Chapter 691: Ascension of the Heavenly Ruin

Woooo!

Above the heavens, a tidal wave of energy swept across the entire floating-land, nearly taking on solid form.

At that very moment, a gentle, misty rain began to fall all over the Red Serpent Floating-Land. Yet, this wasn’t ordinary rain—it was spirit rain, shimmering with potent energy.

No one among the hundreds of thousands of Song clansmen on the Red Serpent Floating-Land spared a thought for the rain. Every single gaze had locked onto the Warship Evolution Quest panel before them.

Deep in the core of the floating-land, Song Chi was no different.

His eyes never left the success rate of the Warship Evolution Quest, which flickered and jumped ceaselessly.

[Warship Evolution Quest (Heavenly Ruin)]

[Current Evolution Success Rate: 95.501%]

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[Current Evolution Success Rate: 95.815%]

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[Current Evolution Success Rate: 95.645%]

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[Current Evolution Success Rate: 96.002%]

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[Current Evolution Success Rate: 95.680%]

Though the success rate kept rising and falling, never truly steady, a closer look revealed that the minimum kept creeping higher each time. Let alone the peaks.

Song Chi didn’t have the energy to worry about the 36 Timepieces he had just spent, or the daunting hundred-year cooldown for the “Time • Game” property.

All that mattered now was succeeding in this evolution. If he pulled it off, he’d need plenty of time afterward to break through to seventh-tier Guiding Technique himself.

The leap from sixth to seventh tier might look small, but it was worlds apart. Just look at the Sea of Stars—sixth-tier beings barely lived ten thousand years, while seventh-tier Dominion Souls breezed past a hundred thousand.

Even with the Celestial Jade Essence he’d bartered from the Morningstar Family and the Demon Serpent Nine-Shed Fruit he scored from the Demon Serpent Floating-Land, the breakthrough alone would take decades at best.

And after breaking through, after the seventh Life Ascension, he’d face another Law Amplification phase. Another ten years gone, then the time to master secret arts and adapt to his new strength. A hundred years would slip by before he noticed.

Plus, before he reached seventh-tier Guiding Technique, he and his wife Shen Youran still had to do their part—so really, it was the least of his worries.

Then, just as the quest panel ticked up to a success rate of 97.006%, Song Chi felt a rare sense of certainty. That was the ceiling—after this, the energy tide rolling over the floating-land would only weaken.

[Heavenly Ruin, begin evolution!]

The instant he confirmed, a surge of eon energy erupted from the miniaturized Heavenly Ruin above the Red Serpent Floating-Land’s Origin Core. Brilliant radiance followed, flooding the entire core chamber.

Boom, boom, boom!

Song Chi’s heart hammered in his chest like rolling thunder. Even knowing he had a 97% chance plus a sixth-tier Timeworld Fruit backing him, the possibility of failure still gnawed at him. Not until that final moment would he truly be at ease.

Then, the golden Torch Seed deep within his brow gave a sudden leap. Flames blazed up severalfold, banishing his anxiety and leaving him vibrating with excitement.

The Torch Captain’s Torch Seed and Torch Battleship were linked as one. When the battleship evolved, the Torch Seed surged as well. The sudden burst meant only one thing: Heavenly Ruin had stepped up at last.

As Song Chi opened his eyes, the blinding light outside faded away. His gaze shot to the distance. There, the miniaturized Heavenly Ruin still hung, motionless, above the Origin Core of the Red Serpent Floating-Land.

Outwardly nothing seemed to have changed—it still looked just as tiny as before. But the unique aura rising from the warship told Song Chi all he needed to know. Heavenly Ruin had truly evolved into a Star-Annihilator-class Ship.

Eon energy threaded through his body, and at his command, the mini Heavenly Ruin shot back to him.

Now came the moment of truth—a full-scale expansion into her true Star-Annihilator form.

Heavenly Ruin’s hull stopped growing only when it reached a staggering eighteen thousand kilometers.

Most Star-Annihilators measured only ten thousand kilometers long. Eighteen thousand was a silent declaration of Heavenly Ruin’s extraordinary foundations.

You could say this—even the moment it evolved, Heavenly Ruin had already entered the ranks of veteran Star-Annihilator-class ships, thanks to its high-level, highly fortified parts.

Before he could check the rest, a whoosh echoed through the corridor above. Song Shiyuan piloted the Unmoving Vajra over.

“Xiaochi, how—”

Shiyuan stopped mid-sentence, eyes catching on Heavenly Ruin’s gigantic body occupying the chamber. His words shifted instantly.

“Excellent…Excellent! The Song Family is blessed by the heavens!”

Song Chi didn’t waste time chatting with the shaken Shiyuan—he still had more important things waiting.

Worried about running out of time, he’d put off using the black Upgrade Fire Source—the Capricorn Flame—he’d exchanged for earlier.

No Song clan Captain had ever evolved a golden Torch Seed to black, so no one knew for sure how long it would take. To avoid missing the window for completing the Warship Evolution Quest, Song Chi had postponed it until Heavenly Ruin hit the next tier.

But now that Heavenly Ruin had risen, it was finally time.

Before returning to the Dragon-Spine Continent, Song Chi checked in on the rest of the clan’s promotion results.

At the question, Song Shiyuan’s face darkened a bit.

“Tiancong didn’t succeed. Several other clansmen failed to promote their Zhulu-class Cruisers too…”

“But there is good news. Tianhao and Yiming’s flagships both advanced to Dreadnoughts. Xiaoze and Xiaobei are now Battleship captains too. And nearly forty Zhulu-class Cruisers were promoted this time, almost a thousand cruisers, and close to a hundred thousand escort ships made it through…”

At this, Song Chi sighed softly.

Of course he recognized Song Tiancong—one of the elders from Tianhao, Tianshu, and Tianmang’s generation, though the youngest among them. Luck and talent had never favored him; stuck at Zhulu-class Captain for ages, he’d already passed two thousand years old and was past his prime.

Riding the massive energy tide from a newborn Seventh‑Tier Floating-land, Tiancong had hoped for one last breakthrough. But fate, in the end, had other plans.

Still, Song Chi quickly let it go. Since his rebirth into this new era of the Sea of Stars, he’d known the truth.

The Sea of Stars is endless, time flows on, and only by always forging ahead can one witness its ever-changing tides. Fall behind, and you’re just dust in a forgotten corner, lost to history.

……

Dragon-Spine Continent, Dragon Whale Hall.

When Song Chi stood again, he offered quick nods to the people waiting in the hall.

In just a few hours, he completely absorbed the Capricorn Flame, evolving his own Torch Seed to black.

Bidding everyone farewell, he headed straight for the Omniverse Market.

With his warship evolved and Torch Seed turned black, he finally met all the requirements to fortify some of Heavenly Ruin’s core parts to ninth-tier.

Before starting, he took inventory of his resources.

Titanite Crystal, Law Stones, and eighth-tier or lower Floating-Land Origins were all plentiful. What he really checked were his Dominion Souls, Time Fragments, and ninth-tier Floating-Land Origins.

Seventh-tier Dominion Souls: 920

Eighth-tier Dominion Souls: 82

Ninth-tier Floating-Land Origins: 53

Time Fragments: 145

He had to say, after taking down several eighth-tier market cities, his stockpile of top resources had soared. He’d worried he couldn’t strengthen many ninth-tier parts after the evolution, but that turned out to be needless.

With that, he began upgrading every component possible across the warship.

[Timepiece Chessboard] lv80→lv90

[Neutron-Star Core Armor] lv80→lv90

[Antimatter Evolution Engine] lv80→lv90

[Moonwheel Shadow Cannon] lv70→lv90

[Black Hole Evolution Layer] lv80→lv90

[Void Sea Projection Emperor’s Tomb] lv70→lv90

[Tome of Divine Will] lv80→lv90

[Creation Eight Trigram Furnace—Damaged] lv80→lv90

[Mirror Image Split] lv80→lv90

[Eternal Dominion Soul Nest] lv80→lv90

[Chaos Godhood] lv70→lv90

[Elephant King Ivory Ramming Prow] lv70→lv90

[Mark of Might] lv70→lv80

[Domain Countercurrent Device] lv70→lv80

[Destiny Compass] lv70→lv80

When it was all said and done, his stash of Dominion Souls had dropped sharply—just ten seventh-tier left, and twenty of the eighth-tier. That would’ve been enough to upgrade the Soul-Devourer Sacrificial Altar to lv90, but since its soul-devouring quota was full, it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Either way, the warship’s properties had jumped to absurd new heights. Take the Timepiece Chessboard alone—after strengthening, its effects were nothing short of outrageous.

Timepiece Chessboard lv90

Quality: Colorful/High-Tier

Property: Reduces all equipment cooldowns on the warship by 80%

Property 2: +28,000 Time Resistance

Property 3: Timepieces

Property 4: Timepiece Chessboard

Property 5: Time • Game

Property 6: Flow of Time • Prison

Property 7: Enhances the efficiency of comprehending the Law of Time inside the warship by 500%

Property 8: Nine Lives Game of Life and Death

Cost: 10,200/s (Eon Energy Points)

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{Timepieces: The Timepiece Chessboard has 361 chess pieces, each holding powerful time energy. If any are lost or spent, one new piece is automatically generated every year (Current chess piece count: 168)}

{Timepiece Chessboard: By expending a set number of Timepieces (minimum 36) and Eon Energy Points (consumed relative to Timepiece number used), a chessboard can be manifested in the starry sky. All enemies inside it are affected by accelerated or decelerated time—speed is set by how many Timepieces you spend (36 for 55x, 72 for 110x, and so on). Duration: 55 minutes. Cooldown: 96 hours.}

{Time • Game: Consumes 1,000,000 Eon Energy Points. Pulls designated targets (lifeforms of equal or lower tier than this part) and your warship into a higher-level chess game space. Enemy strength inside is reduced by one major tier. Duration: 4 hours. Cooldown: 100 years.}

{Flow of Time • Prison: Uses a set number of Timepieces (minimum 36) and Eon Energy Points to seal a target (up to this part’s tier) in a cage where time stands utterly still. Prison duration depends on Timepieces used (36 for 1,000 years, 72 for 2,000, etc). Note: Nothing outside can harm a being sealed inside.}

{Nine Lives Game of Life and Death: Omitted.}

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