Chapter 2127: Sneaky Bastards

When that strange mass of lightning darted into Shang Xia’s consciousness and began to contaminate his divine soul, the countless threads of silent thunder that had filled his domain suddenly started seeping inward, drawing ever closer to him.

At the same time, the hidden figure in the shadows, sensing the shift, seemed convinced that Shang Xia had lost control and could no longer respond. He finally abandoned all pretense of concealment.

“This Lightning Prison isn’t a place just anyone can enter!” Sage He Jiubin’s voice rang out, full of triumph. Around him, the clouds churned violently, and the thunder and lightning within them grew even more ferocious.

With a mighty swing of his sleeves, he hurled a lightning spear at Shang Xia. Endless bolts of lightning converged upon it, instantly drowning the imprisoned Shang Xia in a blinding torrent.

Yet at that very moment, the raging lightning suddenly froze, as if time itself had skipped a beat.

In that fleeting instant, an arm thrust out from the river of lightning, and in its grasp was none other than the very spear He Jiubin had thrown.

The proud grin froze solid on He Jiubin’s face.

However, as a sixth star Sage, he was still a formidable expert. He released his inner qi without hesitation, forcing the once-stagnant lightning to resume its flow, surging toward the spear in an attempt to reclaim it. The weapon began to blur, melting back into the river of lightning and slipping from the hand.

However, the flowing lightning suddenly took on a reddish-gold hue. As it converged, it stained the spear itself the same fiery color, stopping it from dissolving into the river of lightning.

He Jiubin’s expression changed drastically when he discovered he had lost all control over his weapon.

Worse still, the swirling lightning condensed into a downward-spiraling vortex, its volume shrinking rapidly as Shang Xia’s figure emerged from within.

Realizing he had failed, He Jiubin turned and fled without hesitation, abandoning his Lightning Spear, which was almost the same quality as Shang Xia’s Seven Star Mace.

In the instant he fled, the shrinking lightning current was completely absorbed by Shang Xia.

Shang Xia smacked his lips with faint amusement, as if savoring the taste of the lightning essence. With a flip of his wrist, he hurled the Lightning Spear that had been stained with a reddish-gold hue back at He Jiubin.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He Jiubin was no slouch. He was an experienced expert and he tore through the void repeatedly, changing direction again and again to avoid pursuit.

However, the second Shang Xia tossed the spear, it pierced straight through the void. Even the shattered fragments of space could not slow it down. No matter how many times He Jiubin changed his course, the spear followed behind him relentlessly.

“Damn it! This was my treasure!”

Knowing he could no longer shake it off, He Jiubin whirled around, forcing his heavily depleted inner qi to condense once more. His fingers moved like butterflies weaving between flowers, forming 12 layers of barriers before him.

The next second, a flash of lightning tore through them all in a heartbeat. The Lightning Spear seemed to reach his chest instantly.

He Jiubin’s face went pale with shock.

Instinctively, he grabbed the shaft with both hands.

Sparks exploded between his palms and the spear, filling the air with the metallic scent of blood as reddish-gold lightning crackled wildly. The flesh on his hands became half-cooked, and blood poured from his chest where the spearhead had buried itself deep within.

Yet the formidable body of a high-level Sage saved him. His chest muscles clenched around the spearhead, stopping it just short of his heart, while his grip held the weapon fast.

Uttering a wretched cry, he wrenched it free. As the reddish-gold lightning dissipated, the weapon finally returned to his control.

Unfortunately, when the spearhead buried itself in his chest earlier, a thread of inner qi that came from Shang Xia’s Big Dipper Star Origin had already seeped into his body. Tearing through his veins, it stabbed into his heart, causing a burst of blood to spray from the lips of the high-level Sage.

Without wasting a second more to curse at Shang Xia, He Jiubin turned to flee.

Moments later, Shang Xia broke through the clouds and appeared in the area, but by then, the man’s presence had completely vanished. Without the Lightning Spear, he failed to detect any traces of that man.

“Killing a high-level Sage truly isn’t easy,” Shang Xia thought grimly, “Especially when he holds the geographical advantage.”

With the speed and secrets arts of a high-level Sage, He Jiubin had surely returned to the safety of his Heavenly Field.

With the assistance of an entire Heavenly Field, even with his combat strength far exceeding the other party, Shang Xia wouldn’t dare to storm in recklessly.

Moreover, they were in the Flood Star Region. He was technically considered an intruder. If he made his presence known and openly went against them, the local Sages would definitely band together to drive him out.

Still... He Jiubin was clearly hiding something.

Thinking of the possibility, Shang Xia’s attention sank into his sea of consciousness, staring straight at the Crimson Soul Tablet that had already experienced some sort of transformation.

Advancement Medicine: Eight Trigrams Immortal Golden Pill

Prerequisite: Grand Completion Stage of the Seven Star Realm

Main Medicine:

Secondary Medicine:

Auxiliary Medium: Starlight Curtain (9.9 x 3.3 feet)

Required Medium: Origin qi from different Star Fields (6/8)

Remarks: Martial Intent suitable for current cultivation realm (2/7), Soul at the grand completion stage.

Compatibility: -

Success Rate: -

From his battle with He Jiubin, the tablet had successfully absorbed enough origin qi from the Nightmare Sea of Stars. That essence had come from the strange lightning sphere He Jiubin used earlier to smash his divine soul.

Even recalling that eerie light made Shang Xia’s scalp prickle as a lingering fear remained in his heart.

That lightning had invaded his mind directly, attempting to corrupt his consciousness.

Fortunately, his long-term cultivation of his Man and Heaven Synergy Chapter had given him an exceptionally strong soul. Yet the decisive factor was one of his own martial intents that turned the tides around, the Divine Killing Spear.

Back then, he comprehended it in the Triple Command Realm, and it was designed to strike at the soul itself.

Thus, even though the battle had taken place within his mind, he could still unleash his martial intent, and it proved decisive. The lightning was annihilated, and every thread entangled with his soul was cleansed away.

When the sphere was destroyed, it transformed into dense origin qi.

At first, that energy tried to merge into his soul. Shang Xia even sensed his consciousness drawing it in naturally.

But at the critical moment, the strange essence activated the Crimson Soul Tablet, which devoured it completely.

That was also when the required medium of origin qis from other Star Fields increased in its completion rate.

Not only that. Perhaps because his soul had been tempered by the Lightning Prison, there were new changes to the Remarks column.

The first was a requirement where his soul had to be at the grand completion stage.

As soon as he read it, Shang Xia understood at once. It meant that his soul had to be refined to its utmost limit. He wasn’t far from that already, though it would require him to remain in the Lightning Prison for a while longer.

The second was that his martial intents had to be strengthened until they were compatible with his current cultivation realm.

That aligned with earlier insight. While the upper limit of a martial intent rose with cultivation, reaching that limit required continuous tempering.

Because his progress had been too rapid, he had little time to refine his earlier techniques. After all, it hadn’t been a century since he reached the grand completion stage of the Seven Star Realm from when he started cultivating.

Even so, among the seven martial intents he had mastered, two had already reached the standard, which came as a pleasant surprise.

There was no surprise that the first was the martial intent he comprehended in the Seven Star Realm, the Star Shifting Constellation Transformation.

The second, unexpectedly, was the Four Constellation Samsara Blade he had comprehended back in the Four Constellation Realm.

The latter surprised him, but recalling his experience traversing the Star River, it all made sense.

Beyond those two, Shang Xia estimated that three more were close to reaching the same level.

They were the Chaos Essence Lightning Palm, Divine Killing Spear, and the Six Harmony Supporting the Heavens.

The Chaos Essence Lightning Palm was his earliest martial intent. He was the most familiar with it and practiced it the most. He had the deepest comprehension of it.

As for the Divine Killing Spear, it had a unique property of attacking the soul, and it drew strength from his formidable divine soul.

His Six Harmony Supporting the Heavens came next as he had comprehended it in the Six Direction Realm, and it was merely a step below his current cultivation realm. It would be the easiest to raise its abilities to his current level.