Long Chen felt like his body had been shackled. The shattered Heaven Shrouding Mirror reappeared in front of him.
However, this time, when the Heaven Shrouding Mirror formed, there was a tiny mirror beneath it.
As the Heaven Shrouding Mirror circulated, the small mirror below it began to change. One crystal after another came out of its back.
Long Chen suddenly understood. This was the process of how the mirror on the platform was born. The illusory Heaven Shrouding Mirror had created something real.
The Heaven Shrouding Mirror had no solid body. It was like a gateway toward the past and future.
No one knew its origins or how it was formed. It was unknown whether or not it was man-made. Everything was a mystery, just like the Ghost Ships. Not even Sovereign Yun Shang or Long Chen’s senior apprentice-brother were able to give an explanation about the Ghost Ships. Perhaps they knew but refused to say.
Just at that moment, the Heaven Shrouding Mirror faded away and Long Chen was released. He reached out and took the mirror on the platform.
He was unable to see his reflection within the mirror. What he saw was an endless starry sky.
He swung the mirror in the air a few times and didn’t see anything special.
However, when he sent his Spiritual Strength into it, it suddenly blazed with light, and he hastily dodged to the side.
A ray of light shot out of the mirror, ripping through the void. Anything within its path was turned to nothingness.
Long Chen retracted his Spiritual Strength, and the mirror returned to normal. But now he was covered in sweat.
“I almost killed myself.” Long Chen hadn’t expected such a terrifying attack to suddenly shoot out of the mirror just because he sent his Spiritual Strength inside. He had almost blasted his own head away.
Long Chen picked the mirror back up. He looked at the back of it and saw several strange natural runes on it. He didn’t know how they were used.
“It seems that it’s a divine item that requires the soul to control. But my Spiritual Strength is too coarse for this. That random attack sucked away the majority of my Spiritual Strength, but only because ninety percent of my soul energy was wasted. It seems that this treasure should be left for Meng Qi. Perhaps she can figure out how to really use it.”
Despite his Spiritual Strength being stronger than anyone else he had encountered in the same realm, he was not a soul cultivator. He had tried to learn some proper soul arts from Meng Qi so that he could unleash the potential of his Spiritual Strength, but he had given up. That was because the first step was to calm the soul, and he was unable to do so.
Long Chen’s soul energy was like a constantly raging river. It was never still enough for him to use in skillful soul arts.
There was no other cultivation technique on the Martial Heaven Continent that caused someone’s soul energy to act like this. For other people, their soul energy was like a lake. Wind could cause waves within this lake, but when there was no wind, it was still. Due to this, Long Chen could only give up on the path of soul cultivation.
This mirror was definitely incredibly precious for his senior apprentice-brother to call it something good. Since he couldn’t study it, he could only place his hopes on Meng Qi.
“Since you were born from the void and reflect the stars of the void, I’ll call you the Void Mirror,” decided Long Chen as he looked at it one final time before putting it away.
Suddenly, the void shuddered and a whirlpool slowly formed. The shattered Heaven Shrouding Mirror slowly reformed.
However, this time, there was not such an awe-inspiring manifestation around it.
Long Chen realized that this Heaven Shrouding Mirror was like a fruit tree, while the Void Mirror was its fruit. Now that the fruit had been plucked, it would need to bear new fruit. It was unknown just how many years it would take for a new Void Mirror to be born.
The void continued to shudder. His surroundings faded away, and a staircase appeared in front of him. He had been sent back to the eighth level of the tower.
“It seems that since I’ve taken the treasure, I have to leave.” Long Chen nodded and looked back. He saw the staircase to the lower level.
Long Chen descended. On the seventh level, countless resentful spirits pounced on him, forcing him to kill his way through them. The lower he went, the weaker their attacks grew, until he was finally out.
When he was outside of the tower, the surrounding resentful spirits became illusory. Their attacks were unable to harm him.
Long Chen looked up at the giant tower and sighed. Even a generation’s Sovereign could meet his end.
Even a nine star heir who was many times stronger than him had died on the battlefield. His soul essence was kept alive though, leaving him unable to rest in peace.
Those who stood at the peak could still die. Whether it was Sovereign Yun Shang or his senior apprentice-brother, he was unable to judge just how many times stronger than him they were, but they had still died.
“Is there no one in this world that can live forever? Are there really immortals?” Long Chen’s heart was heavy.
Sovereign Yun Shang and his senior apprentice-brother hadn’t explained much, but he was able to grasp some clues from their words. However, those clues were unable to solve the heaven-shrouding mystery before him. He felt like he was on an incomparably vast chessboard and had no idea where to go.
Long Chen suddenly laughed. “God or immortal, that’s not what I seek. I don’t want to live forever. I just want to live freely with the family that I’ve created. To live a day is to be happy for a day. To live a year is to be happy for a year. Even if our lives end tomorrow, we can still smile and face the world proudly.”
The worries that had been brought on by Sovereign Yun Shang and his senior apprentice-brother were slowly wiped away by this laugh.
The future was far too distant. It was better to focus on the present. Even if they were struggling against a fierce tide, at the very least, Long Chen still had everything he wanted.
Long Chen began to walk toward the aft of the ship. He didn’t know how Yun Tian was, but either way, he had to gather with everyone else.
There were quite a few constructions on this ship, but Long Chen didn’t enter them. Yun Tian had said that they might not have enough time.
Long Chen didn’t know how much time he had wasted in the tower. He had to get off the Ghost Ship before it left the Star Field Divine World, or he would be brought to unknown spacetimes and separated from everyone forever. That was the worst-case scenario that he wanted to avoid.
With every step he took, he saw different scenes. Some were peaceful, and some were bloody. There were scenes of people dancing and singing happily, as well as scenes of an intense slaughter.
It was always the same ship, but it was passing through time, allowing him to see the lives of people from different eras.
There were children running around as they played. Their laughter was infectious, almost capable of bringing people back to their own childhoods.
There were also scenes of people praying, offering sacrifice to some existence. As they chanted fervently, Long Chen was unable to understand what they were saying.
Once, he saw a man and woman creating new life beneath the starry sky in one corner, startling him.
However, he was walking too fast, and that scene flitted past him. He didn’t get to see the details.
Long Chen paused and looked around. Not seeing anyone else, he stealthily took a step back. “It’s not like anyone will see me…”
Regretfully, despite being the exact same step and distance, the scene had already changed, replaced with a bloody battle.
“Tch, I didn’t even get a chance to study.” Long Chen cursed himself for walking too fast.
Despite that, he quickened his footsteps. The danger of this region had dropped immensely. The ones fighting in these scenes were not so powerful that their attacks were able to pass through space and time.
Long Chen quickly reached the end of the ship, and the scene before him changed once more. He saw countless experts in black armor who immediately attacked him.
“Long Chen, get off the ship!”
Before he even understood what was happening, someone let out a panicked and furious shout from the distance. It was Mo Nian.
Only now did Long Chen realize that he had finally escaped the illusions of the Ghost Ship. The Ghost Ship was now surrounded by an army.
That army was already pouncing on him.
“The Heaven Devouring Black Armor Corps!”
Long Chen’s heart shook. These warriors were filled with an aura of death. He wasn’t able to sense the slightest vitality from them. Long Chen instantly thought of a bad possibility.
“The Black Armor Corps were definitely revived by Ye Ming. He has probably gained complete control of the Heaven Devouring Fiend King’s dark energy,” said Evilmoon heavily.
Long Chen jumped off, charging through the Black Armor Corps with Evilmoon.
Those warriors were blasted apart into black mist as he charged through them.
At this moment, Long Chen saw a giant chain dragging a large object. That object was the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest.
The Ten Thousand Dragon Nest had now become a husk of its former self. It was badly damaged and was now being dragged by the Ghost Ship’s anchor.
The wreckage of the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest smashed into two tall mountains. Those mountains shuddered and became covered in cracks in an instant.
Those mountains were like metal, without any vegetation capable of growing on them. However, even these tough mountains were unable to endure.
BOOM!
As expected, they exploded, and the Ghost Ship continued dragging the remnant of the Ten Thousand Ghost Ship through the air until they vanished within endless darkness.
