It wasn’t that Hadal Bonefire wasn’t strong enough—on the contrary, the true version of the fire rivaled the three great immortal flames.

It was that the Venerated Sacrosanct Demon Sovereign manifested his fire through the nascent spirit observation method. After combining the flames with his nascent spirit, that meant they were limited by the demon sovereign himself.

Upon devouring the frosty energy released by the Embittered Ocean Orb and becoming a pure flame of glacial cold, the Hadal Bonefire more than doubled in strength! Though it now exuded arctic air that was on par with what the group had met before, the core essence of the flames hadn’t changed at all.

……

“Hahahaha—” the demon sovereign threw his head back in laughter when he sensed the heights of his newfound strength. He waved a hand and sent frightful fire of frost in all directions, freezing another dozen zombies coming their way.

Ashu rubbed his forehead when he saw the demon sovereign lay into their enemies with gusto. “This fellow bumbles around like a fool, but the foolish have their own fortune. He’s enjoyed quite the string of luck.”

“It’s not just luck.” Lu Yun cast a glance at the gleeful demon sovereign. “He’s a quick study. Once he fully awakens his sense of self, he’ll probably be another pillar of the world.”

The Venerated Sacrosanct Demon Sovereign was a character that the primordial immortal emperor himself had saved. After his demise, the Green Firmament had extended an olive branch to his soul, but seeing as the demon sovereign would defy even the immortal emperor, he never would’ve bowed his head to serve another.

Presently, he’d decided to use the snake outer-coffin as a punching bag after running out of immediate enemies. A terrifying blast of hoar frost coalesced as a white avenue in the air, ramming straight at the outer-coffin and freezing whatever zombies or dead spirits it ran over.

The blast of cold air was so domineering that it even made the zombies stop in their tracks. Zombies didn’t feel fear, but they did possess base instincts. Those instincts were telling them to stay away from this dreadful air.

The demon sovereign looked at Lu Yun and made an inviting gesture, to which the young man shook his head.

“You should put your cold air away. This yin tomb is far more frightening than it looks, and the titan zombies are probably just a group of minions in here.”

The demon sovereign’s expression froze.

“The immortals who’ve come here have suffered heavy losses, and there are more unknown factors here other than corpsefire and zombies. Your frost can counter the fire-wielding zombies, but it won’t be of any use against the other things.”

Lu Yun had established a connection with Zou Longxiu as soon as he’d entered the yin tomb and was quickly brought up to speed on everything that’d taken place so far.

The yin tomb appeared to be an empty land, but threats and dangers abounded within its reaches. Half of the immortals that’d entered from the Heaven Locus Marsh had already died, but the door in the outside world remained open.

More immortals constantly poured in, following their fates of the past hundred thousand years to enter tombs, search for treasure, and die in tombs. Theirs would be another futile quest this time since there was an enormous fissure between the outskirts of the yin tomb and its heartland. It kept all the immortals out of the most crucial area of this tomb.

……

Lu Yun wasn’t predisposed to saving the immortals. Such had been their modus operandi for the past hundred thousand years—he wouldn’t change anything just with him alone. The demon sovereign retracted his fire, but the avenue of ice remained. Instead of flying through the air, the group took the path to the outer-coffin.

It was a strangely smooth passage and they didn’t meet any obstacles along the way. The zombies were deterred by the avenue, and all of the other unholy denizens of the tomb seemed to have vanished without a trace

“Something’s wrong here.” The former priest of flames frowned. The level of protections for the yin tomb were many times greater than the yang tomb. All of the dead Xuan Yuan Slaves ended up here, or became zombies or vicious ghosts.

But apart from a few titan zombies, there was nothing else here at the moment.

“Would you like to leave?” Knowing full well what was about to happen, Lu Yun looked at Ashu.

Ashu shook his head. “I need to face my demons in the end. If I remain on the run for my entire life, my final ending will be in its stomach!”

He’d known for a while that the zombie tree was here, so he didn’t want to run from the inevitable confrontation. It would pinpoint him with accuracy no matter where he fled. In fact, it’d been fattening Ashu like a pig for slaughter. Whether it was resurrection or Ashu gaining more power, either were favorable outcomes for the tree.

When Ashu had used his core essence to protect Xuanyuan Xiaoyue earlier, that set him on the path of slowly recovering his true self. Once he did and stepped back into the role of Ling Weiyang, the zombie tree would no longer have a chance of devouring him.

Therefore, the tree chose to come to the Xuan Yuan Tomb before this happened.

All ghosts, spirits, and undead entities in the yang tomb were drawn to it. Its origins were too terrifying to think of and it was on the same level as the Dusk River, corpsefire, and Traceless. But somehow, it accidentally gained a spirit along the way—Ashu.

Though Ashu had split off from it and was slowly recovering his own identity, another set of thoughts appeared in the zombie tree: their only goal to consume its spirit.

However, the Azure Dragon King had possessed it for a very long time and it’d also collected a hint of hell after that encounter with Lu Yun. The dead things in the tomb couldn’t resist hell’s siren call and congregated to the tree as soon as it arrived.

After an indeterminate period of time, Lu Yun and the others arrived in front of the outer-coffin.

It was so lofty that they couldn’t see its top. Like a tremendous shadow, it dwarfed everything within the core area of the yin tomb. The mouth of the snake gripped an enormous scarlet coffin roughly fifty kilometers long that was emblazoned with lines of dark gold runes. Etched into the coffin, the runes seemed to represent the ultimate theories of the universe and the great dao between heaven and earth.

An enormous altar sat beneath the coffin, one exuding a bright yellow-brown light that illuminated the structure. There were also a few people standing in front of it—the priest of earth, priest of forest, priest of ocean, priest of blades, and a daoist wearing yellow-brown robes.

Grasping a golden staff, the priest of earth fixed a sharp stare on You Si.

“I thought you’d been swallowed by that person’s human-shaped treasure, but you actually betrayed Xuan Yuan and your faith!” He pointed the staff at You Si while the altar beneath his feet roared into action.