Chapter 4543: The Secrets Of The Cosmos

Nethersea Suppression’s voice dropped low. “Grand Clarity has always avoided us, so we can only search as much as possible. Since this is a valid method, we will proceed accordingly. First, capture 100 branches of the River of Aeons. At the same time, share all clues related to the Grand Clarity Civilization. Each Abyss will conduct a priority search based on their current location.”

“I have a question.” Old Sixth suddenly spoke up. After a pause, the toad asked, “Is it worth it? I mean, capturing 100 branches of the River of Aeons for Ruinfall is already no simple matter. Even one careless mistake could lead to enormous losses. Besides that, we still have to find that catalyst and the materials to seal the sourcebox arrays. Is it worth paying such a steep price just for Ruinfall?”

Ruinfall angrily shouted, “Toad, you have only just become an Abyssal!”

“So what? Am I not allowed to speak up when I don’t like something? In any case, I don’t think it’s worth it.” Old Sixth remained unphased. “It would be better to choose another Abyssal. There is plenty of Stillness anyway.

“What do the rest of you think?”

Ruinfall's voice grew unbelievably dark. “Toad, you are courting death.”

Lu Yin looked at Thousand Machinations. “What should we say?”

Thousand Machinations shook its head.

“Not worth it,” Lu Yin translated.

Thousand Machinations was stunned. “I did not say anything yet.”

“Isn’t that what shaking your head means?”

Ruinfall shouted, “Thousand Machinations, do you think that I am not worth it?”

Thousand Machinations quickly spoke to Lu Yin again. “I shook my head to say that we have no choice but to do this. Do not translate randomly.”

Lu Yin protested, “But I already said it, and Ruinfall just threatened me. If I retranslate for you right now, it won’t just come straight over here and kill me, will it?”

“It will not. Hurry up and clarify,” Thousand Machinations urged.

Above the Nethersea, Ruinfall shouted again, “Human, did you translate correctly or not?”

Lu Yin had no choice. Looking at the illusory ocean, he said, “We have no choice but to do it.”

“What does that mean?” Ruinfall thundered.

Lu Yin explained, “Lord Thousand Machinations means that it must be done.”

“Then why did you say that it was not worth it just now? You dare to change their words on your own?”

“Lord Thousand Machinations shook their head. I thought that gesture meant that it is not worth it. I translated too quickly. My apologies.”

“They shook their head?” Ruinfall was stunned.

Thousand Machinations frowned and stared at Lu Yin. “Do not say anything unnecessary.”

Ruinfall stopped talking, but the Nethersea surged.

Thousand Machinations waved a paw, shattering the illusory sea and ending the conversation. With its back still to Lu Yin, the bear stared across the river. “I said before that what makes you different is how your heart yearns for the light. Can you tell me what the light that you yearn for is?”

Lu Yin looked at Thousand Machinations' back. “The title of Abyssal.”

Thousand Machinations was surprised and turned back to look at the human skeleton. “You want to become an Abyssal?”

Lu Yin nodded.

“Since you want to become an Abyssal, why did you alter the meaning of my words and give Ruinfall hope?” Thousand Machinations asked.

Lu Yin said, “Outright obstruction is worse than guiding. Blindly denying all hope will only drive it to extremes, but sometimes going to extremes can be helpful. So, I gave it hope and let it keep walking down a hopeless path.”

Thousand Machinations praised him, “Deep scheming. And yet this is different from the impression of you that I gained from your stories. Have you changed?”

Lu Yin glanced off to the side. “I considered many things while underground, and I felt that I might need to make some changes.”

“I see.” Thousand Machinations understood. Dark Prisonbone's sneak attack had nearly killed Lu Yin, and then he had been abandoned beneath the Abyss for 500 years. It was normal for his thoughts to change.

“You already knew about Ruinfall.”

Lu Yin agreed, “I did. Great Golden Wings told me about it. It wanted me to work with it to eliminate the other candidates competing for the position of Abyssal, promising me that it would help me gain Ruinfall's position. Unfortunately, it was useless.”

“So you joined hands with the Seven-Treasure Anura,” Thousand Machinations confirmed.

Lu Yin did not deny it. “It can’t be considered joining hands, because I couldn’t defeat the toad.”

“No matter what, you cannot change the meaning of my words on your own again. There is no need to look for excuses. The Death Megaverse does not need excuses. You tested their limits,” Thousand Machinations stated.

This “their” was referring to the other Abyssals.

Thousand Machinations held a special status in the Death Megaverse, which was why many matters were brought to its attention. If the Abyssal had a translator like Lu Yin, who translated however he pleased, the other Abyssals would absolutely never tolerate it.

“You were worried just now about whether Ruinfall would use the Abyssal Displacement to come over here and kill you. At first, I was certain that it would not. In the future, I cannot say.” Thousand Machinations offered another warning.

Lu Yin respectfully replied, “I understand.”

He had deliberately changed Thousand Machinations' words for a very simple purpose: to test Thousand Machinations. As for the other Abyssals, they had not really entered Lu Yin’s thoughts.

He had been testing just how tolerant Thousand Machinations was of him, intending to use that to judge how freely he should allow himself to act within the Death Megaverse in the future. Without understanding his limits, it would be very easy for something to go very wrong for Lu Yin.

He had basically found that limit. Thousand Machinations was extremely tolerant of Lu Yin’s behavior. That was good.

“By the way, Dark Prisonbone already knows about me, so what will it do?” Lu Yin suddenly asked.

Thousand Machinations firmly stated, “It can do nothing.”

At this moment, vast amounts of Stillness condensed and rained back down, nourishing the earth.

Lu Yin stretched out a hand. The rain landed on his bony palm. It was black, and it dyed the entire world that color. To the Death Megaverse, black was likely the equivalent to light for humans.

To Thousand Machinations, Lu Yin was someone who yearned for the light, which made him an anomaly.

The bear raised a paw and waved it in the black rain. Multiple scenes appeared in the sky, along with words and coordinates.

Lu Yin looked over. What is this?

“These are the information regarding the Grand Clarity Civilization that the Death Megaverse has gathered over countless years. We do not need to be responsible for capturing branches of the River of Aeons; we only need to focus on collecting everything related to Grand Clarity by using these clues, especially materials used to seal sourcebox arrays. Such materials are quite practical,” Thousand Machinations explained.

Lu Yin looked at the sky and saw everything clearly. He saw the coordinates locating the seven Abysses. Of course, they were only coordinates. Without any further information, he did not know which Abyss each set of coordinates represented.

The only thing he knew was that there were several clues regarding the Grand Clarity Civilization near Thousand Machinations' Abyss. Since they were the closest to this Abyss, it fell to Thousand Machinations to deal with them.

Additionally, Lu Yin also saw Void Mountain.

So that’s it. The reason why Joy City had gone to war with Void Mountain was because of Grand Clarity. During the war against the Nine Ramparts, the Grand Clarity Civilization was the fishing civilization that had attacked the Fifth Rampart. It was because You Che had been an insider who had cooperated with Grand Clarity that the Fifth Rampart had been defeated and Manifest City taken away.

You Che had always been connected to the Grand Clarity Civilization.

Wang Wen had deliberately paid a visit to Joy City to give Withered Requiem the location of Void Mountain. He had known that the Death Megaverse would never abandon any clue related to Grand Clarity, which had sparked the war between Joy City and Void Mountain.

In the end, it had all been to find remnants of the Grand Clarity Civilization.

But while Lu Yin had found the cause of the war, there was still no explanation for why or how You Che had been killed by Withered Requiem. The cause and the outcome simply did not line up.

Lu Yin did not need to consider that detail for the time being. No matter what, he only needed to act according to his own thoughts. The expected was not to be feared, only the unexpected.

He was more curious about why the Death Megaverse felt a need to find relics from Grand Clarity, so he asked.

Thousand Machinations explained, “Grand Clarity holds the secrets of the cosmos.”

“What do you mean?” That answer left Lu Yin even more confused.

Thousand Machinations looked at him. “At its highest level, the sourcebox path is all about sourcebox arrays. A powerful enough sourcebox array can remake the world itself. Even in the Death Megaverse, many things can only be done through sourcebox arrays. The Abyssal Displacement, for example, has traces of sourcebox array formations in it. If you know how to use them properly, there’s a great deal that you can do.”

“However, the Grand Clarity Civilization is different. They are more skilled at lockbreaking. What is lockbreaking? What is a sourcebox? What the cosmos seals away is called a sourcebox, but why are some things sealed away while others are not?

“All civilizations view what is sealed away as secret, which makes lockbreaking the act of opening the secrets of the cosmos.

“Of course, they are also very skilled at sourcebox arrays. Even if that is merely something related to their path of lockbreaking, they have already surpassed all other civilizations. Anything from the Grand Clarity Civilization is of immeasurable value.”

Lu Yin had also learned about Grand Clarity when visiting Void Mountain. The Grand Clarity Civilization’s creed was that lockbreaking was an act of war. They believed that the cosmos itself was the greatest sourcebox, and therefore, it had to be unlocked.

No matter how terrifying that idea might be, Grand Clarity's methods of unlocking the various sourceboxes throughout the cosmos meant that they undoubtedly had a greater understanding of the Aevum Inch than anyone else.

Not only that, but their mastery of sourcebox arrays was also destined to be coveted by countless civilizations.

Thousand Machinations pointed at one set of coordinates. “There is a fishing civilization there. It once fought a war against Grand Clarity, so there should be many traces of Grand Clarity left behind. What you need to do is go there, eliminate the fishing civilization, and bring back everything related to Grand Clarity. As simple as that.”

Lu Yin stared blankly at Thousand Machinations. “Is that simple?”

Thousand Machinations somberly replied, “Very simple.”

Lu Yin looked back at the coordinates and then pointed at himself. “Senior, you want a skeleton who is not even an Immortal being to deal with a fishing civilization? And you say that it’s simple?”

Thousand Machinations grinned. “Fishing civilizations are not as terrifying as you believe. As long as you can deal with their absolute means and suppress their strongest combatant, they can be dealt with.”

Lu Yin did not know how to argue with that. Yes, that could certainly allow one to deal with a fishing civilization. But if it were so easy to counter an absolute means, it would not be called an absolute means.

Among all the fishing civilizations that he had ever encountered: the Blacklight Civilization's Life Overreach, the Plume Immortals' ability to teleport, and the Mudwater Dominion's karma designation, which one could be considered simple? That was not even considering the idea of overpowering their most powerful combatant.

Any civilization that managed to become a fishing civilization would have a two-law Immortal at the very least, or at least something at that equivalent level of power. Lu Yin had never seen an exception.

He had not seen the full strength of the technological fishing civilization, but he was certain that their imperial vessel was not easy to deal with. They were not even bound by karmic chains, which meant that not even the Death Megaverse wanted to antagonize such an opponent.

The strength of Lu Yin’s skeleton clone was not enough for him to be confident in defeating a two-law Immortal, and that was the minimum level of opponent that he would possibly face. It was very likely that some extremely powerful being who was close to standing equal to a three-law Immortal was a part of that fishing civilization.

“Relax. Of course I am not asking the current you to deal with this.”

“What do you mean, Senior?”

“First, I will help you reach the limits of your own potential. I estimate that your strength should increase quite a bit.”

“No matter how much my strength increases by, it will still be impossible for me to resolve a fishing civilization without first becoming an Immortal being myself.”

Thousand Machinations patted Lu Yin's shoulder with a solemn expression. “Believe in yourself. You can do it. You comprehended the Three Death Arts. When considering all the creatures of the Death Megaverse, no more than three have learned the Three Death Arts.”

Lu Yin let out a breath and did not continue arguing. It did not matter. He would first reach the limits of his own potential. If he was still unable to defeat that fishing civilization, he would just run away.