Chapter 2155: Airtag Xia

The spiritual lotuses and Dipper Crystals nurtured upon the Huashi Floating Island were indeed extraordinary, but unfortunately, he couldn’t bring the entire island away.

Ignoring the fierce battle raging between both sides, Shang Xia quietly departed while neither side noticed his presence.

Having deduced that both the Crowned Star Region and Simple Sea of Stars’ Sages might be secretly cultivating the World Origin Source to nourish the remnants of the World’s Will, Shang Xia set a new objective for himself. He wanted to search through the entire region for other floating islands of significant size.

If his reasoning was correct, then every such large floating island should contain at least one small but high-quality World Origin Source, each carrying a wisp of World's Will.

And indeed, his following discoveries confirmed his suspicions. As he traversed the Essence World Ruins, he soon found two more floating islands. Within each, he uncovered deeply concealed World Origin Sources, both showing clear signs of interference, and successfully extracted the Simple Sea of Stars’s unique origin qi with the Crimson Soul Tablet.

The only drawback was that all three World Origin Sources he had found so far were far too small. The amount of origin qi he had extracted from them was still insufficient to meet the requirements for his advancement formula.

Moreover, though no one had yet discovered his presence, Shang Xia increasingly felt that his existence might already have been exposed.

The reason was simple, since all those World Origin Sources bore traces of human interference, it was unlikely that whoever had created them would have neglected to set up hidden means within to detect any tampering.

Even with his divine soul far superior to others of his rank, Shang Xia could not guarantee that he had avoided triggering all of those precautions.

Even more importantly, after he had extracted the unique origin qi from the World Origin Sources, each one had undergone subtle changes. If those behind their schemes had not yet realized what had happened, it would be the real anomaly.

Just then, Shang Xia’s divine soul suddenly stirred.

He did not even attempt to engage in a contest of divine soul with the newcomer. The instant he detected their divine soul, he withdrew completely, leaving his location and fleeing through two or three spatial rifts before finally stopping.

It was not that Shang Xia feared a confrontation. From even that fleeting clash of perception, he could roughly judge that the person who detected him was a mid-level Sage of the Crowned Star Region. There was no way they would be a match for him.

But as an outsider, now aware of the Crowned Star Region and the Simple Sea of Stars’ secret dealings, any appearance on his part would immediately draw the combined pursuit of multiple Sages from both sides.

His purpose was to obtain origin qi from the Simple Sea of Stars, not to expose the collusion between the Crowned Star Region’s elders and the Simple Sea of Stars’ experts, nor to make enemies of them all.

Yet once he had again shaken off his pursuer, Shang Xia realized that things were no longer so simple.

Previously, after evading pursuit, he still had time to search for floating islands and extract origin qi. However, each time he escaped, his trackers soon rediscovered his trail and rapidly closed in, leaving him no time even to inspect the islands he stumbled upon.

There was no doubt about it. The experts on both sides found a better and faster means of tracking him.

From fleeting touches of their divine souls, Shang Xia could already tell that the ones pursuing him had changed at least three times. Some were from the Crowned Star Region, the others from the Simple Sea of Stars.

That only further confirmed his earlier suspicion. Both sides were indeed working together in secret.

But Shang Xia also understood that he was running out of time. In his latest escape, he had noticed that the Sages on both sides were growing in number, spreading throughout the ruins in a coordinated attempt to encircle him.

Only the chaotic, inverted nature of the void within the Essence World Ruins prevented their encirclement from closing in. Thanks to his cultivation and powerful perception, Shang Xia had thus far managed to slip through every time.

However, as their numbers increased and their coordination improved, his chances of escape grew slimmer and slimmer.

Before they could completely surround him, he needed to collect enough origin qi from the Simple Sea of Stars!

To buy himself more time, Shang Xia went so far as to expend part of his inner qi, creating two clones as decoys. Using the fractured space of the ruins for cover, he sent them off in different directions to confuse his pursuers.

Meanwhile, he continued through the ruins and soon found the largest floating island he had yet encountered. It was so massive it could only be described as a floating continent.

Just as he was about to descend upon this continent to investigate, he suddenly halted in midair, his expression uncertain as he gazed down toward a specific area below. “This place is...”

He was staring at a Dao Field that was built directly above the World Origin Source!

Although the Dao Field was sealed, Shang Xia could roughly sense that no Sage was stationed inside. There were, however, quite a few Martial Dipper Realm and Martial Void Realm cultivators within.

Even though there weren’t any Sage, with layers upon layers of formations protecting it, it was nearly impossible for Shang Xia to siphon origin qi from the Simple Sea of Stars without alerting them.

This is getting troublesome...

Under normal circumstances, he would have given up and sought another World Origin Sources elsewhere.

But the floating continent was different, its sheer size rivaled that of a continent in an Essence World. Even accounting for the Dao Field that had been built on it, the World Origin Source had to be immense, far greater than any he had seen so far!

Such a vast World Origin Source meant that even if the Simple Sea of Stars’s origin energy made up only a small proportion, the total quantity would still be enormous, at least equal to all the energy he had gathered thus far.

Shang Xia quickly calculated possible strategies, whether there was a way to temporarily control both the Dao Field and the World Origin Source without causing too much commotion, thereby buying enough time to extract what he needed.

... Before he could do anything, chaos erupted from within. Those that had been hiding inside burst out from their Dao Field, screaming loudly as the disturbance spread rapidly throughout the floating continent.

Though Shang Xia did not know what had caused the uproar, he instantly recognized a rare opportunity.

Without hesitation, he transformed into a streak of light and dove straight through the layers of formations guarding the Dao Field, no longer caring whether anyone might notice his presence.