Chapter 565: The Golden Flame Awakens

As the semi-automated warship AI chimed in his ear, Song Wujian didn’t so much as flinch—he kept guiding the battleship forward at full speed.

Several more minutes crawled by. The black hole evolution layer outside the hull finally shattered completely, and the double-layered armor granted by the Black Hole Armor met the raging flames outside head on.

Behind Song Wujian, Song Chi and Song Yan watched the chaos unfolding beyond the hull. The fire’s terrifying power had twisted the very fabric of space, as if any second the flames might rip reality apart.

“The fire outside—it’s definitely reached Tier Eight by now!”

Hearing Song Chi mutter, Song Yan’s eyes grew serious. He said,

“To be more precise, it’s almost at the late stage of Tier Eight.”

He walked the path of Fire Law, so he was extra sensitive to the energy in these flames.

After another ten minutes or so, even the double-layered armor from the Black Hole Armor crumbled at last. It was only then that Song Wujian, until now utterly still, finally triggered the Last Aegis’ true power.

Silver light flared. Instantly, the warship’s energy shields, hull plating, and even the ship itself all sprang back to pristine condition.

The shields and hull restored just fine, but the Black Hole Armor didn’t fully recover.

After all, Last Aegis was a silver component. It simply couldn’t work at full strength on the black-grade Black Hole Armor.

And while the shields came back online, neither the Shield of Holy Light nor the Fire Shield could be restored. The high-energy particle shield failed again within moments, quickly overloading once more.

Over the next half hour, Song Wujian activated both the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition and the Flame God’s Dominion Soul Guard, pushing Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang deeper into the blazing heart of flamespace.

[Alert: Hull Armor has reached full overload. Current hull integrity: 68%. Immediate repairs required!]

Soon after the apparition of the Flame God’s Dominion Soul faded, the Black Hole Armor overloaded as well. The battleship teetered on the brink—just a bit more damage and it would shut down completely.

Right then, Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang suddenly collapsed inward and transformed into a miniature black hole.

In this state, it devoured the surrounding fire with wild abandon. For now, the endless flames outside couldn’t threaten Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang at all.

Inside the miniature black hole, Song Chi and his companions gazed through the warship’s projection screen at the depths of flamespace—and the single black flame quietly floating there.

A brief glimpse was all it took for all three to recognize it.

“The Black Fireseed Artifact!”

They’d gasped before, but now they were calmer than ever.

A black Fireseed Artifact like this defied imagination. Its value nearly matched that of a colored-grade component. But with their situation so dire, once the black hole form ended, only one fate awaited them.

They’d die here, buried with Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang.

With their internal energy sealed, Song Chi couldn’t even access the Market at this point—all they could do was wait for the end.

That’s precisely why they stayed so focused—the stakes demanded nothing less.

Ultimately it was Song Wujian’s experience that showed. He made the call.

Under his command, Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang fled backward at top speed, giving up any thoughts of lingering.

No matter how rare a black Fireseed Artifact was, it couldn’t hold a candle to their own lives.

Besides, as long as flamespace itself didn’t collapse, that flame wouldn’t be going anywhere. Risking everything now made no sense. They’d come back for it someday when they were stronger.

Outside the twin wormholes, Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang, Scorching Sea Blazer, and Heavenly Ruin hovered side by side.

It had been a day since they’d escaped from the heart of flamespace. Song Chi and his companion’s internal energies were fully restored.

Within a magnetic wave group chat set up by the Star-Annihilator-class Ship, the three kept discussing their next steps.

“Let’s not waste the Market Projection Token,” Song Wujian said. “Even if eight of those silver Oddities can’t be converted into battleship components, they’re still silver-class. We’ll need them in a pinch. The innermost part of flamespace probably hit peak Tier Eight—trying to go in with near-Tier Eight Dominion Power would be risky.”

After that, Song Wujian’s tone shifted as he probed,

“Xiaochi, can you leave a coordinate here? The kind that lets us return whenever we want?”

Leaving a black Fireseed Artifact just sitting here made him uneasy. The ruins might be veiled by a special dimensional field, but that wasn’t foolproof.

What if something happened?

If Song Chi could imprint a spatial anchor and check in anytime, they’d all feel much safer.

“No problem!”

Song Chi replied in an instant. He knew the standing of the Omniverse Market better than anyone. This Flame God Clan relic was impressive, but blocking the market itself was out of the question.

Soon, he set one of five spatial anchors here. After a few test runs back and forth to the Market, Song Chi summoned a Tier Five Doomstar beast from the warship and stationed it inside the ruin. That way, if anything went wrong, he’d know immediately.

With that secured, none of the battleships turned to leave.

Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang and Scorching Sea Blazer both retracted into storage, and the two quickly boarded Heavenly Ruin.

Once Song Chi stored them inside the Dimensional Spatial Stone, he didn’t bother retrieving Heavenly Ruin. Instead, he directly entered the Market.

He wanted to test out the new Tome of Divine Will he’d just acquired.

Beneath the Market Heavens, Song Chi didn’t summon any Dominion Power. Instead, he triggered the Divine Will Link mark deep in his Ancestral Orifice in the most ordinary way. The next instant, a sharp, eerie light began to pulse between his brows.

Outside, within the Flame God Clan relic space—

Heavenly Ruin, suspended in silence, suddenly overflowed with energy. Wreathed in that ghostly light, the warship shot up like a comet and vanished from the ruins.

In the Omniverse Market, a streak of radiance tore in from the outer void. With Song Chi acting as Market Master, the barrier didn’t even try to stop it.

“It worked!”

But Song Chi wasn’t done—one test wasn’t enough to grasp the full ability of the Tome of Divine Will.

He kept shuttling between the ruins, the Market, Dragon‑Spine Continent, and the Red Star Continent testing again and again.

Only after all these runs did he finally pin down the Tome’s limits.

First, it claimed to bypass distance and recall across the stars. But being only black-grade, it could recall things from far away—just extremely slowly.

Case in point: trying to recall between the Red Star and Dragon‑Spine continents. The wait was beyond miserable.

But if he used eighth-tier Dominion Power from within the Market, no matter where the ship was in the universe, recall was nearly instantaneous.

Song Chi figured that with Market Master Dominion Power, even high-level beings wouldn’t be able to intercept his summons. But standard summons? That could be interrupted easily.

All things considered, Song Chi was satisfied.

Compared to the Warship Position-Switcher’s ‘cross-star translation,’ this was much more reliable. The red component claimed to cross any distance, but if it was too far, the transferred battleship ended up significantly weaker. Very misleading.

…

Back on Dragon‑Spine Continent, Song Wujian and Song Yan stepped out from the Dimensional Spatial Stone. Both looked a little baffled—Song Chi’s trip had taken longer than usual.

“Just finished testing the Tome of Divine Will,” Song Chi explained.

The explanation was barely out when Song Wujian said,

“With a civilization war on the horizon, we’d better focus on powering up our ships. As for those two Dominion bug corpses, it’ll take time to refine them with Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang. Xiaochi, do you have any shortcuts?”

Song Chi had already mentioned that the Market Master of the Omniverse Market was an eighth-tier entity. If that person helped, things would go much faster.

“Shouldn’t be a problem!”

…

From then on, the Song Family went all out raising their strength.

As for Song Chi, he practically moved into the Omniverse Market. While refining those two Dominion bug corpses with eighth-tier Dominion Power, he adjusted his own state to prepare for absorbing the golden Upgraded Fire Source.

A year and a half later, Song Chi handed over sixty-six Dominion Souls and two drops of bug Dominion Origin Blood to the Clan Elder.

Song Yan walked away with thirty-three Dominion Souls himself.

With the bug Dominion remains refined, Song Chi entered the Full-Attribute Cultivation Chamber in the Omniverse Market.

Half a month later, after reaching his peak state, he took out the Seaflame Heart.

As he drew the golden Upgraded Fire Source into his Ancestral Orifice, chaos bloomed in the depths of his soul.

Zzzzt! Zzzzt!

The Silver Torch Seed and the golden Upgraded Fire Source clashed in fierce fusion, a process slow as it was intense. The golden fire held a power vast beyond compare; devouring and integrating it would be anything but quick.

A year later, inside the Full-Attribute Cultivation Chamber, Song Chi’s eyes snapped open.

Swish—swish—

A golden fire flashed deep within his Dual Pupils.

“Finally—I’ve done it. The Golden Torch Seed!”

No mistake. Just moments ago, the Silver Torch Seed had finished swallowing and fusing with the Seaflame Heart, transforming into pure gold.

Song Chi strode out of the Full-Attribute Cultivation Chamber and summoned the Heavenly Ruin.

Inside the ship, he checked the screen—sure enough, the status read ‘Golden Torch Hull lv60.’ That clinched it: he was now truly bearer of the Golden Torch Seed.

Scrolling down to the ship’s specs panel—

The number of special component slots had jumped from 170 to 194, matching exactly what the Golden Torch Seed granted.

According to the rules, every 5 ship levels with the golden flame added 16 more special slots. 16 times 12, plus 2, made 194.

Satisfied, he turned to the warship’s components. Now that the Torch Seed was gold-grade, all gold and higher parts on the Heavenly Ruin could be powered up to Tier Eight.