Lu Yin stared at the empty space as he memorized the coordinates. Just now, he had really wanted to ask Hong Xia if he had ever heard of the Hymn of Death and if he had seen a group of white skeletons dancing around a corpse.

But he had refrained from asking. Even if Hong Xia had seen it, so what? Would he care? He was a traitor who, even after his betrayal, had wanted to utterly destroy his own civilization.

“That location... it would be best if you do not go there,” Jiu Wen called out.

Lu Yin looked over. “Senior, do you know where it is?”

Jiu Wen shook his head. “Hong Xia doesn’t do useless things.”

Lu Yin let out a helpless sigh. “If I want to get a clear picture of the members of Obscura, I have to go. There’s no other choice.”

As Jiu Wen looked at Lu Yin, his expression fell. “I’m sorry. We old men are useless, forcing a child like you to charge into the fray.”

Lu Yin smiled. “Senior, don’t say that. I’ll be going now, but no matter what, since I can teleport, escaping won’t be a problem.”

Jiu Wen watched as Lu Yin vanished, his eyes peering into the megaverse and the countless people within it. For the sake of scheming against Hong Xia, Jiu Wen had paid far, far too much. But ultimately, the final step still had to be taken by someone else.

Lu Yin, no matter the outcome, live well.

***

The coordinates that Hong Xia had given were extremely far away from both the Crimson Starshade Megaverse and the Human Trio. Lu Yin needed to teleport nearly 100 times just to get close. Even with the ability to teleport, it was still a vast distance.

After all, the maximum range that he could go with each teleportation was as far as what an average Immortal could travel in twenty years. That meant that even an Immortal might take over 1,000 years to reach these locations.

Even the Crimson Starshade Megaverse and the Trio were only 300 years’ travel apart.

The Seven-Treasure Anuras, the Seal-Eater Civilization, and others suddenly seemed very, very close to the Trio.

Despite that, even these “close” distances were difficult for the Immortals of the Trio to see clearly across. Being able to affect something with an attack was one thing, while being able to see it was something else entirely.

Cultivators were wary of peering across vast distances. Green Lotus and the others would not look into distant points of the cosmos without reason, lest something unexpected occur.

Civilizations did not communicate with each other, nor did they stare each other down.

Even this vast distance was tiny when compared to the Aevum Inch as a whole. At the very least, Lu Yin still could not see any hint of an end.

He was also grateful to Ba Se for something that they had once said: to Obscura, there is no cosmic ecosystem.

If Obscura had a specific territory and the coordinates from Hong Xia were for a location within that territory, then Obscura’s region of the cosmos would be absurdly vast. Other territories would need to be similarly vast, which would mean that the Aevum Inch was far more infinite than he imagined.

For any civilization, an Immortal was already a peak existence. For such beings to struggle to even reach one another, such distances actually made sense. Otherwise, Immortals would constantly encounter each other, and the cosmos as a whole would have long since fallen into chaos.

In such a situation, even fishing civilizations would have no need to fish; they would simply stumble onto prey wherever they went.

The bigger the Aevum Inch was, the more reasonable this theory became.

Lu Yin stood in the middle of nowhere and peered into the distance. His eyes widened little by little as he stared in near disbelief. What... is that?

By using his Mirrorlight Art, he could just barely make out a place up ahead. There, a giant was cooking.

Lu Yin rubbed his eyes. Yes, he was seeing a sky-high giant... cooking?

He watched as the giant skillfully created a stir-fry on a huge stove. The creature occasionally used a spatula and other tools to mix things around. Lu Yin felt that the entire situation was utterly absurd. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

To begin with, why a giant? The giant had the form of a human, but why a giant? It was a green giant whose face was blurred, as though someone had smeared paste over it. There were no distinct features, yet the creature was undeniably humanoid.

The bizarre and absurd scene stunned Lu Yin into complete shock.

Just what was going on? This was the location indicated by the coordinates that Hong Xia had given him... could this be a human who had received a part of the Nine Ramparts’ legacy?

Lu Yin stared for a long while before returning to his senses. Regardless of the situation, since this creature had a human form, he needed to communicate with it.

A single teleportation delivered him near the stove. The flame was a mirebound artifact that boiled the void, endlessly incinerating the nearby cosmos. The temperature was hot enough to turn even a Dukkhan to ash.

The spatula kept stir-frying, though the ingredients were a Mother Tree.

Lu Yin stared at the chopped up Mother Tree atop the stove. It really was a Mother Tree. Is a Mother Tree being cooked?

Compared to the giant, Lu Yin was smaller than an ant. He stepped onto the stove. The flames consumed almost all of the visible sky, completely blocking his vision as the endless sound of food being stir-fried rang like thunder in his ears.

There was a fragrant scent. It was incredibly delightful, to an eerie extent.

How could a Mother Tree be cooked as food?

Lu Yin teleported to the chopped up Mother Tree and placed a hand against it. A moment later, motes of green light surged into his body.

He had been gathering these green motes of light from Mother Trees for some time, though he could not bear to harm ones which were growing healthily. This one had already been uprooted and chopped up, so he would let dust return to dust and earth return to earth.

When the motes of green light were absorbed, the remains of the Mother Tree gradually turned to ash.

At this moment, a hand fell from high above Lu Yin, looking like it was reaching for the Mother Tree. It grabbed a few times, and then the giant looked down. Where is the tree? The tree’s gone.

The giant was clearly stunned as they stared down at the stove. Eyes seemed to appear on the featureless face.

Lu Yin continued to stand on the stove as he looked up at the giant. The two locked gazes.

“A human?” the giant roared. They pulled the spatula out from the pan and viciously slammed it down, as if swatting a fly.

Lu Yin’s pupils shrank. That voice!

He immediately teleported away. The giant swung the spatula in a sweeping arc, quickly finding Lu Yin again, only for him to teleport away again. The spatula missed, and the giant exclaimed in shock, “Teleportation?”

“Furball?” Lu Yin blurted, staring at the giant in a daze.

It had spoken with Furball’s voice.

The giant gaped at Lu Yin. “You?”

Lu Yin could have never imagined that Furball was a giant, let alone a cooking giant. However, that also did not seem quite right. The giant’s features kept twisting in a blurry distortion that looked like paste. Upon closer examination, even the entire body was a bit hazy. It was as if this was not a solid entity.

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed as he understood. This creature was not truly a giant; he was seeing a passively manifested form.

There were beings in the cosmos that lacked a fixed form. Whatever form a viewer held in their mind was the form that they saw. One example of this were the conscients of the Consciousness Megaverse; some had adopted fixed forms while others maintained a passive form that each person saw differently. However, the scale of what was seen remained consistent.

There were also beings that could actively adopt a form. For example, Che, when requesting to enter within range of the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm, had taken on the appearance of a human.

Lu Yin’s level of strength meant that he could usually see through most species’ passive forms with nothing more than a glance, but this was Furball, a member of Obscura. Such a powerhouse was not someone whom Lu Yin could see through with a single look.

“How did you find me?” Fury filled Furball’s voice as they raised the spatula again to smash down upon Lu Yin.

He sharply shouted, “You want to break Obscura’s rules?”

Furball paused, maintaining a tight grip on the spatula as they stared down at Lu Yin, and he stared back.

Neither spoke. The cosmos remained silent, aside from the flickering of the flames.

Even now, Lu Yin could not accept what he had just seen. Was Furball, a member of Obscura, really cooking? Had they built a massive stove in the Aevum Inch in order to cook? This violated any sort of common sense. No matter how he considered the matter, it felt like a dream. He did not even know what to say. Words failed him. “Does it taste good?”

Furball roared in fury, “How did you find me?”

Lu Yin coughed once. “If I said that it was a coincidence, would you believe me?”

Furball was livid. “Don’t force me to kill you! I’m not trash like Hong Xia! He may not dare to act against you, but I do!”

Lu Yin doubted that. He had felt even greater pressure from Hong Xia than from Furball. While this being should be quite powerful, given that they had crushed a Plume Immortal, they did not give off the impression of a being who resonated with three cosmic laws. Lu Yin did not feel the same suffocating aura that he had from Ancestor Shan.

“Don’t get so worked up. I’m just dropping by. We’re both part of Obscura, so we should get acquainted. We’re not enemies. Look, every time, it’s always you and me chatting in Vestigium with nobody else able to get a word in. I’d say that that counts as friendship.”

Furball’s voice rattled the cosmos. “You’re courting death!”

As they spoke, they swept the spatula down and grabbed the pan to hurl it at Lu Yin. A massive spatial tear was ripped open in the cosmos, and flames blasted out in all directions.

Lu Yin quickly teleported far away, and he only returned several breaths later, discovering that Furball was searching for him. “Don’t get worked up, or else I’ll really go back to Vestigium and complain.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of you? Don’t make me eat your human civilization!”

“Hong Xia gave me this location’s coordinates,” Lu Yin immediately announced.

Furball sneered. “I knew it was him! He betrayed his own civilization, and now he wants to use me to eliminate his enemies.”

Lu Yin nodded. “Absolutely. I said that I wanted to know where to find Old Man Hehe, and he gave me these coordinates.”

Furball was furious. “Hong Xia! I won’t let him off!”

“Neither will I,” Lu Yin agreed. He did not want to fight Furball; there was no point. That would only change if Lu Yin learned that Furball was truly an enemy.

Hong Xia alone was already enough trouble.

As for the one manipulating things from behind the scenes, Lu Yin felt that they did not seem like Furball. This being’s temper was too explosive, and they did not give off the impression that they could pull such a thing off.

The reason why Hong Xia had given Lu Yin Furball’s location might be because this creature was connected to the hidden manipulator. It was possible that some suspicion had made Hong Xia focus on Furball. Lu Yin could not deny that possibility because he did not know enough about Furball to judge solely by their temperament. Another possibility was that Hong Xia was only aware of Furball’s location and knew nothing about any of the other Obscura members.

There was also a third possibility, which was what Furball had just said: Hong Xia wanted to use them to eliminate Lu Yin.

Since he had first joined Obscura, the one who had shown the most hostility towards Lu Yin was Furball. Even the nickname was one that Furball had coined.

As for whether Furball wanted to kill him, Lu Yin was absolutely sure that they did.

Furball lowered the spatula. “Get lost.”

Lu Yin looked at Furball. “You’re... cooking?”

Furball could not be bothered with Lu Yin. “Get lost, or I’ll butcher you first.”

Lu Yin frowned. “We’re both members of Obscura, but that isn’t a friendly attitude. Watch yourself, or else I’ll drag your stove away.”

Furball’s aura instantly spiked, causing the entire visible cosmos to turn green. “Do you really think that I don’t dare to pay a visit to your human civilization?”

“I can tell. You’ve got more guts than Hong Xia,” Lu Yin praised.

Furball sneered. “You wouldn’t talk like this in Vestigium!”

Lu Yin’s expression turned solemn. “Hong Xia said that you’re the same kind.”

Furball erupted in fury. “As him? I’m like him? A mere traitor thinks he’s worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as me?”

“But both his strength and cultivation surpass yours,” Lu Yin retorted.

Furball barked, “He said that?”

“No, but when he talked about Old Man Hehe and then talked about you, his attitude wasn’t the same. He sounded very wary of one, while towards the other...” Lu Yin did not finish, and yet Furball still flew into a rage.

If Lu Yin had claimed that Hong Xia had simply told him so directly, Furball would not have been fooled. Despite their explosive temper, they were clever. However, with the way that Lu Yin had chosen to phrase things, Furball could not be quite sure.