Chapter 1274: Peel the Star Skin!

Chapter 1274: Stripping the Star-Skin!

Stripping the Star-Skin!

The instant Xu Qing heard these words, despite his countless trials and his encounters with all manner of the grotesque, the bizarre, and the unfathomable, his mind still suffered a violent shock.

A brilliant light flashed within his eyes.

Such a monumental undertaking…

One had to understand that this was the primordial mother planet of the Fourth Star Ring, and to strip the skin of this very world—the mere concept sounded utterly colossal and majestic, possessing an indescribable, grand audacity.

"I still have one doubt. From all I have learned before and after arriving here, this place is clearly of utmost importance to the Fourth Star Ring, so why..."

Xu Qing's gaze swept over their surroundings.

Whether during the month or so since his arrival or at this very moment, the resistance and struggles of this primordial mother planet did not seem to match the significance of its existence; in particular, no guardians had appeared even now.

The entirety of this primordial mother planet seemed to contain nothing but skeletal remains and those primordial abominations.

Hearing this, Fairy Ling Huang smiled faintly.

"First, this planet is unsuited for prolonged stays; one's primordial substance is continuously siphoned away by it. Second, this planet is mysterious, difficult to fathom, and unreachable by conventional means. It appears to exist here, but in truth, this region..."

"...is akin to a memory."

"That is to say, it exists within the memories of the gods. Of course, this language is formulated according to the understanding of us cultivators; within the cognition of the gods, it is different. They lean toward it being the end of the true name."

"And most importantly, what you see is merely the present."

"According to the Immortal Venerable's understanding, this primordial mother planet of the Fourth Star Ring has actually perished dozens of times already. Through various accidents and all sorts of causes, it has met destruction before."

"Yet no matter how it is destroyed, the foundation of the gods remains unshaken, because it will reappear once more, completely unscathed, and even the resurrections that ought to occur will return to the exact moment before the destruction."

"To a certain extent, it can be said that as long as gods still exist within the Fourth Star Ring, this planet will never truly vanish."

"This is also why there are no protections here."

"It is truly unnecessary."

Lost in thought, Xu Qing turned his gaze toward the Young Master of Aurora, who was walking toward the canyon, another doubt arising in the depths of his heart.

"Then what is the purpose of this skin-stripping?"

A complex emotion flickered in Ling Huang's eyes as she likewise watched the not-far-distant Young Master of Aurora, speaking softly.

"Your brother is about to do something that should have been done by his father. This is an unprecedented feat that only they, father and son, can accomplish."

As Ling Huang's words echoed, the Young Master of Aurora had already stepped into the canyon.

The moment his feet crossed the threshold, his hands formed a strange incantation gesture. This seal was intricate, defying the natural bending capability of finger joints; several fingers within it required a forced distortion of direction.

As this seal was formed, an ancient aura rose concurrently.

It caused ripples to disturb the firmament, and a low, muffled rumbling to echo through the earth.

"That is the sacrificial seal inherited from the Immortal Venerable!"

Watching this, Xu Qing instinctively sought to commit this method of forming the seal to memory. Beside him, Fairy Ling Huang, discerning Xu Qing's intention, offered an explanation.

Upon hearing her words, Xu Qing immediately accelerated his memorization.

Simultaneously, following the sacrificial seal of the Young Master of Aurora, in the very next instant, the glaciers on both sides of the canyon—amidst the muffled rumbling of the earth—shook at their foundations as if struck by a colossal force.

Amidst the expansion of a deafening boom, the glaciers on both sides actually collapsed outright!

This exposed quite a few bronze gates.

And this collapse was transforming into a shattering ruin, sweeping rapidly toward both flanks of the canyon. Wherever it passed, the glaciers on either side of the rift groaned like dying behemoths.

Countless massive fragments of profound ice were torn open to both sides by an invisible force, revealing the original pitch-black abyss beneath.

This allowed the eerie green moonlight to cascade down smoothly.

It turned the darkness beneath the glaciers into a hazy twilight.

Within this haze, innumerable primordial abominations could be seen. They had inhabited this place since their inception, surviving by devouring the flesh and bones of gods. Now, under this cataclysmic upheaval of heaven and earth, they unleashed shrill, piercing roars toward the source of it all.

These roars shook all directions, transforming into a terrifying wave of sound, resembling the furious howl of the primordial mother planet itself.

It sought to utterly crush all outsiders.

Subsequently, they all surged toward the Young Master of Aurora.

Viewed from the sky, this spectacle was extraordinarily magnificent.

Innumerable primordial abominations, within that hazy darkness, resembled a black tide, overturning mountains and seas in absolute madness.

Among them, there was no shortage of those whose entire bodies had turned to blue ice, displaying a terrifying power that caused even Xu Qing's mind to churn.

Yet the Young Master of Aurora merely pressed his hand downward.

Instantly, a law familiar to Xu Qing erupted from the Young Master of Aurora, sweeping across the rushing abominations.

Upon the slightest contact, those primordial abominations were instantly stripped of their height.

They turned into... a flat plane possessing only length and width!

It was as if they had become entities within a painting.

This scene shook Xu Qing's mind intensely, and a bright light shone in his eyes.

This was precisely the state the Young Master of Aurora was in when Xu Qing had first encountered him within the Aurora Immortal Palace.

At the same time, it was also the direction he himself had discerned for his next path after his space-time law had formed.

"Xu Qing, this is your path. Though I can borrow it now, after you attain enlightenment, among the immortals of the world, this path shall be yours alone to command!"

As the voice of the Young Master of Aurora drifted over, his figure took another step, continuing his descent downward.

Everywhere he passed, wave after wave of primordial abominations lost their height and became flat planes, drifting down continuously like paper money for the underworld.

Thus, the abominations were no longer an obstacle, and the haze could not bar his way, leaving the Young Master of Aurora to sink step by step into the earth of this place!

This world beneath the glaciers once had the glaciers above as its sky, and an earth existed below as well!

Now, during the descent of the Young Master of Aurora, he raised both palms and pressed down into the void.

Suddenly, auroras blazed upon his body, transforming into a sea of light that swept in all four directions, thoroughly dispelling the haze and clearly revealing the earth below.

That was—a dark purple, fleshy stratum of rock!!

In fact, looking closely, one could see that a membrane resembling an epidermis remarkably existed upon this rock stratum!

It was covered with dense, fine tentacles, boundless and infinite, resembling a prairie, yet also like the synapses of this star!

And at the tip of each synapse grew a golden, vertical pupil.

They were staring dead-on at the arriving Young Master of Aurora!

This primordial mother planet truly possessed skin!

Xu Qing's eyes shone with a singular light. As he walked down together with Fairy Ling Huang, the Young Master of Aurora raised both hands, the five fingers of each hand clawing into hooks, plunging through the air into the rock stratum below!

Then, he tore outward with brute force, followed by a violent shake!

From within the earth, a pained roar like muffled thunder echoed, shaking heaven and earth.

Furthermore, amidst this tearing and shaking by the hands of the Young Master of Aurora, a boundless expanse of star-skin rolled up like a massive wave, carrying the broken ice upon it as it was violently ripped open.

It was flaying—flaying indeed!!

A rending sound, a shriek of agony, surged heavenward in this instant.

From the place where the earth was torn asunder, a geyser of blood mingled with stardust erupted violently!

Like crimson rain reversing its course, it shot straight toward the heavens!

In midair, it swiftly coagulated into a vast, blood-red cloud that blotted out sun and sky—as if determined to usurp the very firmament above!

At the same moment, as the earth peeled away, billions upon billions of golden vertical pupils embedded within the detached star-skin snapped open in unison. Countless beams of golden light shot forth like arrows aimed directly at the Young Lord of Aurora.

Just before impact, a blood-red eye split open on the Young Lord’s forehead. Deep within its pupil swirled a black vortex, which instantly erupted outward, swallowing every last beam of golden light from all directions.

Then, with both hands grasping the star-skin through empty air, he hurled it fiercely in opposite directions!

Immediately, tearing sounds roared anew as the two halves of star-skin continued peeling upward from either side of the Young Lord!

They kept stripping away, hurtling thunderously toward the distance.

Seen from afar, they formed an inverted figure-eight!

Their expanse grew ever wider—the tearing, the lifting—all escalating until finally rising to an immense height, forming a single, relatively intact hide!

It unfurled across the vault of heaven!

Heaven and earth changed color!

The voice of the Young Lord of Aurora echoed softly yet ominously:

“Seal the sky. Let the caul become a world.”

Instantly, that terrifying star-hide writhed violently across the horizon, merging with the void itself until it transformed into an amber-hued caul!

Like a colossal biological membrane, it became the new celestial dome over this primordial mother-star.

Outside, the eerie emerald moonlight streaming from the cosmos struck the caul as though solidifying upon contact, rippling across its surface—but could penetrate not even a hair’s breadth further.

Looking up from below, one could clearly see the inner surface of this caul-sky possessed a vivid flesh-like texture: vascular patterns resembling constellations, droplets of blood tracing flowing rivers of stars along the dome’s curve.

Simultaneously horrifying and mesmerizing, it reflected distorted images of the bloody, fleshy land beneath.

Each unfolding scene sent Xu Qing’s spirit reeling in violent turmoil.

Truly, at this moment, the heavens of this primordial mother-star had been replaced!

All external light was utterly blocked; the entire world sank into an eternal crimson twilight. The mother-star itself now resembled a colossal beast being flayed alive.

Everywhere his eyes turned, the ground revealed dark-red muscle tissue threaded with nerve pathways so unsettling they chilled the soul—and even shattered vessels oozing golden liquid essence.

Moreover, strange pulsations emanating from deep within the planet caused the whole earth to tremble, as if some ancient entity had been roused by the pain and was on the verge of awakening.

Xu Qing drew a deep breath, his heart churning wildly, as the Young Lord of Aurora—who had just flayed the star’s skin—now fixed his gaze with icy sharpness.

He stepped onto the exposed flesh of the mother-star below, striding forward, his boots dragging strands of viscous stellar marrow.

Around him rose towering waves of blood, erupting from the fleshy earth as if staging a grand backdrop for his passage!

Meanwhile, the planet’s mournful wails intertwined with the piercing cries of countless nascent Source Abominations crawling out from within the raw meat, growing ever more intense.

Together they forged a terrifying tide of sound—the collective anguish of all living things, surging boundlessly toward the heavens.

Yet the Young Lord of Aurora walked calmly through the carnage, as though measuring the land.

Soon, he found his destination.

“This is the place,” he murmured.

Raising his right hand, he pressed it against his own brow—and then yanked outward with brutal force.

Suddenly, a sword blazing with silver radiance appeared, its sheer presence suppressing even the pervasive crimson hue of the world!

It was… the Sword of the Immortal Sovereign!

The moment he drew it forth, the Young Lord hesitated not a second. He drove the blade savagely into the flesh beneath his feet—and then ripped it sideways with tremendous might!

The entire star let out an even more piercing shriek.

Thick torrents of blood gushed forth in greater volume.

The wound spread rapidly—until finally, deep below, a pulsating stellar core was laid bare!

This was the very Star Palace once used by the Primordial Mother-Star when birthing its first deity!

“He’s actually…”

High above, Xu Qing stared at the spectacle, his mind shaken to its core. An audacious, almost inconceivable suspicion began rising within his thoughts.

Beside him, Spirit Phoenix Immortaless glanced at Xu Qing and spoke softly:

“You’ve probably guessed it already…”

“Your brother… is about to ascend—to godhood—right here!”