Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

A few days ago on the island in the lake, the Elder of Heavenly Secrets had said to Chen Changsheng that if he wanted to delay the breaking out of the injuries within his body, he should not continue cultivating. The elder had not expected that not only did Chen Changsheng not listen to his words, he even more fiercely pressed forward. In such a short time, he had made his preparations to break through. The elder could not help but feel anxious and concerned by this.

However, it was already too late. As the lake wind lightly brushed against his Daoist robe, Chen Changsheng’s eyes were closed. He was no longer within this world.

His mind returned to its most primal place, the tranquil and deep sea of consciousness.

With the slightest thought, his sea of consciousness began to ripple and raise up almost unimaginably massive waves. These waves were about ten stories high and possessed an extremely astonishing momentum as they endlessly thrust towards the dim sky above.

But the sky was too far away. No matter how massive the waves, they could not touch it. When they reached their peak, they could only fall back down with extreme reluctance, smashing out countless pieces of foam on the sea’s surface.

This ocean spray arose from the sea. If it could not break away from the sea, it naturally could not soar into the sky.

In normal times, if all he wanted to do was send a strand of spiritual sense into the sky, this task would not be difficult at all. However, today, he needed to send even more spiritual sense to the other side.

So he once more moved his thoughts, having them transform into countless sharp weapons, swords and blades, and then...they slashed at his thoughts.

A massive storm burst over his sea of consciousness, countless frenzied gales screaming over the horizon. Transforming into countless seemingly real techniques, they slashed at the raging and rising waves.

The True Sword of the Orthodox Academy, the Mountain Gate Sword of Mount Li, the Three Chants of the Fisherman’s Song, the Condensing Frost Sword of the Snow Mountain Sect, the Army-Shattering Sword of Star Seizer Academy, the Sword of Hithering Light of the Heavenly Dao Academy, South Stream Temple’s Three Lanes of the Plum Blossom...

Countless sword techniques formed in the tempest and madly danced over the sea!

Those ten-story waves swayed uneasily under these slashes, gradually splitting from the sea. Yet there was still the deepest connection that could not be completely severed.

From the sea came a cry of extreme determination, and then a blade intent descended from the sky!

The first move of the Halving Blade Style, Origin!

This was the most powerful blade style in the world! Before this blade, all things would inevitably be halved!

The massive waves were finally severed from the sea and then began to float!

......

......

Once the massive waves were cut off from the sea, they became a mass of pure water very similar to the lake outside his Ethereal Palace.

Upon losing its connection to the sea of consciousness, this mass of seawater also seemed to lose all of its weight. It lightly floated up to the gloomy sky, floating higher and higher, farther and farther. Ultimately, it followed that path which it had not truly stepped upon for a very long time yet had been making firmer by the day, reaching that sea of stars in the deepest depths of the sky.

This mass of seawater was the essence of his spiritual sense, the soul of his experience, his most precious object.

After reaching the sea of stars, his spiritual sense did not stop, continuing its seemingly slow but actually amazingly fast march forward. After a very long time, it finally arrived at the position on the very edge of the sea of stars.

This place was incomparably far from the ground, the other side of the sea of stars.

Beyond the sea of stars was the void, but beyond the void?

Chen Changsheng gazed far off into the distance. He somehow felt like he could faintly make out countless stars over there.

In the beginning, in the library of the Orthodox Academy, on that night when he lit up his Fated Star, he had this exact same feeling, like he was gazing at the myriad twinkling lights of a city.

It was a pity that it was too far. Which the current strength and compactness of his spiritual sense, he had no means of reaching that side, unable to delve into the true limits of the world.

He drew back his gaze and turned to an unremarkable corner on the edge of the sea of stars. There was an unremarkable star, very small and very red, like an apple.

This was his Fated Star.

His spiritual sense slowly approached it.

This mass of ocean fell upon the small red star. Not only did it fail to cause the star’s temperature to drop and its flames to extinguish, it actually made the red flames on its surface grow even more violent!

Golden winds met with autumn dew, forming a harmonious liquid that spewed limitless radiance into the pitch-black space.

(TN: ’Golden winds meeting with autumn dew’ is a Chinese idiom usually used to describe love.)

Surpassing the bounds of space and time, this innumerable radiance traveled from the extremely distant edge of the sea of stars back to the ground and poured into his body!

Boom! The cross-legged Chen Changsheng’s body suddenly sunk half a foot into the ground.

This was because the ground in a radius of three zhang around him had sunk down!

The lake wind howled and curled around him, causing his Daoist robe to furiously flap about. The wind poured into his sheath, causing it let out countless wild howls of excitement.

Dust flew into the air and straight into the sky like a pillar of dark smoke, causing that bright sun above to dim.

A person accidentally looked up into the sky and saw that in the gloomy sky, in a place opposite the sun, was a faint spot of light like a star in the night sky.

The problem was that it was currently day, so how could one see a star? How could such a bright star exist in this world?

The person shook his head and cast this absurd idea out of his head, shifting his gaze back onto the stage.

At this moment, only the Elder of Heavenly Secrets was not watching the cross-legged Chen Changsheng but gazing up at the sky.

And it was only he who could confirm that in the gloomy sky, a star really had appeared.

The sea of stars contained the inscrutable force of fate. Even he would find it impossible to determine this star’s position, but he knew the reason for its appearance.

......

......

On a normal day at the end of summer, under the blazing sunlight, who would notice the momentary flash of that star? Even if they did notice it, who would dare believe their eyes?

On the outskirts of the capital, in the mountains and fields, the Pope stood in front of the grave of Archbishop Mei Lisha. As he gazed at the name of his old friend on the tombstone, his eyes hid a trace of concern. "At the time, we worried that he might mature too quickly. Now it seems to me that our worries were not without basis."

On the Dew Platform, the highest point of the capital, the Divine Empress stood with her hands held behind her, gazing at a certain place in the sky. The sunlight was dazzling but she never blinked. From that day many years ago when Emperor Taizong expelled her from the Imperial Palace and demoted her to the Hundred Herb Garden, she no longer feared staring directly into the sun. Today, though, she was not even looking at the sun. Mo Yu stood behind her, gazing at her back, uneasily thinking, just what did the Empress see a moment ago that caused her to fall into such a long silence?

In the most majestic and most heavily guarded palace within Xuelao City, the Demon Lord sat on his chair as he listened to his most loyal subordinate report the recent strange movements of the Demon Commander as well as the conflicts between Black Robe and the princes and dukes of the noble clans. He was silent, still carrying the appearance of the middle-aged scholar that he had in Mount Han, but his face was much paler, those mountains and rivers still broken. Rather bored, he waved his hand to indicate that his subordinate should leave then suddenly sensed something. He raised his head up towards the heights of the palace. After a moment of silence, he walked towards a green plant.

It was a persimmon tree that he had brought back from the stream by Mount Han.

He gazed at a heavy persimmon on the tip of a branch and wrinkled his brow. "It’s ripened so quickly?"