Chapter 679: Stand Against the Crimson Tide

When facing sixth-order bloodspawn, the Heavenly Ruin could just barely keep its balance with its formidable defenses. But seventh-order, the sovereigns—they were a different story. There was a gulf between them and ordinary lifeforms.

Hiss!

A piercing screech erupted from the mouths of these seventh-order bloodspawn. The shrill soundwaves struck straight at the Heavenly Ruin, creating ripples across the energy shield. Even the aftermath pushed past the barrier and hull, surging into Song Chi’s ears inside the ship.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

A deafening buzzing filled his mind, leaving Song Chi dazed and disoriented. Only the tri-colored glow from deep within the Dragon Whale Hall snapped him out of it just in time.

Clearly, this screech was meant to target the mind. And in that brief moment of confusion, the nearby dozen seventh-order bloodspawn seized their chance, making the same move in perfect unison.

Blood energy surged wildly around them. In that instant, faint spatial ripples shimmered on their bodies and they vanished, only to reappear right next to the Heavenly Ruin.

But the bloodspawn weren’t expecting this—though Song Chi himself was briefly stunned, he wasn’t actually at the controls. The actual pilot was the Sky-Domain AI, which hadn’t been affected the slightest. The moment those seventh-order bloodspawn blinked in, the Sky-Domain AI triggered a component it had long prepared.

“Neutron-Star Core Armor: Neutron-Star Fission!”

Sizzle! In an instant, searing heat shot out, making the air around the Heavenly Ruin crackle and hiss.

It wasn’t just empty noise. Seventh-orders and even more sixth-order bloodspawn nearby couldn’t handle that terrifying heat—their bodies began melting at a horrifying rate.

If Song Chi were outside at that moment, the thick aroma of roasting flesh would have hit him.

Still, even with perfect timing, the Neutron-Star Core Armor was only black-grade—not a colored mythic component. Its temperature didn’t reach the monstrous heights of the Mirror Warship from before.

So while many bloodspawn fell to the millions of degrees outside, every single one was a sixth-order. The dozen seventh-order bloodspawn took only moderate damage, nothing fatal.

But the Sky-Domain AI had already accounted for that. As the Heavenly Ruin shifted into its micro-neutron star form, it transformed into a blur and vanished from view.

The Sky-Domain AI activated the Space-skipping Pearl, using a spatial jump to put distance between the ship and the seventh-order bloodspawn.

After that, the AI kept up the fight—blasting away at the enemy with the main cannons and supercannons in a constant game of cat and mouse.

The bloodspawn weren’t stupid. Realizing the Heavenly Ruin was using hit-and-run tactics to buy time and rack up kills, almost twenty more seventh-orders burst out from the depths of the bloody mist.

Now the Heavenly Ruin faced an all-out siege—over thirty seventh-order sovereigns, backed by five thousand sixth-order bloodspawn.

Even so, drawing on the Space-skipping Pearl, Starlight Flash Spirit Stone Talisman, Angel King’s Authority Wings and more, the Sky-Domain AI kept the fight going for quite a while. All four main cannons and both supercannons fired nonstop, blasting thousands of sixth-order bloodspawn to pieces.

But there was one problem—the thirty-odd seventh-orders hid among the swarm. While their attacks sometimes dealt serious blows to the ship, at the first sign of trouble they melted into the crowded bloodspawn below. Slippery as eels, not one could be finished off completely.

At a lull in the cannon fire, several dozen seventh-order bloodspawn surged out from the sixth-order horde, razor-edged bat wings slashing down at the hull.

By now, the Last Aegis and Atomic Repair Instrument had been activated multiple times. Even so, the Heavenly Ruin couldn’t take another full-force assault.

If Song Chi did nothing, made no defensive move at all, and with the micro-neutron star form long since faded, the ship would almost certainly be destroyed right there.

Luckily, these weren’t the only defenses up its sleeve. The Sky-Domain AI activated yet another component.

At once, a surge of energy rippled around the Heavenly Ruin. In moments, those energies condensed into a circular domain around the ship.

Why didn’t it summon the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition and used the Black Hole Domain instead? The answer was simple.

The True Spirit Guard summoned an apparition of the eighth-order Angel King, providing powerful protection—but the apparition itself was so strong it repelled all other life from coming near.

By contrast, the Black Hole Domain granted only a single property: absolute invincibility. It didn’t push enemies away at all.

And the Sky-Domain AI needed the seventh-order bloodspawn as close as possible. The True Spirit Guard just wouldn’t do.

Within the Black Hole Domain, the Heavenly Ruin was absolutely invincible. Surrounded by swarming seventh-order bloodspawn, the AI ignored their approach.

Of course, the Black Hole Evolution Layer’s domain had its limits. Absolute invincibility only lasted 1 to 10 seconds. Against these seventh-order sovereigns, the data showed they’d average out at 5.4 seconds—timing would be everything. The next move had to trigger before time was up, or the ship would still be in grave danger.

Time ticked by.

Then, the first seventh-order’s bat wing slashed down on the hull.

Clang, clang, clang!

A shrill metallic screech rang out. Song Chi stiffened, nerves on edge, while the Sky-Domain AI immediately started its countdown.

0.01 seconds.

0.5 seconds.

At 0.8 seconds, the second seventh-order struck.

At 1.4 seconds, the third.

At 1.8 seconds, the fourth.

…

At 4.8 seconds, the twenty-fourth.

“Now!”

The very instant the twenty-fourth seventh-order’s bat wing struck the ship, the Sky-Domain AI made its move.

Under its control, the Neutron-Star Core Armor’s second trait, High-Energy Particle Storm, was unleashed.

Countless high-energy particles erupted outward from the center of the hull, spreading in all directions at blinding speed.

In a heartbeat, the space around the Heavenly Ruin turned into a devastating storm of high-energy particles.

Predictably, thousands of sixth-order units were caught in the storm. Many had already been battered by brutal heat, and now, as particles ripped through them, death followed swiftly.

The thirty-something seventh-order bloodspawn were hit just as hard. The bigger the body, the more damage taken—the ones with wingspans over ten thousand kilometers were bombarded by a storm of energy.

But as sovereigns, seventh-orders were made of sterner stuff. Even after taking that fury of high-energy particles, none suffered mortal wounds right away.

You could tell by the familiar spatial ripples flickering around them—they had reserves left for a desperate escape.

The fact that they could still muster spatial abilities meant they weren’t out of gas yet. Still, if every seventh-order was scrambling to teleport out, the High-Energy Particle Storm definitely wasn’t doing nothing.

That gave Song Chi an idea, and for the first time he issued a command.

“Timepiece Chessboard: Time • Chessboard!”

This colored upper-tier component, rarely used since acquiring it, burst to life—five-colored light instantly wrapped the entire hull.

The next instant, the light surged with pure time power. In a flash, a phantom chessboard—also shining in five colors—materialized above the Heavenly Ruin.

Formed by 108 radiant chess pieces, the board warped time within its area. All at once, time became utterly chaotic.

The fleeing bloodspawn slowed to a crawl—over a hundred times slower than normal. Bloodspawn that could have teleported away in just one second were now stuck for over two minutes.

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

Shrieks erupted. Energy rippled on bat wings as the seventh-orders, realizing something was wrong, tried breaking the time domain’s shackles—but on their own, there was no way.

With the Timepiece Chessboard now at level 80, theoretically, it could lock down anything up to eighth-order.

Now, the ship did have limits as a Dreadnought class, so the effect on true eighth-orders wouldn’t be as strong. But against seventh-orders, it was absolute suppression—anything less and the colored upper-tier component wouldn’t deserve its title.

Second by second, the High-Energy Particle Storm cut deeper and deeper into the seventh-orders.

By the forty-fifth second, the first seventh-order bloodspawn finally fell.

Of course, it wasn’t just the energy storm—while that raged, the Heavenly Ruin’s cannons kept blazing under the Sky-Domain AI’s command, pounding away at the seventh-orders as well.

In fact, the first to die was brought down by a phantom blood spear, unleashed by the Blood Spear component.

The real trick of the chessboard domain: attacks from the Heavenly Ruin, whether particle storms or ship cannons, weren’t slowed by the time field at all. That let it deliver its full power.

And once the first fell, the rest followed quickly.

Fifty-six seconds in: a second seventh-order bloodspawn died.

Sixty-four seconds: a third sovereign fell.

Seventy seconds: a fourth.

…

By the time two minutes had ticked by, fifteen seventh-orders had fallen.

That was about the limit. After two minutes, most seventh-orders had managed to finish activating their spatial escapes. Even the time domain couldn’t stop them from slipping away.

One hundred and fifty times slowdown might be the theoretical ceiling, but in practice, the seventh-orders had some resistance—hitting 120 times slowdown was already remarkable.

Why couldn’t the chessboard stop their spatial abilities?

Fact was, the Timepiece Chessboard was purely a time-based component. It didn’t block flight, magic, or the void itself.

If only I’d summoned more chess pieces just now…

That thought barely surfaced before Song Chi shook his head.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to—there just weren’t enough time pieces left in the chessboard.

Decades ago, during that major Eight-Armed Serpent Demon assault, they’d used the chessboard once then too—all 108 time pieces at once. Now, after just a few decades, even with 360 ordinary pieces, the total hadn’t even recovered past three hundred. Using 108 more this time, there were barely a hundred left.

And those last few would have to be saved for true emergencies. Song Chi was reluctant to touch them unless all else failed.

With twenty or so seventh-orders having managed to escape, the time domain grew much emptier—but Song Chi only felt a heavier weight settling on his chest.

Those near twenty seventh-order bloodspawn who’d escaped now glared coldly from a distance. The moment the time domain and particle storm faded, they’d come crashing down with vengeance, ready to unleash their fury on the ship that had harmed them so badly.

But like it or not, both the chessboard domain and the High-Energy Particle Storm had a time limit. After slaughtering almost every fifth and sixth-order bloodspawn inside, both effects finally faded from the blood-red void.

Almost instantly, the bloodspawn who’d escaped slammed forward again, crazed and relentless.

Blood mist blotted out the sky—the entire horde swept in, hell-bent on swallowing the Heavenly Ruin whole.

Elsewhere, in a swirling, chaotic dimension, figures gathered as one. At their center, an image flickered to life—it showed the Heavenly Ruin’s battle against the bloodspawn.

“To cut down fifteen seventh-order chaos beasts on your first crack at the Chaos Nest—all with just a Dreadnought? Impressive results. Greedy Wolf, now’s your turn. Don’t forget the slip-up from ten thousand years ago!”

“No need to rush—I’ve got a feeling the kid’s still hiding another trump card…”

“Even his colored time component is out, don’t go overboard. He’s the best talent we have—we can’t lose him.”

“By the way, after this Demon Serpent Floating-Land operation, the Song Family is getting a lot of attention. The Fusang Dynasty has reached out—they want the Song Clan to cough up some of the resources they snatched from several river systems…”

“Forget those freeloaders. If they want a shot, the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon is still sitting on half a river system. Let them go risk it themselves!”