Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Star Vault Vista

At one thousand meters, the pressure became a physical thing, squeezing his bones. The temperature dropped until his skin felt numb.

This was it.

Wang Jie didn’t move. He simply stood in the dark and let the crushing force of the seabed press into him—body, imprint power, even mind.

All around him was black water.

Sometimes something slid past, slick and sticky, brushing his skin. The sensation was enough to make a man’s blood run cold.

Wang Jie stood like a stone statue.

Only after a long time did he rise again, gasping through his equipment.

Thin cuts covered him—scratches from passing creatures, rock fragments, the seabed itself.

Humans were small.

Even Wang Jie couldn’t imagine what kind of power could destroy an entire Blue Star.

And destroying Blue Star… was not the same as controlling Blue Star.

He sank again.

Day after day, he kept training in the deep. Each time he endured longer. The clearest change was that his body felt lighter and tougher. His control grew more refined. His imprint power felt steadier, more settled.

Then, after he did his routine on the seabed, strength began to rise again.

Sixty-eight times.

It wasn’t much, but it lit a fire in his chest.

It moved. His limit was cracking.

Good. As long as it could move, there was a way.

He went deeper.

Eleven hundred meters.

Eleven twenty.

Outside the sea, time ground forward and slaughterstone’s effects spread.

Ten seals mutated beasts began appearing near every base. Then more. And more.

The trialists were forced to act more often. Some were already sick of helping Blue Star’s bases at all.

More days passed.

Wang Jie did his routine on the seabed again.

Seventy-two times.

Down in the dark, he found the octopus—silent, crouched like a waiting mountain.

The next moment, the sea surface exploded.

A massive surge of water roared upward, and Nan Guo Base’s alarms flared again—only for the watchers to see the enormous octopus hurled out of the sea and slammed onto the beach.

Wang Jie walked out of the water after it.

Ocean creatures rained from the sky like a storm.

He stopped beside the octopus and kicked.

The monstrous thing flew.

The drone feed sent the scene back to Nan Guo Base, and everyone watching froze as if they’d seen an ant pick up a mountain.

This wasn’t slaughter. This was dominance. The shock was different—and deeper.

Wang Jie didn’t linger. He turned and went back into the sea.

That image spread to the other bases.

Hope flared again.

The stronger Wang Jie became, the more Blue Star might endure.

Even the trialists who didn’t want to act anymore resumed quietly—not because they believed Wang Jie would win, and not because they feared him, but because they saw his progress.

The stronger Wang Jie became, the longer the trial could be delayed.

For their own sake, they needed the delay.

Wang Jie reached fifteen hundred meters.

Every surge in strength was another transformation, another step deeper into pressure and danger.

No one outside knew how far down he’d gone.

In Shan Cheng, the altar stank like rot and blood. Shu Mu Ye sat in it without the slightest discomfort. He could sit in the ninth heavens or stand in the filth of the mortal world—either was the same.

A gigantic eagle swept toward the altar.

Shu Mu Ye turned his head.

The eagle veered away in panic and fled faster than it came.

Shu Mu Ye looked back at the drone. “You can challenge me once more. Give Jia Yi Sect some face. I still won’t kill you. Let me see whether you’ve improved.”

He was speaking to Wen Xing Ru and the others. No one else deserved that “you.”

Across the bases, the trialists watched Shu Mu Ye sitting atop corpses, each of them grim.

His pride was bigger than the sky.

Jin Ling Base was hit by another beast tide.

People thought the insect sea had scoured the area enough to prevent it—but it came anyway. The leader was a giant ape wielding a massive mutated tree like a staff, even performing staff techniques.

Chong Xuan drove it back again.

He’d wanted to kill it, but the ape was cunning. It escaped under cover from several ten seals creatures.

Chong Xuan sent a warning to Chong Ruo Ruo at Nan Guo Base: be careful.

Since Jia Yi Sect had placed its last hope in Blue Star’s mutated creatures, it wasn’t without reason.

Even if no star-breaking rank creature appeared, some mutated beasts could hold imprint power comparable to star-breaking rank.

In the starry sky, within Jia Yi Sect, countless disciples stared at two screens.

One showed Shu Mu Ye. Even sitting still, he pulled their eyes like gravity.

The other showed Chu Yao.

They’d searched for someone from Dead Realm and couldn’t find him at first. Only after Chu Yao met Wang Jie did they confirm his identity.

Dead Realm. Corpse Sect. One of the Hundred Coffins.

His presence carried weight almost equal to Shu Mu Ye’s—Shu Mu Ye by sheer personal terror, Chu Yao by what his origin implied.

They wanted to watch Wang Jie too, but they couldn’t see anything about people outside the trialists.

Their curiosity about him was no less intense.

How could a native be that strong?

“Reporting to Sect Master,” someone said, “Star Vault Vista is here. They want to interview Senior Sister Xi Liu.”

Xi He’s expression remained cool. “Interview Xi Liu? They want to interview this trial. Those dogs smell blood—make them wait.”

“Sect Master,” an elder said as he approached, “the outside world already knows parts of what’s happening here. The more we hide, the wilder the rumors grow.”

Xi He looked over. “So you’re the first to persuade me. Elder Si Yuan.”

The elder was Wen Si Yuan, one of Jia Yi Sect’s high-ranking elders.

“It’s not persuasion,” Wen Si Yuan said. “It’s caution. Some are claiming we already built the bridge and pushed the blame onto Shu Mu Ye while he’s rebuilding—hiding the fact that we obtained bridgeway art, preparing for the Starry Sky Martial Tournament.

“That kind of rumor harms us. Jia Yi Sect cannot become the target of everyone.”

Xi He stared at the lake in silence.

“And another point,” Wen Si Yuan continued. “You know Star Vault Vista’s influence. Do them a favor now. We may need it later.”

Xi He exhaled. “Let them come.”

Wen Si Yuan smiled. “As you command.”

Back on Blue Star, deep under the sea, Wang Jie stood motionless like a carved stone.

Eight days had passed since his last routine. He hadn’t reached the time for the next one yet—the longest gap since he’d obtained the bracers.

He’d reached sixteen hundred meters.

Only a hundred meters deeper than before.

But every additional meter carried more pressure. It was no longer easy.

He lifted his head. Endless ocean creatures drifted above. Many—too many—and a great number carried the aura of ten seals.

The effects of all the heavenstone thrown down were becoming more and more obvious.

He could even sense something deeper—something with imprint power so vast it surpassed the prodigies.

As for Shu Mu Ye? That man didn’t even show anything in imprint power. Not once.

Ten seals might be the realm limit of Blue Star, but it clearly wasn’t the limit of what living beings could contain.

In the universe, imprint power was called lockforce.

Wen Zhao had told him the advantage: it was fast. Absorb it, and you could use it immediately. Unlike starforce, which required cultivation, fusion, time.

The disadvantage was worse.

Your ceiling was locked.

Wang Jie didn’t know what his ceiling was. He only knew what he wanted.

He wanted Blue Star to survive.

At last, he heard the familiar sound in his mind.

The routine.

Relief loosened his chest. If he lost the ability to do it, getting stronger would become almost impossible.

Seventy-five times.

Not much.

But it was movement. That was enough.

Ten days remained.

His greatest gain wasn’t just the strength increase. Under seabed pressure, he’d integrated his power. The clearest sign was that he could now control the size of Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

It was less conspicuous.

But the power hadn’t decreased.

Across Blue Star, pressure mounted.

Ten seals mutated beasts appeared again and again. Without the trialists, every base would have collapsed.

Even Bai Yuan couldn’t hold Shang Jing City alone.

In Shan Cheng, vines like green giant serpents whipped across the sky toward Shu Mu Ye. Blood-colored spikes covered them. Imprint power boiled visibly along their length, warping the air.

The drone feed sent it to every base. Countless people stared, shaken. That imprint power dwarfed everything else they’d seen.

Vines could contain more than humans could. Their sheer mass made it possible.

It was still terrifying.

Shu Mu Ye opened his eyes.

“Imprint power is not the gap,” he said.

He reached out and seized the vines. The spikes couldn’t pierce him.

His arm trembled once. An invisible force raced along the vines. The void itself seemed to rumble, and the vines shattered inch by inch.

When he released them, they died.

He looked east. “One month. How much can you improve?

“I’m looking forward to it.”

None of the chaos outside reached Wang Jie.

Where he was now, no one could contact him even if they tried.

No matter how severe the base crises became, the greatest danger to Blue Star remained Shu Mu Ye.

Wang Jie emptied his mind and stood in the deep.

Eight more days passed.

Routine.

Seventy-seven times.

When he’d fought Shu Mu Ye before, his strength had been fifty times. Now it was seventy-seven. A qualitative leap—not only in power, but in how he wielded it.

Two days remained.

Not enough time for another routine.

Wang Jie stared into the abyssal dark and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was in the field.

Myriad-Stars Finger still hadn’t been planted. He was missing only one Loser’s Will.

The second plot remained empty. He still didn’t know what belonged there. He’d tried many things. Nothing worked.

Standing in the first plot, Wang Jie wondered whether one field could grow more than one kind of power.

He tightened his grip on the slender crab claw and, guided by the fluid pressure he’d endured in the deep sea, began to move.

He hadn’t forgotten Shu Mu Ye’s One Blade—the strike that split Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

He didn’t expect to match it in days. He only needed a way to stand and swing back.

And if there was a way, it was here.

Wang Jie swung the crab claw, imitating the currents of the deep. One move, then another. At first it was awkward. Then smoother. Then, at last—

a sword-shadow fell and struck the soil.