Chapter 917: The Other Shores Rise Together, The Stars Align

Chapter 917: Both Shores Arise, Stars and Constellations Align

As Zhao Changhe was trapped in the classroom scene, Luo Chuan likewise fell into his own karmic entanglement.

The clash of blade and sword was mutual assault, reciprocal in effect. Zhao Changhe was not merely defending; Luo Chuan endured the exact same strike—severance of karma.

What Zhao Changhe saw was the beginning and end before his transmigration; what Luo Chuan witnessed was the moment the Heavenly Book manifested in the world.

At that time, Luo Chuan was still seeking the gate to transcendence, merely a half-step beyond the shore, returning from plundering with several accomplices.

He suddenly glimpsed, in the boundless void, a book page quietly opening and closing within chaos, emanating a powerful primordial aura, confirming the origin of the infinite Dao.

In the vast cosmos, countless phenomena of self-generation and extinction abound; those known and observed by mortals are but a drop in the ocean. If such phenomena could manifest as treasures, they might all be called "primordial supreme treasures." For the "primordial supreme treasures" of small worlds, the power of those born in the main universe is unimaginable.

The forms of these primordial treasures may vary—for instance, one might naturally resemble a bell... but the likelihood of taking the shape of a book with turnable pages is very slim.

Such morphological evolution generally results from post-celestial influences. Luo Chuan could sense that this treasure was absorbing the nature of the entire Vientiane Star Domain, assimilating and evolving, recording the laws within the domain, and even chronicling battles worthy of note, thus taking the form of a book.

Whoever obtained this treasure would not only gain a compendium of immortal arts and cultivation guidance but also a ladder to break through to higher realms, perhaps even beyond the shore!

To acquire such a treasure—what immense fortune, truly a chosen one. It meant the shore was no longer an obstacle, higher levels could be glimpsed, and a bright future of unifying the star domain lay before his eyes.

Luo Chuan’s first move was to ambush his two companions. They had not detected the treasure’s emergence, unaware of what was happening, and were inexplicably struck down, dying on the spot.

Luo Chuan seized the Heavenly Book and immediately retreated to his cave dwelling to begin refining it.

But the very first step proved impossible...

Unexpectedly, the Heavenly Book had already begun to awaken its spirit. Within a chaotic darkness, a woman’s silhouette flickered faintly. Moreover, light began to emerge from the chaos—a sign of the Taiji giving birth to two forms, the initiation of "let there be light," the precursor to world creation.

This nascent treasure had already started to evolve its own world... Once formed, its culture would likely resemble that of the Vientiane Star Domain, as it was shaped by absorbing the domain’s nature.

Once a treasure gained a spirit, the rules of refinement differed from those of a spiritless artifact. For a spiritless artifact, one only needed to imprint a soul mark; but with a spirit, one had to subdue the artifact spirit into submission or annihilate it.

Annihilation would likely degrade the treasure, and the evolving world would vanish—Luo Chuan could not bear that. Subduing the spirit was feasible, but he had to strike while she was still unformed. Once fully formed, she would become a terrifying spirit at the shore level, one he could not defeat at this stage.

Seizing the moment when the spirit was newborn and consciousness still chaotic, Luo Chuan launched a fierce invasion.

At that instant, a blade light crossed the river of time and space, from an unknown time and place, abruptly slashing toward his neck.

Zhao Changhe’s perfected... Severance of Karma!

This strike’s effect was akin to traveling back in time to kill someone, but its nature was more profound. Erasing the past, severing the future, in the linear dimension of all time, annihilating the traces of his existence.

A true killing stroke, a supreme divine ability.

If this blade had struck an earlier Luo Chuan—say, at birth—there would be no doubt... but it could not be done that way. It could only appear at the root of their karmic intersection, such as the moment Luo Chuan attacked the nascent book spirit—the very nexus of their entwined fates.

Whether one could counter this blade was also proof of having crossed the shore.

The so-called shore is not merely "stepping beyond the three realms, outside the five elements," but transcending linear time and space, existing in different planes and dimensions. Severing only the linear river of time cannot kill him; he can return at any time—that is true transcendence.

Moreover, being beyond the shore, he need not rely on such passive measures to counter this blade; he could prevent it in advance.

Indeed, the moment the blade light touched Luo Chuan’s neck, a shadowy barrier isolated time and space, silently dissipating the strike. Luo Chuan, in the midst of invading the Heavenly Book, turned his head in confusion—he had felt an illusion of imminent danger, but it vanished inexplicably...

In that moment of distraction, the book spirit opened her eyes and viciously thrust a palm forward.

With a "bang," Luo Chuan’s invading soul was nearly shattered; his attempt to subdue the book spirit failed utterly. Meanwhile, the world within the book began to evolve the heavens, with the separation of heaven and earth, and order emerging from chaos.

Once this process was complete, he would truly be unable to defeat the spirit... Frustrated and desperate, Luo Chuan resorted to another measure: leveraging the nascent world’s division, he guided the newborn "order" to become the book’s spokesperson.

The phantom of Ye Wuming appeared in the sky.

Thus, the book spirit split in two, sisters separated.

—Zhao Changhe had never been willing to travel back in time and interfere with history, fearing uncontrollable variables. At this moment, he did not know if his interference had shaped history; perhaps without his blade’s disruption, the outcome would have been the same... But ultimately, the "Severance of Karma" had failed; karma remained, unsevered.

An enemy beyond the shore could not be broken by a single strike. The karmic techniques that would be fatal to others proved ineffective against each other.

Yet Luo Chuan still suspected that his failure to refine the Heavenly Book long ago was due to Zhao Changhe’s interference, and he burned with rage. So it was Zhao Changhe, from ancient times to thirty years ago, who had left him trapped and stripped of all advantages!

"Zhao Changhe! I have endured you long enough!"

"I’m different... In my eyes, you barely register!"

"Clang!" Blade and sword clashed again, a sound like shattering crystal echoing in their minds.

Zhao Changhe’s classroom scene shattered; Luo Chuan also returned from the ancient scene. What they saw was merely an ordinary clash of blade and sword, like two Xuan Pass warriors exchanging a blow.

No one knew that this single exchange had spanned the eternal river and crossed civilizations countless light-years away.

"Unfortunately, you cannot see Ye Wuming now," Luo Chuan taunted.

Zhao Changhe bared his teeth in a grin: "No matter. The moment I see Ye Wuming will be your death."

Their divine thoughts clashed, and each retreated slightly.

This time, Zhao Changhe was not at a disadvantage, because during this karmic duel, Luo Chuan also had to fend off an attack from behind, unable to focus entirely on Zhao Changhe.

Behind him, Ye Jiuyou’s jade hand struck Luo Chuan’s soul banner, and the wailing of ghosts resounded through the spirit.

Luo Chuan’s banner of ten thousand souls, refined over countless years, a top-tier artifact that had easily countered peers like Emperor Withered Wood, now met its bane in Ye Jiuyou. The banner’s power vanished into her like a stone dropped into the sea, and instead, souls were instantly liberated, dissipating like smoke.

Countless ghostly faces rose from the banner, their ferocious expressions softening into peace and gratitude, then fading into the void.

The painstakingly refined banner lost most of its power in an instant.

Ye Jiuyou sneered: "You actually refined the primordial spirits of the Heavenly Book’s world into your banner. It is indeed stronger than ordinary soul banners, but you should not have faced me."

Luo Chuan: "..."

It seemed so.

Plundering the primordial demon spirits of the Heavenly Book world to nourish the banner had been invincible elsewhere—after all, so many imperial-level souls were not easy to find... but it could not be used against Ye Jiuyou!

Luo Chuan felt a flicker of relief that Ye Jiuyou and her kind were not yet accustomed to using artifact powers; otherwise, this battle would be even harder. Even so, he realized he could not continue.

Karma versus karma—he had failed to suppress Zhao Changhe.

Life and death versus life and death—he seemed inferior to Ye Jiuyou.

This pair was not bluffing; they had truly crossed the shore in just twenty days!

Damn it, was the shore just a Xuan Pass? Could it be broken through like this? One breakthrough was bad enough, but a whole group?

Ye Jiuyou said coldly: "You split my sister’s soul, suppressed our true selves, manipulated our realm, defined our laws... Not only that, you seized souls, transferred spirituality, to nourish yourself. We were born into the universe, harming no one, provoking no one—why should we be entangled with you for millennia, paying with so many lives?"

"Survival of the fittest, nothing more," Luo Chuan replied flatly. "When you see a celestial treasure, you do not ask if it has a spirit; you refine it first. We are all the same—why blame me?"

Zhao Changhe cut in: "Not at all. If we knew a flower or grass had already gained a spirit, we would not devour it. Do not impose your demonic logic on all actions."

"Demonic?" Luo Chuan sneered. "Is Ye Jiuyou not a demon? Has she shed little innocent blood?"

Ye Jiuyou said indifferently: "Spiritual suppression, loss of self—past events leave no ripples in my heart. Trying to shake my resolve with such words is futile. Even if I have slaughtered innocents, so what? The enmity between us is only between you and me."

As she spoke, dark energy gathered in her hand, swirling into a small black hole.

She had no interest in bickering with Luo Chuan... Did their enmity need a judgment of right and wrong?

She could have been a carefree spirit, roaming this domain, watching the starry sea, but she was trapped for eons, not even knowing who she was. Hatred needed no words. Not only her, but the entire world, countless souls—born into ignorant bondage and plunder—as the original heavenly way of the world’s birth, all resentment fed back into Ye Jiuyou’s heart, an unfathomable hatred.

Ye Wuming had repeatedly sought to perish together with this wretch—not merely to escape, but as a psychological reaction of extreme hatred.

Ye Jiuyou hated even more than Ye Wuming.

Seeing the black hole in Ye Jiuyou’s hand, Luo Chuan grew alarmed. This chaotic annihilation force was no different from a true black hole. Zhao Changhe’s broad blade was also gathering a new blade momentum; the next strike would be an unknown divine ability.

Most critically, he sensed that his own world was perishing—Ye Wuming’s world-destruction was nearing completion.

This time, Zhao Changhe’s words would truly come to pass; the moment Ye Wuming appeared would seal his, Luo Chuan’s, doom. Once Ye Wuming returned, the combined assault of the family of three, driven by the Heavenly Book, would leave him crippled if not dead.

With a sharp turn of thought, Luo Chuan flashed a message to his demonic disciples in that world, ordering them to trade bases at this coordinate, before turning and fleeing with absolute decisiveness under the astonished gazes of Zhao Changhe and Ye Jiuyou.

—He was not letting them trade bases at all; he was merely using them to stall the family!

When a master of the Paramita was intent on fleeing, none could truly stop them; even if Ye Wuming were here holding the Star River, she could at most restrain him for a fleeting instant.

Before the black hole in Ye Jiuyou’s hand could even be unleashed, Luo Chuan’s figure flickered, folding time and space to vanish into an unknown realm.

Ye Jiuyou: “...”

“Running away before the battle is even decided, he truly deserves his reputation as a demonic fanatic who survived the joint suppression of the major forbidden zones. He’s a bit like I used to be.” Zhao Changhe gazed into the distance. “Back then, if I had dared to fold space so carelessly while escaping from his hands, I wouldn’t have been wounded so grievously.”

Ye Jiuyou replied testily, “You still have the leisure to critique him? Pursue him! Even if we cannot break his space folding, we must at least keep track of his location!”

“No rush... If our ally is unreliable, we won’t be able to kill him even if we catch up. If our ally is reliable, then there is no need to chase.”

Before his voice could fade, Luo Chuan slammed on the brakes at the very edge of the star domain.

The spatial corridor he had constructed was blocked!

It was like tunneling an escape route only to strike a solid wall; a forced breakthrough would cause the entire space to collapse.

Luo Chuan felt a chill in his heart. Looking up at the void ahead, he realized that all the celestial bodies within the region were faintly linked, forging an ironclad wall of an array that bound the space into an independent realm.

To break free from such shackles required shattering this miraculous formation woven from the stars, a feat that could not be accomplished in a brief moment. Worse still, the constellations possessed their own inherent majesty, gradually grinding down his strength like a massive millstone.

Whose handiwork was this, arranging the stars into a wondrous array and turning the void into purgatory?

A name surfaced in Luo Chuan’s mind... In this star domain, the only one capable of such a feat was Emperor Kumu, who had cultivated this realm for countless eons.

Zhao Changhe had actually hooked up with Kumu, and it was far more than a simple acquaintance of casual encounters and traveling together!

Luo Chuan found it utterly incomprehensible. The intersection between Emperor Kumu and Zhao Changhe could only have been sparked by the battle twenty days ago at most; one could even say they had just met. How could their relationship have reached such a depth? What was Emperor Kumu after, to willingly deploy such immense power to support Zhao Changhe, solely to kill him, Luo Chuan?

What benefit was there for Emperor Kumu? Was he not afraid that such a massive disturbance would draw the covetous eyes of the other two major factions?

And Zhao Changhe actually dared to play such a dangerous game of driving tigers to swallow wolves. Was he not afraid of trapping himself in this cage, where even the Heavenly Book might be seized by Kumu?

The situation left no room for further thought; this brief delay allowed Zhao Changhe and Ye Jiuyou to track him down, following the violent surges of energy.

The divine ability condensed in Ye Jiuyou’s hand had not dissipated, and now she unleashed it directly. “Neither of us ever expected our ally to be truly reliable... Does this mean your countless unrighteous deeds have offended too many people...”

To be honest, Luo Chuan had never directly offended Emperor Kumu; if he had, it was ancient history, and the recent offense was entirely instigated by Zhao Changhe...

Luo Chuan had no mind to analyze whether he was suffering the isolation of a ruler who had lost his way; Ye Jiuyou’s strike made him truly sense the peril of death.

The tiny black hole originally condensed in her palm expanded rapidly upon being hurled, turning in an instant into a true black hole formed by the collapse of a star, its all-devouring power of absolute annihilation trapping Luo Chuan at its dead center.

This power was no different from the natural black holes they had navigated before! Ye Jiuyou had simulated it countless times within her realm without ever truly perfecting it, yet after observing a real black hole for just a brief moment of comprehension, she had mastered it completely.

Luo Chuan erupted with power, attempting to tear himself away from the gravitational pull, but a flash of blade light crashed down upon his head, the blade carrying a faint crimson glow—the Blood Aura.

The sixth style of the Blood Aura Blade Technique: Creation Renewed.

Within the fierce heart lay neither god nor demon, only the pristine creation of a world reborn.

Leveraging Ye Jiuyou’s ultimate destruction to trigger the transition between life and annihilation... This was precisely the origin of Luo Chuan’s own pocket world, yet it was being replicated beneath Zhao Changhe’s slash.

Amidst Zhao Changhe’s strike that rent earth, water, fire, and wind anew, Luo Chuan’s distant pocket world completed its apocalypse at this exact moment, and Ye Wuming returned to the Heavenly Book.

Like the rising sun and setting moon, one end and one beginning, it formed its own celestial destiny.

In the extreme intertwining of life and annihilation, the Heavenly Book erupted with terrifying, radiant light, and Ye Wuming, holding the Star River, surged directly out from the pages.

Watching from afar, Emperor Kumu drew a sharp breath. “If I were caught in the midst of this onslaught, I fear there would be no survival... This family is truly terrifying.”

A subordinate made a slashing gesture, asking in a low whisper, “Should we take this opportunity to...”

Before the words could fully leave his mouth, a clear laugh echoed from the distance. “Brother Kumu has undertaken such a grand enterprise, why didn’t you give your brothers a heads-up first?”

Rumble! Amidst the voices, the strikes from Zhao Changhe’s family of three slammed simultaneously into Luo Chuan, the energy exploding into a violent frenzy, pushing the celestial constellations off their orbits and shaking the sea of stars!

Emperor Kumu’s expression shifted in sheer horror.

The mighty array he had woven from the constellations was actually shaken out of position by the shockwaves of their clash; the great formation was broken!