CHAPTER 226: DEADLY ZONE

Chapter 226: Deadly Zone

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In the world, there were many things feared by both ordinary people and cultivators, whether powerful or not.

They were mainly present within the world itself, but they did not necessarily remain confined to it. Beyond the skies lay one of the many places unexplored by the cultivators of that plane of existence

the vast starry expanse.

For those who looked at it from below, it was nothing more than an enormous dark veil, adorned with countless tiny luminous dots, beautiful to behold yet too distant to understand what they really were.

For ordinary people, that expanse was too far and too unknown for anyone to pay much attention to it. Not when, down below, beneath the skies, on their very land, there were things equally unknown, yet far closer to explore.

This, however, was not the mindset of high level cultivators, particularly those who had transcended the limits of their mortal bodies and reached the Spirit Realm, a new level of power that turned much of the impossible into something achievable for them.

This opened the way to new possibilities, things considered unrealizable or difficult to accomplish, but that, after surpassing the threshold to become beings of the Spirit Realm, became far more feasible.

This stirred great unrest and curiosity about these possibilities, and eventually someone attempted to travel past the skies themselves, all the way to the stars above.

It filled everyone with immense enthusiasm and expectation, until the first cultivators who attempted to go beyond the skies and enter the vast dark space above their heads perished.

And they did not simply die.

Their end was brutal: their bodies twisted into unnatural forms and sizes, their souls completely corrupted by something unknown,

an unfamiliar energy,

and any possibility of returning swiftly was utterly shattered.

Seeing the fate of the first explorers, the instinctive fear that the unknown space above them instilled in the hearts of all who learned of it was immense, and this led to fewer and fewer attempts to travel beyond the skies.

Yet they never ceased entirely.

Cultivators of a higher stage in the Spirit Realm tried again, and though the end was the same, the more they attempted, the more they understood that it was possible to resist this strange phenomenon to a certain extent, this invisible corruption that struck both the body and soul of those who ventured into it.

That said, no one had ever managed to reach a level high enough to actually travel there, return safely, and survive.

After countless centuries, this led to the starry heavens becoming a forbidden, deadly place for the people of that plane of existence.

No one stopped those who wanted to try, not that there were many in the first place,

at least not after learning what had happened to those who had already attempted such a feat.

The nature of that corruption was never understood, and in the end, the conclusion reached was that the level cultivators could attain in their plane of existence was simply too low to attempt such an undertaking.

Perhaps, once they ascended to a higher plane of existence, they might have had some chance, but that hypothesis was never confirmed, since those who ascended to higher planes never returned.

Perhaps because they did not want to, or perhaps because they could not.

Yet what no one knew was that two individuals had succeeded in that feat, people whose existence had once been acclaimed in the past, who had reached levels others could only imagine.

These two individuals were none other than Zhu Rong and Yuan Lan.

The first, whose very existence went against the heavens, unknown yet sufficiently strange to withstand the corruption of space.

And the second, whose origins were equally unknown, yet strange enough to cause trouble for the heavens themselves, which had tried multiple times to erase her.

And that very same person had succeeded not only in traveling beyond the skies into the vast starry expanse but also in returning from it.

Yuan Lan had reached a level of cultivation incomprehensible to many and impossible to exist in that plane of existence, but even so, she existed.

And her accomplishment in retrieving something most could not even dream of seeing in their lifetime proved it.

The heart of a dying star.

An immeasurable source of energy for the people of that plane of existence, something that could only be theorized but never confirmed to exist. And even if it could, no one would ever be able to obtain it.

Zhu Rong knew that his small world was limited and would not be able to grow stronger without external means, means that could not be obtained in that plane of existence.

So he entrusted the task to Yuan Lan in his past life: to travel across the starry expanse and retrieve a source of energy powerful enough to raise the small world of his secret realm to new heights.

He had conducted countless investigations and managed to determine the presence of an object with such characteristics near that plane of existence.

At that time, he had no way to retrieve it himself, as his previous life cycle had come to an end due to certain necessary actions he had taken.

But the same did not apply to Yuan Lan, who had the possibility to choose whether to undertake that mission or not. She accepted, and after several centuries of travel in the vast expanse, she returned with exactly what Zhu Rong had asked for.

Zhu Rong had little expectation that such a mission would succeed, as his understanding of the vast starry expanse was still very limited. But fate wanted her to succeed, and now he could finally put his plans into motion.

"If you had refined and used this to cultivate your foundation, you would have made an enormous leap in your cultivation," he said, shaking his head.

Yuan Lan, who was struggling to keep the hearth of the dying star contained, heard those words and pretended to be annoyed as she replied,

"Hmpf. What’s the point of reaching such levels if my master isn’t with me?

Power means little to me. The previous millennia were already boring without you. Traveling through the higher planes alone is not something I’m interested in doing."

Zhu Rong could tell that the woman before him was the same devoted battle companion of the past, unchanged in the slightest.

Had he not convinced her back then to accept that mission, she would most likely have followed him to his grave, taking this plane of existence along with her as well.

Zhu Rong could only shake his head at the thought and at the woman’s stubbornness. But perhaps it was precisely that stubbornness that made her unique, and a trusted right hand he had always relied on with his whole being.