Chapter 247

Chapter 247: Sword Spine

Cheng Feng lifted a hand. The fallen sword snapped back into his grip. He pointed it at Wang Jie, tip steady.

“I admit I underestimated you,” he said. “Next, I won’t give you another chance.”

“I’ll show you Fengmen’s Star-Dross Sword Art.”

Fengmen was famous for two things: cultivating Sword Spine—and swallowing star-dross.

Star-dross was a strange substance. During cultivation, it was swallowed and fused into sword qi, making that qi vanish from sight.

Each portion could hide one strand of sword qi. The more you swallowed, the more invisible blades you could unleash.

Wang Jie remembered the rumors.

Cheng Feng struck.

One visible arc.

Only one.

But how many invisible arcs rode behind it—only Cheng Feng knew.

Wang Jie watched the slash coming and kept his eyes on Cheng Feng.

With Qi Sight, nothing could hide.

Qi Sight was the natural bane of invisible sword qi.

But he couldn’t reveal that.

If a mere Star-Breaking Realm cultivator could see through invisible sword qi, anyone with a brain would start guessing at Qi Refining.

In a Bridge-Pillar versus Bridge-Pillar battlefield, Qi Refining cultivators weren’t as rare as they were in the Fourth Nebula… but they still weren’t common enough to expose lightly.

So Wang Jie chose a different answer.

Star-Gazing Sword Form.

If they wanted to talk numbers, Star-Gazing Sword Form was the king of numbers.

Sword forms fell like rain, blanketing the space around him. No matter how many invisible arcs Cheng Feng carried, they’d be knocked aside, forced into the open by sheer coverage.

Cheng Feng wasn’t bothered. If Star-Dross Sword Art could be broken that easily, it wouldn’t be Fengmen’s ultimate technique.

He tightened his grip and thrust.

The single visible sword qi shot forward—and under Cheng Feng’s control, every invisible sword qi tucked behind that one blade, riding its shadow.

Wang Jie arched a brow.

So he was stacking them all behind the visible arc, turning it into a direct clash of sword qi.

Wang Jie swung.

Star-Gazing Sword Form met the front head-on.

Sword form collided with sword qi.

Again and again.

Invisible force detonated in waves. Starforce and lockforce flooded outward, pulverizing the ground.

The star body cracked beneath their exchange.

Wang Jie and Cheng Feng sank as the surface collapsed.

Cheng Feng’s shock deepened.

He’d expected Wang Jie to block maybe fifteen invisible arcs at most before being forced to dodge or change tactics.

A Full-Star Realm’s Star-Dross Sword Art normally capped at nine invisible arcs.

Cheng Feng had cultivated twenty-six.

And every single one was lethal.

The terror of invisible sword qi wasn’t only its power—it was the pressure of unseen death, relentless and unending.

Yet Wang Jie held.

Not by overpowering Star-Dross Sword Art—Star-Gazing Sword Form was nowhere near its level—but by using quantity.

He reinforced each sword form with power and qi, turning them into shields that could trade blow for blow, again and again.

In the end, this wasn’t a contest of techniques.

It was a contest of selves.

Cheng Feng was strong. For a Full-Star Realm cultivator, his battle power rivaled the Wang Jie from before Skyport.

But it still wasn’t enough.

A thunderous blast rang out as their clash stalled.

The star body beneath them finally shattered completely and began to sink into the cloudstream.

Wang Jie frowned and vaulted onto another star body.

Cheng Feng whistled. His Thunderflare Hou lunged in and caught him.

In the distance, Fengmen cultivators surged, swarming Wang Jie together.

Wang Jie moved with Sword Steps, slipping past every strike.

Behind him, the Thunderflare Hou screamed, Cheng Feng riding its back in pursuit.

Two Roaming-Star Realm fighters from Black-White Heaven rose to flee. The woman among them hesitated only a heartbeat—then turned away.

They had no ties to Wang Jie. There was no reason to die for him.

As for him “saving” her earlier—that was war. Nothing more.

She was about to leave—

A chill speared straight through her skull.

She turned.

Wang Jie was watching her.

He was already deep within the star body, dodging attacks, but his gaze never left her.

If she left now…

She would die.

She didn’t know how she knew. She only knew the certainty—an instinct honed by survival in blood and fire.

Her jaw tightened.

“Help him,” she said hoarsely.

One of the Roaming-Star Realm men beside her didn’t even slow down. He bolted.

Help him?

What a joke.

Those Thunderflare Hou alone were enough to drown them.

Wang Jie raised one hand, Thunder Pattern braced against incoming lightning, and with the other he flung his sword.

The blade tore through the void and shot toward the fleeing Roaming-Star Realm.

The man turned, eyes shrinking.

He tried to block—

The sword punched through his throat.

His body dropped into the cloudstream.

The woman went cold all over.

The two remaining Roaming-Star Realm fighters exchanged a look—and charged back.

They understood.

That sword was a warning.

Cheng Feng narrowed his eyes. Ruthless.

If Wang Jie wasn’t killed here, he’d become a terrifying enemy on the battlefield.

Wang Jie’s gaze swept the chaos in an instant. He stepped back, lifted a finger, and struck again.

Myriad-Stars Finger.

Shadows rained down. Fengmen cultivators were pierced through and died in clusters.

“Senior Brother, be careful!” the woman screamed.

Wang Jie turned.

Cheng Feng stood atop the Thunderflare Hou, every strand of qi in his body gathering into his back.

He leapt.

His spine blazed with condensed edge, and he brought his sword down with absolute violence.

Sword Spine.

In that slash, all the qi within him fused into the blade at once, releasing a strike that dwarfed anything he’d shown before.

Its pressure surpassed Han Song and Qiao Xi.

That same cold unease washed over Wang Jie again.

His arm trembled as countless finger shadows merged into one.

Myriad-Stars Finger condensed into a single point.

He extended his finger.

Qi-Qi Convergence.

Finger met sword—

Crack!

The blade shattered.

Cheng Feng’s pupils shrank.

Impossible.

Wang Jie slipped through, passing Cheng Feng like a shadow.

His footwork flashed. A Sword Step slammed into Cheng Feng’s chest and hurled him—along with the broken blade—down toward the cloudstream.

Wang Jie landed beside the woman.

She grabbed him and ran, stepping through the void in desperate bursts across the cloudstream.

Behind them, Fengmen cultivators didn’t chase.

They were staring in horror at Cheng Feng falling.

He was Cheng Clan.

If he died here—

The Thunderflare Hou sprang after him and caught him at the last moment, dragging him back from the cloudstream’s maw.

Cheng Feng sprawled across its back, staring unwillingly into the distance.

He’d lost.

Lost to a Star-Breaking Realm cultivator.

He couldn’t accept it.

He’d refused to break through to Roaming-Star Realm all this time because he wanted to astonish the universe at the starry-sky martial tournament.

And before the tournament had even begun, he’d been defeated by a Star-Breaking Realm.

He was still far from enough.

Far ahead, the woman’s face was paper pale, her body half covered in blood. Her grip didn’t loosen as she carried Wang Jie across the cloudstream.

She’d been hurt in the chaos too.

If Wang Jie’s victory over Cheng Feng hadn’t drawn every eye, she might not have escaped at all.

Her other two Roaming-Star Realm companions hadn’t made it.

Wang Jie finally looked back.

No one was chasing.

Cheng Feng hadn’t fallen into the cloudstream.

He faced forward again and glanced at the woman. “You’re hurt.”

“Yes.” Her tone was respectful. “But I’ve already taken a Revival Pill. Once we reach the Command Hub, I’ll be fine.”

“You know where the Command Hub is?”

“I do. We came out from there.”

She gave a bitter smile. “We thought a few Roaming-Star Realm working together could earn merit in a corner of the battlefield. We didn’t expect to run into Cheng Feng. He clearly had the same plan.”

Wang Jie didn’t answer.

Swallowing pain, the woman led him away at full speed.

After a while, they spotted a drifting star body ahead. It looked empty.

Both of them wanted to land, but the woman hesitated.

“There could be an ambush.”

Wang Jie’s Star Compass still didn’t reach far enough to confirm. They chose caution and moved on.

This was a battlefield. No one ever knew when they’d run into a monster.

Two days later, they finally encountered a star body occupied by their own side. Only then did they stop to rest.

“Senior Brother,” the woman said, “let me recover for a bit. I’ll be fine soon.”

Wang Jie nodded. He wasn’t worried she’d run. There was no point.

A few hours later, she returned with color in her cheeks.

“Senior Brother, you just arrived in the Cloudstream Domain?”

“Yes. I didn’t understand the situation. I ran into a major fight the moment I got here.”

“That’s normal.” She exhaled. “There’s no truly safe place in the Cloudstream Domain. We attack them. They attack us.”

“And honestly… we’ve been losing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Black-White Heaven really can’t compare to Fengmen.”

They talked for a long time. Wang Jie was new here—of course he wanted to understand everything.

“This is Orbital Dust,” she said, opening her personal terminal and showing him a linked monitoring module. “It can track a hundred meters around you and record merit.”

“Orbital Dust… the thing deployed on the asteroid belt?”

“Yes, but this is much more advanced. It links directly to a personal terminal. There are other ways to monitor merit, but in the end, Orbital Dust was the cheapest.”

She kept explaining, not out of kindness, but because she wanted to rely on Wang Jie’s strength to get back to the Command Hub.

“Enter the Command Hub, and you’ll have freedom.”

She laughed without humor. “We’re living proof. But where is ‘freedom’ on a battlefield?”

“Every month you have to take missions and complete them, or you’re forced into wars where Hundred-Star Realm exist.”

“We Roaming-Star Realm had no choice but to join forces and pick simpler missions. But once the Command Hub labels something a mission, it’s never simple.”

She shook her head.

Wang Jie frowned. “Why not return to the sect?”

The woman’s gaze turned distant. “It’s easy to apply to enter the battlefield. It’s hard to leave.”

“This isn’t some other main battlefield. This is the First Main Battlefield. Whether you can leave doesn’t depend on merit. It depends on the Chief Huntsman.”

“If the Chief Huntsman doesn’t want you to go, you’ll never leave.”

Her eyes were heavy as she looked toward the cloudstream.

“How many fellow disciples died here…”

“They came thinking they’d earn merit, gather resources, return to their sects, and finally hold their heads high.”

“They didn’t know that even if they survive… leaving is still difficult.”

Wang Jie hadn’t expected that.

On the Ying Yang Battlefield, reaching battle trooper gave you a chance to leave.

Compared to this place, it was heaven.

These people were trapped.

He stood and stared at the calm, endless cloudstream.

No matter how peaceful it looked, it felt like a massive grindstone—one that ground human flesh and blood into dust.

The next day, the woman led Wang Jie onward toward the Command Hub.

On the star bodies they passed, countless people watched with envy. They wanted to follow—but without Roaming-Star Realm, it was too dangerous.

No one could guarantee they wouldn’t be knocked down into the cloudstream.

The Command Hub was a dream many could only stare at from afar.