Chapter 458: There Were No More Emperors After the Emperor Fell (1/2)

Lu Yun nodded. The human demon had patently forbidden him from entering in order to protect him.

This tomb was far too dangerous and sinister. Despite having temporarily made its residence here, the human demon still didn’t fully understand how this place had come to be. An immortal was buried here in this tomb, one beyond emperor rank. Upon entering, Lu Yun had felt an indelible shadow creep over his heart.

It was almost as if he was being watched from some forgotten corner by a horror unknown. Not the human demon, not Mo Yi, and certainly not the teeming dead; but someone—or something—entirely and inexplicably alien.

The threefold needles spun around rapidly upon his feng shui compass before finally deciding on a direction. ‘Great misfortune’. Two glowing, scarlet words floated up from the compass’s second layer.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Mo Yi gawked at the luopan in Lu Yun’s hands with mild astonishment.

“There’s a layout inside this tomb—well, you might as well call it a formation. It’s capable of affecting intangible fortune,” Lu Yun replied honestly. “If the layout isn’t broken, the human demon senior will surely die.”

Mo Yi blinked.

“The key to doing so lies in the direction my compass points… but there’s also great misfortune there,” Lu Yun continued, half to himself. The ancient tomb was already unlucky and dangerous enough. For there to be a place inside that was even worse… he wasn’t sure whether he was properly prepared.

“Is there really a formation like that?” Mo Yi furrowed her delicate brows. She was a great formation master herself, having grasped a genius mixture of formation and combat arts, but she’d never heard of such a thing before.

“There was a formation like this inside Dusk City as well. The entire province declined because of it,” Lu Yun observed.

Mo Yi’s eyes widened in understanding, but she held back whatever she had to say in favor of looking elsewhere.

A hovering figure slowly approached them: the Celestial Emperor of Exalted Major. It was the very same that Lu Yun had seen back in the Sword Barrow. Though the emperor’s consciousness remained, he’d become the human demon’s vessel.

“That is where the tomb’s owner is interred,” said the human demon through the emperor’s body. “I dare not approach it, either.”

“Who could be buried here?” asked Lu Yun.

There were four such tombs in the world of immortals, which were scattered in four of Nephrite Major’s provinces. Every so often, outbreaks of evil spirits came forth from them to devastate the surrounding countryside.

“I do not know. He, or it, is very strong.” The human demon shook his head. “This is the resting place of the human emperor. His scattered blood infused this place with exceeding mystery, more so than anywhere else in all the majors.”

“The resting place of the human emperor. That again, huh? Can you tell me more about it?” Puzzlement flashed across Lu Yun’s face. Qi Hai had mentioned a ‘resting place of the human emperor’ before, but even now, he still didn’t know what it meant.

“After the emperor’s fall, there were no more,” explained Mo Yi. “The human emperor died here. He was recognized by the heavenly dao, and after his death, the dao no longer recognized any more emperors in all the worlds.

“The ‘immortal emperors’ that came after him in the ancient times, and the ‘celestial emperors’ we have now… they’re all just self-styled titles. Plus, anyone who’s declared themselves emperor since then has suffered a painful end.

“It was true for the ancients, just as it is for the present celestial emperors. None of them are ever granted a peaceful death.”