Chapter 481: Secrets Beneath the Ashen Hills

Song Hao felt a twinge of unease. The Tier Three Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spider wasn’t supposed to be an unkillable monster, but just moments ago, the two were locked in a fierce struggle—and then, in the blink of an eye, the spider was obliterated. That alone was reason enough to be on guard.

He suspected that this three-headed, six-armed creature possessed some extraordinary ability—it just hadn’t revealed itself openly yet.

And when the creature’s body had swelled to a kilometer tall, a strange sense of familiarity nagged at Song Hao. He just couldn’t place where he’d felt it before.

With these thoughts in mind, Song Hao stayed cautious and didn’t rush ahead.

As for the three-headed, six-armed being—it didn’t bother shrinking itself down. Instead, it hoisted the dead spider over its shoulder, excitement brimming, and took off running toward the distant hills.

Song Hao did his best to keep a safe distance, maneuvering the hidden Voyager through the void, quietly trailing behind.

The three-headed, six-armed creature ran for several minutes, vanishing at last into a stretch of rolling, ashen-blue hills.

Not knowing what lay beyond those hills, Song Hao didn’t risk flying the Voyager in blindly. Instead, he activated the now-cooled Neural Remote Control System, splitting three streams of mental energy and sending them into three Tier Four Shadow Clan terracotta warriors, using them as remote probes to scout ahead.

Just like the sky-scanning radar, his neural control was somewhat suppressed within this secret realm. But the restrictions weren’t as severe—Song Hao felt confident that, thanks to his current spiritual strength, there’d be no trouble guiding the terracotta warriors hundreds of kilometers ahead.

Add to that, Shadow Clan warriors had an affinity for darkness. While they couldn’t slip through space quite like their spatial counterparts, they excelled at stealth. Silently, they melted into the twisting landscape ahead.

Of course, there was always the issue of tier restrictions. The terracotta warriors weren’t true extraordinary beings; though they’d been enhanced to Tier Four, they were really just pseudo-fourth-tier puppets, so the secret realm didn’t reject them.

Song Hao guessed that Tier Four was already pushing the limits. If he tried bringing out a Tier Five puppet, it’d probably be forced out the moment it left the ship.

“Huh?”

He let out a soft exclamation. In one of his neural feeds, a terracotta warrior had spotted a slanting cave, hidden in the white mist behind several hills.

The warrior slipped inside the broad tunnel. Suddenly, through its eyes, a vast underground world unfolded before Song Hao.

“So many three-headed, six-armed creatures…”

And it wasn’t just the sheer size of this place—stretching endlessly with passageways in every direction—it felt like a world separate from the surface. All along those branching corridors, crowds of three-headed, six-armed beings teemed.

The same creature that had dragged the spider in was now elbow-deep among its kin, tearing hungrily into the kill, its maw stained with fresh blood and jutting fangs.

As it munched on the flesh, Song Hao clearly caught glimpses of mysterious, glimmering runes escaping its mouth—just for an instant before they faded. Watching through the warrior’s eyes, he didn’t miss a single detail.

That flicker of rune-light made Song Hao’s eyes narrow. The sense of familiarity he’d felt earlier rushed back, stronger than ever.

“Speech Law… That’s it. When I competed for the Sequence, the Evil Buddha Clan on the Evil Buddha Continent used the same force. Their forms differed, but the intent in their words was hauntingly similar.”

He’d been too rushed to recall it before, but now, catching that elusive rune-light, the connection to the Evil Buddha Clan snapped into place.

Still, the forms of these beings and the Evil Buddha Clan were completely different. Maybe there was some hidden link, but they were definitely not the same race. And while these three-headed, six-armed creatures could emit the Speech Law, they clearly didn’t control it. It felt more like… a talent they’d yet to master.

Yes… an innate ability just waiting to be properly awakened.

With that thought, he wasted no time. Concentration flared on his brow and a silver-gray token shot out from his Torch Ancestral Orifice.

It was the Market-Walking Token!

Song Chi had high hopes for this secret realm. So before the family’s expedition, he’d thought it over carefully and given Song Hao a Market-Walking Token as a precaution.

To be extra safe, they’d signed a confidentiality contract the moment Song Hao received it.

The Oath Contract Module on the Heavenly Ruin flagship was a red-grade artifact—it packed a punch.

As Song Hao charged the token with his energy, he soon found himself inside a peculiar chamber.

But before he had time to examine it, the door swung open from outside and Song Chi strode in.

“Uncle Song Chi, about this secret realm…”

Song Hao trusted Song Chi with everything, so he summarized his discoveries quickly and concisely.

Compared to Song Hao, Song Chi’s vision couldn’t be matched.

As soon as he heard the words ‘three-headed, six-armed beings’, he instinctively asked:

“Could they be from the Shizhu? Do you have any footage?”

Song Hao pulled up a recording of the three-headed, six-armed creature battling the Tier Three Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spider. Song Chi took one look and his doubts were gone.

“Look at the powerful bodies, the Speech Law talent… Even if they’re not pure Shizhu, they’ve definitely got strong Shizhu blood. Maybe their ancestors intermarried with other races ages ago and the bloodline stuck around.”

Those words sent waves through Song Hao’s mind. Images and tidbits about the Shizhu sprang forward.

Name: Shizhu

Civilization: Overlord-class Shizhu Civilization

Clan Talents: Peerless Flesh, Children of Speech Law, True Buddha Bloodline

Notes: Known as an overlord within the Shattered Sea of Stars, the Shizhu civilization has over three million years of heritage. Revered rivals of the Abyssal Devils, they excel at manipulating hearts and minds.

He couldn’t help but tense up, replaying the moment the three-headed, six-armed being destroyed the Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spider in one breath.

He’d been puzzled before, but now he was sure: the spider must have been stunned body and soul.

Song Chi must’ve noticed his worry. He stepped out, and when he returned, he held a special artifact.

“Here—this is the Taoyi Soul-Suppressing Stele, along with everything you need to boost it to Tier Five. Once you’re back, install it right away—it’s the best defense for your mind and spirit.”

“Also, explore the underground chamber as much as you can. If this really involves the Shizhu, its value might be even greater than we thought. If you find anything new, report right here immediately.”

……

Out in space, inside the Heavenly Ruin flagship’s bridge.

Song Chi reappeared aboard the battleship. He couldn’t stay in the Market forever—if the Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spider acted out suddenly, he needed to be ready.

But he’d left his Voidform Avatar at the Market’s inn—if anything happened to Song Hao, he’d know instantly. After Song Hao’s report, Song Chi’s hopes for this secret realm rose even higher.

The Shizhu—certainly among the supreme overlords of the Shattered Sea of Stars, outranking even the Three-Eyed Clan. From what he knew, their domain, the Shizhu Spirit Mountain galaxy cluster, had swallowed up more than ten standard galactic clusters—an empire of terrifying might.

A secret realm connected to creatures like that had to be priceless.

“If it really holds transcendent-grade resources, then…”

As the thought flickered, Song Chi’s gaze slid toward the distant Tier Six Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spider. A cold glint flashed in his eyes.

……

Within the secret realm, the Voyager cruised hidden in the void.

Having strengthened the Taoyi Soul-Suppressing Stele all the way up to Tier Five, Song Hao felt a weight lift inside his mind as the illusionary stele hovered above his Torch Seed.

Among the Torch Humans, the Torch Seed had always ensured some of the best mental strength and resilience—but facing an enemy like the Shizhu, whose civilization left Torch Humanity in the dust, he knew the seed alone wasn’t enough.

But with the soul stele in place, Song Hao felt completely at ease. Mind calm, he sent a terracotta warrior deeper into the underground corridors.

Despite the dizzying number of branching tunnels, only a single main passage spiraled ever downward.

There were plenty of three-headed, six-armed creatures in these tunnels, but the realm’s own suppression capped their strength at Tier Three—the rest were Tier One or Two. So the Tier Four Shadow Clan warrior could slip along the shadows, safe from their notice.

He kept moving deeper, losing track of how far he’d come, but as he advanced, Song Hao realized something strange.

The farther down he went, the weaker and more fractured the underground space became. Every so often, a thin spatial crack would split the walls.

While he puzzled out what might be buried down here, an explosion roared from a side tunnel leading somewhere unknown.

A deafening screech of Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spiders followed, mixed with furious shouts from the three-headed, six-armed beings.

The chaos sent herds of those creatures charging for the disrupted passage all at once.

“Perfect timing!”

Seizing the opening, Song Hao pushed the Shadow Clan warrior to sprint down the corridor.

He was almost out of time—the Neural Remote Control System was nearly at its limit. If he didn’t hurry, this whole scouting trip would end right here.

The sudden swarm of Gold-Cracking Heavenly Spiders from another tunnel had scattered everything down below, which gave him the perfect cover.

At full speed, the Tier Four Shadow Clan warrior tore through the tunnels. But as he went deeper, the spatial cracks grew more frequent, and sometimes even split into small rifts.

Song Hao’s imagination kicked into overdrive.

He remembered checking the stability of the realm’s space the moment he’d arrived—it had seemed sturdier than even Dragon-Spine Continent’s, which ranked in the middle among Sixth-Tier floating continents.

“So what exactly is happening beneath such a stable realm, that the land below is so fragile?”

Pushing aside his musings, Song Hao kept the terracotta warrior racing ahead.

Suddenly, he jerked the puppet to a stop.

Under his mental control, the puppet inched backward—twenty meters or so—then spun around, casting Song Hao’s awareness toward a conspicuous side chamber.

Unlike the countless tunnels winding into darkness, this one didn’t go on for long. Inside, it opened into a giant underground stone chamber, only a few thousand meters deep.

Turns out, these three-headed, six-armed creatures had made the place their den. Dozens of them lay stretched out, scattered across the room.

They snored like thunder, not even the chaos outside could wake them.

But Song Hao wasn’t interested in those slumbering Tier Three creatures. What caught his eye sat at the back of the stone chamber: a single hundred-meter-tall white jade tree, fiercely protected by dozens more of their kind.

That tree was clearly out of the ordinary. Hanging from its branches was a lustrous, perfectly clear white jade fruit.

Back on the surface, aboard the Voyager’s bridge, Song Hao described the tree’s appearance in detail. He even asked the ship’s semi-automated AI to cross-check the records—but came up empty.

Clearly, nothing like this tree was cataloged in the Voyager’s database.

That didn’t stop Song Hao. He produced the Market-Walking Token once again.

He didn’t recognize the tree, but his gut told him it was far from ordinary. If so many of the creatures guarded it with such care, it could very well be a special resource unique to this realm.

Fueled by that hunch, he entered the Market a second time.

At the Traveler’s Inn, Song Hao described the jade tree as best as he could, but still felt uneasy. Just to be sure, he sketched it out on the virtual screen.

Then he waited quietly off to the side while Song Chi’s split body mulled over the drawing.

Inside the Heavenly Ruin flagship, Song Chi recounted the tree’s details to the Sky-Domain AI, ordering a crosscheck against their records.

The flagship’s database, powered up by the Sky-Domain AI and loaded with every Song Family archive—not to mention classified data Shen Youran had pulled from the Northern Firmament Prince’s Manor—held far more knowledge than the Voyager ever could.

A few moments later, the AI responded.

“Based on the captain’s description, the odds are 88.8% that this is a transcendent-tier realm resource: the Timeworld Tree. Eleven point two percent chance of an alternate identification.”

“Timeworld Tree?”

Song Chi frowned. He couldn’t recall ever seeing such a resource in the family’s encrypted files.

His memory was spot on. The AI swiftly clarified: all information on the Timeworld Tree had come from the batch of materials Shen Youran had covertly extracted from the Beiqiong Shen Family.

Light flickered as the AI listed out every last detail on the Timeworld Tree.