Chapter 110: Moon Radiance and Starlight Power

Su Yao lifted a glass of beer and deliberately brought it close to Xiang Nan’s ear. “Someone’s been following us since the villa. What should we do?”

Xiang Nan was not surprised in the slightest and calmly replied, “As long as they don’t make a move, just pretend they don’t exist. If they’ve been tailing us this long without acting, maybe they’re not enemies.”

Su Yao looked puzzled. “Not enemies? Could they be just passing by to have some barbecue?”

Xiang Nan smirked. “Who cares? Don’t ruin the mood. Let’s just keep eating and drinking!”

After the previous incident at the Ghost Tomb, everyone remained cautious and avoided getting completely drunk.

The Eagle Alliance experts assigned to protect Xiang Nan were especially vigilant. They had consumed quite a lot of alcohol, but barely touched the wine itself.

Only Xiang Nan was openly drinking.

He was in such a rare cheerful mood today, surrounded by a host of third-rank experts—what did he have to fear?

Drunk, he leaned heavily against Su Yao.

“No wonder everyone likes petting cats. Big wild cats are just so soft and comfortable!”

“Move away, don’t puke on me, or I’ll bite you!”

“No way! It’s not like I haven’t been bitten before, but can you bite somewhere else this time?”

“Deal?”

Su Yao said, then bit Xiang Nan’s ear.

“Ouch! That hurts!” Though drunk, Xiang Nan was no less sensitive to pain. “Damn! What kind of creature are you that loves biting so much? Can’t you just blow on this spot instead?”

Su Yao’s expression turned both fierce and cute. “I’m a cat—a wild cat!”

Xiang Nan, his eyes glazed with intoxication, pounced again. “Then pet my cat ears!”

“Not a chance!”

“Gonna!”

“Nope!”

“Xiao Ya, the big wild cat bit me… wah wah wah!”

“Crybaby! Prepare to die!”

Their playful banter was nothing unusual to those around them.

The barbecue lasted until midnight before everyone dispersed and returned home.

The thirty Eagle Alliance experts took shifts patrolling stubbornly around Xiang Nan’s villa.

And, of course, there were shadows lurking in the darkness.

“Twenty-four hours of uninterrupted protection. Not even one hour less,” was the strict order from the Lone Wolf captain.

...

Sated and drunk, Xiang Nan flopped onto his bed, feeling as if the entire house were spinning.

His stomach churned violently, and a wave of alcohol breath mixed with half-digested food bubbled up his throat.

Could it be that he had been served fake liquor?

He felt blue and miserable.

Struggling to get up, he staggered to open the sliding door. The balcony breeze was more soothing, temporarily easing the discomfort in his stomach.

Tonight was the first day of the dark moon, hung serenely against the deep indigo sky, surrounded by a brilliant cluster of stars.

Unconsciously, Xiang Nan felt a strange sensation—the twinkling stars seemed to be beckoning him.

He looked up intently at the constellation, suddenly sensing a burgeoning power ready to burst forth.

He recalled that during his first ancestral return, the lunar and stellar energies had granted him immense strength.

What if he sustained this power for cultivation?

A sudden urge to try surged within him.

He had always absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth through the Purification Spell. But the lunar and stellar power was actually the purest form of this energy.

In ancient times, during the era of the demon emperors, the demon leader Donghuang Taiyi established the Heavenly Court, with countless great demons overseeing the sun, moon, and stars. These demons cultivated using lunar and stellar power, all mastering tremendous divine abilities.

Wasn’t his Purification Spell essentially a demonic cultivation method?

Realizing this, Xiang Nan’s drunkenness quickly faded.

He immediately sat cross-legged, holding his breath and focusing his mind, using the Purification Spell to direct his consciousness toward the lunar and stellar power.

Soon, the dark blue vault above, with its graceful dark moon and dazzling stars, released layers of lunar and stellar energy, turning into invisible strands of air that gathered toward Xiang Nan.

Feeling the cool, pure lunar and stellar energy enter his body, Xiang Nan’s heart leapt with joy, greedily absorbing more.

In an instant, he entered an unprecedented state of selflessness.

His mind was utterly empty, confused, and lost—like a baby in its mother’s womb.

His primordial spirit became like a spiritual realm, reflecting the entire starry sky within.

At this moment, the lunar and stellar power in the heavens seemed entirely at his command.

With every breath, energy flowed incessantly from all directions into his body, strengthening his physical form.

The lunar and stellar energy required no refining or consumption; it could be stored directly.

Some of this pure spiritual energy automatically gathered at his brow, while the majority was stored in his dantian’s qi sea.

After a full cycle of the Purification Spell, Xiang Nan felt utterly energized. His physical power had risen to a new level.

Even the previously consumed alcohol no longer affected his body.

The spiritual power nourishing his body yielded immediate results.

His cultivation rank rose to the second tier, nine stars.

Just one more level, and he could directly enter the third-tier ancestral return.

The more he advanced, the stronger his desire to grow became.

He took out the sixth-rank spiritual bead given by Yuan Ao.

Originally, with his second-rank cultivation, refining a sixth-rank spiritual bead was impossible.

That was Yuan Ao’s sly trick: though presenting a priceless treasure to Xiang Nan looked generous, it was practically unusable for the time being—just to be kept in reserve.

In theory, crossing two cultivation tiers made spiritual communication impossible.

But now, nourished by the purest lunar and stellar energy, Xiang Nan felt he could give it a try.

As expected, it still couldn’t be refined.

The sixth-rank spiritual bead would have to remain locked away.

Xiang Nan cursed Yuan Ao, the hypocritical great general, silently.

Meanwhile, Yuan Ao was practicing recovery exercises on a training ground.

He grasped at the void, summoning a Green Dragon Crescent Blade from five or six meters away into his palm.

With a flick of his hand, he swung the blade and cut an old tree in half from ten meters away, which crashed down with a thunderous sound.

Yet Yuan Ao’s expression remained serious. This power was but a fraction of his former might.

He tossed the Green Dragon Crescent Blade aside and clenched his fist, striking another old tree ten meters away.

“Whoosh!”

A gust swept past. The tree’s branches trembled violently but stood firm.

Yuan Ao’s face darkened.

Even the sturdy tree seemed to glare at him with hatred.

He gathered more strength and struck again with greater force.

“Slash!”

A branch snapped, but the trunk remained upright.

Yuan Ao truly exerted himself.

He was the number one National General of Jiuzhou, idolized by over a billion people, his fame known worldwide—yet he couldn’t even fell a single damned tree?

Just as he prepared to summon all his strength for a decisive blow—

“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!”

No one can control sneezes, not even Yuan Ao.

Several sneezes erupted in succession, leaving Yuan Ao dumbfounded.

“That brat must be cursing this general!” he muttered.

“Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!…”