Chapter 54: An Immutable Rule (1/2)
lu yun ran for dear life, an undead monster hot on his heels and the enormous burial mound caving in all around him.
wait a second! i can ride on the sword! he suddenly remembered. he’d slowly grown accustomed to the immortal world, but it was still difficult to adapt to his new status as a cultivator. when facing danger, his first reaction was still to use his legs to flee.
buzz—
his figure shone purple as he muttered an incantation, then violetgrave morphed into rays of sword light that surrounded him, lifted him in the air, and propelled him out of the collapsing tunnel.
rather than turning swords into giant surfboards, so-called sword riding consisted of transforming the weapon into light that encircled its owner. when the union of body and sword was achieved, it allowed for near-instantaneous travel across thousands of kilometers.
lu yun himself had no experience with such a maneuver, but both yuying’s and feinie’s memories contained high-level sword riding arts. he’d selected one at random and immediately put it to good use.
“does he... not need to refine the sword?” murmured the stupefied qing han on lu yun’s back.
violetgrave was a potent weapon that not even he was able to forcibly commandeer, to say nothing of riding on it, yet it had submitted meekly to lu yun’s control.
it seems the sword was meant for him. qing han softly bit his lip, lost in thought.
boom—
behind him, the giant undead hag was forcing her way out of the crumbling tunnel thanks to the sheer size of her unnatural body.
the ruins of truewater city were now approaching him. the giant altar still had a dim glow, but the earth below the ancient city was cracked, with half of the city foundations sunken below ground.
“this burial mound is really falling to pieces!” hurtling through the air, lu yun flew over the ancient city and realized something about his surroundings at the same time.
i see, so the certain death layout was the pillar supporting the entire burial mound. losing this core is leading to the destruction of all the other layouts, and the resulting energies are causing the burial mound itself to cave in.
his expression spoke of a multitude of emotions. the end of the burial mound will also erase the hag’s consciousness; no wonder she’s going batshit insane. then again, without her consciousness, she’s going to…. he couldn’t keep a shiver from running down his body.
as long as she was conscious, the hag would forever remain within the confines of the burial mound, protecting her spirit and awaiting a chance at rebirth.
the typical undead hag was a mindless being, driven purely by the instinct to feed on living creatures. possessing a self-awareness of her own restrained the actions of this particular specimen, but without it, she would certainly leave the burial mound and rampage through the entire province.
“waaarghh!” the hag screeched as she picked up the pace of frenetic pursuit. gelatinous flesh continuously fragmented from her body, exposing the black skeleton underneath. the only hope for her to survive the destruction of the burial mound was to obtain the resurrection layout from the human.
coming back to life was impossible for an undead hag, but such wasn’t the case for the strand of consciousness trapped in the corpse coffin. from the outset, the undead hag had been nothing but the puppet of the mind of her once owner.
…...
“we have to destroy that hag!” lu yun made up his mind, located the tunnel they’d previously taken, and darted back inside.
“what are you doing! come back! there are other tunnels that lead outside!” miao shouted at the top of his lungs when he noticed the governor was rushing toward the bloodcorpse coffin. in contrast, yueshen followed lu yun without a word.