After a thousand years of cultivation, he returns at the pinnacle!

In the void, Astra's figure resembled an undying dark golden star.

His arms were outstretched, his long, silvery-white hair flying wildly behind him, and his golden pupils, cracked with dark red, burned with an almost manic fighting spirit. The dent in his chest had completely healed by the time he spoke, and even the wrinkles on his black robe had returned to normal, as if Jiang Chen's punch had never existed.

Jiang Chen looked at him, slowly withdrew his right hand, and put it into his school uniform pocket.

"Immortal and indestructible." He repeated these four words, his tone as flat as if he were reading a text in class. "Interesting."

He raised his left hand, his index and middle fingers joined together, a faint, almost invisible glow emanating from their tips. That light was exactly the same as when he crushed the dark golden sphere—it didn't belong to any attribute of this world; it wasn't ice, fire, lightning, or wind, but something more essential and ancient.

True Yuan.

This power, refined after a thousand years of cultivating immortality, shattering the void, and comprehending the three thousand Great Daos, is enough to rewrite the rules of heaven and earth.

"Since fists can't kill you," Jiang Chen drew an arc in the air with his fingertips, "then let's try another way."

The moment the arc fell, fire ignited in the void.

Space itself is burning.

The flames started from the arc at Jiang Chen's fingertip and spread in all directions at an incredible speed. The spatial fragments suspended in the void—the points of light that Astra had just activated—evaporated the instant they came into contact with the white flames, leaving not even ashes.

Astra's pupils contracted slightly.

"The Heaven-Burning Flame." Jiang Chen's voice came from within the flames, as calm as introducing the name of a dish. "The first heavenly fire I learned in the cultivation world. It doesn't burn the physical body, it burns the foundation of your Dao. Your immortality is etched into the laws of this space, right? So, if I burn all the laws of this space away, can you still be resurrected?"

Astra did not answer.

His body burned and repaired in the flames, the cycle accelerating. The speed at which the white flames consumed him and the speed at which he repaired himself were approaching a dangerous equilibrium. Once the repair speed could not keep up with the burning speed, his laws would begin to collapse.

But he did not back down.

He raised his head amidst the flames, and the fighting spirit in his golden pupils not only did not diminish, but burned even more fiercely.

"Interesting," he said, his voice hoarse from the heat of the flames, but his tone remained steady. "Your flames can indeed harm my laws. But—"

He raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing up.

"—Can you even finish burning it?"

In his palm, a ball of dark golden light was gathering. This light was unlike any before—it didn't radiate outwards, but rather collapsed inwards, like a forming black hole, drawing everything around it into his palm. The white flames were swallowed up the moment they approached the light.

"These are my rules," Astra's voice echoed in the flames, "Reversal. Your flames destroy the law, my reversal will reverse the burning process. How much you burn, I will reverse."

He clenched his fist tightly.

The dark golden light exploded in his palm, transforming into a shockwave that spread in all directions. Wherever the shockwave passed, the white flames seemed to be suppressed by an invisible hand, extinguishing inch by inch from the edges.

Three breaths later, not a single flame remained in the void.

Astra stood there, the edges of his black robe still bearing scorch marks, his silver-white hair still curled, but the burns on his body had completely disappeared. He looked at Jiang Chen, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned.

"Is there anything else?"

Jiang Chen looked at him, his expression unchanged.

"have."

He raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing upward.

In the void, dark clouds began to gather.

Astra looked up at the purple sea of ​​clouds that enveloped the entire void.

"Lightning?" His tone carried a hint of surprise. "You just saw it; Zhou Tianze's lightning had no effect on me."

"That's not Zhou Tianze's lightning." Jiang Chen's voice came from beneath the thunderclouds, still calm. "That's the Nine Heavens Divine Lightning. It's the highest level of tribulation lightning in the cultivation world, specifically used to strike those immortals who are about to ascend."

He clenched his fist tightly.

"fall."

A deep purple bolt of lightning struck down from the clouds.

The lightning bolt, over ten meters in diameter, enveloped Astra entirely. The instant the lightning exploded, the entire void was dyed a deep purple. The thunder didn't originate from the air—this void had no air—but from space itself, the mournful cry of space being torn apart by the power of divine judgment.

Astra's body trembled violently within the pillar of lightning.

His black robe instantly turned to ashes, revealing a pale, almost transparent body beneath. His skin cracked in the lightning, dark golden liquid seeping from each fissure, only to evaporate in the lightning. His long, silvery-white hair stood on end, the tips burning in the lightning and turning into dark golden sparks that drifted away.

His bones are shattering.

His body began to disintegrate within the pillar of lightning.

Starting from the fingertips, the arms gradually transformed into dark golden specks of light. Starting from the soles of the feet, the legs gradually dissipated. The torso, starting from the edges, vanished into nothingness like a piece of paper being burned, from the outside in.

But Astra was laughing.

His face—the face that was beginning to crumble from the edges—was turned up in a near-maniacal grin. His golden pupils burned in the lightning, and the runes deep within them flickered, swirled, annihilated, and reborn wildly, a hundred or a thousand times faster than before.

"Judgment?" His voice came from within the pillar of lightning, hoarse and broken, yet carrying an irrepressible excitement. "You think the Heavenly Dao can judge me? You think the laws of this world can bind me?"

He opened his arms—arms that were crumbling.

"I come from beyond the heavens. My existence is not within the Heavenly Dao of this world. Your Nine Heavens Divine Thunder can judge those who defy the Heavens of this world, but it cannot judge me. Because I am not a thing of this world at all."

He tilted his head back, his long, silvery-white hair flying wildly in the lightning.

"reverse."

The lightning bolt stopped the instant the two words were uttered.

Three breaths later, the lightning pillar completely disappeared.

The purple sea of ​​clouds in the void was still there, but the lightning within the clouds had dimmed considerably, as if most of its power had been drained away. Astra hovered beneath the sea of ​​clouds, her black robe intact, her long, silvery-white hair flowing smoothly over her shoulders, and her skin without a single crack.

He looked at Jiang Chen, the smile still on his lips.

"I told you, your attacks are ineffective against me."

Jiang Chen looked at him and remained silent for a moment.

Then he smiled.

The smile was faint, so faint it was almost imperceptible. But Astra saw it—a genuine ripple finally appeared in those eyes that had always been as calm as still water.

It was an interest he hadn't felt for a very long time, after living in the cultivation world for a thousand years and killing countless powerful figures.

"Not within the Heavenly Dao," Jiang Chen repeated softly, "No wonder."

"Then let's try something outside of the Heavenly Dao."

He raised his right foot and lightly stomped on the air, the smile on his lips seemingly unaffected by his previous failure.