Chapter 494 - 243: Frying Pan Universe
"Haha!"
Seeing this, Prince Zi Gui strode toward the center of the grand hall where King Chonghou had just been sitting. His wild and unrestrained laughter shook the lanterns on the ceiling, causing them to rattle.
"Please! Once His Majesty has verified General Mo’s innocence, I, the Great Witch, will personally apologize to the general."
Wupeng Great Witch Venerable finished speaking with a smirk, and two Divine Talisman Warriors walked up behind Mo Wuji, standing at attention with solemn expressions.
Mo Wuji rose to his feet, his face devoid of expression. He spoke to King Chonghou, saying, "My lord, we are both subjects of the Great Shang. My loyalty is as clear as the sun and moon, for all of heaven and earth to witness."
With that, he strode out of the grand hall.
"Take my royal brother away. See that he is well taken care of. If he is left without an attendant for even a moment, I will not be lenient."
After Prince Zi Gui spoke, King Chonghou, just like Mo Wuji, was escorted away under the watch of several Divine Talisman Warriors.
...
「The Starry Cosmos!」
Zhao Rui gazed at the planet drawing ever closer in the distance. Feeling the immense gravitational pull coming from its direction, a sense of solemnity washed over him.
’The Majestic Power of Heaven and Earth!’
On Blue Star, one looked upon the sky above and the earth below as boundaries and felt the boundless expanse of the world.
Only by leaving Blue Star and crossing the starry void did one realize the vastness of the universe and the immensity of the stars.
A person’s horizons will always expand with the steps they take. Anyone whose vision extends beyond the scope of their current world is surely a person of great wisdom.
"This is the Boundary Wall!"
Mo Longteng pointed to the massive, nameless planet ahead and said in a low voice.
"This is?"
"The Ancient Yinghuo Star! It is also a planet that does not exist in your world."
Mo Longteng didn’t keep him in suspense and directly revealed the answer.
Zhao Rui was stunned. Just as he was about to ask a question, Mo Longteng continued, "This concept of a ’planet’ is something I only learned after coming to your world. In the time of Gui Xu, there was no so-called sun or moon... only this Ancient Yinghuo Star."
"My father and I personally investigated this place and discovered that the Ancient Yinghuo Star is not a real planet. It’s more like a door—a door that, once opened, reveals an unknown space behind it."
"At first, we thought it was the former lands of the Central State, since the Spiritual Qi had already begun its resurgence back then."
"But we later discovered that there was no connection between the two places..."
Listening to Mo Longteng’s words, Zhao Rui’s mind was in turmoil, like a raging sea.
These words shattered decades of his education and overturned his fundamental understanding of the world.
"After coming to Blue Star, I read many of your books and learned the extent of your former technological power."
"But all of it is merely an illusion, like a flower in a mirror or the moon on the water. As long as the Ancient Yinghuo Star exists, any world beyond Blue Star’s confines may not be real."
"Because we can’t fly out."
After speaking, Mo Longteng’s body surged with endless True Qi, and he suddenly shot toward the space beside the ancient star at extreme speed.
In the blink of an eye, Mo Longteng’s body seemed to crash into an invisible, intangible, transparent barrier.
A flash of iridescent light burst forth, and he was flung back.
The immense force was such that it took him a long moment to halt his backward momentum.
"Do you understand now?"
Zhao Rui’s eyes widened slightly. Of course, he understood.
’So this is the Boundary Wall.’ It used the Ancient Yinghuo Star as a focal point, forming a spatial prison that enveloped the entire Blue Star, its sun, and a few other planets.
The separations and mergers of Gui Xu and Blue Star had all occurred within this spatial prison. There was no such thing as an Alternate Space at all.
"Who erected this spatial Boundary Wall?"
Zhao Rui asked with a frown.
"I don’t know!"
"Then..."
"The peak of the Martial Dao is a dead end!"
Mo Longteng uttered this sentence abruptly, then slowly closed his eyes.
"Let’s go!"
"Brother, what did you just say? Why didn’t you use a voice transmission?"
Inside the True Qi Shield, Mo Ling’Er looked on in confusion as her brother and Zhao Rui solemnly faced the massive planet before them.
she asked, not quite understanding.
But her only answer was the swift flight of their return journey.
’The ultimate peak of the Martial Dao...?’
Zhao Rui glanced silently at the Ancient Yinghuo Star, then abruptly shot forward, swiftly catching up to the Mo Longteng siblings ahead.
Heaven and earth are vast; the starry sky is boundless.
Using True Qi as a medium, humanity wields immeasurable power, breaking the shackles of their nature to roam freely, plucking stars and grasping the moon.
Waves crashed in Zhao Rui’s heart. The waters of Blue Star and Gui Xu were far deeper than he had imagined.
He had traveled a thousand leagues to the Great Shang Land in search of Mo Longteng precisely because he was completely ignorant about the Realm he had now reached.
For Song Realm Martial Artists, due to the passage of time, the absolute ceiling was the Domain Realm. Even if a few reclusive masters existed, they would rarely ever appear.
Since Mo Longteng had revealed himself, how could Zhao Rui not seize this opportunity to get to the bottom of things?
The outcome now was better than he had expected. At least Mo Longteng was an "acquaintance" and had told him some of the things he wanted to know.
But this outcome was also the worst possible one.
’If the Martial Dao has no path forward, then what is the point of cultivating?’
He wouldn’t completely believe Mo Longteng’s words, but the existence of the Ancient Yinghuo Star was definitely something he had never expected.
Just then, two things suddenly came to Zhao Rui’s mind. One was the base Elder Ge had once taken him to, where it was said that they had discovered alien technology.
’If the Boundary Wall exists, then where did the alien technology come from?’
The other thing was the Outer Heaven Demon he and Master Qingyang of the Taishan Sect had encountered when they first set foot in the starry sky. ’What was the deal with that?’
Zhao Rui frowned in deep thought, his eyes gradually clearing.
’I have not yet reached the ultimate peak of the Martial Dao. The path is long and arduous. If there is no road forward, what’s to stop me from carving one myself?’
The three of them transformed into streaks of light, flying rapidly toward Blue Star. The journey back was always much faster than the journey out.
After a short while, the three of them passed through the atmosphere. Trailing brilliant plumes of light from the friction, they were like meteors—well, at this point, they basically were meteors—as they shot downward.
Watching the ground rush up to meet them, Mo Ling’Er’s eyes were wide with terror. Despite her status as a High Tier of Dharma expert, the sheer force of their descent was still horrifying to her.
If the person next to her wasn’t her own brother, she would absolutely never let anyone take her on such a ride.
’This is terrifying.’
"Look, shooting stars! Quick, make a wish!"
"I wish for a beautiful woman!"
"I wish for a hundred million."
"I want to be a king!"
On a barren mountain in the distance, a few tourists suddenly saw three streaks of light falling from the sky. Thinking they were meteors, they quickly bowed their heads to make a wish.
When the three of them finished their wishes and looked up, their eyes filled with astonishment.
"What is that?"
They saw a rainbow-colored light in the sky transform into a heaven-blotting hand that reached straight for the three meteors.
The three meteors, which had been falling straight down, abruptly changed direction, dodging the great hand’s grasp.
But the great hand seemed a cut above. Its palm was wider, and before the three meteors could escape, it enveloped all of them within its grasp.
Then, the heaven-blotting hand vanished into the night sky.
"That’s a Dharma Aspect master!"
"It’s from the direction of the Central Asian Merchant!"
"Is a war about to start?"
The three of them were terrified beyond words. Forgetting all about their hike, they scrambled heedlessly down the mountain.
...
「Within some unknown space.」
Zhao Rui and the others were now inside it. In this space, there was no up, down, left, or right; only darkness met the eye.
The space was filled with a corrosive power that constantly eroded a Martial Artist’s surrounding True Qi.
Furthermore, a strange, binding force restrained a Martial Artist’s body.
"Where is this? Why does it look so much like the Frying Pan Universe Father told me about?"
Mo Ling’Er cried out in horror.
"That’s right. It’s the Frying Pan Universe of Wupeng Great Witch Venerable!"
Mo Longteng said, his face pale.
"How could this be? Why would Wupeng Great Witch Venerable attack us? Could it be...?"
"Correct. The King has made a move against King Chonghou!"
"Then Father...!"
Mo Longteng fell silent. If their father was safe, Wupeng Great Witch Venerable would not have dared to attack them.
But with his father’s strength, even Wupeng Great Witch Venerable was slightly inferior. ’Unless... Great Zhou...’
Mo Longteng shook his head, dismissing the thought.
’Prince Zi Gui was driven out by the Great Zhou; how could he possibly be cooperating with them?’
"Thinking about this is useless. We should first figure out how to get out of here!"
Seeing that the two of them still had the mind to consider such things, Zhao Rui couldn’t help but speak up and remind them.
"Right!"
Mo Longteng collected his thoughts and nodded.