The power of a celestial emperor! Origin dao immortal! Power sufficient to equate oneself with any emperor of the majors.

Greater clarity about the very world itself was revealing itself to Lu Yun. New understandings flowed into his mind about the laws and energies of nature. In fact, he could easily reach out and grasp any of them. They were tangible to him in more senses than one; the energies of nature—of heaven and earth—were his to command.

The battle between the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers and Nine-Phoenix Casket released enough energy to tear him apart. But at this moment, all of that packed as much of a punch as a spring breeze. Though destructive forces rioted in the firmament, they were completely unable to harm him.

……

“One hour!” Lu Yun took a deep breath. “That’s how long I’ve got with the zombie puppet’s power. Until then… I am a celestial emperor!”

Steel flashed in his eyes. He looked up at the sky where dragons and phoenix were still locked together in a maddened struggle.

“Screee—" Nine pairs of eyes from the casket trained on him with unfathomable hatred. The blood phoenix under its control had shed its shackles and become another lifeform entirely as soon as Lu Yun had appeared.

Nine phoenix heads shrieked in discordant unison, slamming the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers back with powerful beats of its black-feathered wings. It then gathered all of its strength and hurtled toward Lu Yun at top speed. Its instincts told it that killing the young human would return the blood phoenix to its clutches.

“Nine-Phoenix Casket!” Lu Yun squinted slightly. The shadow of a great pagoda erupted from his form, followed suit by razor-sharp sword qi.

The Sugato Sword.

His newfound strength gave him the ability to make use of the pagoda’s full power with trivial ease. After a hundred thousand years of being sealed away, this preeminent treasure was finally shining once more.

Countless streams of sword qi gathered into an inescapable blade, slashing down at the Nine-Phoenix Casket with sundering speed.

Boom!

A deafening explosion rang out from the collision with the avian coffinbearer’s body, sending the sword’s wielder a few steps back. Though the Sugato Sword trembled slightly, the Nine-Phoenix Casket had fared no better—the sword light had successfully repelled it. In fact, a bloody hole was visible through its chest!

Desolate birdsong filled the air and black blood rained down from the sky, gathering into an inky river below.

“The Sugato Sword!” remarked the suspended face, becoming clearer as it spoke. Lu Yun even saw the figure of a giant coalescing around it. Figure dimming, the Exalted celestial emperor’s energies seemed to be transferring to the materializing giant.

Before the Nine-Phoenix Casket could recover, the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers pounced on it to quash it for good. A bone-white skeletal arm snaked out of the black coffin, grabbing the casket in a vise grip. It wanted to rip the casket apart, though its efforts were quickly stymied by a puff of black smoke from its opponent.

Suddenly, Lu Yun picked up on a grand conviction emanating from the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers. His eyes darted back and forth in uncertainty, keeping the Sugato Sword at the ready but not wanting to act in haste.

“The Enneawyrm Coffinbearers wish for you to help defeat that which lies in the casket,” the now-visible giant suddenly said. Fully materialized, he wasn’t as absurdly large as the eyes that’d preceded him, but was still several kilometers tall in his own right. A fearsome energy rippled from his body, the same kind that had slain Dongling Yuhuang.

Lu Yun snuck a glance at the celestial emperor. The man was planted upright on the ground like an unmoving corpse, no signs of life visible in him. Clearly, the emperor was dead. Giving the urge to make the emperor one of his envoys a firm headshake of denial, he turned his attention back to the two coffins.

“Neither of them are anything good. I may as well let them duke it out.” A sinister smirk quirked Lu Yun’s lips.

The giant hesitantly slanted his eyes. “What of the blood dragon and blood phoenix?” Lu Yun blinked at the giant, who continued gravely. “As roots of great evil, they must be destroyed!”

The Sword Barrow was protected by a massive feng shui grand influence. Even Dusk Province’s restriction couldn’t descend on the premises unhindered. It’d only managed to visit this tomb due to Yuchi Tianhuang’s essence of metal qi breaking the layout open.

“The blood dragon slept for five thousand years beneath Mount Myriad Formation. Why did you not destroy it then?” The current Lu Yun was more than qualified to speak on equal terms with the restriction, so he was hardly afraid of the kilometers-high giant.

The blood dragon was formed over the course of five thousand years, yet the restriction had arrived in Dusk only a millennium ago. Between then and now, there was more than ample time to kill what it claimed was a threat. The fact that it hadn’t meant that it had other compunctions.

The giant glowered without answering.

“No wonder…” Lu Yun snorted, finally realizing what the Nephrite celestial emperor had meant back then. If it weren’t for the ancient Dusk tomb, Zhao Fengyang would’ve been able to erase the restriction anytime. Even now, the restriction wasn’t actually here in the flesh. It was using the Exalted emperor’s body and soul to manifest here!

In other words, the Exalted celestial emperor was nothing more than a puppet of the restriction! One that hadn’t quite died and could withdraw its energies from him at any second.

The restriction looked at Lu Yun. There was an almost imperceptible flare of murderous intent, but it was quickly hidden away after abruptly recalling something else.

The young man ignored the giant in favor of the dueling coffins.

“Roooooar—” The largest dragon king among the Enneawyrms opened its eyes. It uttered a piercing cry that one of the phoenix heads responded to. After that, both coffins charged at him with one mind.

“Scram!” Lu Yun shouted angrily, reaching to unleash the Sugato Sword once more. An impenetrable net of blades filled the microcosm in defense. However, the coffins had apparently turned incorporeal and the Enneawyrm Coffinbearers’ skeletal arms had even retracted themselves.

Boom!

The two vessels ignored the fearsome barrier before them, passing straight through to disappear into Lu Yun’s body. Quite upset, he quickly examined his nascent spirit, but couldn’t find any traces of what had just happened.

“So the two buried in those coffins are using him as their vessel. They are using his body to return themselves to life…” the giant murmured.

Rumble.

In the next moment, the Sword of Chaos behind Lu Yun shifted.

“The sky as the sheath,

“The earth as the guard,

“Sword of Chaos,

“Come forth!” Boundless conviction spread in all directions as the entire barrow began to shake.