"Young one of the Dragon Clan, what kind of person do you take me for?"
Lu Changsheng clasped his hands behind his back. The Mysterious Yellow Shield's light formed a faint halo behind his head, making him seem all the more holy and untouchable.
"I cultivate purity and nonaction, and act in accordance with the Heavenly Dao. Those vile methods of the demonic sects are beneath me."
At that, Lu Changsheng sighed.
"You're gravely wounded, and your origin has been extinguished. Even the gods can't save you."
"Tribulation fiends fill this Primordial Land. If you fall here, your bones and lingering resentment will surely pollute the Earth Veins within a hundred li, undoing the damage to heaven and earth that I just repaired."
Lu Changsheng paused, his tone turning compassionate and solemn.
"Every meeting is fate."
"Today, I'll show some kindness and personally lay your soul to rest. I'll use Great Dao Merit to wash away your karmic burdens, preserve a spark of your true spirit, and send you safely into the cycle of reincarnation."
At his words, a flash of disbelief burst from the Golden Dragon's dim eyes.
Great Dao Merit to cleanse its karmic burdens?!
That was the highest level of funeral rites in the Primordial Land!
Anyone slain during a Tribulation of Measure bore enough karmic burden from killing to suffer in the cycle of reincarnation—and there was even a high chance they'd be reduced to nothing.
If Great Dao Merit could wash away its karmic burden, it would not only reincarnate smoothly but might even be born with a pure foundation in its next life. Its path of cultivation would surely be much smoother!
"Thank you for your boundless grace, Senior! Your compassion knows no bounds!"
The Golden Dragon was overcome with gratitude. If it had been able to move, it would have kowtowed to Lu Changsheng tens of thousands of times.
"Don't thank me just yet."
Lu Changsheng shifted gears, a hint of shrewdness creeping into his tone.
"Laying you to rest will cost me a precious amount of Great Dao Merit. That karma is no small matter."
"Since you said you'd offer up all your treasures, I'll just have to accept them."
"This isn't robbery, nor is it taking advantage of your misfortune."
Lu Changsheng spoke with righteous conviction.
"With these worldly possessions, you'll settle the karmic debt for my laying you to rest, then depart with a clean slate."
"I'll take this compensation and keep repairing the Primordial Land. We each get what we need, and the Heavenly Dao bears witness: neither of us owes the other anything. How does that sound?"
The Golden Dragon nodded repeatedly.
Its life was about to end, so what did it care about worldly possessions? Besides, trading its treasures and spirit materials for a clean chance at reincarnation was an incredible bargain!
"This junior... is entirely willing!"
The Golden Dragon used its last bit of strength to open its jaws.
With a "wah," it spat out a Storage Dragon Pearl that radiated brilliant golden light and was as big as a house. It hung motionless in midair.
This was the entire fortune of a Dragon Clan mighty figure at the Primordial Unity Golden Immortal level!
By comparison, the storage bags of those four Mystic Immortal stragglers were as shabby as a beggar's broken bowl.
Lu Changsheng looked at the Dragon Pearl, shimmering with countless rays of treasure-light, and fought the urge to rush over and kiss it a couple of times. Still maintaining his dignified air, he gave a slight wave.
The Storage Dragon Pearl settled neatly into his sleeve.
"Deal."
Lu Changsheng's expression grew solemn.
He sat cross-legged at the edge of the crater and formed a hand seal.
A wisp of brilliant golden Great Dao Merit shot from between his brows, enveloping the dying Golden Dragon like a gentle spring rain.
Beneath this utterly pure baptism of merit,
the violent baleful aura and karmic burden of slaughter on the Golden Dragon began to melt away rapidly.
Its enormous, battered body gradually turned into specks of golden rain, which sank into the Earth Veins below. They even nourished the very land it had once ravaged.
Half an incense stick later,
the Golden Dragon's body had completely vanished.
All that remained was a tiny, immaculate spark of true spirit, unsullied by dust.
The spark circled Lu Changsheng three times, as if bidding him one last farewell and expressing its gratitude. Then it turned into a streak of light, slipped into the void, and went peacefully to its next life.
"Whew... That was a satisfying bit of work."
Lu Changsheng stood and dusted off his hands.
Not only had he gained an unimaginably vast fortune, but as he laid the Golden Dragon to rest and cleansed its karmic burden, the merit rebounded to nourish the earth—
the Heavenly Dao had generously bestowed another lump of merit as a reward.
He'd gained both fame and fortune in one fell swoop. What a win!
"Looks like my thinking before was too narrow."
Lu Changsheng gazed toward the distant flashes of battle still lighting the horizon.
"Hiding at home only gets me a little welfare from the Heavenly Dao. But this battlefield outside is a gold mine lying wide open, with no one daring to dig!"
He touched the Storage Dragon Pearl tucked in his sleeve and felt the Origin of Merit within him growing ever more substantial.
An unprecedented sense of ambition quietly rose in the heart of this man of the Dao of Cowardice.
"With the Mysterious Yellow Shield protecting me and Great Dao Merit to make attackers pay for so much as touching me,"
"as long as I don't take the initiative to kill anyone, and focus on laying the dead to rest, looting their corpses, and repairing the Earth Veins..."
"what is there to fear in this Tribulation of Measure?"
Lu Changsheng no longer hurried home.
He stuck a thick stack of Breath Concealment Talismans on himself, drew in the light of the Mysterious Yellow Shield until it was barely visible, and turned into an unremarkable streak of light.
Following the traces of ruptured Earth Veins, he resolutely headed toward the western Primordial Land, where the fighting was thickest and the Tribulation of Measure most brutal.
The closer he got to the west, the more the carnage of the Tribulation of Measure made his heart pound.
The outskirts of Mount Sumeru, once shrouded in immortal qi and carpeted with spirit roots, had become a blood-red sea from which no trace of color could be washed away.
Countless immortal mountains, each ten thousand zhang tall, had been smashed in half. Earth-vein fires raged everywhere like fountains.
Shattered fragments of magic treasures and broken divine weapons lay scattered about like rubbish.
The creatures fighting madly in the sky and across the land were all at least Mystic Immortals.
Golden Immortals were as common as dogs, while Primordial Unity Golden Immortals strode everywhere.
"Good heavens... This place is a meat grinder."
Lu Changsheng hid behind the half-shaved peak of a mountain and poked half his head out. Watching the dense armies of the three clans slaughtering one another in the distant sky, he couldn't help swallowing.
Though he'd decided to become a battlefield cleaner, the reason of a man of the Dao of Cowardice was still online.
He absolutely wouldn't go anywhere near the center of a melee involving tens or hundreds of thousands of troops.
Even with the double protection of the Mysterious Yellow Shield and the merit that punished anyone who touched him, getting caught up with mighty figures who'd gone berserk and were ready to self-destruct would still be troublesome karma.
"Battlefield cleanup is a technical job, too. I need an area where the fighting's over, everyone's dead, and the environmental contamination is especially severe."
Lu Changsheng activated the detection function of the Cowardly Immortal Vine and precisely limited its range to fifty li.
Before long, he'd found a target.
A deep valley some three hundred li to his left gave off faint fluctuations of magical power, along with an extremely dense aura of death and baleful qi.
Lu Changsheng cautiously made his way over.
It was a huge sunken valley. It should once have been the site of an exceptionally rare Ethereal Wood Spirit Spring.
But by now, the spring had been completely polluted, turned a dark green. The water boiled, giving off a pungent, poisonous vapor.
And in the middle of the spring,
more than a dozen enormous corpses lay sprawled in a haphazard heap.
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