Necropolis Immortal

Since Yun Zhongzi was certain of Lu Yun's identity, so was Lu Yun certain of his. Mo Yi sat in his Disordered Hell—he would always believe her.

In the future, she would die because of him, just as the Dao King had died for her in the past thirty-three cycles. Though everything was different now and progressed down an unknown trajectory, Mo Yi was still Mo Yi. Nothing about that had changed.

Yun Zhongzi was certain about Lu Yun's identity either because of Mo Yi or Hong. Only those two knew of the young man's true cultivation level.

Lu Yun sank into deep thought as he regarded his visitor. Since he'd journeyed through the past cycles, he knew how strong the Imperial Seal was. If he obtained it now, it would be like adding wings to a tiger.

But…

When he caused Mo Yi's death in the previous thirty-three loops, it hadn't been because of an enemy coming for him. Mo Yi had died to ensure mutual destruction with the existence taking shelter inside the seal. She'd sacrificed herself to completely root out latent danger in the treasure.

The owner of the seal—the emperor of the original Hongmeng—slept within it.

At that time, Lu Yun hadn't known what the Imperial Seal was or who its owner was. Over the course of those previous cycles, his strength reached unfathomable levels. If it wasn't for his future self being one of his replicas, he wouldn't have been able to see that version of himself at that time either. Many things would've remained obscured from view.

It wasn't until Lu Yun connected the many glimpses and hints gleaned throughout the various cycles that numerous truths sharpened into focus for him. He was utilizing the combination of Jian Juexian, Yun Zhongzi, and Mo Yi's words to determine what the traces he'd seen in the previous cycles meant.

While it remained to be seen if there were certain parties who wished to use him as a cauldron to revitalize the emperor of the original Hongmeng, it was very true that Mo Yi had died to ensure the emperor's demise.

"Why me?" Lu Yun suddenly asked. "Why did you guys choose me? I was just an ordinary tomb raider on Earth, why did Fuxi choose me?" He looked closely at Yun Zhongzhi and carefully enunciated each word.

"Why you? Because you are the Flame Emperor of the human race," responded Yun Zhongzhi. "We chose the Flame Emperor. We chose the one who created human dao and propelled the human race to rule the great wilderness. You are the Flame Emperor."

"And why am I the Flame Emperor?" Lu Yun was still confused. He was the very definition of average boringness, yet Fuxi had picked him out of the masses when he looked down at the planes through the river of time.

He'd set up his plans with Lu Yun in mind and designed everything from the Han Dynasty tomb to the world of immortals, the end of the West Sea in which Lu Yun repaired the immortal dao, then the trip back to the past to become the Flame Emperor.

Lu Yun had thought that with Fuxi's death, the one who'd come from the past wasn't Fuxi, but the three-eyed man in search of the Dragonquake Scripture.

Then Mo Yi had told him that the three-eyed man was still Fuxi, that it was his self of evil. Everything had still been part of Fuxi's plans.

What was notable about the past thirty-three cycles was that in those, Lu Yun had been pushed along every step of the way. Every single one of his moves had been calculated in advance for him.

This time, he walked his own path. Just as countless people cultivated the same great dao, none of them did so in the exact same fashion. Lu Yun employed a wholly different method to travel the road that Fuxi had paved for him, resulting in a handful of different outcomes from before.

However, he'd still become the Flame Emperor and he'd still pioneered human dao. Those general milestones hadn't changed from the previous loops. So had it once been, so would it still be.

Lu Yun looked at Yun Zhongzi; Yun Zhongzi looked back at him.

"What do you think?" Yun Zhongzi smiled. "Why do you think Fuxi chose you?"

Lu Yun paused.

"I don't know how much you know, but since you've become a Nihil World Sovereign, the mistress, Hong, and Meng should've told you certain things," Yun Zhongzi continued. "Fuxi's primary self died and his evil self created the sect of tomb raiders, passing down the Dragonquake Scripture.

"When it came to your generation, you were the only one left. Your accomplishments in feng shui surpassed your forebears and eclipsed what Fuxi could've accomplished at your age. Thus, he chose you.

"I would've done the same if it were up to me."

Lu Yun: ……

"So it was because I was that good." He rubbed his nose narcissistically.

Yun Zhongzi: ……

"I suppose you could put it that way," he chuckled wryly. "You weren't the only one. Fuxi's chosen many others in the past, but they were all eliminated for various reasons. You weren't the only one, but you should be the last.

"A Nihil World Sovereign at less than a thousand years old…" he concluded through clenched teeth.

"Are you one too?" Lu Yun asked.

"Of course I am, but I wasn't before. After the birth of the new epoch, I cultivated anew with the new orders of the fourth realm. I've reached peak Nihil World Sovereign now." Yun Zhongzi nodded.

"Are you also a supplemental grandmaster?"

"Yes." Yun Zhongzi nodded.

"The one who built this tomb is called the Cloud Sovereign. He was the Hallowed Emperor's good friend." Lu Yun's mind was spinning from all the revelations.

"Also known as me," Yun Zhongzi winked.

Lu Yun: ……

Even if he was somehow blessed with three brains, he never would've guessed that the hand in the shadows, the one behind all the troubles in the tomb, would be the one who built it!

As a powerful supplemental grandmaster himself well versed in feng shui, tombs represented many different things to Lu Yun. To ordinary people, they were just what they seemed.

"This Broken Primeval Plane is where the emperor of the original Hongmeng died and the new epoch started. His Imperial Seal was left here as well. The Hallowed Emperor and I built this tomb in order to find it.

"On the surface, this tomb appears to bury the Hallowed Emperor. Underneath it all, however, which is the world you're in right now—it buries the emperor of the original Hongmeng. The Imperial Seal has been called to the tomb." Since Yun Zhongzi was certain that he spoke to Fuxi's heir, he held nothing back. The seal was meant for Lu Yun to begin with.

"The Hallowed Emperor is one of the original emperor's descendants. He used his bloodline to coalesce the original emperor's true body, then dismantled himself to leave traces of the emperor of the original Hongmeng…" Yun Zhongzi explained.

"Which means that the original emperor buried here is formed from the Hallowed Emperor's body. But in doing so, that erases all traces of the Hallowed Emperor's existence from the world!" Lu Yun gasped.

Anything that ever existed would leave traces in the world. Where there were traces, there would be karma. As long as that held true, one stood a chance for rebirth even if the soul scattered and true spirit vanished.

But if the Hallowed Emperor used his own corpse to manifest the emperor of the original Hongmeng, he would become the latter in form and essence. That would summon the original emperor's soul back and the Hallowed Emperor… would completely disappear.

Not even the Tome of Life and Death could save him then.

"That was the only way to find the hidden Imperial Seal," Yun Zhongzi sighed, his expression less than pleasant.

"The emperor died in battle, did he…" Lu Yun suddenly thought of something else that Yun Zhongzi had said.

"Yes, there was an enemy in those times, and they still exist. The ones who attacked the original Hongmeng still spy upon us." Yun Zhongzi regained his calm. "I'm sure you've already met them."

"The Curse King??" The name immediately sprang to Lu Yun's mind. He'd previously viewed the akasha ghosts as his greatest enemy, but it turned out that he was the one who'd created them. They contained all of the resentment and malice of his future self.

The brush hadn't existed in the past thirty-three cycles, so Lu Yun's future self hadn't been able to release his resentment. It'd become entangled with the dao fruit and returned to Lu Yun's primary self.

That had been one of the primary reasons why he'd ultimately failed.