[{"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-496":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},2320428,4537,"Chapter 496","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-496",496,"\u003Cp>Wang Yu felt surrounded by darkness, as if time had lost all meaning, and his mind held no extraneous thoughts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet strangely, he could clearly sense a faint human shadow in the darkness, watching him with cold eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He instinctively gazed toward the shadow, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never make out its form.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, he remained in the darkness for an unknown length of time, until the shadow finally lost interest and stepped forward out of the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Its footsteps were light yet composed, giving an oddly careless impression.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu instinctively widened his eyes, straining to look at the figure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The shadow in the darkness gradually became clear—tall and slender, unmistakably female.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Wang Yu looked at her face, it remained blurred; he could only see a pair of yellow eyes, utterly devoid of emotion, gazing at him as if he were an ant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, the blurred portion of her face vanished, and her features became sharply visible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ah!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu involuntarily cried out in shock at the sight of her face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The next instant, he jolted awake, eyes snapping open, and froze in place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was floating midair, one hand pressed against a massive yellow eye before him; the sky above was cloudless, the ground lush with vegetation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the surface of the yellow eye, twenty-two talismanic runes glowed with brilliant bloodlight, one of which was slightly dimmed—clearly the one he had just deciphered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet the blood-red sky, countless yellow eyes, churning earth, and dense network of blood veins from his memory had vanished entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had all that he experienced been nothing but a dreamlike illusion?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu’s face betrayed disbelief, but he instinctively retracted his arm and shot backward ten zhang in a flash, landing with white clouds forming beneath his feet; he immediately scanned his body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His upper garments were intact, his skin showed no pain or injury, his meridians and qi were perfectly normal, and even his supposedly depleted spiritual sense still retained a small portion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu’s expression turned grave; he slapped his waist pouch, and a jet-black flying dagger appeared in his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had that nightmare experience truly been nothing but an illusion?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gazing at the artifact in his hand, Wang Yu was stunned, his conviction wavering.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if all he had endured was false, then this yellow eye was even more terrifying—it could plunge one into illusion without warning or awareness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regardless, he could not stay here any longer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu’s thoughts raced; he retracted the dagger, formed a hand seal, and white crackling flames surged over his body, coalescing into a massive white fireball that shot off in one direction, searching for an exit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since he had been teleported directly here, he believed the exit must not be far away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But his spiritual sense had been suppressed by the area’s restrictions—he could not release it to scan quickly; otherwise, outside this place, a single thought would have easily located the wooden door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even so, his fire-dashing technique, powered by the Red Sun Great Art, was astonishingly swift—he circled the area several times like a bolt of wind, always keeping a wide distance from the massive yellow eye.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, the white flame curled back, and he landed beneath a giant tree at the perimeter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath the tree stood a yellow wooden door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu pointed at the door with his finger, tapping the air three times.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bang.” “Bang.” “Bang.” Three knocks echoed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a moment, the wooden door slowly opened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without hesitation, Wang Yu stepped inside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Clang.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As soon as he entered, the door slammed shut swiftly on its own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, the door blurred and vanished from its place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Almost simultaneously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Deep within a secret chamber of the Azure Water Palace, a blue-clad boy with red lips and white teeth, wearing a copper lock around his chest, stared at a giant copper mirror before him, one person’s height.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The mirror showed Wang Yu stepping through the wooden door, which then slowly faded away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The boy’s face remained expressionless; he traced a finger through the air above the mirror, and the image blurred—when it cleared again, it revealed a yellow eye floating motionless in midair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On either side of the eye, the two dozen talismanic runes Wang Yu had deciphered were slowly fading.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not bad—this time so many runes were deciphered. But why do I feel something’s off? Did someone dare meddle under my very nose?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The boy stared at the yellow eye in the mirror for a long while, then frowned slightly, muttered softly, and formed a hand seal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Boom!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the mirror, thunder cracked above the yellow eye, and a lightning bolt as thick as a bowl plunged from the sky, striking it squarely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Puff!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The yellow eye shattered into a massive cloud of blood mist.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The once sunny, verdant space, after the blood mist swept through, seemed peeled away like skin—transforming into a terrifying realm of crimson sky and twisted rocks, alien trees.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The blood mist coalesced again, forming a massive blood egg the size of a human head, covered in dense black filaments that writhed slightly, emitting a steady “thump-thump” heartbeat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It looked profoundly unnatural!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmph. The original form is far more pleasing to the eye.” The boy stared at the blood egg in the mirror for a long moment, then snorted and flicked his sleeve.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The mirror’s image gradually dimmed and faded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The boy closed his eyes and sat cross-legged before the mirror.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>……\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the white jade hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Yu stared in surprise at the golden-robed man now standing beside the woman, but quickly recovered and bowed deeply to both:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Greetings, Elder Masters.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The golden-robed man’s spiritual energy was equally unfathomable—he was clearly a Golden Core cultivator.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wang Yu, you spent eight full days inside. How many talismanic runes did you decipher?” Before Chai He Feng could speak, the golden-robed man asked first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Respected Elder, though I gave my utmost, I could only decipher twenty-two runes before my spiritual sense was exhausted and I could no longer continue.” Wang Yu replied honestly, without hesitation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He naturally said nothing of his strange experience.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Twenty-two! Excellent! Excellent! Deciphering these runes grows harder the further you go; for you to achieve this with the Ten Thousand Forms Eye is far beyond our expectations.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wang Yu, I ask you: would you be willing to join the Azure Water Palace and become an inner disciple of my Spirit Law Peak?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At these words, the golden-robed man smiled broadly, and beside him, Chai He Feng’s eyes sparkled as she smiled too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wang Yu, my Pure Fire Peak specializes in fire-based cultivation arts—I am its master, Yan Tu. If you join my peak, I still have one slot for a direct disciple—I will take you on as my personal disciple.”\u003C\u002Fp>",1131,"2026-06-20T15:44:32.565Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","58bca7e34aec3c87687877c13191ed303394906eef657bf1dae2120784fb7d4a","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-497","the-immortal-path-among-the-stars-chapter-495",530,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-immortal-path-among-the-stars-cover.jpg"]