Paragon of Sin

A few years ago, the entire universe under the purview of the Mortal Dao experienced a dramatic change.

The Solar Stars' limitations have been lifted! Countless Heavenly Seers and powerful beings sought answers and information into this unexpected inclusion of a newly defined category-Defiant! They scryed for the cause by looking into the past, but as if guarded by the Mortal Dao themselves, many suffered backlashes or found incomplete information that simply wasn't enough to hone onto the reason!

They, however, celebrated its occurrence! Numerous, formerly, pinnacle geniuses born too early, ascended too fast, wailed despair and anger, cursing the world for their inability to establish the new pinnacle of cultivation as mortals. They could only use this opportunity to seek out assistance to push their Absolute-sized World-Bound Star Domains to the next stage using their luxurious resources and great backing. And for those at the cusp of ascending, challenging rankings, or facing competitors amongst their forces, shifted their complete focus from preparing to ascend to elevating their World-Bound Star Domains! Countless star farms were harvested and all sorts of heavenly materials such as the Astralis Tree experienced noticeable decreases in the universe. The struggle had begun!

But the wails of despair wouldn't stop as these Absolute-sized Solar Stars increased and increased in size beyond their previous maximum without any interference from the Mortal Dao, yet there was no sign of them shattering their limits!

San Yongli tied her hair into a tight, uplifted ponytail as she held it with a crimson hair tie that shone with a faint aura of mysticism. Her expression shifted dramatically.

"What do you mean there's a new size category for Solar Stars? When?"

Wen Mingna sat nearby on the giant corpse of a Titan Race cultivator in golden soft body armor, cutting a valiant, heavenly figure of strength and beauty, completely unlike a Heavenly Seer. There were signs of sword scars and areas where arrows tried to pierce, and she drank from a crystalline waterskin.

"It's called Defiant."

"Defiant? How domineering. What's the size minimum?" Ma Sujiang asked. A line of blood leaked from her left nostril, which she ignored, as she looked at the sky-the battlefield for Ascended beings.

"Size minimum?" Wen Mingna mused as she pursed her lips. "I don't know."

San Yongli clenched her fists after fixing her messy hair, regaining her bewitching looks by a little. She had a path set out for the pinnacle, and now a new pinnacle had formed. She had to work harder. Her glabella glowed softly.

Wen Mingna imperceptibly gave San Yongli a sidelong glance. Her fingers moved a little. Not even San Yongli noticed a tiny, almost insignificant wisp of golden light escape her glabella and slither slowly until it reached Wen Mingna's finger.

"I'm sure Tian Yinwu will want to know," Wen Mingna said as she stretched and rose from her corpse seat. Then, she looked at the sky, a silver-eyed face flashed within her mind, and she couldn't resist the urge to smile as she touched her lips subconsciously.

"Yeah, let's go." San Yongli nodded.

Ma Sujiang's expression flashed with a hint of despair, and she gritted her teeth and steeled her heart. She began to fly upwards once again! The Battlefield....was not the best place for a merchant!

Unknown.

A single word, yet it perfectly encapsulated Wei Wuyin's understanding of Little Defiant's size: Unknown.

Years ago, Wei Wuyin challenged his Star Core Astral Tribulation-the Mortal Star Eradication Tribulation. Little Defiant was born during. However, during its birth, during its repeated feats of devouring Absolute Stars of the Alpha and Omega, it had grown to a size unrivaled, and its existence had exceeded the limits of the Mortal Dao, shattering heaven's limits defiantly! It defied the norm, so it was named Defiant.

However, Little Defiant had remained in his Mind's Eye's unique metaphysical space in reduced form as a World-Bound Star Domain, and Wei Wuyin was unable to determine its size regardless of how hard he tried. While the Heavenly War Spirit, Bai Xiu, and his four Astral Souls could 'perceive' Little Defiant's size, Wei Wuyin simply was unable to.

This ignorance led to the Heavenly War Spirit giving a vehement and strict warning to NEVER release Little Defiant. Her words exactly: "You can't release it-EVER! You'll bring about the end of the Sealed Regions if you do. And everyone, I mean, EVERYONE in it."

Wei Wuyin had replied at the time as if he fully understood the implication, but after using Little Defiant's power and his remarkable control over its heat and radiance, he contemplated clearing out an entire or two former Stellar Region-sized territories in the Neo-Dawn Stellar Region and allowing Little Defiant to oversee the area, genuinely establishing the Neo-Dawn Empire's greatest protection against those unfathomable beings and resource to nurture the Ascendants.

This idea rummaged around for a while before he decided against doing so until the Neo-Dawn Empire stabilized with Baby Defiant after a few years, perhaps a few decades even. It'll give him more time to find a suitable location.

After seeing the phenomenal celestial worlds of the Ascended Sovereigns of the Azure-Prime Galactic Zone, which spanned for trillions upon trillions of miles in every direction, Wei Wuyin felt that deploying Little Defiant after his plans had been completed regarding the All-Stellar Ending Calamity was best.

It had more than enough space.

At the time, he recalled the One-Star Era, where it was said a single Solar Star had basked an entire galaxy, specifically the Onestar Galaxy, in its radiance for ages, a Solar Star classified as the 'apex' of the Absolute-size category. It was said to be the limit that exceeded the preconceived limit. The body of Jiaolong upon failing to ascend beyond!

All other Solar Stars artificially created by Mystic Ascendants or higher would experience Mortal Annihilation should they exceed the size of the preconceived limit of 'Absolute'. A sign of the Mortal Dao's absolute unwillingness to allow such an existence. Moreover, the Mystic Dao never interfered. But there were always extraordinary exceptions. Always.

That single sentence of thought: "It has more than enough space," made Wei Wuyin understand the depths of his ignorance as he basked in Little Defiant's enormity. Size. The Mortal Dao's classification of size was simple: all Dwarfs, artificial or natural, needed to be of a minimum size to earn that title. That minimum size was exactly 108,000 miles in diameter, almost always in a spherical shape. This was bigger than most large-sized planets. After Dwarf Stars, the next classifications were, in order of smallest to largest: Titan, Colossal, Supermassive, Absolute, and the newly added: Defiant.

The further classifications followed a very simple logic, all based on this minimum. Every Titan Star must be at least ten times the minimum of Dwarf Stars, so the limit of Dwarf Stars was between 108,000 to 1,079,999 miles in spherical diameter, and Dwarf Stars at that limit were considered Apex Dwarf Stars. Every Colossal Star must be at least ten times the minimum of Titan Stars, as such Titan Stars were between 1,080,000 to 10,799,999 miles.

Meanwhile, the classification begins to leap from Colossal Stars and upwards, jumping from ten to a hundred to a thousand to further beyond! Wei Wuyin had to once write out the numbers to wrap his head around that size, once put numbers in a notebook:

Dwarf-sized Solar Stars: (Minimum) 108,000 to (Maximum) 1,079,999 Miles.

Titan-sized Solar Stars: 1,080,000 to 10,799,999 Miles.

Colossal-sized Solar Stars: 10,800,000 to 1,079,999,999 Miles.

Supermassive-sized Solar Stars: 1,080,000,000 to 1,079,999,999,999 Miles.

Absolute-sized Solar Stars: (Known Limit) 1,080,000,000,000!

That was before Defiant-size's inclusion as Absolute-size was the ABSOLUTE limit of all Solar Stars. Just a single mile divided the two categories of Supermassive and Absolute, yet it was as difficult as ascending, and the fundamental quality was as vastly different as a Mortal and an Ascended being. Moreover, it was heavily rumored that the Onestar Galaxy's Solar Star born of Jiaolong's corpse had exceeded that limit!

Unfortunately, it was difficult to determine if that was true or not.

A diameter of 1.08 trillion miles was not too gargantuan when the galactic scale was considered, as it was said that the Absolute-sized Solar Star occupied only a Stellar Region and illuminated an entire Galactic Zone, the Azure-Prime Galactic Zone! Meanwhile, the Ancient Sealed Regions spanned trillions of miles from edge to edge! While the three Ascended Sovereigns had territories that were trillions upon trillions of miles in length!

So what was 1.08 trillion miles then? It was daunting and impressive beneath the breadth of a mortal's mind but not too extreme to grasp by any with sufficiently expanded horizons on a galactic scale. Just the White Abyss Galaxy and Onestar Galaxy were quintillions of miles across from end to end, as the three territories didn't occupy the entirety of the Galaxy and had plenty of space between them!

If an Absolute-sized Solar Star was placed in the smallest Galaxy, it'd certainly stand out the most, illuminating the entirety in its radiance and every lifeform that could see the starry skies would see it without a doubt, but it wouldn't dominate the galaxy!

However...Wei Wuyin finally understood the stress in the Heavenly War Spirit's voice back then. Those words echoed in his mind as the warmth of Little Defiant's light shone upon his skin, gently caressing it with the most comfortable temperature suited for his body. The level of intimate knowledge regarding his body and soul was on full display here.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!"

"WHAT IS THAT?!?! IS THAT THE STAR? YOUR STAR?!"

"No way! It's...holy heavens! That's impossible! What is that thing? How can it exist? Wait, how can you hold it in your Mind's Eye? Why isn't your soul burning?! Is it really your World-Bound Star? No way! How can it be this big? How can anything be this big?! It can't be that massive!"

Wei Wuyin understood all of it. The warning and what the Heavenly War Spirit meant by 'everyone' in her hysterics. It wasn't limited to just the Ancient Sealed Regions.

"Lord of Stars, huh? How apt." Wei Wuyin's Celestial Eyes shone as he stared at Little Defiant, fully realized.

1.08 trillion miles?

Wei Wuyin blinked. Small things.

This?

This defied the heavens.

3,596,400,000,000,000!

3,596,400,000,000,000!!!

3,596,400,000,000,000!!!!!

"3.5 quintillion miles..." Wei Wuyin relied on his trusty mental notebook as he did the math. While Supermassive to Absolute was a thousand times the difference of the minimum, Little Defiant was 333,000 the minimum!!!

[Author's Note: Little Defiant's Arc right here.

To those who haven't fully grasped that size yet, still needing just a little boost to your cultivation by using google, let me assist. Little Defiant is bigger than a dwarf galaxy of our universe. XD

ENORMOUS!

Milky Way's bigger though.]