Mournful songs of melancholy and loss reverberated across the world. The Gates of the Abyss opened, welcoming a path lined with Hell Flowers into the netherworld and accepting those who’d died in the disaster.

Most people couldn’t see any of that, though. Only spirits, ghosts, and a few select humans were the exceptions. Everything remained normal to those not in the know.

“That’s....” Qing Han gaped at the flowers and the ancient looking gates. Reflexively, he severed his connection to the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals.

“Don’t worry. If I didn’t want anyone to see that, not even a reborn Empress Myrtlestar would be able to see anything, even if she’d ascended beyond immortal emperor realm.” Lu Yun exhaled deeply. Everyone who’d died here, be they monster spirits, Dusk cultivators, or immortals who’d come to help, then died for their efforts, would be reborn in hell and become the first batch of indigenous natives.

The living and the dead belonged to different worlds. The living possessed their own world and would be born again in the netherworld upon their deaths.

Lu Yun’s Infernum lived in hell, but they were his subordinates. Their lives were completely under his control, and they had no freedom. The spirits that had entered hell this time, though, would live in hell under nobody's rule.

“Is this… your biggest secret?” Qing Han turned to Lu Yun in shock.

“It is.” Lu Yun nodded, a mountainous pressure lifting from his chest. A great sense of relief washed away the suffocating gloom that’d always plagued him.

With his thoughts and will as one, all of the inner energy in his body converged into a stream of black luminescence and soared into the sky, guiding the dense power of heaven and earth into his figure.

It seemed to gradually disperse a thick layer of fog that’d always been unknowingly wrapped around him. The world had never felt so clear to him before; he could plainly see the mechanisms of its movement and the way the heavenly energy circulated.

So this is the perceived void realm. Perceive the void with the nascent spirit to gain insight into the secrets of heaven and earth...

At that thought, the shadow of the Dao Flower bloomed slowly beside him. His perception of the world became even clearer, and every minute movement of his brought about great heavenly might.

“Heaven and earth, heaven and earth....” Lu Yun fell into deep spontaneous thought. He was reminded of how he’d felt as he wielded the power of a peak origin dao immortal when he’d become one with the emperor puppet.

That’d been the pinnacle of utmost freedom, of limitless liberty, as if he’d escaped from an enormous mud pond and achieved true autonomy.

Upon sharing his secrets with Qing Han, the shadow of a long-held burden lifted and he ascended to the void realm. The blessings of the Dao Flower brought him once again to that transcendental realm.

“The world is incredibly vast, but we’ve been struggling in a large, muddy pond. Cultivation… ah, cultivation. The purpose of cultivation is to lift us out of this mud pond.” An inkling of enlightenment dawned on him.

The void realm was the last realm for cultivators. It allowed them to see the world for what it truly was and understand its limitations, setting a clear goal for the future of their cultivation—to escape the pond.

The best way to do so was to draw upon the power of heaven and earth!

Continuous absorption of the power of the land and incorporating oneself into heaven and earth would enable one to transcend their limitations. They would thus be able to break out of the mundane world.

……

“The Dao Flower has dispersed.” Faint fragrance emitted from Qing Han’s body as a slight shadow became a part of him. The Dao Flower in the sky had disappeared, but the real one had taken root in him.

All of a sudden, he blanched as color drained from his face.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Yun asked with a frown.

Face pale, Qing Han said slowly, “Dead… they’re all dead.”

“Who?” Lu Yun asked with an apprehensive expression, but he already had an inkling as to who he was asking about.

“Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, and Zi Chen… are dead.” Qing Han trembled. “The Dao Flower should’ve entered all four of us, but my body contains the entire flower....”

Qing Han shook. He was deeply afraid.

He wasn’t afraid because their three friends were dead, but because the Dao Flower had entered him and found a home on his spirit root. An invisible hand seemed to be pulling the strings behind everything to use Qing Han as a curse to kill every living soul in the world!

The Dao Flower was the medium connecting him to the cultivators of the many worlds. Previously, while Qing Han was the great dao sovereign of cultivation, there were still Wu Tulong, Mo Qitian, and Zi Chen beneath him. It never would’ve fallen to the disguised girl to acquire all parts of the Dao Flower. Now, however, with the other three dead, the entire flower had taken root in him.

Fear and helplessness erupted in Qing Han.

“Don’t worry. We already know how the curse can be resolved, and we’ve found some clues regarding the whereabouts of the Skyqilin and Skyturtle Pearls.” Without thinking, Lu Yun reached out and caressed Qing Han’s long hair.

The action brought a new source of unease to Qing Han. Lu Yun had set foot in the void realm and was one step closer to immortality, but Qing Han wasn’t ready yet. However, his friend was already treating him like Qing Yu.

……

Within Dusk Province, hundreds of millions of dead spirits were brought into hell by the Hell Flowers.

When the task was complete, the flowers scattered across the landscape converged into one and flew into Su Xiaoxiao’s hand. After all was said and done, there was only one real flower. All of the others in Dusk were merely replicas.

After the last of the dead entered hell, the air in Dusk Province seemed to grow a little clearer.

“Don’t you resent them for this?” Qing Han asked. “If the heavyweights of the peak factions had intervened, Dusk Province wouldn’t have suffered such a great loss....”

“Why should I?” Lu Yun shook his head. “The battle caught everyone by surprise and was our own business besides. It would’ve been kind of them to lend a hand, but it’s perfectly reasonable for them to stay on the sidelines.”

Qing Han nodded. He wasn’t really troubled by this; he simply wanted to change the subject.

“Something must’ve happened to the Deaf Prince and the others, though,” Lu Yun sighed. “Otherwise, given who they are, they wouldn’t have stayed out of Dusk Province.”

The East Sea court had come to help when the North Sea monster spirits invaded, but Lu Yun hadn’t seen the Deaf Prince. The rest of the profligates had been absent as well.