Chapter 278

Chapter 278: Breaking Through to the Full-Star Realm

Luo Kui understood how Fang He felt.

When they learned Wang Jie had Zhong Yi behind him, they’d all felt the same helpless fury—the kind that left you with nowhere to put it.

“I’ll kill him,” Fang He snarled. “I’m going to kill him!”

He glared at Luo Kui. “You promised me I could do whatever I wanted!”

Between Wang Jie and Fang He, Fang He’s value was obviously higher. At the very least, Fang He was a peak Roaming-Star Realm powerhouse, once a Six-Path Roamer.

Under normal circumstances, anyone would choose Fang He.

But Wang Jie wasn’t normal.

Even ignoring Wang Jie’s own strength, Zhong Yi alone was enough.

Fengmen didn’t dare touch him. They certainly wouldn’t allow Fang He to touch him.

On the battlefield, Fang He hadn’t known the truth. He could do as he pleased.

Now was different.

Wang Jie walked forward, step by step. Nearby, the elder shook his head.

Wang Jie passed Fang He without slowing.

“Keep your dog on a leash,” Wang Jie said flatly. “Don’t let it out to bite people.”

He walked straight by.

His confidence was infuriating.

Fang He’s grip went white around his blade. He wanted to cleave Wang Jie in half right there, but Luo Kui’s stare pinned him down.

“Why?” Fang He hissed. “He’s just a lockforce cultivator. Why can’t I kill him? A lockforce cultivator is cannon fodder. You can kill them whenever you want.”

Luo Kui couldn’t explain the truth, not here. He could only say, “He’s done major service for us.”

“I can do major service too,” Fang He snapped.

Wang Jie turned his head and chuckled. “I turned a Six-Path Roamer to our side. Can you?”

Fang He’s teeth nearly shattered.

Luo Kui’s brows drew together. “Go. This has nothing to do with you.”

Wang Jie’s mood brightened as he left.

Fang He watched his back, shaking with rage. “That bastard…”

Once Wang Jie was out of Fang He’s sight, he spoke quietly.

“Senior, send me to the Cloudstream Domain.”

The elder turned, surprised. “The Cloudstream Domain? Why go there?”

Because Wang Jie wanted to find the Star-Devourer and absorb lockforce until he reached the Full-Star Realm.

He’d already hit the limit of ninety-nine times Star-Breaking strength. Waiting to break the third limit could take who knew how long.

He couldn’t wait.

He needed the Full-Star Realm first, at least.

The starry sky martial tournament was drawing closer with every day.

Wang Jie offered a reason. “I want to search the Cloudstream Domain’s Black-White Heaven Command Hub for clues. Maybe I can find a way they communicate with one another.”

The elder didn’t refute him. He looked thoughtful.

Wang Jie added, “And don’t bother trying yourselves. I happened to see part of the pattern before. If I find it again, I can confirm the method. But you haven’t seen it—even if the pattern were right in front of your eyes, it wouldn’t help.”

After a moment, the elder nodded. “Fine. We’ll send you to the Cloudstream Domain’s Black-White Heaven Command Hub. Don’t disappoint us.”

In truth, it didn’t matter where they sent Wang Jie, as long as he wasn’t left within Fengmen.

Ancient Sword Bridge-Pillar reinforcements were arriving nonstop now. Fengmen wasn’t the only force participating anymore.

More importantly, the Black-White Heaven Command Hub was currently occupied by the Sword Court. If Wang Jie ran into trouble there, Zhong Yi would look for the Sword Court—not Fengmen.

The elder had no intention of escorting Wang Jie personally.

He sent someone else.

Wang Jie was perfectly happy with that.

He wasn’t in a rush.

His strength had already reached its limit, but his body had not.

Only by pushing his body to its current limit would he have the perfect moment to absorb lockforce.

That moment still needed refining.

Inside the warship, he began tempering his muscles and bones, using sword threads to grind his body down and rebuild it stronger. By the time they reached the Star-Devourer, he believed he would be ready.

Time passed.

News from the outside didn’t reach him.

He focused on tempering his body, clearing his mind of everything else—the Corpse Sect, Fengmen, the fact that he was a mole, all of it.

Then, finally, the cabin alert sounded.

They had arrived.

Wang Jie opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.

Almost there.

He only needed one more round of exercises to refine his body a little further, and he would truly reach the limit.

He stepped out of the cabin and looked beyond the warship.

People were everywhere.

But these weren’t Black-White Heaven cultivators. They belonged to the Ancient Sword Bridge-Pillar.

The Fengmen cultivator escorting him reminded him, “Disguise yourself. There could be Beidou Bridge-Pillar moles here who’ll recognize you.”

Wang Jie immediately altered his appearance.

He didn’t use the nine-form diagram. That was a trump card.

The escort nodded. “The elder already spoke to people here. You have an identity token, right?”

Wang Jie took out the Fengmen identity token and flashed it.

“Good. Be careful,” the escort said.

Then he left, and the warship departed.

Wang Jie stood in a land that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

The terrain looked the same, as if the war had never touched it.

But the people had changed completely.

Cultivators hurried past, barely sparing him a glance.

These people didn’t all belong to Fengmen, either. The Ancient Sword Bridge-Pillar wasn’t only Fengmen and the Sword Pool. There were countless large and small forces involved.

Wang Jie made his way toward the Star-Devourer.

The Star-Devourer was a special planet. It couldn’t help being noticed.

But this was wartime. Even if it was discovered, no one would waste attention on it beyond making a quick registration.

If the battlefield was stabilized and the Three Domains were fully swallowed, then the Star-Devourer would have real value.

Wang Jie stepped onto the Star-Devourer without obstruction.

There was no one here.

It was a lockforce planet. Almost everyone who came this way was a starforce cultivator, and none of them wanted to waste time on the Star-Devourer.

Its value was in researching the upper limit of lockforce—not in helping lockforce cultivators.

Wang Jie sat down and waited.

Several days later, the time for exercises came.

He worked through them carefully, using sword threads to temper his muscles and bones as he moved.

When the session ended, he felt it.

His body had reached its limit.

It was time.

He pressed one hand against the ground.

Fortunately, his cheap master had handled things beforehand. He could absorb without relying on a protector. Otherwise, coming here would have meant nothing.

Lockforce surged up from the planet and poured into him.

That vast, abyssal feeling returned, like something stirring heaven and earth. It roared through his meridians and slammed into his body.

His vision blurred for an instant.

Then he adapted.

He absorbed.

No one knew how much lockforce the Star-Devourer held.

It was Black-White Heaven’s tool for researching lockforce across countless years. At Wang Jie’s current realm, it was impossible for him to drain it dry.

The question wasn’t whether he could empty it.

It was how much he could take.

Wang Jie didn’t know.

He felt like a dried-up spring being flooded again and again.

The sensation of his body filling to the brim was intoxicating.

Compared to this, his past self had been starving.

No one disturbed him.

The Star-Devourer’s lockforce continued pouring into him, yet it caused no visible change on the surface.

Time passed—how much, he couldn’t tell.

Then his body jolted.

Everything about him seemed to lift, then settle into place.

Completion.

Wholeness.

Wang Jie flexed his fingers and stared at his body, stunned.

His lockforce and flesh had finally become complete.

Something that had once been missing was now fully whole.

He had reached the Full-Star Realm.

The difference was unmistakable.

Before, when he looked at others, it had been hard to tell. Everything had felt vague.

Now, looking at himself, he understood how far apart the realms truly were.

No wonder people could always tell he was in the Star-Breaking Realm.

If he unleashed his lockforce fully right now, his steady combat power would probably exceed four hundred thousand.

And after reaching the Full-Star Realm, no matter how much lockforce he consumed, it wouldn’t weaken him the way it once did.

Now he could advance toward the Roaming-Star Realm.

Still, the Full-Star Realm wasn’t what he had once imagined.

It was an extra realm added by ancient forebears—a threshold, not a true realm. It existed to saturate power and flesh, to mark a boundary.

So it didn’t bring him some dramatic transformation.

It wasn’t like stepping into the Star-Breaking Realm, where his inner world expanded.

Even his raw power hadn’t changed.

He was still at ninety-nine times Star-Breaking strength.

Wang Jie couldn’t help feeling a trace of disappointment.

[Who even decided these realms?]

To reach the Roaming-Star Realm, lockforce had to move beyond the flesh and fully integrate into bone and blood—the foundation needed to survive in open starfield.

That was true fusion between power and body.

Ten Seals: lockforce first entered the body.

Star-Breaking: lockforce fused into flesh.

Roaming-Star: lockforce fully merged throughout the body.

The Full-Star Realm was only the first step—lockforce moving from flesh toward the entire body.

Now that first step was done.

The next step, into bone and blood, wouldn’t be easy.

Wang Jie closed his eyes and felt the lockforce within him.

There was too much.

The more lockforce he carried, the harder it would be to force it into bone.

Which meant breaking into the Roaming-Star Realm would be even more difficult.

If his lockforce could never fully integrate into his bones, then his limit would arrive early.

He suddenly remembered Little Lan’s expression back at the Star-Devourer when she had seen him absorbing lockforce.

Had she already thought of this then?

Voices sounded on the surface of the Star-Devourer.

Wang Jie stayed still.

A few people passed by. They saw him and didn’t care, walking on.

He faintly caught the words “lockforce cannon fodder.”

He’d heard it too many times to react.

After they left, he tested something.

Could he sense how much lockforce the Star-Devourer had left?

He pressed his palm against the ground again and reached outward with his lockforce.

This time, the sensation was different.

Before, the Star-Devourer’s lockforce had felt like a raging abyss, impossible to even grasp.

Now, he felt as if he could touch its boundaries.

It was still vast, but no longer untouchable.

He wanted to see how much he’d taken.

Then his expression changed sharply.

What was that?

Inside the Star-Devourer, he sensed a barrier—an obstruction that didn’t belong.

He immediately withdrew his lockforce and sprang up to leave.

He didn’t make it.

An invisible force seized his body and dragged him downward.

Hard.

The ground swallowed him.

Something slammed him into a dark ravine deep beneath the planet’s surface. Below, magma churned and rolled, glowing red as it flowed.

“Are you a Fengmen disciple?” a voice asked.

It carried no clear emotion, and it came from nowhere and everywhere.

Wang Jie struggled to stand. His whole body felt crushed. “Yes,” he forced out. “This disciple is a Fengmen disciple.”

He fumbled out the Fengmen identity token and held it up.

A cold laugh echoed. “Heh. I didn’t expect to catch a small fish. In that case, you can die.”

Wang Jie’s heart lurched.

Beidou Bridge-Pillar people.

Someone had been hiding here.

He shouted, “Wait! I’m from Black-White Heaven!”

He should have realized earlier.

No one from the Ancient Sword Bridge-Pillar would hide in a place like this.

Only Beidou survivors would.

And no one would bother “testing” a lockforce cultivator. What was the point?

If he hadn’t sensed someone inside the Star-Devourer, he wouldn’t have been discovered at all.