Chapter 605: Siege of the Black Serpent Twin Lands

Heavenly Ruin’s main control room—Song Chi immediately turned his gaze to the Soul-Devourer Sacrificial Altar component.

The soul of a seventh-tier Serpent Demon Dominator sent progress on that component soaring to 93% of stage two, just a hair’s breadth from advancing to stage three.

He calmed himself and quickly shifted his attention back to the mirror warship.

But in just those few seconds the entire situation out there changed drastically.

Maybe the death of that peak seventh-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon had completely ignited the boundless terror in the other two Dominators. Without hesitation both unleashed all their Dominion Power and mastery over Earth Law, erupting in golden light just as the two Star-Annihilator-class ships tried to dodge.

The two rare gold oddities they controlled—one attuned to Wind, the other to Space—were both powerful aids in escape.

Even though the two Tianying Tan Clan Star-Annihilator-class ships reacted almost at once, activating remote-control components, they were still a step too slow, forced to watch helplessly as their targets vanished into the darkness at the edge of the stars.

Of course, the battleships’ radar screens still caught traces of the two fleeing Dominators, but the Tan fleet gave up the pursuit.

After all, this was still enemy territory—the longer they tangled, the more danger they’d be in.

……

“Kid, thanks. Here’s the extreme stone I promised, but don’t even think about touching those Dominator corpses.”

The familiar voice broke out over the communications channel shared by the three ships, but this time Song Chi finally got a good look at the speaker.

Tianying Tan Clan—Tan Tianfeng.

The moment he saw the man, Song Chi already knew the answer.

When he’d been hiding out, he’d made a point to collect information on the Tianying Tan Clan back on Dragon-Spine Continent, so he had a fair understanding of their personnel.

Before he could think further, that Star-Annihilator-class captain—known as the Devouring Wind King—spoke up again:

“You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. Taking a Dreadnought this far behind the front lines—one hundred thousand light-years in, no less. I’ve got to wonder, which family raised you?”

Then his tone shifted:

“Come on, let’s head back. Lord Ji Heng already gravely wounded an eighth-tier Dominator on the Serpent Demon side. The enemy is now holed up on a peak Seventh‑Tier Floating-land called Black Serpent. The fleet’s begun the full assault on Black Serpent, there’s still time for you to join the feast!”

Song Chi didn’t want to reveal his identity or let them know his mirror warship was unmanned—a battle-spawned vessel he controlled by remote. The version of himself here, appearing in the communication feed with the two Star-Annihilator-class captains, was actually a Voidform Avatar that his real body had sent just recently.

Perhaps realizing he didn’t want to come clean, Tan Tianfeng let it go and didn’t question him further.

And before Song Chi could refuse, the Devouring Wind Eagle’s hull fired out several interlocking beams, wrapping the mirror warship and then vanishing from the starry sky in a flash of spatial teleportation.

……

Half a month later, the three warships had blended into the massive Torch Civilization joint fleet responsible for attacking the Serpent Mother Galaxy.

Even as impressive as a pair of Star-Annihilator-class ships and a Dreadnought might be, they barely drew notice among the hundreds of millions of warships in the grand cosmic fleet.

Once inside the joint fleet, the two Tan Clan Star-Annihilator-class ships quickly moved off—seemed like they had some urgent report to file. Song Chi was happy to be left alone, silently steering the mirror warship deeper into the armada until he completely vanished from view.

He’d never intended to stick around long anyway—he’d sent the mirror warship out in hopes of scavenging from the shadows, not to waste time embroiled in all this.

The united fleet’s target was the peak seventh-tier Black Serpent Floating-land ahead. But with its defensive shield, there was no way to breach it in less than a century at the current pace—the attacks had only just begun, and it would be a very long grind.

Back when the Song and Luo joint fleet broke through another Seventh‑Tier Floating-land in just over a decade, it was only possible because that floating-land was brand new and, more importantly, lacked any comparable Dominators. The combined assault of two Star-Annihilator-class ships and a Dominator Worm punched through by brute force.

With their special shield-breaching modules and ship cannons, the two fleets wore down the shield far faster than usual.

This time, things were different. Black Serpent wasn’t just home to several seventh-tier Serpent Demon Dominators—there was an eighth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon holding the fort, plus the will of the floating-land itself bolstering their strength. It would not be easy.

The only reason Song Chi kept his mirror warship with the fleet was because, by accident, he’d triggered the Eye of Spirit-Seeking trait on the Eyes of Heaven, and discovered—plain as day—two supreme black oddities and no fewer than nine gold oddities sitting on Black Serpent. That discovery was enough to set his mind to work.

Whether or not he got a black oddity, even securing a single Golden Sanctum Oddity would be a prize.

With that in mind, over the next few decades, Song Chi became just another face among billions of starships, hammering away day after day at Black Serpent’s defensive shield.

Strictly speaking, Black Serpent Floating-land should be called Black Serpent Twin Land—just like Morningstar once was. It had both a Yin and Yang side, but that’s where the similarity ended. The two halves were leagues apart.

In broad terms, Black Serpent’s Yang Land had, over tens of thousands of years, been carefully cultivated by the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon Civilization until now, it was a peak seventh-tier stronghold. The Yin Land, on the other hand, was just an ordinary sixth-tier floating-land, barely a speck by comparison.

As a result, the Yin Land had long since been overrun by the joint fleet, stripped clean of rare resources.

Time flowed by. A hundred and ten years passed in the blink of an eye.

On the left flank outside Yang Land, hidden among a loosely organized fleet, the black-clad mirror warship Heavenly Ruin blended right in. No one batted an eye at its presence.

This was, after all, the Chiyu Divine Dynasty’s primary fleet. In the groups of freelancers, Dreadnoughts weren’t rare—and there were even Star-Annihilator-class ships among them.

After a century of watching Black Serpent’s shield fade from brilliance to near collapse, Song Chi could hardly hold back a sigh—truth be told, he’d suffered enough waiting here, and sometimes, his nerves had been on edge.

Because over those hundred years or so, the eighth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon inside would periodically attack, and every time it did, tens of thousands of allied warships would vanish.

But that part was done—with the final stretch at hand, the spoils were nearly ripe for the picking.

Freelancer fleet communications channel—

“Dreadnought Shenzhou Kunlun: Looks like Black Serpent’s shield will be completely down in five minutes. Get ready, everyone!”

“Zhulu-class Cruiser Call Me King Knower: Heh heh, I’ve been dying for this.”

“Battleship Legend: It’s been a hundred years. Have any of you suffered like I did?”

“Cruiser Night Seven: I’ll follow the big shots, charge the line, crush Black Serpent for a thousand generations!”

……

The mood in the channel suddenly caught fire, and while Song Chi had stoked it, he quietly activated the Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl’s Mirage trait, disguising himself as just another bystander.

There was method behind this—it was clear to him that once the floating-land shield broke, the Eight-Armed Serpent Demons within would retaliate fiercely. If he wanted to keep his head down and avoid danger, someone else had to draw the first wave of fire.

Five minutes later, Black Serpent’s defensive shield shattered. Waves of allied warships surged down from the stars, plunging into Black Serpent’s sky vault.

Back at the mirror warship’s original location, tens of thousands of ships still loitered, clearly waiting it out—including Call Me King Knower and Legend. Song Chi wasn’t the only one playing it smart.

Below, as the swarm of ships stormed Black Serpent, the Eight-Armed Serpent Demons inside launched an all-out counterattack. The entire sky vault became a storm of chaotic energy.

Of course, the ships waiting outside weren’t just passive. Once the worst was past, they dove in too, joining the fray overhead.

The chaotic melee raged on for ages. It was half a year before combat finally shifted from the sky down to the surface.

Black Serpent floating-land, Eastern Region, Fifth Black Serpent Royal City.

True to its name, this Fifth Black Serpent Royal City was among the top five cities on the entire floating-land.

At this moment, a million warships were gathering outside it, battles flaring across the ground, in the low skies, and beyond the city shield. The mirror warship was right there in the mix.

By now, the battlefield boundaries had been set on all sides.

Eighth- and seventh-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demons were handled by the Torch joint fleet’s elite Star River-class and Star-Annihilator-class ships. The other captains on the human side had but one mission.

Kill as many Eight-Armed Serpent Demons as possible.

Even though Black Serpent’s shield was down, the will of the floating-land remained. Backed by that peak-seventh-tier will, the defenders’ strength was still nothing to take lightly.

The only way to tip the scales to humanity’s side was to slay as many local Eight-Armed Serpent Demons as possible, steadily weakening the will of Black Serpent until victory followed.

As for why the mirror warship was focusing on the Fifth Black Serpent Royal City, it was simple. According to the Eyes of Heaven, one of the two supreme black oddities had been spotted right inside this city.

……

Time slipped by. This battle would drag on for a long while.

Both sides locked in stalemate for years. The fighting was endless, with casualties mounting. But as the Torch fleet’s warships proved superior, and more Serpent Demons fell, even the will of Black Serpent began to noticeably fade. At last, after years of bloodshed, the balance clearly tilted toward the human side.

One day, Song Chi, piloting the mirror warship, joined a fleet attacking the Fifth Royal City. The defenders answered with their own sortie.

But hidden amid the chaos, Song Chi quietly activated the Divine Thunder Cannon’s Ten-Thousand Sigil Violet Lightning Prison, fusing in an immense amount of black hole energy.

Tens of thousands of purple lightning runes detonated amidst the city’s forces, shuddering space itself and sending waves of collapse through the ranks.

Just that one strike wiped out half the defenders fielded by the Fifth Royal City, making an already desperate situation all the worse.

But with the city itself still standing, those battered Serpent Demon forces had no choice but to keep marching out to meet the Torch fleet head-on.

With the battle now one-sided, the Sky-Domain AI aboard the mirror warship suddenly piped up with an alert.

“Attention! The Supreme Black Oddity that was specially marked by the captain is on the move—it’s heading rapidly for the edge of the city shield!”

Boom!

Having just slain another sixth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon, the Voidform Avatar controlling the mirror ship shot a glance at the highlighted coordinates.

His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a dark red dreadnought—almost 140,000 meters long—dashing skyward with multiple Sixth-Tier Serpent Demons giving chase. He didn’t need AI assistance to see the supreme black oddity being dragged along at the ship’s side—everyone could see it.

That could only be a supreme black oddity.

The dark red dreadnought sped for the city shield, now just meters from escape, but at that moment, several allied warships fired with perfect coordination.

Beams of energy hammered a single point in the city shield, and after years of grinding assault, the shield dimmed even further. It was just a local breach, but enough to offer the dark red dreadnought a chance.

Then, forty-eight colossal quantum blades crashed down in unison, making a massive gap in the shield.

Buzz!

Inside the Fifth Royal City sky vault, the dark red dreadnought surged forward, engines roaring at full power as it shot toward the breach above.

“You’re not getting away!”

Beneath the dreadnought, a sixteen-kilometer-tall, sixth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon unleashed a blinding petrifying eye beam. Though the dreadnought was equipped with advanced anti-control modules, this was no ordinary Petrifying Ray—it was empowered by the Serpent Demon Avatar and Serpent Prison skills, making it far stronger than usual.

The petrifying beam struck home, freezing the dreadnought in place. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to sever its grip on the black oddity.

In that instant, the supreme black oddity—loosed from the ship’s pull—shot upward toward the shield breach, propelled by pure inertia, and in full view of all, soared out of the Fifth Black Serpent Royal City.