Chapter 169: Star Divine Artifact

It was just after one in the afternoon. Yu Xian had lunch with Su Zhuo and sent her to her company. He then teleported beyond the Blue Planet's atmosphere through his spatial bubbles.

During his journey to the Red Planet, he had left numerous spatial bubbles along the way, some attached to asteroids and others placed on pieces of space debris. Because of this, he did not need to enter or leave the Huaxia Pocket Dimension through its sole entrance. He remained free to go wherever he pleased.

Sitting inside a spatial bubble, Yu Xian gazed down at the Blue Planet and asked Eternal Purity, "Auntie, is your homeland more beautiful than the Blue Planet?"

Although a huge section of the Blue Planet was now missing after Huaxia was moved into a pocket dimension, the planet was still beautiful. Viewed from space, its vast blue oceans remained breathtaking.

Eternal Purity gazed down at it. "My homeland is the Blue Planet as well. In fact, one percent of all humans in the Tree Universe originated from the Blue Planets in different parallel worlds."

Yu Xian immediately caught the unfamiliar term. "Tree Universe?"

Still gazing at the planet, Eternal Purity raised a finger and drew a sphere of lightning covered in countless densely packed branches on the surface of Yu Xian's bubble. "This is the Tree Universe."

Yu Xian was confused by the drawing. "It looks like a sphere. Why is it called a Tree Universe?"

Eternal Purity magnified the image. What had originally appeared to be nothing more than an incredibly tiny strand of branching lightning gradually expanded to an enormous scale. It now resembled a giant leafless tree with countless branches.

She looked at Yu Xian. "What about now?"

"I understand now." Yu Xian nodded as he studied the image, then asked, "So, how large is the Tree Universe?"

Eternal Purity did not avoid questions like this. She continued magnifying the slender strand of lightning as it divided again and again, each branch splitting into even more branches. After an unknowable number of divisions, she pointed to one of the thin branch tips. "The world you inhabit is located roughly here."

Yu Xian drew a circle around the branch and stared at it. "The Tree Universe... is unimaginably vast."

Eternal Purity shook her head and erased the circle he had drawn. She magnified the branch further before marking a tiny dot within it. "This is the world you inhabit. Within this single branch, there are another 5,640,586,505,641,245,642,126,224,515,263,546 worlds similar to yours."

Whenever Yu Xian looked up at the stars, he was always struck by how insignificant he was and how enormous the universe seemed. Only now did he realize that even a universe was not all that large.

When he was young, he had watched an educational program explaining that the Sun was 330,000 times as massive as the Blue Planet. At the time, he had thought the Sun was unbelievably huge.

Then the program showed a star even larger than the Sun, followed by an even larger star behind that one. New stars continued appearing, each larger than the last, until the Sun he had once considered enormous seemed incomparably tiny beside them. That was when he first understood just how vast the universe was. It could contain so many celestial bodies of such unimaginable size.

Now, Eternal Purity's worlds had revealed an even greater reality. He suddenly began to understand why values of Power within the Universal Rank increased exponentially.

Within the Tree Universe, perhaps even a number as enormous as ten nonillion was nothing particularly remarkable. Even if a powerhouse possessed the ability to destroy worlds, how many could they truly destroy? To the Tree Universe, even the destruction of a thousand worlds, or ten thousand, would not amount to so much as a drop in the ocean or a single hair from nine oxen.

Yu Xian swallowed hard. "Auntie, can you tell me exactly how powerful Eternal Bliss is?"

Eternal Purity fell silent for a moment. Then she erased the branch drawn on the bubble. "He can easily do this."

Yu Xian stared at the bubble as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. In other words, Eternal Bliss could instantly destroy 5,640,586,505,641,245,642,126,224,515,263,547 worlds. What kind of monster is he?

When Eternal Purity had explained the Universal Rank and the Power values corresponding to each rank, Yu Xian found it difficult to imagine just how powerful Eternal Bliss truly was. Now, however, he finally had a clear understanding.

Eternal Bliss was a monster among monsters. Were their strength even remotely comparable, Yu Xian could still have felt confident that he could eventually surpass him. But the gap between them was so absurdly vast that he no longer had any desire to compare himself to Eternal Bliss.

If he ever encountered Eternal Bliss, he would probably need to consider only two things. First, how to kneel in the most pleasing manner possible so that there was a chance that Eternal Bliss would spare his life. Second, what position would allow him to die with a little more dignity.

After a long while, Yu Xian wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at Eternal Purity as though he had suffered a tremendous loss. "Auntie, considering the risks I'm taking, aren't I asking for far too little?"

Eternal Purity smiled at him. After circling the subject for so long, he had finally revealed his true intentions.

Yu Xian knew that she had seen through his little scheme, but he shamelessly asked anyway, "Auntie, can you really not tell me exactly where Edward is?"

His shock had been genuine. In fact, he was still reeling from it. However, that did not prevent him from pursuing the objective he had set from the beginning.

One had to live in the present. Eternal Purity was only slightly weaker than Eternal Bliss, and Eternal Bliss couldn't necessarily locate her. Therefore, the worlds on this branch of the Tree Universe were safe for the time being.

Just as Yu Xian assumed Eternal Purity would not answer his question, she said, "I can tell you now. Edward Vlad Stoker is hiding on the Blue Planet's moon, the Lunar Orb. He has successfully advanced to Star rank by forging a Star Divine Artifact."

Yu Xian initially felt a surge of excitement, but the moment he heard the last sentence, he deflated again. If the progenitor were still in Dragon rank, Yu Xian would have been confident in his chances of fighting him. But facing a Star-rank Edward now would be no different from throwing his life away.

Yu Xian gazed at the Blue Planet and sighed. "In other words, the Blue Planet is finished."

The next moment, he returned to the Huaxia Pocket Dimension, mainly because he no longer felt safe outside. After returning home, he lay down on the sofa and stared at the television, which was still broadcasting news.

He turned to Eternal Purity. "Auntie, what exactly is this Star Divine Artifact you mentioned?"

"Your world was originally only a Level-One World. In other words, a world without supernatural power. All supernatural power in this world comes from the Abyss. Consequently, your systems are extremely jumbled and lack any coherent structure. As a result, barring unforeseen circumstances, God rank, also known as Heaven rank, is the highest rank you can ever reach. Your bodies and souls are not strong enough, so you can never break through to Star rank.

"Edward Vlad Stoker used a very popular method of cheating employed throughout the myriad worlds, which is to forge a Star Divine Artifact to bear the power of Star rank in his place. The Star Divine Artifact is bound to his life. The moment he successfully forged it, it was effectively equivalent to him advancing to Star rank."

Yu Xian narrowed his eyes. "In other words, as long as we can find a way to destroy Edward's Star Divine Artifact, Edward himself will die?"

An idea occurred to him. For example, could he not simply use a spatial bubble to teleport Edward's Star Divine Artifact somewhere extraordinarily dangerous? Would that not spell the end for Edward?

However, when he saw Eternal Purity watching him with a knowing smile, a chill ran down the back of his neck, and he swiftly cast the idea aside. After a month of growth, his Power had risen to 0.08. However, Edward's Power value was 100. Moreover, Yu Xian knew absolutely nothing about Star Divine Artifacts or what abilities Edward's artifact possessed. Edward could use the Star Divine Artifact to kill him before he even had a chance to act.