Chapter 492: Hunt in the Shattered Void
by xennovel“Longfin Void Whale?”
Song Chi frowned. He’d just reached tier six, so he couldn’t say he was really afraid of starbeasts anymore.
But the problem was, this Longfin Void Whale was a space-attribute starbeast, naturally able to swim freely through the void. On top of that, starbeasts were notorious for their tenacity—bringing one down for good was no easy task.
He wasn’t one to bluff and pretend, so he spoke up frankly:
“With Longfin Void Whales, their vitality isn’t the real issue. The tough part is their ability to phase through the void at will. Unless you have a silver-grade space-sealing module that’s been boosted to tier six, there’s no way to hold it if it just hit tier six.”
He finished and shot Pan Ying a look.
She responded without missing a beat.
“As long as you’re confident you can finish off that tier six Longfin Void Whale, leave the space-sealing module to my Pan Family!”
“Alright. Just let me know when you’re set.”
……
Three days later, after Pan Ying personally notified him, Song Chi summoned the Heavenly Ruin. The interesting bit was, the module Pan Ying had mentioned wasn’t mounted on her own flagship—instead, it was delivered directly to him.
Examining the silver-glowing module in his hand, Song Chi quickly saw a data display pop up with its details.
Voidlock Skyseal Sigil, lv50
Quality: Silver
Trait: Voidlock Skyseal Array
Trait 2: +210% space stability for Skyseal Array
Trait 3: +5600 space resistance
Trait 4: Pinpoint: Celestial Prison Lock
Consumption: 600 per second (Eneum Points)
Effect: Dramatically enhances the internal space stability of the battleship it’s mounted on.
……
{Voidlock Skyseal Array: Costs 150,000 Eneum Points. Freely lock a designated area of space, lasts for 60 minutes. Cooldown: 220 hours.}
{Pinpoint: Celestial Prison Lock: Costs 100,000 Eneum Points. Fires a Celestial Prison Chain from the void to rapidly bind a chosen target, lasts 11 seconds. Cooldown: 9 hours.}
“What’s this?”
He examined the pristine space-sealing module, clearly intact after being unmounted, then turned an inquiring gaze on Pan Ying.
“Sir, none of the Pan Family currently holds a Red Torch Seed, so you’ll have to be the one to install it.”
“Oh, right—here are the materials you’ll need to upgrade the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil to level 60.”
Even though he’d guessed as much, hearing Pan Ying say it aloud still made Song Chi sigh inwardly.
Nine months in, he already understood the Pan Clan well.
Once, over a thousand years ago, they’d had two dreadnought captains stationed, with over twenty Torch Captains at the fourth tier or higher—an extraordinary family. But now, not one possessed a Red Torch Seed. That was enough to make anyone sigh.
Not dwelling on it, he installed the module on his battleship and upgraded it straight to level 60. After merging and binding was complete, the two set off to deploy in the Outer Domain.
According to Pan Ying, that freshly tier-six Longfin Void Whale often roamed in an area of void so fractured that space energy there was extremely dense.
After reaching the Outer Domain, their two ships spent another two days at warp before finally arriving at their destination.
Ooooh!
No sooner had they arrived than Song Chi heard a thunderous, piercing wail. The tier six Longfin Void Whale was using its voice to declare sovereignty over the shattered region.
When the two ships got within ten thousand kilometers of the rift zone, Pan Ying took the initiative and brought her cruiser to a halt.
Space-attribute starbeasts—especially at tier six—were hyper-sensitive to spatial fluctuations. Even with Pan Ying’s purple-class concealment module, it would be risky. A single misstep and the Longfin Void Whale would spot them, likely turning hostile or outright attacking.
“If the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil fails prematurely, you’ll know I’ve succeeded. Just head in immediately.”
“Got it!”
With everything set, Song Chi activated the Mirage trait of the Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl. Right before Pan Ying’s eyes, the Heavenly Ruin faded from view—vanishing without a trace.
Ignoring Pan Ying’s look of shock, Song Chi slowly maneuvered the Heavenly Ruin forward. Minutes ticked by until, finally, a cosmic whale over a thousand kilometers long appeared on his displays.
The instant he locked eyes with it—even with his current breadth of experience—Song Chi felt his own heart beating impossible to control.
Who could blame him? The Longfin Void Whale was a legendary presence among starbeasts, leagues above Ru Zu’s Fire Drakesaur in both strength and, even more strikingly, sheer size.
Of the four enslaved tier-six creatures under Song Chi’s command, only the Flamewrath Giant in its most gigantic form even came close in scale. Not the One-Eyed Troll, not the Doomstar, nor the Abyssal Devil could compare to the Longfin Void Whale’s enormity.
Even the Flamewrath Giant, at full peak, was still a size short.
But marveling was one thing—his hands moved lightning fast.
With the Mirage trait still active and the Longfin Void Whale unaware of Heavenly Ruin’s presence, the very first module Song Chi activated was the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil.
The moment the Voidlock Skyseal Array flared to life, the shattered space around the Longfin Void Whale—spanning nearly ten thousand kilometers—was instantly locked down.
Sensing the abrupt drop in surrounding spatial energy, the whale flew into a frenzy. Bloodlust and space energy surged violently from its body, battering everything around it with savage force.
Bzzzzzz!
Under the pounding force of its energy, the sealing barrier flickered and trembled. Fortunately, the silver-grade module’s lock was strong enough to hold, unharmed so far.
At that instant, a chain shot out of the void behind the Longfin Void Whale, wrapping tightly around its immense body.
Unlike the god-blooded Bind-God Chains, this was the Celestial Prison Lock from the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil.
The exact second the Prison Chain caught the Longfin Void Whale, the Heavenly Ruin revealed itself from stealth, its Myriad-Spirit Annihilation Bow loaded and its Life-bane Arrow ready to fire.
A Life-bane Arrow nearly a hundred kilometers long exploded from Heavenly Ruin’s bow like a divine spear of judgment, roaring straight from the ship’s prow.
Why use the Life-bane Arrow? The answer was simple: starbeasts were famed for their resilience, and the Life-bane Arrow was made to snuff out all vitality—perfectly counters the endless blood energy of cosmic behemoths.
And that wasn’t all. The True Immortal Quantum Blade, Soul-Annihilating Iris Beam, “Heavenly Wrath”, and Black Hole Singular Burst had all been primed too. In fact, fully firing up all these modules had drained over half the five-million Eneum pool from the Antimatter Evolution Engine.
This level of firepower, gathered into one barrage, would be devastating by any standard.
Sure enough, the Longfin Void Whale sensed mortal danger instantly. Faced with annihilation, the tier-six starbeast pushed its mighty body to its very limits.
Ooooh!
The ancient spirit of the Void Whale howled overhead as it called upon its inherited powers and unmatched physique. Song Chi watched as the Celestial Prison Chain holding it began to strain and loosen.
If it escaped, with its mastery of space, maybe it couldn’t dodge everything—but it’d make most attacks useless.
Not on Song Chi’s watch, though—he fired back immediately.
He triggered the Void Bind-God trait on the Bind-God Chains module, unleashing a second chain from the void. The Bind-God Chain joined the Prison Chain, wrapping on another layer of restraint.
Silver Celestial Prison Chain plus red Bind-God Chain—maybe it couldn’t hold a tier-six Longfin Void Whale forever, but it’d buy those crucial seconds needed.
Because in that blink, a barrage of attacks from the Heavenly Ruin had already spanned the distance, closing in on the whale.
A heartbeat later, every attack landed dead center on the Longfin Void Whale’s head. Detonations thundered in rapid succession.
At last, all the condensed black hole energy burst into a micro-singularity. Space collapsed in on itself, crushing and tearing the whale’s flesh apart.
But just then, a twist—maybe the micro black hole warped and crushed the area too much, because the Skyseal Array snapped under the strain and collapsed all at once.
Seated at Heavenly Ruin’s command deck, Song Chi pushed his Dual Pupils to the limit, scanning every ripple and detail in the aftermath of the explosions up ahead.
Suddenly, something caught his eye. He couldn’t tell what kind of defense the Longfin Void Whale had pulled off, but even after such devastation, it was still moving—wounded, yet not beaten. Worse, it tried to use the failed Skyseal Array as a chance to slip back into the void.
Song Chi wasn’t about to let that happen.
A blazing beam of gold shot from Heavenly Ruin, slicing through the debris with impossible speed, then punched deep into the whale’s battered body. Its attempt to shift dimensions faltered and froze.
And that still wasn’t enough—crunch, crunch, crunch!
With an ear-splitting screech, Heavenly Ruin transformed—battleship becoming a towering, fourteen-kilometer-tall Mythical Mech giant.
The Immortal Spear, brimming with eternal darkness, appeared in the mech’s right hand. Space laws, refined to perfection, coiled around its legs. With a single stride, the giant closed a hundred thousand meters in a flash.
Just three steps, and the Mythical Mech was upon the frozen Longfin Void Whale. The tip of the Immortal Spear flashed with the Void-Return Ray, plunging down in a brutal thrust.
Squish!
The sound of the spear piercing flesh rang out.
No matter how tough the Longfin Void Whale’s hide, against a top-grade black immortal spear, supercharged with mastered space laws and the Void-Return Ray, it was nothing—it tore through like paper.
Whish, whish, whish!
The Void-Return Ray detonated inside the whale’s body. Endless spatial destruction energy tore through its flesh and organs from the inside.
In moments, the tier-six Longfin Void Whale’s lifeforce dropped sharply again.
Seeing this, Song Chi paused his attacks.
The Heavenly Ruin still had attacks like the Myriad Talisman Violet Prison, the Ninefold Violet Heaven World-Ending Calamity Thunder, and Neutron-Star Fission—each devastating in force. So why risk getting close with the Mythical Mech?
Simple—this way, he could hold back his strength, avoid accidentally finishing off the badly wounded whale in one blow.
Because Myriad Talisman Violet Prison, Neutron-Star Fission, and the Ninefold World-Ending Calamity Thunder, once unleashed, couldn’t be stopped—they destroyed everything in their path.
In contrast, close-combat let him control every strike.
“Pan Ying, move in!”
With the Skyseal Array down early, Pan Ying was already steering her pale-blue Zhulu-class Cruiser closer. From her vantage, she’d caught the entire Mythical Mech transformation and the spear assault up close for the first time.
Reeling from having her entire understanding of battle upended, Pan Ying snapped out of her haze. Somehow, a visible blush crept across her cool features—not that Song Chi, absorbed in finishing off the Longfin Void Whale, noticed.
Regaining her usual composure, Pan Ying quickly unleashed every offensive module on her ship.
Under a shower of light and after a dozen seconds charging up, every weapon system fired at once.
In the next instant, the already-nearly-dead tier-six Longfin Void Whale finally expired.
Glancing at Pan Ying, Song Chi noticed the promotion success rate on her display starting to tick back up, joy flickering unmistakably in her eyes.
“So? What’s your new promotion success rate?”
The moment Song Chi asked, Pan Ying answered without hesitation:
“Seventy-three percent!”
Catching the undisguised delight in her expression, Song Chi knew she was more than satisfied with that number.
But since almost two months remained, he quickly suggested:
“Any other high-tier alien strongholds left? We’ve still got two months—let’s clear ’em out together.”
Pan Ying only shook her head. Over the past millennium, the family had shrunk sharply. With fewer clan elders and constant pressure from outside, manpower was tight. Aside from a couple remote Outer Domain sites, the rest the Pan Family had simply let go.
Song Chi had no argument with that. Since she was clearly indicating she wanted to stop, he had no reason to push.
There was one thing left he had to do, though.
He eased the Heavenly Ruin closer to Pan Ying’s ship, and in a cool, steady voice said:
“I don’t need to spell out the rules, do I?”
As if she knew what he meant, Pan Ying stepped out of her flagship. At the same time, a crimson ray shot from the Heavenly Ruin and sank into her body.
That ray wasn’t anything else—it was a brand-new confidentiality protocol. Since this was her first time seeing the Immortal Spear in action, a new agreement was needed. No exceptions.