Chapter 1670: The Central Black Hole of the Milky Way

The people of his hometown were already behind him.

That single streak of resplendent sword-light spent several years crossing the entire Solar System, then formally entered the vast, endless vacuum; his hometown gradually receded, farther and farther away.

Several decades later, his hometown had completely become a single star-point behind him; without looking carefully, it could no longer be distinguished.

Jiang Ding silently traversed the cosmic starry sky.

The surrounding heavens and earth were pitch dark; the nearest star system was dozens of light-years away. Looking out, the universe was boundless and eternally unchanging—no matter how the living beings within shuttled about, nothing could be altered, not even for a Celestial Being–grade galactic lifeform.

Such a lifeform could preside over the glory of a world-cluster for hundreds of thousands of years, yet in the infinite cosmos it was as insignificant as a speck of dust.

The magic power and spiritual consciousness within Jiang Ding's body were dissipating bit by bit.

This was the inevitable rule of a spiritless universe: high energy must diffuse toward low entropy. It was a rule that could not be violated; even native lifeforms could only adapt and slow it down, never change it.

This process was irreversible.

Once magic power and spiritual consciousness dissipated, they were gone forever; they could never be drawn back. No such possibility existed.

"Ten thousand years."

"In at most ten thousand years, I will die completely… How wonderful—my hometown truly does favor me."

Jiang Ding silently calculated for a moment.

In a certain sense, this was an extremely terrifying ability.

One had to know that the Sovereign-grade protective means previously on the Immortal Artifact Son had only lasted a little over two thousand years in the spiritless universe.

A mere lifeform whose combat strength barely reached Celestial Being grade, but in substance was only at Void Refinement grade—weak as an ant compared to a Sovereign—yet could endure in the spiritless universe for far longer than a Sovereign's means!

If this wasn't talent, what was it?

If this wasn't a miracle, what was it?

"My direction is not wrong!"

"Absolutely not wrong!"

Jiang Ding murmured.

This was his premonition: this direction was not wrong. Even if he failed, it would be the failure of a mediocre person, the failure of someone with ordinary talent—not the failure of the path he had chosen.

Jiang Ding transformed his body into a streak of light, shuttling through the pitch-black vacuum.

From time to time he passed a star system, occasionally lingering beside a star for a while, silently contemplating the meta-magnetism, distortion, law-annihilation, and high-temperature destructive force manifested in the star's solar radiance, continuously deducing possibilities in his heart.

Even without the rules of the Immortal Dao, these physical phenomena still objectively existed.

The natural phenomena within these stars might bring him inspiration, allowing him to complete a breakthrough on the Immortal Dao.

There were some gains, but not many.

Jiang Ding continued his journey.

The cosmic space was vast.

Boundless—even though stars were bright and resplendent, their mass terrifying, within the universe they were exceedingly rare existences, special ones.

Most of it was the empty, pitch-black vacuum.

There was nothing at all, not even meteors; no matter how many light-years the Great Sun Sword Son flew through, the surrounding heavens and earth did not change in the slightest.

Unknowingly, a thousand years passed.

The surrounding cosmos remained exactly the same. The light of billions of stars seemed within reach, yet could never be approached; all around was still the unchanging pitch-black vacuum, and even meteors were rarely seen—those required approaching a star system to be visible. But what the universe had the most of was still empty nothingness, utterly devoid of anything.

This kind of tedium was nearly enough to drive one mad, especially when one's own life was dissipating at every moment.

For a sword cultivator who had weathered many long years, this tedium amounted to little.

However, this overly vast and prolonged expanse also brought a serious problem: it was very likely that the cultivator's next nine thousand years would still be like this—walking endlessly through a stretch of pitch-black void, among the light of countless stars that seemed within reach yet forever unattainable, and then dying.

"This won't do."

"I need to see more cosmic scenery. I cannot die on a tedious journey. I want to reach the central black hole of the galaxy and see what it looks like there."

Jiang Ding thought.

The central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy was named Sagittarius A*, 26,000 light-years from the Solar System. This meant Jiang Ding would need over twenty thousand years to reach it; the time he had left was simply not enough.

Jiang Ding did not hesitate long before applying to the Immortal Sect for permission to use the spacetime wormhole.

He therefore changed his travel path—no longer wandering aimlessly, but actively flying toward places where spacetime wormholes might appear. It took him over a hundred years to reach a stretch of void, where he stopped and quietly waited.

The spacetime wormhole was a natural phenomenon of the spiritless universe discovered by the Immortal Sect tens of thousands of years ago—long before the Great Sun Sword Son and even his ancestors were born.

It was not some kind of hole, entrance, or passage, but a natural cosmic phenomenon. The Immortal Sect's forebears discovered this cosmic phenomenon, then began researching it; after countless sacrifices they found the laws for predicting this cosmic phenomenon, and subsequently used this celestial sign for traversal.

This was the Immortal Sect's ultimate fallback, its ultimate foundation.

As long as one grasped the laws and did not touch the taboos, the spacetime wormhole posed no great danger to native lifeforms of this universe.

But for lifeforms from another universe, it was almost certain death upon contact; the instant a being from the Immortal Dao universe entered the spacetime wormhole, it would instantly collapse, its high energy absorbed by the low entropy.

This was the result of the Immortal Sect's repeated testing over tens of thousands of years, including several Dao Merging lifeform prisoners of war.

Celestial Being prisoners had never been captured, so no judgment could be made.

However, experiments had been conducted using a wisp of residual spirituality from the Thread-Pulling Celestial Being treasure; that wisp of spirituality likewise could not withstand the laws of the spacetime wormhole.

Jiang Ding waited quietly on the spot, resisting the surrounding spiritual-dissipation phenomenon while frantically deducing his own path.

"Sword soul,"

"I must make my Materialist Solar Sword soul undergo metamorphosis."

Death drew ever closer, yet Jiang Ding remained very calm.

The Great Sun's frenzied bloodthirsty instinct was activated at this moment, but it did not drive him to any madness; instead it further sharpened his icy rationality, precisely calculating everything, granting him nearly double the soul-computing power out of thin air, allowing him to deduce even more efficiently. This was the core of the Great Sun Sword Dao.

The price was that if he could not complete the breakthrough, his own soul would collapse and die, beyond salvation by any immortal or god.

Clang~

The Taiqing Flying Sword let out a cheerful sword-cry.

This was the first time in history.

For the first time outside of combat with the Great Sun Sword Children, she showed happiness in her research, and it was a very great happiness, like a traveler walking on the true path of life.

A feeling of peace, happiness, and satisfaction arose in the heart of the blue-clothed youth.

Even if death were to come in the future, such happiness would not disappear.

"Haha!"

"Tai Qing, do you also enjoy this kind of battle?"

Jiang Ding smiled.

His divine sense gazed upon his own Materialist Sun Sword Soul.

This was a hazy youth divine soul standing amidst a sun phenomenon, with six rings of solar halo spreading in all directions; this was the Six Paths of Reincarnation structure inherited by the human race of Xian Dao Shi Gao Jie.

This sword soul had drawn greatly upon the Six Paths of Reincarnation structure to construct its own divine soul, thereby manifesting the vision of a blazing great sun.

At this moment, in the spiritless universe, the spiritual light of the sword soul slowly and uncontrollably dissipated.

If a method of breakthrough could not be found within the next nine thousand-plus years, death would be the inevitable result.