The Seven Sons

Their bodies had already turned transparent, transparent as a thin veil of mist.

Yet their eyes still shone, bright as eighty-one stars.

They shouted in unison.

That shout came from the blade, from the projection of the eighty-one star domains, and from those transparent bodies.

Eighty-one waves of sound converged, forming a vast torrent that echoed through the void.

Within that torrent was the blaze of fire, the endless flow of water, the resilience of giant trees, the sharpness of metal, and the heaviness of earth. All the voices intertwined, like a battle hymn, like an elegy, like a song of farewell.

They poured all their power into the sword.

The mark between Chu Ming's brows blazed to its utmost limit.

The nine fragments spun madly within his sea of consciousness, while the Dao Fruit at the center of the ring shuddered violently.

The patterns on the Dao Fruit's surface flowed faster and faster, and within those patterns, the origin of the eighty-one star domains coursed.

Blood began to spill from the corner of his mouth.

The blood was gold, not red.

It was blood of origin, blood of life.

The blood slid from the corner of his mouth and dripped into the void, where the gray-gold radiance vaporized it into a faint mist.

His hand trembled.

Not from fear, but from bearing the burden.

That sword was too heavy.

Not in weight, but in power.

The origin of the eighty-one star domains, the power of the nine fragments, and the Dao Fruit on the verge of taking shape—all of it weighed upon that sword, all of it weighed upon him.

His bones trembled, his muscles trembled, his meridians trembled.

Every meridian had been stretched to its limit, their membranes turning transparent enough to reveal the golden light flowing within.