The Ascension Pool!

……

Lu Yun located Meng Wang’s flower in the sea of Hell Flowers.

Since the luopan had become one with Lu Yun’s body, that resulted in the former immortal emperor regaining his freedom, no matter how unwilling he was to obtain it. Lu Yun sent him to the flowery plains so he could reform his soul.

Since Meng Wang’s true spirit was complete, he was the only one awake in this expanse of flora.

“You’re looking for the Ascension Pool?” Three inches tall, Meng Wang sat cross-legged on the stamen of a Hell Flower. He thought briefly before responding, “The Great Emperor of the South, Haotian, was the guardian of the Ascension Pool…”

“Who did you say?! Haotian??” Lu Yun’s expression changed drastically when he heard the name.

He hadn’t forgotten this master of the celestial court after Taiyi’s death, the one who’d colluded with realm monsters and even the big akasha ghost.

Lu Yun didn’t know what’d happened to the connate demon god in the end, but it couldn’t have been anything good. And now, he was hearing the name again.

“Ah, right, Haotian, Haotian! I wondered why his name sounded so familiar…” He smacked his forehead fiercely.

Haotian’s name existed in both Su Xiaoxiao and Cangyin’s memories. He was the Great Emperor of the South, just as Myrtlestar was the Great Empress of the East.

There were two other great emperors apart from them: Great Emperor of the West, Polaris, [1] and Great Emperor of the North, Zhenwu. [2] They’d both exceeded the primordial realm and had set eyes on the Three Purities realm. Though their cultivation level was less than the immortal emperor’s, they’d still been enough to dominate the four cardinal directions and ensure tranquility in the world of immortals.

However, they disappeared mysteriously before the great war broke out a hundred thousand years ago. Even the Ascension Pool that Haotian watched over went missing as well.

When Lu Yun returned to the great wilderness, he’d considered the connate demon gods from the perspective of a future descendant. He’d treated them as ancient figures of mythology, and apart from a few exceptions such as Ling Weiyang and others, he didn’t connect them with anyone in the future.

Not to mention, Emperor Haotian had just been someone that existed in the memories of two of his Yama Kings. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but a foreboding feeling rose in his heart when he heard the name again.

“Empress Myrtlestar and her tribe were buried in the eastern tomb of the Skandha Extinction Tomb. If my guess is correct, the other three emperors lie in the other tombs,” Meng Wang said to Lu Yun. He knew about Empress Myrtlestar’s affairs, but he didn’t know what Lu Yun currently thought of everything.

“Yuchi Tianhuang broke apart the Skandha Extinction Tomb a long time ago. Apart from Empress Myrtlestar in the eastern tomb, there was no sign of the other emperors anywhere to be found.” Lu Yun shook his head slightly. “But I think I know now where the other three emperors and the Ascension Pool are.”

A shadow hung over his mind. There’d only been Empress Myrtlestar and her tribe in the Skandha Extinction Tomb. Her strength alone had been enough to activate the awful Skandha Extinction Tomb and curse the four cardinal tribes.

As one of Lu Yun’s Infernum, Yuchi Tianhuang’s name was written in the Tome of Life and Death. After Lu Yun’s return from the great wilderness, he sent Yuchi Tianhuang, his dao partner Xuan Yu, and daughter Yuchi Hanxing to raze the Skandha Extinction Tomb and dispel the curse on the divine race.

Lu Yun had passed on his sect’s inheritance during these years, and the numerous experts under his command were the first to learn the secret arts of the human ancestor planet. Breaking apart a tomb wasn’t a difficult challenge to them.

“Where?” Meng Wang asked curiously.

“The World Gates.” Lu Yun’s voice was hoarse. “That bastard Haotian combined the Ascension Pool into the World Gates!”

Qing Yu had been able to deduce that the Ascension Pool was in one of the great tombs of the world, but no matter how she tried, she hadn’t been able to locate which precise tomb.

There was one possible tomb that they hadn’t considered—the location of the World Gates. The land around it held all of the past celestial emperors and divine race experts in a jumbled hodgepodge of graves. As ragtag as it was, it was still a tomb, one formed by the power of heaven and earth.

The Ascension Pool was the doorway to the enormous tomb that was the world of immortals and thus, very similar in function to the World Gates. They were now merged into one giant threshold to the outer reaches of space, and that horrifying curse still continued to be active.

If one wanted to destroy the curse, they would have to destroy the Ascension Pool and World Gates. But once the World Gates were demolished, hordes of yin spirits and dead spirits would surge into the world of immortals and tear it to pieces, turning it into another ruined wreck among the stars.

Lu Yun had once thought that the curse would be broken if the immortal dao ran through the heavens. But when the immortal dao had been fully repaired and extended into all reaches, he quickly realized that this was a trap.

If anyone dared break through from grand pure realm and become an emperor, they would expire on the spot from the curse.

“Pangu and Hongjun started laying out their plans during the great wilderness and paved the way for the future immortal dao. However, so did their enemies put their pieces into position then as well. They injected their cancerous tumor into the immortal dao at its moment of inception.” Lu Yun glowered forebodingly.

If the Ascension Pool had been anywhere else, he would’ve destroyed it even if he’d have to blast a planet to pieces. But since it was in the World Gates, there was almost nothing he could do. Without great emperors at the helm, the world of immortals would very likely fall to the tide of yin spirits to come. But if they wanted to bring great emperors into the world, they had to root out the origin of the curse in the World Gates.

It’s a catch-22!

“What should I do?” Lu Yun was at a complete loss for the first time in his life.

“I think you should go see the person you want to see the most right now.” Meng Wang cocked his tiny head at the master of hell.

“Who do I want to see the most right now? Pangu? Hongjun? God?” Lu Yun stared back at the spirit. “Who would you say that is?”

“That’s up to you, of course,” Meng Wang replied merrily.

“Ge Long, who would you say I want to see the most right now?” Lu Yun looked at Ge Long standing outside the sea of flowers.

Ge Long smiled. “That’s up to my dear martial-uncle yourself.”

Fuying’s expression froze upon hearing the honorific. She was Ge Long’s disciple, so that meant she’d spontaneously dropped two ranks in seniority to Lu Yun! …she really wanted to wail with the unfairness of the situation.

“The person I want to see the most right now… is definitely not Pangu or God. They’re probably suppressing the demon of immortal dao at the moment. It’s not Hongjun and it’s not Tianqi…” Lu Yun stared blankly at the sea of Hell Flowers. Suddenly, his eyes stopped on a particular flower.

“I know who I want to see!” he laughed uproariously. “That’s right, he’s the only one in the world who can solve this problem! He’s not dead, he’s still alive! And he’s on… the ancestor planet!”

1. The Great Heavenly Emperor of the Highest Palace of the Curved Array, is one of the highest sky deities of Taoism. He is also the brother of the Ziwei Emperor (NECRO’s Myrtlestar).

2. Xuanwu, also known as Zhenwu (真武), is a powerful deity in Chinese religion, one of the higher-ranking deities in Taoism. He is identified as the God of the North (黑帝 "Black Emperor") and is particularly revered by martial artists.