Star Odyssey-Chapter 3529: Dire End

Yi Nan sensed Lu Yin’s killing intent and hoarsely said, "The Phantom Reach and the Wisdom Domain will support you in becoming a Seraph, and we will not take any actions against the Tianyuan Megaverse in the future. This goes against the High Seraph’s will, and it is sufficient to show our sincerity.

"You should already know of the Phantom Reach’s integrity."

Lu Yin raised his hand while facing Yi Nan and released the Setting Sun. "I have long since moved past the need to compromise. The Spirit Nidus needs to change for me.

"The Setting Sun will burn your martial arts!"

Yi Nan bled from his seven orifices, and he could no longer hold the bone hand steady. He spat out a mouthful of blood as his face flushed red. "Dire End!"

The bone hand opened, and an indescribable, unseen power converged. It was manifested thought.

"I’ll let you experience the disasters of the mortal world. This is your own fault!"

Yi Nan held the bone hand and pointed it at Lu Yin while maintaining his distance.

Manifested thought was another elusive power, but since it involved altering or depriving a person’s thought, Lu Yin was able to avoid it. Still, it was difficult for him to quickly avoid an outright collision of manifested thought. Essentially, by knowing that Yi Nan was attacking with manifested thought, Lu Yin was practically clashing with the attack.

Yi Nan’s manifested thought attack struck Lu Yin the same moment he became aware of it.

Normally, clashing thoughts would not cause a person any harm. How could someone be hurt by another’s thoughts? The only risk was if the thoughts could cause a person to lose their mind.

By reaching his current level, Lu Yin had a steady will. How could he be driven mad by another’s thoughts?

However, Yi Nan's manifested thought attack, Dire End, was built from emotions cultivated from witnessing the suffering of the mortal world for countless years. This was also the motivation for why he had created the Phantom Reach.

How much misery could a single person experience throughout their lifetime? Some might experience a little, while others could experience a lot. What if it was the suffering of two people? Twenty? 2,000, or even 200 million? If such collective misery was instilled within a single person, then that person would instantly experience all of that suffering, making for a truly unforgettable event.

In a moment, Lu Yin experienced that level of suffering from the attack of manifested thought.

Such indescribable misery caused even his will to momentarily collapse. The agony of that instant felt as if he had witnessed his closest family members and loved ones being brutally killed by his enemies. It was as if everything he had ever possessed had been ripped away. It was like enduring the most harrowing torture. It was as if...

Such agony was beyond description. This was the crushing Dire End that had been experienced by countless people. Lu Yin had no choice but to use Lightstream to reverse time by one second.

Yi Nan was also suffering from Dire End. This was the greatest flaw of his manifested thought attack. Because it was a collision of thought, the attacker would experience the same Dire End as the target.

Over the course of countless years, Yi Nan had repeatedly endured the misery brought about by Dire End. Even someone like him found it difficult to endure this attack. After countless attempts, he had finally gained the ability to wield the attack.

Lu Yin's will momentarily crumbled beneath the accumulated suffering of the mortal world, but Yi Nan could endure for several seconds. The man was confident that his endurance was high enough to cause any opponent’s will to collapse. It might be too much for even the High Seraph.

This was the terrifying nature of manifested thought, a power that was distinct from both consciousness and spiritual force. Yi Nan sought to pioneer the path of manifested thought in the Spirit Nidus.

At this moment, the man’s confidence rose to an unprecedented level. Perhaps he could fight against the High Seraph, provided that the High Seraph could endure this clash of thought.

Yi Nan dismissed Lu Yin's single second of time reversal as insignificant. What could one second accomplish? Even if time was reversed repeatedly, Yi Nan could simply continue attacking. Dire End was something that he had endured for countless years, which allowed him to persist endlessly. The agony he was suffering was something that he had already borne for countless years, and anyone who dared to oppose him would be forced to bear it as well.

That single second was all that it took for Lu Yin to be drenched in sweat. The momentary collapse of his will had already made it clear to him that he could not endure this attack of manifested thought. What kind of person could handle Dire End, which was the concentrated suffering of countless people? It was certainly beyond him.

Even a heart as steady as a rock would not be enough to describe the resolve required for such a thing.

This was the mental fortitude of Yi Nan, the master of Phantom Reach. No Dukkhan was an easy opponent, but compared to Yi Nan, Astral Anura seemed almost cute.

Every Dukkhan in the Spirit Nidus had their own trump cards.

Yi Nan’s eyes were bloodshot as he directed his bone hand at Lu Yin, continuing to attack with Dire End.

Lu Yin raised a hand, a spiral of karma coiled about his finger. A Wheel of Karma formed, and it quickly shot forward.

Dire End was an attack that used the suffering of the mortal world. Different people suffered differently, including both physical and mental suffering. But regardless of the nature of their suffering, all suffering also had cause and effect. There was no one in existence who could escape from karma. Wherever karma existed, it could also be nullified.

When the bone hand pointed at Lu Yin, a clash of thought was initiated.

However, a Wheel of Karma spun in front of Lu Yin, and it struck the manifested thought attack.

Yi Nan was astonished. How was this possible? Was his Dire End being eroded?

He stared at Lu Yin in disbelief. The man was not doing anything more than standing in place, and yet Yi Nan’s Dire End was being continuously eroded away. It was impossible for anyone to fight against Yi Nan’s manifested thought, as not even the High Seraph was capable of doing so. It should be impossible for his Dire End to be resisted at all.

Even if someone was capable of enduring or evading Dire End, how could anyone reduce its power?

Dire End was the cumulation of all of the suffering that Yi Nan had harvested from the mortal world over the course of countless years with the power of his manifested thought. It was both his experience and life. It was something that not even the mysterious power of time should be able to erode, unless the time where the suffering had originally occurred could be reverted to prevent the suffering from ever happening at all.

Even if that was possible, Yi Nan had harvested countless bits of suffering. Could Lu Yin have rolled back the entire River of Aeons, rendering everything that had happened meaningless?

Yi Nan could not understand what was happening, no matter how hard he tried.

Karma was a power that was in no way weaker than the power of time. The High Seraph had gone to the Tianyuan Megaverse and attacked it because he had sensed that Lu Yin had comprehended karma. Even with his control of the Lesser Spirit Megaverse, which he could reset at any moment in order to step into the Immortal realm, the High Seraph feared the power of karma.

No one could predict what cultivating karma might allow one to do in the future.

The High Seraph and Master Qing Cao both feared the power of karma. It was a power that exceeded what most people could even imagine.

Lu Yin had mastered karma to the point where he could see lines of karma and use them to trace the karmic causes of effects. He could observe the past with spirals of karma, and he could even nullify karma with the Wheel of Karma. Not even Lu Yin could guess how far he would be able to go with the power of karma given more time.

At the very least, Yi Nan was unable to make any sense of what was happening.

Tears of blood streamed from Yi Nan's eyes. He was unwilling to accept what he was seeing. The countless years of suffering that he had endured, the pain that he suffered from Dire End had kept him from leaving the Roaming South Realm. How many times had he given up on competing for the title of Seraph? If not for that, how could either Meng Sang or Bao Qi have succeeded? Yi Nan had sacrificed too much to develop Dire End, so why was it dissipating?

Why?

Yi Nan had envisioned the High Seraph as his ultimate opponent. Because of this, he had not only developed the manifested thought attack Dire End, but he had also anticipated that the High Seraph would be able to withstand such a thing through sheer will, which he had tempered by cultivating Everstone. To counter this, Yi Nan had devised another technique—Inverse End. This attack had been specifically created to target those who could endure Dire End. Inverse End functioned by negating an opponent’s life experiences, using their own will as the foundation to erase their past. It was as if their entire existence had been reversed, and it would allow Yi Nan to overcome the High Seraph.

While Yi Nan had not completely finished developing the technique, he was certain that he would be able to. With enough time, if he laid an ambush, he would eventually be able to defeat the High Seraph. After all, Yi Nan was an assassin.

Why is this happening?

He ran through a thousand calculations and simulations, but he still could not find any way for someone to cause Dire End to erode away.

The answer was something that Yi Nan could never come up with in his entire life.

Similarly, Lu Yin could not conceive that Yi Nan had used the High Seraph as his hypothetical target and that he had created a deadly technique specifically to eliminate the High Seraph.

There were many geniuses in the megaverse; some rose to fame, while others remained hidden.

Yi Nan had cultivated to the Dukkhan realm, and he had also founded the Phantom Reach. He was unquestionably a genius among geniuses and should never be underestimated. Unfortunately, he had run into Lu Yin.

Lu Yin had once been trapped within Progenitor Hui’s manifested thought in the Fifth Mainland’s Technocracy. At that time, he had expressed to Mister Mu his fear of having cultivated too many different powers, questioning which path he should take in the future.

At that time, Mister Mu's answer had left a vivid impression on Lu Yin.

"Just follow each path to the peak."

That was the goal that Mister Mu had set for his youngest disciple.

"Follow each path to the peak."

There were countless paths that cultivators could take, but humans were still human, and all paths would eventually converge. Lu Yin himself had cultivated many paths that others had taken before, and then he merged them upon becoming a Progenitor.

He served as a perfect counter to countless people. His very existence was something that the Spirit Nidus cultivators could not comprehend.

Mister Mu alone had pointed out Lu Yin’s path for future progression.

When they had spoken, it was likely that not even Mister Mu had imagined that Lu Yin would actually reach the peak of any of the paths that he had been following. The Wheel of Karma allowed Lu Yin to observe Yi Nan as tears of blood streamed from his eyes. Given his semi-bewildered state from enduring Dire End, Yi Nan was completely unable to resist the palm strike that Lu Yin threw.

Suddenly, Lu Yin heard a voice. "I will give you this person to settle your grudge against my Wisdom Domain. I hope that this will show you my sincerity, Lord Lu."

Endless illusions appeared before Lu Yin’s eyes. This was the result of Second Image, the fifth-ranked sequence technique. Lu Yin had already encountered it once before, courtesy of Mr. Li.

The infinite illusions resembled outer space, and they were almost enough to leave Lu Yin unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

A sword appeared behind him. "Purity in the Murk. Wild Calligraphy of Sword and Grass: Undying Stroke."

Lu Yin spun around and grabbed hold of the sword’s blade. He squeezed, bending the blade and sending a powerful vibration down the sword and forcing Mr. Li to retreat.

The Dukkhan had ambushed Lu Yin.

Lu Yin spun the sword around and sliced at Mr. Li with the Thirteenth Sword.

The man’s eyes narrowed. Is he also a swordsman?

Energy swirled around Mr. Li, forming additional swords that each attacked Lu Yin with the Wild Calligraphy of Sword and Grass: Undying Stroke.

With the Thirteenth Sword, Lu Yin cut through everything. This was not an attack that cut the target’s body, but rather their emotions.

As the blade fell, Mr. Li spat a mouthful of blood. A sword of emotions?

Lu Yin suddenly spun the sword around again. There was a flash of light, and everything fell silent. It was the Silence Sword, and it left a bleeding wound. There was another flicker, and Mr. Li's shoulder was exposed. Lu Yin followed up with the Autumn Hall Sword Intent, the Thunderlight Sword Technique, the Inner Peace Sword Arts, and the Karmic Flame Sword all merged into a single attack. Mr. Li’s shoulder was pierced, and his blood splattered across the ground.

Sword qi continued to flicker as Lu Yin demonstrated the various sword techniques that he had experienced over the years.

All of them were rather ordinary and were unqualified to be used against a Dukkhan, but in Lu Yin's hands, all of the techniques were transformed into terrifying attacks that could injure Mr. Li.

This was not merely due to Lu Yin's overwhelming physical strength but also because he had received Wu Tian's knowledge of martial arts and the inheritance that he had received from the Wu Stele. Lu Yin was a master of all weapons.

He used the Tianyuan Megaverse’s sword arts to cut down Mr. Li.

More than a dozen wounds opened up across the man’s body, causing him to bleed profusely. He did not even bother trying to block and simply allowed the sword qi to strike. His own blade fell, finishing the character grass with his own sword qi. The character shot towards Lu Yin.