Chapter 69: Beyond Perception
Nine figures dispersed across the land, each heading in different directions, searching for Cataclysm Materials. They did not gather together, leaving only two behind, stationed on opposite sides of the lake, remaining highly alert.
The lake was neither too large nor too small. Taking down two Ten-Seal cultivators instantly was not an easy feat. Wang Jie contemplated for a moment. He would wait until the others were further away—he didn’t want a single one of them to escape.
These were Jun Tang’s people. Killing them would surely aid Jun Hua. Jun Hua had treated him well, and besides, these intruders had dared to step onto his territory.
Wait a moment—why kill them right away? Wouldn’t it be better to let them collect more Cataclysm Materials first?
With this thought, Wang Jie silently retreated, disappearing from sight. As long as they continued hunting Mutated Beasts, and considering they all carried Battle Power Detectors, he had no intention of making a move just yet. Otherwise, it would be far too easy for them to track him down. For now, the materials he had collected were sufficient.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.
He had performed Beginner’s Calisthenics twice, completely depleting his supply of Cataclysm Materials. It was time to hunt.
Activating his Battle Power Detector, Wang Jie positioned himself to the north of the lake. He remembered that two individuals had headed in this direction.
Revealing his Nine-Seal power with a casual strike, he immediately exposed himself.
Several dozen kilometers away, a burly man gnawed on a beast leg, seated atop the carcass of a slain Mutated Beast. His gaze swept across the surroundings. Suddenly, his Battle Power Detector beeped, making his eyes gleam—Nine-Seal? Tossing aside the beast leg, he muttered, “Now that’s worth something.”
He hefted his blade and charged toward Wang Jie.
Soon enough, they spotted each other.
Their gazes locked.
The burly man was surprised. Someone was here?
Of course, there had to be people on Slaughter Stone Planet—how else would cultivators be raised here? But the truly powerful ones had long been taken away. Anyone left behind shouldn’t be roaming freely like this.
“Are you a native?” the burly man questioned.
Wang Jie smirked. “Take a guess.”
The burly man scowled and raised his blade. “You’re seeking death.”
A powerful slash swept across a hundred meters toward Wang Jie. At the same time, a beam of light shot forth from the weapon in his hand—he was not as simple and brutish as he appeared.
Too bad.
Wang Jie flicked out a handful of gravel. Instinctively, the burly man brought up his blade to block, making no effort to dodge. In his eyes, Wang Jie was merely a Nine-Seal cultivator.
In the next instant, his Battle Power Detector spiked wildly.
His pupils shrank. “Not good!”
By the time he tried to evade, it was already too late. The gravel pierced through his blade and burrowed into his skull.
After three battles with Shu Mu Night, Wang Jie had advanced at an astonishing pace. He had no concept of how large the gap between himself and his peers truly was.
To an average cultivator, individuals like Insect Xuan and others were unreachable figures—yet they couldn’t withstand even a single move from Shu Mu Night.
That was Wang Jie’s current level of power.
It was something Bian Qi and Jun Tang simply couldn’t comprehend.
A Ten-Seal cultivator—how could he be this strong?
Gazing at the bloodied corpse, Wang Jie sighed. He had used too much force. He had wanted to leave a survivor for questioning. Oh well.
Using the burly man’s blood to activate his Storage Ring, he dumped out its contents: weapons, armor, food, water, Silver Radiance Coins, and most notably, a large number of Cataclysm Materials.
Huh? What’s this? Star Stones?
Star Stones—one of the currencies used by cultivators.
There were many forms of currency in the universe, given the countless civilizations. Cataclysm Materials were also considered a form of currency, but the most valuable ones were always linked to Star Force.
For instance, Star Stones contained Star Force, allowing cultivators to absorb them directly.
But they were useless to Wang Jie. His path was Lock Force Cultivation.
Even so, Slaughter Stones were a tradable currency with immense value.
Strange. This man cultivated Lock Force—why did he have Star Stones?
Next target.
As the Battle Power Detector fluctuated, Wang Jie locked onto his next prey.
In the distant desert, another man stood still, lost in thought, gazing at the vast expanse of sand. He raised his hand and unleashed a violent gust of wind, sweeping the landscape.
When the wind settled, the desert remained unchanged—yet something caught his eye. He crouched down, scooping up some sand to examine it. “Sliced apart… What a sharp sword technique.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sudden beeping of his Battle Power Detector made his head snap around.
At some point, an unknown figure had appeared behind him, approaching at a leisurely pace.
The man’s face darkened. The distance was so close, yet the detector had only just now alerted him. This meant the approaching individual possessed a powerful Breath-Concealment Method, able to bypass detection.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Wang Jie raised his gaze. Under the glare of twin suns, the very air shimmered with heat. “You’re far more polite than the last guy.”
The man’s pupils contracted. “The last guy?”
“You’ve seen this desert sliced apart,” Wang Jie continued, lifting his arm and gripping a sword. “The wind has buried the evidence, but you still noticed it. Not bad. Want to see it up close?”
Without hesitation, the man turned and fled.
Wang Jie thrust his sword forward. A blade of water shimmered through the air, slicing across the desert.
In an instant, it passed through the fleeing man and vanished beyond the horizon.
The man stumbled, his strength fading away as he ran. He reached up and touched his neck—warm, sticky liquid coated his fingers.
Blood.
His vision blurred. Ten-Seal. This person was definitely Ten-Seal—but terrifyingly strong.
Once again, Wang Jie looted another pile of Star Stones and other miscellaneous items—many of which he had no idea how to use, but he kept them anyway.
For the next two days, the remaining survivors continued hunting Mutated Beasts.
Wang Jie hunted them.
The power of the Ten-Seal Realm could, in theory, shake half a planet. The cultivators who had ventured out were dispersed and distant. If a few of them perished, it would not be easily noticed. Yet, this particular group was unnaturally cautious.
For two days in a row, several of their members had gone missing. The remaining ones, wary of the unseen danger, decided to regroup.
Wang Jie intercepted two of them on their way to the rendezvous and cut them down one by one, leaving only three survivors.
As Wang Jie neared a vast lake, a spaceship abruptly soared into the sky, aiming for the boundless cosmos.
They ran.
All three of them fled, not even sparing a thought for their fallen comrades.
Watching the spacecraft disappear into the sky, Wang Jie took a deep breath, lowered his body, bent his waist, and unsheathed his sword. Gazing Star Sword Style.
Heaven and earth trembled as celestial light swirled. His sword aura descended like a star plummeting from the heavens, piercing through the hull of the escaping ship, skewering it before it could leave the atmosphere.
The spacecraft roared in defiance, its metal body shattering into cascading explosions that illuminated the sky in flashes of fire.
Without hesitation, Wang Jie shot forward, positioning himself beneath the falling wreckage.
The ship crashed with a deafening impact.
Two figures burst out from the wreckage, each fleeing in opposite directions.
Unfortunately for them, they still had to descend from midair to the ground—plenty of time for Wang Jie to catch up.
With a flick of his wrist, he slashed twice. Though he only executed Rainbow Drinking Sword Style, the force behind his strikes split the sky. One of the fleeing figures was instantly torn apart, while the other managed to resist, barely deflecting the attack. However, the impact sent him hurtling into the distance.
He actually blocked it?
Though Wang Jie had not infused his sword with Qi, even a casual strike of his should not be something a mere Ten-Seal cultivator could withstand. This man’s strength might be on par with Yun Lai, a rare genius.
Locking onto his prey, Wang Jie gave chase.
A fierce wind howled across the distant desert. Sand churned and swallowed the sky. The injured man crashed into the storm but quickly twisted his body mid-air, using the wind’s momentum to propel himself in another direction.
His face was pale, blood staining the corners of his lips. The moment his feet touched the desert, he reached into his storage ring, pulling out a massive weapon and unleashing a barrage of energy blasts toward his pursuer.
Blinding beams of destruction tore through the desert, engulfing the surroundings in a chaotic bombardment.
Wang Jie raised his sword. The blade shimmered like flowing water, and in the blink of an eye, he executed dozens of slashes. Each strike radiated intense heat, refracting the incoming beams. One of his strikes clashed with a blast, stopping it mid-air.
There.
The man, wide-eyed in terror, dropped his weapon and bolted.
But he could not escape.
Wang Jie overtook him in mere moments.
The man stood, panting heavily, and glared at Wang Jie. “Are you from the Silver Radiance Empire? Did they send you to kill us?”
Wang Jie studied him. He was older than Bai Yuan, clad in finely crafted battle armor. His gaze was filled with unease and fear. But was it true fear?
His left hand held a blade, yet Wang Jie, using Qi Observation, detected an overwhelming concentration of Qi in his right palm. However, there was also Qi lingering on the blade, and strangely, it did not connect with his body.
Qi could be forged, manipulated, transferred. But the Silver Radiance Empire barely understood the fundamentals of the Death Realm, let alone Qi techniques.
That meant this man had not transferred his Qi.
His true expertise lay in palm techniques, cultivated through Celestial Force. His expressions, his movements—nothing but deception.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” the man suddenly spoke. “Back when Jun Tang was stripped of succession rights, he hoarded a great fortune in preparation for a future rebellion. If you spare my life, I’ll tell you where it is.”
Wang Jie raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so?”
“Why else do you think the Silver Radiance Empire wants us dead? Jun Hua is a disciple of Frost Splendor Sect—do you think she’d care about small fry like us?” The man’s voice was low, feigning injury as he coughed up blood and crouched. His left hand trembled, the blade slipping from his grip as though he could no longer hold it.
Wang Jie approached and halted within three meters of him. “Where is it?”
The man took shallow breaths. “It’s… it’s…”
Suddenly, he lunged, right palm striking forth. A vortex of Celestial Force erupted from his hand, its pull so immense that the very air convulsed, forcing the desert into eerie silence.
His strike missed.
The palm force tore into the desert behind Wang Jie, leaving a deep trench in its wake.
The man paled in horror. No!
He turned to flee, but a crushing blow landed on his back. Bones cracked, the strength in his limbs drained away, and his body slumped forward. He could no longer rise.
“Who… who are you?” he rasped, blood trickling from his lips.
Wang Jie had no interest in idle talk. He ended it swiftly.
Looting the storage ring, he found a wealth of treasures. This man was likely the leader of the group. His Star Stones alone exceeded the total amount of the others combined. Silver Radiance Force? Combat Techniques? Wang Jie sifted through, confirming his suspicions—this one had been carrying all the valuable loot.
His gaze drifted to the blade lying on the ground. Raising his hand, he summoned it into his grip.
Celestial Force.
He immediately sensed the energy stored within the weapon.
Was this… a Star Artifact?
He was no novice. He had learned of many powerful artifacts across the cosmos—combat techniques, Bridge Methods, and countless exotic forms of cultivation.
Weapons infused with Celestial Force were known as Star Artifacts.
The simplest measure of a Star Artifact’s strength was how much Celestial Force it contained. The mightier ones possessed unique and extraordinary abilities.
This blade was a basic one. But even so, in the hands of an equally skilled opponent, it could be a decisive advantage. The Celestial Force within was equivalent to a Ten-Seal Cultivator’s full strength.
Star Artifacts were not cheap.
Hmm? What’s this? A newspaper?
In the vast universe, newspapers still existed?
Even on Blue Star, during the peaceful eras, they had become rare.
Wang Jie picked it up. Indeed, it was a publication from Star Dome Vision. Yet, it was no ordinary paper. Though small, the material was durable, and as he adjusted his viewing angle, the contents shifted, displaying different articles.
Intrigued, he continued flipping through—until he stopped.
His gaze darkened as he read one of the headlines:
Shu Mu Night Breaks Stars—Thirteen Fallen.
Evaluation: Beyond Recognition—Gu Moon.
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