Chapter 520: Operation Inferno: The Assault on the Fire Crow Clan

Dragon Abyss City’s Outer District, External Stargate Teleport Point.

As the saying goes, even the most watertight plan can have a single flaw.

To prevent such risks, the high-ranking members of Dragon Abyss’s Hidden Vein sealed the city’s surface entrances nearly two thousand years ago. Since then, their only way in or out of the underground stronghold has been via teleportation stargates.

Now, inside this outer city’s teleportation chamber, over thirty figures had gathered—the entire core of the Dragon Abyss Hidden Vein with cultivators of tier four and above.

“Let me stress this one last time, for this mission…”

At the front of the group, Song Shixing and Song Yao issued their final instructions. Off to the left, noticing Song Chi’s lingering confusion, Song Yan leaned over to quietly explain:

“These subterranean stargate teleportation chambers are the only route for our people to enter or leave the stronghold. Dragon Abyss actually has five such stargate rooms—one in each outer district (east, west, south, north) and one in the central district.”

“They all share one thing: their paired stargates lead to different regions, but each is at least a hundred light years from Dragon Abyss City.”

Song Chi barely changed expressions, but deep down he wholeheartedly agreed with how necessary these precautions were.

With this method, even if they were carelessly tracked by outsiders, only the outer transfer points would be compromised—the heart of Dragon Abyss City would always remain secure.

Song Chi even suspected that it was precautions like these that let Dragon Abyss Hidden Vein stay undiscovered for nearly two millennia.

Song Yan’s next words confirmed as much.

Before this system, Dragon Abyss City had been discovered by outsiders more than once. The family managed to cover things up each time, but only because the intruders were from weak civilizations. If a major power had found them, the city would have been doomed. That’s why, two thousand years ago, the family switched to this more secure system.

While the two spoke, Song Shixing had finished his instructions, and space around the teleportation chamber in the north district filled with a gentle wave.

In the blink of an eye, Song Chi and over thirty Hidden Vein members vanished from the chamber, leaving Song Yao behind to oversee things.

132 light years north of Dragon Abyss City, several kilometers beneath a windswept desert.

Here, too, was a vast stone chamber stretching tens of thousands of meters in all directions, and a Zhulu‑class Cruiser waited in the corner.

As the space disturbance faded, Song Shixing appeared with the group, and the Zhulu cruiser’s hatch slid open. A middle-aged family member emerged, visibly excited and respectful.

As a tier-four Elder stationed here for over seven years, it was easy for him to stay in contact with headquarters through battleship comm modules. After all, if something sudden happened, how else could he alert the family in time?

It’s not as if he could just destroy such a carefully built, resource-intensive transfer point at the first sign of trouble.

That’s why he’d already received word from Dragon Abyss—the family was finally about to seize a chance for full-scale expansion here on the Red Star Continent after centuries of caution.

Song Shixing offered a few calming words to the excited elder, then turned to an older man at the rear.

That was Elder Song Tiancong, the Hidden Vein’s highest-ranked fourth-tier clan elder.

With a single nod, Song Tiancong summoned his own main warship.

Once aboard, dozens of focused beams shot from the ship, darting unerringly into each core family member present.

No one resisted. They all knew it was a group cloaking link from a silver-tier concealed module. When the linking finished, Song Shixing led everyone toward the chamber’s exit.

Bursting up from below ground, all thirty-some members appeared topside in the barren desert. They were finally clear of the medium-level illusion space’s shroud, but with the cloaking module active, they had no fear of being spotted by wandering outsiders.

Flash, flash, flash!

One after another, over thirty massive Torch Battleships—none under three kilometers long—materialized in the desert sky. Yet in the eyes of other creatures, nothing seemed amiss.

“Our primary target is more than six hundred light years away in the Fire Crow Mountains! Everyone, charge spatial jump engines!”

…

The effectiveness of the silver cloaking modules was truly impressive. All thirty-ships jumped in sequence, yet not the faintest ripple betrayed their movement.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the Fire Crow Mountains, the million-strong Fire Crow Clan hadn’t sensed a thing.

At the vanguard, inside the Calm-Sea Rising Dragon, the command room buzzed with anticipation.

Song Shixing’s focus shifted, activating the Cloud-Seeker Disk he’d received from the Dragon-Spine Continent over a century ago.

The moment he triggered the Cloud-Seeker ability, he cast a probing image of the Fire Crow Mountains’ core into the fleet-wide comm channel so every core member could see the situation within.

“There’s the tier-six Fire Crow—absorbing massive geothermal energy deep in the mountain!”

“Not just the tier-six—there are more than a dozen tier-fives, all here as well. No one’s outside. Xingzu, we’re clear to move!”

…

Watching the streamed feed, the clan grew restless—especially at the sight of that enormous winged form buried beneath the mountain’s heart.

If all the tier-six and tier-five fire crows were here, odds were good the silver fire source—the upgraded fire seed—was too. Take them out now, and not only would they secure the prize, but they’d also gain extra time for follow-ups.

Meanwhile, Song Chi, commander of the Heavenly Ruin, mused to himself.

This Cloud-Seeker Disk’s scouting ability seemed even stronger than the Eyes of Heaven. Not even the fierce geomagnetic interference at the volcano’s core could block it; the Cloud-Seeker cut through cleanly.

He set that thought aside.

Still, Cloud-Seeker’s range couldn’t remotely compare to Eyes of Heaven. Even at level sixty, the former’s max range was only a hundred million kilometers. The latter could scan tens, hundreds, or even millions of light years away—a difference like earth and sky.

Before he could dwell on it, Song Shixing’s voice rang out in the comm channel.

“Xiaochi, let’s activate double containment together—better safe than sorry!”

“Understood!”

In quick succession, the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil and the Calm-Sea Rising Dragon’s own space-sealing module both activated.

A short time later, high-level fire crows finally sensed something wrong at the mountain’s core.

A tier-five fire crow burst from the peaks, soaring into the sky and unleashing a torrent of blazing fire up through the clouds.

Wooo-wooo-wooo!

Under the inferno’s impact, the Calm-Sea Rising Dragon’s inner barrier trembled, setting off the faintest of space ripples.

But the flames, formidable as they were for a tier-five, couldn’t shake a silver, tier-six module’s barrier.

Perhaps sensing the strength of that protection, the fire crow pulled its flames back, then cried out sharply.

At first listen, it was only a screech, but soon the cry shifted into fluent Starsea tongue.

“This is the proud territory of the Fire Crow Clan, vassals of the Flamejay Clan! Identify yourselves!”

Before the final word faded, a searing beam of energy split the sky.

Whoosh!

In a flash, the light pierced the fire crow, blasting its head apart before it could react.

As its huge corpse crashed down, panic shot through the million-strong clan. Countless crimson forms erupted into the skies, swarming toward the now-uncloaked Song fleet.

Yet the Song warships held back for now. Only Song Tiancong’s flagship charged up its main batteries.

In moments, forty-two quantum swordlights gathered before his ship—the Taiyi Quantum Swordlight Battery’s famous sword array.

With hundreds of thousands of crows massing in the air, it was the perfect moment for a wide-scale attack.

That Quantum Swordlight Battery was the same one Song Chi had uninstalled from the Destiny Compass and lent out. Elder Song Tiancong, though younger than Song Tianhao or Song Tianshu by a century or two, was nearing the end of his life. He was taking one last chance to break through and become a battleship commander.

Song Shixing wouldn’t deny him that shot; this was a perfect chance to wring every resource from the Fire Crow Clan.

Forty-two beams howled out, shredding through hundreds of thousands of crimson crows. Song Tiancong’s ship chimed repeatedly with kill confirmations, and his newly-opened advancement tasks ticked upward—every kill improving his chances.

Once the sword array’s energy was spent, everyone waited as Song Tiancong activated every single special attack his ship’s main guns could muster. Only then did the rest join in.

Ring after ring of explosions tore through the mountains. Buried deep below, the tier-six Fire Crow finally stirred.

Gyew-gyew!

A shrill, furious cry echoed from the mountain’s core. Then a vast red phantom erupted upward.

But before this mighty being could unleash its full strength, two specialized chains whipped out of the void and coiled tightly around it.

The Bloodsoaked Divine Chains of the Bind-God Chains

The Heaven-Binding Shackles of the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil

One red, one silver—both strengthened to their maximum tier. Their combined might was overwhelming.

The Fire Crow froze mid-ascent—no matter how it raged and summoned all its fire law power, it couldn’t break free from those chains any time soon.

Seconds later, three lances of light ripped down from above.

Each came from a different warship.

Song Chi’s Heavenly Ruin, Song Shixing’s Calm-Sea Rising Dragon, Song Yan’s Scarlet Sea-Boiler.

Interestingly, all three fired their main cannons—none used their supercannons.

As a result, the Fire Crow was left heavily wounded, but not obliterated.

That had been their goal all along—for the killing blow to go to Song Tiancong.

With the tier-six slain, finishing off the other fire crows was just a matter of time. Each Song warship deployed ten Hellfire Mechs, and with over three hundred tier-four units unleashed, the cleanup sped by.

Within a few hours, the Song Family had wiped out the entire Fire Crow Clan and gathered up all resources from the Fire Crow Mountains.

Clan elders tasked with accounting relayed their tallies in the comm channel.

The initial harvest stacked up as follows:

Over a thousand Starsea Oddities: including one Silver Upgraded Fire Source, five Red Upgraded Fire Sources, twenty-six Orange Upgraded Fire Sources, a silver-tier energy shield generator, thirty-two Red Oddities, and three hundred ten Orange Oddities. There were nearly ten thousand purple and lower oddities as well.

Two Seventh‑Tier Floating-land Origins, 6,800 Sixth-Tier, 120,000 Fifth-Tier… and counting.

A single metal law divine crystal, one earth law divine crystal, dozens of fire-element materials, and over a hundred thousand tons of various ores.

Plus, a large Firecloud Crystal deposit, a medium fire-copper vein, and seven other minor fire-element lodes.

Glancing through the readout, Song Chi quickly lost interest.

Of everything, the most valuable was the silver fire source. Ironically, he no longer needed it.

What did surprise him, though, was how much richer the Fire Crow Clan was compared to the old Heavenly Star Civilization.

Despite having just a single tier-six overseer and regular tributes to the Flamejay Clan, the sheer material wealth of this eighth-level floating-land was on a different scale. The realization made Song Chi’s heart beat a little faster.

The others explained that the Fire Crow Clan had only held these mountains for about a thousand years—relative newcomers to the Red Star Continent.

For such a young group with only one real powerhouse, their resources already outclassed what the ancient Heavenly Star Civilization had built up over ten thousand years. What about the other, established civilizations with even stronger leaders?

While he pondered, debate broke out in the comm channel.

Naturally, Song Shixing took the silver fire source without hesitation.

“I’ll be taking this silver fire source for myself—no objections, I hope.”

No one objected. Upgrading the Torch Seed in Song Shixing’s flagship to silver would supercharge its strength, and be a huge boon to the Hidden Vein’s ambitions.

With the silver fire source claimed, everyone turned to Song Yan and Song Chi.

To their surprise, both simply shook their heads.