CHAPTER 1212: CHAPTER 1210: UNPARALLELED CONTINENT?

From what he could see, it appeared that this place had once been inhabited by living beings a long time ago, and it seemed to be a large gathering point. The number of inhabitants here would not have been small, but Lu Ye could not determine if they were of the human race.

Why it had fallen into such ruin, he naturally did not know.

He could only explore slowly.

Just as he was about to do so, the corner of his eye suddenly caught something unusual.

Momentarily stunned, he turned and darted in that direction, quickly coming upon a scene of broken walls and ruins, beneath which something seemed to be trapped.

He cleared a bit away, revealing a dried corpse buried in the ruins for who knew how many years.

It was a human corpse!

From this, it could be seen that there truly were humans living in this domain, and perhaps this was once a place similar to a sect, though it wasn’t clear what calamity had befallen that led to the sect’s destruction and the disciples’ extinction.

Judging from surface features, the deceased was a male in his prime; his flesh was shriveled and gray in color.

The body showed no obvious external injuries, and although it had been dead for many years, the flesh had been preserved remarkably intact, though it had become withered and shriveled.

Suddenly, Lu Ye realized this thing seemed somewhat familiar...

He moved closer, focusing intently on the corpse.

Without warning, the corpse’s eyes opened, staring directly at him in an unexpected gaze from mere inches away!

The eyes of the dead lose their luster, becoming filthy, yet these were different, not at all cloudy, overflowing instead with cruelty and malice.

This sudden scene would startle even those accustomed to seeing death if they weren’t prepared.

Almost the moment the eyes opened, the corpse opened its mouth, spewing a turbid, earthy-yellow breath directly at Lu Ye’s head.

Simultaneously, it reached out one hand, sharp, gleaming fingernails aiming to stab into Lu Ye’s chest.

It was hard to believe this lifeless corpse would react with such an explosive move.

Yet this lightning-fast strike was firmly blocked by the Defense Spirit Runes on Lu Ye’s chest, and with a flash of the saber, its blade sliced straight through the corpse’s neck.

The motion of the corpse ceased; the cruelty and malice in its eyes quickly dissipated before it collapsed to the ground with its head severed.

Perhaps it was because Lu Ye activated his spirit force, or maybe attracted by the aura he exuded. As soon as he decapitated this reanimated corpse, a rustling sound came from beneath the surrounding ruins.

Accompanied by low growls like wounded beasts, lifeless figures sprang forth from various places.

Like sharks scenting blood, they swarmed towards Lu Ye.

Lu Ye remained calm, wielding the Boulder Mountain Saber. Instantly a flurry of saber light erupted from where he stood, sending severed limbs and broken corpses flying.

Attacking him were shriveled zombies and decayed corpses. The difference was that zombies mostly fought alone while the decayed corpses banded together, with thick corpse Qi connecting them, quickly enveloping the vast ruins in a cloud of corpse Qi.

Lu Ye’s saber light was sharp, without a single opponent able to withstand even a stroke. With his current strength, in a typical mid-class world, he was almost unstoppable without a match.

But he quickly discovered a problem: the more he killed, the more bodies gathered.

Originally, these corpses had lain dormant within the ruins, motionless for countless years, but his arrival was like dropping a grain of salt into boiling oil, creating a fierce reaction.

Not only did the corpses within the ruins fling themselves fearlessly at him, but the commotion from their struggle attracted corpses from even further away, and this chain reaction continued to ripple outward.

It seemed unending!

Lu Ye realized that continuing to fight like this wasn’t a solution. With a flourish of his saber, he no longer stood still but soared into the air, cutting his way out.

A multitude of zombies and decayed corpses pursued relentlessly, yet how could they catch him?

Lu Ye did not fly high, as he needed to test some theories in his mind, and thus had to make some commotion; the powerful aura he emitted was the best bait.

Sure enough, wherever he passed, seemingly calm areas erupted into chaos; dormant corpses, hidden for God knows how many years, were startled awake and joined the pursuit, forming an ever-increasing trail of followers in his wake. The more commotion he caused, the more pursuers were roused.

Everywhere he went, it was the same situation.

Lu Ye felt heavy-hearted!

The Corpse Race! They were not unfamiliar to him, as he had dealt with this race on the shattered Unparalleled Continent.

However, the Corpse Race he had encountered before, the strongest Corpse King, was merely at the peak of the Cloud River Realm, yet in this domain, those with power comparable to True Lake and Divine Sea were everywhere!

Clearly, this was a result of the world’s different levels.

What weighed heavily on his mind was that the Corpse Race was not born naturally; unlike the Blood Race, they generally originated from the human race after death.

The number of Corpse Races he encountered now corresponded to the number of human deaths that had occurred.

Undoubtedly, this domain was once dominated by the human race, but it now belonged to the Corpse Race, because during Lu Ye’s flight, he hadn’t seen even a shadow of a living person, only endless hordes of Corpse Races.

This was undoubtedly a very sorrowful situation.

If there was still a possibility of reconciling the conflict between the human race and the Blood Race, then between the Corpse Race and the human race, or indeed any living thing, there was an irreconcilable conflict.

The transformation of the Corpse Race required the sacrifice of other living beings.

Take, for example, the once-shattered Unparalleled Continent. If Lu Ye and others had not descended like divine weapons, and had they not eventually received considerable support from the Nine Provinces cultivators, one day, the humans there would have been completely exterminated and entirely converted into the Corpse Race.

The Corpse Race chasing Lu Ye had never ceased; there were those transformed from the human race after death and those from demon beasts after they died.

They had been slumbering in this domain for countless ages and Lu Ye’s arrival had completely shattered the tranquility here.

Only when there was no conflict would the Corpse Race lie dormant and hibernate; in other words, many years had passed here without any conflict.

This was no doubt a very poor outcome because no conflict meant no resistance, implying that the creatures of this world were likely already extinct!

At the very least, in the area Lu Ye explored, the living had been extinct for many years.

This place... could very well be another fragment of the Unparalleled Continent, or even the main body of the Unparalleled Continent.

The reason for this conjecture naturally stemmed from the presence of the Corpse Race. The shattered Unparalleled Continent that Lu Ye once visited had Corpse Races, and here had them too, suggesting a likely connection between the two.

That fragment of the shattered Unparalleled Continent was merely a domain fragment; it could only nurture cultivators of the Cloud River Realm. With fragments, there naturally was a main body.

The distance could also corroborate this assumption.

Initially, after the Nine Provinces cultivators had rescued the shattered Unparalleled Continent, that domain fragment, after some time, integrated into the Cloud River battlefield. In other words, that fragment was quite close to the Nine Provinces back then.

Now, the domain Lu Ye was in wasn’t far from the Nine Provinces either. That made it easily found by Yueh Xin, who left some arrangements here.

It seemed the Unparalleled Continent had suffered some unknown catastrophe and shattered, with the fragment being the place Pang Huanyin hailed from, drifting through stellar space, discovered by Number Nine, and subsequently captured, while the main body remained here.

There was no way to confirm this hypothesis unless the entire domain was explored.

Lu Ye spent a good half day investigating an area of a hundred thousand miles but still hadn’t seen a single living creature; it was always the relentless Corpse Race.

There was no need to investigate further; perhaps life still existed in this domain, but certainly not here. Judging from the larger environment he explored, even if there were survivors, living would be incredibly arduous.

Lu Ye ascended, swiftly increasing his speed.

The pursuing Corpse Race behind him quickly lost track of him.

He certainly had the ability to eliminate all the pursuers, but it was meaningless and would only waste time and effort.

His mission on this journey was only to scout this domain. Now that he had a general understanding, there was no point in delaying further, lest he worried those back in the Nine Provinces.

After shaking off the pursuers, he immediately activated Concealment and Breath-concealing, bolstering himself, and silently returned the way he came.

More than two hours later, he returned to the previous ruins. Most of the Corpse Races here had been lured out by him, with only a sparse few left wandering aimlessly, occasionally letting out low growls and roars.

Without drawing those few Corpse Races’ attention, he slipped into a dried well, heading downward and soon arrived in an underground circular space.

There was no need for any cover, because underground there was interference from the origin magnetic field, so as long as there was no excessive commotion, there was no concern about being noticed outside.

The formation was activated, the Spirit Stone’s power placed in the formation was drained, and that feeling of the world turning upside down and swirling in a vortex enveloped him once more.

Lu Ye couldn’t help but tense; even when being chased by the overwhelming Corpse Race, he hadn’t been this nervous before...

After revisiting that familiar sensation, once Lu Ye regained his composure, he found himself back on the Liyuan of the Nine Provinces.

Many pairs of eyes looked his way, and upon seeing him return safe and sound, everyone finally relaxed. Frankly speaking, if Lu Ye hadn’t returned, the Constellation Realm cultivators would truly have to search the stellar space for him, though they surely would find him, it would invariably consume a lot of time.

"It must’ve been tiring for you; what’s the situation over there?" Jian Guhong asked.

"Possibly the Unparalleled Continent, the Corpse Race roams unchecked, devoid of life."

"Unparalleled Continent?"

"Corpse Race?"

A group of Constellation Realm cultivators were all astonished.