Chapter 1144: Star-Locking Order

This strike—devious, precise, ruthless! It perfectly exploited the battlefield Chaos and the opponent's full‑force attack moment! Though the contained Returning to Void Power of Silence Extinction is weak, it is enough to instantly erase a low‑rank cultivator's life, and that sliver of star‑purifying power can render the opponent's protective demonic technique and soul defense as if they were nonexistent!

The Heavenly Doom Sect leader was smug and triumphant, ready to savor the thrill of slaughter, when suddenly he felt a chill at the back of his head, as if touched by the cold abyss of the universe. All thoughts, all demonic technique operations, halted instantly. The grimace on his face froze, his pupils dilated rapidly and dimmed.

In the next instant, without a word, he lunged forward rigidly, his breath gone! Even his soul was instantly turned to void by the Silence Extinction power!

The soul‑summoning banner lost control; the ghost head on its surface let out a mournful wail and shattered abruptly! The attack formation, which had been coordinated like a raging storm, instantly developed a fatal gap and stalled!

"What's happening?!"

"Senior Brother Liu!"

The sudden turn of events caught all Heavenly Doom Sect disciples off guard, throwing their formation into chaos!

Senior Brother Zhou and Junior Sister Lin, though unaware of what had occurred, would not miss this fleeting chance at a life‑or‑death moment, would they?

"Kill!" Senior Brother Zhou roared, his crimson‑flame long sword erupting with unprecedented radiance, transforming into a blazing dragon that slammed into the midst of the Heavenly Doom Sect disciples thrown into Chaos by their leader's sudden death!

Junior Sister Lin's sword light also surged, her azure sword aura like a sudden gale, striking the panicked enemies with pinpoint precision!

A scream instantly echoed through the valley! Deprived of command and formation and stunned by the sudden counterattack, the Heavenly Doom Sect disciples suffered massive casualties in an instant!

Han Wuxian, after landing the strike, had already slipped back into the shadows, his presence completely vanished as if he had never been there. He watched coldly as the two members of the Red Sun Sect seized the opportunity to counterattack and clear the remnants, his gaze finally settling on the corpse of the Heavenly Doom Sect leader.

The battle ended quickly. The remaining Heavenly Doom Sect disciples, seeing their leader's inexplicable sudden death, were terrified and fled in all directions into the depths of the poisonous miasma.

Senior Brother Zhou and Junior Sister Lin were panting, both bearing wounds, and as they looked at the littered ground and corpses, their faces bore a mix of astonishment and doubt.

"What just happened..." Senior Brother Zhou looked at the leader's corpse, stepped forward to examine it closely, but found no fatal wound, only a barely visible gray‑white speck at the back of the head, as if pierced instantly by something ultra‑thin, even the soul having dissipated. A look of horror crossed his face, "What a bizarre method! Who struck from the shadows?"

Junior Sister Lin scanned the surroundings even more warily, her cool eyes heavy with gravity: "The one who acted is far stronger than us, the technique unheard of, a single move killing the enemy, invisible and traceless... Friend or foe, impossible to predict. This place is unsuitable for lingering; we must leave at once!"

Senior Brother Zhou, though unwilling, also recognized the danger of the place, nodded, and quickly rummaged over the leader's corpse, soon finding the token that had drawn Han Wuxian's attention and some scattered items.

"Go!" The two dared not linger, swallowed their pills to suppress their injuries, transformed into two streaks of evanescent light, hurrying toward the outer rim of Burial Star Ridge, even unable to examine the token's anomaly closely.

Until their evanescent lights completely vanished into the horizon.

Only then did Han Wuxian's figure, like a phantom, emerge again from the shadows. He walked to the corpse, his gaze falling on the dark, half‑buried token that Senior Brother Zhou had uncovered but, in his haste, left slightly exposed in the soil.

He bent down and picked up the token.

It was ice‑cold and heavy in his hand. The token's front bore the star symbol entwined with chains, the back engraved with the character "Sha". When his fingers brushed the star symbol, the lamp‑seal at his brow emitted a clear warm sensation again, even a shade stronger than before. Simultaneously, the Star Torch Stone in his chest warmed slightly, its bluish‑gray glow seeming to strive to break through, resonating with the token.

"Star-Locking Order..." Han Wuxian ran his fingers over the token's markings, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. Heavenly Doom Sect, Burial Star Ridge, the fallen stars, the bronze lamp… these clues seemed to be linking together piece by piece.

He tucked the token away, casting one last glance at the multicolored poisonous miasma seeping deep within Burial Star Ridge, and did not press further. He had just forcibly triggered the Silence Extinction finger technique; though it was only a negligible thread of power, it still stirred the old wound of his dantian sword origin, requiring immediate rest to recover. Moreover, with this token, perhaps new discoveries await.

His figure flickered, vanishing in another direction to seek a secluded spot for healing. In the distant sky, the hidden bone shuttle still hovered like the most patient predator, silently circling, capturing everything that had just occurred within its "eye."

Han Wuxian found a natural cave half‑covered by a massive violet‑black monolith. The entrance was narrow and concealed; inside it was dry, devoid of any beastly presence, only a faint acidic scent left by the rock eroded over years by the poisonous miasma. He slipped inside, quickly moved a few pieces of rubble to loosely block the entrance, leaving only a thin ventilation slit.

Inside the cave the light was dim. He sat cross‑legged, immediately sinking his mind into his dantian.

The situation was more troublesome than expected. Forcibly channeling that thread of Silence Extinction finger power was like striking a barely‑held crack in a fragile porcelain, opening an almost imperceptible fissure. The Returning to Void Sword Origin quivered slightly, its gray‑white primordial force flowing sluggishly, the world's laws repelling like a cold background hum, continuously trying to enlarge that fissure. The Star Torch Stone emitted a blue‑green glow, striving to nourish and harmonize, but its progress was slow, like using fine sand to fill a deep chasm.

"Must restore strength quickly and locate the other components of the lamp..." Han Wuxian thought with urgency. Burial Star Ridge was exceptionally perilous, and the Heavenly Doom Sect was numerous and powerful; in his current state, exposure would mean certain death.

He produced the "Star-Locking Order" token obtained from the Heavenly Doom Sect leader. The token was ice‑cold to the touch, its material neither metal nor wood, unusually heavy. Its front, the star symbol entwined with snarling chains, emitted a faint cold sheen in the dim light. When his fingertip infused a thread of Returning to Void Power to probe, a very pale dark‑red barrier aura surfaced on the token's surface, attempting to resist.

"Hmph." Han Wuxian's gaze hardened. The Returning to Void Power is domineering, excelling at erasing all laws. The petty barrier set by Foundation Establishment cultivators, before the Silence Extinction aura, was as flimsy as paper. He exhaled a slight force from his fingertip, and the dark‑red barrier vanished silently.

The moment the barrier was broken, a faint yet pure stream of information, bearing star fluctuations mixed with blood‑soaked demonic aura, surged into his sea of consciousness along the Returning to Void Power he had probed.

It was not a complete technique or memory, but rather fragmented pieces and images:

A massive sinkhole shrouded in multicolored poisonous miasma, deep at its bottom a colossal, cracked fragment of star emitting a dim stellar glow… a star fragment! Most of the fragment was covered and entwined by a dark‑red, vein‑like filthy substance, as if being slowly eroded and devoured.

Countless disciples of the Heavenly Fiend Sect clad in dark red robes busily working like worker ants at the edge of the Heavenly Pit, setting up a huge evil formation composed of white bones and resentful spirits. The formation extended countless dark red energy tendrils, piercing into the star fragments deep within the Heavenly Pit, greedily drawing some kind of power. The drawn power mixed with the afterglow of the stars and the foul blood fiend, transported along those "blood vessels" to outside the Heavenly Pit...