Chapter 930: Realm of the Nine Heavens

Fortune played a multifaceted role in cultivation. One of its primary functions was to cleanse karmic consequence, grant mental clarity, and facilitate breakthroughs in bottlenecks.

Ordinary cultivators who cultivated Body of Yin might need a significant sum of fortune to advance, but certainly not as much as Xiao Nanfeng did.

Xiao Nanfeng's cultivation of the Body of Yin was rooted in the countless star maps on the Dazheng Code of Laws. In order to advance, he would need to decode all those star maps to an adequate level, requiring a commensurate expense of karmic consequence.

Before long, he had absorbed a quantity of fortune comparable to that possessed by a regular divine empire, but had cleared away only a sliver of karmic consequence.

More and more fortune gushed into his body. By then, he had switched to his yin body.

The hall was tightly sealed. A blizzard formed around him, and his spiritual moon floated into the air. A deific domain unfolded, turning the hall into a unique, isolated space.

He sat like that for an entire day. Slowly, not far away from his spiritual moon, nine stars formed, each in a different color. The moment they appeared, his entire deific domain shuddered as nine-colored energy suffused it.

Even the Superior was taken aback.

"Just what are you cultivating? This isn't like my Body of Yin!" the Superior exclaimed.

"Senior, you should know better than anyone what I'm cultivating," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

The nine stars continued to shine. More stars began to emerge around them. These new stars slowly revolved around the nine core stars in a deliberate, rhythmic motion imbued with a mysterious cadence.

"Your Heavenly Dao Scroll...? You're using the star maps on your scroll as a foundation for the laws in your Deific Yin realm?" the Superior exclaimed.

"Indeed," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

"That's impossible! The star charts on your Heavenly Dao Scroll merely record celestial and terrestrial laws of antiquity. They cannot be fully replicated, or cultivators in antiquity would already have succeeded!"

"How will I know that I can't succeed unless I give it a try?" Xiao Nanfeng replied calmly.

"No! You’re mistaken! Many extraordinary geniuses have attempted this throughout history, but all have failed. The star charts on the Heavenly Dao Scroll are divided into nine stellar regions. While you may possess the complete charts for all nine regions, others have also acquired fragments of these star charts.

"In the past, those who attempted to use these stellar regions as the foundation for their deific domains, only to discover that it was impossible. Your truesoul will reject these foreign laws. Forcing the integration of an entire stellar region shatters not only the deific domain but also the soul itself.

“Even I, with my unparalleled power and the unique properties of the Body of Yin, barely succeeded in fusing one stellar region to forge my realm of superior slaughter. The cost and agony of integrating even one stellar region was beyond imagination.

"And you—you're trying to incorporate all nine stellar regions into your divine domain!

Can't you feel the agony searing through your soul? Don't you sense your primordial spirit tearing apart? You really are courting death!" the Superior exclaimed.

Xiao Nanfeng: ...

In truth, he felt no pain at all. The process was undoubtedly taxing, but his soul felt surprisingly comfortable.

Even so, there was no reason for the Superior to lie. Perhaps the difference was that his soul came from Earth.

"Lad, if you don't want to die, you had better stop now," the Superior warned.

"If you can succeed, can't I? I'd like to give it a try. I don't mind the pain," Xiao Nanfeng replied calmly.

"You're a fool!" the Superior shouted.

Perhaps he was truly worried for Xiao Nanfeng's safety, or simply wanted to have a vessel around to hide in. Regardless, his stance was clear.

"Senior, I am grateful for your concern and suggestions, but my cultivation is my own. I intend to follow my own path," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

The Superior fell silent for a long moment before finally saying, "Fine! Do as you please. Die if you want!"

Xiao Nanfeng continued to cultivate.

The starry sky above his deific domain shimmered with increasing brilliance. Nine stars, then ninety, then nine hundred, nine thousand, ninety thousand, nine hundred thousand—more and more stars emerged, filling the deific domain.

"You really are going to die!" the Superior hissed.

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Xiao Nanfeng ignored him. He drew more and more fortune into his body as he cleared his karmic consequence. He seemed to have entered a deeper state of meditation.

Spiritual aether whirled around the hall, sucked into his stellar domain and spiritual moon.

In the hall, starlight and moonlight intertwined. Radiant beams from his spiritual moon enveloped his True Yin body, wrapping him in a cocoon of power.

After an indeterminate amount of time, dazzling white light suddenly burst from Xiao Nanfeng's True Yin body. A majestic aura erupted from him.

His deific domain expanded, radiating ten-colored light—silver-white from his spiritual moon, and nine other colors from his nine core stars. The hall and its surroundings seemed to dissolve into an ethereal void, leaving only Xiao Nanfeng, his spiritual moon, and the nine stellar regions.

"A Deific Yin space... Did you reach the Deific Yin realm?!" the Superior exclaimed.

Xiao Nanfeng remained silent, focusing instead on the sea of stars within him.

The myriad stars shone brilliantly for a moment before some of them dimmed and disappeared.

"You're deleting stars and simplifying the nine stellar regions? It makes sense. You can't handle all that complexity. By simplifying them, you leave them more manageable—though deleting them haphazardly like what you're doing will decrease your overall strength."

Xiao Nanfneg ignored the Superior's commentary. He wasn't deleting stars but rather concealing some of them, turning them into dark stars that were hidden from sight but remained present in the heavens.

"What will you call this Deific Yin space?" the Superior asked.

"The Realm of the Nine Heavens," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

"Nine Heavens? Ha! How arrogant. You dare claim such a grand name with your incomplete and disorganized stellar regions?" the Superior mocked.

"Senior, you seem particularly talkative today," Xiao Nanfeng said pointedly.

The Superior: ...

He had been in turn shocked, envious, and disappointed by Xiao Nanfeng's audacity, causing him to let loose for a moment.

He calmed down and spoke no more.

Xiao Nanfeng exhaled deeply, a lingering sense of unease in his heart. He had drained all the fortune that Blue Lantern had gifted him to achieve this breakthrough—the entire sum of fortune that the world had generated 90,000 years ago. Even so, all that fortune had only gotten him through one major bottleneck.

His Realm of the Nine Heavens might have countless stars, but the majority remained weak. They would require extensive nurturing to reach their full potential.

Still, he was confident that its foundation was unparalleled in the world. Even the Superior's realm had only incorporated a single stellar region. His encompassed all nine.

Xiao Nanfeng didn't leave seclusion. He continued meditating and delving deeper into the mysteries of his newly formed deific domain.

Though he had managed to incorporate all the stars of the nine stellar domains into his Deific Yin realm, that didn't mean he yet understood all the heavenly and natural laws they pertained to in full. There was plenty of work that still had to be done.

Now that the Realm of the Nine Heavens was fully incorporated into his body, however, he was able to contemplate the star charts more deeply.

He continued to meditate, ignoring what was happening in the world at large.

A month and a half later, the world had changed greatly. Dazheng's army won victory after victory; Dachi's leech-exterminating army suffered defeat after defeat.

By this point, the majority of the three hundred of Dayin's Immortal cities had been claimed by Dazheng.

This decisive victory demonstrated Dazheng's overwhelming might, leaving countless onlookers in awe.

In Yongding, Xiao Nanfeng's avatar continued to govern the empire. There were frequent civil exams attracting disciples from countless holy lands and Immortal sects into Dazheng, causing Yongding to bustle with vitality.

Meanwhile, Dachi's capital was shrouded in gloom. A string of defeats had left its officials deeply troubled.

In Dachi's imperial palace, the Void Saint was examining Tang's body once more. He was collaborating with Su Tianxin and Su Qingchan to investigate the mysterious entity associated with Tang.

The Void Saint unleashed the power of his heavenly laws, while Su Tianxin activated three bronze compasses and Su Qingchan two. Together, they cast spells on Tang, causing his body to glow.

"It hurts! Saint, please have mercy!" Tang cried out, his body contorting in pain.

After a while, the trio ceased their efforts.

Tang collapsed to the floor in relief, shuddering and not daring to speak.

"Can't you identify the cursed effigy associated with Tang?" the Void Saint demanded.

The more the cursed effigy resisted identification, the stronger the Void Saint felt that it had to be.

"We can't," Su Tianxin admitted, shaking his head.

"Your compasses are worthless," the Void Saint criticized.

"No, Saint. If we had all eight bronze compasses, we would surely be able to identify the entity. But we're still missing three," Su Tianxin replied.

The Void Saint narrowed his eyes. "And what do you mean by that? Do you intend to suggest that I should target Xiao Nanfeng again to retrieve them?"