"Something's definitely wrong!"
At that moment, Blood Shadow also stood up from the soft chair, his face filled with shock. He didn't even realize when he had dropped his wine glass.
"Heavens..."
Countless powerful figures stared at Lu Ze and the others, their eyes also filled with terror. They saw green flames erupting from Lu Ze and the others, and their bodies were aging rapidly. In just a few breaths, their skin became loose, their blood and energy evaporated, and they all turned into white-haired old men.
"How could this be?"
Lu Ze was terrified. He roared, his star power erupting to form a defensive shield, trying to resist the erosion of the green light.
"Too late. Being struck by my cursed light sealed your fate.
A cursed light, green enough to make you panic. Hehe, now you know how powerful Sixth Master is, right?"
At this moment, the green-feathered parrot tilted its head, speaking in human language, its wings folded back as if a person had their hands behind their back, looking gloating.
"Buzz buzz buzz..."
As Lu Ze erected the starlight barrier, the other powerful figures followed suit, but they discovered that, just as the green-feathered parrot had said, it was completely useless.
The power of the curse was terrifying beyond measure, formless and intangible, impossible to dispel. At that moment, they all panicked.
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly, a relatively weaker powerful figure aged too quickly, his bloodline energy dissipated, his body destroyed, and he turned to ashes.
But strangely, although he disappeared, a ball of starlight remained in his place, like a ghost, making one's scalp tingle.
The starlight slowly surged into the barrier after the person's death, actually flowing towards Long Chen.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..."
One figure after another turned to ashes. Their physical bodies were destroyed by the power of the curse, but the power of the stars remained, and that preserved power of the stars all flowed towards Long Chen.
"Lord Blood Shadow, this curse power is so terrifying? How can we break it?" a powerful figure behind Blood Shadow asked.
They were still shaken, thankful for Lord Blood Shadow's wisdom; otherwise, they would have met the same fate as Lu Ze and the others.
"That curse power specifically targets flesh and soul, but cannot extinguish the power of stars.
If they had summoned their Eight-Star Battle Body from the beginning, maximizing the protection of their Starry Battle Armor, this curse power shouldn't have been able to harm them." Blood Shadow tried to keep her voice calm, but she still couldn't help trembling slightly.
This curse was too fast, too strange. When the green-feathered parrot unleashed the curse, no one's senses were activated.
Logically, any deadly move should trigger a sense of danger before it's used—a necessary ability for any seasoned warrior.
But the green-feathered parrot didn't sense anything amiss from the moment it unleashed the curse until Lu Ze and the others were affected; this was terrifying.
Although Blood Shadow had devised a countermeasure, she wasn't sure if it would be effective.
Moreover, the Eight-Star Battle Body and the Starry Battle Armor were the Nine Stars lineage's trump cards; no one would reveal all their trump cards before even seeing the enemy.
Therefore, it's not fair to blame Lu Ze and the others for being foolish. Even if Xue Ying had made a move, she would have done the same.
That's why Xue Ying felt a wave of fear. She knew the competition for the Qiankun Cauldron would be extremely fierce, but she hadn't expected the deadly danger to be so close, without her even realizing it.
Her earlier suggestion to send Lu Ze to his death was based on the assumption that if he forcibly tried to seize the Qiankun Cauldron, he would face a fierce counterattack from the Dragon Blood Legion. Even if he managed to seize the cauldron, he would suffer heavy casualties.
At that point, he wouldn't have the strength to protect the cauldron and would ultimately be killed.
Although she knew Lu Ze would die if he made a move, she never imagined he and the others would die in this way.
"Pfft pfft pfft..."
One by one, figures exploded, flesh and blood rotting into dust, scattering in the wind. The remaining clusters of stars involuntarily surged towards Long Chen.
"I'll fight you to the death..."
Lu Ze used over a dozen secret techniques in succession, trying to remove the curse, but unfortunately, none of them worked.
He could only slightly slow down his aging and decay. He roared, swinging his Star Bone Claw, smashing it fiercely against the barrier.
He knew his only chance of survival was to capture that damned parrot and force it to break the curse.
"Boom boom boom..."
However, with each strike, Lu Ze's aura weakened. After seven or eight strikes, he was already panting heavily.
Looking at his arms, his once strong arms were now withered, the skin drooping like sleeves. His face was covered in spots, and his eyes were yellow and cloudy.
"Huff..."
The Star Bone Claw finally gave way, slowly falling. However, before it hit the ground, it suddenly transformed into a streak of light and vanished.
The Star Bone Claw bore Lu Ze's soul imprint, but as Lu Ze's soul was about to wither, the soul imprint could no longer bind the claw, and the Star Bone Claw escaped.
"Save me...save me..."
Lu Ze struggled to reach out to the Blood Shadow in the distance, but the Blood Shadow and the others stood coldly watching, showing no intention of intervening.
"Whoosh!"
Lu Ze, like the others, finally had his physical body decay into ashes, leaving behind a cluster of starlight before flying towards Long Chen's direction.
"Buzz buzz buzz..."
At this moment, more than 200,000 star chart light clusters entered the barrier, passed through the Qiankun Cauldron, and gradually merged into the "egg" where Long Chen was.
In the space where Long Chen was, endless stars twinkled, as if the starry sky had been compressed, and the vast power of the stars intertwined back and forth.
Within the sea of stars, Long Chen formed hand seals, and a small star vortex swirled in his dantian.
As the stars in his dantian swirled, divine halos appeared behind him. The moment the last black divine halo appeared, the star pattern belonging to Lu Ze entered Long Chen's Nirvana Space.
"Lord Blood Shadow, what kind of evil technique is Long Chen using? Is he devouring our power to advance?" The powerful figure behind Blood Shadow asked in a trembling voice.
Blood Shadow's expression was solemn, and she remained silent. The scene before her was beyond her comprehension.
The eight-colored divine rings slowly swirled, countless stars twinkling, making Long Chen appear like a war god of the starry sky, so imposing that no one dared to look directly at him.
"What are those divine rings? Their aura is so strange? There's no natal divine rune appearing between his brows. What's he up to?" Blood Shadow wondered to himself, his eyes fixed intently on Long Chen.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, a deafening roar erupted, and a Star Gate opened from the Eight-Colored Divine Ring. The instant the Star Gate opened, a violent and fierce aura surged forth, its terrifying pressure spreading outwards, causing all the surrounding powerhouses to feel a sense of suffocation.
"Damn it..."
Blood Shadow clenched her fists tightly. Her intuition told her that Long Chen was brewing an extremely terrifying natal rune.
She had to stop Long Chen, but seeing that insidious green-feathered parrot, she held back.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"..."
One Star Gate after another opened within the divine ring. The moment the eighth Star Gate opened, the ball of light that Lu Ze and the others had transformed into was instantly absorbed by the eight gates.
"Rumble..."
Immediately afterward, a star emerged from within the eight Star Gates. Although it was just a single star, it rapidly shone brightly, like a rising sun. Long Chen's aura became even more sacred and magnificent because of these stars.
"Hurry, it's almost there!"
Kun Ding looked at the stars within the gate, feeling anxious. Those were Long Chen's original eight stars, gradually approaching the star gate.
At this moment, Long Chen's path was truly clear. The condensation of the star gate was a prelude to the eight stars, the strongest eight-star battle body that Long Chen had comprehended.
"Buzz buzz buzz..."
As the eight stars converged, more and more stellar power was absorbed, but the stars always seemed to lack that little bit of power, unable to completely overlap with the star gate. This was Kun Ding's greatest anxiety.
"Boom!"
Just then, a loud explosion resounded in the void, a large area of the world collapsed, and then a bronze ancient cauldron appeared out of nowhere.
"Kun, it's time for you to return to your place and become a part of my body!"
Just then, a voice that was both sacred and solemn, yet filled with cold-blooded tyranny, rang out.