Splitting the Heavens

Shang Xia naturally never believed that he alone could face the power erupting from behind the spatial gate head-on.

His true objective was to divert that force, redirecting it downward, beneath their battle formation!

Countless streams of starlight fell through the void, summoned and forcibly directed by Shang Xia using the energy of his Big Dipper Star Origin. Using the battle formation as cover, he suddenly attacked from the side, finally pushing that nearly catastrophic force, which had almost overturned both super Star Ships and nearly snapped the chains connecting them, downward beneath the fleet.

Amid such a crisis that nearly swept away every ship in the fleet, the Sages stationed on board, despite lacking prior coordination, displayed an unprecedented sense of unity.

Rather than retreating or veering off to avoid the redirected force, all eight Star Ships advanced together as one!

They charged upstream against the torrent of origin qi fragments flying directly at them.

At that moment, their vessels truly resembled ships, vessels that sailed through turbulent tides with ease, instead of static fortresses drifting through the void.

The violent current of origin qi fragments rushed beneath the hulls, but the Star Ships above no longer feared the powerful wave. In fact, they moved in unison, ready to tear through everything in their way.

Due to the internal eruption, the Origin Pillar experienced massive depletion, causing the towering structure to collapse even further.

At that moment, whether because the pillar had become critically weakened or the spatial gate inside was accelerating toward completion, it was fully exposed to the eight Sages.

All eight Star Ships charged straight through the torrent of origin qi fragment debris, advancing directly toward the spatial gate.

Meanwhile, it seemed the presence hiding behind the spatial gate had never anticipated that their enemy would counter their meticulously laid trap in such a fashion. Caught off guard, they failed to respond quickly enough, allowing the fleet to approach even closer and secure a brief moment of safety.

"Everyone, returning the favor is only courteous!" At the front of the formation, Sage Loudmouth, who had recovered for the time being, had shed all pretense of his previously calm demeanor.

Once again positioned alongside Master Lightning, he immediately rallied the others to deliver a combined counterattack through the ship formation.

After all, what Sage, the guardian of a Heavenly Field, would be easy to deal with?

Even while narrowly escaping danger, the decision to counterattack had already become an unspoken consensus. Sage Loudmouth's shout simply served as a signal to act.

As soon as his voice fell, a surge of wind and lightning erupted from the super Star Ships. Then, from the other vessels, radiant energies and pillars of energies converged across the void.

When the power of seven Star Ships and seven Sages pooled together, the energy suspended above the fleet ballooned to a terrifying magnitude, so immense that it teetered on the verge of collapse.

Yet the attack was not unleashed immediately, and no one urged haste. Instead, they all risked backlash by patiently waiting for their strongest fighter.

Moments later, the long-awaited power of Shang Xia and the Jiao Continent finally arrived!

Though the super Star Ships still led the charge and Sage Loudmouth had rallied everyone, it was already silently acknowledged that Shang Xia was the strongest among them. The true core of the formation had been yielded to him willingly.

Once more, vast starlight broke through the spatial vortex and descended into the unique region of calm within.

Beneath the infinite glow, seven massive suns emerged in a Big Dipper formation, suspended in the core of the spatial vortex.

Those seven radiant suns embodied the collective might of the seven Star Ships and their corresponding Sages. Under the guidance of Shang Xia and his Big Dipper Star Origin, they moved in perfect harmony.

On the deck of the Jiao Continent, Shang Xia no longer wielded his usual divine weapon, the Seven Star Mace, but instead held the actual Crimson Soul Tablet he managed to summon from his Sea of Consciousness.

Only by borrowing the power of the tablet could Shang Xia control the entire battle formation and harmonize the strength of the other seven Sages.

But even so, that feat nearly brought him to his limit.

Had he tried this with his Seven Star Mace, it would have shattered from the utterly horrifying power that would be passing through it.

Any other mid-level Sage would've been crushed under the weight of such a vast and chaotic power, and the energy backlash would've likely obliterated the entire formation.

But neither Shang Xia nor the Crimson Soul Tablet could be judged by conventional standards.

In the next instant, Shang Xia slowly pointed the tablet toward the spatial gate embedded in the Origin Pillar, and the surging force above the fleet finally found a point of release.

Beneath a channel of infinite starlight, star after star transformed into brilliant meteors that tore through the void before crashing toward the barely visible spatial gate within the pillar.

That was the second form of Shang Xia's Seven Star Mace Technique, Falling Dipper!

This time, the seven descending stars were not just manifestations of Shang Xia's power. They embodied the combined force of the seven other Sages and Star Ships.

Their retaliatory strike, while not quite as ferocious as the earlier torrent of origin qi fragments, still packed enough destructive power to obliterate the origin pillar upon impact, and more critically, to annihilate the spatial gate within.

If the spatial gate was destroyed, the threat of foreign existences descending upon the Chaotic Sea of Stars would be resolved. The pillar, already weakened, would collapse further, disrupting the great spatial vortex. In turn, the fleet could seize the opportunity to harvest the massive amount of scattered origin qi fragments.

But how could the foreign Sages allow the spatial gate to be destroyed?

Though the strength of the native cultivators had exceeded their expectations, and their fierce counterattack caught them off guard, there was no way they would sit by idly and watch as their years of preparations went down the drain.

The next second, the existence on the other side flung a 'star' out of the spatial gate.