Star Odyssey

Chapter 941: Obsession And Half A Statue

Lu Yin pressed both of his hands against the door and pushed with a great deal of strength. However, he still wasn’t able to open it. Refusing to believe it, Lu Yin suddenly erupted with Seventy Stacks as he pressed both of his hands against the door. However, despite using his full power, there still wasn’t any indication of the door budging. 

This door was able to withstand a level of strength that was still beyond Lu Yin’s capabilities. 

Since he could not open the door, Lu Yin tried to make his way in through the surrounding walls. After so many years had passed, perhaps the walls had weakened. 

However, reality proved him wrong, as the surrounding walls similarly could not be breached. 

Just as Lu Yin was pondering how he could enter the building, he suddenly turned around and looked into the distance; two clusters of rune lines were approaching him. They were both Hunters. 

Lu Yin immediately hid himself. 

Soon, the two figures landed and searched through the area. “Strange, we clearly felt some energy over here,” one of the two spoke. 

The other gloomily answered, “Someone was definitely here, as that blade was taken.” 

“The energy vanished, which means that this person is trying to hide themselves. Thus, he must have discovered us. Immediately contact the patriarch! This place cannot be exposed.” 

Just as he finished uttering those words, a black shadow flashed before him. After that, the light left his eyes, and he collapsed onto the ground. 

The other Hunter was overwhelmed by what had just happened, and he whirled around. However, before he could even process anything, his neck was tightly grabbed by a hand.

“Who are you guys?” Lu Yin said. He had already masked his appearance. 

The Hunter’s face flushed red, and he grabbed Lu Yin’s hand as he attempted to break free, causing Lu Yin to frown. “I’ll ask you once more—who are you guys?” 

“We- we are from the Great Eastern Alliance, under Alliance Leader Lu. If you dare move against us, then you’ll die miserably!” The Hunter struggled as he glared at Lu Yin. 

The youth was amused. It seemed that people in the Outerverse now threatened others by saying that they were from the Great Eastern Alliance. Lu Yin did not know if he should feel honored or angry, but he fiercely slammed the Hunter into the ground. The powerhouse’s mouth fell open, and fresh blood sprayed out as he wailed in agony. 

Lu Yin kicked the man as he ordered, “Last chance. Tell me where you’re from, or I’ll kill you. I can still just ask him.” As he spoke, he glanced at the Hunter who had fallen unconscious.

The Hunter was terrified. “We- we really are under Alliance Leader Lu.”

Lu Yin raised a hand and prepared to slap down.

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” the Hunter quickly spoke up. “We’re from Amethyst Exchange! We were given orders to protect this place and kill anyone who entered.” 

Lu Yin’s palm stopped just a centimeter away from the man’s forehead, and his eyes flashed as he withdrew his hand. 

The situation turned out to be exactly what he had guessed. Since Zi Tianchuan had discovered these ruins, then how could he not have sent some guards? Although not many people could find this place, there was no shortage of risk-takers in the universe, and that wasn’t even mentioning people who were trying to hide from their enemies. Those kinds of people had a relatively decent chance of stumbling upon this place. 

“Is it just you two here?” Lu Yin asked.

That person fearfully replied, “There’s five of us, all Hunters.”

This was a sizable protective detail. It had to be acknowledged that, back when Undying Yushan had ruled the Great Yu Empire, the empire had not held more than five Hunters at once even when the emperor himself was factored in. Additionally, the empire had been the strongest force in Frostwave Weave at that time. The guiding powers of the other weaves did not have many Hunters either, but Zi Tianchuan had actually sent five of them to protect this place. This showed just how greatly he valued these ruins.

Also, Lu Yin suddenly thought of something; Skylush Planet was located fairly close to this place, and it was in an ideal position to dispatch reinforcements at any moment. 

In the Outerverse, this amount of strength could be considered absolute.

Lu Yin knocked the Hunter unconscious and then combed through the small city in search of the three remaining Hunters. He knocked them all unconscious and then tied them up. He was not cold-blooded. There was no need to kill them, but he had to restrain them at the very least. 

Having taken care of the Zi family’s guards, Lu Yin returned to the strange building and felt a headache develop since he still had not thought of a way for him to enter. The secrets of this city were likely contained inside this place. 

Lu Yin tried several more times, but he really could not enter the building. He began considering all his options, and he even wondered if he should borrow Yuan Shi’s strength. 

Strangely, as he continued to stare at the large door and at the pair of eyes carved atop it, a bulb seemed to light up in his brain. His pupils transformed into runes as he stared into the door’s eyes. At that moment, time seemed to start flowing in reverse. The door remained the same, but the surroundings started changing. The other buildings were steadily restored, and at one point, two figures could be seen having an intense battle in the sky. 

Lu Yin was not able to see the fight clearly, but he could tell that one of the figures had a deranged smile. That person opened their hands, causing a knife to gradually form, manifesting from nothing. Then, the opposing figure fiercely charged out. The intensity of their battle was something rarely seen, and everything in sight was sliced apart. 

As the scene of their battle grew blurry, Lu Yin saw one of them create a knife several times. Then, the sky regained its light, and the city had completely changed by now. The scenery became vibrant, and there were many people leading normal lives. However, time continued to flow backwards. 

The scenery changed once again, and Lu Yin’s body trembled as everything that he had seen so far vanished. At that moment, the large door slowly opened. 

At this point, Lu Yin’s eyes began to ache with pain, and he rubbed at them vigorously. However, the pain persisted. He decided to just ignore it as he slowly entered the building. 

The contents of the building left Lu Yin disappointed. He had assumed that there would be something related to Rune Technology inside, such as a secret related to their battle style or the cultivation technique for Truesight. Instead, this building was simply the location where the masses had prayed. There was a statue at the very front, but the upper half had disappeared; only the lower half remained, towering high. 

Lu Yin slowly walked through the room, passing by rows of large seats. After a bit, he turned around and squinted.  

The seats were filled with skeletons that were still in a position of prayer.

He hastened his steps forward and quickly rose into the air before looking back again. Within the building, there were skeletons in all of the seats. Some were adults, some children, and there were even some infants. All of these skeletons were in a posture of prayer, and they had clearly maintained this posture for an unknown amount of time before eventually all dying here. 

Lu Yin could not imagine how firm one’s willpower had to be to do such a thing. Could these people have known that they were going to die, chosen to not escape, and purposefully continued praying in such a fashion? 

He then looked at the statue. Did just one statue possess so much strength that it had caused all these people to continue praying even when they were about to die? 

Lu Yin descended back to the ground and slowly approached the statue. Whose statue was this? Had it been a statue of the city’s ruler? Or could it have been—the Rune Progenitor?

To the Rune Civilization, their universal god had been the Rune Progenitor. This statue had most likely been of the Rune Progenitor, as only the Rune Progenitor would have been viewed in such a godly image that these people would pray to that person’s image until the moment of their deaths. 

Lu Yin stood in front of the statue and looked at it silently. The glory of a person’s life determined how complicated their historical records would be. However, history had not even dared to leave a record of the Rune Progenitor; that person’s mere existence had been rejected by time. 

If Lu Yin had not cultivated Truesight, then he would not have been able to fathom the existence of such a person. This person had been capable of creating objects from nothing, their mere existence had caused an entire era to be erased. This person had even been the reason why so many people had prayed until the moment of their deaths. Such a person should have never existed. 

Lu Yin stood there silently for a long time, his thoughts a mess. He did not even know what he was thinking about. 

In the end, he shook his head and let out a breath. There was no need to think too much; after all, the Rune Progenitor was a figure of ancient history. Their remnant spiritual force had also been dispersed by the Sixth Mainland’s Progenitor of Combat, and Lu Yin was fated to never meet this person. Still, the Truesight ability that had been left behind by the Progenitor had greatly aided Lu Yin, and the ancient powerhouse could be considered as half a mentor to Lu Yin. It did not matter if this statue had or had not been of the Rune Progenitor; Lu Yin would simply treat it as such. 

As he thought about it, Lu Yin took several steps back and slowly bowed. “Junior Lu Yin pays his respects and offers his gratitude to senior.” 

As Lu Yin uttered those words, the large door to the building suddenly slammed shut, and his expression completely changed. When he looked up, the void distorted as the skeletons in the building were swept away by an invisible gale and pulverized into a pile of dust that flew about the room before twisting within the void to form different scenes. Some of the scenes portrayed a leisurely life in the city, but others showed shocking displays of conquests. These scenes were possible what these dead people had seen during their lives. 

Suddenly, a crazed laugh was heard. “Sixth Mainland, Sixth Mainland! Hahaha, you bunch of fools! You’ve all been fooled, fooled! Those monsters have fooled you, you bunch of fools. Hahaha…” 

Soon after, the dust vanished, and Lu Yin’s vision returned to normal.

The door across the room slowly opened once again. Lu Yin did not know if this was an illusion, but the inside of the building seemed a bit brighter than before, no longer quite as dim.

Lu Yin turned around and looked at the statue once again, only to discover that it had also vanished into dust and completely disappeared. 

Was this a lingering obsession that had been left behind by these ancient people? Lu Yin was not sure.

When he swept his domain across the area, he saw that there was nothing else inside the building. Perhaps the only thing that this building had preserved was that one phrase.

The Sixth Mainland had been fooled, and… by monsters? 

When Lu Yin stepped out of the building and closed the door, he noticed that the ache in his eyes had suddenly disappeared and that they felt normal once again. 

After looking around again, he suddenly thought of something and scanned his surroundings. Lu Yin’s eyes lit up, and he pressed a hand against the large door and pushed with his full strength. However, it was of no use, as the door could not be pushed open. 

Then, his pupils turned into runes, and he stared at that pair of eyes again. Unfortunately, the scene from before did not resurface, though the massive door still opened. 

When he entered the building, he found that he could open the door from the inside. After testing this repeatedly, Lu Yin became ecstatic. It seemed that even the heavens were on his side. 

In the Great Eastern Alliance’s Bard Weave, within Evenground Palace and beneath a pavilion at the base of a waterfall, Evenground Palace’s leader, Mu Nichang, was sitting with her chin propped in a hand. She was staring at the distant waterfall with a very bored expression on her face. For a long time now, she had been stuck at the peak Hunter realm, and she did not know when she would be able to break through and become an Enlighter. 

There were too few Enlighters within the Great Eastern Alliance, and if she broke through, she would gain a bit more authority and have a louder voice. 

Currently, Lu Yin singlehandedly controlled the Great Eastern Alliance, and the words of those below the Enlighter realm did not carry much weight. 

At that moment, Doro arrived. “Master, what are you thinking about?” She had broken through to the Explorer realm a year ago, and her strength had soared. 

Mu Nichang glanced at her disciple. “Nothing much.”

The two women often sat in this pavilion together as they let their minds wander about. One thought of all the ways she could give up the position of Palace Master while the other racked her brain to not be forced into the position. If others knew what was going through these ladies’ minds, they would have thought that something was wrong with both of them.

Suddenly, Elder Meiya arrived, moving in a rush, which caused the two women to quickly sit up straight. 

“Master, we’ve obtained some information! Gu Yue’s ruins have been discovered!,” Elder Meiya shouted anxiously. 

Mu Nichang and Doro were both puzzled. “What Gu Yue?”

Elder Meiya immediately activated her gadget and shared a bit of information on Gu Yue’s history. The introduction was not very detailed, as most people did not even know Gu Yue’s name. However, the information highlighted that he had been the person most likely to become a Progenitor, and his battle technique, Moonstar, was also specifically mentioned.

“In the heavens filled with moons, the stars fell, and only dust was left behind.” Moonstar was a battle technique that had cowed an entire generation. 

Battle techniques were as numerous as the stars, but those that were able to suppress an entire era were extremely rare. Most such battle techniques had been lost in the river of time. For example, Zhuo Daynight had been the only person in the Daynight clan who had successfully cultivated Night’s End, Daybreak, and that technique was also being hidden. The Daynight clan’s Nightking Zhenwu was an absolute genius, but even he had not been able to cultivate Night’s End, Daybreak. A battle technique that could intimidate an era was clearly something that was extremely hard to cultivate. However, the more difficult it was to cultivate something, the greater its power would be once it was successfully cultivated.