Chapter 4316: Distance
Meiran Dan’s face was pale. She no longer appeared as meek as before, and she faced Lu Yin directly. “Mr. Lu, what do you want?”
Lu Yin smiled. “Not putting on an act anymore?”
“It isn’t easy for humanity to survive since you are surrounded by enemies. Whether or not you can kill Ancestor Hong Xia—in fact, even if you do—the price that you will have to pay will doom you beyond redemption,” Meiran Dan stated.
He Xiao jumped in, his voice low. “That’s right. Ancestor Hong Xia has joined Obscura. If you strike at him, you are declaring war on Obscura.”
Bing Xu did not dare to say much. While he did not know what would happen to He Xiao or Meiran Dan, he knew that he was in grave trouble. After all, he had already been brutally beaten by Lu Yin before, and there was a grudge between them.
Awe Gate frowned. “Obscura was one of the civilizations responsible for the destruction of the Nine Ramparts. Hong Xia betrayed human civilization by joining them. Do you think that that’s right?”
He Xiao said, “We can’t control our master’s choices, but we are very clear about one thing: when our master dies, you will face a war with Obscura. Forget our Crimson Starshade Civilization, as not even you can withstand them.”
“So what?” Jiang Feng shot back.
Meiran Dan said, “Spare us. The battle between you and our master has nothing to do with us. We have not betrayed humanity. Keeping us alive gives humanity additional Immortals, which is another measure of hope.”
“Besides, we are three Immortals,” He Xiao added.
It was incredibly tempting. According to He Xiao’s understanding, the only way to remove Hong Xia’s anchors of his Path of Dispassion was to kill them. None of them wanted to die. No one wanted to die, especially not Immortals.
Hong Xia wanted to rescue them, but they also knew that that was very unlikely. If Hong Xia was actually capable of rescuing them, he would not have allowed these people to escape in the first place.
Jiu Wen had plotted for far too long, and he had accounted for every step.
They were nothing more than chess pieces.
In truth, even the people with Lu Yin did not know how to deal with these three Immortals. They did not necessarily have to die to remove the anchors of the Path of Dispassion; it would be enough to sever parts of their karma with a Dao Sword.
However, the karmic cost of doing that would be enormous, though it should be offset by the karma that they could provide.
It really became a question of whether it was worthwhile to trade the karma of three Immortals for the lives of three Immortals.
Not only that, but these three were precisely the Immortals that Lu Yin did not want to keep.
Regardless, he would improve his Karmic Dao first. With that thought, he kicked Bing Xu into the Champions’ Stage Purgatory. Lu Yin then vanished, entering the Mirari Realm as his Karmic Dao started to surge explosively.
It took time for the karma to fully digest the improvements, and at this moment, no carelessness could be allowed at all, as Hong Xia might arrive and attack at any time.
Lu Yin let out a breath. After improving his karma with these three Immortals, his Karmic Dao would be able to rival the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.
He Xiao and Meiran Dan did not understand what the Champions’ Stage Purgatory was for, so they kept talking, hoping to stay alive.
Immortals might not grovel in the same way as others, but these two were not much better. The more that one had enjoyed, the less that they wanted to die. This was human nature, and Immortals were no exception. Not even those who followed the Path of Dispassion were an exception.
Everyone believed that throwing Bing Xu into the Champions’ Stage Purgatory would merely increase Lu Yin’s karma, but when the man reappeared, his cultivation had fallen. He was dazed and muddleheaded. He had fallen out of the Immortal realm and was endlessly leaking Lifeforce.
Everyone was bewildered. What was going on?
Green Lotus observed, “So that’s how it is. There’s no need to debate whether to spend the karma anymore. His anchor in Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion has already been broken.”
Mister Mu sighed. “He overcame Dukkha with the Path of Dispassion. His success came from the Path of Dispassion, so once that path was broken, his Dukkha will rebound. He was never a true Immortal.”
Lu Yin understood. It was the same situation as Uncle Jiang. Jiang Feng had taken a shortcut to Immortality. He might still have to face his Dukkha and cross it, or he might not.
Those who cultivated the Path of Dispassion abandoned emotion, which was essentially deceiving their Dukkha in order to step into the Immortal realm. This made it another kind of shortcut. However, the Champions’ Stage Purgatory forced people to relive their karmic cycles repeatedly, and this was emotional torment.
Even ordinary people would find this torment unbearable, let alone cultivators of the Path of Dispassion.
If Bing Xu had been at his peak, he might have been able to endure. After all, Lu Yin was not an Immortal yet, so his Champions’ Stage Purgatory was not able to completely suppress an Immortal and force them to suffer.
Unfortunately for Bing Xu, he had been severely wounded. The more severe his injuries were, the less he was able to endure. His Path of Dispassion had been shattered, as had Hong Xia’s anchor. The man himself had thus fallen out of the Immortal realm.
As for the improvement in Lu Yin’s Karmic Dao, it was much less than what Lu Yin had expected. It was possible that Bing Xu and the others’ lives were too simple. They existed as anchors for Hong Xia’s Path of Dispassion, and Hong Xia had never allowed them to leave the Crimson Starshade Civilization.
It was a pity.
Because of the Path of Dispassion, Bing Xu and the others had committed countless acts of cruelty, and that had caused Lu Yin to detest them. Still, it was only detestation. He had not felt that it was his place to avenge their victims.
But because they cultivated the Path of Dispassion, they were about to lose their cultivation of the Immortal realm. To them, this was the same as falling into an abyss. It could be called karmic retribution.
This was not Lu Yin avenging those that the three had harmed. These people had walked their own Path of Dispassion, and within the Champions’ Stage Purgatory, their Path of Dispassion was also being stripped away from them.
“My cultivation! My Path of Dispassion! My cultivation, my cultivation...” Bing Xu screamed miserably. He looked like he had gone insane. “It was you! You made me lose my Path of Dispassion! Why? Why couldn’t you complete me? You brought me to this world, so you should have completed me! You’ve ruined me! You’ve ruined me...”
Seeing Bing Xu’s crazed outburst, everyone knew that this was no act.
After falling from the Immortal realm and experiencing the repeated karmic cycles, it would be strange if the man had not been driven mad.
He Xiao and Meiran Dan were both terrified as they looked at the Champions’ Stage Purgatory. To them, this was truly hell.
They turned to flee, abandoning all hesitation, only to meet Blood Tower’s cold gaze. A single palm strike struck out, and gray streams of the power of time flowed out, freezing time for a moment. When it resumed, the two slammed heavily to the ground.
Lu Yin flicked a hand. A terrifying gust shattered He Xiao’s body. He violently spat out blood as the force also sent him hurtling into the Champions’ Stage Purgatory. Lu Yin then returned to the Mirari Realm. Teleportation really was quite convenient.
Meiran Dan closed her eyes in despair. Lu Yin did not look at her but instead at Green Lotus. “Will Hong Xia be affected?”
“He will.”
“But we’re so far away.”
Green Lotus said, “Do you know how, when two civilizations of comparable strength draw close to each other in the Aevum Inch and must communicate, the right to speak is determined?”
Lu Yin replied, “Distance.”
The Greater Sancte nodded. “That’s right. Distance. The Aevum Inch is boundlessly vast. Given the premise that communication must occur, the range of one’s influence determines who holds the right to speak.
“It would take an ordinary Immortal 300 years to travel to the Crimson Starshade Megaverse from here. That is a very great distance. Not even Hong Xia can influence our civilization from that far away. However, his range of influence covers more than half of that distance.”
Lu Yin, Mister Mu, and all of the others were stunned. That meant the man was capable of influencing a range that an average Immortal would need 150 years to traverse. It was an astonishing distance.
For context, when the technological fishing civilization had destroyed the Seal-Eater Civilization and repeatedly attacked with Cosmic Shear, there had been absolutely no effect on the human civilization that was a mere twenty years away. That was far shorter than a distance of 150 years’ travel.
If Hong Xia could influence such a vast distance, then what about Green Lotus? Even if he was unable to reach that far, it should have been easy for him to influence the Tianyuan Megaverse from the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, and possibly even as far as the Seal-Eater Megaverse, the toads’ seven-colored land, and other places.
But being able to influence across such a vast distance was one thing, while being able to see was something else entirely.
When Ancestor Shan had attacked, he had been able to influence an even greater distance, but even when battling a powerful enemy, he had not spread his influence out that far. All that could be said was that it was possible, not that it had to be done or even that one would necessarily know what to do.
An ordinary person could throw a stone and hit something maybe 1,000 meters away, but that did not mean that they could instantly appear 1,000 meters away. Taken to an extreme where a person could throw a stone beyond where they could see, the principle remained the same.
Green Lotus continued, “Of course, this is only conjecture, but Hong Xia should be able to do that much. If he can influence more than half the distance between us, then sensing that his Path of Dispassion has been broken from a distance of 300 years’ travel is quite possible.”
Lu Yin thought back to his earlier clash with Hong Xia. When fleeing, not even teleporting three times had been enough to shake off Hong Xia. The man had caught up very quickly, and that was against a teleporting Lu Yin.
It was easy to imagine that, if Hong Xia wanted to reach the Three Megaverses, it would not take him long to arrive. Not only that, but Green Lotus had already said, the man could attack from a great distance. It was not impossible for him to attack from 150 years’ distance away.
If his range of influence also extended to attacks, then it was also possible for him to sense that his Path of Dispassion had broken even from a distance of 300 years’ travel.
“With this conjecture, can I infer Hong Xia’s strength? If he can sense his Path of Dispassion breaking, then does it means that he can truly attack within a distance of about 150 years’ travel?” Lu Yin said.
Green Lotus nodded. “Jiu Wen and I weakened Hong Xia as much as possible in order to prevent him from breaking through. The next step is the key, and how to deal with Hong Xia now is up to you.”
Lu Yin felt quite troubled. Hong Xia was a monster.
Far away, in the Crimson Starshade Civilization, Hong Xia had not run to the Three Megaverses. Instead, he calmly stood outside the Blood Tower, staring at Jiu Wen.
The man neither spoke nor moved. He was recalling the past, considering how he had actually been plotted against by Jiu Wen.
Hong Xia had once schemed against Hong Shuang, and he himself had also been plotted against.
Jiu Wen—who had been nothing more than a talented junior at the end of the Nine Ramparts era—had plotted against Hong Xia, earning his trust over all these years.
Hong Xia was trying to recall exactly what he had told Jiu Wen throughout all that time.
Jiu Wen and Green Lotus had joined hands to plot against Hong Xia and strike at him, but things could not be that simple. They should have the means to deal with him, unless their goal was merely to stop his breakthrough.
Thinking of his breakthrough, Hong Xia clenched a fist. He could have broken through, and yet his progress had been forcibly stopped.
Behind him, Ji He did not dare to say a word. The pressure was beyond oppressive.
The entire Crimson Starshade Megaverse felt that same weight pressing down. Everyone had heard Hong Xia threaten Jiu Wen and the others with the destruction of the Crimson Starshade Civilization, and Jiu Wen had entered the Blood Tower to stop the man.
The entire civilization felt like they had been betrayed, abandoned. Not even the Path of Dispassion could allow them to escape that feeling.
Standing inside the Sect of Dispassion, Ba Yue gazed out at the sky. All that she had recently learned shattered everything that she had ever even imagined. Their revered Ancestor Hong Xia was actually a traitor to Crimson Starshade, and he might erase it at any time. Sect Master Jiu Wen had clearly founded the Sect of Dispassion, yet he had only done so to oppose Ancestor Hong Xia, preparing the board to play a game that would echo across the ages. In this megaverse, what was real, and what was false?
