Star Martial Era: From Mortal to Emperor

Chapter 123 The Illusory Image of the Martial Emperor

The illusory images of stars floated in mid-air, only a few feet above the ground, yet they seemed to hang in the heavens.

The silver-white figure was bathed in flowing light, obscuring his face; only his silhouette was visible—tall, a long sword at his waist, his shoulders and back ramrod straight. He stood there, motionless, silent, without even a glimpse of his aura, yet an invisible pressure, like a mountain, pressed down on the chests of everyone on the battlefield. It wasn't a deliberate release, nor a deliberate intimidation, but a natural, overwhelming force of superiors over inferiors, like the sky pressing down on mountains, like the ocean pressing down on abysses.

The mist dissipated rapidly under the starlight. The thick, inky gray fog, as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, churned, shattered, and evaporated. The power of the mind-altering array crumbled layer by layer, and the seductive whispers in his ears vanished completely, as if severed by a single stroke. The air became crisp and cool, refreshing to the lungs, devoid of that cloying, putrid stench. Under the starlight, the grayish-white soil on the ground even faintly revealed a hint of brown—the soil's original color, polluted by evil energy for so long that it had almost forgotten what it originally looked like.

Everyone on the battlefield stopped moving.

Whether they were newly born humans, members of the Qin family, or cultivators of the evil race, they all stared blankly up at the illusory figure. Some had their mouths agape, some dropped their weapons without noticing, and some felt their legs go weak, their knees buckling involuntarily. Even those who were injured or lying on the ground propped themselves up and raised their heads, wanting to catch a glimpse of this legendary figure.

Zhao Tiejun's heavy sword was stuck in the ground in front of him. He used the sword to support himself, looking up at the phantom figure. The scars on his face looked particularly gruesome in the starlight, but his eyes were red. He had joined the army at eighteen, fought on the border for five years, and witnessed too much life and death, too much betrayal, too much helplessness. He thought he was incapable of being moved by anything anymore. But at this moment, his hand holding the heavy sword was trembling.

"The Martial Emperor..." His voice was hoarse, as if he had a mouthful of sand, "It really is the Martial Emperor..."

The old man's black robes fluttered in the starlight, not from the wind, but from the chaotic turmoil of his internal evil energy, like a pot of boiling poison leaking uncontrollably. The bone beads in his hand crackled, fissures spreading from the first bead to the last, dense and intricate like a spiderweb.

He had lived for hundreds of years. He had witnessed the might of the first Martial Emperor firsthand—not from books, not from elders, but with his own eyes. He was young then, the evil army pressing in, unstoppable, the human defenses retreating again and again, on the verge of collapse. Then that person arrived. One man, one sword, standing before the two armies. The evil army seemed to have crashed into an invisible wall, unable to advance another step.

It was precisely because of the lingering power of that person that the evil race lay dormant for a thousand years, daring not to launch a large-scale invasion. They dared not confront him head-on, and could only secretly support traitors like the Qin family, eroding the human race's power from within. After waiting for hundreds of years, for more than a dozen generations, they finally received news of that person's demise, finally saw his lineage severed and his descendants die out. They thought that era was over, that the shadow had finally dissipated.

Now that shadow has reappeared, right in front of him.

Living and breathing.

The old man's legs were trembling, not from the cold, but from fear. A fear that ran deep in his bones, etched into the blood of the evil race, a fear that had spanned millennia. He clenched his teeth, his nails digging into his palms, using the pain to force himself to calm down.

"It's just a remnant soul's will..." His voice trembled, but he forced himself to remain calm. "But... but it still possesses the power to suppress my race."

He took a deep breath, a crazed glint in his cloudy eyes.

"Let's fight! Join forces to shatter the illusion! As long as the Martial Emperor's remaining power dissipates, the secret realm, the Star Marrow Liquid, and the Martial Emperor's legacy will still be ours!"

He roared, unleashing the full power of his cultivation. The evil energy of a late-stage Transformation Realm cultivator erupted without reservation, a thick black mist gushing from his body and coalescing above his head into a ferocious giant python. Its body was as thick as a water vat, its scales as black as ink, its mouth wide open revealing two rows of serrated fangs. Thick black venom dripped from its fangs, instantly corroding the ground into a fist-sized crater. The python raised its head, hissing, and with a murderous aura that seemed to devour everything, lunged at the illusory star in mid-air.

The two wounded Qin family guards gritted their teeth and rose to their feet. They were injured—sword wounds, knife wounds, and burns from the corrosive power of the stars—their flesh torn and blood gushing forth, but no one cared about these injuries at this moment. They disregarded their wounds and poured all the remaining true energy within their bodies into their palms. Two azure palm prints followed closely behind the evil python. The palm prints were smaller than before, and their light was dimmer, but they still carried the full force of a full-force attack from a Transformation Realm martial artist. Together with the evil python, they attempted to shatter this awe-inspiring phantom.

Seeing this, the other evil disciples and members of the Qin family also gathered around. Some activated evil spells, some used their martial arts techniques, and some threw out talismans. Dozens of attacks converged into a multicolored torrent, mixed with black mist, cyan true energy, crimson flames, and yellow earth spikes, shooting straight into the sky.

Lin Chen's eyes were clear and bright.

He could sense that the illusory figure wasn't under his control—it was guiding him. His mind and spirit merged with the Martial Emperor's illusory form; it wasn't him wielding that power, but rather that power carrying him. The *Star Origin Technique* was operating at its limit, the stellar energy within his meridians like a surging river, wide and abundant, each drop carrying the will of that peerless powerhouse from a thousand years ago. Protecting humanity, purging evil, suppressing the ages—these weren't just slogans, but obsessions etched into his very bones, passed down through millennia from one person to another, never ceasing.

Lin Chen raised his hand to form a hand seal.

The illusory starlight behind them raised their hands in unison. The movements were exactly the same, without the slightest deviation, like looking in a mirror, like two shadows of the same person.

A sky full of starlight emerged from the void, not emanating from his body, but converging from the heavens, beyond the clouds, and from the depths of the cosmos. Countless silvery-white rays descended from the sky, coalescing into a massive shield of light before him. The shield's surface was as smooth as a mirror, covered with intricate ancient runes, each one slowly swirling and radiating a soft yet resolute light.

The stars serve as a shield, impervious to all evil.

This is the original defense that the first Martial Emperor relied on to suppress evil. It is not a martial skill or technique, but a manifestation of belief—the stronger the belief in protection, the stronger the shield.

Boom—!

The evil python crashed into the light shield.

The moment the python's body struck, the runes on the light shield suddenly lit up, like lamps being lit. Black evil energy exploded on the shield's surface, splashing out ripples like stones thrown into a calm lake. But the ripples only spread less than half a foot before disappearing, as if swallowed by something. Following closely behind were cyan palm prints and various attacks, which bombarded the light shield one after another, with explosions resounding continuously. Flames, black mist, and various colored true energies exploded into bursts of light on the shield's surface.

But the light shield remained completely still.

The evil forces, true energy, and talismanic power, upon contact with the starlight, evaporated, melted, and vanished into nothingness the instant they touched the starlight, like boiling water poured onto ice and snow. That combined offensive, powerful enough to severely injure dozens of new human beings, failed to even budge the surface of the light shield. The runes on the shield continued to flow, the light remaining soft yet resolute, as if nothing had happened.

The old man's face turned from deathly pale to ashen.

His last shred of confidence crumbled completely at this moment. He wasn't afraid of Lin Chen, the new students, or any human martial artist. But he was afraid of the Martial Emperor. He had been afraid a thousand years ago, and he was still afraid a thousand years later. The moment that illusory figure stood there, he knew he had lost.

"How could this be...?"

His voice was dry, like the last breath squeezed out from the depths of his throat.