Chapter 595: Fate Dipper Essence

“You… You already took that step?!” Yun Jing asked with a face full of disbelief. Complex emotions ran through her heart.

She expected Shang Xia to be able to easily fuse his extermination origins once he completed his refinement of them. He should step into the large completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm effortlessly, but that should be it.

Yun Jing had already overestimated Shang Xia’s cultivation to the absolute limit she could think of. However, reality told her that she was still underestimating the kid who was barely older than 20.

There were too many questions she wanted to ask Shang Xia at the moment, but she didn’t know how to do it.

Shang Xia’s voice rang clearly in Yun Jing’s mind as she was still confused. It also entered Chu Jia’s mind. “It’s going to happen soon. Let’s get everything ready!”

Yun Jing felt a chill running through her heart and she quickly tossed the thoughts to the back of her mind. She started to assist Chu Jia in their adjustment of the grand formation.

It was then that the light pillar above the Tongyou Island weakened by a good half.

Both Chu Jia and Yun Jing realized what had happened, and they quickly extended their divine perception over to the formation node Shang Xia used to be only to discover it was empty.

It was very possible that he had already left the Tongyou Island.

At almost the same instant Shang Xia stopped the Crimson Soul Tablet’s absorption of world origin, the Great Sun shrank for the fifth time.

This time, the shrinking didn’t take long. The entire sun extinguished itself in the middle of space as the last ray of light disappeared.

The pillars of light above the various islands started to flicker unsteadily before finally dissipating into tiny specks.

In several short moments, the region of space that contained close to 20 islands that were at least a thousand miles large fell into complete darkness. Other than several islands that weren’t well prepared and still had several traces of light causing them to stick out like sore thumbs in the dark space, the rest went completely dark.

It was the moment everything returned to a state of darkness that the well-prepared Tongyou Island made their move. They accelerated instantly to leave their original position.

Not too long after they secretly left, several streaks of light rushed towards their original position. Unfortunately for them, they failed to catch sight of the Tongyou Island.

Very quickly, those figures that were covered in light discovered each other. They understood that all of them had the same intentions, but since they didn’t know who the other parties were, they decided to pull away from each other before searching for the Tongyou Island themselves. They might have done that, but they failed to find anything nonetheless.

No one knew how long more had passed, but those hidden figures started to gather together. A hoarse voice was the first to break the silence. “How did they do it?”

A soft cough rang among them before a rather sharp voice continued, “Unless they were prepared for it, it’s almost impossible for a behemoth of an island that is almost 2000 miles to disappear so quickly and quietly!”

“That's not really possible, right? The island was here when the Great Sun was extinguished. Only so little time had passed and they should barely be moving.” The last person who spoke sounded a little illusory. In fact, it was hard to determine who that person was.

“That is why I said that they were prepared. Didn’t you notice that the light pillar above their island shrank by a huge half right before the Great Sun was extinguished?” The hoarse voice came again.

“But… How did they accurately grasp the collapse of the Great Sun?” A feminine voice interrupted them but it was a little hard to say if the speaker was actually female.

“Could it be a coincidence?”

“Heh, do you really think something as coincidental as this can exist? Would you believe it?”

“That is why there is definitely something weird on the Tongyou Island. Thinking back to how their light pillar continued to grow till it was on par with the 3 Paradises…”

“What the hell is a paradise?”

“...”

People started to leave silently until a suggestion was made. “Why don’t we work together?”

As soon as that was said, people started leaving at an even faster rate.

It was true that there was something strange about the Tongyou Island. However, the stranger it became and the more it seemed like the Tongyou Island was hiding something, the more obvious it would point to the fact that they were hiding their strength. They would even possess some hidden trump cards no one was aware of.

Under such uncertain circumstances, those experts who had been through countless trials wouldn’t risk it and go pull the tiger’s beard.

What was more, locating the Tongyou Island in the dark and vast space was a problem in itself. Experts like themselves wouldn’t be able to stay in space infinitely either.

Not too long after those people scattered, several colorful lights appeared in the spot where the Great Sun used to be. The space that was supposed to be completely dark was lit up by those strange spots of light. Soon after, a powerful wave of origin qi filled the area before a low rumble started to echo in the ears of those present.

By the time those islands that had stopped in place earlier were distracted by the change, a massive battle had already broken out where the core of the Great Sun once stood. Their attention was drawn over but that was just the start. Several islands that failed to conceal the pillars of light the moment the Great Sun was extinguished suffered attacks of varying degrees.

They were like sitting ducks as their location had been discovered by the other factions. Even though the sudden assault didn’t cause a chaotic battle to break out on all those islands, it caused the atmosphere to turn a little strange.

…

Shang Xia left the Tongyou Island before the Great Sun was extinguished, and he used the cover of his Auspicious Cloud Cape to hide his tracks. He made his way over to the Great Sun and by the time it disappeared, he had already traveled thousands of miles in its direction.

He learned from Kou Chongxue that experts would only possess the qualifications to pass through the void comfortably with their physical bodies after entering the Martial Dipper Realm. They would also be able to move about space as they pleased.

The Manyu Continent might be destroyed, but the existence of the Great Sun allowed the entire region to be sealed and isolated from the sea of stars. Martial Extermination Realm experts like Shang Xia were able to travel around in ‘space’ while leaving the confines of their islands for some time.

However, they wouldn’t be able to remain outside for too long either.

With the Great Sun gone, Shang Xia had no idea how long the region of space could be sustained.

The closer he got to where the Great Sun once was, Shang Xia could feel several hidden experts who were hiding their tracks as they raced in the same direction as him.

From the looks of it, things were as Yun Jing had said. Shang Xia wasn’t the only one who could tell that the Great Sun was about to be extinguished and despite not knowing the exact time, those experts would just head over regardless. As such, the people who would be taking part in the final looting wouldn’t just be from the Tongyou Institution.

No matter if it was because those factions were being careful, or if they wanted to confirm the items nurtured by the Great Sun, those factions that could tell the Great Sun was about to be extinguished sent their experts over while controlling their islands to head over.

Shang Xia heard a loud crack all of a sudden and he turned his attention to the source of the sound. A dark shadow-like cluster seemed to shatter as several dozen illusory rays emerged. They started to fly in different directions and they seemed like they wanted to enter the void to escape.

Shang Xia’s luck didn’t seem too bad as one of the light rays was flying not too far away from him.

Reaching out instinctively, Shang Xia wanted to grab the ray of light. Who would have thought that the illusory ray would pass through the giant palm he congealed tens of miles away? It continued to fly towards the depths of space.

“Huh?” Shang Xia felt extremely curious as he quickly extended his divine perception over to try to touch the ray of light.

When it finally arrived, he discovered that the ray of light seemed as though it didn’t exist. He was unable to feel its presence despite seeing it actually be there.

What the hell is this?!

Shang Xia grew more and more curious, but he also started to worry that those streaks of light were merely bait used to draw their attention. He circulated his extermination origins as he reached out to grab it once again.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

A giant palm that seemed to be made from a mass of chaos reached for the illusory ray tens of miles away from Shang Xia.

The palm he unleashed this time was different from before. He wasn’t prepared earlier, and the palm was really ordinary. This time, he unleashed his Four Constellation Palm without holding back.

The moment his palm slammed into the region, everything within it seemed to turn into a region of sealed space. It contained the endless cycle of the four seasons and Shang Xia controlled everything that happened within it.

The ray of light shuttled back and forth within the space contained by the palm as though nothing could stop it, but it was eventually trapped by the endless cycle. It was unable to escape the control of Shang Xia’s Four Constellation Palm.

When he finally retracted his palm, the illusory ray of light had already appeared in his hand.

The light tried to fly away and Shang Xia had to continuously pour his inner qi into his hand in order to stop it from escaping. He had to maintain the endless cycle if he wished to retain the item.

The only question he had left was what item was contained in the illusory ray.

Of course, he might have to maintain the flow of his inner qi to keep the item trapped in his hand, but doing so wouldn’t affect his combat strength at all. The consumption was too little to affect him.

Who would have thought that a massive battle would erupt in the distant space at that moment?

Two tyrannical auras clashed as blinding swathes of extermination light burst forth. It illuminated the region hundreds of miles around them.

“Fate dipper…”

A surprised cry came from the depths of space but the voice stopped abruptly. The person seemed to have disappeared due to the shockwave of the battle conducted by the 2 super experts.

Shang Xia felt his heart trembling once. “Fate dipper?! Could it be an Origin Dipper like the one I obtained back then? “

Shang Xia stared at the ray of light that was wriggling like a fish in his hand and shook his head. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen an Origin Dipper before.

Even though there were a lot of ways in which they could appear, and Shang Xia couldn’t claim to know everything, he could tell that the streak of illusory light wasn’t a complete Origin Dipper.

Thinking back to the time when the black cluster shattered and the way the illusory rays emerged…

If there really was an Origin Dipper in there…

Shang Xia stared at the light in his hand before thinking to himself,

Could this be fate dipper essence that is used to nurture Origin Dippers?!

Even though it was a mere guess, Shang Xia had an item he could use to verify it!

Flipping his other hand, a sparking cube appeared. It looked incomparably soothing and he brought it towards the illusory ray. The ray seemed to have found its home as it shot into the cube before curling up into a ball. It no longer moved around.

Shang Xia didn’t know if he was dreaming, but the fate dipper fragment in his hand shrank a little…