Chapter 1182: Stubborn Star Ring Son

Chapter 1182: The Stubborn Xinghuanzi

The Sovereign realm is the process of forming a Celestial Embryo.

Once the Celestial Embryo matures, paired with a corresponding-tiered Constitution, one may step into the rank of Quasi-Celestial Emperor. Thereafter, the Celestial Embryo transforms into a Celestial Being, the Constitution becomes a tributary stream, and the Quasi-Celestial ascends to Lower Celestial!

These three great realms represent the lifelong yearning of countless cultivators—yet those who truly traverse them all are as rare as phoenix feathers or unicorn horns.

Each great realm is a brutal sieve, winnowing out the unworthy. Advancing even a single step demands fortune, providence, and profound foundational accumulation. Only because the Fifth Star Ring’s divine beings were suppressed—removing the apocalyptic scourge that once culled cultivators like locusts—has their number surged, creating the illusion of abundant Sovereigns.

Yet in truth, proportionally, they remain few.

As for Wanggu Continent, ravaged by rampaging deities and saturated with alien essences, mere survival is arduous. Even at its zenith, it could never rival the Fifth Star Ring in cultivator count.

Thus, to this day, there are but a handful of Sovereigns.

For these three stages of advancement demand not only the progressive strengthening of one’s Constitution but also vast torrents of Star Ring energy as nourishment—to forge the Celestial Embryo until it blossoms into a Celestial Being.

Neither element may be lacking.

Xu Qing had long understood this.

Now, at the very moment of breakthrough, he grasped his advantages and weaknesses with crystalline clarity.

Just as in the Yunshen realm, where his Constitution was formidable yet his flesh remained a vulnerability… so too was it now in the Sovereign stage.

“I entered this fifth layer of the Quasi-Celestial Emperor’s world solely because of my Constitution,” he mused inwardly.

“My Ninth Pole’s Bingyu Diezhou Constitution rivals a perfected Quasi-Celestial Emperor’s Constitution in tier—nearly indistinguishable from a true tributary stream.”

“Thus, for me, both the Sovereign and Quasi-Celestial Emperor realms lack only one thing: the birth and maturation of my Celestial Embryo.”

“My path forward must focus on acquiring more Star Ring energy—the primordial essence of the ascending Star Rings—as nourishment to hasten my Embryo’s growth.”

“But I cannot neglect my Constitution either. To ascend to Lower Celestial, my current Constitution still lacks one final tier…”

“That is… the Tenth Pole!”

Seated cross-legged, Xu Qing sensed the ebb and flow of his newfound cultivation while murmuring silently within, distilling past insights and charting future steps. What the Tenth Pole entailed, he did not yet know; no direction had revealed itself.

Yet his strengths and frailties in this present state were now luminously clear to him.

“My offensive power can contend with Quasi-Celestials, but my body—still mid-process of Celestial Embryo formation—retains only Sovereign-level resilience. Thus, against Quasi-Celestial force, this remains my flaw.”

Xu Qing pondered deeply. “Like an assassin?”

A glint of obsidian light flickered in his eyes. He severed his train of thought and lifted his gaze toward the void.

Where he looked, the emptiness rippled violently—a sharp, piercing fluctuation erupted there, as if someone outside sought to forcibly intrude.

Xu Qing naturally knew the intruder’s identity.

Yet… “Broke through outside?”

His expression remained placid as he watched the void’s ripples swell into vastness—and within them, Xinghuanzi’s figure abruptly manifested.

The instant he appeared, his aura exploded outward, unleashing the overwhelming might of a Quasi-Celestial.

“XU QING!!”

A thunderous roar shook heaven and earth, echoing in all directions.

Xinghuanzi’s eyes blazed crimson as he locked onto Xu Qing the moment he materialized.

Indeed—he had broken through!

He’d had no choice. After repeated expulsions, he’d realized his original plan—to ascend within the Fifth Layer world—was impossible. So he’d decisively chosen to break through externally, forcing himself into Quasi-Celestialhood.

Yet such a breakthrough was inherently imperfect.

Thus, his killing intent now surpassed all prior fury, burning with unparalleled intensity toward Xu Qing.

Sensing this murderous will and meeting Xinghuanzi’s bloodshot glare, Xu Qing remained unmoved. Calmly, he spoke four words:

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Those four words churned the Fifth Layer world like a tempestuous storm, like celestial thunder detonating—triggering cascading spacetime ripples.

These fluctuations reverberated around Xinghuanzi—before, behind, left, right—echoing through his past, present, and future, omnipresent!

And in Xu Qing’s eyes, brilliant stars now shimmered, radiating the luminous flow of time itself.

Under this gaze, Xinghuanzi was no longer a singular entity.

Xu Qing saw… countless timelines, and within each, a different Xinghuanzi—some maniacal, some smirking coldly, some silent, some grotesque, some bitter…

Innumerable timelines held innumerable Xinghuanzis—all laid bare before Xu Qing’s single glance.

“Seeing” was merely the first step. The second was influence.

Now, Xu Qing clearly felt he could affect not only the present Xinghuanzi but also his counterparts across other timelines. And if his Constitutional Law’s power sufficed… he could achieve true erasure—

annihilating every version of Xinghuanzi across all timelines, irrespective of causality, fate, or reincarnation…

This sensation reminded Xu Qing of what Yu Lucheng once said about True Gods.

True Gods could return because their True Names endured; thus, even in death, so long as they were remembered, that memory became the beacon for their return.

Back then, Xu Qing had found those words awe-inspiring yet obscure, sensing only the terror and mystery of True Gods.

But now… he understood.

The one who returns is both the same and not the same—because what reappears after death might well be a deity from another timeline.

As this realization dawned in his heart, Xinghuanzi’s inner turmoil surged violently.

“But alas,” Xu Qing murmured inwardly, “my Celestial Embryo remains but Illusory-True, and my Ninth Pole hasn’t reached its ultimate state. Thus, I cannot yet influence all timelines.”

He raised his right hand toward Xinghuanzi and gently opened his palm.

At that moment, Xinghuanzi met Xu Qing’s gaze—and the profound aura radiating from those eyes sent a jolt through him, making his scalp prickle and his breath catch. A fierce sense of crisis erupted within:

the chilling feeling of being utterly seen through—

through causality, through fate, through reincarnation—

triggering primal instinctive dread.

In the next instant, chains of cosmic order materialized around Xinghuanzi, encircling him as the terrifying power of his Quasi-Celestial cultivation detonated outward.

He prepared to strike—

But Xu Qing, his palm already open toward Xinghuanzi, softly clenched it shut.

From his lips came two faint words:

“Wu Jian!”

The moment those syllables echoed, the instant his fist closed—

all the timelines surrounding Xinghuanzi in Xu Qing’s vision erupted in deafening chaos, their ripples spiraling into disordered explosions.

In a blink, this eruption intensified to its zenith, coalescing into a spacetime tempest that roared over Xinghuanzi.

Previously, Wu Jian had been uncontrollable in Xu Qing’s hands—wild, untamable. But now, having mastered the Ninth Pole, everything had changed.

With a casual wave of his opened fist, Xu Qing redirected the chaotic spacetime storm, sweeping it forth like a furious tidal wave—

engulfing nine of Xinghuanzi’s timelines, excluding the present one!

Within those nine timelines, Xinghuanzi’s bodies were instantly immersed in the storm. Their flesh crumbled to decay in moments; every chain of cosmic order weathered into dust under the weight of ages.

It was as if proclaiming:

All order, beneath the river of time, shall fade into history.

Thus, three of those nine Xinghuanzis shrieked in agony, their bodies reduced to ash within the flow of time—only their Celestial Embryos remained, like shed husks.

Yet even those trembled, seemingly unable to endure much longer.

The other six temporal bodies began collapsing within the torrent of years.

And their suffering bled into the present—causing the current Xinghuanzi to spew blood, his own body starting to rot away!

This was Quasi-Celestial combat prowess—

the ability to assail the Celestial Embryo itself!

Conversely, no matter how dazzling one’s Constitutional manifestations, if they couldn’t shake the Embryo, they couldn’t truly be called Quasi-Celestial power.

Different Constitutions manifested this influence differently.

Parallel timelines—rippled by Bingyu Diezhou—sought to destabilize the present by shattering multiple timelines.

Were it Li Mengtu, his poison at this stage would corrode the present body directly.

And Xinghuanzi was no different—especially now that he’d broken through to Quasi-Celestial.

Though he deemed his breakthrough imperfect, his combat strength was nonetheless formidable.

Thus, even though he couldn’t perceive his other timelines, the moment he sensed damage to his Celestial Embryo, his counterattack erupted!

Countless chains of cosmic order blazed with golden light, converging into a single, gleaming instrument—

a balance scale.

At one end stood himself; at the other, Xu Qing! And above order… lay balance!

The moment it appeared, an unseen thread connected them across the void.

In that instant of linkage, the boundless storm unleashed by Xu Qing pressed down upon one side of the cosmic scale, throwing it into imbalance…

From that imbalance surged a vast, unfathomable force—descending from nothingness, forcibly alighting upon Xing Huanzi. It gathered relentlessly, swelled inexorably, until imbalance… was once again restored to equilibrium!

As though borrowing power from the cosmos itself!

This was the new law born of Xing Huanzi’s transformation upon stepping into Quasi-Immortality—a shift in his very constitutional essence.

The stronger his foe, the greater the external force he could leverage—until it swelled into something boundless, capable of crushing all opposition. Such a constitution drew a glint of fascination in Xu Qing’s eyes.

“Interesting,” Xu Qing murmured softly. “Then let us see whose limit arrives first—yours or mine.”

With a flick of his finger upon the Ninth Pole within his body—as if plucking a lute string—the tempest of boundlessness erupted anew, surging toward Xing Huanzi’s other temporal realms. In the blink of an eye, it devoured the eleventh realm, then the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth…

Imbalance reemerged—and equilibrium relentlessly pursued it.

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. The storm, now cataclysmic, swept through eighteen temporal realms in an instant. He intended to temper his own constitution through this battle.

Xing Huanzi’s limits finally began to show. The moment Xu Qing’s storm engulfed the twentieth realm, collapse thundered forth—the celestial scale shattered, crumbling into ruin.

Xu Qing rose to his feet.

Twenty realms were not his ceiling. In his reckoning, with the Ninth Pole fully unleashed, he could stir chaos across some fifty realms.

As for Xing Huanzi—he now spewed blood uncontrollably, his nascent immortal embryo riddled with cracks, his body flung backward through space. Yet his mind remained clear, unclouded by despair.

He understood well why he’d been overpowered: partly because his opponent’s constitution was extraordinarily potent, and partly because his own breakthrough had been imperfect.

“Xu Qing,” Xing Huanzi rasped mid-retreat, forcing himself to halt, lifting his head with murder blazing in his eyes, “you are indeed formidable—but your weakness is equally plain. Your nascent immortal embryo… exists only within illusion and semblance!”