Chapter 9
"You... you are not in that realm," muttered Xing Haoran, his voice hoarse like someone who had just awakened from a nightmare, "your body is indeed at the Lower Star, but your foundation... your foundation...."
He could not finish his sentence, because before him, Huan Zheng began to step forward—and with every step he took, his cultivation foundation changed.
From the Lower Star it originally was, it suddenly surged to the Thirteenth Level of the One Star, then to the Twenty-Second Level of the Singular Star, then to the Thirty-Third Level of the Supernatural Star, then to the Heavenly Longitude—Bright Sky, Luminous Lantern, Radiant World, Anti-Star—all surpassed in mere seconds, like a flood that no dam could ever restrain.
"This... this is impossible!" shouted Xing Haoran, his aged body retreating several steps.
"You—you have already reached the 10 Vast Cosmos Falling Crystals?!"
Huan Zheng did not answer.
He simply continued walking, and around him, the air began to tremble, the sky began to crack, and from those cracks emerged ancient chants that recited his name.
Not as an ordinary human, not as a cultivator, but as the pinnacle of the Head of Humanity, one of the three Wheels of Cultivation that always made the entire universe tremble.
Xing Haoran felt his chest as if it were being crushed by an invisible giant hand.
Every breath he took felt like inhaling shards of glass, and within his mind, already wrinkled by time, a single question arose repeatedly like a hammer striking a cracked bell.
Who are you, really?
Not Huan Zheng, not a former warrior of humanity, not the slave of a lazy little goddess—but who stands behind all those masks? Because it is impossible, impossible for a man at the First Level of the Lower Star to emit the aura of the 10 Cosmic Falling Crystals, an aura that made every joint in Xing Haoran's body creak as if it were about to shatter, an aura that turned the night sky above Xuelan Camp into a sea of swirling light screaming in a language unknown even to the gods.
"Huan... Huan Zheng..." Xing Haoran forced his voice out, each word feeling like blood being drawn from an open wound.
"I... I must know... who you really are... because it is impossible... impossible for someone like you...."
He could not finish—his body had begun to tremble violently, small cracks appearing across his aged skin like old porcelain unable to withstand the pressure from within.
Huan Zheng stopped walking, staring at Xing Haoran with his pale blue eyes that still glowed.
Not with hatred, nor with pity, but with something strangely resembling longing, like a traveler who meets a familiar face after decades of being lost.
"You want to know?" Huan Zheng replied softly, then let out a chuckle—one that oddly sounded light, almost cheerful, like a child discovering a seashell on the shore.
"Ask that silent, terrifying specter, Xing Haoran. He knows—and has always known."
Xing Haoran's eyes widened.
Not out of fear, for his fear had already been burned away by a curiosity greater than death itself—but because he knew who Huan Zheng was referring to.
That silent, terrifying specter.
There was no other title in the entire universe that referred to that figure, the number one of the three Wheels of Cultivation, a being whom all of humanity would rather abandon their universe than face in battle.
"You... you know him?" whispered Xing Haoran, his voice barely audible due to the tremor in his throat.
Huan Zheng did not answer.
Instead, he stepped forward once more, and behind him, the cracks in the sky widened, the ancient chants grew louder, and the aura of the 10 Cosmic Falling Crystals pressed down on Xing Haoran like a mountain falling from the heavens.
"And if you do not dare to ask him," Huan Zheng continued, his pale blue eyes narrowing into crescents, "then ask the singer whose noise can deafen any ear. But be careful—"
He smiled, a smile that was neither warm nor cold, but empty, like a hole in the ocean floor untouched by light.
"... He loves to behead those who ask too many questions."
Xing Haoran could no longer speak.
His mouth hung open, his lips trembling like a fish out of water, and within his clouded mind, a name emerged—a name he had not dared to speak aloud for decades, a name whispered only in dark corridors by desperate cultivators.
The number three.
The one who sings.
The one whose laughter can shatter bones.
"No... impossible..." murmured Xing Haoran, and this time his voice truly sounded like that of a dying man.
"The three Wheels of Cultivation... you... the three of you..."
He could not continue.
Xing Haoran's body began to emit light.
Not the beautiful, radiant light of cultivation, but a pale glow like an oil lamp running out of fuel—a light that signaled his cultivation foundation could no longer withstand the pressure of the 10 10 Vast Cosmos Falling Crystals emanating from Huan Zheng's foundation, even though the man's cultivation realm still remained at the First Level of the Lower Star—an impossible contradiction, an anomaly never recorded in any cultivation history, as if Huan Zheng were a walking black hole, possessing immense power within an extremely small vessel, enough to drive anyone insane for being unable to comprehend what they were witnessing.
"Huan... Huan Zheng..." Xing Haoran called out one last time, his voice now nothing more than a vibration in his ruined throat, "at least... tell me... your real name..."
Huan Zheng lowered his gaze, looking at the old man whose body was cracking like an overboiled egg, then slowly shook his head—not because he did not know, but because he could not bear to say it, though the idea of "not bearing it" felt strange within his long-numb mind.
"You have known my name from the beginning," he finally answered, his voice soft like a burial shroud wrapping a corpse.
"The Lazy Huan Zheng. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less."
He paused for a moment, then added in an even softer voice, nearly inaudible.
"But my former title... ah, my former title is something even I am ashamed to remember."
Xing Haoran wanted to ask more, to scream, to spit at Huan Zheng's face for such a vague answer—but before his mouth could even open, his body exploded.
Not a loud, thunderous explosion, but a strangely silent one, like a soap bubble bursting in the morning air, leaving only glowing dust drifting around Huan Zheng, and for a moment, the man stood in the midst of the ashes of an old cultivator who had lived for nearly seventy years, without expression, without tears, only with pale blue eyes that slowly dimmed as the fire within his retinas gradually faded.
The ash of Xing Haoran still floated in the air when Huan Zheng raised his face toward the sky.
Not out of awe, nor gratitude, but because he wanted to count how many seconds it would take for him to forget that he had just killed an old man who only asked for his true name.
One... two....
But before the third count reached the tip of his tongue, the sound of clashing Qi drew his attention eastward, where Ling Xu and Whou Ming were still fighting fiercely—and something strange was happening.
To be continued…