Chapter 276 - 262: Automatic Spellcasting
Qi Yun curled his fingers, gripping the Hundred-Star King’s Button tightly in his palm.
A gentle warmth, laced with the distinctively cold touch of the stars, spread from his palm.
With a flicker of his will, the Magic Technique Panel—visible only to him within his Sea of Consciousness—materialized. Ancient characters rippled across its surface like water.
The next moment,
The pure and majestic Star Dao Intent, accumulated within the Hundred-Star King’s Button for untold ages, surged into the panel like a heavenly river bursting its dams!
On the panel, the line of text representing Omen Star Shining High suddenly flared with brilliant light.
The progress bar behind it, which had been nearly stagnant, began to tremble.
Within a few breaths, the bar, as if pushed by an invisible hand, shot across the final stretch and slammed past the limit.
[Magic technique update complete. This is a minor version update. The effects have been adjusted as follows:]
[Omen of Evil Star (10.0): New Automatic Spellcasting mechanism added. Spell cost reduced to 10%, spell power reduced to 10%]
The ancient characters slowly came to a rest, the words exuding a primal simplicity.
’Automatic Spellcasting?’
Qi Yun raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
He had assumed the 10.0 transformation would be like the previous ones, once again raising the limits of the spell’s power and range.
He focused his mind, delving into the core of this brand-new version of the magic technique.
A moment later, the surprise on his face gradually faded, replaced by a complex expression blending realization and amusement.
’Damn... it really is fully automatic.’
It turned out that once Automatic Spellcasting was activated,
the Evil Star, anchored to the concept of the Celestial Vault, would no longer require him to constantly divide his attention to control, aim, and fire it.
It would be endowed with a logic based on Qi Yun’s own Divine Sense and friend-or-foe identification.
Automatic lock-on!
Automatic strikes!
Ceaseless!
’Though the power is reduced to ten percent, the cost has dropped just as much, and it saves me the mental effort of controlling it...’ Qi Yun’s eyes gleamed.
He glanced down at his palm. The Hundred-Star King’s Button had lost all its brilliance, turning into a gray-white powder that sifted through his fingers.
’But before that, I need to do some prep work.’
Qi Yun muttered to himself as the small pocket of space at his feet, temporarily sustained by the Northern Defense Array, quietly dispersed.
In a flash, he reappeared dozens of li away inside a deeper, more concealed fissure in the Earth Veins.
’First, I need a safe place.’
Qi Yun formed a sword with his fingers and drew in the air. Where his fingertips passed,
deep blue, almost inky Array Patterns materialized, rapidly burrowing into the surrounding rock walls and earth to spread and connect.
In the blink of an eye, a complex Array Map spanning a hundred zhang and exuding a deep, obscure aura had taken shape.
The Twenty-Four Qi Enlightenment Map.
This was a Spirit Gathering Array that Qi Yun had mastered while overseeing the construction of the Northern Defense Array.
Once the Array Map was complete, all the stray, impure Spiritual Qi for hundreds of li around, as well as the Dark Evil Qi leaking from deep within the Earth Veins, were silently drawn in, absorbed, and transformed.
It ceaselessly replenished the Magical Power he consumed.
Sitting cross-legged at the core of the Array Hub, an Ink Jade Meditation Mat naturally condensed beneath Qi Yun, formed from the fusion of pure Earth Qi and Star Dust.
His hands formed a profound Meditation Seal before his chest that resembled an inverted constellation, and the aura around him grew perfectly still.
"Well then..."
The corner of his mouth curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile. He whispered, his voice echoing eerily in the enclosed fissure:
"To my dear friends from the Righteous Dao who have traveled so far..."
"It’s about to rain."
The instant his voice fell—
HUM!
Deep within Qi Yun’s Purple Mansion, the Daluo Heaven Dao Foundation trembled slightly.
An invisible, profound ripple was transmitted in an instant to the dark silver Evil Star hanging high in the Celestial Vault.
Omen of Evil Star 10.0—activated!
...
In the Valley of No Life, an area was shrouded in faint, golden Buddha Light.
Three Buddhist Masters, dressed in moon-white robes with faint Wisdom Light Wheels floating above their heads, stood in a triangular formation.
They hailed from the Overseas lands to the south.
They had come at the invitation of the Nanyin Dynasty to bring Enlightenment to this Northwest Land of Great Demons.
"Senior Brother Hui Jue, the Star Power hasn’t appeared in a while."
The young monk suddenly spoke, his tone tinged with uncertainty.
"I haven’t felt it for the time it takes an incense stick to burn."
The old monk called Hui Jue nodded slightly. The fingers flicking his Prayer Beads slowed, and a thoughtful look appeared on his aged face:
"I feel it as well.
Perhaps the Demon using the Star Art is running out of Magical Power, or perhaps he’s planning something else."
The middle-aged monk chimed in,
"In any case, this is a chance to catch our breath.
We should quickly regroup with the other Daoists thirty li away. If we combine our strength, we might be able to..."
His words came to an abrupt halt.
Because in that very instant—
high above their heads, in the perpetually gray, unchanging "sky"—dozens of tiny, almost imperceptible specks of dark silver light flared into existence without warning!
The points of light appeared to be scattered randomly, yet they subtly blanketed the entire area where the three monks stood, covering all their possible paths of escape.
That was not one Star Pillar, but...
A shower of stars!
"This is bad!"
The old monk Hui Jue’s expression turned grim. His perpetually calm eyes grew hawk-sharp as he flung his Prayer Beads forward.
The one hundred and eight bodhi beads erupted in brilliant light, forming a solid, heavy golden barrier covered in countless, tiny flowing Swastika symbols that securely shielded the three monks.
At the very instant the barrier took form—
TCH! TCH! TCH! TCH!
Dozens of dark silver rays of starlight—each as fine as a hair, over a zhang long, and condensed to the peak of purity—arrived in an instant. With a faint yet sharp hiss, they struck the golden barrier.
There was no earth-shattering collision, no brilliant explosion of light.
There was only a rapid succession of dull THUDS, so dense it made one’s scalp tingle.
With each ray of starlight that landed, the solid golden barrier trembled slightly, a small indentation glittering with dark silver Star Dust forming at the point of impact.
Although the power of a single ray was weaker by far more than a factor of ten compared to the previous Star Pillars, which were hundreds of zhang thick and could flatten mountains.
But their numbers were too great, and their frequency was too fast!
"This Star Power... how has it become so... incessant?!" the middle-aged monk growled, his brow furrowed.
The phantom of Wei Tuo behind the young monk roared, and its spectral Demon-Subduing Pestle swept out, deflecting a portion of the starry rain.
But the phantom’s own light visibly dimmed.
The old monk Hui Jue’s expression was extremely grave. He could feel that the Magical Power he was using to support the Vajra Demon Suppression Circle was draining away at an unprecedented rate!
Though each individual star in the shower was weak, the continuous, unending barrage was far more terrifying than the previous powerful but limited Star Pillars!
Against the pillars, they could rely on their defenses and wait for an opening.
This shower, however, was an exhausting war of attrition; the slightest mistake, and their defenses would collapse like a dam breached by an anthole.
"We can’t just defend! Change formation and break out!" Hui Jue made his decision in a flash, spitting a mouthful of blood essence onto his Prayer Beads. The golden barrier suddenly swelled, forcing the starry rain back several feet.
The three monks seized the opportunity, transforming into streaks of Flowing Light and racing toward their planned rendezvous point.
However, the moment they moved,
new and even more numerous points of dark silver light flared in the gray sky above—directly in their path, on their flanks, and even cutting off their line of retreat.
A new, denser, and more precise shower of stars had already anticipated their movements and was waiting for them.
It was as if a pair of cold, indifferent eyes had already seen and calculated all of their reactions.
A similar scene was playing out almost simultaneously in various parts of the Valley of No Life.
A Sword Cultivator Master had just used an incomparably exquisite sword technique, "Star River Reversal," to force back three Northwest Demon Cultivators who were besieging him.
The aftershocks of his Sword Qi left brilliant, lingering trails in the air.
Before he could even recover his breath, dozens of fine rays of starlight rained down from above, causing his follow-up sword techniques to falter. The counter-attacking Demon Cultivators seized the opening, nearly injuring him.
A Master skilled in Talisman Arrays was rapidly setting up a linked "Five Elements Inverted Mysterious Array," intending to trap and kill two Demons who were tracking him.
He had just planted three Array Flags when starlight rained down from the heavens, striking several nodes in the Array Patterns that had yet to be connected. The resulting conflict of Magical Power caused the Array Flags to explode on the spot, the backlash forcing him back with a pained grunt.
In an even more extreme case, a Righteous Master and a Demon Master were locked in fierce Magical Combat, their auras entangled, when they suddenly noticed the shower of stars descending from above.
Seven or eight out of every ten rays were aimed at the Righteous Master.
The one or two rays that occasionally "strayed" and hit the Demon Cultivator merely glanced off his Protective Spiritual Light, completely harmless.
"This... this damn Star Art plays favorites?!"
The Demon Cultivator froze for a moment, then cackled as his attacks grew even more frenzied.
His opponent, the Righteous Master, was so furious he nearly coughed up blood. He had to face a powerful enemy while also diverting his focus to block the harassing shower of stars, leaving him scrambling in a perilous situation.
The entire Valley of No Life was enveloped by this "downpour."
The Righteous Dao Masters were harassed to the point of stomping and cursing in rage.
Meanwhile, their opponents, the Northwest Demon Cultivators, could attack with even greater impunity, aided by the "biased" support of the star shower.
As one side was suppressed and the other bolstered, the scales of the battle
began to tip toward the Northwest at an unprecedented rate.
...
Deep within the fissure in the Earth Vein.
The Twenty-Four Qi Enlightenment Map operated silently, transforming the impure energies gathered from all directions into a gurgling stream that nourished the figure seated motionless at the Array Hub’s center.
Qi Yun’s eyes were slightly closed, his expression as calm as still water.
He had almost completely released his mental control over the Evil Star.
In fact, he could let go entirely.
The 10.0 version of Omen of Evil Star was already a self-contained system and no longer required his attention.
Instead, most of his attention was on himself—on the wisp of the Origin Mechanism being nurtured deep within Daluo Heaven.
He could clearly feel that as the karmic calamity of slaughter in the Valley of No Life continued to ferment and evolve—a calamity he himself had intensified—
wisps of an even purer, more profound "primordial" Daoist Intent were being extracted from the void, gathering and slowly merging into the cyan-gray ball of light.
The hue of the light cluster seemed to deepen, just ever so slightly.
Though still faint, the trend was promising.
’As I thought. Personally entering the fray to stir the pot has a completely different effect than just watching from the sidelines,’ Qi Yun realized.
At this moment, he was both the player and the most active piece on the board.
His every action directly influenced the course of the game, "creating" new karma.
And the "origin" of this karma became the perfect nourishment for the Origin Mechanism.
’Still not fast enough...’
Qi Yun slowly opened his eyes. Reflected in their depths were the chaotic and brutal battle scenes across the valley, seen through the eyes of the Evil Star in the Celestial Vault.
"Finally found you."
His gaze fell upon an area the Evil Star’s sight could not penetrate, and Qi Yun slowly clasped his hands behind his back.
"The World-Suppressing Army..."
...