Chapter 240

Chapter 240: Eye-Opening

Wang Jie’s eyes went wide. For a heartbeat, he thought he’d misheard.

The Frostglow Sect… for him?

Si Yao’s mouth curved. “Once you understand the Star Vault Vista, you’ll realize how enormous it is.

“You sold us that strange planet before. Even if Black-White Heaven finds out, they won’t interfere. To be precise, they don’t dare.”

“That’s the gap.”

His bargain master had said something similar. Just how low on the food chain was Black-White Heaven?

And Du Xian really had played him—using Black-White Heaven as a cudgel to force the price down.

“When I said I could give you a Frostglow Sect, that was only a guess,” Si Yao went on. “What you’ll actually gain will be even more than that.”

Wang Jie’s excitement was obvious, so Si Yao continued, “There’s far too much in the universe you can’t even imagine.”

“What if I take first?” Wang Jie pressed.

A sharp glint flashed through Si Yao’s eyes. He lifted his personal terminal, and an image projected into the air.

“Watch.”

Wang Jie looked up.

Two figures were walking toward each other across a stretch of land.

One looked young—about Wang Jie’s age. Hands in his pockets. Loose posture. Completely relaxed.

The other wore a solemn expression, each step identical in length, as if he’d measured the ground before placing his foot.

They drew closer.

They passed.

The solemn man’s head slid off his shoulders and dropped to the earth. Blood painted the ground around him.

The young man didn’t even glance back. His pace and posture never changed.

Si Yao’s voice cut in, calm and matter-of-fact. “The one who died—roaming-star realm. Battle power: three hundred thousand.”

“And the young man? Full-star realm.”

Wang Jie’s pupils tightened. He stared at Si Yao, stunned.

A second clip replaced the first.

This time it was a boy, even younger than Wang Jie. Bald. Plain clothes. Sitting on a stone. Below him, a crowd murmured softly, as if chanting.

The next instant, the boy ignited himself.

The void bloomed with countless strange images, rippling outward and pouring down into the crowd.

Someone vomited blood. Someone burst into laughter. Someone collapsed and died.

And then—more people stood.

One. Two. Three…

Eight. Eight people broke through.

“Non-Abiding Heart Scripture,” Si Yao said. “Dong Dou Reverse-Delusion Mountain. It helped eight people break through to roaming-star realm.”

“He is Reverse-Delusion Mountain’s inheritor of this generation. Full-star realm.”

Wang Jie’s fingers twitched. His scalp prickled.

Before he could process it, the third clip appeared.

A woman.

Stunningly beautiful. Violet pupils, inhumanly vivid. When she looked up, it felt as if her gaze pierced straight through the heart.

Even Wang Jie’s chest tightened.

Otherwise, she did nothing. No grand display. No shockwave.

“This woman was born at peak ten seals,” Si Yao said. “Now she’s full-star realm.”

Wang Jie frowned. “Born at peak ten seals? Then why is she only full-star realm now?”

“She suppressed her realm on purpose and refused to break through,” Si Yao replied. “Some people say her goal is guarding star realm.

“No one knows what her battle power is now.”

Wang Jie swallowed hard. He’d heard stories of monsters born strong, but he’d never believed it until now.

One look at her and you could tell her bloodline was no ordinary thing.

Then the images began to flash faster—no longer slow, no longer lingering.

Every scene hooked Wang Jie’s attention.

And then he saw it.

A creature standing in the starry sky. Behind it, one mark appeared… then another… until there were eleven in total.

Wang Jie’s expression shifted.

Eleven marks.

So eleven seals were real.

It wasn’t human, but if Si Yao had shown it, then it meant the creature was full-star realm.

A full-star realm creature that could walk the starry sky—and on top of that, eleven seals.

Absurd. Impossible. Yet there it was.

Si Yao lowered his terminal and looked at him. “Now do you still think you can fight for first?”

Wang Jie forced down the shock boiling in his chest. “Thank you, Senior, for letting me see all this.”

“Black-White Heaven is remote,” Si Yao said. “So remote that it can’t see anything at all.

“The Star Vault Vista is different. We see far more.

“What you just saw is only a corner. Not the whole.

“The Starry Sky Martial Tournament will bring out even more things that defy belief—people, and living beings.

“So if you place in the top hundred, that’s already meeting expectations. If you make the top ten, that’s beyond expectations.”

Si Yao’s gaze sharpened, turning thoughtful. “I’ve looked into you, Wang Jie.

“You have talent. You’ve been through life and death. But you also have an instinct to avoid risk.

“That’s good. It means you still hold the cultivation world in awe.

“But it’s also bad.

“Countless people only achieve greatness by walking toward death.

“The universe holds countless people, countless living beings. Standing out among them is unimaginably difficult.

“You won’t do it without paying a price.”

A faint smile touched Si Yao’s lips. “A senior of the Star Vault Vista once said: everything in this world is cultivated.

“There is no blessing without a reason. If you think there is, it only means you don’t know what you already paid—or what you will pay later.”

“That’s why people from the Star Vault Vista…”

He let out a short laugh. “We’re very good at enduring hardship.”

Wang Jie blinked. Enduring hardship?

Si Yao was already leaving. Before he did, he sent Wang Jie back to the battlefield.

The moment Wang Jie saw the familiar chaos again, rest became impossible.

A price.

He’d been born on Blue Star. He’d faced death. But in the apocalypse, who hadn’t?

He’d eaten bitterness—yet everyone had eaten bitterness.

The difference was that he had gone out alone, again and again, forcing his way through fights and schemes and gambles, until he’d dragged Blue Star’s people into Black-White Heaven.

From that angle, it made sense.

He had more than the others on Blue Star.

And he had paid more.

So what came next?

If he wanted to be satisfied with what he had now, he could stop. He could survive. He could settle.

But he wasn’t satisfied.

And the one thing you couldn’t do in a world like this was wait.

Wait for opportunity. Wait for a realm. Wait for some vague flicker of human nature to turn in your favor.

If you waited, you died.

Better to fight.

He’d come to Han Hai to put himself under life-and-death pressure.

He couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

Those scenes Si Yao showed him had brought pressure—not fear, not exactly, but a heavy, looming weight.

Black-White Heaven was too small.

He remembered Zhong Yi’s words back in Suo Xing Jian: the outside world is wonderful.

And he had to go out there. The sacred armor union bridge where his bracer awaited—how long would it wait for him?

He stood, staring into the distance.

After that, his fighting grew noticeably more aggressive.

Not reckless. His instinct to avoid danger didn’t vanish overnight. He still drifted toward safer ground without thinking.

But he pushed forward a little more than he used to.

That day, everyone moved under Elder Wu Yuan’s concealment, traveling across the planet fragments toward the same direction.

Another massive engagement.

Wang Jie looked up at the starry sky. Elder Wu Yuan was terrifyingly strong.

He’d watched him act several times now, and the feeling was completely different from Li Tong He.

Wu Yuan’s aura didn’t just feel strong—it felt like the starry sky itself was under his control.

He was probably a six-path roamer at the roaming-star realm level.

While Wang Jie was still thinking, the battle erupted.

Everyone surged forward.

Wang Jie slashed toward the distant forces of Falling Bow Hall. Sword qi carved through the void, tearing apart a storm of arrows and shredding them into falling debris.

Then Star-Gazing Sword Form manifested—countless sword shadows raining down like a meteor shower.

Han Song and the others attacked as well, battering the enemy’s lines.

Even Shield Mountain Peak’s defenses were ripped open by force.

He’d been in Han Hai for so long and still hadn’t run into a single familiar face.

Yue Bai. Su Su. Qiao Xi.

He had no idea where any of them were.

Black-White Heaven’s advantage kept expanding.

Yet the pressure on Wang Jie only seemed to shrink—because now he could finally see how small their world truly was.

When the battle ended, Wang Jie vanished.

Han Song and the others searched everywhere, but they couldn’t find him.

At that moment, Wang Jie was following someone.

Cang Wu.

That dead realm cultivator.

Wang Jie had nearly forgotten him—until he caught sight of him on the battlefield earlier. If he hadn’t, Cang Wu might have slipped away forever.

Cang Wu kept hopping across planet fragments, crossing one chunk of land after another toward a specific direction.

Wang Jie followed, hiding his presence so cleanly he might as well have been a shadow.

He’d tracked him once before. This time was easy.

Before long, Cang Wu stopped.

Someone came to meet him.

It was the Singing Phoenix Hall woman Wang Jie had seen before.

Wang Jie watched from afar, motionless, waiting.

They spoke briefly. Then the woman turned and left.

Cang Wu went back the way he came.

Wang Jie moved to the path Cang Wu had to take and waited.

With a heavy thud, Cang Wu landed and sprinted away again—only for a hand to drop onto his shoulder in mid-run.

Jia Eight Steps.

Cang Wu’s pupils shrank. “Who—?!”

He jerked away on instinct, pulling distance at top speed and whipping his head around.

He saw Wang Jie.

“You?” Cang Wu stared, stunned.

Wang Jie’s lips quirked. “Long time no see, friend.”

Cang Wu froze, eyes locked on him. “You’re not dead?”

Han Hai had countless battle zones. Wang Jie’s squad had fought many engagements after arriving, but they’d never crossed paths with Cang Wu’s group.

Cang Wu hadn’t seen him once.

Only bad luck had brought him here.

If he’d spotted Wang Jie earlier and avoided him, he wouldn’t have been targeted.

“Luck,” Wang Jie said lightly. “So—shall we continue our last conversation?”

Cang Wu edged backward, cautious. “What do you want?”

“Nothing much.” Wang Jie smiled wider. “You had a lot of questions last time, didn’t you? Funny enough, I’ve got questions too. How about we exchange?”

Cang Wu turned and ran.

Exchange?

In his dreams.

He’d seen Wang Jie fight. Back then, if Wang Jie hadn’t been badly injured, Cang Wu would never have had the chance to chase him at all.

In raw power, he wasn’t Wang Jie’s match.

And now Wang Jie came prepared.

He didn’t have a choice but to flee.

Wang Jie moved, Jia Eight Steps carrying him after Cang Wu like a ghost.

Cang Wu drove qi into his legs, his speed spiking. The starforce he’d been showing all along suddenly overflowed and scattered—qi becoming the true core.

This was dead realm.

The living trained strength. The dead cultivated qi.

As a dead realm cultivator, Cang Wu naturally practiced qi refining.

In the normal cultivation world and in dead realm alike, almost no one cultivated both strength and qi refining. Cang Wu had hidden his qi because he’d been relying on starforce.

But that starforce wasn’t his. It was something he extracted, again and again.

That was why every battle had made him cautious—terrified that his borrowed starforce would be shattered.

Now, alone against Wang Jie, he could no longer hide.

Qi surged through his legs, trying to wrench open distance.

It was useless.

Jia Eight Steps clung to him like a curse—eerie, relentless, impossible to shake. No matter how Cang Wu changed direction, Wang Jie stayed with him.

Desperate, Cang Wu shouted, “We’re both cultivators from dead realm! Why are you chasing me?”

“You didn’t say that before,” Wang Jie replied.

He accelerated and cut in front of him, raising his palm.

Cang Wu’s eyes hardened. The qi in his legs snapped up into his arms. He drove it through his palms and struck back.

Palm of Shared Sorrow.

Legacy-Stele Hand.

Murky qi coated Cang Wu’s forearms. For an instant, it was as if endless wailing rose from nowhere—countless sobs, countless cries, filling the air.

What kind of battle skill was this?

Their palms met with a heavy bang.

Wang Jie’s expression flickered. The sound wasn’t in the air—it felt like it punched straight through his skull. He staggered back a step.

Cang Wu, on the other hand, stumbled back more than ten steps and spat blood, staring at Wang Jie in disbelief.

How could this man be this strong?

Legacy-Stele Hand couldn’t even suppress him?

Wang Jie looked down at his own palm. A trace of that murky qi clung to him, but he shook his hand once and dispersed it.

Then he looked up at Cang Wu.