A Hell Flower!

The yin-countering seed that Su Xiaoxiao had acquired in the ancient times was the seed of a Hell Flower!

Found on the banks of the River of Forgetfulness in hell, the flower bloomed and wilted in cycles of one thousand years. It went through nine forms in one day, and its flowers and leaves never met each other. While the flower bloomed, the leaves wilted. When the flower withered, the leaves grew.

There were only two kinds of plants in hell—the Sal Tree of Life and Death, and Hell Flowers. Hell Flowers possessed a strange power that could rival the ten connate spirit roots, and were only a hair less powerful than the Sal Tree of Life and Death.

After the destruction of hell, all of these flowers of the dead had wilted and disintegrated. Su Xiaoxiao having one of its seeds was truly a delightful surprise.

There was no shortage of yin energy and vicious intent in hell, and Hell Flowers were used to an environment thick with such energies. Being native to the banks of the River of Forgetfulness, where souls came to wipe clean the slate of all grudges and regrets in their past lives, anywhere else seemed like nothing in comparison.

Su Xiaoxiao had acquired the seed back in the ancient times, but couldn’t make it sprout. Now, she’d become Lu Yun’s envoy and gained the aura of hell, as well as having the overlord of the netherworld standing right next to her.

As a result, the flower bloomed in an instant and radiated a crimson light that wrapped around the inner sea of Levitating Island, destroying all of the zombies and ghost zombies in the area, and even refining the yin energy in the waters.

Bam! Bam!

Two towering waves swept from the inner sea as two giant zombies, fifty kilometers tall, charged out from the ocean.

“Don’t run, my yum-yums!” roared Ge Long. “Let me have a bite. Just one bite!”

Dark light flickered all over his body as he ran after the two rotting zombies, waving curled hands and opening his mouth in anticipation of a delicious snack. The snarling zombies mounted a furious, joint counterattack.

Immortals who’d just sighed in relief watched the scene play out in stunned silence. They hadn’t expected such terrifying zombies to reside within the inner sea. They, were, gigantic! Every single movement they made created powerful waves that savaged the shore.

By now, no one dared contemplate remaining on Levitating Island. Dao immortals might be able to fight such behemoths, but with the emergence of the skydragon tomb on the horizon, all of them had made their way to the imperial seas.

Even the immortals in Kunpeng Palace made their hasty escape. The formations outside the palace weren’t strong enough to withstand the inevitable fallout from the massive clash.

……

“They aren’t human!” Lu Yun finally got a full look at the resurrected corpse coffins.

Their heads were about half a kilometer wide, while their bodies ran about fifty kilometers long. Instead of legs below their waists, there were snake tails! However, their tails had rotted away, revealing black bones beneath the flesh.

“They’re divines! The Exalted Divine Tribe!” Su Xiaoxiao nodded heavily as a black vortex appeared in her hand. She’d extracted some of the venom from the poison zombie.

Lu Yun nodded as well. With her memory, he naturally knew what had happened with the two corpse coffins.

‘Exalted’ referred to an eternal freedom above all else. The Exalted Divine Tribe consisted of beings with human heads and snake bodies, and embodied the dao in all of their movements. Their status and prowess back in the ancient times was thus self-evident.

Tinglan and Guanqing’s true identity was a part of that tribe. Back in their time, they’d once crossed paths with Su Xiaoxiao and attempted to kill her for the Hell Flower seed, but Su Xiaoxiao had successfully fended them off.

However, she had then died in her sleep for some reason, and her body and spirit were buried separately in corpse coffins refined from Guanqing’s and Tinglan’s bodies. The three ethereal and seven corporeal parts of her soul had also been extracted and devoured.

Tinglan’s immortal ghost claimed that she and Guanqing were Su Xiaoxiao’s maids, because she was a chang ghost, one of the ghosts that helped their killer claim their next victim. Chang ghosts were great liars, and Lu Yun had seen Tinglan for what she was when he’d gotten a clear look of the tombs of yin and yang.

Many believed that chang ghosts were ones of those who’d been eaten by tigers and lured people into the mountains to be the tigers’ next meal, but that was a misconception. Chang ghosts were those who’d died of great terror, such as mortals who’d been eaten by tigers, or, in this case, divines who had been turned into corpse coffins!

As such, they harbored great trepidation in their hearts, and concealed their fear by lying. Meanwhile, the ghost zombies that fed on fear within the corpse coffins had been raised by Tinglan.

“Exalted Divine Tribe… Exalted Immortal Sect....” Lu Yun suddenly connected the dots. According to Su Xiaoxiao’s memories, the Exalted Divines were the imperial clan of the divine race back in the ancient times, which put them above the four cardinal tribes.

The Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise patriarchs were all primordial realm immortals, similar to the four celestial masters of the heavenly court. However, the divine emperor from the Exalted Divine Tribe was of the principal realm, far more powerful than the four divine kings.

As for the divine beasts themselves, the ancestors of the four cardinal tribes, no one knew what their cultivation was, and they’d never concerned themselves with matters of the world.

The Exalted Immortal Sect was unusually interested in the three paintings derived from the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals, a treasure of the divine race. There had to be a connection between the sect and the tribe. Originally, Lu Yun had thought the sect was named after Exalted Major, but that didn’t seem to be the case anymore.

More importantly, the first group of Exalted Immortal Sect cultivators that Lu Yun had encountered had used the same techniques as the Corpse Refiners. That meant that the sect was not only related to the ancient divine tribe, but also the Corpse Refiners.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that the ghost zombies in the corpse coffins were able to set up a Great Formation of Corpse Refinement through their movements. Unbidden, he remembered one of the manifestations of the Dusk restriction—the Exalted celestial emperor!

Chen Xiao had sent the celestial emperor into the Dusk Tomb, who’d then become a servant of the restriction. Then Mo Yi threw in the fake Nephrite celestial emperor, an inhabitant of the Blood Sea who’d taken the Nephrite heavenly mandate.

Lu Yun shook his head briskly. This was no time for him to dwell on the matter.

Ge Long’s fight with the two zombies continued to intensify. They stirred up tidal wave upon tidal wave from the inner sea that crashed mercilessly into Levitating Island. The boundary created by the Hell Flower could prevent the spread of zombies and yin energy, but it couldn’t contain the impact of the battle itself.

Thankfully, the powerful shockwaves didn’t threaten the flower. It stood tall and strong at the heart of the inner sea.

“Crush them with your immortal crystal, Your Royal Highness!” Lu Yun transmitted to the Deaf Prince.

The prince perked up and burst into hearty laughter. “Hahaha, two Exalted Divine zombies huh? Time to crush them all!”

The East Sea monster spirits were rumored to be descendents of the Monster Celestial Master of the ancient heavenly court. Thus, he knew about the Exalted Divine Tribe.

“Hahaha! Voila! Eat my crystal!” A silver box appeared in his hand and burst into a pillar of silver light that illuminated the sky. Within the luminescence, a cream-colored crystal mountain roughly thirty thousand meters tall materialized into solid form.

“Go back, Ge Long!” transmitted Lu Yun.

“M-mommy!” Ge Long screamed and fled through the Gates of the Abyss as soon as he saw the crystal mountain looming overhead.

Bam!

The mountain smashed down with finality.