Though Lu Yun was still defending himself against the recoil of the world, he wasn’t actually suffering any tangible harm. His body possessed the same origin as heaven and earth, so that directly weakened the backlash by more than fifty percent. He was actually leveraging heaven’s wrath to refine the five heavenly veins beneath his feet as well, which in return would further improve his Dragonshift Method.

As the recoil slowly faded away, the five veins beneath his feet gradually sank into the ground. A draconic shadow flashed across his body, heralding that his Dragonshift Method had finally reached great perfection.

“I’m just missing the Dragonspike Litany now… If I can nail a heavenly vein with a spike and destroy a formidable faction that reigns supreme, it’ll probably immediately ascend to great perfection!” Lu Yun lifted his head as he spoke and looked in the direction of the world of celestials. He already had a target in mind.

“That’s strange, there’s only these altars in the palace of Pangu’s tomb. Where’s his axe and where’s the great god’s corpse?” Lu Yun stood atop the mother altar and blankly surveyed the surroundings.

The mother altar was located at the highest peak of the palace and the five elemental altars arranged below it. Though he stood on the mother altar, he couldn’t find any trace of the weapon.

Given the departure of the origin divine, however, the five dead Exalted divine spirits were slowly absorbing the mother altar’s energy and beginning to resuscitate.

After giving the matter some thought, Lu Yun split out some of the organs’ strength and directed it to the five elemental altars, sealing them off so that nothing else would disturb the divine spirits’ revival.

“So there were five ancestor gods of the Exalted divine tribe…” Lu Yun scratched his head.

The Exalted divines weren’t the enemy. They would later establish a divine court and etch their divine emperor’s Sacred Origin Runes onto the Dao Flower, helping the immortal dao assimilate divine dao and take another step closer to perfection.

As for the changes in the divine court in the future… it now seemed likely that the origin divine would eventually usurp Exalted divine rule. Their last celestial emperor should be the origin divine Lu Yun had just seen.

……

He was in no rush to locate Pangu’s corpse and weapon after sealing off the five altars. Rather, Lu Yun sat down cross-legged on the mother altar and silently theorized everything about this tomb. His calculations told him that the safest spot in the palace was atop these six altars. If he dared walk down and return to the ground, he was sure to die a nasty death.

“This palace…” he suddenly opened his eyes and looked to the skies. “Worldcarver is outside the palace?”

Lu Yun blinked. The palace was the main structure of Pangu’s tomb. If his weapon was outside the palace, that meant Worldcarver wasn’t actually in the tomb.

“Then where’s the great god’s corpse?” Lu Yun sat dumbly on the altar and looked around at a loss. His calculations told him that the layout of the tomb wasn’t to lay anyone to rest, but to nurture the six altars.

But this was still a tomb at the end of the day, and though its primary purpose was to foster the six altars, there was still a great personal buried inside—Pangu! This was still a magnificent tomb, the foremost tomb of the world!

“Unless…” His face darkening, Lu Yun took a deep breath and slowly opened his hand. A black sapling materialized on it, accompanied by a sea of hellfire that rushed into the ancient tomb. The Sal Tree of Life and Death!

It wasn’t a mirage this time, but the actual tree that the master of hell had summoned from his domain.

……

“Oh my heavens!” The Yin Prince and Yulei yelped at the same time.

“No wonder he can manipulate hellfire, that demonic tree’s fallen into his hands!” The Yin Prince’s voice had shifted so completely that she no longer sounded like a man. Gorgeous eyes bulging with shock, she clapped her hands tightly over her mouth, as if wanting to mute herself through physical force alone.

Off to the side, Yulei was likewise flabbergasted.

“This is bad, this is very bad indeed. With the demonic tree in the Flame Emperor’s hands, anywhere he stands is the true Sea of Hellfire. Shentu won’t be his match!” Yulei had no words to describe what he was witnessing.

Although Lie Shan had summoned the mirage of the tree a few times, not many in the great wilderness knew what it was. Additionally, it’d only ever been a shadow—which didn’t represent much. Many were the connate demon gods who could summon a shadow of Mount Buzhou or even the sun and overlay it with themselves.

But Lie Shan had called the real tree to him! Hellfire blazed on its branches and roiled outward into a fiery ocean. Wherever it stood was the equivalent of the Sea of Hellfire!

The Yin Prince’s carriage flared with black light in the next moment, enveloping her soldiers and Yulei, then vanished without a trace into the void.

……

Within the Sea of Hellfire, Lu Yun’s eyes burned ferociously and he deployed the Spectral Eye.

“A dragon sleeps in mountains coiled,

“Those deathly cliffs with mysteries roiled.

“Danger shies if mountains hide—” He spat out a mouthful of blood.

As he operated the Dragonsearch Invocation, his mind had suffered a grave injury and even the Spectral Eye exploded!

Hummm.

The Tome of Life and Death suddenly materialized and hovered protectively over his body, preventing him from imploding to pieces from the terrible backlash.

“Pangu’s corpse is also a taboo? What the sheer utter fuck?! How are there so many taboos in the world? I don’t believe this one will elude me, your daddy’s coming for you today!” Flying into a rage, Lu Yun grabbed the book over his head and grasped in it his hand. He collected all of the strength within him and injected it into the Sal Tree; all of Pangu’s tomb turned into a fiery ocean as hellfire roared into every nook and cranny.

Within the tomb, all of the dreadful creatures lurking in the shadows instantly perished from the blazing conflagration.

“A dragon searches through heaven and earth!

“Do hereby hearken this world and soul!”

Boooooom.

A golden dragon suddenly appeared in the ocean of hellfire and burrowed into Lu Yun’s body. He turned pure gold, and even hellfire took on an aureate gleam, dancing as flames of blackish-gold.

“AhhhHHHHHH!!” Lu Yun screamed, two beams of golden light shooting out three hundred meters into the distance from his eyes. They ripped forward with the momentum to pierce the heavens.

“I see, I see!” he gabbled. “So this tomb is made out of Pangu’s corpse, and this palace carved out of his head!”

The golden light had illuminated Worldcarver and identified its current position. It rested right above the palace, almost hewing it into two. Pangu… had died because Worldcarver had sliced his head right open!