He had already merged the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art transmitted by Emperor Yanfeng into the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art, but the Nine Dragons Emperor's Art he had now comprehended was far more complex, and the language and script of the dragon race differed from those of humans, making fusion extremely difficult. Even absorbing only its body-tempering methods was arduous, not something that could be accomplished in a short time.

Before long, Xue Hu'er's voice came from outside: "Young Master, the Heavenly Dragon Star Palace has arrived!"

Shen Mu left Ling Yuxiu, who was deep in meditation, in the dragon nest, and flew out of it with Si Yunxiang. As the two flew out, their bodies gradually grew larger, and by the time their feet touched the ground they had returned to normal, without the slightest discomfort throughout.

"The Dragon-Rearing Lord is remarkable. He did not shrink the dragon nest — he refined and shrank the very space in which the nest resides."

Shen Mu sighed in admiration. Such an ability was comparable to the Taotie Pouch, though the Taotie Pouch concealed a space within, whereas the Dragon-Rearing Lord had used great magic power to shrink a space dozens of li across to a size of seven or eight chi.

"The Heavenly Dragon Star Palace is just ahead!" said Xue Hu'er.

Shen Mu looked forward, and a stretch of battered, ruined palaces came into view. The Heavenly Dragon Star Palace was a vast expanse of ancient buildings, and many villages sat among these clusters of structures. Above the palaces, boulders huge as mountains floated in the air — black, red, blue, every color.

These stones were riddled with holes and collided from time to time, sending rubble raining down. The great stones in the sky were battered into pits and hollows, yet the falling rubble never struck the villages, landing instead outside them.

The towering, majestic divine palaces and temples of old had become stretches of ruins, and yet they could still shelter the people who lived here.

Seeing these villagers in beast-hide garments, their faces full of simple honesty, Shen Mu could not help but feel a sense of warmth. Si Yunxiang, though, flushed a little: even in winter these villagers wore beast-hide shorts and beast-hide vests, and several half-grown youths of a dozen years or so had crouched down with half their backsides showing — quite shameful.

"I was like that too, back then!" declared the great Sect Master Shen with vigor.

Si Yunxiang pictured the great Sect Master Shen of those years with half his backside likewise exposed, and could not help but spit in disgust.

Shen Mu went forward, paid his respects to an elder of the village, and asked the precise location of the Sea of Stars. A short while later he returned, full of excitement: "That elder said the Sea of Stars is terribly dangerous — it is always spitting out stars, and at night it is dazzling! Let us hurry over!"

Si Yunxiang grumbled inwardly.

They brought the dragon horde to a great canyon. Below the canyon lay a deep abyss, unfathomable, yet the abyss was studded with countless points of light against the darkness. Looking down from above, it truly was like gazing at the starry sky, those lights like the stars of heaven.

"How beautiful!"

Xue Hu'er said excitedly, "It really is like the night sky! There is even a Milky Way down there!"

Si Yunxiang's scalp went numb. The Milky Way in the star-sea abyss did indeed resemble the Milky Way in the heavens, but the "stars" in this river were constantly colliding, like a pot of boiling porridge — clearly incomparably dangerous!

Whoosh —

A pitch-black, uncanny wind blew up from the abyss, and a "star" was blown out of it, huge as a mountain, yet it did not fall to the ground but floated in the air.

Suddenly another "star" flew out of the abyss. The two enormous stones collided with a dull boom, and a surge of power burst forth that set Si Yunxiang's heart quaking. She said hurriedly, "Sect Master! This star sea is not a place anyone of our realm can set foot in. Even a being of the Spirit Bridge realm who entered would likely never return!"

"Don't worry. We have the flood dragons to aid us; there will be no danger."

Shen Mu looked at the star-sea abyss, and felt a certain trepidation himself. He said, "The Dawn Spring is far from here, at the very center of the Desolate Ruins. But Yan Jingjing said that her Sun Herders came out from the star sea and returned to the Dawn Spring through the star sea as well. Could there be some passage in this star sea that leads swiftly to the Dawn Spring?"

He pondered for a moment, then blew on his golden flute, directing the flood dragons one by one to fly into the star sea. Si Yunxiang was as if facing a great enemy, then suddenly relaxed and shook her head: "If the stars come crashing at us, there is nothing I could do to block them. Better to see what tricks the Sect Master has up his sleeve."

Shen Mu cautiously activated the Dragon-Taming Formula, dodging star after star, drawing closer to the river of stars within that sea.

This place was clearly underground, yet it did not seem underground at all — it seemed another world.

They might have entered a vast, profound outer space, surrounded on all sides by stars the size of mountain ranges. Shen Mu looked back and saw that the place they had descended through was a huge fissure, with no surface visible.

The brilliant stars gave off light of every hue, and the river of stars coiled like a jade bracelet. Millions upon millions of so-called stars revolved within that swirl, colliding without cease, waves of power crashing over them until their faces stung as if cut by knives.

"Divine Dragon Shield!"

Shen Mu shouted. The flood dragons shifted their forms, tails joined, hind claws locked, heads down, curving over them like an inverted bowl to guard them at the center and fend off the impacts.

Shen Mu looked toward the center of that Milky Way, and saw there something like the yin-yang fish of a taiji diagram — like two wells of incomparable vastness, with countless stars revolving endlessly around them, and above the wells, it seemed, two more fissures.

That should be the surface of the Desolate Ruins, where the Dawn Spring and the Soul Spring lay!

Shen Mu was deeply shaken. This star sea did not look like something manufactured — it looked like another world, a world reduced countless times over!