Chapter 1675: The Key
“My fate?” Mo Yi’s brows were furrowed tight and a lost expression spread across her face.
Ah Zhi’s eyes were pure purple. To her, uncountable strands of webbing wrapped around Mo Yi and bound her tight. Ah Zhi cultivated the Dream Sutra so she could walk the dao of destiny in her dreams and see clearly the fates of others. In this moment, she saw Mo Yi’s.
Mo Yi was meant to search out the Imperial Seal and die alongside the fiend within it. That destiny confined her layer upon layer, like a ma.s.sive net.
Meanwhile, Lu Yun had shaken free of his fate. Anyone who interacted with him and formed a karmic relations.h.i.+p after that point would by and large shake off their destiny to walk to a brand new future.
Mo Yi had somehow proven to be the exception. Her destiny was so strong that Lu Yun couldn’t affect it. Despite that, he was still doing all that he could to help her shake off this predetermined path.
“What is it that compels you to destroy the thing inside the seal?” Ah Zhi stared intently at Mo Yi with her purple eyes. The layers of net around Mo Yi seemed to be loosening, but they didn’t fully loosen. Something was still affecting her.
Mo Yi frowned ferociously, both thinking and struggling. The net of destiny closed around her and wrapped her tight.
“I don’t know,” she answered dejectedly. “I don’t know who I am or where I come from… I don’t seem to belong here. A voice keeps telling me that if I destroy the fiend inside the Imperial Seal and save this world, I’ll be able to find the real me.”
“Enough, that’s enough!” Lu Yun shouted. “I can tell you now that even if you destroy that thing, you won’t be able to save this world or find yourself. That voice is lying to you.”
Mo Yi smiled ruefully and didn’t know what to say. After repeating the same destiny for countless cycles, this had become… habit for her. Perhaps she’d known the truth of these loops long ago, but she’d completely lost herself in the numerous layers of fate.
“There’s another way,” Ah Zhi suddenly raised. “You find the Imperial Seal and solve the puzzle of what’s inside.”
She addressed the second part to Lu Yun, who nodded in return.
“That’s doable. Therefore, you need to stay in Fairylands during this period of time,” he turned to Mo Yi.
“Fairylands?” She raised her brows.
“Yes, Fairylands! It’s a new world that I’ve conquered, a very special one. It’s almost completely isolated from the outside world, and if it wasn’t for that thing, even I wouldn’t be able to communicate with the outside.”
When Fairylands had been Myriadsea World, Lu Yun had barely forced a connection to the outside world with the Tome of Life and Death so he could move Ruina into h.e.l.l. When he left, he’d done so through the Gates of the Abyss.
Thanks to gifts from the realm monster and Qinglin before their deaths, he was the world’s master. He could seal off or open the world anytime he wished.
Mo Yi saw their existence clearly, but was constantly influenced by something to search for the Imperial Seal. It was an impulse that she couldn’t control.
“Alright, I’ll go with you to Fairylands.” Mo Yi nodded, knowing what Lu Yun referred to by “that thing”. She was keeping her impulses in check for now, but she couldn’t do so for long. Ever since the Imperial Seal had entered the unknown expanses, she’d had to suppress her urges more firmly than before. They’d raged out of control recently, so she’d decided to head to the unknown expanses after finis.h.i.+ng up in the Hongmeng.
With this new change in direction, she tried self hypnotizing that she didn’t need to look for the seal herself, that Lu Yun would deliver it to her and help her destroy what was inside. Repeating the notion like a mantra helped the impulse slightly abate.
Lu Yun sent Mo Yi into Fairylands and sealed the opening shut. Not even she would be able to come and go at will.
“As he said, after coming here…” Mo Yi took a deep breath, finding that that unslakable urge was finally gone. She didn’t dwell on it and located a random mountain top, sitting down cross-legged to cultivate.
……
“Is this your true form?” Lu Yun looked Ah Zhi up and down. Wasn’t she… Yu Hengluo?
After Yu Hengluo went missing from the Timelight Tower, Lu Yun had thought that she’d returned to the great wilderness and turned back into Ah Zhi. But it would seem that she’d been here all along, having never left.
“In response to the sect master, this is my true form.” Ah Zhi twirled around in a purple dress and giggled, “But I’m back now. I comprehended the true essence of the Dream Sutra with the trials in the Timelight Tower and can see fate clearly.
“I’m not too far off from accessing the eighth level of sequence.”
Once she accomplished that feat, she would be an undisputed elite powerhouse in the fourth realm.
“So you can see Mo Yi clearly… what’s going on with her?” Lu Yun was quite worried. Since sending his friend to Fairylands, an inexplicable power in the void had started attacking the world. It was trying to find a way in so it could locate Mo Yi. Only through deploying the Tome of Life and Death was the power deterred.
The core of Fairylands was the realm monster and Ruina—a Major Cycle World that supported the Boundless Planes and power from outside the planes.
“Who knows what is the matter with fate sometimes?” Ah Zhi shook her head. “What is the meaning for the endless loops that you speak of? Things happen for a reason. No one would be so bored as to create a constantly repeating world.
“I observed the Boundless Planes through the lens of destiny and discovered all of it to be the wreckage of a world. It’s not a real world. Be it the paper or holes, they exist because this world is incomplete.
“Cycling a broken world through endless loops of reincarnation and new life, repeating the same thing over and over again… Would you do this if it were you?” Ah Zhi asked Lu Yun solemnly.
“No,” Lu Yun shook his head. “Anyone with the ability to do this would seek out higher dao. They wouldn’t waste time and effort like this.”
If these loops had happened once or twice, that meant a certain powerhouse was conducting an experiment. But to happen again and again meant that these were purposeful actions. As for what the actions sought to achieve… For some reason, Lu Yun thought of Mo Yi.
Perhaps she was the key to the endlessly repeating loop.
etvolare"s Thoughts
MCs in order of succession in the NECRO universe:
1) Tome of Life and Death
2) Overlord of Ice
3) Mo Yi
???
X) Lu Yun
RIP. May Lu Yun rest in pieces. NECRO shall now be known as the un-MC series.