“Just what is that Ichor Bog…” Xing Chen frowned when he heard Ge Yanxia’s final vengeful squeal. In his eyes, the fur seal was deader than dead, returned to whatever odious substance she was comprised of.

Yet somehow, she was still alive.

Tribulation clouds slowly dispersed in the sky, but the stifling and ominous atmosphere lingered on.

“Four hours to retrieve the Immortal Subjugation Seal… That's almost impossible!” Lu Yun had already rushed deep into the immortal emperor’s tomb, but its complexity ran far beyond his expectations. Layers upon layers of formations and layouts overlapped and intersected with each other; it would take quite some time and effort for him to decipher them all.

Outside the tomb, Xing Chen began to fret with worry.

“There's another way.” Qing Yu suddenly opened her eyes and looked at her beloved’s replica. “I can pass my tribulation first and become an immortal, then return to refine the Central World’s mandate another time.”

She was already halfway through the process of refining it, and as she progressed, the concentration of the immortal dao’s might upon her increased as well. Her tribulation would descend at the moment of complete refinement, but she still lacked a critical last detail. Success wasn't guaranteed unless they made use of special provisions.

“No!” refused Lu Yun. “You can't attempt your tribulation unless we’re a hundred percent sure of success!”

“Don't worry, I can handle things.” Qing Yu inclined her head and closed her eyes again, continuing her refinement of the mandate.

……

Though the heavenly tribulation was no more, none of the immortals in the Central World dared return to the scene. The demonic aura had grown so colossal after the appearance of the completed cauldron that one could feel it even in Destiny City.

Within the immortal emperor’s tomb, Lu Yun took one painstakingly difficult step after another in a complicated route.

“This isn’t a formation, layout, or boundary. It’s actually a restriction.” He panted heavily and his body felt like it weighed a thousand kilograms; circulation of immortal force within his body had almost ground to a halt. He'd been picking his way through this passageway for nearly two hours, but still hadn't reached its end.

“Just what kind of place is this?” He tried calling upon his Wandering Step, and when that failed, the death art Boundless Step instead, but a strange power blocked both of them. He saw more than one corpse lying on the ground as he made his way further in—all of them had perished when their nascent spirit exploded. Plainly, the nascent spirits of ordinary immortals were unable to withstand this restriction.

“Right, nascent spirit!” His eyes lit up. “Mine is incredibly strong and practices the nascent spirit observation method. It won't be obstructed by this restriction.”

Hummmm.

To think of the deed was to act upon it, so his nascent spirit replica immediately emerged from his body and observed it from the air. Then, the energy of the world gathered into another outline of Lu Yun’s body.

“This is definitely possible!” His double created by the nascent spirit was identical to his primary body, and the immortal restriction was ineffective in levying any kind of restraint.

Whoosh!

His projected double became one with his nascent spirit replica, then turned into the trace of a shadow before disappearing in the depths of the tomb. Lu Yun’s primary body remained seated cross-legged on the ground, attention fully focused on the six paths of his nascent spirit in hell and continuously supplying energy to his nascent spirit double.

“You actually succeeded.” A sudden breath of wind brushed past Lu Yun as a ghastly white figure blinked into existence next to him, looking very out of place. He was translucent and didn’t have the slightest tinge of color in his face; a ball of verdant green flame burned in his empty eyes.

The immortal emperor!

This ghastly figure was none other than the immortal emperor Lu Yun had once seen!

But at that meeting, the emperor had been handsomely perfect, as if he’d been sculpted out of the finest jade. He’d been an otherworldly gentleman, but now… he was an immortal ghost.

What?!

“You successfully pioneered a nascent spirit method, thereby supplementing the deficiencies in the nascent spirits of immortals.” The immortal emperor’s ghost drifted around Lu Yun, his voice equally tenuous and accompanied by hints of a chilly air. “But that is not enough, you need to reform the path of cultivation to address the root of the problems with nascent spirits…”

“I’ve done enough.” Lu Yun’s eyes snapped open and he looked piercingly at the ghost. “Reforming the immortal dao isn’t my responsibility alone. It’s a matter for all beings under its purview. If I continue down this path and really launch a revolution on dao itself, I’ll attract the envy of the heavens sooner or later and that will doom me beyond redemption!”

“Are you that afraid of death?” The emperor’s voice took on a hard edge and the wind in the passageway dropped a few degrees.

“Yes, I’m terrified of death.” Lu Yun nodded. “If I die, I lose everything. Everything I’m doing now will be meaningless. Like you, have you accepted your death?”

He wasn’t one to shy away from admitting how much he feared death. Having died once already, that feeling of plunging into a horrific abyss of despair was imprinted on his mind and soul.

“No—“ wailed the immortal ghost with a lowered head. “But so what of that? I failed, and it was fated that I fail.

“My cultivation had reached peak grand pure realm and I was about to join the ranks of the primeval human lords. But a descendent from later generations appeared in front of me to inform me that I’d failed. Hahahaha—“

Though he threw his head back with laughter, the two trails of bloody tears down his cheeks further highlighted his macabre look.

“So you admitted defeat just like that?” Lu Yun shook his head slightly.

“The future has long been determined, fate cannot be eluded,” the immortal ghost said bleakly. “I fought it, but still was defeated by them in the end. I didn’t even have the chance for a return blow.”

“The seeds of failure were planted in your dao heart. You’d accepted your defeat, so victory was never in the cards for you,” Lu Yun sighed, sorrow tinging his voice.

“And you? What if one day a future descendent appeared in front of you and told you that you, too, would fall? What would you do?” The immortal emperor gradually recovered his calm and proposed the scenario with the slightest lilt of mockery.

“I would kill him, then continue walking down the path I’d laid out for myself.” Lu Yun grinned. “If someone sent a later descendent to me to throw my dao heart into disarray and shatter my faith, that would mean he's afraid. He's afraid of what I'm doing now and of the path that I will take!

“That would be why he cooked up a so-called descendent from the future—to try and ruin everything that I'm setting up now!

“If that's the case, then what do I have to fear? I’ll be the final victor if I simply follow my path.”

The immortal emperor trembled at this response and his face twisted in a harsh grimace. Blackish-red liquid flowed out of all of his orifices.

Whoosh!

With that, the immortal ghost dispersed, leaving nothing but a pile of bone dust.