Star Odyssey

Chapter 3101: Evasive Maneuvers

Ye Wu charged straight at the dark cloud. From below, a corpse king ferociously lunged at the man. It was a Progenitor-level corpse king with formidable physical strength.

Even so, Ye Wu effortlessly struck the monster down with a single blow. His own physical might was even more overwhelming.

"Did you devour the Totem Civilization?"

Xu Jin's eye stared at Ye Wu, who had moved close. The eye did not recognize Ye Wu, but it was familiar with the Totem Civilization. "Are you one of their survivors?"

Ye Wu had no need to answer, as that question had revealed the truth.

Ye Wu's expression grew cold as his figure entered the dark cloud and vanished from sight.

Lu Yin stared from the distance. Most of what he knew of Xu Jin had been gleaned through Possession, but out of everyone Lu Yin had Possessed, only Di Xia knew a bit about Xu Jin.

Xu Jin's true form was an eye. No one understood how just an eye could cultivate, but they did know that its consciousness was incredibly powerful. Xu Jin was the one who had set up the Corpse King Monument, which pulled users’ consciousness into it, for the Third Scourge.

The Chiliagonist had also been a master of the power of consciousness, but if he were compared to Xu Jin, it would be like comparing a firefly to the bright moon. There had been an unimaginable disparity between the two.

Ye Wu had agreed to attack the Second Scourge with Lu Yin in order to deal with Xu Jin. Originally, Lu Yin had merely hoped that he would be able to lure Xu Jin away from the Nine-Star Civilization by attacking the Second Scourge. The possibility of the Scourge’s ruler already returning had not even occurred to Lu Yin.

However, at this moment, Xu Jin was the only powerful expert in the Second Scourge. While there were other peak powerhouses and Progenitor-level corpse kings, such opponents meant nothing to people at the level of Lu Yin, Lord Xu, and Mu Shen.

All three men watched as Ye Wu charged into the dark cloud.

After a moment, he exited the dark cloud again, having not encountered anything at all.

Ye Wu turned back to look at the eyeball, and he immediately took another step forward while launching an attack.

The eyeball spun around and vanished into the dark cloud.

No matter how Ye Wu attacked, all of his efforts were futile. He was simply attacking a cloud that lacked any sort of physical form.

Lu Yin frowned. Could that cloud be the power of consciousness?

The Chiliagonist's consciousness had been intangible, and he had used it to control others like puppets. On the other hand, could Xu Jin's consciousness be visible and have the appearance of a cloud? If that was the case, how could anyone fight against that? How could Xu Jin's consciousness be overcome?

Lord Xu and Mu Shen were also at a loss on how to deal with such an opponent.

Ye Wu's attacks were ineffective on the dark cloud, but Xu Jin also did not not counterattack.

"It appears to have been injured, and not just a small bit. There’s no other reason for one of the Three Pillars and Six Skies to just take hits without even trying to fight back," Lord Xu commented.

This made Lu Yin think of something. Xu Jin should have been attacking the Nine-Star Civilization, which was one of the Second Scourge’s most formidable enemies. It did not make sense for Xu Jin to let the other Scourges deal with such an opponent by themselves.

The only realistic possibility was that Xu Jin had been injured, and the only way for anyone in the Nine-Star Civilization to harm him was if Kakawen’s Restart had struck him.

Mimina had mentioned during her request for help that it was quite possible that Kakawen would use the nine-star technique, Restart, to buy a bit of time to protect the Nine-Star Civilization.

If Xu Jin had been injured by Restart, then it meant it was possible to hurt him, but something like Restart had destroyed an entire universe to do so.

Restart was a technique that destroyed every part of a universe. While this might possibly include the power of time and space, Lu Yin was not certain about that and could only speculate.

However, if that particular suspicion was true, then in order to harm or kill Xu Jin, it would take an attack that was capable of eradicating everything.

That meant an attack that did not merely use one specific power, but rather a fully comprehensive attack.

Basically, the attack needed to be powerful enough to tear open the Hollow and completely destroy the surface of a given universe.

As Lu Yin considered this, a portion of the dark cloud suddenly vanished, instantly replaced by the Hollow.

Lu Yin was astonished. He had no idea what Ye Wu had just done, but he had managed to destroy a portion of the universe and reveal the Hollow.

The Hollow consumed and destroyed parts of the dark cloud that was pulled in, and Xu Jin’s eye was revealed.

The eyeball spun around to stare at Ye Wu. Clearly, Xu Jin also had no idea what had just happened. Ye Wu floated silently in the sky, his previously frigid expression now completely devoid of any emotion. It was as though his consciousness had been erased.

"Attack!" Lu Yin shouted. The Seven-Star Mantis spread its pairs of wings and flew towards the dark cloud. It moved at the speed of time, which caused everything to freeze in comparison. At that moment, even Lord Xu and Mu Shen were immobilized.

By riding on the Seven-Star Mantis, Lu Yin managed to instantly arrive in front of the dark cloud, and he attacked the eyeball. Even Xu Jin’s eye was frozen as the mantis’s blade swung.

Right when Lu Yin thought that the attack would connect, the blade suddenly disappeared. After that, the Seven-Star Mantis itself and even Lu Yin’s Champions' Stage vanished. Lu Yin stared at the eyeball in shock as it spun around and stared at him.

At that same moment, an invisible power slammed into Lu Yin’s mind with so much force that it felt like his skull was about to shatter. It felt like he had been struck by a hammer, and the world around him spun as he plummeted from the sky.

Xu Jin was amazed that Lu Yin had not been rendered completely brain-dead.

As Lu Yin's body fell, his vision grew blurry as he watched things fly upwards. He eventually managed to halt his fall and looked up to see the dark cloud suddenly move towards Lord Xu and Mu Shen.

"Be careful of its consciousness!" Lu Yin shouted.

Lord Xu’s voidforce energy and Mu Shen's power both erupted simultaneously, creating a cataclysmic surge that swept towards the dark cloud that flew above the Scourge.

The combined force of the attacks shattered the Scourge, and Lord Xu’s vision blurred as he, much like Lu Yin, began to fall from the sky.

Mu Shen fared slightly better, but he also struggled. He retreated as his own vision grew blurry.

Xu Jin's consciousness was overwhelmingly powerful, and he managed to suppress both Lord Xu and Mu Shen.

This did not necessarily mean the two men were weaker than Xu Jin, but rather that they lacked the means to counter such potent consciousness.

Another example of such an unequal pairing was how Lu Yin had been able to defeat the Seven-Star Mantis, but Lord Xu might not have been able to do the same.

There was no invincible power or ability in existence, as such a thing would be an extreme that went beyond the foundational principles of the megaverse. If such an extremity existed, the megaverse itself would cease to exist and would transform into an endlessly expanding monstrosity.

At this moment, Ye Wu's gaze sharpened as he focused on Xu Jin. There was a resounding boom, and the void shattered. Xu Jin screamed in pain as it turned to look at Ye Wu in shock. What law of the universe had just broken through its consciousness?

Xu Jin had cultivated its consciousness to the level of a sequence powerhouse, and it had even gone so far as to essentially create something from nothing. This was the level that was universally recognized as creating a law of the universe, which was the standard of the Three Pillars and Six Skies. Even so, Ye Wu had broken through Xu Jin’s sequence particles.

Had Ye Wu also reached the level of being able to disrupt the laws of the universe?

Ye Wu attacked again, and this time, Lu Yin saw it with Heaven's Sight. He observed Ye Wu's sequence particles as they entered the dark cloud, though Lu Yin failed to make out how the sequence particles broke the cloud apart.

Ye Wu's sequence particles seemed to be quite extraordinary.

A block of wood fell down from the sky, aimed straight at the eyeball.

The dark cloud did not move around the eyeball, but Lu Yin saw sequence particles spread out across the entire Scourge.

"Watch out! He's using sequence particles, and they’re affecting the entire Scourge!" Lu Yin shouted.

There was another explosion, and the void shattered. Once again, Ye Wu was the instigator.

Xu Jin's sequence particles targeted Ye Wu, Lord Xu, Mu Shen, and Lu Yin. The three older men blocked the attack with their own sequence particles, while Lu Yin used his internal universe to isolate himself with the barrier of the Hollow. After that, he used Inverse Step to move at the speed of time and rapidly approach the eyeball, where he lashed out. It was a hundred punches confined with the power of time.

The eyeball was right in front of Lu Yin, and yet his attack missed, brushing past the eye.

At the same time, the falling block of wood also missed the eyeball.

It was as if the eye did not really exist.

The eye turned to look at Lu Yin. "You will die with the Divine Commandment."

Lu Yin met the eye’s gaze, and at that moment, something significant occurred.

Lu Yin used Inverse Step again, but this time, he attacked with a much weaker attack, just to see what would happen.

His palm again brushed past the eyeball, but this time, Lu Yin used Lightstream to reverse time by one second.

During that second, Lu Yin kept his eyes fixed on the eyeball, and he witnessed something astonishing.

The eye moved behind Lu Yin, but it did not do so quickly. After his attack missed, the eye moved back to its original position. This explained why none of his attacks could connect with the eyeball.

But how was that even possible? The eye did not move quickly at all, but Lu Yin could not see it move. If not for his ability to reverse time, he would have never known that Xu Jin’s eye had passed behind him twice.

Lu Yin was not the only one, as Lord Xu, Mu Shen, and Ye Wu also had not noticed anything, or else they would have warned Lu Yin about it.

What was going on? Lu Yin felt quite perplexed.

There were myriad bizarre powers in the megaverse. It felt like it was impossible to land an attack on Xu Jin.

Xu Jin must have been gravely injured, or else it would have attacked after securing the perfect opportunity when it moved behind Lu Yin. However, Lu Yin and his companions were similarly unable to hurt the floating eye.

It was an extremely strange battle.

Voidforce energy surged around the combatants, and when Xu Jin moved to avoid Lu Yin's palm strike, Lord Xu trapped the eye in his Thermometer of Life. Then, the temperature started to rise.

The Thermometer of Life would treat whoever was captured within as a normal member of their species, and it would then produce an unbearable fever for that particular species.

For humans, that would be a temperature of 40 degrees, 41 degrees, and finally 42 degrees. However, Lord Xu had no idea what sort of creature Xu Jin was.

He used what would be regarded as a high fever for a human, as the eyeball looked exactly like a human eye.

However, as the temperature rose, Xu Jin showed no reaction.

Lu Yin used Lightstream to reverse time again, but this time, the eyeball did not evade the attack. Xu Jin remained in place, as the Thermometer of Life had no effect on the creature.

Lord Xu also noticed this, and he dispersed his innate gift.

"Are you trying to buy time?" Lu Yin asked as he stared at Xu Jin.

The eyeball spun around. "How did you enter my Scourge?"

Lu Yin had arrived via the Nine-Star Civilization. They had been at war with the Second Scourge for many years, and they had naturally found a way to access the Scourge.

This was just like how the Sixverse Association knew where to find the entrance to the First Scourge.

However, finding the entrance was one thing, and invading a Scourge was something else entirely.

The Scourge Occupation had been sent to support the Nine-Star Civilization, being the reinforcements that Mimina had requested. Before she had left the Origin Universe, she had also shared with Lu Yin how to locate the entrance to the Second Scourge.

Lu Yin said nothing as he attacked Xu Jin again.

Ye Wu and Mu Shen attacked as well.

Unfortunately, all of the attacks missed the eyeball again. Lu Yin used Lightstream, and he saw how Xu Jin easily dodged all of the attacks without even using sequence particles. The eye had somehow managed to remain unharmed.

Could this be an innate gift?

In order to land an attack on Xu Jin, it was necessary to attack the place that the eye dodged to in the moment that it evaded an attack, but he could only find that location by reversing time.

Even worse, that small bit of time was simply too brief.

When Lu Yin had reversed time to attack the Seven-Star Mantis, it had only worked because the mantis’s escape direction had been determined at that exact moment, which meant that Lu Yin had merely needed to change his attack to that particular direction.

However, Xu Jin not only instantly dodged all attacks, but it also returned to its original position soon after. This was not a matter of using pure speed or the power of time, as it was something that Lu Yin simply could not make any sense of.