7 ASTRAL REALM

Mo Chen, also known as The Flaming God of Astral Realm was an expert who was at 9th layer of pseudo-God stage and only half-step away from God stage, he could be considered as a half-God stage expert.

Although his realm of cultivation was not really in the God stage, being only half-step away, but it was more that sufficient to suppress the whole of Astral Realm!

In the Astral realm, where people cultivated using the Astral Essence of the stars and other celestial bodies, he was the only one who cultivated using Fire Essence of the stars.

When Mo Chen was young, he was unwillingly dragged into the internal conflicts within his family, which was a prominent family within it's region. Due to the internal conflicts within the family, he was left crippled as a result and as such his talents were stripped before they could even blossom.

Having his meridians crippled had left him with no more hope for cultivation and was later banished from the family for trying to rebel within the family, although he was actually innocent and the victim.

Mo Chen felt truly angered, there was a saying which Mo Chen remembered his mother telling him once: " when two sides fight, its the innocents that suffer."

That day Mo Chen realized how true were the words of his late-mother.

Being from a branch family, his value was not even worth a single cent, that's how domineering the main family was.

Mo Chen intially was left with no hope due to him being crippled, but his heart was filled with flames of vengeance. He had vowed that as long as he existed, there would surely come a day when he would wipe out the Mo family from its roots!

For the next decade Mo Chen wandered about in the Astral Realm, given his crippled cultivation, he didn't dare go to the dangerous areas and tried to avoid places filled with cultivators.

When Mo Chen was 31 years old, he had wandered the Astral Realm for a decade but given how vast the Astral realm actually was, the portion he visited was incomparable.

Given the importance of cultivation in Astral realm where everyone strived to cultivate, crippled people like him were treated as dirt by the cultivators. As such Mo Chen spent most of his time going around to mortal kingdoms and places which didn't have much of cultivation influence.

Although cultivation was what everyone strived for in the Astral Realm, It didn't mean that absolutely everyone was cultivating, there were people who didn't want to cultivate given their low talents and aptitude or that they felt that the cultivation was filled with lot of bloodshed and was not for the weak hearted and hence they prevented their younger generations from cultivating too.

There were also people like Mo Chen, who were intentionally left crippled so that they would lose their ability to cultivate.

Mo Chen during those days had even considered settling down and starting a family; marrying a beautiful wife, having children and enjoying the warmth of the mortal world for the remaining of his life.

But he felt that he should still cause some major loss to the Mo family, otherwise he wouldn't die in peace.

During one of those days, Mo Chen lay on the side of a barren hill as he contemplated whether he should settle or not, as he did, he suddenly felt hard tremors around the whole hill and Mo Chen was rigorously shaken by the seismic activity that occurred and could only find himself helplessly rolling around in the ground.

After the tremors calmed down, Mo Chen who was covered in dirt and dust looked towards the peak of the barren hill and noticed that the space there was very unstable and soon it was torn open.

Mo Chen felt that perhaps it was an expert, since when one reached high realms of cultivation they could travel from one place to another by ripping apart space and travel through the void. But upon noticing that no one arriving, Mo Chen went near towards the void.

Keeping a safe distance, Mo Chen saw that inside the void there was some sort of an ancient temple which was suspended there loftly. Although Mo Chen might be sometimes dull but he was definitely not stupid. He knew that this was definitely some sort of a ruin left behind by an expert, perhaps there was even some inheritance there. Given this golden opportunity, Mo Chen decided to risk it all and stepped into the void.

He found out that the void was surprisingly very stable. Given how he was a cripple with no cultivation, he would have had his body torn out completely, but Mo Chen was praying for a miracle and was surprised when he found himself safe!

Mo Chen had in fact had some suicidal thoughts when he had attempted to go into the void, because he just couldn't live a bleak life anymore as it was unbearable for him.

And this choice of his had indeed proved correct, as later on Mo Chen obtained the complete legacy of The Flaming God Asru from that ancient temple.

The legacy provided him with many precious resources and martial skills and a strong divine cultivation technique, after obtaining the legacy he was transported into a remote corner in the Astral Realm.

Using precious resources that he had obtained from the temple, Mo Chen reforged his meridians and cultivated there for next three centuries.

As for the commotion caused by that tear in the space and that ancient temple in the void, it died down. As those experts who had come over there in hopes for some precious resources found that they couldn't enter into the void as there was some force pushing them out.

After waiting out for about a day, they noticed that the ancient temple in the void cracked apart and disappeared into nothingness and the torn space reconstructed itself and closed as if it had never existed, this event didn't make any waves in Astral Realm given that only a few experts who were nearby were able to bear witness to it. But the legacy left behind by Flaming God Asru benefitted Mo Chen as in the next three centuries he successfully ascended to the 9th layer of pseudo-God stage.

This achievement was mostly due to the support of many precious resources which he had obtained from the ancient temple along with the dao comprehensions of Flaming God Asru. hence it was a given that his progress speed was beyond fast.

After Mo Chen had reached 9th layer of pseudo-God stage, he realized that there was a huge gap between pseudo-God stage and God stage and this prevented him from making a breakthrough. Given that it would take longer to achieve another breakthrough to a higher stage, Mo Chen decided to first take control of the whole Astral Realm, even the peak experts and old foggies who had half a foot in the grave couldn't oppress this young nova as his cultivation was at 9th layer of pseudo-God realm, he soon self-proclaimed himself as The King of Astral Realm.

Most of the peak experts in Astral Realm had a cultivation which was at 5th,6th or 7th layer of pseudo-God stage. Hence, given his cultivation level, Mo Chen could easily oppress these so-called experts.

After killing many experts and establishing his supremacy, he decided to finally make a move against the Mo family!

He decided that instead of giving them an easy death, he would humiliate them thoroughly. So that each day they would wish they were dead!

Although Mo family was strong but in the entirety of Astral Realm, it could only be considered as an average strong family. Moreover, they would have never expected that the new self-proclaimed Ruler of Astral Realm, The Flaming God Mo Chen was actually a branch family member that they had previously crippled and banished!

Upon making his way to the Mo Family, he first killed away all their strong experts. Even the Mo family ancestor, who was at 1st layer of pseudo-God stage.

After that he made all the branch family members leave, he knew these people were mostly innocent and were always oppressed by the domineering folks from the main family.

Then Mo Chen proceeded and had the young children of the main family butchered like sheep. The people could only watch onto this horrible sight helplessly. But he didn't stop there, he then proceeded to tear away all limbs of the old people of the main family. The sight was no different than a bunch of chicken waiting to be butchered.

Many people begged and cried out painfully, but Mo Chen turned a blind eye to them. Mo Chen never considered himself as a good person, as such all that pain and hate which he got from the main family when he was young was now multiplied over a hundred times and given back to the main family.

Those who were left now were the adults of the main family, he used his Flaming blade and castrated all the men and enjoyed their women, after this event Mo Chen became the public enemy of many forces, this consisted of the people who had lost their experts against him when the latter established his supremacy in Astral Realm and many righteous experts disdained such a strong expert who had no constraints in his thoughts and didn't possess the rightful demeanour of an expert. It was no wonder why he couldn't breakthrough to the God stage.

After having taken his vengeance, Mo Chen spent the next few decades trying to breakthrough to the God stage but it seemed as if there was a never-ending chasm in front of his path to God stage. He realized he had reached some sort of a bottleneck in his cultivation.

Nevertheless he couldn't really do anything but keep trying. One day when Mo Chen was sitting on a lush green mountain and was looking towards a small stream of water, he saw a pair of Mink-like animals who were mating there in pleasure but suddenly a Fox-like animal jumped out of a bush which was near the stream and killed the male Mink-like animal who was in his bliss. The latter had died immediately without knowing what killed him. Then the fox quickly grabbed onto the carcass of the Mink-like animal and sped away into deep forest leaving behind a scared female Mink who quickly ran away into her burrow.

Looking at this scene, Mo Chen suddenly seemed to have gained some realization regarding life and death, perhaps if the male Mink was alert, it could have escaped its fate but pleasure had blinded that creature and clouded its mind. Desires! This was something which all the living forms possessed in some way or the other, this could be considered as something which bound all mortals. So what would happen is one gave up and got rid of all their desires? then wouldn't they forge a way to ascend to God stage?!

This sudden realization struck him deep and Mo Chen began to cultivate on the spot, he soon felt that he was nearing the God stage. As he was nearing the God stage, the entire region around him started rumbling and there was lot of seismic activity that occurred along with darkening of the clouds all over in the region.

This was a phenomena which occurred when one was using his Qi to tap into the heavenly Qi, which was the most purest form of Qi. This was also the initial-phase of someone trying to breakthrough to the God stage, many experts in the nearby regions became aware of this fact and were on alert. In fact the region where Mo Chen was in, was quite isolated in the Astral Realm. But many experts were secretly keeping tabs on him and as such it didn't take long before all those experts got hold of this information and they felt even more tensed.

Soon they gathered together and headed towards his direction, as they had mutually decided to ambush him to prevent him from making a breakthrough to a higher stage. Normally Mo Chen didn't care about these experts, given his strength he didn't even look them in the eye. Although he knew they were keeping tabs on him, he didn't care. If those experts tried to make a move against him, he wouldn't mind to let them know the difference between heaven and earth.

But later, Mo Chen realized how wrong he was. He had already started cultivating and was reaching close to the God stage but as he felt he was just about to step into God stage he suddenly felt immense pain throughout his soul as if it was being torn apart.

COUGH*COUGH* Mo Chen had suffered from cultivation deviation as he rapidly coughed out blood and his face suddenly became pale and he knew his soul was damaged heavily but luckily he managed to stop cultivating at the right moment, if he was a bit late then his soul might not even exist.

"How could this be? I thought my realization regarding the desires should be spot-on! where did I go wrong?" as Mo Chen mumbled, he felt presence of about ten experts at 5th to 7th layer of pseudo-God stage heading his way.

"heh, those old foggies probably were afraid that I would reach the God stage and hence they decided to ambush me when I was trying to make a breakthrough." thought Mo Chen.

Since his soul was immensely injured, the surrounding range which he could sense had decreased rapidly so when those experts came close only then Mo Chen was able to sense them.

The void in front of him tore open and ten pseudo-god stage old foggies came out from there and stared at Mo Chen with hatred. Mo Chen had killed many experts to establish his might as the ruler of Astral Realm and this led to the experts who were acquainted with those experts killed, to develop immense hatred towards Mo Chen and some of these experts were here to ensure that this black star wouldn't reach God stage, otherwise given how evil-hearted he was, the Astral Realm would be doomed.

"hehe, I was here prepared to fight you to death but who knew you suffered cultivation deviation and got yourself injured! this simply makes things easier, ahaha!!" one expert yelled out.

"You will get fruits of your karma! that year you humiliated my daughter right in front of me and I couldn't even do anything! but today even if i die, i will take you down with me!" said another expert, his eyes red filled with hatred and immense anger.

All the experts had locked onto Mo Chen and soon the heaven-shaking fight that would go down in the history of Astral Realm, began.

Even though Mo Chen was injured, he was still a 9th layer pseudo-God stage expert but due to his grave injuries he was barely able to keep up with ten pseudo-God stage experts who were at 5th,6th and 7th stages.

This heaven-defying battle continued on for 3 days and 3 nights until on the dawn of the fourth day Mo Chen lost his left arm and his right leg but still managed to kill of two 5th, three 6th and two 7th layer pseudo-God stage experts, but he was being slowly pushed towards a dead end.

On the 5th day when both the sides had metted it out for 5 days straight, Mo Chen for a brief moment let down his guard due to the increasing fatigue, his injuries if not treated properly could cause him permanent damage, he wanted to escape from here as fast as possible but given that due to the fight many experts had come to observe this heaven-shaking battle and were watching them from afar, one could say almost 80 percent of the high level experts on Astral Realm were here!

If Mo Chen ran away now, his name would be left as a joke for all eternity but even so he didn't care now, he wanted to use the void breaking teleportation amulet which he obtained from that ancient temple all those years ago to escape to a far corner of Astral Realm but given how those experts kept on attacking him without giving him any rest, he couldn't even summon it out of his storage ring!

In these few days those originally ten experts had got more assistance from other peak level experts and a total of 40 peak level experts were continuously attacking him, it was no wonder why by the fourth day he had lost an arm and a leg, but today on the 5th day when he briefly let down a gap in his defence, a strong terrifying force sudden pierced right through his chest and his heart.

COUGH* Mo Chen violently coughed out blood and looked behind him and he saw an old fogey who looked as if he would die anytime, but the tremendous strength that was emanating from him was so vigorous as if it defied death.

"8th layer of pseudo-God stage! I couldn't believe that you so-called experts would stoop so low just to ambush me when I was down, but i was wrong! you, a 8th layer of pseudo-God stage is the most shameless one that I have ever seen! You most probably waited out for days, just for this one-strike! While your patience is admirable, your shameless-ness is already in the God stage already, ahaha", laughed out Mo Chen , then his eyes dimmed, his remaining soul dissipated as he fell towards the barren ground which was now filled with deep scars and craters, depicting the heaven-shaking war that had occurred in this region.

Mo Chen's body fell onto the ground, and the ground crackled and the winds blew heavily in the region. Today the most powerful figure of Astral Realm had fallen.