Master of the Stars

Luo Nan stared dead-fixed at the fighting stage, he looked at the state of the special connecting line between the Human-Faced Arachnid and Rui Wen.

And at the same time, the people in the audience were also looking from the spectator stands, but all they saw was Rui Wen closing her eyes. They jeered, mocked, scolded from the spectator stands in response, using as much obscenities as possible to release the pressure and emotions from their everyday lives. They let their feelings of superiority and success from being dictators over life and death fly out.

But essentially they were a herd of the blind. They were stupid hogs and lamb that had been placed on the sacrificial altar and were still shouting in delight. They didn’t know that their life force energy was burning with every obscenity that leaves their mouths, every time they release their negative emotions. The energy was cast into this confined fighting arena and transformed into parts of the flaming cloud to ultimately belong to the void.

Luo Nan had no intention to look down on these people for his first-hand witness of the Human Faced Arachnid’s two replays told him one fact:

The visualization diagram wasn’t a mystery; it was something that could be explained at any time. An extremely complicated infrastructure was contained inside, an extremely profound foundational theory. All Luo Nan could see was just a high-level abstraction and nothing more.

The two playbacks, especially the second, proved that the operations of the visualized diagram already completely exceeded his level of comprehension. He didn’t overestimate his own judgment skills, so he didn’t try in vain to go analyze the principles behind the diagram in deeper detail.

The mocking audience, however, was like the pot who calls the kettle black.

All Luo Nan could do right now was to maintain his reverence towards the unknown, to continue to observe and confirm what was to come.

Therefore Luo Nan gave it his all to concentrate on the changes that were occurring on the fighting stage. His perspective was a combination of the material and the mental plane, and it also seeped with the understanding of the turbid flow of emotions. Every second of observation and perception brought along a shocking consumption of energy.

The price for all this was well worth it.

The Human-Faced Arachnid and Rui Wen physical image turned gradually hazy from Luo Nan’s perspective. Likewise, the fighting stage and even the entire fighting arena turned hazy as well.

All of this turned into a picture that was directly perceived through the senses and filled with symbolic meaning.

Luo Nan saw a burning sea of clouds.

The Human-Faced Arachnid was a spider demon swimming about the sea of clouds.

Rui Wen was the one and only glistening star in the turbid cloud sea. Her splendor was penetrating and sharp. The scattering rays of the star were the biting cold light of a sword’s edge.

The Human-Faced Arachnid orbited around this star, constantly approaching closer and closer, driving the turbid flow of emotions and covering its aura. But no matter how much the mist of negative emotions surged like the tide around the star, the ice-cold blade aura cut its way through to make not even an ounce of filth pollute Rui Wen.

The star blade edge was being tempered and refined during the entire course of events. The aura it emitted grew sharper and sharper. Dozens of hundreds of heavy blows assaulted the star, but the great amounts of turbid emotions weren’t able to leap over to Rui Wen. They were transformed into nothingness by the suspending and illuminating sharp aura.

But no matter how much of the sea was extinguished, the burning cloud sea advanced wave upon wave. Howling curses came from within the cloud sea, all provided by the incessantly excited audience. This was a herd of stupid swine and lamb that had its blood already drawn by a blade. They were completely ignorant of the fact that this confined fighting arena had turned into an enormous altar and that their life force energy was the blood the flowed arbitrarily atop the altar. It was the sole pigment that painted the scene of the burning cloud sea.

At last, the Human-Faced Arachnid hissed and took the initiative to launch a material attack, throwing itself at Rui Wen.

But through enduring the heavy myriad assaults of the turbid burning clouds, Rui Wen’s Star Blade Edge had been tempered to a new level.

The blade edge aura shined upon the Human-Faced Arachnid before it had truly gotten close, slashing countless fine cuts over its body. This wasn’t an act; it truly had been injured.

Luo Nan could feel the Human-Faced Arachnid’s pain, but a feeling of delight was also conveyed at the deepest level of its response.

Delight.

The Human-Faced Arachnid continued to push forward to truly cross paths with the star blade edge. One of its limbs got severed. It fell into the burning cloud sea, igniting with a rumble.

The Human-Faced Arachnid made a long hiss in pain, but it turned and threw itself over and ate its own burning limb with a single bite; it trembled with excitement.

The aura of the arachnid had weakened over this process, but then it clearly turned much more solid. And the hazy state of its corresponding foundational structure turned for the better as well.

So it was like this all along!

Luo Nan understood at last. The corresponding information had been analyzed at this moment and it flowed through his mind.

It was without a doubt that the Human-Faced Arachnid was utilizing Rui Wen.

It had discovered Rui Wen’s ability, but it couldn’t directly consume her due to being intimidated by Luo Nan’s order. It had used a roundabout method to exploit her ability for its own gain.

The Human-Faced Arachnid wanted to use Rui Wen to reach a sort of dynamic equilibrium.

It kept attacking, kept pressuring, but it maintained control of the intensity to temper Rui Wen’s Star Blade Aura to become sharper and sharper, all for the sake of making her truly become a threat towards it.

It was very bizarre just thinking about it, but these were the facts. The Human-Faced Arachnid was incapable of growing its own self. It had to consume foreign material, including its own species, to achieve its own evolution.

The current scene was just a variation of “consuming”. The Human-Faced Arachnid was borrowing Rui Wen’s Star Blade Aura to slice off its hazy and unstable sections and reconstruct its foundation. Even if the arachnid was riddled with a thousand holes, even if its limbs gets smashed and splattered, as long as it wasn’t truly fatal, the arachnid would gladly endure the pain.

And naturally, the loss of its energy was constantly being replenished by the stupid hogs and lambs in its surroundings. It was these people who solely bore all the damage.

This method was filled with a flavor of deviousness and desperation. It matched the Human-Faced Arachnid’s image quite well.

From the arachnid’s perspective, this environment, which it had single-handedly established, was just like a whetstone, a forge, and an altar.

And it threw itself atop of it.

Interesting enough, Rui Wen was the one to receive the most benefits from this situation.

Until now, Luo Nan still didn’t know what ability Rui Wen would ultimately awaken to. But when looking at the desperate appearance of the Human-Faced Arachnid, he could see that she had shocking potential.

But the stimulation of an external object was needed to excite her ability. Her pure and penetrating mental state was able to take on the turbulent muddy waters and still remain untainted by even a speck of dust even after a hundred, a thousand scouring waves.

And so, Rui Wen was on the altar as well.

The Human-Faced Arachnid was exploiting her. And she was exploiting the arachnid as well.

The two were exploiting and polishing each other to push themselves to higher levels. And their limits were yet to be seen.

This scene may not be completely true. Nevertheless, it was a part that Luo Nan was able to deduce and understand. Its complete composition was secretly related to Luo Nan’s visualized diagram.

Rui Wen and the Human-Faced Arachnid stood at the core. They could be said to be the inscribed sphere. They represented the continual operation of an endogenous force.

The fighting arena was the sealed boundary of the figure; it was the outer scribed sphere. It represented the external environment and the source of power.

And the tetrahedron..... Wasn’t it none other than Luo Nan?

The Human-Faced Arachnid came from Luo Nan’s system. All of its actions were essentially part of the variations and extensions of his system. So ultimately, Luo Nan himself was who supplied this framework!

As his comprehension increased in his mind, Luo Nan suddenly understood where the energy consumption of his act of observing went:

It was the price and challenge that had to be paid when acting as the bearer.

He wasn’t standing on the altar. He was the altar.

Whether or not Luo Nan’s pyramid structure could hold the endlessly rising levels of the two, whether or not it could assume their surging powers, whether or not it could supply them with enough support... were all key in determining the success of this sacrificial ritual.

The framework would collapse with a loss in equilibrium. There were only two cases for this: Either Rui Wen slays the Human-Faced Arachnid or the Human-Faced Arachnid destroys Rui Wen.

Even if Rui Wen perishes, the Human-Faced Arachnid would not necessarily have disobeyed Luo Nan’s will; this would just be a failure of the total framework.

Of course, this would mean that Luo Nan would be forced to take on the recoil from the collapse of the framework. The situation that would emerge then was completely unknown.

“Human-Faced Arachnid......” spoke Luo Nan through gritted teeth.

Then a spotlight came shining down from atop the fighting stage, illuminating an area to the corner.

The onsite DJ let out a long whistle that was like an airplane streaking across the skies: “This has been a very long wait for the bloody future! The Beast King Battle that you all have been waiting for, our other leading character...... has arrived!”

The exclamation of the final syllable was like a groan, but it caused every one of the audience to have one of their heart strings plucked lightly as an effect.

The whistling that followed caused the entire fighting arena to rock.

The bloody flames of the incorporeal altar burned harder.