Chapter 278: By Shattered Star Lake, a Heavenly Pride One Finger

The tranquility of Shattered Star Lake is the deathly stillness that settled after swallowing too much of life's clamor.

Beneath the ink‑black, mirror‑smooth lake surface lay what seemed like an ancient nightmare asleep. The glowing shards that drifted, collided, and chimed like tiny bells were even more like ghostly lights luring moths.

One must not linger long in this place.

He finally glanced at the scorched black traces left where the pure yang true fire had burned and purified, and at the distant, profoundly unsettling lake surface, then turned without hesitation, his form becoming a mote of light that shot straight toward the opposite shore.

He needed to get far from the shore as quickly as possible before making any plans.

Because Wang Ping's movements were slight and his evasion technique superb, he passed over the lake's surface without disturbing any of its creatures.

Thus, after several hours, he already saw the shore.

Just as he stepped onto the shore, Wang Ping let out a soft 'ye' and sensed a strange fluctuation.

Following the fluctuation with his gaze, his heart jumped.

He saw, deep in a crack of the nearby stone, between the damp moss and rotting humus, several slender, bluish‑green stalks had quietly emerged at some unknown time.

At the tops of the stems bloomed three or four flowers shaped like lily‑of‑the‑valley, yet more delicate and exquisite.

The petals were not plain blue but a deep hue that seemed to blend night sky and star river, exuding a faint pull that reached deep into the soul, a fluctuation containing pure, ancient stellar power.

"Starlight Orchid!" Wang Ping instantly recognized it as a spiritual plant rarer even than condensed‑soul grass.

It grows only in places where stellar power is strong or where anomalies occur, wondrously effective for cultivating stellar arts, sharpening one's sense of the stars, and nourishing those born with a star‑soul attribute; it is an irreplaceable main ingredient for many high‑grade star‑attribute elixirs.

It has long vanished from the outside world, with only scattered records in the most ancient texts.

Judging by its blooming form and the density of its stellar halo, its age likely far exceeds that of the thousand‑year condensed‑soul grass, possibly reaching several thousand years! Its value is immeasurable.

"My luck is truly good," Wang Ping thought, but just as he was about to pluck it——

The wind stopped.

It was not a natural lull but a more eerie, total 'freezing'.

Even the faint 'ding‑dong' of star shards colliding on the distant lake surface—the sole sound breaking the absolute silence—seemed instantly wiped away by an invisible hand.

Even the air, reeking of rotting waterweeds and damp soil, seemed stripped and purified, leaving only a void of 'emptiness'.

An indescribable throb and chill, springing from life's instinct, raced up his spine and instantly covered Wang Ping's whole body.

His muscles tensed instantly; his inner five‑element spiritual power surged on its own at high speed, and five‑colored divine light accumulated in his meridians, ready to burst forth as his strongest defense.

He forcibly suppressed his instinct to flee, turning slowly and stiffly, his eyes fixed on the source of such intense danger as if facing a great foe.

By the shore of Shattered Star Lake, about a hundred paces away, atop a massive black reef that jutted abruptly from the shallows where beach met water,

at some point a solitary figure had silently taken its stand.

His simple silver‑white robes blazed bright against the leaden sky and black lake, both dazzling and aloof.

His flowing silver hair hung loose, shoulders bare, the tips seeming dusted with a starlight that did not belong here; his face was beautiful to the point of unreality, his skin the pallor of one long unseen by sun—icy and snow‑white yet suffused with a jade‑like luster.

Most striking were his eyes—pure silver pupils with no white, their depths not empty.

But rather like a miniature, slowly turning icy galaxy reflected within, the birth and death of its starlight exuding ancient desolation and absolute indifference.

Heaven Azure Clan, Cang Xuan.

That lone figure who once stood apart on the highest star‑carcass at the edge of the Fallen Star Sea, regarding the clamor of all peoples as nothing.

Now he appeared here at Shattered Star Lake's shore, seemingly having arrived earlier than Wang Ping—or perhaps he had been nearby all along.

Cang Xuan did not look at Wang Ping, and might not have truly 'gazed' at any concrete thing at all.

Yet Wang Ping could feel that the other's attention was fixed on the Starlight Orchid behind him.

He lingered a moment.

Cang Xuan's gaze finally drifted from those dark‑star‑like blossoms and settled slowly on Wang Ping.

No hostility, no scrutiny, not even curiosity—like a wanderer on a barren plain whose eyes idly sweep past a roadside weed and a pebble.

Calm, indifferent, as if Wang Ping's existence held no essential difference from the reef, soil, and even the air beside the lake.

"Human."

He spoke, his voice clear and cold, like polar ice sheets grinding together or jade lightly tapped, devoid of any human warmth.

"Get lost!"

The words were plain, yet carried a bone‑deep, utterly natural arrogance.

As if Shattered Star Lake's shore, the Ling Xu Secret Realm, and everything within his sight naturally belonged to him merely by being seen.

This arrogance was not put on for show; it sprang from an absolute gap in bloodline, power, and cognition, and had become part of his very being.

Wang Ping smiled, and an outer shield of five‑colored spiritual light flared up.

Arguing with such a being about 'who came first' or 'ownerless things' is pointless.

He curled the corner of his mouth, and his voice rang especially clear in the dead silence:

"How about you demonstrate one?"

Cang Xuan's eyes turned icy, his face growing completely cold.

In Cang Xuan's reckoning, Wang Ping was no different from the cultivators swallowed by the secret realm's entrance‑space turbulence, or any other lowly spirits that might lurk by the lake—mere background noise that had stumbled into this region and luckily survived; now that noise ought to be silenced.

The pressure descended like a mountain, not substantive spiritual pressure but an absolute mental and willful oversight. Had his resolve been weaker, a cultivator would likely have had his Dao heart shaken, his mind seized, and instinctively obeyed this command that seemed to come from a higher order of life, fleeing in disarray.

But Wang Ping's will was strong, and the Dao of cultivation is to defy heaven, to seize the cosmos' creation to strengthen oneself.

If even facing peers' wanton expulsion he dared not retain even the most basic dignity and perseverance of a cultivator, then what use is this path?

If today he retreated a step before this person out of fear, a fissure of 'dread' would later mark his Dao heart; though small, it could someday become an irredeemable heart‑devil tribulation fire at a crucial breakthrough.

Retreat might bring temporary safety; advance could hinge on the clarity of his Dao heart.

In an instant, myriad thoughts flashed through his mind.

Wang Ping raised his hand, his gaze no longer downcast but calmly, directly meeting those silver eyes that held a galaxy. His green robe stirred without wind, not an outward display of aura but the natural bearing of a resolve drawn inward to its utmost.

Seeing Wang Ping's move, Cang Xuan smiled.

No warning, no preparatory stance, not even a violent fluctuation of heaven‑and‑earth spiritual energy.

He merely raised his right hand casually, as if absentmindedly, extending a slender, pallid finger, as if carved from the finest cold jade, and from a distance lightly pointed at Wang Ping, who was several dozen zhang away.

The motion was light and casual. But at the instant his fingertip touched——

The heaven and earth where Wang Ping found himself seemed to have been forcibly severed from the original world!

Wind? Already frozen. Sound? Completely vanished. Color? All things faded, leaving only dull, oppressive gray and black.

Even the dampness of the soil beneath his feet, the mingling of spiritual qi in the air, and even the flow of his own blood and the beating of his heart seemed to become sluggish and blurred, his senses deprived of more than half!

All sense of existence, all "reality," rapidly collapsed and converged toward that fingertip point!

That was not light, not energy, and not even some kind of concrete attack.

It was a kind of "intent," a kind of "momentum," a kind of cold, absolute "verdict" seemingly issued by Heaven itself! It was formless and substanceless, yet omnipresent, filling heaven and earth, locking onto every "point" of Wang Ping's existence.

To completely erase him from this temporarily "severed" and "defined" space!

Heaven Azure Finger! One of the Heaven Azure Clan's signature techniques! Legend says it was created by observing the will of the ancient firmament; with a single finger, it is as if Heaven itself passes judgment, deciding life and death, dividing being from nonbeing!

Wang Ping's body hair stood on end all over; an unprecedented lethal crisis felt like billions of ice needles instantly piercing his skin, flesh, and bones, straight to the depths of his soul!

The pressure and terror of this finger far exceeded the deceitful sneak attack of the Soul-devouring Demon Vine by a hundredfold! It was an absolute crushing on the level of hierarchy, a ruthless proclamation on the level of rules!

Impossible to dodge! Heaven and earth are all enemies, nowhere to hide!

Cannot withstand it! How can mortal power defy Heaven?

In the instant of life and death, Wang Ping's boiling thoughts instead entered a state of absolute icy stillness and emptiness.

Fear was suppressed, distracting thoughts discarded, leaving only the most instinctive reaction and the core Dao!

"Roar——!!!"

As if a resonant roar from the depths of his five viscera and six bowels! Heart fire blazing, liver wood thriving, spleen earth heavy, lung metal sharp, kidney water enduring! Blue, red, yellow, white, black—five paths of spirit light blazing to the extreme, condensed to the origin, erupted from every orifice of Wang Ping's body with unprecedented speed and intensity!

But this eruption was not a disorderly venting.

The moment the five-colored spirit light appeared, it followed a profound and mysterious Dao rhythm attuned to the utmost truth of heaven and earth, madly rotating, intertwining, merging, and evolving!

They were not a static barrier, but a dynamic, ever-living microcosm that, in an instant, seemed to simulate the creation of heaven and earth, the five elements' genesis!

Five-Colored Divine Light—Five Elements Turning, all laws cannot invade!

This was not a simple superimposition of five-element spiritual power for defense, but the ultimate manifestation of Wang Ping's present comprehension of the Five Elements Heaven Scripture—taking himself as the furnace, the five elements as the base, deriving an indestructible domain of law!

Almost as the five-colored flow formed the ever-living "microcosm," that intangible yet real "Heaven Azure Finger Power" representing heavenly decree ignored distance and came crashing down!

"Boom——!!!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion as expected, no dazzling energy clash.

Only a profoundly muffled roar, as if directly striking the pulse of the cosmic source! This sound did not travel through air, but directly resonated deep within Wang Ping's soul, and upon every law node of the five-colored turning "microcosm."

"Crack……hummm……"

The domain of the five-colored turning shuddered violently! The ever-living, perfect orbit on its surface instantly showed countless fine ripples, as if a porcelain vessel about to crack! The blue, red, yellow, white, and black five-colored light flickered, flashed, and alternated at an unprecedented frequency.

The terrifying will of "heavenly decree" and "erasure of existence" contained within the finger power was continually worn down by the Five Elements Divine Light!

This was not a mere clash of strength, but a contest of Dao and principle!

"Pfft——!"

Wang Ping's face instantly turned ashen as paper; a mouthful of reverse blood could no longer be held back, and he spat it out violently.

He felt as if struck head-on by an intangible primordial star; his chest bones groaned under the unbearable weight, and his five viscera and six bowels churned in agonizing pain as if displaced.

Beneath his feet, he involuntarily stepped back with a series of "thud, thud, thud, thud," retreating seven large steps!

Each step landed, leaving a half‑inch‑deep, cracked footprint on the damp, hard lakeshore ground, mud and stone flying!

Until the seventh step, when his heel slammed hard against a protruding rock, he barely stopped his retreat. The rock cracked with a "crack," splitting under the tremendous force.

A single finger! Merely appearing casual! Possibly, as Cang Xuan said, not even using full strength—and yet it was terrifying to this degree!

Most importantly, his opponent had not only reached Golden Core Perfection, but his technique had advanced into the Fourth Layer of the Point Spirit Realm.

Wang Ping's face remained calm; his left hand held Yi Wood Divine Thunder, his right hand Solar True Fire.

He slammed his hands together—fire overcoming wood.

The sky suddenly boomed with a thunderclap.

A bolt of azure‑gold lightning descended from an unknown place, directly blasting toward Cang Xuan.

At that moment, Cang Xuan, whose silver eyes had always been calm and waveless, showed for the first time a clear fluctuation that could be called "emotion"—a hint of surprise.

He remained composed, extending another finger; the aura it emitted was even greater than before.

"Hiss!"

The two strange forces collided and actually annihilated each other.

"Five Elements Turning, mutual generation and restriction, evolving the primordial qi, constructing an indestructible cycle..." Cang Xuan's icy voice rang out again, that hint of surprise not fully concealed,

"To be able, by this Dao, to mediate and dissolve my fifty percent Heaven Azure Intent without perishing... among humanity, those who can grasp and apply the postnatal Five Elements Dao to such a degree are rare."

One-tenth! He really had used only about fifty percent of his power!

Wang Ping's heart tightened, and a bit of bitterness rose. Fifty percent of his strength already left him exerting himself to the limit, suffering internal injury, in this sorry state. If he were to use full power……

But Cang Xuan's words were not finished; he paused, his scrutinizing gaze seeming to pierce the dim five‑colored light and land on Wang Ping's blood‑stained face.

"What is your name?" Cang Xuan asked, his tone still flat, yet less of the initial utter indifference, with a hint… of limited interest in this "unexpected discovery."

Wang Ping drew a deep breath, suppressing the visceral pain and the sweet‑tinged taste in his throat, braced himself on the ground and slowly straightened. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth; though his face was pallid and his body swayed slightly, his gaze remained steady as he met Cang Xuan's eyes.

"Ninth Dao Institute, Wang Ping." His voice hoarse, he clearly announced his name.

"Wang Ping..." Cang Xuan softly repeated the name, the galaxy in his silver pupils flickering slightly, as if imprinting this ordinary name upon that icy star chart—"I have remembered you."

Having said that, he gave Wang Ping no further glance, as if their brief exchange and clash were merely a trivial incident encountered along the way.

His figure flickered like a water‑moon mirror flower, and in the next instant he vanished from the black reef's summit, appearing beside the cluster of azure Star Brilliance Orchids.

He did not even bother to collect the Condensed Soul Grass as carefully as Wang Ping had; he simply reached out a hand and made a grasping motion. Several precious stalks of the thousand‑year Star Brilliance Orchid—enough to drive outside Golden Core and even Nascent Soul cultivators mad—along with a small clump of soil beneath them suffused with special stellar qi, floated up, shrank, turned into a speck of azure starlight, and vanished into his wide sleeves.

Throughout the process, he didn't even lower his head to glance at the scorched trace left by the Soul‑devouring Demon Vine, as if it were mere roadside dust.

Having collected the Starlight Orchid, Cang Xuan had no intention of lingering. His figure flickered again, turning into a hazy silver-white trace that seemed to merge with the leaden-gray sky and the void itself, silently sweeping toward the depths of Shattered Star Lake. In the blink of an eye he vanished into the thick, impenetrable gray mist that seemed able to devour everything, leaving no trace.

Wang Ping gazed into the distance, not only feeling admiration; Cang Xuan's strength surpassed his earlier estimate.

That casual finger strike had already reached the mid-stage of the Point Spirit Realm, far beyond what ordinary Dao arts could match.

Cang Xuan's last words, "I remember you," were certainly not a friendly acknowledgment.

It was more like a mark, a mark from a higher-order existence placed on an "unexpectedly appearing, somewhat interesting obstacle."

This meant that, in the eyes of that being who looked down on all living things, this ordinary cultivator from the Ninth Dao Institute of the Human Race was finally no longer completely ignorable background noise.

He relied on his own strength to barely squeeze into the other's "field of view," even if only as an extremely blurry shadow at the edge of it.

"Heaven Azure Clan, Cang Xuan..." Wang Ping whispered the name, feeling the gap.

But the gap has never been a reason for despair.

The path of cultivation is inherently like rowing against the current—a continual process of challenging limits, surpassing oneself, and even surpassing the ancients.

Today you are ten thousand times stronger than I, viewing me as mere weeds; but tomorrow fortunes shift, and heaven rewards diligence—who dares claim that weeds cannot take root upon the azure heavens and gaze upon the stars?

"This finger's 'bestowal', I, Wang, have taken note of it." Wang Ping closed his eyes, silently circulated his cultivation technique, cooperating with the medicinal power, began to sort out the chaotic spiritual power within his body, repairing the damaged meridians. Amidst the intense pain, his mind and spirit became increasingly clear and resolute.

This injury is not minor; it requires time to heal.

But precisely because of this all-out resistance and the severe injuries he sustained, he gained a more intimate and profound understanding of the Dao of the Five Elements.

Although the "Judgmental Obliteration" intent contained within the Heaven Azure Finger is destructive, it also acts like an icy mirror, revealing the weaknesses and stagnancies in his own Five Elements circulation.

Misfortune leans upon fortune.

After adjusting his breath for roughly half an hour, he temporarily stabilized his injuries, and after guiding his chaotic spiritual power back onto the proper path, Wang Ping painfully rose to his feet.

He glanced once more in the direction where Cangxuan had departed, and also looked at the vast, deathly silent, ink-colored lake where shattered stars floated and sank; his eyes held no hesitation.

After this battle, Wang Ping gained a clearer awareness of his own strength's standing. Facing a hegemonic heaven's pride like Cangxuan, who touches the true meaning of "Point Spirit", his proud Five Elements circulation and Yin Wood Divine Thunder are still insufficient to bridge the fundamental gap in realm and Dao.

While the opportunity of the Myriad Methods Pool is certainly important, before heading to such a core contested land, he needs to make further progress.

Wang Ping pondered, "I have only just glimpsed the threshold of the Yin Wood Divine Thunder, but mostly I rely on the technique's characteristics and the stimulation of spiritual power; I have not yet truly comprehended the 'divinity' and 'intent' of thunder... I must find a place abundant in the source of thunder, test the law with my body, draw lightning to temper my physique, only then might I glimpse its true essence."

He recalled the scattered information he had heard in the Hall of Myriad Tribes, as well as the vague mention by the Azure Feather Adept.

Within the Spirit Void Secret Realm lies a perilous place named Thundercloud Canyon, where thunderstorms rage year-round; it is a natural gathering point of thunder, and also an excellent site for tempering Thunder Arts and seeking thunder-attributed spiritual materials, though it comes with great danger.

And according to his rough inference from the secret realm's map, the approximate location of Thundercloud Canyon seems to lie to the northeast of this forest.

"First go to Thundercloud Canyon! Hone the Thunder Arts; if there is any gain, then pursue the Myriad Methods Pool without delay."

Wang Ping made up his mind. Strength is the foundation; without sufficient strength, even if he fortuitously finds the Myriad Methods Pool, he would likely only become another's wedding dress, and like that Starlight Orchid, watch helplessly as the opportunity is taken away.

He no longer hesitated, gathered all his aura, and hurried for two days; along the way, the forest's vegetation began to change. The tall trees gradually diminished, replaced by low shrubs with sharp leaves and an iron-gray hue, the soil shifted from dark brown to a dusky red, and the air began to fill with a faint, tingling restlessness that made the skin prickle slightly.

The further northeast he went, the stronger this restlessness became. Although the sky remained covered by the secret realm's leaden-gray cloud layer, within the clouds began to flicker a pallid light, and there came a low, muffled roar, as if a giant beast were growling behind the clouds.

On the third day at noon, when Wang Ping passed through the last sparse iron-gray shrub forest and leapt onto a bald, crimson ridge, the sight before him made him involuntarily hold his breath.

Ahead, the earth seemed to have been fiercely split open by a heaven-cleaving giant axe, forming a profound chasm whose bottom could not be seen and whose width exceeded a thousand zhang!

On both sides of the chasm stood cliffs as steep as knife cuts, displaying a woven color of scorched black and dark red, covered with the scars left by thunder's scorching.

And above the chasm was another horrifying sight.

The leaden-gray canopy of the secret realm here seemed to be completely torn apart and churned!

Boundless, heavy as lead-mercury black thunderclouds, like a boiling angry sea, churned and collided wildly above the canyon! Within the clouds, countless blinding bolts of pallid white, vivid violet, and even a hint of gold lightning raged like violent thunder dragons and lightning snakes, striking indiscriminately, wandering, and exploding without pattern!

Boom—!!!

Crack! Hiss——!!!

The deafening thunderclaps came almost without pause, madly striking the eardrums and souls.

The blinding light flashed, making the dim canyon flicker between brightness and darkness, with light and shadow shifting violently. The air was filled with a strong ozone scent, and also a more essential, violent, destructive yet containing a hint of rebirth power—the very source of thunder!