Outside the Blood Tower, Hong Xia’s expression grew as dark as water. Who, exactly, was plotting against him?

All of a sudden, his expression changed as he abruptly turned around and left.

Jiu Wen watched Hong Xia’s back as the man left, and a smile slowly spread across Jiu Wen’s face. He knew that Green Lotus and the others were finally beginning to break Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion.

However, the fact that Hong Xia could sense the breaking of his Path of Dispassion from so far away proved that his power was indeed as unfathomable as they had suspected.

Hong Xia arrived beside an orange coffin and entered it. He was going to Vestigium.

Far away, Lu Yin emerged from the Mirari Realm while holding He Xiao. The man was in the same state as Bing Xu: muddle-headed, dazed, and seemingly insane.

In fact, compared to Bing Xu, He Xiao might have endured even worse torment.

Bing Xu’s had relived the torture of the own family members, while He Xiao had suffered the torment of every woman to whom he had ever offered genuine feelings. Each betrayal of true affection had allowed him to walk farther down the Path of Dispassion. Such bonds were no weaker than familial love.

However, family was limited, whereas the women to whom He Xiao had given his true heart were potentially countless. The last woman He Xiao had loved before he broke through to the Immortal realm had been Ba Yue, but he had betrayed a total of 3,821 women. That number far exceeded the number of Bing Xu’s relatives.

He Xiao suffered far worse torture in the Champions’ Stage Purgatory because he had truly given his heart to those women. If not, he could not have walked the Path of Dispassion.

Unfortunately, He Xiao provided about the same amount of karma as Bing Xu: far less than an ordinary Immortal. They were nothing more than Hong Xia’s tools.

Meiren Dan saw Bing Xu and He Xiao’s state and knew that she could not escape the same fate. “Mr. Lu, could you do me a favor?”

“Don’t bother asking to be released,” Blood Tower jumped in.

Awe Gate was speechless; not even an idiot would say something like that.

Lu Yin looked at Meiren Dan. “Tell me.”

“If I go mad, please just kill me,” Meiren Dan said.

Lu Yin glanced at Bing Xu and He Xiao. Although they had both fallen from the Immortal realm, they were still very powerful Dukkhans. Unfortunately, the torment of reliving karmic cycles had essentially ruined them.

Meiren Dan would be the same.

Lu Yin did not know whether to regret this outcome or feel something else. Crippling three Immortals was far too wasteful.

“Alright,” he agreed.

Meiren Dan was grateful. “Thank you.”

As she spoke, she took out a hexagonal plate of armor from her cosmic ring. “This is something that I recently obtained, but I can’t make any sense of it. I also can’t destroy it, but it should be useful. Consider it payment, as thanks for granting my request.”

Lu Yin and the others stared at the hexagonal plate in surprise. “A scale from the Darksky Seal?”

Even Green Lotus froze for a moment. It was actually a plate from the One-Hundredth Seal. No one had expected Meiren Dan to bring one with her.

Meiren Dan was puzzled. “You know what this is?”

Lu Yin smiled, genuinely pleased, as he accepted the plate. “You’ve given me a surprise. Do you have any more? If there are enough, it won’t be impossible to spare your life.”

Meiren Dan let out a helpless sigh. “Just this one.”

“And the others?”

“I don’t know.”

Lu Yin regretfully said, “If it weren’t for the need to break Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion, there would be no need to treat you like this.”

With a casual wave, he heavily injured Meiren Dan and tossed her into the Champions’ Stage Purgatory before taking her to the Mirari Realm.

Meiren Dan had killed countless people, but given the rules of the Dispassion Valleys, if she had not killed others, they would have killed her. What disgusted Lu Yin was her reason for killing everyone: she refused to tolerate anyone from her generation becoming stronger than her. This was what had made Lu Yin see her in the same light as Bing Xu and He Xiao.

But did her thoughts not match those of many others? Who wanted to be surpassed? Meiren Dan had simply taken things to the extreme, as she had possessed the means to do so.

Lu Yin soon returned with Meiren Dan; she had not gone mad.

Unlike Bing Xu, she did not experience torment from family or kinship, and unlike He Xiao, she did not experience the torment of love.

In her karmic cycles, she faced those that she had killed. Those people were unable to inflict the kind of emotional damage that could drive one into insanity. Even so, just like the other two who had entered the Champions’ Stage Purgatory, she simply lay on the ground, gasping for breath.

Her Path of Dispassion was also broken, and her realm had fallen, but Meiren Dan was already content; at least she was not dead. She could live on as a Dukkhan.

“What a pity. If only you could still anoint champions and confer gods,” Mister Mu lamented. He had personally witnessed the uses of the Lu family’s Investiture of the Gods and Champions’ Stage, whereas the people of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse and Spirit Nidus rarely saw either one.

Shortly after Lu Yin had first arrived in Spirit Nidus, his Investiture of the Gods had broken through and transformed into his Karmic Dao, whereas his Champions’ Stage Purgatory was able to increase his karma.

The old means of conferring gods and anointing champions were no longer possible for Lu Yin.

Lu Yin shrugged. “When I first failed to anoint Feng Bo, I knew that I couldn’t do so for creatures from outside my own megaverse. I tried again later, but every attempt failed.”

“Have you ever considered that merely anointing champions and conferring gods might be limited in scope?” Mister Mu said.

Lu Yin froze. He had not considered that.

Mister Mu continued, “Why is conferring gods and anointing champions limited to creatures of the Tianyuan Megaverse? If you apply that limitation to cultivators, then only Immortals can freely roam the Aevum Inch, while realms beneath that level cannot. So... once you break into the Immortal realm... will that change?”

Lu Yin was thrilled. “Would I be able to confer and anoint again?”

Mister Mu smiled. “It’s merely a possibility.”

“Even a possibility is wonderful,” Lu Yin said. He had never forgotten the help that his gods and champions had once granted him.

Just imagine: conferring Green Lotus and the other Greater Sancti, anointing every Immortal he killed. Then, he would be able to instantly release more than ten Immortals. In that scenario, he would dare to challenge even Hong Xia on his own.

Green Lotus and the others exchanged glances.

They had researched the Tianyuan’s history and thus knew about the Investiture of the Gods and the Champions’ Stage. These two innate gifts were, quite frankly, outrageous. But in their understanding, they were limited to Tianyuan cultivators. If what Mister Mu said was true, and if Lu Yin was able to confer gods and anoint champions throughout the entire Aevum Inch, it would be beyond terrifying.

Even as fellow humans, they did not dare to imagine what might happen.

The Lu family was a truly bizarre family. They possessed innate gifts like the Investiture of the Gods and the Champions’ Stage, and they had even managed to grow the innate gift of teleportation.

Hoping for such abilities was too remote from reality, no different from breaking into the Immortal realm.

What Lu Yin needed to do next was go to Vestigium. He did not know if Hong Xia had already gone there.

Soon, Lu Yin arrived in Vestigium, where he waited in silence for a while. No one spoke. Was Hong Xia not yet there? Or had he spoken directly to Ba Se and prevented others from hearing?

“Is anyone here?” Lu Yin spoke up, his voice adding a strange liveliness to the silent Vestigium. “Anyone? Say something. Where is everyone? Furball? Old Man Hehe? Lan Meng, you there?

“Even if you’re not, answer anyway.”

Ba Se’s voice sounded. “What is it?”

Lu Yin was puzzled. “What is it? You don’t know?”

Ba Se said nothing, so Lu Yin continued to ask, “Where’s Hong Xia? Has he come?”

Furball was surprised. “You know Hong Xia?”

Lu Yin smiled. “What’s so strange about that? Believe it or not, I even know what species you are.”

Furball’s voice instantly dropped. “Watch your mouth.”

“I literally call you Furball. What is there to watch out for?”

“You-!”

“Hehe.”

“Old Man Hehe, you old bastard, don’t just laugh. Say something.”

“Hehe.”

Lu Yin shouted, “Hong Xia, I know that you’re here. Speak! What? You dare to do such a thing but won’t admit it? You betrayed Obscura, and you think that no one knows about it?”

Hong Xia was already inside the orange coffin in Vestigium. He had been speaking directly to Ba Se, demanding that Obscura make their stance clear or at least take a position that would not leave him in too passive of a position.

He was extremely wary of Obscura. Ba Se had once said that the destruction of Lu Yin’s human civilization was no longer one of Obscura’s missions. If Hong Xia wanted to eliminate it, he first needed to confirm that Obscura would not stop him.

Ba Se refused to give a clearly stated position one way or the other. While Hong Xia was still thinking of how to force Ba Se to take a stance, Lu Yin had arrived. The moment the brat appeared, he had started making a ruckus, even going so far as to claim that Hong Xia had betrayed Obscura?

How utterly shameless.

“Lu Yin, what nonsense are you spouting?” Hong Xia barked.

Lu Yin heard an unfamiliar voice. Hong Xia was not any one of the Obscura members that Lu Yin had spoken with before, and while he had heard Hong Xia’s voice in Crimson Starshade’s megaverse, it was not difficult to alter one’s voice. Only now could Lu Yin confirm that he had never spoken to Hong Xia in Vestigium before.

Lu Yin sneered. “You betrayed Obscura! What? You dare to do it but don’t dare to admit it?”

Hong Xia shouted angrily, “Don’t think that your shameless arguing can wash away what you did. You’ve broken Obscura’s rules! Members of Obscura cannot attack each other—that is a rule, but you broke that rule! Ba Se, ask him if he has been to my megaverse. Ask him if he has taken my people.”

“How interesting, so you’ve finally met! Hahahaha! One from Crimson Starshade, one descended from abandoned bait. Hah!” Furball said excitedly.

“Hehe.”

Lu Yin did not have time to deal with those two. “Yes, I went to Crimson Starshade, and yes, I took some Immortals away from there. But what does that have to do with you? Hong Xia, did I strike at you? Or are you saying that the Immortals I took away are your clones?

“Do you think that, just because you became the ruler of Crimson Starshade, everyone in your civilization belongs to you? What a joke! And how embarrassing.”

Hong Xia’s tone grew dark. “They are part of my Twelvefold Path of Dispassion. You broke my anchors of my Path of Dispassion. How is that not attacking me?”

Lu Yin frowned. As expected, even at such a great distance, Hong Xia had felt the harm of his anchors being destroyed. The limits of the man’s strength were truly hard to gauge. “What Path of Dispassion? I have no idea what you’re talking about. But what of the crime of you betraying Obscura?”

“How did he betray Obscura?” Furball asked. They suddenly realized that it felt great to listen to Lu Yin argue with others. Wait, it was always me arguing with him in Vestigium before. Were the others enjoying it like this?

Hong Xia sneered. “I’d like to hear how you plan to twist black into white.”

Lu Yin asked loudly, “Ba Se, are you there?”

“Relax. Ba Se is always here. They’re listening. Just speak, hehe.”

“And the Keeper of Balance, are you there?” Lu Yin asked again.

Furball snorted. “What does the Keeper of Balance have to do with you?”

Lu Yin somberly replied, “I need a witness.”

“Ba Se is enough.”

“Not enough.”

“Enough.”

“Not enough! All of you have been together for so long. How can I know that you won’t join hands to set me up? I can’t afford to go against a stacked deck.”

“Hehe. Then how can you be sure the Keeper of Balance won’t stack the deck further?” Old Man Hehe asked.

Lu Yin replied, “The title sounds fair.”

Hong Xia spoke up again, “Lu Yin, do you know why so many civilizations throughout the Aevum Inch detest humans?”

Lu Yin mockingly retorted, “Because there are too many traitors.”

Hong Xia said heavily, “It’s because of petty cleverness. You keep probing Vestigium. Do you really think the others can’t see through what you’re doing? They simply choose not to stoop to your level.

“You want to know who the Keeper of Balance is? Fine. Release my people, and I’ll tell you.”