Chapter 2241: Sudden Enlightenment

“You and I must settle this today. We will decide victory, and decide life and death.”

When the Star Origin Lord uttered the words, the void surrounding Shang Xia suddenly surged inward once more.

The Seven Essence Heavenly Field seemed to collapse upon him, as seven different Worlds’ Will intertwined like invisible ropes, aiming to bind him tightly in the void.

Shang Xia merely smiled faintly. He took two leisurely steps, utterly ignoring the binding.

The Star Origin Lord’s expression changed almost instantly. The Worlds’ Will that he controlled passed directly through Shang Xia, without the slightest sensation of touching something tangible. It was as if the Shang Xia before him was nothing more than an illusion.

Yet the Star Origin Lord knew full well that the man before him was no phantom. No mere illusion could possibly deceive his eyes.

The reason Shang Xia remained unbound was simple. Each step he took separated a new layer of space, allowing him to move across parallel voids. Every step placed him into a completely different pocket of reality, rendering the suppression meaningless.

“So this is the technique you learned in the Eighth Order?” The Star Origin Lord’s cold voice carried faint disdain. To him, though Shang Xia’s mastery of spatial control was exquisite, it was not, in the grand sense of the Martial Dao.

The Worlds’ Will that Shang Xia had easily evaded now coiled instead around the Star Origin Lord himself, more precisely, they merged into his body. At once, the Star Origin Lord’s previously serene form erupted with overwhelming might, shaking the very foundations of the Seven Essence Heavenly Field.

The shockwaves carried a power that seemed to shatter and distort space itself, breaking layer after layer of Shang Xia’s spatial barriers until he appeared to have nowhere left to retreat.

It seemed he would have to face the Star Origin Lord’s all-encompassing strike head-on. But at the critical moment, Shang Xia raised a single finger, and a spark of starlight glimmered at its tip.

The moment he tapped forward lightly, everything around him seemed to freeze with that flicker, then began to rewind. The shattered layers of space folded back upon themselves, like time flowing in reverse, until the restored spatial barriers once again encased him in protection.

The Star Origin Lord, however, was unfazed. Having already witnessed Shang Xia’s martial intent, the Star Shifting Constellation Transformation before, he was not surprised. His body, fused with the seven Essence Worlds’ Will, began to radiate with a brilliance so intense it was blinding. Light and heat flared out in waves, as though a sun had manifested before Shang Xia’s eyes.

“This is the Star Origin Lord’s martial intent!”

Shang Xia instantly recognized the rank of the Star Origin Lord’s technique.

But there was more. As the Star Origin Lord’s form merged into the blazing sphere, Shang Xia sensed the collapse of multiple layers of space behind it, forming a link in the void to a star.

“His Fate Star!” Shang Xia realized in a flash. “This is the Star Origin Lord’s Fate Star revealed at last!”

The blazing star suspended in the Star River could be nothing else, especially considering the Star Origin Lord’s link to it.

Yet Shang Xia’s expression darkened slightly. The star he now perceived was not the same one he had once discovered and attacked with his Dipper Star Formation.

Back then, in the Illusory Sea of Stars, he had used his Dipper Star Formation to launch a long-range strike against a suspected Fate Star, injuring the Star Origin Lord and weakening his Starlight Clone that had once possessed the strength of a high-level Sage.

Could it be that the Star Origin Lord and his clones had merely been pretending?

Or, perhaps, just as Shang Xia himself, the Star Origin Lord possessed more than one Fate Star?!

Shang Xia leaned toward the latter conclusion.

Now the Star Origin Lord’s true body had transformed into a blazing sun, empowered by his Seven Essence Heavenly Field and further augmented by his Fate Star. The combined might pushed his aura to an unprecedented level. Even through layers of spatial separation, Shang Xia could feel his own soul violently shake.

Still, Shang Xia did not intend to meet him head-on. On the contrary, the Star Origin Lord’s gathering momentum only strengthened a suspicion forming in his mind.

But the more Shang Xia sought to evade, the more the Star Origin Lord’s power pressed forward relentlessly. It was oppressive and unyielding, like a tidal wave breaking through a dam.

The flood of radiance and heat tore through the layers of space, distorting the void and even bending the flow of time itself. It was a calculated countermeasure against Shang Xia’s martial intent.

Within that surging tide, Shang Xia could distinctly perceive the resonance of multiple martial intents, seven in total, all perfectly linked and fused as one.

At last, the Star Origin Lord unveiled his fangs. The full power he unleashed made even Shang Xia’s heart tremble in awe.

“So... Martial intents can truly merge and become one...”

A quiet sigh stirred within Shang Xia’s heart. In truth, he had already theorized such a possibility, but unlike the Star Origin Lord, he had not possessed 1,000 years to prepare for it.

Deep down, he knew that if he chose to clash with the Star Origin Lord at that very moment, the one to suffer would undoubtedly be himself.

Even so, as the roaring flood approached, Shang Xia continued to observe, analyzing the essence of the Star Origin Lord’s martial intent fusion.

Within his dantian, his Eight Trigram Golden Core, covered in intricate cloud-like patterns, spun rapidly. The deeper his understanding grew, the faster the golden core revolved.

The cloud patterns upon it began to move as well, spinning like the dust clouds revolving around a world. Gradually, they detached from the surface of the core, becoming mist-like halos that floated around it in eight directions.

Seven of them soon stabilized. They were clear and distinct, while the one at the very top remained obscured and chaotic, as though something within it was still being conceived.

“So that’s how it is!” Shang Xia’s mind suddenly cleared, comprehension dawning upon him.

With that, he took a single step backward.

That one light step crossed an unseen boundary, and the flood of energy that had been crashing toward him suddenly weakened the instant it passed the line, as if some law of reality had stripped away its force. The overwhelming torrent became but a giant wave breaking on the shore. It was still fierce, yet it lost its crushing might.

Then, in the very next moment, Shang Xia stepped forward again, into the tide itself.

Crossing the boundary he had set earlier, his domain was breached, and a massive weight pressed down on him. The newborn Eight Trigram Eternity Qi in his dantian flickered unsteadily like a candle in the wind, but he had already succeeded in avoiding the crest of the tide.