Chapter 704: Rise of the Advanced Warships

The advance continued much as it always had—the Eleventh Advance Fleet would sometimes join up with neighboring fleets for a time, but whenever things calmed down, they’d go back to operating solo, following the long-established rules.

But it’s worth noting—ever since Song Chi reclaimed the Miracle Clone Pod, the Song Family’s covert recovery team shrank from five ships down to just three.

As for who was participating, since Song Yan hadn’t officially become a Star-Annihilator-class Captain yet, the main rotation consisted of Song Shiyuan, Song Shixing, Song Xingru, Song Xuancang, and Song Tianhao. Song Chi’s Heavenly Ruin and Song Wujian’s Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang, however, didn’t take part in the rotation.

Nobody in the Song Family had any objections to this arrangement.

In truth, once the scavenger fleet entered the core territories of the Eight-Armed Serpent Demon galaxy cluster, their movements became severely restricted.

Not only had the central regions’ Serpent Demons prepared countermeasures after learning from what happened in the east, but the sheer number of Serpent Demon Dominators stationed on the core floating-lands was a game changer.

For over a hundred years, the Song Family’s five warship clones had been busy with recovery operations, yet all their efforts yielded little reward.

Every time they tried to infiltrate the higher-tier floating-lands in Serpent Demon territory, it turned into one battle after another. The Heavenly Ruin’s Mirror Warship and the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang’s clone could at least hold their own, but the three Dreadnought clones were a different story. Even without actively joining fights, surviving a swarm of sixth-tier Serpent Demons was nearly impossible.

Naturally, this meant every scavenging trip delivered slim pickings.

That’s why Song Chi eventually agreed to reclaim the Miracle Clone Pod.

…

So the advance went on—day by day, time flew past almost unnoticed.

Three hundred years flickered by in a blink.

And on this day, the Song Family’s contingent in the Eleventh Advance Fleet greeted a piece of tremendous news.

[Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang · Heavenly Ruin Encrypted Group Chat]

[Song Chi: I just got a message from one of my enslaved creatures left on the Dragon-Spine Continent—Big Brother is out of seclusion!]

[Song Wujian: Xiao Yan’s finally back? Did he break through with the Guiding Technique?]

[Song Shixing: Xiao Yan followed the Fire Law, and while the clan didn’t have any high-tier fire arts to pass down, he’d already mastered the Flame God Body when he inherited from the Flame God Clan. By all rights, he shouldn’t have needed to stay in seclusion so long…]

[Song Xuancang: Maybe, like Xiaochi, he was comprehending some of the versatile high-tier Dragon Whale arts.]

As the chat went on, the group largely agreed on that point.

The Dragon Whale Secret Arts Stele Song Wujian obtained back then had originally come from an eighth-tier Dragon-Spine Overlord Whale, but its techniques weren’t sourced from just that one. Over millions of years, each ancestor of the Overlord Whale clan—those born with rare gifts or who’d stepped into the ninth-tier or even legendary ranks—left behind their inheritances. Through their bloodlines, they passed these arts down.

So the Dragon Whale Secret Arts Stele in the family’s secret domain contained a wealth of supreme secret arts, including both those suited for the whales’ own light and spatial talents, and broader arts applicable to any Law.

The Dragon Whale’s Wrath, which Song Chi had comprehended before, is just such a technique. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to weave together Space, Time, and Light Laws to conjure the body of the Wrathful Dragon Whale.

[Song Wujian: Enough speculation—let’s have Xiaochi bring him back, then we’ll know for sure!]

…

Dragon-Spine Continent, Dragon Whale Ancestral Hall.

Beneath the thick, swirling chaotica, three figures stood tall.

Alongside Song Chi and Song Yan was Song Tianhao, who was currently responsible for defending the continent.

A few moments’ conversation told Song Chi that his big brother really had spent two whole centuries comprehending the Dragon Whale’s Wrath technique.

Before his brother left, Song Tianhao smiled and said:

“You don’t need to worry about the ancestral land here. Since two hundred years ago, when the Yixing Trade Guild moved Dragon-Spine Continent into the core of the Chipan Galaxy, with the support of the Floating-land Origin’s will and our Three-Eyed Clan’s Dominion Flagship, there’s no risk of the continent falling—not unless several Eighth-Tier Serpent Demon Dominators attack in person.”

Both nodded. Song Chi then took out the Dimensional Spatial Stone. But before stepping inside, Song Yan turned to him with a sudden request.

“Xiaochi, before we head back to the warfront, take me to the Flame God Clan’s Land…”

Song Chi immediately understood what he meant.

Without delay, the two vanished from Dragon Whale Hall. When they appeared again, they stood beneath the strange stars where the Flame God Clan’s Land was hidden.

Outside the searing flamespace, the hangar doors of the Heavenly Ruin eased open. The Flamewrath Giant strode out, holding the Dimensional Spatial Stone. Upon emerging, Song Yan summoned the Scorching Sea Blazer without a moment wasted.

Compared to the Heavenly Ruin, the Scorching Sea Blazer had become quite a bit shorter after advancing to Star-Annihilator class—just under sixteen thousand kilometers.

“Need a hand, bro?”

This time, Song Yan’s goal was the very core of the flamespace—the black Fireseed Artifact lurking at its deepest point. Last time, they hadn’t managed to reach it, but today his aim was to claim it.

In the entire Song Family, only Song Chi possessed a black Torch Seed, which is why advancing made the Heavenly Ruin an extreme Star-Annihilator. Song Yan’s idea didn’t hinge on matching that, but if this Fireseed Artifact could be used as an Upgraded Fire Source, and he could ascend to a black Torch Seed, he was confident the Scorching Sea Blazer could become a veteran Star-Annihilator too.

That would make the future wars far less risky for everyone.

He’d also learned from talking with Song Chi that when he returned to the front, the Scorching Sea Blazer would join the Heavenly Ruin and Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang to form a brand-new recovery squad.

With three Star-Annihilator-class warship clones, their odds of big hauls would jump dramatically.

It was just too bad—if only they had a fourth Star-Annihilator, then they could make full use of the Four Symbols Rotating Sigil and give the team another edge.

With that in mind, Song Yan chuckled over the comms:

“The Prime Ancestor already made it to Dragon Whale Mountain two years ago to study Laws and secret arts. It won’t be long before the Unmoving Vajra Star-Annihilator joins us. Then the clan’s foundation will grow even faster.”

But Song Chi shook his head.

“Bro, while you were closed off, I already reclaimed the Miracle Clone Pod to use it for replicating the Blood Chalice. Now the cloned version has stored up eight wisps of Eighth-Tier Sacred Blood. So if we want to bring the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang into the team and meet the Four Symbols Rotating Sigil’s requirements, we still need one more high-end warship clone module…”

They both fell silent for a moment.

Who wouldn’t want a ship clone part during this war to try their hand at scavenging behind enemy lines?

After the Song Family’s methods were exposed, warship clone parts had become priceless. Now, getting one—especially a high-quality one—was like finding a needle in a cosmic haystack.

Neither dwelled on the topic. Once everything was ready, the Scorching Sea Blazer shot straight into the depths of the flamespace.

It proved far less difficult than expected—the Scorching Sea Blazer easily reached the flamespace’s core and retrieved the black Fireseed Artifact.

Song Chi wasn’t the least bit surprised.

After all, he knew the Scorching Sea Blazer carried high-grade fire-resist modules like the Flame God’s Dominion Skull and Covenant of Flame, not to mention its own mastery of Fire Law. Nothing unusual about this victory.

Soon, good news reached Song Chi’s ears.

That black Fireseed Artifact? It was called Flame God Spirit-Flame, and it could be upgraded into a Torch Seed.

And with a thousand years gone since their last visit, the flamespace had birthed multiple new Fireseed Artifacts in red and orange, with an even greater number in purple. Among them, five could be used as Upgraded Fire Sources.

That number might not sound enormous—but considering nobody from the Song Family had interfered at all, it was remarkable. And at this rate, the flamespace would keep producing more Fireseed Artifacts indefinitely.

Realizing this, the pair exchanged a look and saw the same idea sparkle in each other’s eyes.

“Xiaochi, looks like I’ll have to trouble you to head back to Dragon-Spine Continent and add this to the clan’s long-term development plans. With no investment, the space still produced this many Fireseed Artifacts. If we keep feeding it fire-attuned energy and materials, the rate will multiply. This place could become our top site for mass-producing Fireseed Artifacts.”

“Good. I can take the time to absorb this Flame God Spirit-Flame, too…”

…

With this handled, a few days passed before the pair returned to the front.

The story caused a wave of joy among the Song Family elders.

A secret site for bulk Fireseed Artifact production, one capable of making silver-grade Fireseeds, was a once-in-a-lifetime treasure for an Immortal House.

Song Wujian quickly drew up a formal plan. From now on, every year the clan’s fire-element resources, minus what their branch families needed, would be poured into the flamespace to boost its output.

Most of the Song Family’s leaders also received missions. Song Chi’s was the simplest: if he got the chance, add an Eighth-Tier fire-dominant dominator’s corpse to the flamespace.

It didn’t matter if it was a magma giant, flame giant, fire dragon, or even a flamebird or phoenix.

Song Chi understood exactly what the Clan Elder meant—this flamespace was originally created from the fall of a peak Eighth-Tier Flame God Clan dominator, shaped by the unique stellar conditions surrounding it.

So, if they kept adding high-level fire lifeforms, the flamespace would grow even larger.

Better still, a single high-end corpse counted for far more than truckloads of lesser materials.

…

With a third Star-Annihilator-class ship—this one a veteran—even the Song Family’s fleet sped up, as did cleanup by the whole Eleventh Advance Fleet.

Time kept on racing. In another few centuries, new milestones came and went.

When Song Yan rejoined the fleet, Song Chi was over fifteen hundred years old, Song Yan had just passed sixteen hundred, and Song Wujian was nearing five thousand.

That day, inside the Heavenly Ruin’s command center, Song Chi murmured to himself.

“Without realizing it, I’ve hit two thousand years old. Time does fly!”

As he sighed, dark energy flowed around him. Compared to nine centuries ago, when he’d just reached Seventh-Tier Guiding Technique, his strength had grown leaps and bounds.

If you looked closer, you’d notice his Guiding Technique had hit level 72.

Which meant nearly one level per five hundred years—even with massive boosts from the Omniverse Market’s Full-Attribute Cultivation Chamber and an endless supply of Superior Body-Tempering Elixir. That alone showed how grueling it was to advance Guiding Technique in the seventh tier.

Yet Song Chi wasn’t too bothered about that right now.

He walked up to the No.004 Cultivation Secret Realm of Chicang module, and in a blink vanished from the ship.

When he reappeared, he was clutching a Storage Capsule.

Inside wasn’t anything ordinary—it held an Eighth-Tier Golden Apple and a Seventh-Tier Silver Apple, both gleaming gold and silver.

It’d been a full thousand years since Song Chi had secluded himself to break through to the seventh Guiding Technique. The time in the secret realm was even longer, letting all kinds of resources cycle through multiple harvests.

Just the Seventh-Tier Silver Apples numbered almost thirty. There were two full rounds’ worth of Golden Apples, seven fruits in all.

On top of that, even the Seventh-Tier Timeworld Tree had managed two partial harvests, leaving him with two Seventh-Tier Timeworld Fruits.

He had even more Fifth and Sixth-Tier Timeworld Fruits. Over these thousand years, his father Song Chao and mother Chen Lixia used Fourth-Tier Timeworld Fruits to move up to Battleship Captain, while Song Ting and his son Song Hanyu both advanced to Dreadnought Captain.

Song Chi set aside the Timeworld Fruits for now. The apples, however, needed careful planning.

The very first thing he upgraded was the Heart-Linked Pendants.

After unbinding them from Shen Youran’s White Snow Qingyou, both pendants—now restored to Red Grade—were strengthened with two each of the Seventh-Tier Silver and Eighth-Tier Golden Apples, reaching Gold Saint Domain quality.

Then, through another round of binding and ascension, the two pendants evolved to Black Supreme quality.

Finally, using one more Golden Apple, he formed a golden Upgraded Fire Source, turning Shen Youran’s Torch Seed gold as well—pushing both pendants all the way up to level 80.

Yang·Tongxin Pendant lv80

Grade: Black

Trait: Yin-Yang: Ascension

Trait 2: Yin-Yang: Synergy

Trait 3: Yin-Yang: Heart-Link

Trait 4: Yin-Yang: Projection

Trait 5: Yin-Yang: Exchange

Trait 6: Yin-Yang: Life-link

Effect: When two Heart-Linked Pendants are bound, both enhance each other, boosting their ships’ firepower, defense, and speed permanently by 70% (bonuses vanish if the module is removed).

…

{Yin-Yang: Ascension: When successfully bound, the pendant rises one grade and all attributes increase (already ascended)}

{Yin-Yang: Synergy: Spend 500,000 Eon Energy Points to use an ability from the paired ship (cannot exceed what Black Heart-Linked Pendants can perform). 72-hour cooldown.}

{Yin-Yang: Heart-Link: The two bound ships may communicate at any distance, spending energy proportional to the separation. No cooldown.}

{Yin-Yang: Projection: Either ship may summon the other’s projection for joint combat, projecting 90% main body strength for 70 minutes. One-year cooldown.}

{Yin-Yang: Exchange: Spend 1,000,000 Eon Energy Points to temporarily swap ship locations for 70 minutes. One-year cooldown.}

{Yin-Yang: Shield Link: The ships split incoming damage. Only when both shields are depleted will one’s finally overload. After shield depletion, this trait requires 720 hours to recharge.}

Fully upgraded to Black Grade, the pendants’ attributes took a massive leap—the biggest win being a huge security boost for Shen Youran’s White Snow Qingyou. Song Chi was more than happy to spend three precious Golden Apples for that.

As for the other four Golden Apples, Song Chi burned through every last one.

Last Aegis: Silver lv70 → Gold lv80

Void Shadowslayer Soldier-Tree: Silver lv70 → Gold lv80

Void Shroud: Silver lv70 → Gold lv80

Skybreaker Drill: Silver lv70 → Gold lv80

…

He used every one of his twenty-some Seventh-Tier Silver Apples, too.

Parent-Child Spirit Control Rings: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Behemoth Heart: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Superpower Controller: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Soulcalling Demon Golem: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Oath Contract Module: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Bind-God Chains: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Totem Spirit Pillar: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Long-Range Communication Disk: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Taoyi Soul-Suppressing Stele: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Warship Position-Switcher: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Isometric Shrink Module: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

Neural Remote Control System: (Red) lv60 → (Silver) lv70

By then, not a single Red Grade module remained on the Heavenly Ruin.

He even upgraded the only Red-Grade main cannon—the Soul-Annihilating Iris Beam—turning it Silver and boosting it to level 70.

Among eight secondary cannons, the Explosive Particle Cannon and Gold-Source Armor-Piercer also became Silver at level 70.

As for the four Orange cannons—Shadowbane Cannon, Electromagnetic Arc Cannon, Scarlet Sky Barrage Cannon, and Frostlight Hailstorm Cannon—he used four stashed Sixth-Tier and four Seventh-Tier Silver Apples to boost all of them to Silver level 70.

With all these upgrades, the Heavenly Ruin’s stats made another huge leap.

‘If I go all out, maybe Heavenly Ruin can break into the top thirty of the Xian Qin Star-Annihilator King Ranking…’

But Song Chi only shook his head.

After nearly a millennium of warfare, even while focused on the front, he occasionally found himself learning more about the legendary rankings.

At first the idea hadn’t appealed, but after promotion to Star-Annihilator-class, there was no need to keep a low profile. Sometimes he even kept tabs on the list, just to see how the mighty fared in Xian Qin’s realms.

Finished strengthening everything, with five Silver Apples left over, he combined a few Fifth-Tier ones and used them to upgrade a few more Orange modules.

External Armor-Piercing Cobalt Launcher.

Space-skipping Pearl.

Mirage Thrusters.

Multifunctional Conversion Furnace.

Atomic Repair Instrument.

By now, all Seventh-Tier Silver and Eighth-Tier Golden Apples were spent—wiping out nearly all his highest-tier resources from the past few centuries.

He didn’t mind in the slightest. The Heavenly Ruin’s power was his own—turning resources into strength was well worth it.

Suddenly, Song Chi’s eyes sharpened as a strange glint flashed across his gaze.

When that happened, it usually meant an unexpected event with the family fleet. But this time, something else was up.

It wasn’t the family fleet—it was the distant scavenger team, millions of light-years away, where something had just gone wrong.

On the high-command encrypted group chat, Song Chi, Song Wujian, and Song Yan shared a silent look. No one spoke, but their movements gave it away: each closed their eyes, focusing all their senses on their distant warship clones.

“Silence!”

Song Shiyuan’s voice suddenly rang out in the chat, and at once silence fell over the channel.

With five centuries since Song Yan’s return to the fleet, Song Wujian had also finished his own seclusion. The Song Family now fielded four full Star-Annihilator-class ships. Among all the advance fleets beneath the Divine Dynasty, the Song Family was now a force to be reckoned with.

However, still lacking enough high-grade ship clone modules, the scavenger team fielded just three ships—while Song Shiyuan focused on direct command of the family’s vanguard.

The sudden command left everyone briefly stunned, but when they saw Song Chi, Song Wujian, and Song Yan’s projections, the reason clicked. The group fell silent.

A perfectly quiet atmosphere would let the trio focus completely on the surprise playing out with their warship clones.

And sure enough, millions of light-years away, trouble had struck the Song Family’s trio of Star-Annihilator-class clones.