Chapter 196

Chapter 196: Beidou Bridge-Pillar

Wang Jie watched the dying light in silence.

This civilization had developed the technology to step into the cosmos, but compared to the four alliances it was nothing—so far below them that the gap might as well have been an abyss.

Black-White Heaven had unified the entire fourth nebula ages ago, sweeping through everything. Any civilization worth noting was either relocated—or wiped out.

Whatever remained could develop however it pleased; it would never cross the chasm and surpass the strength guarding Suo Xing Jian.

Especially tech-based civilizations like this.

Drop a single lockforce cultivator into their world and it would be a catastrophe.

The seventh star chain here was even larger than the Frost-Hua star chain in the third nebula. By rights, it should have produced many powers like the Silver Radiance Empire.

And yet you almost never saw them.

That was the universe.

Cruel by nature.

And even crueler was the fact that this civilization had no idea how vast its enemy truly was. Only one fleet under Lie Qiu had been sent—barely worth mentioning in the kinds of conflicts Wang Jie had once played with the four alliances. But here, to these people, it was already heaven itself.

“To them,” Lie Qiu said quietly, “this is the interstellar battlefield.”

Wang Jie glanced at her. “Then the interstellar battlefield you’ve seen before… could it have been the same? Just with us in their place?”

Lie Qiu’s expression tightened. “Lord, that’s not a funny joke.”

Wang Jie looked back out.

The war ended quickly. The civilization was erased.

In the White Realm’s eyes, it offered Black-White Heaven nothing. It wasn’t human. It had no valuable technology. Keeping it would waste cosmic resources.

Better to destroy it and leave the resources behind.

A civilization wasn’t worth even a fraction of what could be mined from its ruins—resources Wang Jie could buy casually, if he wanted.

If he’d never left Blue Star and had chosen to stay, perhaps Frost-Hua Sect’s war would have already turned it into another sacrifice.

The universe was cruel.

But the more cruel it was, the more you had to force your way out.

No one walked forward with clean footprints.

Zong Cheng Ping and the others brought him more combat techniques. They were all weak—so weak he would’ve ignored them in the past—but Wang Jie tested them anyway.

The weaker the technique, the higher the chance it would produce only one sprout.

Finally, two days before Mo Wan Yin arrived in Suo Xing Jian, luck struck. He grew a single green sprout.

He pulled it, planted again—and was delighted to find he could repeat it. The same technique came out every time.

So he immediately tore out the eight sprouts from Undying Body.

If he couldn’t complete the materials, why let them take up space?

To complete those eight requirements, he would need at least the Full-Star Realm. At the Star-Breaking Realm, it was impossible.

Undying Body likely wasn’t meant for the Star-Breaking Realm at all. It felt like a method built for breaking into the Roaming-Star Realm.

Then Mo Wan Yin arrived.

She picked Wang Jie up and took him straight toward the third star chain.

That was the heart of Black-White Heaven: Zhi Upper Realm, the Black and White Realms, the council of elders, the Zhi Study Valley, the Steward Hall, the Discipline Hall—all of it.

“Sorry to keep Master waiting,” Mo Wan Yin said.

Wang Jie bowed. “Thank you again for saving me on Star-Devourer, Senior Sister. Otherwise, it would’ve been dangerous.”

Mo Wan Yin smiled. “Master beat Zhi Shu on your own. I only blocked Han Ling.”

“Han Ling shouldn’t have appeared at all. It was unfair to every disciple competing for Star-Devourer.”

Fair?

The universe had never cared about fairness.

Their ship was star chain-class as well. Mo Wan Yin had even told him they weren’t in a rush; otherwise, she would have used a nebula-class ship to pick him up.

A star chain-class ship would take at least three months to travel from Suo Xing Jian to the third star chain.

A nebula-class ship could do it in half a month.

Wang Jie laughed softly. “No rush. That gives me time to ask Senior Sister about Black-White Heaven.”

Mo Wan Yin was easygoing. “Ask whatever you want, Master.”

“What kind of gathering is this pill assembly?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Master only said guests from the first nebula are coming.”

“And it’s not just the pill assembly. There’s also an artifact assembly and an array assembly. Supposedly an exchange.”

“The first nebula?” Wang Jie raised a brow. “Who?”

Mo Wan Yin studied him. “Master knows the first nebula?”

“I don’t,” Wang Jie said honestly. “That’s why I’m curious.”

Mo Wan Yin nodded. “The first nebula is the strongest and highest of the four great nebulae on the Beidou Bridge-Pillar.”

“It has many powerful forces—Jia Yi Sect, Third Zen Heaven, the Heaven-Insect People, Milky Way Defense Corporation, and more.”

She paused, then added, “If you compare Black-White Heaven to the first nebula…”

“We probably wouldn’t even make the top three.”

Wang Jie was stunned.

Black-White Heaven ruled the entire fourth nebula. It had multiple Star-Refining Realm experts, dozens of Hundred-Star Realm experts, and countless cultivators under its banner.

And it still couldn’t crack the top three.

And the names Mo Wan Yin had just listed—he’d heard them before.

Had Blue Star once belonged to the first nebula?

Who had the power to throw Blue Star from the first nebula to the third?

That wasn’t crossing a star chain. That was crossing an entire nebula.

And how long had Blue Star been sealed off? It didn’t seem long.

That kind of speed was terrifying.

“What about Star Vault Vista?” he asked.

“Star Vault Vista is also a giant,” Mo Wan Yin said. “But they don’t belong only to the first nebula. They have branches across the four great nebulae, so I can’t really say where they rank…”

Wang Jie listened, storing every scrap of information.

From the moment he stepped into the Silver Radiance Empire, then Frost-Hua Sect, then the ninth star chain, and now the fourth nebula, he’d been brushing against the wider universe again and again.

And still, he knew he’d only seen the smallest corner.

Because he was hearing the words Beidou Bridge-Pillar for the first time.

It matched what he’d once seen when he left Blue Star—an enormous pillar, a bridge overhead.

So it really had been a Bridge-Pillar.

Did the four great nebulae exist on a single Bridge-Pillar?

If that was true… how vast was the universe?

A single bridge could have many Bridge-Pillars.

And this was only one.

Even imagining it made his scalp prickle.

Mo Wan Yin had seen more than most. When she spoke of her time on the first nebula interstellar battlefield—where she’d gone on secondment—fear flickered through her for the first time.

“Back then I was already at the Roaming-Star Realm,” she said quietly. “That’s the minimum to qualify for the first nebula interstellar battlefield.”

“It isn’t even comparable to the interstellar battlefield in our fourth nebula.”

“In ours, we fight people. Outsiders are rare.”

“In the first nebula, most enemies are outsiders.”

She inhaled, her face drawn. “Have you ever imagined an outsider race where a newborn is already capable of breaking stars? I saw one with my own eyes.”

“From birth to full growth took only a year—and after that year, it already had the power to kill me.”

Wang Jie’s gaze tightened. “A year?”

Mo Wan Yin nodded, her knuckles pale. “Just one year. A newborn became strong enough to kill a Roaming-Star Realm expert.”

“That was the moment I started wondering what the point of cultivation even was.”

Then she looked at him. “A senior once told me this: the human clan has paid an enormous price to maintain its inheritance in the universe.”

“Cultivation is only one part.”

“Pills, weapons, arrays—countless paths, explored for countless years—are what built the human clan into what it is now.”

“Compared to those naturally terrifying cosmic beings,” she said softly, “we’re still weak.”

“Only by climbing higher, cultivating more, and charging forward can we break through the darkness and reach the light.”

Wang Jie exhaled slowly.

The faint satisfaction he’d felt in his current strength was gone.

He couldn’t go from nothing to killing a Roaming-Star Realm expert in a single year. Not even close.

Mo Wan Yin continued, “Most starry sky behemoths or outsider races we see on the Beidou Bridge-Pillar are already ‘tamed,’ in a sense. Their ancestors were defeated and allowed to exist here.”

“No matter what they do, they can’t threaten humans.”

“But what we fight on the first nebula interstellar battlefield is different.”

“You’ll encounter attacks you couldn’t even imagine. I nearly didn’t make it back.”

She shook her head. “Still, those things are far from you, Master. If you can star-refine, then unless you choose otherwise, you probably won’t ever experience them in this life.”

Wang Jie wasn’t so sure.

A single wrist guard was already pushing him toward the Holy Star Linked Bridge. Just the name sounded like another Bridge-Pillar entirely.

He cut in, wary. “Senior Sister—what qualifies someone as a six-path roamer?”

“Six-path roamer?” Mo Wan Yin took out a combat power detector. “At the Roaming-Star Realm, if you release starforce and your reading reaches five hundred thousand—that’s a six-path roamer.”

Wang Jie frowned. “Five hundred thousand?”

“Yes. The peak of the Roaming-Star Realm.”

“Black-White Heaven has only six peak Roaming-Star Realm disciples?” he asked.

Mo Wan Yin nodded. “Master, don’t think that’s few. Once you reach the Roaming-Star Realm, gaining combat power becomes slower and slower.”

“Take your thunder pattern as an example. With thunder-seal pills, the limit is around two hundred thousand combat power.”

“Past that, you need Thunder Abyss.”

Wang Jie understood. That was why he wanted Great Chen Mountain.

“The farther you go in the Roaming-Star Realm,” Mo Wan Yin continued, “the more impossible it becomes. Most Roaming-Star Realm experts will never reach the peak in their lives.”

“You might reach five hundred thousand through techniques, unusual starforce, or external boosts… but I’m talking about normal output. Just releasing starforce.”

Then she hesitated, a little embarrassed. “Master… what’s your combat power in a normal state?”

It was an impolite question. A private one.

But Wang Jie could tell she was only curious—because he’d defeated Zhi Shu.

“One hundred ten thousand.”

That was without using qi. Just lockforce released normally.

Mo Wan Yin let out a breath. “As expected of Master.”

“The Star-Breaking Realm starts at ten thousand combat power. The Full-Star Realm starts at fifty thousand. Only the Roaming-Star Realm passes one hundred thousand.”

She looked at him with something close to awe. “For Master to reach that number means the lockforce in your body exceeds that of an ordinary Roaming-Star Realm lockforce cultivator.”

“You can’t be measured by realms anymore.”

Wang Jie agreed.

Once, he’d treated realm as everything. But realm was only a standard for ordinary cultivators. The more talented someone was, the less those labels applied.

Even the Full-Star Realm was a later addition—ancient cultivators hadn’t used it at all.

He didn’t fit the usual framework.

Only combat power made sense.

That was why he’d asked about six-path roamer: one of Undying Body’s requirements was becoming a six-path roamer. That alone made it impossible at the Star-Breaking Realm, so he’d torn the sprouts out.

No matter how talented he was, he couldn’t reach five hundred thousand combat power in a normal state at the Star-Breaking Realm. It was absurd.

Even with qi-qi convergence at full force and Thunder Pattern layered on, he was only a bit over two hundred thousand.

After spending so long answering his questions, Mo Wan Yin finally worked up the nerve to ask Wang Jie for help star-refining pills.

Only then did he understand why she’d used a star chain-class ship in the first place.

If she’d returned to Black-White Heaven too soon, Wang Jie would’ve met Bai Ye, the Celestial Master—and she would’ve lost her chance.