Chapter 649: Strategic Shifts and Silent Progress

It took several days before the Song Family finally managed to fully absorb all the resources they’d traded from the Divine Xia Empire’s war vault.

Of course, a good portion of those resources were set aside by certain clansmen as preparations for their flagships’ future upgrades. Those couldn’t be used right now—they were carefully stored away.

With that done, the Song Family leadership announced the next phase of action.

Twenty years from now, the Family would still send forces to the frontlines. But unlike before, there wouldn’t be a massive campaign leading millions of warships—this time, only the fifty thousand finest Torch Battleships would go.

This announcement left a lot of the Family members confused—some even questioned the decision.

Fifty thousand battleships, even if every single one was a top-notch Torch Battleship… There just wasn’t enough firepower. Lose your footing and you could lose them all on the battlefield.

Unsurprisingly, dissenting voices started surfacing from several branches of the clan.

But no one came forward to explain, and the family leaders didn’t back down either. It looked like their minds were set.

A few more days passed before someone from the Chigu Luo Clan reached out with news.

For the next thousand years, they’d be stepping away from the war front to focus on recuperation. At the same time, they were stepping up immigration efforts to anchor their people on the Chigu Floating-Land in the Chipan Galaxy, hoping to take root as early as possible.

No one in the Song Family was surprised. They’d already heard rumors about this.

Given the Chigu Luo Clan’s circumstances, they had just secured the best territory in the Chipan Galaxy outside of what belonged to the Song Family—a star domain stretching across fifteen thousand light-years, enough to sustain their clan for thousands of years.

By comparison, with the war raging on, things had only gotten more intense. Any misstep could mean fleets lost, lives extinguished. You could take the fact that nearly a hundred Star-Annihilator-class Captains had fallen across the four expedition fleets as proof of how deadly things had become.

So, for the Chigu Luo Clan—a House with shallow foundations and only one Star-Annihilator-class Captain to rely on—having a thousand years’ breathing room was absolutely necessary. They were only one misstep away from total collapse.

It wasn’t just the Chigu Luo Clan. The Morningstar Family, the Stark Family, even the Dongli Xiao Family—all made the same choice.

Rest and recuperate.

The Song Family had no authority over the others’ decisions, but one thing had to be said.

Even though the Song Family chose to keep fighting, they were only mobilizing a small portion of their people. The rest, led by stay-behind seniors, would do everything to expedite migration and develop the star domains newly allocated to them in the Chipan Galaxy.

In short—they’d quietly focus on farming and building up strength.

……

Calm‑Sea Dragon‑Xiang Group Secure Comms

Song Wujian: “Xiaochi, since we’ve made the decision, let’s not delay any longer. Let’s get moving!”

“Or… were you planning on sending the Heavenly Ruin’s mirror warship in your place?”

His Clan Elder’s question barely finished before Song Chi replied:

“Elder, I do plan to send a mirror warship!”

Time slipped by. In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.

On this day, a streak of golden light flashed across the Heavenly Ruin’s hull. In the next second, a warship—identical in appearance, length, and color—materialized at its side out of thin air.

If that wasn’t a mirror warship of the Heavenly Ruin, what else could it be?

This time was a bit different. No sooner had the mirror warship appeared than it transformed into a completely unfamiliar vessel.

The name on its hull wasn’t “Heavenly Ruin” anymore, but an entirely new one: “Yanhuang Nine Provinces.”

Thanks to the constant concealment effect of the replica Void Shroud, though, not a single other warship in the area noticed anything unusual.

With the gold-grade Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl’s Thousandfold Metamorphosis, Song Chi changed the ship’s shape, color, and even its name. He was confident no one could see through the mirror warship’s disguise, so without hesitation, he sent a message to his closest companions—then dispatched the mirror warship sprinting deep into the starry sky.

“Here’s hoping these twenty years are enough…”

As he whispered, the mirror warship had already vanished beyond the edge of sight.

Far away, inside that mirror vessel, Song Chi—using his Voidform Avatar—issued a jump command to the replica Sky-Domain AI.

But he wasn’t aiming to use any ordinary jump. He was using the Scarlet Vault Jump Drive for a Scarlet Vault Jump.

While the jump was still charging, the mirror warship suddenly morphed into a miniature neutron star.

A low thrumming sound echoed out.

Ripples of space pulsed through the darkness. Soon after, the neutron star shot straight into a spatial tunnel. After a brief bout of weightlessness, it reappeared over six million light-years away.

Once the jump finished, Song Chi gave up on any immediate travel and instead found a secluded place to park the Heavenly Ruin. He immersed himself into the Market to comprehend the Laws.

Over these centuries, his progress went far beyond just upgrading his Guiding Technique. His Law Comprehension had deepened as well.

Of the three Laws, none advanced as quickly as the Law of Light.

Swallowing ten Death Calamity Cores back then had catapulted his Light Law Comprehension straight to 90%. Now, hundreds of years later—bolstered by the Omniverse Market, his Dual Pupils, and the imitation Enlightenment Mat—he’d reached 94%.

It was only a 4% gain, but each percent raised the odds of upgrading to a Star-Annihilator-class ship.

As for the Laws of Space and Time—he’d thrown most of his focus at them these past centuries, but progress was still slow.

His Law of Space had just broken 85%.

The Law of Time was even lower, sitting at 81%.

That jump was only thanks to the fifty years he spent in the Time Tower. Without that, it would be even less.

This bugged Song Chi. His original plan had been a bit too optimistic. With so many boosts, he thought it would be easy to push Space and Time Laws past 90%.

Now it was clear why Space and Time were called the strongest Laws in the Sea of Stars—the closer you got, the harder progress became. Cultivating both was a monster of its own.

These days, Song Chi no longer dreamed big. He just hoped that in a century or two, he could get the Law of Space above 90%, giving the Heavenly Ruin a bit more luck when it came time for its next upgrade.

Of course, the Law of Light helped too—even if its effect was just additive, any extra chance was worth having.

The Law of Time… He’d given up on that for now. He was just waiting for the next Law Amplification period once he hit level seven Guiding Technique to try pushing it to perfection then.

More than twenty days later, he exited the Omniverse Market again, returned to reality, and set off another round of Scarlet Vault Jump.

Time slipped by as he repeated this process over and over.

Two months. Three. Again and again.

Through all those jumps, Song Chi never once paused. His destination this time was the Divine Xia Empire.

To be specific, the Empire’s Yixing Galaxy, nearly half a billion light-years from the Chipan Galaxy.

Five and a half years later—Yixing Galaxy, Divine Xia Empire.

A low hum pulsed through the void as a warship blazed out of hyperspace, arriving smack in the middle of a star domain at the heart of the galaxy.

But from the mirror warship’s perspective, everything seemed perfectly normal. To outsiders, nothing could be detected at all.

The gold-grade Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl’s Mirage ability was now dozens of times stronger than before. Even a Star-Annihilator loaded with a Gold Patrol Radar might not pick up the ship’s presence.

Ignoring all that, Song Chi’s Voidform glanced at the starmap to confirm his position. With that done, the mirror warship surged forward toward a specific destination.

The Yixing Galaxy was home to the headquarters of the Yixing Trade Guild and had been under the Divine Xia Empire’s banner for over two hundred thousand years. It was one of the oldest galaxies in the Empire.

But its territory wasn’t all that big—an expanse of just over 600,000 light-years across.

That’s why people called it the Yixing Galaxy—besides the official Imperial presence, there was only the Trade Guild.

Even though the Trade Guild was an immortal, titanic force, complete with its own Star River-class Battleship, there was no way one group could monopolize a whole galaxy inside the Divine Xia Empire.

Take the Lingyue Zhao Clan for instance—they were titans too, but their Linyue Galaxy hosted no less than eight immortal houses, and that’s just the ones you know about.

It was only because the Yixing Galaxy was so small that things ended up this way.

Being compact cut down the time required for Song Chi to cross it. In less than ten days, the Heavenly Ruin’s mirror warship was already within sight of Yixing Floating-land.

Now, the ship hovered silently within a dense asteroid belt.

Inside, a ripple of space shimmered—and Song Chi’s true body appeared.

Once outside the ship, a faint glow shone at his brow. A moment later, the true Heavenly Ruin was summoned forth.

He needed to go in person to negotiate with the Trade Guild about relocating the Dragon-Spine Continent. Using the mirror ship would’ve been like trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

Once he piloted the real Heavenly Ruin toward Yixing Floating-land, the mirror warship jumped away on its next mission.

This was no routine trip. Aside from settling matters about the Dragon-Spine relocation, the mirror warship had another critical mission—the very reason Song Chi had painstakingly evolved his Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl.

Leaving the mirror ship to its work, the true Heavenly Ruin completed a few jumps and soon reached the edge of Yixing Floating-land.

He didn’t barrel in recklessly. Instead, he waited patiently just outside. This was one of the core floating-lands of a titan immortal power. Charging in uninvited would have been a massive breach of etiquette, even if their shields were down.

He was certain the Heavenly Ruin had already been spotted. All he had to do was sit tight and wait for someone to greet him.

As he waited, his gaze naturally drifted to the massive Yixing Floating-land ahead.

There was no doubt about it—this was an Eighth-Level Floating-land, over 200,000 light-years wide. Among floating-lands of its class, it counted as one of the best.