Chapter 624: Shadow Hunt in the Nightmare Mountains

After making sure he was completely safe, Song Chi finally turned his attention to the spoils he hadn’t had the chance to inspect earlier.

The Seventh-Tier Gray Crystal and five wisps of Primal Chaos Qi were valuable enough, but what really caught his eye was the golden oddity.

[Oddity: Secret Rune Guardian]

[Quality: Gold]

[Convertible: {Cosmic Rune Energy Shield}]

[Note: A special oddity nurtured in a low-level Cosmic Secret Realm, etched with a shred of primordial cosmic rune. Offers impressive resistance against most forms of mystic attacks.]

……

Cosmic Rune Energy Shield lv0

Quality: Gold

Trait: Increases energy shield value by 140%.

Trait 2: Increases energy shield defense by 140%.

Trait 3: Cosmic Essence Energy Cycle.

Trait 4: True Shield.

Trait 5: Cosmic Rune.

……

{Cosmic Rune: Fragmented runes left from the Multiversal Era, offering powerful defense against most mystic attacks. Any mystic attack on an equipped battleship will have its power reduced by 70%.}

Song Chi’s gaze only lingered a second on the first four traits before locking onto the last one: ‘Cosmic Rune.’

That last trait was a real gem. Even at the base level, it cut over 70% from mystic attacks. If boosted to level 80, it’d probably slash over 90%. That was just unreal.

So what exactly counts as a mystic attack? Honestly, the scope was massive—mental assaults from Nightmare Souls, magic, curses, misfortune and more. They all fit the bill.

Song Chi valued this trait highly and was now wondering if he should use the Oddity Essence Refinement Platform to transfer it over to the Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield.

But after some thought, he decided against it for now.

Trait: Two-Modes Damage Reduction.

Trait 2: True Shield.

Trait 3: Energy shield value grant +320%.

Trait 4: Shield defense value grant +320%.

Trait 5: Yin-Yang Regeneration.

All five traits on the Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield were decent. He honestly couldn’t bring himself to swap any of them just yet.

The only possible one to consider was Trait 3, but even that was tricky. Even with a Saintlight Shield added as backup to offset the loss in shield bulk, the overall shield value affected the healing from Yin-Yang Regeneration and the effects of Neutron-Star Core Pulse as well.

In the end, Song Chi just stashed the new component in the Market’s sealed storage room, as a backup tool for emergencies.

For now though, it was time to head back to the Nightmare Soul Continent and keep hunting those Seventh-Tier Nightmare Souls.

He had enough Silver Oddities on hand and didn’t need to be stingy with Market Projection Tokens. After all, oddities could be gathered later, but if he missed this Nightmare Secret Realm, there’d be no chance to farm more Gray Crystals.

……

Five years slipped by in the blink of an eye.

During those five years, Song Chi used over ten Market Projection Tokens and burned through a dozen Silver Oddities, but his haul was immense—five Seventh-Tier Gray Crystals, over a hundred Sixth-Tier, and thousands of Fourth- and Fifth-Tier. He’d had a fantastic run.

About half a year back, a new idea struck him—why not try enslaving one of them?

Not long ago, the Clan Elder’s Tiger Carapace King Bug had died, dropping their top-tier enslaved dominator count down to three: two King Bugs and one Starry Sky Dragon Shark. Song Chi always felt that wasn’t enough.

Even though this civilization war had lasted over three centuries, it was nothing for two top civilizations; these things could go on for thousands of years. They were still in the early stages.

With that in mind, Song Chi’s battle strength anxiety never really faded.

He’d long wanted to enslave more top-tier dominators, but the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon clan was far too unique—they were basically impossible to enslave with normal parts.

So, if he could enslave a few Nightmare Souls as substitutes, that’d be a pretty good win. Even if he couldn’t field them on the open battlefield before earning the Star-Annihilator-class Captain rank, he could still use them for solo battleships with no trouble.

But reality proved otherwise. He’d only managed to enslave one Seventh-Tier Nightmare Soul and that took hundreds of attempts with the Celestial Authority Ring component.

For that single success, he spent five charges of the Virtual Projection Token.

Five legendary Silver Oddities, traded just for one Seventh-Tier Nightmare Soul—that was a complete loss. After that Song Chi gave up on enslaving Nightmare Souls entirely.

……

At the Omniverse Market, Song Chi sat motionless, eyes shut. Over two hundred threads of spirit sense stretched from his mind into the Seventh-Tier Gray Crystal in his hand.

He hadn’t finished absorbing all its power when a sudden message from Empress Iris echoed in his mind.

“Master, the Clan Elder and Song Yan have contacted you. Please head to the central Floating-land in the secret realm, to the Nightmare Mountains.”

Hearing this, Song Chi immediately stopped what he was doing.

But instead of returning to the Heavenly Ruin’s main body in the Fire Serpent Galaxy, he simply shifted his consciousness from the Market to his Mirror Warship.

All these years, the Omniverse Market Projection had been popping up all over the Nightmare Soul Continent. The Clan Elder and big brother Song Yan both knew it well. For them to call at a time like this, it had to be something important.

Following the coordinates Iris provided, the hidden Mirror Warship triggered a warp jump.

Once the charge finished, the Mirror Warship jumped to the middle of the Nightmare Mountains.

The Nightmare Mountains were the largest range on the continent, splitting the Floating-land from north to south, stretching over ten light-years. Especially in the central region, the forests reached tens of thousands, even up to hundreds of thousands, of kilometers tall. If a regular Dreadnought slipped in, with some stealth support, they’d be impossible to spot.

That’s why the central Floating-land’s primitive woods were the perfect hiding place for all kinds of Torch Battleships these past few years.

Once the Mirror Warship arrived, Song Chi quickly rendezvoused, using the coordinates from the Clan Elder and Song Yan, with the warship avatars under their control.

Both had put their warship avatars’ power to good use over the years and racked up a decent haul.

They hadn’t used the brute force of Market Projections, and instead teamed up, combining their two warship avatars. The Scorching Sea Blazer was especially effective against soul entities, so both had managed to snag a Seventh-Tier Gray Crystal each, plus plenty of Sixth-Tier and below.

But this time, summoning the Heavenly Ruin Mirror Warship wasn’t about hunting another Nightmare Soul.

“Xiaochi, the Lingyue Ruan Clan’s Star-Annihilator-class Ship recently beat us to an Eighth-Tier Nightmare Soul’s lair and grabbed a lot of good loot—rare time and space ores, Seventh-Tier Gray Crystals, and at least ten wisps of Primal Chaos Qi that we know of.”

At this, Song Chi instantly understood.

It was clear—the Clan Elder and Song Yan wanted that Primal Chaos Qi.

After collecting Primal Chaos Qi several times over the past few years, the three of them were just a little short of the amount needed for the Dragon Whale Hall’s third restoration. If they got these ten wisps, Dragon Whale Hall could try the third repair right away—and it might ascend straight to the mythical rainbow-tier of oddities.

After a short discussion, they decided to comb the primal forests for that Ruan Clan Star-Annihilator-class Ship.

That ship had been marked with the Eighth-Tier Nightmare Soul’s ‘Suppress’ rune when it looted the lair. Now it had lost all fast-travel and warp capabilities, and would need another month to break out of that state at best.

So far, not even half that time had passed.

Meaning—the ship still had to be somewhere in the heart of the Nightmare Mountains.

With that confirmation, the Song Family’s three warships split up, each activating their top-level patrol radars, hoping to track the Ruan Clan’s ship down as fast as possible.

Although the Ruan Clan wasn’t that strong these days, their old lineage meant thousands of years of collected gear and parts.

Being their only Star-Annihilator-class Ship, it packed the best of the Ruan Clan’s legacy—top stealth components included.

Thanks to this, the Song Family’s three ships had been flying around like headless flies, never able to pinpoint their target.

That day, Song Chi deployed three Seventh-Tier Void Shadow Assassin Warriors yet again.

These warriors were attuned to everything space-related—they could sense all kinds of spatial fluctuations. Now at Seventh-Tier, if they got close enough to the hidden Ruan Clan battleship, they’d definitely sense it. This was why Song Chi kept sending them out.

But the puppet warriors had a fatal flaw. If they left the battleship captain’s range, they’d lose all control and go limp. Even with a Neural Remote Control System helping out, he could only command three warriors at once. The search area was just too limited.

Inside the Omniverse Market, Song Chi suddenly vanished. A second later, he reappeared—with a new component in hand.

An orange-grade Neural Remote Control System!

This one came from the main Heavenly Ruin in the Fire Serpent Galaxy, not the Mirror Warship in the secret realm.

Although the Mirror Warship could perfectly replicate black and lower-grade parts, it couldn’t detach them as standalones. If Mirror Image Split didn’t count as gold-tier at least, or ideally even low or high rainbow-tier, it just wouldn’t work.

Holding the Neural Remote Control System, Song Chi fetched a Sixth-Tier Silver Apple and quickly evolved the system to red grade. That brought a blank trait slot needing him to fill it from a comparable component.

He was ready for this. Quickly, he pulled out a purple-glowing remote-control part from storage.

That purple component had one function only: ‘Doubles Remote Control Mark Capacity.’

Soon the trait was merged into the upgraded Neural Remote Control System, slotting in as its third trait. Just like that, the number of remote marks he could split at once jumped from three to six.

As this happened, a flash of light appeared at Song Chi’s brow—the Heavenly Ruin’s main body appeared.

Six Seventh-Tier Void Shadow Assassin Warriors sprang out, and the upgraded Neural Remote Control System embedded six control marks into them.

After that, he stowed the six warriors in a Dimensional Spatial Stone, and used the Spatial Anchor on the Mirror Warship to send them through.

Now, counting the Mirror Warship’s own three, he could control nine remotely in total—three times the previous search zone.

Maybe that was the breakthrough they needed. Within only two days, one of the deployed Void Shadow Assassin Warriors sensed something off.

Through the warrior’s perception, he picked up on odd spatial energy running through the lower canopy. Nothing looked strange to the naked eye, but the warrior could sense faint tremors in the void.

Song Chi guessed these were probably engine ripples from a hidden Torch Battleship.

With that clue, Song Chi avoided acting rashly and instead called over the Clan Elder and Song Yan.

Once their three ships regrouped, the trio moved out all at once.

First thing, all three warship avatars began charging their main cannons. While the charges built up, each ship activated a spatial lockdown part.

Just a few seconds later, three layers of spatial barriers locked down the area around the strange spot below.

The only issue was, due to various reasons, the Song Family didn’t have any truly top-tier spatial lockdown parts—so all three barriers were just silver-grade.

Still, the three barriers formed simultaneously. The trio’s timing was perfect. The moment the lockdown hit, the hidden battleship picked up on the trap, but before it could react, all three Song Family ships finished charging and locked on target.

Zap, zap, zap!

Multiple kinetic beams blasted out, firing straight at that suspicious patch of air.

Explosion after explosion thundered out. Now the enemy ship couldn’t hide anymore—with each shockwave, the ship’s form gradually emerged.

“Just as expected. That’s the Lingyue Ruan Clan’s Star-Annihilator-class Ship…”

The instant Song Chi and his companions caught sight of the ship’s hulking, ten-thousand-kilometer frame, they knew without question: this was their target.