129: Chapter 129 What you marked, I'll personally tear off.

The dimensional barrier shattered into powder beneath Jiang Feng's palm.

From the Taihuang Battlefield to Blue Star, spanning three layers of the Chaos Realm and seven layers of dimensional folding.

Normally, it would take a Hunyuan Supreme three days to travel at full speed.

Jiang Feng took two breaths.

In the face of his extreme speed with 466 Jian of full attributes maxed out, the word "travel" was nothing but a joke.

Space was no different from a piece of scrap paper in his eyes—reach out, pierce through, and arrive.

The outskirts of Blue Star.

The Void Reincarnation Barrier stretched across the starry sky, thousands of streams of light wrapping the entire Blue Star tightly.

This was the highest-spec defense line Jiang Feng had personally set up, fueled by his own Origin Realm Essence.

Any means below the Hunyuan level couldn't even hope to touch it.

But at this moment—

On the outer wall of the barrier, gray-white patterns had already covered nearly one-third of it.

Silent and soundless.

Carrying not a single trace of energy fluctuation.

It crawled forward inch by inch along the surface of the barrier, like moss on the roots of an old wall, or the roots of a parasite, silently boring into the gaps.

Jiang Feng hovered in front of the barrier.

His dark golden double pupils locked onto those patterns firmly.

It was not an attack.

He had just spent the time of one incense stick clearing out ten Hunyuan Supremes, so he knew the word "attack" all too well.

An attack must carry three things: energy impact, law fluctuation, and causal erosion.

At least one of them.

These gray patterns—they had none of the three.

They were only doing one thing.

Sticking.

Like covering the surface of the barrier with a film.

Jiang Feng extended a finger, infused his mental attributes into his fingertip, and lightly touched a gray pattern.

The moment he touched it, information flooded into his brain.

His gaze turned cold.

A mark.

This thing was a mark.

It did not destroy, did not erode, did not break.

It only did one thing—it was "drawing a blueprint" for the Blue Star barrier.

Everywhere each gray pattern crawled, the way the laws were woven, the distribution of energy nodes, and the flow paths of the Origin Realm Essence were all recorded in detail.

Old Man Xuan did not intend to make a move now.

He was measuring the dimensions.

Before a butcher slaughters a pig, he touches the pig from head to tail—to see where the knife will cut most cleanly.

Jiang Feng withdrew his hand.

There was no expression on his face.

But the gravitational field around him was uncontrollably spilling outwards, and the space debris floating near Blue Star's orbit was silently crushed into powder.

He clenched his fist. Then relaxed it.

"Dragon Girl."

The signal of the contract line was intermittent due to the interference of the gray patterns, but his 466 Jian mental attributes forcefully pierced through all the noise.

Dragon Girl's voice rang out almost directly against his brain, anxious and angry:

"Master! You finally came back! Blue Star is fine, Dad—ahem, Uncle Jiang and I have been keeping an eye on it! I tried those gray things, I couldn't bite them! They taste terrible!"

Jiang Feng's mouth twitched.

Couldn't bite them. Fine.

At least that meant the gray patterns hadn't seeped into the interior of the barrier, and Dragon Girl and his family were fine.

He raised his hand. His five fingers spread open, his palm aimed at the outer wall of the barrier.

He didn't cast a skill. He didn't urge any laws.

Pure Origin Realm Essence, condensed from his 466 Jian full attributes, silently overflowed from his palm and adhered to the surface of the barrier.

Like using sandpaper to polish an old wall.

The moment the gray-white patterns were crushed by the Realm Essence, they emitted a very faint hissing sound.

And then—peeling off inch by inch.

Detaching from the surface of the barrier, they shattered into fly ash in the void, dispersing completely.

The whole process was extremely quiet.

No explosions. No light effects. No earth-shattering movements.

It was just wiping. Using absolute power to wipe away the things that didn't belong here, bit by bit.

One minute. The outer wall of the barrier returned to its original state.

The streams of light became clean and transparent again, like freshly wiped glass.

Jiang Feng withdrew his hand, preparing to turn around. Then—his movements stopped.

When he was peeling off the gray patterns, his Realm Essence had taken the opportunity to seep into the bottom-layer structure of the barrier.

That was the law array he had personally woven; he could recite every single pattern and every single node even with his eyes closed.

But at the very bottom layer. Where the barrier connected with Blue Star's crust.

There was a set of patterns that he hadn't carved.

Extremely faint. Extremely ancient.

So ancient that the dust of time clinging to them was heavier than the age of Pangu's remains.

The style of that set of patterns was completely different from the gray-white marks—rougher, more primitive, as if someone had hard-scratched them onto stone with their fingernails.

But the underlying logic—was exactly the same.

Jiang Feng stared at that set of patterns. He was silent for a long time.

Blue Star itself had long been marked.

Earlier than he came to this world. Earlier than Pangu's fall.

Earlier than the "Demon Realm" bound itself to Blue Star.

From the very beginning—Blue Star had been on the chessboard.

"...What a great game of chess."

Jiang Feng's voice was so faint it almost melted into the void.

"...Master?"

Dragon Girl's voice came through from the other end of the contract line, interrupting his thoughts.

Her tone was no longer anxious. It had changed into a subtle, teeth-gritting sweetness.

"Why did that woman in the blue-gold robe follow us here too?"

Jiang Feng looked up. In the starry sky, one hundred thousand li away from the outskirts of the Blue Star barrier.

Xuanji was hovering there.

Her blue-gold dharma robe was still stained with the bloody scent of the Taihuang Battlefield, her face pale, her lips tightly pressed.

She didn't approach the barrier, nor did she release her divine sense to investigate.

She just stood there. Like a piece of driftwood that didn't know where to drift.

Dragon Girl's voice had evolved from "sweet" into blatant sarcasm:

"Master, do you want me to swallow her? Just one bite, it won't delay anything."

Jiang Feng ignored her jealousy.

He looked at Xuanji for two seconds. Two seconds later, he withdrew his gaze, his tone as flat as if he were saying the weather was nice today:

"That mark in your origin is still there."

It was not a question. It was a verdict.

Xuanji's shoulders trembled.

"I... tried."

Her voice was very soft, as if afraid of breaking something.

"I can't pull it out. Once I touch it, it..."

She didn't finish. She didn't need to finish. Jiang Feng knew the second half.

Touching it meant origin collapse. Existence would be extinguished.

Old Man Xuan had welded the mark and her life together.

Want freedom—die first.

Jiang Feng put his hands back into his pockets.

"That is your business."

Six words, crisp and clean.

Xuanji stood one hundred thousand li away, hearing it clearly.

She didn't speak. She didn't ask for help. She didn't cry.

She just slowly lowered her eyes.

Jiang Feng turned and descended toward Blue Star.

When passing by Dragon Girl, Dragon Girl puffed up her cheeks and glared at him, her eyeballs almost popping out.

"Are you... to her—"

"Going home."

Jiang Feng raised his hand and patted Dragon Girl's head.

"Mom stewed pork ribs."

The speed at which Dragon Girl's expression switched could be called a biological miracle—

One second ago she had the expression of an exploded vinegar jar, the next second her whole face lit up.

"Really?? What kind of ribs? Sweet and sour or braised?"

"Both."

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

Two streams of light plunged into Blue Star's atmosphere. Passing through the sea of clouds. Disappearing from sight.

The starry sky returned to silence. Only Xuanji was left alone, hovering in that cold void.

The hem of her blue-gold dharma robe was blown slowly by the solar wind.

She lowered her head. She opened her palm.

Deep in her origin, that pale golden mark was still pulsing.

Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

Perfectly synchronized with her heartbeat.

But that was never her heartbeat.

She clenched her hand.

Her finger bones were almost pushing out from under her skin, but the golden pattern deep in her origin still pulsed steadily, like a shackle she could not break free from.

...

Tianshu Dragon Garden.

On the dining table, the pork ribs were piled into a small mountain.

Dragon Girl buried her head and ate fiercely, her speed so fast that her chopsticks left afterimages. Liu Cuilan sat on the side, continuously picking food for her, her mouth never stopping: "Eat slowly, no one is snatching from you—hey, don't choke—have another piece of this, the braised one, try it..."

"Mmm mmm mmm! Delicious! Mom, you eat too!"

Liu Cuilan smiled so wide she couldn't close her mouth, and piled another large piece into Dragon Girl's bowl.

Jiang Jianguo sat opposite and glanced at his son.

Jiang Feng was eating very slowly.

His chopsticks held a piece of pork rib, he took a bite, and chewed for a long time—the pork ribs were delicious, but that set of ancient patterns at the bottom of the star kept lingering in his mind.

Jiang Jianguo didn't make a sound. He didn't ask either.

Having been a father for most of his life, he knew as soon as his son's brows moved—he was thinking about something. Big things.

After the meal. Jiang Feng stood alone on the terrace on the top floor of Tianshu Dragon Garden.

The night wind swept past his face, carrying the chill unique to late autumn on Blue Star.

The starry sky above was very clean. Stars were densely spread all over the sky.

His gaze passed through the atmosphere. Through the barrier. Through the starry sky.

Landing in the direction of the Supreme Void, which was invisible to the naked eye, far away.

That set of ancient patterns at the bottom of Blue Star was flickering in his perception.

Older than Pangu. Earlier than the chess game.

Who carved that?

Jiang Feng had no answer.

He withdrew his gaze, let out a breath, and turned to go downstairs.

When passing by the living room, Liu Cuilan was curled up on the sofa knitting a sweater, the TV was on with the volume turned very low, playing some family-drama variety show.

"Mom, sleep early."

"I know. You don't stay up too late either."

Jiang Feng gave a hum and returned to his room. He turned off the lights.

The night deepened.

It was so quiet that only the faint, low-frequency hum of Blue Star's rotation remained.

Jiang Feng closed his eyes, his breathing even.

But a trace of his mental attributes was still—anchored on that set of ancient patterns in the deepest part of Blue Star's crust.

In the darkness. That set of patterns silently lit up for a moment.

Very short. As if responding to something. Or as if waiting for something.