Chapter 4578: Inner Cosmos

This traitor was a skeleton, a being that had been granted Bone Script, which meant that he could only survive by relying on Stillness.

The fact that he was so unconcerned about wasting Stillness meant that he still possessed a great deal of it. Devouring Trace did not want to continue wasting its power any longer. There was no point in continuing.

As it thought of this, its body suddenly dodged to the side. Lu Yin’s attack missed, but he simply turned around and released a palm strike: Endless Recall.

Devouring Trace froze for a moment, only to be greeted by the Yan Gate's First Needle, which was closely followed by a Duality Seal.

Unfortunately, even the attacks of Old Sixth and the others were able to do nothing. Lu Yin’s attacks were unable to affect Devouring Trace.

Old Sixth clenched their jaw. “We have to kill this thing, or else we will all die. Human skeleton, keep using Stillness against it. Turn it white again.”

Lu Yin shrugged. “What is the point if it refuses to release its power against me?”

“Then Ji, do you have any ideas?” Old Sixth shouted.

Ji did not respond at all.

“We are all in the same boat, so think of something!” Old Sixth was getting anxious.

Devouring Trace’s icy voice rang out. “All of you traitors are destined to die. I will not let a single one of you escape!”

With that, the black magma suddenly scattered, vanishing in an instant. Lu Yin’s heart tightened. He saw it. There.

He raised his hand and released the First Needle.

Old Sixth thrust their steel fork in another direction, and Ji also attacked at the same time as the other two.

Was Devouring Trace present in three different directions? No, it was not just three; Devouring Trace was everywhere at this moment. As the darkness fell like a curtain, the three were covered.

Devouring Trace’s body had expanded beyond the size of multiple megaverses, instantly surrounding Lu Yin, Old Sixth, Ji, and the sword-testing stone.

“Inner Cosmos...” Old Sixth was horrified. “Damn it! I forgot. This is Devouring Trace’s ultimate move. Thousand Machinations mentioned it to me once.”

Lu Yin stared into the distance. Was he really unable to see its end? That should be impossible. The Mirrorlight Art could see as far as a normal Immortal could travel in 200 years. No matter how large Devouring Trace might have expanded to be, it could not possibly grow that large. This was simply too exaggerated. Even if it had broken through to be a three-law Immortal, Lu Yin still would not believe it.

Yet there was no denying that the Mirrorlight Art truly could not see its end.

"Listen carefully, both of you. We are straddling the line between life and death. We must break through this Inner Universe. Otherwise, even if we don't die, we'll be dragged off to the Death Megaverse.

"This Inner Universe is Devouring Trace's ultimate move. Thousand Machinations Manifested it specifically for this Abyssal, and no one else can learn it. This technique uses Stillness to manifest consciousness spaces inside its body. Externally, it appears as points of light that resemble stars. For every additional star, there is an additional consciousness space.

"A consciousness space is not a true space, but it can give you the same sense of infinity that a true space would."

As the toad spoke, stars kept lighting up above their heads. They appeared one after another, their numbers increasing without pause.

Before the stars lit up, Lu Yin had already been unable to see the limits of this space, but as soon as they appeared, the place became seemingly even more vast.

Of course, he now knew that this was not a real space, but since it deceived his very consciousness into producing a genuine sense of space, what difference was there between this and a true space?

It was like a lie told for an entire lifetime. At that point, it may as well be the truth.

When one’s own consciousness was deceived and they were unable to see the true cosmos, the consciousness space would be regarded as the true cosmos.

“Devouring Trace cannot kill us. It is not capable of that. However, it can drag us back to the Death Megaverse,” Old Sixth finished.

Lu Yin sternly shouted, “Stop wasting time! Just tell us how to break it!”

Old Sixth furiously roared back, “How would I know?”

Lu Yin was speechless. As expected, the toad had just been spouting nonsense.

The sword-testing stone attacked, a pinpoint of sword light forming a slash that sliced through the void.

It was useless. The void was broken, and it kept shattering, but this consciousness space was endless.

Wait. Lu Yin looked at the sword-testing stone. Has even the stone’s consciousness been deceived? This is truly ridiculous.

This was definitely not a simple Stillness battle technique. Instead, it had been created to utilize Devouring Trace’s own unique characteristics.

Lu Yin suddenly remembered what Hong Xia had done in the past. In the past, the man had given Lu Yin fake coordinates in an attempt to get him killed. Hidden among the fake coordinates had been two locations that Hong Xia had pinned his hopes on. One was the location of the Plume Immortals, and the other was the Soft Megaverse.

Hong Xia had believed that the creature of the Soft Megaverse could deal with Lu Yin’s ability to teleport. Could that have been because of this very move?

This might have been one of Devouring Trace’s own abilities from the beginning, and Thousand Machinations may have merely helped deduce a method to enhance the technique with Stillness. If not, it would not be impossible for others to learn the Inner Cosmos.

Ji also attacked. Its attack was simple and straightforward, yet it was likewise unable to do anything to Devouring Trace.

Lu Yin did not move, and neither did Old Sixth. They both knew that any attack they unleashed would be useless. They first needed to find a way to break this technique.

As long as it was a technique, it could be broken—either by breaking the technique itself, or by overcoming the Stillness that powered it.

“Listen, both of you. I can do my best to consume Devouring Trace’s Stillness, but even then, we might not be able to break its Inner Cosmos. Even before Stillness started to light up those stars, this Inner Cosmos already seemed infinite. But that’s the limit of what I can do. You two need to figure out the rest,” Old Sixth ordered in a low voice.

Lu Yin looked into the distance. Is the toad going to break the Stillness?

Then that left breaking the technique itself. Even without Stillness, this Inner Cosmos was still deceiving their consciousness.

The only way to break that was for their consciousnesses to not be deceived.

But how could they not be deceived? If his true body were present, Devouring Trace would not be able to deceive Lu Yin’s consciousness at all. His true body possessed a terrifyingly powerful consciousness, but right now, only his clone was present.

There was no time to waste. Old Sixth had already made their move.

The toad feared that Devouring Trace was already moving towards the Death Megaverse, which meant that they could not afford to delay for even a single moment.

Their method of breaking the Stillness was... Anura’s Star-Plucking Hands.

Anura’s Star-Plucking Hands was a supreme art of the Seven-Treasure Anuras. It increased in strength as a toad plucked stars. Ancestor Shan had used megaverses as stars, plucking them to strengthen his attack. That action had overturned the cosmos itself.

Although Old Sixth had not quite reached that level, they treated the Stillness that filled the cosmos as stars and plucked the Stillness to strengthen their attack.

While it was absolutely impossible to pluck all the Stillness away, the process of plucking it was equivalent to consuming Devouring Trace’s Stillness. What mattered was how long the toad could pluck for.

“Pluck, pluck, pluck...” Old Sixth raised their hands upwards and kept plucking.

Above their heads, the stars of Stillness flickered endlessly, only for one after another to go out. They were clearly linked to the endless space, as if black lines connected them, much like flying kites.

“You two, hurry up!” Old Sixth shouted sternly.

Lu Yin looked at Ji, but the black creature stood silently in place, clearly having no solution.

Lu Yin exhaled. In that case, he could only do that. He could not prevent his consciousness from being deceived, but if Devouring Trace could deceive his consciousness, then he could do the same thing.

Though, perhaps calling it deception was a bit much. After all, he was going to make his consciousness go insane.

Lu Yin bent a skeletal hand. Divine energy emerged from his bones and spread out across its surface. From there, green light shot upwards, shattering the darkness and stirring up ripples in the void. Old Sixth’s attention was instantly pulled over, and they stared at Lu Yin. Divine energy?

When had this guy joined Obscura? It definitely could not have been before the competition for the position of Abyssal, as there was no way that Thousand Machinations would have missed such a thing.

In that case, just what was going on? This human skeleton had hidden his true power too deeply.

Ji might also be staring at Lu Yin, as he sensed another gaze on him. However, Lu Yin had no time to pay attention at this time.

Divine energy boiled madly as it spread farther and farther. The Heavenbond Art allowed him to store much more divine energy than normal, just like how the Three Deaths Art allowed him to store more Stillness than normal. Each of the two arts allowed him to possess vast reserves of power that far surpassed his current realm of cultivation.

At this moment, even Devouring Trace was shocked. “You actually still have such a vast amount of divine energy? Impossible! Thousand Machinations could not have missed that. What is going on with you?”

At this moment, Lu Yin was no longer able to hear any external sounds. All he could hear was the divine energy flowing through his bones like blood, as if an endless amount of divine energy were surging forth. The Heavenbond Art might allow him to slowly absorb divine energy, but now that he had released it all at once, it was simply too vast for his clone to suppress or control.

When his true body had been an Aberrant, he had been nearly driven insane when using tri-colored divine energy. Now, his skeleton clone was likewise enduring having its sense of reason eroded by divine energy. The madness was so intense that, if he had eyes at this moment, they would be crimson.

An uncontrollable desire to kill consumed him. Lu Yin allowed the influence to take over, and as the divine energy surged, he lost all perception of the outside world.

In the eyes of the toad and everyone else, Lu Yin had just gone mad.

He leaped up, continuously blasting divine energy into the void, as though fighting a fierce battle against some invisible monster. The cosmos trembled and shook. Lu Yin was like a caged beast trying to break free from its prison.

Old Sixth clenched their jaw. Pluck, pluck, pluck...

Devouring Trace was horrified. Its Stillness was being constantly consumed, and its body was also being attacked now. The Inner Cosmos was clearly infinitely vast, and yet that human skeleton’s consciousness was no longer being deceived, and he was constantly tearing through Devouring Trace’s body.

Finally, a similar patch of darkness abruptly appeared. The Inner Cosmos had been broken.

Old Sixth’s eyes flared as they leaped up and rushed out.

Ji was also not slow, and it raced out as well.

Lu Yin was still madly tearing at the void while the sword-testing stone used a single point of sword light to create a slash and attack Devouring Trace.

The Inner Cosmos had been broken from within, and Devouring Trace’s body contracted, releasing Lu Yin.

Old Sixth thrust their steel fork forward. “Die for me!”

Devouring Trace did not move. It allowed the steel fork to stab it, and yet the result was still like Old Sixth had stabbed into cotton.

“Damn toad, how much Stillness do you think you have consumed? Since I cannot drag you away, I will kill you myself!” With that, Devouring Trace’s body again turned completely black. It warped and spread out, releasing protrusions that transformed into myriad shapes. There were swords, blades, palms, and fists. In short, every shape imaginable.

Then, all of those protrusions attacked Old Sixth and Ji.

Devouring Trace trusted its defenses to its Stillness. While its attacks followed no particular pattern, as long as Old Sixth and Ji wanted to kill the Abyssal, they would have to directly withstand its attacks.

Clang, clang, clang!

As the fierce battle continued, the steel fork nearly flew out of the toad’s grip. Old Sixth panted. They could not break through. They simply could not break through.

They glanced at a distant point.

Ji’s attacks were also unable to do anything to Devouring Trace. They had been continuously consuming Devouring Trace’s Stillness. Only after all of it was exhausted would they be able to harm its body.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the sword-testing stone was not moving because Lu Yin was not moving.

Devouring Trace did not attack Lu Yin, and as long as Lu Yin was not targeted, the sword-testing stone might as well just be a stone.

This caused Old Sixth to clench their jaw even tighter, though the toad was also extremely envious. What a great bodyguard!

“Hey, have you rested enough?” Old Sixth shouted, staring at Lu Yin.

Lu Yin slowly raised his head. More than half of his divine energy had been consumed, but he had regained his rationality as a result. He had no idea of how he had managed to break out of Devouring Trace’s Inner Cosmos.

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