Chapter 1132: with translation of chapter title

Those several precisely locked‑on dark‑purple corruption attacks were violently disrupted, deflected, and even partially annihilated by this sudden self‑destruct explosion and chaos force field! Yet several attacks still pierced the explosion's core region!

Pfft! Pfft!

Although Han Wuxian, at the moment of detonating the platform, had already transformed into a blindingly fast retreating stellar‑glint sword gleam, two corruption attacks still grazed his body as they swept past!

A dark‑purple energy lance tore through his left arm's stellar force field, leaving a horrifying wound deep enough to see bone, its edges rapidly crystallizing and turning black! Excruciating pain accompanied by frenzied corruption erosion struck instantly!

Another corruption vortex, like a bone‑eating maggot, acted as if alive, ignoring his evasion path and slamming hard into… the star chart fragment on his back!

Buzz!!!

The star chart fragment burst forth with an unprecedented, sharp‑wailing brilliance! At the impact point, thick dark‑purple death‑qi writhed like a living thing, trying to burrow into the fragment! Cracks on its surface instantly widened, its light flickering violently, on the verge of total shattering! A deeper, more direct corruption will, like icy venom, surged along the impact point and ruthlessly flooded the fragment, engaging its own star‑chart will in a savage struggle!

"Ah!" Han Wuxian let out a piercing wail! The star chart fragment is the core of his Dao Foundation, the fundamental link between him and stellar power! The agony of the fragment being corrupted far surpasses bodily injury! He felt his soul as if torn apart—half burning in the stellar call, the other half dragged into the corruption's abyss to sink!

He rode the explosion's recoil, shooting backward like a meteoric plummet away from the monument! His speed was such that a long, blood‑streaked stellar afterglow trailed behind him! Each teleport leapt across several shattered stellar remains zones, flinging far away the corruption tendrils and spatial traps that the blast had stirred and tried to intercept!

But the pursuit behind him did not cease!

Those several dark‑purple skeletons emitted a silent roar, cloaked in thick corruption death‑qi, pursuing him like a bone‑deep ulcer! The monument's own terrifying will, like a bone‑eating maggot, locked onto him relentlessly, continually assaulting his mind! The star chart fragment on his back, like a conspicuous beacon, ceaselessly guided his pursuers!

Worse still, the star chart fragment was being corrupted! The invading dark‑purple death‑qi was extremely stubborn and domineering; although the fragment's own star‑chart will resisted tenaciously, its light dimmed at a visible pace, the dark‑purple hue in the cracks growing denser! Each flicker became harder! The fragment's link to Han Wuxian's soul also grew sluggish and chaotic in the corruption!

Power was being drained wildly! Mind and spirit teetered on the brink under corruption erosion! The wound worsened! The pursuers drew ever closer!

Han Wuxian felt his consciousness like a lone boat in a raging storm, ready to capsize at any moment. The power of his stellar‑forged sword body, under the suppression of the corruption will and the chain reaction of the fragment's contamination, began to turn sluggish.

"Can't… be caught… fragment… can't be taken!" This thought, like a final anchor, upheld his lingering will. He frantically squeezed every ounce of power from his nebula dantian, ignoring his injuries, and surged toward the densest, most violently turbulent zone of the star‑road fracture belt! Only by exploiting that place's extreme chaos could he possibly shake off his pursuers temporarily!

He flung himself like a moth into a death vortex formed of countless shattered stellar remains and violent, colorful turbulence!

Gale winds like blades, turbulence like dragons! Massive stellar‑remnant fragments collided and shattered frenziedly under chaotic gravity! Spatial rifts like black lightning flashed and vanished without pattern in his sight!

Han Wuxian pushed the perception of his stellar‑forged sword body to the limit, his form darting and twisting wildly through the deathly gaps! Each change of direction brought peril, his surface stellar force field violently fluctuating under concentrated attacks, its light swiftly dimming! The wound on his left arm, under corrosion erosion and spatial turbulence tearing, saw its crystallized area keep expanding, the agony nearly making him faint!

The dark‑purple skeleton pursuers behind him were likewise impeded by this chaotic environment. Though terrifyingly powerful, they seemed lacking sufficient sentience; amid violent spatial traps and turbulence impacts, their speed noticeably slowed, and they were even temporarily split apart by several huge spatial rifts.

Now!

Han Wuxian's eyes flashed with a hint of ruthlessness! He fiercely bit his tongue, spraying a mouthful of essence‑blood containing stellar origin onto his chest! At the same time, he forcibly activated the star chart fragment on his back, which was being corrupted and whose light flickered erratically!

"Shatter‑Star Lure! Flee!"

A short‑range spatial evasion art, drawn from the Star Torch Commander's brand and extremely perilous, nearly self‑destructive, he forcefully enacted! This method burns the star chart fragment's origin as payment, ignoring the chaotic spatial structure ahead, and forcibly opens a brief passage pointing toward the direction he perceives as 'relatively safe'!

Thud—buzz!

The star chart fragment shuddered violently, its light instantly dimming to near extinction! A fine blood‑red crack appeared on its surface! Meanwhile, Han Wuxian's figure was flung out as if by an invisible giant hand, vanishing from the spot in an instant!

The next moment, he crashed down like a torn sack onto the back of a massive, wholly black stellar‑remnant shard shaped like a broken giant sword!

"Pfft!" He spat another mouthful of blood, mixed with dark‑purple corruption qi and fragments of shattered viscera. The crystallization on his left arm had spread to his shoulder; the pain made his vision swim with darkness. The star chart fragment on his back, like a red‑hot branding iron, sent waves of burning pain and icy corruption, its light feeble as a firefly, the new blood‑red crack shocking to behold.

He clung to the last thread of consciousness, swiftly scanning his surroundings.

This 'Broken Sword' stellar‑remnant fragment was enormous, its rear forming a relatively sheltered depression. Spatial turbulence and gales were blocked by the bulk of the fragment for the most part. He was temporarily safe… but only temporarily. He could feel that the corruption's will had not abandoned its search, and the pursuers were re‑locating him amidst the chaos.

Even more deadly was the condition of the star chart fragment!

He painfully sat cross‑legged, his back against the cold stellar‑remnant metal. Unable to tend to his horrific left‑arm wound, he sank all his mind into his sea of consciousness, trying to communicate and soothe the fragment on his back that teetered on the brink of collapse.

In his sea of consciousness, the scene was grim. The stellar light cluster representing the star chart fragment was now entwined and eroded by thick dark‑purple death‑qi like a spiderweb! The cluster itself glowed dimly, covered in cracks; the new blood‑red crack at its center looked especially ferocious, as if it might shatter completely at any moment! The fragment's core will emitted a painful, angry hum, locked in a savage tug‑of‑war with the corruption death‑qi.

Han Wuxian's consciousness approached cautiously, attempting to use his own stellar sword intent to help the fragment dispel the corruption. Yet the instant his sword intent touched that dark‑purple death‑qi, it sank like a mud ox in the sea—unable to budge, instead provoking an even wilder backlash of the death‑qi, which followed his consciousness link and invaded him! The fragment's core painful hum intensified.

"Impossible! My sword intent's level is insufficient! I cannot purify this grade of corruption!" Han Wuxian's heart sank; despair washed over him again. Must he merely watch as the fragment is utterly corrupted and shattered?

Just as his mind wavered, a sudden change occurred!

The dark‑purple death‑qi that entwined and eroded the star chart fragment, while furiously rebounding against Han Wuxian's consciousness, seemed to reach the fragment's innermost core…… the last, unyielding stellar origin belonging to the Star Torch Commander's brand!

This speck of origin, stimulated by the corruption death‑qi, was not contaminated; instead, like a kindled star‑spark, it suddenly burst forth as an extremely faint yet utterly pure and tenacious…… azure‑green star‑flame!

The instant this azure‑green star‑flame appeared

"Roar!!!"

In Han Wuxian's sea of consciousness, the dark‑purple torrent representing the monument's corruption will, as if encountering a natural predator, actually emitted a shriek filled with astonishment and disbelief! Its frenzied erosive momentum stalled!

And the corruption death‑qi entwining the star chart fragment, under the glare of the azure‑green star‑flame, writhed and recoiled like a shadow exposed to blazing sun! Though not instantly incinerated, its erosive speed and strength were instantly greatly weakened! The fragment's core painful hum also eased a bit.

Han Wuxian's mind and spirit shuddered! He stared in disbelief at that point, stubbornly burning amid the corruption encirclement, the azure‑green star‑flame!

The aura of this star‑flame…… he recognized it!

It was that bronze lamp! The light emanating from the bluish‑gray stone at its center! It was the primal aura of the ultimate stellar sword intent that, in that stone chamber, had finally settled the violent stellar power and guided him to reforge himself!

Even the deepest part of this star chart fragment actually hid a trace of the same origin—a protective flame belonging to the Star Torch Commander, or rather, to that supreme sword intent!

This azure‑green star‑flame…… seems capable of countering the corruption emanating from the Return to the Void monument?!