Chapter 42.
The Black Star.
The evening twilight bled red across the horizon, the perfect stage for her silhouette.
The crowd trembled. It was an apocalyptic scene, like the decent of a Dark Battle Angel.
Even Kuang Luosheng, who laughed at everything, who mocked gods and spat at fate—his chuckle died in his throat.
Yan Youmei rose slowly, her lips parting, yet no sound dared leave her mouth.
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In just a few breaths, the black star decided it had hidden long enough. It tore itself free, revealing its eminent self for all to see.
Kuang Luosheng, who had been clutching Lu Xietong's throat a moment ago, staggered back as if he had just touched molten red metal. His pale fingers uncurled, releasing her neck. She drifted upward, limp, weightless, like some spectral marionette with broken strings.
The fiend's sneer faltered. For the first time, time itself seemed short for Kuang Luosheng.
From Lu Xietong's chest, the black star rose—first as a black firefly, then growing into a miniature sun of abyssal light. A translucent beady orb spun slowly at it's center acting as it's core. Looming in the sky, the massive silhouette moved as well, as though heaven had found itself a shadow. Its right hand lifted, and in its palm a replica black star of night burned into existence like a wound in reality.
Boom.
The world inhaled.
A catastrophic cyclone of suction exploded outward. The force ignored all as if they were cobwebs. Every stone, every shred of Qi, every breath of air bent toward that black star in the sky.The Domain of the Celeste trembled as though heaven's marrow was being sucked dry. It's suction force could be felt throughout the domain.
The crowd gasped, clutching at their robes, at their weapons, even at the ground itself— the suction force seemed to possess consciousness as it mainly targeted inanimate objects, however that didn't stop it from trying to rob cultivators of their hard earned Qi, their cultivation leaking from their meridians like sand from broken urns.
In the other domains of the Mortal Realm, this phenomenon had manifested as well. It was on a realm scale, siphoning energy from it's various domain and this energy was fed from the black star that had taken shap in the silhouette hands to the original black star that sill gleamed above Lu Xietong's chest.
It devoured the energy flow from the entire Mortal Realm completely, yet it seemed far from saturation.
Mountains wailed as their peaks cracked. Rivers surged upward, reversing their flow into the sky. The stars overhead flickered like guttering candles. Cultivators across countless sects spat blood as the black star plundered their Qi. Farmers saw their spirit crops wither in a heartbeat, savage creatures of the wild collapsing with their tongues lolling, while one enraged farmer shouted at the heavens:
"First the taxes, now this?! Is the sky charging rent for air too?!"
Palaces trembled, pavilions cracked, drunken immortals sobered instantly, and children screamed as the elements themselves went rabid. Sect masters in seclusion burst from meditation, robes half on, glaring at the sky like men whose roofs had just been stolen.
Even the hidden experts muttered in horror:
"Not a tribulation… not a calamity… then what?!"
All across the realm, eyes tilted upward in terror at the same nightmare.
For half an hour the phenomenon devoured, and the translucent orb at the black star core pulsed greedily until it gleamed like an iridescent lightning.
Boom.
The star cracked wide—then expanded, engulfing Lu Xietong's unconscious figure whole. She vanished into the abyss.
The phantom silhouette in the sky faded. The heavens exhaled. Random items that had been fortunate to not have been devoured at the last moment rained down.
Back in the Pit, the audience collapsed to the ground, sweat-drenched, as though they had been personally dragged across the threshold of death.
Kuang Luosheng hadn't dared interfere. The instant he had extended his Qi, the abyss had glared back at him like an old credito Even he felt it—that unfinished grievance, as if the star had recognized him and whispered:
You still owe me.
He licked his lips, furious. "Damn it… I've lost a meal."
He glanced at Yan Feitian, who was still gawking, dumbstruck, at the space where Lu Xietong had disappeared.
"I've already lost one prize," Kuang mused darkly. "Should I at least enjoy the other? But then… that wretched Yan Rouxi dotes strangely on this brat. Tch. Decisions, decisions."
He was still debating when the sky itself snarled.
A sound like the cry of a thousand babies tore across the horizon, scraping at every ear. Green clouds rolled in from the west, boiling with malignant intent.
"Not again," one spectator whispered hoarsely. "Are we cursed with a parade of freaks tonight?"
Within the clouds, a legion of green ghostly skulls appeared, their bodies hidden in mist, mouths opening and closing in agony. Their eyes remained shut, but their writhing heads loosed shrieks that turned the air into jagged glass.
If Lu Xietong had been present, she would have recognized it instantly—the Thousand Soul Asura, a forbidden ability of her elder brother.
The army of skulls covered the heavens in the blink of an eye.
Then—one skull opened its eyes.
Grey light cut across the battlefield like a knife, landing squarely on one figure.
Kuang Luosheng.
The fiend's smirk curdled into horror. "No. Not me—"
Too late. The skull ceased its wailing. A skeletal hand the size of a mountain ripped out of the sky, bones groaning as they stretched downward.
Crash!
The hand closed around Kuang Luosheng, shattering the ward like it was brittle glass.
On the other hand, Yan Rouxi's bell exploded in her hand, shards raining like dying stars.
The green skull turned crimson as it swallowed Kuang Luosheng, its eyes blazing. In an instant, it had disappeared into the east.
And then—gone. The mist. The skulls. The hand. The cries. Everything.
The Pit of the Damned fell silent.
This entire ordeal hadn't lasted more than a handful of breaths.
Silence… then the muttering began.
"What… what just happened?"
"He got snatched like a chicken by the heavens."
"I think the laws of order took a vacation today."
A few regained their wits quickly, scattering before the world decided to birth another nightmare. Even the Yin-Yang Dynasty and Yan Clan pulled their wounded back with hushed urgency.
But already, rumors slithered out like wildfire.
Taverns sang of it by nightfall:
"The Fallen Child devoured by a star!"
"Kuang Luosheng, dragged to hell to join the crying choir!"
Each retelling more absurd than the last.
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