Chapter 117

Chapter 117: Breaking Through

Wang Jie stared at the map until his vision steadied.

Then he drew his sword, aligned it with the direction he’d chosen, and drove it into the rock beneath him.

Dig.

This mountain straddled two gravity zones. If he tunneled through the interior, he could reach the 150x zone on the far side—out of the Roaming-Star Realm monster’s sightline, back into terrain where he could move.

Deepweight Star wasn’t massive. If he concealed his aura and stayed hidden, even a Hundred-Star Realm might not find him quickly.

And they wouldn’t dare destroy the planet. This was Frostflower Domain. Deepweight Star was a monitored anomalous world. Destroying it would be a declaration of war—and not the kind you did casually.

Not yet.

If he could escape before open war, hide, and survive, he might have a sliver of life.

Small. But real.

The mountain’s density was terrifying. It had endured endless years under rising gravity, compacted until rock felt like metal. Even with a sword, digging was brutal. And Wang Jie couldn’t risk using lockforce freely—too obvious, too draining.

So he dug with sheer physical force, inch by inch, praying his revival pills would last long enough.

At first, every thrust was agony. Each stab into stone felt like it scraped his limits raw. He would drive the sword in, gasp, rest, then do it again.

Slowly, painfully, his body adapted. Lockforce guided his joints more efficiently. Qi supported his muscles. Conservation became instinct.

Outside, the Roaming-Star Realm Lu Luo Kingdom expert occasionally spoke.

The more it talked, the more Wang Jie believed it was bluffing—until one day, after he’d pushed himself to the edge and collapsed to rest, he heard it.

Breathing.

Not wind. Not stone shifting.

Breathing.

Low and suppressed—yet so heavy it felt like it made the planet itself tremble.

Wang Jie’s scalp went numb.

In that instant, his body reacted before his mind could: primal terror, the certainty of something beyond him.

Far beyond the Roaming-Star Realm monster outside.

Hundred-Star Realm.

So it wasn’t a bluff.

There really was a Hundred-Star Realm existence beneath this world.

And these Lu Luo Kingdom forces… they weren’t like the ones he’d met elsewhere. They were honest in the worst way.

For a flicker of time, Wang Jie’s mind actually brushed surrender.

Then Blue Star rose in his memory—Lu Luo Kingdom slaughter for sport, cruelty as entertainment—and the thought died.

There was no surrender for him. Only torment.

He kept digging.

He stretched the intervals between revival pills as far as he could. He chewed whole-bone pills to keep hunger from hollowing him out. He took off his mask—there was no point anymore. If he died, he wanted to die as himself.

Days turned into weeks.

The underground breathing returned more than once. Each time, it froze him to the bone.

He estimated he’d tunneled about a third of the way. The 150x zone felt closer, the gravity slightly less oppressive with each inch.

His body adapted to 180x gravity in a grim, expensive way: revival pills to keep him alive, whole-bone pills to keep him fed. If he calculated the consumption in starstone, he’d burned at least twenty million.

Obscene.

But he was alive.

There were changes, too. His raw strength didn’t increase, but his body grew tougher. He learned to move under crushing weight. His defense and resilience improved. His speed, too—within the boundaries of what gravity allowed.

Most noticeable was qi.

His qi was roughly twice what it had been when he left Blue Star.

And his lockforce control had risen with it. If his estimate was right, he was now around two thousand five hundred per eye.

Progress bought with blood and money.

While Wang Jie tunneled through stone, Frostflower Sect suffered upheaval.

In the Third Nebula, the First Star Chain’s dominant power—Xuan Gate—used the defeat at the Star-Cloud Battlefield as justification to requisition forces. Frostflower Sect was forced to send three elders and thirty Inner Sect disciples, along with five hundred thousand Outer Sect disciples and over ten million Outer Court disciples.

Wars didn’t stop at sect borders. Star chains fought star chains. Nebulae fought nebulae.

And after the Nan family vanished from the Third Nebula, every faction wanted to harvest what was left.

The Third Nebula had shrunk to less than half its former territory. If the Star-Cloud Battlefield collapsed, all nine star chains would suffer.

Frostflower Sect couldn’t refuse.

Another humiliation followed.

The Guarding Star Realm of the Third Nebula demanded starsea stone infused with Frostflower starforce. Frostflower Sect had to send Formation Master Zhang Cheng and an elder to escort an enormous shipment.

The Guarding Star Realm were a strange existence—understood only by those above the elders. Their cultivation could be low or incomprehensibly high.

But in the Third Nebula, the Guarding Star Realm were Hundred-Star Realm. They were below Sect Master Wen Guan in realm, yet a single sentence could force Frostflower Sect to give up huge amounts of starsea stone.

It was a rule. Not just for the Third Nebula.

For the universe.

No one could refuse.

In the span of a month, four of Frostflower Sect’s five great elders were gone.

Only Elder Yan remained.

Time kept passing.

Wang Jie counted it: fifty-seven days since he started tunneling. The 150x zone was close now. His body had adapted enough that he could lengthen the time between revival pills to nearly double what it once was.

He still couldn’t move freely under 180x gravity, but he was no longer dying just by existing.

Outside, the Roaming-Star Realm Lu Luo Kingdom expert had gone quiet, but Wang Jie knew it hadn’t left.

Meanwhile, the underground breathing became more frequent—as if whatever slept beneath Deepweight Star was stirring.

Wang Jie panicked and dug faster.

During this period, Frostflower Domain went into full lockdown.

Someone had stolen Frostflower Moon and vanished.

The theft shook the sect. Frostflower Moon was valuable, but mostly for Ten Seals and Star-Breaking Realm. Its value to Full-Star Realm was already sharply diminished.

And anyone capable of stealing it from the sect should have been at least Roaming-Star Realm. Someone like that had no reason to risk everything for Frostflower Moon.

Yet it was gone.

The sect tightened control and hunted the thief.

Xia Zhen Zhen stared at an old man on a light screen, shock sharpening her voice. “Cang Lei Valley?”

The old man nodded grimly. “Yes. I suspect Cang Lei Valley did it. Their people passed through Frostflower Domain recently and even auctioned items at the Outer Bazaar. Their movement technique is exceptional—so exceptional that even a Full-Star Realm might slip past a Roaming-Star Realm’s sight.”

Xia Zhen Zhen’s eyes flashed. “Cang Lei Valley has the nerve? A mere star-belt force. Their highest is only Full-Star Realm. They dare scheme against our sect?”

“Precisely because they’re weak, no one watched them,” the old man said. “And they need Frostflower Moon to build their foundation. Their Azure Thunder Movement Art is fated to struggle breaking into Roaming-Star Realm. With Frostflower Moon, that changes.”

“I’ll investigate at once.”

“Take Xia Xiao Nian,” the old man said. “He can sweep all of Cang Lei Valley.”

When Xia Zhen Zhen found Xia Xiao Nian, he refused to leave.

“That green onion keeps running to see Master,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Something’s off. I’m staying to watch. You go. Bring more Inner Sect disciples.”

Xia Zhen Zhen had no choice but to depart alone.

—

On the fifty-seventh day, Wang Jie felt it.

A shift.

A lightness.

His eyes widened.

He’d broken through.

He crawled forward—and the crushing weight eased.

He had reached the 150x zone.

Relief hit so hard it felt like resurrection.

It had taken two and a half months.

Wang Jie forced himself still, swallowed his joy, and used an aura-concealing method. Inch by inch, he pried apart stone and stepped out of the mountain.

Ahead stretched dark, flat land. Behind him, the towering mountain range blocked sight.

He took one deep breath and ran.

He didn’t make it far.

The ground split open.

A massive luo bone erupted into the sky, and a voice rang out, amused and cold.

“Human. You underestimated us.”

Wang Jie’s blood drained from his face.

He spun to retreat—

Too late.

A group of Lu Luo Kingdom warriors stood behind him, watching him like prey.

One of them sneered. “We’ve fought countless nebula wars. Catching battlefield rats is what we do best.”

“We didn’t know you tunneled through the mountains. But the instant you walked out, we saw you. This entire range has been under surveillance.”

“You killed our people and thought you’d escape? Don’t worry. We’ll grind your bones to ash. But first… we’ll make you wish you were dead.”

Its gaze raked over him. “Your skin still looks pretty clean.”

Wang Jie understood, sickly, just how badly he’d misjudged them.

And on the far side of the mountain range—

That Roaming-Star Realm monster would already know. It would reach him in a few breaths.

The worst outcome was waiting here: death.

Wang Jie’s eyes hardened.

If he was going to die, he would make them pay.

The void twisted. An IOU Slip appeared.

He wrote a name onto it—

Qing Feng Bu Gui Ke.

Two breaths later, a terrifying force poured into his body. His skin tightened; his flesh began to wither as if the borrowed power demanded payment. He didn’t have time to care.

Pressure rolled down from above.

The Roaming-Star Realm Lu Luo Kingdom expert was coming.

And in front of him, the luo bone slammed in, trying to crush him.

Wang Jie threw open his storage ring.

Swords burst out in a streaming chain, linking head to tail.

Sword Rig.

One-Line Sky.

Qi and force erupted. Qi-Qi Convergence.

A hundred swords speared into the heavens, cold light stitching sky to ground in a single breath.

The Roaming-Star Realm Lu Luo Kingdom expert lifted its battle-axe and slapped down.

The hundred swords were cut in half.

The remaining force screamed toward Wang Jie.

But the broken swords didn’t fall.

Half of them kept flying upward. The other half curled like living serpents and smashed into the axe from the side.

The Roaming-Star Realm monster froze for an instant.

It had expected to erase everything in one strike. It couldn’t understand how broken swords could still move. Lockforce should’ve been severed.

The battle-axe tore past Wang Jie and carved into the land, splitting the ground with a gash that stretched across half of Deepweight Star.

The aftershock slammed Wang Jie. He vomited blood and nearly blacked out.

He forced himself upright through sheer spite and stepped into Jia Eight Steps, bolting toward the 180x gravity zone.

The Roaming-Star Realm luo bonefolk sneered, as if he’d seen a joke.

You got out—and you think you can run back in?

Then it hesitated.

A flash of cold light reflected from sword edges—sunlight glinting off broken blades.

The monster looked up.

Impossible.

The broken swords were still climbing into space.

They should’ve fallen. If the human couldn’t control them, how were they moving?