Necropolis Immortal

Amid a sea of shocked gazes, the paramount rank Immortal Suppression Gourd split open!

A gigantic black bird appeared out of nowhere. Its body ran thirty meters long and its wingspan stretched forty-five meters from tip to tip. Its long neck was soft and graceful; foreboding Hadal Fire trailed from three long tail feathers.

This was the true Hadal Fire Spirit! It was a spirit beast formed by Hadal flames—the Hadal Bird!

Legend had it that a drop of blood essence from the divine beast of the south—the Vermilion Bird—once landed in the hadal lands. Affected by hadal qi, it gradually became a blossom of black flames. This was known as Hadal Fire and indeed, the Hadal Bird possessed the bloodline of the Vermilion Bird.

“What?! Retreat!” shouted the handsome young man in the Dark Orchid delegation when the bird manifested. He himself fled for dear life, unable to look after Sui Ge’s survival.

Aouu!

The Hadal Bird erupted with a long bird call as black flames enveloped its body. Its ponderous wingspan snapped open as it dove at Sui Ge below. The bird’s eyes were entirely faint gold and sentience filled its previously empty look. At the moment, it glared with pure hate.

“Damn it!” Sui Ge gasped. While he couldn’t utilize the full force of a paramount rank dao treasure, it’d still saved him when the gourd split open. Now that the Hadal Bird rushed down, he was so terrified that his wits nearly deserted him.

The paramount rank spirit sword immediately appeared beneath his feet and shot into the sky with a trace of sword light thirty meters long. Yet, how would the Hadal Bird let him go? It shook its fiery wings and streaked into a massive shadow to pursue the little prince.

It was fully freed from the confines of the Immortal Suppression Gourd and could bring its entire strength to bear. Having devoured endless rays of connate li fire before this, it was now on par with an august immortal. Could a mere soul projection cultivator like Sui Ge evade its attack?

Probably not, not even with a paramount dao treasure protecting him.

Sui Ge didn’t even have time to cry out in fear when the massive body swept by him. He immediately vaporized into nothing; his paramount rank dao treasure turned into a pitted turtle shell that clanked to the ground.

Even almighty dao treasures couldn’t stand up to the strength of the Hadal Bird!

The bird threw back its head, flourished its wings, and headed for the north. That was where the Dark Orchid delegation had fled to and where the true master of the Immortal Suppression Gourd was.

……

Situ Wenxian and the others on the city walls looked at each other with shock.

“Yun’er, how did you do it?” Lu Tianling asked as soon as Lu Yun vaulted up to the crowd.

“I fed some stuff to the Hadal Fire Spirit,” he chuckled. “So does this count as my victory?”

“Heh heh heh,” Lu Tianling cackled. “The heavenly book just sent word that Darklake Empire is no longer a Dark Orchid vassal. It is an independent nation! From now on, we no longer need to be ruled by others.”

Although the heavenly book was no longer in effect over Jade Ruins Realm, it still observed the world nonetheless. The moment Sui Ge died to Hadal Fire, a tremor exuded from the book at the center of the Celestial Realm Battlefront and erased Darklake from Dark Orchid’s list of vassals.

Since Lu Tianling could conceal himself from the book’s senses, he naturally had his ways of communicating with it.

“Good!” Lu Yun smiled. “Grandpa, I leave the capital in your hands. I have some things to take care of and will be back shortly.”

He raised a pillar of sword light before anyone could respond and left in the northern direction.

“Is that kid thinking of something to do with the Hadal Fire Spirit?” Situ Wenxian chuckled ruefully, not minding Lu Yun’s attitude.

A trace of resignation also appeared on Lu Tianling’s face.

……

Immortals Forbidden traveled swiftly while Lu Yun followed the Hadal Bird’s traces, tracking it through the northern sky.

“Here!” He finally saw the bird in a mountain valley after a full day of travel. It’d retracted all of its Hadal Fire and shrank down significantly to a three meter wingspan. Resting quietly in a dip in the land, it appeared as a regular spirit beast.

“Hey little guy, remember me?” As Lu Yun slowly drifted down from the sky, the Hadal Bird lazily lifted its eyes. A trace of joy percolated through them when it recognized the human.

It’d truly coalesced its body with Lu Yun’s help and smashed the gourd’s restraints. It was a true spirit beast and sentient long ago, but had been trapped by the Immortal Suppression Gourd soon after its birth. Thus, its mind was on par with that of a four year old child.

Lu Yun grasped from the southern sky and gathered a ball of pure connate fire origin in his hand. The Hadal Bird brightened, staring fixedly at the bright red ball. It’d eaten Aureate Bird Truefire mixed with connate fire origin to finish its evolution. What Lu Yun held now was more than ten times stronger than before.

Lu Yun grinned at the bird and flipped the fire origin to it.

Stirring with interest, the bird arched its neck and swallowed the ball, then raised its developing claws and shuffled over to Lu Yun so it could nuzzle the human. In its current state, the Hadal Bird was as if a child. It grew close to whoever treated it well.

For a wily old fox like Lu Yun, it was a simple task to tame a fire spirit like this one. He didn’t care about the Dark Orchid delegation, the Hadal Bird was the only matter of importance. It would be extremely useful in battle as it was a weapon of war as soon as he taught it any fire combat art.

Ah… weapon of war?

His suppressed memories were bounding out of their seal again. But could something like that be brought into the world?

The bird imprinted onto Lu Yun after a few more balls of connate origin. It turned into a sparrow the size of a palm and perched on his shoulder. Smiling, the young man returned to Dark City.

……

“Qin Yu, isn’t that human’s aura very similar to the one that the lord told us to look out for?” Two figures stared intently at a crimson sword light streaking through the sky.

“That’s right, it’s him, the young man with the dragon egg!” Excitement dawned on Qin Yu’s face.

“Get him and make him hand over the egg! The lord will reward us if we bring it to him!” The other speaker, a young man with green hair, stood up eagerly from their watchpost in a mountain.

“Don’t be brash!” Qin Yu shook his head. “We can’t let word of the dragon egg get out. So many immortals have come to Jade Ruins Realm that not even the lord can hold all of them off. Let’s follow him for now and see where he’s going. Once we have the full picture, we’ll go back and tell the lord!”

Green Hair recognized the good sense he made. “Let’s go!”

……

The two trailed more than one hundred kilometers behind Lu Yun and their cultivation was far stronger than his. Thus, he didn’t notice that he had gained a tail. But he wouldn’t mind it even if he did—it was just two soul separation cultivators. With the Hadal Bird in hand, even their master would only be coming to his death.

“That’s the capital of Darklake Empire!” Eagerness flashed through Qin Yu and Chang Si’s eyes as they looked at a metropolis in the distance. “So he’s a junior of a third rank cultivation empire!”

“Haha, once the matter is concluded, we monster spirits of the Barren Mountains will come and trample this nation flat!” Chang Si chortled.

“The monster spirits of the Barren Mountains wish to march on Darklake?” A voice suddenly sounded in their ears. Qin Yu and Chang Si jumped with surprise and sprang aside.

“Who goes there?!” They whirled around to see an elder in long black robes and white hair. He’d soundlessly appeared behind them at some point in time.

“So it’s you.” Qin Yu frowned. “Greetings to Empyrean Immortal Jadecliff.”

Qin Yu and Chang Si bowed to the newcomer, but there was no hint of respect in their expression. Empyrean Immortal Jadecliff was Yuwen Zhuifeng’s master that Lu Yun had scared off in Dark City. He was known throughout the realm as being highly afraid of death. He never took up arms and had bowed and scraped in front of Ancestor Bichen of the Barren Mountains out of that concern.

“There is no need to stand on ceremony, gentlemen,” Jadecliff smiled charmingly.

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“There are many immortals in the realm these days and they have all converged on Immortal Burial Valley for a share of the spoils. What might Empyrean Immortal Jadecliff be doing here?” Qin Yu asked probingly. They were most concerned about the dragon egg. Although it was with a gray jiao, they would be able to force the young man to retrieve it if they captured him and his family.

“Did this immortal hear correctly that the monster spirits of the Barren Mountains wish to march on Darklake?” Jadecliff didn’t mind Qin Yu’s attitude.

The two looked at each other, frowning in unison.

“Hahaha, don’t worry. This old man and a few others have some things to say about Darklake Empire as well. We happen to be looking for allies to exterminate it.”