Chapter 680: A New Seat Among the Seven Stars

Song Chi had no idea what was happening outside. Every bit of his focus was locked on the dozen or so Seventh-Tier blood-red beasts charging straight at him again.

The Heavenly Ruin’s hull was still damaged, and there was no way it could survive another attack like the last time.

Because of this, the Sky-Domain AI quickly issued new orders.

The long-unused Pusa Zen Seal was activated. But the once-only “Zen Seal · Internal · Time Acceleration” effect wasn’t applied to Last Aegis, Blood Spear, or Antimatter Annihilation Cannon. This time, he chose to use it on the Neutron-Star Core Armor.

A burst of rapid time acceleration instantly cooled down the Neutron-Star Fission trait, and in the next second the Heavenly Ruin transformed back into its miniature neutron star form.

Temperatures soared to tens of millions of degrees once more. The incoming Seventh-Tier blood-red beasts took the brunt of the blast. Already badly injured from earlier attacks, they now fell victim again to this inferno, and it had a devastating effect.

Four more Seventh-Tier blood-red beasts disintegrated under this second round of burning.

Still, Song Chi couldn’t spare a second to celebrate. Thirteen more of these blood-red monsters circled him, launching relentless attacks on the Heavenly Ruin from all directions.

The only thing keeping the battleship from being torn apart was its current neutron star form, with defenses bordering on absurd. But once the Neutron-Star Fission duration ran out, destruction was inevitable.

Inside the ship’s control room, Song Chi’s expression shifted between hope and despair. His mind raced, searching for any way to break this deadlock.

Most of the Heavenly Ruin’s trump cards had been spent. There weren’t many options left for stalling.

‘Is it really time to use the Time • Game ability?’

Like Time • Chessboard, Time • Game is one of the high-level traits of the Timepiece Chessboard, a colored mythic component. It can drag the Heavenly Ruin and a single enemy into a fully sealed high-dimensional space, and forcefully suppress the enemy by an entire power tier. It’s one of Song Chi’s ultimate aces.

Of course, in a situation like this, he wasn’t aiming to quickly eliminate the enemy, but to exploit the absolute isolation of that space to buy time. In an ideal world, he’d hold out in the Time • Game until all his abilities were off cooldown before ending it.

He hesitated, though, because Time • Game has a hundred-year cooldown. A full century. And the golden-quality Pusa Zen Seal can’t affect a colored mythic component like the Timepiece Chessboard.

Normally, ship components can only affect components up to two ranks above them, and even then there’s significant loss of effectiveness.

Take Last Aegis, for instance. Its repair effect still works because Neutron-Star Core Armor is only of black supreme quality for now. If it ever upgrades to colored, Last Aegis will become useless on it.

Pusa Zen Seal is the same—useless on a colored-level component like the Timepiece Chessboard.

(PS: Corrected earlier section—Pusa Zen Seal does not work on Timepiece Chessboard.)

As Song Chi weighed his options, the Sky-Domain AI stood ready to trigger the True Spirit Guard of the Angel King at any moment.

Apart from the Angel King’s Authority Wings, the Heavenly Ruin still had the bonus effect from the Abyssal Nine-Headed Hydra soul. At the very least, it could hold on a bit longer once Neutron-Star Fission wore off.

But as it turned out, none of these backup plans were needed. Before Neutron-Star Fission’s time was even up, that familiar pulling force swept across the ship and its entire hull.

Space warped. The next second, Song Chi found himself back in the main hall of the Beidou Sevenstar Hall.

When he saw the constellation-like starlight all around, relief washed through him. At least the worst-case scenario hadn’t played out.

Before he had time for another thought, his attention was drawn to the upper dais, where starlit figures sat in silent council.

Seven figures sat in the pattern of the Big Dipper. Song Chi recognized none of them except for the Greedwolf Hall Master. Seeing that familiar face, realization dawned at once.

He recalled the Heavenly Ruin, appearing in person in the great hall, and hurriedly bowed toward the upper seat.

“Jingzhe of the Yaoguang Star Tower. Song Chi, of the Dragonspine Song Family in the Tianpan Galaxy, pays his respects to the honored Hall Masters!”

There was no point hiding his identity. He’d openly brought his clan into the Demon Serpent Floating-Land mission. No way he could keep secrets from these ancient giants—many of whom had lived tens of thousands of years.

Apparently pleased by his honesty, the seven on high all showed faint smiles.

“Song Chi, you’re truly remarkable. Not only did you excel in the Demon Serpent Continent operation, your performance in the Chaos Nest challenge ranks first in tens of thousands of years. As a new member of our Beidou Sevenstar Hall, we veterans won’t be stingy with our rewards!”

The one who spoke was, as always, the Greedwolf Hall Master. The leader of the Tianshu lineage and most authoritative among the Seven Halls, it was only natural for him to have the final word.

Before Song Chi could respond, Greedwolf Hall Master raised a hand, and three radiant spheres appeared out of thin air before Song Chi’s eyes.

One glance and Song Chi froze, attention locked.

Each orb held a different artifact—none of them ordinary.

One was a Dominion Soul.

One radiated the perpetual darkness of an Oddity.

The last was a seven-colored command token he found strangely familiar.

Though all Dominion Souls were seventh-tier, there were 380 in total—meaning each slain seventh-tier blood-red beast had been worth 20 shares.

‘So the final prize for slaying those blood-red monsters in the Chaos Nest… was all these Dominion Souls?’

As that thought flickered by, his focus was already shifting to the orb of everlasting black light.

This Oddity—or rather, a battleship component made from it—was uniquely rare. In nearly a thousand years, Song Chi had never seen its like.

Eternal Dominion Soul Nest lv0

Quality: Black

Unique Trait: Dominion Soul Nest

Consumption: 500/s (Eon Energy Points)

Effect: Spend 100,000 Eon Energy Points to instantly unleash all Dominion Souls stored in the Nest for ten minutes. In that period, the captain can freely command those souls to attack as he wishes. Their power depends on the original rank of the soul. After ten minutes, the souls dissipate on their own.

No charging or cooldown needed.

Upgrade requirements: 500 strands of Floating-land Origin (zero-tier), 5,000 Eon Energy Points, 1 Soulstone.

Note: Installing this component requires six slots.

{Dominion Soul Nest: This component contains its own storage space for Dominion Soul bodies. Every enemy killed personally by the battleship is automatically drawn in and stored. While inside, the souls are nourished by special energies until restored to their peak state (Note: currently stores zero-tier souls only).}

Song Chi’s first thought on reading the description was disappointment.

If he’d had this component when he took down the eighth-tier Abyssal Nine-Headed Hydra, the Nest now would have housed a mighty eighth-tier Dominion Soul.

A soul of that rank would be a powerful weapon in its own right.

Finally, the rainbow-colored token surprised Song Chi most. It looked much like his Yaoguang Star Order No. 32, but this one didn’t belong to any of the Seven Star Towers—instead, it was the exclusive member token of the Beidou Sevenstar Main Hall.

[Oddity: Star Order of Beidou Sevenstar Main Hall]

[Quality: Colored/Lower]

[Convertible: None]

[Note: Entry token for the high council of the Torch Human Civilization—Beidou Sevenstar Hall. Activating it grants temporary access to the true hall, containing the supreme order of the Sevenstar Hall and guaranteeing absolute safety for all within.]

‘This is…?’

As Song Chi lifted a questioning gaze, Greedwolf Hall Master nodded reassuringly.

“That’s right. After a unanimous decision at the main hall, you’re being inducted ahead of schedule. From now on, this token lets you enter the Beidou Sevenstar Hall at will—no need to withdraw from Yaoguang Star Tower either.”

“Many thanks, honored Hall Masters!” Song Chi exclaimed sincerely, hiding his excitement.

He quickly composed himself and offered his deepest thanks.

Even with his foresight, these rewards far exceeded Song Chi’s wildest expectations.

“Oh, and this time, you won’t be getting Star Hall points as a reward. If you want to trade for items at the Star Hall Mall, you’ll have to earn the points yourself!”

Clearly recalling something else, Greedwolf Hall Master added with a wave of his hand, signaling Song Chi was free to go.

There was still a mountain of affairs to handle on Demon Serpent Floating-Land. These eight-tier Star River–class captains weren’t ones to waste any time.

Song Chi didn’t leave immediately. After the seven Hall Masters and their projections departed, he quickly hurried to the Star Hall Mall window in the right corner of the main hall.

He hadn’t received any points, but he’d stockpiled a mountain of components over centuries.

After trading for the Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield, most items in the Yaoguang Star Tower Mall had lost their appeal. That’s why scores of parts he’d hoarded for centuries had remained untouched.

Hundreds of years, thousands of Market trades, plus a steady stream of bulk deals through the Divine Realm Player Trading Space—and with Wang Zhen and Pan Ying perpetually buying—he’d ended up with more than just loads of Oddities that couldn’t be transformed into ship components, but a huge stash of actual ship modules.

With this foundation, if there was anything particularly rare or valuable in the Beidou Sevenstar Hall Mall, he was ready to snatch it up.

He activated the window and, as Song Chi browsed, one display of goods after another appeared—each listing every available item for sale at the Mall.

He breezed past the first few displays. Those only had purple, orange, and red-quality components or rather common resources—not worth his attention.

His gaze only paused at the fourth list.

There, at last, was something he actually needed.

[Name: Soulstone]

[Category: Mid-grade divine soul resource]

[Price: 5 Mall points each]

Soulstones were exactly the enhancement resource required for the Eternal Dominion Soul Nest. Song Chi had never seen them anywhere else, so they were a must-have.

He didn’t cash in right away, since he’d already noticed he could trade in ship components for Star Hall points—no need to rush.

What intrigued him more were the Mall’s top-tier offerings.

He scrolled down, spotting items like Last Aegis among the silver class ship repair modules—but still nothing he needed.

Same for list five—until the sixth menu, where his interest spiked all at once.

That menu was filled almost entirely with golden-quality goods.

[Gold Patrol Radar]

[Gold energy shield]

[Silver Upgraded Fire Source]

[Seventh-tier Becoming-God Fruit]

[Golden Star-Annihilator Cannon]

But Song Chi frowned. Even though there were plenty of gold Sanctum Domain components on offer, they were all basic types he already owned.

After a while, he turned to the seventh goods menu.

Here things got serious—the first thing listed was a strand of Golden Upgraded Fire Source.

[Name: Minor Zhou Starflame]

[Quality: Gold]

[Category: Upgraded Torch Seed Fire Source]

[Price: 50,000 Hall points]

…

The second listing was impressive too—a massive block of Micro-Mass Sentient Alloy.

“Whoa, that’s a huge piece of Micro-Mass Sentient Alloy.”

Eyeballing that rare metal, easily over a hundred kilos, Song Chi fell silent.

As one of the top three ultra-strategic resources for the Torch Human Civilization, Micro-Mass Sentient Alloy is always in short supply and expensive by the kilo. The chunk he’d salvaged from the Three-Eyed Clan Imperial Flagship had only weighed 3.2 kg, yet he’d been ecstatic at the time.

Of course, now as the Heavenly Ruin could switch to Mythical Mech form at will, the value of more alloy wasn’t quite as high.

But it wasn’t just about unlocking Mech form—the alloy enhanced both the duration and power of that transformation. The more that fused with the ship, the stronger it got.