Chapter 540: Breaking Through the Time Barrier

Time always seemed to fly by when traveling at full speed. In the blink of an eye, three years had passed.

On this day, Song Chi’s figure once again appeared aboard the Heavenly Ruin. He didn’t hesitate. The moment his thoughts shifted, all his focus locked onto the Scarlet Vault Jump Drive.

Beneath his calm exterior, his mind churned with turbulent emotions.

After three years, he was just one last Scarlet Vault Jump away from reaching that rainbow-hued nexus. And now, the jump drive had finally finished cooling down again.

He forced down the excitement roiling inside him and resolutely activated the Scarlet Vault Jump.

The jump’s charge-up time wasn’t short to begin with. Right now it felt positively endless.

When the crushing dizziness and weightlessness washed over him, Song Chi realized— the jump had begun.

When his senses returned, the Heavenly Ruin was already millions of light-years away from their last position.

Outside, eternal darkness and silence stretched as far as ever—nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Song Chi wasn’t surprised. This time, he hadn’t set the landing right on top of the rainbow point, but instead targeted a star domain some tens of thousands of light-years away.

It wasn’t just him—any Torch Captain in his place would have chosen the same approach.

After all, if the Timepiece Chessboard was really hidden within the ancestral lands of some advanced civilization, this was the only way to avoid warping straight into a den of dragons and tigers.

“Looks like things didn’t take the worst turn…”

Song Chi swept his gaze around, glancing twice more at the radar pane. A trace of delight flashed in his eyes.

If the Timepiece Chessboard had truly fallen under the control of some advanced civilization and was buried deep in their ancestral land, this wouldn’t be the scene before him.

Ancestral lands of advanced civilizations usually sat atop floating-lands for high-level life forms. Even a Seventh‑Tier Floating-land in the Sea of Stars could stretch over ten thousand light-years across—its immense outline easy to spot from tens of thousands of light-years away, let alone the even grander eighth-tier ones.

He couldn’t see any supermassive floating-land nearby. That meant there were likely no high-level floating-lands in this entire stretch of the star domain.

If that was the case, the Timepiece Chessboard wasn’t resting atop any high-level floating-land either.

Having verified this, and while his Neutron‑Star Fission trait was still active, Song Chi set his course for another regular jump toward the direction of the Timepiece Chessboard.

The first jump went smoothly, bringing the Heavenly Ruin another thirteen thousand light-years closer to the chessboard.

But trouble struck during the second jump.

As the jump ended and the Heavenly Ruin burst out of the tunnel, Song Chi, in the command center, immediately sensed something off.

“The ship’s velocity is off. Sky-Domain AI!”

He called for the Sky-Domain AI and soon received its analysis.

“Scans complete. The external starfield’s time flow is heavily suppressed— slowed by a factor of approximately 1.8 to 2.0. The ship itself is experiencing a slowdown of about 1.2 times.”

“Time’s slowed nearly twofold?”

On hearing this, Song Chi’s first thought wasn’t worry. It was elation.

Only high-grade time cultivators or advanced temporal oddities could manipulate time across a starfield like this.

That fit perfectly with the hypothesis that the Timepiece Chessboard truly existed here. Everything he’d tracked down wasn’t just in his head.

Even so, the situation left him far from relaxed.

With the Heavenly Ruin still several light-years from the rainbow point, and the time dilation already reaching twice normal at this range, what awaited at the very heart of that phenomenon?

It was easy to imagine—the closer the Heavenly Ruin got to the center, the more terrifying the time suppression would become.

And this might not be the only effect. He could even run into pockets of time acceleration or other distortions.

While the Heavenly Ruin currently housed the Pusa Zen Seal, Timepiece Chess and similar components, giving it some resistance to temporal effects, even that had only weakened external slow to about 1.2 times from the original two. Song Chi knew well—it probably wouldn’t be enough.

“Let’s hope things don’t spiral too far out of control.”

And hope wasn’t enough—he needed firsthand information if he wanted a targeted solution and any hope of claiming the Timepiece Chessboard for himself.

Vmmm!

Spatial ripples surged. Another jump was charging—this time powered by the Aurora Jump Drive, not the Scarlet Vault.

He played it safe, jumping only a mere 0.3 light-years ahead.

He wasn’t being timid. Getting any closer risked plunging straight into a time-stop field.

He didn’t know for sure if such an absolute stop existed here, but he wasn’t about to gamble.

It was highly likely anyway. If the Timepiece Chessboard really was a colorful mythic oddity, freezing the area in time wouldn’t be unthinkable.

As for sneaking into the Omniverse Market beforehand to dodge risk?

Song Chi doubted that would help. Once frozen, the Heavenly Ruin would lose all function—no components, no emergency jumps, not even retrieval of its Torch Ancestral Orifice.

If he exited the market to return to the warship, he’d be locked in that very instant too.

Trying to control the battleship remotely with his neural imprint? Even less plausible.

Could an orange-tier oddity really ignore the power of a mythic, rainbow-tier field?

From this 0.3-light-year safe zone, Song Chi used his Voidform Avatar to check the ship’s internal and external status in detail.

“External time slowed by 6.8 to 7.2 times. Within the ship, slowed by 2.5 times.”

Those numbers were still acceptable, so Song Chi jumped another 0.7 light-years forward.

“External time now slowed by 60 to 62 times. Onboard, 18 times.”

…

After these two jumps, Song Chi stopped. Both jump drives were tapped out, needing cooldown before the next round.

A few hours later, Song Chi’s experiments resumed.

After charging up, the Heavenly Ruin appeared just 1.8 light-years from the rainbow point.

“External time slowed by 280 to 290 times. Internal time, 70 times.”

He jumped again—now only 1 light-year away.

“External slowdown: 1000 to 1030 times. Inside the ship, 300 times.”

But at just half a light-year from the rainbow point, the field’s intensity reached a terrifying 3000-fold slowdown, even within his ship it was 1000-fold.

This was his limit. Any farther would risk trapping the Heavenly Ruin beyond return.

Still in the Market Heavens, gritting his teeth, Song Chi gave the Oddities Exchange another look.

Seeing that his stockpile of silver oddities—too many to convert to ship components—was still over thirty, his eyes hardened.

He used the Voidform Avatar left aboard the ship to attempt activating the Market Projection Token.

What had always taken a second now took twenty painstaking minutes for his avatar to complete.

Thankfully, the Market Projection Token finally activated.

Above the Heavenly Ruin, the projection condensed much slower than usual—nowhere near the usual thousandfold or worse, but still noticeably slow.

The purple mist energy that streamed in across the stars had finally reached tier seven, so the time slow’s impact wasn’t too terrible.

Time ticked by. Once the violet mist fully shrouded the Heavenly Ruin, the ship’s internal time dilation—once a thousandfold—was sharply reduced. Protected by Dominion Power, even the external time field’s suppression weakened considerably.

The original thousandfold slow was cut down to only a hundredfold.

Seizing this opening, Song Chi piloted the ship forward again.

At last, when the Heavenly Ruin was just mere hundreds of billions of kilometers from the rainbow point, even the Market Projection could no longer hold up.

Catching this before it vanished entirely, Song Chi rushed back to the ship under cover of the projection.

He set a spatial anchor at his current position, quickly retrieved the ship, then used the Market Token to return to the Omniverse Market.

Just these few maneuvers nearly cost him an hour—even with the projection’s shielding. Without it, he wouldn’t have dared attempt them.

The most frustrating part? Even with only a few hundred billion kilometers to go, making any more progress was almost unimaginably difficult.

…

“With the Heavenly Ruin’s current setup, this isn’t going to work. But once the Market ascends to tier six, the Dominion Power should advance to tier eight. If I load up more temporal resistance components, I’ll have a real shot at this!”

Back in the market, newly returned, Song Chi wracked his brains for solutions.

His first thought was the Yaoguang Star Order group chat. Where else could he borrow or trade for high-grade temporal resistance parts if not among the Star Tower’s members?

He didn’t hesitate. Returning to Torch Human Civilization territory via the spatial anchor stored on Dragon-Spine Continent, he pulled out the Yaoguang Star Order.

“Jingzhe (#32): @everyone I need high-quality temporal resistance components. The better, the better. Temporary borrows or trades both welcome.”

As expected, the message triggered a flood of replies.

“Blood Soul (#18): Is it urgent?”

“Jingzhe (#32): Extremely urgent! Please help me out—if you can’t uninstall without damage, I’ll cover all the reinforcement resource costs.”

“Blood Soul (#18): Got it. I have a silver Time Mirror. Let me check with my seniors in the clan.”

“Lancang (#16): I have a silver-grade one on my own ship.”

“Yulong (#17): My clan’s old ancestor holds a golden tier time oddity. Sis will ask on your behalf, but don’t get your hopes too high.”

…

“A golden, sanctuary-grade time oddity? Figures—the resources of Star Tower members are wild.”

Looking over the group chat, Song Chi couldn’t help but think—just as he expected.

As for Yulong’s warning not to hope for too much, he understood.

After all, it wasn’t hers, but a Changsun Family elder’s. Who’d casually lend out a sanctuary-grade golden time oddity unless you were practically family?

Time passed, and soon Corpse Dog, Heavenly Dragon, and other sixth-tier Dreadnought captains showed up. Corpse Dog, good uncle that he was, even promised to lend a golden Time Tome.

In a short time, Song Chi had gathered four silver time oddities, five red ones, and one golden.

If he could mount them all on the Heavenly Ruin, the ship’s resistance to time distortions would become truly frightening.

The bad news? Only some could actually be used. Torch Battleships could hold at most two of the same specialty components.

For example, Song Chi’s own Pusa Zen Seal counted as a domain-type component.

And among the loaned parts, three others were also domain-type—so even if he unmounted the Black Hole Evolution Layer, he could only fit one more.

In the end, Song Chi borrowed one golden, two silver, and three red parts.

Stowing these away, his next task was clear—waiting for the Market’s upgrade to tier six.

…

Two months later, inside the Omniverse Market.

As a round of market trades wrapped up, Song Chi opened up the market’s attribute panel.

Seeing that the trade quota was finally filled, he fetched a piece of Hunyuan Copper from storage.

He didn’t rush right into the upgrade, but headed to the auxiliary equipment zone.

He pulled out a tier-six Silver Apple, evolving his orange-quality Veil of Light to red-grade, then powered it up to level 60. With everything prepared, he finally triggered the market’s upgrade.

“Upgrade duration: one month. Remaining: 29 days 23:59:56.”

Seeing that message, Song Chi could only settle in and wait once more.

A month later, standing atop the skies of the Market Heavens, Song Chi watched as the market’s tremors, ongoing for a month, slowly subsided.

Next came the expansion of the market’s territory, glowing radiantly for several minutes. Once the blinding light faded, the Omniverse Market’s sixth-tier breakthrough was complete.

He dived into the market’s attribute panel, eager to see what had changed.

But disappointment set in—the tier six upgrade offered no new market configurations, no new features. Even the Market Inn remained the same.

Worst of all, the Spirit Synthesis Platform, once his main source for floating-land origins, had its effectiveness drastically reduced.

Even after enhancing it to tier six, its ability to synthesize Seventh‑Tier Floating-land origin was abysmal—from a hundred threads per month plus a whole tier higher, it now barely squeezed out one thread.

In other words, at most twelve threads of Seventh‑Tier Floating-land origin per year going forward.

It stung, but Song Chi could live with it. Seventh-tier origin was rare as phoenixes in the Shattered Sea—dozens of times scarcer than the sixth. If he could easily synthesize 1200 per year, that’d just be absurd.

Not all the changes were bad. For instance, the spatial anchor trait saw its uses increase from four anchors to five.

And then there was Dominion Authority.

As expected, the Market’s Dominion Power advanced from peak tier seven to fresh tier eight.

The change looked small on paper, but the distinction was truly profound.

At the Dominion level, every rank meant a massive gulf.

Aside from that, the Oddity Essence Refinement Platform didn’t get nerfed. Once boosted to tier six, it could now reforge the traits of even supreme black oddities.