As he pondered, Lu Ye gradually drew closer to where Fuguang was.
Looking up, Fuguang's figure came into view. He appeared to be within a dilapidated Uniting Dao City. The city was not large, only around Earth-tier in scale.
Endless Star Abyss aura surged wildly from all directions, gathering into vast, mighty Dao Power that churned there.
Fuguang's body was spread wide, as though he had been suspended in midair by invisible ropes. His body was like a bottomless pit, madly devouring the drifting Dao Power around him.
"Something's wrong with him!" Jinyao frowned.
As she watched, Fuguang's eyes had rolled back like those of a dead fish, trembling violently. His expression was dull and rigid, and now and then a flicker of pain crossed his face, yet he did not make a sound.
Even he could not withstand that violently surging power. Blooms of blood mist periodically burst from his body before vanishing without a trace.
Lu Ye did not know what Ba Qiu's breakthrough ascension had looked like that day, because by the time he returned from the Origin Realm, Ba Qiu had already severed his own foundation and failed his ascension.
But as Jinyao had said, Fuguang's present state was clearly abnormal. This was absolutely not what a normal ascension breakthrough should look like.
"He's been completely eroded," Lu Ye said gravely.
In other words, Fuguang had now lost his own consciousness—or perhaps his consciousness had been hidden away and suppressed.
The Star Abyss aura eroded cultivators' bodies and minds invisibly and without form. So long as cultivators continued cultivating in the Star Abyss, they could not escape this fate. Figures like Fuguang and Jinyao were especially favored by the Abyss's will, because they were all candidates to become True Saints.
The Star Abyss Blessing, for instance,