**The Ninefold Heavenly Realm**: A cluster of three thousand floating islands formed from fragments of shattered space. Each island bears the remnants of a different civilization, drifting through the Sea of Stars in Eternal Night.
- **The Sea of Stars in Eternal Night**: The sky screen is made of flowing stardust, and stars periodically fall into the Chaos Sea, creating tides of spiritual energy. Cultivators must compete for star essence on the night the stars fall.
- **Reverse-Meridian Cultivation**: Unlike traditional cultivation, cultivators must regularly sever and reshape their own spiritual meridians. Each severing grants a special ability, but may drive them mad.
- **Star Essence Resonance**: By absorbing fragments of specific stars, cultivators gain innate divine abilities. Different combinations of star essence can produce unexpected mutations in their arts.
### Story Synopsis
- **Orphan of the Falling Star**: Lu Zhao, a boy from a fishing village, rescues a mysterious woman on the night the stars fall. Star essence infects his right arm, turning it crystalline, and unexpectedly gives him the ability to see the flow of spiritual energy.
- **The First Sign of Reverse-Meridian Cultivation**: To suppress the rampaging star essence, Lu Zhao is forced, under the mysterious woman's guidance, to sever the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian. He discovers that after severing it, spiritual energy flows three times faster.
- **Mystery of the Floating Islands**: The two board the Nine Luminaries Skyship in search of the Boundary-Stabilizing Compass, which can suppress the star essence. They discover that every passenger aboard is hiding a secret.
- **Anomaly in the Star Chart**: When Lu Zhao absorbs a second piece of star essence, a strange Three Enclosures star chart forms within him. It can disrupt the flow of other people's meridians, provoking the cultivators aboard the ship to attack him.
- **The Truth of Eternal Night**: As the skyship crosses the eye of the storm, Lu Zhao sees a massive bronze coffin floating in the Chaos Sea. Its lid is covered with carvings related to his own star
