Chapter 473: Heavenly Ruin’s Hidden Moves and the Gathering Storm

Song Chi didn’t waste any time. Seeing the contract was sealed, he started grilling Lü Xuewu, the captain of the Zhulu-class Cruiser, about everything he knew.

Beyond the details of his own ship, the Tianwu Xuan Frost, Song Chi focused more on the Lü Family of Ji Han.

As Lü Xuewu spilled his secrets, Song Chi’s gaze flickered, thoughtful and sharp.

According to him, the Lü Family had far more hidden strength than they showed publicly. For example, they claimed to own five battleships, but Lü Xuewu knew of at least seven, plus several outposts scattered across other star domains.

…

Song Chi finished extracting all the Lü Family’s secrets, even jotting down the coordinates of their Level 6 Floating-Land Colony in the distant star domain. He planned to pass it on to the family elders—maybe they could put the screws to the Lü Family using this intel.

After all, the feud between their families ran deep now. With a golden opportunity to strike, Song Chi sure wasn’t about to let it go.

He then had Lü Xuewu list out the full specs of the Tianwu Xuan Frost.

After looking over the info, Song Chi’s brows arched in interest.

He had to admit—as the Lü Family’s direct successor, Lü Xuewu’s ship was genuinely impressive.

Besides a Torch-class hull upgraded to level 44, the vessel even boasted a Silver Legendary Component, three Red Epic Components, and more than ten Orange Components.

Granted, a good chunk of those probably came from the recent large-scale expansion war, but even so, it was an enviable setup.

The Silver Legendary Component was called the Hearthstone Return Device, a special kind of teleportation module.

Hearthstone Return Device Lv50

Quality: Silver

Trait 1: Hearthstone Teleportation

Trait 2: Hearthstone Communication

Trait 3: Doubled Teleportation Range

Trait 4: +800 warship spatial resistance

Energy Cost: 30 per second (Psionic Units)

Effect: Any being holding a hearthstone can activate it and instantly teleport back to the host warship. Current max range: 5000 (2500 x 2) light-years.

…

{Hearthstone Teleportation: Spend 30,000 Psionic Units to create a hearthstone. Max of 6 hearthstones can exist at once.}

{Hearthstone Communication: Enables real-time communication between any hearthstone and the Hearthstone Return Device. Max range equals max teleportation distance.}

Looking at the Silver Component, Song Chi couldn’t help but be intrigued. Compared to the Soulcalling Demon Golem on the Heavenly Ruin, this one had way more range—and the hearthstones could communicate in real-time too.

After weighing his options, Song Chi decided not to strip Lü Xuewu of the Hearthstone Return Device.

It wasn’t out of kindness—a Silver Legendary Oddity’s value spoke for itself. But Song Chi had his own plans. He wanted Lü Xuewu back in the Lü Family as his spy, armed with a Market-Walking Token, sending live intel about their every move.

If he took the Hearthstone Return Device, the Lü Family would surely notice, since Lü Xuewu’s possession of it wasn’t exactly a secret.

As for the ship’s three Red Components, there was a Red hull armor, a Red Super Main Cannon, and a rarer type—a special Position-Switching Module.

Position-switching modules always reminded Song Chi of that trip to the Pusa Legacy Tower. When the golden Pusa Zen Seal appeared, the various alien races went berserk. Back then, Song Gang used a position-switching module on the Heavenly Ruin to try to escape death.

If not for the Abnormal Status Purifier, that ploy might’ve worked.

But Lü Xuewu’s red position-switcher was leagues ahead of Song Gang’s old purple model.

Warship Position-Switcher Lv50

Quality: Red

Trait 1: Warship Position Switch

Trait 2: +600 Swap Priority

Trait 3: Cross-Starswap

Energy Cost: 20 per second (Psionic Units)

Effect: Boosts spatial resistance by 1,000 after installation.

…

{Warship Position Switch: Spend 50,000 Psionic Units to target another warship. Instantly swaps the equipped ship’s position with the target. 48-hour cooldown.}

{Cross-Starswap: Spend 80,000 Psionic Units to bind to another warship. When the bound ship faces a crisis—no matter where it is—it can trigger this effect with consent from the host captain. Temporarily swaps positions, letting the host ship take its place in battle for 30 minutes. 50-year cooldown.

(Note: Can bind up to three warships. Regardless of which ship triggers it, all bindings enter cooldown and can’t be used by others until the cooldown ends.)}

The Hearthstone Return Device was tricky, but with the Warship Position-Switcher there was nothing holding Song Chi back. He had Lü Xuewu hand it over immediately.

Its position-switching trait was handy, but what really caught Song Chi’s eye was the third feature: Cross-Starswap.

Truth be told, this worked a bit like a projection module’s warship projection—basically letting you summon another ship to aid you for a while. But with one big difference: normal projectors had range limits. Cross-Starswap did not.

The Sea of Stars was vast. For context, the Heavenly Ruin’s Shadowfall Chapter only worked within 5,000 light-years. Even the family’s newly acquired, level 70 Void Sigil could only project across a million light-years. That’s nothing compared to the endless expanse of deep space.

But the Cross-Starswap’s strength lay in ignoring all distance, allowing you to swap in from anywhere. Even if the bound ship ran into mortal danger far across the galaxy, it could trigger this and swap instantly.

The only real drawback? That whopping 50-year cooldown. Even with Zen Seal · Internal · Time Acceleration and the Timepiece Chess, it would still take six and a half years to reset.

Still, Song Chi felt it was more than worth it. He planned to link the module to his dad’s, mom’s, and Song Ting’s ships, letting them ignore the Shadowfall Chapter’s range limits entirely.

As for Shen Youran, she had the Soulmate Pendant’s Yin-Yang Projection and her own Market Projection Token. No need to worry about her.

Once he finished mounting the Warship Position-Switcher on the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi upgraded it straight to level 60.

At level 60, Cross-Starswap could now bind to four ships at once. On top of his parents and Song Ting, he could later consider his grandparents too.

If anyone needed to head out on a risky mission, he could grant them temporary access.

…

With everything sorted, Song Chi let Lü Xuewu go as planned, sending him back to the Lü Family. Then he returned to Dragon Spine City.

His latest maneuvers made an impact. In the following years, not only did Song Family’s Dragon Spine City avoid decline, it thrived more than ever.

Once word—and footage—of Song Chi’s stand against Frostveil Fortress got out, Torch Captains flocked to the city. Combined with the Song Family’s great prices, they built a growing reputation. Before long, the Dragon Spine Commercial Tower was the talk of the region.

While the independent Torch Captains were crowding in, the various other factions withholdings in the public sector kept unusually quiet these days.

After all, not many had forgotten the Heavenly Ruin’s devastating strike that wiped out the Dreadnought’s projection.

…

Time went by in a flash. Suddenly, a decade had passed.

Today, the Omniverse Market was opening for a new round of trades.

In the Free Stall Area, Song Chi paused before a stall run by an imposing Ice Giant.

The towering giant radiated Fifth-Tier life-force and stood nearly ten meters tall, standing out among the countless exotic races in the area.

Odd thing was, Song Chi had already forced all incoming aliens to shrink down before entering the market. If not, this Ice Giant would have been tens of thousands of meters high.

“How much for this one?”

Pointing at a football-sized chunk of ice crystal on the counter, Song Chi—disguised as a Blueblood—looked up and asked.

“One wisp of Fifth-Tier Floating-Land Origin!”

The Ice Giant answered in a deep rumble.

Song Chi nodded calmly, not showing a hint of excitement. He quickly took out a wisp of Fifth-Tier Floating-Land Origin from his storage capsule and sealed the deal.

Only when he’d moved to the next stall did he quietly mutter,

“Alright, that’s all the rare materials needed for upgrading the Zhulu-class Cruiser to battleship. Now that my Guiding Technique just broke through to level 49, it’s finally time to start the warship evolution mission…”

That chunk of ice he’d just bought was none other than the Millennia Ice Mother Stone—a key ingredient for battleship advancement. With it, the Heavenly Ruin was fully prepped for rank-up.

He just had to clear things with the family first, then he could officially kick off the upgrade.

At the close of trading, the Ice Giant exchanged a Red Oddity for a Market-Walking Token.

Song Chi wasn’t surprised. Ice Giants were famous for being social—so this one probably had an entire clan out there.

Clearly, that made them a potential major customer down the line. Any Floating-Land that could produce Ice Giants had to be top tier.

…

After tallying up everything from the day, Song Chi made his way to the Divine Realm Task Platform.

Ever since the Omniverse Market upgraded to Fifth-Tier, Song Chi had boosted the golden task platform to level 70 right away—a cost of a Seventh‑Tier Floating-land Origin and a Dominion Soul, but the gigantic bonus was worth it.

Now with the Platform at Tier 7, Divine Realm player slots shot up to five million. Even after twenty years, spots weren’t all filled.

With millions of Divine Realm players at his disposal, Song Chi had reaped plenty of rewards these past years.

Even extremely rare Dense Black-Hole Stone, once near impossible to get, could now be sourced thanks to these millions spread through countless star domains.

They’d even managed to gather three bits of the much-coveted Antimatter Source—too small to upgrade the Antimatter Evolution Engine, but still impressive.

Today, though, Song Chi had logged in for another bounty.

“High rewards for basic and intermediate AIs…”

This was a mission he’d posted ages ago as Lord of the Divine Realm. Many had tried, but nobody had brought in any AIs—at least, until just now. Suddenly, the completion notice came through.

With a thought, Song Chi received several dozen base-level AIs.

Using his Divine Realm Lord’s authority, he checked the quest handover—

Unlike he’d expected, the one delivering AIs wasn’t one of the rare mechanical-race players, but looked like an average kobold.

“Interesting. A Fourth-Tier kobold got hold of so many simple AIs. If I get the chance, I should ask if he can source intermediate-grade ones too.”

Not lingering in the Divine Realm Player Trading Space, Song Chi soon returned to the market.

Back in the Free Stall Area—aboard the Heavenly Ruin itself—

With repeated flashes of silver, the Sky-Domain AI, stuck at level 50 for years, finally broke through to level 60.

As he checked the new stats, just as expected—future upgrades would require intermediate AIs.

But more than that, Song Chi was thrilled with the Sky-Domain AI’s boosted abilities after reaching Tier 6.

Take its ‘Fully Automated Sub-AI Machine’ function. It could now split off 3,000 sub-brains at once, up from 1,000 previously.

No, it wasn’t a true game-changer, but the thought of commanding 3,000 Hellfire Mechs, all dishing out heavy artillery, definitely made an impression.

And if he could somehow field the even-more-destructive Fifth-Tier Mara Void Mecha? The devastation would be off the charts.

Thinking of that, Song Chi rubbed his forehead and sighed.

Never mind the difficulty of mass-producing Fifth-Tier Mara Void Mecha. Even if the family’s research division did create an assembly line, buying 3,000 units would be a near-impossible expense.

By Song Chi’s estimates, buying that many at once would bankrupt even him.

He shook his head, letting the thought go, and exited the market to send off a quick message to the family.

Now that all the preparations for warship evolution were completed, Song Chi was eager to see the Heavenly Ruin take its next leap.

With its stacked loadout, a single upgrade would let multiple modules hit Tier 7. At that point, Song Chi could even square off against a Dreadnought.

Of course, the resources required would be bottomless. Thankfully his winnings from the last expansion war, plus market trade and Divine Realm Platform profits, should be enough to fuel the next surge.