TheLazyDreamer
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56 Star Forged Baptism (Part 2)
🕑 Added 2025-05-05 06:17:00 +0000 UTCHis bones shattered into fragments under the heavy pressure, then melted under the heat of the primordial essence. His spine arched against the cold stone platform beneath him, nerves flaring like struck gongs with every motion. His muscles were stripped away layer by layer, then reborn through endless cycles of agony.
His mind felt a vast, ancient aura invading his thoughts and attempting to erase his willpower. He resisted with the soul technique, his willpower and intent fighting against the soul erosion.
His meridians, already battered, finally reached their limit, unable to contain so much raw, primordial Qi within them. A brittle snap echoed from within. One after another, his meridians shattered—unable to withstand the relentless flow of Astral Qi.
The flood of energy surged uncontrollably through his ruined body, seeping into every corner of his being before escaping into the atmosphere.
His spiritual consciousness trembled as, amidst the soul erosion, wisps of Astral Qi drifted towards it. Su Kang felt death itself approaching him.
He let go of the weak hold he had on the Astral Qi inside his meridians, allowing it to escape outside his body, hoping that these threatening wisps might dissipate too.
In desperation, he used Spiritual Qi as a makeshift wall, attempting to divert the Astral Qi’s course, but Spiritual Qi didn't stand a chance against it. However, the wisps of Astral Qi did change their trajectory slightly. It wasn't much, but it was good enough.
As they passed near his consciousness, Su Kang felt a part of his soul sea tremble. Then he saw a tiny portion of the Astral Qi make contact with his spiritual consciousness.
His willpower and intent almost immediately collapsed under this contact. His burnt face, with molten eyes, immediately lost its expression of suffering; his body became extremely still.
His mind reeled. His senses vanished, like echoes swallowed by the void. Even his spiritual consciousness offered no response, like a severed tether lost in silence.
He tried to open his eyes and saw himself floating within an endless void, where light and darkness coiled in eternal embrace. Countless stars and constellations flickered in the distance—indifferent, ancient, and utterly foreign.
They burned without heat, illuminating nothing in this void, yet their presence carved laws into the very fabric of space. They carried a rhythm that echoed in the dark, heavy void between them.
A giant blue star hung far away, suspended in the abyss. Its light was neither bright nor dim—yet it radiated a presence that made the very existence of other stars feel small.
The void around it seemed to breathe with blue wisps of large mist, carrying an unfathomable rhythm that bypassed space itself and echoed directly into his soul.
Su Kang's willpower trembled, as if something unseen was trying to erase his very existence—an ancient, unfathomable concept that defied all his understanding.
The blue star did not emit any pressure; it just existed there—yet his soul trembled. He felt a pain in his soul that deepened simply by being in its presence.
His willpower was on the edge of collapse.
"My soul is my Pagoda… No harm shall enter… No fear shall linger…"
Desperately, Su Kang recited the mantra of the Soul cultivation technique, clinging to his last vestiges of clarity. But the vision instantly faded as soon as it appeared.
In the real world, his body was still undergoing its brutal transformation. Each heartbeat sent a fresh wave of agony, as if molten iron were being hammered into the hollow of his chest.
His body no longer resembled a man anymore. He was just molten ruin and shattered bone, his flesh liquefied by cosmic essence too pure for a mortal vessel to contain.
But the destruction was slowing in the absence of the trapped Astral Qi from before, and the healing had not stopped.
The Healing Elixir flowed like golden mist into the charred ruin of his form, weaving across the destruction with unnatural precision. Where bone had cracked, it bound. Where tissue had melted, it coaxed regrowth.
His newly regenerated cells adapted, slowly acclimating to the raw nature of Astral Qi. His bones, now denser with a tiny, faint silver hue in them, pulsed faintly with starlight.
His muscles, reforged through endless agony, carried latent cosmic power within every fiber. His hair shimmered under the moonlight, faintly resembling silk threads of energy. The pain no longer tortured him; it slowly became bearable. His body slowly took his shape again.
Su Kang's eyelids fluttered open, heavy as stone gates lifting after an age. His body felt… different. An unfamiliar lightness warred with a profound, bone-deep density.
He closed his eyes again to turn his focus inward, sinking his consciousness into the quiet depths of his spiritual sea.
The Indomitable Soul Pagoda stood silently at the center of his spiritual sea—its foundational platform, once a stormy gray edged in gold, now seemed slightly dimmed, its surface marred by faint, spiderweb-like hairline cracks.
His golden soul lake had lost some of its golden hue; a part of it now carried iron-black hues. It was the result of his consciousness being eroded after coming into contact with the Astral Qi.
The cracks in his foundation were the result of the vision—that colossal, blue star hanging suspended in the endless, breathing void—boundless, silent, eternal.
The mere echo of its presence, the memory of its unfathomable rhythm, made his spiritual consciousness tremble like a plucked string.
Had it not been for the newly established foundation of the Indomitable Soul Pagoda Art, his consciousness would likely have crumbled entirely under that immense pressure, scattering like dust in the storm.
Yet there was no time to dwell on such mysteries now; the immediate demanded his attention. He didn't know whether his body reconstruction was completely successful or only partially successful.
The silver-black mist still leaked faintly from the pores of his newly reforged skin—thin, dissipating wisps of excess Astral Qi returning to the atmosphere with each slow breath he took. Every thread of it was precious, far too valuable to simply waste.
"I can't afford to waste such precious power," he rasped, his voice hoarse, scraping against a throat that felt both raw and renewed.
Gritting his teeth against the deep ache settling into his bones, Su Kang forced himself to sit up into a meditative posture. His body responded instantly—smooth, precise, as if every muscle and joint had been recalibrated for perfect motion.
Closing his eyes, Su Kang guided the faint silver wisps of energy into his newly formed meridians. Unlike the familiar flow of spiritual Qi, which moved like a gentle stream, this energy carried a strange duality—cold yet hot, heavy yet agile.
It didn't clash with his body like before; it seemed to be finding its path. It followed the single Astral Meridian that had emerged during his transformation—a new pathway running differently from his spiritual meridians.
It felt broader, tougher, as though forged through countless trials.
When wisps of Astral Qi entered it, there was less resistance; there was no need to control or guide it. It flowed seamlessly. Along its length, nine dormant acupoints flickered like faint stellar bodies, waiting to awaken.
With steady focus, he directed the Astral Qi into the first acupoint. A faint silver-blue glow flickered beneath his skin as the acupoint stirred, drinking in the energy with a quiet hunger.
The sensation was unlike anything he had experienced before. The wisps of Astral Qi sank deep into the acupoints, then a new, more refined energy came out, permeating his muscles, bones, and even his cells, making them heavy.
"It's not for storing in the body but... for refining the body itself."
The energy spread through him, tempering his physique on the most fundamental level. Every breath carried tiny traces of Astral Qi into his bloodstream, reinforcing his body from within.
The nine acupoints acted as refining chambers, drawing in the raw energy and breaking it down into refined microscopic fragments before dispersing it throughout his being.
One by one, he guided the energy through the acupoints. The second, the third—each one awakened with a subtle hum, resonating with the rhythm of the cosmos.
By the time he reached the ninth, a transformation began to take hold.
His muscles grew denser, his bones heavier, yet his body felt lighter, as if an invisible force was tempering every inch of his flesh.
His strength did not skyrocket... but each movement felt stronger—as if his entire body had become an instrument, tuned to some distant cosmic rhythm.
When the last trace of Astral Qi finally dissolved into his flesh, Su Kang opened his eyes.
A subtle sheen of sweat clung to his skin, and though fatigue weighed upon him, he felt a strange harmony—like the rhythm of stars shimmering in the dark blue sky.
