Zhang Ruochen was not a heartless man; he treated everyone close to him with care.
Thus, after hearing Prajna’s words, the coldness in his eyes softened, and his voice grew low. “I can’t quite recall how I first came to be with Princess Yanchen. I only remember that, at our first meeting, the word ‘dust’ seemed to offend her. By some twist of fate, we entered the Earth Sect together, and from there, a bond formed.”
“So much happened afterward: disputes, tenderness, partings, joys, and sorrows. Do you still remember how they went from disliking each other to understanding, then loving one another?”
Prajna sat on the Cosmic Ice Stone, her eyes lowered, listening quietly without responding.
“Two people come together through acquaintance, understanding, mutual admiration, love, and finally commitment. Sadly, they never reached that final step.”
“If they hadn’t met in the Western Courtyard. If, on the eve of their wedding, Empress Chi Yao hadn’t sent Wan Zhaoyi to the Eastern Saint King’s Mansion to seize Zhang Ruochen. If Zhang Ruochen hadn’t helped Huang Yanchen become a Realm Bearer. If Zhang Ruochen and Empress Chi Yao didn’t have eight hundred years of grievances. Would the outcome have been better?”
Zhang Ruochen spoke slowly, as if murmuring to himself or pondering past and present lives.
The longer one lives, the more one’s perspective shifts.
In his youth, his spirited boldness made him fearless, singing with passion, ready to face any foe, even at the cost of his life, without hesitation.
Now, Zhang Ruochen would never act so recklessly.
Back then, he dared to storm the Ziwei Palace alone to confront Chi Yao. Now, going alone to the Earthfiend Ghost City to challenge the Ghost Lord was utterly unthinkable.
It wasn’t cowardice, just a refusal to court death.
No matter how dire the situation, there was always a better solution than throwing one’s life away.
Prajna finally spoke. “What’s the use of so many ‘ifs’? The past is set. We can only shape the future.”
They sat facing each other, their words heavy with emotion yet distant, like those of strangers.
Zhang Ruochen, steady in resolve, said no more. His eyes flashed with sharpness. “To defeat Wujiang, dark spacetime matter isn’t necessary. If I can restore my blood energy, he’ll lose next time.”
“But your goal was never just to defeat Wujiang; it’s to claim first in the Hunting Heaven War,” Prajna replied.
Zhang Ruochen pondered deeply. “First, we must survive.”
As his words fell, the space trembled slightly.
Countless time imprint specks pierced the purple-gold light membrane formed by supreme power, entering the gourd and enveloping Zhang Ruochen and Prajna.
Time shifted dramatically.
“Why are there suddenly so many time imprints? No, time’s power is rapidly draining our lifespan.”
Zhang Ruochen realised the time flow had slowed a thousandfold, nearing stasis. A million years here might equate to just one year outside.
But unlike cultivating under the Sundial, a year here didn’t consume one year of lifespan but a thousand.
In other words, a million years here, while only a year outside, would cost Zhang Ruochen ten billion years of lifespan.
A year here, mere breaths outside, would drain a cultivator’s lifespan by a thousand years.
“The Dark Star is no cultivation haven. We must find dark spacetime matter and leave quickly.”
Zhang Ruochen’s expression grew grave, realising Blue Marrow True Lord likely died not only from spatial compression but also from time’s extreme shifts.
About a month later, the spatial compression from all directions faded.
Zhang Ruochen’s tense nerves relaxed.
Fortunately, before entering the Hunting Heaven Battlefield, he had the Bloodsky Clan cultivators each take a divine stone, now all in his possession.
By continuously absorbing the divine energy from these stones, Zhang Ruochen and Prajna sustained their power, maintaining the Purple-Gold Gourd’s supreme force.
“Swoosh—”
The Purple-Gold Gourd expanded from a speck of purple-gold light into a hundreds-of-metres-long gourd ship, floating in the boundless void.
They flew out, standing on the gourd’s surface, ready to proceed.
Prajna gazed at the sapphire-blue stone suspended in the void. “Though the Blue Marrow Star is reduced to this size, it holds immense energy. If our divine stones run out, it could sustain us here.”
She added, “I’ve noticed your Purple-Gold Gourd has refined many star cores. Can it refine this too?”
Zhang Ruochen hesitated. “Its weight is a thousand times that of a typical star core. Refining it would be like refining a thousand cores.”
He was naturally intrigued by the Blue Marrow Star.
If refined successfully, the gourd’s absorption power would surge, posing a threat to Lanying, Yan Huangtu, Que, and others.
Under Zhang Ruochen’s control, the gourd grew massive, like a gourd mountain.
Its mouth aimed at the sapphire stone, drawing it inside.
The gourd’s weight increased dramatically, forcing Zhang Ruochen to exert all his strength to propel it forward.
As they flew, he used supreme power to refine the Blue Marrow Star.
It was a long, tedious journey, searching for dark spacetime matter like a needle in a haystack, elusive and uncertain.
Danger loomed constantly.
Every month, spatial rule tidal storms erupted, forcing Zhang Ruochen and Prajna to hide inside the gourd until they passed.
In this perilous world, three years passed quickly.
With divine stones and the Heart of the Divine Tree, Zhang Ruochen fully restored his great saint blood and healed his injuries.
The gourd had flown billions of miles, yet no trace of dark spacetime matter was found.
In those three years, Zhang Ruochen consumed his remaining seven Path-Deriving Holy Fruits, gaining 21,000 years of lifespan and increasing his holy path rules by 700 million, reaching a total of 3.5 billion.
The unique environment here greatly enhanced his understanding of time and space.
His time and space rules grew rapidly, exceeding 40 million each. If he now deployed his spatial and virtual time domains, he was confident he could counter Wujiang’s Nether Kingdom.
This deepened understanding of time and space made the journey worthwhile, laying a solid foundation for condensing time and space holy intents in the future.
Zhang Ruochen’s main reason for consuming all the Path-Deriving Holy Fruits was necessity.
First, his lifespan loss was immense. In just three years, he lost 2,000 years. This would continue, and without sufficient lifespan, he felt uneasy, unable to afford the cost.
Second, only by consuming the fruits could his cultivation surge quickly to cope with the Dark Star’s complex, extreme, and dangerous environment.
After eating the seven fruits, Zhang Ruochen spent three years breaking thirteen more shackles.
Now, with a total of twenty-seven shackles broken, his demi-god body grew stronger, capable of unleashing greater divine power.
Consuming many Path-Deriving Holy Fruits also aided in mastering high-tier holy techniques.
Over three years, Zhang Ruochen studied swordsmanship, fist techniques, palm techniques, and time and space holy techniques from the *Secret Canon of Time and Space*, as well as the Bloodsky War God’s recorded methods in the Seven-Star Imperial Palace.
Besides Divine Demon Suppression, he mastered three Thousand-Inscription high-tier holy techniques to a preliminary level, needing only time and integration to reach mastery.
These three techniques were:
A leg technique complementing the Flame God’s Leg.
A fire path technique fully harnessing the Pure Extinguishing Divine Fire.
A space-based technique, which Zhang Ruochen wasn’t sure qualified as a Thousand-Inscription high-tier technique, but its difficulty surpassed them.
The Path-Deriving Holy Fruits were crucial to these achievements.
Without them, mastering even one such technique in three years—let alone thirty—would have been nearly impossible.
Zhang Ruochen devoted most of his effort to swordsmanship, making significant breakthroughs in Sword Eleven and the fifth layer of the Time Sword Technique, “Moonlit Melody.”
His only regret was failing to integrate a sixth holy intent into the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent.
Now, Zhang Ruochen stood alone atop the Purple-Gold Gourd, hands behind his back, gazing ahead.
Three years of fruitless searching for dark spacetime matter left him with doubts and restlessness.
Dark spacetime matter was merely Prajna’s conjecture; it might not exist.
Continuing here could mean wasting lifespan in vain.
“With my current strength, defeating Wujiang at his peak shouldn’t be difficult. In the entire Hunting Heaven Battlefield, only Que and the Chi Emperor pose a threat. As for Lanying, Yan Huangtu, and Luo Shengtian, though ranked above Wujiang, their combat power is likely only marginally stronger.”
Zhang Ruochen weighed whether to leave the Dark Star’s interior now.
But another thought struck him. As Prajna said, his goal was first place in the Hunting Heaven War, not just defeating a single opponent.
In the final battle, he might face multiple formidable foes.
Dark spacetime matter could be his greatest trump card.
Whether usable or not, having it was better than not.
For the past two years, Prajna had stayed inside the gourd.
Her lifespan, far less than Zhang Ruochen’s, couldn’t withstand the drain.
Fortunately, two years ago, Zhang Ruochen inscribed a time array on the gourd, partially mitigating time’s toll on lifespan.
Inside the gourd, lifespan consumption was a tenth of the outside.
Thanks to the array, though Zhang Ruochen spent much time outside steering the gourd and searching for dark spacetime matter, he lost only 2,000 years of lifespan, not 3,000.
“Don’t be impatient. Stay calm. This is a chance to study the dark path. Know yourself and your enemy, and you’ll prevail in every battle.”
Zhang Ruochen took a deep breath, sat cross-legged, and adjusted his mindset.
The Dark Star’s interior, rich with dark rules, was an ideal place to study the dark path.
In the Infernal Realm, many cultivators practiced the dark path, and many heavenly paths derived from it. Deeper understanding would ease future battles against the realm’s great saints.
Time passed swiftly during cultivation.
Seven more years elapsed.
Zhang Ruochen not only mastered the three new Thousand-Inscription high-tier holy techniques but also made greater breakthroughs in swordsmanship, space, time, and the dark path.
Ten years of cultivation and supreme artefact use depleted his divine stones.
He could no longer linger; it was time to decide whether to stay or go.
“Swoosh—”
A winding Nether River flowed from the gourd’s mouth.
Prajna stepped onto the river, landing gracefully on the gourd’s surface. She looked at Zhang Ruochen’s upright figure, hesitated, then approached. “Ten years! I was wrong. This Dark Star hasn’t birthed dark spacetime matter.”
Over the decade, Prajna used fate rules to study the Blue Marrow Star, gaining much of Blue Marrow True Lord’s inheritance.
Her cultivation had advanced significantly.
Zhang Ruochen said, “In ten years, your dark, space, and time paths have greatly improved. Your purpose here wasn’t to find dark spacetime matter but to cultivate and break through, taking a shortcut to catch up with the other two goddess candidates, Empress Feng and Saint Jehong.”
Cultivating multiple ancient paths wasn’t always wise.
Overreaching often led to failure.
Yet in Prajna, Zhang Ruochen saw no signs of overextension. Her ancient paths complemented each other, converging in the Gate of True Self.
Her Gate of True Self’s condensation had more than doubled since entering the Dark Star.
Prajna stared at him. “You think I’m using your power to achieve my breakthrough? Yes, I am using you.”
Zhang Ruochen studied her eyes, shaking his head. “You never explain, always leaving me to seek truth and answers myself. You know that’s exhausting.”
Suddenly, he sensed something, his pupils contracting as he looked past Prajna into the distant void.
“Perhaps I’ve found the answer. Dark spacetime matter has appeared!”
About seven hundred miles from the gourd, a black mist emerged, with rain within. Droplets swirled, forming a massive vortex.
At its centre, faintly visible, was a yellow bronze cauldron.
