Chapter 189

Chapter 189: Wang Jie Battles Zhi Shu

Spring-Autumn Hand.

Every copper slip was a killing move.

Zhi Nan Xing had treated the slips like a shield. Zhi Shu didn’t.

Wang Jie hadn’t expected the true use of Spring-Autumn Hand to be like this.

He stepped through Jia Eight Steps again and again, dodging in a space barely large enough to breathe. The strangeness of his movement art stunned Zhi Shu.

It felt faster—stranger—than every step technique Black-White Heaven had to offer. Her Spring-Autumn Hand couldn’t even catch his trail.

If not for the formation sealing the area, he might have escaped.

Now, he couldn’t.

Zhi Shu’s starforce flooded the formation, freezing and cracking his lockforce as it pressed from every direction.

Wang Jie threw Thunder Pattern up into the sky.

It collided—

—and was crushed instantly.

His Thunder Pattern had already been shattered once by Han Ling. Its defense had dropped sharply. Otherwise it wouldn’t have failed so quickly.

Wang Jie extended a finger again.

Myriad-Stars Finger Art.

Zhi Shu snapped the twelve copper slips into defense, blocking the falling star shadows.

Chen art wasn’t invincible. And Wang Jie’s lockforce was burning away at a brutal rate. The power of Myriad-Stars Finger Art was dropping rapidly.

But that wasn’t his true goal.

Sword Rig.

Swords slashed from every direction toward Zhi Shu.

With Qi Sight, Wang Jie watched more than her attacks—he watched her weak points.

In his eyes, Zhi Shu’s qi gathered heavily in her hands.

Her back was her biggest weakness.

Swords shattered against copper slips.

Wang Jie flashed in with Sword Steps, slipping past the copper slips’ orbit and arriving right in front of her.

He drove a punch forward.

Qi-Qi Convergence.

Muscle and bone thundered together as terrifying strength exploded from his frame.

Zhi Shu raised her hand. Starforce stacked layer upon layer. A copper slip floated from behind her, and a phantom landed in her palm, catching his fist.

Boom.

The force still drove Zhi Shu back three steps.

Her eyes widened in shock. Her starforce was cracking. It couldn’t freeze his strength.

How strong was he?

If an ordinary Roaming-Star Realm’s physical strength was a hundred, Wang Jie had already surpassed half of that.

Zhi Shu cultivated starforce, not the body. Even though her combat power was immense and her strength surpassed most Roaming-Star Realm, she still couldn’t match Wang Jie.

When Wang Jie entered Qi-Qi Convergence, his sheer physical strength could even shake the most ordinary Hundred-Star Realm.

Even so, Wang Jie didn’t expect Zhi Shu to retreat only three steps.

Copper slips howled around them again.

Phantoms surged out.

Killing moves descended in a storm.

Wang Jie had landed a punch—only to step directly into the heart of her killing net.

In that cramped space, he used Jia Eight Steps to evade most of it.

Still, three killing moves struck him.

The Thousand-Spirit Armor blocked the blows, but the shock rattled through him hard enough to make him spit blood.

One killing move was especially vicious, slipping through the armor like poison and drilling into his body.

Wang Jie swallowed it down, then spat again.

This time, his blood was black.

Zhi Shu’s eyes widened. He only spat blood?

A defensive chen artifact could block most external damage, but not internal injury. And Wang Jie was only Star-Breaking Realm. No matter how abnormal he was, he should have been crippled.

How was he still standing?

Protective qi.

It protected flesh. It protected meridians. It protected bone.

Zhi Shu’s expression sank. A needle appeared in her hand. She flicked it.

Wang Jie raised his left arm and blocked with his wrist guard.

Clang.

The needle deflected—

—and another appeared.

Then another.

Then dozens.

Then far more than dozens.

Wang Jie’s eyes narrowed. “So many…?”

Nearly two hundred needles streaked toward him, all four-tribulation chen artifacts. Even if the starforce inside them hadn’t truly crossed into Hundred-Star Realm, they were still at Roaming-Star Realm level.

Wang Jie gripped the Blue Sea sword and slashed again and again.

Clashes rang out in a storm.

The Blue Sea sword couldn’t hold.

It shattered.

It had been forged from seventh-grade material—and still broke.

With no choice, Wang Jie pulled out Zhong Yi’s sword and unleashed Star-Gazing Sword Form.

One slash.

Two.

The needles were knocked from the air one after another.

Zhi Shu’s eyes went wide. Impossible.

That sword… it knocked every needle down.

Eighth-grade material?

How could he have a sword forged from eighth-grade material?

Her starforce slammed down.

Wang Jie’s Thunder Pattern was already broken. He retreated step by step. Every needle carried Roaming-Star Realm starforce. Even he couldn’t take it forever.

Zhi Shu surged in.

The instant the last needles were knocked down, she drove a palm into Wang Jie’s chest.

Cold starforce struck—freezing him on contact.

And in her palm, a needle punched through the Thousand-Spirit Armor and stabbed into his body.

Wang Jie’s movements slowed. He reversed Zhong Yi’s sword, slashing toward Zhi Shu—

—but she blocked with her other hand, eyes like ice.

“A Star-Breaking Realm who can push me this far has reason to be proud,” she said. “But this ends here.”

The twelve copper slips screamed in, circling them as they spun.

Phantom killing moves descended again and again.

Cold flame starforce froze—then burned.

Wang Jie felt like his body was being melted from the inside out. The needle in his chest sent a numbing paralysis through him.

A dead end.

Zhi Shu didn’t see Wang Jie’s left hand behind his back.

She didn’t see the tip of his finger touching the IOU slip.

She didn’t see him write a name—

Qing Feng Bu Gui Ke.

The killing moves landed.

All of them.

The Thousand-Spirit Armor was shredded, holes ripped through it like paper. Zhong Yi’s sword slipped from Wang Jie’s fingers and fell.

Zhi Shu smiled, watching his body shrivel inside the ice, turning dry and dark like charcoal.

Cold outside.

Scorching inside.

Die.

Then—

A pair of eyes opened in the frozen wreck.

Cold.

Clear.

Locked on her.

Zhi Shu’s blood ran cold.

How?

A crack sounded.

The ice shattered.

Wang Jie’s left hand seized the hand holding the needle.

His right palm struck at a strange angle and slammed into Zhi Shu’s abdomen.

Power-Storing Method.

The palm force punched through her, and his lockforce erupted—boiling, violent—tearing through her starforce and scattering it.

Wang Jie twisted with his left hand.

Bones snapped.

His own arm broke—

—and so did Zhi Shu’s.

He smashed her into the ground.

Then Wang Jie raised his fist.

And dropped it.

Bang.

When the dust settled, Wang Jie stood at the edge of a bottomless crater, panting, body trembling.

Burnt skin peeled from him. All his hair was gone.

Deep below, copper slips glinted.

At the last moment, Zhi Shu had recalled the slips to block that punch. Otherwise, her head might have burst.

Wang Jie hadn’t held back.

She had tried to kill him. He had tried to kill her back. In that moment, he’d thought of nothing else—not the Zhi family, not consequences, not the future.

Only survival.

Even so, the punch’s force had still traveled through the copper slips and knocked her unconscious.

Wang Jie dropped to sit, pain surging over him in waves.

He’d used everything he had.

At the very end, he’d been frozen and burned until he couldn’t move. Borrowing force was meaningless if the body wouldn’t obey.

He had only turned the tables by relying on Power-Storing Method—using lockforce to force his joints to move.

He let out a tired breath.

What a mess.

He was bald.

Zhong Yi’s sword floated back to him and slipped into his storage ring.

Wang Jie swallowed another revival pill.

He did the math—there were still several days before his next round of exercises.

Mo Wan Yin and Han Ling wouldn’t fight for that long.

He needed to leave.

Wang Jie stared into the crater for a moment, then climbed down, dug Zhi Shu out, and slapped her face.

“Wake up.”

Zhi Shu jolted awake, head splitting, world spinning. Pain flooded her.

Her arm was broken. Her abdomen was pierced and still bleeding. Her body was numb—and her face stung like fire.

“Looks like you’re not dead,” Wang Jie said coldly. “If you’re not dead, get up and move.”

Zhi Shu coughed blood, vision clearing bit by bit.

Then she saw Wang Jie standing over her.

He looked terrible.

And he was bald.

“You…” she rasped.

Wang Jie crouched, eyes hard. “Good reaction. You knew to use the copper slips to block.”

His voice was flat. “If you hadn’t, that last punch could’ve blown your head apart.”

Zhi Shu’s pupils shook. She remembered. She had felt death right there.

“You… you dared to kill me?”

Wang Jie’s lips curled. “You only get one life. Better you die than me.”

“The Zhi family won’t let you go,” Zhi Shu whispered, fear creeping into her voice. “Zhi Xing Xue won’t save you either.”

Wang Jie’s gaze didn’t flicker. “You won’t live to see that day.”

Zhi Shu’s throat worked.

As Zhi family, she’d never believed she could die—not here, not in the fourth nebula, not inside Black-White Heaven.

Even on star-cloud battlefield, there would be people protecting her.

But right now…

She was truly facing death.

The same bone-deep chill she’d only felt once before.

From Zhi Xing Xue.

“Get up,” Wang Jie said again.

Zhi Shu swallowed. “What do you… want?”

“I told you to get up.”

Wang Jie grabbed her by the hair and hauled her upright.

Humiliation flooded her. She—who had always stood high above others—was being dragged like this.

“Move,” Wang Jie said.

Zhi Shu stared blankly. “What…?”

“Do the moves.”

She froze.

Wang Jie’s voice cut like a blade. “And give me another set of your clothes.”

In the distance, Han Ling and Mo Wan Yin’s battle continued to rage.

Neither could finish the other.

As fellow Six-Path Roamer—each standing above countless fellow disciples—they understood each other too well. They had too many answers for each other’s strengths.

Now it depended on the result inside the formation.

Han Ling wasn’t worried. He knew Zhi Shu.

Zhi family had too many ways to survive. And Wang Jie had already been injured by him.

Wang Jie couldn’t possibly win.

Mo Wan Yin was anxious, but this battle had been drawn out by Wang Jie himself. If he went after Zhi Shu, he must have had a plan.

Neither of them could interfere with the formation.

Not long after, someone walked out of the shrouded area and called toward the distance, “Hold her!”

Then the figure turned and left without looking back.

Mo Wan Yin’s pupils shrank. Her face went white.

Han Ling smiled.

The one who stepped out was Zhi Shu.

“Master!” Mo Wan Yin shouted, trying to rush in.

Han Ling blocked her. “Wang Jie is doomed. Zhi Shu won’t let him go. Even if you go now, you can’t save him.”

Mo Wan Yin’s fury erupted. “Han Ling, do you know what you’re doing? You destroyed a master who can star-refine pills. That’s a loss to the entire cultivation world!”

Han Ling’s expression didn’t change. “The cultivation world doesn’t change because one or two people die.”

His gaze was indifferent. “A mere lockforce cultivator has no future.”

“Move,” Mo Wan Yin hissed.

“I can’t.”

Han Ling didn’t know what Zhi Shu intended, but she’d told him to hold Mo Wan Yin back.

So he did.

Mo Wan Yin fought like she’d gone mad, trying to break through.

Han Ling had to take her seriously.

Their battle grew even more violent.

Meanwhile—

Wang Jie, wearing Zhi Shu’s face, found Han Ling’s ship, slipped inside, and piloted it toward the edge of Star-Devourer.

On the screen, combat values jumped wildly—Han Ling and Mo Wan Yin, still fighting.

A Six-Path Roamer wasn’t someone Wang Jie could touch now.

But one day, he would.

The ship tore through the air—and another vessel appeared ahead, blocking his path.

A voice rang out, unfamiliar but crisp.

“How is Wang Jie?”

Wang Jie frowned. He didn’t recognize the tone.

Then the voice continued, polite but firm.

“Miss Zhi Shu, if Wang Jie isn’t dead, please release him. If he is dead, then give me his jade stone.”

A pause.

“I, Ye Huang, can’t come here for nothing.”