Chapter 13
Chapter 13: Gate of Stars
The drop of blood soaked the paper red when it landed on the page.
Hum…
Lin Xun was struck with sudden dizziness. It was like his spirit freed itself from his body and got to a completely new world with unlimited heaven, and picturesque mountains and rivers.
At the tip of the cloud-kissing mountains, there stood a majestic man who was looking beyond the blue sky with hands behind his back.
With his robe and hair flapping with the howling wind, he seemed to be aloof from the world and about to fly away with the wind.
Boom!
Then he moved, quick as a flash. With a wave of his hand, the rosy clouds all turned into a glaring light beam that ripped through the blue sky and shot into the vast emptiness beyond the universe.
Boom***
Deep in the emptiness in universe, a swirling portal was cracked open by the light beam.
Swirling at a high speed, the portal was just like an abyss that devoured all. It released a power so horrifying that it distorted the space.
Countless stars were dragged towards it as if they were worshipping the portal. They rotated, roared and rumbled around the swirl, creating an appalling and dazzling scene in the emptiness beyond the blue sky.
Ripping the blue sky, shaking the universe and breaching the portal to emptiness with a single strike! Without actually seeing it, who would believe that there truly existed a practitioner so mighty to create tremendous power with a single wave of hand?
Lin Xun was astounded deep in heart. This was the second time he had witnessed a scene so terrifying. The first time was when he escaped the mine prison, an old and mysterious hand enveloped in purple flames hiding the sky with devastating power!
It was at that time that he realized the true power of a mighty practitioner, which made him more determined for the journey.
But compared with this, that hand pressing down the sky was simply not worth mentioning.
Boom!
Hardly had he recovered himself, Lin Xun felt a loud bang in his ear, which made his Qi and blood boil, his heart tremble, and he was uncomfortable to the point of coughing up blood.
Just then, deep in the swirling portal beyond the universe, a huge beast claw ripped the emptiness and pressed down violently from the blue sky. Covered with icy scales, it was so enormous that the mountains were like small gravels before it, and it unleashed a power mighty to destroy all.
“I have already opened the Gate of Stars. Who in this world can stop me from entering the eternal realm? Get lost!”
In his cold voice, a flash of light appeared suddenly with a flick of his finger from the majestic figure standing on the top of the mountains. It was too fast for Lin Xun to make it out. Then the terrible beast claw vanished, and blood poured down in sheets over the earth in a daunting manner.
But that was not finished yet. Soon a towering figure dashed out from the Gate of Stars, which was dazzling and divine like a flaming sun that shined over the world.
“Ha ha ha, even an astral god is sent out to stop me from seeking Tao. What a move!”
At the tip of the mountains, that majestic figure gave out an uninhibited laughter, presenting a condescending air that overlooked all heroes around the world.
Lin Xun was dazzled by the huge sound, his Qi and blood in turmoil and his weak body trembling violently. He tried to resist it, but his mind was so messy and buzzling that he couldn’t see anything.
It was like having a nightmare that he couldn’t wake himself up from.
After an unknown period of time, Lin Xun saw in a trance that the heaven broke like a cobweb, exposing one black hole after another. The harsh flames fell like meteor stream from the outer space, incinerating rivers and mountains and destroying all.
It was like a doomsday! The heaven fell with the devastating flames flooding over the earth like a furnace of chaos scorching all, killing every living creature.
Mountains collapsed.
Seas roared.
Vegetation turned to dusts.
Living creatures died out.
It was like the doomsday had really come.
Only that majestic figure on the tip of the mountain watched all this in silence with hands behind his back, aloof and lonely.
After a long time of silence, a long sigh echoed through heaven and earth “Fortune is not with me!”
At that moment, seeming to be touched, deep in Lin Xun’s heart rose a mixed feeling of despair, disappointment, regret and frustration.
Just then, beside the majestic figure stood a bronze coffin about 33 meters long which just appeared out of nowhere. Its surface was engraved with numerous intricate and mysterious patterns.
He stepped forward and opened the coffin.
Just as Lin Xun thought he was about to bury himself in the bronze coffin, the mighty man took out a scroll and an inscribing pen and threw them into the coffin. Carrying the coffin on his shoulders, he then stepped away.
Lin Xun was shocked as he found that those two were the very treasures Master Lu had given him.
Shua***
Almost simultaneously, the mighty figure who was walking away seemed to sense something. Stopping abruptly, he looked back suddenly. As if travelling across time, that single glance back shot right to Lin Xun from afar.
For an instant, Lin Xun felt like being struck by a thunder and a roar rang out from the depths of his soul. Those scenes inside his head collapsed like broken glasses.
Meanwhile, he couldn’t help but cough up a mouthful of blood, his originally pale and young face turning bluish white.
He was trembling violently and uncontrolledly, feeling his soul torn inch by inch. He was overwhelmed by an indescribable pain which was so strong that it seemed as if he would die in the next second.
And the cause for all this was just a small droplet of blood on the last page of the title-less scroll.
Now the scroll was still on its last page, and the inscribing pen lay silently beside it.
The blood Lin Xun just coughed up was accidentally daubed over the last page, soaking the paper red. But now Lin Xun couldn’t attend to this as he could feel that his qi-function was rapidly weakening, and his soul was about to collapse, as if he would die soon.
Why was that?
Lin Xun was confused and startled. Master Lu told him that there lay a shocking secret in the scroll and the pen, which if unveiled, even someone like him, whose Spiritual Vein had been ripped away, would have the ability to defy the god and change his fate.
But Lin Xun never expected that such accident would occur when he began to crack the secret.
He saw those incredible scenes, the terrifying way in which that mighty figure struck the Gate of Stars, the destruction of the heaven and earth with all living creatures incinerated. What a doomsday!
It was also because of it that the Qi and blood throughout his whole body was in turmoil. His soul, as if struck by a thunder, could no longer stop Qi from flowing away from his body.
What on earth was this about?
Was everyone who saw this doomed to die?
No!
Master Lu must have seen all this, but he survived. Why couldn’t I?
At the thought of this, it dawned on Lin Xun that it was all because of his poor cultivation and endurance that he came to death’s door.
The fact was just as he speculated. In the past years, every practitioner who got the scroll and the pen was mighty with strong and transcendent power. These scenes that dazzled Lin Xun would not cause much turmoil in their minds.
This was not the case with Lin Xun, who just reached the second level of Martial Realm, Inner Strong. Worse still, he got weak and sluggish meridians and veins with an indelible injury. It would not be hard to image how big the shock and impact he suffered after witnessing those scenes.
Were it not for his amazing perseverance, he would have crashed down long ago.
Even if he was still alive, he was not far from death.
Lin Xun didn’t panic. It was his habit formed from childhood to regain calmness and ease soon in difficulties. However, it was the same cool head leading him to conclude that he could not stop the passage of life with his present cultivation.
What to do now?
Lin Xun cast his gaze upon the last page of the scroll. Seeing that the weird pattern on the last page of the scroll was soaked red by his blood, he instinctively frowned.
The weird pattern didn’t look like a spiritual tattoo. Fragmentary, dim, chaotic or intricate, it was really hard to find an exact word to describe its weirdness.
Were the scenes he saw a moment ago all deduced from this weird pattern?
Lin Xun couldn’t tell what was happening with him. He was surely dying yet he just couldn’t get his attention from the weird pattern.
“If this pattern is a fragmentary tattoo I’ve never known about, then who inscribed it?”
Lin Xun thought of the bold figure standing alone on the top of the mountains, and then his gaze fell on the cyan inscribing pen on the side of the desk.
Was this the pen that was used to inscribe the weird pattern?
Hard to tell whether it was a whim or a flash of inspiration, Lin Xun grabbed the cyan inscribing pen. Taking a deep breath, he then landed the tip of the pen on the weird pattern while fighting hard to endure the pain and suffering throughout his body.
The tip of the pen was sharp like a blade and dull in color. When the grey black pen touched the weird pattern, nothing special happened.
Just as Lin Xun was feeling slightly disappointed in heart, his pupils contracted all of a sudden. The stains of the blood he coughed up to the last page started wriggling and were silently absorbed by the inscribing pen in his hand.
Clang!
A clear voice appeared like a sword hidden in the abyss suddenly went out of its sheath after a long sleep.
Lin Xun felt stiff all over as if possessed by an irresistible power that took control of his body.
But the cyan inscribing pen in his hand was alive! Glistening with a mysterious sheen, it guided his wrist and fingers to sketch something over the weird pattern…