Chapter 545: New Era: Refining the Demon Artifact (Part 3)

The wooden cabins of the Starlight District had become stone houses, and the area was gradually taking on the outline of a small town.

In the fields, crops from Estelle and native plants from the Profound Yellow World grew intermingled, flourishing with life.

Ah Ya had successfully sensed Starlight and officially embarked on the cultivation path of a Starlight Apostle, her progress astonishing even Lumina.

「Five years later.」

In the secret chamber, two containers hovered silently before Ian.

On the left was a transparent crystal sphere. Inside, a head-sized mass of purple Demonic Qi, so condensed it appeared liquid, swirled slowly.

On the right was an equal amount of golden purification light that Ian had gathered himself. The energy fluctuations they emitted were identical in intensity, achieving a perfect balance.

The exhaustion in Ian’s eyes was undeniable, but it was overshadowed by profound anticipation.

The initial refining required the largest amount of the purest Demonic Qi. Once it was successfully refined, launching an attack wouldn’t be nearly as troublesome.

“It’s finally enough. That wasn’t easy.” He looked at the Star-devouring Eye, which had been hovering there for more than five years.

The eye seemed to sense something, its rotation speeding up slightly.

“Let the refining begin.”

Ian raised a hand. The Gravity Rule formed an invisible hand that opened both containers at once, unleashing a surge of pure purple Demonic Qi and golden Starlight.

But under Ian’s precise control, they didn’t collide. Instead, they formed two spiraling streams of light that slowly coiled around the central Star-devouring Eye.

The eye quaked violently as the Starlight in its left half and the Abyssal Energy in its right half began to go haywire.

Ian pressed his hands down on the air, activating the Time Rule and slowing the flow of time around the eye to a tenth of its normal speed.

At the same time, his Blazing Star Core flared to life, unleashing a torrent of the Power of Rules to forcibly stabilize and guide the two injected energies.

“By my Rule, I shall govern the two poles. With Order as bone and the Abyss as blood.”

“Reconstruct the Nucleus of Annihilation!”

Ian softly chanted the core Spell he had obtained from the system panel’s analysis.

The spiraling streams of gold and purple light seeped into the eye, thread by thread, beginning a process of “weaving” and “replacing” on the level of the Rules.

Inside the eye, the crude Energy Circuits left by Astra were forcibly erased and reforged. They were replaced by a new structure—one that was more efficient, more stable, and better able to unleash the power of the two clashing extremes.

As Ian’s Will permeated it, the eye began to shrink: thirty feet, twenty feet, ten feet…

Its volume condensed as its density skyrocketed.

The annihilation vortex within spun faster and faster, its chaotic colors gradually sharpening into focus.

At its center lay a point of ultimate darkness—the critical origin point of Annihilation—encircled by a distorted band of light forged from the frenzied clash of gold and purple.

Inside the chamber, space began to destabilize, sending out waves of ripples. The Gravity Barrier began to creak, and the Purification Barrier flickered erratically.

The flow of time was also disrupted.

Gaga had long since retreated to the farthest corner of the chamber, its jet-black feathers puffed out in alarm, its eyes filled with terror.

It was now at the Tier Three Middle Stage and its strength had grown immensely, but it still felt that the eye was becoming less and less like a mere object.

It was more like a living, hungry wellspring of destruction.

‘Ian is getting more and more daring…’

The refining lasted for two whole months, far longer than Ian had anticipated. When the very last thread of energy was woven into place…

HUMMM!!!

The Star-devouring Eye shuddered violently, then abruptly contracted.

It collapsed in an instant from a meter in diameter into a dark gold orb the size of a pigeon’s egg, its surface covered in flowing patterns of pure purple and gold.

Inside the orb, a miniature vortex spun slowly around the Nucleus of Annihilation, exuding a soul-freezing aura of destruction.

‘Success!’

Ian felt a flicker of joy and breathed a long sigh of relief. But his actions didn’t stop there. He took out the Two-Realm Phase Analyzer, which he had already upgraded with the Sands of Space-Time.

The Phase Analyzer’s form had changed as well. It was now a constantly shifting, translucent mass of silvery fluid, within which glittered specks of multicolored Sands of Space-Time.

“Fuse!”

Ian grunted, guiding the stream of silvery space-time fluid toward the dark gold orb.

The moment the space-time fluid touched the orb, there was no rejection; it permeated the orb as if they were one, blending as seamlessly as water and milk.

The patterns on the orb’s surface began to transform.

Silver ripples appeared, ring after ring, representing folded space and the flow of time.

Seven days later, all the unusual phenomena subsided.

A dark gold bead, looking utterly unremarkable and even a bit archaic, floated silently in Ian’s palm.

It felt slightly heavy, with a warm, smooth texture.

With a flicker of Ian’s will, the bead shot off in a streak of light and vanished into the space between his brows.

Inside his Sea of Spirit, the bead that was once the Star-devouring Eye slowly descended, finally coming to a stop beside his Blazing Star Core.

One blazed with surging power, the other was profound and deathly still. Together, they formed an uncanny equilibrium.

Ian could clearly sense that he had completed the process of binding the bead to his soul.

With another thought, the bead appeared silently in his palm.

Its transition between the tangible and intangible was dependent on a single thought.

He looked to a corner of the chamber, where an ingot of exceedingly hard Star Realm Refined Gold sat, placed there for testing.

His will locked onto the Refined Gold ingot. The space between his brows grew faintly warm, and a gray, hair-thin line shot out silently from his glabella.

No sound, no light, no fluctuation of energy.

The instant the thread touched the Star Realm Refined Gold Ingot, the ingot vanished.

Not just the matter, but the very “trace” of its existence was utterly erased from that spot, leaving only a patch of Void where space itself had slightly collapsed.

“The Star-devouring Eye… what a treasure.”

Ian clenched the warm, smooth bead in his palm, a slow smile spreading across his lips.

Thus, all his objectives for the entire trip to the Profound Yellow World had been accomplished, and then some.

The knowledge, materials, Soul Gemstones, World Origin, and this terrifying Forbidden Demon Artifact he had obtained…

…all of it paved the most solid of paths for his return to the Wizard World and the construction of his own Wizard Tower.

‘This place can serve as an important waypoint for my travels through the Void,’ he thought. ‘It must not fall into chaos.’

Ian weighed his options for a moment before deciding to leave Wei Song here. For now, he was in no hurry to find another Otherworld.

His projection had now reached the threshold of the Morning Star realm, and its path of Rules was already set.

He was eager to see what kind of benefits the projection would bring him after it broke through to the Morning Star realm.