Fluffy clouds scuttling across a purple sky suddenly smashed into each other as a bolt of black lightning arced through the firmament.

Rumble—

Halfway through his teleportation, Lu Yun felt the world spin before he, the little fox, and Zhuo Bufan fell out of the formation light.

“Eh? Are we there already?” The little fox picked herself up from the ground and rubbed her aching bottom. She looked around with confusion, taking in purple grassy fields that stretched on without end until they met the purple sky. It was almost impossible to tell where the horizon was.

“No, something went wrong with the transportation formation.” Lu Yun stood up, his expression solemn behind the mask.

“Something did indeed go wrong.” Zhuo Bufan hastily adjusted his executive enforcer’s mask to ensure that his face and cultivation remained fully concealed. “Please be careful, young master and mistress. Don’t take off the enforcer uniform no matter what! The wilds of the Hongmeng are extraordinarily dangerous. Apart from desperate renegades, there are also countless vengeful spirits and violent ghosts wandering the land.”

His tone was incomparably serious, but he was more baffled than anything. The transportation formation at alliance headquarters was the strongest of its kind in the Hongmeng. It never malfunctioned, but this time, it’d failed halfway through transportation.

“Did you say vengeful spirits and violent ghosts?” Lu Yun’s eyes widened. “There are ghosts in the Hongmeng, and they even wander around in the wild?”

“Yes!” Zhuo Bufan nodded. “It’s rumored that there’s an illusory world in the Hongmeng filled with macabre mausoleums. Apparently, the vicious ghosts in our realm all come from the mausoleums of that world.”

Lu Yun and the little fox looked at each other; they’d just been discussing the mausoleum of the Hongmeng.

“An illusory world?” Lu Yun swept the surroundings with the Spectral Eye, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Don’t worry, young master. If I’m seeing things correctly, we’re at the Redbud Plains [1] of the Redbud Region. It’s not too far away from Starcloud City. There should be a lot of inhabitants around the Redbud Plains, so we can use the transportation formation at the nearest city and complete our trip to Starcloud,” Zhuo Bufan reassured.

“Ah yes, talk to us about stuff that’s commonly known in the Hongmeng—the cultivation levels here, for instance,” mentioned the little fox.

“Understood.” Zhuo Bufan nodded. “Cultivation division in the Hongmeng is simple and much less complicated than the chaos. There are only three realms: inferior, common, and superior.”

“That’s simple enough. You’re in the common realm, aren’t you?” asked Lu Yun.

Zhuo Bufan chuckled ruefully and nodded. “The lizard-dragon is a superior, and one of the greats in that realm.”

“What about the kings?” the little fox wanted to know.

“Kings aren’t a cultivation realm, they’re a title bestowed on the basis of strength! One can become a king if their strength is acknowledged by the Hongmeng Tower!” Yearning flashed through Zhuo Bufan’s eyes when he mentioned the tower and the title of king.

“Then what are we? Stowaways in the Hongmeng?” grumbled the little fox.

“In… inferiors,” whispered Zhuo Bufan. “Just like the chaos, there are ordinary beings here too. They need to climb their way up step by step. Anyone who isn’t in the common realm is considered inferior.”

Lu Yun rubbed his forehead. His past self should’ve been at the apex of Hongmeng superiors, but his strength hadn’t been to the level of being bestowed a title of king. 

Honestly, it wouldn’t have been too hard if his past self had wanted to be a king. However, he’d been focused on studying dao fruits and never purposefully pursued battle strength, though he brimmed with tremendous combat arts.

When sovereigns from the chaos arrived in the Hongmeng, they were also in the inferior realm—but at its peak. When their battle strength could pierce through the barrier between the second and third realms, that placed them in the common realm.

Zhuo Bufan looked through his storage treasure and took out a flight treasure shaped like a bird. The three set foot on it and soared into the sky with a shake of the bird’s wings.

The Hongmeng was truly extensive, immeasurable and broad. Even its kings had never found the end of the realm. Where Hongmeng beings lived seemed to be only the tip of the iceberg.

“Is the Hongmeng really that big?” Lu Yun scratched his head. “It only looked like a tiny bubble from the fourth realm.”

“The fourth realm?!” Zhuo Bufan jerked out of his litany of Hongmeng basics and nearly sent the flight treasure off course. “Young master, you’ve been to the fourth realm?!”

“Yes.” Lu Yun nodded.

“What’s it like?” All agog, Zhuo Bufan looked at Lu Yun with great expectation.

“The fourth realm… is vacant and bare. There’s nothing there, it’s just empty.” Lu Yun thought for a moment. “Perhaps it’s because that realm is too big and everything is too far away from each other for me to see.”

Zhuo Bufan blinked, then nodded. “Legends say that the fourth realm is also called the empty realm, that there’s nothing there and it’s the start of all life. Entering the emptiness will grant one the power of nothing and elevation to the highest peak of existence.

“The young master is the young master, alright. You’ve been to the fourth realm!” Marvel and pining colored his voice. Zhuo Bufan didn’t doubt Lu Yun in the slightest, not when the Purple King—he who made the realm tremble at his name—was Lu Yun’s son.

“And what use is my strength of the fourth realm?” Lu Yun curled his lip. “I can’t use it in the third realm, I’m just an inferior.”

Zhuo Bufan stared blankly at his master, not knowing what to say.

“Eh? We’re here, we’re here!” Map in hand, the little fox exclaimed with suddenness. “We’re at the Redbud City that you mentioned!”

A huge city had abruptly appeared in the windows of the flying bird treasure. It was as large as a sun star and crystalline throughout, like an exquisitely shaped work of crystal art. It hung quietly in the void.

A… city as large as a sun?

This is a city?

Lu Yun and the little fox looked in disbelief at each other. There were cities in the chaos as well, but none on a ridiculous scale like this apart from the six sacred palaces.

There had been three hundred and sixty-five main cities in the era of human dao, each of them as large as a star. But when compared to this Redbud City, they were just particles of dust.

“Ahem! Young master and mistress, though Redbud City is not bad, it hardly measures up to the Starcloud City that we’re going to. This is just a small city in the Hongmeng.” Zhuo Bufan had finally found something that he could be proud of.

He put away the flight treasure when they reached the city, and the three entered through the main gates.

……

“What? You say that three noble enforcers have arrived in Redbud City?!” The Redbud city lord, Jian Wenhe, was a middle-aged man who fell on the short and fat side of the spectrum. He jumped a meter into the air when he heard the messenger’s report and grabbed his man’s collar. “What level enforcer? Blue robes or red?!”

“One executive enforcer, milord, and two black robes!” the subordinate quickly responded.

“We’re saved! Redbud City is saved!” Jian Wenhe jumped up again. “Come on, come on! Come with me to meet the three noble enforcers! Send word for ten Hongmeng beasts to be prepared! We set a feast for the distinguished enforcers!

“An executive and two black robes… There’s hope for us yet, we really are saved!” He was so overcome that he nearly burst into tears.

1. Cercis chinensis, the Chinese redbud, is a plant native to China. ☜

The illusory world... sounds so much like a ruined hell! Too bad all of them are already accounted for. The plot thickens.