Chapter 526: Sea of Light and Shadows in Star Core City

Holy radiance and starlight intertwined, transforming all of Star Core City into a boundless sea of light.

The brilliance was so intense, so powerful, even the Star Core Shield above the city struggled to contain it all.

Far above, the Star Spirit Dominator finally sensed the disturbance coming from within Star Core City.

“Angel King?”

The Dominator’s voice was sharp and edged with underlying fear. As a newly advanced Seventh-Tier Dominator, if there truly was an Eighth-Tier Angel King here, it would mean only one outcome for the Star Spirit Tribe.

But in the next moment, the Dominator realized something wasn’t right.

“No, it’s just the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition, not a true Eighth-Tier Angel…”

Understanding this, the Dominator prepared to pull back and return to Star Core City.

Suddenly, the shield below seemed to be sucked by some unknown force. Massive streams of starlight converged on a single point, then shot skyward as a pillar of light, piercing straight into the Star Spirit Dominator above.

Strangely enough, once the pillar touched the Dominator, it seemingly established an unbroken connection, channeling a limitless supply of starforce into the Dominator.

With this surge, the Star Spirit Dominator’s strength grew considerably. The balance of the battle flipped in an instant, and the Starry Sky Dragon Shark began to lose ground.

But the Dominator knew well—this so-called ‘Black-Toothed Giant Shark’ was only here to draw out its real body. The true key to this situation lay in the events unfolding within Star Core City.

A handprint of starlight clashed with the Starry Sky Dragon Shark, driving it back again. At the same moment, the power of the stars surged around the Dominator, and with the blessing of the Law of Light, the Dominator vanished from the sky above the Red Star Continent.

“You dare trespass on my tribe’s ancestral land? Be suppressed by my hand!”

A voice, bright and overwhelming, thundered overhead. Song Chi felt a roar exploding right in his ears, the force of that shout stabbing through his very soul.

Within the ancestral orifice of the Torch Seed, in the depths of the chaotic space, black light flared wildly in the illusory palace that guarded the Torch Seed. It finally turned almost tangible.

Only when the phantom Dragon Whale Hall revealed itself did the rolling thunderous voice get pushed out of the Torch Seed ancestral space.

Song Chi was dazed for just a heartbeat, but when he looked up again, a sky-covering handprint of starlight was already falling toward him.

Wrapped in Dominion Power and flawless Law of Light, the starlight handprint materialized with unimaginable force and slammed down upon the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition above the Heavenly Ruin. The burst of light and force fractured the very air.

Thankfully, the Heavenly Ruin stood on an Eighth-Level Floating-land, where space was unimaginably strong. Anywhere else in the starry sky, the blast would have caused millions of miles to collapse into nothing.

Inside the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi tensed up.

After all, this was a direct assault from a Seventh-Tier Dominator—even with the Angel King’s Authority Wings as a Gold Sanctum Domain Component, strengthened to the Seventh-Tier, it still couldn’t withstand the hit.

Before Song Chi’s eyes, the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition quickly dimmed. After holding out barely a few dozen seconds, it was completely erased and drained of power.

“Taiyi Quantum Swordlight Battery—True Immortal Quantum Blade.”

Just as the guard apparition faded, Song Chi fired off the Taiyi Quantum Swordlight Battery. A nearly hundred-thousand-meter quantum swordlight shot upward, crashing against the now-faded starlight handprint.

After another fierce detonation, Song Chi kept going—Soul-Annihilating Iris Beam followed, then the Celestial Godslayer Cannon.

With three main cannons blazing, the last of the starlight handprint’s power was finally wiped out.

But that alone wasn’t enough. High above, the Starry Sky Dragon Shark answered Song Chi’s order and dove fast down toward the city.

Its body, wrapped in seething blood energy, slammed straight into the Star Core Shield. Just one hit made the peak Sixth-Tier shield tremble and almost collapse.

Seeing this, the Star Spirit Dominator realized the shield couldn’t take much more. If it broke, the city and tribe would suffer devastating damage—the Dominator dared not stay inside, and rushed out to face the Dragon Shark once more.

Even so, before breaking through the now-dim Star Core Shield, the Dominator unleashed another ferocious strike.

This second strike was even more forceful than the last—swearing to obliterate Song Chi and everyone inside the Treasure Hall, including Song Yan.

Watching the Dominator whirl and break through the shield without hesitation—sure he couldn’t block a second blow—Song Chi just snorted from within the battleship.

“Dominators or not, don’t underestimate me! There’s a lot more to the Heavenly Ruin than just ‘True Spirit Guard of the Angel King!'”

With a cold snort Song Chi’s mind raced.

At the warship’s prow, bloodlight gathered at wild speed. But this time, the Blood Spear supercannon’s charge looked very different.

A second ago it was just a thin layer—then, in a flash, it became a razor-sharp spear of judgment.

“Blood Judgment” plus “Black Hole Singular Burst!”

The blood spear tore through the air, colliding straight into the star-glow palm descending from above.

Bloodlight and starlight clashed at full force, neither side yielding. Yet as the moments dragged on, the blood’s glow began to fade, slowly overwhelmed by the starlight.

But then, a thumb-sized pure black singularity erupted—spawning a miniature black hole. Under its terrifying pull, huge amounts of starlight were swallowed, further weakening the palm’s power.

The starlight palm still won in the end, but less than a tenth of its strength remained.

Seeing this, Song Chi held nothing back. He piloted the Heavenly Ruin to meet the last remnants head-on. Just before they collided, he triggered the long-unused Neutron-Star Fission trait.

Sure enough, the flickering starlight palm, left with only a trace of power, evaporated under the neutron star’s searing heat. The Heavenly Ruin emerged completely unscathed.

…

Deep inside the Treasure Hall, amid the chaos outside, Mirror Princess and her companion hesitated briefly. Song Yan just shook his head.

“Don’t worry. We just need to hurry up!”

He already knew plenty about Song Chi from the family’s patriarchs, and had a good grasp on Dominion Projection. That was why he felt sure Song Chi wouldn’t be in any danger—and had confidence Song Chi could buy them time.

Bursting into the vault, and following their inside contact’s earlier intel, Song Yan led Mirror Princess and the other quickly toward the underground levels.

“Forget the other floors—go straight to the fifth basement!”

The Star Spirit Tribe’s vault spanned seven floors, all underground—and to reach them, you needed to ride something like an elevator. The key was, this ‘elevator’ only let you go one floor at a time, and if you wanted to switch, you had to return to the surface and start again.

Time was tight—no way they could waste it. They could only explore one floor.

Luckily, their inside contact held a decent rank. He’d told Song Yan the most valuable treasures were on the fifth—not the deepest—floor.

After confirming their destination, the three soon reached the entrance to the fifth underground vault.

“Please present your identification!”

The vault doors, forged of starstone, needed special credentials. Song Yan immediately produced a Star Spirit Tribe identity card.

“Elite Warrior ‘Xing Yu’ of the Star Core Patrol Hall—you have clearance to enter the restricted vault. Verification complete!”

The starstone gates responded with a mechanical voice, then swung open with a heavy thud.

“Quick—grab whatever’s most valuable!”

After testing for traps with a few terracotta warriors, Song Yan’s group rushed into the vault. They immediately split up, each grabbing what they could.

Song Yan chose the right side, but before gathering anything, he pulled out the Dimensional Spatial Stone that Song Chi had given him earlier.

When triggered with astral energy, the Dimensional Spatial Stone activated. In a flash, three beams of light shot out, and reformed as three Sixth-Tier Void Shadow Assassin Warriors standing before Song Yan.

“What’s this… remote puppet control?”

Song Yan hadn’t known why Song Chi asked him to unlock the stone as soon as they entered. So he was a bit surprised—but seeing the three alert puppet warriors, he got it right away.

He cracked a smile, wasted no more time, and joined with Song Chi—controlling the three puppets by neural link—to start taking valuables.

Outside, the battle raged on. Song Chi might’ve had to devote much of his mind to fighting, but with his mental strength, sparing three streams of attention was nothing.

Through the eyes of the puppet warriors, Song Chi quickly spotted piles of resources and rare Stasea Oddities.

Silver Oddity: Stariron.

Five hundred threads of Sixth-Tier Floating-Land Origin.

High-tier ore: Star Core Stone.

Red Oddity: Starlight Orb.

Ten threads of Seventh‑Tier Floating-land Origin.

…

Sweeping his gaze, he saw plenty of good stuff—but nothing that got his heart racing.

Still, things like Stariron, Seventh‑Tier Floating-land Origin, and Starlight Orb were all worth grabbing, so he signaled the puppets to collect them.

After all, those were high value and easy to carry—not the sort of bulky things that’d slow them down.

They moved fast. Finally, when one of the puppet warriors reached the vault’s inner zone, Song Chi found one of his real targets this trip.

Neutron star wreckage.

“Two pieces of neutron star wreckage. Not bad!”

No hesitation, he had the puppet pack them up into a storage capsule, and kept searching.

A few minutes later, Song Chi’s eyes lit up at another rare oddity—one that could actually be converted to a warship component.

A jump drive.

Scarlet Vault Jump Drive (lv0).

Quality: Silver.

Trait: Maximum jump range is doubled.

Trait 2: +800 ship spatial resistance when installed.

Trait 3: Jump charge—holds up to two charges at once.

Trait 4: Scarlet Vault Jump.

Energy cost: 3,000 (per use, astral points).

Available jumps: 2/2.

Effect: When fully charged, allows the ship to warp in a specified direction. Max jump distance: 40 light-years (20×2).

Recharge: 1 hour; cooldown: 24 hours.

Upgrade cost: 10 threads of Floating-Land Origin (base tier), 1,000 astral points, 10g spatial sand.

Note: Occupies four installation slots.

{Scarlet Vault Jump: Costs 80,000 astral points to perform a long-range spatial jump in a set direction. Max range is 100 times a normal jump. Cooldown is always one year. (Extremely risky without a stellar map—danger is high.)}

What Song Chi really valued in this silver jump device was that ‘Scarlet Vault Jump’ trait. If the device was leveled up, a single jump would be epic—tens of thousands or even millions of light-years, easily.

More importantly, he desperately needed something like this. His search for the Timepiece Chessboard component would have the Heavenly Ruin warping all over a universe-sized map. His current drives—the Aurora Jump Drive and the Roarer Jump Drive—were far too slow.

Without a second thought, Song Chi grabbed the silver component.

Time ticked by and, in no time, the four of them had combed almost the entire fifth vault floor—leaving only a tenth-long inner zone untouched.

But right then, Mirror Princess called out a warning.

“Spatial shift effect’s about to expire. We’ve got thirty seconds—just thirty seconds to get out!”

Hearing this, none of them hesitated. All four dashed to the very core of the vault.

This final tenth was where the very best treasures lay. Just the golden light leaking out told them that at least one Golden Sanctum Oddity was stashed here.

In fact, all four of them made a beeline for the golden item as soon as they saw it.

Song Chi quickly checked its info.

Oddity: Star Core Mirrorstone.

Quality: Gold.

Convertibility: None.

Note: A special golden oddity formed after millions of years deep within a Seventh‑Tier Floating-land’s star core. As for its use, it seems limited.

Song Chi and Song Yan frowned at this, but Mirror Princess and her companion showed the opposite reaction. It was exactly the item they’d been after—before, the rumors had called it a Silver-quality Star Mirrorstone. Who’d have guessed it was a golden sanctum treasure?

Clearly, for them, it was a windfall. The Star Mirrorstone could be forged into a Mirrorfolk origin mirror—the higher the quality, the stronger the artifact, and the better their future prospects.

Still, grabbing other valuables came first. There was more than just the Star Mirrorstone in the core zone, so they’d worry about splitting the loot afterward.