The Sovereign's Ascension

Shortly after the Heavenly Province Academy’s party went into the storm, they were separated. The storm might’ve gotten weaker, but it still couldn’t be underestimated. The feeling of the fine sand slamming into their bodies was terrible, not to mention that their vision was heavily impeded by the sand.

There was nothing they could do about being separated, and there were some who had lost their direction and accidentally came out of the sandstorm.

Lin Yun slowly walked through the sandstorm with his sword aura covering him. He narrowed his eyes as he poured his origin energy into his pupils in order to see the faint silhouettes around him. However, those silhouettes were immediately devoured by the sandstorm.

Mo Ling and the rest who were traveling with him had disappeared, so Lin Yun ultimately gave up looking for them. He casually chose a direction and pressed forward. Although he wasn’t traveling at a fast pace, he had thrown many people behind him without him knowing.

Soon, Lin Yun’s vision opened up and he could see a sea of sand before him. It was practically impossible to determine one’slocation in the Withernorth Sea aside from some landmarks as the sand would constantly and subtly shift.

The only thing they could sense was the high temperature since the temperature outside of the Withernorth Sea was much lower. The temperature was something only detectable by Violet Palace Realms and up.

But the desert wasn’t exactly barren as there were some weeds and bushes. Travelling without an objective for two hours, Lin Yun came to a stop as he fell into deep thoughts. When he casually looked back at a weed behind him, he decided to walk over and examine it.

“A duskmist Flower!” Lin Yun realized that this wasn’t a weed, but a budding Duskmist Flower.

The flower was slender and it could grow up to a thousand meters. However, it required the nourishment of spiritual energy and water for five years. The lack of water was the biggest reason why it looked like a weed here. Upon blooming, it would have petals of different colors - white, yellow, blue, and purple. But two days after blooming, it would swiftly wither.

It took so much effort to grow only to bloom for two days. Hence, this flower had an extraordinary effect upon being added to medicine. The Duskmist Flower wasn’t rare in the Withernorth Sea, but it could hardly be found in the outside world. Since Lin Yun had run into it by coincidence, it could be considered a decent harvest.

In the boundless Withernorth Sea, there were many bizarre plants in addition to the ancient treasures. This meant that adventurers who chose to come here would have a harvest no matter what. Since the flower still needed some time to bloom, Lin Yun decided to sit nearby to cultivate since he wasn’t in a rush to go anywhere.

Lin Yun opened his eyes three days later when he sensed a weak fluctuation and he looked at the swiftly growing Duskmist Flower. In the blink of an eye, the petals with four different colors slowly bloomed.

It had a strong and refreshing fragrance that permeated the blazing desert. Lin Yun opened his sword box and gathered the petals into the box. When he closed the sword box, all of the flower’s fragrance was sealed.

The Flower Burial Sword had already reached a transcendent profound grade, so this was an opportunity for him to upgrade his sword. As long as he could collect enough Duskmist Flowers, he would get the pleasant opportunity of upgrading his sword.

But just when he was about to close the sword box, a pair of eyes had locked onto him. It came from a lizard demonic beast that was attracted by the flower fragrance. The moment it popped out of the sand, it revealed a body that was nearly a hundred meters long.

Lin Yun looked at it indifferently and threw out a punch. In the next second, twenty-five cauldron’s worth of strength exploded and the demonic beast was blown a few dozen meters away. But when it landed on the ground, it charged at him again without any hesitation.

“Interesting…” Lin Yun’s eyes flashed with boundless sword intent as he threw out a punch like a sword at the demonic beast’s abdomen. Not only did this punch contain immense power, but also some of Lin Yun’s sword intent. His punch instantly created a hole on the demonic beast’s body that dyed the sand red.

Carrying the sword box back on his back, Lin Yun soared into the sky and landed on the demonic beast’s corpse.

When Lin Yun landed on the corpse, it was instantly torn into pieces. As Lin Yun continued his journey, he found many Duskmist Flowers along the way. In just two days, Lin Yun had collected six flowers and he wasn’t even hunting for them. He stumbled upon all of the flowers by chance.

The further he went into the desert, the stronger the demonic beasts became. It made sense since the demonic beasts managed to survive in such a harsh environment. Each demonic beast had a strong defence, so Lin Yun had to use his sword intent to deal with them.

Just a moment ago, the desert serpent he ran into not only had a tough defence, but also could spit out venomous poison. Even more impressive was that it could swim in the desert sand with great agility like a fish. It took some time for Lin Yun to deal with it.

As Lin Yun carried on his journey, he suddenly came to a stop as he looked at the Duskmist Flower before him in surprise. This Duskmist Flower looked more spiritual than the ones he found so far. It didn’t look like a weed at all.

While he was thinking, the Duskmist Flower bloomed and started flickering with seven colors. Looking at the seven colors - red, white, blue, yellow, green, purple, and cyan - Lin Yun muttered to himself, “So it’s a Seven Colored Duskmist Flower!”

He now understood why there was a huge commotion. So it was a rare Seven Colored Duskmist Flower. The commotion it caused was a little too huge and the dreamy scene that suddenly appeared in the desert attracted a few people. They were headed straight for the flower.

“We’re pretty lucky to run into a Seven Colored Duskmist Flower.”

“Hehe, an ordinary Duskmist Flower is rare, but this is simply priceless.”

“Lucky for us, we ran into it even before reaching the empyrean’s tomb.”

The group that arrived was from another prefectural city’s quasi-overlord force. Each one of them had a decent cultivation. They were all in the lesser Yang stage, so they completely ignored Lin Yun’s presence. But that didn’t matter as they were also invisible in Lin Yun’s eyes.

“Guys, this flower already has an owner,” said Lin Yun as he looked at the group.

“Is that so?”

“You’re not trying to say that it belongs to a piece of trash like you who isn’t even in the Yang stage, right?” mocked one of the disciples.

“Hahaha!” The four of them laughed and they looked at Lin Yun like he was an idiot. He actually dared to claim the flower before them?

But their laughter soon froze as fear grew in their eyes. They saw that there were four corpses on the ground.

That body seems familiar… Those were the four disciples’ last thoughts before their consciousness faded away.

“Seems like there are some changes.” Lin Yun muttered as he looked at the Flower Burial Sword in his hand.

He could’ve easily dealt with the four of them without drawing his sword, but that would be a little more troublesome. The reason why he used his sword was because he wanted to see if there were any improvements in the Flower Burial Sword.

But now that he drew his sword, he didn’t bother sheathing it. Instead, he looked at a figure that was slowly approaching from the horizon.

“Impressive. You killed four lesser Yang stage disciples with a sword. Even someone in the greater Yang stage can’t accomplish what you just did. I’m impressed that you managed to achieve this in the pinnacle Yin stage.” It was an elder who looked to be in his late seventies. He wore a smile on his face and concealed the killing aura on his body.

As he spoke, a three hundred meter long desert serpent popped out of the sand and headed towards the flower. But the moment it got close, it was severed into two.

Even Lin Yun would have great difficulty dealing with the desert serpents without using his sword, but the old man was able to kill it with just his finger. This alone had proved the old man’s strength. With respect to wandering cultivators, this old man was not weak.

However, there was no change on Lin Yun’s face as he looked at the old man calmly. When the old man saw how calm Lin Yun was, he couldn’t help being disappointed. After all, he was trying to intimidate Lin Yun. However, it looked like Lin Yun wasn’t affected in the slightest.

But it didn’t matter to him as he smiled, “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not interested in flowers. There are many formidable demonic cultivators who made it into the Withernorth Sea. You should know how terrifying those in the top ten on the outer ranking are. Why don’t we join hands together and enter the empyrean tomb?”

He was, indeed, not interested in the Seven Colored Duskmist Flower. What he was interested in was Lin Yun. He was confident in dealing with prideful youngsters like Lin Yun. His plan was to kill Lin Yun to get all of Lin Yun’s treasures, including the Duskmist Flower and the Flower Burial Sword.

The elder smiled with greed in his eyes, but he had concealed it well.

“You’re not qualified,” responded Lin Yun. He merely swung his sword before sheathing it. He ended up leaving after unleashing the Thunderbolt Slasher.