The Divine Martial Stars

Further, given the far distance, immense energy was required to power the Transmitting Array.

But that was no problem anyway.

Because both of the All-side Starlight Deployment and the Dragon-assembling Pattern could absorb the power of heaven and earth, and only a portion of that power would be put aside for the use of Transmitting Array.

After thorough deliberation, Li Mu reckoned it a plausible solution.

But it took time to build such a super long-distance Transmitting Array. It surely could not be done in a day or two. Yet, the entire Yue Mountain Faction had been besieged. Yingshan Snow-eagle, the Emperor’s Broadsword, was still sitting motionlessly on the deck of the Flying Whale Shuttle, imperiously overlooking the whole faction.

With that old guy looming over the mountain area, Li Mu dared not wander to the outer field, either.

Having given it a thought and obtained Head Xu Yue’s permission, Li Mu went back to the inside of the main peak to study the All-side Starlight Deployment again. This time, he wanted to see if he could allocate some star energy to power the super long-distance Transmitting Array.

However, to Li Mu’s surprise, when he returned there and landed on that nine-tiered, smooth black sacrificial altar, he found that on the round stone on the ninth tier, the engraved poem— “the road ahead is long, but I will keep searching”— was more pronounced! The major reason for that was in every stroke of the characters something curious was glittering, as though a certain mysterious substance was flowing down the grooves.

“What happened?”

Although he already spotted that poem when he just finished mending the tactical deployment, those characters were not sparkling at that time. They were just a line of normal letters. And Li Mu also examined the line carefully only to find that it was an ordinary writing void of any Taoist Sense or tactical deployment.

“This is funny.”

Li Mu was certain that from the moment he left there to activate the tactical deployment to that time, nobody had visited the place.

After staring at the shimmering writing for a few moments, perhaps at the behest of some supernatural powers, Li Mu felt a strong inclination to touch the writing.

The instant his fingers made contact with the characters, an overwhelming force burst out from the writing. Even before Li Mu could shout “Crap”, he was jerked to the stone and sucked into the line of characters.

When he finally came to his senses, everything around him was different.

He was surrounded by twinkling stars, as though he had been sucked to outer space.

The colors of the light of the stars varied, which looked extremely splendid.

Li Mu was simply floating in that space.

“Have I been teleported out of the Divine Land?”

In that instant, Li Mu believed he was really in outer space.

He drifted freely in the empty space, without designated direction or destination.

Ahead of him, a massive star was approaching.

“That’s… Earth?”

Li Mu’s eyes widened. He also spoke his mind out loud.

He watched the blue star draw nearer and nearer to him. It bore the marks and patterns he could not be more familiar with. That was clearly the picture you could get when looking down at Earth from space!

“Did I… just get back to… Earth?”

Li Mu’s heart pounded violently.

“Going home. It all happened when I least expected it, didn’t it?”

“Does the poem saying ‘the road ahead is long but I will keep searching’ lead to the so-called Path? Have I just happened to discover the Path and been backhauled to Earth?”

At that moment, Li Mu’s excitement was beyond words.

“Am I really going back home?”

Then, he could not help flying toward that blue planet at the speed of light. As if he were a meteorite, he plunged into Earth’s atmosphere and his clothes were set on fire because of the fierce friction against the atmosphere.

Nonetheless, such kind of fire was no threat to Li Mu at all.

Even so, the smoke produced by the fire clouded his vision.

Li Mu subconsciously knitted his brows, trying to rip all the smoke apart with his hands. But the flames grew steadily higher and the smoke became increasingly dense. At last, everything was blocked from his view.

Li Mu could see nothing but the smoke.

And when he found his eyes could once again focus, he was startled to see there was no blue planet before him, nor a trace of Earth. He was in a new space similar to the inside of the mountain. It was all dark there. And the stone walls around were free of any carves of tactical deployment patterns.

Li Mu immediately realized everything he had seen was an illusion.

It was a very smart trick. It even fooled a deployment expert like Li Mu and almost made him believe what he had seen.

He looked around.

“This seems to be a space conjured by a certain tactical deployment.”

Li Mu switched on his Third Eye and registered layers of swirling tactical deployment elements. Apparently, the new space was a small one branched out from the inside of the mountain carrying the All-side Starlight Deployment of the Yue Mountain Faction.

“I suppose this is the internal space hidden in that poem. Who on earth has made that poem as the eye of the deployment and developed a separated internal space? Even those in the Void-breaking Realm can’t achieve that, can they?”

Li Mu wondered in amazement.

He could almost be sure by then that the small space conjured through a tactical deployment was a work of one of the forefathers who headed down the Path from Earth. As to whether it was Qu Yuan, he was not positive yet.

Soon, another question occurred to Li Mu— what was the purpose of conjuring such a space?

That forefather who came here from Earth and established the Yue Mountain Faction must have left something in that space.

Something precious perhaps.

That was why he ingeniously concealed the space.

And the illusion about the blue Earth appeared to be some kind of test or trial, didn’t it? Perhaps only those who passed the test were allowed to assess the small space hidden inside the writing.

After all, unless the one who blundered into the inside of the mountain was an Earth resident, he definitely would not get so perked up like Li Mu as he caught sight of that blue planet.

In a second, as if being hit by inspiration, Li Mu suddenly figured out the answers to many questions.

Afterward, he dwelt his mind on the first question he had posed to himself— what kind of thing the forefather from Earth would have found so precious as to hide it in the small space?

He looked about with curiosity.

The space was quite empty except for a weird rock the height of a hundred meters. It stood in the very middle of the space. It was pitch-dark and featureless, revealing not even a wisp of energy fluctuation.

“This rock can’t be a treasure, can it?”

Li Mu did not spot anything impressive about that rock.

As his Third Eye scanned it, he was overwhelmed by a patch of green land, which seemed to be a flourishing prairie or forest. Refreshing vigor of life brushed against his face.

“It’s the wood power out of the five elements!”

Li Mu was stunned.

The seemingly black rock turned out to house a sea of wood power. The rock contained the energy of wood? That didn’t make sense.

Li Mu drew out the Samsara Knife and hacked at the rock.

The outermost layer of the rock cracked.

A chink of light green as jade broke out from the crack.

The glittering green light instantly spilled the space and made it take on a surreal shade.

Peering through the crack on the rock, Li Mu saw the interior part of the rock. Like the green jade on Earth, it resembled a pillar of green ice enchantingly pure and beautiful, not tainted by any impurities.

“This looks like… a Star Stone?”

Li Mu suddenly became aware of the fact.

That rock was a Star Stone containing pure wood energy!

He gasped.

What a colossal Star Stone… It should be noted that the Star Stones Li Mu seized from the second prince, Huang Shengyi, and other powerful men were no larger than a fist, which could not even make a tiny bit of the rock before him.

If the existence of that Star Stone was publicized, bloody war for the ownership of the rock would probably sweep across the Divine Land. Even the Nine Superbs would get involved because it was just too precious.

Li Mu did some rough calculations and eventually admitted that the Star Stone was too huge to fit in even his largest storage space.

“Should I cut it in chunks?”

“I’d rather not.”

“The Star Stone ought to be the biggest treasure the Yue Mountain Faction possesses.”

Li Mu deliberated it for a while and decided he could not take it as his own.

Opening the Third Eye again, he continued to explore the space. Sure enough, there was nothing else special. But to his disappointment, he did not see any exit in the small space, either.

“What the heck!”

“Have I been trapped in the space and unable to get out forever?”

“The forefather from Earth couldn’t have been so thoughtless!”

Just as he was musing about how to get out, a puff of vague energy flowed toward him from the Star Stone.

Li Mu tensed up at once.

That whirling puff of energy then materialized into a lean figure cladding loose-fitting robs, wearing a high crown and a pair of cloud-patterned boots. Resting his hands at the back, the lean figure stood on the rock. His outline was glowing faintly, but his facial features were blurred. He was simply standing there, but he looked concerned, dejected, and preoccupied.

“I am a descendant of the ancient emperor Gaoyang. My deceased father was named Boyong…”

A voice filled with passion, hope, determination, as well as despair, and sorrow sounded, slowly singing the sad and resonating lines.

Li Mu was awestruck.

“It’s the poem Li Sao!”

“It’s Qu Yuan’s work!”

He knew no one but Qu Yuan could read the poem in such forceful, passionate but also dismal and despairing tone.

“It’s Qu Yuan for sure!”

By that time, all the doubts in Li Mu’s head evaporated.

He could say it with certainty that the Yue Mountain Faction was founded by Qu Yuan.

The greatest romantic poet who back his country with unwavering loyalty in the Warring States Time had truly set foot on the Path and left Earth to roam in vast space.

The figure continued reciting the long poem, Li Sao. Each word he uttered was soaked in emotion and incredibly touching.

“I pay my respects to Qu Yuan.”

Li Mu dropped to his knees out of sincere reverence.

It was almost an instinctive act, a gesture to display a kind of emotional acknowledgment and connection at the genetic level. The respect was wired in him which erupted as he found his origin. He did it without thinking, without wanting to show it on purpose.

One sentence after another, the figure on the top of the rock completed reciting the entire work.

After that, he lowered his head, as though gazing at Li Mu or just resting his eyes at a random place. Then, as if talking to himself, he asked, “How is my beloved home country doing?”

Li Mu felt emotion was burning inside him like magma. He could not control his body perfectly at that time. So, as he spoke, he found his voice was slightly broken. “The land is still there. The country is prosperous and the people are at peace.”