Chapter 1175: Starry-Sky Fortress City and the Million Silver-White Skeleton Sword Soldiers

The Great Sun Heavenly Lake, as in many years before, had fallen into a long, long silence.

It was truly very long—long enough for the mortals of the Immortal Gate to live out an entire life, long enough for many changes to occur in the wars between realms, long enough for many of the Immortal Gate's scientific research projects to achieve breakthroughs.

Before anyone noticed, a hundred years had passed.

……

On this day, at the center of the Great Sun Heavenly Lake's Sun Abyss, a hundred-thousand-meter-tall Sun Divine Tree, as if it had walked out of primeval chaos, stood between heaven and earth. Boundless radiance, boundless scorching sword qi swirled around it, and every single one of its leaves was accompanied by a hazy world of sword qi, like fruits of sword-Dao worlds.

She was lush with branches and leaves, brimming with vitality, containing boundless creation.

Beneath the Sun Divine Tree, a youth in azure robes sat cross-legged within a real, illusory world. Within it, all manner of things grew—hundreds of thousands of plant species formed an Immortal-Dao ecosystem of strict order, governing the circulation of this world, which now measured roughly five kilometers across, giving birth to six orders.

These six orders of law-net were intricate and strict, nearly comparable to a real world, far surpassing what they had been at the peak of Nascent Soul.

Moreover, beneath the interweaving and stacking of these vast numbers of orders, certain anomalies that shook the rules of the cosmic starry sky began to manifest, causing the rules of the universe to twist and change of their own accord, no longer displaying the characteristic of standing aloof from all things.

"Order has shaken the rules…"

Beneath the tree, Jiang Ding slowly opened his eyes.

At this moment, after a hundred years of healing, the wounds on his body were entirely gone, and his body had once again returned to its most vigorous state, like a newborn divine beast, with cells containing a lifespan of twenty thousand years.

"My twenty-thousand-year lifespan comes from… the Fifth Realm of Sword Dao, the Sword World."

Jiang Ding silently felt it out: "The Fifth Realm of Sword Dao fits the embryonic form of the Sword World space extremely well. It can drive the Immortal-Dao ecosystem within the embryonic Sword World space to operate, giving birth to more order-power, maintaining a more efficient 'Immortal-Dao perpetual motion machine' state, and indirectly extending my lifespan."

"My divine sense range is seven thousand kilometers."

"My six orders of power have grown more than tenfold. Now, relying purely on the stacking of the six orders of power, I can already shake the rules… This means I have some possibility of escaping from an early-stage Refining Void cultivator, and of no longer being utterly powerless against Refining Void."

"But… it's still too weak."

Jiang Ding sighed softly.

"Furthermore, the greatest gain from this advancement to Soul Transformation is—"

Clang!

Behind him, the hundred-thousand-meter-tall primeval Sun Divine Tree crumbled into droplets of spiritual light.

Then, a blue-gold sword body appeared between heaven and earth, radiating boundless sharpness and boundless scorching aura. The sheer weight of the sword body alone crushed the rules within the cosmic star river.

The Taiqing Flying Sword!

Faintly emanating

the aura of a Refining Void-grade spatial treasure—the Taiqing Flying Sword!

"What a pity, it's only faintly…"

Jiang Ding's fingertip gently traced the body of the Taiqing Flying Sword, producing low, deep sword hums: "Still missing that final sliver. Perhaps it's opportunity, perhaps luck, perhaps some material—only then will a true breakthrough occur, and the six orders of power will couple within the Taiqing Flying Sword, forming a Rule Prohibition…"

Rule Prohibition.

This is the most distinct feature that distinguishes a Refining Void spatial treasure from a Primordial Spirit dharma treasure. As long as one possesses a single Rule Prohibition, one can indirectly command a type of rule-power, thereby granting a cultivator terrifying killing power.

The gap between a spatial treasure and a Primordial Spirit treasure is comparable to the terrifying gap between a Refining Void cultivator and a Soul Transformation cultivator.

Therefore, the difficulty of its breakthrough can well be imagined.

Even the strongest Great Sun Sword Son in the history of the Nine Spirit Domain—possibly the strongest early-stage Soul Transformation cultivator—could not step past this threshold in one go.

"Opportunity? Luck?"

"This is truly shameful. There will come a day when even I need luck to break through…"

Jiang Ding sighed softly.

However, this luck and opportunity seemed to appear very soon; it wasn't anything terribly difficult.

But luck is luck.

Jiang Ding understood that he had reached the exploration frontier of the Nine Spirit Domain's Immortal-Dao civilization.

The great path laid down by countless Immortal-Dao predecessors throughout history was now beginning to show gaps, no longer perfect at every step.

The closer one got to Dao Merging, the more such gaps there would be, until after Dao Merging there was no path at all, and one had to blaze a trail oneself, becoming the predecessor of those who came after.

Jiang Ding rose, seemingly intending to leave.

"Commander!"

"What about me? What about me?!!"

The super warship Great Sun Sky Mother Ship saw this and immediately grew anxious. A ship-girl flew out from the mother ship, stretching out her pale, fair arms to block his path.

"Taiqing has broken through, and you've broken through too. Commander, did you forget something?"

Yun Ri said nervously.

"I didn't forget."

Jiang Ding rolled his eyes: "But there's no way to do it now. The Immortal Gate's mass production of planet-grade warships has only just produced its first experimental ship, with all kinds of flaws—it's going to take several hundred years before the first standard planet-grade warship appears. Only then will the R&D work on the super warship Great Sun super starry-sky orbital fortress begin."

"Don't worry, Yuan promised me."

"Yun Ri, if everything goes smoothly, you will also advance into a super starry-sky orbital fortress. It's not that far off."

"Really?"

Yun Ri was half-believing, half-doubting.

"Really!"

Jiang Ding affirmed it absolutely.

Moreover, in the projections,

the super starry-sky orbital fortress would be a starry-sky city, equipped with a starry-sky orbital cannon, equipped with a million silver-white skeleton sword soldiers, and several hundred thousand unmanned sky mother ships and unmanned sky warships of various types, forming an army-group-level robotic sword-soldier force.

Among these, the technology for the million silver-white skeleton sword soldiers came from the Blood Vine Demon clan, reputed to be unkillable and inextinguishable—no matter how many died, the next moment they would endlessly revive. They could be called the strongest robotic infantry, a mobile steel army, theoretically capable of surrounding and killing Refining Void.

Of course, this concept was still very far off at present.

It required Yuan and a large batch of Immortal Gate elites to free their hands, plus a dozens-fold expansion of the Immortal Gate's scientific research teams, as well as vast realm space as a testing ground, and the material support of over a hundred Minor Thousand Worlds. Only then could it be produced within a certain period of time—it was a strategic-grade Immortal-Dao industrial project.

"A starry-sky city…"

Little stars sparkled in Yunri's eyes.

"Look forward to it. The future is bright."

Jiang Ding said comfortingly.

His divine sense connected to the Immortal Gate network, and he roughly browsed through the developments in Immortal Gate technology over the years, as well as the changes in the war situation. For now, the changes were not significant; the situation in Jiao Jiao Mingyu remained deadlocked.

A century was not a long span of time for a war at the Dao Merging tier.

"Body recovered, strength recovered, out of danger, then…"

"It's time to make a trip to the Northern Plains."

Jiang Ding murmured to himself.

That was his world, where many old friends from his memories still lived, along with the twelve hundred years' worth of accumulated Void Refinement materials waiting to be refined.

He wondered whether everything was still well.

His figure gradually faded from sight.