Chapter 1852: Foreign energy

Shang Xia had witnessed chaotic streams born from high-tier cultivators shattering the void more than once before. In fact, Yan Yu of the Essence Du Heavenly Field had even weaponized the chaotic streams to become an offensive technique.

Yet from the moment Shang Xia first laid eyes on the region of chaos within the Nebula Forbidden Region, he was certain it was fundamentally different from the chaotic streams he had seen before.

What exactly was different, he couldn’t say. However, alarm bells were ringing in his head the entire time. He dared not let his guard down.

At the same time, the Crimson Soul Tablet in his mind pulsed impatiently, urging him forward, it was certain something within the region of chaos held immense benefit for it.

Eventually, after careful preparation, Shang Xia decided to venture into the chaos.

But he did not charge in blindly. Instead, he began by skirting the edges. If anything felt wrong, he would retreat immediately. His approach, at the very least, was considered pretty cautious.

What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was that the moment he stepped into the chaos, even just the outer edge, his senses were stripped away. He instantly lost his bearings and deciding between advancing and retreating became a dilemma.

It wasn’t that he didn’t try stepping back. However, he had lost his sense of direction and what should have been a single step backward only caused the suppression of his senses to increase.

Shang Xia understood that he had completely fallen into the region of chaos.

Worse still, the rank six defensive talisman he had activated earlier was rapidly losing its effects.

Chaos pressed in from all sides and his inner qi that had been supporting his domain was depleting at an alarming rate.

The speed of the drain reminded him of the time he had almost been pulled into the core of the great spatial vortex.

In desperation, Shang Xia activated two more defensive talismans, one of which was the mighty rank six Myriad Tinted Cloud Talisman. However, facing the corrosion of chaos, the effects of the talisman were limited.

Quickly recalling his experience in the great spatial vortex, Shang Xia tried calling out to the seven suns. He hoped to use them the same way to guide his escape, but this time, it failed. He was unable to clearly detect the location of the seven suns.

He realized that the unique nature of both the Nebula Forbidden Region and the region of chaos had disrupted his connection to them, rendering his positioning method ineffective.

In the brief moment he tried to find his way around, the energy contained in the talismans he just activated was sapped dry by the chaos around.

Even someone like Shang Xia, a rank seven Talisman Grandmaster, had a limited number of high-grade talismans like that.

It seemed that the only thing he could rely on was the guidance of the Crimson Soul Tablet.

As his domain shrank to just three feet in front of him, Shang Xia clenched his jaw and made a desperate decision.

Pressing his palm on his abdomen, the Big Dipper Star Origin in it flared with radiance. The stars around it started to light up one after another until the fourth, which was dimmer than the first three, but still bright enough.

Then, his palm flipped, and a surge of energy erupted from it. A faint but tenacious starlight shimmered around him, his protective domain expanding to five feet around him.

Within that small space, the erosion from the chaos slowed significantly, and his senses and perception returned, if only faintly.

Even five feet of awareness was precious to him.

However... From the rate of depletion of his inner qi, he knew that he wouldn’t last.

He seized the opportunity and began advancing rapidly through the chaos, following the Crimson Soul Tablet’s lead.

Had it not been for the increasing clarity of the connection, Shang Xia might have thought he was merely spinning in place, unable to move meaningfully in the formless void.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Though he had five feet of perception, without any landmarks, it was impossible to judge his pace, direction, or distance traveled.

Time became meaningless. Two-thirds of his inner qi had depleted as the stars around his Big Dipper Star Origin started to dim. Anxiety was slowly starting to overwhelm him when the Crimson Soul Tablet finally gave him a sharp pulse.

A sensation flared between his brows, and before he realized what he was doing, his hand touched his forehead. The Crimson Soul Tablet actually appeared in his hand the next moment.

It was the second time he had summoned the Crimson Soul Tablet’s actual form. Unlike before, it seemed to emerge on its own.

A surge of clarity washed over Shang Xia. The thing that had been drawing the Crimson Soul Tablet should be right ahead!

Gripped by instinct, Shang Xia swung the Crimson Soul Tablet forward. Half the remaining energy in his dantian vanished with a single swing of the tablet.

In response, the Crimson Soul Tablet’s weathered surface shimmered with a layer of nebulous starlight. As he swung it forward, the chaos in front of him was suddenly split apart.

In that instant, his senses returned. Through the Crimson Soul Tablet’s radiance, he saw a pitch-black mass shaped like a fake mountain.

He realized that the pitch-black mass was most likely the Crimson Soul Tablet’s target, but it might also be the real reason the region of chaos existed!

Using the brief moment of clarity, Shang Xia felt himself moving through the chaos for the first time with real awareness.

At the same time, the dark mass began to shift. Its original motionless shape started to change and Shang Xia’s heart skipped a beat.

This... This fake mountain might be a living creature!

Even though he was worried, he quickly relaxed as the Crimson Soul Tablet struck the weird mass. The second it did, a vast, incomprehensibly powerful stream of world origin that surpassed anything he could imagine rushed into the tablet.

Compared to the formless energy column he absorbed in the core of the great spatial vortex that was made up of an amalgamation of world origin from Essence Worlds, the energy that was contained in the region of space was vastly superior. In fact, it wasn’t just stronger. It was countless times more pure.

What was even more surprising was that Shang Xia discovered his senses sharpening as the mighty energy entered the Crimson Soul Tablet. When he was finally able to see clearly, he saw that the fake-mountain wasn’t changing shape because it could do so on its own! It was being sucked into the Crimson Soul Tablet!

That jet-black, mountain-like item actually seemed to be solidified world origin!

Stunned, Shang Xia also realized that the surrounding chaos was weakening. It no longer eroded his inner qi as quickly as before!

How could Shang Xia not understand that the mass of solidified world origin was the reason behind the existence of the region of chaos?

Then, without warning, a colossal flow of world origin entered Shang Xia’s dantian after it was ‘filtered’ by the Crimson Soul Tablet.

Reflexively, he activated his Seven Star Seven World Spiritual Stabilization Art.

Though he activated his rank seven art, he quickly discovered that his cultivation method struggled to process the energy. Still, whenever he managed to refine a small portion, it transformed into a flood of inner qi. It condensed slightly before fusing into his Big Dipper Star Origin, finally replenishing his drained reserves.

At last, Shang Xia gave voice to a question that had formed in his heart. “Could it be... Could it really be world origin from a world beyond an Essence World?”