Suffocation wrapped around Lu Yun the moment his primary body set foot into chaos. Though there was no oxygen among the stars, there was the boundless energy of the world, so he wasn’t affected when traveling the cosmos.

But here in the chaos, there was only a wispy, subtle air flow of chaos. A minor golden core cultivator immediately experienced dire suffocation when they ventured into this place.

As for the little fox, though she only possessed the strength of a true divine at the moment, she had once been a great master of the chaos realm. Her cultivation realm and core essence remained, so she wasn’t impacted by the surroundings.

Lu Yun quickly lifted up the golden spirit pearl and activated its energy to protect himself. The suffocating feeling immediately vanished upon him doing so.

“Do I need to break apart my primary body?”

“No need, you and Tushan tried taking out the compass with the Bell of Chaos last time, but the bell recoiled onto the two of you and heavily injured Tushan as well.” Fuxi easily guessed what had happened during their last attempt after he made a few deductions.

With Lu Yun’s abilities and way of thinking, he naturally would’ve wanted to set up protections for the Dao Flower after arriving here. Formula dao would’ve highlighted the luopan in his body as the best tool for the job, but unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to take it out of his body.

Their efforts stymied and gravely injured by the backlash, he and the little fox could only opt for erasing their memories of what had happened here.

Fuxi beckoned lightly with his hand and sent the two bamboo scrolls hovering in front of him into Lu Yun’s primary body. The youth’s eyes shot wide open and he looked a bit incredulously at Fuxi. 

He could clearly feel the Yellow River Map and Inscription of the River Luo melding with his body, becoming one with him!

The luopan had been forced into him when they traveled through space and time. Affected by the terrible power, there was temporarily no way of separating it. However, Fuxi had just easily done the same thing with a wave of his hand!

“Use your body as the seal and guard the Dao Flower. Become the guardian of the flower in deed and name!” Fuxi declared solemnly. “The Dao Flower will also be able to protect your primary self. From henceforth, your Xing Chen replica will be Lie Shan, the future great emperor of humanity, first of the great emperor title. You will be the Flame Emperor!

“When Ah Zhi and Tushan’s power dissipates after ninety-nine years, your primary body and replica will be able to return to the future though the Dao Flower.”

Lu Yun nodded without a word. He trusted Fuxi; this was his great ancestor and the protector of humanity. So what if Fuxi was lying to trick him into becoming the seal for the Dao Flower? Protecting the flower meant protecting all life within this galaxy. Lu Yun wasn’t opposed to doing that.

He reached out and summoned the Dao Flower again; the golden spirit pearl glowed with a hazy radiance that enveloped him and the flower. Then, the luopan, Yellow River Map, and Inscription of the River Luo all materialized at the same time, forming a massive seal that closed around the golden spirit pearl.

Power from heaven and earth originated from the luopan while Fuxi’s two great treasures represented the laws and patterns of all things in the world. When the three came together, they immediately formed a small world with the golden spirit pearl as its foundation and the other three treasures as protectors. Even the strongest realm monsters wouldn’t be able to breach a world made out of all of these connate treasures!

Lu Yun sat in the middle of this world, his hands cupping the Dao Flower and detached indifference written all over his face.

There was no concept of time here, the space within the seal had also been constructed by the golden spirit pearl. Dao Flower in hand, Lu Yun could use it to peer at all moments of time and clearly see everything that had ever happened in the past.

However, when it came to his own matters, he could only go as far as the moment he left his own world. Everything after that was a foggy mess and he could make out nothing from the murk.

Other than that, there were no more secrets of history hidden from him.

“Ai—” Sighing softly, Lu Yun opted to close his eyes and refrain from delving into these so-called truths.

……

“Alright, the rest is up to you. I’m going into the depths of chaos to search for something.” Fuxi sounded a bit melancholic as he looked at Lu Yun and the little fox.

“Are you really not going to die from this?” Lu Yun frowned.

“I won’t die before those connate demon gods are exterminated.” Fuxi smiled and vanished into the reaches of chaos.

“Lu Yun, what do you think Fuxi looks like?” The little fox nuzzled his cheek from her vantage point on his shoulder.

“What does he look like?” Lu Yun asked subconsciously, still looking in the direction of where his great ancestor had disappeared.

“An Exalted Divine.” The little fox’s tone was gentle. “But there are no Exalted Divines in this time.”

Lu Yun trembled. “Do you mean to say that the Exalted Divines aren’t divines, but Fuxi’s descendants?!”

Exalted Divines possessed human heads and snake bodies. They formed the character for dao when they walked, and they did look remarkably similar to Fuxi.

However, Fuxi currently had no descendants and the Exalted Divines didn’t exist at the moment. In fact, the divine race wasn’t even in the picture yet.

Divine spirits of the world were in a very primitive stage as tribute spirits nurtured by human priests. Naturally forming divine spirits were only slowly coming into their own, but the core divine spirits were already born and represented the four elements. [1]

It was becoming apparent that the origins of the human race wasn’t what people commonly said—a natural occurrence after divine spirits grew so numerous that they split off from human dependency. There were likely a lot more secrets to it.

However, Lu Yun, bearer of the Dao Flower, had already closed his eyes. He didn’t wish to look into these bloody secrets any longer.

……

Lu Yun safely returned from the chaos with the little fox in tow. Time didn’t exist in the chaos, but it existed within them. It’d been about six hours since their departure, and Taiyi’s ghost had been standing by the seal all this time. Keeping a constant eye on them, he didn’t relax until he saw the little fox return safely.

“I’m going to seal off this ocean of flames.” Lu Yun looked at Taiyi.

“Seal off the ocean?” Taiyi frowned slightly, two blazes of ghostly fires igniting in his eyes.

“The strength within this sea is decreasing every second. Even though your corpse is now a sun star, it will dwindle away to nothing one day as well. Therefore, I want to seal this place away to minimize unnecessary consumption.” Lu Yun looked intently at Taiyi.

If he sealed off this patch of space, all of its energy would converge onto his ghost, very possibly resulting in him truly scattering to the four corners of the world.

“This is a diagram of the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates. Use that to seal away this place.” Taiyi sighed and waved his hand, materializing a magnificent palace in front of Lu Yun.

1. The divine race’s basic elements are earth, air, fire, and water.