Chapter 7313 The Twelfth Heavenstage

The stars within the astral gates swelled and rumbled violently. Astral energy was bursting out of them, striking the astral gates furiously. The star diagrams on Long Chen’s Star Battle Armor flashed wildly; it seemed as if the armor contained all the workings of the cosmos within it.

At the same time, astral energy surged through Long Chen’s qi, blood, tendons, bones, and meridians. With every circulation, Long Chen felt his body strengthen a bit. At his current level, increasing the power of his physical body even the slightest bit was incredibly difficult. But today, for the first time in a while, that feeling of his body suddenly soaring in power had returned.

Grand Dao power is flowing. It is destroying something in my body, but also creating something within it.

Sensing this energy, he knew that something was being removed and something was being added. But although he could sense it, he couldn’t tell what it was.

BOOM!

Suddenly, one of the astral gates cracked and shattered. The moment it crumbled, Long Chen’s astral energy went out of control, like a herd of wild horses that had broken through a fence. It began to run rampant through Long Chen’s body.

This sudden turn of events made Long Chen spit out blood. It had come so suddenly that he hadn’t been able to do anything at all. He tried to wrestle control over the astral energy, but he found that it refused to obey. He tried to commune with the Golden Virtue Lotus, but the Golden Virtue Lotus merely swayed slightly. It didn’t respond.

That shocked Long Chen. The Golden Virtue Lotus was his Grand Dao seed, but it actually wasn’t responding to his call!

Wait, no. The Golden Virtue Lotus wouldn’t just sit by and do nothing...

Long Chen forced himself to remain calm. Once he looked at the Golden Virtue Lotus calmly, he discovered that sparks of divine light came out with every one of its gentle movements. It seemed very calm, and seemed to be looking at Long Chen patiently. The gentle swaying of the leaves seemed to be the lotus waving to Long Chen, consoling him and telling him that everything would be alright.

Long Chen took a deep breath and focused on staying calm, but berserk astral energy continued to charge through his body. It didn’t calm down no matter how Long Chen controlled his emotions. The other astral gates began to burst apart one after another. The unbound astral energy went completely out of control. It crazily charged through Long Chen’s body.

Blood oozed out of Long Chen’s body from the impact, but this time, he remained calm. He was like a spectator watching everything in front of him. The eight stars were releasing unconstrained astral energy. There was no law or order binding it. He didn’t try to guide it or stop it, either; he just let his astral energy run wild.

Suddenly, a tiny little square appeared at the core of each star. This square was so small that Long Chen wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t taken a spectator seat.

The square began to grow, and so did a kind of gentle energy. As this energy grew, the wild astral energy was slowly restrained.

In the end, the astral energy running rampant within Long Chen was brought under control once more. Eventually, the square grew to the point where it covered the star, forming a new astral gate. Everything seemed the same as before. But Long Chen knew that everything had changed.

And this was not the end. As the astral gates grew stronger, the stars were firmly bound, and the wild horse that was astral energy became more of a tamed sheep. Then, as the gates grew even stronger, they began to press in, and the stars inside them were forced to compress. Once they were compressed to the limit, an explosive sound rang out as they burst forth with power. It seemed as if they were... enraged! Astral energy swelled, and the gates began to distort.

BOOM!

The astral gates burst apart once more, and astral energy once more rampaged through his body.

Long Chen patiently watched it all happen. He couldn’t help muttering to himself, “Without a gate, there is no direction, no path to take. But once you enter the gate, you suffer the restrictions of the gate and cannot grow limitlessly. To grow, you must break the gate’s limits. But then you grow out of control.

“The square gate represents order. Order must be broken to grow past it. But once you’ve broken through it, a new order must be established to control your new power...”

Long Chen had previously transformed his stars and astral gates. They had gone from a circle in a square, to a square in a circle. But he didn’t have that deep of an impression of that transformation. Today, however, when advancing to the twelfth Heavenstage, he clearly sensed the workings of the Grand Dao. The Grand Dao was its own root. It was self-sustaining and self-sufficient, but also self-restraining at the same time. It had its own unique, complete cycle.

At this moment, it felt like a crack had appeared in the layers of mist shrouding the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, letting Long Chen see a whole new world. The moment Long Chen seemed to grasp something, it felt like some kind of shackle in his body had shattered. Star diagrams appeared on his skin, forming countless complex star clouds. These star clouds layered on top of each other.

Long Chen’s eyes widened. “This is the Star Battle Armor!”

These complex star clouds were the star diagrams of the Star Battle Armor. But Long Chen hadn’t expected the Star Battle Armor to be formed of this many star clouds! Furthermore, every star cloud was made of countless flowing stars, and every single star seemed to have its own life. They emitted profound energy fluctuations.

Every single diagram had miraculous energy flowing within it, and they resonated with each other to form a complex formation. Even the greatest Formation Masters of the current era would be unable to see through the profundities involved. This was a grand natural formation, the very embodiment of the Grand Dao’s highest laws!

The star clouds seemed to be beckoning to Long Chen, and also resonating with the eight astral gates and stars in them.

An incense stick’s worth of time later, the star diagrams finally settled down, covering Long Chen’s body entirely. He suddenly felt a surge of majestic astral energy gushing through his body.

“This is the true power of the Star Battle Armor?”

Long Chen was pleasantly surprised. The Star Battle Armor contained the Astral Grand Dao. It felt as if it was a miniature version of the Grand Dao in and of itself!

“With this power, I should be able to challenge a Heavenly Sovereign!”

The reason he was unable to deal with Heavenly Sovereigns was their Grand Dao power. The pressure was simply too great. However, the Star Battle Armor contained its own Grand Dao. That was probably enough to block a portion of a Heavenly Sovereign’s pressure.

Just then, the eight gates quivered slightly. Long Chen hastily swallowed another medicinal pill; the eight gates shuddered violently, and they once more broke down. But now that the Star Battle Armor had formed, the medicinal energy no longer ran rampant, and it let itself be absorbed by Long Chen.

Seeing that the medicinal pill was effectively under control and no longer able to cause any trouble, Long Chen began stuffing pills into his mouth by the handful.

BOOM!

Finally, the eight astral gates and stars within them stopped transforming. They stood there in the air motionlessly. The Golden Virtue Lotus suddenly appeared behind him, and the twelfth leaf slowly grew. As it did, Long Chen’s aura erupted like a volcano.

“Finally, I’ve reached the twelfth Heavenstage!”

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