Lu Yun’s sect possessed three ultimate techniques: the Dragonsearch Invocation, the Dragonshift Method, and the Dragonspike Litany.

The Death Spike was a most malicious art derived from the Dragonspike Litany, and had been classified as a forbidden art by the sect ancestor. In all of history, it had been used only twice. Once to destroy the aforementioned dynasty, and a second time to eradicate a tomb-robbing sect hostile to Lu Yun’s.

Death Spike was a very strange layout as even a feng shui master of equal expertise would be hard pressed to notice it without mastering the forbidden themselves. This layout was harmless to dragon or earthen veins; it severed only fate.

In this instance, to ‘sever’ meant to cleanly cut off with no recourse. Once inserted into the land, the layout caused massive bloodshed within forty-nine days!

Lu Yun wasn’t one to casually use such a sinister killing layout, but the notion of a coalition between the Exalted Immortal Sect and Exalted court was too dreadful to contemplate.

Taken as a whole, Mount Exalted and its surrounding terrain formed an ‘imperial cradle’. This so-called imperial cradle was a place that gave birth to emperors and kings, a land rich with blessings and good fortune.

The Exalted Immortal Sect and Exalted court were both located here. One was light to the other’s darkness, yin to the other’s yang, offense to the other’s defense. Like the sun and the moon in the sky, they illuminated the entire world.

Lu Yun couldn’t let this come to fruition. Once the notion of using the Death Spike came to mind, it was impossible to shake off.

“Lu Yun… there’s billions of immortals in the Exalted Immortal Sect and court… Mount Exalted itself might be destroyed by the Death Spike. You have to think this through! ” Qing Yu was greatly alarmed by the prospect.

“No, I’ll only destroy the Exalted Immortal Sect’s fortunes and cause its decline.” Lu Yun gently shook his head. “The genuine Death Spike layout culminates in a spike 33.33 meters tall, but I’ll just refine one that’s 3.33 meters tall. It’ll be enough to damage the sect’s foundations without going further.”

He, too, was wary of attempting the true Death Spike. Such an action would incur too great a karmic debt. Though he was protected by the Sal Tree of Life and Death, the tree was currently in the process of evolving, so there was no telling whether it could shoulder retribution of such a scale.

He’d also learned Qing Yu’s formula dao. While he hadn’t reached her heaven-defying realm of using raw materials to synthesize whatever was needed, it wasn’t a problem for him to deduce some methods, combat skills, and secret arts.

For example, to write the book in Lin Xuan’s possession, Lu Yun and Qing Yu had worked together through formula dao to perfectly derive the ancient teachings of his sect’s forefather.

Likewise, Lu Yun had employed formula dao to cobble together a simplified version of the Death Spike. However, he didn’t know how much power the simplified version retained, and Qing Yu couldn’t theorize the result either.

Now that Lin Yu and Lin Xuan had fully committed themselves to Lu Yun’s side, he meant to gradually disclose some of his secrets to them. As it happened, he needed help from them to set up the Death Spike. It wasn’t a layout deployable by one person.

One brother could arrange the formation and the other the feng shui layout, making for a complementary pair. For his part, Lu Yun would be responsible for the main body of the layout.

As for Li Youcai and the little fox, they were sent to the Exalted Immortal Sect’s various pointless banquets in lieu of their party. Previously unrivaled to begin with, the fox’s illusions had progressed even further after returning from the celestial master tomb. Her human guise would be a challenge to see through, even for dao immortals.

Lu Yun could imagine how flustered Exalted Major and the Exalted Immortal Sect were at the moment, undecided on how to handle him. They’d probably never entertained the possibility that he’d truly set foot into Exalted Major.

……

To kick things off, the two Lin brothers deployed their skills in coordinated action and blanketed the group’s residence in an illusion formation meant to confuse the senses. Then they set out to alter the local environment—Lin Yu with formations and Lin Xuan with layouts—while Lu Yun mobilized the three immortal fires to refine the Death Spike.

The spike itself was made from bronze, an ingredient not particularly rare in the world of immortals. However, since it was used in ritual ceremonies and sacrifices, that made it quite valuable.

In the past, he’d refined the palace mausoleum with the metal. Back then, the Panorama Pavilion had gathered tons of kilograms of it, and there was quite a bit left inside his storage ring.

Three immortal fires flared to life at the same time and tirelessly worked at the pile of bronze that was more than thirty meters tall. While the metal melted, Lu Yun’s hands flew in a series of quick gestures and steadily imbued the metal with spirit seals to mold it into a spike roughly three meters long. Such was the way of refining items in the world of immortals.

Back on Earth, he would’ve had to hammer the metal with elbow grease, instead. The spike was the core of the feng shui layout, but it also had to be deployed in combination with secondary formations prepared by helpers.

In the past, the grandmaster had mobilized all available hands in the sect to barely manage a Death Spike layout. That had been during the peak of the sect, and the grandmaster had taken advantage of favorable circumstances and underhanded means to get away with hammering the spike into the imperial palace grounds.

Lu Yun was now in a world of immortals replete with immortal arts and wonders galore, so there was no need for him to act so furtively. Without a doubt, the Exalted Immortal Sect was constantly monitoring him, but even so, his disciples were formation grandmasters in their own right whose works could easily fool the surveillance.

In particular, Lin Xuan’s feng shui layouts would be very difficult to spot even for formation grandmasters of the same level. Not even the Exalted emperor would expect Lu Yun to be so brazen as to deploy a killing layout right under his nose.

……

Rumble!

Thunder suddenly roared in the sky as jagged bolts of lightning ripped through it. Dark, heavy clouds covered all of the firmament over the Exalted Immortal Sect, bolts of lightning writhing in their midst.

“What’s the matter?” Everyone inside the sect simultaneously shot to their feet and looked at the sky.

“Is someone undergoing their tribulation here?” The sectmaster sprang up from his seat, an unsettled expression on his face. “Is it Lu Yun? What in the heavens is that kid doing?”

Thanks to her illusions, the little fox currently appeared in human form as a man with lush silver hair down to his lower back, one blessed with otherworldly handsomeness. Impressively enough, it was the same appearance as her Monster God form back in the North Sea.

In front of her, Li Youcai was drinking and chattering merrily with court officials and sect immortals in a perfectly harmonious atmosphere, oblivious to the changes in the sky. This was all due to the fox’s illusion, and even the two aether dao immortals on surveillance duty had been duped.

……

“Shit!” When Lu Yun thrust the Death Spike into the ground, a sheen of cold sweat glinted on his forehead. “I forgot there was a divine tomb under Mount Exalted! With the layout set up on top of the tomb…” He blanched at the possible consequences.

It wouldn’t have mattered had it been an ordinary tomb, but herein lay a tomb where rested a divine dynasty. Below the tomb snaked a yin dragon vein, and on top of the dragon’s head was a palace coffin and a throne coffin where an imperial princess was buried.

Thus, the Death Spike had triggered a lightning tribulation.