Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

The curtains had set on this Righteous and Corrupt battle. This battle had shocked both sides, and there was no one who didn’t know Long Chen’s name.

He was praised as Su Prefecture’s number one junior generation. Although he was only at the peak of Blood Condensation, he was unrivalled within the Tendon Transformation realm, capable of even consecutively killing Favored.

That caused a huge wave within the Corrupt path. This time, they had achieved an unprecedented level of power and brought several times the number of disciples compared to before.

There were even five Favored who had appeared at the same time. This generation was acclaimed as their strongest generation. They had expected their disciples to utterly slaughter the Righteous disciples.

But when Gui Yan brought the remaining, decimated disciples back, the entire Corrupt path of this region  was dumbfounded. Of over twenty thousand disciples, only five hundred had returned.

Furthermore, three of their Favored had died. The one acclaimed as a genius who only appeared once in a thousand years, Yin Luo, had actually had one of his legs severed.

That news greatly shocked the Corrupt path. They were practically unable to believe this result. After doing a detailed investigation, they finally heard the whole story.

Just Long Chen’s name struck terror in the hearts of the Corrupt disciples now. That was especially true of the Corrupt disciples who had managed to survive that battle. Just hearing his name would make them shiver from head to toe.

Long Chen’s strength caused a great deal of pressure for the Corrupt path’s experts. The higher-ups of the Corrupt path had even held a special meeting just to decide how to handle Long Chen.

And the result was that those Corrupt path experts all unanimously voted that Long Chen could not be allowed to live. Otherwise, he would definitely pose a fatal threat to them once he matured.

They distributed Long Chen’s name and picture to all the various Corrupt powers and he was placed on their must-kill list.

And in fact, this region’s Corrupt path’s high-level members even sent the news up to their higher-ups. After all, the appearance of such a threat had to be told to the higher-ups for them to think of a way to kill him.

Long Chen was a disciple of the Xuantian Monastery. Being so powerful, he would definitely be cherished and protected. It’d be impossible for them to kill him secretly. This region’s Corrupt path would need to borrow the strength of the higher-ups to handle this.

Yin Luo had quickly grown back his leg with his sect’s help. But although his outer wounds had healed, the humiliation he felt practically drove him mad.

He had always been acclaimed as a once-in-a-thousand-year genius. He had never met a match in the same realm, and even Favored found it difficult to last even ten exchanges with him.

He, who possessed the strength to jump realms and kill experts, had actually had his leg cut off by a Blood Condensation brat. That kind of humiliation was unacceptable to him.

After recovering, Yin Luo went into seclusion, sending out word that once he left seclusion, he would personally go cut off Long Chen and Mo Nian’s heads.

Long Chen didn’t care the slightest bit about the Righteous and Corrupt paths’ commotion. Currently he was hurrying to Phoenix Cry, wanting to reunite with everyone.

However, Long Chen wasn’t alone. Wilde, Chu Yao, Tang Wan-er, and Little Snow were with him.

Originally, Tang Wan-er hadn’t been planning on going back with Long Chen. But for some reason, Chu Yao had pulled her in. Tang Wan-er had had no choice but to follow along with a red face.

Long Chen could sense those two girls were acting weird. Whenever he wasn’t paying attention, they would always stealthily be whispering about something.

Long Chen had tried several times to secretly investigate what they were talking about, but he was always noticed by Chu Yao. As a Favored, Chu Yao’s Spiritual Strength wasn’t much weaker than his own.

Furthermore, after absorbing that Favored’s Dao-mark, Tang Wan-er had managed to miraculously retain its power, also becoming a Favored.

It was said that Favored contained a trace of heaven and earth’s karmic luck. Once you became a Favored, you would obtain heaven and earth’s blessing, allowing you to cultivate twice as fast with half the effort.

Tang Wan-er said that after she absorbed that Dao-mark and had the assistance of the Heavenly Daos, she had begun to feel a much greater affinity for heaven and earth’s spiritual qi.

At the same time, she also found that her wind energy had changed, becoming incredibly powerful.

It could be said that her luck had been very good. In comparison, after Chu Yao had killed her opponent, she had immediately tossed that corpse to Ye Zhiqiu. Ye Zhiqiu had also tried to absorb that Favored’s Dao-mark, but unfortunately, she had failed. That Dao-mark had only paused in her body for moment before fading away.

As for Wilde, once he had killed his opponent, he had also tried absorbing his Dao-mark. But he had also failed.

Of the three of them, only Tang Wan-er had succeeded. And so it could be seen that to steal the Heavenly Daos’ karmic luck depended greatly on chance. 

Karmic luck was extremely profound and mysterious. It was almost illusory and seemingly nonexistent. But it was definitely a real thing. It was simply too mysterious to completely understand.

“Hey, what are you two whispering about? If you have anything hurtful to say, just say it loudly for everyone.” Long Chen was somewhat discontented.

Long Chen and Wilde were walking at the front, while Chu Yao and Tang Wan-er were riding Little Snow, keeping far behind them. Occasionally their quiet, tinkling laughter would ring out.

Hearing Long Chen’s grumbling, Chu Yao laughed and didn’t reply. Tang Wan-er was the one who said, “You bad scoundrel, are you unhappy about us having our fun things to talk about?”

Although Long Chen acted discontented, he actually felt a huge pressure fall off his shoulders. He was relieved to see that Chu Yao didn’t feel any resentment because of Tang Wan-er’s existence.

But he was extremely curious how a bizarre, fiery girl like Tang Wan-er was able to converse so happily with Chu Yao, who normally didn’t like to talk too much and was even a bit shy. That was inconceivable to Long Chen.

Wilde suddenly said, “Brother Long, let’s hurry up. My stomach’s rumbling. I’m going to faint from the hunger.”

Ever since Wilde had awakened, he had gone all-out to eat. He practically went crazy from hunger. He didn’t even care if it wasn't meat. As long as it was edible, he would swallow it immediately. All the rations in their spatial rings had already been eaten away by Wilde.

But even so, Wilde’s stomach was still constantly rumbling like a loud drum, causing them to laugh in surprise.

“Wilde, what was with your body changing color back then?” asked Long Chen.

Wilde’s skin had turned a red color on that day, and he had looked like an awakened beast, releasing a will that caused even Long Chen to shiver.

“I don’t know. In any case, whenever I get angry, I’ll end up awakening a strange energy. That energy is extremely powerful. But once I use that energy, I’ll immediately become starving. Normally, if my master isn’t by my side, I don’t dare use that energy because I’m afraid I’ll really starve to death,” explained Wilde, feeling somewhat vexed.

According to Wilde’s explanation, his body was hiding a strange kind of energy. And according to what he said, it seemed that energy didn’t come from his body, but his soul.

Of course, that conclusion was guessed by Long Chen. Wilde was unable to clearly explain where that energy came from.

Everytime he would use that energy, Wilde would go through several days of feeling starving, and would need to constantly eat.

His stomach was like a bottomless pit, and no matter how much he ate, it would be useless during the next few days. There was one time when Wilde had been hunting and he had encountered a fourth rank Magical Beast. At a critical juncture of life and death, he had ended up using that energy.

As a result, he managed to kill that powerful Magical Beast, but he almost starved to death in the mountains. In the end, he even ate the Magical Beast’s bones, only then managing to ward off his hunger.

Just thinking about that time would fill Wilde with terror. Hunger was easily capable of driving a man crazy. That was a kind of cruelty was sometimes even worse than torture.

That was especially true for Wilde with his special constitution. He didn’t use any spiritual qi when he fought. He relied solely on his physical body to fight.

Once he was exhausted, his body’s cells would demand food from Wilde. That was why Wilde’s hunger level was unimaginably greater than an average person’s.

Before he had met Long Chen, Wilde had endured periods of hunger, but it hadn’t been so bad. However, as his body grew stronger, that feeling of hunger became more and more unbearable.

It wasn’t that his ability to endure had dropped, but that his body’s requirements had grown too large. Now he practically needed to constantly eat.

But there was one good thing about his hunger. Due to him quickening his footsteps in his haste, they quickly arrived in the Phoenix Cry Empire. After another short period of travel, the imperial capital appeared in front of them.

As soon as Long Chen entered the capital, he caused a huge commotion as people came to greet him.

Long Chen saw many familiar faces. Fatty Yu, Shou Hou, and all the others were present to give Long Chen an embrace with crazy joy.

Long Chen naturally gave them all a laughing greeting, but said he wanted to return home to see his parents first. He made a promise to go out drinking with them later at night.

It had been over half a year since he had been home. Looking at his familiar estate gate, Long Chen felt a burst of emotion.

The gates had already been newly decorated. In fact, all the walls had been newly washed and painted, and it was the entire noble estate had been transformed. Compared to how destitute it had been when he had left, it was completely different.

Long Chen had just been about to push open the door when he heard his mom’s discontented voice from within:

“Chen-er’s returned! I’m definitely going to go see him right now! Why must you make me wait for him here with you? Just let us mother and son see each other a bit earlier! You at least got to see Chen-er at the border, so you’re at ease. But I never got to see him!”

Long Tianxiao’s deep voice responded, “This is for your own good! There’s too many people over there, so it’s inconvenient!”

The large gate was pushed open. Long Chen finally got to see that figure which he thought about day and night. His voice trembled as he called out:

“Mom!”

Mrs. Long had been grumbling at Long Tianxiao. Suddenly hearing Long Chen’s voice, her body shook, and she hastily turned to see her son’s figure standing there. She was unable to hold back her tears any longer.

“Chen-er!”

Long Chen rushed into his mother’s embrace, also crying. “Mom, your son has been unfilial.”

Although Mrs. Long might not be his birth mother, Long Chen knew she had invested her whole life to him, raising him like her real son. They were no different than a biological mother and son.

The fact that he had left to face the outside world had been a great impact on Mrs. Long. And so this time when he saw his mother again, Long Chen was filled with guilt.

“Good child, don’t cry. It’s good as long as you can return. Come, let mom see if you’ve gotten too thin.” Mrs. Long gently caressed Long Chen’s cheeks.

She saw that after being gone for half a year, that immaturity on his face had already disappeared, replaced with a firm determination. She exclaimed, “Good, my son has really grown up to be a real man. I really am happy. But I also knows you must have experienced many hardships during this, so I also feel sorry for you…”

“Ah, if you have more to say, there are rooms inside. There’s also guests waiting,” reminded Long Tianxiao.

Only then did Mrs. Long notice there were others. Hastily wiping away her tears, she greeted everyone and brought them in.

The first words from Wilde’s mouth were that he was starving to death, so Long Tianxiao quickly told people to get cooking. In fact, he even informed the imperial cooks to come help, because they all knew just how much Wilde could eat.

Entering a room, Long Chen was holding his mother’s hand when his expression suddenly became odd. Carefully looking at his mother, his eyes were filled with surprise and joy.