Chapter 1409: Invasion
After examining the piece of the skull for a while, Lin Yun put on a mysterious smile.
The King of Nightmares' body was very huge, but his skull was only the size of a baby's. He was also the only ghost who had bones.
This piece of the skull was the one from the back of the skull. It was often neglected.
In terms of the power they contained, the brow ridge was the best one, the piece of the skull in the center was the second-best, and the back piece was the worst one…
Lilith obviously played a trick on him. She had given her the bone that contained the least power…
But Lin Yun smiled because this piece of the bone was the most suitable as the key to the Kingdom of Nightmares. It would essentially open the back door of the Kingdom of Nightmares. If he had the brow ridge, he would have to go through the front door, which could be very dangerous.
But he could try the back door. Although it was also dangerous, it was not entirely hopeless.
He had to rescue Agalon. Even though Agalon surely wouldn't perish in the Kingdom of Nightmares, Gandaph and the other deans of the Starry Sky College might. If they were unlucky, they might truly die in the Kingdom of Nightmares if they stayed there too long.
Also, all the six Saint Alchemists were required to set up the Hexagonal Array. He had to go to the Kingdom of Nightmares, but only after he made necessary preparations. He couldn't be more cautious.
After completing the deal, Lin Yun left the auction house with what he got. He had thought of making another deal with Lilith by asking her to capture a vampire ancestor for him. However, he knew that Lilith wouldn't accept such a deal.
That would cause a war, and wouldn't be accepted as a deal, because the loss would outweigh the gains. More importantly, Lilith didn't seem to know that the King of Nightmares' skull was the key to escape from the Kingdom of Nightmares.
She thought he was only trying to enter the Kingdom of Nightmares with the King of Nightmares' skull and soul pieces. So, he couldn't exchange any more information with her.
If he were to exchange more information with her, he would be essentially telling her the way to escape from the Kingdom of Nightmares. Even if Lilith didn't realize it, the man known as the Lord of Greed would surely figure it out.
The way to escape from the Kingdom of Nightmares and its key were too valuable. More importantly, Lin Yun speculated that the Lord of Greed, whose appearance nobody knew, was likely a reborn god, but he couldn't have been the King of Nightmares or his nemesis.
Most likely, he was on the King of Nightmares' opposite side, but they had never fought. That was why he sold the King of Nightmares' remains.
The Lord of Greed looked like a businessman, but if the stake was too tempting, it was very unlikely that he would do business nicely, as evident from his name…
Leaving the auction house, Lin Yun wandered around, and adopted more than 20 methods to get rid of possible followers. He then dug a pit somewhere, and escaped via the space gate.
He then entered the Natural Demiplane, and took out all the pieces he received.
Looking at the broken pieces in front of them, Lin Yun picked up two. The power of light arose in his hand, and the two pieces were connected to each other as if they had never been broken in the first place.
All the pieces were put together, and then glued by the power of light. They were reassembled into a round crystal plate. On the surface of the crystal plate, there were weird but simple runes. Every one of the runes was very simple, but when they were engraved and listed on the crystal plate, it contained more information than 100,000 law runes.
Lin Yun only read it for a couple of minutes when he felt that his head was swollen. Too much information had been contained on the plate for him to figure out.
It was very simple to fix the broken stone plate. All he needed was the power of light as a catalyst. Unfortunately, there were no creatures in the Plane of the Undead who could make use of the power of light and who had two connected pieces…
Nobody knew what the crystal plate meant…
As the crystal plate was restored, Lin Yun's Book of Death automatically reappeared. The chains on the book crumbled, and the book was turned to a new blank page, into which the crystal plate slowly melted.
Instantly, a stream of information passed into Lin Yun's head.
It was the Source Chapter, which contained the power of light!
Darkness was the beginning of everything. The world was founded in darkness. Life, however, came from light.
The core of the Plane of the Undead was darkness, which was why it was a heaven to all undead creatures. This was a land where the power of light was forbidden.
The other planes that contained the power of light would gradually give birth to vigorous lives.
The Source Chapter could not only help him understand the law of light, but also kept a record of sources of lives. The enormous information was the starting point of all lives.
Besides the power of light that the Source Chapter contained, it was an encyclopedia of the sources of all lives.
There was almost as much information as there was in the 108,000 true runes. Also, it was even more complicated and esoteric, and a lot of the information was interconnected. It was impossible to construe without background information.
Lin Yun understood. When he obtained the first piece, he had speculated that it belonged to the Source Chapter, a component of the Book of Death that was known as the most useless one. He didn't expect it to be an encyclopedia. In a way, it might be the most powerful component, not because it was used for destruction and fight, but because it was the source of life.
That was incredible for every mage. It was possible for lives to be born in a Demiplane, even though the Demiplanes of most mages contained nothing but elemental lives.
But elemental lives were still lives. As soon as Lin Yun figured out the Source Chapter, it would be possible for his Demiplane to give birth to suitable lives. The elemental lives would surely become more powerful. At the very least, his elemental lives wouldn't be the butlers of Demiplanes like those of other mages.
His Natural Demiplane was almost evolving into a real world. At least it contained almost everything expected of a real world. The only difference between the two was the degree of perfection.
However, no real lives had been born in the Natural Demiplane yet. There were insects and worms in the Natural Demiplane, but they were not intelligent, and couldn't really help. Besides, they might not have been born in his Natural Demiplane.
Even the elemental lives hadn't been born in the Demiplane yet. There was not even any sign of conception. Who knew when the elemental lives would be born?
Possibly, it was because his Natural Demiplane had been growing too fast, so the elemental lives never had a stable environment. Besides, the more powerful a Demiplane was, the more powerful the elemental lives in it would be.
There weren't even native elemental lives in the Demiplane. Naturally, Lin Yun had every reason to feel anxious.
He would be satisfied even if only a goblin was born. Even though they were filthy, stupid, and wicked, they were intelligent lives anyway.
His Natural Demiplane had been developed to a high point. To turn into a real world, the most critical step was to give birth to intelligent lives.
Unfortunately, Lin Yun didn't have any clue about how to do that. After he became a Saint Alchemist, he was able to create things out of nothing. However, he could only create infertile grass at this moment at best. In fact, most Saint Alchemists of Noscent were similar to him. Even the best of them could only create bigger grass.
Becoming a Saint Alchemist was only the beginning of another phase that was even more difficult. Creation was even harder to grasp than Heaven Rank extraordinary power. It was more like the power that could change laws.
It was impossible to accelerate the development of lives in a world as a Saint Alchemist. However, Lin Yun was finally more confident after receiving the encyclopedia of lives. If he couldn't accelerate the process, then it would be a waste for him to have the Source Chapter…
But it was not the time to study the Source Chapter yet. After a few quick glances, Lin Yun closed the Book of Death. He had acquired the Source Chapter. He had to consider how to catch a living vampire ancestor, which was a huge problem.
Entering the Kingdom of Nightmares wasn't a challenge; leaving it was the problem. Also, after capturing the vampire ancestor, he couldn't enter the Kingdom of Nightmares with the guy, and had to keep him waiting in a certain place.
Lin Yun thought for a long time, and didn't have a good solution, so he left his Demiplane, and marched to the territory of dark lives with the bloody scythe on his back in the Plane of the Undead.
The Plane of the Undead was hundreds of times bigger than Noscent, and it was expanding. The lives of all planes could be classified into two categories: the undead ones and the living ones.
The living ones were scattered in countless planes, and 99% of undead creatures were concentrated in the Plane of the Undead, which had to be huge enough to accommodate them. If the creatures in all planes were gathered in Noscent, it would've exploded.
The point of impact between the Plane of the Undead and the Leviathan Plane was in the territory of undead creatures, but it wasn't too far away from that of dark creatures. The distance was only 40,000 kilometers, which wasn't far in the Plane of the Undead.
As a special skeleton king who carried a bloody scythe, he was quite eye-catching in the Plane of the Undead. After killing a few stupid undead creatures and a few dark creatures for their soul fires, Lin Yun knew the place as well as the natives did.
He learned that this black plain was named Krim Gobi, which meant the land that was contaminated by dark blood. This area was sort of a buffer between the dark creatures' and the undead creatures' territories, and also a battlefield.
Even though the population of dark creatures was much smaller than that of undead creatures, dark creatures were stronger as individuals, at least on lower levels. That was very important. It was also the main reason why they could fend off undead creatures.
After swallowing the soul fires of a few Heaven Rank undead creatures, he didn't get many more death marks, but he did learn a lot of information.
Passing through the Krim Gobi, and going 3,000 kilometers west, it would be a level-45 vampire lord's territory. He was a second-generation vampire. It would be easy to find a weak vampire ancestor through him.
It took Lin Yun a couple of days to reach the vampire lord's territory. Soon, a swarm of gargoyles approached him along with countless bloodthirsty bats. A tremendous number of dark beasts were coming on the ground too.
The gargoyles and bloodthirsty bats were the fastest. They were not scared at all to see Lin Yun. They shrieked and screamed, surging like a black torrent.
Lin Yun extended his claw, and scratched his skull. His jaw moved up and down, and he let out a creepy laugh.
He had planned to summon an army of undead creatures with the skeleton king's ability, but he was afraid that it might scare off the vampire lord. Also, it might be bad if he turned the battle too huge. He should probably do it on his own.
Out of his expectation, his opponent sent cannon fodder to him the moment he arrived.
Lin Yun soared to the sky with the scythe of death in his right hand. He injected the power of death into the scythe. Instantly, the eyes of the skull on the scythe glittered. As Lin Yun swung the scythe, a crescent aura flew out.
The crescent aura expanded crazily to a kilometer in length. Also, it was not just flying, but revolving crazily like a mincer.
The seemingly ordinary gray mincer hit the black torrent of gargoyles and bloodthirsty bats. No noises could be heard. Countless gargoyles and bloodthirsty bats exploded, and their bodies were cut into pieces. As the crescent aura passed, there was no blood or screams. They simply fell from the sky as dark ashes.
All the noises within kilometers seemed to be corrupted by the power of death. There was nothing but silence as the ashes slowly dropped. A skeleton stood on the black land with a bloody scythe in his hand, watching the rain of ashes fall.
Several kilometers away, the charging dark beasts were horrified. Those in the lead stopped, and turned around, fleeing, but those in the rear were still charging. In only a few seconds, they became a complete mess. Hundreds of them were torn apart by each other in the chaos.
In the sky, a huge patch of the black cloud of gargoyles and bats was missing. The other gargoyles and bats were fleeing in panic.
Lin Yun swung the scythe casually a few more times, launching a dozen more gray crescent aura attacks that tore apart most of the gargoyles and bats like gigantic mincers. Half of the dark beasts on the ground were eliminated too.
Soul fire shivered in Lin Yun's eye sockets. He suddenly felt it wasn't a bad idea to play as the skeleton king once in a while. He was probably even stronger than a Heaven Rank Sword Saint with this scythe of death.
The two aggressive armies of dark creatures were half killed by Lin Yun who only casually waves his scythe. He chased the dark creatures casually, and killed them when they approached, letting the rest run.
The gargoyles could run more easily. The bats and dark beasts were the only colors in Lin Yun's eyes in the black-and-white world. He could see their bloody auras from 30 kilometers away.
Lin Yun suddenly realized that dark creatures and undead creatures fought all year long probably because dark creatures were still living creatures in a way.
At least that was the main reason for low-level creatures. If a level-20 dark beast trespassed on the territory of the undead, the unintelligent undead creatures would surely tear it apart.
While he considered how to capture the vampire lord and track down a weaker vampire ancestor, Lin Yun felt that someone just scratched his skull. The guy's sharp claws caused dazzling sparks on his skull, and an earsplitting noise burst out as if two pieces of metal were rubbing against each other.
Lin Yun lowered his head. Then, he felt that something was hitting his spine constantly. A shadow emerged behind his back. He could see that two claws were scratching his head and spine crazily. His neck was a main target too.
To be continued