Chapter 667: Breakthrough Odds and a New Battlefield
by xennovel“Oh right. There’s still a top-tier Energy Crystal in the Market Collection, condensed from a Dominion-class Zerg. That could push the advancement success rate up another 10%.”
A thought flashed through Song Chi’s mind—he still had a top-tier Energy Crystal he’d obtained during the fight to enslave Iris.
Adding it all up, that pushed his advancement success rate past 80%. That was impressive. If things got desperate, maybe—just maybe—he could try upgrading Heavenly Ruin right away.
Of course, that was just for emergencies. Knowing himself, Song Chi preferred to play it safe. Best to raise the success rate to at least 95% like when advancing to Dreadnought-class.
He knew that was a tall order, though. After all, promotion to Star-Annihilator-class was a huge leap. Hoping to boost the rate by over 30% just by soaking in the blood of other races? That was nearly impossible. He could only prepare as many extra advancement resources as he could. And truth was, any item effective for advancing from Dreadnought to Star-Annihilator was incredibly rare and priceless.
He fully understood that, but Song Chi had never been one to give up easily.
His thinking was simple: every bit he could raise the rate counted. Even a tiny increase meant a reduced chance he’d have to use a Timeworld Fruit.
Each Torch Battleship could only harness a Timeworld Fruit once in its career. If he used it for the Star-Annihilator breakthrough now, then later when Heavenly Ruin tried for the Star River-class, the seventh-tier Timeworld Fruit would be off the table. Song Chi didn’t want to see that happen.
Pushing to Star-Annihilator and jumping to Star River were worlds apart in terms of difficulty. With a steady supply of seventh-tier Timeworld Fruits in hand, he’d rather save the chance for a future attempt at the Star River-class.
…
As he mulled things over, the screenshots of multiple attribute panels he’d posted to group chat got the four Clan Elders talking.
For now, they were in a universe secret realm that was tough to traverse—reaching the core zone anytime soon would be hard. So, no one was in a hurry. After setting the ships to autopilot, their attention naturally shifted to the loot.
“Bit of bad luck this time. Five black Forbidden Light Barriers, but only three Black Oddities. And only one of those could be used as a battleship component…”
Song Shixing’s comment had everyone nodding in agreement. They’d all conveniently forgotten that both the six Demon Serpent Nine-Shed Fruits and 120 strands of Ninth-Tier Floating-Land Origins came from single black Forbidden Light Barriers each.
Eight-Armed Demon God’s Divine Blood. Eight-Armed Serpent Eyes. Core of the Earth.
Song Chi hadn’t thought much about these three Black Oddities when they’d sorted the loot in the Market, but now, studying them, something clicked.
Among them, only the Core of the Earth could be converted into a battleship component—as a piece of Black Hull Armor.
Core of the Earth Hull Armor—lv0.
Grade: Black.
Effect 1: Increases Hull Armor defense value by 170%.
Effect 2: True Defense.
Effect 3: Earth’s Renewal.
Effect 4: Increases hull structural integrity by 170%.
Effect 5: Double-layered Armor.
Effect 6: Earth Star Core’s Blessing.
…
The attributes of that Black Armor spoke for themselves. But Song Chi’s attention was actually on the Eight-Armed Demon God’s Divine Blood.
From the name alone, it was easy to guess—this blood-type Oddity came from the very Abyssal Demon worshipped by the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon Civilization.
A single drop of divine blood from the Abyssal Demon, powerful enough to take shape as a Black Oddity—it sounded fantastical. Song Chi, however, wasn’t surprised.
The Heavenly Ruin already had a similar component—the Mythic Serpent’s Eternal Guard Scale, forged from the scale of the legendary Mythic Serpent.
If a scale from a mythic serpent could become a Gold Oddity, why couldn’t a drop of divine blood from an abyssal devil do the same?
But what intrigued Song Chi most was the Divine Blood itself.
This Eight-Armed Demon God was an unfathomable existence from the Bottomless Abyss. Its blood was the real deal—genuine mythic blood, far above the true gods and even main gods of the Gods’ Continent.
Since it couldn’t be made into a hull part, he wondered if the blood might be useful to the Crescent Moon Matriarch of the Crescent Moon Tribe—or even to the Moon Goddess she worshiped.
If it really could attract the Moon Goddess’s attention, maybe he could trade for a batch of Eighth-Tier Evil God Blood.
Once the thought took hold, it wouldn’t let go. He didn’t even pay attention when the group discussed how to distribute the Core of the Earth Hull Armor.
Only after learning the Black Armor was going to Song Shiyuan did Song Chi pull himself out of his swirling thoughts.
He had no objections. The Neutron-Star Core Armor outclassed this Black Armor, both now and in future. Besides, both the Eight-Armed Demon God’s Divine Blood and the Eight-Armed Serpent Eyes from a fallen ninth-tier serpent had already been given to him—hard to argue with that.
With the three Black Oddities handled, it was time for twelve Gold Oddities. This round was decent—eight could be made into battleship components, though Song Chi could use only one.
Space Jumper—lv0.
Grade: Gold.
Effect 1: Increases maximum jump distance threefold.
Effect 2: +1000 spatial resistance to the equipped battleship.
Effect 3: +1 to jump charges.
Effect 4: Starmap Collector.
Effect 5: High-dimensional Jump.
Consumption: 5000 Eon Energy Points per use.
Available Jumps: 2/2.
Effect: After charging, the equipped battleship can jump in a chosen direction. Current max jump distance: 90 (30×3) lightyears.
Charge Time: 1 hour; Cooldown: 24 hours.
Upgrade Requires: 10 strands of Floating-Land Origins (zero-tier), 1000 Eon Energy Points, 10g Spacial Sand.
{Starmap Collector: When the battleship enters a new Star Domain, the jumper autonomously collects a star map. After one hour, it generates a detailed map with 20 times the range of the ship’s patrol radar.}
{High-dimensional Jump: Consumes 100,000 Eon Energy Points for a long-range space jump in a designated direction. Max jump distance is 100 times the normal jump limit. Always 1-year cooldown.}
In the end, Song Chi got the Space Jumper along with four Golden Oddities that couldn’t become components.
No need to upgrade the Scarlet Vault Jump Drive, but the Aurora Jump Drive just couldn’t keep up with Heavenly Ruin anymore. Swapping in the Space Jumper would be perfect.
Beyond these, Song Chi also got a Demon Serpent Nine-Shed Fruit, a Sky Serpent Blood Crystal, an eighth-tier Golden Apple, 20 strands of Ninth-Tier Floating-Land Origins, 300 strands of Eighth-Tier Origins, 30 batches of seventh-tier Dominion Souls, 10 eighth-tier Dominion Souls, and eight Silver Oddities that couldn’t become ship parts.
No surprise, he got the most loot of everyone. The four Clan Elders explained that since he’d secured access to the Demon Serpent Continent and provided a battleship replication unit, it only made sense.
Song Chi accepted without complaint. He knew how crucial these resources would be once Heavenly Ruin attempted and hopefully succeeded in advancing to Star-Annihilator.
After divvying up the spoils, the five battleships sped through the secret realm for a few more days. On the fifth, they finally reached its core region.
How did they know this was the core? Simple: a massive floating landmass appeared before them.
“By rough estimate, that Floating-land must be nearly ten thousand lightyears wide! Out in the Sea of Stars, it’d rival any seventh-tier Floating-land. I’d wager this secret realm isn’t anywhere near the bottom tier—no way it’s below ninth-tier…”
Song Yan’s voice crackled across comms.
Song Chi couldn’t agree more. He recalled his earlier trip into the Blood War Secret Realm—a bottom-tier cosmic secret realm, with an eighth-tier cap. The core Floating-land there couldn’t compare at all to what stood before them now.
But with that realization, a thread of worry started creeping in.
Generally, the higher a secret realm’s ranking, the higher the level of life forms allowed inside. If the realm was home to native creatures, some could reach power equal to the realm’s grade.
Put simply, the stronger the secret realm, the more dangerous it was.
While the five ships debated whether to go into the core landmass, a flash of light appeared up ahead.
The gap was too wide—Song Chi even used real body teleportation to get to the Mirror Warship and activated his Dual Pupils at full power, but he still couldn’t see what caused the lights.
Whoosh!
A second light flared up moments later.
Still just a blur, impossible to make out. After a long wait, a faint energy shockwave rolled out from that same direction.
By now, Song Chi’s group realized those flashes weren’t from anything else but biological combat.
“Let’s go! We’ll check it out!”
…
On the Floating-Land Sky Vault, a colossal golden giant wielded a long halberd, stabbing again and again at a towering eight-armed figure.
Though only a phantom, the giant’s body shimmered with countless law-forged runes. Their power made it every bit as formidable as the eight-armed foe.
Ten billion kilometers away in deep void, inside one of the Song Family battleships, a comm channel buzzed to life.
“That’s the Immortal Qin Twelve Golden Men Incarnation technique! A Star River-class captain from the Ying Clan is dueling an eighth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon!”
“No way—they got inside the secret realm before we did?”
“Isn’t it possible there’s more than one entrance? What if every first-tier holy city on the Demon Serpent Continent has a secret realm entry?”
“Not just the Immortal Qin bloodline—look over there, that’s a Meng Clan Star-Annihilator.”
“And the Wang Clan—and even some from Immortal Qin Industries.”
“That settles it. There’s definitely more than one entrance!”
As the five discussed, ripples of space churned at the battlefield’s edge. A Star-Annihilator and several Dreadnoughts burst out from a jump gate.
“The Shang Clan just arrived!”
Song Chi instantly recognized the flagship as the Shangdang Spirit Lord.
Clearly, Shang Yuan Shan wasn’t hiding his identity. As soon as he reached the field, he opened the warship bay and let loose the Monohorn Leviathan.
But bad news followed fast. Not long after, an eighth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon also showed up. Probably the one the Shang Clan had been holding back earlier.
“Get ready! Looks like this is the battle that will decide everything. If we win, all the seventh- and eighth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demons here will be wiped out. Then the Demon Serpent Continent’s willpower will weaken further—and even the external Floating-Land Shield could destabilize.”
“But if we lose, ninety percent of the Torch Captains here might never make it out again!”
In the comms, Song Chi and the others locked eyes, all resolve.
A second later, the five battleships charged toward the distant battlefield at full tilt.
They didn’t reveal themselves immediately. Instead, they used this last bit of surprise to fully charge each ship’s main cannons.
As soon as the charge finished, five intense beams of light blasted forth from the battleships.
Those beams targeted mostly the seventh-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demons on the field.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to attack the eighth-tier ones—they just knew their firepower could barely harm them. Better to focus on taking down a seventh-tier target.
Even inside a secret realm, everyone knew that Emperor Ying’s kill records would stand. Every seventh-tier Serpent Demon killed was worth a solid 100,000 battle points.
Song Wujian and the others had a simple goal—help Song Chi rack up as many points as possible. Those points were invaluable for future exchanges.
It was true: over centuries of scavenging, the Song Family had built up quite an arsenal. Each of their five battleship replicas boasted at least a couple main, super, or even Star-Annihilator Cannons.
With the five ships focusing their fire, a seventh-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon was instantly destroyed.
Technically, it wasn’t Heavenly Ruin’s Mirror Warship that landed the final hit, but that didn’t matter. The God Dynasty’s record system was high-grade, and all kills by the other four Song Family members always counted toward the Beidou Sevenstar Hall identity—Jingzhe.
As soon as the volley landed, the five battleship replicas fully revealed themselves—Heavenly Ruin’s Mirror Warship surged straight for the cluster of Beidou Sevenstar Hall members, while the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang fleet zipped toward a different battle sector.
Boom!
Another blast exploded—a sixth-tier Eight-Armed Serpent Demon was completely blown apart.
“Wait—that’s…”
Suddenly, Song Chi’s peripheral vision caught something on the Floating-land below. In his dual-pupiled gaze, a flicker of something strange made his eyes narrow, unable to look away.