Fairy, don't go! I have a mod.

The voice of the corrupted soul came from behind.

No longer lazy and playful, nor hysterical, but a kind of calm after recognizing reality.

Li Xizhao stopped in her tracks. She didn't turn around, but a very faint smile appeared at the corner of her lips.

That's the smile a hunter gives when the prey walks into the trap on its own.

The Soul of Pollution stood on the remaining steps, its Nine Heavens Dragon and Phoenix Robe gleaming with a dark golden luster in the dim light of the Soul Realm.

Her gaze lingered on Li Xizhao's back for a moment before landing on Mu Tianmiao, her red lips parting slightly.

Her tone remained that of a queen, condescending, but the content was genuinely about negotiating terms.

"Let's make a deal. In return, I will teach you how to control the power of star pollution."

She paused slightly, a complex expression flashing in her golden phoenix eyes.

It was as if pride and humiliation were tearing each other apart, but in the end, he gritted his teeth and continued speaking.

"The condition is that this kid will give up one-tenth of his spiritual power during his cultivation."

Li Xizhao turned around, and the smile on his lips was finally no longer concealed.

She loosened her grip on Mu Tianmiao's sleeve, crossed her arms, and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Now that's what a conversation should be, tell me what I want to know. First, tell me what exactly is star pollution."

The spirit of pollution did not answer immediately.

With a casual wave of her hand, the remaining wisps of black mist condensed in front of her into an ancient stone table and three stone stools.

She took her seat first, then produced a tea set from who-knows-where and gracefully poured herself a cup.

The tea soup was dark red, gleaming with an eerie glow in the dim light of the Soul Realm.

She picked up her teacup, took a sip, her golden phoenix eyes lowered slightly, and remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking.

"My name is Hong Ji."

Her voice was calm and low, no longer the majesty of an empress, nor the resentment of a lingering soul.

Rather, it is a person who has lived for far too long, who is finally willing to sit down and tell a story that has been sealed away for countless millennia.

"Ten thousand years ago, the eight wastelands were home to countless races, and the civilization of cultivation was far superior to that of today."

"The path beyond the Nascent Soul stage is not insurmountable, and ascension is not a scam."

"Back then, there was a realm in this world called the Supreme Realm."

Hong Ji put down her teacup, her golden phoenix eyes gazing into the distant void, and began her long narration.

The Supreme Realm, limited by the laws of Heaven, can only be attained by one person.

When the previous generation's supreme being was nearing the end of his lifespan, he was unwilling to let his cultivation turn to dust. He defied the heavens and tried to imprint his divine soul and the Great Dao on the starry sky.

He succeeded in his pursuit of immortality!

But it failed...

He did indeed become an eternal and indestructible being, but the moment he touched the starry sky, beings from beyond the realms followed his traces and found the Eight Desolations.

That supreme being was corrupted and became something that was no longer his.

Through his body, pollution cast its gaze upon this bountiful world for the first time, intending to launch a massive invasion.

However, the world's will of the Eight Desolations itself rejects these outsiders.

An invisible barrier unfolded between the eight wastelands and the starry sky, keeping out the vast majority of pollution.

Only a very small fraction of the force can penetrate, much like water seeping into a sturdy ship's hull through tiny cracks.

Later, the monks gradually figured out how to kill these invading contaminants, but for the contaminants, it was only a matter of time.

Thus began a protracted war that lasted for tens of thousands of years.

From then on, whenever a cultivator in the Eight Desolations reached the peak of the Nascent Soul stage and attempted to break through to the Supreme Realm, they would immediately attract the hostility of that corrupted Supreme.

Breakthrough means death, ascension is a deception—this is the origin of the insurmountable barrier above the heads of cultivators at the Eight Desolations Nascent Soul stage.

"But I,"

As Hong Ji spoke, a proud smile appeared on her lips, and her golden phoenix eyes gleamed with a light that had never faded in ten thousand years. "She ascended to immortality at the Nascent Soul stage."

Chapter 109 Those Years in the Starry Sky

Li Xizhao's eyes sharpened.

Ascending to the Nascent Soul stage!

These four words were like a thunderclap to the ears of any Nascent Soul cultivator in the Eight Desolations.

Above the Nascent Soul stage, the starry sky is polluted and sealed off; breaking through to the next level means certain death. This is an ironclad rule that all cultivators standing at the pinnacle of all beings are well aware of!

The woman before them actually possessed the combat power to break through the barriers of the world at the Nascent Soul stage. Her talent was beyond description!

He can be called an unparalleled genius!

Hong Ji noticed the shock in Li Xizhao's eyes, but there was no joy on her face!

She picked up her teacup, the dark red tea swirling slightly within, her golden phoenix eyes reflecting those unbearable years.

"After that, there was endless suffering."

Her voice was calm, yet it carried a deep-seated weariness.

"I broke through the barriers of the world, thinking I would see the heavens, the celestial court, and the legendary supreme immortal realm after ascension."

"But there was nothing, nothing at all... only the starry sky, the boundless starry sky, and the pervasive pollution."

“Those things have no substance, no shape, they permeate every inch of space like fog, seep into your pores, erode your flesh and blood, and pollute your soul.”

"I will soon run out of spiritual power. In the starry sky, there is no spiritual energy of heaven and earth to absorb. You are like a mortal who has been thrown into the desert, and can only watch yourself die of thirst unless you drink poison."

She put down her teacup and tapped her slender fingers lightly twice on the stone table.

"I can only absorb pollution to survive. At first, it was out of necessity, but later it became voluntary."

"I was indeed lucky enough, and reckless enough, that on the verge of death, I managed to take control of a portion of the pollution."

"We found the pattern, figured out the trick, and turned that thing into a power that can be cultivated."

"My physical body is still useless."

"The corrosive effects of pollution on the physical body are irreversible. My body disintegrated little by little in the starry sky, until only my soul remained."

"In the years that followed, I did one thing: analyze pollution."

"I want to find a way to cultivate using pollution, like how cultivators absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth."

"Transform pollution into a real, sustainable force for self-cultivation."

As she said this, she suddenly gave a bitter smile.

That smile contained pride, bitterness, and above all, a loneliness that no one could understand.

"But this is too difficult, too difficult. It's like the world's first cultivator. When no one knew what spiritual roots, dantian, or meridians were, you could only rely on yourself to explore and learn through trial and error!"

"Find a path that may not even exist after countless failures!"

Behind every small breakthrough lies thousands of years of failure!

"I'm going crazy!"

"To spend tens of thousands of years alone in the starry sky, facing only pollution and endless darkness every day, would drive anyone insane!"

"Sometimes I am clear-headed, sometimes I am confused. When I am clear-headed, I study frantically. When I am confused, I curl up in the void and can't even remember who I am!"

Her fingers tightened slightly, and the teacup shattered silently between them.

Dark red tea dripped through his fingers, turning into black mist and dissipating the moment it touched the stone table.

"Later, I finally got my chance!"

"Another Nascent Soul cultivator has broken through to the next level, and the world barrier has temporarily opened a crack!"

"I used all my strength, compressing my soul to its limit, and rushed back through that crack! I returned to the Eight Desolations!"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"But the price is too high... My spirit has been severely damaged when crossing the world barrier. My consciousness is intermittent. When I am lucid, I remember who I am and what I have done. When I am confused, I forget everything..."

"Like a mindless wandering soul, I hid for countless years, hiding and flitting about, until I finally found my footing inside that gourd."

She opened her eyes, and a surge of grievance and resentment welled up in her golden phoenix eyes. Her voice rose several notes in an instant, filled with grief and indignation!

"I had barely gotten my footing when you guys pulled a fast one on me!"

Mu Tianmiao suddenly felt a little embarrassed and touched her nose.

Hong Ji's words were indeed quite pitiful.

He endured tens of thousands of years alone in the starry sky, finally escaped back, only to go mad again, and was beaten up by a group of people as soon as he got back on his feet.

Although he almost died in the soul space after being possessed by her, seeing her looking so aggrieved now, he still felt for a moment as if he had bullied her.

Li Xizhao remained unmoved. She leaned back on the stone chair, arms crossed, her tone calm to the point of being cold.

"If Xiao Mu hadn't succeeded in suppressing your soul, he would be dead by now."

"So you don't need to pretend to be so pitiful. You didn't hesitate at all when you possessed him."

"Alright, now take out your cultivation method. I want to see your sincerity."

The grievance on Hong Ji's face instantly subsided, and her golden phoenix eyes narrowed slightly.

Li Xizhao was completely unmoved by her sob story and instead precisely hit her most fatal weakness.

She paused for a moment, as if weighing something.

Li Xizhao didn't give her time to think and continued:

"Then decide whether or not to let Xiao Mu share some of your spiritual energy for cultivation."

"I guess you can't obtain spiritual power from the outside world through your soul state, right? You can only be sustained by your main body."

"To have reached this level is unprecedented."

Hong Ji was completely speechless.

She has lived for 100,000 years, fought her way from the Eight Desolations to the Starry Sky, and then fought her way back from the Starry Sky. She is confident that her verbal skills are second to none.

But faced with Li Xizhao, a woman who was impervious to reason, stubborn, and whose every word hit her right in the gut, she had no choice but to admit defeat.

She took a deep breath, raised her hand and drew a line in the air. A wisp of black energy overflowed from her fingertips and condensed into dense dark gold characters above the stone table.

Each word gleamed with a faint light; it was the pollution cultivation method she had spent tens of thousands of years exploring.

Li Xizhao glanced at it only once, his cool eyes sweeping over it from left to right, before nodding slightly and withdrawing his gaze.

A Nascent Soul cultivator has a photographic memory; this short manual is hardly a warm-up for her.

Mu Tianmiao stared at the words for a while, then her expression gradually became confused.

He recognized each of the characters individually, but when they were put together, it was like reading a book written in a foreign language.

what……

Using the soul as a guide, filth is drawn into the veins, transforming impurity into purity...

He recited the whole "three turns and seven reversals" and "yin and yang inverted" thing a couple of times and felt like his brain was about to explode.

By the time he realized what was happening, Hong Ji had already turned the words back into black mist and taken them back.

Only shallow carvings remained on the stone table.

"Did you remember?" Li tide asked knowingly.

"...Master, aren't you making things difficult for me?"

Mu Tianmiao scratched the back of his head and chuckled twice.

"Anyway, as long as you remember it, you can teach me later."

Chapter 110 She's Reading!