A living dead.

The gold-clad, golden-eyed man in front of Lu Yun was a living dead, a living soul sealed inside a dead body!

He’d met such existences in the past. For example, the tomb keepers inside Huangqing’s tomb, but those had been living souls trapped inside zombie flesh. In contrast, the one in front of him was a corpse that was alive, not a zombie.

“A mausoleum keeper, you’re a mausoleum keeper for the underworld!” Lu Yun cried out, immediately guessing the man’s identity. This was one of the natives Xuan Yu had spoken of!

Violetgrave had once said that the underworld was in fact a giant mausoleum, a place where, apart from ghosts, only mausoleum keepers could survive. Lu Yun had hypothesized the existence of such guardians when Xuan Yu had mentioned natives, but he hadn’t expected one would appear of its own accord.

The gold-clad man started lightly before flashing a smile. “Sure enough, the rumors weren’t false. You really do have some skill to guess my identity, Lu Yun.

“Since you know who I am, hand over the Panorama of Clarity. Believe me, keeping it on you will only bring you trouble sooner or later.” The man’s faintly golden eyes now flashed pure gold, and a power that couldn’t be explained circulated around him as he made his way toward the human youth.

“Since you know who I am, you should also know that… someone like you isn’t enough to stop me.” As Lu Yun’s words fell, a cannon appeared beside him.

Dong! Boom!

Three billion immortal crystals went up in smoke the second the weapon of war appeared, and a giant pillar of light spewed forth to ruthlessly bombard the gold-clad man.

At the same time, Lu Yun spun around without a shred of hesitation, grabbed Ding Lei, and stuffed the giant body inside the water jar. Without even resorting to the Path of Ingress, he immediately deployed the Wandering Step and darted toward the tomb’s exit. The mausoleum keepers posed far too great a threat!

When even Xuan Yu’s soldiers had been slaughtered almost to the last by these guardians, Lu Yun wasn’t deluded enough to think he could face them on his own.

……

“Young lord!!” Color drained from the faces of the other mausoleum keepers nearby, and they hastily moved forward.

However, the cannon’s pillar of light had struck too fast. Three billion crystals were a full-powered shot, and the discharge obliterated the gold-clad man. Not even a speck of dust was left behind.

“Kill, kill, kill!!” a keeper raged. “Do everything in your power to hunt down and kill Lu Yun! ...no, kill any intruder!!”

In no time at all, the entire celestial master tomb… the whole of the underworld boiled over with action. Countless mausoleum keepers rushed out of the darkness to hunt outsiders, their slaughter dying the tomb with crimson light.

Boom!!

White brilliance suddenly flared within the tomb, heralding the appearance of a purple-clad man out of nowhere. With a strong stature that towered into the skies, the man’s fearsome aura immediately flooded the underworld. As it happened, he was the one who’d carved out the Path of Ingress in the abyss with a single punch.

“If thou dareth slaughter the innocent, I shalt mete out punishment upon thy entire clan!!” A majestic voice boomed throughout the tomb, causing all of the mausoleum keepers to kneel on the ground and shiver in fear.

But apart from the keepers... none of the outsiders, be they immortals or cultivators, could see the man’s figure. Lu Yun was the lone exception. He’d already fled outside the tomb and happened to be right below the figure’s feet.

“Son of a bitch! Can’t kill the innocent, but they can kill me?!” Lu Yun couldn’t help but swear. The cannon’s full-powered shot earlier had disintegrated the gold-clad man.

As far as weapons of war went, that cannon had only been the most primitive, but three billion immortal crystals were nevertheless enough to blast an arcane dao immortal to death.

He’d had no other choice, in any case. The gold-clad man had clearly been intent on attacking, and Lu Yun was far from his match. He would’ve been dead in an instant.

“But at least I know the guy’s not dead. Well, of course! How can someone who can carve out the Path of Ingress with a single punch give up the ghost so easily?” Looking up at the purple-clad man’s imposing figure, Lu Yun shrank even further in on himself. This kind of personage wasn’t someone he could currently hazard any sort of guess at.

“Hmm?” His eyes lit up at the sight of a small, snow-white fox with a little bell dangling from its neck darting out of the tomb and disappearing after a bound and a leap.

“Little fox!” A smile appeared on his face. Altering his appearance and bearing with Shapeshifting, he ran off closely behind the fox.

The purple-clad man’s figure didn’t fade away until roughly a dozen breaths later, finally affording sighs of relief for the underworld’s mausoleum keepers.

“Lu Yun harmed the young lord. We can’t let him get away no matter what. Pass down my orders to seal off the underworld and use any means necessary to capture him!” a man whose eyes also shone gold roared furiously as he floated in the air.

“At once, sire!” The entire underworld instantly became astir.

Surging forth from every corner of the underworld, countless mausoleum keepers set foot out of the shadows and made for the outskirts of their domain. At the same time, the barrier separating the underworld from the world of immortals flared with golden light.

Some immortals who wanted to pass through the barrier to return to the outside world realized, to their great dismay, that their way home was now blocked. However, the yin spirits clinging to the barrier weren’t affected. From time to time, some still slipped through the barrier and made their way into the world of immortals.

……

“It’s just the death of one of the young lords. Do they really need to make such a mountain out of a molehill?” In the deepest parts of the underworld, within a sinister palace hall teeming with yin energy, a gold-robed, golden-haired, and otherworldly handsome man yawned lazily. “He died because he wasn’t good enough. If we cross that lordship’s bottom line again, we mausoleum keepers won’t have it so easy anymore.”

The man shook his head with resignation.

“Holy Lord Ashu, things aren’t like that!” a black-robed man beside him explained respectfully. “The young lord who died found clues to the Panorama of Clarity. He was killed by the treasure’s holder.”

“The Panorama of Clarity?!” The golden-haired man sprang to his feet. “Do you speak of the same Panorama of Clarity that was in Pill Fairy Yu Ying’s possession twelve hundred years ago?”

“Indeed!” The black-robed man smiled when he saw Holy Lord Ashu’s agitation. “The treasure is now with a cultivator called Lu Yun. The holy lords on the fringes of the outer underworld aren’t trying to avenge the young lord, they’re after the treasure.”

“The Panorama of Clarity, Panorama of Clarity…” Holy Lord Ashu’s eyes gleamed pure gold as he looked up at the jet-black sky of the underworld, a sinister smile flashing across his face.

“If they want to fight over it, let them do as they wish.” He elegantly sipped from a cup of blood-like liquor that had appeared in his hand.

“Holy Lord Ashu, will you not vie for it yourself?” The black-robed man blinked, subconsciously adding, “The Panorama of Clarity is the only way for us to leave this boundless underworld.”