Mosquitoes counted many natural enemies as they were prey for a good number of life forms, but Lu Yun wasn’t able to produce any of their predators on such short notice like this.

Mosquitoes hated the cold—this was common knowledge back on Earth. No matter how large they grew, they couldn’t change this natural inclination about them. There was no cold air at all on the skull island, which made it a perfect match for an optimal mosquito living environment.

“So mosquitoes are afraid of the cold,” Ying Luo murmured. “But what if they aren’t?”

She didn’t have much confidence in Lu Yun’s proposal.

“Erm…” Lu Yun rubbed his nose. He didn’t know how to explain biology and other matters to the girl. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll give it a try.” He grinned. “It’s not like we have any better options.”

No one had come after Wei Yuan’s departure. Plainly, second level mortal realm was too weak to venture into this tomb. Though the opportunity to ascend beyond the chaos realm was tantalizing and could be found here, it was too far out of reach for mortal realm beings.

Lu Yun rose into the air as he spoke and approached the sky over the Blood Sea. It, too, had been dyed a crimson color. With all of the realm monsters embedded into it, it seemed more like an enormous ruby ceiling.

He adjusted his body to its most optimal state so that he would continuously adapt the chill in the air.

Realm monsters were translucent, like enormous jellyfish. An ice crystal the size of a fist centered in the heart of their bodies. He’d seen this kind of crystal before when Xuanyuan Xiaoyue transformed into a realm monster—this was the core of a realm monster.

However, they were smashed to pieces in all of the realm monsters in this area, quickly extinguishing their lives when their cores were broken.

He took a close look at the realm monsters when he drew near them. Snarling and claws upraised, they remained ready to attack even in death. Or rather, they hadn’t known that death had come for them.

“All of their cores were destroyed in a split second,” Lu Yun sucked in a sharp breath. “Based on what Ying Luo said, they were protecting that mythological world. So who was that world’s enemy, and who destroyed it?!”

The mythological world had devoured almost the entire chaos. Chaos creatures had barely survived by taking shelter in the six dao palaces; the sacred palaces and nine sacred lands hadn’t existed at that time.

Thus, it was nigh impossible that the chaos had destroyed the mythological world. Something far more terrifying had done so.

“Forget all that for now, my current goal is to save my world from the chaos. The rest can come later.” Lu Yun shoved a ragtag assortment of everything else out of his mind.

The realm monsters in front of him were embedded into the void and immobilized by the local space. It wouldn’t be an easy task to take them out.

“These realm monsters look small, but their mass is the equivalent of a world… They only look small because they’re being distorted by this space.” Lu Yun frowned ferociously. “No, I don’t need to bring out an entire corpse. I just need the source of their coldness.”

He looked straight at the crystal core that remained whole, despite being shattered. It was the size of a fist, but it was also as large as a world as well. Thankfully, it’d been broken, so he only needed to retrieve one single shard.

“What are you doing?” Ying Luo flew up as well and looked skeptically at Lu Yun.

“Entering a realm monster’s body to get a piece of its core.” Sword in hand, Lu Yun was attempting to carve an opening into the one in front of him.

“You can’t! You’ll get lost inside!” Startled, Ying Luo tried to stop him. “When realm monsters die, their bodies become a dead region. There are no rules or order inside. Even sovereigns find nothing but death when they enter!”

“Even sovereigns die inside?!” Lu Yun jumped with shock.

“That’s right!” Ying Luo nodded. “Realm monsters are a marvelous thing—they’re formed by the lingering resentment of dead worlds. When they transform into realm monsters, that’s the equivalent of a new life form. But if they die, then they return to being a world.

“Even though they don’t possess the energy of a world that can kill us, its body is boundless without end and extraordinarily dangerous. More than one sovereign has died inside one before!”

Upon delivering that speech, she stood staunchly in front of Lu Yun. “There’s other ways to get cold air if we need it. We don’t necessarily need the core of a realm monster.”

She was growing frantic. Though she hadn’t spent a lot of time with Lu Yun yet, she didn’t want him to die for no good reason.

“You’re wrong.” Lu Yun shook his head. “Apart from the cold air of realm monsters, there’s probably very few other sources that exist that can repel the mosquitoes.”

He lifted his hand and flared several rays of arctic air from Mo Ke’s treasure.

Ying Luo shivered from the sudden drop in temperature.

“Mo Ke died to those mosquitoes, but he’d already activated his treasure. He died all the same, and if my guess is right, this is the final test. We need to retrieve a core fragment from a realm monster so we can pass through this area.”

Mosquitoes were indeed afraid of cold, but the mosquitoes of the Blood Sea were no ordinary specimens. Regular cold air did nothing to them, only the chilliness of realm monsters could restrain them.

How else would they docilely remain in the Blood Sea otherwise? Lu Yun and the others would’ve become mosquito food the moment they entered.

“Stay here. I’m going inside to see what’s going on with these realm monsters.” Lu Yun flared with rays of dream-like power.

“Inception! The power of inception! You really are a disciple of Inception Palace!” exclaimed Ying Luo. She’d only sensed a little power of inception from Lu Yun’s combat art earlier, but it now displayed pure and unadulterated energy.

Inception was one of the six laws of supreme order within the chaos. It represented the beginning of all things and the root of all.

Lu Yun smiled faintly without a response. He pointed with his sword and deployed Dragonrise, making a small incision on the realm monster in front of them. Slipping inside, he entered the realm monster proper.

Inception…

He’d used the chaos stars within the dao palaces to refine the six supreme orders, so of course he could utilize the strength of inception.

He’d instilled the laws into the neutral chaos star and sent it into the rip in time along with his past self. In order to do that, he’d first had to master the six orders.