Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Stone-Sword Creature

A few days later, Wang Jie reached another gravity zone. The end was finally in sight.

One hundred and twenty times gravity.

Even ordinary Full-Star Realm cultivators could barely endure it. Out here, you almost never saw living things.

Wang Jie had assumed gravity would be the hardest part of this layer. Instead, three Star-Breaking Realm creatures appeared.

Not bad.

They charged him.

Each one only had ten thousand combat power—nothing worth mentioning. The only real annoyance was the gravity, and even that meant nothing to Wang Jie.

The fight ended as quickly as it began. He erased all three with ease.

This time, two items dropped from above.

One was a shield-like tool. The other was a small bottle.

Wang Jie opened the bottle first.

Barrier-Breaking Pill?

Stingy. A Star-Breaking Realm pill sounded impressive, but how many could a bottle even hold? Even if he sold the whole thing, it wouldn’t be worth much.

He turned his attention to the shield.

A second-tribulation Chen Artifact.

Not bad. It could fetch about two hundred thousand starstone.

Together, the rewards still didn’t even reach five hundred thousand.

Stingy.

As for the combat power required to clear Fourth Layer, Wang Jie estimated around thirty thousand.

Of course, that was only combat power. It said nothing about how much gravity someone could actually withstand.

He glanced into the distance. The ground that way was darker, the pressure heavier.

About one hundred and fifty times gravity, he guessed—perfect for training Huang Dou.

Clearing the fourth layer hadn’t cost him much effort. Next was the fifth.

He was curious what kind of strength it took to push through.

A few days later, he had his answer.

At least fifty thousand combat power.

Five Star-Breaking Realm creatures barred his path, and his combat power detector flashed red nonstop—fifty thousand, clearly marked. Beyond them stood a Full-Star Realm creature.

Without fifty thousand combat power, you weren’t getting through.

This layer was a desert.

Wang Jie made short work of the five Star-Breaking Realm creatures, then turned to the rock giant thundering toward him.

Was it even a creature?

It looked like a boulder that had somehow learned to move.

The rock giant spotted him and swung a massive hand. A yellow gale tore across the dunes.

Wang Jie had fought Full-Star Realm opponents before. The moment it moved, he read its strength.

Exactly fifty thousand combat power. Not a hair more.

Weaker than the first Luo Kingdom man he’d killed.

Wang Jie thrust his sword.

Not long after, the rock giant collapsed. From its crumbling body, starsea stone spilled out—along with a square slip of paper.

So much starsea stone.

Wang Jie scooped it up, excitement tightening his chest. One thousand. A full thousand starsea stone.

Was this the real reward?

Before he could even check the square slip, more items rained down: starstone, and a formation scroll.

He’d hit the jackpot.

The starstone wasn’t huge—only five hundred thousand. But starsea stone was different. Converted, those thousand pieces alone were worth ten million starstone. Add the five hundred thousand, and the fifth layer had effectively handed him ten and a half million.

As for the formation scroll—

Eightfold Strong Lock Formation.

A formation that could bind an ordinary Full-Star Realm cultivator.

Good stuff. If he couldn’t use it, he could sell it.

Then there was the square slip.

The thing that fell from inside the rock giant was clearly better than the generic drops from above.

Wang Jie studied it for a long time, then let out a slow breath.

As expected—something truly valuable.

Thousand-Color Stone.

Its greatest use was assisting the cultivation of Chen Art.

Chen Art required One Gaze, Three Thousand. Unless you were monstrously talented, most people had to grind at it day and night. But the Thousand-Color Stone trained you passively: within the slip was a stone of a thousand colors, and if you stared at it long enough, those colors would gradually separate and clarify. Once you could see the Thousand-Color Stone in its complete form, you were considered to have reached One Gaze, Three Thousand.

Wang Jie hadn’t expected such a thing to exist.

If he’d had the Thousand-Color Stone from the start—back when he first trained Huang Dou—he might already have mastered Myriad-Stars Finger.

Qi Refining could support Chen Art, and Chen Art could in turn support Qi Refining. They reinforced each other.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what the Thousand-Color Stone was worth.

Even though it only helped up to One Gaze, Three Thousand, its value was still enormous.

In Wang Jie’s eyes, it was worth no less than a four-tribulation Chen Artifact.

If Frost-Hua Sect had possessed something like this, they would have produced Chen Art experts long ago.

Black-White Heaven would never have left it here.

It had to be something Zhong Yi left behind.

The surprises in Fifth Layer were already more than enough.

Next came the sixth—deep territory, the edge of what most people could even talk about.

Lock Passage didn’t even understand Third Layer. At best, Black-White Heaven understood the first three. It might not know a thing about the fourth or fifth.

From that alone, Wang Jie could see how far he’d already pulled away from ordinary cultivators.

All thanks to those two plots of land and the IOU slip—his wrist guard.

That was his real foundation.

So then.

Sixth Layer—begin.

As he walked toward it, Wang Jie couldn’t help wondering: how had Zhong Yi managed to leave behind regions corresponding to all six layers for ten seals?

Could it be… she’d cleared the sixth as well?

With that thought, he stepped into Sixth Layer.

Rain stretched from horizon to horizon. Massive trees held up the world like pillars, as if the fifth layer above had been propped on their canopy.

The ground was mud and standing water—dark pools everywhere, their depth impossible to judge.

His combat power detector had been beeping nonstop.

Wang Jie raised his sword and held it flat in front of him. Raindrops struck the blade and burst into glittering spray.

Far away, a pair of sharp eyes opened. Pupils turned, fixing on Wang Jie’s direction, and something like interest flickered in their depths.

Each raindrop sounded different on steel, but no matter how varied the sound was, it shouldn’t have resembled sword ring.

And yet—

Wang Jie distinctly heard sword ring hidden inside the rain.

He watched the splashing droplets, momentarily absorbed.

A hazy figure moved through the rain curtain, slowly sharpening into focus.

Wang Jie turned his head.

A creature at least ten meters tall was approaching. Long-limbed and gaunt, it looked vaguely humanoid at first glance, but its gait was wrong—shoulders rolling, torso twisting, swaying as it walked.

Most striking of all was the sword on its back.

A stone sword nearly as tall as the creature itself.

As it drew closer, the combat power detector began screaming. The reading jumped wildly, rising and falling without pattern.

Wang Jie didn’t move. The sword ring in the rain grew clearer.

Little by little, he made out the creature’s face.

Hard to describe. It had eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth—everything in the right place, and yet everything was crooked. Its features were twisted like its walk, ugly enough to make your skin crawl.

Only its eyes were different.

Sharp. Narrow. Lethal.

They locked onto Wang Jie, and in the pupils he could clearly see excitement.

It was intelligent. Not dim, either.

It stopped less than a kilometer away. Slowly, it drew the stone sword from its back—and then copied Wang Jie’s stance, holding the blade straight and level.

Rain hammered the stone edge and fountained off it like a waterfall.

Its breathing deepened, low and heavy, as if the world itself breathed with it.

When the combat power detector finally stabilized at sixty thousand, it moved.

The stone blade slammed down.

The rain surged, transforming into a colossal wave that crashed toward Wang Jie.

Wang Jie flipped his sword and carved upward. Spray lifted in a thin, bright line—like a thread of water turned into a blade.

The great wave and the narrow line collided, rippling through the air. Droplet after droplet carried sword qi, slashing outward.

The ground split.

Hills shredded.

Even the massive trees around them were carved apart in chunks.

So that’s how it is.

Wang Jie’s gaze sharpened. This creature had terrifying control over sword technique.

The stone sword chopped down again.

Wang Jie leapt and used Jia Eight Steps to shift through the air—but the instant he changed position, the stone sword swept toward him.

How did it find him?

He shifted again, barely skimming past the blade. The wind of it nearly threw him off balance.

Brutal strength.

The sword’s leftover force tore into the distance and cleaved the earth open.

The creature roared, exhilarated, as if delighted that someone had finally come to meet it.

It raised the stone sword and brought it down again—but this time it didn’t aim at Wang Jie. It spun, faster and faster, turning the blade into a tornado that swallowed everything nearby.

Wang Jie tightened his grip. Qi and strength fused, power surging a hundredfold.

His eyes snapped to a point.

His sword thrust.

A thunderous clang rang out.

His strike landed precisely on the stone blade’s edge, stopping the chopping momentum mid-swing. Even the huge creature’s grip faltered for an instant.

Wang Jie didn’t feel any better.

Even at full force, he still couldn’t knock the stone sword away.

He’d meant to send it flying.

Sword Steps.

Sword shadows flared beneath his feet. Star-Gazing Sword Form bloomed from his hand—streams of sword qi falling like starlight, slashing toward the creature.

The creature’s narrow eyes flared wide. It howled, drove the blade tip into the ground, gripped the hilt with both hands, and spun its entire body into a whirlwind.

Every strand of sword qi from Star-Gazing Sword Form was batted aside.

Wang Jie’s brows lifted.

This wasn’t a sword technique so much as instinct—defense chosen because it suited the creature perfectly.

A sword wasn’t meant to be rigid. The true sword was freedom, moving as the heart moved.

“You just taught me something.”

Wang Jie’s mouth curved. Battle intent lit his eyes as Qi Sight flared.

Qi ran across the creature’s body like invisible currents.

No defense was flawless.

Wang Jie lowered his body, drew his sword back, then launched forward in a single burst—his whole figure turning into a streak of killing light.

As he took the first step, a sword shot out of his storage ring. Lockforce spread as power poured in.

Another step—another sword.

Another step—another.

Until fifteen swords formed in front of him and stabbed down at the creature.

Sword Rig—One-Line Sky.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Sword after sword shattered, each impact checking the creature’s spin, slowing it by degrees—

Until Wang Jie closed the final distance, seized his blade, and cut through.

He flashed past the creature’s side. In the rain-dark sky, blood erupted and scattered into the downpour.

The creature’s rotation slowed, then stopped.

It lowered its head.

A massive sword wound across its chest bled steadily.

It turned to look at Wang Jie, stunned.

It was Full-Star Realm.

That shouldn’t have hurt it.

Wang Jie landed on a thick tree branch. The sword in his hand cracked—then shattered.

Too wasteful.

These swords couldn’t withstand the infusion of lockforce and raw power—especially not with Sword Rig, and especially not against a true enemy.

And this creature’s defense…

Outrageous.

He’d fought multiple Full-Star Realm opponents. None had been this hard to crack.

The creature stared at him. It held the stone sword in one hand, touched its wound with the other, then spat and smeared saliva across the cut.

Wang Jie blinked.

“Who taught you swordsmanship?”

Creatures didn’t invent sword arts on their own. Swords were human weapons. Creatures had their own ways to fight.

This one had learned from someone—at the very least, it had watched someone wield a blade.

The creature kept smearing saliva over the wound.

“That won’t help,” Wang Jie said. “Want some healing medicine?”

The creature snapped its head up like it had been insulted, then let out an angry growl.

Wang Jie exhaled. “I’m not pitying you. I’m respecting you.”

The creature’s roar deepened. It faced Wang Jie, gripped its sword with both hands, and slowly closed its eyes.

Wang Jie’s brow rose.

The rain intensified. Harder. Heavier. Louder.

Until it felt like the sky was pouring an ocean onto the world.

And the sword ring in every raindrop grew sharper, more distinct, as if the storm itself were honing a blade.

No way…

Wang Jie stared.

The creature’s huge body blurred in the rain curtain.

But the qi—

The qi gathered toward the stone sword… and at the same time spread outward, dissolving into the rain, into the entire world.

The naked eye couldn’t see it.

Wang Jie could.

This was—

Chen Art.