Chapter 432 – Underworld Warrior

“Death message on the way to the underworld… Lighting the Styx…”

Lu Yuan mumbled to himself as he gazed at that distant light.

After a moment, as if he suddenly realized something, he quickly turned his head to the woman in the black dress beside him and blurted out, “You aren’t trying to lead me to the legendary underworld, are you? Am I… already dead?!”

The woman in the black dress sat silently at the bow of the small boat, staring quietly ahead, without uttering a single word.

It was only then that Lu Yuan noticed that, at some unknown point, a dense fog had risen over the Styx.

Suddenly, fog enveloped the river.

The massive full moon submerged in the water behind them and the Red Spider Lilies blooming on both banks could no longer be seen.

The black small boat drifted silently through the thick mist, and everything outside was invisible. Only the dim light ahead, resembling a lantern, seemed immune to the fog’s concealment, remaining clear in sight as it slowly drew closer.

The atmosphere shifted from serenity to something eerily strange.

A wave of enormous shock and sorrow swept swiftly from the depths of Lu Yuan’s heart.

Barefoot, he stood dumbfounded at the prow, unable to find the right words or expressions to articulate his complex emotions at that moment.

“Am I dead? Am I really dead?…”

A thought constantly churned in Lu Yuan’s mind as he recalled his final battle with Anders.

He had indeed used the panel-generated vortex to classify Anders as upgrade material and devoured him.

But before that, his own life’s potential had almost been drained by Anders, making his death plausible.

Yet… he was completely unprepared for this outcome.

“Did I just die like this? Does this mean I’m now destined to become an underworld warrior?”

Lu Yuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Death was something everyone inevitably faces-a scenario he had pondered during moments of boredom, imagining what would happen if he died one day.

But when that day suddenly arrived, Lu Yuan was caught off guard and found it absurd.

It felt as if someone had suddenly played an enormous prank on him, but this joke… was not funny at all.

As Lu Yuan’s thoughts swirled, the small boat gradually approached the dim yellow light.

He instinctively looked up and saw the full shape of the light gradually revealing itself through the thick fog.

It resembled a strangely shaped streetlamp, emitting a mysterious yellow light, slanting into the bank of the Styx.

As Lu Yuan curiously studied the peculiar streetlamp, he suddenly saw it flicker, then slowly turn to blink an “eye” at him.

“Uh…”

Lu Yuan was taken aback.

Then he noticed that behind this dim streetlamp, there were many more similar streetlamps.

These streetlamps seemed alive, with the top part emitting the yellow light serving as their eyes.

In the gradually clearing dense mist, along the banks of the Styx, these underworld creatures, resembling streetlamps, eerily turned their heads, their dim yellow lights staring unblinkingly at Lu Yuan on the black small boat, blinking repeatedly.

The scene was silent yet awe-inspiring, with an indescribable sense of immense eeriness and horror.

“An underworld… honor guard?!”

Lu Yuan stared blankly at the row of underworld streetlamps that seemed to “welcome” him, unsure of what expression to make.

Just then, a massive vortex suddenly appeared on the dark river ahead of the small boat.

As the vortex formed, the woman in the black dress who had been sitting at the bow quietly stood up.

She seemed to glance back at Lu Yuan.

Then she extended her hand toward the vortex, gently pointing with a finger.

In an instant, Lu Yuan felt a tremendous force pushing him forward from behind.

He stumbled uncontrollably, tumbling off the small boat into the river.

Before his body was completely devoured by the vortex on the river surface, Lu Yuan could faintly see…

The figure of the woman in the black dress standing at the bow, quietly watching him across the vortex and water.

…

“Whew-“

Abruptly waking from a dream, much like a drowning person finally breaking the surface to find daylight, Lu Yuan’s eyes snapped open, and he instinctively tried to lift himself up.

However, an overwhelming sense of weakness and the strong sensation of being tightly restrained caused that movement to go nowhere.

“I’m not dead!”

The first thought that flashed through Lu Yuan’s mind upon opening his eyes was to confirm whether his life was still intact.

Thankfully, the feedback he received brought a wave of relief and gratitude.

Once again, it proved that what he experienced in the Crow Dreamscape was just a dream.

Or maybe not entirely…

If the woman in the black dress hadn’t summoned the vortex to let him leave, and he had continued to float down the Styx on that small boat, he might never have woken up.

Of course, now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.

Lu Yuan suddenly realized he was in a cramped, strange, oppressive, and unfamiliar place.

“Where is this?”

What Lu Yuan saw was a rough, continuously writhing, dark red inner wall resembling the tissue of blood and flesh.

It seemed as if he were inside the belly of some large creature.

Curved bony structures protruding from the dark red flesh walls held him firmly in place, perhaps for safety?

Lu Yuan also noticed that both above and around him, there were many objects resembling virtual screens, and a chubby emerald green creature was hopping between them.

“A cuckoo bird?!”

Lu Yuan instantly recognized the identity of the plump bird and blurted it out.

The cuckoo bird noticed him awake and flapped its wings, landing on his chest, then started cooing continuously.

From the communication of consciousness the cuckoo bird provided, Lu Yuan roughly understood what had happened.

“Anders is dead…”

“The ancestral land secret realm has undergone dramatic changes…”

“Yuwen Tong used a Spirit Devourer Clan spaceship to send me away so I wouldn’t be captured and used as a research subject by families from the advanced civilization…”

“So now, we have left our original starry sky far behind and are drifting aimlessly in the vast universe?”

Lu Yuan frowned, feeling at a loss in the face of this unexpected situation.

He found himself forced to “leave home,” fleeing towards an unknown destination?!

His mood inevitably turned a bit agitated.

It felt as if he had fallen asleep and woken up, only to find he had been sent to a foreign land with a single ticket.

Of course, he didn’t intend to blame Yuwen Tong.

Considering her perspective, Yuwen Tong’s decision was undoubtedly in his best interest.

If he had really been captured by the Bai Family and Anders’ family’s backing, his situation would have been dire.

In fact, Yuwen Tong chose to stay behind and face everything herself, which might have put her in an even worse position than his current plight.

Yet, knowing this, Lu Yuan was helpless to change anything.

Against the advanced civilization families that dominated the starry sky, both he and Yuwen Tong were powerless ants, struggling to survive within the cracks.

“Well, I’ll just take it one step at a time…”

Lu Yuan took a deep breath, calming his agitated emotions.

He checked his injuries, finding the situation slightly better than he had anticipated.

After the “pill shattering” incident, his body felt like a battlefield ravaged by a nuclear bomb, utterly devastated.

But two forces were circulating within him.

One was familiar, the Phoenix Essence previously stored within him.

The other… was unknown to him.

These two forces intertwined, continuously permeating his cells.

“The undying trait of the Phoenix’s nirvana rebirth…”

Lu Yuan’s eyes flickered.

Through prolonged absorption of the Phoenix Essence, he had naturally developed a trace of the Phoenix’s Bloodline Power within.

Anders had practically drained all his life potential.

After the vortex, created by the professional panel, devoured Anders, none of the life potential Lu Yuan used as “bait” was returned.

In this near-death state, the undying trait of nirvana rebirth inherent in his bloodline was activated.

The first step in a phoenix’s rebirth amidst flames is to burn away the flesh, and from the ashes of despair, new life emerges.

Yet at this very step…

Lu Yuan was stuck.

The mysterious force within Lu Yuan’s body was stubbornly guarding his last bit of vitality, providing a continuous supply of new Life Energy.

This prevented the Phoenix Essence from fully manifesting its Bloodline Power.

He found himself in an awkward predicament-

Neither fully alive nor able to die.

Stuck in this “half-alive, half-dead” state.

“This power… should be from Yuwen Tong.”

Lu Yuan speculated about the source of the mysterious power in his body. Besides Yuwen Tong, he couldn’t think of any other possibility.

It’s not that Yuwen Tong’s well-intentioned actions backfired.

Lu Yuan was well aware that the trace of Bloodline Power he derived from the Phoenix Essence was probably only a fraction of what a true phoenix bloodline could achieve.

With the majority of the Phoenix Essence exhausted, achieving a true rebirth like the mythical legend of the phoenix rising from the ashes was simply impossible…

If not for the mysterious Bloodline Power Yuwen Tong had infused into him, the moment the phoenix’s rebirth flame ignited would have been the moment of his ultimate demise.

The phoenix’s failed nirvana within Embers Mountain was a perfect example.

However, despite identifying this issue, Lu Yuan had no idea how to resolve it.

He had no clue how to handle the current situation and could only let it progress on its own for now.

Lu Yuan did notice something though.

As these two powers clashed and contradicted each other yet assisted in some aspects, they also formed a peculiar connection with a part of his body.

This place was where the grandmaster blood pill once resided.

After shattering his arduously cultivated “Mastery Blood Pill,” the area in the center of his chest turned into a state of… chaos?!

He wasn’t sure how to describe it.

But the area was certainly swirling with a mist that hovered between illusion and reality.

When Lu Yuan tried probing it with his mental power, the feedback he received was nothingness.

“Don’t tell me… this is a new realm above the martial arts grandmaster’s Three Flowers and Five Qi?!”

Lu Yuan blinked as he suddenly recalled the little figure murals he had seen back in the Hutian Secret Realm of Penglai.

After achieving the gathering of three flowers at the apex and the Convergence of Five Qi to the Origin, the little figures on the mural would give rise to an “inner world,” also referred to as the “Hutian Secret Realm.”

While he had successfully completed the gathering of three flowers, he had only just begun activating the Five Qi.

However, the step of “pill shattering” wasn’t completely wrong.

Who would’ve thought that he might accidentally stumble into the next grand realm of martial arts Grandmaster?

Yet, this step was inherently flawed and put him in quite an awkward position.

This “inner world” seemed to be in a half-dead, undeveloped state.

“Even the [Martial Arts Grandmaster (Extraordinary)] professional panel has completely grayed out, and I am dreaming of directly jumping to the realm of activating the inner world… what wishful thinking…”

Lu Yuan couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly.

He felt that the only word to describe his current physical state was-chaos!

Such a tangled mess that he didn’t know how to untangle it all.

He had considered finding inspiration or a breakthrough from the new profession that would be initiated once Anders, who had been devoured, joined the mix.

However, this super new profession he had pinned his hopes on seemed to have once again entered another new cycle of debate and development following Anders’ involvement.

It kept spinning like a gray vortex, reminiscent of the ever-“loading” mouse cursor wheel.

Just as Lu Yuan was overwhelmed by the “post-disaster reconstruction” task within his body…

Thankfully, the cuckoo bird responsible for piloting the spaceship started sending “good news” after “good news.”

“Spaceship damaged, energy insufficient, course deviation, anchor point missing…”

Hearing the cuckoo bird’s “report,” Lu Yuan couldn’t help but laugh in exasperation.

“Could you please repeat that?”

“Cuckoo-“

The cuckoo bird lifted a wing to scratch its round head, looking somewhat apologetic.

It then loudly defended itself, explaining that as a bird, getting this far was already quite an achievement.

Moreover, when it and Yuwen Tong were making the decision to send Lu Yuan away, the situation was urgent, and there simply wasn’t enough time to thoroughly check the spaceship, who would’ve known about this heap of issues.

Lu Yuan was too tired to listen to any more of the cuckoo bird’s excuses. He had long identified its misfortune-afflicted constitution.

Nothing good ever seemed to come from being around it.

And even when something positive did happen, it was inevitably followed by a wave of misfortune.

After so many instances, he was nearly accustomed to it.

Inside the enclosed spaceship of the Spirit Devourer Clan, Lu Yuan extended his remaining mental power outward.

The moment his mental power reached beyond the spaceship, it was immediately consumed by a powerful force if it strayed too far.

He could barely “see”-

The Spirit Devourer Clan spaceship he was on was glowing intensely, resembling a blazing fireball.

It streaked across the cold, dark Starry Sky, hurtling rapidly toward a distant expanse of brilliance…

“Alright then…”

Lu Yuan withdrew his mental power, exhaled deeply, and relaxed as he lay in the spaceship’s cabin.

Gazing up at the dark red ceiling, he murmured in resignation, “Looks like this time it’s truly the end… like an underworld warrior returning from the past…”

“Cuckoo~~”