A mix of indescribable emotions assailed the Fire Virtue Potentate. He’d escaped the tiger’s maw to land straight into the wolf’s mouth! Still, present circumstances were better than the one before. He still had a chance for survival if this fellow ate him and stripped him of fire virtue. If Lu Yun refined him, he would completely cease to exist.

……

“What… the?!” The muddleheaded potentate suddenly heard a shocked exclamation from the fourth realm powerhouse that’d captured him. He looked over and saw that the young man who’d been after him all this time—just a Hongmeng superior realm cultivator—was expanding. The bigger he grew, the more his strength increased.

Hummm.

Before either the potentate or his captor had a chance to form a second thought, they were dumbfounded to find that the puny youth had become a fourth realm being! He somehow possessed a fourth realm cultivation level!

And his cultivation realm was continuing to rise as his body expanded!

“Damn it, he’s not an ant! He’s a dragon playing the pig to eat the tiger!” Though shocked and dismayed, the man with the fiery hair couldn’t bear to relinquish his hard won opportunity. He’d kept an eye on this place for countless eons, waiting to seize the potentate as soon as someone moved against him.

Who would’ve fathomed that the person to manage the deed would be so terrifying?!

Getting his teeth, the man swallowed the Fire Virtue Potentate and leapt into the air, running into the depths of the fourth realm.

“Do you think you’ll get away?!” Lu Yun was now bigger than the entire Hongmeng and the Tome of Life and Death his nascent spirit. Hadal hellfire poured into his body to become his strength.

He caught up to the man with a quick leap forward.

“Heavens above! Nihil World Sovereign!” The man was almost reduced to a gibbering mess. He’d never imagined that he’d offend a Nihil World Sovereign! Heavyweights of this level were the apex of the fourth realm and essentially the founders of their existence! He wouldn’t be able to reach these heights even if he refined fire virtue and borrowed its strength!

“Help, master!” He shook out an enormous decree that coalesced into a huge figure.

“What is it, my disciple?” The enormous figure instantly enveloped the man with a cocoon of safety.

Lu Yun immediately came to a cautious halt, regarding the figure with a wary look. This middle-aged man looked human and was situated in a golden fiery sea, but this was just his replica.

Despite that, it was stronger than any of Lu Yun’s subordinates in the fourth realm.

“Nihil World Sovereign!” The man standing in the golden sea shuddered when he took a clear look at Lu Yun and promptly slapped his disciple across the face. “This junior offers his most respectful greetings to the venerated world sovereign!”

The man retracted the golden sea around him and fell to his knees in the void. Ears ringing from his master’s slap, the first man with flaming hair quickly realized what he’d done. This was a Nihil World Sovereign! Their entire faction was nothing but an ant’s nest in front of such a great being! If the great one wanted to, he could reach through the replica and crush his—Longshan Yan’s—true body!

The disciple with flaming hair finally realized what kind of existence he’d provoked and sagged weakly to the ground, almost fainting dead away.

“Fire Virtue,” Lu Yun said coldly.

“Yes, yes, of course yes! You riffraff, what did you take from the venerated world sovereign?! Hand it over!!” Longshan Yan roared.

His disciple trembled and quickly brought out the newly swallowed Fire Virtue Potentate. Lacking sufficient time to refine him, the potentate remained intact.

“Oh my heavens, a Nihil World Sovereign…” Still retaining his thoughts and consciousness, the potentate’s knees drooped to the ground when he saw Lu Yun in his current state. How could a tiny Hongmeng prison, even one that was the origin of the fourth realm, contain something like a Nihil World Sovereign?!

No wonder he can summon the power of the five hells!

“Nihil World Sovereign?” Lu Yun committed the title to memory. He was indeed stronger than the last time he’d visited the fourth realm—stronger by many times over. Only hadal hellfire had taken root in his body then, but now flames from all four hells were entrenched in his body.

Though the other hells didn’t become his own strength and circulate in his body like the hadal hellfire did, they still subtly increased his strength and helped him enter a completely new realm.

Nihil World Sovereign!

While Lu Yun didn’t know what the cultivation realms of the fourth realm were, he subconsciously understood that he could now easily step on Longshan Yan’s true form. He heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief when the Fire Virtue Potentate was turned over to him and tossed the potentate into the Hongmeng Pearl.

“Please wait, venerated world sovereign!” Longshan Yan spoke up when he saw that Lu Yun was about to leave. “Might this lowly one be so honored as to invite the great one to my abode…?”

“Maybe next time,” Lu Yun responded curtly. His most pressing task at hand was to refine the potentate and embark on his next stage of cultivation.

…however, his faction in the fourth realm would run into others sooner or later. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to befriend some other powerhouses in the realm. At least it’d prevent him from being completely clueless when he shifted his attentions here.

That was why he didn’t completely shut the door.

Longshan Yan read the same intentions from Lu Yun’s response, so he continued, “Venerated World Sovereign, this humble one is the second son of the master of Dragonmountain Clime. My father is Longshan Yin and he is about to break through from World Manifest to Void World King. Thus, this humble one would be so bold as to invite the mighty world sovereign to safeguard my father during this time…”

“Oh?” Lu Yun sized up Longshan Yan. This man had some balls to ask him for a favor the first time they met!

World Manifest?

Void World King?

Are these the cultivation realms of the fourth realm?

Some excitement sparked in his heart despite himself.

“What will I gain if I protect your father?” Lu Yun asked faintly with an unconcerned glance. Plainly, Longshan Yin had more than his fair share of enemies. He would likely be attacked when he broke through. Since Lu Yun didn’t know what his cultivation level commanded in the fourth realm in terms of strength and status, there was a bit of risk to helping someone so hated.

“Have you agreed, venerated world sovereign?!” Longshan Yan snapped to delighted attention while his disciple next to him looked on incredulously.

Now that took a very swift turn for the different!