The Forbidden Path to Immortality-Chapter 274

Fat Ji shook his head. “The moment I heard you say ‘Heavenly Star Sea,’ I knew you had the wrong spot. Based on my calculations, we’ve already flown past the Eastern Sea. We’re at least a hundred thousand li from the Heavenly Star Sea. This isn’t a sea at all, it’s a river!”

“A river?”

Li Xun frowned and quickly ran the numbers on how far he had traveled overnight.

Right. In his Blood Shadow Demon Form, he moved at more than twice his normal speed. Flying half the night was enough to cover a full day’s journey under normal conditions. Which meant this place was already…

“If I’m right, we’ve already stepped into the territory of the Xingji Sword Sect. The so-called ‘Star River,’ the most elusive of the six Forbidden Lands.

“These days the two great sword sects are at each other’s throats, and the fighting is blazing hot. Mingxin Sword Sect is still manageable, but that Old Tian Yuan is famous for being unreasonable. He moves the Star River around every single day, and his disciples zip all over the place. One wrong turn and the two of us could stumble right into it… wait, are you even listening?”

Li Xun snapped back to attention at his words, though he didn’t bother to hide anything. He simply nodded. “The Star River is shaped by the workings of heaven and earth. It’s the projection of the celestial stars, and its movement follows the shifting of the constellations. With the pull of star-force, it’s normal for it to drift, swell, or shrink. It might not be Tian Yuan controlling it on purpose.”

Fat Ji blinked in surprise, then broke into a wide grin. “You really are something, junior brother. Looks like you’ve got a solid grasp of Forbidden Path too. With skills like that, why not come along with me? Join my pavilion as a guest elder and you’ll save yourself a whole lot of trouble…”

Li Xun suddenly sensed several auras appear out of nowhere about twenty li away, heading straight toward them.

Fat Ji wasn’t nearly as quick. He kept rambling on until Li Xun shot him a look and said in a low voice, “Someone’s coming.”

Fat Ji’s face tightened. He seemed to use some technique of his own and soon picked up the incoming group. “Damn it, that smell is definitely Xingji Sword Sect. Tian Yuan’s disciples are just like him, impossible to reason with even when you’re in the right. Junior brother, how about we hide?”

Seeing the look on his face, Li Xun realized the fat man’s grudge with the Xingji Sword Sect was far deeper than simple “avoiding trouble.”

Even so, Li Xun already had his own plan in mind, so he actually agreed to the fat man’s suggestion. The two of them slipped beneath the surface of the sea. They didn’t dive very deep, but using the shifting reflections of the water, they could hide their bodies and pull in their auras. Their concealment techniques even worked in surprisingly similar ways.

They had barely submerged when a faint sword hum drifted across the water. As someone highly skilled in sword-riding, Li Xun recognized the moment he heard it that the person controlling the sword had impressive mastery. Their true breath resonated perfectly with the blade, the vibration as crisp as bronze and jade striking together, a clear sign of refined cultivation.

With skill like that, soaring through the air on pure qi would be effortless. Riding the sword was simply the easiest and most comfortable way to travel.

The sword hum stopped right above the spot where the two had been moments ago. A moment later, several more people chased after him from the distance. Just from the sound of their sword qi, it was obvious they were far less accomplished than the first.

Before long, the group gathered over the water. Someone called out, “Senior Brother Yunxing, did you catch sight of the guy who rang the bell just now?”

The one they called Yunxing was clearly the man who had arrived first on the sword. He answered, “I didn’t see anyone.”

His voice carried a metallic resonance, full of presence and authority.

Li Xun knew a fair bit about the Xingji Sword Sect, and the moment he heard the name Yunxing, he understood. This was one of Old Tian Yuan’s most valued disciples, famous for his ruthless decisiveness. In the Tongxuan Realm, his reputation stood on par with the Seven Swords of Lianxia. He was no minor figure.

After Yunxing gave that single reply, he fell silent. The junior disciples around him also held their tongues, which made it even clearer just how high his standing was among them.

After a long moment, Yunxing finally spoke. “The yang energy is getting stronger and the stars are shifting. In about four hours the Star River will move over this spot. Whoever is out there won’t be able to cause trouble then. That’s all for now.”

Everyone murmured their agreement except for the one who had asked the earlier question. He called out, “Senior Brother Yunxing, but the one who rang the bell…”

“I know,” Yunxing replied calmly. “It must have been that fat guy Ji. The problem is his status isn’t what it used to be. Even if we track him down, there’s nothing we can do to him for the time being. What worries me more is the person he fought.”

“The one he fought?”

“That person’s aura feels strange and off the proper path. Things are complicated right now and plenty of people are looking to profit from the chaos. We need to tread carefully. In any case, that fat Ji stole our sect’s Star-Charting Disk to secure his position as Pavilion Master. Not reclaiming it now is already a great favor to him. It’s time he lent us a hand.”

The words carried straight through the water into the fat man’s ears. Ji the Fat had a mind as sharp as a needle, and the moment he heard it something clicked. He could tell Yunxing meant more than he was saying. His little eyes blinked and he turned to look at the person next to him.

“Bro… huh? Where’d he go?”

In the dark waters below, Li Xun was already dozens of li away, slipping off without a sound.

The instant he sensed Yunxing’s aura, Li Xun understood. For a aura to appear so suddenly, there had to be some kind of special restriction at work. And in this place, what else could it be but the Star River?

He hadn’t expected this little run-in along the way, but it actually saved him a lot of time. That being the case, the important thing now wasn’t getting tangled up with that odd fat man. Li Xun had let it go, pulling away at once. He found a secluded spot, shifted his aura, and changed back into Spirit Bamboo’s appearance.

He had never experienced his strength dropping to nearly half in an instant. It was new, but it was far from pleasant.

He frowned and ran the nearly forgotten Lingxi Art through his body a dozen times before he finally managed to lighten the heavy feeling in his limbs.

Yin Wanderer appeared beside him, handed him the Azure Jade Sword, then knit her brows. “Be careful. If you get into a fight right now, you’re most likely to overestimate yourself. Best to calm your mind and stay steady so you can keep yourself safe.”

Li Xun actually appreciated this rare bit of concern. He nodded, glanced through the seawater at the sky above, then gave Yin Wanderer a small signal before angling his body and swimming toward the place where Yunxing first appeared.

To be safe, he took nearly an hour to cover the thirty or forty li. When he judged he was close enough, he began to rise slowly.

He had only lifted himself partway when the water above him suddenly darkened. A strange, indescribable vibration rippled down through the sea, freezing him in place at once.

On pure instinct, a thought flashed through his mind: The Star River is shifting!

If you haven’t lived through a moment like this yourself, you can never truly imagine what it feels like when an enormous presence, vast enough to stretch for thousands of li, slowly passes overhead. When its shadow falls and blots out the sky, there’s no way to describe the feeling that hits you.

Li Xun had once thought that Old Kunpeng’s true form was already the peak of grandeur. That ancient beast soared ninety thousand li into the heavens, wings like hanging clouds, carving across mountains and seas. The sheer weight and power of its body rising into the blue sky had seemed unmatched.

But now, he began to understand something new. When a behemoth abandoned speed and revealed every minute detail of its movement before your eyes, the pressure it exerts is even heavier than anything he had imagined before.

What struck Li Xun the most was the violent shift in the world’s primordial qi.

The cause of this shift wasn’t the normal turbulence created by a giant body moving through the air. It came from countless currents of qi, billions upon billions of minute changes gathering within one massive, unified “frame,” all influencing one another in their uneven, overlapping ways. That interaction stirred the world’s primordial qi into a fierce, overflowing tide.

This differed quite a bit from the “water and fire share one source” restriction used in the Southeastern Forest Sea. The difference was that the Forest Sea gathered the energies of every direction for the sake of Mist-Hidden Pavilion, with the pavilion at the center guiding everything. Its whole system followed a pattern of outside, inside, then outside again.

In other words, it relied on human effort to arrange the forces of nature. Most of it was crafted after the fact, and only hidden within the landscape through brilliant techniques.

The Star River was the complete opposite. This place was shaped by the workings of heaven and earth themselves. Its natural state shifted in step with the stars, like the ebb and flow of a tide, moved largely by celestial power.

Those who lived here, such as the Xingji Sword Sect, only made small adjustments to the environment and set their restrictions within what nature already provided. It was far less malleable than Mist-Hidden Pavilion’s domain, yet in terms of mysterious transformations and the sheer power it stored, it surpassed Mist-Hidden Pavilion.

No one understood this better than Li Xun, who had been in close contact with it.

By sheer luck, Li Xun hadn’t been caught in the path of the shifting “Star River.” He’d only brushed the very edge of it, and it happened to be moving in the opposite direction. If not, the immense pull it carried would have swallowed him whole.

The sensation lasted only for a short moment before gradually fading.

With a loud splash, he pushed his head above the surface of the sea and sucked in huge lungfuls of air, trying to ease the crushing pressure on his heart.

Once he’d caught his breath, Li Xun stretched his neck forward, wanting a close look at the so-called Star River. But… fog?

At some point a thick mist had risen over the water. It was strange, too. Even with Li Xun’s sharp vision, he couldn’t see anything clearly beyond about a hundred paces.

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T/N: just a heads-up in case. i’ve got an important exam coming up on the 2nd of next month, so I’ll be spending some time preparing for it. if you notice fewer updates over the next week, that’s why