[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-immortal-path-among-the-stars":3,"chapter-the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-408":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Immortal Path Among the Stars",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2320340,4537,"Chapter 408","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-408",408,"\u003Cp>At the third watch of the night.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The slaughterhouse gates had long been closed, the workers long gone home; only an elderly hired guard remained in a small room behind the gate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But now, overcome by drowsiness, the old man was fast asleep in his armchair inside the room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the tall wall beside the slaughterhouse, a shadow slipped past like a ghost, landing silently on the ground within the wall, then striding swiftly toward the building housing the assembly line.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To operate a factory in the suburbs of Pengjie, “Mai Lun” had clearly already secured ties with the local gangs—there was no fear of theft, so aside from two cameras installed at the gate and warehouse, no other areas had surveillance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The shadow moved with perfect familiarity to the wide-open window of the building, leaping inside in a flash; his eyes flickered with faint yellow spiritual patterns before he walked toward the assembly line entrance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This shadow had no expression, his face covered in tattoos, his hair dyed red and yellow—the very image of Wang Yu in Dai Sen’s body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though this body was mortal, the spell of “Light Body Technique” empowered him, making infiltration effortless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, he used the Qi-Observing Art to examine the two pale silver electric shockers at the entrance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These two shockers were as thick as an arm, their fronts oval-shaped, resembling two thick metal rods.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But in Wang Yu’s eyes, all things emitted a faint yellow glow—except these two rod-like shockers, whose fronts were utterly black, wreathed in mist, and even exuded faint chilling cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The yellow spiritual patterns in Wang Yu’s eyes spun rapidly; the black shockers instantly blurred, their surfaces revealing dense, overlapping layers of shadowy black spiritual runes, stacked countless times over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing this, he drew a deep breath and ceased suppressing the silver talisman in his spirit sea, which had long been eager to act.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The next instant, the talisman “popped,” spewing a burst of silver light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu curled the silver light in his hand, and the bone banner appeared in his grasp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment the banner materialized, it came alive with a mournful wailing; its glossy black banner unfurled in the wind, spewing countless thick black threads that instantly wrapped tightly around the two shocker ends, then yanked hard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Crack! Crack!” The two foot-long shocker ends snapped clean off, violently pulled into the banner’s surface and vanished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that very moment, a shrill alarm blared from a corner of the factory!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Where the shockers had been torn away, thick wires were exposed, sparking with “hiss-hiss” electrical flashes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu flicked the bone banner in his hand and vanished straight through the ground.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moments later.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The factory lights suddenly blazed on; the elderly guard outside rushed to open the factory gate, saw the scene at the assembly line entrance, and immediately panicked, dialing several calls in quick succession.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon after, the wailing of police sirens echoed from nearby.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Understood. Since the factory has spare parts, fix them immediately—the assembly line cannot stop. Also, hire two extra night guards in addition to the on-site personnel, and buy a few more guard dogs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, the Soul-Reaping Banner’s long bone shaft bore countless black threads, writhing and crawling like living things across its surface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The black banner surface swirled with mist and dark vapor; grotesque ghostly faces flickered in and out, then coalesced into black ghostly hands, while faint wails and howls echoed from within—as if something astonishing was unfolding inside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu stared at the banner, expressionless, his yellow spiritual patterns spinning continuously, as if peering into the banner’s interior.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, his arm moved—he thrust one hand like lightning into the banner’s mist, then withdrew just as swiftly, holding a rod-like object about a foot long.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was one of the two shocker ends.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Almost simultaneously, the bone banner trembled; its wailing rose sharply, followed by a “whoosh” of piercing sound as countless hair-thin, glossy black threads shot out, lashing toward the object in Wang Yu’s hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Pathetic spirit, dare to cause trouble?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu muttered, then formed a hand seal; his internal cultivation energy, transformed from yin qi, surged forth, instantly enveloping his entire body in a crimson light shield, its surface faintly shimmering with crimson spiritual runes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hiss-hiss.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The black threads struck the crimson shield as if hitting a red-hot iron, bursting into fragments that recoiled as dark vapor; the trembling bone banner instantly calmed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu grunted, ignoring the spirit within the banner, and examined the object in his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The black rod in his grasp was icy-cold to the bone; its once-smooth surface felt strangely rough, as if covered in countless invisible tiny protrusions, giving an eerie sensation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only when the yellow spiritual patterns reappeared in his eyes could he clearly see the rod’s surface layered with dense black patterns, overlapping like countless silk nets clinging to its body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He shifted his thoughts slightly, carefully injecting a thread of cultivation energy into it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Puff.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The previously still black rod suddenly shuddered, spewing thick, ink-like mist that rapidly spread, instantly engulfing both the banner and Wang Yu himself, filling the entire room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon, the room echoed with countless pig grunts; within the mist appeared blood-red spectral shapes of pigs—some as large as adults, others no bigger than fists.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment these pig specters emerged, they frenziedly devoured one another; the larger ones swallowed the smaller ones whole in a single bite, growing slightly larger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The smaller ones, if they bit fiercely into the larger ones, also grew a little larger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In moments, more than half the specters in the mist had been devoured, yet more pig specters poured forth from the black rod.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu’s face showed no panic—instead, a faint hint of delight appeared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He merely twitched his nose slightly, detecting a faint scent of blood from the specters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Life-soul Iron—above ten-thousand-soul grade.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He murmured, his eyes glinting faintly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, the previously quiet bone banner trembled again, suddenly spewing countless black threads that pierced straight through the largest pig specters, dragging them all into the banner’s surface in a blur.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intense wailing erupted from within the black banner.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmph. You’ve already devoured one piece—this one I’m keeping.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu grunted, one hand reaching out into empty air toward the banner, while simultaneously halting the flow of cultivation energy into the black rod.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The banner trembled, then flew into his hand; with a slight surge of cultivation energy, the black threads that had been spewing outward retracted back into the banner’s surface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The surrounding black mist rolled violently, along with all the pig specters inside, as if deprived of some sustaining force, flooding back en masse into the black rod.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The entire room returned to its former clarity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu thrust the bone banner before him, where it hovered again, his gaze returning to the black rod in his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Life-soul Iron,” as the name implies, is iron condensed from the essence of countless living souls—unlike the common yin-soul objects of the cultivation world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The difference is as vast as that between the Life-Soul Banner and the Yin-Soul Banner among the Three Demon Banners of the demonic path.\u003C\u002Fp>",1197,"2026-06-20T15:44:32.565Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","2cfda9b8387d2a3ef5b92fbf048aa6fa6f58a606c9d62d3a31d2e046a2751922","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-409","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-407",530,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-immortal-path-among-the-stars-cover.jpg"]