Chapter 739: Battle Within the Timepiece Chessboard

One thing was certain—with the Heavenly Ruin’s direct intervention, this Shizhu Grand Elder who had returned through reincarnation almost certainly hadn’t regained their peak strength.

That was why he was being extra cautious now.

In his prime at the ninth tier, he would never have feared Song Chi, but now his strength was only at the peak of the eighth tier, and the Heavenly Ruin’s mirror warship clearly posed a serious threat. Out of wariness, he was unwilling to get tangled up with Song Chi.

Even as a mighty ninth-tier Dominion, he wanted nothing to do with repeating past disasters, not even for the slimmest chance.

No one but him knew the torment of those hundreds of thousands of years spent in ruin.

To his credit, this Shizhu Grand Elder didn’t hesitate. Space rippled as he activated Supernatural Footwork again.

But Song Chi had clearly come prepared. He already recognized Supernatural Footwork as one of the Shizhu’s most powerful techniques—there was no way he’d let it go unchecked.

Vrrrrrm!

Suddenly, a tremor echoed from the heights above. The peak eighth-tier Shizhu, who had vanished a moment ago, was dragged back out of the void. Above his head, ripples spread across a nearly invisible barrier in the air.

Holding off the charge of a peak eighth-tier being—who also wielded almost the whole essence of a Seventh‑Tier Floating-land—was simply too much for even a level 80 Frosted Void Prison.

But Song Chi had never pinned his hopes on that alone. While Frosted Void Prison briefly restrained the Shizhu Grand Elder, the mirror warship’s Timepiece Chessboard component had already fired up.

The mighty power of time descended. Not only the eighth-tier Shizhu but even the mirror warship itself was enveloped in that boundless power.

In the blink of an eye, the world flipped upside down. When reality righted itself again, both found themselves inside a silent, sealed-off space.

Within the space’s Time • Game effect, the Grand Elder’s peak eighth-tier might was dramatically suppressed, dropping all the way to low eighth tier—an entire major tier down.

All these changes happened in a split second.

But Song Chi, who’d set this all up, wasted no time. While the Shizhu Dominion was still reeling, the mirror warship and the Omniverse Market Projection inside this closed space struck as one.

A purple-mist palm descended, saturated with crushing force and inescapable pressure that swept through the high-dimensional space. There was nowhere for the eighth-tier Shizhu to run.

With power half a step into the ninth tier, the blood-hued Buddhist glow around the Shizhu was no longer impressive—it tore apart like tissue paper.

The purple mist crashed into the Shizhu’s body, gouging horrific wounds deep enough to lay bone bare across his dark flesh.

Dragonblood Demon-Sealing Chains · Dragonblood Subjugation.

Dragon Whale’s Wrath.

Blood Spear · God of the Hunt’s Weakpoint Mark.

Infinite Fallen Immortal Quantum Star-Annihilator Cannon · Infinite Fallen Immortal Quantum Swordlight.

……

One trump card after another was unleashed—Song Chi wasn’t giving the enemy a single moment to breathe.

After all, this opponent hailed from a hegemon-level civilization, and likely used to be a ninth-tier Dominion. You never knew how many tricks someone like that could still have. If you didn’t end it in one blow, you’d only invite endless trouble down the line.

Song Chi knew this better than anyone.

The poor Shizhu hadn’t even had time to recover from the destruction of the Omniverse Market Projection before the next wave of attacks crashed down.

“Om!”

A deep, ancient mantra rang out. Buddhist radiance burst from the Shizhu’s body. With his sixth-tier Demon Buddha golden body at full strength, that ocean of light instantly congealed into a majestic, dignified Buddha apparition.

Oṃ

Ma

Ne

Ba

Mi

Om

The moment the Buddha apparition took form, endless chanted sutras rippled through the void and echoed throughout the sealed space.

Standing atop the Heavens in the Omniverse Market, Song Chi’s mind suddenly grew hazy. Even separated by the mirror warship, the Market projection, and the void’s dark side, the ancient mantra could still affect him.

But that wasn’t his main concern right now.

Given the Market’s standing, as long as he was inside it, no mantra could truly ensnare or control him—at most he’d waver a little.

What mattered now was the Buddha apparition that the eighth-tier Shizhu had summoned—just who or what was that?

It didn’t just ignore the half-step ninth-tier Market projection’s blockade—its influence even crossed the sea of stars and affected Song Chi’s true form inside the Market itself.

That was definitely not normal.

As these thoughts flickered by, the Sky-Domain AI pulled up reams of data for him.

With this information in hand, Song Chi was able to pinpoint the entity’s identity.

That Buddha…maybe ‘Ancestral Buddha’ was the better word. In the Sea of Stars’ Shizhu civilization, anyone seventh tier and above could call themselves Buddha, but only upon reaching the tenth tier—Mythic Realm—could one be called an Ancestral Buddha.

The apparition the eighth-tier Shizhu had summoned was most likely a projection of one of their civilization’s Ancestral Buddhas—the Revolving King of Mantra and Womb Treasure.

That realization made Song Chi’s heart sink.

He was no wide-eyed rookie anymore. He knew quite a bit about these star domain hegemons.

The Revolving King of Mantra and Womb Treasure belonged to the Demon Buddha branch of the Shizhu. Over five hundred thousand years ago, he reached the Ancestral Buddha realm and was legendary even within their civilization—throughout the Sea of Stars, his name was infamous.

This Demon Buddha, bound by no taboos, had left a trail of slaughter so vast that words couldn’t describe it. Civilizations throughout the Sea of Stars had fallen to his hand.

……

“If that’s how it’s going to be…”

A cold gleam flashed through Song Chi’s eyes.

Inside the Time • Game space, every one of his earlier attacks had been erased under the Revolving King’s apparition. The mirror warship’s engines thundered to life.

The Antimatter Evolution Engine, Flamehowl Engine, Hunyuan Copper Ramming Prow, Elephant King Ivory Ramming Prow—all were fired up one after the other.

In an instant, the mirror warship became a blur streaking toward the eighth-tier Shizhu, cloaked in unstoppable might.

Above the Shizhu, the Revolving King apparition tossed out a strand of white-bone prayer beads, morphing them into a cage meant to seal the Heavenly Ruin’s mirror warship in place.

But after all, this was the multicolored upper-tier Timepiece Chessboard’s battlefield; the apparition itself was only a projection cast over tens of billions of light years. As for the mirror warship, it was still riding the half-step ninth-tier Market’s support. When those two icy ramming prows collided at full force, the illusionary bone beads shattered spectacularly.

The mirror warship’s speed dropped a bit, but it still hurtled toward the Shizhu in a relentless rush, its power undiminished.

Song Chi understood: the True Shizhu Civilization’s territory was more than tens of trillions of light years away. As long as the eighth-tier Shizhu, the medium, was gone, this projection would be rootless and dissipate soon enough.

Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who realized this.

After the bone beads broke, the Revolving King’s apparition seemed to sense Song Chi’s defiance. Radiance swept the battlefield as the apparition’s palm slammed down like a sky-blotting hand.

Wherever that massive hand went, Dao power surged with it, and even the language-laws flooding the field were now only background noise.

Staring at the mysterious force swirling in that palm, Song Chi in the Market felt that it looked familiar.

‘World force!’

He soon made the connection—the power infused in that giant hand was almost the same as what he’d seen recently from the Tri-Corpse Hyperstate Mecha.

Back in the fight with the Eight-Armed Demon God of the Bottomless Abyss, the three Human Emperors and their warships had merged into the Tri-Corpse Hyperstate Mecha, which borrowed the strength of two small worlds and a big world to briefly stand equal to the mythic level.

Now, that sky-blotting Buddha hand overhead radiated the same world force.

Ideas sped through his mind—snippets from the Sky-Domain AI’s data flickered past his eyes.

“It’s the Buddha Kingdom-in-the-Palm!”

Song Chi had his answer. In all the Shizhu’s arsenal, only that supreme Miracle could command the strength of an entire world.

Right or wrong, his only choice was to meet it head-on.

Two more components powered up.

Replica Domain Countercurrent Device · Countercurrent Domain.

Replica Timepiece Chessboard · Timepiece Chessboard.

If the Domain Countercurrent Device were a Black Component, Song Chi might have some faith in it. But as a Gold Component facing a mythic-level Buddha projection, he had to activate every backup tool he had.

Buddha Kingdom-in-the-Palm was terrifying, but the multicolored upper-tier Time Field was no pushover either.

And Song Chi’s commands kept coming—one backup after another fired up within the mirror warship.

Neutron-Star Core Armor · High-Energy Particle Storm.

Angel King’s Authority Wings · True Spirit Guard of the Angel King.

……

Buddha Kingdom-in-the-Palm was already one of the strongest abilities of the ruling Shizhu, and now a mythic-level apparition channeled it. The first collision with the Countercurrent Domain barely made a ripple—at most, the world’s barrier within Buddha Kingdom was slightly weakened.

Next up was the Timepiece Chessboard’s multicolored domain. This impact was clearly stronger—fine cracks now traced across Buddha Kingdom’s world barrier.

Then came the ongoing High-Energy Particle Storm pouring from the mirror warship. The torrent eroded Buddha Kingdom’s world barrier even more, but still, it didn’t shatter just yet.

That changed when a purple-mist finger emerged again from the Market projection. It would prove to be the turning point.

The finger jabbed the intensely cracked world barrier of Buddha Kingdom. Unable to hold out, the entire world exploded in a thunderous collapse.

Buddhist wish-force surged—but luckily, the Heavenly Ruin’s outer layers were still protected by the Market projection and the Angel King’s spirit apparition. When Buddha Kingdom self-destructed up close, the warship took only minor damage.

With no more obstacles, the warship had a straight shot at the eighth-tier Shizhu.

The Shizhu tried to dodge but found himself outplayed—Song Chi, as always, left nothing to chance.

A subtle light fired from the mirror warship just as the Shizhu prepared to use Supernatural Footwork again, striking him first.

He tried to muster his inner power, but found his energy roiling, completely out of his control.

By now it was too late. The warship crashed into his chest, relentless.

Two sharp ramming prows drove deep into his flesh, unleashing their full brutal force. The Shizhu howled in agony as blood gushed out.

“That’s not enough!”

Neutron-Star Core Armor · Neutron-Star Fission!

Divine Thunder Cannon · Ninefold Violet Heaven World-Ending Calamity Thunder!

Pusa Zen Seal · Zen Seal · Internal · Time Acceleration!

Three more components spun up. The mirror warship turned into a miniature neutron star, the scorching heat searing an immense hole in the Shizhu’s body—deep enough to glimpse the yin-yang of flesh and bone.

The final blast—a Ninefold Violet Heaven Thunder bolstered by the Zen Seal—exploded in an instant, without even a pause to gather power.

Ninefold Violet Heaven Divine Thunder—this was the Shizhu’s end.

Already reincarnated in haste and far from his peak, the eighth-tier Shizhu couldn’t withstand this last fatal strike. His life force swiftly disappeared.

With the Shizhu gone, his body no longer served as a medium. The Revolving King’s apparition—untouched all this time—lost its anchor and began to dissipate.

The all-encompassing mantra faded, and the universal Buddhist glow dimmed away.

Inside the Omniverse Market, with the mantra’s interference gone, Song Chi’s mind quickly cleared.

The mantra had little effect on anyone inside the Market, and the Dragon Whale Hall’s protection in his Torch Ancestral Orifice, plus the Black Torch Seed’s foundation, made recovery swift.

Before leaving the Time • Game, Song Chi stored the Shizhu’s corpse in the warship and quickly sent it into the Market.

A peak eighth-tier Shizhu corpse—he had to admit, that was seriously valuable.

The eighth-tier Dominion Soul and Dominion Origin Blood were just the beginning.

What mattered most was the special qualities of the Shizhu itself.

Within the Free Stall Area—vast even by Market standards—the eighth-tier Shizhu’s body was now on display.

At the same time, Song Chi used his own authority and drew on ninth-tier Market power to conjure hundreds of law-blades, ceaselessly carving every inch of the Shizhu’s flesh.

Soon, one blade dug up a black-glowing stone from deep inside the corpse.

Of course, it wasn’t an actual stone. It was a relic nearly all Shizhu bodies left behind—a sarira. The one he’d just recovered was of the eighth tier.

Shizhu sariras were a unique resource, blessed with mysterious effects.

Worn close, they not only boosted insight but helped refine blood energy and reinforce the body.

Take the right herbal formula, and the sarira could even help push someone through major bottlenecks in the Guiding Technique.

But this particular sarira was special—a perpetual black light pulsed from it, very different from the ordinary relics of the Demon Buddha line.

The reason was simple: after being nourished by the Grand Elder’s flesh for hundreds of thousands of years, this eighth-tier sarira had become a rare Oddity.

Oddity: Demon Buddha Sarira.

Quality: Black.

Convertible: {Demon Buddha Purifying Sarira}.

Remark: A sarira born within the body of a ninth-tier Shizhu, transformed over countless years by ninth-tier flesh, has become a black Oddity.

……

Demon Buddha Purifying Sarira lv0.

Quality: Black.

Trait: Increases the warship captain’s insight by 1%.

Trait 2: Raises blood energy concentration inside the warship by 170%.

Trait 3: Increases speed by 170% when perceiving Speech Law or learning Buddhist secret arts within the ship.

Trait 4: Universal Buddhist Light.

Trait 5: Demon Buddha Solo Purifying Aura.

Trait 6: Demon Buddha Group Purifying Aura.

……

{Universal Buddhist Light: Spend 200,000 Eon Energy Points to summon a protective Buddhist radiance, temporarily increasing the energy shield’s value by 100% for 30 minutes. Cooldown: 240 hours.}

{Demon Buddha Solo Purifying Aura: The warship gains a purifying aura that automatically cleanses all negative effects, including but not limited to stun, knockback, external marks, slow, and immobilization.}

{Demon Buddha Group Purifying Aura: Spend 300,000 Eon Energy Points to instantly cleanse all negative effects from all friendly units within 10km of the warship. Cooldown: 100 years.}

Looking over these stats, Song Chi figured the Demon Buddha Purifying Sarira was pretty worthwhile.

It offered a mix of boosted insight, stronger defenses, and both solo and group cleansing. Two attributes were a bit underwhelming, but overall, it was a solid component.

He immediately upgraded it to level 90. Given all the Dominion Souls he’d collected this time, strengthening the best components was a no-brainer.

After reaching the ninth tier, the component’s stats changed a lot.

Insight boost: 1% → 10%.

Universal Buddhist Light still gave a 100% shield boost, but the duration went from 30 to 120 minutes.

Group Purifying Aura’s cooldown dropped from a century to ten years, and its effective radius expanded from 10km to 100 billion kilometers.

All in all, Song Chi was delighted by the outcome.

Back on the Evil Buddha Continent, Song Chi led his clansmen in sweeping the remaining threats from the Floating-land—an essential step for what was to become the clan’s base for cultivating blood-flesh lingzhi of every tier.

This cleanup lasted several months, not exactly a quick process.

He never lost patience—transforming the Floating-land into a vital resource hub for the clan meant every detail deserved care.

When it was time to leave, Song Chi took every clansman back to the Dragon-Spine Continent. Only a seven-tier Starsea Giant Ape stayed behind to guard the place, along with thousands of enslaved low and mid-tier creatures.

As for the Revolving King’s apparition, it was summoned inside the Time • Game by the eighth-tier Shizhu. But as an Ancestral Buddha with more than five hundred thousand years behind him, Song Chi still worried he could somehow trace connections to the Evil Buddha Continent.

The odds were slim: even for mythic-level beings, tens of trillions of light years was a daunting gulf.

Still, to play it safe, Song Chi decided it was better to keep the Evil Buddha Continent under indirect control through enslaved creatures and Market-Walking Tokens.

That way, even if the opponent really did come searching one day, the Song Family wouldn’t be left exposed.

According to the records, the Evil Buddha Continent was over eight billion light years from the Torch Human Civilization’s domain—a trifling span compared to tens of trillions, but at least enough to give the Song Family some advance warning.

Now with the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon galaxy cluster joining, the Torch Civilization’s Human Emperors were all preparing to attempt tier ten. If they succeeded, the civilization would finally wield true mythic might. Coupled with Song Chi’s own preemptive safety measures, no outside mythic being would enter the Torch domain so easily.

At this point, Song Chi only wished the Human Emperors would hurry—to break through as soon as possible.

Not just out of concern for his own safety.

And not just because of the threat from a single mythic opponent.

But for the very future of the Torch warship system itself. As long as someone reached that milestone, the system could finally be deemed a true path to the heavens, with no hard cap at tier nine.

For the past three hundred thousand years, that had been a thorn in every Torch Captain’s heart.

The civilization’s greatest experts had been stuck at tier nine since ancient times, never able to take the decisive step forward. After so long, how could the Torch Captains not feel despair?

A blocked path ahead—that’s the deepest despair anyone, any clan, any civilization can feel.

Rumor had it that after three hundred thousand years without an answer, Torch leadership had even carried out a secret fallback plan.

All Song Chi knew was that Whitebrow had once let slip a few details—the rest was a mystery.

The gist was that multiple fireseed fleets had been purposefully sent to distant Outer Domains, tasked to develop other extraordinary paths outside the Torch system.

Some went to pursue cultivation.

Some dedicated themselves to the path of faith and divine investiture.

Some chose the magical route.

Some chased the technological path.

Plenty of fireseed fleets went out, but most vanished without a trace. Only a handful managed to limp along, and almost none became true civilizations—barely even achieving high-tier status.

Becoming anything close to the size of the Torch Human Civilization? Forget it. They struggled even with ordinary advancement.

“Let’s hope it works out.”

Rubbing his brow, Song Chi did his best to chase away the tangle of thoughts. No point mulling it over.

For now, what mattered was using the newly gathered seventh-tier blood-flesh lingzhi to quickly improve his own Guiding Technique.

The matters of ninth and tenth tier—the mythic realm—were still a long way off for him.