Chapter 479: Heavenly Ruin’s Vanguard

Song Chi understood exactly what his ancestor meant.

Right now, Ru Zu was in the critical moment of advancing to the sixth tier. Ever since the Song Family had been labeled a ‘quasi-Immortal House,’ outsiders had paid increasing attention to every movement on Dragon-Spine Continent. Countless forces lurked in the shadows, watching their every move.

That’s why the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang could absolutely not leave the continent lightly. A single misstep and the Song Family’s secrets would be laid bare for all to see—something the clan would never allow.

On top of that, the Storm Calamity Floating-Land was currently tangled up dealing with a sixth-tier Doomstar, keeping the Prime Ancestor occupied as well. In the end, only he was left to act.

Still, Song Chi was confident in the Heavenly Ruin, now promoted to a battleship. A sixth-tier Goldfissure Sky Spider was nothing he couldn’t handle alone. So he didn’t hesitate long before agreeing.

Once everything was settled, the Clan Elder’s projection quickly dissipated. Projecting across the starry sky was hardly effortless: every time the Dragon Whale Hall was activated from its roots on Dragon-Spine Continent, it consumed not just any floating-land origin, but the high-grade kind.

The clan’s orders moved fast. Even before the support arrangements were finalized, a first-class family summons was already being broadcast across Dragon-Spine Floating-land’s network.

{Family Ancestral Hall: All clan members heed the command! All tier-two and tier-three members currently on Dragon-Spine Continent, report to the God-Mountain Plaza immediately!}

{Family Ancestral Hall: All clan members…}

{Dragon-Spine…}

Three consecutive summons rattled every Song clansman on Dragon-Spine Continent.

“An ancestral summons? I can’t remember this happening for the past two hundred years, aside from the Great Pioneer War and the full-scale clan migration!”

“Yeah, what’s happened?”

“Doesn’t matter. If the clan summons us, we tier-twos and threes have to respond immediately. I’m heading out now!”

“I’m already at God-Mountain Plaza!”

……

It’s no overreaction to initiate a clanwide summons for an entire primal secret domain. Even the less valuable primordial-level domains rival ordinary gold oddities in worth. The very best can match supreme black oddities.

Under the ancestral summons, it took less than ten minutes for fleets to amass over the white jade square at Dragon Spine Sacred Mountain’s base.

A quick scan revealed dozens of cruisers, each a kilometer long, and over a thousand escort ships stretching out for miles.

Amid the crowd of warships, Song Hao’s eyes narrowed as he gained a whole new understanding of the family’s strength.

From what he knew, most of the clan had been assigned to new Star Domains for development. Over ninety-five percent were no longer on Dragon-Spine Continent—including him; he’d only remained after his insights in the Dragon-Spine Secret Domain, then stayed busy practicing new techniques.

Yet, even with most absent, there were still over seventy cruisers gathered. A rough count placed the number of tier-three Song members at over 1,400.

As for the tier-twos? Their numbers had to be close to one hundred thousand.

Song Hao couldn’t help but be shocked by what he discovered.

Less than a century ago, that number had been a third of what it was now.

Still lost in amazement, Song Hao’s ears suddenly rang with silence—just a moment ago, the chatter on the warship comms fell completely still.

He looked up, gazing through the Vastness’s panoramic view towards Dragon Spine Sacred Mountain in the distance. There, he spotted a tiny spatial fissure tearing open in the skies. Through it, a familiar figure radiating near-perfect mastery of the Law of Space stepped out.

“It’s Lord Song Chi! Lord Chi is here!”

“Such insane presence. Lord Chi’s reached the fifth tier, hasn’t he? Whoa!”

“If I remember right, he’s not even two hundred yet, is he?”

……

Listening to the chorus of shock over the comm, Song Hao’s face didn’t change much. He kept his gaze glued to the figure floating in the sky, a blend of respect, gratitude, and resolve burning in his eyes.

Song Hao felt deeply thankful to Song Chi as his predecessor and role model. But, more than gratitude and respect, there was something else…

Long ago, Song Hao had set Song Chi as his goal to chase. He wanted to be a symbol of the new Song generation too—to carve out fame for himself and the family, to spread the Dinghai Song name throughout the Morningstar Kingdom, the Tianpan Galaxy, and the farthest reaches of Torch Human Civilization.

“All cruiser captains, and half of all escort captains—recall your ships!”

With fifth-tier astral energy infusing his command, Song Chi’s voice echoed over the entire Dragon Spine Sacred Mountain.

At the same time, everyone watched as a light shot from Song Chi’s brow and morphed into a massive, fourteen-kilometer-long warship—the Heavenly Ruin—suspended high above.

Because the Ember Battleship Crew License equipped on the Heavenly Ruin was only blue grade, upgraded to tier three, it could only support a crew of around a thousand Torch Captains. It simply couldn’t take everyone, so only half of the escort captains were chosen.

Even so, nearly nine hundred Song members were pulled aboard by the Heavenly Ruin.

Once everyone was aboard, a powerful wave of spatial energy surged around the ship as Song Chi activated the jump.

Inside the warship, despite having their internal astral energy sealed, the near-thousand Song members couldn’t hide their excitement and curiosity. Some inspected every corner of the Heavenly Ruin’s cabin, others peered out through the panoramic displays at the Dragon-Spine Floating-land rushing by below.

None of them knew exactly where Song Chi would take them, but one thing was certain—the elders would never send them to their deaths.

Suddenly, murmurs ran through the group as the Heavenly Ruin’s external displays flickered off and the viewports sealed too.

Inside the command module, Song Chi ignored the calls from the crew. The battleship had already arrived near Burningfall Plains, about to enter a massive composite illusion space spread across the sky.

This immense illusion contained dozens of spatial wormholes the clan had developed over more than a century. With the secrecy of the High-Dimensional Wormhole Generator at stake, these new members couldn’t be allowed to see too much.

Unlike the common clansmen assigned to explore Sacred Dragon Continent, who spent decades shuttling only between Dragon-Spine Continent and Sacred Dragon Floating-land, these youngsters would soon serve in various star realms. The chance of leaking secrets was just too high.

Song Chi’s decision to seal all outside views was, in truth, for their own good.

Heavenly Ruin pushed straight for the top-right entrance in the illusion’s sky—a wormhole connecting directly to Storm Calamity Floating-Land, tens of thousands of light-years away.

Since Song Shiyuan was not currently on Storm Calamity Floating-Land, Song Chi passed through the wormhole, barely pausing. Once through, he sped out of the concealing illusion, flying straight for the floating-land’s borders. When the warship’s external views finally blinked back on, the young Song clan members were stunned to see that they’d arrived at Storm Calamity Floating-Land.

“Storm Calamity Floating-Land—we’re here!”

“Wait, weren’t we just on Dragon-Spine? How’d we cover fifty-thousand light-years in so little time?”

“Was it a long-distance stargate?”

While they speculated, the Heavenly Ruin engaged yet another spatial jump.

Two days later, after a series of jumps, the Heavenly Ruin finally arrived at the star domain coordinates provided by the Clan Elder’s projection.

Doomstar Star Domain. Venomspider Sector.

……

“Elder, we can’t hold out! Any longer and there’ll be no rebuilding the Doomstar Star Domain’s defense fleet!”

Against the void-black backdrop, thousands of Torch Human battleships and Goldfissure Sky Spiders waged a brutal war. Outnumbered by far, the Song Family fleet’s casualties were mounting.

But retreat wasn’t a matter of will—they simply couldn’t.

Elder Song Lihai’s Zhulu-class Cruiser was entangled by a fifth-tier plus three fourth-tier Goldfissure Sky Spiders. All the other third-tier cruisers, even the hundred-strong Hellfire Mechs, were boxed in too.

Clang!

In his Mythical Mech Form, Song Lihai’s giant swung a crimson axe, clashing with the spider’s alloy-cutting leg. The shockwave sent the mech giant tumbling hundreds of thousands of meters back, and a massive slab of pitch-black armor tore free from its frame.

A closer look showed over half of the armor and hull had been ruined. Another direct hit or two, and the mech would be crippled—unable to move at all.

Even so, Song Lihai kept calming his clan’s nerves.

“Stay focused! I’ve reported everything to the Ancestor. Reinforcements will be here soon…”

He broke off mid-sentence, the mech giant turning warily to another battle zone.

There, a cruiser over 1,200 meters long was locked with a fourth-tier Goldfissure Sky Spider.

A skilled crew could handle one fourth-tier spider, but now a second—having just smashed several Hellfire Mechs—was racing in from afar.

Song Lihai’s eyes hardened. He raised the mech’s left arm, activating its last attack-function main cannon. With the help of a special warship component, the pitch-dark barrel charged in under three seconds and fired in a thunderous blast.

The incoming fourth-tier spider was obliterated instantly.

Letting out a breath, Song Lihai felt relief. The capable cruiser’s captain, Song Baiyi, was one of the clan’s top new seeds, with a red component and several orange-tier modules. He couldn’t let anything happen to him.

But the brief distraction was enough. The fifth-tier Goldfissure Sky Spider lunged, slashing its golden law-imbued blade-leg across. Song Lihai’s Mythical Mech took another blow.

Fast and brutal, the strike pushed the mech’s damage to eighty percent and shattered Song Lihai’s control over the warship.

The mech collapsed back into warship form. The fifth-tier spider never let up; its alloy-slashing limb swung again, not giving him a moment to breathe.

“Elder Lihai!”

In the chaos, some Song members saw this and screamed in horror.

But it was the desperate fury of the powerless; nothing they did could change the tide.

At that critical instant, a black-and-white flash streaked over.

A swift beam pierced the massive spider, so fast it almost went unseen, freezing the fifth-tier beast mid-strike with its lethal leg barely a hundred meters from Lihai’s warship.

A warship shielded in black and white crashed forward, its sharp black-gold ramming spike smashing into the spider’s back.

What stunned all witnesses—this time the warship seemed to contain unimaginable power, tearing straight through the spider’s core. In an instant, the colossal beast was ripped in pieces, its life gone.

Only after the dead spider floated away did the rest of the Song fleet snap out of their shock, cheers erupting.

“Black-and-white light shield—that’s Lord Song Chi’s Heavenly Ruin!”

“The Heavenly Ruin’s become a battleship!”

“The clan sent Lord Song Chi for backup—and as a battleship commander no less! Now we have nothing to fear from those spiders!”

“But he’s just a battleship commander…”

“You fool, what do you know? Even with a Zhulu-class Cruiser, Lord Chi wiped out over twenty fifth-tier Doomstars in one blow! He’s a legendary prodigy in the entire Tianpan Galaxy!”

……

Song Chi ignored the rescued fleet’s thoughts. As his eyes swept the field, anger flashed when he saw so many destroyed Song ships.

Hiss—

The warship’s doors opened, unleashing hundreds of fourth-tier Doomstar slave soldiers led by a sixth-tier Abyssal Devil.

Song Chi’s order was clear:

“Wipe out every last Goldfissure Sky Spider! No survivors!”

And thus, the slaughter began.