Desolate star sovereign: Peerless God-king

The flagstones of the Azure Cloud Sect's outer martial court were carved from blue mountain granite, but to Chu Yuan, they felt like slabs of glacial ice.

A sharp, coppery stench filled his throat. Every breath tasted of iron and dirt. Across his back, three lacerations torn open by barbed copper whips burned as though dipped in boiling oil, soaking his tattered hemp tunic with dark, fresh blood.

A wave of dizzying agony pulsed behind his temples, accompanied by fragmented memories that did not belong to this cold mountain dawn.

Earth. The pinnacle of Mount Tai. An ancient stone stele glowing beneath a thunderhead, followed by a searing pain through his ribs—a blade of pure starlight plunging through his chest...

And then, another life. A grand, golden cauldron standing between the heavens, surrounded by nine supreme divine stars, and a voice that roared with cosmic pride: The Desolate Star Tyrant Body Art defies all heavenly law; even if the heavens shatter, the nine stars shall never be extinguished!

And finally, the brutal reality of this body.

Chu Yuan, former scion of the fallen Lin clan of the Grand Chu Dynasty. Half a year ago, his fiancée, Ji Luoxue, had lured him into an ambush, smiled sweetly as her family elders gouged out his innate Celestial Constellation Core, and transplanted it into her own dantian. Stripped of his cultivation and branded as a traitor, he was cast into the Azure Cloud Sect as a lowly sword slave—living fodder used to test lethal blade formations.

On his chest, a smoking brand pulsed with sinister, frigid malice: the Nine-Nether Slave Seal. It had taken root in his flesh, and within three days, the curse would detonate, turning his heart into frozen sludge.

"Hey. Trash. If you pretend to be dead on the stone, Master Zhou will make sure you don't wake up at all."

A faint, trembling whisper nudged his ear. Chu Yuan forced his eyelids open. Beside him knelt a scrawny boy of fifteen with sunken cheeks and dirt-streaked skin, clutching a bundle of wooden practice swords. Meng Rou. The only sword slave in the outer dorms who had shared dry crusts of coarse corn bun with him over the past three months.

Chu Yuan swallowed the bitter bile in his mouth, slowly pressing his palms against the icy granite. Pain shrieked along his spine, but his jaw remained locked like iron.

In his previous lives, he had looked down on emperors as an peerless Pill Sovereign, and he had stared down death with starlight in his blood. He had never bowed to fate, and he would certainly not grovel in the mud for the amusement of barking dogs.

"Get up, all of you! Useless maggots!"

A harsh, grating bark echoed from the elevated marble pavilion ten paces away.

Standing beneath the sect's fluttering azure banners was a young man in embroidered silk robes of pale teal. A sheath inlaid with silver filigree rested at his hip, and his hair was bound in a gilded jade crown. Han Feng. The eldest nephew of Outer Enforcement Elder Chen, and currently ranked eighth among the outer court's three thousand disciples.

At seventeen years of age, Han Feng had already stepped into Martial Path Stage 3—the Tendon Refinement realm. Within the hierarchy of the Azure Cloud Sect, a disciple of his status held absolute power of life and death over branded slaves.

"The inner court assessment is only ten days away," Han Feng sneered, drawing a gleaming three-foot longsword forged of cold refined steel. The metal hummed with a thin, visible wisp of pale green energy—the signature Gale Xuan Qi of the sect's core technique. "My Fallen Wind Sword Art has reached the eighth stance, but wood dummies cannot simulate the terror of true combat. Meng Rou! Step forward and hold the wooden shield!"

Meng Rou's face turned deathly pale. His knees knocked together as he clutched a splintered buckler of beast-hide. Last week, another slave had held that same shield. Han Feng's blade had intentionally slipped, cleaving the slave’s shoulder to the collarbone. The boy had died that night in the woodshed from fever and gangrene.

"Master Zhou... please..." Meng Rou choked out, bowing until his forehead cracked against the granite. "This slave’s arms are shaking from sickness... I fear I will dull Master's noble blade..."

"Insolent dog!" Han Feng’s expression darkened. He took one step forward, the soles of his boots whistling as wind whipped around his ankles. "A sword slave dares to negotiate with an outer disciple?"

Without hesitation, Han Feng flicked his wrist.

Shing!

A crescent of green wind Qi sheared through the air. The gust slammed into Meng Rou’s chest, lifting the frail boy off his feet and hurling him three yards back. Meng Rou crashed onto the flagstones with a muffled cry, vomiting a mouthful of dark blood as the splintered buckler shattered into kindling.

Han Feng casually walked toward the writhing boy, his cold steel blade resting lightly against Meng Rou’s exposed wrist. "A slave who hesitates when called to serve has no need for hands. I’ll take your right wrist today as an example for the rest of the livestock."

"No! Master Zhou, spare him!" Meng Rou sobbed, curling into a ball.

The surrounding outer disciples merely chuckled, folding their arms with casual indifference. In their eyes, sword slaves were not human beings; they were consumables provided by the sect to sharpen blades.

Buzz!

Deep within Chu Yuan's shattered dantian, a sudden, earth-shaking tremor erupted.

It was not Xuan Qi. It was the dormant, primal authority of the Desolate Star Tyrant Body Art awakening within his bloodline!

Conventional dantians rely on heaven's mercy; the Nine Stars swallow heaven and earth!

High above the clouds, beyond the mortal sky, the vast and endless Nine Heavenly Astral Rivers began to churn. Chu Yuan’s consciousness pierced through the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd layers of common constellations, soaring straight into the forbidden 9th Astral River!

A beam of invisible, primordial astral starlight plunged from the cosmic void, boring through the roof of his skull and rushing straight down his spine into the sole of his right foot!

Boom!

Beneath his right heel, an ancient stellar meridian unlocked. A blinding, golden-crimson star flared into existence—the Desolate Yuan Star!

Ten thousand jin of pure, tyrannical brute force surged into his muscles like volcanic magma. The whip lacerations on his back scabbed over instantly as his muscle fibers condensed into iron sinew.

Simultaneously, within his sea of consciousness, an ancient, sharp hum reverberated. A slumbering twin sword core stirred, and the clear, proud voice of a woman echoed in his mind:

Master... Xuanji has awakened.

In an instant, Han Feng’s downward sword strike was stripped bare in Chu Yuan's vision. Every angle, every flaw, every hesitation in Han Feng's wrist was laid out as plainly as ink on paper.

Han Feng sneered, muscles tensing as he brought his steel blade whistling down toward Meng Rou's helpless wrist.

"Die, dog!"

Chu Yuan didn't hesitate. His feet dug into the granite.

Bang!

The flagstone beneath Chu Yuan's right boot shattered into spiderweb cracks under the raw, unbridled propulsion of the Desolate Yuan Star. Moving faster than thought, he swept up two discarded wooden broom staves and vaulted across the courtyard like an enraged dragon.

Clang!

A deafening metallic shriek tore through the morning mist.

Han Feng's three-foot steel blade was caught dead in mid-air, locked tight between the cross-braced tips of two splintered wooden staves. The downward force of the blow was completely halted, unable to descend even a fraction of an inch!

Chu Yuan stood tall and unmoving, his torn hemp robes fluttering in the wind, his dark eyes radiating a terrifying, abyssal chill.

The courtyard instantly plunged into dead, suffocating silence.

The laughing outer disciples choked on their words. Meng Rou stared up from the blood-stained stone, mouth agape in disbelief.

Han Feng’s face flushed an ugly crimson, his arms trembling as he pushed downward with all his might, only to find that the two wooden broom handles felt like a pair of mountain peaks. His refined steel sword could neither advance nor retreat!

"A slave... caught my sword?!" Han Feng's voice cracked with hysterical rage. "Insolent vermin! How dare you lift a hand against a noble disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect! Let go, or I’ll chop your corpse into dog meat!"

Chu Yuan looked into Han Feng’s bloodshot eyes. The corner of his mouth curled into a cold, ruthless sneer.

"A noble disciple?" Chu Yuan’s voice sounded like grinding stone, echoing across the silent courtyard. "With such sluggish blade work and pathetic strength... you aren't even worthy to wipe my shoes."

Crack!

Before Han Feng could scream in fury, the golden-crimson light of the Desolate Yuan Star flared in Chu Yuan's hands. With a violent twist of his wrists, the two wooden staves screeched, and the refined steel sword in Han Feng's grip snapped cleanly in two!