“Alright, alright,” the little fox grumbled and hugged the scroll and bell to herself. She nuzzled Qing Yu’s chest fiercely and glared in challenge at Lu Yun.
Lu Yun glared back and reached for Qing Yu’s robes, but his dao partner slapped his hand down.
They’d reached the end of the path at some point and a vista of boundless space with a cerulean planet at its center greeted their eyes.
“The great wilderness…” The little fox poked a head out of Qing Yu’s embrace and stared, mesmerized, by the planet that looked like a life sphere.
“This really is the great wilderness and humanity’s ancestor planet… Earth,” Lu Yun murmured to himself.
Though the two were the same planet and Lu Yun had once journeyed back to the primitive era, everything had felt too foreign to him when he was in the great wilderness. Nothing had struck a chord, but now as he looked at the planet that’d birthed and raised him, he felt oddly emotional.
His mental state began to go through certain changes and transcend itself.
“The cosmos in this region of space is fake. None of these stars are actual celestial bodies,” Qing Yu murmured as she scanned the area around them.
An endless expanse of space studded with stars stretched on before them like a most beautiful painting, but to one as well versed in formula dao as Qing Yu, this was all a mirage.
“That’s right, the cosmos here is fake. It’s just a projection of our own night sky in the world of immortals. However, since our night sky is strewn with ruins, that makes the one here completely fake,” sighed Lu Yun. “If you take a closer look at these stars, you’ll see that they’re all transformed from the great masters of combat arts in the great wilderness. Some of them are connate great gods, some are descendants of the gods. Many of them climbed to their heights after being born as mundane beings. They all died to protect this realm.”
Qing Yu nodded gently. Lu Yun had already told her all this when he came back, but it was another thing entirely to see it with her own eyes. Her face dimmed to see space filled with devastatingly numerous corpses of wondrous experts.
“I’ll revive them all one day so that their valiant battle spirits grace the world again!” Lu Yun suddenly proclaimed with great heroism.
“What’s going on here?!” the little fox suddenly shrieked. “The Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates should be protecting the ancestor planet, but why has it changed?!”
“Huh?” Lu Yun started and carefully examined the planet and formation in front of him before breaking out in a broad grin. “This... really isn’t that great formation, but something even stronger!”
Taiyi had created the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates, but someone had found a way to break it a long time ago.
Given that, the one holding down the fort on the ancestor planet wouldn’t sit idly upon his hands. He would certainly lay down a new and improved formation. After all, Taiyi’s creation had been derived from Fuxi’s dao of formations.
Fuxi was on Earth!
If Lu Yun’s guess was correct, Fuxi was his master and the one who’d inducted him into the sect and path of tomb raiding.
“With earth, water, fire, metal, and wood as the five elements; Neptune, Uranus, Pluto as the three essentials; sun and moon as yin and yang… What a fantastic combination of the five elements, three essentials, yin and yang!” Lu Yun’s grin deepened as he couldn’t think of anyone else who could set up this formation other than Fuxi.
The little fox knew formations as well, especially mirage formations, but she’d learned all of her trade from Fuxi.
“C’mon, let’s go take a look at what Earth is like now.”
Lighthearted, Lu Yun was delighted to be back on his home planet. He also very much looked forward to seeing Fuxi again. Though there were the Art and Zither Saints, Gorb Demon, and others in the world of immortals, those were just his senses. They’d also formed their own individual personalities and were far removed from being Fuxi.
Lu Yun didn’t know how he should face Fuxi now… was he the holy emperor of the great wilderness as before? Or the greatest benefactor who’d changed Lu Yun’s life?
The demon god had played his cards much too close to his chest—Lu Yun hadn’t discovered his relationship with Fuxi even though he’d traveled back to the great wilderness.
……
Earth had continued to change and evolve during the few decades of Lu Yun’s absence. Laws of cultivation could barely be found here and combat arts couldn’t manifest. Mortals spent only a few scant decades in the world before passing on, but technological developments on the planet had still changed it completely.
“Good thing that not too much has changed here, it’s still the home of my memories.” Lu Yun and Qing Yu had both changed into loose casual clothing, the likes of which made Qing Yu feel slightly uncomfortable at how different they were.
There was no qi in this world and naturally no immortal dao, but immortals at their level had long foregone the need to absorb energy from their surroundings. There was an internal world inside of themselves that constantly supplied them with immortal energy.
Early spring charmed a little town in the province of Jiangnan. Flowers of all sorts bloomed with exuberance, imparting a restful air to the streets.
“Is this where you grew up?” Qing Yu whispered involuntarily when she looked at the various passersby.
“That’s right, I grew up here. This was my home.” Lu Yun looked at the house in front of them, one that had a new owner. A couple he didn’t recognize lived in it now—it’d seem that everything had changed in the forty years since he’d left.
What was once his had become someone else’s.
But of course, he didn’t mind this anymore. He and Qing Yu were in Earthling attire, but no mortals could see them.
……
“My master’s grave is still here.”
A tiny grave sat by itself at the foot of the small mountain to the rear of town. However, there were no weeds or trash around it—which rather surprised Lu Yun.
By his generation, his once impressive sect was dilapidated and he was the only disciple. If his speculations were correct, this tiny grave should be empty.
“…what??” Lu Yun looked at the grave with the Spectral Eye, but could clearly see the urn buried within, a ceramic container that contained ashes. His master’s ashes. “Am I… am I wrong? Fuxi’s not my master?”
Regardless, Lu Yun walked up to the grave and respectfully kowtowed three times. This was the master who’d raised him, and he hadn’t paid his respects for forty years.
Qing Yu also knelt on the ground next to him and kowtowed to the small, lonely grave.
“Unfilial disciple Lu Yun has not let master down. I have extended our glorious sect far and wide,” murmured Lu Yun.