Deep within the Burning Bone Forest, Southern Frontier.
Dark clouds blotted out the sun. The wind howled through withered trees twisted like ghostly claws. All was deathly still, yet it felt as though countless unseen eyes lurked in the shadows, watching.
Xiao Chen and Chu Yuan followed an ancient stone path to the very heart of the forest—to the sealed structure at its end: the Suppression Tower.
The black stone tower stood nine stories tall, its surface cracked and veined with faint red lines, like ancient blood that had never dried. The entrance remained sealed, but above it, an ancient warding array was carved in overlapping runes, its core embedded with a massive shard of bone, shaped like a dragon's scale.
"This is... the seal of the Star Soul Lock?" Chu Yuan asked in a hushed voice.
Xiao Chen nodded, his expression more solemn than ever. "Three hundred years ago, the Seven Great Sects joined forces to create this grand suppression array. It was meant to imprison a fragment of the star soul that the Palace of Eternal Night tried to unleash—the very core of their demonic legacy."
He reached out. The bone shard emanated a bitter cold, like his palm had been plunged into an icy abyss. At that moment, the Nine Nether Star Soul within his body stirred on its own, and a silver light emerged from his palm.
Click—
The bone shard let out a faint sound and began to crack, a sliver of black-gold light seeping through the fissure like a strand of hair.
Chu Yuan gasped. "You... you just broke the first seal?"
"No," Xiao Chen replied quietly. "It responded to me. It's calling me down."
Moments later, the gate of the tower creaked open. A swirling black-gold vortex appeared within, deep and endless—so dark it seemed to devour even the light.
"Are we really going in?" Chu Yuan swallowed, hand tightening around his blade.
"Of course." Xiao Chen stepped into the vortex, voice low. "If my father's death is tied to this place, then the truth... lies in its deepest depths."
The moment they entered, the world changed—
They found themselves in an alternate realm within the seal. An endless void, floating stairways, stars hanging upside down in the sky. Gravity was meaningless here; this was no longer reality but the inner dimension of the Suppression Tower.
From the depths of the void, a shadow slowly emerged—a towering figure shrouded in tattered robes, its eyes glowing with a swirling blue light like distant stars. Massive and indistinct, it seemed like some forgotten, ancient entity.
"Who... comes before me?" the voice echoed across the void, resonating like the cry of countless spirits.
Xiao Chen stepped forward, his sword drawn, its aura cold as frost. "Xiao Chen of the Tianling Sect. I come seeking the truth behind the destruction of my sect three years ago."
The shadow was silent for a long moment. Then it slowly raised a hand, and a glowing orb filled with starlight materialized. At its center was a faint, indistinct face—
A face that bore a startling resemblance to Xiao Chen.
Chu Yuan cried out, "That's... your father's face?!"
"No," Xiao Chen whispered. "He's still alive. He came here once before—he tried to stop the seal from breaking."
Suddenly, the shadow trembled. Its presence swelled, violent and oppressive.
"Those who pry into fate... must perish."
BOOM—!
The void shattered. The shadow twisted into a colossal beast, its form radiating true Star Soul power, and lunged at them.
Xiao Chen's sword flared with starlight as he activated the Second Sword Form: Star Abyss Feather Rend!
With the swing of his blade, space tore like feathers, streaked with flowing starlight, cleaving through dimensional barriers to clash head-on with the beast.
Chu Yuan charged forward as well, unleashing the Blood Sun Blade Art—his strikes blazing like thunder and flame, severing one of the beast's claws in tandem with Xiao Chen!
Back-to-back, the two fought desperately. Xiao Chen's Nine Nether Star Soul resonated with the sealed power at the tower's core, allowing him to suppress the shadow and force it to retreat into its true form.
Just then, the shadow whispered a final message:"You who bear the Star Soul... shall also inherit its doom... Xiao Chen... seek the Key of the Demonic Sigil... the only thing that can defy fate..."
With those words, the space began to collapse.
"Go!" Xiao Chen grabbed Chu Yuan and tore open a rift in the void.
They were hurled back outside the tower just as a massive crack, nearly a hundred meters long, split the structure. Black miasma erupted from within, staining the sky as the earth trembled.
On a distant mountain peak, a golden-robed figure stepped out of the shadows. Handsome and cold, he held a bone flute in one hand.
He was Mo Wuyang, the new Holy Son of the Palace of Eternal Night.
He looked at Xiao Chen and smiled faintly. "You've finally arrived. You should've died that night in the fire, yet your cursed fate kept you alive. Now the Star Soul awakens. There is no turning back."
He lifted the bone flute to his lips.
At once, corpses stirred in the forest. Black-armored puppets burst from the soil, surrounding Xiao Chen and Chu Yuan.
"Killing you... won't be quick."
"Go!" Chu Yuan shouted, his blood igniting the blade, burning like a second sun.
"Don't be stupid," Xiao Chen said coldly, drawing his Star Soul Sword once more. Sword qi surged like a dragon, aimed straight at Mo Wuyang!
A brutal battle erupted once more.
And far away, atop the Sacred City of the Central Realm, a secret summit among the high-ranking sects had quietly begun—
The topic: the Return of the Star Soul.
At its center, Yan Yao stood within the main hall of the Yan Clan, her gaze cold as ice as she addressed the gathered elders above her.
"I suspect... it was our Yan Clan that sacrificed Xiao Chen's father."