CHAPTER 467: CHAPTER 467: BLACK STAR

A talisman shooing idlers was pasted on the canopy, immediately causing the surrounding passersby to disperse. Master Yuan Hao looked at Yu Sheng with a cheerful grin, conjuring up a few chairs as he explained, "First, let me correct something. Not only are these trinkets blessed, but your portrait is also blessed—no deception here. It’ll truly ward off evil spirits; I’ve tested it on a couple of mountain sprites..."

Yu Sheng was about to sit down when he nearly toppled over upon hearing the elder’s words: "Is this the main point!"

"How is it not the main point?" Yuan Hao glared with wide eyes, "Our Qianfeng Ling Mountain’s blessing technique is renowned across the entire Taixu Spirit Hub..."

Yu Sheng slapped his forehead with a long sigh.

Beside him, Luna and Hu Li had somehow gathered at the stall, squeezing in between them a carefree puppet, and their murmuring was audible: "Hey, you really gotta admit these eyes are a bit similar!"

"My savior’s eyes are prettier..."

"You silly fox, you’re biased because you’ve been fed. You think everything looks good on him."

"Mm, right."

"Hey hey, silly fox, listen! Even the C-shaped buckle supports me!"

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched as he listened to the murmuring beside him, stepping forward to grab the elder’s hand: "Seriously, let’s take this thing down..."

Yuan Hao slapped his thigh: "Just removing it won’t solve the problem."

Yu Sheng: "...What do you mean?"

Yuan Hao then raised his hand, pointing nearby: "Look around?"

Following his direction, Yu Sheng glanced over and immediately spotted another stall selling souvenirs, under the same canopy several large portraits were displayed. The central one prominently featured two large lines of text, the left reading "Yu Sheng, Savior of Great Virtue," and the right stating "Spiritual Light Dispels Calamity and Banishes Evils"...

The painting’s style was distinctly Taixu, adorned with auspicious clouds and spiritual light, so much so that Yu Sheng himself felt like it could really ward off evil spirits if hung in the living room—then his home would have two flat characters.

His mind briefly wandered, cold sweat ran down as he struggled to maintain his composure, glaring at the leisurely elder before him: "Who came up with all this... Surely you were the ringleader?"

"Ringleader? That’s not my role," Yuan Hao chuckled, "besides, does anyone need to lead this? Think about why today’s festival is happening."

Yu Sheng was momentarily stunned, then realized with mixed feelings that a series of events was inevitably bound to follow after the Angel Fall—just not in the direction he had anticipated...

He somewhat missed the Boundary Land under Special Service Bureau control, always maintaining "normalcy."

At this moment, Yuan Hao suddenly bunched closer, lowering his voice with a mysterious air: "There’s a share in it..."

Yu Sheng reacted quickly, shocked on the spot: "This is okay?!"

Yuan Hao pulled out a palm fan from somewhere, waving it: "Normally it wouldn’t be, mainly because those that can hang on a wall to ward off evils are usually ancient, or outright folk legends. It’s hard to find someone like you who’s still alive."

Yu Sheng pondered: "So back to the topic..."

He then looked around, suddenly revealing a slight smile, moved his chair to cozy up to Master Yuan Hao. The duo bowed their heads and began whispering, striking an instant accord, working together deceitfully...

Erin seemed to sense the commotion behind her, glanced back at Yuan Hao and Yu Sheng whispering together, then poked Hu Li’s tail with her hand: "What are they discussing?"

Hu Li perked up his ears, listened for a bit, and then joyfully remarked: "My savior said he would buy me delicious food!"

Erin: "...I shouldn’t have asked you."

Meanwhile, on the other side, after whispering, Yu Sheng suddenly recalled something: "By the way, shouldn’t you be up on the mountain now? As the sect leader, shouldn’t you make an appearance on such a day?"

"I left an external incarnation in Queyun Palace," Yuan Hao waved his fan, "sect affairs are incredibly dull, and an external incarnation is quite enough to deal with them."

"True Man Yuanling has no objections?"

Yuan Hao waved his hand: "My junior’s long used to it."

Yu Sheng grimaced: "What if he truly comes after you?"

Yuan Hao looked at the sky: "I’m used to it too."

Yu Sheng: "..."

How to put it, it’s truly impressive that someone returned after being abducted as a mountain companion for twelve years yet seems unaffected. The elder’s mentality is akin to a Sacred Body, his Dao heart is solidified as if beyond repair.

With a slight feeling of nostalgia, Yu Sheng leaned back in the chair and exhaled softly. Then, he adjusted his lazy posture a bit and sat up: "Perfect timing, now that the Dark Angel problem is solved, both of us have some leisure time. I have something to ask you."

Master Yuan Hao raised an eyebrow: "Oh? What is it?"

Yu Sheng reached out to open a small door in the air beside him, rifled through it for a moment, and took out a small box. As he opened it in front of the old handsome guy, he spoke casually: "It’s some weird thing that suddenly appeared in my house. Originally, I came to Qianfeng Ling Mountain to ask you about it, but I didn’t expect to encounter life-threatening major incidents like the Exotic Realm outbreak and the Dark Angel as soon as I arrived, which delayed things... Here, take a look, doesn’t it seem familiar?"

The lid of the box opened, revealing a piece of fabric with a unique material and mysterious patterns quietly lying inside.

Master Yuan Hao curiously leaned forward to take a look, and indeed, a hint of surprise appeared on his face.

Yu Sheng noticed the change in the other’s expression: "I heard you also have a similar fragment over there."

Yuan Hao pondered for a moment and nodded gently: "I do indeed have one."

Yu Sheng unconsciously leaned forward: "Do you remember where it came from?"

Yuan Hao thought for a moment, looking serious: "About a hundred years ago, I was traveling near the Algerde Star Domain, and unexpectedly the Immortal Boat malfunctioned; at the time, it was the part of the Spiritual Disc..."

"Ahem, there’s no need to explain the Immortal Boat malfunctions in detail, I don’t understand them anyway, and to be honest, I never thought it was that much of a surprise—your Immortal Boat seems to never operate without malfunctions," Yu Sheng quickly coughed twice to interrupt, "just tell me what happened afterward."

Yuan Hao didn’t feel embarrassed at all, remaining quite matter-of-fact: "In short, during the loss of control, it collided with a ’Black Star’..."

"Black Star?"

"Yes, a completely black celestial body, but somehow, a vast space surrounding that celestial body was uniformly distributed with a very dim light—it was precisely this backdrop of faint light that made the ’Black Star’ visible to the naked eye... extremely distinct, and eerie."

"Is it a black hole?"

"Of course not," True Man Yuan Hao shook his head, "I recognize black holes—this celestial body is entirely different from a black hole, it has no gravity and doesn’t even register as a ’solid’; spiritual sense passed through it as though striking empty space, penetrating right through. If anything, that ’Black Star’ more closely resembled a shadow cast in the universe.

"Yet it truly exists.

"At the time, my Immortal Boat lost control, heading straight into that blackened ’planet’. According to the perception from the Immortal Boat, it seemed to have a layer close to liquid state, even slowly moving, ’surface’. When the Immortal Boat plummeted into that ’liquid’ layer, there was a brief deceleration, but soon enough, I passed through into the interior of that ’Black Star’.

"Below was a confused, chaotic space, and even with my divine sense paired with multiple array reinforcements and amplifications from the Immortal Boat, it was challenging to perceive anything beyond the visual range. I recall seeing many large clusters of clouds floating in the air, and the deeper I went, the more the clouds congealed until they resembled isolated islands floating in the sky—I passed through some of these islands, most of them were empty, but some exhibited bizarre and strange visions as I passed through.

Yu Sheng curiously asked: "Bizarre and strange visions?"

"Yes," Yuan Hao nodded slightly, "there were solitary floating high buildings in the chaos, structures seemingly torn from some gigantic ship wreckage, and peculiar twisted lands, or rivers floating inexplicably in the darkness...

"I passed through them, feeling as though those things were like foam illusions, untouchable and unattainable.

"But after surpassing those ’clouds’, the situation changed again—deeper inside lay vast expanses of overlapping ruins."

"Ruins?!" Yu Sheng exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, ruins, various types of buildings, twisted beyond recognition, chaotically merged together into mountain-like piles, and those ruin mountains circled around, with a circular ’pit’ in the middle of them... To say ’pit’, its scale even surpassed the entire Qianfeng Ling Mountain, and from its depths constantly emerged dense black fog, among which were surging architectural wreckages.

"Those wreckages fell onto the surrounding ruin mountains, causing the mountains to grow continuously, but the peaks were continuously devoured by the clouds in the sky, transforming into drifting ashes and falling back into the great pit again, in such cyclical fashion... a sight exceedingly oppressive and unsettling."

"Listening to you already gives me goosebumps," Yu Sheng subconsciously rubbed his arms, adjusting his sitting posture, "what happened next?"

"Then I flew down into that great pit..."

Yu Sheng: "...Uh?"

What on earth just barged in, are all these practitioners this bold?!

Yuan Hao spread his hands: "I was panicking too! My Immortal Boat was out of control!"

"Oh, I forgot about that—so what happened next?"

"Then I passed through that layer of black fog, and saw below it a far larger, but noticeably more intact and orderly ruin; it seemed like a vast collapsed divine temple, with many majestic stone pillars standing on a giant stone square, and in the distance were fallen, slanting domes and beams, with a huge shadow—indistinguishable of what it was, just appeared to have a humanoid silhouette but seemingly mixed with other limb structures—lying among those stone pillars."

Yu Sheng blinked, his expression gradually turning grave.

That scene... looked familiar!