Chapter 539: Through the Rift: Into the Shattered Expanse

From beginning to end, Song Chi had always prepared for the risk of a ‘spatial turbulence’ event.

That was exactly why he never once used the ‘Black Hole Domain’ ability.

As a rare ‘absolute invincibility’ trait, Black Hole Domain ensured the Heavenly Ruin’s safety for as long as it lasted.

Song Chi figured if things ever did slip into spatial turbulence, activating Black Hole Domain would give the Heavenly Ruin its best shot at survival. He meant it as a last line of defense—never expected he’d actually need it.

He’d held nothing back on ‘Black Hole Energy,’ though. Summoning that singularity had cost him every one of his thirty thousand points, just to buy a sliver more time against that Ancient Demon Overlord’s hand—hoping to keep the Heavenly Ruin from being sucked into turbulent space or having its jump interrupted.

Still, that didn’t stop him from triggering Black Hole Domain right now.

Through his Voidform Avatar, he saw the Black Hole Evolution Layer module’s energy meter now fully recharged—back to the max of thirty thousand points.

As for why—

The Black Hole Evolution Layer module could absorb half the energy from outside attacks and convert it into black hole energy. After all that spatial turbulence and those deadly void gusts, there was power to spare.

So, Black Hole Energy was full again.

No hesitation. Song Chi let Sky-Domain AI drain all thirty thousand points in one go—instantly, a unique black hole domain formed around the Heavenly Ruin.

Seeing this, Song Chi immediately reclaimed the last scrap of energy from the Market Projection and, at the same time, had his Voidform Avatar in the Heavenly Ruin quickly activate a second Market Projection Token.

Vmmm, vmmm, vmmm!

With endless spatial turbulence raging, the space waves from the Market Projection stretching across the stars barely even registered. Purple mist energy painstakingly began to gather via the cross-star projection.

Inside the Heavenly Ruin’s control room, Song Chi’s Voidform stared unblinking at the Black Hole Evolution Layer module.

Even after investing thirty thousand points, Song Chi really wasn’t sure how long this Black Hole Domain would hold—the module was only at rank seven, and the void turbulence outside was terrifyingly destructive.

“No, I can’t just let the Market Projection charge up on its own!”

In the Omniverse Market, Song Chi’s instincts screamed—the Black Hole Domain might not last until the Market Projection finally solidified. The turbulence out there was choking the purple mist energy, dragging down the charging speed.

So, he didn’t wait—he triggered Starlight Descent and Deathstar Descent right there in the market.

Before long, the spectral images of two ancient stars appeared high above the Omniverse Market, outside the protective shield—one left, one right, hanging silently above Song Chi’s head. Their scattered starlight cast him as if he were a solitary sovereign of the cosmos.

With both ancient stars augmenting him, the Dominion Power flowing from Song Chi grew even more formidable.

In the void jump corridor outside, the purple mist energy began to gather with sudden speed. In the split second before Black Hole Domain shattered, the Market Projection finally solidified.

That second Market Projection had formed—meeting his original expectation. Now it was all up to whether the Heavenly Ruin could reach the jump corridor’s exit before this projection’s power ran dry.

If not, Song Chi would have to pin his hopes on the Celestial Authority Ring.

By this point, Song Chi had played every card on the Heavenly Ruin except for one: the ‘Enslave Seal: Berserk’ function of the Celestial Authority Ring.

If it really came to that, he’d have to activate Enslave Seal: Berserk, using the rank-six Doomstar aboard as a vessel, granting it temporary Dominion Power—maybe enough to shield the Heavenly Ruin.

Song Chi really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Dominion Power from the Enslave Seal: Berserk wasn’t the real thing—there was no telling if it could truly protect the ship.

Hovering above the Omniverse Market, Song Chi remotely guided the Market Projection against the raging spatial turbulence and found himself speculating about that Ancient Demon Overlord.

First—his enemy must possess a high-level spatial oddity, maybe with remote tracking capabilities. Otherwise, there was no way to explain how he’d tracked the Heavenly Ruin from over ten thousand light years out, let alone launch an attack from thirteen thousand light years away.

Second—this Ancient Demon Overlord was probably a peak rank-seven, perhaps even an eight-star Ancient Demon. A regular rank-seven would never display such overwhelming power.

Song Chi shook his head at the thought.

“If only the Market had reached rank six, things would have gone differently this time. Still, it won’t be much longer!”

Letting that concern go, Song Chi refocused on the task at hand: the Omniverse Market itself.

With his control, the Market Pocket Realm raced at top speed through the Void Sea.

Because of the Market’s own status, the two ancient star projections he’d called earlier were kept out—unable to be reflected into the Market’s core.

In other words, Starlight Descent and Deathstar Descent were both fully exposed in the outer Void Sea. That dazzling starlight must have drawn a pack of wandering Void Demons.

So, while shielding the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi kept moving the Market Pocket Realm, only then could he guarantee its continued safety.

Thankfully, all his bad luck seemed to have burned out with that Ancient Demon Overlord. No fresh disasters struck after.

Not only did the Market shift into a new, safe zone, but even the situation outside improved for the Heavenly Ruin.

Peering out from the Voidform Avatar’s perspective, Song Chi caught sight of a spatial fissure at the edge of the forward view.

This one looked nothing like the spatial rifts before—it was much wider and sat at the margin of the jump corridor, not inside. It looked like it might lead straight out to the starry sky beyond.

He couldn’t be sure at first, but as time passed certainty grew in his heart.

“That’s it—a crack to the outer starfield!”

Realizing this, Song Chi broke into a grin.

By now, the second Market Projection had nearly spent itself—wouldn’t last much longer. Where before he’d been ready to prompt Sky-Domain AI to prepare the Enslave Seal: Berserk, now it seemed he could relax.

Unknown starspace. A vast, stretching band of shattered space.

At the center of that broken zone, with a flash of light, a battered warship burst out of a gaping rift.

A savage surge of spatial wind howled in just behind the ship.

Luckily, the purple mist projection above the battleship hadn’t faded entirely. It finally ate that spatial tempest whole—leaving nothing behind.

In the ship’s control room, spatial fluctuations shimmered—and Song Chi’s form quietly materialized.

“A shattered space belt?”

A glance around showed the Heavenly Ruin had landed in a sprawling region riddled with random spatial rifts.

“Did this result from a massive star war—or is it just a naturally weak zone in space?”

He considered several possibilities for its formation—but soon dismissed them.

Right now, he needed to worry about the Heavenly Ruin’s condition—and about the two Fifth-Tier Doomstar beings still on the fifth-tier floating-land.

Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield: completely overloaded.

Neutron-Star Core Armor: sixty-eight percent damaged.

Hull: forty percent damaged.

“Manageable, I suppose—but we won’t be leaving this shattered belt today. I’ll have to wait for the two repair modules to cool down.”

Song Chi flicked a look at the radar and map. Both showed nothing out of the ordinary, so he relaxed and entered the Market.

Market, third floor of the inn.

Inside one of the Traveler’s Inn rooms, Song Chi collected a storage capsule delivered by the Fifth-Tier Doomstar.

Inside, he found all the Titanite Crystals from their mining run.

That little ore vein was better than expected—they’d ended up with seventy-three thousand Titanite Crystals, enough to last him a while.

He left the four mining vehicles abandoned underground on the floating-land. Maybe some ancient demon would dig them up one day—but they weren’t worth much anyway.

After stashing the crystals, he took stock of the loot plundered from the Ancient Demon King City’s secret vault.

Not much, really. This was just a fifth-tier floating-land, not the legacy of some entire civilization. Aside from a silver oddity, there were only three red epic oddities, and not many orange or purple ones either.

There was plenty of Floating-Land Origin though, not that he was short of that—at least, not below rank seven.

Right… nothing below rank seven was a concern.

Beyond that, it was mostly various mineral resources. He was surprised to find ten Eternal Stone Bricks among them.

Song Chi took a quick trip outside to fuse them straight into the Heavenly Ruin’s hull.

He’d already added quite a few of these to the ship. With the slow boost from the Black Hole Evolution Layer module and the benefit of modules like Behemoth Heart and Yang·Tongxin Pendant, the Heavenly Ruin’s armor was already leagues beyond normal ships of its rank.

Without that, they might have been lost to spatial turbulence this time.

This was why Song Chi always stayed on top of reinforcing the ship—any time he found a new Eternal Stone Brick, he’d fuse it in immediately.

…

By the next day, with both repair modules finished, the Heavenly Ruin was fully restored.

Not wasting time, Song Chi activated Neutron-Star Fission and set off on a spatial jump.

Once the jump ended, they emerged into a stretch of normal starfield.

Song Chi’s gaze swept around the black expanse and darted between the stars on the map. He rubbed his brow.

Thanks to the turbulence, he had no idea where the Heavenly Ruin had ended up. In short, he was lost.

His only sure option was to use the Market to jump back to the Void Belt, where his first Spatial Anchor had been placed—and pick a new direction.

Yet he didn’t decide right away. He waited for over a month.

A month later, Scarlet Vault Jump came off cooldown.

This time, Song Chi picked a random jump direction. If he found nothing, he’d go right back to the previous Void Belt.

Six million light years away, after the jump ended, Song Chi immediately looked out from his ship.

Seeing that familiar, lonely starfield, he was just about to recall the ship and return by Market.

That’s when his eyes drifted across the Destiny Compass’s map—then narrowed sharply.

“A new marker? And that radiance…”

Staring at the seven-colored light at the edge of the map, Song Chi nearly stopped breathing.

“Could this be… a blessing in disguise?”

“Did that turbulence toss the Heavenly Ruin right near the Timepiece Chessboard’s true body?”

He was almost certain: that rainbow glow marked the Timepiece Chessboard’s location.

But more important than even that—was the light itself.

Seven colors. What did that mean?

His first thought: colored mythic components.

If the Timepiece Chessboard really was a colored mythic oddity… how could he not be thrilled?

Still, the joy faded as calm returned.

All this was just a guess. Even if the Timepiece Chessboard was there and genuinely a colored mythic component, whether he could actually claim it—or what the situation was like out there, nearly two hundred million light years away—he knew nothing. Too early to celebrate.

Besides, even at full speed, two hundred million light years would take more than three years.

“Just don’t let it be the Yuangu Family’s old lair. If it is, that’ll be a nightmare…”

If it was the Yuangu Family—or another high-tier civilization’s core zone—there was no way, not with his current power, that he’d get his hands on it.

Even if the Market advanced to rank six and his authority reached rank eight, it wouldn’t matter.

Once he’d cooled down, Song Chi went back into the Market, quietly waiting for Scarlet Vault Jump’s next cooldown a month later.

He did run one more Market transaction in the meantime. This time luck was terrible—a decent batch of traders, but only a handful of fourth- and Fifth-Tier outsiders.

His only real gain was a ‘celestial meteorite’ from a low-ranked outsider. It was one of the rare ingredients he’d need for the battleship to become a Dreadnought—as of now, he’d collected three of the four, lacking only an Advanced Law of Space Crystal.

“It’s been almost two hundred years since I became a battleship captain. Time really flies!”

With that, Song Chi checked the results of the past two centuries. The Heavenly Ruin’s foundations were strong. The Guiding Technique had broken through to level 59, too.

Elsewhere, he’d stashed away a rank-six peak Evil God Blood, a fifth-tier Timeworld Fruit, and even a drop of Dominion Origin Blood extracted from the Chasing Fate Immortal’s corpse. If he could get just one Advanced Law of Space Crystal, and a couple more good hunting spots, maybe it was time for the Heavenly Ruin to charge for Dreadnought status.

One more thing. News from Dragon-Spine Continent: after two centuries of effort, the continent’s diameter had ballooned to nearly a thousand light years, bringing it up to the peak of sixth-tier floating-land. If it could make the jump to seventh-tier, the energy surge would give a real boost to his own breakthrough odds.