Chapter 2189: Tributary? Star Field?

The powerful tide surging through the Star River struck Shang Xia with tremendous force, nearly overwhelming his ability to stay steady within the current. The waves were not only physically violent but also saturated with chaotic temporal-spatial power that accelerated the loss of his inner qi.

He could still use Guided Dipper to strengthen his link with the stars and thereby resist the direct impact, but even with two martial intents that harnessed the power of space and time, and with his own growing mastery over that same energy, he could not entirely avoid the toll it took. His life force continued to ebb away, and by the time the worst had passed, his face looked older. His once-youthful features were edged with the maturity of years suddenly stolen from him.

Yet when Shang Xia finally endured the full fury of the tide, the price he had paid proved worthwhile.

By that point, the three Star River Stowaways had been completely left behind. Though his inner qi was badly depleted, the Crimson Soul Tablet within him continuously refined and released stored origin qi to replenish it.

During the earlier battle in the Essence Jing Heavenly Field, after he destroyed the half-formed passage linking the Illusory Sea of Stars and the Chaotic Sea of Stars, the tablet had absorbed a massive quantity of origin qi. Now, its reserves were more than sufficient.

Under such circumstances, it was the perfect opportunity to reconstruct the Dipper Star Formation.

This time would be unlike before. The unique environment of the Star River would surely give him an entirely new experience, along with difficulties tenfold greater than any he had faced in the Chaotic Sea of Stars.

To form the configuration of the Dipper Star Formation, at least seven stars needed to be arranged according to precise positions. That meant choosing one and adjusting six more in turn.

Previously, merely touching the essence of a single star had triggered an eruption.

Now, not only would he need to awaken six or seven of them, but he would have to move each one and alter its orientation in the Star River. Such an undertaking would be far more catastrophic than causing half a dozen eruptions.

He wasn’t even sure he could survive that many successive impacts, each one potentially stronger than the last. The thought made him almost envious of Sage Star Thief’s Eternal Golden Boat.

"If only I had one of those vessels..." He thought grimly to himself. "Then shifting the stars within the Star River might not be so dangerous."

But he couldn’t afford to be distracted. His first priority was to locate and select the proper stars for the Dipper Star Formation, and he could not risk choosing the same one he had disturbed earlier.

He knew time was running short.

Before the foreign Star Fields fully merged with the Chaotic Sea of Stars, he had to complete every prerequisite for breaking through to the Eight Trigram Realm.

When the Star River finally calmed after the massive eruption, Shang Xia withdrew the connection and flew onward toward the direction of the next star.

He didn’t know when Sage Star Thief and the others who had escaped would return, but he was certain they would. Their determination to reach the Chaotic Sea of Stars meant they would never give up their pursuit.

He had no idea how long he flew through the shifting currents before the nearest star loomed ever larger ahead. The river around him grew brighter and hotter, its radiance intensifying until it filled his vision.

Despite the distortion caused by the power of space and time, he immediately noticed how different those stars were from those floating in the Chaotic Sea of Stars.

The difference lay not only in size and brilliance, they were far larger and fiercer, but also in the pervasive currents of space and time that flowed among them and in the way their gravitational fields interacted with one another.

In short, to move the stars and rebuild the Dipper Star Formation would be at least ten times harder than doing so in the Chaotic Sea of Stars.

But Shang Xia had no choice but to forge ahead.

Fortunately, his strength now exceeded what it had been when he first attempted to form the Dipper Star Formation, by far more than tenfold.

The closer he drew to the star, the smaller he felt.

He wasn’t even planning to use the particular one for his Dipper Star Formation, so under normal logic he should have veered away and sought another.

Yet his understanding of the stars within the Star River was too limited. He decided it was worth spending a little time studying it closely.

As he neared it, he sensed something familiar beneath its blinding radiance.

That was the essence of the stars.

But unlike the essences found within the Chaotic Sea of Stars, these were saturated with dense power of space and time.

Then, comprehension dawned on him. The light and heat of those concentrated essences formed one of the fundamental components of the Star River itself, and were the very source of its temporal distortion.

Still, that discovery was not what thrilled him most. The true surprise came when, after carefully extracting a wisp of that blazing essence, the Crimson Soul Tablet in his sea of consciousness flared to life, clearly identifying it as the ‘Eternity Essence’ that was required as his Secondary Medicine.

He needed seven such wisps.

Shang Xia immediately understood that they could not all be drawn from a single star. Each one, most likely, must come from the seven stars that would eventually make up the Dipper Star Formation.

And of course, such pure celestial essence could not possibly have only one purpose.

If his estimation was correct, that kind of energy, infused with the power of space and time, was already on par with a rank eight spiritual treasure.

He carefully stored away the newly refined wisp of Eternity Essence, though he did not place it inside the tablet. After all, he had never intended to use the particular star in his Dipper Star Formation.

Even so, refining just one strand of its essence was far from easy, and in the Star River, drawing out Eternity Essence was even more difficult.

After spending considerable time and effort near the star, he finally withdrew and continued deeper in search of a more suitable candidate.

During this journey, Shang Xia again came upon the tributaries of the Star River.

Those streams branched from the main current and extended into the void like vast roots spreading from the trunk of a celestial tree.

Curiosity stirred in him...

Where did each of these branches lead?

However, he quickly dismissed the thought. He had far more urgent matters at hand.

Still, he speculated privately that each tributary might connect to a separate Star Field.

Yet that notion carried a troubling contradiction. When he had broken through from the depths of the Chaotic Sea of Stars into the Star River, he had emerged directly into the main current, not along a branch.

If the Chaotic Sea of Stars truly possessed a tributary leading to the main Star River, wouldn’t that mean its location was already exposed?

If so, Sage Star Thief and his companions would never have needed to hound him for its coordinates.

Unless... Their real purpose was to create a new tributary, one that would connect directly from the main body of the Star River to the Chaotic Sea of Stars itself!

A tangle of possibilities swirled through his mind. But as he reached the region where the stars grew more densely packed, he forced himself to refocus on the task at hand.

After passing the first star, he encountered two or three more along the way.

Yet these were scattered along the edges of the river, too distant from one another for what he intended. He needed to reach the central belt of the current, where the clusters of stars were the thickest.

In that central region, their proximity would make repositioning and alignment much easier during the construction of the Dipper Star Formation.

And just as importantly, a formation built amid such dense brightness would attract far less attention.

Before entering that bright belt, Shang Xia had already observed it from afar, studying it from multiple angles and devising three alternate plans, each involving the repositioning of over a dozen stars.

It was no simple task. Shifting even one of them could trigger a massive eruption, drawing unwanted eyes.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Still, compared with his first attempt in the Chaotic Sea of Stars, there was one advantage in the Star River. The stars were closer together, their distances shorter, their adjustment more manageable.

But as soon as he penetrated the dense stellar region, he realized the difficulty was greater than he had imagined.

The concentration of stars had caused vast quantities of Eternity Essence to accumulate, and the currents of space and time there were far more violent than at the edge of the Star River. He could feel his lifespan eroding rapidly once more as his vitality bled away.

Yet with the bow drawn, there was no turning back. Shang Xia could only grit his teeth and press on, adjusting the stars one by one.

When he first attempted to shift one of the selected stars, the reaction was immediate. A tremendous upheaval rippled through the Star River. The resulting tsunamis of energies reached far beyond the surrounding region, and worse, it altered the spatial positions of the neighboring stars.

In other words, every careful adjustment he had made was undone in an instant. His entire plan was reduced to nothing by a single surge of the Star River.