Star Gate

Li Hao's eyes widened. The 'dao' character that the dao universe had formed on its own had nearly shattered in the last major battle. Who would've thought that it could still exert this kind of effect?

In that case... can I... observe this sudden star?

Li Hao was very worried and afraid! But here he was and here the star was. He wouldn't be satisfied if he left without looking at the star. This was the center of the dao universe that he'd been searching for. If one who sought dao turned tail and ran upon finding it, what did they seek dao for then? They were more afraid of the dangers than they wanted to find their path; their desires were only surface level!

I have the 'dao' character, a stroke of fortune that is hard to come by in the entire world. How can I give up this opportunity??

Li Hao opened his eyes.

He saw! It was a scintillating star that shifted between a corporeal and intangible form. It pulsed like a heart and also seemed to breathe. Its every move was connected to the dao universe. The star seemed to like the sword very much and circled over it for a while.

Time slowed in front of it. The entire universe was so quiet that it was suffocating. Even the river of stars no longer trembled.

A peculiar ripple emanated throughout the vicinity. Li Hao could no longer move and his thoughts were much slower than before. He stared dumbly at the star, shifting his eyes to the illusory side on the back.

He froze with astonishment! There were countless stars on the other side as well, but there was also a sensation of that side being completely out of reach.

"The heart of dao!" Li Hao understood. This... was the center of the dao universe. The immaterial universe was on the other side—the one that the Moon God and others were in. He could see brilliant stars on the other side, a radiant moon, and... another sword!

A swordsman had coalesced his sword of the mind there, his personal dao star.

Li Daoheng...

Li Hao closed his eyes to quietly sense everything around him. He absorbed some feeble tendrils of unique dao strength and fully experienced the pulsations of these tendrils.

These were the undulations of dao!

His memories grew disordered and confused. He suddenly saw himself in the past when he was a child. Just as that sight registered, it turned into one of him being gaunt and old, waiting for him in the future.

This is time!

Could time truly be reversed?

The star circled for a bit longer before losing interest. The river of stars shaped like a sword only held its interest for a moment before it vanished with a brilliant sparkle.

The world returned to what it'd been before and stars continued to drift in. Panther remained staring dumbly, as if having sunk into hibernation.

"Panth!" Li Hao called out. The dog jerked awake and looked quizzically at the young man.

What did you call out to me for?

That had only been a split second to the dog! Li Hao looked around to orient himself. How long... had that been? It seemed like only a moment to him, but... perhaps not?

He disappeared, reappearing in Silver Moon world. Cocking his head, he heard countless voices raised in conversation.

"It was only ten seconds to me, but seven days in the outside world!" His face slackened with surprise. "Incredible!"

He'd been awake the entire time, but seven days had still passed all the same! That was horrifying.

This star was so different.

Li Hao entered the dao universe again and looked at Panther. "That moment you spent staring off was actually seven days passing!"

Panther really stared off into space this time.That has to be a joke! I didn't feel anything at all!

"The river of stars has been mostly stabilized!" Li Hao recomposed himself and studied the sword-shaped river. "That's incredible... I just fashioned it into a sword, one that wasn't too steady. That thing appeared for a moment and secured everything for me!"

Li Hao was suddenly quite agitated, as if he had a new goal to work toward.

"Panth, do you think I'd be able to control time if this star becomes the core of my river?"

The dog shook its head, it didn't know. It only knew that seven days had passed after it paused for one moment. That was horrifying!

Li Hao, however, laughed instead. A faint ripple emanated from his body and a very faint surge of energy dissipated from the 'dao' character. Panther blinked slowly, staring off into space when it focused on Li Hao.

The young man didn't need to awaken it this time. Panther came back to its senses after approximately eight seconds and looked at Li Hao with some confusion.

"Did you... feel anything just now?" A light danced in Li Hao's eyes.

The dog shook its head, puzzled by the question.I simply looked at you, what was I supposed to feel?

The young man's heart pounded ferociously. Panth hadn't felt anything! While the dog was only mid Sun and Moon, it'd been frozen in place for eight seconds after a quick glance. That was incredible!

He seemed to have touched upon the core level of the dao universe. Li Hao took a deep breath and smiled. "This is so fascinating. The 'dao' character is far from ordinary! The same goes for the river sword of stars. That star—the heart of the universe and the dao... is so intriguing!"

The young man was enormously excited and grinned from ear to ear. Roughly ten days had passed in the outside world; he'd also spent quite a few days on reshaping the river. It wouldn't be long until Lin Hongyu started the ceremony.

"Back to work!" Li Hao took a deep breath. "More stars have joined us and made the sword river even stronger! In addition, I might have to make some changes to myself. Look after me well, Panth, just in case I die here!"

The dog looked at him with bafflement.What are you going to do now?

Li Hao's body swelled furiously—one thousand meters. ten thousand, one hundred thousand meters... He enlarged to an unbelievable scale!

Three hundred and sixty dao meridians appeared within his body. Most of them were closed, with only a few having been opened. Li Hao took another deep breath and exhaled it noisily, like a storm through the land.

"I am going to... enter the river!" he boomed.

The dog still hadn't understood when the gigantic Li Hao took a step forward. When the young man reached the river, he gingerly lowered himself so that his dao meridians corresponded to the three hundred and sixty sectors within the river.

Each dao meridian mapped to a sector, regardless of whether or not it was opened. The dao meridians thatwereopen integrated with the dao star within the sector. Li Hao slowly became part of the river, murmuring, "I'm going to incorporate myself into it and utilize my blood as the foundation of the river! The dao is me and I am the dao..."

"Arf arf arf!" Panther barked with great alarm. The young man's body seemed to be disintegrating as he entered the river! The dog was very nervous about this development. What was Li Hao playing at now?? This was too much! He was turning his body into dao!

"Panth, I'm going to take another gamble! I'm going to be a gambler from head to toe! The myriad of daos will come to me, I will turn into the world and wield the great dao. All things will live because of me!

"If I don't try this, how will I, Li Hao, surpass those who came before us? I can win, can't I, Panth?"

"Arf!" howled the black dog. It was both worried and nervous.

Massive dragons hovered over the sword river, swiftly combining with each respective sector. The dragons roared; some of the unopened dao meridians couldn't endure the pressure and fractured!

How would it be that easy to incorporate the world if one's dao meridians weren't even opened?

Li Hao lit up acupoints on various daos. They turned into spots of light that began devouring the world!

The 'dao' character appeared once more. It vanished, then reappeared over Li Hao's forehead. it had turned into a red dot emblazoned on the young man's forehead, giving him a few hints of a fey, darkly dangerous beauty.

Even so, the dao meridians within his body showed signs of exploding from being over capacity. Faint ripples exuded from his being, instantly quieting the dao power. Li Hao slowly grew used to the changes in his body.

At the moment, there was only the sight of a massive giant lying in a dark space within the dao universe. An extremely tiny little dog stood next to it.

......

All preparations were readily underway in the outside world when everything momentarily dimmed for a second. Pure darkness descended!

Why??

It was like someone had swallowed the world!

Countless sky canopies shot into the sky as Lin Hongyu's voice echoed, "The marquis is expelling impurities from the world and purifying the environment. He needs a moment of time, there is no need to panic!"

Incredible!

The people marveled at their lord's might. He could plunge the entire world into darkness in a split second! So he was this strong now??

Inspiration, excitement, and agitation gripped them in the next moment. The marquis was growing ever stronger!

Meanwhile, Lin Hongyu and the rest were solemn. The others looked at her, wordlessly demanding a real explanation.

"Don't worry," she said without a flicker of change in her expression. "It only needs a quick moment of time. That was the marquis capturing the primary body of the Moon God, not purifying the world. The moon is temporarily eclipsed and all will be fine in a moment."

Was that true?

As unbelievable as that sounded, no one could come up with any other reason why the world had darkened.

Thankfully, it didn't continue for long. Everything returned to normal after a minute.

......

Zheng Yu frowned ferociously within Galewind. The sky had darkened for one minute over all of Silver Moon! This had never happened before, so why did it take place now?

It had been daylight moments ago, but it was nighttime now.

"Damn it... it feels like things are raging increasingly out of control!" he murmured.

New Zheng Yu also said next to him, "Raging out of control is one thing as I don't know if Li Hao or Li Daoheng is behind this, but the situation is more thorny than we anticipated now that things have gotten to this point! They may have done something in the dao universe..."

"Can you look into it?" Core Zheng Yu asked.

"I can't! I haven't found a way to enter it yet. I can only sense hints of it."

Core Zheng Yu remained quiet without a word. Everything had changed in the blink of an eye.

"The other replica's disappeared as well—Ying Hongyue probably swallowed it!" he said after a long while. "That one might have entered second level Fused Dao or even third level. Saints will be able to emerge from the ruins in a few days... Do you think he'll have shown any improvement since then?"

"It's hard to say."

Zheng Yu spoke no further. All of this was just an internal conversation, anyhow. He was speaking to himself.Don't you dare let me down, Ying Hongyue!

He'd known that his replica would not be coming back the moment it was trapped in Tranquil Star. He was ready for that great. If Li Hao and his side attacked the replica, the disturbance would be enormous. If it was Ying Hongyue that marched on his replica instead... His replica would likely throw up the white flag even if Ying Hongyue lacked the strength to kill him.

That sudden moment of change made him very uneasy. The strength of a half step emperor abruptly seemed rather useless.