Chapter 1115

However, deep within the primordial spirit riddled with cracks, a faint yet extraordinarily tenacious spark never went out. It was the price of burning the primordial spirit to reverse the deadly situation, and also the remnants of an unyielding Dao Heart.

He struggled to sit up, each movement bringing bone‑deep agony throughout his body. He reached out and picked up the heavy star‑map stone carving fragment. A cold sensation came from it, and the clear coordinate marking on the fragment perfectly resonated with the star map imprinted in his sea of consciousness.

There was no time for despair, no time for lament. The gaze of the old priest and the tribal survivors had already made everything clear. This place would no longer tolerate his stay. Though the pollution of the Nine Abysses had temporarily fallen silent with the collapse of the stone hall, its source remained, and it could flare up again at any moment. And the greater threat was that the awakened Lord of the Nine Abysses might come tracking him at any moment!

He had to leave! Taking this star‑map fragment, he must go to the star gate indicated by the coordinates! It is the last spark of the Star‑Derivation Sect, and possibly the only hope of resisting the Nine Abysses!

Han Wuxian drew a deep breath, suppressing the surging qi and blood. He attempted to circulate the most basic qi‑drawing method from the True Explanation of the Myriad Heavens Stars and Dipper, but all he felt was the knife‑like pain in his meridians and a sense of utter depletion. He gave up the luxury of hoping to recover his strength.

His gaze turned to the outside of the shed. The blood moon had vanished, and a pallid light filtered through the gaps in the trees. He struggled to rise, his body swaying violently, like a puppet ready to fall apart at any moment. He tore off the shattered pieces of his star‑armor, barely wrapping them around his critical wounds, and then tightly bound the heavy star‑map fragment to his back with tough vines.

After one last glance at the barbaric tribe that had brought both disaster and salvation, fear and legacy, Han Wuxian leaned on a thick branch he had picked up at random, like an ordinary, gravely wounded traveler on the brink of death. He dragged his heavy steps, leaving a bloody print with each step, staggering yet utterly resolute as he ventured deep into the unknown, gloomy primeval forest.

The gloom of the barbaric forest was like thick ink, swallowing the pallid daylight. Han Wuxian leaned on a rough branch; each step he took on the thick layer of humus produced a muffled sound, like the heartbeat of a dying beast. The star‑map stone carving fragment on his back weighed as heavily as a mountain, and every jolt tugged at his body with tearing pain. Blood had already soaked through the makeshift star‑armor covering his wounds, leaving behind a discontinuous, dark‑red trail that faintly glimmered with starlight.

Inside him lay utter desolation and shattering. The stellar primordial spirit lay curled in the deepest part of the dantian's star field, its entire body covered in spider‑web‑like cracks, its breath as feeble as a candle in the wind. Every attempt to activate the True Explanation of the Myriad Heavens Stars and Dipper brought only tearing agony to the primordial spirit and a blazing emptiness in his meridians. The star‑core fragments, the stellar heart fragments, and the seven star‑key sigils were like stones sunk in a bottomless abyss, feeling no ripple at all. The gemstone set in the hilt of his broken star‑sword, clenched in his hand, was covered in cracks, dim and lusterless, its only reminder being the cold touch that recalled its former edge.

He was like a husk completely emptied, driven only by a single obsession. His sole guidance came from the increasingly clear pull of the coordinates transmitted by the cold stone carving fragment on his back, and from the star map forcibly imprinted in his sea of consciousness, which, against the backdrop of his grievously wounded primordial spirit, appeared unusually distinct.

The forest was deathly silent. Even insect chirps and bird calls had vanished; only the wind passing through the giant leaves produced a sobbing‑like rustle. The air was thick with the stench of rotting vegetation, yet beneath that odor lurked a faint, almost imperceptible chill and stillness that made Han Wuxian's soul tremble deep inside.

That was a residue of the Nine Abysses' pollution, like a bone‑eating maggot, spreading with the collapse of the stone hall into this forest.

Aooo!

A shrill, twisted howl, utterly unlike any natural creature, suddenly tore through the silence! The sound came from deep in the thicket to the front‑right, carrying the Nine Abysses' characteristic spite and greed!

Han Wuxian's pupils contracted sharply, and he abruptly halted his steps. Almost simultaneously, howls of response, even more violent, erupted from behind left, straight ahead… from all directions! Countless pairs of eyes flashed dark purple, blazing with madness and hunger, lighting up in the shadows of the dim thicket.

Contaminated! The beasts and even the plants of this region had been corrupted by the deathly qi of the Nine Abysses that spread with the stone hall's collapse, turning them into monsters that know only slaughter and devouring.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Several black shadows shot out like arrows from the treetops and thickets! They were no longer ordinary beasts! The lunging things resembled wolves, but their bodies had swollen many times over, their fur rotted and fell away to reveal muscles beneath oozing black‑purple slime, their joints twisted and deformed, and corrosive saliva dripped from their fangs! Pure destruction burned in their eye sockets!

Han Wuxian wanted to dodge, but his heavily injured body moved as sluggishly as a rusted machine. Barely twisting aside, a rotting wolf's claws, reeking of blood, tore savagely through the star‑armor fragment wrapped around his left arm!

Screech!

The star‑armor fragment corroded, emitting greenish smoke and leaving three deep, bone‑visible scorched wounds! The intense pain blackened Han Wuxian's vision; he staggered back, slamming into a massive ancient tree and shaking loose countless withered leaves.

More rotting wolves, scaly‑armor monsters resembling giant lizards, and even vine creatures entwined with black qi surged forth from the shadows in all directions like sharks scenting blood! Their target was only one thing:

the stellar aura emanating from Han Wuxian's body, which they instinctively hated yet desperately craved to devour!

Desperate strait!

Han Wuxian leaned against the giant tree, his eyes holding no fear, only a cold madness driven to the brink of a cliff! Flee? His crippled body could not reach even a tenth of the monsters' speed! Fight? His interior was utterly empty—what could he fight with?

"Roar!" A colossal corrupted bear‑man, as huge as a small hill, rose to its feet, its rotting giant palm bearing the force of ten thousand jun, slamming down fiercely upon Han Wuxian's head! A bloody wind gusted in his face, and the aura of death instantly enveloped him!

At this critical moment!

Hum!

The heavy star‑map stone carving fragment on Han Wuxian's back suddenly burst forth with blinding stellar radiance without warning! The core coordinate imprint on the fragment, like a ignited star, shone with fierce brilliance! A pure, vast stellar power, carrying the will to guide the way home, instantly surged into his exhausted body!

This power was not nourishment; it was like the most violent current, brutally stimulating his stellar primordial spirit on the verge of shattering! Excruciating pain! A pain surpassing all previous agony! His stellar primordial spirit seemed to have been cast into the core of a stellar furnace!

"Uh‑ah‑ah‑ah——!" Han Wuxian let out an inhuman howl! Under the pressure of death and the violent stimulation of stellar power, the point of his Dao Heart's star‑fire that had never been extinguished, like oil poured into boiling water, exploded with a roar!

Within the dantian's star field, the stellar primordial spirit, its body riddled with cracks, flung open its eyes! Those eyes held no pain anymore, only a blazing stellar heart‑fire that would consume everything! The hands of the tiny primordial‑spirit figure, moving at a speed transcending bodily limits, formed the forbidden Star‑Ash seal recorded in the True Explanation of the Myriad Heavens Stars and Dipper—the seal usable only when everything is burned in desperation!

"Burn my ruined body! Consume my immortal soul! Draw the power of the myriad heavens' stars! Star‑Ash·Guide the Way Home!"