Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 734: The Boundless Gaze

Chapter 734: The Boundless Gaze

...

Spiritual energy erupted around his frame like a crashing tide, surging violently through the pathways established by the Oceanborn Art.

As these currents widened Chen Huaian’s meridians across his entire body, they also launched a fierce assault against the barrier separating the Nascent Soul and Unity Realms.

Deep within the energy sea of his dantian, the Nascent Soul—a perfect likeness of himself shrouded in radiant divine light—slowly unfurled its eyelids.

A sharp sword intent flared up, driven by a primal urge to shatter all limitations and agitate the very heavens.

Boom——!

Chen Huaian’s aura surged upward without pause.

Centering on him, invisible shockwaves of energy rippled outward, kicking up clouds of dust and gravel from the earth.

In the empty space above his head, the faint echoes of wind and thunder began to gather—a clear sign that the realm barrier was beginning to tremble.

“Break!”

Chen Huaian focused his entire willpower.

He channeled the massive spiritual power that had reached its absolute peak within his form.

Like a raging torrent smashing through a dam, the energy charged toward that unseen wall standing between the Nascent Soul and Unity Realms.

Yet, at the exact moment that ferocious spiritual energy was set to collide with the barrier—

Hum!!!

A suffocating, nauseating sensation of stagnation closed in on him from every side.

Frowning, Chen Huaian extended his divine sense to probe his surroundings, only to discover thick gray vapors billowing through the air, completely encircling him.

His spiritual platform grew dim, and his energy sea began to churn in turmoil.

As the gray gas thickened, a freezing chill crawled up his spine toward the top of his head.

This cold did not originate from some hidden entity in the void, but from the raw power of heaven and earth itself.

It felt as though his current actions had crossed a forbidden line, making him an existence that the world could no longer tolerate.

This pressure of rejection from the world felt like countless invisible, nameless chains binding his soul, stripping away his ability to command any more spiritual energy.

Pfft—!

Chen Huaian felt as if he had been struck by a physical blow. His complexion turned deathly pale, and he nearly coughed up a mouthful of chaotic blood.

The spiritual energy he had just unleashed with unstoppable force was suddenly repelled as if hitting a stone wall. It was violently thrown back into him.

The resulting backlash tore through his body, sending waves of agonizing pain through his meridians.

“What’s happening?!” Chen Huaian’s eyes flew open, reflecting his shock and confusion.

As he withdrew from his meditative state, his perception sharpened.

He realized clearly that the force pinning him down wasn't an ambush by a hidden foe. Instead, it was... the fundamental laws of this heaven and earth—a powerful blockade embedded in the world’s origin, specifically designed to stop a "breakthrough."

Those invisible chains of law were cold and relentless, locking his Nascent Soul in place.

They suppressed the spiritual energy he was using to advance, keeping him firmly rooted just before the threshold of the peak Nascent Soul realm.

No matter how hard he pushed his spiritual energy or focused his mind, those chains didn't budge, as if mocking his arrogance.

“The rules of heaven and earth... are stopping This Venerable One from breaking through?!” This realization sent a shiver through Chen Huaian.

By now, the gray gas had enveloped him so completely that it felt like a heavy fog.

His immediate thought was that the Celestial God Clan had found him.

He suspected they were manipulating Earth Star’s laws to block his path and prevent his advancement.

However, he quickly dismissed the idea.

If the Celestial God Clan knew where he was, why wouldn't they just seize him?

For them, killing him in his current state would be as easy as stepping on an ant.

Furthermore, he had successfully broken through on Earth Star before. Why was he only being blocked now, while trying to reach the Unity Realm from the Nascent Soul stage?

Chen Huaian forced himself to regain his composure, attempting once more to gather the local spiritual energy to force the bottleneck.

The outcome was exactly the same.

The invisible barrier of law remained unbreakable, and the resulting backlash made his organs shudder and his blood boil.

Every effort felt like an ant trying to topple a massive tree—completely pointless and only resulting in more self-inflicted damage.

“Damn it!” Chen Huaian’s expression became as dark as a thundercloud.

He had planned for every variable, but he never imagined the world itself would be his greatest hurdle.

It felt as though the entire planet had marked him as an enemy.

His vaunted supreme physique and his refined spiritual energy seemed utterly powerless against these fundamental laws.

Just as Chen Huaian was considering his next move...

The gray mist in front of him swirled violently, and a pitch-black pillar erupted from the ground, standing tall before him.

Chen Huaian’s pupils shrank: “This is... the Ascension Pillar?!”

He cast his divine sense toward the pillar and immediately received a response.

The message was blunt—if he wished to break through, he had to use the Ascension Pillar; otherwise, progress was impossible.

Beyond the breakthrough itself, the Ascension Pillar also pulsed with tempting offers.

It suggested that upon advancing, he could receive Unity Realm cultivation techniques, medicinal pills, magical artifacts, and other treasures from the pillar.

It even offered an invitation to the Kunlun Immortal Palace to serve as a high-ranking elder.

There were even promises of beautiful Dao Companions.

Just by looking at the black pillar, a flood of seductive information was forced into his mind.

To any other cultivator, these offers would be impossible to turn down.

But he remembered that Ascension Pillars were typically rewards granted by various Ascender sects.

How could one simply appear out of thin air like this?

Chen Huaian thought to himself, sensing a strong "recruitment" vibe coming from the pillar.

Was this a new strategy by the Celestial God Clan to deal with ‘variables’ like him?

Was it a system where anyone attempting to break through on Earth Star without using the Ascender system would be suppressed and presented with an Ascension Pillar?

And the moment someone accepted the pillar, they would likely be finished.

“Absurd.” Chen Huaian’s gaze turned icy as he swung his sword, shattering the Ascension Pillar into pieces. “If you won’t allow This Venerable One to break through on Earth Star, can’t This Venerable One simply break through in the Cangyun Realm instead?”

He pulled out his VR headset, donned it, and stepped into the Cangyun Realm.

His physical form vanished instantly, leaving behind only a tiny sliver of a remnant soul, its presence faded to almost nothing.

The power of the world’s laws that had been focused on him suddenly lost its target and began to fade away.

The gray mist that had gathered, terrifying the local demon beasts, dissipated along with it.

Only a small trace remained stuck to the tiny fragment of Chen Huaian’s soul.

The broken pieces of the Ascension Pillar sank back into the earth, vanishing entirely.

...

At the exact moment Chen Huaian destroyed the pillar and entered the Cangyun Realm...

Deep within the endless cosmos surrounding Earth Star, in the freezing silence of the void, countless stars seemed to pulse like a slow heartbeat.

At the center of a nebula-like entity, space warped suddenly, and a pair of eyes as deep as black holes opened without warning.

These were not organic eyes, but two swirling vortices of pure, thick darkness that consumed all light around them.

Around the edges of these vortices were shifting, incomprehensible geometric patterns that looked like frozen madness or dying stars.

The gaze of these “eyes” was fixed exactly on the small sector of space containing Earth Star.

More specifically, they locked onto the spot where Chen Huaian’s body had been before it vanished... and that nearly invisible fragment of his soul.

As that gaze fell upon the area, the space holding Chen Huaian’s soul fragment began to distort strangely.

Space itself behaved like a living thing.

Like a thin film being squeezed by a giant, invisible hand, it showed unnatural ripples and folds.

The thin gray mist clinging to the soul fragment suddenly became active and thick, as if answering the call of a supreme master.

It began to multiply rapidly, trying to fully coat and mark that piece of soul.

However, the marking failed.

The growth of the gray mist was suddenly cut off by an unknown force.

As if it had run out of fuel, the mist stopped expanding halfway and was forced back into a dormant state.

“Strange...”

A hint of confusion drifted from those cosmic eyes before they returned to silence.

The nebula entity continued its rhythmic pulsing, its "breathing" slowing down as it drifted back into a deep sleep.

...