Epilogue

Lu Yuan turned it over in his mind — if he shadowed these Battle Emperors, he might not need to work nearly as hard and could still harvest vast amounts of unknown energy.

And not just from Battle Venerable and King Grade aberrated beasts. Even the unknown energy from Emperor Grade Aberration Feral Beasts would be within reach.

*Weren't there supposed to be Emperor Grade beasts here? I wonder if any of them got aberrated. If they did, the yield could be enormous.*

*Come to think of it... the Tianming Sage probably went after the Emperor Grade aberrated beasts, didn't he? If I happen to stumble onto one of those fights later, there could be quite a windfall.*

While Lu Yuan was mulling this over, the muscular Cat-kin Battle Emperor let out a laugh and spoke up.

"Human kid, didn't expect you to actually stay and fight the aberrated beasts. Not bad at all."

The somewhat aloof Cat-kin Battle Emperor beside him added flatly:

"If you get a chance, head to the Upper Layer sometime. Aberrated beasts are common up there."

Lu Yuan smiled and nodded. "Thank you for the reminder, Senior. I'll keep that in mind."

He finally understood why these two had been treating him with a degree of respect.

It was because he'd stayed behind to hunt the aberrated beasts.

As for visiting the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin — after hearing the Tianming Sage's words earlier, Lu Yuan had already begun forming that plan. Entering the Upper Layer, hunting aberrated beasts, and seizing the opportunity for his Evolution Cube to undergo metamorphosis: it had all become part of his agenda.

"Would you like to join us?"

The burly Cat-kin Battle Emperor extended the offer.

Lu Yuan shook his head with a smile. "My speed can't keep up with you two Seniors. I'd only hold you back. I'll stick to hunting King Grade and below on my own."

"Fair enough. If you run into a Sovereign Grade aberrated beast, release your aura. There are others spread throughout the valley besides us — any Battle Emperor in range will come running."

"Understood."

With that, the two Cat-kin Battle Emperors departed, and Lu Yuan slipped away from the spot as well.

Of course, the real reason wasn't that he feared falling behind. He intended to scout other areas. As the Battle Emperor had said, there were others spread throughout the valley — by moving toward zones radiating with powerful battle signatures, he should be able to intercept more Emperor Grade hunts in progress and absorb the unknown energy on the spot.

On top of that, he'd keep an eye out for Emperor Grade aberrated beasts along the way. There might be something worth catching.

From that point on, Lu Yuan split his attention between cutting down King Grade and Battle Venerable Grade aberrated beasts and searching for Emperor Grade ones.

He had to admit — the Cat-kin had no shortage of Battle Emperor powerhouses. Before long, he had stumbled across several of them in the middle of Emperor Grade fights, and the unknown energy he gathered was considerable.

The vast hollow carved around the spatial rift.

The darkness suddenly twisted, and then a bizarre beam of green light tore through it. A badly mauled mass of flesh came hurtling out of the dark, shooting away into the distance.

The darkness receded. The Tianming Sage's silhouette emerged from within it.

His complexion was slightly pale. His black leather armor showed damage, and his aura had weakened noticeably from before.

Space had twisted itself around him like a cage.

A fierce snarl crossed the Tianming Sage's face. Power surged through his entire body, and the warped space surrounding him let out a series of crackling sounds — like glass fracturing under pressure.

The crackling grew denser with every passing second. Then a thunderous boom rang out, and violent shockwaves tore outward in every direction.

The Tianming Sage broke free. His expression was glacial as he loosed a sharp, contemptuous snort.

"Did you think you could escape me?!"

His body vanished in an instant as he shot after the grotesque flesh mass.

In another section of the Valley, Lu Yuan's sword came down and finished off a King Grade aberrated beast.

He let out a slow breath.

Some time had passed since the Aberration broke out, and the beasts in the surrounding area were growing noticeably sparse.

He himself had killed a fair number of King Grade and Battle Venerable Grade creatures — though admittedly, the majority had fallen to Cat-kin Battle Emperors arriving to assist. He had roamed over the scattered carcasses all the same and drawn in the wisps of unknown energy left behind.

He had noticed something: unknown energy dissipated gradually after an aberrated beast's death. Leave a carcass long enough and there was nothing left to absorb. Some he'd passed by with nothing remaining at all; others offered only a thin trickle.

At this rate, the Valley of Night's aberrated beasts would be mopped up before much longer.

*I wonder if the Tianming Sage has found the Aberration's source by now.*

And to Lu Yuan's quiet frustration, he still hadn't crossed paths with a single Emperor Grade beast.

*I should check somewhere else.*

He was on the verge of moving out when the Evolution Cube inside him began to shake — violently, far beyond anything he'd felt before.

His eyes snapped wide. He swept his gaze across the surrounding area, every sense on high alert.

*This intense... there has to be an Emperor Grade aberrated beast nearby.*

While his guard was still up, a sinister and malevolent aura surged from the distance. It hit like a wave of freezing water, the cold sinking straight to his core.

He spun toward the source.

A grotesque mass of flesh was flying straight at him.

The mass was covered in wounds, an oil-black liquid seeping from every gash in slow, viscous streams. Dense dark energy blanketed it like a shroud, seemingly trying to corrode it from the outside in.

Even so, the aura radiating off the thing felt lethal. Lu Yuan's skin crawled. Every hair on his body stood on end.

*What the hell is that thing?*

The mass caught sight of him. It paused for just a moment — then came charging with frenzied speed. Eerie, incomprehensible whispers erupted inside Lu Yuan's mind. He frowned, a creeping, irrational irritability clawing at his thoughts.

He forced it down by sheer will, flooded his body with power, and blinked out of existence.

Tentacles shot from the mass and came streaking toward where he'd been. He sidestepped them with a spatial movement, landing elsewhere. He had no intention of getting close. From a safe distance, he leveled his blade and slashed — a clean arc of golden light blazing toward the mass.

It disappeared before it arrived.

Before he could react, the space where he'd been standing twisted open. A tentacle reached through from somewhere else entirely, grasping for where he had just been.

Ice shot down his spine. *Good thing I have Spatial Type Transcendent Genes — otherwise that would have been very bad.*

He pushed his power to its limits. He had no illusions about killing this thing alone. All he needed was to make enough of a disturbance to draw the attention of nearby Battle Emperors. Let them handle the rest.

Whatever this thing was, if it was making the Evolution Cube tremble that violently, it was anything but ordinary.

The flesh mass seemed to sense his intent. It suddenly pulled back, as if deciding to cut its losses and flee.

Lu Yuan's brow furrowed. He gathered himself to push harder — to delay it, to buy a little time.

Then thick, absolute darkness fell over everything, and the Tianming Sage materialized directly in front of him.

The moment the flesh mass laid eyes on him, it let out a piercing, grating shriek and tried to bolt.

The Tianming Sage's expression was glacial. Dark mist rolled off his body in waves. He vanished and reappeared at the mass's side in the same breath, and a barrage of black sword light erupted around him — shredding the mass into scattered chunks of flesh.

*So powerful.*

Lu Yuan stared, a flicker of envy crossing his face.

But just as he thought it was over, the scattered pieces began flowing back together, merging rapidly back into a whole. Beams of green light shot out from the reformed mass, aimed directly at the Tianming Sage.

Lu Yuan's breath caught. *It's not dead yet?*

The Tianming Sage had fought this thing long enough to know its tricks. He sidestepped the green beams and kept tearing the mass apart. Tentacles burst from the surrounding air, reaching through folds in space to attack him from angles that shouldn't have existed — but every last one missed. And while they grasped at nothing, the flesh mass pulled itself back together once more.

The shockwaves from their exchange were ferocious. Even at a distance, Lu Yuan felt the raw danger radiating from each clash and was forced to fall back further and further — dozens of kilometers before the pressure became bearable.

The area that had once been riddled with rock walls and stone faces was now a single massive hollow. Inside it, nothing remained but flickering black and eerie green.

**BOOM!!**

Another detonation. An agonized, inhuman shriek rang out, and Lu Yuan felt the malevolent aura weaken sharply. The Tianming Sage's presence, by contrast, felt stronger than before.

The flesh mass had barely reaggregated when a ring of Shadow Clones materialized around it.

The Shadow Clones swept their blades in unison, a storm of pitch-black sword light tearing the mass apart once more.

This time, its recovery was agonizingly slow. The fragments writhed toward each other, trying to close the gap — and were slashed apart again, more thoroughly than before.

Green light flickered desperately across the remnants. Then it faded, growing dimmer with every pulse.

The malevolent aura drained away along with it. The fragments began to dissolve, collapsing slowly into ash.

Only then did Lu Yuan cautiously close the distance.

The Evolution Cube hummed with continuous vibration. An exceptionally dense surge of unknown energy washed over him and flowed inward, drawn deep into the cube.

Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks.

This was, without question, the richest concentration of unknown energy he had ever absorbed in a single moment.

It said everything about how formidable that flesh mass had been.

And with its unknown energy fully absorbed — whatever had once animated that thing was gone for good. No revival was coming.

The Tianming Sage sensed Lu Yuan's approach and turned to look at him.

His complexion had grown visibly pale. His aura had fallen considerably from when Lu Yuan had first encountered him at the start of the trial — a far cry from the effortless authority he'd radiated then.

That flesh mass had clearly pushed even him.

A belated chill settled over Lu Yuan. *Thank god I didn't run into that thing at the beginning, when Yeye and I were still together. I'm not sure we could have gotten away.*

"It seems you're holding up well," the Tianming Sage said, a slight smile touching his lips. "You even managed to dodge this aberrated beast for several rounds."

Lu Yuan laughed awkwardly. "If you hadn't arrived in time, My Lord Saint, it would have gotten away. Is this... the source of the Aberration?"

The Tianming Sage shook his head. "This was merely a deeply aberrated Emperor Grade beast. The source is a spatial rift."

"The Land of Origin has spatial rifts?"

Lu Yuan blinked, genuinely taken aback.

The Tianming Sage glanced at him. "The Upper Layer has many. You'll run into them when you head up there."

Then his expression turned grave. "As for this place... this is the first time I've encountered something like this here."

Lu Yuan caught the weight behind those words. Whatever this was, the situation was clearly far from ordinary.

A thought surfaced. "What about the spatial rift — will more aberrated beasts come through?"

The Tianming Sage seemed to pull himself back from wherever his thoughts had gone and offered a mild smile. "No need to worry about that. The fundamental essence of the Land of Origin is still strong enough. It's already begun repairing the rift... though we should go and check on its progress."

Lu Yuan fell into step behind him, and the two flew in the direction of the spatial rift.

Before long, they arrived at a hollow of enormous scale — even larger than the one carved out by the Tianming Sage's battle with the flesh mass.

*This must be where they first fought.*

Almost immediately, Lu Yuan sensed something wrong with the space around him. Inside the hollow, he spotted a strange fissure.

From deep within it, something seeped out — a sensation that raised every instinct he had. Yet invisible forces were already pressing in around the rift from all sides, slowly but steadily forcing it shut. It had already been reduced to roughly the size of a human head; a little more time and it would seal entirely.

*Is this the fundamental essence of the Land of Origin at work?*

He felt a quiet awe as he sensed the force at play.

At that moment, the Tianming Sage flew toward the rift. Darkness surged from him and wrapped around the fissure.

Lu Yuan could feel what he was doing — lending his own strength to reinforce the Land of Origin's natural recovery, accelerating the closure.

The effect was immediate. The rift sealed faster, visibly so.

Before long, the fissure disappeared entirely. The sinister energy within it was extinguished. Lu Yuan felt the quiet tension in his chest ease.

The Tianming Sage smiled. "There. The source of this Aberration is sealed. We should be clear."

Lu Yuan nodded. "Good to hear."

The Tianming Sage extended his senses outward. A moment later, he spoke.

"It looks like the aberrated beasts in the other areas have been cleaned up as well. Head back for now — I'll handle the last of it. Yeye is probably worried about you."

A knowing grin crept across his face as he said the last part.

Lu Yuan: "..."

He kept his expression carefully neutral and managed a wry twitch of his lips. "Then I'll leave it in your hands, My Lord Saint."

By that point, he had used spatial movement to cover nearly every corner of the Valley of Night. Most of the aberrated beasts' unknown energy had already been absorbed. Whatever remained would be scraps at best.

There was no reason to stay.

The Tianming Sage waved a hand and tore open a spatial gate. Lu Yuan stepped through.

The gate closed behind him.

The instant it sealed, the Tianming Sage's face went white. He opened his mouth and coughed up a mouthful of blood — and with it came fragments of flesh.

The fragments twitched faintly.

His eyes went cold. Tendrils of black mist curled through the air and ground them to nothing.

In the plaza of Youming Palace, Lu Yuan stepped out through the spatial gate.

Yeye was already moving toward him before he'd fully emerged, looking up at him. "Are you okay?"

Lu Yuan shook his head with a smile. "I'm fine. Don't worry."

She visibly relaxed, letting out a quiet breath. "Okay."

Something about the moment made Lu Yuan reach out without thinking and ruffle her small head.

He immediately felt eyes on him.

He turned. Ye Heng was watching him with a wide, peculiar grin — and gave Lu Yuan a very deliberate thumbs-up.

Nearby, a handful of young-looking Cat-kin were staring at him, blinking rapidly.

...Ah.

Lu Yuan felt heat creep into his face. He quietly, unhurriedly withdrew his hand.