"Urgh! Guuuh!" The sounds of vehement vomiting resounded from multiple figures within Wei Wuyin's bedroom chambers. The sheets were stained, the air grew acidic enough to sting the nose and brim the eyes with tears, and the bodies of seven beauties were quivering together, hurdled and afraid.
They were all expelling out rancid liquids of a variety of different colors. Ai Yin was the worst; she was on her knees as Lin Xianxian held her hair, unable to stop the elven from gushing out copious amounts of putrid liquid. If the room wasn't large enough, it would've long since been flooded.
"What the fuck's happening?!" Da Shan screeched between vomiting, her fists tightly clenched as she hugged her stomach. Seemingly about to curse again, she bent over deeper and released another spurt of gushing liquid. Agonized by this, she howled.
"I…guuh…I—Urgh, don't know!" Lin Xianxian had it easier, but it was exceedingly painful as her veins could be seen on her forehead. Since the others underwent a strange change and regained consciousness, all of them began to blow chunks uncontrollably. As an Ascended being, she was unable to comprehend what was happening.
This had already lasted for an hour. An entire hour of horrific vomiting!
Then, Ai Yin let loose one final gush of liquid. As if a sign of the end of their plight, the rest began to stop as well. While they continued to retch, nothing came out. Soon, things settled down as Da Shan supported herself against the wall, Xiang Ling and Mei Yang hugged each other, Lin Xianxian helped Ai Yin up using her shoulder, and Nyla Shur was halfway up a nearby pillar, her nails deeply embedded in its surface.
"It's over?" Da Shan asked with a cough.
"..." They exchanged glances as they waited an entire minute, but everything soon settled. What was all that? This was the question that pounded their hearts relentlessly.
Suddenly, Nyla Shur cried out in fear as she slinked down the pillar. "I never want to experience that again! We need to find Wei Wuyin and make sure we weren't poisoned."
"What?!" They all turned to her, and then their eyes explosively widened. Da Shan stuttered out in shock, "Nyla! Your…ears! Your hair! Oh my heavens!" The rest were taken aback, so much so that they all took steps back from Nyla Shur, unable to grasp what was happening.
"What?!" Panicked overwhelming her, she hastily touched herself all over and soon felt fleshy ears. They were still there! Wait…fleshy ears? When did she have fleshy ears? Weren't they always furry like a feline? Baffled, she turned to see a nearby mirror that Wei Wuyin often used to show their embarrassing expressions as he pounded them various…lessons.
"...!" She was frozen stiff. Her reflection revealed a woman with a slender body, shorter than average, with long brown hair and jade-like white skin. She gasped, stunned once more by the utter lack of sharp incisors in that woman's mouth. She touched her teeth disbelievingly.
"I…Did I—" Nyla Shur couldn't finish as she sought confirmation from others, unable to believe her own eyes.
"You're human!" Xiang Ling exclaimed with undisguised shock. Technically, Nyla Shur was always a human, a product of a human infused with a beast's bloodline through various methods—a beastman, but always human. However, today, she no longer had the feisty fur of a Havana Feline Lineage Beastwoman or biting incisors.
Mei Yang cried out, pointing at Da Shan. "You!" This instantly caused all eyes to dart toward Da Shan, finding her leaning against the wall, and they were confused. Da Shan had grown at least two feet taller, but her proportions hadn't changed, even those massive fleshy mounds of hers. If shrunk down to five feet, she would look indistinguishable from her current self.
Da Shan looked at her hands, immensely relieved to see her beautiful violet skin. She knew Wei Wuyin loved this skin of hers. Unable to find out what Mei Yang was pointing at, she scanned her internal body fearfully.
Then, her eyes widened. "WHAT?!" The others thought she noticed her bodily changes, so they didn't jump, but when Da Shan cried out her discovery, all their expressions changed!
"My Spirit of Cultivation is GONE!" She was completely panicked.
"WHAT?!" They had all cried out this word more times today than they had done in their lives. Lin Xianxian hurriedly set Ai Yin down and shot over, using her spiritual sense to inspect her body, and was unable to find her Spirit of Cultivation. It was indeed gone! As she was waiting for a volatile cultivation deviation to erupt, she found something strange.
"Your innate energies are flowing in an orderly fashion. How?" Lin Xianxian said with a frown, finding that despite the lack of a Spirit of Cultivation, Da Shan's innate energies were perfectly fine. In a way, cultivators were walking bombs of tremendous power. The Spirit of Cultivation acted as a central organ that regulated this typically volatile power. Even Ascended beings had this restriction, and Wei Wuyin had once capitalized on this to instigate a Cultivation Deviation Event to deal with a nosy and rude cultivator.
This prevented them from externalizing their Spirits of Cultivation despite their strength being more than enough to exist outside. For example, Wu Yu had destroyed the physical body of an Earthly Saint, and despite losing this, it could exist out in the open for a short period in the hopes of having its body recreated.
Wei Wuyin's independent Spirits of Cultivation initially allowed each of them to handle the innate energies, enabling him to allow them to cultivate directly. Later, Wei Wuyin's True Void Dragon Bloodline could regulate his innate energies, replicating feats of genuine beasts, a sign of a true hybrid, and all four could externalize with ease.
Da Shan was shaken, terrified that she was about to explode. She had enough power to shatter a small planet should her innate energies go awry. But after hearing Lin Xianxian, she calmed herself down and summoned forth her spiritual sense to inspe—
Wait!
She still had Spiritual Sense?!
Lin Xianxian noticed this, too, as she felt the spiritual strength flowing through Da Shan's body, seemingly emanating from her bones, and was deeply confused about what was happening! "How do you have Spiritual Sense without a Spirit?"
Before they could get to the bottom of this, a startling sound resounded. They were all still jumpy, so their attention immediately shot toward the source.
Ai Yin!
She was looking at herself with astonished eyes. Ai Yin lifted her gaze and looked at the others with deeply perplexed eyes. Da Shan wasn't the only one that underwent a physical change; Ai Yin had gotten slimmer and slightly taller, her ears grew sharper and longer, and her irises no longer had their typical color, becoming several shades brighter, resembling fossilized amber, and her pupils were no longer circular, but star-shaped! If one looked behind her, one would find a fluffy bronze-colored tail growing from just above her firm romp that swayed cutely.
Out of them all, she had the most drastic change!
She looked like an entirely different race!!
"My Spirit of Cultivation changed shape! It's like a pentagram?" She also had an internal change, which was why she cried, not noticing her drastic physical changes.
"You…?" No one knew what to say.
What the hell was happening?!
-----
In the Sealed Regions, three nodes maintained the Sealing Array. Of those three, two were destroyed, and the remaining one was unknown to the populace of the Sealed Regions despite their continuous efforts.
This node wasn't located in the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region nor the Desolate Dragnet Region, but a far-off Stellar Region long abandoned by the current world that sat at the edge of the Sealed Region's borders. The borders were invisible to most, but should anyone attempt to enter it, they would find themselves miraculously on the other side of the Sealed Regions without any indication of signs. It formed a perfect Spatial Loop.
The region was once called the Heptasage Pillar Stellar Region. Its name was symbolic by design, referring to the Seven Sages Tower, the legendary Alchemy Organization renowned for creating products such as the Echoing Stars of the Vastness Pill that led to the cold, horrific death of trillions.
The now-extinct power was a part of history as one of the core reasons for the War of Fallen Stars, a cataclysmic event that altered the very essence of the Sealed Regions.
The Heptasage Pillar Stellar Region contained the last node; it was the last string that kept the Sealed Regions' inhabitants suppressed!
A sword howl erupted here! It was extremely eye-piercing, birthing a line of sharp sword light. Then, a long slit formed in the Dark Void, slicing into Fixed Space with domineering power.
Silently, a figure shot out of the slit of sword light. They tumbled slightly, a little unseemly, and then the figure looked left to right as if to gather their bearings. When they saw the gigantic Aeternal Sky Solar Star in the far, far distance, the figure whooped with a sword in hand!
"I MADE IT! I'M BACK!" The figure cried with unrestrained excitement filled with joy. "After over a decade, I've returned! I didn't think using the Void Piercer would cause me to leave the Sealed Regions."
After a short silence, the figure said as if replying to someone: "I know, I know. You said it could send me anywhere, even outside the Sealed Regions, but to the Azure-Prime Galactic Zone's Exalted Republic? I should've just fought that silver-eyed bastard to the death."
"..." Another stint of silence.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll find him soon. For now, I should find San Yongli, Jiang Feilan, Ma Sujiang, and Tang Xingyun and let them know that I'm still alive. Especially Tang Xingyun, our marriage agreement hasn't been settled yet, and I refuse to be given the green hat." After saying this, the figure brought out a small-sized Voidship from his ring. It was exceptional, definitely forged from rare materials by the hands of master craftsmen that vastly exceeded the ability of the Sealed Regions.
Woosh!
He sailed off toward the Aeternal Sky Starfield!