Star Odyssey

Chapter 1870: Multi-Layered Trap

Lu Yin felt quite intrigued as he looked at Mountain God. "I'm surprised that you are actually bold enough to ask me to dismiss you from the war."

Mountain God usually took on the appearance of Bai Wanshan, but he did not dare to have such a massive form on this battlefield. Bai Wanshan was far too big, and that form would only make Mountain God a target. He would most likely die the moment that he stepped onto the battlefield in that form, so he had always fought with his own appearance during this war. It turned out that he was just a little old man.

"Alliance Leader Lu, it's not that I want to leave, but that I have to. There are internal conflicts within the Divine Grade Hall, and I need to go back and settle things there as soon as possible." Mountain God tried to provide an excuse.

Lu Yin indifferently responded, "Since your Divine Grade Hall is dealing with some internal turmoil, it should absolutely be put down. However-" At this point, he stared straight at Mountain God and saw the man’s anticipation. "I’ll send the Allied Forces’ Eighth Division to handle things for you."

The Eighth Division was composed of members of the Daynight clan and cultivators from the Outerverse. Yan Yan was the commander, and they were supposed to be stationed in Erudite Flowzone, but the Wen family still had not joined the Great Eastern Alliance. Thus, the Eighth Division had been stationed in Beast Tamers Flowzone in the meantime.

Mountain God’s expression completely changed. "Alliance Leader Lu, when we joined this alliance, the agreement was that the Allied Forces would not interfere in the internal affairs of alliance members. Do you intend to violate that agreement?"

Lu Yin replied, "Of course not. This is just something that you requested, so the alliance will do its best to handle this matter for you, Mountain God. You clearly don’t have the time to deal with these internal conflicts, as you are occupied here on the battlefield. So, in this situation, it would be best for the Eighth Division to step in on your behalf. Don’t you agree, Mountain God?”

Mountain God's anger was displayed on his face. When had he ever asked for the alliance’s support? Lu Yin was simply trying to pull the wool over the old man’s eyes and ramble on while insisting on forcing Mountain God to his death. This thought prompted Mountain God to grit his teeth and firmly state, "Alliance Leader Lu, this needs to remain an internal matter for the Divine Grade Hall-”

Lu Yin suddenly clapped a hand to his forehead. “I almost forgot! Your Divine Grade Hall’s losses were quite harsh recently, so the Eighth Division will be sent not only to settle the ongoing conflict, but also to provide relief assistance. How did your Divine Grade Hall suffer such harm?"

Mountain God's heart dropped. The Divine Grade Hall’s recent casualties had been because they had kept a second exit from Burial Garden open. He had assumed that Lu Yin had not known about that incident, but the truth was that Lu Yin simply had not mentioned the matter.

Lu Yin had deliberately reached out to all eight great flowzones and ordered them to only keep one exit from Burial Garden open each, and the Divine Grade Hall had been no exception. Mountain God had reported that Beast Tamers Flowzone only had a single exit gate, but an incident had occurred at the secret second exit, and most of the Divine Grade Hall’s younger generation had been wiped out.

If this matter was made known, Lu Yin would have a valid excuse to deal with Mountain God.

The Envoy realized that he was trapped. "Thank you very much, Alliance Leader Lu."

Lu Yin nodded, though his eyes flickered as he watched Mountain God leave.

Mountain God was not the only Envoy who wanted to leave. There was also Liu Qianjue, Ling Qiu—actually, who did not want to leave? Lu Yin had realized this, which was why Mountain God could not be allowed to leave. As soon as one person was given permission, they would all demand the same, and Lu Yin would be unable to stop their departures.

The fleet retreated again and again, but more and more reinforcements kept appearing from the Celestial Beast Empire’s side. Lu Yin looked to the northeast. He just hoped that Wei Rong would have enough time.

A few days passed, and fighting broke out once more. Combat continued on and off for more than a month, and this battle that included so many Envoys had long since become the focus of countless people throughout the Fifth Mainland.

The Great Eastern Alliance had suffered repeated losses. Abel Phoenix had died, and then the Frost Emperor had withdrawn from battle due to his injuries. Even though Madam Yōu had been added to the fray, Lu Yin could not stop the downward spiral. Mountain God and the other Innerverse powerhouses were not fighting so much as stalling, and this forced the battlefield to move back across the asteroid field and into Northcastle Weave.

Lu Yin had been attacked by the giant praying mantis several times, but Lu Yin had learned to be cautious. He never strayed far from the experts with power levels of over a million, such as Jiu Shen. With the occasional help from those powerhouses, Lu Yin managed to survive.

Finally, the Hall of Honor also released an announcement, and they had sent two androids with the strength of Envoys, as well as a fleet to help. The fleet was much smaller than what the Great Eastern Alliance had sent, but Xu Qing was worried about the humans receiving reinforcements. The fighting calmed down, and Xu Qing carefully observed the situation to see how things would proceed. He was concerned that the Hall of Honor would send more reinforcements over, which would lead to the Astral Beast Domain’s defeat or possibly a stalemate.

If a true war broke out between the Astral Beast Domain and the Human Domain, it would create a black hole of death. This was why only a small number of powerhouses and almost no Envoys had been stationed at Ironblood Weave and Erudite Flowzone’s border warfronts. The two sides had long since come to a tacit understanding.

The Astral Beast Domain's large-scale invasion had only been launched because of two crucial conditions: the Sixth Mainland did not care about the eastern weaves, and the Hall of Honor could no longer intervene. This was why the astral beasts had launched their invasion. However, they had never expected to be stymied by the Great Eastern Alliance.

At this moment, the astral beasts were fighting against the Great Eastern Alliance, but if the alliance were to be replaced by the Hall of Honor, the Astral Beast Domain absolutely would not continue fighting to the death, but would instead turn Northcastle Weave into the new Ironblood Weave.

…

More than half a month passed by. By this time, the war had lasted for about five months. No one had expected the Great Eastern Alliance to last this long.

Xu Qing certainly had not expected it, and the stress was actually making his hair turn white. The longer he looked to the southwest, the angrier he became. He really wanted to make a call on his gadget, but he resisted the urge.

He truly wished to kill Lu Yin with his own hands. Without that bastard stepping in, the Astral Beast Domain would have already conquered the eastern weaves of the Outerverse, and they would have started building defenses in anticipation of the Sixth Mainland's eventual counterattack.

There was a bang as Xu Qing clenched a fist with enough force to shake the void. "Attack!"

The fighting resumed.

Countless of the Great Eastern Alliance’s soldiers had become numb to the fighting, and people died every day. Also, the Envoys on either side were becoming more and more familiar with each other.

For example, as soon as Mountain God entered the battlefield, he would focus on an astral beast who possessed a similar level of strength, and the creature would also focus on Mountain God.

Most living creatures feared death, and them being human or astral beast did not change this.

Elder Jiu Shen continued to fight against Sword King. The Second Nightking had already fought against the Celestial Demon on many occasions. While the Second Nightking was powerful enough to defeat the Celestial Demon, he was not strong enough to easily kill the astral beast. On top of that, any attack that the Celestial Demon launched could wreak havoc on the entire battlefield and cause both sides to suffer terrible casualties.

Therefore, the Second Nightking could not allow the Celestial Demon to attack, and similarly, the Celestial Demon could not allow the Second Nightking to attack either.

Lu Yin stared out at space. Each Envoy had their own opponent, and this war was still rather even.

At this moment, Lu Yin’s gadget beeped, and he looked down. How odd; it was Zhou Shan.

Although Zhou Shan had Lu Yin’s contact information, he had never called Lu Yin before. This was the first time.

Lu Yin answered, and a display appeared in the air. It showed Zhou Shan's pale face. "Something’s happened to Earth!"

He immediately pointed to another display in the background.

Lu Yin stared, and his expression drastically changed; was that an astral beast?

He saw many astral beasts surrounding Earth and attacking it. It looked like a miniature version of the battlefield that Lu Yin was standing on. Much of the planet had been destroyed, and half of Jinlin was in ruins. Just this was not enough to alarm Lu Yin, but as he stared at the images of the region surrounding Earth, he suddenly saw a familiar looking astral beast—it was the octopus.

This was the astral beast with impressive defensive abilities whom Lu Yin had fought against before. Had the beast actually gone to Earth?

It was no wonder why Lu Yin had not seen the creature during the last two battles.

His focus was on the praying mantis, so he had forgotten about the other creature.

"I know that you’re currently fighting a war, but the appearance of these creatures is probably connected to your war, and I had no other options. Everyone available is already fighting, but I don’t know if we can save Earth," Zhou Quan softly reported.

Lu Yin’s voice dropped low, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

He then immediately hung up and stared out into space.

The octopus was strong enough to easily destroy Earth, but it had not done anything at all. It was clearly trying to lure Lu Yin over. This was a trap, and not even a hidden one.

Even though he knew that it was a trap, Lu Yin still had no choice but to enter it. If not, Earth would definitely be destroyed.

The fighting was fierce in space, and each powerhouse had their own opponent, which meant that no one was able to leave.

Lu Yin frowned. Xu Qing had initiated a new battle at this time just to keep everyone occupied while setting the trap for Lu Yin.

"Commander Shui, I’m entrusting you with command of the battlefield," Lu Yin stated before leaving the fleet on his own and making his way south.

Earth was in the northern region of Frostwave Weave, which meant that it was very close to Northcastle Weave. Lu Yin’s speed allowed him to quickly cross over Northcastle Weave and enter Frostwave Weave.

Xu Qing and Liu Huang continued fighting, but Xu Qing kept glancing southwards past the human fleet. Would Lu Yin go? Xu Qing was not certain, as it all depended on just what the planet meant to Lu Yin.

After half a day of fighting, Xu Qing shoved Liu Huang's sword back. Excitement filled the Void Thunderbeast’s eyes. He had just received word that Lu Yin had arrived at Earth.

…

In Frostwave Weave, Lu Yin emerged from the void above a beautiful blue planet. A flurry of Hollow Palms were thrown out, attacking and killing all of the astral beasts in the area, except for the giant octopus.

Down on the surface of Earth, countless humans stared up at the starry sky and watched as the giant octopus wrapped itself around Lu Yin.

A mountainous astral beast lay beneath Zhou Shan’s foot. Although it looked massive, it had only been at the Limiteer level, which meant that even Zhou Shan could kill it. Astral beasts had invaded every land and ocean on Earth, and they had caused uncountable deaths and immeasurable damage to the entire planet.

However, this was not the time to dwell on such things. Defending Earth needed to come first.

This was not Lu Yin’s first time fighting against the octopus. It was a very difficult opponent, and Lu Yin had no idea how to go about killing the creature.

It was also impossible that Xu Qing had only sent the octopus to deal with Lu Yin, so he remained highly cautious.

The fight between Lu Yin and the giant octopus shattered space, and the shockwaves caused Earth's oceans to churn. No one questioned that Earth could be destroyed at any moment.

Slowly, Lu Yin led the octopus away from Earth and led it towards Jupiter.

There was a bang as the observation station at Jupiter exploded, but everyone had already evacuated the place.

Lu Yin stood amidst the ruins of the observation station as the octopus slammed into him from the front. Lu Yin's pupils transformed into runes, and he turned to observe his surroundings. He saw nothing at all. This should be impossible! Had the octopus really been sent to deal with Lu Yin by itself?

Lu Yin fell back, and as soon as he did, the observation station shattered into small pieces.

A short distance away, in a place in space where no one was paying any attention to, a creature no bigger than a fingernail slowly moved towards Lu Yin. It was a carrion beetle. These bugs were ranked second on the Celestial Beast List, and their innate ability to ignore physical defenses was said to be because they had been born from the body of an ancient powerhouse. On top of that, they were also extremely durable and fast.

Even if there were very few carrion beetles in existence, their strength still allowed them to rank second on the Celestial Beast List, which showed how highly they were regarded in the Astral Beast Domain.

This carrion beetle was Xu Qing's plan to eliminate Lu Yin.

A carrion beetle had once participated in ZENITH as well, but Liquor Hero had used her Creation level of star energy control to deal with the bug. That was truthfully the most effective manner to deal with a carrion beetle, as actually defeating the bugs with anything else would be too difficult.

This Envoy-level carrion beetle and the giant octopus were enough to kill Lu Yin. This was the trap that Xu Qing had set up.