and Lu Yin stayed close to listen.
As Xu Heng spoke, Xu Leng's expression slowly changed. He carefully went through everything from the appearance to the disappearance of the Yin Yang Sword, and made sure to offer evidence supporting his claim that the sword was absolutely not in the hands of the Void Yang clan. "You assume that we have the sword because of what your mother told you..."
After half an hour went by, Xu Leng's face had grown pale. "Why didn't you say all of this before?"
Xu Heng’s voice grew bitter, "Was there ever a chance for me to do so?"
Xu Leng stared at him, stunned. After a moment, her expression fell.
"I’ve managed to clear up matters regarding the Yin Yang Sword, but there's also another matter to address," Xu Heng continued. He spoke for an hour, but at the end of that time, he did not stop speaking, and Xu Leng still did not interrupt. Instead, she simply listened.
Xu Heng spoke at length, addressing one issue after another, clearing one misunderstanding after another.
After hearing so much, Lu Yin found himself most impressed by Xu Leng's mother, who had managed to create a massive misunderstanding between the two clans, which had also ensured that Xu Leng and Xu Heng could never be together. Xu Leng's mother had been well aware of her daughter’s personality, and after so many misunderstandings were introduced, Xu Leng would never calmly listen to Xu Heng's explanations. If not for Lu Yin, the misunderstandings would have most likely continued on until the two’s deaths.
Throughout human history, many grudges stemmed from simple misunderstandings, which then led to at least as much death and slaughter as actual wars. Even wars had been triggered over such misunderstandings.
Lu Yin started to move on, as he was uninterested in hearing Xu Heng's declarations of love. It had become clear that the sword in Lu Yin’s cosmic ring was indeed the Yin Yang Sword that the two clans were desperately searching for. It had once belonged to an ancestor of both the Void Yang and Void Yin clans, who had been one of Venerable Xuyi’s disciples.
Xu Leng rolled her eyes. "What's the point in working hard? We’ve already studied the Venerable Xuyi’s greatest techniques and even honed them to perfection. If we aren’t able to find the Yin Yang Sword, we'll never break through to the Void Suprema realm."
Xu Heng rubbed his head. "True enough. However, now that the misunderstandings between us have been settled, we should join forces. We can mobilize both of our clans to search for the Yin Yang Sword. After we obtain it, it might be possible for us both to have a breakthrough and become Void Suprema. That would certainly shock the Voidforce Universe."
"What do you mean by ‘both of us?’ Don't be so shameless!" Xu Leng blushed.
Xu Heng laughed heartily. "It's time that the Void Yin and Void Yang clans joined forces. Let's give the Voidforce Universe a shock. They might have forgotten Venerable Xuyi’s power, so why don’t we remind them."
...
Xu Heng and Xu Leng decided not to continue on, which meant that Lu Yin was alone as he pushed towards the center of the Void Pass.
He had already arrived quite close to the center. Not everyone could get this far.
After several days passed, Lu Yin saw a man lounging on the drifting tides of the Void pass, floating about in a lazy manner. The man propped his head up on an arm, and he even had a drink beside him. He was humming an unfamiliar tune and looked quite content and relaxed. The man had dark skin and an ordinary appearance, though he also seemed to be wearing something that looked quite similar to sunglasses.
As Lu Yin passed by, the man offered him a drink. "Want one?"
"There’s no need. Thank you," Lu Yin replied as he moved ahead without another word. His mind was in chaos. A Progenitor! It’s actually a Progenitor!
He could not believe that he had met another Progenitor-level figure, and this was even within the Void Pass. Had the man seen through Lu Yin’s disguise?
The Mask of Death was a truly impressive technique, to the point where even Bai Sheng had failed to see through Lu Yin’s disguise. While Xu Wuwei had seen through the Mask of Death, Lu Yin had no idea what sort of strength or capabilities the man with the sunglasses possessed. Even so, Lu Yin had absolutely no intention of engaging the powerhouse in conversation.
As the man watched Lu Yin continue onwards, he sipped his drink and adjusted his dark glasses.
"Interesting..." he muttered, before lounging back on the pressure of the tides, allowing himself to be effortlessly carried away.
A few more days passed before Lu Yin was finally able to breathe easy again. Progenitors were not frequently encountered, and he could not decide if the meeting had been a stroke of luck or disaster.
He looked up ahead and saw a vortex before him. This was the very core of the Void Pass. Xu Xiangyin had once said that every era had people who managed to venture into this vortex, but they were always swiftly expelled. No one had ever managed to truly enter, as only by doing so and receiving the Light of the Firmament could one successfully cross the Void Pass.
Lu Yin was already aware that he would never see the Light of the Firmament, whatever it was, in his life, if Xu Xiangyin’s words were to be believed.
Lu Yin was the only person even close to the vortex. By observing the various tides of voidforce energy, he continued to relentlessly press forward, eventually reaching the edge of the vortex.
He then squeezed himself forward again.
After struggling against the tides for so long, he had assumed that the vortex would possess an even stronger pressure than what he had encountered in the Void Pass so far. Shockingly, he crashed into the vortex without meeting any resistance at all. Everything went black. Lu Yin instinctively tried to release his domain and get a sense of his surroundings. The next moment, a familiar power filled the area around him; it was stellular energy.
Lu Yin's expression changed dramatically. Stellular energy? Why is there stellular energy here?
A majestic wave of stellular energy suddenly descended. It was filled with an oppressive power, but it vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared. The stellular energy inside Lu Yin swirled and started absorbing the energy that surrounded him.
This was not the stellular energy of the Cyclic Universe, but the energy of the Fifth Mainland, or rather, the Origin Universe.
Two words suddenly appeared in Lu Yin's mind: Wu Tian.
Could this energy belong to Wu Tian?
Suddenly, Lu Yin found himself falling. He was unable to control his own body, as the pressure of the surrounding stellular energy had reached the level of a Progenitor’s power. Without releasing the Investiture of the Gods to counteract the pressure of a Progenitor's power, it was impossible for Lu Yin to withstand the forces acting upon him.