Chapter 641: The Great Exodus and the Birth of a Flame Giant

A million kilometers north of Dragon-Spine Sacred Mountain, on Dragon-Spine Continent.

Here sprawled a vast complex of buildings. In the past, you might see a fair number of people coming and going, but lately the place had grown much busier.

On this day, five Kunpeng-class transports rolled out of a massive warship factory within the complex.

Kunpeng-class transports were the most commonly used vessels in the entire Morningstar Kingdom—even throughout the whole Tianpan Galaxy. Each stretched over a kilometer long and could carry upwards of a hundred thousand people in a single trip. If they were loaded with Floating-land mining vehicles or Longxiang III Land Modification Trucks and similar heavy machinery, they could haul dozens in one go.

Thanks to their reliable performance, the Song Family had picked them as the designated transports for this interstellar migration.

After leaving the factory, the five Kunpeng transports quickly rendezvoused with hundreds of Song Family Expansion Division transport captains, all waiting outside.

“Captain Zhou, you leading the team this time?”

At the front of the crowd stood Song Zhou, a third-tier clansman and Expansion Division squad leader under the Family External Affairs Hall. His personal ship was a powerful cruiser.

“That’s right. The Deputy Minister gave the order himself—our Song Family’s all-in this time. The Expansion Division is swamped, so I’m in a rush. No time for chit-chat today, but let’s grab a drink when things settle down!”

As he spoke, a ghostly light flickered between Song Zhou’s brows. A miniature warship shot from his Torch Ancestral Orifice, instantly transforming into a cruiser over a kilometer long.

At the same time, his crisp order rang out.

“Everyone, board your ships!”

The hundreds of captains without Torch Seeds at once split into five columns, each heading for one of the five Kunpeng transports.

Seeing his chance, the leader from the transport ship factory quickly called out:

“Captain Zhou, my son’s with this rotation—help me keep an eye on him, will you?”

“Isn’t your boy just twenty-eight? Hasn’t even gone through the Torch Awakening yet. Why send him off at a time like this?”

Hearing that, the factory executive quickly hid his flicker of envy as he replied,

“I heard there’s a low-grade spirit fruit called ‘Jinhua Fruit’ on Chipan Floating-Land. Even those who haven’t awakened can eat it to boost their Guiding Technique, raising the odds of awakening in the future. I just want him to give it a try!”

He himself had failed to awaken a Torch Seed decades ago, and although his quick mind let him do okay in the Family’s Internal Affairs Hall, it was nothing compared to a proper Torch Captain.

Now he was determined to help his son awaken successfully. Only then could they catch the family’s wave of rapid growth—maybe one day the boy would even become a cruiser captain, or a Zhulu-class commander.

Song Zhou didn’t say much else, just answered softly.

With the family rising so fast, even he dreamed of climbing higher, and there wasn’t much time to spare for such favors.

Soon, one cruiser and five Kunpeng-class transports soared into the sky, flying straight for God-Mountain Plaza nearby.

Within a few hours, all six warships had reached White Jade Plaza at the foot of Dragon Spine Sacred Mountain.

As they descended, you could clearly take in the whole expanse of God-Mountain Plaza.

Right now, the place was packed—bustling in every sense.

Countless Kunpeng transports, interstellar mining ships, Torch battleships, and more, were taking off and landing overhead.

On the ground, streams of floating-land mining vehicles, land modification trucks, and Tiangong V construction robots were all lined up in perfect order. As each Kunpeng transport touched down, mining vehicles, land modification trucks, and massive construction robots were swiftly loaded onboard.

Despite the incredible pace, everything ran like clockwork.

Once every assigned transport fleet under him finished loading, Song Zhou piloted his cruiser slowly into the air.

Cruiser command room—magnetic-wave comms group chat.

“Gentlemen, I’m heading out first. Catch up later!”

“Alright, Old Zhou, take care out there. Chipan Floating-Land may have been swept by the family fleet a few times, but the previous teams said stray Eight-Armed Serpent Demons still pop up now and then, sometimes harming the migrant convoys.”

“Exactly. Don’t let your guard down. You’re not yet four hundred—who knows what heights you can still reach!”

Every voice in the comms group belonged to a cruiser captain, each in charge of a transport fleet and serving as the main security during the migration.

For centuries now, the Song Family had raced ahead on the civilization battlefield. Their pro-birth policies fueled an explosion in clan numbers, surging from two hundred million eight centuries ago to nearly a billion today.

Of course, this was done with careful planning, not blind pursuit of numbers.

Otherwise, with the family’s endless floating-lands, they could raise as many as they wished—ten billion, a hundred billion, even more.

But by focusing on quality—average ability, Torch Captain ratio, and so on—they advanced without sacrificing standards.

If they just chased headcount, they’d cripple the family’s finances. After all, every extra clansman needed expensive cultivation, not just being left to grow wild or, heaven forbid, raised through some detested ‘poisonous nurturing’ method.

While it’s true you could get some strong people that way, they’d lack any loyalty. If Song Family lost its tight-knit bonds, the real source of its explosive growth, the foundation would crumble in no time.

That would go against the Song Family’s founding principles and was staunchly opposed by clan elders.

After a recent high-level discussion, the family set its target at two billion clansmen—big enough that every generation would produce a few standouts, and manageable for the upcoming era when they’d control the richest 300,000-light-year sector of Chipan Galaxy.

(Note: The family’s previous claim was 250,000 light-years. It’s been updated to 300,000. The Luo Clan remains at 150,000.)

Even so, the number of Torch Captains had soared in the past few centuries.

Just cruiser captains—that is, third-tier clansmen—had shot up from 6,000 before the war began to almost 10,000 now.

Though over seventy percent had gone to the front, more than 2,000 cruiser captains still guarded the home territory.

Counting those stationed on their 80,000-light-year patchwork of floating lands and Outer Domain colonies, Dragon-Spine Continent still had hundreds left. That’s why the Expansion Hall could field over 200 cruisers just for this migration, pushing the operation to its absolute limit.

……

On the battlefield of Yan Serpent Galaxy, at the Song Family fleet base.

Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang, encrypted group chat:

Song Chi: “Patriarch, I need to head to the Flame God Clan’s legacy grounds for a bit.”

Song Wujian: “Go ahead, don’t worry about things here. The Yan Serpent Galaxy is as good as secured—the Joint Fleet will keep pressing north and that’ll take time!”

In Heavenly Ruin’s control room, after briefing his clansmen, Song Chi looked over his shoulder.

Behind him, a miniaturized Flamewrath Giant rippled with flames, now and then erupting in flares that made the ship’s temperature noticeably rise.

The reason for this trip to the legacy site was clear: the Flamewrath Giant.

Back when they conquered the Yan Serpent Floating-land, the giant had devoured plenty of sixth-tier Serpent Demon flesh—and Song Chi had even given it a portion of seventh-tier Serpent Demon Dominator flesh. After centuries of accumulating deep reserves, the Flamewrath Giant was suddenly showing signs of breaking through to seventh-tier.

There was a super fire world at the Flame God Clan’s legacy grounds, and Song Chi figured the Giant would have a much better chance of advancing there.

Retracting Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi used a previously set Spatial Anchor to leap straight to the legacy grounds.

“Go on!”

Outside what was likely the fire world formed by the death of a peak eighth-tier Flame God, Heavenly Ruin hung still as its main hatch opened. Song Chi beckoned the Flamewrath Giant—clearly getting more restless lately—to head out.

Sensing the dense fire energy beyond the hull, the giant’s crimson eyes gleamed with excitement.

“Wait!”

Just as the giant was about to leap through the hatch, Song Chi called out again.

He tossed over a fiery-red spirit fruit.

The moment the Flamewrath Giant caught the fruit, its eyes burned even brighter, instantly drawn to the fruit’s power.

Song Chi nodded, satisfied with its reaction.

This was no ordinary fruit—it was the Fire Sacred Beast Spirit Fruit, which Song Chi had traded for at a private auction with a Ruan Clan Star-Annihilator-class Captain. For fire-attribute creatures, especially sixth-tier, it greatly boosted the odds of breaking through to tier seven.

But just as the Flamewrath Giant nearly swallowed it whole, Song Chi shook his head helplessly.

“Guess I’ll have to go into the flame space with you…”

He took back the fruit from the giant, then man and ship plunged into the fire world together.

That was the other reason Song Chi insisted on coming. The Flamewrath Giant wasn’t much for thinking—now overloaded with power and even wilder than usual, it barely acted on instinct.

Sensing the Fire Sacred Beast Spirit Fruit’s benefits, it just wanted to gobble it down. That might help, but waiting until it reached its best state inside the fire space would yield far greater results.

To get the most out of the fruit, Song Chi had to bring Heavenly Ruin along and enter the fire world together.

……

The Flamewrath Giant soon charged out of the warship. Guided by Song Chi’s telepathy, it expanded to its full size and dashed toward the depths of the fire world.

Once in position, the giant began absorbing purer fire energy, settling itself for the breakthrough.

On the outer edge of the flame space, inside Heavenly Ruin’s control room.

Song Chi cycled his dark energy rapidly, gathering it all in his mind. He then flooded both eyes with the power.

With his tier-six dark energy fully unleashed, his Dual Pupils grew almost solid. He monitored the changing energy inside the Flamewrath Giant.

Once he sensed the giant’s condition peak, he took command of the warship and flew deeper into the fire world.

As they pushed in, the ship’s energy shield and the Saintlight Shield took steady damage—dangerously fast, too.

Nothing to be done. Even with all of Heavenly Ruin’s luxury upgrades, there wasn’t nearly enough fire resistance onboard. They’d just have to tough it out.

When they drew close to the Giant, Song Chi threw the Fire Sacred Beast Spirit Fruit straight into its hands.

This time, he didn’t stop the giant as it swallowed the spirit fruit whole.

As the fruit took effect, crimson flames raged even more fiercely across the giant’s skin, while the energy inside grew ever stronger.

Having delivered the fruit, Song Chi didn’t linger. Heavenly Ruin quickly retreated to the outer reaches of the fire world.

Yet even from the outskirts, as the giant’s power swelled, the pressure on Heavenly Ruin only grew.

Time slipped by—in the blink of an eye, two years passed.

A lot happened in those two years. First, the Joint Fleet had launched a northward campaign into the Min Serpent Galaxy, resuming the invasion.

On top of that, a five-ship scavenging team had managed to loot another Seventh‑Tier Floating-land, and even found a new golden fireseed artifact too tough to refine into an Upgraded Fire Source. With that, Song Chi only needed one more golden fireseed to forge the Genesis Creation Pill.

On this day, after two years of calm, the fire world finally erupted in upheaval.

With a surge of familiar seventh-tier Dominion Power, the long-stilled Flamewrath Giant at last made its breakthrough.

The moment it advanced, its already massive body started swelling even larger.

Three hundred thousand meters.

Five hundred thousand meters.

A million meters.

……

In just a few seconds, the Flamewrath Giant shot up past thirty thousand kilometers tall—towering far above any ordinary seventh-tier entity!