Monster Paradise

by LightNovels

343-

12. Chapter 12

Chapter 1524: Elevating The Pseudo-Supreme God Rank-4.5s

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After giving out all the rewards, Buried Heaven dismissed everyone else except for Lin Huang.

A moment of silence later in the meeting room, Buried Heaven spoke. "Do you know why we're willing to break Death Sickle's rules and make an exception for you to be a guest Gold Sickle?"

'Because I'm outstanding enough?!' Lin Huang really wanted to reply in this manner. However, he figured it would sound arrogant, so he changed his answer.

"I don't know."

"Your identity would be a threat to most organizations in the God Territory," Buried Heaven said without mincing words, "There are very few individuals in the God Territory who would be willing to countenance the rising of a compelling human genius."

"Then why doesn't Death Sickle think the same?" Lin Huang did not think Buried Heaven wanted to have a falling out with him by saying this. If Buried Heaven had wanted to take action, he would have done so over a year ago.

"Because we're looking at the issue from a higher dimension." Although Buried Heaven did not say it directly, his next words revealed Death Sickle's secret. "Humans and Protoss aren't enemies. We're even allies in the universe, with the same enemies."

"The same enemies?! Do you mean the Abyssal creatures or the Bug Tribe?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"It's something even more powerful…" Buried Heaven said only this, unwilling to reveal more.

Lin Huang frowned and fell silent for a moment after hearing this reply. He knew that Buried Heaven would not answer him even if he proceeded to ask further. He changed topics and asked a question about something that he really wanted to know.

"Perhaps all these things you're telling me can explain the friendly attitude that Death Sickle and yourself harbor toward me, but it doesn't explain why Death Sickle is willing to break the rules to pull me into the core circle. No matter how you look at it, the Gold Sickle authorization that I've obtained would give me benefits that exceed what Death Sickle could get from me.

"Moreover, all of you should be aware that, as a human, I can't wander in the God Territory forever. In the end, I'll still have to return to my human world. Judging from the current relationship between humans and Protoss, no matter how successful I might be in the human world, there's still very little that I could repay you with."

"We're not looking at the great world, but the greater universe. You have the potential to break through to mighty divinity-level (lord-level). As long as you don't die, we'll gain a great ally in the future. By then, even if you don't bring us any returns, your existence alone can prevent many people from dying in wars. That alone is the real value that we see in you."

From these words, Lin Huang finally realized Death Sickle's stand. He had no idea what to say at the moment.

He suddenly thought of something else a moment later.

"Why didn't you all give Virtuoso the same treatment? From what I know, his potential is certainly no less than mine."

"He's different from you." Buried Heaven shook his head. He hesitated for a little bit but still decided to say it anyway. "He's a reincarnation of an Almighty.

"An Almighty reincarnation might seem to have extraordinary potential, but there are actually restrictions. It's very difficult for him to break through the level that he was born at.

"The potential isn't the main issue. More importantly, we're worried.

"We're not sure if there's anything wrong with Virtuoso's past life. He's been purposely hiding information on it. We can't find any clues, we can't differentiate whether he's a friend or a foe. No matter how powerful he was in his past life, we dare not pull him into our core circle recklessly."

What Buried Heaven said did indeed make sense.

Lin Huang thought to himself for a moment while frowning, but said nothing.

He was aware of Virtuoso's background and knew that they were actually a reincarnated being. Their identity as Virtuoso was just a clone for them to disguise themselves as an Almighty reincarnation.

He also knew that Virtuoso was a member of the Club, just like he was. There was a high chance that they would not stand on the opposing side against Protoss and humans.

However, he could not tell Buried Heaven that.

Doing so would be tantamount to exposing Virtuoso's background; it would also expose his own identity as a member of the Club.

On the other hand, he had also considered that Virtuoso probably had their own reasons to hide this information from Death Sickle.

Lin Huang pondered for a while but did not offer any opinions on the matter.

"If they could be slightly more candid, they might even be an extremely valuable ally," Buried Heaven eventually commented.

"We'll handle the matter of Virtuoso ourselves. You should focus on yourself first," Buried Heaven looked at Lin Huang after saying this. "Your combat strength has elevated from first-rank True God all the way to sixth-rank True God this month. To be honest, that's quite frightening. However, your combat strength is fairly low compared to your abilities. I personally suggest that you go into closed-door cultivation to catch up on your foundation properly before elevating to heavenly god-level. Don't rush straight into heavenly god-level recklessly. If your foundation isn't stable, the problem will worsen in the future and will even affect your elevation when you advance to a higher level."

"Yes, I know." Although Lin Huang said this, he knew better than anyone that there were no True Gods who could compare with him in terms of a stable foundation.

After the duo chatted for close to half an hour, Buried Heaven left after giving some words of advice.

Lin Huang also departed from Death Sickle's headquarters soon after and headed straight to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

When he got there, Mr. Fu and Kylie had gotten out of the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss much earlier. Not only that, they had gone into closed-door cultivation.1

Of their three-person team, Lin Xuan was the only person who remained at the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss.

Meanwhile, the three-person virtual god-level team consisting of Chan Dou, Xiao Mo, and Huang Wuji had entered the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss for the second time after replenishing their supplies.

After ascertaining that they were safe, Lin Huang did not bother with them any further, returning in a flash to the Great Heaven Palace.

Sword11's training of Wu Hao had progressed very smoothly. Wu Hao had only just advanced to imperial-level, but he had mastered all of the mythical-level and below-mythical-level sword skills that Lin Huang selected for him.

He had even broken through to the first Sword Dao true meaning level—True Martial Level.

Lin Huang did not teach Wu Hao any higher-level sword skills. Instead, the millions of sword skills, mythical-level and below, that had not been picked earlier, he transferred into Wu Hao's mind.

Even though this youngster was powerful in Sword Dao, this amount of sword skills was sufficient for him to train for a while.

After sorting out the matter of his disciple Wu Hao, Lin Huang entered the Great Heaven Palace.

Once inside, he sat down cross-legged and checked on the condition of his imperial monsters.

His three Supreme God rank-5 imperial monsters Killer, Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain), and Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son) had elevated to heavenly god-level.

Among the Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 imperial monsters, Teng Ran (the Thousand Snake Sect leader) had elevated to heavenly god-level as well. However, Bai remained at ninth-rank True God-level.

The remaining ones—Grimace, Charcoal, Lancelot, the Bug Tribe's Queen Mothers, and so on—had elevated to high-rank True God-level. Those with the lowest combat strength were at seventh-rank True God-level, while the one with the highest combat strength was Grimace, who had elevated to ninth-rank True God-level.

"I can start preparing materials for Grimace and the rest. Mythical-level rank-4 is indeed a bit too low…" Lin Huang glanced through the imperial monster card projections, and his gaze very soon fell upon Bai and Teng Ran.

He moved his fingers slightly, and both imperial monster cards turned into sparkles, which coalesced at the tips of his fingers.

The next second, the two cards once more transformed into sparkles and consolidated into two figures.

One figure had hair as white as snow, clad in a black robe with blood-red patterns that seemed alive. His eyes were red, and he had a blood-red crystal between his brows, his entire body shrouded by a faint red mist.

The other figure had blond hair, each strand giving the impression of being a spirit serpent that could swallow one up. His eyes had snake pupils, which terrified anyone looking into them. His appearance caused the very air around to turn a few degrees colder.

"Both of you are already Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5…" Ten rank-4 Advance Cards appeared in Lin Huang's hand as he spoke, but Bai and Teng Ran could not see them, "Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 is nothing in the great world. Therefore, I've summoned both of you today so I can elevate you to Supreme God rank-5."

Bai's expression was calm; he already knew this day would come.

Teng Ran, on the other hand, looked utterly startled. Although he had communicated with other imperial monsters during this time and knew that Lin Huang had methods of elevating the ranks of his imperial monsters, Teng Ran did not expect that he himself would receive such treatment as well.

Materials were not required for Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 imperial monsters; they could directly use Advance Cards to elevate to Supreme God rank-5. Therefore, Lin Huang did not mind Teng Ran having seniority among the imperial monsters under him.

He had his Goldfinger, Xiao Hei, anyway, so he did not have to be suspicious of his imperial monsters' loyalty.

As he crushed the ten rank-4 Advance Cards in his hand, the cards coalesced into two golden gleams, which penetrated Bai and Teng Ran's bodies respectively.

The bodies of the two swiftly transformed into two gigantic cocoons at a speed visible to the naked eye…

There were two cocoons in the Great Heaven Palace. One was blood-red, while the other was dark purple; both had peculiar sigils circulating faintly on them.

Lin Huang observed them for a while to confirm that the two were in stable condition before he looked away from the two cocoons.

He knew that Bai and Teng Ran would not be emerging from their cocoons any time soon.

After settling the matter of Bai and Teng Ran, he thought for a little while and sent his consciousness into his body. He began looking at the card projections of Grimace, Charcoal, Lancelot, and the rest of his mythical-level rank-4 imperial monsters, recording down all the materials they needed for advancement.

Later on, he sent each of these lists of advancement materials to their respective imperial monsters via voice transmission.

After he had finished sending all the lists out, Lin Huang spoke through voice transmission again.

"Since combat strength authorization for heavenly god-level has now been made accessible, your combat strength is sufficient for you to elevate your level to where you can be independent in the great world.

"All of you will have to find ways to obtain future advancement materials on your own. If you really can't find some of the rare materials, you can come to me and trade with items of the same value.

"Apart from that, all of you will have to take responsibility for your daily expenses from now on. I won't be providing complimentary food and accommodation services anymore. Naturally, you can come to me to trade items of the same value for items that are hard to obtain on the market, if there's any that you require. After all, you are my imperial monsters so I won't collect extra handling fees.

"In order to allow you to obtain sufficient cultivation resources and advancement materials, all of you may roam freely in the great world most of the time from now on. However, this freedom comes with a caveat—you must form a team consisting of at least two people. Furthermore, unless it's the last resort, members of the same team can't go off on their own.

"Discuss among yourselves about forming teams, and send me the group list within the next three days. From that time on, you will all move in your individual teams. For those who haven't come up with a group during these three days, I'll recall them into card forms right away.

"Also, there's one last thing. There are many powerhouses in the great world, so don't stir things up on purpose. If any of you offend half-step lord-level or lord-level powerhouses and are killed by Odylic Force, there's no way you can be revived."

Lin Huang had another reason for being able to release his imperial monsters without worrying, apart from allowing them to elevate their combat strength to heavenly god-level. He could revive the imperial monsters with his Rule Bending Power in the God Territory if they were killed.

However, the God Territory's Rule Bending Power would not be able to revive them if they were killed by Odylic Force.

"Be as low profile as you can when you're out there. If you're considering stirring things up, please consider first whether you can handle it." Lin Huang was clearly saying this for Grimace's benefit.

Among all the imperial monsters, Grimace was the one he was most worried about.

The imperial monsters had thus far spent most of their time in card form. Even when they were summoned, they did everything under Lin Huang's scrutiny. He could see whatever Grimace did, clear as anything. However, now that Grimace had been given sufficient freedom, Lin Huang could almost foresee that this fellow would certainly misbehave.

All of the imperial monsters were stunned when they heard Lin Huang's voice transmission.

For one, they had not expected that they would be given the freedom to be out on their own most of the time. On the other hand, their master had halted their supply of cultivation and advancement resources. They would have to depend on themselves to obtain all sorts of resources from now on.

Obtaining cultivation resources was doable, but there was a degree of difficulty in obtaining advancement resources.

This change was something the imperial monsters were not accustomed to. However, they had to get used to it.

They were also aware that the higher their advancement in rank, the more increasingly difficult it would be to obtain the necessary advancement materials. It was a massive burden to their master as well.

As the number of imperial monsters grew, the burden increased too.

Therefore, the imperial monsters understood why Lin Huang was doing this.

They soon adjusted themselves and began their transition into workers.

After all, they had been relying on someone to take care of them previously; now, they had to take care of themselves.

As the voice transmission with his imperial monsters ended, Lin Huang received questions one after the other from Charcoal and the rest, and he answered them one by one.

The imperial monsters began teaming up on their own after clarifying the rules of this new game.

Within ten minutes, Lin Huang began receiving the grouping lists.

Approximately an hour later, most of the imperial monsters had formed their own teams.

At that moment, Lin Huang received a voice transmission from Grimace.

"It's not that I'm unwilling to form a group. I've been trying to contact Bai for an hour, but he's ignoring me…"

Lin Huang could not help raising his brows upon hearing the voice transmission.

"Bai is elevating. He'll need at least a month to complete his advancement. You should look for someone else."

"I don't want to team up with anyone else. I'll wait for him to get out of closed-door cultivation." Grimace insisted on teaming up with Bai. "That fellow is too much! I can't believe he quietly went off to advance his level without saying a word to anyone!"

"Don't wait for Bai. His abilities will be way ahead of yours after he gets out of closed-door cultivation. If you both team up, the opponents that you fight won't give him any training results, and you'll only be able to sit on the sidelines and watch while he fights his opponents. A team like that won't do any good for either of you."

After saying that, Lin Huang glanced at the group lists that had already been sent over to him before continuing, "Join Charcoal and Lancelot's group. I'll feel more relieved with them watching you."

"The way you put it is as if I might possibly do something bad…" Grimace was rather annoyed. He did not expect himself to be assigned so succinctly to another group.

However, he could not decline his master's arrangement. He could only agree to it, feeling aggrieved.

On the other end, Lancelot and Charcoal were puzzled. They had chosen to team up with each other and were not expecting another person to join them out of nowhere. The two-person team had become a three-person team now.

They thought it was Grimace who had chosen to do this and asked him through voice transmission immediately.

"Haven't you always teamed up with Bai? Why did you choose to be in our group this time?"

"Bai is in the middle of advancement…" Grimace did not bother to explain any further.

"So we're your second choice?" Charcoal pouted.

"No," Grimace denied with complete honesty.

"Then, why did you choose us?" Charcoal proceeded to ask.

"Our almighty master arranged that," Grimace replied in a huff.

"Alright then…" Clearly, Charcoal had not expected that answer.

"Since the team has already been decided upon, let's discuss where to meet." At that moment, Lancelot, who had been listening to the duo's conversation, finally spoke up. "Let's share our coordinates with each other."

The three of them did not raise any further objections to Lin Huang's arrangement.

Grimace was the first to speak after the three of them shared their coordinates.

"What kind of lousy corner are you guys in?"

"We're at the border of the Devil Hunter Star Zone. Why did you go so far away?!" Charcoal blinked his eyes twice. Grimace's coordinates were close to the God Territory's core zone.

"What resources would there be in the middle of nowhere?" Grimace smirked. "Let me tell you guys what the core zone is. It's the most developed place in the entire God Territory with the richest resources. We can obtain many resources much more easily in such a place; we can even obtain those rare advancement materials that others find difficult to obtain…"

"That makes sense…" Charcoal nodded slightly while cupping his chin with a claw.

Meanwhile, Lancelet fell silent as well on the other end…

After sending out the notification allowing the imperial monsters to be independent, Lin Huang finally began focusing on himself.

The rewards he had obtained from this trip into the secret prisoner territory were the biggest that he had ever gotten in his life.

Not only had he elevated from first-rank True God to sixth-rank True God, but the rewards that he received from God Capital and Death Sickle were also extremely generous.

"1 top-tier god sequence telekinetic flying dagger relic, 13 high-level god sequence relics, 41 mid-level god sequence relics, and 87 beginner-level god sequence relics… I can trade these god sequence relics and the 400-plus Heavenly God carcasses for other resources.

"194,610 points worth of secret territory gold coins… Based on the purchasing power of the secret territory gold coins, a high-level god sequence relic would cost around 10,000 gold coins. I can exchange these for a good many resources."

Lin Huang did an inventory of his rewards. He then discovered that apart from the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance and the half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant, the rest of the items were useless to him. He could only use them to trade for other resources.

He was very interested in the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance.

He had cultivated Seamless to the highest level, which was level-10. It could now cultivate on its own without him having to initiate the process. The number of his telekinetic threads would automatically increase by 1,000 per hour.

As far as he was concerned, the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance had come at the perfect time for him.

As he immersed his consciousness into the inheritance, his consciousness appeared in a sky full of stars a second later.

He was puzzled at first but soon realized the countless stars before his eyes were moving in an odd manner.

The trajectory of the stars' movement seemed to be controlled by humans, who were using the stars to attack giant celestial beasts in the distance, one after the other…

Lin Huang was fully immersed in this strange, extraordinary scene.

His consciousness returned to his body a long time later, but he could not calm himself down even after some time had passed.

"Telekinesis can be used like that?!"

In the inherited image, Lin Huang had witnessed this half-step Lord controlling telekinetic weapons with telekinesis and turning them into stars before attacking in a bizarre manner.

This direct attack was just an ordinary technique, but he unleashed all the stars' characteristics in their entirety, turning them into various forms.

He imbued the fire element's elemental truth into the telekinetic weapons, virtually transforming them into stars. He then drew everything together with telekinesis and set up a massive fire formation, burning everything.

He also infused the dark element's elemental truth and the engulf sequence into the telekinetic weapons, turning them into terrifying black holes. Once more, he used telekinesis to set up a great engulf formation, swallowing up everything.

…

This had inspired Lin Huang to think in that direction.

On a certain level, god weapons were more suitable for such high-level maneuverings.

Unlike the forms of god sequence relics that could only be realized virtually, Lin Huang's telekinetic god weapons could materialize into concrete form from his visualizations. Since it was not just a virtual object, the impact would be more powerful.

Third-rank god weapons were sufficiently powerful to materialize into real celestial bodies, including stars and black holes.

Apart from that, a god weapon was the equivalent of a body's extension. It could convert all sorts of energies, rules, and sequence powers 100% without any loss. That was much more powerful than god rule relics and god sequence relics.

He had to admit that this inheritance had opened a brand new door for him.

Perhaps it was difficult for most people who obtained this inheritance to learn what was contained in it, but Lin Huang had a firm foundation in Seamless. No matter what the number of telekinetic threads was, the intensity, or control of detail, he was able to do it.

He could even foresee using this inheritance as a foundation in the future, discovering more ways of using telekinesis, and playing around with more styles.

Apart from this new way of using telekinesis, there was also a Divine Telekinesis visualization method in the inheritance.

There were a total of 108 visualization images with extremely complex sigils on each of them.

Each of the sigils had the effect of fortifying and refining Divine Telekinesis.

When a visualization image was successfully visualized, a Divine Seal would be consolidated, and one's Divine Telekinesis would be fortified once.

According to the records in the inheritance, if someone managed to visualize all 108 visualization images, the strength of their Divine Telekinesis would reach lord-level right away.

Lin Huang merely gave the visualization method a rough glance and, without hesitation, adjusted the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace to be 1,000 times faster than the outside world. He then went into closed-door cultivation at once.

Time passed swiftly, a day at a time, in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang's visualization was exceptionally successful in the beginning. He spent less than ten minutes to visualize the first ten images and was rapidly done.

From the 11th to the 20th image, the time he took for visualization became longer. Altogether, it took him approximately one and a half hours to do that.

He spent a total of at least 15 hours on the 21st to 30th images.

Later on, he spent almost a week on the 31st to 40th images.

He spent over two months on the 41st to 50th images.

After that, he spent over 600 days on the 51st to 60th images.

He then spent at least 17 years on the 61st to 70th images…

Almost a week had passed by in the outside world.

However, Lin Huang still did not stop, continuing to visualize the rest of the visualization images…

…

Bai and Teng Ran had gotten out of their cocoons much earlier, having successfully elevated to Supreme God rank-5.

Lin Huang did not have the time to check the duo's card information. He sent both of them out of the Great Heaven Palace right away during a break between visualizations.

The duo then teamed up and began their journey to obtain resources.

…

While Lin Huang was in the midst of closed-door cultivation, something major happened in the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

The incident in question was that little princess Kylie had elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6 after over a month in closed-door cultivation, becoming the first Pure Spirit Protoss in this era.

Bloody came out of closed-door cultivation with her as well, having completed the elevation to Supreme God rank-5.

However, the news of Kylie's elevation did not spread. Only a handful of the Nephilic Judge Tribe's upper echelons knew the truth.

They merely told the public that little princess Kylie had broken through to heavenly god-level in her closed-door cultivation this round.

Even the rest of the Nephilic Judge Tribe thought that Kylie going into closed-door cultivation this time was so she could break through to heavenly god-level.

Kylie's advancement was undoubtedly news as shocking as a nuclear explosion to the Nephilic Judge Tribe's upper echelons.

They had never thought that anyone from the Nephilic Judge Tribe would be able to achieve this, as no one had the quality and potential for elevation to Pure Spirit rank-6.

Even though Kylie had shown extraordinary quality and potential in the beginning, in the eyes of the Nephilic Judge Tribes upper echelons, she was still far from being able to achieve Pure Spirit rank-6.

Therefore, she had been treated all along as a marriage pawn.

However, Kylie had used concrete action to give everyone a slap in the face.

Her successful advancement had made her status in the Nephilic Judge Tribe soar to peak heights in a flash.

Previously, she had been treated like a little princess who could do nothing. Now, in the eyes of Nephilic Judge Tribe's upper echelons, she had transformed into a bona fide noble queen to whom everyone would willingly give their allegiance…

Time passed by day after day in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang immersed himself in cultivation mode completely, unable to extricate himself.

Although the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace had been sped up 1,000 times, over two months had passed in the outside world.

Lin Huang had only just completed cultivating the 71st to 80th visualization images, and the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had elevated once more.

As he visualized over and over again, the automatic cultivation of Seamless within him was also accelerating.

From the initial automatic gain of 1,000 telekinetic threads per hour, it had sped up to 3,000 threads per hour after he had finished visualizing the 80th image.

Meanwhile, the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had skyrocketed from sixth-rank heavenly god-level to peak eighth-rank heavenly god-level.

Lin Huang had initially wanted to continue closed-door cultivation to further elevate the strength of his Divine Telekinesis. However, he quietly calculated the visualization time it would take and discovered that to complete the cultivation of the 81st to 90th images, he would have to spend close to two years for that, even when time had been sped up 1,000 times. He gave up on the idea.

Temporarily setting aside the cultivation of his Divine Telekinesis, he retrieved the Sword seal fragment that Virtuoso had given him.

According to Virtuoso, a Sword seal was the Sword Dao seal that consolidated in a Heavenly God sword cultivator's body. As soon as the Heavenly God died, the Dao seal in their body would shatter automatically, becoming fragments of various sizes.

Lin Huang obtained a similar fragment back when he killed the Regal Sword Killer in the gravel world. Since it looked like a page from a book and also contained a massive amount of sword skills, he had named it the One Page Sword Scripture.

Back then, the One Page Sword Scripture had a corner missing.

Upon his return to the gravel world, he had then killed the revived Regal Sword Killer and obtained the missing corner.

When the two fragments integrated, they formed an ancient and mysterious seal tactic.

Lin Huang only found out that the seal tactic was actually a complete Sword seal after listening to Virtuoso's explanation. When he discovered this, he was astounded, because he already had within him a complete Dao seal that only Heavenly Gods could consolidate.

If he could control the Dao seal perfectly, it was equivalent to directly possessing lord-level ability.

However, until now, he still could not understand why the Regal Sword Killer would have a complete Sword seal within him.

According to what Virtuoso said, when a Heavenly God died, the Dao seal would scatter to the four winds after it shattered. Even if there were other Heavenly God powerhouses present, they might not be able to obtain all of the fragments.

This was because the impact from the Dao seal shattering was terrifying, and even Heavenly God powerhouses would be impacted if they were too close. Moreover, the shattered Dao seal might pierce through layers of space and time, becoming instantly untraceable.

Although he could not understand why the Regal Sword Killer had a complete Sword seal within his body, Lin Huang did not dwell on it.

He could sense clearly that the Sword seal within him had a burning desire for the Sword seal fragment in his hand.

After only a slight moment of consideration, he placed the Sword seal fragment—that looked like a torn page—into his inner world.

Almost at the same time the Sword seal fragment entered his inner world, the battle sword in the Sword Soul's hand released an infinite sun-like golden ray.

Only Lin Huang was able to see that the source of the golden ray was the completed Sword seal.

Under the illumination of the golden ray, the Sword seal fragment seemed to have come alive. Golden divine patterns lit up on the torn page, and the ray of light grew more and more.

A moment later, the torn page transformed into golden sparkles and gathered around the divine patterns. Meanwhile, the divine patterns were like tiny golden snakes surrounded by hazy starlight, surging rapidly to where the Sword Spirit was.

At last, they penetrated the Sword seal on top of the Sword Heart.

The integration of the Sword seal fragment initiated an immediate transformation in the original Sword seal.

One by one, the divine patterns rearranged themselves. This process lasted for a full 12 days, finally creating an even more complex and mysterious Sword seal.

Lin Huang glanced at it quickly, not daring to stare at it too much. He could only roughly judge that the new Sword seal was 70 to 80 percent similar to the previous one.

As the new Sword seal took shape, he felt as if his Sword Dao heavenly rule had been unblocked by an invisible force. It began to grow more powerful at lightning speed.

Originally, he had only recently elevated to Sword Dao heavenly rule. To be exact, he had only just crossed the first threshold of level-1, Heavenly Sword.

However, he could clearly sense that his rank was now advancing.

Within ten seconds, he had elevated to the peak of Heavenly Sword and was still advancing.

After remaining at the peak of Heavenly Sword for over ten seconds, Lin Huang suddenly felt that his comprehension of Sword Dao had reached a new level.

A second later, his Sword Dao heavenly rule broke through straight away from level-1, Heavenly Sword, to level-2, Heavenly Heart.

This breakthrough that came out of nowhere puzzled Lin Huang.

He had even planned to go into closed-door cultivation once he advanced to ninth-rank true god-level, before breaking through to heavenly god-level. He wanted to try his best to achieve a breakthrough to Heavenly Heart for his Sword Dao.

Never had he expected to achieve that same goal without even being aware of it.

'What should I do before elevating to Heavenly God-level now? Should I achieve a Sword Dao heavenly rule breakthrough to level-3, which is Heavenly Dao?!' Lin Huang grumbled quietly to himself.

Right now, the elevation of Sword Dao heavenly rule was finally slowing down.

Lin Huang had honestly not expected that a mere Sword seal fragment could directly elevate his Sword Dao heavenly rule by a rank.

Moreover, apart from the elevation in Sword Dao rank, he discovered that his Sword Dao inheritance memories had increased as well.

There were around one-fifth more memories compared to before.

Lin Huang was rather upset about that.

He already had no time to learn many of the original sword skills in the inheritance memories that he obtained previously. Before he was done with his homework, he had now been given more.

He did not even bother to go check his inheritance memories; instead, he merely focused on an item in his hand that he had retrieved.

A purplish-black crystal the size of a thumb hovered above his palm.

It was Death Sickle's reward – a half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant.

According to Buried Heaven's explanation, this God Territory Shell Remnant's owner used to be an Abyssal half-step Lord who had been killed by two of Death Sickle's Blood Sickle members.

After his death, a Blood Sickle member retrieved the God Territory in his body and put it through a proper cleansing. There was no trace of Abyssal energy left behind at all now.

When the Blood Sickle member was cleansing it, he purged all of the living things in the God Territory as well.

Therefore, the God Territory Shell Remnant was merely an empty shell now.

However, to Lin Huang, it had great value despite being just an empty shell.

This was because as soon as integration was completed, it would mean that he possessed a half-step lord-level God Territory immediately.

His God Territory, Monster Paradise, would also be able to obtain a corresponding advancement. The coverage range alone would expand hundreds and thousands of times…

Time passed by day by day in the Great Heaven Palace.

The speed at which Lin Huang's God Territory integrated with the God Territory Shell Remnant was very slow.

He spent almost three and a half years to complete the integration between his own God Territory and the God Territory Shell Remnant.

However, merely a day had passed in the outside world.

The integrated God Territory had some new changes in it.

"God Territory: Monster Paradise"

"God Territory Ability 1: After a summoning beast dies, the dead summoning beast's soul will return to the God Territory with its body reconstructed with Divine Power and revived. Those that have broken souls will have their broken soul pieces recalled and recovered."

"Remark 1: Unlimited number of revivals in theory."

"Remark 2: If killed by an Odylic attack coming from a Lord or a being above Lord, it will truly die and cannot be revived."

"Remark 3: If killed multiple times by a half-step Lord's Odylic attacks, there is a possibility that it will be unable to be revived."

"Remark 4: Each revival requires the expenditure of a certain amount of Godly Right Power (the expended Godly Right can be replenished).

"Derivative Ability: If the God Territory possessor dies, they can choose a summoning beast to substitute death."

"Remark 1: The number of substitute deaths per day depends on the number of summoning beasts. Each summoning beast can only die in place of the host once within 24 hours."

"Remark 2: If the God Territory possessor is killed by the Odyl of a Lord or a being above Lord, they will truly die and cannot be substituted by a summoning beast."

"Remark 3: If killed multiple times by a half-step Lord's Odylic attacks, there is also a possibility that it will be unable to be revived."

"Remark 4: After a summoning beast dies in place of its host, it will return to the God Territory to be revived."

…

"God Territory Ability 2: The God Territory possessor can borrow any skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers of all summoning beasts at any time."

"Remark 1: The borrowing of Monster Skills already possessed by the God Territory possessor is invalid and will not produce compounded effects."

"Remark 2: In theory, the number of borrowed skills is not restricted by the upper limit of the God Territory possessor's number of Monster Skills. It will only be affected by how much the God Territory possessor's physical strength and spirit strength can bear."

"Remark 3: It is not restricted by the space and time in which the summoning beast is located."

"Remark 4: When a summoning beast truly dies, all of its skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers can no longer be borrowed."

…

"God Territory Ability 3: The God Territory possessor can use any of the residents' skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers at any time."

"Remark 1: The borrowing of skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers already possessed by the God Territory possessor is invalid and will not produce compounded effects."

"Remark 2: In theory, the number of borrowed skills has no upper limit restrictions. It will only be affected by how much the God Territory possessor's physical strength and spirit strength can bear."

"Remark 3: The God Territory possessor can only borrow from residents within their bodies which have the world imprint."

"Remark 4: It is not restricted by the space and time in which the residents are located."

Remark 5: When a resident dies, all of their skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers can no longer be borrowed."

…

Lin Huang noticed that the biggest change was that previously, he or his imperial monsters would be killed right away as soon as they were hit by Odylic attacks. However, since the integration of the God Territory Shell Remnant, only Odylic attacks coming from Lords or beings above Lords could kill him and his imperial monsters.

In other words, if they were killed by a half-step Lord's Odylic attack, it would not affect his revival or that of his imperial monsters.

There was no reason given in the information from Xiaohei's side, but Lin Huang roughly speculated that the effects of Odylic attacks might possibly be borne by the God Territory since it had now been elevated.

If that were the case, there was definitely a limit to the attacks that the God Territory could bear. If death happened multiple times from a half-step Lord's Odylic attacks, it might exceed the limit that the God Territory could bear, and result in true death.

"So it's best that I don't offend half-step Lord powerhouses for nothing…" Lin Huang rapidly came to this conclusion.

After turning off Monster Paradise's information panel, Lin Huang began to check on the changes brought about this time by his closed-door cultivation.

Although his combat level had not elevated, the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had increased significantly.

His Sword Dao had also elevated to level-2 of Sword Dao heavenly rule—Heavenly Heart.

His God Territory had also elevated further since its successful integration with the God Territory Shell Remnant.

Not only had its functions become significantly more powerful, but its range had also expanded thousands upon ten thousand times.

Within the Great Heaven Territory, many years had already passed.

However, since the speed of time there had been sped up 1,000 times, merely less than two and a half months had passed in the outside world.

"Although my combat level hasn't elevated, there's still a significant elevation in my abilities." Lin Huang was fairly satisfied with the result of his closed-door cultivation this time.

Realizing that he would not be able to elevate his abilities further within a short period, Lin Huang opened the doors somewhat reluctantly and walked out of the Great Heaven Palace.

Sword1, who had been guarding the doors of the Palace, stood up as soon as he saw Lin Huang come out of closed-door cultivation.

"Lord Swordmaster…" As soon as he greeted Lin Huang, he noticed that Lin Huang's Sword Dao had advanced again. The gleam in his eyes brightened. "Congratulations, Lord Swordmaster, on your Sword Dao elevating to Heavenly Heart!"

Lin Huang was not surprised that Sword1 had seen through him. He was not wearing Thousand Face to hide his aura, after all. Moreover, the Sword Servants themselves were powerful sword cultivators and were extra sensitive to Sword Dao levels.

"Mm." Lin Huang responded, then asked, "How long have I been in closed-door cultivation?"

"Today is the 71st day," Sword1 reported the number without any hesitation. Clearly, he had been counting the days.

"It's been less than two and a half months…" Lin Huang had actually set an alarm according to the time flow—which had been sped up 1,000 times—so that he would exit his state of closed-door cultivation when three months had passed the outside world. He had ended his cultivation before the alarm rang, and he had not bothered to count the days since he would be able to find out by asking once he got out.

"I'm a month away from the arrangement I made with Virtuoso…" Lin Huang mumbled softly.

After chatting with Sword1 and asking about matters in the Great Heaven Territory recently, Lin Huang bid him farewell and teleported out of the Territory.

The identity ring on his finger vibrated repeatedly as soon as he got out of the Great Heaven Territory.

He tapped into the communication page and saw he had a missed call and two unread messages.

The missed call was from an unknown number. In general, there was a high chance of unknown numbers being advertisements. Lin Huang merely glanced at it and proceeded to ignore it. He then checked the two unread messages.

Of the two messages, one was from Mr. Fu, while the other was also from an unknown number.

Lin Huang checked Mr. Fu's message first.

In the message, Mr. Fu informed Lin Huang that he had come out of closed-door cultivation and had elevated to second-rank true god-level. Mr. Fu also said that the possibility of elevating his ability further in the immediate short-term was low after coming out of closed-door cultivation this time. Therefore, he wanted to check out other places in the great world so he could learn more.

Lin Huang was not worried about Mr. Fu; he had already spoken to a few Sword Servants previously while in the Devil Hunter Star Zone. When Mr. Fu departed this time, there would most certainly be a Sword Servant secretly following him.

When he checked on the date that the message had been sent, it was almost two months ago.

Lin Huang considered for a moment but did not call back right away. Instead, he read the message that had been sent from the unknown number.

This message contained only one sentence:

"Take care of Hong Zhuang for me…"

Lin Huang was stunned when he saw this; he knew immediately that it was definitely Yang Ling who had sent the message.

He called the number back at once. However, the response message was, "The number you have dialed is not in service…"

Yang Ling was in trouble!

Lin Huang frowned hard.

He remembered clearly that Yang Ling said he might have been targeted by Raiders when he helped Lin Huang create his fake identities a couple of months ago.

At that time, he had mentioned that he wanted Lin Huang to take care of Hong Zhuang if something really happened to him.

Lin Huang thought for a moment, then tapped into the contact page again. He looked at the unknown number of the missed call.

This number was different from the one that had been used to send the message.

However, when he checked the date of the call, it was April 4th—the same day the message had been sent.

Not only that, the time of the call request was merely two minutes before the message was sent.

Lin Huang guessed that the number was most probably Yang Ling's. With hardly any hesitation, he returned the call.

However, the same response message soon played again. "The number you have dialed is not in service…"

The same thing happened with both numbers. This made Lin Huang certain that something had definitely happened to Yang Ling!

It was May 21st now, one and a half months since the message had been sent. Going by the Raiders' modus operandi, Yang Ling might already be dead.

Even if he were still alive, he most probably had been captured by the Raiders, otherwise, he would not be out of contact.

However, judging by the message that Yang Ling had sent, Hong Zhuang should still have been safe one-and-a-half months ago.

Even if that were the case, though, Lin Huang had no way of ascertaining if she was still safe or not, since one-and-a-half months had already gone by.

What left him speechless was that Yang Ling had not left him any clues to her whereabouts at all.

As Yang Ling's girlfriend, there was a high possibility that Hong Zhuang had been targeted by Raiders as well.

Therefore, she might already be dead, or she might have been captured by Raiders.

If either of these two possibilities occurred, naturally, Lin Huang was not under any obligation to look after her.

After all, at his current level of ability, there was a high possibility that he might be killed too if he were to provoke the Raiders.

He did not like Hong Zhuang very much, as the woman was just too secretive and unfathomable. One never knew which of her words were truthful and which were lies.

However, no matter what, she and Lin Huang could be considered familiar with each other. Moreover, she was Yang Ling's girlfriend, and Yang Ling was a man from Earth, Lin Huang's home.

Lin Huang felt that if Hong Zhuang really did manage to escape from the Raiders, he would certainly be willing to fulfill Yang Ling's dying wish that Lin Huang take care of her.

Many thoughts flashed through his head, and he called both unknown numbers once more. However, the response message was the same each time—the numbers were not in service.

With no leads to go on, Lin Huang had no option but to give up.

"Given Yang Ling's character, if he left no clues behind, it was probably for the sake of Hong Zhuang's safety. However, since he asked me to take care of her, he might have left something for her so that she could find me…"

Lin Huang did not dwell any further on the matter once he got to this point in his musings.

If Hong Zhuang did manage to escape, she would likely follow Yang Ling's plan and look for Lin Huang.

After all, it was just too difficult for her to survive in the great world alone, given her previous imperial-level combat strength.

Lin Huang put aside the matter of Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang and logged onto Death Sickle's official website.

It was less than a month away from the arrangements he had made with Virtuoso to go to the Abyss.

This was not enough time for him to go into another round of closed-door cultivation, nor was it sufficient for him to make one more trip into the ruins.

For this reason, he decided to take the opportunity and use this period to accept a few Death Sickle missions.

For Death Sickle's authorizations, his identity as Xiu Mu was already a Gold Sickle member, and his corresponding authorizations had all been activated.

However, he clicked on the information section first before checking the available missions.

As he glanced through, a trending hot topic caught his attention.

The subject was "Will the Little Princess of the Nephilic Judge Tribe Manage to Escape the Fate Of Marriage Since She Has Elevated to Heavenly God-level?"

Lin Huang clicked on the link immediately. After reading through, he felt slightly more relieved.

The Nephilic Judge Tribe was shrewd enough to have revealed only that Kylie had elevated to heavenly god-level. They had not disclosed that, in reality, she had elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6.

The more outstanding one was, the more one would be targeted for destruction.

Although all the organizations in the God Territory were eagerly anticipating that the God Territory would produce a Pure Spirit rank-6 powerhouse, they all hoped that this powerhouse would be someone within their own organization.

As soon as the news of Kylie's elevation to Pure Spirit rank-6 leaked out, the other organizations would outwardly show goodwill, but the entire Nephilic Judge Tribe would secretly become a target on all sides.

The several grade-7 organizations, in particular, would not watch helplessly as Kylie grew to lead the Nephilic Judge Tribe in elevating to a grade-7 organization as well.

After all, there were only so many top-notch resources in the God Territory. One more grade-7 organization appearing would mean that the resources given to other grade-7 organizations would lessen correspondingly.

Not only would the Nephilic Judge Tribe be targeted, but Kylie would also become the target of many assassinations.

Therefore, the shrewdest way of going about things was to underplay the matter, saying that Kylie had elevated to heavenly god-level.

When the time came, all the antagonism would naturally not exist.

However, Lin Huang also knew that it might be difficult for the Nephilic Judge Tribe to continue concealing the matter.

Kylie's status would be exposed sooner or later—it was only a matter of time.

Lin Huang felt a little more relieved as he glanced through the comments below. At least nobody suspected Kylie's elevation at the moment.

After all, she had been at ninth-rank true god-level before this, so it made sense that she would elevate to heavenly god-level after closed-door cultivation. Moreover, the announcement that the Nephilic Judge Tribe made for the little princess was also a normal occurence.

Lin Huang was not worried about Kylie's current situation. For one thing, she had Bloody with her. For another, given her current status, the Nephilic Judge upper echelons would take good care of her.

As for the matter of her Pure Spirit rank-6 standing being exposed, that would be something to worry about in the future.

When things reached the point where the Nephilic Judge Tribe really could not handle it, Bloody would definitely contact him immediately. The worst-case scenario would be Lin Huang recalling both of them forcibly into card form when that happened.

After closing the thread about Kylie, Lin Huang noticed that there was a Gold Sickle symbol on the first thread pinned on top of the information section.

The thread had been posted half a month ago, with the subject "Regarding the Conquest Expedition to the Abyss."

Lin Huang clicked on the thread immediately when he saw that it had something to do with the Abyss.

It was only after spending a minute or more to finish reading the thread that Lin Huang discovered Virtuoso had invited him to team up and go into the Abyss because they had found out about this piece of news ahead of time.

The mission was a small-scale conquest expedition into the Abyss organized by the God Territory.

There were only a few major grade-7 and grade-6 organizations as well as a handful of top grade-5 organizations participating in this.

Of the seven Blood Sickle members of Death Sickle, five would participate this time.

Buried Heaven and a few top Heavenly Gods from Death Sickle were on the list too.

It was the same for the other organizations.

The participants were the Lords, half-step Lords, and top Heavenly God powerhouses from the various organizations.

The reason for pinning the thread on top was to inform all Gold Sickle members that the Abyss would be extremely dangerous during this period, and everyone should not attempt to enter.

At the same time, it was mentioned that the rest of the Gold Sickle members should follow the orders of the remaining two Blood Sickle members and assist in handling all Death Sickle matters, maintaining Death Sickle's usual operations.

After he finished reading, Lin Huang could not help secretly exclaiming that Virtuoso was bold and reckless.

Virtuoso had invited him to enter the Abyss on the second day that the powerhouses from the major organizations would be there.

Clearly, Virtuoso wanted to take advantage of the conquest expedition and gain more benefits amidst the chaos that ensued.

Lin Huang checked out a couple of threads in the information section before looking through the missions section.

This time the missions section was clearly different from the one previously.

Before this, Lin Huang's status was only that of a Black Sickle. There had been only two panels in the missions section—one was missions for reserve members, while the other was Black Sickle missions. Now, there were four panels for reserve missions, Black Sickle missions, White Sickle missions, and Gold Sickle missions.

As soon as Lin Huang clicked into the missions section, his default choice was the Gold Sickle missions panel.

The difficulty level for Gold Sickle missions was that of fighting Heavenly Gods.

Ordinarily speaking, one would either have to assassinate a Heavenly God, or they would encounter conflict with a Heavenly God powerhouse during the mission.

Lin Huang glanced over the missions list and discovered that the missions were sorted according to the time they were posted. The later the posting, the closer to the top of the list it would appear.

He immediately changed how the missions were sorted, choosing to display them in the order of the most handsome rewards.

The missions list immediately changed.

He scanned through the list again and found out that most of the missions in the top spots had been published for years.

The one that ranked first was posted over 8,000 years ago.

As for the objective of the mission, it was to kill a half-step lord-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

Lin Huang merely glanced at the title and skipped past, not even bothering to see what the reward was.

At his ability, he had to avoid half-step lord-level powerhouses for now, what more a half-step lord-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

One must know that a Bug Tribe Queen Mother of such combat strength could mass-produce high-level Heavenly God Bug Kings and even Bug Queens as long as they had sufficient material. They might even be able to produce half-step lord-level Bug Kings and Bug Queens.

Apart from that, a Bug Tribe Queen Mother with such combat strength was a treasure to the Bug Tribe. There would be at least several half-step lord-level Bug Servants guarding her closely or even lord-level Bug Tribe powerhouses.

Never mind Gold Sickle members—Lin Huang felt this mission might not be possible even with all seven Blood Sickle members working together.

He looked at the second mission right after skipping the first one.

After reading the heading, he was speechless again.

This was because the mission was to kill a Bug Tribe Queen Mother as well. However, it was to kill a fallen Queen Mother in the Abyss. The fallen Queen Mother also had the combat strength of a half-step Lord.

From Lin Huang's point of view, if one did not consider external influences, this fallen Queen Mother might have an overall ability that was even more powerful than the Queen Mother from the first mission.

The reason she was ranked second was probably that she did not have any Bug Tribe Lords by her side as bodyguards.

However, Lin Huang believed that the fallen Queen Mother would have Abyssal lord-level powerhouses behind her.

The reason for this was that the Queen Mother was an excellent tool for conquest. It was impossible that Abyssal lord-level powerhouses would be unaware of the fallen Queen Mother's existence.

The reason she had been able to hide herself so well in the Abyss without being noticed was most probably because she had become the subject of a lord-level powerhouse.

Therefore, the difficulty of hunting this fallen Queen Mother was actually no less than that of hunting the Queen Mother from the previous first-ranked mission.

"Does Death Sickle have a problem with Queen Mothers…" Lin Huang grumbled, then looked at the third mission—hunting the half-step lord-level Succubus Mia.

"Succubus?" Lin Huang tapped open this mission with some curiosity.

There was no reason other than a succubus being the sexiest creature in the world, and he wanted to see for himself exactly how sexy it was.

When he clicked in, there was only a description of the mission. There were no pictures at all.

Regarding the nonexistent pictures, Death Sickle's explanation was that a half-step lord-level succubus possessed the ability to affect most creatures below half-step lord-level through images and sound.

If pictures of the succubus were attached, it was entirely possible that the Gold Sickle members who clicked in from Death Sickle's website would be affected.

"She's so powerful she can affect people through pictures and sound?!" Even Lin Huang thought this was unbelievable.

However, that was not the only powerful thing that he noticed about this succubus.

According to the mission's description, she had at least three lord-level paramours and some powerful half-step lord-level lovers.

One would have to be prepared to be hunted by at least three Abyssal Lords and over ten half-step Lords if one were to kill her.

"I'm terrified already!" Lin Huang hurriedly closed that mission thread immediately and looked at the missions below it.

He looked through over ten missions, one after the other, and all of them required the killing of half-step Lords.

Further down, there were missions to kill ninth-rank Heavenly Gods, but the targets were either supreme god-level rank-5 geniuses, half-step Lords, or even the supporters of a Lord.

There were thirty missions on the first page, but Lin Huang did not see any that suited him.

At present, all of them were beyond his scope.

He thought about it for a moment. Instead of going to the next page, he directly typed 'God Territory' into the section on mission rewards.

He would need to obtain a massive amount of Rule Bending Power from the God Territory within Heavenly Gods' bodies in order to elevate his combat strength. Killing Heavenly Gods was one way; obtaining the God Territory Shell Remnant in a dead Heavenly God's body was another.

Moreover, he knew that Death Sickle had many missions that gave out God Territory Shell Remnants as rewards.

In reality, a normal God Territory Shell Remnant was not like the half-step Lord Shell Remnant that he had obtained from Buried Heaven previously.

The God Territory Shell Remnant that Buried Heaven gave him was cleansed because it had been utterly contaminated with Abyssal energy.

He would not have been able to integrate it if it were not cleansed.

Integrating it directly would have caused his God Territory to be contaminated with Abyssal energy as well.

Under normal circumstances, when Death Sickle's Gold Sickle members killed a Heavenly God, they would retrieve the Heavenly God's God Territory entirely and keep it perfectly preserved. The Rule Bending Powers, sequence powers, and even the number of creatures in there would not undergo any significant changes compared to the time the Heavenly God was still alive.

If the fallen Heavenly God's God Territory was damaged, causing the internal Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers to be missing, it had to be mentioned when it was retrieved and sold on the market.

This was because an incomplete God Territory Shell Remnant would be sold at a much lower price.

The God Territory Shell Remnants that Death Sickle used as mission rewards were generally complete.

The half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant Lin Huang got from Buried Heaven was just an exception.

Meanwhile, the rewards for the missions he was looking at were complete God Territory Shell Remnants.

This was also something that he needed most at the moment.

Lin Huang sorted the missions in the order of God Territory Shell Remnant rewards, then he sorted them again so the best rewards would be shown first.

The first one that gave generous rewards was the killing of a ninth-rank Heavenly God.

Lin Huang gave up on that mission right away and proceeded to check the next one.

Only when he got to the third page did he see a mission to kill a fourth-rank Heavenly God. The reward was a complete fourth-rank Heavenly God's God Territory Shell Remnant.

Lin Huang chose this difficulty level, not because his ability was that low, but because he could only display that level of ability in front of Death Sickle's upper echelons. It would be too unusual if he displayed more than that.

Given that his scheduled appointment with Virtuoso to go into the Abyss was happening soon, Lin Huang accepted twenty missions to kill fourth-rank Heavenly Gods for the time being.

"He disappeared for over two months, and now as soon as he's back on the radar, he takes up twenty missions to kill fourth-rank Heavenly Gods… It looks like either his combat level's made a breakthrough again, or he was previously holding back his abilities…"

As soon as Lin Huang accepted the missions, the Death Sickle upper echelons were already noticing his movements.

Given his genius level, it would indeed be strange if he were not noticed.

Lin Huang was also aware that he would certainly draw attention to himself, so he only chose hunting targets that were fourth-rank.

He planned his route according to distance. The first hunting target he chose was a Lightning Fox.

The mission was to capture this Lightning Fox alive, and the reward was two fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Meanwhile, the Lightning Fox referred to in the mission was located in some battlefield ruins not far away from the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Although its combat level was merely fourth-rank, this Lightning Fox had mastered the Lightning Sequence and possessed astounding speed and explosive power.

In reality, many Gold Sickle members from Death Sickle had attempted this mission, but all of them had failed.

After all, such a reward was not enough to attract high-level Gold Sickle members to attempt such a task. Meanwhile, this fourth-rank Lightning Fox possessed a speed that was on par with most sixth-rank Heavenly Gods.

Lin Huang was confident he could capture it, not because he was just as fast as the creature itself, but because he felt that this Lightning Fox could not possibly be swifter than his own Divine Telekinesis.

Upon entering the rarely-visited battlefield ruins, he spread his Divine Telekinesis and began searching for the Lightning Fox.

Within two minutes, he had located his target.

"I've found you, little creature!"

As soon as the Lightning Fox sensed that it was being scanned by Divine Telekinesis, it turned into a lightning arc and tried to flee.

The next second, an invisible telekinetic thread twined around its rear right leg and stopped it from running away entirely.

The Lightning Fox let out a yelp of surprise. Just as it was about to unleash its might and struggle free, another telekinetic thread looped around its neck the next instant.

It immediately settled down, as it knew that if it continued to struggle, Lin Huang could easily cut off its head.

Noticing that the Lightning Fox had stopped struggling, Lin Huang did not hesitate.

A snap of his fingers and several telekinetic threads wrapped around the Lightning Fox, turning it into a cocoon, which was then dragged back to Lin Huang's side.

It was a mission that was practically impossible for anyone else, but when Lin Huang took it up, including his time on the road, he spent less than five minutes to complete it.

"Not bad. It went more smoothly than I expected." Lin Huang patted the Divine Telekinesis cocoon and put it away in the God Territory within him, inside the foothold where his Sword Servants were.

After advising his Sword Servants, he proceeded to check out the next mission.

To maximize his efficiency in completing his missions, Lin Huang had prepared to finish off all twenty missions at once and then submit them as soon as he was done.

The second mission was located in a neighboring star zone next to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

The target of the mission was a third-rank heavenly god-level pure blood Protoss.

The reward was five fourth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

The mission reward exceeded the target's combat level considerably because this pure blood Protoss had a small clan backing him. The clan's master was a high-level eighth-rank Heavenly God.

The target was the master's grandchild.

Others might have taken the clan into consideration, but Lin Huang did not bother about this.

He noticed that the mission was a private commission. The commission documents had detailed evidence that this pure blood Protoss had humiliated and abused many female Protoss.

Lin Huang took merely ten minutes and arrived at the nearby Siri Star Zone through a dimensional portal.

When he arrived close to the planet where his target was, he soon locked onto his prey with Divine Telekinesis.

This was a young man who looked like he was in his early 20s—tall, with shoulder-length blond hair.

He was currently lying in a bathhouse, embracing two female Protoss with amazing bodies, one on each side of him.

Suddenly, a barely perceptible blood-red ray sparked like an electric arc, piercing right through the middle of the man's brows.

A red dot only appeared a moment later between the man's brows. Thin trickles of blood seeped out and dripped off his face into the bathhouse.

Only then did the two ladies notice something was wrong and cried out in alarm.

A brawny man was guarding the door outside the bathhouse. However, he did not notice anything unusual.

He ignored the ladies screaming and knocking on the door. He had seen far too many scenarios like this, and the best way of handling them was not to meddle in anything.

Despite having successfully killed the target of the mission, Lin Huang was not very happy.

Having killed the target at such a distance, he was unable to retrieve the God Territory within the target's body.

After spending less than twenty minutes to complete this second mission, Lin Huang did not stop at all. He checked out the third mission immediately…

He spent less than two days to complete all twenty missions.

After locating a Death Sickle branch to submit the missions, he obtained his mission rewards—forty-six fourth-rank and seven fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Including the God Territories that he had extracted from the targets' bodies, he had accumulated almost 1.8 million Rule Bending Powers.

As soon as he submitted the twenty missions, Lin Huang accepted a further one hundred and fifty missions all at once, swiftly entering a second round of hunting.

This time, he merely spent eighteen days to complete all one hundred and fifty missions.

The mission rewards were four hundred and thirteen fourth-rank and thirty-four fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Including the God Territories he had extracted from the targets' bodies, he had accumulated almost 15 million Rule Bending Powers.

Realizing that it was merely a few days away from his appointment with Virtuoso, Lin Huang did not accept any more missions. Instead, he set an alarm and began closed-door cultivation to refine the God Territory Shell Remnants that he had obtained.

When he was in closed-door cultivation, the Death Sickle upper echelons held another meeting.

All seven Blood Sickle members were present in the meeting room. Apart from that, there were a few top-tier Heavenly Gods in attendance, including Buried Heaven.

These dozen-over people had gathered mainly to discuss final matters before entering the Abyss.

When all of the agendas had been discussed and the meeting was coming to an end, a Blood Sickle member suddenly spoke up," I noticed something interesting recently…

"That little fellow named Xiu Mu's taken up over a hundred missions to hunt fourth-rank Heavenly Gods since being given Gold Sickle authorization. Not only that, he's completed all of them…"

"I've noticed his unusual movements too," another Blood Sickle member next to him commented while smiling, "Moreover, the strange thing is that all the missions he selected had God Territory Shell Remnants as rewards. I can't figure why this little guy is so persistent in strengthening his God Territory."

"A possibility is that his cultivation method has something to do with his God Territory," another Blood Sickle member could not help speaking up at this point.

The meeting room fell silent for a moment. Prying into the roots of a person's cultivation was a taboo in the cultivation world.

However, that particular Blood Sickle member's comment could not help but cause everyone to speculate on how this powerful Xiu Mu fellow cultivated exactly.

Noticing that the atmosphere was off, Buried Heaven spoke up to change the subjec, "Xiu Mu has great potential. No matter which universe he's in, he'd be in the outstanding elite among Protoss! I have a feeling that in the future, he'll grow into a compelling man that I would definitely admire…"

In a flash, several days had passed again.

Soon, the day of Lin Huang and Virtuoso's appointment arrived.

At 8.50 in the morning, Lin Huang arrived at the agreed location after breakfast—a cafe by the beach, located quite far from Shelter No. 3.

It was mid-June at the moment; in this region where the café was located, it was already the beginning of summer.

A glance showed swimsuit-clad men and ladies everywhere at the beach. Lin Huang, who was in a black robe, looked out of place among them. He even received judgmental glances directed at him every now and then.

Lin Huang ignored the stares from those people. He found himself a table in the alfresco area and took a seat. He then ordered a cup of coffee and waited patiently for Virtuoso to show up.

Very soon, his coffee was served by a young female attendant in a short serving maid outfit.

Lin Huang lifted the cup and took a sip. He could not help frowning slightly, putting down the cup.

He thought there were probably two words that could best describe this cup of coffee – utterly undrinkable.

It was not an exaggeration to say that this was the worst cup of coffee he had ever tasted since he traveled to this world.

He even had some suspicions as to how this café had survived until now.

'Don't tell me those pretty girls in maid attire are the only appeal?!'

At 9 a.m. sharp, none of the several team members that Virtuoso mentioned to him had arrived.

"Did that fellow blow me off?" Lin Huang raised his brows. However, after some careful consideration, he felt that he had nothing to lose since he had already obtained a Sword seal fragment.

After thinking about it, he figured he would send Virtuoso a message. "Where are you? We agreed to meet at 9, where's everyone?!"

"We're on the way. Wait for a few more minutes," Virtuoso replied almost immediately.

Lin Huang could only continue to wait patiently. After all, he had accepted the deposit. There was no need for him to rage-quit just because they were a few minutes late.

What he thought strange was that not only was Virtuoso absent, but the rest had yet to arrive as well.

Right after he turned off his communication page, Lin Huang sensed a dimensional wave coming from not far away.

A black whirlpool opened up, and two figures walked out of it.

One of them was a burly, bald man who was over two meters tall. He had a face full of stubble and was clad in golden armor.

Meanwhile, the other figure was a thin, small lady in a blue robe, whose height did not even reach 1.4 meters. She looked a little like an adolescent girl.

Lin Huang had a rough idea of their identities.

The two newcomers noticed Lin Huang sitting outside the cafe as soon as they teleported in. They walked directly over to him.

"I suppose you're Xiu Mu? I'm Tu Tong," the burly man in golden armor extended his hand immediately.

Lin Huang stretched out his own hand as well and gave Tu Tong a handshake.

The lady in the blue robe seemed to be a little timid. Her gaze at Lin Huang was somewhat fugitive.

"This is Lan Ling." Noticing what was going on, the man in golden armor immediately introduced his companion.

"Hello," Lin Huang greeted with a smile.

"I heard that you're a sword cultivator?" Tu Tong seemed to be rather interested in Lin Huang's status as a sword cultivator.

"Yes, that's right," Lin Huang nodded in acknowledgment.

Although Xiu Mu's status in Death Sickle was only that of a psychic, Virtuoso had seen through him completely. Therefore, there was no need for him to hide his sword cultivator status in front of the duo.

"I'm a combat cultivator. Let's spar when we have the chance. Sparring with sword cultivators and saber cultivators is what I like best." Tu Tong looked eager to try this.

If not for the unsuitable time and location, he might just have sparred with Lin Huang right away.

In comparison with Tu Tong, Lan Ling, who had remained on the sidelines, was quiet throughout.

She had been listening to their conversation, but she did not show any signs of wishing to contribute at all.

As Lin Huang and Tu Tong were chatting, another dimensional wave suddenly came out of nowhere.

The three of them looked toward the source of the dimensional wave at almost the same time.

A figure in a green robe slowly walked out of the black whirlpool.

Lin Huang did not even need to think about it to know that the third team member had arrived.

This was because he sensed an overwhelming saber intent within the man's body. It was at least as powerful as his own sword intent—perhaps even more powerful.

"Sword cultivator?" The man in the green robe raised his eyes and looked at Lin Huang as soon as he stepped out of the whirlpool.

The next second, he took a stride forward and appeared before the three of them.

"Senior Saber." Tu Tong and Lan Ling stood up almost at the same time.

"Just call me Saber9, that will do." Only then did the man in the green robe shift his gaze from Lin Huang to look at the pair in front of him.

Clearly, the three of them knew each other.

Noticing this, Lin Huang stood up immediately and took the initiative to introduce himself, "This humble one is Xiu Mu."

"I know you—Virtuoso has mentioned you before." Saber9 nodded slightly.

He appeared to be in his early 30s but was the kind who looked young. If he were to say that he was 27 or 28, people would still believe him. However, his aura was coldly arrogant and extremely elegant.

"Isn't he here yet?" Saber9 glanced around and asked Tu Tong and Lan Ling.

"I don't think so…" Tu Tong answered immediately, but he secretly wondered, 'Why ask me when I wasn't the first one who arrived here?'

"I've messaged him already to prompt him," Lin Huang spoke up as well, "Why don't all of you order something to drink first? Not coffee though—this cafe's coffee tastes like crap."

The three ordered one after the other, then all four of them sat together at a table and waited patiently for Virtuoso.

When the drinks were served, the three of them merely took a sip, then put down their cups.

"Are they terrible too?" Lin Huang could not help asking when he noticed this.

"Just like you said, it tastes like crap," Saber9 gave the same comment.

Beside him, Tu Tong and Lan Ling nodded immediately.

None of the three had ordered coffee; they had even ordered three different drinks.

The fact that the cafe had managed to make four different drinks that were equally terrible made Lin Huang feel a slight trace of dubious admiration.

He was even more doubtful now. 'How in the world has this cafe survived?!'

The four of them waited until 9.15 a.m. but there was still no sign of Virtuoso.

Lin Huang did not mind, but Saber9 had on a long face the entire time. Tu Tong and Lan Ling stole glances at him every now and again; they were clearly anxious.

"Let me hurry him up one more time." Seeing this, Lin Huang called Virtuoso again. They picked up almost immediately.

"Could you hurry up a little? The four of us have arrived; we're all waiting for you."

"Right away! Right away!" Virtuoso ended the call immediately after saying that.

Virtuoso said that they would be there right away, but the four of them still waited for over ten minutes more.

At 9:30 a.m., the white-robed Virtuoso finally arrived.

"My apologies, everyone. I'm late." Although he said that, Virtuoso's expression did not seem to indicate he was sorry.

"Of all the good qualities you could have learned, you had to pick up on your Primordium's bad habit of being late," Saber9 said, angrily.

"Ah Jiu, don't be angry." Lin Huang had goosebumps when he heard how Virtuoso addressed Saber9.

However, the odd thing was that Saber9 merely registered his protests with his eyes instead of verbally correcting the term of address.

"Ahh, Tutu, and Lanlan, it's been a while!" Virtuoso greeted Tu Tong and Lan Ling in a sappy manner.

The pair looked helpless, but neither did they correct the endearments.

At that moment, Virtuoso looked at Lin Huang.

Before they could speak, Lin Huang spoke up first, "We're not that close, don't you dare do that to me."

Only then did Virtuoso drop the matter rather sulkily.

As the five stepped out of the Dimensional Whirlpool, they soon arrived in an expanse of nothingness.

Lin Huang saw a gigantic black hole in the void before them, like a massive eyeball hovering in the air. He could not help but feel a trace of awe and admiration rising within him.

It was his first time seeing the real Abyss.

Prior to this, he had seen pictures and video documentations before and had even imagined a great deal. However, now that he had seen it in person, the sense of awe still remained.

What was strange was that he had the vague illusion that he seemed to be watching an endless, massive living creature, even though the black abyss ahead was merely the entrance to the Abyss proper.

"Do all of you have this feeling that the entrance looks like an eyeball staring at us?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

He faintly recalled something that he used to always hear—if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.

"Everyone has that feeling when they see the Abyss for the first time. It's just an illusion," Saber9 explained calmly from where he was off to the side, "You won't have this feeling when you come again."

"Why does such an illusion happen?" Lin Huang felt he did not quite understand.

"No idea, it's the same for everyone." Before Saber9 could speak, Virtuoso answered the question directly, "There's no need to dwell further on this matter."

At that moment, the small, skinny Lan Ling raised her arm weakly, "I-I know…"

Lin Huang and the rest looked at her.

Only then did Lan Ling murmur softly, "I-I've seen related research papers.

"To put it simply, in reality, the Abyss comes with an extremely subtle mental suppression, which causes fear in one's subconscious mind. Therefore, our subconscious mind views it as a great threat, resulting in such an illusion the first time we see the Abyss.

"As to why this illusion only happens the first time, the explanation in the study was that our subconscious minds become accustomed to the mental suppression from the Abyss after the first visit. As the fear has been removed from the subconscious mind, we no longer see it as a threat."

Although Lan Ling's explanation sounded reasonable, Lin Huang still felt he was not convinced.

At that moment, Tu Tong could no longer contain himself and finally joined in the discussion.

"I've seen an explanation on the internet which garnered many likes. The thread said that the Abyss is a gigantic living creature that's in deep sleep mode. Each entrance is actually one of the creature's eyes. These eyes subconsciously examine everyone who enters its body. Therefore, we have the feeling that we're being stared at.

"As to why we only experience this feeling the first time we see the Abyss, it's because this scrutiny comes with a memory function—it only targets strangers. If the person were entering the Abyss for the second or third time, they would pass this scrutiny by default."

After listening to this, Lin Huang felt Tu Tong's explanation was more convincing to him. Just when he was about to agree, he heard Virtuoso's straightforward, mocking voice from the sidelines.

"Only you would believe this nonsense, Tutu."

"This explanation has certainly gone viral on the internet, but it's false." Off to one side, Lan Ling nodded and explained, "The biggest galaxy discovered throughout the history of the universe is merely the size of three star zones. That's the size limit of a life form.

"Meanwhile, the Abyss occupied at least one-fourth of the universe, and this is only the part that's within the universe. Its complete form might even be bigger than the entire universe itself. Based on size alone, it can't possibly be a life form. Even if it's an existence above lord-level, it would be impossible for it to control such a gigantic body.

"Also, judging by its mass, there's no life structure that could bear such a massive body physical body without collapsing. Even a combat cultivator powerhouse above lord-level in the archaic epoch couldn't maintain a functioning body of such mass."

Lin Huang fell silent. Although Lan Ling's explanation made a lot of sense, he felt that Tu Tong's explanation might be possible as well.

"Alright, time is precious. Let's go in." Virtuoso did not bother to waste more time on this topic and directly interrupted the discussion to put an end to it.

However, they did not seem to realize that they were the last person who had the right to say that time was precious.

If they had not wasted everybody's time and met up with them half an hour late, they might have hunted for a few rounds in the Abyss already.

Virtuoso extended their hand to Lin Huang as soon as they were done speaking.

Lin Huang was startled for a moment but immediately responded. The conditions for entering the Abyss might involve randomly teleporting the individuals who entered.

Under such circumstances, all of them had to maintain bodily contact to be teleported as a unit, so that they would not be separated.

Once he considered this, Lin Huang extended his hand, grasping Virtuoso's right hand.

He then stretched out his right hand to hold Saber9's left hand on the other side.

"Don't think of anything once we enter. Just keep flying ahead," Virtuoso's voice came through very soon.

They said this mainly for Lin Huang's benefit since the rest had been to the Abyss before.

Hand-in-hand, the five of them headed together into the black abyss of the entrance.

Lin Huang could only feel that they were getting closer and closer to the black abyss. In front of him, everything was pitch-black. When they finally entered the darkness, they were unable to see anything at all.

However, he followed Virtuoso's reminder before, which was to follow his feelings and keep flying forward.

Lin Huang secretly calculated the time—almost over a minute later, they finally saw a ray of light appearing not far away.

The five of them flew towards the source of the light at once. As they got closer, the light became brighter as well.

Eventually, they exited the darkness completely.

Lin Huang cast his gaze over where they were. The sky was dark, and in front of them was an expanse of black earth. He had no way of determining his location.

Right as he was going to spread his Divine Telekinesis, he suddenly heard a voice transmission from Virtuoso.

"Hide your aura, don't release your Divine Telekinesis for now."

Although Lin Huang had no idea what happened, he heard the seriousness in Virtuoso's tone, so he did as they said.

At that moment, he finally became aware that the rest had somewhat unhappy expressions on their faces.

"What happened?" Lin Huang hastily enquired through voice transmission.

"The normal entry time of each Abyss entrance should be ten seconds," Saber9 replied calmly through voice transmission.

"Ten seconds?! But our entry this time took at least a minute, right?" Lin Huang could not help frowning. Although he had no idea what had caused this, he knew that something was definitely wrong.

"Perhaps someone did something while we were being teleported, or perhaps it's the after-effects of Lord powerhouses in combat. I personally hope it's the latter," Virtuoso explained very seriously, before adding, "If it's the former, there's a high possibility of the five of us dying here."

"So what do we do next?" Lin Huang asked immediately through voice transmission.

He was the only one going into the Abyss for the first time and had no experience at all handling something like this. It was best that he did not act rashly.

The others had been in the Abyss before. Even if they had never encountered such a thing, they should have at least heard of such a situation and perhaps had a way of dealing with it.

"Lan Ling, check out the situation nearby." How Virtuoso addressed Lan Ling had changed; his attitude had clearly become serious now.

Lan Ling nodded slightly and rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a frail, skinny arm.

As her lips moved, her right hand swiftly formed a seal tactic. On her left arm, black incantations immediately appeared—they looked like they were formed from countless ants.

The complex, mysterious incantations seemed like tiny living snakes, writhing and slithering on her arm at incredible speed.

A moment later, she spread all five fingers and pressed her palm on the ground. The tiny snake-like incantations slid from her arm and squirmed underground at lightning speed.

After that, Lan Ling shut her eyes and sat down cross-legged.

This was Lin Huang's first time seeing such a strange technique. However, he noticed something odd.

He did not sense any Divine Power waves from Lan Ling's body at all throughout the whole process, nor did he sense any sort of waves on a psychic level.

He immediately realized what such a probing technique meant—it could not be sensed at all by ordinary measures.

Approximately two to three minutes later, sigils began to appear again on half of Lan Ling's exposed arm. Only then did she slowly open her eyes.

She pulled her sleeve down to cover her arm once more and stood up.

"I didn't sense any lord-level or more powerful auras within range…"

To Lin Huang, that sounded like good news. However, the adjacent Saber9 and Tu Tong did not relax their tense expressions at all.

Although he could not see the expression on Virtuoso's face because of their mask, Lin Huang could sense from their aura that Virtuoso was still very much on their guard.

"However, we've certainly been sent to a slightly more problematic area…" Lan Ling paused before giving the name of their whereabouts, "A Demonic Bug Maze!"

Everyone had a slight change of expression upon hearing the name.

Lin Huang was no exception.

Although he had never been to the Abyss, he had spent some time doing some homework before coming, so he knew some basic things about it.

The Demonic Bug Maze was a special type of area in the Abyss.

This type of area was usually formed by massive gatherings of Demonic Bug Tribes.

The multitudes of Demonic Bug Tribes would gather into groups under the Bug Queen or Queen Mother's command, forming a gigantic structure similar to a hive. They would then live in it.

This special structure would even come with some of the hive's characteristics; the structure itself, however, was even more complex.

A normal hive had tens of thousands of tunnels. In a Demonic Bug Maze of the same size, there would be even more tunnels that were more winding, mysterious and unfathomable.

If anyone was to intrude accidentally, there was a very high chance that they would be lost inside. This was because the Demonic Bug Maze would block most probing techniques, and one would not know which tunnel would lead to the exit. A wrong turn might make one lose their chance of escaping entirely.

Lin Huang raised a doubt in his mind as he recalled all of the information about Demonic Bug Mazes.

"Are you sure this is really a Demonic Bug Maze? Why can we still see the sky?"

"This is an illusion the Bewilderment Bug groups created," Virtuoso explained calmly, "Ignore this illusion. It relies on the hive walls to exist; it doesn't really affect us. Moreover, nobody below lord-level can dispel it."

Lin Huang only realized at this point that nothing was mentioned about this matter in the information that he had looked up.

"Did you sense any Bug Queens or Queen Mothers?" Saber9 asked.

"No," Lan Ling shook her head. "This Demonic Bug Maze has a very complex structure. I'm worried that there might be special sensing bug groups around, so I didn't dare to probe too far in.

"However, judging by the complexity of the bug group's' structure alone, the leader of this Maze might be a Lord or a half-step lord-level powerhouse."

Lin Huang knew Saber9's objective in asking this question—he wanted to determine if the leader of the Maze was a Queen Mother or a Bug Queen.

If it was just a Bug Queen, it could not sense whether its underlings were dead or alive.

However, if it was a Queen Mother, it could sense the state of all its offspring's life cycles. This would mean that it would be even more difficult if they wanted to get out of the Maze.

"Although we can't be sure if the leader is a Queen Mother or not, it's best to be a bit more careful." Although Virtuoso sounded calm, the rest could hear the caution in their tone.

The few times that Lin Huang had come into contact with Virtuoso, he had never felt that Virtuoso did anything cautiously. Now, hearing Virtuoso say they had to be careful, he was even a little suspicious about whether or not the Virtuoso in front of him had been replaced by someone else.

"Do you have a solution?" Lin Huang had no clue at all.

To him, finding the exit of the Demonic Bug Maze was a great challenge.

There were just too many tunnels; they could not be sure which was the right one.

Not only that, the biggest problem was that these Bug Tribes were contaminated by Abyssal energy and possessed clouded minds. There was no way of reading any information from them.

Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang but did not even nod. "Let's try first. We might not succeed though."

Including Lin Huang, none of the others objected to this.

After all, nobody had a better solution for now; they could only try out Virtuoso's idea.

Subsequently, Virtuoso began to explain their solution through voice transmission.

In reality, their plan was simple and very rough. It was to have everyone hide within a demonic bug's body and let Lan Ling use spells to control the bug's movement.

This way, they could avoid fighting with other Bug Tribes in the Maze as much as possible, to avoid causing this Bug Tribe to be wiped out.

This could also prevent the Bug Tribe Queen Mother from sensing their presence.

Although they were not sure whether or not the Demonic Bug Maze's leader was a Queen Mother, it was best to plan with the worst-case scenario in mind.

Although Virtuoso's plan was simple and rough to the point of being crude, everyone agreed to the plan as soon as they were done explaining it.

After all, this solution had a certain feasibility. Moreover, they could not think of anything better.

Once the plan was set, they began discussing the details in short order.

With all five of them brainstorming, the details were soon hammered out.

Almost immediately, Lan Ling formed an incantation seal with both hands. Around her, the incantation sigils slithered like snakes and disappeared underground.

Very soon, a huge, decaying bug beast crawled over quickly and prostrated itself before them.

Lin Huang and the rest frowned slightly. This was an entirely physiological reaction—the stench coming from the decaying bug beast was comparable to a biochemical weapon.

No, to be precise, it was a biochemical weapon.

In reality, there were all sorts of toxins and Abyssal energy particles hidden within the terrible stench.

Lin Huang and the rest were True Gods, and the Divine Fire in their bodies came with a cleansing function. Therefore, they were not affected by the noxious fumes.

However, cultivators below true god-level and even Virtual Gods might be infected by the toxins and Abyssal energy particles in the terrible stench.

Seeing that the rest made no move, Lin Huang leaped onto the huge, decaying bug beast's back. With the tip of his sword, he cut an opening close to its abdomen. He then enveloped his entire body with Telekinesis and wriggled in directly.

Virtuoso and the others did not stand on ceremony after that. They hopped onto the bug's back and crawled in one after the other, concealing their auras…

Under Lan Ling's control, the giant decaying beetle headed toward the winding tunnels.

The five of them hid in the beetle's back. They hid their auras and stopped breathing as well as they patiently waited.

No matter what, there were only two possibilities in the end.

They would either be discovered, or they would pass through successfully.

The giant beetle they were hiding in was called a Tank Beetle in the Bug Tribe. These beetles were usually beginner-stage to intermediate-stage heavenly god-level. They were a type of bug with powerful defenses and incredible biting ability.

They were usually the vanguards of the Bug Tribe, the defensive formation that would attack the enemy.

Meanwhile, the one they were hiding in had clearly been contaminated with Abyssal energy to the point where it had become an undying species.

Its body was in advanced stages of decay, and an intense rotten stench wafted out from it. Even the odor particles it exuded contained definite concentrations of Abyssal energy.

However, it was the perfect cover for Lin Huang and the others who were hiding inside its body.

The Tank Beetle took the group through several intersections; everything went very smoothly. Even several demonic bugs contaminated with Abyssal energy that they encountered along the way did not sense anything out of the ordinary.

However, Lin Huang and the rest could do nothing apart from shielding their aura.

They began chatting through voice transmission from sheer boredom.

"The plan is going pretty well so far. Have you all done any rough calculations on our chances of being able to successfully make it out of here?" Lin Huang could not help asking Virtuoso, who had come up with the idea.

"Theoretically…" Virtuoso paused and turned their head to look at Lin Huang, "The success rate is close to zero."

"?" Lin Huang looked utterly bewildered. He had not expected Virtuoso to give such an answer.

However, the rest did not seem to be surprised at this reply.

"We're not even entirely sure if the Tank Beetle is going in the correct direction," Lan Ling delivered another piece of bad news.

"Didn't you investigate the nearby distribution of the bugs earlier?" Lin Huang was even more puzzled now, "I think it shouldn't be too hard to ascertain the general direction according to the rules of the bug distribution in the Demonic Bug Maze, right?"

Although the internal passages in the Demonic Bug Maze were complex, the distribution of bug beasts in the Maze followed the habitat rule of the Bug Tribe in the hive—the higher the level and combat strength of the bugs, the deeper their habitat would be in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Conversely, the lower their combat strength, the closer the bugs' habitat would be to the maze's exit.

Many people actually knew about this rule. However, as most probing techniques were restricted in the Demonic Bug Maze, not many were able to discover the distribution of the bugs.

Meanwhile, Lan Ling had used a spell to probe as soon as they were teleported here and had found out the distribution of monsters nearby.

This was also why Lin Huang was doubtful when Lan Ling said she was not sure of the general direction.

Lan Ling knew why Lin Huang was doubtful, so she explained immediately, "This Demonic Bug Maze is massive, and the interior is extremely vast. The distance between bugs is also very wide. My spell probe is a probing technique for short to medium distances. Moreover, as it's affected by the Maze, the probing range becomes very limited.

"The probe I did earlier was only able to obtain information from five distributions. Although there is a mix of combat strength levels, I can't be entirely sure that the two tribes with low combat strength are in the direction of the exit.

"Theoretically, the distribution of bugs follows the rule that the lower their combat strength, the closer they are to the exit. However, in reality, there's a definite complexity to the bugs' distribution in this Maze. The bugs are very close in terms of ability, so they might be in the same region.

"For instance, we're currently going toward the Scarlet Centipedes. Although their average combat strength is merely third-rank heavenly god-level, they might be in the fourth-rank heavenly god-level bugs' region, or even close to the fifth-rank heavenly god-level bugs' region.

"We're only judging based on partial distribution now. Scarlet Centipedes have rather low combat strength on average, so it's possible that they're closer to the exit. However, if we're looking at this from the standpoint of the entire bug distribution, we might be going deeper into the maze."

Lin Huang only understood what Lan Ling meant now. The bugs were not neatly distributed in the Demonic Bug Maze. It was just that as a whole, the habitat of the lower combat strength bugs would be closer to the exit. However, if they were looking at only a partial distribution, bugs that were close in combat strength would be mixed in the same region.

Therefore, they could not determine the actual direction just by looking at the bugs' combat strength in a partial distribution.

Lin Huang also immediately understood why Virtuoso said the success rate for this escape plan might be near-zero.

This was because they might go through a lot of trial and error.

Given that the partial distribution of bugs according to combat strength might not be the same as the overall Bug Tribe combat strength, Lan Ling would have probe all over again every time they got to a certain distance.

If the probing result came out the same after many tries, it would prove that the Tank Beetle was going in the correct direction.

If the result was different, they might need to use another tunnel to go in another direction, until the result of multiple probes came out the same.

It was a process of constant trial and error.

However, the longer they stayed in the Demonic Bug Maze, the higher the chances of them being discovered.

"Fortunately, we're currently in the Demonic Bug Maze's outer region. Moreover, our situation is much better than those who have their probing techniques completely prohibited," Tu Tong, who was off to one side, could not help commenting.

However, nobody knew whether he said this to console himself or to console others.

"Better my a*s, who comes into the Demonic Bug Maze to play around just because they're bored?" Virtuoso ridiculed, not standing on ceremony. Clearly, they were pissed to have been teleported into the Demonic Bug Maze for no reason, "They'd better not let me find out who's been pulling a fast one on us!"

"They better not let me find out who's been pulling tricks!" The adjacent Saber9 also had a flash of killing intent in his eyes.

Both their Primordiums were big shots in the Club—big shots who might even have surpassed Lords.

If their clones died, they might really go into battle to avenge themselves.

Lan Ling and Tu Tong fell as silent as the grave when they heard that and did not dare say anything more.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, had no idea how powerful Virtuoso and Saber 9's Primordiums were, so he did not really feel anything.

The Tank Beetle continued advancing, under Lan Ling's control. After some twenty minutes, they finally arrived at the first destination of the plan – the gathering grounds of the Scarlet Centipedes.

The Scarlet Centipedes were not Bug Tribe beasts contaminated by Abyssal energy, but demons that were born in the Abyss.

These monsters bore some resemblance to bugs with many legs, like giant centipedes. Their bodies measured between eight to twelve meters and were wreathed in toxic red mist.

From birth, they had innate mastery of the Toxic Sequence of such poisons. A handful of gifted ones could even derive other sequence powers and Rule Bending Powers.

This was the first bug territory in the route Lan Ling had planned. They had to pass through this area anyway; there was no way of avoiding it or circumventing it.

She could only carefully control the Tank Beetle to get nearer to the Scarlet Centipedes' territory.

When they arrived close to the Scarlet Centipedes' territory, a few Centipedes soon surrounded them.

Lan Ling controlled the Tank Beetle to stop.

This was a routine check.

The several giant Centipedes lifted their massive, ugly heads and clustered around the Tank Beetle, sniffing. It was as if they did not register the rotten stench coming from it; instead, it looked as though they enjoyed it.

After circling the Tank Beetle a few times and sniffing at it, the several Scarlet Centipedes retreated.

Just when Lan Ling was about to control the Tank Beetle to leave, a Scarlet Centipede that was much bigger than the previous few barred the Tank Beetle's way.

Not only was it much bigger, but it also had three heads.

The scarlet eyes on its three heads were staring at the Tank Beetle. A viscous purple liquid was flowing out of its three large mouths…

It did not discover anything unusual and merely thought the Tank Beetle was rather delicious.

Lin Huang and the rest were anxious; they were even ready to fight.

However, right at that point, a strange low hum sounded.

The three-headed Scarlet Centipede turned its head and glanced at the Scarlet Centipedes' territory. It only hesitated for a moment, before retreating into the shadows…

Lan Ling hurriedly controlled the Tank Beetle to leave.

What Lin Huang and the rest did now know was that in the Scarlet Centipedes' territory, a pitch-black centipede raised its head and glanced at the layers of hive walls, looking in the direction of where the Tank Beetle had departed…

"That was so close!"

Everyone was relieved when they left the Scarlet Centipedes' gathering grounds. Tu Tong was the first to speak, unable to hold back.

"I've just found out that Scarlet Centipedes can grow three heads…" Lin Huang cared more about the Scarlet Centipede's form.

Although they could not use Divine Telekinesis to probe what was happening outside, Lin Huang and the others could still see everything out there clearly, thanks to Lan Ling's spell projection.

"The chances of mutated indigenous monsters in the Abyss are much higher than in other places. Some that look like distorted mutations to the outside world are actually a way for them to elevate. Just like that three-headed monster earlier—its level might be class-5.5, which has far surpassed its own tribe," Virtuoso, who was next to them, explained calmly.

Not only Lin Huang, but even Tu Tong and Lan Ling fell silent at that. Clearly, it was their first time hearing about such a unique method of elevation.

"The three-headed Centipede doesn't seem like the bugs' leader though," Lin Huang commented after that, "The one that released the low hum and stopped it from attacking us might be the real leader."

"But I didn't sense any more auras more powerful than the three-headed Centipede among the Scarlet Centipedes earlier." Lan Ling, on the other hand, shook her head to voice her doubt.

"That was probably a Mother Bug. It might even be that three-headed Centipede's mother." It was Saber9 who explained this time.

The Mother Bug that he mentioned was not merely a female bug but also one that possessed reproductive ability. Mother Bugs had a high status in the Bug Tribe; they might even be the leaders of the entire Bug Tribe. Mother Bugs becoming leaders of the Bug Tribe had nothing to do with their abilities. Usually, this was determined by the number of offspring that had surpassed a specific ratio. (The Queen Mother was a special kind of Mother Bug. Among Mother Bugs, only those with reproductive abilities that had exceeded normal limits would be named Queen Mothers.)

"That Mother Bug is very wise. It's probably fairly high-level…" Virtuoso smiled and noted.

Although they did not say it outright, Lin Huang and the rest caught the hidden meaning behind their words.

"Do you mean we've been discovered?!" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"There's an eighty percent chance we've most probably been discovered." Virtuoso nodded calmly.

Lin Huang was rather confused, as he had not noticed anything odd.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling had not noticed anything out of the ordinary either.

Noticing their confusion on their faces, Virtuoso then explained calmly, "The bugs don't live in harmony with each other in Demonic Bug Mazes. Conflicts are common, and it's something very normal for a single bug beast to be eaten by other bugs. That's also the reason why we were stopped by the three-headed Scarlet Centipede.

"In reality, the three-headed Centipede was famished, and had already locked onto the Tank Beetle we're in as its prey. Under normal circumstances, the Mother Bug wouldn't stop it from hunting and eating since it was hungry. That's because hunting a single Tank Beetle is nothing.

"However, it was strange that the Mother Bug was so eager to stop it from attacking us…

"The only reasonable explanation is that it discovered us hiding in the Tank Beetle's body. It was even shrewd enough to speculate that its bugs would lose as soon as a fight broke out… To prevent the bugs from being hurt, the only choice it had was to release the Tank Beetle to avoid conflict with us."

Lin Huang and the rest felt that Virtuoso's speculation made sense after listening to their explanation.

"If it's really as you say, then I suspect we've already been discovered by now." Lin Huang rapidly became aware of another issue. "That Mother Bug must have already spread the news about us."

Clearly, Virtuoso and the rest had realized this too. After a moment of silence, Virtuoso turned their head to look at Lan Ling, "Wait for a little and find an opportunity—we'll change to another puppet."

Lan Ling nodded immediately.

Approximately less than three minutes later, she found a second puppet—a Boa Worm.

The Boa Worm was a bug monster that looked like a massive boa constrictor but bore a slight resemblance to an earthworm as well. Its body was usually more than twenty meters long, and its forte was soil elemental truth.

If not for Lan Ling's ability with spells, it would have been very difficult for even an ordinary Heavenly God to capture a Boa Worm, as they were extremely proficient in soil escape methods.

When they saw the Boa Worm appearing under Lan Ling's control, Lin Huang and the rest abandoned the Tank Beetle. After killing it, they climbed into the Boa Worm's body.

The Boa Worm might have been an expert in soil escape methods, but in reality, to Lin Huang and the rest, it was even more suitable as a means of transport.

There were many restrictions in the Demonic Bug Maze, as well as many places that the Boa Worm could not pass through with its escape method.

However, under Lan Ling's control, the Boa Worm moved forward at least ten times faster than the Tank Beetle from before.

Meanwhile, within five minutes of their departure, a Bug Tribe team hastened to where the Tank Beetle's carcass was.

"They must have hidden in the Tank Beetle's back previously…" After some investigation, a few bugs soon noticed the sliced opening on the Tank Beetle's back.

"They've already escaped. They must be hiding in another bug beast now."

"The trail seems to be left by a Boa Worm…"

"It might just have been passing through."

"Whether it's a coincidence or not, we must strictly monitor all Boa Worm movements!"

Lin Huang and the others remained hiding in the Boa Worm, and progress was smooth.

Very soon, Lan Ling determined that the general direction they started in was the correct one.

They could not help but be relieved.

This was because they would have to backtrack if the direction was wrong. There might even be a great deal of trial and error involved to determine where the general direction of the exit was.

"Since we're in the correct general direction, the next thing that we need to do is to look for the passageway that leads to the exit," Virtuoso said calmly.

However, Lin Huang did not forget to remind them, "We still need to escape the bugs' pursuit as well!"

They knew that by now, the news of them invading the Demonic Bug Maze would have already been broadcast everywhere.

Almost all the bugs from the shallower areas of the entire Maze had left their lairs in search of the five of them.

If the Bug Tribe's probing techniques had not also been affected by the Demonic Bug Maze, the group might have been discovered way early on.

"We'll fight our way out if we really can't escape them!" Saber9's tone was grim. He was obviously not joking, judging by the expression on his face—he genuinely had every intention of doing it.

"That has to be the last resort," Lin Huang disagreed, "If we can, we should avoid battle as much as possible. After all, this is the Demonic Bugs' lair. No matter how powerful our individual abilities are, we're not Lords after all. We can't hold off the entire Maze; it's only a matter of time before we exhaust ourselves and die."

Saber9 shot a glance at Lin Huang and said nothing more.

Lan Ling remained silent from beginning to end. Given that she was the one using spells to control the Boa Worm, she was the one who faced the most pressure out of everyone there. She did not have extra energy to participate in the discussion…

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm as they sneaked around, quietly slipping through a few of the bugs' gathering places.

"We're looking at first-rank heavenly god-level bug territory now. We should be close to the exit." When Virtuoso finished speaking, they looked at Lan Ling. "You still haven't found the tunnel that leads to the exit?"

"No…" Lan Ling shook her head helplessly.

A major difference between the Demonic Bug Maze and the Bug Tribe's hive was that the combat strength disparity between bugs in the hive could be very big. Among the hives that had a heavenly god-level Queen Mother or Bug Queen as ruler, it was extremely normal to have Heavenly Gods, True Gods, and even virtual god-level Bug Tribe fighters in the hive together. However, it was different in a Demonic Bug Maze. In a Maze that was ruled by a Heavenly God, there would only be heavenly god-level bug beasts. If bug beasts below heavenly god-level came in, they would be treated as food and eaten.

Therefore, the first-rank heavenly god-level bug territory in the Demonic Bug Maze—where Lin Huang and the rest were now— housed the bugs with the lowest combat strength. Their gathering place was the shallowest layer in the entire Maze, and closest to the region where the Maze's exit was.

Generally, there was more than one exit and entrance in a Demonic Bug Maze. However, there would not be many of them.

Judging from the scale of the Demonic Bug Maze that they were currently in, there should be four to six entrances and exits.

However, it meant that there would only be four to six passageways that led to the exits. Locating those few specific passageways among the tens of thousands of other complex passages was an astronomically difficult undertaking.

"The range of my probing ability is approximately thirty kilometers at most in this Maze. Furthermore, with the direction we're traveling in, it's still at least several thousand kilometers to the border region where the exit is—possibly even up to ten thousand kilometers… If we're unlucky, I might need to probe up to a hundred times before I find the exit." Lan Ling did not have any better ideas either. She could only look for the exit the hard way, probing repeatedly.

The rest were helpless too. After all, everyone's probing techniques had been blocked. Lan Ling's rather unusual spell ability was the only probing technique that could be used here.

Lin Huang pondered for a moment, then spoke up suddenly, "The efficiency of this method is too low."

"You have a plan?" Virtuoso asked immediately. The rest looked at Lin Huang as well.

"I'm not sure how feasible it is, but we can try." Lin Huang nodded, then said to Lan Ling, "Don't go around the bugs when you encounter them later. Stop for a little bit."

"Sure!" Lan Ling heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing someone taking the initiative to share her burden. She nodded immediately in agreement.

Very soon, she controlled the Boa Worm to slow down.

"There are a group of bugs approximately three kilometers ahead."

Lin Huang nodded and eased himself half out of the Boa Worm's back. As he moved his ten fingers slightly, tens of thousands of invisible Leech Pods wafted forth.

As the master of Monster Paradise, he could borrow Bloody's Leech Pods ability with ease.

Leech Pods could be cast on all creatures with combat strength that was either the same as or lower than Bloody. Furthermore, she had gone into closed-door cultivation together with Kylie previously. Not only had she elevated to fifth-rank, but she had also achieved a breakthrough to first-rank heavenly god-level.

The Leech Pod ability was perfect for use in the current situation.

Lin Huang wriggled back into the Boa Worm's body as soon as he was done releasing the Leech Pods.

Although Lan Ling's projection allowed the others to see what he had done, they were not able to see the Leech Pods.

"What did you do?" Tu Tong was the first to ask as soon as Lin Huang returned, unable to restrain himself.

They did not use their sensing techniques, so it was only natural that they could not sense the Leech Pods.

"Just a little trick." Lin Huang smiled but did not elaborate. "We'll find out when we check out the bugs' gathering place."

"Are you sure you want us to barge in directly?" Virtuoso spoke before Lan Ling could ask any questions.

"Don't all of you want to know what I did?" Lin Huang replied to Virtuoso, smiling.

Lan Ling, on the other hand, seemed to be hesitating a little. She was not sure if she should listen to Lin Huang.

Off to the side, Virtuoso fell silent for a moment, then nodded at Lan Ling. "Let's go take a look."

Lan Ling's worries eased only after getting Virtuoso's confirmation. She then controlled the Boa Worm and headed to the bugs' gathering area.

A moment later, the Boa Worm arrived where the bugs were.

This was a group of Bladefoot Worms, approximately two thousand of them. Their bodies were purplish-black from being contaminated by Abyssal energy and were wreathed in black miasma. A number of them had mutated, sprouting even more strangely-shaped bladed feet on their bodies… They looked even more frightening than normal Bladefoot Worms.

However, what puzzled Virtuoso and the rest was that the Bladefoot Worms in front of them had tidily ordered themselves into a square formation.

Not only that, they did nothing when they saw the Boa Worm. They remained where they were neatly, seemingly waiting to be inspected.

"What is this…" Even Lan Ling thought this was rather unbelievable.

"I've never heard of an Imperial Censor who can control bugs, let alone control bugs from a distance." Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang. They were clearly somewhat surprised.

"I merely used a little trick," Lin Huang said, smiling.

"If you've got such a trick up your sleeve, when didn't you use it earlier?" Tu Tong asked from off to the side. He was not skeptical; instead, he was shocked.

"At the moment, I can only control first-rank heavenly god-level bugs at most. I can't control those with higher combat strength," Lin Huang explained rather helplessly. Naturally, he did not tell them that the reason for this was that Bloody—whom he had borrowed the ability from—only had the combat strength of a first-rank Heavenly God.

"To be able to control a group of first-rank Heavenly Gods while at true god-level—this trick of yours is already quite incredible," Saber9, who had been quiet all along, gave his assessment apropos.

"What do you plan to do? Use these Bladefoot Worms to find the path for us?" Virtuoso asked.

"No, I'll command a few of them to leave this Demonic Bug Maze from the closest exit," Lin Huang answered unexpectedly. "We just need to follow them secretly."

The others understood Lin Huang's intentions immediately.

There was no way of retrieving information from the Bug Tribe beasts' minds, as they were contaminated with Abyssal energy. However, the beasts definitely knew where the Demonic Bug Maze's exits were.

Although Lin Huang's command was simple, he could very efficiently turn the Bladefoot Worms into their guides.

"That's a great idea!" When Virtuoso and the others heard that, their eyes lit up.

At that moment, six Bladefoot Worms emerged from the multitude. They formed a small group and left quickly in a specific direction.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Bladefoot Worms that were in formation soon resumed their usual relaxed mode.

"Follow them!" Lin Huang said to Lan Ling immediately.

Lan Ling hurriedly controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the group of Bladefoot Worms.

"You've even specifically put together a search team. What a smart trick!" Virtuoso gave Lin Huang a thumbs-up. "Nobody would suspect them even if they ran into other search teams."

"Details determine whether a plan succeeds or fails," Lin Huang said expressionlessly.

"I have a question. Can you control more Bug Tribe monsters with this ability?" Lan Ling could not help asking.

"Yes."

"Then how many can you control at the most?" Lan Ling questioned further.

Lin Huang turned his head to glance at her, giving her a slight smile. "That's a secret."

"…" Not just Lan Ling, but the rest were also bereft of speech.

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm, surreptitiously following along behind the group of Bladefoot Worms. The Bladefoot Worms encountered a few search teams on the way, but nobody suspected them.

Lin Huang and the others progressed very smoothly on their journey in this manner.

Over an hour later, Lan Ling finally spoke up in excitement.

"I see the exit!"

However, her expression changed right after that moment of enthusiasm.

"What's wrong?" Lim Huang and the rest immediately noticed her unusual reaction.

"There are Bug Tribe monsters guarding the exit…" Lan Long announced the result of her spell probe. "I'm not sure of their exact combat strength, but their aura is very powerful."

Virtuoso and the rest looked rather grim, although they had expected something like this already.

"I'll get the Bladefoot Worms to check. We'll discuss more after we've confirmed their exact combat strength," Lin Huang suggested.

Virtuoso and the rest nodded immediately, agreeing to Lin Huang's suggestion.

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to burrow into the ground and wait, while Lin Huang controlled the group of Bladefoot Worms to hurry toward the exit.

Very soon, the group of six Bladefoot Worms arrived near the exit.

Through the Bladefoot Worms' eyes, Lin Huang saw that there was a Black Blind Bug blocking the way out.

The Black Blind Bug was a bug monster that possessed no visual organs. However, their hearing was extremely developed. Not only that, they possessed sensing ability that was similar to a bat's echolocation.

The Black Blind Bug ahead was contaminated by Abyssal energy and was even bigger than usual. It was over five meters tall, while each of its sixteen bayonet-like feet was close to five meters long. Its feet were even more sharp and terrifying than those of the six Bladefoot Worms.

When the team of Bladefoot Worms appeared, the Black Blind Bug merely turned its head to look at them, and its ultrasonic waves had already swept over the Bladefoot Worms' bodies. Realizing that they were its own kind, it turned its head away and ignored them after that.

Lin Huang controlled the group of Bladefoot Worms to leave the exit.

"How was it?" Virtuoso asked immediately, noticing that Lin Huang had opened his eyes.

"Not good." Lin Huang shook his head slightly. "There's a Black Blind Bug guarding the exit, and it has ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength."

Virtuoso and the rest immediately looked even grimmer after hearing what Lin Huang said.

"Ninth-rank…" Tu Tong and Lan Ling frowned hard.

"My guess is that the guardians at the other exits are all ninth-rank as well. Even if they're not, their abilities probably won't go below ninth-rank," Lin Huang voiced his speculations.

"A Black Blind Bug—are you confident?" At that moment, Saber9 asked Virtuoso something that was neither here nor there.

"No." Virtuoso shook their head. "That's a ninth-rank powerhouse, after all. Not only that, types like this with extraordinary sensing ability will be much more powerful in sensing other things too. It might even be close to the level of a half-step lord, which will make it very hard to deceive."

After listening to the conversation up to this point, Lin Huang had roughly figured out that the two were discussing whether or not they could depend on Virtuoso's ability to cast illusions so they could deceive the Black Blind Bug. However, Virtuoso had answered in the negative.

"Let's find the next exit," Saber9 told Lin Huang, not dwelling on the matter after hearing Virtuoso's answer.

Lin Huang nodded and immediately ordered the Bladefoot Worms to get to the next closest exit.

With an exit that was so near yet inaccessible, Lin Huang and the others were in very low spirits. They could not force their way through by facing down the powerful Black Blind Bug guarding the way out, so they had no choice but to take a roundabout route instead.

Although there might be Bug Tribe powerhouses of the same combat strength guarding the other exits, they still might stand a chance of escaping. Even if said powerhouse was slightly weaker, the chances of them escaping would increase significantly.

The group of Bladefoot Worms started moving after receiving Lin Huang's new order. Meanwhile, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to sneak behind them.

Along the way, Lin Huang and the rest could clearly see that there were more and more bug teams joining the search.

The group of Bladefoot Worms encountered a search team every few minutes. Fortunately, none of the teams noticed anything unusual about the Bladefoot Worms.

Lin Huang and the others stealthily followed behind the team of Bladefoot Worms for half a day, just like that, without being discovered. That is, until the Bladefoot Worms encountered a mixed team made up of members from various Bug Tribes.

On average, this mixed team was intermediate-level in terms of combat. There was a Devilish Sonic Bug that was expert in probing, two Iron Blood Bugs that were experts in combat, a King Kong Beetle with powerful defenses, and two Wretch Spiders with controlling techniques.

The mixed team did not have any major reactions when first encountering the group of Bladefoot Worms.

However, after the Bladefoot Worms passed them by, the Devilish Sonic Bug suddenly stopped walking.

Lin Huang and the rest did not expect to encounter such a team out of nowhere.

To prevent anything unforeseen from happening if they were too far apart in distance, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the team of Bladefoot Worms closely.

Therefore, when the Bladefoot Worms team saw the mixed team, the Boa Worm was less than 30 meters away from the mixed team.

Although Lan Ling managed to control the Boa Worm to stop in time, Lin Huang and the rest felt rather uneasy.

This was because apart from sonic wave attacks, the Devilish Sonic Bug was a bug beast that possessed probing abilities. It could hear the tiniest sound in its surroundings, including breathing and heartbeats.

When they saw the Devilish Sonic Bug suddenly stop not far above their heads after the mixed team had passed by the group of Bladefoot Worms, Lin Huang and the others had a moment of sudden tension.

The Devilish Sonic Bug raised its head high and stared fixedly at the location where the Boa Worm was hiding. It seemed to be ready to give an alarm.

At that moment, the group of Bladefoot Worms suddenly released a low, warning hum.

The Devilish Sonic Bug and the rest of the bug beasts from the mixed team all turned their heads to look at the group of Bladefoot Worms behind them.

Suddenly, six consecutive blood-red electric arcs appeared out of thin air, charging at the six bug beasts in the mixed team.

By the time the six bug beasts noticed something wrong, it was too late. The six electric arcs pierced through all six of their heads with unparalleled accuracy. It took less than half a minute for all the kills.

Saber9 and the rest stared at Lin Huang with the most extraordinary gazes when they saw him recalling the telekinetic flying daggers.

"Sixth-rank Heavenly Gods killed almost instantly…" Lan Ling's eyes widened.

"And there were two Sixth-rank Heavenly Gods," the adjacent Tu Tong added.

Saber9 was not interested in that particular point. He exclaimed, "You're a psychic as well?!"

Virtuoso was the only one who did not seem to be shocked by Lin Huang's abilities.

Lin Huang did not respond to the others' exclamations. Instead, he said to Lan Ling calmly, "Get the Boa Worm to bury the carcasses, or the other search teams will discover them very soon."

Lan Ling nodded immediately and controlled the Boa Worm to bury the six bug carcasses underground, then cleaned up all the traces of blood.

After taking care of the scene of the incident as fast as they could, they did not linger there.

Lin Huang proceeded to control the Bladefoot Worms to look for the exit, while Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the group of Bladefoot Worms. However, she was smarter this time and extended the distance between them a bit more. Previously, it had been twenty meters, but now she stretched it out to fifty meters. Not only that, she got the Boa Worm to burrow deeper underground.

After half a day, the group of Bladefoot Worms finally led the Boa Worm near the second exit.

Through the Bladefoot Worms, Lin Huang had already caught sight of this exit's guardian from far off.

The bug beast guarding the exit this time was a Ghoul Spider. Its combat strength was also ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

A Ghoul Spider was a brutal bug beast that specialized in assassination.

Not only did it possess invisibility and control-type powers, but its body also contained toxins, and it was extraordinarily swift in its attacks.

Ghoul Spiders that were not contaminated with Abyssal energy were already hard to deal with.

The one that was guarding the exit had an even more terrifying aura, and its character was even more twisted.

The moment the group of Bladefoot Worms appeared in front of it, the Ghoul Spider spat out spider silk to control the six Bladefoot Worms.

Lin Huang thought his parasite technique had been discovered, so he dispersed the Leech Pods. However, after that, he saw the Ghoul Spider manipulating the Bladefoot Worms to walk over to it. It then bit off half of one of the Bladefoot Worm's bodies.

Within two minutes, the Ghoul Spider had devoured all the Bladefoot Worms completely.

Right after that, it faded from view and disappeared.

Virtuoso and the rest noticed that Lin Huang was silent and did not press him. Instead, they patiently waited for his probing results.

Lin Huang heaved a sigh of relief only after confirming that the Leech Pods had not been discovered. He then told the rest what he had seen.

"The exit guardian is a ninth-rank Ghoul Spider. I'm not sure if it was being cautious or it just happened to be hungry—it attacked my group of Bladefoot Worms and ate all six of them…"

"It wasn't being cautious, nor was it hungry," Virtuoso explained from where he was off to the side, "Ghoul Spiders are inherently brutal. They will attack any creatures that enter their territory. The Ghoul Spiders that have been contaminated with Abyssal energy are even more ruthless. It's very normal behavior for them."

"So what do we do now? Do we go to the next exit?" Lan Ling had already manipulated the Boa Worm to stop.

"This exit is also guarded by a ninth-rank bug beast, so we can basically confirm that our previous speculation is correct. The remaining exits should be guarded by ninth-rank bug beasts as well," Virtuoso said calmly, "The next exit will be the same as this."

"Are we going to charge through?" Tu Tong had entered battle mode as he spoke.

"There's no rush; let's try this first," Virtuoso swiftly performed a few hand seals with both hands as soon as he was done speaking.

The next instant, a figure that looked exactly like Virtuoso detached itself from their body. It seemed to ignore the existence of the Boa Worm and the hive walls, gradually emerging from the ground and appearing in the Maze passageway.

Virtuoso No. 2 charged quickly as soon as it found steady footing in the passageway. Their figure abruptly sprang forward, running straight at the Ghoul Spider that was guarding the exit.

The invisible Ghoul Spider attacked almost as soon as Virtuoso No. 2 appeared.

Virtuoso No.2 seemed to have sensed the incoming attack. Before Ghoul Spider's attack could come anywhere near them, they retreated quickly and turned to flee.

The Ghoul Spider chased after it for two paces, but soon recalled something. It then turned around and retreated to the exit. It watched Virtuoso No.2 as they departed in the distance, and gradually turned invisible again.

Everyone saw the scenario clearly through Lan Ling's spell projection.

"It failed." Saber9 was clearly a little disappointed.

After seeing this, Lin Huang and the rest understood that Virtuoso was attempting to lure the tiger from its den, using the shadow to draw the Ghoul Spider away. Unfortunately, it was not fooled.

"Given a Ghoul Spider's character, it will give chase under normal circumstances, but it decided to give up right away." However, Virtuoso seemed to have expected this to happen. "It proves that the orders it was given definitely included no pursuit to prevent being lured away from its post."

"If any of you have other techniques, you need to utilize them quickly. The Ghoul Spider has almost certainly reported the test we did on it earlier." Lin Huang glanced at the group. "As expected, there will be more search teams coming in this direction now. We don't have much time left."

"Let me try again." It was still Virtuoso who spoke up once more. They turned their head to look at Lan Ling as soon as they were done speaking. "In a little, when you hear my order, send the Boa Worm charging over there."

Lan Ling nodded instantly.

Virtuoso swiftly began performing complicated hand seals with both hands. The mask on their face also started lighting up with gold sigils.

A moment later, Lin Huang and the others saw the Ghoul Spider suddenly reveal itself; it was hanging above the exit. However, it suddenly froze.

What they did not know was that to the Ghoul Spider's eyes, a Boa Worm had come out from underground suddenly and was hurrying toward the exit.

The Ghoul Spider leaped down from above the exit, and a sharp claw pierced through the Boa Worm's body.

However, a few figures suddenly emerged from the Boa Worm's body and attacked it…

"Now!" As soon as Virtuoso gave the order, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to burrow underground toward the exit.

It took only the work of a moment for the Boa Worm to arrive beneath the Ghoul Spider. The way ahead was a dead end, so Lan Ling could only manipulate it to emerge from the ground and continue hurrying toward the exit.

However, right at this moment, a spatial fluctuation suddenly came from not too far away.

A silhouette stepped out of a Dimensional Whirlpool and happened to see the Boa Worm that was about to rush out from the exit.

A claw flashed through the distance, turning several golden gleams that pierced through the Boa Worm's body and sliced it into multiple bloody pieces.

Everyone was shocked. Never had they thought that a ninth-rank Golden-clawed Bug would emerge out of nowhere at the very last second and ruin Virtuoso's plan completely.

The Golden-clawed Bug was a being in the Bug Tribes that had extremely powerful attacks.

Their legs were unlike many of the Bug Tribe monsters—they had sharp, beast-like claws, and usually possessed slicing sequence power. The intensity of their attacks was no lower than human sword cultivators and saber cultivators of the same combat strength.

Golden-clawed Bugs that were contaminated with Abyssal energy had even tougher physical constitutions. The Abyssal energy within them could absorb Rule Bending Power and sequence power remnants from attacks. This meant that their Enhanced Regeneration ability would go into effect when they were attacked with Rule Bending Power and sequence power, which caused their close-quarter combat abilities to be even more resilient.

In the wake of the intense energy shockwaves from the Golden-clawed Bug's attack, the sixteen eyes of the Ghoul Spider above Virtuoso's group rapidly began to glow with blinding blood-red gleams.

The Ghoul Spider was awake!

The initial plan of pulling a Ghoul Spider a full level higher than their combat strength into an illusion was already the limit of Virtuoso's ability. In reality, even without any interference from the outside world, their illusion would not last for even a few seconds when cast on the ninth-rank heavenly god-level Ghoul Spider. Therefore, they had immediately urged Lan Ling to control the Boa Worm and leave at once.

However, the energy wave caused by the Golden-clawed Bug's attack made the Ghoul Spider realize something was wrong. It merely struggled a little and shook off the illusion. It then saw the carcass that the Golden-clawed Bug had sliced into multiple pieces and several figures emerging from the carcass…

The sudden appearance of the Golden-clawed Bug was something nobody had expected at all.

Although Lin Huang and the rest knew from the beginning that there would certainly be other search teams hurrying over, they had not expected anyone to show up so soon.

They knew something was wrong the moment the Golden-clawed Bug appeared.

As expected, the Golden-clawed Bug charged and attacked the Boa Worm as soon as it stepped out of the dimensional gateway, slicing it into several pieces.

Although Lin Huang and the rest were not harmed by this attack, the Golden-clawed Bug's actions had startled the Ghoul Spider above their heads into wakefulness.

Therefore, a situation worse than the worst-case scenario occurred.

The worst-case scenario that they had anticipated previously was that the Ghoul Spider would sense something wrong before they escaped and shake off the illusion.

However, at the moment, not only were they facing an awakened, furious Ghoul Spider, but there was a Golden-clawed Bug staring at them from the sidelines as well.

Both bug beasts were ninth-rank heavenly god-level supreme powerhouses.

Even a ninth-rank heavenly god-level Protoss would have a headache if they encountered such a situation.

However, in Lin Huang's group, the person with the highest combat strength was merely ninth-rank true god-level. This was a full level lower compared to the two bug beasts.

"In a little, seize the opportunity and run. It'll better if a single one of us manages to escape than all of us getting stuck here!" Saber9 said to Lin Huang and the rest through voice transmission and was the first to emerge from the Boa Worm's carcass.

He lifted his head to look at the Ghoul Spider above him, with its blood-red pupils.

Countless golden saber gleams began to coalesce in front of him.

Virtuoso did not run either. Instead, they planted themselves firmly on a spot near Saber9 and swiftly began performing hand seals with both hands.

They spoke through voice transmission to Lin Huang and the rest as they performed the hand seals, "The few of you came in your true forms; if you're killed you'll die for real. Both of us will buy you some time. If you can escape, escape!"

As soon as they finished speaking, they completed their hand seals. Their body began to replicate rapidly. Countless figures that looked exactly the same as Virtuoso in appearance began charging at the Golden-clawed Bug on one side.

On the other side, the countless golden saber gleams in front of Saber9 also rained down like a storm, heading toward the Ghoul Spider above his head in an enveloping swarm.

Lin Huang noticed that Tu Tong and Lan Ling were still debating whether or not to help Virtuoso and Saber9. He grabbed both their wrists, one in each hand, and dragged them with him as he charged toward the exit.

"Both of them can't buy us much time. If you rush over now, not only will this not increase any chances of success, but you'd also cause a mess! They can only get an opportunity to run after you've made it out!" Lin Huang said to the pair through voice transmission. Only then did Tu Tong and Lan Ling stop resisting being dragged to the exit. However, they did not notice that Lin Huang's comments only mentioned both of them and did not include himself.

At the same time that the three of them were escaping, the Ghoul Spider above their heads had been completely swallowed up in the golden gleams. Meanwhile, the Golden-clawed Bug on the other side was utterly surrounded by tens of thousands of Virtuoso clones.

Lin Huang grabbed Lan Ling and Tu Tong, arriving at the exit almost immediately.

He paused as soon as they arrived at the exit. Instead of rushing out, he suddenly used both hands to forcefully push Tu Tong and Lan Ling outside.

At that moment, the completely unharmed Ghoul Spider suddenly broke out from the midst of Saber9's countless saber gleams. Meanwhile, the Golden-clawed Bug on the other side tore free from the circle of countless Virtuoso clones.

Despite using full force, the pair's techniques did not impede the two bug beasts for even the span of a breath.

At that very moment, countless blood-red gleams shot out of Lin Huang's sleeves like electric arcs, dividing themselves between the two ninth-rank heavenly god-level bug beasts and hurtling toward them.

Although Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis had been weakened significantly despite not touching the Maze's walls, it still worked within a short range of merely over ten meters.

This attack of Lin Huang's saw the telekinetic flying daggers compounded with eight levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule.

Even the two bug beasts sensed the threat and immediately switched their attention to the blood-red electric arcs coming at them.

Right in the midst of Virtuoso and Saber9's amazement, they sensed a thread being tied about their waists. Almost at the same time, Lin Huang's voice sounded in their ears through voice transmission, "It's time to go!"

Only then did the duo realize that these were Lin Huang's telekinetic threads. The minute they stopped resisting, they felt a tremendous force pulling at them, and their figures flew toward the exit.

Amid their frantic retreat, they saw the blood-red electric arcs form into two giant spheres, enveloping the two ninth-rank bug beasts completely.

After pulling the duo to him, Lin Huang then dragged them both toward the exit and went through, without even turning his head to look back.

Outside the exit of the Demonic Bug Maze was a vast expanse of barren land.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling, who were waiting anxiously, saw the three of them emerging together.

"Go!" Lin Huang was still moving. After his shout, he continued running into the distance.

In the Maze, the telekinetic flying daggers fell onto the ground one after the other once Lin Huang had left.

When the two bug beasts appeared again, there were clear traces of blood on their bodies. However, these were merely flesh wounds, which rapidly recovered at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.

Both bug beasts merely glanced once in the direction of the exit. Instead of pursuing Lin Huang and the others, they chose to report the incident immediately.

Lin Huang and the rest fled some distance away. When they realized that the Bug Tribe monsters were not coming after them, they were finally able to heave a sigh of relief.

"Both of you owe me a set of top-tier god telekinetic weapon relics," Lin Huang said to Saber9 and Virtuoso in all seriousness.

The two of them were speechless upon hearing that.

However, both of them also were aware that Lin Huang had indeed left behind that set of telekinetic flying daggers in the Demonic Bug Maze after his attack.

"We'll give you back a set each when we get out of the Abyss, alright?" Virtuoso said in some annoyance

"Alright," Lin Huang agreed cheerfully, but he soon thought of something after that, "Or you could give me materials of the same level in exchange as well."

He asked for this to prevent a lack of rare, hard-to-obtain materials for his imperial monsters when they eventually elevated their levels.

"Sure," Saber9 agreed at once.

Meanwhile, off to one side, Virtuoso rolled their eyes at Lin Huang.

However, they knew very well that if Lin Huang had not sacrificed his telekinetic flying daggers to save them and Saber9, they both might have been the ones sacrificed in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling did not understand what the three of them were talking about, nor did they dare to ask. They could only follow behind and run.

"Since those bugs didn't chase after us immediately, can we consider ourselves to have escaped successfully?" Lin Huang asked Virtuoso.

"I think so." Virtuoso nodded. "The Abyss is massive. Since they didn't come after us right away, it would be hard for them to catch up to us now.

"It's very normal for them not to pursue us, as they have no way of ascertaining if we have other partners left behind in the Maze. They'd definitely do a thorough check of the Maze immediately to prevent the Bug Queen or Queen Mother from being assassinated. As for us, we've been chased out of the Maze, so we're no longer a threat to them. Naturally, coming after us isn't as important as checking inside the Maze." Saber9 was very clear about the operation mechanisms of the Demonic Bug Maze.

"The Bug Tribe powerhouses that guard the exits must have received orders beforehand not to chase after the intruders once they escaped from the Maze. Otherwise, with that Ghoul Spider's character, there's a pretty high chance it would have come after us," Virtuoso added.

"We can consider the threat of the Demonic Bug Maze removed," Virtuoso continued, "What we must find out as soon as possible is… where exactly are we?"

The surface area of the Abyss was unbelievably vast. Although it was only one part of the universe, it occupied over one-fourth of it.

Apart from the universe and the great world where Lin Huang and the rest were, the Abyss was connected to numerous great worlds, mini worlds, and time-space continuums.

Therefore, Lin Huang and the rest had no idea exactly which area they were in when they escaped from the Demonic Bug Maze.

"Lan Ling, check what monsters are around."

The reason why Virtuoso asked Lan Ling to check was not that Divine Telekinesis had no effect here, but because nobody would use Divine Telekinesis in the Abyss of their own accord.

It was not just outsiders invading the Abyss who would not do that. Even the local residents of the Abyss usually would not use their Divine Telekinesis either.

This was because as soon as they utilized their Divine Telekinesis, it was the equivalent of having exposed their location.

If the creatures within the Divine Telekinesis user's probing range were weaker than the user, that would still be alright. However, if the creatures were more powerful, the user might be targeted by the creatures' Divine Telekinesis and become prey.

Furthermore, the one thing the Abyss did not lack was powerhouses.

Even lord-level powerhouses would not simply use Divine Telekinesis when they were here. Instead, they would only use probing techniques that would not be easily sensed.

Lan Ling's spell belonged to a type that was rather rare and not known to many people. It was most suitable when used for probing. This had been proven in the Demonic Bug Maze earlier.

However, the main advantage of her probing spell was that it was a concealed method—it did not have the upper hand in terms of probing range.

Now, without the interference of the Maze, the probing range and accuracy of her spell were back to their normal parameters. However, she could only probe activity within a range of three hundred kilometers.

Although this probing range was still not very wide, it was better than using Divine Telekinesis to scan and being discovered by powerful Abyssal creatures.

Lan Ling quickly released her spell and began to probe.

As her lips moved, the incantations on both her arms swiftly sank into the ground.

She finally opened her eyes approximately two to three minutes later.

"What's the situation?" Tu Tong was the first to ask, unable to restrain himself.

"There are Furies all over within a three hundred kilometer range. I didn't find any other monsters." Lan Ling stood up slowly and looked at Virtuoso.

"Furies everywhere within a three hundred kilometer range…" Virtuoso frowned slightly.

"Could this be a Disaster Abyss Land?" Saber9 turned his head to ask Virtuoso.

"It's possible, but we can't be completely sure." Virtuoso nodded lightly. "After all, there are many regions in a place like the Abyss that have accumulated negative emotions, both great and small. Although there aren't many places where Furies gather on such a scale, this is not necessarily a Disaster Abyss Land."

"Let's walk around. If there are many other large-scale distributions of Disasters, we're most probably in a Disaster Abyss Land." Saber9 remained very sure of his guess.

Lin Huang understood the duo's conversation very well.

Although it was his first time in the Abyss, he had done his research beforehand after all and knew what sort of a place a Disaster Abyss Land was.

A Disaster Abyss Land was an area in the Abyss where massive amounts of negative emotions had accumulated.

In such regions, there were large distributions of extreme negative emotions and

creatures that were contaminated with Abyssal energy. They were called Disasters.

A Fury was one such Disaster.

Such monsters were usually Abyssal creatures that had been contaminated with raging emotions and thus been transformed.

They had massive bodies that were completely red from head to toe, enveloped in a raging fire. The flames could even infect other creatures, causing them to fall prey to rage-induced madness.

Apart from that, the Furies' forte was close-quarter combat; they were extraordinarily strong. If they were not killed immediately, each attack they encountered would enrage them further, and make them increasingly more powerful.

However, Lin Huang and the rest did not panic.

This was because such monsters were lone rangers. Although there were many of them within a three hundred kilometer range, they would not hunt in groups.

This alone made them less of a threat compared to the bug beasts in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried on and soon encountered their first Fury.

It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a creature like the Fury.

The monster was fully twenty meters or more in height and had a humanoid form. It stood upright on two legs and resembled a great red giant. The color of its body was the red of a steamed crawfish. There was even a layer of dark red flame burning on it.

Unlike a giant, it did not have a human head, but a huge mutated head, swollen with abscesses all over it. Not only that, it had three arms of various sizes.

This was a Fury that had been transformed from a humanoid mutant. It had maintained seventy to eighty percent of its pre-Fury original form.

As Lin Huang was observing this monster that he was seeing for the first time, the Fury also noticed the group.

It released an enraged roar and charged directly at Lin Huang and the rest, with a sudden burst of energy from its legs.

Just when Lin Huang was about to attack, Saber9 beside him reacted even faster.

He performed a saber tactic with his hand, pointing two fingers at the charging Fury. The saber gleam in front of him turned into a golden ray of light and shot out.

A glow like that of a meteor traced through the air and impaled the Fury's massive, swollen head in the time it took for a breath.

The Fury abruptly stopped moving, then fell onto the ground with a thud.

The moment it fell, Lin Huang could even sense the ground quaking beneath his feet.

Saber9 only needed one blow to kill the second-rank heavenly god-level Fury. He sheathed his saber into its scabbard and unobtrusively glanced in Lin Huang's direction.

Meanwhile, the dark red flame around the Fury's carcass extinguished quickly. Its body began to dissipate at speed visible to the naked eye, transforming into a ball of dark red mist.

Lin Huang's gaze was full of puzzlement as he watched this happening. "What's that mist?"

"It's the concrete form of anger," Virtuoso explained from beside him.

In the material world, things like emotions could not be touched or seen. However, in the Abyss, they could materialize into a concrete form.

It was Lin Huang's first time hearing such a thing; he was rather astonished.

"It's best if all of you don't come into contact with these materialized negative emotions. If you touch them, you might lose control of your emotions if it's a minor case. A more serious case might mean you could be contaminated right away and turn into a Disaster," Virtuoso added.

"Can't it be used?" Lin Huang was still curious about these negative emotions.

"It can't. These emotional energies have been completely integrated with Abyssal energy. Even Abyssal creatures are extra cautious when they absorb these energies, as they will turn into Disasters if they're not careful—what more creatures from outside the Abyss," the adjacent Saber9 explained, "Only Disasters of the same species can absorb these energies completely to strengthen themselves. They're toxic to other creatures."

"Alright then…" Lin Huang was clearly a little disappointed when he heard that.

Virtuoso also noticed Lin Huang's disappointment. "If you have a vessel, you can collect a little of the mist. However, never release it in an open environment, as it will automatically contaminate all living things in the area. Now it's consolidated into a ball only because it's reverted to its original form after just having lost its host. It's in an inert state at the moment."

"It's that dangerous?!" Lin Huang had thought this thing was merely a cloud of mist; it had never crossed his mind that its form was just temporary.

"This cloud is enough to contaminate an entire planet," Saber9 added from beside him.

Lin Huang could not help being bereft of speech.

However, he could not restrain his curiosity; he retrieved a vessel and collected a wisp of the mist.

Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried along. It took them half a day to get out of the Furies' gathering area, killing 27 Furies of various forms along the way.

"We've left the Furies' gathering place. Ahead, there are Jealousies all over within three hundred kilometers of my sensing range." Lan Ling stopped and informed the others of her probing results after some investigation.

"This place is most certainly a Disaster Abyss Land," Saber9 said to Virtuoso, who was next to him.

Virtuoso nodded lightly. "We can basically confirm that now."

Lin Huang and the rest had flown for the better part of half a day before finally getting out of the Furies' gathering place. The vast size of the area where the rage emotions were dispersed clearly indicated that this was no ordinary gathering point for negative emotions. Now that they had discovered another type of Disaster up ahead, it proved that there were many types of negative emotions here. They could basically eliminate the possibility of them being anywhere else now.

Only a Disaster Abyss Land could gather so many types of negative emotions in such a vast area.

"What do we have to take note of to counter the Jealousies?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

He knew of course that a Jealousy was an Abyssal creature created from the contamination of extreme jealous emotions. However, in the information that he had gathered previously, there were not many descriptions of this particular kind of monster.

"The Jealousies are indeed rather unique creatures. Let me explain," Virtuoso said calmly.

"The Jealousies are monsters that are intensely jealous and usually exist only in spirit form. They're immune to most physical attacks, including those using Rule Bending Power and sequence power. Only spirit-type attacks can harm them directly.

"However, if an individual is envied by a Jealousy, all attacks from the Jealousy's target will work. In other words, if one of us is being targeted by a Jealousy and nobody around the target has spirit-type attack techniques, we can't help. The target can only rely on themselves.

"Another interesting thing is that if an individual is within a Jealousy's sensing range, but they have nothing for the Jealousy to be envious about, the Jealousy will ignore that individual. Even if the individual walks over when the Jealousy is watching, that individual won't be attacked.

"However, Jealousies have strange points of jealousy. Not only that, every one of them is different. They might be jealous of things that don't bother us at all. For instance, your hair is longer than mine, so I want to kill you. Why is your lipstick color so nice? I want to kill you for that…"

Lan Ling lifted her hand in seemingly casual fashion to wipe off the lipstick on her mouth after she heard this.

"The target has to kill the Jealousy as soon as they've been targeted. This is because the longer one drags things out, the more envious the Jealousy becomes. It might even go into a state of madness, which causes its ability to skyrocket.

"There's one more thing to note. Before Jealousies lock onto their target, they have a certain level of resistance to spirit-type attacks. Furthermore, if they're attacked under such circumstances, they will immediately go into a state of madness."

Even Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not stop nodding after hearing Virtuoso's explanation, not just Lin Huang. Clearly, it was their first time hearing this information as well.

"Don't panic if you become targets. My Saber Dao heavenly rule has spirit-type attack attributes," Saber9 comforted Lan Ling, then glanced at Lin Huang.

Saber Dao and Sword Dao heavenly rules belonged to a class of extreme physical attack techniques that went beyond the physical immunity upper limits of spirits. These attacks had the effect of harming spirits directly.

Saber9's comments did not refer to not the harm that Saber Dao heavenly rule could inflict. Rather, they referred to the spirit-type attack Saber Dao techniques that Saber9 had mastered.

Lin Huang understood what Saber9 meant and also noticed the slight challenge in Saber9's gaze. However, it did not particularly bother him.

As for Sword Dao heavenly rule, Lin Huang had indeed just elevated to level-2, Heavenly Heart—perhaps Saber9, who had been at level-2 for a long time, was not aware of this. However, all the Sword Servants under Lin Huang had recovered their combat strength to seventh-rank heavenly god-level, so he could borrow over three hundred types of Sword Dao heavenly rules. Among them were a few that had been unlocked to level-3, Heavenly Dao.

He was confident that he definitely would not lose to Saber9 if they were to spar with swords or sabers, even though Saber9's Primordium was an extremely powerful Almighty, as well as a member of the Club.

However, Saber9 himself was just a clone, after all. Not only that, his combat strength was merely at ninth-rank true god-level.

Therefore, Lin Huang did not have much intention of challenging Saber9.

In reality, he was more interested in Saber9's Primordium than in Saber9.

Previously, Lin Huang had been curious about how powerful Saber9's Primordium would be at ninth-rank, compared to his clone, and if Saber9's combined ability was more powerful than his own.

As they progressed further on their journey, very soon, they encountered the first Jealousy.

It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a Jealousy.

This Jealousy resembled a female ghost in a red dress; she hovered in the air. She had long, black hair that came to her waist

In the beginning, she had her back to them.

However, after sensing the auras of Lin Huang and the others, her head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, revealing her deathly pale face.

The most extraordinary thing was that although her face was bloodless, her lips were painted a vibrant and beautiful shade of blood red.

Even though Lin Huang was already a true god-level cultivator, he could not help feeling a little terrified when he saw the Jealousy in front of them, immediately recalling the horror movies that he had watched back on Earth.

After the Jealousy turned her head, she began observing Lin Huang and the others carefully.

After a round of scrutiny, she eventually locked onto Lan Ling.

Lan Ling's heart thudded hard immediately once she noticed the Jealousy ignoring the rest entirely and staring at her without blinking. She knew that she had become a target.

After targeting Lan Ling, the Jealousy's body turned around to where her head was facing.

The next second, she appeared in front of Lan Ling directly as if she had teleported.

Tu Tong wanted to attack, but Virtuoso clamped a hand on his shoulder.

They shook their head and said to Tu Tong through voice transmission, "She's not finished locking onto her target yet."

The long-haired Jealousy hovered less than half a meter in front of Lan Ling and began to scrutinize the girl from head to toe.

A moment later, her gaze alighted on Lan Ling's chest, and she enquired as if she was talking to herself,

"Why is your chest so big?!"

Subsequently, her voice began to repeat like a language-learning device. She stared at Lan Ling's chest and began to repeat her words over and over again.

She began speaking faster and faster, and her pitch rose increasingly until everyone's ears hurt.

Noticing that Virtuoso was signaling her not to attack yet, Lan Ling had no idea what to do at the moment.

The Jealousy repeated, "Why is your chest so big?" over and over, and her pupils rapidly became bloodshot. A few seconds later, her eyes were completely red—the pupils and irises could no longer be seen. Her black hair began to undulate like snakes.

A moment later, countless strands of hair surged forward like waves, charging at Lan Ling wildly as if they wanted to swallow her up.

Just when Lan Ling was about to retreat hastily, she saw a blinding golden gleam flash before her eyes, tearing through the entire swathe of black waves.

"Too noisy!" Saber9 sheathed his saber as soon as he finished speaking.

The black waves disintegrated immediately. The female Jealousy glanced in Saber9's direction, looking stunned. Subsequently, a golden gleam lit up right between her brows, and her body began to fade slowly, starting from that golden gleam…

The area where the Jealousies were distributed was even larger than that of the Furies previously. It took Lin Huang and the others a full day before they managed to get out of the area where the Jealousies were.

Along the way, they encountered over forty Jealousies. These were of various forms, and their jealousies were each more peculiar than the other.

Everyone in Lin Huang's group was targeted by Jealousies for various strange reasons.

For instance, Lin Huang was targeted with, "Why are you so good looking?" while Virtuoso was targeted with, "Why is your mask so pretty?""You've got a few years on you, but why is your aura still so good?" was directed at Saber9, while "Why is your mustache so thick?!" was aimed at Tu Tong. "Why do you have such a nice body when you're so short?!" was what Lan Ling received…

Fortunately, they were able to avoid high-level Jealousies thanks to Lan Ling's advance warning. The beginner-stage and intermediate-stage Jealousies were not powerful enough to be threats to them.

After leaving the Jealousies' territory, Lan Ling performed a new round of probing immediately.

"Up ahead is the Greeds' territory."

"We've finally reached the good stuff," Tu Tong commented with a smile.

He said this because when these monsters called Greeds were killed, they would drop various materials. Sometimes, there would even be rare materials dropping from their corpses.

"Don't be reckless. There are extremely powerful fellows among Greeds as well," Virtuoso reminded, "Most Greeds covet superficial things. However, there's a small minority of them who will steal the essence of their prey after discovering the fundamental essence of the prey's power. Such Greeds can be as powerful as any sixth-rank being."

"According to the data records within the universe, among the seven most common types of Disasters, Greeds are the second-most numerous group to have elevated to Lords—they've even surpassed the Gluttons," Saber9 added from where he was off to the side.

"Then which of them is ranked No.1?" Lin Huang asked curiously.

"I guess it should be the Arrogances," Lan Ling answered before Virtuoso and Saber9 could do so.

"That's right." Saber9 nodded.

"Only extremely haughty individuals become Arrogances. Many of them were geniuses from various tribes before their transformation, so their foundation is much better than the other types of Disasters. They also have the strongest talent and potential after transforming into Arrogances," Virtuoso added, noticing that Saber9 did not have the intention of elaborating further.

The few of them chatted about various Disasters all along the way and very soon came upon their first Greed.

This was also Lin Huang's first time encountering such a monster.

The Greed before them resembled a Patchwork Monster with many limbs and eyeballs of various forms.

It looked terrifying, but in reality, it was the weakest kind among the Greeds.

Watching as this Patchwork Monster charged toward them, Sword9 did not even have the desire to fight.

Tu Tong, on the other hand, felt that this was his chance to shine. He dashed forward and swung a heavy punch at it.

Within less than ten seconds, his blows had reduced the Greed to a puddle of pulverized flesh.

What depressed Tu Tong was that this Greed was so weak, no material fell out of it after it was killed.

After resolving the matter of this first Greed, they proceeded on their journey again.

Unlike before when they had avoided Disasters as much as they could, Lan Ling's route this time took them straight toward the Greeds. Apart from high-level heavenly god-level Greeds, she did not bypass any beginner-stage or intermediate-stage ones if they were along her route. All along the way, she led the group to monsters that they could kill.

As anticipated, apart from the first Greed that did not drop any materials, the rest of the Greeds dropped materials whenever they were killed.

Lin Huang was excited at first, but seeing that Tu Tong was happy to do the fighting for them, he did not bother to interfere.

However, later on, he could not help jumping into the fray when they encountered intermediate-stage Greeds. He obtained many materials along the way, even some rare ones.

Just as they were about to leave the Greeds' gathering area, they finally encountered a powerful Greed.

This Greed was a skeletal monster clad in a black robe. Before Lin Huang and the rest had even arrived, it had already sensed them from far away.

It did not use Divine Telekinesis; this was purely spiritual perception.

It stretched its arms into the void and retrieved a gigantic black sickle.

Right after that, it brandished the sickle and launched an attack from dozens of kilometers away.

Like a wave, the black sickle gleam swelled on the wind, charging at the group in destructive fury. By the time it reached them, it had become a massive tsunami.

Even Lin Huang's pupils contracted involuntarily when he saw this.

This attack alone was on par with level-2 Sword Dao heavenly rule, at the very least.

Before Lin Huang could make a move, the nearby Saber9's battle intent peaked. His saber gleam shot forward like a golden electric arc and collided forcefully with the sickle gleam.

Sword cultivators and saber cultivators had always been rivals who were unwilling to yield to one another. Saber9 had been looking for the opportunity to spar with Lin Huang along the way, but Lin Huang had repeatedly declined.

Saber9 had nursed his irritation for the entire journey. Now that the group had suddenly come upon a powerful sword cultivator Disaster, it was only natural that he could no longer restrain himself.

This time, he held nothing back in his attack.

At first, the saber gleam was just a golden meteor, but it grew increasingly blinding.

By the time it collided with the black wave, it was already like a blazing sun.

The collision of these two forces was like a massive wave colliding with a sun in the heavens.

Both forces were at a stalemate for a long time. Eventually, they exploded and collapsed almost simultaneously…

A terrifying energy storm swept in all directions, swirling around.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not even keep a steady footing. It was not until Virtuoso held up a god sequence shield relic that they were able to resist the aftermath impact of the energy shockwaves.

"So powerful!" Tu Tong's eyes gleamed as he stared at the explosion.

He and Saber9 were both ninth-rank True Gods, but his ability was nowhere near that of Saber9.

A trace of fear flickered in Lan Ling's eyes.

Lin Huang and Virtuoso were unfazed, however. Both of them felt it was nothing out of the ordinary for Saber9 to possess such ability.

In reality, Lin Huang had thought of challenging this sword cultivator Greed earlier. However, since Saber9 did it first, he did not bother trying to compete for the monster with him.

However, since they had seen so many weak Greeds previously, he was still very interested in this Greed that had abilities on par with Saber9.

"Is this a type of Greed that's mastered power essence?" Lin Huang turned his head to ask Virtuoso beside him.

"Yes." Virtuoso nodded. "It's only at third-rank heavily god-level, but it has abilities closer to seventh-rank. It must have plundered quite a few god sequence chains."

"Greeds can plunder other people's god sequence chains directly?" Lin Huang was rather puzzled. He himself had the ability to plunder god sequence chains as well, but he had always thought that such an ability was extremely incredible, so it should be rare.

"Very few Greeds have such an ability." Virtuoso nodded. "First of all, it must realize that god sequence chains are the source of a Heavenly God's power. Secondly, it must find the right method of plundering and extracting the god sequence chains from its prey's body. Thirdly, it must find the right way of integrating the god sequence chains that it has plundered.

"It's actually extremely difficult to achieve these three conditions because Disasters inherently have clouded consciousness. Moreover, their behaviors are dominated by negative emotions; they're unable to make judgments on their own.

"Those that can generate a spark of self-awareness in their cloudy minds and shake off being completely dominated by negative emotions are the anomalies among the Disasters."

In the void, the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed continued; it was impossible to determine who was the winner or loser for now.

Although Saber9's combat experience was far superior to the monster, and he was more practiced in the use of sequence power, he had not mastered as many god sequence chains as the Greed.

Apart from Sword Dao heavenly rule, the skeleton Greed had mastered at least ten different god sequence chains. It was just that its limits only allowed it to use a maximum of seven god sequence chains, the power of which was on par with Saber9's attacks.

Perhaps it was because the Greed was not in total control of its consciousness, or perhaps the god sequence chains it plundered could not be compounded and integrated well, but the combination of god sequence chains that it used was not very logical.

Saber9 soon noticed this issue and very soon dominated his opponent completely.

However, as the two were battling intensely, Lin Huang suddenly had a slight change of expression.

He had felt that that Lan Ling's probing range was too small, and far from sufficient to give advance warning or to probe the path ahead. Therefore, he had secretly released many Leech Pods along the way and had been continuously monitoring their surroundings at all times.

Through the Leech Pods just now, he saw that some Greeds nearby might have sensed the energy waves from the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed. Although most of them had sensed the threat and distanced themselves of their own accord, there were also several high-level ones whose greed skyrocketed after sensing the waves and were now heading toward the battlefield. Among them was even a powerful ninth-rank being.

After a moment of hesitation, Lin Huang urged Saber9, "Saber9, can you finish it off quickly?"

Saber9 was stunned when he heard this, while Virtuoso and the rest looked at Lin Huang, feeling rather puzzled.

Urging teammates to hurry up like this was rude behavior, as everybody had their own tempo of battle. If one suddenly pressed a teammate to hurry, it could very well directly interfere with their fighting tempo.

"What's wrong?" Virtuoso knew there must be a reason why Lin Huang had spoken up to urge Saber9.

Lin Huang hesitated but decided to reveal the reason anyway. "There are high-level Greeds heading over now after sensing the battle waves here…"

He did not explain how he knew this, and Virtuoso did not pursue the matter further. They merely glanced at him very intently.

Lin Huang did not use voice transmission when he replied to Virtuoso. Saber9, in the midst of battle, heard him loud and clear.

Initially, he was wondering whether or not Lin Huang was hurrying him up just to provoke him. Now he finally realized that his battle had alerted the other Greeds far away.

The minute Lan Ling heard what Lin Huang had to say, she hurriedly performed her hand seals again, initiating another new round of probing.

However, she soon said to Lin Huang doubtfully, "I didn't sense any Greeds on the way. Instead, I saw many of them leaving the area that we're in."

"The weaker ones have certainly sensed the threat, so they're leaving of their own volition. However, the powerful ones are being drawn here. You didn't sense them as they haven't come into your sensing range yet," Lin Huang explained, "I don't want to elaborate on what kind of probing technique I used, but trust me, I'm not wrong about this."

"Alright then…" Lan Ling reluctantly accepted Lin Huang's explanation.

The others also did not enquire further into exactly what kind of probing technique Lin Huang had used.

As the clone of a Club member, Saber9 was naturally aware that all Club members had their own secrets.

With barely any hesitation, he chose to believe Lin Huang and began increasing the power of his attacks, as well as the frequency of them.

As the tempo of battle changed, the skeleton Greed clearly failed to react. Its consciousness was already not fully under its control, and as time went by, not only was it unable to adapt to the new battle tempo, but its flaws began to show even more. Saber9 had already dominated it initially, and it soon went into a completely passive mode.

Within three minutes after Lin Huang's warning, Saber9 killed the skeleton Greed with his saber.

Right as he completed the kill, Lan Ling gave a startled exclamation.

"A high-level Greed has entered my sensing range! It's heading in our direction!"

Tu Tong had been initially doubtful of Lin Huang's words but had not expressed his opinion all this while. Any suspicions he had previously harbored now vanished completely.

"At such close proximity, it's too late to think of escaping. Let's just fight it!" Lin Huang said expressionlessly, "We only need to take care of this one as soon as we can before the next one arrives."

He shook his sleeves as soon as he was done speaking, and telekinetic flying daggers shot out like a school of fish.

Saber9, who had just finished with his battle, did not sheathe his saber either. Instead, he brandished his weapon and turned around, staring in the direction where Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers were pointing.

Although Virtuoso did not move, the circulating Divine Power around them accelerated in preparation for going into battle at any moment.

Meanwhile, Tu Tong and Lan Ling retreated to one side.

High-level heavenly god-level powerhouses were already beyond their capabilities.

Very soon, a Greed with a powerful aura showed up in front of them.

This monster's form vaguely resembled a human.

It was bald and excruciatingly thin, with swarthy skin.

The biggest difference between itself and humans was that it had six arms and three eyes.

"The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe?!" Saber9 could not help a startled exclamation the minute he set eyes on it.

Lin Huang was stunned as well upon hearing that.

He had also heard about the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, which was a unique tribe in the great world.

The Tribe members aspired to become ascetic cultivators.

They even rejected using equipment and most cultivation resources.

Not only that, they pursued the simplest life possible. If they did not have to eat, they would not eat; if they did not need to drink water, they would not either. They severed connections with anything related to desires, retaining only the most basic requirements in life.

Therefore, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe members had powerful inner strength and terrifying wills.

This was also why Saber9 was so shocked to see this Greed.

The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe could unanimously be considered by everyone in the entire universe as the Tribe with the least desires.

They could even get rid of their most basic biological desires, what more greed.

However, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member before them had fallen and transformed into something that was practically impossible for its Tribe—a Greed.

'What's this fellow greedy for?' Almost everyone present, including Lin Huang, had a similar question pop up in the minds.

However, they soon found out the answer to that.

The third eye on the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's forehead opened abruptly. All of a sudden, myriad rays of Buddha's Light flooded the entire area. Countless golden sutras circulated around, enveloping the surroundings and turning them into a Buddhist kingdom.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed levitated gradually into the air, and the silhouette of a massive golden Buddha appeared behind it slowly.

A low mutter reached the ears of Lin Huang and the others very clearly.

"We'll become a Buddha after cleansing the Abyss…"

These muttered words abruptly caused them to understand why this fellow had turned into a Greed.

This Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member must have been obsessed with cleansing the Abyss of Abyssal monsters. In the end, it was overcome by greed, which had then magnified its obsession, and it had turned into a monster itself.

After mumbling for a while, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed lowered its head to look at Lin Huang and the others. Its third eye gradually turned red.

Its six palms shot out almost simultaneously without holding back, as if six massive mountains had tumbled down.

"Die, monster!"

An individual in the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, the purest Tribe with the least desires, had become the most improbable Disaster of all—a Greed.

If they had not seen it with their own eyes, everyone present might not have believed that such a thing could happen.

Even Virtuoso and Saber9—who were both experienced and knowledgeable—were stunned when they first set eyes on the Greed. However, right after that, their expressions changed slightly.

The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe were the purest ascetic cultivators.

They had immensely strong wills and spirits, which meant their abilities were generally powerful.

Although this transformed Ascetic Buddhist Tribe Greed before them only possessed seventh-rank heavenly god-level combat strength, the aura emanating from it was terrifying.

Furthermore, it attacked at full force as soon as it arrived. All six of its arms struck at once, turning into six massive, unbelievably tall mountains, tumbling toward Lin Huang and the rest.

Each of these mountains was encompassed by at least nine levels of sequence power.

Just this attack alone could completely overwhelm a ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse.

Saber9 and Virtuoso could not help having a drastic change of expression.

Both of them attacked immediately, attempting to block this assault.

Up to one hundred saber formations lit up like golden gleams in front of Saber9, layering each upon the other. Over a million golden saber gleams illuminated the saber formations, so dense that they utterly blotted out the sun and the heavens.

He unleashed this attack full force, holding nothing back.

Even Lin Huang was rather shocked as he watched from the sidelines.

However, something happened next that shocked him even more.

Virtuoso did exactly the same thing as Saber9. Up to one hundred saber formations consolidated quickly in front of them, and over a million golden saber gleams lit up like a sky full of stars.

"What's happening?!"

Lin Huang's eyes widened. As a sword cultivator himself, he had not sensed any aura of a saber cultivator on Virtuoso at all from the beginning until now.

However, at present, Virtuoso was executing the exact same technique as Saber9. Not only that, Lin Huang could clearly sense that the saber formations and saber gleams that Virtuoso had consolidated were real, rather than an illusion.

Tu Tong, standing off to the side, seemed to have noticed Lin Huang's confusion. He then explained through voice transmission, "This is the effect of the imitation god sequence chain our teacher has mastered. He can imitate and copy others' techniques."

Lin Huang only noticed then that under Virtuoso's mask, faint blood-red sigils were swirling in their pupils.

Under Saber9 and Virtuoso's combined forces, countless saber gleams were attacking the Greed's massive palms.

It was like a meteor shower colliding with a monumental wall.

Endless golden streams of light blasted forth, crashing against the massive mountain-like palms.

All of a sudden, the streams of light vanished, and the mountains collapsed.

Under Virtuoso and Saber9's combined forces, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's attack was finally blocked.

Judging from this, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's ability was merely average.

When its attack was blocked, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed was merely stunned for a second before it struck out with all six palms again.

Each strike was more and more ferocious, and it kept shrieking continuously as it attacked.

"I will wipe all of you out even if I die today, you monsters!"

The blood-red fury in its three eyes increased even more.

Lin Huang did not attack as he watched Saber9 and Virtuoso barely holding off the powerful palms of the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

Instead, he seemed to be pondering deeply as he stared at the monster.

"This fellow doesn't seem to realize at all that it's been transformed into a Greed…"

"Aren't you going to help?" Off on the sidelines, Lan Ling could not help asking as she noticed Saber9 and Virtuoso having a difficult time with the monster.

"I'm waiting for the opportunity to attack," Lin Huang returned calmly.

The reason he did not participate in the battle was that he was very much aware that, even if he did join in, it would be very difficult to end the fight within a short time. It would be extremely hard for them to escape before the next monster arrived.

He did not elaborate further after his comment.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Virtuoso spoke to the Ascetic Buddhist Greed during the battle.

"You keep calling us monsters, but you don't seem to realize at all that you're the only monster here. We're ordinary people who haven't been contaminated by Abyssal energy."

"Nonsense!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed slammed its palms down again.

"You're a monk from the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe. Don't tell me you're completely unaware of the abnormalities in your body? Or perhaps you do know, but you've chosen to ignore it?!"

"You're trying to delude me with your lies!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed struck out with its palms once more.

"You're the best judge of whether or not we're trying to delude you. I don't believe that as an eminent monk, you would be completely unable to sense the Abyssal energy and negative emotions that have contaminated your body."

"If it doesn't believe you, show it the Mirror of Truth. Let it see what it looks like now, and that should settle things," Lin Huang could not help chiming in on the discussion despite being an onlooker.

"That's a great idea!" Virtuoso exclaimed. Immediately after, he retrieved a mirror from his space storage and turned it to face the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

Although it did not believe what Virtuoso and Lin Huang had said, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed could not help looking into the mirror.

One glance and it saw its appearance as it was currently.

It was as emaciated as a mummy—not only that, it had six arms and three eyes, and was extremely hideous.

"This is a trick—what utter nonsense!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed gave a low growl.

"This is definitely not a trick. This is how you currently look like to us," Virtuoso explained, "You've been blinded by Abyssal energy and negative emotions, so you're unable to see the truth of the matter.

"In your eyes, you're normal, while we're monsters. However, in reality, it's the complete opposite. The image shown in the Mirror of Truth has proven that."

"The Mirror of Truth can be faked!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed insisted.

"You judge for yourself whether it's fake or not then!" Virtuoso tossed the Mirror of Truth directly at the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed picked up the mirror. The first thing it saw its emaciated, swarthy face.

It then used the mirror to look over the rest of its body, and the frown on its brow began to deepen.

As an Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member, its spirit strength and force of will had far surpassed the majority of seventh-ranks, to the point that it had already achieved the standard of a ninth-rank. It was practically impossible for anyone below half-step lord-level to have sufficient ability to pull it into an illusion.

Therefore, the Mirror of Truth it was looking at had to be real.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed found it hard to accept these thoughts for a while and remained rooted to the spot, dumbstruck.

It had spent years killing monsters, but it had never thought that the biggest monster would actually be itself.

Right at this moment, a blood-red sword gleam flashed through the void.

It was Lin Huang, who had been ready to attack for a while now.

This was the opportunity that he had been waiting for.

He did not hold back anything at all in this attack, compounding Sword Dao heavenly rule and nine levels of god sequence chains.

The sword gleam was like Death's sickle; it also resembled a blood-red crescent moon suspended in the heavens.

It slashed through the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's body in an instant…

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed had no time to dodge, nor was it able to defend itself against the attack. All it saw was a red gleam coming toward it, and its body was immediately reduced to a headless corpse…

As he sensed the massive number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers rushing into his body, Lin Huang felt utterly satisfied, but also slightly puzzled at the same time.

The number of Rule Bending Powers that he had plundered from this Ascetic Buddhist Disaster exceeded that of any Heavenly Gods he had ever killed. There were over seven hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers, which was at least ten times more than what he had obtained from other Heavenly Gods. There were even over eighteen god sequence chains.

This caused Lin Huang to speculate involuntarily, 'Is this a unique trait of the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, or a characteristic of a Greed that plunders Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers?'

As he contemplated this question, Tu Tong and Lan Ling were looking at him, their expressions utterly shocked.

They knew that Lin Huang had powerful abilities, but they had never expected that he would be this powerful.

With just one sword strike, he had killed the powerhouse that Saber9 and Virtuoso could only contend with after they had joined forces. Although the attack was a stealth attack instead of an upfront assault, it was enough to demonstrate Lin Huang's ability.

The intensity of Saber9's gaze also increased as he looked at Lin Huang. He already knew that Lin Huang was a sword cultivator, but so far, he had never seen Lin Huang using his sword. This was the first time he had seen it, and it stunned him.

Even Saber9 himself did not have full confidence to pull off the attack that killed the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster earlier.

The more this was the case, however, the more he felt that Lin Huang was an opponent worthy of being challenged.

In the team, Virtuoso seemed to be the only one who was not surprised. They merely glanced at Lin Huang, then turned their eyes away.

"Let's go. There'll be more Ascetic Buddhist Disasters coming if we linger." After he had extracted all the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers in the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster's body, Lin Huang turned around immediately and headed toward their next destination.

He was much more enthusiastic in the subsequent hunt for Greeds after obtaining so many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster.

He did not even conceal his probing technique at all and began to lead. The route they took was mostly through the areas distributed with intermediate-level Greeds.

Noticing that Lin Huang had begun to fight more frequently, Virtuoso and the rest merely thought he wanted to end the battles sooner. They had no idea that he was testing out the number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he could obtain from various Greeds.

After more than ten rounds of testing, he basically confirmed that the more powerful the ability of a Greed, the more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers it could plunder from others.

In particular, Greeds that had mastered power essence had an incredible number of Rule Bending Powers within their bodies.

Lin Huang even managed to plunder close to 200,000 types of Rule Bending Powers from a fourth-rank Greed.

However, they had already stayed in the Greeds' gathering grounds for a full day, and Lin Huang did not feel right about continuing to lead everyone to wander around this area. After confirming his speculations, he did not linger there for very long. Instead, he led the rest to the next area—the Gluttons' gathering grounds.

These monsters called Gluttons were contaminated by Abyssal energy and gluttony.

Such monsters remained forever in a state of hunger. They were eager to eat every second of their lives.

Only food could bring them joy.

Furthermore, the frightening thing about these monsters was that they did not even need to think or cultivate—they could grow more powerful just by eating continuously.

They were able to obtain nutrients from every food they ate so they could gain energy.

In reality, Gluttons were not the only ones in the Greeds' territory. There were Arrogances as well.

However, Lin Huang chose to go to the area with Gluttons.

He did this because he thought that some Gluttons might possess the ability to plunder the Rule Bending Powers and god sequence chains from their preys' bodies, just like some Greeds could.

He even speculated that the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers within Gluttons might be more plentiful than in any of the other Disasters.

Therefore, he decided to verify his speculations.

After entering the Gluttons' territory, the first Glutton Lin Huang and the rest encountered was a giant ball of flesh.

The ball of flesh was approximately over three meters in diameter, hovering in mid-air. Mouths of various sizes grew all over its body as well as tentacles of varied sizes and lengths.

Each tentacle appeared to have a unique sensory organ—from far off, they had already sensed the presence of Lin Huang and the others.

Countless tentacles extended swiftly and swept toward Lin Huang and the rest like long whips.

The creature was so greedy that it wanted to capture all of them at once and swallow them up together.

However, what greeted it were red electric arcs that were up to a hundred times faster than its own tentacles.

Without waiting for the rest to react, Lin Huang attacked first.

His reason for taking the initiative was simple—he merely wanted to verify if his speculations were correct.

This fourth-rank Glutton was rather unfortunate. It had barely extended its tentacles before Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers turned them into sieves full of holes.

One exchange of blows, and it was all over.

It had made only made an appearance for less than half a second.

Noticing that Lin Huang had grabbed the opportunity to attack, Virtuoso and the rest felt even more that he wanted to leave this Disaster Abyss Land as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang rapidly sensed the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers surging into his body after killing the Glutton.

Just as he had anticipated, the number of Rule Bending Powers he obtained from this Glutton was more than several times that of an ordinary fourth-rank Heavenly God.

However, one Glutton was not proof of the entire matter. This Glutton might be a special case.

To verify his speculations, he needed more Gluttons as reference.

"Let's go. What are you standing there for?" Lin Huang did not even look at the Glutton, which had not yet fully turned into a negative emotion. He immediately bestirred himself and headed swiftly to the location of the second target.

Virtuoso and the rest glanced at the dead Glutton, only following Lin Huang after making sure that it was not going to revive.

In the few subsequent hunts, Lin Huang very quickly verified his speculations.

Practically all Gluttons had more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers than other monsters of the same combat strength. However, most of these Gluttons existed in a state of muddled ignorance.

Eating was the only thing on their minds, and their use of sequence powers was by instinct. Even if they harbored powers stronger than the other Disasters, they could only showcase a fraction of their abilities.

However, this made it easy for Lin Huang—the efficiency of his Rule Bending Power plundering increased more than a few times.

Virtuoso and the rest were quietly pleased as they watched him killing monsters so enthusiastically.

They followed him the entire way and watched him shine.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang killed swiftly everywhere he went. Sometimes he did not even stop walking, disposing of his opponents in a second by using telekinetic flying daggers from a distance.

Virtuoso and the rest soon realized that Lin Huang was killing Gluttons intentionally. This was because the number of Gluttons they had encountered today was several times more than the number of Disasters they had encountered in other areas.

Within the short space of a day, Lin Huang had killed more than two hundred Gluttons.

Each monster provided him with over one hundred thousand Rule Bending Powers at the very least and seven to eight hundred thousand Rule Bending Power at most.

The number of Rule Bending Powers that the two hundred over Gluttons provided allowed him to elevate from seventh-rank to eighth-rank successfully.

If it were not for Virtuoso and the rest following along with him, he would very probably have hunted in this area until he broke through to ninth-rank.

However, considering that he came with the team, he could only abandon the thought. After completing a full day's hunting, only then did he leave the Gluttons' territory, feeling unsatisfied…

"Have we… left the Disaster Abyss Land?"

Virtuoso asked this because they could clearly sense that the negative emotions which had been lingering around them at all times had completely vanished.

The rest soon noticed this as well.

"I think so." Lin Huang was not too sure of the Disaster Abyss Land's demarcation. Although he sensed the negative emotions around them were gone, he could not answer for sure. "Where do we go now?"

"What can you sense?" Virtuoso asked.

"There are a group of Carnivorous Giants at 10 o'clock, approximately 600 kilometers away.

"At 11 o'clock, approximately 1,100 kilometers ahead, there's a decaying toxic forest.

"There are a group of Ghoul Jackals at 12 o'clock, approximately 500 kilometers away.

"There's a toxic fog swamp at one o'clock within 1,300 kilometers, but the exact situation is unknown for now.

"At two o'clock, roughly around 800 kilometers off, there's a large cluster of Dead Spirit monsters.

"If we head in the direction of nine o'clock and three o'clock, we'll go back to the Disaster Abyss Land."

Lin Huang turned his head to look at Virtuoso. Noticing that they were frowning in deep thought, he could not help asking, "Don't you have a specific destination in mind?"

Only then did Virtuoso look at him. "The place I want to go to is called Phantom City. My objective is to retrieve the castellan's seal. I also know the exact coordinates of a few phantom cities. The problem is I'm not sure where we are right now. That's because there are hundreds, even to up to thousands of discovered Disaster Abyss Lands in the Abyss, and there are even more Demonic Bug Mazes. Although there are many phantom cities too, it's not easy to encounter one."

"So which direction do we go now?" Lin Huang asked.

Virtuoso hesitated for a moment but made a decision. "The toxic swamp then."

Lin Huang could not help frowning upon hearing their answer.

"You might want to think this through. That might be the most dangerous place of all these few options. My probing technique will be blocked in the fog too, and we won't know what's happening in there."

"Let's just go there. We can see through the rest just with a glance anyway. Moreover, a phantom city's entrance is usually somewhere that's not easily discoverable." Virtuoso clearly did not have any better choices. "If there really is a phantom city nearby, the entrance is most probably in the swamp. Let's bet on that!"

"What do you all think?" Lin Huang glanced at the rest.

"Since Phantom City is our destination, no matter what, we'll still have to look for the entrance regardless. The rest of the entrance locations might not be as safe as the swamp anyway." What Lan Ling said was something Lin Huang had never expected.

To him, she was an introverted, timid sort of girl.

"I think what Lan Ling said makes sense," Tu Tong, off to one side, agreed immediately.

"Let's go!" Saber9 was even more straightforward.

Since he saw that everyone was unanimous in their agreement, Lin Huang did not object any further.

He was not worried at all that he might die. After all, he had the abilities from Monster Paradise. As long as he was not killed by lord-level powerhouses, he could be revived with full health.

He had intentionally brought this up earlier since he was mainly worried that Tu Tong and Lan Ling might not possess sufficient ability. However, since the two of them had agreed, he could not really say anything more.

After deciding on the direction, they headed straight to the foggy swamp.

"You don't need to worry about us. In reality, there are many such foggy swamps in the Abyss. It shouldn't be a problem as long as we're careful," Lan Ling suddenly said to Lin Huang through voice transmission as they were on the way, "Also, my spell probing is effective most of the time in such foggy areas."

Lin Huang nodded at her slightly but did not reply.

All of them hurried along and soon arrived at the foggy swamp that Lin Huang had mentioned earlier.

White fog covered the place as far as the eye could see, dense as clouds.

They could not see anything of the swamp at all.

If anyone were to barge in carelessly, however, they might fall into the swamp immediately and be corroded to death.

Very wisely, Lin Huang and the others paused in front of the fog.

Virtuoso and the rest all looked at Lan Ling.

She was also aware that it was time for her to demonstrate her abilities.

She rolled up both of her sleeves and swiftly began performing complex hand seals with both hands.

A moment later, incantations like tiny snakes appeared on her skinny arms immediately, squirming about rapidly on them as if they were alive.

She abruptly pressed both palms onto the ground, and the incantations swiftly began to wriggle into the earth.

After that, she sat with her legs crossed and closed her eyes.

Quite sometime later, Lan Ling finally opened her eyes slowly. However, she could not help but frown. "My probing technique is experiencing a significant blockage in this foggy area."

"How far can you probe?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

"The distance is even shorter than in the Demonic Bug Maze, 10 kilometers at most," Lan Ling said helplessly, "This fog seems to have the ability to absorb spells and refract them. The further I probe, the faster the spell wears out—you could say it's exponentially effective."

"If I'm not wrong, your spell isn't the only thing that's being affected here." Lin Huang released a wisp of Divine Telekinesis as he spoke. As expected, it experienced extreme blockage.

He could clearly sense that the fog was absorbing his telekinesis. Once his Divine Telekinesis was swallowed up by the fog, it disappeared into it and vanished entirely. Even information feedback was significantly affected.

"I can't use my Divine Telekinesis either," Lin Huang reported the results of his experiment after he tried. His Divine Telekinesis could only extend to just about 1,000 meters in this fog.

Virtuoso and the rest tried their Divine Telekinesis too after hearing what Lin Huang had said and quickly came to the same conclusion.

"We can only rely on you now," Tu Tong said, smiling at Lan Ling.

"Lead the way, Xiao Lanlan," Virtuoso too turned their head to look at Lan Ling.

She nodded immediately and said, "Let's go into the swamp from the 12 o'clock direction, that is, straight ahead.

"Be careful, however; the swamp contains many Enchanted Toads and Poison Arrow Frogs. If we're merely attacked, it won't be something life-threatening. However, if we fall into the swamp, there's a high chance that we'd be contaminated by the dense Abyssal energy and become Abyssal creatures."

"Don't make it sound so scary, can you?" From off to one side, Tu Tong gave a forced, rather stiff smile. "This place is already dangerous enough. Now that you've said this, I don't want to go in at all."

"What's the point of your current physique then!" Lan Ling's lips curled slightly. "You're good to look at, but you're useless."

"I'll lead the way," Lin Huang volunteered the suggestion.

He was not doing this to show off but because he possessed Mirror (the upgraded version of Dark Mirror), an unbelievably powerful defensive technique.

If he took the lead, this would minimize his other teammates' casualties.

"Both of us will bring up the rear." Saber9 nodded as well.

Naturally, he meant himself and Virtuoso when he said, "Both of us."

Once the three of them had taken their positions, the remaining two naturally stood in the middle, which was also the safest position in the entire team.

Lin Huang took the first step into the foggy area. His figure levitated into the air slightly, approximately a meter above the swamp beneath.

He chose that particular height because the fog was too dense; any higher, and he would not be able to see the surface of the swamp anymore.

In this foggy area, everyone's Divine Telekinesis was severely constrained. The information they sensed might be incomplete; for now, they could only rely on their eyes to help.

Even though Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis was powerful beyond compare, his sensing range was limited to approximately one thousand meters only. The further the range, the more blurry the images he sensed. Some images were even distorted, so he had no way of identifying what they were.

This irritated Lin Huang because such severe limits on his Divine Telekinesis not only affected his accuracy in targeting his telekinetic flying daggers but also severely restricted his power.

"Please be careful," Virtuoso frowned lightly and said to everyone through voice transmission, "Every area of fog here has different effects. Right now, nobody knows if this fog does anything else other than affecting our sensing techniques, such as Divine Telekinesis. Since we haven't ascertained whether or not this fog poses any further threats, please keep the defenses on your armor activated at all times."

Before Lin Huang and the rest entered the foggy area, they had already taken precautions by activating their inner armor. The defense layer created by this armor automatically shielded their outer bodies.

Virtuoso reminded them again to prevent them from lowering their guard.

All of them nodded.

Lin Huang, who was at the forefront of the team, suddenly decreased his flying speed, looking through the dense fog in a specific direction.

In reality, his eyes were not able to see through the thick fog, but his Divine Telekinesis was able to sense that the area ahead was a gathering ground for Poison Arrow Frogs.

The Poison Arrow Frog was a type of monster that was inherently heavenly god-level from birth. However, unlike most heavenly god-level monsters, they were used to living in groups.

Their croaking could travel over long distances, attracting monsters of the same kind to gather.

Clearly, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy retained their old habits; they still enjoyed living in groups.

"There's a situation ahead?" Tu Tong hurriedly asked, being the first to notice Lin Huang slowing down

"There's a group of Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, at least fifty of them," Lin Huang said calmly.

"Can we go around them?" Tu Tong wanted to know.

However, it was not Lin Huang who answered this question, but Lan Ling. "We can't go around them. Not only are there Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, but also Enchanted Toads and Thousand-legged Snakes. The entire swamp seems to have been divided into various territories by different monsters. There are practically no areas that are safe."

Tu Tong was bereft of speech upon hearing that.

"We don't need to go around them; let's just forge straight ahead," Virtuoso suggested, "If everyone can be a little more careful, that would be good."

Only after that did Lin Huang lead everyone in flying forward.

However, before they could fly very far, black arrow-like gleams sped toward them like lightning.

It was the Poison Arrow Frogs' signature technique – the Poison Arrow Skill.

Simply put, they compressed the toxins in their bodies into fine, tiny arrows. They then imbued Divine Power, Rule Bending Power, and sequence power into those arrows, and shot them out of their mouths.

Such an attack not only contained poison that could easily kill powerhouses of the same combat strength, but it was also extremely fast. It was almost on par with an arrow cultivator of the same combat strength. The most frightening thing was that the Poison Arrow Frogs could utilize their technique continuously until they exhausted the toxins stored in their bodies.

Meanwhile, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy had even more terrifying poison arrows, as they contained a layer of Abyssal energy within them. Their power and corrosive abilities were undoubtedly elevated even further.

Seeing the poison arrows flying toward them, Virtuoso and the rest prepared to retaliate, but they noticed that Lin Huang had not unsheathed his sword at all.

Just when they thought that he was preparing to fight using telekinetic flying daggers, they saw Lin Huang extend a finger in the void.

With just a light tap of that finger, circle upon circle of black ripples appeared in the air. The ripples slowly spread, rapidly becoming a massive curved mirror, shielding the five of them behind it.

Virtuoso and the rest were able to see the poison arrows attacking them as they looked through the curved mirror; none of them thought Lin Huang's defense technique was a good idea. This was because such a technique would drain a massive amount of Divine Power once it was under siege. No matter how powerful Lin Huang was, it was impossible for him to have more Divine Power than the Poison Arrow Frogs.

Therefore, theoretically, Lin Huang's Divine Power would soon be depleted by the attacks of the Poison Arrow Frogs and the mirror-like shield would collapse sooner or later.

'Is this fellow planning to charge ahead with the shield?' Virtuoso and the rest did not stop Lin Huang's near-suicidal behavior because they all had the same misunderstanding.

However, very soon, they saw something that shocked them.

When the poison arrows hit the curved mirror, they bounced back right away practically without pause. Wherever they had been shot from was where they returned to.

The group could even clearly hear the Frogs' devastating cries from far away.

Virtuoso and the rest had no idea what to say when they saw such an extraordinary scene.

Under normal circumstances, the more frequently the Poison Arrow Frogs attacked, the more powerful their attacks would become.

However, this time, the Poison Arrow Frogs' attacks began to weaken not long after they began.

Not only was the frequency of the attacks plummeting at a speed visible to the naked eye, but their power was also draining away.

Even the Frogs' devastating cries decreased continuously, becoming subsequently weaker.

Two minutes later, the entire swamp fell silent after the last cry from the Frogs was heard.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling looked at Lin Huang, mouths agape, while off to one side, Saber9's expression was a complex mixture of emotions. Virtuoso's expression could not be seen as their face was covered by their mask. However, the rest imagined that Virtuoso was shocked as well.

From beginning to end, Lin Huang had merely held up an odd, mirror-like shield. He had done nothing else after that, and the entire group of Poison Arrow Frogs was completely annihilated within less than three minutes.

This technique was downright terrifying!

If they had not seen it with their own eyes, perhaps Tu Tong and the rest would not have believed that this was really happening right in front of them.

Noticing that the Poison Arrow Frogs were quiet now, Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis for a round of probing. He only recalled Mirror after making sure that the Poison Arrow Frogs were all dead. Retrieving the carcasses with telekinetic threads one after the other, he put them all away into his space storage right in front of the others.

The rest finally discovered the exact number of Poison Arrow Frogs—58 of them.

"Let's go," Lin Huang glanced at the rest behind him after putting away the carcasses, then hurried straight ahead.

Virtuoso and the rest followed him immediately.

"That skill that you used… what's the most powerful attack it can defend against?" Saber9 hesitated for quite a while but finally could not restrain himself from asking.

"Ten times that of my strongest attack." Lin Huang did not conceal this fact; there was no need to hide such a thing anyway since, in reality, no one knew exactly how powerful his strongest attack was.

Even Virtuoso raised their brows under their mask upon hearing that.

"How about the refraction? How powerful of an attack can it refract?" Saber9 asked again.

"The same," Lin Huang's answer was concise.

However, Tu Tong and the rest inhaled sharply when they heard that…

As a member of the Club as well, Virtuoso's Primordial had actually done a thorough investigation on Lin Huang.

Not only did they know he was a sword cultivator and a psychic, they even knew of his identity as an Imperial Censor—something that people in the God Territory had no idea about.

Despite that, they still saw Lin Huang performing incredible techniques over and over again during this trip together.

No matter if it was the probing ability that he had revealed in the Disaster Abyss Land previously or the defense technique he had just performed in the foggy swamp—there were no such records of anything like it in the Club.

Initially, Virtuoso had invited Lin Huang to join the team merely for his combat abilities. Given his abilities as both a sword cultivator and a psychic, it meant that his attack power would not only be stunning, but he would also have extremely powerful long-distance attack techniques.

However, Lin Huang had demonstrated far more comprehensive abilities than Virtuoso had initially expected.

With his shield, the team was moving forward much faster than they had expected in the foggy swamp, practically without any obstacles.

Mirror's defense and refractive abilities were just too terrifying. Virtuoso and Saber9 were even a little doubtful if a ninth-rank Heavenly God might be able to break through Lin Huang's current defenses.

"There's a group of Fiendish Swamp Monsters ahead. Do we go around them?" Lan Ling suddenly asked as the team moved forward.

She asked this because the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were rather unique creatures.

They could transform themselves into a part of the swamp and hide perfectly in any swamp terrain. When they were hiding, most probing techniques would not work on them, including Divine Telekinesis.

Naturally, Divine Telekinesis was not entirely useless. If one's combat strength was a level higher than the Fiendish Swamp Monsters, the monsters could not hide from being sensed by Divine Telekinesis.

Apart from being able to conceal themselves, the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were also experts in covert killing. With their perfect camouflage, their attacks were almost entirely unpredictable.

Their covert killing skills were even more dangerous within the toxic swamp's terrain. If their prey fell into the swamp, there was almost no chance of escaping.

In a foggy area, almost everyone would choose to circumvent monsters that they would not be able to sense.

That was why Lan Ling still asked such a question, even though they were progressing swiftly on their way without any obstacles.

Virtuoso did not answer the question upon hearing it. Instead, they and Saber9 looked at Lin Huang.

"There's no need to go around; just continue straight ahead." There was no change of expression on Lin Huang's face at all.

The rest were relieved to hear this. Since Lin Huang had said that, it meant he was confident about passing through the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' gathering area.

Soon after they moved forward, Lan Ling suddenly gave warning, "There are Fiendish Swamp Monsters hiding approximately one thousand meters ahead."

Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis but found nothing.

He could not help secretly exclaiming that Lan Ling's spell probing technique was indeed extremely useful.

Lin Huang sent out his Divine Telekinesis again after the team had advanced for several hundred meters. He thought that perhaps he would find something with his Divine Telekinesis since they were closer now. However, he still did not sense anything unusual. The swamp seemed peaceful; apart from a ground full of mud and mire, there was nothing else.

Aside from Lin Huang, Virtuoso and the rest also sent out their Divine Telekinesis and found nothing either.

If not for Lan Ling's spell detection sensing those Fiendish Swamp Monsters, perhaps the entire team would have fallen into the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' trap.

The group continued moving forward, but the Fiendish Swamp Monster restrained itself and did not attack.

It only attacked at last when Lin Huang and the rest flew by above it.

Over a hundred coal-black tentacles shot up from the swamp as if a volcano had erupted, ensnaring the team like a massive web, as if it wanted to capture all five of them.

If Lan Ling had not given advance warning, this ambush that came out of nowhere might really have succeeded. Although it was hard to capture Lin Huang and the others, the attack was enough to put them in an awkward situation for a while.

However, since Lan Ling had mentioned it to them earlier, they had come prepared.

The moment the Fiendish Swamp Monster attacked, Lin Huang held Mirror under everyone's bodies.

The tentacles above that were about to ensnare everyone were blocked directly. To be precise, not only were they blocked, but the hundred-over tentacles bounced back the moment they collided with Mirror.

The Fiendish Swamp Monster that had made the covert attack clearly had not foreseen this happening. Before it could react, its hundred-over tentacles had been stabbed full of holes like a sieve. In the blink of an eye, its life force was gone.

Its disgusting green carcass floated up from the swamp, and everyone was finally able to see what the monster really looked like.

It was a soft-bodied monster, entirely green in color. It had multiple tumors of various sizes on its skin like a toad, and its entire body exuded a rotten, pungent stench that was worse than the swamp.

As for the tentacles it had extended earlier, it was not that the monster had tentacles. Instead, it had simulated them with its body.

After sensing the Fiendish Swamp Monster's death, as well as the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that surged into his body, Lin Huang raised his brows, puzzled.

Although this Fiendish Swamp Monster only had the combat strength of a fourth-rank Heavenly God, the amount of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he obtained from it were far higher than most monsters of the same combat strength. It was only slightly less than the Gluttons and Greeds of the same combat strength.

This was an unexpectedly pleasurable surprise for Lin Huang.

'I wonder if this is a special case, or if all Fiendish Swamp Monsters master a great many Rule Bending Powers…' Lin Huang had his doubts, but he knew the answer to his question would soon be revealed.

Very soon, the team encountered a second Fiendish Swamp Monster.

Lin Huang took the lead in killing it and once more plundered a great number of Rule Bending Powers again.

It was the same for the subsequent third and fourth Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Each of them provided him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.

This allowed Lin Huang to be certain that Fiendish Swamp Monsters would provide a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers, and that the first one was not just a special case.

However, he could not quite understand why such a monster would have such an extraordinarily large number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers—far beyond the usual amount.

He continued to puzzle over this until Virtuoso unintentionally mentioned that Fiendish Swamp Monsters were actually saprophagous monsters that would clear the swamp of all debris. Their method of doing so was to swallow everything.

This made Lin Huang speculate that the Fiendish Swamp Monsters had an ability similar to Gluttons, whereby they could obtain Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from powerhouses' dead bodies.

However, just like Gluttons, although they obtained many Rule Bending Power and sequence power, they could not use many of them. Their overall ability was no more powerful than monsters of the same level.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang was able to take advantage of the monsters' trait of possessing many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers.

Lin Huang—who was initially not interested in the Fiendish Swamp Monsters—had his interest piqued considerably after confirming that such monsters could provide him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.

He was now in a rather enthusiastic hunting frame of mind, having fallen into manic monster-hunting mode ever since the Gluttons and the Greeds…

Lin Huang spent less than twenty minutes killing all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way, plundering millions of Rule Bending Powers.

If not for the consideration that he was still a part of Virtuoso's team, he would most certainly have killed all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters in the area instead of only killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way; none of them would have been spared. After all, these were monsters that gave him EXP and they were hard to come by.

After leaving the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' territory, the team continued moving forward.

Lan Ling used her spell probe, again and again, attempting to locate the unusual place that Virtuoso had mentioned. However, her efforts were of no avail.

As they had Lin Huang with them, they passed through the monsters' gathering areas one after the other without any difficulty.

Despite this, their progress was not exactly swift.

After all, their senses were impeded. Not only that, there was danger almost everywhere in this swamp area.

After passing by a monster-gathering area, Lan Ling initiated a new round of probing.

She opened her eyes a moment later. "There's a Demonic Fir Forest ahead of us…"

She glanced at Lin Huang after saying that and hesitated a moment before asking, "Do we go around it?"

The last time she asked that question had been when they had encountered the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.

As if worried that Lin Huang might not understand the situation, she added, "The situation in the Demonic Fir Forest is rather complicated. Apart from the Demonic Firs having inherently powerful territorial instincts and extremely powerful offensive capabilities, there are many tribes that live in symbiosis with them in the Demonic Fir Forest—for instance, the Dead Spirit Vines, Fish Apes, Lightning Snakes, and so on…"

Lin Huang's eyes lit up when he heard that.

As far as he was concerned, the more monsters there were, the more rules he could plunder.

One must know that he had reaped an abundance of EXP before hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Subsequent rounds after that had gotten him less than one-third of the EXP he had obtained from killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.

Now, upon hearing that there were many types of monsters in the Demonic Fir Forest, his first thought was that this was the perfect chance to gain a massive amount of EXP. Naturally, he would not let such an opportunity pass him by.

"Let's just go in." Lin Huang glanced at Virtuoso beside him after saying that. "What if the phantom city's entrance is in this forest? We'd miss it if we detour around it."

He said this intentionally as he was worried that everyone would opt for going around it.

However, what he said made some sense.

If the entrance to the phantom city was within this Demonic Fir Forest, they would completely miss it if they made a detour around the Forest. It would also mean that their journey into the foggy swamp was all for naught.

Virtuoso had initially chosen to explore this area, as they suspected that it might be the phantom city's entrance.

"Let's go in then." Virtuoso pondered for a while but still nodded in the end.

The rest made no objections after Virtuoso had spoken.

After all, Virtuoso was the one who had formed the team. The main objective for them gathering in the Abyss was to help Virtuoso obtain the castellan's seal of Phantom City.

After confirming that they would not detour around, Lin Huang once again blazed the trail. Leading the team, he flew into the Demonic Fir Forest area up ahead.

…

The Demonic Fir was a type of plant monster. Actually, 'Demonic Fir' was the general overarching name for an entire category. There were many types of different Demonic Firs that fell under this category, and all of them had different names.

The monsters in the foggy area's Demonic Fir Forest were called Night Demon Firs.

This type of monster had a very unique characteristic—they were basically in a state of deep slumber during the day. During the day, even if people passed through the whole of the Demonic Fir Forest, they might not be attacked by even one Night Demon Fir. As long as their bodies did not touch the Night Demon Firs, and they did not make any loud noises, they basically would not wake the trees.

However, the Night Demon Firs would fully come alive at night.

Nighttime was party time for all Night Demon Firs; it was also their time for hunting.

They would extend their branches and use their blade-like leaves to shred apart any intruders that approached their territory.

However, the most frightening thing about the Demonic Fir Forest was not the Demonic Firs themselves, but the monsters that were living in symbiosis with them.

There might be powerful beings hiding among those monsters.

Lin Huang could not help being stunned when he saw the Night Demon Firs before him.

Although he had already read the information about the Demonic Firs much earlier on, he had not expected them to be so massive when he set eyes on them in person.

Each of these Firs had a diameter of over two meters. They were so tall that their tops were in the clouds.

At the same time, Lin Huang heard startled gasps near him.

"So big!" This exclamation came from Lan Ling.

"So thick!" This was from Tu Tong.

Lin Huang's thoughts took a slightly perverse turn when both exclamations came together.

However, at that moment, the several Night Demon Firs within their field of vision moved almost simultaneously.

Countless branches whipped out like lightning, the leaves on the twigs unfolding like blades.

If this attack had struck them, Lin Huang's entire group might have been sliced into countless lumps of meat immediately.

However, since they had come prepared, they were naturally not caught off guard. As soon as the Night Demon Firs attacked, they reacted at once.

Lin Huang's finger stabbed out, and a black mirror coalesced in front of him.

This time, he did not shield the rest.

He did this mainly because earlier, he had been too enthusiastic when he was hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters and did not give the rest the opportunity to showcase their skills. It was Virtuoso who suggested that he give Lan Ling and Tu Tong some opportunities for combat.

In subsequent battles, therefore, he had intentionally not taken special care to protect both of them.

Furthermore, the Night Demon Firs did not have stealth techniques, and their abilities could not be considered overwhelming. For Lan Ling and Tu Tong, these were the best combat opponents to practice on.

Naturally, he did not have to protect Virtuoso and Saber9.

Therefore, Lin Huang only protected himself when he raised his shield this time, ignoring the rest.

The several Night Demon Firs whipped their branches around maniacally as if they were dancing in the dark.

However, any branches that came at Lin Huang were flung back in a strange manner when they struck the black mirror in front of him. The fully-unfurled leaves on the branches were now aimed at the Night Demon Fir instead, wildly attacking it.

The Night Demon Fir was not an inherently intelligent monster. By the time it realized something was wrong, it was too late.

In an instant, countless leaves collided with the branches. Within less than half a second, the massive tree was left with a short, bald trunk stump jutting out from the ground, less than 18 centimeters high.

If there had been any onlookers who did not understand the reason for this, they might have been astonished and wondered why this Night Demon Fir had committed suicide.

Did it not have the confidence to live just because it looked too ordinary?

The battle on Lin Huang's side ended in no time at all. The entire process had taken less than half a second.

However, Virtuoso and the rest were still in combat.

After disposing of the Night Demon Fir that had attacked him, Lin Huang checked on the situation with the rest. He then turned his eyes away and closed them to feel the Rule Bending Powers surging into his body. A moment later, he suddenly opened his eyes, and there was a slight gleam in them.

This Night Demon Fir had provided a substantial amount of rules, only slightly less than Fiendish Swamp Monsters of the same combat strength.

This stirred up Lin Huang's hunting spirit, causing it to blaze once again.

"These trees are all EXP!"

For every ordinary fourth-rank Heavenly God that he killed, Lin Huang could obtain twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand types of Rule Bending Powers.

However, he obtained eighty thousand to one hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers just from killing one fourth-rank Night Demon Fir. It was almost four times more than what he could get from Heavenly Gods of the same combat strength.

The Night Demon Firs with higher combat strength would have even more Rule Bending Powers within their bodies.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, killing these monsters was undoubtedly the best way to obtain EXP.

As he led the team forward, apart from letting Tu Tong and Lan Ling practice on the beginner-level monsters, he would kill the rest right away. He did not give Virtuoso and Saber9 any combat opportunities at all.

Virtuoso and Saber9 did not say anything either. They had already begun to realize that Lin Huang seemed to be extra enthusiastic about killing specific monsters.

This was because he clearly did not bother to battle certain monsters, but others he would rush in to kill.

However, the two of them could not figure out what aroused Lin Huang's interest for killing these monsters. To them, the several types of monsters he was enthusiastic about killing did not seem to have anything in common.

The team continued moving ahead in the Demonic Fir Forest.

Very soon, Lin Huang had obtained over a million Rule Bending Powers easily. It was certainly more than several times faster than killing regular monsters.

Suddenly, Lan Ling issued a reminder, "There'll be Dead Spirit Vines ahead."

The Dead Spirit Vine was a parasitic vine monster that lived on the Demonic Firs. While simultaneously obtaining nutrients from the Demonic Firs, they would repay this by using their strength to help the Demonic Firs hunt. Their attacks were not physical like the Demonic Firs but directly targeted the spiritual-layer.

Once the Dead Spirit Vines had extracted more nutrients than the Demonic Firs could give out, the Dead Spirit Vines would usually choose to leave their host Demonic Firs and look for a more powerful Demonic Fir to live on as a parasite. This was to prevent the Demonic Firs from being harmed. Meanwhile, powerful Dead Spirit Vines that could not be satisfied by the nutrients provided by one Demonic Fir would live on multiple Demonic Firs at the same time to divide up the burden. However, such powerful Dead Spirit Vines usually possessed terrifying ability, which could support the hunting proclivities of multiple Demonic Firs.

The symbiotic relationship between the Dead Spirit Vines and Demonic Firs was a mutually beneficial virtuous cycle.

For the Night Demon Firs, the benefits they received from the Dead Spirit Vines was even greater. This was because the Dead Spirit Vines would take the initiative to hunt and kill any creatures that invaded their territory when the Night Demon Firs were asleep during the day.

Everyone in the team plucked up their courage when they heard Lan Ling's reminder, and were even more on their guard.

The Dead Spirit Vines' combat abilities were more powerful than Night Demon Firs of the same combat strength. Not only that, they had many techniques. Their overall ability would elevate significantly when they combined forces with the Demonic Firs to fight.

However, when Lin Huang heard Lan Ling's reminder, the first thought that flashed through his head was, 'Since they're the Night Demon Firs' parasites, wouldn't they have similar amounts of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers as the Night Demon Firs?!'

His eyes lit up again when he considered this.

If that were really the case, it would mean that he would gain double EXP—double the happiness!

Naturally, Virtuoso and the rest had no idea about these strange thoughts in his head.

Lin Huang led the team forward, seemingly cautious. Not far into the journey, they encountered a new round of stealth attacks.

This round was different from the previous battle, as this time the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines attacked simultaneously.

Vine silhouettes and branches extended, filling the air. The intensity of the attack was more than several times stronger than before; furthermore, this time the attacks targeted all the members of the team.

The members of the team were armed and ready for battle; even Saber9 looked much more serious now.

As for Virtuoso, although their expression was not visible under the mask, the rest could clearly see that they were no longer as relaxed as before.

Due to the intersecting attacks of vine silhouettes and tree branches, it was very hard to differentiate which were spiritual attacks from the Dead Spirit Vines, and which were the Night Demon Firs' physical attacks.

Lin Huang was the only one who felt unusually excited.

Seeing the attacks coming toward them, dense as rain, he stabbed a finger into the air, raising Mirror to shield everyone in the team.

This time, he raised Mirror without any trouble at all, as if he were worried that his comrades could not handle the monsters. However, Lin Huang was the only one who knew that the actual motivation behind this was so he could kill the monsters himself and obtain all the benefits.

Mirror steadily suspended itself in the air, over everyone's heads. Virtuoso and the rest were initially worried that it might not be able to provide any defense against spiritual attacks. However, they soon realized that Lin Huang's Mirror was much more powerful than they had ever imagined. Very quickly, they felt at ease and settled down to watch the scenario play out.

In the void, branches and vines surged toward the group like a furious storm. The moment they touched Mirror, however, they bounced back at an even faster speed.

On the heels of that, blood-curdling screams could be heard in the fog.

A moment later, the attacks that had blotted out the sky were completely gone, and the fog had also become silent.

Lin Huang had dominated the entire place with just one finger.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling were so utterly stunned, they could not snap back to their senses even a moment later.

Virtuoso and Sword9 looked at each other and saw astonishment in each other's eyes that was hard to conceal. This defense technique was practically invincible!

Lin Huang, on the other hand, stood where he was, sensing the massive number of rules that were surging into his body.

Just simply pointing a finger had gained him up to one million EXP's worth of rules.

He sensed that his earlier speculation had been confirmed as well.

Each Dead Spirit Vine had a similar number of rules to the Night Demon Firs that they latched onto as parasites.

The rewards he reaped this round really made him feel twice as happy!

After dispelling Mirror, Lin Huang extended his telekinetic threads one after the other to drag the carcasses back.

He was also finally able to see the Dead Spirit Vines' form.

It was a type of black rattan, the thickness of which varied from that of an adult's thigh to the size of a bucket. They were like massive boa constrictors.

What was more unusual was that all these rattans did not look entirely alike. Apart from a black-colored base, they were all different.

Some had sprouted thorns on their surfaces; some were full of fleshy tumors; some had scales, while some were covered with poisonous secretions…

Although the Dead Spirit Vines would divide into multiple branches when they attacked, one could imagine the consequences if one's soul were struck by those rattans.

Lan Ling and Tu Tong thought it was rather frightening as they watched from the sidelines.

"Store them up. Dead Spirit Vines are great materials for refining spirit weapons even in the universe," Virtuoso commented with a smile, "You should be able to sell them at a good price when we get out of here."

Lin Huang's brows shot up when he heard that. He had not expected to have an extra windfall like this.

Spirit-type god relics were usually expensive as the refinement materials were rare, what more the god sequence relics that Heavenly Gods used.

Naturally, the price for Dead Spirit Vines would be high as they were the main materials for refining god sequence relics. The demand would be high as well.

Lin Huang was even more interested in hunting Dead Spirit Vines now that Virtuoso had provided this information.

This was not merely double happiness—it was triple happiness!

The first round of battle where the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines combined their attacks was intense, but it also ended very rapidly.

As the team moved on ahead, the same thing happened in the second and third rounds.

With Lin Huang's Mirror, not a single attacking Night Demon Fir and Dead Spirit Vine could survive.

Virtuoso and the rest were feeling more and more stunned by the invincibility of this skill.

"Won't this skill… drain your Divine Power?" Lan Ling finally could not help asking after she had observed for a while along the way.

"How could that be possible?!" Lin Huang thought her question was rather baffling, but he explained patiently anyway, "Every time Mirror defends against an attack, one-tenth of my Divine Power is drained. If my opponent's attack contains spiritual power, Rule Bending Power or sequence power, I'll drain one-tenth of their spiritual power, Rule Bending Power or sequence power."

After listening to this explanation, Virtuoso and the rest thought this skill called Mirror was even more incredible.

Lin Huang could send his opponents' attacks back at them just by draining one-tenth of his Divine Power.

This was the equivalent of doing practically nothing except holding up Mirror, and his enemies would have their powers drained.

The reason for this was because no matter what attack his opponent sent at him, the drain on Lin Huang's side would forever be one-tenth of his opponent's powers.

Saber9 fell into deep contemplation after hearing Lin Huang's explanation; he was thinking of a way to counter Lin Huang's attack. However, no matter how hard he thought, he could only come up with two ways of doing so.

One was for the power of the attack to exceed Mirror's limit, which meant that it had to exceed ten times that of Lin Huang's most powerful attack. He felt that perhaps even most ninth-rank Heavenly Gods could not achieve this.

The other way was to surround Lin Huang with a multitude.

Although a single person would find it hard to drain Lin Huang's Divine Power, as long as there were enough opponents, they would be able to completely exhaust his Divine Power sooner or later.

Naturally, Saber9 was not wrong in his idea, but what he did not know was that the density of Lin Huang's Divine Power far exceeded that of ordinary people. Draining the Divine Power within Lin Huang's body like that would require many more individuals than Saber9 had anticipated.

As the team moved on in the fog, the number of rules that Lin Huang obtained also increased.

Within less than half an hour even, the number of rules within him had skyrocketed to tens of millions.

However, they seemed to be going deeper into the Demonic Fir Forest. The further they went, the higher the combat strength of the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines. The frequency of Lin Huang and the rest encountering other monsters living in groups in the Demonic Forest increased as well.

Although Virtuoso and the rest began participating in combat, Lin Huang's efficiency in obtaining rules only increased.

Over an hour later, the number of rules within Lin Huang's body had broken through to one hundred million.

However, he was still only halfway to breaking through to ninth-rank.

He was extraordinarily excited. If not for Virtuoso and the rest being present, he would have stayed to hunt until his combat strength achieved another breakthrough.

Right in the midst of Lin Huang's enthusiastic killing spree, Lan Ling's voice suddenly came through.

"There might be a powerful Dead Spirit Vine approximately ten kilometers ahead…"

"Can't you confirm the probe results?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

"It isn't that—I didn't detect the Dead Spirit Vine, but I detected trails similar to those left behind by Dead Spirit Vines slithering through," Lan Ling paused, then continued, "Judging by the trails, this Dead Spirit Vine is at least three meters thick…"

Virtuoso fell silent after hearing what she said.

"Three meters thick?! Are you sure about that?" Lin Huang could not help asking. Even he thought that was quite unbelievable.

It must be noted that most of the Dead Spirit Vines Lin Huang's group had encountered were merely as thick as an adult's thigh, while the thickest one was as thick as a bucket. Basically, they did not see many that were half a meter in diameter. Naturally, everyone was doubtful when Lan Ling reported that the Dead Spirit Vine was three meters thick.

"I'm very certain about how thick it is!" Lan Ling added after that, "However, it also might be left behind by monsters such as boa constrictors."

"If it's really a Dead Spirit Vine of that size, its combat strength might be above ninth-rank. There's a high possibility that it might be a half-step Lord as well," Virtuoso said, glancing at Saber9 and Lin Huang.

Saber9 said nothing. Instead, he looked at Lin Huang.

Lin Huang noticed everyone looking at him and knew that they were waiting for him to voice his opinion."I definitely can't kill a half-step Lord. But… I think we can go check it out first. What if it's not a half-step Lord?"

"What if it is, though?" Virtuoso asked Lin Huang.

"If it is, I have a way of escape." Lin Huang was not particularly worried; at most, he could utilize a substitute for death so he would not die. "However, the chances of the rest of you dying will be very high…

"That's not acceptable. Why don't I go check it out first?" Lin Huang suggested again.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just detour around it?" Tu Tong could not help commenting.

"Lan Ling merely detected suspicious trails on the ground. Even if it's really a Dead Spirit Vine, we have no guarantee that it will linger in that area. Other areas might not be safe either. After all, such a massive Dead Spirit Vine is sure to have many Night Demon Firs protecting it—we have no way of knowing where the borders of their protected area lie anyway.

"Furthermore, the area under this Dead Spirit Vine's protection ought to be massive. We can't rule out the possibility that the phantom city's entrance is within this area."

The latter part of Lin Huang's comment was also the reason for Virtuoso's hesitation.

If not for this consideration, Virtuoso would definitely have let everyone detour without hesitation. He, too, was unwilling to take on a half-step Lord powerhouse.

Saber9 said nothing; he had realized this as well.

Seeing that Virtuoso was taking a long time to make up his mind, Saber9 finally spoke up.

"How about this—we'll leave the two young ones here, and the three of us will go check it out first."

He obviously meant Lan Ling and Tu Tong when he referred to 'the two young ones.' By now, he was treating Lin Huang entirely as a senior of the same level.

Virtuoso nodded only after Saber9 said this. "Let's do that then."

"Are you sure you won't die if we encounter a half-step Lord?" Lin Huang looked at Virtuoso and Saber9. "If you're not confident of that, then it's better if I go on my own."

"You're underestimating us a little too much," Virtuoso snapped, annoyed.

"My Primordium left me something for my survival." Surprisingly, Saber9 was much more frank.

Although Virtuoso said nothing, they clearly had a similar method.

"That's no problem then." Lin Huang had no more objections.

Virtuoso turned around and looked at Lan Ling and Tu Tong. "Both of you stay here. We'll contact you after we've done some reconnaissance."

The pair nodded immediately. Although Virtuoso was not their master's Primordium, Virtuoso was their master's clone after all. They did not dare disobey an order Virtuoso had given.

Lin Huang led Saber9 and Virtuoso ahead after Virtuoso had given instructions to Tu Tong and Lan Ling.

Lan Ling watched the three of them disappear into the fog. After a long while, she said in a tiny voice, "Master also left us a survival method…"

Beside her, Tu Tong patted her shoulder. "We'll just mess things up if we go with them. We'd better wait obediently here and see what they find."

Lin Huang led his team of three forward after leaving Lan Ling and Tu Tong behind.

After two rounds of being attacked by monsters, they finally saw the trail left behind by the Dead Spirit Vine that Lan Ling had mentioned.

It was a shallow gully, but its diameter was approximately three meters wide. It looked very much as if a massive creature approximately three meters wide had pressed down on the road as it went, leaving such a trail behind.

When they saw the gully, Lin Huang and the other two scanned their surroundings with Divine Telekinesis, gathering whatever information they could.

"It ought to have been a few days since this trail was left behind. There are no aura remnants on it at all, and there's no trace of Divine Power and Rule Bending Power in the surrounding area," Saber9 was the first to speak up.

"Whether or not the trail was left by a Dead Spirit Vine, it should have been a while since it appeared nearby." Lin Huang nodded lightly. "It might not be around here anymore."

"We're here anyway, so let's just look around." Virtuoso did not seem content for them to have wasted their time coming here.

Lin Huang and Saber9 had no objections to this. All of them continued moving forward, following the direction where the gully extended.

After advancing for a short while, they soon noticed something unusual.

"There's not a single monster around, not even a Night Demon Fir…" Lin Huang frowned slightly and could not help raising his concerns. "Is this normal?"

"It's very strange," Saber9 answered before Virtuoso could speak.

"Can we ascertain what exactly the situation is?" Lin Huang fixed his gaze on Virtuoso when he asked that.

"We can't confirm anything for the time being," Virtuoso shook their head and replied in the negative.

Lin Huang's brows lifted when he heard this reply; he said nothing more after that.

Clearly, Virtuoso had some speculations but they could not confirm anything just yet.

Under such circumstances, it was futile to press them further.

If there were things essential for them to know, Virtuoso would definitely tell them.

The three continued moving forward, but the quietness around remained. No living things appeared within the sensing range of their Divine Telekinesis.

Not only were there no monsters, but there were also no Night Demon Firs or even Dead Spirit Vines.

Lin Huang even had faint suspicions about whether or not they had already left the Demon Fir Forest area.

The three flew on in this manner for over ten minutes before their Divine Telekinesis finally sensed a dense Night Demon Fir Forest coming up ahead.

They immediately had their guards up when they saw the Night Demon Fir Forest again.

Any anomalies happening that meant something was definitely wrong!

As expected, before they went too much further, they sensed a colossal monster hiding in the dense forest within the sensing range of their Divine Telekinesis.

It was a monster similar to a giant boa constrictor. The diameter of its torso was at least three meters wide.

Although they had only sensed part of the monster's body, they immediately speculated that this was the monster that had previously left the trail on the ground.

Judging by its aura, Lin Huang and the others were sure that this monster was a Dead Spirit Vine.

It was an unusually massive Dead Spirit Vine!

Almost as soon as their Divine Telekinesis picked up on the Dead Spirit Vine, the Dead Spirit Vine also became aware of their Divine Telekinesis.

At the same time, Lin Huang and the others felt an overwhelming Divine Telekinesis sweeping through, then locking onto each of them.

Their expressions immediately changed, as they could clearly sense that the strength of this creature's Divine Telekinesis had exceeded the standard of a Heavenly God.

As the Divine Telekinesis locked onto them, a terrifying suppression descended.

The three of them felt a sudden weight on their shoulders, as if something heavy was pressing down on them.

The suppression was so powerful that it felt tangible, directly affecting their movements.

In the face of this wave of suppression, a long saber quickly coalesced in Saber9's hand. From head to toe, his Saber Dao heavenly rule activated at its peak, while his saber force soared, forcibly contending against the suppression.

Virtuoso's form, on the other hand, began turning illusory. Their body appeared to be an illusion stacked upon with many layers; it looked extremely creepy.

Instead of contending against the suppression like Saber9, Virtuoso chose to offload the force. They used countless illusory clones to share the suppression load. The final remaining force on their body was almost non-existent.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang consolidated Sword Dao heavenly rule within his body, battle sword in hand. Terrifying sword force emanated from him, consolidating a blood-red sword-wielding shadow above his head.

The shadow wore scarlet battle armor, and the sword in its grasp was 90% similar to Nebula, the battle sword Lin Huang wielded.

However, the shadow was entirely wreathed in red mist so its face could not be seen clearly.

Saber9 and Virtuoso were stunned when they saw the shadow consolidating above Lin Huang's head.

Naturally, they knew what this shadow consolidated from sword force meant.

This was the projection of Great Dao Will. Only powerhouses who had touched Dao could bring about the emergence of Great Dao Will to project such a phenomenon.

The appearance of the shadow proved that Lin Huang's Sword Dao had already touched the threshold of Dao.

Even Lin Huang thought it was strange when he saw the appearance of the shadow. Naturally, he knew what it was. However, he knew that the Great Dao Will's projection had very little to do with his Sword Dao level.

After all, his Sword Dao heavenly rule had only just crossed the threshold of Heavenly Heart—he was still very far from reaching Heavenly Dao.

The emergence of the Great Dao Will might have been caused by the presence of the Sword seal within his body.

However, he did not have the time to dwell on the matter as he had to face a powerful enemy.

After the appearance of the Great Dao Will, the suppression from the Dead Spirit Vine disappeared completely. This also boosted Lin Huang's confidence.

He was not satisfied with merely removing the pressure coming from the suppression. From what he could see, the three of them would be attacked sooner or later since the Dead Spirit Vine's Divine Telekinesis had locked onto them.

He would seize the chance to gain the upper hand now that the pressure had been dispelled before his opponent could make another move.

Lin Huang hesitated no further at this point.

The battle sword in his hand transformed into a long, narrow blade.

Weapon in both hands, his figure turned into a blood-red electric arc as he charged in the direction of the Dead Spirit Vine.

Almost simultaneously, the giant projection above his head moved as well, doing the exact same thing he was doing.

At the same time that Lin Huang moved, the Dead Spirit Vine moved too.

Countless rattans surged forward like a tangle of snakes, sweeping toward the three of them like a tsunami.

At the same time that the Dead Spirit Vine attacked, the Night Demon Firs in the forest ahead also extended their branches to join in the massacre.

In comparison, Lin Huang seemed like a solitary ant charging at an ocean wave. He looked unbelievably tiny.

Behind him, Virtuoso and Saber9 had not expected him to be so extreme.

He had unsheathed his sword for the kill without a single word.

However, after a mere second's delay, they reacted immediately.

The two looked at each other and immediately understood what the other was thinking.

When facing a powerful enemy, there was no fleeing—only battle!

Golden saber gleams filled the sky along with countless white palm prints, attacking the rattan horde, leaving the way free for Lin Huang and clearing the surroundings…

Countless rattans and branches intersected, practically blotting out the entire sky as they surged forth like a tsunami.

Lin Huang and the other two were like three little boats traveling in the waves, against the wind. They looked as if their boats would capsize anytime.

In the face of an opponent suspected to be half-step lord-level, the three of them showed no fear at all.

Countless rattans were crushed into dust as they were swallowed up by Lin Huang's blood-red sword gleam.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso and Saber9, who were behind him on both sides, held nothing back in their attacks. Wave upon wave of palm prints and saber gleams filled the sky with brilliant golden and white luster.

Both of them were fighting as hard as they could so Lin Huang could have an opportunity to attack.

The three of them surrounded the opponent on three fronts and tore a rift in the massive wave by force.

If one were to watch from above, it was as if a strand of golden, red, and white thread was going against the current amid the massive tsunami-like wave without a single pause along the way.

Quite some time later, the thread made it to the top of the wave at last.

Lin Huang and the other two also finally saw the culprit that had attacked earlier—the Dead Spirit Vine.

Within the Night Demon Fir Forest that had now collapsed to the ground, a gigantic Dead Spirit Vine seemed to be staring at the three of them like a snake.

Lin Huang and the other two had yet to catch a glimpse of its entire form, but while the Dead Spirit Vine was slithering, they were also able to see scales on it that looked like those of a dragon.

If not for their Divine Telekinesis having sensed things, they might have thought that it was a Dragon Tribe monster terrorizing the place if they had relied on the evidence of their eyes.

However, Virtuoso and Saber9 knew very well that this Dead Spirit Vine having such scales on its surface was very likely because it had swallowed a member of the Dragon Tribe or a Dragon Tribe member's remains.

When it saw Lin Huang and the others approaching, the strength and frequency of the Dead Spirit Vine's attacks peaked almost immediately.

However, Lin Huang merely made a grand gesture, and Mirror appeared as a shield in front of the three of them, completely blocking all the attacks.

Countless rattans and branches were deflected back when they hit Mirror, landing on the Dead Spirit Vine's massive body.

"This fellow isn't a half-step Lord!" Lin Huang confirmed as soon as he witnessed Mirror taking effect. He shared the news with Virtuoso and Saber9 through voice transmission.

Virtuoso and Saber9 already had their suspicions when the three of them managed to tear a rift through the wave of rattans. However, they also considered that since they were just attacking casually, the Dead Spirit Vine might not be taking them seriously, so its attack strength was rather weak.

However, now the three of them were almost right in front of it.

By all normal logic, it was impossible that this Dead Spirit Vine would hold back on its attacks. At this point, the power of its attacks would definitely be at its usual standard, perhaps even stronger.

However, its attack did not break through Lin Huang's Mirror's defense. It clearly proved that its combat strength was not yet at half-step lord-level.

The three of them heaved a sigh of relief after confirming that the Dead Spirit Vine was not a half-step Lord, but merely a peak ninth-rank powerhouse.

They looked at each other, and it seemed that all of them could read the excitement in each others' eyes.

Now that there was no longer the fear of fighting a half-step Lord, all three's hunting enthusiasm suddenly soared to the highest level.

They had never encountered a peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse before. It was the most powerful enemy they had ever fought, which was why their will to fight skyrocketed

The Dead Spirit Vine also appeared to have sensed the three's intentions and became fully enraged.

Countless rattans swarmed from all directions, descending upon them like torrents of rain.

Lin Huang moved his fingers slightly, and Mirror turned into a sphere immediately, enveloping himself, Virtuoso, and Saber9. It countered this round of attack flawlessly.

"Is your Divine Power and Rule Bending Power enough to defend against such an attack?" Virtuoso could not help asking.

Beside them, Saber9 had the same doubts, and he looked at Lin Huang as well.

"I'll give advance notice if I'm running out." Lin Huang's expression was calm with no hint of concern. "I'm not one of those stubborn people who's afraid of admitting defeat."

The duo was relieved as they could tell by Lin Huang's expression that he could handle it.

In reality, Dead Spirit Vine's attack did not last very long either.

It seemed to sense that its attack could not break through Lin Huang's defense, and completely abandoned the attempt after less than five minutes.

After all, an attack of such frequency and intensity was a great drain and burden to it.

Most importantly, Lin Huang's defensive skill was savage. Many attacks were deflected back at it—the gains did not make up for the losses. Although the deflected attacks could not harm the Vine on a physical level, more of its Divine Power and sequence power would be drained to defend itself against them.

Noticing that the Dead Spirit Vine's attacks had weakened, Lin Huang immediately dispelled Mirror that was enveloping them.

He had no idea what Virtuoso and Saber9 had in mind but to him, the Dead Spirit Vine was undoubtedly a massive EXP pack.

The fourth-rank heavenly god-level Dead Spirit Vine from before had provided him with over one hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers. The number of rules within this peak ninth-rank Dead Spirit Vine would definitely be considerable.

However, what he had not expected was that Virtuoso and Saber9 would fight for this monster as well.

As soon as Mirror was dispelled, Virtuoso attacked the Dead Spirit Vine first before Lin Huang could react.

Their jade-like white palms struck out, transforming into tens of thousands of palm prints in the void, all targeting the Dead Spirit Vine.

Almost simultaneously when Virtuoso attacked, countless golden saber gleams consolidated in front of Saber9, surging toward the Dead Spirit Vine like a storm.

Lin Huang was rather confused as to why both of them were even more enthusiastic than he was.

Naturally, he would not back down. If they killed this monster, he might need to spend a few days making up for the EXP that he would lose.

He attacked without hesitation, and it was an extremely powerful attack.

He charged with eleven compounded levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule.

A brilliant blood-red glow lit up on the blade at once.

The power of the attack was like a massive blood-red sun descending upon the world. Even the fog around Lin Huang faded a little.

Meanwhile, the sword-wielding Great Dao Will above his head did exactly the same thing.

The gargantuan sword in its hand shone with a red glow that light up the area for miles.

Two red glows, one large and one small, gradually integrated within the void. As Lin Huang swung his sword, the glows turned into an invincible shockwave that shot out…

The Dead Spirit Vine seemed to have sensed this fatal threat, and completely abandoned dealing with Virtuoso and Saber9's attacks. It sent all of its rattans surging forward in an attempt to defend itself against Lin Huang's assault.

However, all of the rattans turned into dust whenever the blood-red shockwave passed by; they did not manage to block the attack at all. The velocity of the attack did not slow down either, not even a little.

Sensing that its defense had failed, the Dead Spirit Vine finally thought of running away. However, it could not escape in time as it was too big.

Almost as soon as the thought of fleeing entered its head, its body was struck by the blood-red shockwave. The shockwave pierced through its body almost effortlessly, leaving a giant hole that was over a meter in diameter on its torso.

The Dead Spirit Vine could sense a terrifying sequence power rushing into its wound, spreading rapidly in all directions.

Meanwhile, its body began to collapse, starting from the wound area…

Lin Huang felt satisfaction like never before as he sensed close to three million Rule Bending Powers surging into his body like a wave. The feeling was over ten thousand times better than soaking in a hot spring during winter.

When the Dead Spirit Vine's carcass collapsed, Lin Huang, who had just devoured all of the Rule Bending Powers, suddenly felt an overwhelming Divine Telekinesis sweeping through.

The suppression coming from the wave of Divine Telekinesis was many times more powerful than this last Dead Spirit Vine.

Saber9 and Virtuoso clearly sensed the same thing. Their newly-relaxed nerves grew tense again. Under the force of this overwhelming suppression, they both even had their knees bowed slightly, and their breathing was visibly more labored now…

Sensing the wave of terrifying suppression, Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso all had a change of expression.

The Dead Spirit Vine just now was already a peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse. The current suppression was so powerful that it was already at the next level. It was obviously a half-step Lord, no doubt about it.

Although Lin Huang was curious about how much of a difference there was between his ability and that of a half-step Lord, he knew very well that this newly-emerged enemy had exceeded the range of what he could handle. He began having thoughts of retreating.

He had dared to attack without hesitation when confronting the Dead Spirit Vine earlier because the suppression from his opponent was not powerful enough to make him want to give up at once. The suppression this time, however, truly gave him the sense that he had met with an invincible foe.

His rational side reasoned that he had no chance of winning at all if the group were to battle their foe head-on. As soon as they fought, there would only be one conclusion, which was that their opponent would kill them.

Just when he was going to tell Virtuoso and Saber9 via voice transmission to retreat, Virtuoso's voice transmission came through first.

"Don't imagine how powerful the enemy might be. The stronger you think it is, the more powerful it will be!"

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard this, but he reacted immediately. "It's an illusion?!"

"You can think of it as that," Virtuoso responded.

At that moment, Lin Huang saw Virtuoso dispelling their defensive technique. Their knees, initially bent, gradually straightened. A moment later, they stood upright within the suppression, as if they were not affected at all.

"We've found Phantom City's entrance." Virtuoso's gaze seemed to have pierced through the fog, looking into the distance.

"Can we talk about entrances later—how do we settle the threat in front of us now?" Lin Huang asked through voice transmission immediately.

"That Dead Spirit Vine that we encountered earlier and this monster are Phantom City's gatekeepers. To put it simply, they're actually illusions that Phantom City created."

"So the Dead Spirit Vine that we killed earlier was an illusion as well?" Lin Huang's brows lifted when he heard that; he had his doubts.

The notifications that came from Xiao Hei were real enough. Meanwhile, the massive amount of Rule Bending Powers that surged into his body was real too.

If it were an illusion, Xiao Hei would certainly not have transmitted fatality notifications.

Virtuoso seemed to notice Lin Huang's doubts. They then explained further, "It wasn't a simple illusion, but a real illusion that's similar to my ability.

"If those who fall under the illusion think it's real, it will become real and can also interfere with reality. If they insist that it's fake, then it will merely be a fabricated illusion."

"Do you mean to say we wasted our efforts killing that Dead Spirit Vine earlier? When in reality, we could have ignored it completely?" Lin Huang was rather speechless.

"That's right. If we insist on believing that it's not real, it will just be imaginary." Virtuoso nodded. "There's only one way to pass through Phantom City's gatekeepers, which is to believe that they're not real."

"Can't we kill all of the gatekeepers by force?" Lin Huang raised his doubts.

"It's futile. A new gatekeeper will appear every time a gatekeeper is killed. Their abilities will be even more powerful, and their numbers will also increase," Virtuoso explained somewhat helplessly, "Theoretically, there is no upper limit to the gatekeeper's abilities.

"Furthermore, no Almighty would be bored enough to come to Phantom City to kill the gatekeepers just for fun."

While both of them were conversing, Lin Huang noticed that on the other side, Saber9 had stood up as well. He dispelled his defense technique, completely ignoring this wave of powerful, invincible suppression.

At that moment, a gigantic Night Demon Fir extended its branches. Countless leaves blotted out the entire sky in an instant, surrounding the entire space where the three of them were.

The dense branches were like endless tentacles, coming at Lin Huang and the other two from every direction.

"You must steadfastly believe that this attack is just imaginary and that the half-step Lord who launched it isn't real!" Virtuoso immediately said to Lin Huang through voice transmission as they saw the branches surging toward them like a wave.

Virtuoso already had a rough understanding of Lin Huang's abilities. Although Lin Huang was powerful, he was far from able to take on a half-step lord-level powerhouse.

If Lin Huang was hit by the attack, he would certainly die!

As his Divine Telekinesis sensed countless branches approaching the group, Lin Huang could not calm himself down. He instinctively wanted to counter and attack with his sword; he was completely unable to ignore this wave of threat.

A moment later, countless branches pierced through the fog. They pierced through Virtuoso and Saber9's bodies immediately, as if they were passing through two shadows.

The two of them did not defend, nor did they dodge, much less show signs of being struck by the attack.

The next second, over a hundred branches forced their way in front of Lin Huang. Instinctively, he called up Mirror in front of him to shield him.

However, Mirror only lasted for less than a second before it suddenly shattered. The branches directly stabbed through like metal knives piercing through glass.

Lin Huang spat a mouthful of blood. This was the backlash from Mirror's inability to take the attack and, thus, collapsing.

This was also Lin Huang's first time encountering a situation where Mirror had been shattered by an assault.

The branches easily pierced through Mirror and continued coming straight at Lin Huang.

Virtuoso and Saber9 were in a panic, but they could not help.

Watching the branches coming at him, Lin Huang suddenly closed his eyes slightly and moved his lips. His emotions soon calmed down.

An instant later, when he opened his eyes, a branch went straight through the middle of his brow. However, there was no trace of blood at all. A moment later, his body was impaled by countless branches, but it was as if they had gone through a shadow.

Only then did Lin Huang lift his hand to wipe at the blood on the corner of his lips. He nodded at Virtuoso and Saber9 lightly. "It's over!"

"How did you do that just now?" Saber9 could not help asking.

He was aware that if he were put in a life-or-death situation after his defenses had been breached, it would be impossible for him to immediately alter his thoughts to ignore the attack.

"It's just a little trick of a Buddhist cultivator," Lin Huang explained calmly.

In reality, he knew very well that if he did not have the imperial monster, Demonic Buddhist Holy Son, it would have been hard for him to escape death earlier.

He had borrowed the Demonic Buddhist Holy Son's meditation secret skill to clear all the thoughts in his mind immediately so he could stay calm. He then imagined that the attack was purely illusory—that the half-step Lord did not really exist.

The whole process had been a close call. If there had been just the slightest flaw, he would have had to use a substitute for death and would need to be revived by now.

Fortunately, he had handled the entire thing without any mistakes in between, which allowed him to barely escape this fatal attack.

"What do we do next?" Lin Huang lifted his head to look at Virtuoso.

"It's simple. Imagine Phantom City's entrance." As soon as Virtuoso was done speaking, they gestured with their hand. A glittering, dazzling golden gate appeared before them. "We just have to open the gates and go in."

Once they finished speaking, Virtuoso pushed open the gates that had appeared out of thin air. Pulling at Lin Huang and Saber9's arms, Virtuoso stepped through the door directly…

After considering that Tu Tong and Lan Ling might not be able to withstand the test set by Phantom City's gatekeeper, Virtuoso did not contact them and ask them to catch up to the group. Instead, they led Lin Huang and Saber9 through the gate immediately.

Lin Huang had thought that they would arrive in Phantom City as soon as they stepped through the gate. However, what met their eyes was a completely blank white space.

Amid Lin Huang's doubts, Virtuoso spoke from beside the pair through voice transmission.

"Everyone must design themselves a character before entering Phantom City. You can imagine yourself to be of any race and appearance. When you get to Phantom City, your form will be whatever you've imagined it to be.

"Apart from race and appearance, you also must set your personality, hobbies… also, your skills, divine abilities, rules, sequence powers, and other information.

"Once that's done and we're in Phantom City, we have to act in character according to the persona we've created. If we're out of character, we'll be kicked out of Phantom City immediately."

'Like an RPG?' Lin Huang thought to himself. It sounded similar to the many role-playing games that he had played in the past.

However, in this place, the individual would be the one role-playing, not the game character on computers or mobile phones.

"Can't I bring all of my skills, divine abilities, and the rest into Phantom City?" Lin Huang raised the issue that mattered to him the most.

"Theoretically, it has to fit your character." Virtuoso smiled while shaking their head. "After all, if your character is a snake monster, it doesn't make sense if you set yourself as a sword cultivator or a saber cultivator.

"However, there are loopholes," Virtuoso continued, "For instance, my character is a masked freak. For the skills and divine abilities on my skill sheet, I possess all sorts of strange and incredible techniques. My character background has a certain mysteriousness included in it, while there are no concrete settings on my skills and divine abilities. However, I included my own abilities. With a character sheet like this, most of my abilities can be used when we get to Phantom City."

"Or you can do what I did." Beside them, Saber9 picked up the topic. "I set myself as a weapons master, whereby I can use all weapons. My character sheet basically included all of my skills as a saber cultivator; I can use many non-saber cultivator techniques too."

What the pair said gave Lin Huang significant inspiration. He soon began working on his character design.

"Character: Mysterious

Race: Suspected to be Protoss, Fallen Protoss, or human

Characteristics: Wears a black robe and a black mask

Combat Strength: Unknown

Cultivation Direction: Unknown

God Territory: Unknown

Skills: Unknown

Divine Abilities: Unknown

Rules: Unknown

Sequences: Unknown"

…

Virtuoso and Saber9 noticed that Lin Huang now had a black robe over him. His physique had become much more majestic, and his aura was now enigmatic and mysterious. Realizing that he had now grasped the essentials of designing his character, they said nothing more and began setting their own character sheets.

A moment later, Saber9 turned into a Buddha with many arms. His long hair, originally tied up in a bun, was no longer there. He had turned completely bald, and his head was full of the ordination scars of a Buddhist monk. (TN: After accepting Buddhist precepts, Buddhist monks use lighted incense sticks to burn parts of their bodies as an offering to Buddha and the bodhisattvas. These are known as ordination scars.) His green robe had transformed into a gray monk's robe.

His appearance was still around 60 to 70% similar to what he looked like before, but his charisma was nothing as otherworldly and elegant as he had been previously. His face held a touch of faint melancholy as if he had been through all the vicissitudes of life.

Beside them, Virtuoso did not seem to have altered much. They had changed their garb for something more sumptuous, and the mask on their face was now golden. They were also carrying a black walking stick. They still gave off the feeling of a wealthy young master—however, their charisma was no longer as cold and aloof as before. Instead, they were more approachable and warm.

"Aren't you…worried about being recognized like this?" Lin Huang could not help asking. His voice was much deeper and hoarser now.

The reason he asked because the famous geniuses in the God Territory would basically be on the hunting lists of each tribe. Virtuoso was a powerhouse who ranked among the top True Gods and was a target of many tribes outside the God Territory. Naturally, they were on the Abyss' hunting list. Trouble would be inevitable if anyone were to recognize them.

"Don't worry, in Phantom City, there's all manner of appearances. Not many people will notice us. Moreover, even if anyone did, they wouldn't connect it with me." Virtuoso was calm; they did not seem worried at all.

As soon as they were done speaking about themselves, Virtuoso turned their head and looked at Saber9 next to him. "What's up with you? Do you think you have too much hair or too few arms?"

"I want to see what it feels like to slay someone while wielding sabers in many hands, but I thought that turning into a multiple-armed Abyssal monster would be too ugly…" Saber9 explained in all seriousness, "So I thought of the Thousand Hand Bodhisattva in Buddhism."

"Isn't your bald head just as ugly?!" Virtuoso teased, not standing on ceremony.

"Do you believe I'll try my sabers out on you?" Saber9 lifted his head and stared at Virtuoso.

Noticing that both of them showed sights of wanting to fight due to the disagreement, Lin Huang frowned lightly and stepped forward between them, blocking their way.

"We have urgent business at hand. Let's finish up our character designs and enter Phantom City!"

Only now did Virtuoso and Saber9 notice that not only was Lin Huang enveloped entirely in a black robe, but even his aura was so mysterious that it was unfathomable.

Virtuoso looked at the darkness under the hood and probed it using their Divine Telekinesis, only to find that it was completely blocked. "You're wearing a mask too?"

Although they did not see a mask nor sense the presence of one, Virtuoso guessed that it was there anyway.

"I am." Lin Huang's reply was simple.

He had actually ingeniously integrated Thousand Face into his character design, enhancing his character's mysteriousness.

"Have you finished your character design and skills?" Virtuoso did not dwell on Lin Huang's transformation, asking instead.

Lin Huang nodded, "From now on, my name will be Hermit."

"I'll be Thousand Hands then," Saber9 informed them of his new name.

"Let me think about it…" Virtuoso, on the other hand, did not give out their name immediately. Instead, they thought for a moment, cupping their chin. They spoke again only after a while, "Call me Mask then.

"Or you could call me Xiao Mianmian as well," Virtuoso said to Lin Huang and Saber9 with a smile, after coming up with their name. (TN: In Chinese, the word for 'Mask' is 'mian ju'; Virtuoso is using a deliberately cute diminutive of their character's name both here and below.)

Lin Huang and Saber9 turned around and walked away at once, not bothering to pay attention to Virtuoso.

"Don't you like it? If you don't, you can call me Xiao Juju instead…"

"Let's go, Little Inkblot," Lin Huang ignored the two nauseating endearments they had picked for themselves and gave them a nickname instead.

"I like it." Saber9 gave Lin Huang a thumbs up.

"I can't believe you betrayed me, you bald monster. We've known each other for so many years and you're now ganging up with this brat to come up with a nickname for me?!"

"There are three things that I'd like to correct," Saber9 said solemnly, "First, my head is shaved, not bald. Having one's head shaved and being bald are two different things. Secondly, my Primordium has certainly known your Primordium for years, but this is only the second time both of us have met. We aren't very close. Thirdly, it wasn't me who came up with that nickname. I merely agreed with it…"

Lin Huang had imagined many images of how the phantom city might look like inside. However, it looked nothing like his imaginations when they really entered the phantom city.

It was completely different from other places in the abyss. It was an extremely bustling, massive city. There were even skyscrapers that were very similar to the human world.

If not for the various creatures of all shapes and forms on the streets, he would think that he had returned to a grade-A foothold in the gravel world.

"There are so many people?" That was what confused Lin Huang the most.

The reason being the gatekeeper obstacle alone was enough to block most people for getting in.

"In reality, there are little outsiders in the phantom city. Most of them are local residents," Virtuoso explained, "A portion of the residents and the buildings here are made by the possessor of the castellan's seal, while a portion of them were created by the phantom city automatically.

Hearing that explanation, a term popped into Lin Huang's head instantly – NPC.

If he looked at the phantom city as a RPG, then these local residents were undoubtedly the world's NPCs. To Lin Huang, the outsider, he was the player.

"So how do they differentiate the player, I mean the outsiders and local residents?" Lin Huang almost asked the difference between players and NPCs.

"There's no proper way to do that," Virtuoso shook their head and smiled, "However, under usual circumstances, those with exaggerated form and style have a high possibility of being an outsider. However, such a determination method isn't 100% effective."

"I supposed the castellan's seal you're after is in an outsider's hand?" Lin Huang asked again.

"It's not as simple as you think…" Virtuoso shook their head, "Indeed, there's a real living thing required to activate the castellan's seal to build the phantom city.

However, the castellan's seal might not be a complete piece, but a couple of fragments. As long as we're able to gather them into one, we can activate it as well. If that's the case, the fragments might be in the hands of a few different people.

Also, the castellan's seal must stay inside the phantom city, but the seal's possessor might not. There might be a possibility that the person might get a local resident to take care of the castellan's seal. After all, many of the local residents are characters the person created, whereby he knows who is the one that he can trust the most. Therefore, the castellan's seal wouldn't be 100% with an outsider."

"So what's your plan?" Hearing Virtuoso's explanation, Lin Huang figured the mission might be much more difficult than he imagined.

"If there's a castellan in this city, there's a certain chance that the castellan's seal is with the castellan. Even if it isn't, he definitely knows something about the castellan's seal.

If there's no single castellan, but a group of people managing, we look for the few who have the highest position among them. Even if we can't find the castellan's seal directly, we should be able to find some intel that's useful.

The thing I'm most worried about is that there's nobody managing the city, or the manager is just a puppet, whereby nobody knows who this phantom city's creator is…"

Virtuoso raised a few possibilities, "No matter what, the first thing we need to do now is to gather information. Gather as much as we can, gather information about this phantom city."

"Do we split up?" Lin Huang asked.

He asked that as the efficiency of gathering information would be higher if they split up than three of them staying together.

"I agreed with splitting up," Saber9 nodded.

They were no longer in the foggy swamp. They did not have to worry if they were lost.

The three of them had different styles of conduct. Naturally, they would use different ways to gather information in order to obtain more sources. Theoretically, although they would gather many repeating information at the same time, the amount of information would be greater.

"We'll split up for two days. During the two days, gather as much information as we can. Hold back even if we find out something important. Do not be rash to move on to the next step.

We'll meet under the highest building two days later. We'll discuss our strategy after organizing the information each of us obtained," Virtuoso soon came up with a plan.

Lin Huang and Saber9 agreed.

Subsequently, the three of them split up and went toward the direction they chose.

Lin Huang chose to move cautiously after breaking away from the team and being alone.

After all, nobody knew if there were any Lords in this phantom city.

According to Virtuoso's description, if the possessor of the castellan's seal was a lord-level powerhouse, he could create lord-level local residents, as well as setting the city's entrance authorization to lord-level.

If there were really Lords in this phantom city, not only that would mean the chances of the three of them obtaining the castellan's seal was pretty slim, if would also mean that they were in an extremely dangerous city.

One must know that the outsiders in the phantom city were the equivalence to players, they did not have a second life. Players could be revived after death. However, outsiders would really die if they died in the city.

Even though Lin Huang could substitute death with his imperial monster, facing a Lord's Odylic attack, he would not be able to be revived.

Meanwhile for Virtuoso and Saber9, although they had the technique of saving their lives their Primordium left behind that could defend lord-level attacks, there was a limitation to that.

Lin Huang was cautious as he had his guards up on the possible Lords in this city.

He did not sense any Divine Telekinesis' detection, so he was being extra careful not to spread his Divine Telekinesis.

He looked around, there were creatures of all forms and appearances around him.

There were abyssal creatures, Bug Tribe monsters, Immortal Tribe and Protoss…

His odd getup in black robe looked the most ordinary among the crowd, so he did not attract any attention.

He was relieved sensing there were no eyes staring at him.

He soon had his eyes on a cafe nearby. He frowned slightly.

'There's even a cafe here?!'

This phantom city was highly similar to a human city. That made him have a faint suspicion that the possessor of the castellan's seal was a human. Or maybe that person stayed in the human world for a little while.

He walked to the cafe and sat under the umbrella in the al fresco area. He ordered a cup of coffee.

Very soon, a lady attendant with rabbit ears brought his coffee.

If he was somewhere else, Lin Huang might not be able to hold back and to look at a rabbit-eared lady attendant. However, he had seen many creatures of various forms, so the rabbit-eared lady in front of him looked ordinary now.

He did not forget what he was here for when the rabbit-eared lady served the coffee to his table. A gush of red glow flashed through his eyes when he locked eyes with the lady attendant.

He managed to read the lady's memory during that mere moment.

He did that by borrowing Grimace's Ocular Skill Rule.

However, the rabbit-eared lady did not notice that. She merely put down the coffee with a light smile on her face and left.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang picked up the coffee and began to retrieve the information that was useful to him from the memory he read…

It only took a moment for Lin Huang to finish reading the information he had retrieved from the memory of the rabbit-eared female attendant. However, he was not able to glean very much useful information.

The rabbit-eared lady attendant was an ordinary person with no cultivation base at all, so her memory contained no information about cultivators.

"Do ordinary people in this city have no idea at all that cultivators exist?" Lin Huang frowned slightly.

This was something he had previously not anticipated. Based on his earlier assumptions, there ought to be many cultivators among the local residents. Besides, a small-scale battle caused by even the slightest of conflicts would cause anomalies people could see.

However, in the rabbit-eared lady's memory, to the authorities, most of these anomalies were accounted for as weather phenomena. A small number of these strange happenings were regarded as man-made flying machines.

There was almost nothing useful to Lin Huang in the rabbit-eared lady's memory, apart from a simple map, some common sense, and knowledge of this current world.

"It looks like I'll still need to find a cultivator first…" Lin Huang drummed lightly on the table with the fingers of his left hand, raising the coffee cup to his mouth with his right hand and taking a sip.

After a moment of thought, he released colorless and formless Leech Pods from his body that dispersed in all directions.

He did not dare to use Divine Telekinesis rashly just yet, but he could use Leech Pods. This was because it was hard for Leech Pods to be discovered without the use of Divine Telekinesis.

Of course, he did not disperse them in a wide range. Instead, he manipulated the Leech Pods to within a five-kilometer radius around him.

After all, the wider the area that the Leech Pods spread to, the higher the possibility of encountering a powerhouse. Furthermore, his current objective was to gather information. He did not want to attract unwanted trouble before officially taking action.

Lin Huang drank his coffee casually, silently monitoring the real-time images that the hundreds of Leech Pods sent back.

Within five minutes, he noticed a few individuals he suspected might be cultivators.

Since he did not use Divine Telekinesis for detection, and these individuals had no energy fluctuations emanating from them at all, Lin Huang could only make basic speculations based on the images the Leech Pods sent.

To use Lin Huang's own words, to observe someone's essence, qi, spirit, and so on was actually a purely subjective matter.

After locking onto these several potential individuals, Lin Huang thought to himself for a moment and abandoned the idea of appearing in front of them directly. Instead, he controlled a few of the Leech Pods to infiltrate the suspected candidates' bodies.

There were a total of four individuals who were infiltrated by Leech Pods. However, only one of them was a real cultivator, while the remaining three were merely ordinary people.

Lin Huang felt slightly embarrassed to have discovered this from the Leech Pods.

However, he was thick-skinned enough and soon recovered from his embarrassment. He began extracting the information that the Leech Pod had retrieved from the cultivator's mind.

This particular cultivator was a Silt Monster.

This type of monster was a creature that took the form of a lump of dark-brown mud—it had no distinguishable essence, qi, or spirit on it at all. Essence, qi, and spirit aside, even if Lin Huang were to stand right in front of it, he would not be able to locate its face.

The reason he locked onto this monster was purely that it was the only Silt Monster within range of his hundreds of Leech Pods.

This Silt Monster was a Virtual God rank-7; Lin Huang finally managed to extract some comparatively useful information from its memory.

In this phantom city, the ratio of ordinary people to cultivators was 9:1. The cultivators mingled with these ordinary individuals, living in the normal world.

What made Lin Huang more curious was that in this Silt Monster's memory, the lowest combat strength among the cultivators in this world was that of Virtual God. There were no cultivators below god-level. Individuals below Virtual Gods were ordinary people; there was a huge gap where mid-level cultivators would be.

Moreover, since the beginning of time, ordinary people were completely cut off from any information about cultivators in this world.

Ordinary people did not admire cultivators, nor did they idolize them. They had no idea that cultivators even existed.

Even if these ordinary people witnessed something about cultivators occasionally, they would forget about it automatically.

Meanwhile, for cultivators, it was an unspoken rule that their skills and divine abilities should not be displayed in front of ordinary people, much less attack them.

The Silt Monster had no idea why exactly they could not attack ordinary people. However, from the information in its memory, it was clear that something bad might happen if they killed normal individuals.

Therefore, ordinary people and cultivators had lived peacefully thus far in this odd state of co-existence.

Lin Huang thought such a social structure was rather interesting, although it was clearly an artificial construct.

What piqued his interest even more as he read the information was that he realized this city was different from any other cities that he had seen.

"There's an inner world that's like an inverted image…" As Lin Huang mumbled softly, the curiosity gleaming in his eyes grew even more.

He had retrieved a rather special bit of information from the Silt Monster's memory.

At the moment, he was only looking at the surface of the city. Meanwhile, hidden underneath the surface, the city possessed another side.

As soon as one passed through a certain door, cultivators could enter this inner world within the city.

That city was exactly the same as this one. However, there were no ordinary people, only cultivators.

There were markets for trading for all sorts of items and channels to obtain various kinds of information. Not only that, killings and battles could happen at any time…

Compared to the peace and quiet of the surface world, although there was a certain order in this inner world as well, what emerged more frequently was the unbridled growth of madness and desire.

The cultivators fought bitterly in the inner world, but as soon as they returned to the surface world, they blended into the circles of ordinary folk.

Life was at peace in the mortal world.

Lin Huang even quietly speculated that the holder of the castellan's seal of Phantom City might be a person with a split personality.

After reading the Silt Monster's memory, what disappointed Lin Huang more was that he did not find out anything about the castellan's seal, or the holder of the castellan's seal.

The Silt Monster's memory was completely blank as far as this information was concerned.

Although there was no direct clue to the castellan's seal, Lin Huang did not feel defeated. At the very least, he had now discovered the existence of the inner world, as well as how to enter it. Finding more clues was only a matter of time.

After all, the Silt Monster was merely a Virtual God. It was considered the lowest form of existence in this phantom city. If Lin Huang were to view Phantom City as a game, the Silt Monster would be just a minor creature in it.

Going by a game designer's way of thinking, they would not store very much important information within a minor creature by the roadside.

Following common game design practices, the more powerful the monster, the more information it would contain.

Furthermore, this game even had a new, hidden map now, which would undoubtedly allow the players to gain more rewards.

Lin Huang was not at all worried about obtaining more information later.

From the Silt Monster's mind, he retrieved the closest coordinates to the inner world's entrance. With no hesitation, he disappeared in a flash…

There were many entrances and exits to Phantom City's inner world. Lin Huang soon found the closest one by following the coordinates in the Silt Monster's memory.

This set of coordinates was located in an alley surrounded by low, old buildings.

When Lin Huang arrived close to the coordinates, he did not go into the alley immediately. Instead, he observed the environment of the surrounding areas.

These old buildings seemed to have existed for at least thirty to forty years. Compared with the skyscrapers he had seen earlier, they seemed to be of considerable age.

Some were already dilapidated and had been gazetted as dangerous buildings. No one lived in them any longer.

However, there were still some old buildings with residents of various races.

When Lin Huang appeared, clad in his black robe, he did not attract the residents' attention.

Only a few of them glanced at him, then went about their own business.

After scanning his surroundings and realizing that nobody was watching him, in a flash, Lin Huang entered the alley he had seen from the Silt Monster's memory.

The alley was less than a meter wide and was very narrow. If he had not seen the image in the Silt Monster's memory, it would have been hard for him to imagine that the inner world's entrance and exit could be located in such a cramped place.

Lin Huang halted after he had walked some twenty meters into the alley. He spread his Divine Telekinesis slightly, and his gaze fell on an inconspicuous black dot on the wall on the right.

The dot looked like it had been lightly dotted onto the wall with a ballpoint pen. It was even smaller than a sesame seed.

However, Lin Huang knew it was not the ink left by some ballpoint pen, but the inner world's entrance and exit in its miniature form. People without Divine Telekinesis would not be able to see it at all.

Lin Huang extended a finger, pressed on the black dot, then channeled Divine Power into it.

As the Divine Power channeled through, the insignificant, almost imperceptible black dot began to grow quickly at a speed visible to the naked eye. Within just the time it took for a breath, the dot's diameter had surpassed two meters, transforming into a round black whirlpool.

Once he saw that the whirlpool had formed completely, Lin Huang drew back his hand and stepped into the whirlpool.

As soon as his body submerged into the swirling mass, the black whirlpool shrank immediately. Within less than the time it took for a breath, it reverted to its original size of a black dot.

A moment later, its color faded slowly, and it gradually vanished, as if it had never existed.

Lin Huang raised his head for a look after he had teleported through the entrance, and his brows quirked involuntarily.

He was still in the narrow alleyway and its surroundings. He was even standing in exactly the same spot he had been before he stepped through.

However, he soon noticed something different. Even without using his Divine Telekinesis, he could clearly sense the auras of extremely mighty powerhouses nearby. Not only that, there were many of them.

There were even a few auras within a very close distance, gathered at the end of the alley.

Lin Huang raised his eyes and looked up as a giant eyeball with three pupils hovered in the air, leaning forward. It was looking down condescendingly from high above the alley.

He only noticed this one eyeball, not the monster's full appearance. However, he could see the disdain in its eyes.

The next instant, Lin Huang appeared in a flash right at the entrance to the alley.

Almost at the same time, a red beam shot out from his sleeve, piercing through the eyeball immediately.

A miserable shriek rang through the air at once.

Only then did Lin Huang notice that there were four monsters blocking the alleyway.

The fellow who had spied on him by releasing the eyeball was a humanoid monster.

The biggest difference between itself and humans was that it had no head. There were only tentacles extending from its neck up, and each tentacle had a massive eyeball connected to its tip. A total of seven eyeballs hovered in midair; they looked extremely strange.

Lin Huang had no idea what species this monster belonged to at all. He had never seen anything remotely similar even in the monster guide.

As for the other three monsters, one of them looked a little like an oversized monitor lizard. The scales all over its body were black and shiny; only the six eyes on its forehead were dark green.

Another monster was an ice-blue ancient humanoid corpse, standing close to three meters tall. It was clear that it had not been human when it was still alive. It stood on the rooftop of a building opposite, its gaze ice-cold.

The remaining monster was a bird beast reduced to skeleton form. Lin Huang could not even guess what kind of species it had been when it was alive. It flew in circles above their heads, while from its crimson eyes, two streams of fire trailed through the air.

In the face of these four who were blocking the road, Lin Huang did not panic at all.

He had already learned from the Silt Monster's memory earlier that there was a high chance of newbies being attacked when they entered the inner world.

There would be a group of fellows hiding near each inner world's entrance and exit, waiting to kill the new faces.

There were also some others who would lurk around to watch. After all, there was limited entertainment in this city.

According to the Silt Monster's memory, the only safe place was the alley where the entrance and exit were located. As soon as one walked out of the alley, someone might intercept them.

Therefore, Lin Huang chose to attack first.

If someone was intercepting a target for the kill, it was only natural that there would be retaliation.

This was permissible by the rules of the inner world.

As long as they did not attack in the crowded regions of the city under the city guards' surveillance, basically, nobody would bother.

Watching the eyeball monster being impaled, screaming continuously as its body began to disintegrate, the other three interceptors' expressions revealed shock.

Many onlookers began whispering to each other.

"Dumb Bird and the rest have met their match this time…"

"That newbie is a tough one!"

Lin Huang did not even look at the eyeball monster. He glanced over the remaining three monsters. "Are you… sure you want to fight me?"

As soon as he said that, the eyeball monster's miserable howls stopped, and its body disintegrated completely.

To Lin Huang, the eyeball monster was merely a seventh-rank True God. It could not even be considered an opponent. He had not even used sequence power in the attack earlier, merely true god-level Rule Bending Power.

The remaining three were not much more powerful than the eyeball monster. There was very little in the way of benefits if he killed them, so he really could not be bothered to attack.

The three remaining monsters were also not fools. They had been wandering the inner world for years and had seen many powerhouses. Although Lin Huang's demonstrated ability was merely the tip of the iceberg, they knew they could not afford to offend the person in front of them.

"I've no intention of fighting. I merely sensed that your aura is rather unfamiliar, so I thought I would observe," the iced-blue corpse spoke up first. Since he stood the farthest from the three, it made sense for him to say that he was just watching the battle.

"Me too. I was just curious and thought I'd watch," the completely black 'monitor lizard' chimed in hastily.

Lin Huang said nothing. He lifted his head to look at the skeleton bird beast that was still circling in the sky.

The skeleton bird beast noticed Lin Huang looking at it and was so scared it slowed down a beat in its flapping, almost falling out of the sky. In a panic, it stuttered, "I-I'm lost. I-I accidentally f-flew over here…"

The onlookers were rendered speechless.

However, Lin Huang's reaction surprised all of them. He merely nodded lightly and responded, "Oh, I see."

Almost everyone had the same thought pop into their heads, 'You actually believe such nonsense?!'

The next instant, however, Lin Huang took a step forward and directly appeared on the back of the skeleton bird beast.

The skeleton bird beast was stunned for a moment, thinking it was going to die, but it heard Lin Huang's voice transmission in its ears a second later.

"Take me to where you live."

Lin Huang took a step forward and appeared right away on the skeleton bird beast's back.

Upon seeing that, everyone thought it was the end for the skeleton bird beast, not just the skeleton bird beast itself.

Many of the onlookers even secretly lamented that this Dumb Bird had brought it upon itself by not being able to use its brains, even when trying to lie.

The next instant, however, everyone present saw the skeleton bird beast flapping its wings, bringing with it the mysterious black-robed man…

All that remained were a group of onlookers staring at each other.

"What happened? That black-robed man really bought into Dumb Bird's nonsense?"

…

The place where the skeleton bird beast lived was not at all far from the inner world's entrance and exit—less than five minutes away, in fact. It landed on top of a building, bearing Lin Huang with it.

Lin Huang looked at the sunken rooftop of the two or three-story building and realized that it was probably the skeleton bird beast's nest where it normally lived. It had forced a perfectly good roof into the shape of a nest by sleeping on it.

"S-Senior, what do you need me to do?" Although it was over ten times bigger than Lin Huang, the skeleton bird beast was as obedient as a student before him.

After all, he had killed the eyeball monster with merely one blow, and its ability was not much more powerful than that particular eyeball monster.

"Eighth-rank true god-level…" From up close, Lin Huang sized up the skeleton bird beast, causing it to panic. "I supposed you've been staying in the inner world for many years now?"

"I-It's…it's been a few years." The skeleton bird beast hesitated a little but nodded anyway.

"Excellent." As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, the pupils of his eyes turned pitch-black, and the skeleton bird beast's body froze suddenly as well. Its crimson eyes also became pitch-black at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The way Lin Huang saw it, although the skeleton bird beast's ability was average, it still had eighth-rank true god-level combat strength after all. Moreover, it had stayed in the inner world for quite a few years. Its knowledge of this world would certainly be much greater than that of the Silt Monster.

Therefore, he read the bird's memory directly with barely any hesitation.

It had to be said that although this skeleton bird beast was not very intelligent, Lin Huang retrieved a great deal of useful information from its memory. A lot of it was on matters that the Silt Monster was unclear about, and there were even some things that the Silt Monster knew nothing about at all.

One particular piece of information was the one Lin Huang had wanted to discover the most.

It was information suspected to be about the founder of Phantom City!

In the skeleton bird beast's memory, Lin Huang found a tale that appeared to be a legend.

In ancient times, there were three Almighties who spread cultivation methods and founded this inner world.

The three Almighties were, respectively, a fabulously wealthy massive golden dragon, a nine-tailed demon fox of unparalleled beauty, and a compassionate, enlightened eminent Tantric Buddhist monk.

However, apart from several stories within the legend itself, there was no further information about the three.

According to the skeleton bird beast's memory, the current inner world did not have any specific masters. Instead, six ninth-rank true god-level powerhouses shared the work of keeping it under control.

'Legend says that the three Almighties created the inner world, so there's a chance the castellan's seal is divided into only three fragments. Now that there are six individuals who share the duties of keeping the world under control at the moment, it's highly possible that the castellan's seal is with three of the six.' Lin Huang quietly analyzed the possession of the castellan's seal. 'However, it can't be completely ruled out that the legend was purposely created to conceal the truth—in reality, all six of them might possess a fragment of the castellan's seal…

'There's also the possibility that none of these prominent six have any of the fragments. The six of them could just be decoys set up by the actual holder of the castellan's seal…'

Even after some analysis, Lin Huang still could not come to a clear conclusion.

'Although I can't be sure who has the castellan's seal, at least there's a new clue…'

Lin Huang set his sights on the six inner world overlords. Even if they did not have the castellan's seal fragments with them, he was sure that they definitely knew a great deal more information about the castellan's seal.

However, Lin Huang did not intend to rashly contact these six individuals. He had other plans.

As the pitch-black color in his eyes faded, the skeleton bird beast gradually recovered its consciousness.

By the time it was completely clear-headed, Lin Huang was long gone from the top of the building.

"Where did he go?" The skeleton bird beast looked around but did not see Lin Huang anywhere. "What happened?"

It thought back carefully, but could not recall exactly what happened earlier. It faintly remembered a whirlpool similar to a black hole that seemed to have appeared beneath the black hood…

Since the skeleton bird beast really could not recall what happened, it did not bother with wasting its already limited brain cells. It shook its head, pushing the rather uneasy memory from before to the back of its mind.

In the inner world, two days went by in a flash.

Lin Huang arrived at the tallest building in the city's central district at the agreed-upon time.

He took a seat at an open-air restaurant, ordered a drink, and patiently waited for Virtuoso and Saber9.

Two days ago, the three of them had agreed to meet under the tallest building here.

Although they had no idea back then that the phantom city had a surface world and an inner world, Lin Huang knew that Virtuoso and Saber9 would definitely come to this building in the inner world instead of the one in the surface world.

As expected, Saber9 appeared under the building not long later.

Lin Huang looked over at him. As if sensing his gaze, Saber9 turned to look in Lin Huang's direction as well.

Noticing Lin Huang, Saber9 walked directly to the table he was sitting at without any hesitation. He then took a seat across from Lin Huang.

"What will you drink?" Lin Huang asked with a smile.

Saber9 peered at the coffee mug in front of Lin Huang. "The same thing you're having will be fine."

The waiter very soon served Saber9's coffee, and the pair chatted as they drank. They did not mention the castellan's seal at all.

Virtuoso had yet to arrive, so it did not make sense for them to talk about that now.

After they had chatted for a while, Lin Huang realized that he was finishing his coffee and could not help glancing at the time. "It's almost the time we agreed upon. Will that fellow be late again, I wonder?"

Saber9 said in some irritation, "Instead of picking up their Primordium's good habits, that fellow picked up all the bad ones!"

Fortunately, Virtuoso was punctual this time.

They arrived at 9 a.m. sharp.

They caught sight of Lin Huang and Saber9 immediately. Walking toward the both of them directly, they took a seat without ceremony.

"You're punctual today," Lin Huang commented with a quirk of his lips.

"Of course. I said I would get here at 9, so I got here at 9. I'm not late by even a minute!" Virtuoso replied, sounding very pleased with themselves.

"I wonder who it is who's never been punctual even after agreeing on a set time," Saber9 unceremoniously pulled the rug out from under Virtuoso's feet.

Virtuoso directly ignored Saber9's snub, directing his words to the two of them, "We'll end the small talk here. Let's get down to business."

Seeing that Virtuoso had used serious matters to change the subject, Saber9 had to let things be.

"How did your investigations go these last two days? Tell me one at a time." Virtuoso went straight to the point.

"I've learned from many people that according to legend, there are three founders of the inner world. One is a member of the Dragon Tribe, another is a nine-tailed demon fox, and the last is an eminent monk from the Buddhist Tribe. This point I managed to verify later from an underground channel; it isn't just a mere legend.

"However, these three founders were only active for a little while during the initial stages of founding the inner world. Subsequently, they went quiet very rapidly.

"After the three founders faded into the background, high-level Heavenly Gods sprang up one after another not long after. Most of these were short-lived. This situation only stabilized 3,000 years ago, when six overlords each took over various territories to maintain a system of checks and balances.

"Among these six, two of them were the earliest to emerge—almost within 100 years of the three founders going quiet.

"One of the two is a four-faced individual with four faces, each with a different character. Each character has different divine abilities and techniques.

"The other is three-tailed a snake lady who is an expert in illusory techniques and inherently bewitching.

"As for the most likely candidates who possess information about the castellan's seal, going by the timeline, it would definitely be these two. It's even possible that they might have the castellan's seal fragments with them…"

Lin Huang briefly described the results of his investigations, at the same time using Divine Power to project the pieces of information he had discovered one at a time.

Of course, only the three of them sitting at the table could see these projections, as Virtuoso had set up an illusion barrier around the area where the table was.

Outsiders were only able to see that the three of them were drinking and chatting.

Saber9 only spoke after looking over the information Lin Huang had gathered.

"What I've discovered is similar to Lin Xie.

"After finding out about the three founders, I spent a great deal of effort to find out information about them after they went quiet, but to almost no avail. Whatever I found out can't be verified. There are dozens of versions alone about where the three of them eventually ended up.

"Subsequently, I also changed the focus of my investigation to the six overlords instead. However, I didn't find anything useful as I was worried about alerting people."

Lin Huang could not help nodding when he heard that.

"I had the same idea that you did—I originally wanted to get information from their subordinates. However, after careful consideration, I abandoned the idea, as I don't want to alert anyone."

"Targeting their subordinates is the right thing to do, but we'll have to plan it thoroughly first." Virtuoso nodded as well. "After all, these six are top powerhouses among Heavenly Gods. It would be far too difficult to take them on directly.

"Moreover, even though Lin Xie has narrowed the targets down to two people based on the timeline, there's no guarantee that this is accurate at all. There's still a possibility that these two people know nothing about the castellan's seal, and the secret is held by the remaining four. We need to obtain more accurate information before making our final conclusions.

"We need to find a chance to lock onto our target and succeed on our first try!

"If we fail the first time, the remaining five will definitely be even more on their guard. This will significantly increase our difficulty in retrieving the castellan's seal.

"I've carried out some investigations over the last two days. The information I managed to obtain is basically the same as what both of you have mentioned.

"The castellan's seal is most likely divided into three fragments, and they're in the hands of the three inner world founders. As for the disappearance of the three of them, they might have gone into hiding deliberately to prevent people from seizing the castellan's seal. Perhaps something might have happened to them as well, such as being robbed, or something else.

"If that's the case, someone among the current six overlords should know about the castellan's seal.

"The second possibility is that the castellan's seal fragments are in the possession of one of the six current overlords.

"If that's true, then this would be the most beneficial to us. This is because as soon as we identify the person with the fragments, all we'll have to do is to find ways to retrieve the fragments.

"The third possibility is the most problematic one, which is that after the three founders went into hiding, the castellan's seal fell into the hands of some unknown individual. The emergence of the six overlords has nothing to do with the castellan's seal, while all six of them have no clue about the castellan's seal at all.

"If that's the case, it means that everything we've done previously is a waste of time. We'll have to look for clues again."

"If it's the third possibility, I think there's no need for us to waste any more time in this phantom city. Let's just go straight to the next one." The expression on Saber9's face did not seem as if he was joking; he really did look like he was planning on doing that.

Although what he said was out of pique, it was still considered a logical strategy.

This was because, based on the current situation in this phantom city, searching for new leads all over again might be even more difficult than going to another phantom city to look for the castellan's seal afresh.

"After all, we've only had two days, and the information the three of us obtained is limited. From the limited information we have at present, all three possibilities are plausible. Let's sort out the details of the information we've individually obtained, and then discuss our next move."

As Virtuoso spoke, they arranged the information they had gathered and sent it to Lin Huang and Saber9 through mental transmission.

Lin Huang and Saber9 shared their information as well.

It did not take the three of them very long to respectively process the integrated information.

Virtuoso glanced at the two of them. "I'll go first.

"There's no way we can confirm which of the three possibilities the castellan's seal falls under. However, the most promising breakthrough currently would be the six local overlords.

"Based on Lin Xie's analysis, the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady are undoubtedly the most likely candidates among the six. Furthermore, apart from the timeline, there aren't any more clues to prove that the other four have an even higher chance of possessing information on the castellan's seal.

"Therefore, I think it's best to choose these two as our first target."

Lin Huang nodded slightly at this point.

Beside him, Saber9 nodded as well. "I've no comments."

"Then let's try our best to obtain more information from the subordinates of these two individuals over the next few days…" Virtuoso continued, "First ascertain a name list of their subordinates and some basic information on these underlings, then take action when they're alone….

"There's one thing that we need to take note of—don't kill them," Virtuoso suddenly reminded everyone, "These subordinates might have something like a Soul Lamp warning system set up—when a member dies, the corresponding Soul Lamp will be destroyed. We would set off an alert if that happened."

Lin Huang nodded slightly when he heard this. Saber9, on the other hand, frowned a little.

"If we go our separate ways, even if Lin Xie and I manage to interrogate them, there's no way for us to erase their memories…"

Lin Huang remained silent when he heard what Saber9 said. He did not explain that he possessed such a technique.

Virtuoso glanced at Saber9. "Stun them, then I'll deal with it.

"Make contact with any subordinates that we can speak with, no matter what their status. We'll try our best to obtain more information about the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady. It's alright if we obtain a lot of repetitive information…"

Virtuoso sketched out the plan briefly. After that, the three of them soon began discussing the exact details of how to carry out the plan.

Painted Face was the first target that Lin Huang focused his attention on.

He had never seen this monster in the monster guide before. However, at first glance, the creature reminded him of ancient Chinese opera characters on Earth.

Apart from resembling a Chinese opera character with a painted face, the second impression Lin Huang had of this monster was that of a paper doll.

Although this monster appeared human, it looked more like the paper dolls on Earth which Chinese people customarily burned as offerings at the graves of their ancestors.

It had a pair of legs, just like a human. However, its feet never touched the ground; it perpetually hovered in the air.

Based on the information Lin Huang managed to dig up, Painted Face was one of three underlings who had followed the four-faced individual the longest. If one were to go by qualifications, It was definitely considered very senior in terms of experience.

However, due to its combat strength staying stagnant at beginner-level, it had slowly been removed from the four-faced individual's core power circle and become an unimportant character.

It had previously wanted to work hard to strengthen its cultivation. However, due to its limited talent, it was unable to break through to fourth-rank heavenly god-level at all. As time went by, it gradually abandoned the struggle.

Lin Huang had chosen Painted Face as his target because, for one, it knew more about the four-faced individual's past. It had witnessed the entire process of the four-faced individual's emergence. For another, compared to the others in the core power circle, it was the easiest to target.

On that day, as per its usual custom, Painted Face arrived on the rooftop of a building.

All along, it had had a unique way of passing time, which was to hum songs while walking on the edge of all sorts of buildings, its arms thrown wide, and imagining it was walking on a tightrope.

From up close, however, one could see its feet were actually one to two centimeters off the ground, never actually touching the ground at all.

However, on this day, right when it had climbed to the rooftop and taken a few steps on the edge, it suddenly noticed a black silhouette blocking its path.

It was a man in a black robe, and the face under his black hood was covered by a black mask.

Painted Face had only just caught sight of the figure; before it could even take a good look at this person, two black gleams of light lit up under the hood.

Painted Face's body froze on the spot immediately.

The man in the black robe was, of course, Lin Huang. He had waited a night and a day just to get the chance to make his move; at least he had managed to wait until Painted Face was completely alone.

Painted Face's combat strength was merely that of a low-level Heavenly God. Among Heavenly Gods of the same combat strength, it was even considered one of the weaker ones. In the face of Lin Huang's sequence power, it had absolutely no ability to resist at all.

The memory retrieval Lin Huang carried out went extraordinarily smoothly with no interference at all.

Within a short two minutes, Lin Huang had completely copied Painted Face's memory.

"That went more smoothly than I anticipated…" Lin Huang shot a glance at Painted Face, who still had not entirely detached itself from the memory retrieval process. He extended a finger and tapped it between Painted Face's brows.

Painted Face's body immediately went limp, and Lin Huang's telekinetic threads tossed it into the God Territory within Lin Huang's body.

After scanning his surroundings with Divine Telekinesis and making sure he had left no traces behind, Lin Huang did not linger. Instead, he departed in a flash.

"The second target is… the Gilded Fiend…"

The Gilded Fiend was an Abyssal creature found in the monster guide.

Monsters of this kind were usually powerful combat cultivators who had been contaminated with Abyssal energy. After they had become Abyssal creatures and been baptized in the Abyssal blood spring, they would transform into such monsters.

They possessed a powerful physical body, with strength that could be compared to Star Titan in the ancient era.

This target that Lin Huang chose had the combat strength of an eighth-rank Heavenly God, but the strength of its physical body might even be at least that of a half-step Lord. Very few individuals below lord-level would be able to break through its defenses.

It was not that Lin Huang wanted to challenge himself by choosing a target like this. Instead, he had done so because although the Gilded Fiend had a near-invincible physical body, its spirit strength was generally low.

Legend said that the Abyssal blood spring was a tributary of the death spring, which also had the effect of eroding one's God's soul.

Practically anyone who transformed into a Gilded Fiend would have a damaged God's soul.

Most Gilded Fiends were either unintelligent and stupid, or insane… Regardless, none of them were normal in their heads. Some would even lose their minds completely during the process of transformation and become perfect material for puppet refinement.

From Lin Huang's point of view, it was no big issue if these monsters were mentally abnormal. As long as they stored information about what they had seen or heard in their minds, that was sufficient.

Furthermore, because of its low intelligence, the Gilded Fiend had always been the four-faced individual's most trusted subordinate—the only one, in fact.

It had even been the four-faced individual's bodyguard at a much earlier point in time. Of course, calling it a bodyguard was just sugar-coating things; in reality, it was merely a shield in human form.

It was only almost one thousand years ago when the four-faced individual's overlord status had been fully secured and stabilized, that the Gilded Fiend's status had been upgraded. The Gilded Fiend was always being given tasks that required violence.

One of the reasons why Lin Huang chose the Gilded Fiend as his target was that it had been in close proximity with the four-faced individual for a long time, and had heard and seen many of this individual's secrets. Another reason was that it was always being given missions that required it to go into the outside world. This made it easier to catch it on its own.

In the black market, the Gilded Fiend's whereabouts were also never a secret.

In reality, the fairly famous warlords under the command of the six overlords had always been the ones that all the major and minor organizations in the inner world paid attention to.

This was because their activities might lead to a change of circumstances in the entire inner world.

By closely observing these people, the organizations would be alerted ahead of time regarding even the slightest stir.

Lin Huang managed to purchase a log of the Gilded Fiend's recent whereabouts without needing to put in much effort at all.

"It seems I'm pretty lucky…" Lin Huang raised his brows slightly after glancing through the information in the log.

According to the black market's records, the Gilded Fiend just happened to leave the headquarters guarded by the four-faced person a day ago. It appeared to be out on some mission.

He glanced at the information provided by the black market, and realized that someone had discovered the Gilded Fiend's coordinates over an hour ago, even taking a photo secretly…

Within less than an hour, Lin Huang arrived at the coordinates mentioned in the black market's log.

This place was a crowded market with people of various sizes and forms coming and going.

On both sides of the streets were all sorts of stalls.

Lin Huang glanced around and noticed they were selling items that were above the level of god relics.

However, he did not have much of a heart look for bargains. Instead, he glanced around and began to search for traces of the Gilded Fiend.

There were cultivators above virtual god-level everywhere in this market. It was a bad idea for him to use his Divine Telekinesis, so he could only release Leech Pods along the way to help with the search.

Under Lin Huang's control, the Leech Pods were not drifting around at random. Instead, they were attaching themselves to various items along the way.

After releasing thousands of Leech Pods, Lin Huang was wondering whether or not the Gilded Fiend might have already left when a Leech Pod suddenly sent an image through.

The image showed a dark-gold monster of tall stature. It stood within the crowd, head and shoulders above everyone else, and was looking around…

"Found you!" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

After discovering the Gilded Fiend, Lin Huang did not rashly go up to it. Instead, he passed slowly through the crowd while approaching it and continued to use Leech Pods to observe its behavior.

The Gilded Fiend seemed to be looking for something in the stalls. This made Lin Huang rather uncertain as to why it did not use Divine Telekinesis but was instead checking the stalls carefully one by one.

Theoretically, given its identity, it had absolutely no need to worry about its Divine Telekinesis being sensed by others.

'What exactly is this fellow looking for?' Lin Huang was rather curious about this.

The Gilded Fiend moved ahead slowly, carefully scrutinizing each stall along the way. Although it tried its best to seem indifferent, any outsiders could tell right away that it was very likely searching for something.

In this inner world, practically everybody knew the Gilded Fiend. Upon observing its demeanor, they were secretly speculating about whether or not the four-faced individual might have heard some gossip of late about something valuable hidden in the market. That might be the reason why the Gilded Fiend had been sent to investigate.

Therefore, many people began secretly checking through all stalls in the market, trying to get a head start.

There were even quite a few stall owners who checked their own goods again, seeing if there was anything that they might have missed.

Even Lin Huang could not help secretly speculating, even though his purpose for coming here had nothing to do with buying goods. He even began attentively checking out all the items at the stalls along the way.

After all, anything that the Gilded Fiend—or even the four-faced individual—considered to be important, had to be valuable.

Even if Lin Huang could not use it himself, he could sell it off at a good price.

Lin Huang strolled around the market while quietly making his way closer to the Gilded Fiend.

Over three hours passed by in no time at all, and the Gilded Fiend had walked around the entire market twice, looking through all the goods at every stall. However, it had not bought a single thing.

Lin Huang had also followed the Gilded Fiend around for over three hours and had bought a few small items.

He had actually noticed many excellent items on both sides of the street. Although most of them were not enough to pique his interest, to most ordinary True Gods, many of these goods were of the best quality. For instance, there were medicinal pills that could aid one's combat strength in achieving a breakthrough, top-grade god rule relics, and other assorted items.

Although Phantom City was similar to a virtual game world, the items one obtained from this world were the real deal, even in the outside world. There were even some fantasy items that could not be obtained at all in the outside world.

However, after strolling around twice while following the Gilded Fiend, Lin Huang had not noticed anything special that could pique the Gilded Fiend's interest.

At the stalls, the highest grade items were expert-grade god sequence relics. At the Gilded Fiend's level of ability, these things were nothing to it.

'This fellow has been around the market twice already; there's no telling how much longer it will keep walking around,' Lin Huang could not help muttering in his mind upon noticing that the Gilded Fiend did not seem to have any intention of leaving yet.

Moreover, Lin Huang was not the only one who was intently keeping an eye on the Gilded Fiend.

However, these individuals observing the Gilded Fiend's every movement had no intention of attacking it. Instead, they were curious about what it was looking for and wanted to snatch the item up before it could make a purchase.

After strolling around the market twice, the Gilded Fiend seemed to have thought of something a short while later. It suddenly halted and turned around, heading in Lin Huang's direction.

'Have I been discovered?' Lin Huang was startled.

His first reaction was that the Gilded Fiend had discovered he was tailing it. However, he remained calm.

He glanced through the goods at the stall in front of him and casually picked up something pleasing to the eye, pretending to scrutinize it. He then asked the stall owner for the price.

"How much is this?" Lin Huang was holding an ancient coin. It looked rather rusty, and he did not recognize any of the words engraved on it. There were flowers and birds imprinted on both sides, and the craftsmanship seemed fairly good.

The ancient coin was only a showpiece to admire. There was no energy in it at all.

"10,000 Divine Stones!" The bald owner glanced at Lin Huang and immediately asked for a ridiculous price.

"Why don't you rob me instead?!" Lin Huang raised his brows when he heard how much the item cost. Even though he usually did not like to bargain when he bought things, he could tell that the stall owner was trying to rip him off. "This piece doesn't have any energy fluctuations at all; it's just an ordinary item. You're asking the price for a top-grade god relic. Boss, this isn't how you do business."

"How much are you willing to pay, then?" The owner smiled, not embarrassed in the least. Instead, he redirected the question to Lin Huang.

"One Divine Stone. I'll take it if you're willing to sell it for that amount." Lin Huang immediately went down to 1/10000 of the original asking price.

"You said that I'm not sincere in selling this item to you at my asking price, but you're clearly not sincere in wanting to purchase it since you're bargaining like this," the stall owner grumbled.

"One Divine Stone is almost clean net profit for you. I'm sure you didn't spend very much to purchase this." Lin Huang remained adamant.

Before the owner could argue, Lin Huang continued, "There aren't many people collecting ancient coins after all, and you only have this one single coin at your stall. It proves that you also knew it would depend on luck whether or not you would be able to sell it. Therefore, there's no way that you would purchase an ancient coin at a high price. You'd suffer a loss if you couldn't sell it—only a simpleton would do such a thing."

The stall owner had prepared a retort, but he swallowed his words entirely after hearing what Lin Huang had to say.

He had wanted to say that he had indeed purchased the coin at a high price. However, if he said so, it would be the equivalent of admitting that he was a simpleton.

"In that case, could you raise your asking price a little more?" After some consideration, the stall owner did not persist any further. His expression altered as well; he wanted to curry favor with Lin Huang now.

"Two Divine Stones, then. That's my last offer." Lin Huang generously added one more Divine Stone to his asking price.

The stall owner felt rather helpless, but he nodded anyway. "Alright, it's sold!"

Lin Huang tossed two Divine Stones to the owner and was about to put the ancient coin away into his space storage when a deep, resonant voice suddenly spoke up.

"I want this ancient coin! How much is it?"

The voice caught the attention of many people's attention as soon as it sounded.

The stall owner was stunned at first, but he immediately said with an apologetic smile, "Sir, the ancient coin has already been sold to this man."

Lin Huang turned his head to look at the looming figure standing next to him. It was the Gilded Fiend that he had been stalking for over three hours.

'This fellow is interested in the ancient coin I'm holding?!'

Lin Huang was stunned as well. He had not expected that the item the Gilded Fiend had been searching several hours for would accidentally come into his possession just like that.

He lowered his head to study the ancient coin, then secretly checked it with Divine Telekinesis. However, he still did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

At that moment, the Gilded Fiend turned its head and looked at Lin Huang.

"Friend, could you sell this ancient coin to me?" After making this request, the Gilded Fiend added, "I'm Gildy, Master Four Face's subordinate."

A strange gleam flashed through Lin Huang's eyes. Although he had no idea what exactly the ancient coin was, it was undoubtedly an opportunity to get close to the Gilded Fiend…

"I can sell it to you, but the price… We can talk about it at leisure somewhere less crowded…"

In an abandoned building far from the market, the pitch-black color of Lin Huang's pupils gradually faded.

Noticing that the black in the Gilded Fiend's eyes was fading as well, he extended his hand and tapped two fingers right in the middle of the Gilded Fiend's brows.

The next instant, the Gilded Fiend's body went limp and crumpled to the ground.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang, who had initially been hovering in midair, landed slowly on the ground together with the Gilded Fiend's massive bulk.

However, once he landed, he did not put the Gilded Fiend into the God Territory within his body right away. Instead, he froze on the spot for a moment.

The reason for this brief stunned instance was because he had retrieved important information he wanted from the Gilded Fiend's memory.

A moment later, he snapped back to his senses and used telekinetic threads to drag the Gilded Fiend into the God Territory within him. He then bestirred himself and headed toward his third target…

Three days went by in no time; Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 gathered once again after that.

"What are the results of your investigations?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

Lin Huang glanced at Saber9. "You go first."

Saber9 nodded. "I investigated the three-tailed snake lady's subordinates. One is her previous best friend, two are her lovers, and another two are her trusted underlings.

"However, the interrogation didn't go well. The five of them don't seem to know about the castellan's seal.

"With my technique, there's not a very high chance of these five concealing anything from me. Therefore, I feel there are two possibilities. Either the three-tailed snake lady is hiding things very well and hasn't told anyone around her about the castellan's seal, or she doesn't have it at all."

"Were there any anomalies when she rose to prominence?" Virtuoso could not help inquiring.

"She rose to her position primarily by relying on men, her looks, and her ability to entice. Practically no man can resist her. She's been sitting in the overlord's position all these years mainly because among the remaining five overlords, two of them are her lovers. Moreover, she's used her allure to gather a group of high-level Heavenly Gods to serve her. Her subordinates' overall combat strength is certainly no lower than the rest of the overlords."

Virtuoso fell into deep thought for a while after hearing this. "Then let's rule her out for now. I came across information about her through other channels as well and did some investigation. The conclusion I came to is similar to yours—she most probably doesn't have the castellan's seal."

After they had ruled out the three-tailed snake lady, Virtuoso and Saber9 turned their heads to look at Lin Huang.

"Let me share my investigation results then…" Lin Huang began speaking only after he saw their attention was focused on him.

"I investigated the four-faced individual's subordinates, Painted Face and the Gilded Fiend, as well as his current mistress… and I definitely discovered a considerable amount of useful information.

"The information Painted Face provided mentioned that the four-faced individual's ability came out of nowhere. Painted Face had always suspected that his master had obtained some kind of treasure, but Painted Face never knew what it was.

"The information provided by the Gilded Fiend stated that the four-faced individual is unfathomably powerful. The Gilded Fiend personally witnessed him elevating a low-rank Heavenly God's combat strength to ninth-rank heavenly god-level," Lin Huang paused at this point in his narrative. He then looked at Virtuoso and Saber9. "This person isn't exactly unfamiliar to the two of you either…"

Saber9 was momentarily stunned, but Virtuoso reacted immediately. "The three-tailed snake lady?!"

Lin Huang nodded slightly.

Saber9 regained his composure at this point. Although he knew that the four-faced individual was the three-tailed snake lady's lover, he was not aware of this additional facet of their relationship.

"He forcibly elevated a person's combat strength several ranks, without any side-effects. Not only that, the whole process took less than half an hour. This alone is enough to prove that he has the castellan's seal."

Lin Huang was very certain of this because only individuals who possessed the castellan's seal could be like a gamemaster, directly modifying a character's data within Phantom City.

"Apart from that, based on what the Gilded Fiend stated, the four-faced individual seems to have been collecting objects. Previously, he even went out to collect these items personally instead of asking someone to do it for him. It's only been in recent years that he has let a trusted subordinate aid him in this matter.

"The Gilded Fiend also mentioned that the few collectibles it had seen were all peculiar odds and ends. Some don't even possess any energy fluctuations at all. They're just like ordinary objects.

"I suspect the items he's looking for are the remaining fragments of the castellan's seal. However, he doesn't seem to know what forms these seal fragments might take. Every time he instructed the Gilded Fiend to look for objects, his descriptions were always very vague. He would only give a rough outline, then ask the Gilded Fiend to search based on its intuition.

"That's why I speculate that the castellan's seal fragments might exist in any random form."

From his space storage, Lin Huang retrieved the ancient coin that he had recently purchased from the market. "Before this, at the market, the Gilded Fiend was eyeing this ancient coin I was holding. It even offered a high price so that I would sell it to them."

Lin Huang flicked his thumb, and the ancient coin landed squarely in the palm of Virtuoso's hand.

"Take a look at it. What if this is one of the castellan's seal fragments?"

Virtuoso ignored Lin Huang's teasing tone. Instead, they picked up the ancient coin and began scrutinizing it closely.

A while later, they turned their gaze from the ancient coin and shook their head at Lin Huang and Saber9.

"I can't be sure whether or not this is a fragment of the castellan's seal."

"Is there no way of verifying this at all?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

"Of course there are ways. The simplest would be to get another fragment of the castellan's seal. As long as they're within a certain proximity of each other, both fragments should certainly display a reaction.

"The problem is, however, we don't have another fragment with us," Virtuoso commented, spreading their hands out.

"How did the Gilded Fiend decide that this might be the item that the four-faced individual was looking for?" Saber9 asked Lin Huang from where he was standing to one side.

"Based on what it said, it watched me pick up this ancient coin while it was at a distance. It then felt this might be the thing the four-faced individual was looking for, so it asked me to sell the coin to it. It's just pure intuition, there aren't any reliable deciding factors…" Even as he spoke, Lin Huang felt somewhat bereft of words. "From what the Gilded Fiend said, the four-faced individual even encouraged such behavior. Furthermore, he even told it to buy anything that it thought might be valuable."

"Although this is most probably an ordinary coin, let's just keep it anyway," Virtuoso stated and tossed the coin back to Lin Huang. "What if it really is a fragment of the castellan's seal?"

Lin Huang caught the ancient coin and put it away in his space storage before he resumed speaking.

"As far as the four-faced individual's mistress goes, she didn't provide very much useful information. The four-faced individual is more cautious around her and has never mentioned the castellan's seal fragments at all. Furthermore, based on my previous speculations, the seal could very well exist in whatever form. Trying to obtain the castellan's seal fragments from the four-faced individual is an incredibly difficult undertaking!"

"Both of you don't have to worry about that. All you need to be responsible for is gathering information. The rest, you can leave to me, and I'll think of a solution!" Virtuoso seemed to have some kind of idea already. "Since we're now sure that the four-faced individual has the fragments of the castellan's seal, let's start with him first!"

The four-faced individual sat on a black metal throne, toying with a storage ring in his hand. All four of his faces wore thoughtful expressions.

"It's been a long time since you last had that look on your faces." A voice suddenly drifted in from the palace door, followed by the crisp, clear clack of high heels against the ground, approaching from a distance.

"Yes…" The four-faced individual's four faces let out a low sigh almost simultaneously.

"I just saw Gildy going out." The lady in heels slowly made her way over to the four-faced individual. She was a female succubus. To be precise, even among succubi, her figure and attractiveness were still considered top-notch. "If I'm not mistaken, this has something to do with him, doesn't it?"

The four-faced individual fell silent for a moment before he turned his gaze to the succubus. "I suspect that he's lying to me."

"Gildy?!" The tone of the succubus' voice raised slightly. "With his intelligence, do you think that's even possible? Moreover, if I'm not wrong, wasn't he was one of the first ones to throw his lot in with you?"

"I didn't think it would be possible as well, but he has indeed lied to me today." The four-faced individual was very certain of this.

"Why not tell me what exactly happened, and I'll listen." The succubus made her way over to the four-faced individual and sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the throne. Tilting her head up to look at the four-faced individual, she smiled faintly.

The four-faced individual fell silent for a brief moment before slowly beginning to speak.

"I had him look for something for me. I actually left on him some means by which he would sense the object I wanted whenever it showed up in his vicinity, and I would sense it as well on my end.

"Three days ago, I definitely sensed that item showing up somewhere in his surroundings. However, when he returned this time, whatever he passed to me didn't include that particular object."

"How did he explain that?" The succubus asked, smiling.

"He said that he was certain he sensed something from a specific item, but someone else bought it before he could get his hands on it. He offered a high price so he could acquire the object, but the original purchaser refused to agree."

"Isn't that very normal?" The succubus raised her brows, "Or are you blaming him for not forcibly acquiring the item?"

The four-faced individual did not answer this question, continuing instead, "Given Gildy's character, in the past, he would always do his best to complete the missions I gave him. He would steal, plunder, and kill to obtain the things I wanted. He wouldn't give up just because the other party refused to trade. Something must have happened between Gildy and that person."

"Didn't you ask for any details?"

"No. If he's unwilling to tell me, it makes no sense for me to ask. He might not tell the truth even if I did pursue the matter." The four-faced individual shook his head slightly.

"What are you planning to do then? Dispose of him?" The succubus asked in a seemingly careless fashion.

"I'll get someone to watch him first to see if they can find out anything useful," the four-faced individual said blandly.

"Take a bath and relax; stop always thinking about things that worry you." The succubus rose and approached the four-faced individual. Wave after wave of ripples began emanating from her narrow eyes, and a light fragrance began to waft through the air.

The four-faced individual's breathing grew heavier. All four faces had their eyes closed, allowing the fragrance to drift into their nostrils. He only opened his eyes a while later. "You little imp. Wasn't all that tussling around last night enough for you?"

The succubus said nothing. She merely smiled slightly and extended her hand to investigate the four-faced individual's chest. Her fingers, soft and seemingly boneless, wandered over his body, teasing his desire.

The four-faced individual did not stop her either. He closed his eyes, indulging himself in these intoxicating ministrations.

Before very long, the succubus' ministrations abruptly stopped. The four-faced individual opened his eyes and discovered that, without realizing it, he had arrived at the side of the bathtub with her. Moreover, the succubus was already completely undressed and right in front of him.

For a moment, the four-faced individual could hardly tear his eyes away.

He allowed the succubus to take off his clothes, one item at a time until finally, he was left without a stitch on. Even his storage ring had been taken off by the succubus and set to one side…

Hot steam bubbled up from the bath, and mist roiled.

The two figures—one muscular, another buxom—were gradually swallowed up in the mist…

Almost at the same time, in an abandoned building a considerable distance away, the corners of Virtuoso's lips quirked up slightly.

A full set of clothing gradually coalesced in their hands. This even included shoes, socks, and several accessories like a few rings.

"This is…?" Lin Huang and Saber9's expressions were full of incredulity.

They retreated a few steps, hastily distancing themselves from Virtuoso. This was because the two of them clearly scented the pungent odor of smelly feet.

When they caught a whiff of that odor, their expressions at present were even more peculiar as they glanced at Virtuoso.

Virtuoso frowned as well. Hurriedly, they blocked their sense of smell and explained, "These are the four-faced individual's clothes. Everything he wore today is here."

"How did you manage this?" Lin Huang's face was full of shock. This was the first time he had heard that someone could strip another person naked from a distance.

Such ability was nothing short of incredible!

Even Saber9, standing off to one side, wore an expression of utter incomprehension.

"I managed to subjugate someone close to him and replaced his clothes when he was taking a bath," Virtuoso explained, sounding very pleased with themselves.

"Won't that be discovered?" Lin Huang asked.

"On such short notice, definitely not. First of all, I made a copy of his clothes and left them in their original spot when I made the exchange. Secondly, the person that I made use of is a succubus. He won't be leaving the bathtub any time soon…"

Lin Huang and Saber9 came to a sudden realization when they heard the term 'succubus.'

Monsters like succubi had desires that were far more powerful than most species and could maintain an intense mating period for a long time. As long as they wanted to, they could even have intercourse continuously for a few months at a time

Many people were aware that, in reality, succubi had no definite gender. They could be male, female, and could even transform into other species. (They would have an initial gender when they were born, but they could change their forms and genders at will.)

Many monsters with strong desires would be willing to date lovers like the succubi.

This was not just because succubi could transform into members of the same tribe species; for a great many more, it was because every day they could experience something new and fresh.

Even an ambitious and ruthless man like the four-faced individual was unable to reject a succubus who completely conformed to his aesthetic.

Furthermore, since Virtuoso had managed to subjugate the succubus, this meant that if nothing went wrong, whatever time the four-faced individual got out of the bathtub depended entirely on when Virtuouso wanted to let him out of the bath.

"The four-faced individual would never place something like the castellan's seal very far from his person. It's either in his storage equipment or somewhere very close to himself." As Virtuoso spoke, they held up the clothes in their hands.

"What if he refined it and integrated it into his body?" Lin Huang asked at once.

Before Virtuoso could reply, Saber9—who was beside them—answered the question.

"The castellan's seal can't be refined if it's in a fragmented state. There's only one legitimate authority in every phantom city, and only one will is acknowledged and accepted, so only the fully whole castellan's seal can be refined. Although one can make use of the power of the castellan's seal with just a single fragment to build and modify a phantom city, they only have control of the phantom city, not ownership of it. One can only legitimately have ownership of a phantom city if they have refined the castellan's seal in its fully whole state."

Something suddenly occurred to Saber9 after he finished his explanation.

"However, if the four-faced individual placed the castellan's seal in the God Territory within his body, it would mean that whatever we've done so far is wasted effort."

Virtuoso ignored the conversation between the two and began checking through the clothes carefully.

The castellan's seal could elude being sensed by Divine Telekinesis, so using one's eyes to search was much more reliable in times like this.

Lin Huang and Saber9 hurried forward immediately and helped examine the clothes…

"We haven't found any unusual items. Right now, the only things we haven't checked are what's in the storage rings." Saber9 looked at the last two storage rings after a meticulous search.

"Even if we haven't discovered anything, it doesn't mean nothing unusual is present." Virtuoso's gaze fell upon the two storage rings. "After all, we have no idea what the fragments of the castellan's seal for this Phantom City look like."

"Is there any way of accessing these two storage rings?" Lin Huang went straight to the point.

Virtuoso extended his hand and picked up the two storage rings, "These two storage rings belong to an older style of secret key rings. One must adjust their Divine Telekinesis to a specific frequency to be able to unlock them; that's the only way to gain access. Having the rings is useless if you don't have the secret key.

"However… I just so happen to know the secret keys for both these storage rings…" As they spoke, Virtuoso had already adjusted their Divine Telekinesis to a specific frequency. They glanced at the two storage rings in quick succession.

Even without Virtuoso saying anything further, Lin Huang and Saber9 knew that they must have read the memory of one of the four-faced individual's close associates. Furthermore, this person just happened to have the information about the two secret keys in their memory.

Virtuoso searched both the storage rings for a long time before finally retrieving one single item.

"I used my Divine Telekinesis to scan every item in these two storage rings three times, but I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary…" Virtuoso suddenly turned their head to look at Lin Huang when they finished speaking. "However, I found this."

They opened up their palm. In the middle of it was an ancient silver coin.

Lin Huang could not help frowning when he saw the ancient coin. Before he could open his mouth, Virtuoso spoke first.

"Does this ancient coin look like the one you bought at the market a few days back?"

"Not at all." Lin Huang shook his head, "Yours looks like a silver coin. The one I bought looks more like a bronze coin. Not only are the colors different, but the size, thickness, and carvings also aren't the same at all. Your silver coin is at least one size smaller than my bronze coin.

"Why? Do you suspect that this silver coin might be a fragment of the castellan's seal?" Lin Huang asked, raising his brows.

"If you bring out your ancient coin, we'll find out whether or not this is a fragment of the castellan's seal." Virtuoso had hitherto always been calm, but right now, his tone carried a sense of urgency.

The castellan's seal fragments could sense each other. If the ancient coin in Virtuoso's hand was able to sense the one that Lin Huang had purchased, they could basically confirm that the two ancient coins were fragments of the castellan's seal.

Lin Huang felt that Virtuoso was indulging in wild fantasies. The ancient coin that he himself had purchased at the market was considered a commemorative coin. For whatever reason, however, Virtuoso had somehow linked both these entirely different objects together through some wild feat of imagination. Not only did they believe that the two coins were related, they even believed that both were fragments of the castellan's seal.

However, Lin Huang did not bother arguing with Virtuoso over the subject. He retrieved the ancient coin—which had cost him two Divine Stones to purchase at the market—from his space storage.

The way he saw it, as long as the ancient coin that he took out showed no reaction, it would be sufficient to prove right away that Virtuoso's baseless speculation was wrong. There was no need for Lin Huang to waste his breath arguing with them.

However, as soon as he took out the 'bronze coin', the 'silver coin' in Virtuoso's palm began to vibrate intensely. At the same time, Lin Huang could clearly sense the 'bronze coin' between his fingers vibrating just as intensely also.

The feeling one got was that of a dog wagging its tail maniacally in excitement when its owner got home from work.

Without waiting for Lin Huang to inquire further, Virtuoso had already pulled his palm away from the ancient coin. Seeing this, Lin Huang let go of his own coin as well, allowing the ancient coins to hover on their own in midair.

Both coins were different in terms of color, size, thickness, and even patterns. However, the current scenario was proof enough that the two objects were being drawn to each other.

After Lin Huang and Virtuoso released their hold, the two ancient coins soon transformed into two dazzling beams of light—one gold, one silver—that intersected in midair like a vortex. They were whirling rapidly, like Gemini's twin stars drifting in the galaxy.

As the vortex swirled, the distance between both beams of light became shorter and shorter, and the rays that they released grew increasingly more dazzling to the eye.

Very soon, the two resplendent beams had reached their brightest, to the point where both silver and gold colors could not be distinguished from each other. Even Lin Huang and the others were unable to look through the light beams to observe what transformations were happening within.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso had made preparations much earlier and shielded the area. If not for this, the dazzling rays of light—brilliant enough to illuminate the entire sky—would attract unwanted trouble.

A good while later, the blinding rays gradually faded away. The initial two ancient coins had disappeared, replaced instead by a golden coin that looked rather old.

"The two ancient coins really are the castellan's seal fragments?!" Lin Huang's face was full of shock. He had not expected that something he had bought so casually at the market would turn out to be a fragment of the castellan's seal.

"We're pretty lucky." Virtuoso smiled.

"How did you figure this out?" Lin Huang was still a little confused.

"The castellan's seal fragments can take the form of anything at all. However, the different fragments of the seal have a definite connection to each other," Virtuoso explained, smiling, "Let me give you an example. If one of the fragments is a key, then the other fragment might be a key of another shape—or it could be a lock, even a door.

"When I saw this silver coin and scanned it, my Divine Telekinesis picked up nothing out of the ordinary. To be honest, this is rather rare in the inner world. Therefore, I immediately thought of the bronze coin you bought at the market. There aren't any energy waves on it at all, as if two coins from the surface world had somehow drifted into this place.

"Of course, we can't entirely rule out that someone brought common coins from the surface world into the inner world. Therefore, I wasn't completely sure if the two ancient coins were fragments of the castellan's seal. I would only be able to ascertain this through the two fragments sensing each other…

"You both know what happened next," Virtuoso did admit that figuring this matter out had involved a great deal more guesswork on his part.

Lin Huang had nothing much to say about Virtuoso's less-than-scientifically-rigorous logical approach. All that could be said was that the three of them had been very fortunate—it was pure blind luck.

"Wait for me a moment. Let me return these things," Virtuoso explained, then hurriedly transported the clothing and items back immediately.

"Are you sure the swap won't be discovered?" Lin Huang could not help asking as he waited for Virtuoso to finish transporting the items back.

However, Virtuoso's answer was completely unexpected. "Of course it's going to be discovered!

"As soon as the four-faced individual checks through the items in his storage ring with Divine Telekinesis, he'll definitely find out that the castellan's seal fragment is missing. Not only that, he'll soon discover that outsiders have arrived in this Phantom City.

"Therefore, we need to find the last fragment of the castellan's seal as soon as we can. The best would be before the four-faced individual finds out that his own fragment has been stolen."

"Absolutely. If he discovers that the castellan's seal fragment has been stolen, he'll most certainly send people en masse to hunt for the outsiders. That would inconvenience our subsequent movements greatly." Lin Huang nodded slightly as well.

"The longer we drag this out, the more difficult it will be for us to extricate ourselves," Saber9 said, looking serious.

In the inner world, in a suburb far from the city, was a flaking, dilapidated low villa almost completely overrun by plants.

This phenomenon was not merely confined to the outer walls—even the inner walls and the floor were covered with vines of various colors.

It was in this deserted, uninhabited place that a figure suddenly emerged.

In appearance, this figure looked rather like a tall, burly human. A pure black robe was draped over its body, concealing its form entirely.

The figure slowly walked over to the side of a low-rise building, then turned to face the vine-infested wall before taking off the hood of its robe.

The face that was revealed—more precisely, the four faces revealed—belonged to one of the six overlords of the inner world, the four-faced individual.

Almost at the same time that he removed his hood, one of the vines on the overgrown wall began to squirm. In practically the blink of an eye, it had formed itself into the shape of a giant face.

"Four Face, I'm extremely surprised that you requested we meet alone this time," the giant face formed by the vine spoke first. "Tell me. What exactly happened to make you insist on conferring with me, despite the risk that I might kill you?"

"Someone stole my fragment of the castellan's seal," the four-faced individual stated right away, without even a word of greeting.

"It's been stolen?! Do you know who did it?" Upon hearing this, the giant face on the wall took on a startled expression; its tone also full of astonishment.

"I don't know who it is exactly, but I feel that there's a ninety percent chance of it being outsiders." The four-faced individual appeared to be very sure of this.

"How did you lose it? Why don't you explain a little further in detail?" The giant face asked.

"I placed the fragment in this storage ring, the one I wear most often," the four-faced individual said and pulled up his sleeve, revealing the storage ring he wore on his left middle finger. "Every time I take something from it or put items away, I instinctively do a scan with Divine Telekinesis. However, when I was retrieving something yesterday, I suddenly discovered that the fragment was gone."

"How did you lose something inside a ring you're always wearing?" The giant face was rather confused. "Did you remove the ring?"

"I definitely did when I took a bath two days ago. What's more, I put a batch of items into the ring three days ago. I used Divine Telekinesis to scan through the space storage back then, and the fragment was still there." The four-faced individual nodded. "So I'm sure that the castellan's seal fragment went missing between both those times I scanned the space storage with Divine Telekinesis. Moreover, I happened to take off the storage ring during that period. Someone must have seized the chance to covertly pull some monkey business."

"To know when you removed the storage ring—to be able to access it, then stealthily return the ring to its place…" The giant face formed from the vine gave a faintly mocking smile. "There just might be an inside man among your subordinates then. Someone who can unlock your storage ring ought to be someone very close to you."

"That's what I thought too." At this point, the four-faced individual's expression turned gloomy.

"The inside man escaped?" The giant face asked with a smile, noticing the four-faced individual's expression.

"I killed her." The four-faced individual's face turned grim when he said this.

As soon as he discovered that the fragment of the castellan's seal had disappeared without a trace, he had immediately gone to find the succubus.

After interrogating her and unsuccessfully trying to extract a confession, he had killed the succubus himself.

"You didn't manage to find out anything?" The giant face continued its questioning.

"No." The four-faced individual shook his head. "She must have been controlled by some form of hypnosis. She knew nothing at all about the castellan's seal fragment. I forcibly read her memory, and I still wasn't able to find out anything about the mastermind behind this."

"Not even a clue?" The giant face also found this rather peculiar.

"No." The four-faced individual shook his head."That's why I said it was probably stolen by outsiders."

"You've lost your fragment of the castellan's seal, so why are you here to see me? Are you asking me to help you look for it?" The giant face asked, smiling. In reality, it had more or less guessed the other party's true intentions.

"Since these outsiders are obviously here for the castellan's seal fragments, they'll come looking for you sooner or later," the four-faced individual said bluntly without beating around the bush. "I want to join forces with you to kill these people!"

The giant face fell silent for a moment when it heard what the four-faced individual said. It only spoke again after some time.

"Why should I trust you? You might have concocted a story, while your real objective is to get hold of the fragment that I have."

"If you want me to prove I have an item, that's very easy—I can just bring it out and show you. However, if you want me to prove that I don't have something, I can't do it. There's no way for me to prove that my fragment of the castellan's seal is missing." The four-faced individual shook his head. "All I can say is that I've come here this time in good faith. My target is that group of outsiders; I have no designs on that fragment in your possession.

"Whether you believe it or not, that's up to you. If you're willing to work together with me, then we'll join forces. If you're not willing to do that, I won't force the issue either. I'll think of other ways to take revenge on them.

"However, I must still remind you that it's only a matter of time before they find out you have a fragment of the castellan's seal. Sooner or later, they'll come looking for you…"

The giant face fell silent once again. It had known the four-faced individual for years and was aware that he was a cunning, treacherous old fox. However, this time it did not seem as if he were setting a trap. If he was, then his acting skill was truly beyond words.

"Let's assume that everything you've said is the truth. If so, why are you helping me?"

"These outsiders are here for the castellan's seal. If they really do manage to gather all of the fragments, what do you think will happen next?" The four-faced individual did not answer the giant face's question. Instead, he posed yet another question.

"If the outsiders get hold of the castellan's seal…" The giant face on the wall sported a rather peculiar expression now. "They might… wipe out everything that exists currently, and rebuild Phantom City…"

Only now, when the words had unthinkingly slipped out of its mouth, did the giant face seem to realize the true seriousness of the issue.

Earlier, this aspect of things had never occurred to it. It had merely thought that the four-faced individual losing the fragment of the castellan's seal was rather amusing. However, now that it was considering the matter, it felt extremely fearful.

"It's not 'might wipe out everything', they absolutely will wipe out everything!" The four-faced individual corrected, "Think about it. If you're an outsider who has obtained the fully restored castellan's seal, would you leave the original Phantom City as it is and not change anything at all? On the contrary, if it were me, I'd demolish everything in the original set-up, and rebuild a Phantom City that I could call my own!"

"We'll be erased…" The giant face brought up the point that mattered to it most of all.

The four-faced individual said nothing more. Patiently, he stared at the giant face on the wall, waiting for it to give him an answer.

It only took a moment for the giant face to make a decision. It spoke again, "How do you want to join forces?"

After obtaining the two fragments of the castellan's seal, Lin Huang and the other two were not idle. They spent the next few days searching for information on the last fragment.

After ruling out the four-faced individual, as well as the three-tailed snake lady whom they had investigated before, they took stock of the remaining four overlords out of the original six, one after the other.

Finally, they set their sights on the Nine Gloom Vine.

The Nine Gloom Vine was a monster with the body of a vine. It consumed the negative emotions of various monsters as food.

According to the various pieces of information Lin Huang and the rest obtained, the Nine Gloom Vine in the inner world was known to everyone as the monster who had lived there the longest—there was no other. In terms of seniority, he ranked higher than even the four-faced individual and the rest.

However, his actual rise to prominence as an overlord of the inner world came much later compared to the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady.

Among the six overlords, he was ranked second last.

According to Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso's investigations, there was a high possibility that his rise as an overlord had something to do with the castellan's seal fragment.

"Of the four remaining overlords, the Nine Gloom Vine is the biggest suspect. The last fragment is most probably with him," Virtuoso concluded the results of their investigation over the last few days.

"For now, let's not think about what happens if he doesn't have the fragment of the castellan's seal. Let's assume that he does have it, and we're now devising a plan of attack," Lin Huang quickly listed out the points that he had thought of.

"After all, it's been three days since we obtained the castellan's seal fragment from the four-faced individual. We have to consider the worst-case scenario, which is that the four-faced individual knows the Nine Gloom Vine has the fragment of the castellan's seal, and he has already informed the Nine Gloom Vine about the loss of his own fragment.

"If that's the case, there's a high chance that they might join forces. They might even have set up a trap and are waiting for us to fall into it."

What Lin Huang said made Saber9 frown from where he was off to the side.

Although Virtuoso's expression could not be seen through the mask, they had fallen silent as well.

"What's the success rate of using your previous technique—switching the item out with a fake after stealing it—if we were to use it on the Nine Gloom Vine?" Noticing that the other two were not saying anything, Lin Huang turned his head toward Virtuoso and inquired.

"If the situation is as you said, then the success rate is practically zero," Virtuoso answered with barely any hesitation, "It succeeded with the four-faced individual because he didn't see it coming. However, if both of them have communicated, the Nine Gloom Vine will be fully on his guard.

"That's not the biggest obstacle either. The four-faced individual's item was hidden in his storage ring, and the people closest to him were aware of that. Meanwhile, the Nine Gloom Vine has no trusted aides. Although he has many plant monsters under his command, no one can approach the area where he lives, let alone know where he's hiding the castellan's seal fragment."

"If stealing the item and leaving a replacement doesn't work, we can't take it by storm either, right?" Saber9 frowned hard.

The three of them fell silent, as they knew that such a tactic would be even worse.

Even if the Nine Gloom Vine were alone, the three of them still might not have the advantage. Being an overlord in the inner world meant that the Nine Gloom Vine's ability could not be compared to that of ordinary ninth-rank heavenly gods. Even if he had yet to achieve half-step lord-level, he might not be far from it.

Opponents of such ability were beyond the trio's capacity to handle, more so when taking into consideration that the other overlord—the four-faced individual—might already be collaborating with the Nine Gloom Vine.

The three of them fell silent for a long time.

"Actually, there might still be a way," Lin Huang spoke up after some thought, "Apart from the four-faced individual, the Nine Gloom Vine and ourselves, there are many others who have their eyes on the castellan's seal fragment. At the very least, the other four overlords are most certainly interested in it…"

Lin Huang explained his plan in detail very quickly, and Virtuoso and Saber9 nodded repeatedly after they heard what he had to say. The two of them also swiftly came up with ideas to perfect the various details of the plan.

That afternoon, a shocking piece of news spread throughout the entire inner world.

Almost all the organizations in the inner world, no matter how big or small, were discussing the same topic.

"Did you hear? There's news of the castellan's seal fragments! One of them is said to be with the Nine Gloom Vine!"

"I knew one of the six overlords would definitely have a fragment of the castellan's seal!"

"I always thought the so-called castellan's seal fragment was just a legend. I can't believe it's actually real!"

…

A man clad in a suit of silver battle armor sat high on a throne in the inner sanctum of a grand building.

"How true is the news about the castellan's seal fragment?" His voice was like a low, electronically synthesized sound.

"It's probably true that the Nine Gloom Vine has the fragment. However, I can't be sure how many of the other details are true."

"Have you found the source of this piece of news?" The man in battle armor inquired further.

"No. The information this time was disseminated suddenly from multiple sources at once. I found a few of these individuals after some investigation. However, they can't recall where exactly they heard the news from; it's as if a portion of their memories has been erased."

"Keep a close eye on any further news, and inform me as soon as anything comes up!"

…

The next day.

A giant purplish-red sarcoma occupied almost half of a massive building that looked like a stadium.

The sarcoma was covered in capillary-like veins and even had countless tentacles of various sizes and thicknesses growing out of it.

Not too far from the stadium entrance stood a tall, slender figure.

"New information came in early this morning. It alleges that the four-faced individual has a castellan's seal fragment too. Not only that, he seems to have formed an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine and is secretly plotting something…"

"The four-faced individual, huh? That's not surprising at all!" The sarcoma's voice came from some part of its body and sounded abnormally gravelly and hoarse.

"For the time being, we can't verify how true this news is yet. However, some of our spies have already reported that the four-faced individual is definitely not in his foothold," the slender figure put forward the facts of the investigative results.

"Continue to investigate and see if the four-faced individual has really made an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine."

…

The third day.

In the pitch-black underground, a crimson light suddenly flared up.

From afar, it looked like a huge, red-hot soldering iron. However, through the halo of light surrounding it, one could see it was a giant eyeball.

It did not look like a mammal's eyeball. Instead, it bore more resemblance to a bug's compound eye that was made of countless tiny eyes.

As the eyeball lit up, a black figure slowly materialized at the mouth of the cave.

"New information has just come to light. The four-faced individual has formed an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine, and both of them are working together to search for the last fragment of the castellan's seal!

"However, not long after this news surfaced, both of them made an appearance to dismiss the rumors. Both of them denied that they possessed any castellan's seal fragments, and also denied any alliance between them. They also said that the news currently being disseminated is all rumors and that someone is secretly trying to stir up trouble…"

The crimson eye listened to all of this. In an extraordinarily calm tone, it commented, "The veracity of the news is no longer important. What's important is that this inner world is poised on the brink of change."

The Nine Gloom Vine and the four-faced individual were not expecting that they would face a counterattack before their prey had fallen into the trap they had set.

Day after day, more news was made public. Some of the news was real, and some were fake, but they were all fabricated very well and in great detail.

It did not matter how many people truly believed the news. In any case, the misleading effects saw definite results.

For the last few days, an increasing number of powerhouses had been gathering outside the dense forest where the Nine Gloom Vine was hiding.

In the inner world, anyone who had any sort of ability at all had opinions about the castellan's seal.

Now that news had spread about the Nine Gloom Vine and the four-faced individual each possessing a castellan's seal fragment, it was only natural that this would draw the covetous gaze of countless organizations, large or small.

After all, a ferocious tiger could not defeat a pack of wolves. Moreover, everyone knew that while the two overlords—the ferocious tigers—were powerful, there were still four more overlords on the side of the masses, hovering and waiting.

The masses were not powerful enough to fight against these two overlord powerhouses, but what if there was a chance of the masses benefiting from a clash between all six overlords?

Within the foothold, the Nine Gloom Vine's giant face materialized in midair, brow furrowed tightly.

"Trouble's come knocking on our door now!"

On the sidelines, the expressions on the four faces of the four-faced individual all looked extremely unpleasant.

"I originally thought these rumors would only persist for a few days before dying down and that Silver Armor and the rest wouldn't take them seriously… I didn't expect that the four of them would all gather here today!"

The reason for the four-faced individual saying this was because he had sensed that the other four overlords—the two of them excluded— were gathered outside the dense forest. They had clearly formed a line of battle.

"Let's not talk about whether or not the news is true. If it were you, would you give up the perfect opportunity for eradicating your opponents?"

Upon hearing that, the four-faced individual's four faces looked even grimmer.

He knew that he would not give up such an opportunity.

At present, there were six overlords in the inner world, which meant the entire world's resources had to be divided into six portions. If there could be two people less, that would be exactly what the remaining four overlords wanted. This was because the ones left would definitely be able to divide up more resources.

Therefore, whether or not the news about the castellan's seal fragments was true, it was a rare opportunity to join forces in order to get rid of the four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine. The remaining four overlords would certainly not let this chance pass by.

What disappointed the four-faced individual most of all was that the three-tailed snake lady was clearly on the opposing side.

Although their relationship was only that of lovers, generally taking whatever they needed from each other to fulfill their physiological and business needs, they were not very emotionally attached. However, it made the four-faced individual rather uncomfortable that she had turned against him without hesitation.

…

The outside of the dense forest was closely surrounded by hundreds of organizations.

The last few days had been a sea of chaos.

No one was willing to attack first, nor was there anyone who could subdue the entire crowd to reach a unanimous consensus.

The four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine did not bother with the organizations that had gathered out there. For one, these people were nothing to them. For another, there were serious internal conflicts among these people, which caused them all to be in a complete state of disunity. Therefore, they were nothing to be afraid of.

Today, however, the squabbles that had been going on for the past few days suddenly stopped.

Within five seconds, the thousands of people on the scene fell silent because all of them sensed the impending arrival of four domineering auras.

Everyone present automatically shut their mouths, lifting their heads and looking up at the sky in the same direction.

Under the gaze of thousands of people, four figures descended!

The one on the far left was a flirtatious beauty with three snake tails.

From the waist down, she was covered in blueish-purple snake scales, three snake tails—each ten meters or more—extending from her lower body. From the waist up, her form was that of a human lady wearing a gold crown.

If one were only to look at her upper body, it could be said that her face and figure were the very pinnacles of beauty. The word 'pretty' was insufficient to describe how lovely she was, as the term could not adequately describe a work of art.

Her appearance, body, charisma, and allure were not only charming to males, but also attracted the attention of many females.

Next to her stood a humanoid monster in silver armor.

He was tall and well-built, fully three or more meters tall. His entire body was enveloped in silver armor, with only the eye holes on the helmet revealing a crimson glow.

Of the four overlords, the aura that exuded from his being was the most compelling and overbearing.

On the armored man's right was a gigantic purplish-red sarcoma in the shape of a sphere.

The sarcoma had clearly shrunk his size down a great deal if one were to compare his present form with his actual size. Currently, he maintained a body that was merely three meters or more in diameter.

There seemed to be parasites continuously squirming on the surface of the sarcoma. Even more terrifying were the countless tentacles of various sizes and lengths that extended from its surface.

On the far right was a huge eye hovering in midair.

It did not really look like a mammal's eyeball; it bore more resemblance to the eye of a gigantic fly.

The entire eye was densely covered with countless tiny eyes. Each tiny eye seemed to be alive and could see at different angles.

If a person with trypophobia saw this giant eye, they might immediately get goosebumps all over their body.

Everybody present identified the four newcomers immediately.

They were the three-tailed snake lady, Silver Armor, Giant Sarcoma, and Crimson Eye.

Excluding the four four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine, they were very clearly the remaining four overlords out of the six.

Although everyone had speculated that one of the four overlords would certainly come, no one had expected all four of them to show up. Not only that, they had all arrived at the same time.

As to what this meant, all those present could immediately guess.

These four individuals had secretly come to some kind of agreement for sure.

As expected, the four of them released their auras as soon as they showed up, not bothering to hide their arrivals at all.

In the presence of four overbearing, close to half-step lord-level auras released without concealment, more than half of the thousands present fell to the ground.

At such proximity, the only ones who could remain standing were basically high-level Heavenly Gods.

Even so, most of the high-level Heavenly Gods were finding it hard to stand their ground.

Fortunately, the four overlords did not maintain their auras for too long and began shouting right away.

An electronic synthesizer-like voice filled the air like muffled thunder, deep and low.

"Four Face, Nine Gloom, hand over the items, and this matter can be entirely settled peacefully."

As soon as Silver Armor spoke, a response immediately came from the dense forest.

"We've already said that those were rumors spread by outsiders. What do you want us to hand over? We don't have the castellan's seal fragments at all!" The four-faced individual was the one who responded; he sounded as if he felt somewhat wronged. The reality was that he genuinely did not have the castellan's seal fragment in his possession.

"Whether you have the fragments or not, come out, both of you, and let us verify it. Then we'll know." it was Giant Sarcoma who spoke this time. His voice sounded like it had been squeezed out of continuously squirming flesh.

"Nonsense!" The Nine Gloom Vine's voice came right away, rejecting this suggestion.

"If both of you are recalcitrant, then there won't be any friendly way to resolve this matter." At this point, the three-tailed snake lady finally spoke up. From far away, her gaze cut through the distance as she looked in the direction of the four-faced individual, "Please listen to me. Stop being stubborn; let's settle this peaceably."

The four-faced individual locked eyes with her from far away as well. No matter what, he could not hate this woman. However, although she was the one who spoke, she could not change his stand.

"Since there's no friendly way to resolve this, let's fight then!"

As soon as the four-faced individual spoke, the entire dense forest within a radius of thousands of kilometers seemed to come alive. Countless vines sprouted from the branches of the trees, wildly lashing at the people surrounding the forest.

The Nine Gloom Vine's attack came with practically no warning. The heavens were suddenly full of vines that blotted out the sun and covered the earth, spreading everywhere.

The hundreds of high-level Heavenly Gods who were initially still able to stand upright had absolutely no time to react. Some immediately had their bodies impaled by countless vines, instantly turning into human sieves. Others were strangled by the vines and crushed into pulp…

Within less than half a second, the surrounding army of thousands had been completely wiped out.

In that vine-covered world, only four figures remained unaffected. They had not even moved so much as half a step.

The Nine Gloom Vine's attack was as yet insufficient to disturb the four individuals, who were also overlord powerhouses like himself.

"Nine Gloom, this attack of yours might be successful at frightening juniors, but to use it against us—don't you think you might be underestimating us?" Giant Sarcoma's squirming flesh-like voice faintly drifted forth. He seemed to treat his opponent's attack as if it were nothing at all.

At that moment, Crimson Eye, who was off to one side, barked a sudden warning.

"Watch out!"

Before he had even finished speaking, they saw a thick vine twisted together from hundreds of vines erupt suddenly from under the earth. It transformed into a giant net that enveloped the three-tailed snake lady.

Before the rest could attempt a rescue, the giant web contracted immediately, dragging the three-tailed snake lady underground.

A scarlet flash flickered in Silver Armor's eyes. Just as he was about to charge into the depths of the dense forest, he saw the thousands of Heavenly Gods—who had earlier fallen onto the ground—standing up one after the other.

This was the Nine Gloom Vine's technique—Demon Sowing.

He could implant demonic seeds in corpses and turn them into his puppets.

Bodies implanted with demonic seeds not only inherited most of the abilities they possessed when they were still alive but were also equipped with many of the Nine Gloom Vine's abilities. They would be much more powerful than when they had been alive and were practically the Nine Gloom Vine's clones.

Moreover, as long as the demonic seeds were not destroyed, the puppets would never die.

They would get up to fight over and over again.

Silver Armor smashed the puppets one by one with his fists. However, he soon realized that the corpses—which had practically turned into pools of blood—were regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye, and swiftly returning to the battlefield.

On the sidelines, Giant Sarcoma and Crimson Eye became aware of this issue very quickly as well.

No matter how many times they killed these puppets, they would recover immediately and join the battlefield again.

Among the three, the most helpless was Crimson Eye. Using spiritual attacks, he crushed the puppets' souls over and over again, but their souls would always regenerate.

After the battle had continued for about ten minutes or so, Silver Armor was unable to take it anymore and finally used his weapon.

Usually, he would not bother using his actual abilities when dealing with such insignificant underlings. However, this never-ending skirmishing had made him genuinely angry. He took out his weapon—the Black Dragon Spear!

The grade of Silver Armor's Black Dragon Spear had far surpassed that of common god sequence relics to the point where it could even be considered a Pseudo-Dao Weapon.

One could say that Silver Armor could only be considered complete when he wielded the Black Dragon Spear.

With just a casual sweep of his weapon, he completely obliterated a puppet that was charging at him into utter nothingness.

After this attack, the puppet finally did not revive.

Silver Armor had discovered the way to kill this group of puppets at last. Immediately, he communicated to the remaining two overlords through voice transmission.

"I know what the problem is now. We must completely destroy their physical bodies. Not a single drop of flesh or blood can remain!"

Indeed, Silver Armor had found the key to solving the problem. To combat Nine Gloom's Puppetry technique, they had to destroy the demonic seeds implanted in the puppets.

Furthermore, the demonic seeds that Nine Gloom implanted had strong survival instincts. They would hide in a safe place automatically whenever they were attacked.

Even if only a drop of blood or a piece of flesh remained, the demonic seeds could hide within and survive. They would then regenerate.

This was also why the puppets could be revived even if they were smashed into a pulp.

The only way to destroy the demonic seed within the puppet was to completely obliterate the puppet's physical body and soul, causing it to lose its host. Without a host, the demonic seeds Nine Gloom implanted would be extremely weak. Any high-level Heavenly God could destroy them.

After getting the solution from Silver Armor, Giant Sarcoma and Crimson Eye soon went into killing mode.

"Since that's the case, this will be easy!"

Giant Sarcoma's tentacles extended wildly. These tentacles—capable of obliterating sequences—impaled the puppets' bodies one by one.

The Heavenly God puppets' bodies swiftly faded, then rapidly transformed into nothingness at a speed that was visible to the naked eye.

On the other side, Crimson Eye's countless tiny eyes lit up, and black rays shot out one after the other, enveloping the puppets one by one.

The deadly black rays, with their ability to destroy sequences, turned the puppets to ashes within a blink of an eye.

…

While the outside world was in intense combat, in the depth of the dense forest, the three-tailed snake lady had already escaped from the clutches of the giant net.

Meanwhile, two powerful enemies stood before her—the four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine.

"Three Tail, I don't want to fight you. I'm giving you two options right now. You either join us to fight those three fellows out there, or you turn around to leave and swear that you'll never participate in the fight for the castellan's seal fragment!" The four-faced individual did not attack right away.

"What if I chose neither?" The three-tailed snake lady smiled coldly.

"Then you'll die here!" The Nine Gloom Vine did not have the patience to waste time with her. He had already sensed that the puppets out there were dying rapidly, and would not be able to hold off Silver Armor and the other two for much longer.

Without waiting for the four-faced individual to say anything more, the Nine Gloom Vine attacked with no hesitation.

Vines surged toward the three-tailed snake lady like a tsunami, so dense they practically blotted out the sky.

Nine Gloom had captured the three-tailed snake lady first because she was the weakest among the six overlords. After she had been taken hostage, he had never expected the four-faced individual to take into account their relationship, instead of working together to kill her.

Fortunately, the four-faced individual did not stop the Nine Gloom Vine when he saw him attacking.

A trace of hesitation flashed across his eyes briefly, but it immediately turned into determination.

The next instant, when the Nine Gloom Vine attacked, the four-faced individual attacked as well.

A giant beast with twelve arms coalesced in the air above his head, battling the sky full of vines with heavy punches…

The three-tailed snake lady's eyes turned scarlet immediately, and her form immediately split into three clones.

One clone summoned black water that filled the air. Another opened its mouth and spat out never-ending purple fog, while yet another turned into a gigantic black boa constrictor. Its huge tail charged at the giant arms.

Countless vines decayed and were destroyed wherever the vast body of black water passed through.

The giant snake's tail collided loudly with the giant arms' fists, stirring up an endless storm.

However, the black water's consuming properties were not enough to defeat the regenerating abilities of the vines. Gradually, the vines completely covered the black water.

On the other side, the giant snake's tail had been crushed under continuous heavy punching.

The three-tailed snake lady was already the weakest of the six overlords in terms of ability. She was more likely to lose than win when fighting any of the five overlords, what more now that she was fighting two of them at once.

As expected, she was already looking at defeat less than five minutes into the battle.

Truth to tell, she was very much aware of her weaknesses. Therefore, the minute she saw that she was at a slight disadvantage, she chose to abandon resistance completely. She dispersed her two clones and escaped into the purple fog to hide…

Outside the dense forest, the battle between the three overlords—Giant Sarcoma, Crimson Eye, and Silver Amor—and the several thousand Heavenly God puppets soon came to an end.

Once they had grasped the proper way to kill the puppets, all three overlords attacked without holding back and eliminated the Heavenly God puppets completely.

Given their abilities, which were close to that of half-step Lords, killing these puppets did not require a second attack.

Very soon, all the Heavenly God puppets were obliterated.

Outside the dense forest, not a single drop of flesh or blood was left—not even dregs. All that remained were traces of battle on the ground.

However, after killing all the puppets, the three overlords did not enter the forest immediately.

The forest was the Nine Gloom Vine's lair. No one knew how many traps he had laid here.

Moreover, the Nine Gloom Vine was—on record—the oldest living monster in the whole of the inner world. Nobody knew exactly how far back his history went since he had been alive for so long. That was also the main reason why Silver Armor and the other two overlords feared him and the consequences of going against him.

Right as they were hesitating, Crimson Eye suddenly spoke up.

"If we don't take action now, it'll be too late. Snake Lady has already used her life-saving move." From afar, he had seen the purple fog released by the Snake Lady and realized that she could not hold on any longer.

As soon as Crimson Eye said that, Silver Armor rushed into the dense forest in a flash.

The reason for his haste was that—like the four-faced individual—he had a very close relationship with the three-tailed snake lady.

In reality, the remaining three overlords were all aware of the complicated relationship between these three people.

This was also what the four-faced individual was most upset about in particular—that under such circumstances, the three-tailed snake lady had chosen Silver Armor instead of himself.

At this level of their relationship, the four-faced individual's issue was not actually about which of them the snake lady loved—it was that he could not let such humiliation go just like that.

Silver Armor rushed in to attempt to save the three-tailed snake lady not because he loved her devotedly, but because he knew he had to make a show of doing so.

On one hand, it was so that the three-tailed snake lady could see his actions and confirm that she had made the right choice. On the other hand, he wanted Giant Sarcoma and Crimson Eye to see that he was a reliable ally.

He knew very well that the Snake Lady had chosen him most probably not because he was more outstanding than the four-faced individual. Compared to a stalemate of 3v3, they could eliminate two opponents of the same level much faster if they were 4v2. This lady merely wanted to obtain more resources.

For them, to be able to hold the position of overlord, benefits were paramount over everything else. When necessary, they could put up a smiling front and even work together with enemies who had killed their families without batting an eyelid.

As for a friend with benefits whom he had few emotional ties to—there was no question that it would not affect Silver Armor's choices or decisions at all.

Silver Armor appeared to be hastily rushing into the Nine Gloom Vine's lair. In reality, however, he was fully on his guard, ready to mount a defense against the Nine Gloom Vine's traps at any moment.

As soon as Silver Armor set foot into the dense forest, the Nine Gloom Vine immediately launched an attack.

An opponent setting foot into the Nine Gloom Vine's territory was an opportunity that was extremely hard to come by. Naturally, he was not about to let such a chance to attack pass by so easily.

In practically an instant, the entire dense forest turned into a world of vines. Not only did the vines blot out the sky, they even covered every available inch of space.

From a third-person perspective, Silver Armor was like a skiff floating on a vast ocean, buffeted by the onslaught of merciless waves and the howling of wild winds at any given time. At any moment, the skiff might capsize, and be destroyed.

However, in actuality, Silver Armor showed no trace of fear. Every time he moved, it was with full confidence and no hint of worry at all about the attacks coming from the all-encompassing vines.

His figure slipped repeatedly through the sea of vines, evading them, and dodging the attacks as much as possible. Whatever attacks he could not hide from, he sent his spear into action and utterly eliminated them.

For a while, although it was hard for him to escape this region, he could protect himself and had nothing to worry about. He fell into a stalemate with the Nine Gloom Vine.

However, he was not anxious at all. As for whether or not the three-tailed snake lady would die, he was not overly concerned about the matter.

He had already gone through the motions of attempted rescue. Whether he could save her or not was mainly dependant on the Snake Lady's own luck.

Despite being under attack from countless vines, he was still advancing slowly and steadily.

At least to the eyes of any outsiders, he had put in the effort.

In reality, he had no intention of taking risks for the Snake Lady. He seemed to be advancing very slowly, but actually, he was waiting for his two allies to join him.

The Nine Gloom Vine was a veteran powerhouse, and they were fighting in his territory where he would certainly have the upper hand. However, as far as Silver Armor was concerned, no matter how powerful the Nine Gloom Vine's abilities were, he could not fight three people on his own.

Even though the Nine Gloom Vine was on his own territory, it was not really possible for him to single-handedly defend himself against the invasion of three powerhouses of the same level.

Silver Armor knew this, which was why he was not in a hurry at all.

Meanwhile, as he had anticipated, backup soon arrived.

After Silver Armor rushed into the dense forest on his own, Giant Sarcoma and Crimson Eye only hesitated for a brief moment before they entered the forest as well.

As soon as the two entered the battle, Silver Armor could clearly sense that the pressure on him was reduced significantly.

After all, the three of them were opponents of the same level. No matter how powerful the Nine Gloom Vine's abilities were, he had to divide his attention to fight the other two as well as Silver Armor.

However, before Silver Armor could rejoice, in the distance he heard the Nine Gloom Vine's voice.

"I can't believe the three of you showed up on my doorstep voluntarily. That's saved me a ton of effort!" The Nine Gloom Vine's voice sounded rather pleased. "Do you know, everyone in the world thinks that this dense forest is a lair I built for myself out of sheer boredom. However, not many know that this is actually my God Territory!"

What the Nine Gloom Vine said stunned almost everyone present.

At the same time, the forest's environment began changing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Each one of the trees gradually turned into aged vines. Even the plants and flowers transformed themselves into thin, slender vines.

In the blink of an eye, the entire forest had turned into a world of nothing but vines.

All these vines were of different thicknesses and sizes; even some of their colors were different.

"Welcome to my Kingdom!"

The Nine Gloom Vine's voice came from all directions as if each vine were speaking.

"Only the God Territory of a lord-level powerhouse can be called a Kingdom. What kind of a Kingdom is this? Do you really consider yourself a Lord?!" Giant Sarcoma's mocking voice swiftly rippled through the entire area.

Beside it, Silver Armor and Crimson Eye laughed out loud.

It was not important whether it was funny or not. Right now, what they needed to do was to support each other.

"In a moment, all of you won't be laughing anymore," the Nine Gloom Vine's voice sounded slightly enraged.

As soon as he was done speaking, countless vines surged toward the three of them.

Some of these vines contained various sequence powers, while some were imbued with elemental truth. Practically every strike they made was on par with a ninth-rank Heavenly God's full-force attack.

Silver Armor and the other two did not fight the attacks head-on. Instead, they chose to use evasion as their main strategic response, figures dodging continuously and never staying still in one spot.

The display from the three of them was akin to three small skiffs floating on a turbulent ocean, in danger of being capsized at any moment…

Deep in the dense forest, a stretch of purple fog that covered several kilometers blocked out all attempts to probe it.

This was the three-tailed snake lady's life-saving maneuver. It was her trump card, in which she had integrated a Pseudo-Dao Weapon and her own innate divine ability.

The minute she realized she was no match for her opponents, she had used this move very decisively.

The purple fog not only contained poison that anyone below the level of half-step Lord dared not simply come into contact with, but it also blocked out Divine Telekinesis, preventing any probing attempts.

What made the Nine Gloom Vine and the four-faced individual even more helpless was that whenever their attacks landed within the areas of purple fog, the attacks would be absorbed and the force offloaded.

After several trial attempts, the four-faced individual asked the Nine Gloom Vine to halt his repeated attacks entirely.

"There's no need to waste time on her anymore. Her technique is called Purple Cloud, and even half-step Lords might not be able to forcibly breach it. To make the Purple Cloud dissipate, apart from the Snake Lady deactivating it herself, the only other way would be to exhaust the Divine Power within her body."

The Nine Gloom Vine glanced at the four-faced individual after hearing this. If he had received this information earlier, the target he captured just now would certainly not have been the three-tailed snake lady.

However, he did not say anything. After all, the four-faced individual was the ally that he himself had chosen.

After abandoning the attacks on the three-tailed snake lady, he decided to focus all of his efforts entirely on Silver Armor and the other two.

"I'll separate the three of them and attack them in turn with you!" As soon as the Nine Gloom Vine finished speaking, he separated out a vine and wrapped it around the four-faced individual's arm.

The four-faced individual was startled. Just when he was about to struggle to free himself, he heard the Nine Gloom Vine's voice. "With this vine, I can share my field of view with you. You can even benefit from all the advantages in my God Territory."

As soon as the Nine Gloom Vine said that, the four-faced individual could clearly feel that his body had been imbued with definite benefits. He was lighter on his feet and more powerful than before. Even the flow of Divine Power in his body had accelerated significantly.

After taking a brief moment to be aware of himself, he could roughly feel that his abilities had elevated by twenty percent or so.

"Don't worry about the consumption of Divine Power; it doesn't matter even if you drain it. I can replenish your Divine Power twice based on the current amount of Divine Power within you. Just kill the others as fast as you can!"

Before the Nine Gloom Vine had even finished speaking, the four-faced individual charged.

The first target he chose was Crimson Eye.

…

In the vine-filled God Territory, Silver Armor and the other two very quickly sensed the changes.

"He's trying to separate us! He must want to divide and conquer." Crimson Eye was the first to sense the anomaly and hurriedly informed the other two immediately through voice transmission.

"As he wishes then!" Silver Armor had sufficient confidence in his abilities. "Both of them will keep dragging things out like this if the three of us stay together. The Snake Lady might not be able to hold out for too long on her end either."

Although he sounded as if he were worried about whether the three-tailed snake lady lived or died, in reality, he just did not want to waste more time prolonging matters.

"This is an opportunity for us too. We each have life-saving maneuvers anyway, and we can't be killed off that easily. Have someone fight the four-faced individual, then the remaining two can drain old Nine Gloom Vine's Divine Power faster. That old geezer has been alive for so long, his Divine Power probably far outstrips our own. It's not going to be easy to kill him," Giant Sarcoma agreed with Silver Armor's suggestion.

It was two against one, so Crimson Eye had no choice but to agree.

The three figures swiftly stopped resisting the Nine Gloom Vine's attempts to divide them; each of them went their separate ways.

Very soon, Crimson Eye sensed a wave of energy locking onto him.

In truth, he had anticipated that he would most probably be the first target of attack as soon as they were separated.

Of the four of them who had come to do battle, Silver Armor possessed the most powerful abilities, while Giant Sarcoma possessed the most techniques.

The weakest of them—the three-tailed snake lady—had been attacked as soon as the battle began. Therefore, since he was the second weakest, he naturally became the next target of attack.

"Do you really think that I'm a pushover?" Crimson Eye scoffed.

A moment later, a figure emerged from the dense world of vines, arriving not too far off from Crimson Eye. It was the four-faced individual. He was completely unaffected by the vines around, as if they did not sense his existence at all.

Crimson Eye did not waste time in idle talk. As soon as he saw the four-faced individual, he immediately launched his attack.

An infinite variety of colors fluctuated from the thousands of tiny eyes within his eyes. The next second, he and the four-faced individual simultaneously vanished on the spot.

Countless vines also lost their prey at the same time and fell still.

Far away, the Nine Gloom Vine could not help a startled exclamation.

He could sense that the pair had not actually vanished; instead, they had entered another dimension.

Although he had never fought Crimson Eye before, he had been studying his four opponents' techniques over the last few days and had a rough idea of what had transpired.

…

Under the black canopy of the heavens, the four-faced individual's figure appeared out of nowhere and hovered in the air.

He glanced over to his left and right briefly, then looked at his own body. After that, he raised his brows. "A spiritual dimension?"

At that moment, Crimson Eye's voice came from all directions.

Within the initially pitch-black void, countless multi-colored eyes of various sizes suddenly opened.

"Welcome to my God Territory—the Purgatory of Ten Directions!"

This was a special characteristic of Crimson Eye's God Territory—he could drag opponents into his God Territory if their spirits were weaker than his own.

The enemies who were pulled into this God Territory could only exist as spirit beings, and would completely lose the support of their physical bodies' strength.

That was why, although Crimson Eye's combined abilities were weakest among the six overlords, he had never really regarded the five other overlords as any match for himself if things really had to come down to a fight.

Just like Silver Armor's most powerful trait, which was that his body was almost indestructible, in Crimson Eye's God Territory, Crimson Eye could seal off his opponent's physical body so they could only fight as spirit beings.

To him, the four-faced individual was just like Silver Armor. They were both powerhouses who had powerful physical bodies.

These types of powerhouses could not even perform thirty percent of their abilities in his God Territory.

Crimson Eye felt sure that he would definitely win.

However, the four-faced individual did not panic at all. After ascertaining the environment he was in, he smirked and asked, "Do you know what each of my four faces corresponds to?"

Crimson Eye was slightly taken aback when he heard this question.

"My four faces each have their own names.

"I named my first face Ordinary. It's my normal condition; it's also my daily state.

"My second face, I named Spirit. In this condition, I can gather the Divine Power from all of my four states. The amount of my Divine Power and the speed of its flow will elevate fourfold.

"I named my third face Demon, which is a battle mode. In this state, my physical body's strength will be maximized.

"I named my fourth face Fae; it's also a battle mode. Up until now, this face is the one that I've used the least…

"Take a guess; what do you think my fourth face strengthens?"

Without waiting for Crimson Eye to respond, the four-faced individual's head suddenly started turning. The face that was initially on the left turned ninety degrees, so it was now facing forward. The three initially closed eyes on that face also slowly began to open.

The moment all three eyes opened, the four-faced individual's body began undergoing an intense transformation.

The surface of his body swiftly started turning pale; even the armor he originally had on was transformed into a fluttering white robe. His muscular body began to elongate and become slender, while his figure of three-plus meters tall grew to over ten meters in height within a blink of an eye. Slender arms as fair and pale as jade rapidly sprouted from his back at a speed visible to the naked eye, dramatically increasing until finally stopping at sixteen arms.

A layer of faint white mist wreathed his body, enveloping it entirely and giving one an odd sense of indistinctness.

Noticing that the four-faced individual's form was beginning to change, Crimson Eye attacked without hesitation before his opponent's new form could stabilize.

The hundreds and thousands of eyes in the void lit up in all kinds of colors like a sky full of stars. An instant later, fierce rays of different-colored light shot out from every one of the eyes and rained down on the four-faced individual like a storm.

Countless powerful rays of light like arrows immediately engulfed the four-faced individual's form.

It was unclear whether it was because his form had not fully stabilized or because of some other reason, but the four-faced individual did not appear to have evaded this attack at all. He did not even manage to mount a defense before he was swallowed up by the countless powerful rays.

However, Crimson Eye was only elated for a brief moment upon seeing his opponent being thus engulfed.

Although he saw the countless attacks piercing through the four-faced individual's body, Crimson Eye knew that they had failed the minute the attacks encountered his opponent's form. The feel was completely different when an attack had successfully struck its target, compared to when it had failed to do so.

"That's as good as you've got?" Suddenly, a voice sounded in the void.

A white figure swiftly coalesced into being again. It was the four-faced individual.

Meanwhile, a short distance away, the figure that had been pierced through by countless fierce rays gradually distorted and faded. It had been a mere shadow after all.

"This is your territory. If your abilities in here are only of this standard, I confess I have my doubts as to how you got to your position as overlord," the white-robed four-faced individual mocked mercilessly.

"You'll find out right now how I got to this position." Very little emotion could be heard in Crimson Eye's voice.

However, as soon as he finished speaking, all the eyes in the entire space around them swiftly flared up again brightly.

Radiant light of various colors rapidly began to consolidate above each eye.

When the four-faced individual noticed this, he jeered, "It's the same technique, merely increased in quantity and just a bit faster. Don't you have anything new?"

"Don't worry—this maneuver certainly isn't the same as the last one. I think what you need to worry about most now is whether or not you'll die in this attack." At the same time that Crimson Eye's voice came through faintly, he launched his attack.

The attack appeared to be exactly the same as before. Indeed, it was also just as the four-faced individual said—the number of fierce rays had increased, and they were much faster.

However, the four-faced individual had his guard up this time.

He certainly did not think that Crimson Eye was merely trying to frighten him. This attack must have something else concealed within it.

He carefully evaded the furious onslaught of the fierce light rays. Before the four-faced individual could let out a sigh of relief, however, his expression suddenly changed slightly.

This was because he saw that after he had dodged the onslaught of all the light rays, the rays actually collided with the eyes opposite and were deflected back at an even faster speed.

He almost did not dodge in time, narrowly risking being turned into a sieve.

Every single one of the eyes in the void was still swiftly shooting out powerful rays one after the other. However, at the same time, all of the rays would be deflected back even faster after colliding with other eyes (the rays were not always deflected in a straight line; the motion trajectory was always changing.) When they collided with the eyes a second time, they were deflected even faster…

In a moment, the entire space was filled with various rays of different trajectories and speeds, to the point where it could even be called chaotic.

If Crimson Eye's first wave of attack was a rainstorm, then this second round was a full-on, torrential monsoon of epic proportions.

Almost all the fierce rays were shooting out at different angles and speeds; even the power of the attacks varied.

As time passed, the four-faced individual had even begun to lose his sense of being able to anticipate the trajectory of the rays. He could only rely on his body's instincts for dodging and mounting a defense.

However, given the speed and frequency of the attacks, the four-faced individual could not avoid overlooking some rays or being unable to dodge in time. In very short order, he was being continuously bombarded with the fierce rays.

'This can't go on, I'm too much of a sitting duck." As he dodged and countered the attacks, the four-faced individual was trying to think of a plan. He knew that if he continued being on the defensive, he would definitely lose. The longer this persisted, the more time would drag on, and the chances of him winning would only get slimmer.

After a moment of consideration, he lifted his gaze and shot a glance at the surrounding eyes. Swiftly, he came to a decision.

He shook both his arms, and two long swords suddenly materialized in his hands.

At the same time, the sixteen arms on his back all wielded a long sword in each hand.

A moment later, eighteen arms brandished their swords and struck. Countless white sword gleams formed in the void in an instant, and their number was certainly no less than that of the fierce rays.

However, the moment the sword gleams formed, they were not directed at the powerful rays shooting out from the eyes. Instead, they shot straight toward the eyes that filled the void.

Crimson Eye had made an error of judgment. He thought that the four-faced individual would use this maneuver to counter the fierce rays; he had not expected that the four-faced individual would stubbornly field the onslaught of the rays and directly attack the eyes in the void.

The next second, white sword gleams flashed as they shot out, piercing through the eyes one by one and making them explode.

The void was immediately filled with Crimson Eye's furious shrieks. It had never crossed his mind that the attack power of the four-faced individual's sword gleams would surpass what he had expected.

Within the time it took for a breath, most of the eyes in the voice had been damaged. Less than one-fifth of them were still perfectly fine.

"You're an abyssal monster, but you actually cultivated a fairy-type method. You're an utter embarrassment to the Abyss!" Crimson Eye's enraged voice could be heard; he clearly did not sound as confident as before.

"Why do you think I named this face of mine Fae? This face was consolidated by refining a fairy-type sword cultivator. This state is the best for suppressing Abyssal energy."

The four-faced individual's white robe was fluttering at the moment, his entire body wreathed in white mist. If one did not look at his head, he really did have the charm of a fairy.

"I'm not afraid of telling you the truth either—I intentionally cultivated this form. It's my trump card against you overlords. As for you, you're fortunate enough to become my first hunting target."

As soon as he finished speaking, the countless white sword gleams in front of the four-faced individual's body consolidated again, dense as a sky full of stars on a clear summer night…

In the Nine Gloom Vine's God Territory, countless vines blotted out the heavens.

The entire dimension appeared to be an ocean completely made out of vines.

Within it, a figure traveled at high speed.

This was a silver figure. If one were to see it at close range, the figure was actually very tall and broad, fully over three meters tall. However, he was very agile, freely moving through the all-encompassing vines with complete ease.

Every step he took—every movement he made, even—he could dodge the assault of the surrounding vines with the highest level of agility.

Even though he occasionally ran into trouble because he could not evade the attacks, he still could snap the vines with his palms immediately and kill them, thus extricating himself in time.

Perhaps other people might have considered the Nine Gloom Vine's type of attack to be extremely troublesome. However, given that he was the king of close-range combat, Silver Armor feared this sort of close-quarter fighting the least. No matter how many vines there were, how frequent the attacks, or how strange the angles, to him, evasive maneuvers were instinctual to his body.

He even felt that none of these attacks would score a hit on him at all, even if he were to close his eyes.

Giant Sarcoma, on the other hand, was not as fortunate as Silver Armor.

Unlike Silver Armor, he chose to counter the attacks by fighting them.

However many vines attacked him, he would extend the same number of tentacles to combat them.

There was no reason other than his Movement Skill was universally acknowledged to be very weak.

He had never thought about improving upon this point. This was because from the very beginning until the day he rose to his position as one of the six overlords, he had never needed to use his Movement Skill to aid him.

In all his battles, he basically overwhelmed his opponents.

His opponents usually did not even have a chance to escape, so he did not even need to pursue them.

In reality, even if he were to fight an opponent on par with the Nine Gloom Vine, he would still never consider remedying his lack of Movement Skill.

This was because all he needed was a thought, and the number of his tentacles would certainly not be any less than the number of vines that the Nine Gloom Vine sent out.

It was just that this was utterly unnecessary at the moment.

This was the Nine Gloom Vine's God Territory, so a similar maneuver would consume far less of the Nine Gloom Vine's Divine Power. Giant Sarcoma did not want to drain his Divine Power here. It was just not worth it.

The battle between the three of them went into a stalemate for a long time. Suddenly, however, the three of them experienced a slight moment of emotion.

The reason for this was that they sensed the four-faced individual's aura had returned, but not that of Crimson Eye.

"Crimson Eye's been killed?!" The red in Silver Armor's eyes briefly faded, as if he had never expected something like this to happen.

From far away, Giant Sarcoma was rather shocked as well. "So quick?! It's been less than ten minutes!"

However, he got over it very quickly. Ten minutes might have passed in the outside world, but due to the special nature of Crimson Eye's God Territory, two people fighting on a psychic level might have already crossed swords hundreds upon thousands of times.

The most shocked of all was the three-tailed snake lady still hiding in the purple fog.

Although she was hiding in the purple fog and could not be detected by the outside world, she could very clearly sense whatever was happening out there. Naturally, she also sensed the disappearance of Crimson Eye's aura.

As the four-faced individual's lover, she knew that his close-range combat abilities were powerful—perhaps not that much weaker than Silver Armor. What she had not anticipated was that Crimson Eye, who should theoretically have been able to suppress the four-faced individual, turned out to be the first to be defeated by the four-faced individual instead.

"That fellow has never been willing to tell me what secrets his four faces hide. From the looks of it, one of those faces is equipped with a powerful psychic technique—one that's no weaker than Crimson Eye's!"

Both of them had been bedmates for years. Although they were not married, the three-tailed snake lady thought she already knew the four-faced individual very well. Never had she anticipated that his abilities would far surpass her expectations.

She was even to the point where she suspected she might be in the wrong camp the moment Crimson Eye's aura vanished.

She had chosen to side Silver Armor because, for one, the chances of winning were higher when it was four against two. For another, she knew Silver Amor very well and was fully confident in his abilities.

Now it seemed that her other lover, the four-faced individual, possessed abilities that were in no way weaker than Silver Armor's own.

However, this uncertainty only surfaced for a moment before the three-tailed snake lady firmly snuffed it out.

She knew that she no longer had the chance for a second choice.

With Silver Armor, as long as Nine Gloom and Four Face were killed, she would still be able to get a share of the spoils. However, if she changed her mind now, even if she helped the four-faced individual to defeat Silver Armor and the rest, she might still be killed by the four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine in the end. They might just see her as a threat.

Since she had already made a stand, all she could do was to bite the bullet and tough it out to the end.

After making up her mind, the three-tailed snake lady continued hiding like a turtle in its shell. She watched the goings-on in the outside world, waiting patiently for an opportunity to attack.

Meanwhile, on the vine-filled battlefield, something unforeseen happened again very quickly.

After killing his first prey, the four-faced individual locked onto his second target immediately.

Although he did not sense any energy locking onto him, Giant Sarcoma guessed that he would be the four-faced individual's next target.

This had occurred to him the moment he sensed Crimson Eye's aura dissipating.

The reason for this was that Silver Armor's close-range combat abilities were extremely good, while his defensive capabilities were the best among the six overlords. The four-faced individual, who was also a close-range combat powerhouse, would be at a complete disadvantage fighting Silver Armor, let alone trying to defeat him.

While the three-tailed snake lady remained in hiding, the only possible target could be Giant Sarcoma himself.

However, Giant Sarcoma was fearless. For one, fear was not an innate emotion that he possessed; for another, he did not believe that the four-faced individual could actually kill him.

It did not take very long for the four-faced individual to wend his way through the many layers of vines and appear not too far away in front of Giant Sarcoma.

The moment he appeared, Giant Sarcoma attacked without hesitation.

Countless tentacles extended in a frenzy, surging toward the four-faced individual.

The four-faced individual seemed very much at ease as he evaded the tentacles. "It seems you came prepared. You knew I'd come."

"From your point of view, if you had chosen Silver Armor, it would be difficult to decide on the winner or loser within such a short time. Naturally, I became the better choice," Giant Sarcoma's voice seemed to be squeezed out from wriggling flesh, "However, I don't think you chose correctly."

"Based on what? This flabby, limp attack technique?" The four-faced individual jeered, smirking.

"My flabby, limp attack technique might be able to kill you." The minute Giant Sarcoma finished speaking, the front part of his countless tentacles suddenly began dividing.

One became two, two became four, four became eight…

The number of tentacles increased exponentially in an instant.

Since the four-faced individual was caught off guard, dozens of tentacles rapidly came into contact with his body.

He wanted to struggle but discovered that the tentacles were stuck to him like sticky candy. Not only that, as his movements were now restricted, more and more tentacles began to attach themselves to him.

The Nine Gloom Vine—who had all along been using vines to interfere with Giant Sarcoma and help the four-faced individual—had not expected that Giant Sarcoma would suddenly pull off such a maneuver. By the time the Nine Gloom Vine came to the four-faced individual's aid, he was already a fraction too late.

In a blink of an eye, the four-faced individual was smothered in countless tentacles, turning into a wriggling mass of flesh…

Countless tentacles wrapped around the four-faced individual in a tight, impenetrable cocoon, forming a huge fleshy tumor in midair.

However, this was not the end of things yet. The layers of tentacles on the tumor's surface continued to increase. They further enveloping the tumor, which was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Meanwhile, inside the tumor where the outside world could not see, all external energy and light sources were completely blocked. The interior was an infinite sea of darkness.

It was not only his sense of sight; the four-faced individual could clearly feel that all his five senses were gradually being stripped away.

Countless sticky tentacles assaulted his body from places in the dark that he could not see.

However, although he was gradually being deprived of his five senses, the four-faced individual still possessed an instinct for danger. His body still continued to rely on this instinct to dodge frantically and defend itself.

The first time his body failed to evade in time and the sticky tentacles plastered themselves to him, the four-faced individual was shocked.

His senses were almost entirely numbed, but he could clearly feel that these things were consuming his Divine Power at high speed.

Although he swiftly managed to struggle free from the tentacles' entanglement, all-pervasive, sticky tentacles rapidly glued themselves to him a second and a third time. Even if they only twined around him for a second before being shaken off, they would take some Divine Power with them each time.

'This can't go on. These things will completely consume my Divine Power sooner or later.'

Sensing that his body was losing Divine Power far more rapidly than before, the four-faced individual realized that the longer he dragged things out, the higher the chance that he would lose the battle.

Although he had some trump cards that he did not wish other people to find out about, this was already a life-or-death situation. If he did not use his trump cards, he might never have a chance to use them in the future.

Once he considered this, he hesitated no longer.

His head suddenly turned. The face that was initially on the right turned ninety degrees so that it now faced forward. The single initially closed eye on that face also slowly opened.

Within that single eye, a faint golden flame blossomed.

The moment the eye opened, the Divine Power within the four-faced individual's entire body began surging violently, and the amount of Divine Power started increasing sharply as well.

Ten percent!

Twenty percent!

Thirty percent!

…

Double!

Triple!

…

The four-faced individual's Divine Power stopped going up only after it had increased to four times its original amount.

The golden Divine Power no longer merely enveloped his entire body. It even seeped out from within him like flames, extending fully to one meter beyond his physical body

His form resembled a fiercely burning golden flame.

In an instant, the initially dark interior of the tumor was illuminated completely.

On the crimson walls of flesh surrounding him, the four-faced individual saw countless thin, flesh-colored tentacles covered with viscous mucus. These tentacles were not as tough and keen as the ones Giant Sarcoma had released earlier. Their texture was more like sludge.

"What a disgusting technique," the four-faced individual could not help ridiculing out loud.

As he spoke, he attacked like lightning.

Eyeing the all-encompassing mass of tentacles that were coming at him, he abruptly drew a deep breath. The next second, he opened his mouth and blew.

Endless golden flames spurted from his mouth immediately. Within the blink of an eye, they had spread through the entire space inside the tumor.

The moment the flesh-colored tentacles came into the slightest contact with the flames, they swiftly turned to ash and disintegrated.

The enveloping mass of flesh-colored tentacles vanished like snow rapidly melting under the scorching sun.

Very soon, the golden flames spread to the inner walls of the tumor. The walls also disintegrated as if they had been corroded by acid. They turned into puddles of green water that dribbled down, releasing an extremely putrid stench of decay…

Not long later, several holes burned through the layers of tentacles that made up the tumor. A golden figure exited in a flash through one of the holes.

"Tsk tsk, does this count as using your trump card?" Giant Sarcoma's wriggling-flesh voice sounded immediately. "I anticipated that this tactic wouldn't be able to detain you; I only thought of draining your Divine Power a bit more. I never expected you to be so decisive and use your trump card right away."

"If you hadn't used this tactic, you might have been able to live a little longer," the four-faced individual snorted with a cold laugh.

He did not bother continuing to waste words on his opponent. Once more, he opened his mouth and took another deep breath, spitting out yet more golden flames again.

An all-encompassing wave of golden fire surged toward Giant Sarcoma like a tsunami…

"Dragon Flame?!" Giant Sarcoma exclaimed.

Naturally, he recognized that this was the Dragon Flame of a True Dragon, which would burn everything in its path.

He immediately realized how the four-faced individual had managed to get out of the tumor.

The real Dragon Flame was the nemesis of almost all Abyssal techniques.

Giant Sarcoma speculated that the four-faced individual was able to spit out Dragon Flame because he must have devoured a True Dragon. The four-faced individual had then borrowed the power of the True Dragon's bloodline and inherited memory, then simulated it by integrating fire elemental truth. This flame came with some characteristics of Dragon Flame, but it could not be counted as a true Dragon Flame. In terms of power, there was still a gap.

In the face of a tactic that was fairly suppressing to his own technique, Giant Sarcoma did not panic at all.

He was very certain that the four-faced individual must have drained a considerable amount of the Divine Power in his body since he had fought Crimson Eye earlier. Giant Sarcoma was very also sure that the four-faced individual's hyped-up flame mode would not last for very long. It was not possible to sustain spurting Dragon Flame to cover such a large area for too long a time.

After ascertaining these points, Giant Sarcoma soon came up with a countermeasure. In one word—stall!

All he had to do was stall for long enough, and the four-faced individual would stop spitting out Dragon Flame sooner or later. Eventually, the four-faced individual would also come out of his hyped-up state.

Moreover, if Giant Sarcoma could drag things out sufficiently, Silver Armor might directly fight Nine Gloom and help Giant Sarcoma get rid of these entangling vines.

Not only that, once Giant Sarcoma and Silver Amor managed to keep the four-faced individual and Nine Gloom embroiled, the three-tailed snake lady would have the opportunity to escape and rejoin the battle.

Therefore, no matter what, the Stalling Tactic was the most beneficial plan for him now.

Watching the golden ocean of fire that was surging toward him, Giant Sarcoma did not dodge. He knew very well that, with his speed, he would be unable to evade, so he did not bother at all.

Countless tentacles extended furiously. Very soon, a swamp had consolidated in front of him.

Giant waves rose quickly from within the swamp and swept with no less momentum toward the ocean of Dragon Flame.

Although Giant Sarcoma was not well-versed in water elemental truth, he had mastered soil elemental truth and was an expert in Mud Tactics. On some level, it could be considered a type of suppression for fire elemental truth.

The only thing was that the incineration power of the fire elemental truth with Dragon Flame characteristics was more overwhelming. The flames swallowed the giant mud waves one after another.

However, Giant Sarcoma had clearly made up his mind to keep dragging things out with the four-faced individual in this manner.

He also did not switch to any other techniques. Instead, he continued to exert Divine Power, creating giant mud waves to battle the four-faced individual over and over again…

Both parties went into a stalemate for some time.

Giant Sarcoma became calmer as things went on. This was what he desired most. The longer he could stall this battle, the more beneficial it would be to him.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the four-faced individual could not help frowning…

Apart from the one regular face that could be used long-term, the four-faced individual's remaining three faces had a time limit when they were activated.

The handful of individuals who knew about his four modes had more or less guessed that this was the case. However, they thought the reason for this restriction was that activating different modes would put a heavy burden on the four-faced individual's physical body and spirit.

Meanwhile, the four-faced individual was the only one who knew that this was not the case.

In reality, each of his faces was an entirely different personality.

The dominant personality was his regular face, which maintained the balance between the other three personalities.

At present, his four personalities could maintain a state of equilibrium mainly because of this regular dominant character.

However, every time he changed a face, he needed to let that particular personality out.

Although the dominant personality's consciousness was still in control for a short period after the face had changed, as time went by, the second personality would become increasingly awake. It would then begin to fight for the dominant personality's main position.

After a specific duration had been exceeded, this second personality that had been let out would be completely awakened. There was a high chance of it suppressing the dominant personality and taking over control of the body,

Some might think that this was a mere change of personality and did not matter since it could be changed again in the future.

The problem was, as soon as the four-faced individual's dominant character lost control of his body, the current equilibrium between the several personalities would be completely destroyed. The second personality which had usurped the dominant personality's place would soon devour the other personalities and take sole control of the body.

This was because only by completely taking control of the four-faced individual's entire body could the four-faced individual's physical body and spirit begin their transformation into the new personality. They would turn into an individual independent consciousness, perfectly integrating with the physical body to create an entirely new being.

Simply put, the four-faced individual would cease to exist. He would be replaced by a completely different monster.

The four-faced individual had never told anyone about this risk.

He had never disclosed a word of this even to the person he was most intimate with, who shared his bed.

After all, such a secret was connected to his own life and death. It could be easily used against him if he told anyone about it.

Giant Sarcoma's Stall Tactic on the battlefield caused the four-faced individual some anxiety.

He was using Dragon Flame, which was an extremely draining technique. He initially thought to get this battle over with as soon as he could, but he was stopped by Giant Sarcoma's layers of mud. The battle became a stalemate.

Within half an hour, he changed to the second face. The dominant personality was currently exhausted, significantly shortening the duration by which it could suppress the second personality.

He had no choice but to end this battle swiftly, or the consequences would not bear thinking about.

After spurting Dragon Flame for over ten minutes, he was still unable to gain any headway. This caused him to think even more anxiously about his subsequent strategy.

'If this doesn't work, I have no choice but to use that move!'

After only a short moment of being irresolute, the four-faced individual swiftly made his final decision.

He spurted Dragon Flame continuously while both hands began to perform lightning-fast, complicated hand seals.

A moment later, several strange figures emerged from his back and struggled free. This continued until the ninth figure emerged, then stopped.

Once the nine figures took their place resolutely behind the four-faced individual, they looked startlingly like the current four-faced individual's single eye mode—exactly the same, in fact. It was as if they were clones from the same mold.

At that point, the four-faced individual had also finally stopped spouting Dragon Flame.

From far away, Giant Sarcoma had been distractedly observing the four-faced individual's movements. When he saw him releasing the "clones", he knew that the four-faced individual was truly pulling out the big guns now.

Although Giant Sarcoma felt some degree of panic, at the same time, he became even more certain of his previous speculation.

'This fellow is pulling out the big guns in such a hurry—seems like my guess was right. He definitely can't maintain this mode for too long!

'As long as I can hold on and stall further, I can definitely defeat him sooner or later!'

Clearly, Giant Sarcoma had planned to use his Stall Tactic to the very end.

Although he had a counter-strategy, he did not dare underestimate the four-faced individual's tactics in the least.

In the air, the four-faced individual's ten figures stood proudly and condescendingly gazed in Giant Sarcoma's direction.

A second later, several figures spread their ten fingers, and whip-like golden rays shot from their fingertips.

Countless golden whips intersected, turning into a giant net that hurtled toward Giant Sarcoma.

Giant Sarcoma immediately gave a secret, dismayed exclamation and extended countless tentacles right away to defend himself.

Each of the golden whips was imbued with the strange characteristics of Dragon Flame. Giant Sarcoma's tentacles merely had to touch them to be charred to cinders.

After a few rounds of enduring the pain, Giant Sarcoma soon gave up using his tentacles to resist directly. Instead, he summoned forth giant, muddy hands from the void which struck at the giant web of golden whips.

As soon as the battle hit a stalemate, a few figures next to the four-faced individual joined the battlefield.

Four figures blocked all the escape routes outside the giant golden net of whips. They spat tsunami-like Dragon Flame at Giant Sarcoma from four different directions…

Almost every breath of flame was as powerful as the Dragon Flame the four-faced individual had spat out earlier himself.

Giant Sarcoma was immediately shocked.

This wave of attacks came from every direction. There was practically no way he could escape.

If he were to mount a head-on defense, the drain on his Divine Power would be countless times more than previously.

When he saw that the Dragon Flame tsunami from all four directions was about to swallow him up, Giant Sarcoma bit the bullet and charged toward the net of golden whips that was above his head.

When his large fleshy form was about to collide with the net, his body transformed into a pool of liquified fat. He slipped through the holes in the net easily and escaped.

The four-faced individual and the far-off Nine Gloom Vine were stunned when they saw what happened.

Evidently, both of them had never expected that Giant Sarcoma's extremely solid-looking body could turn into liquid form within the blink of an eye.

Although the four-faced individual had no idea how Giant Sarcoma would escape, he had made preparations in advance for this possible eventuality.

His true form flickered and immediately appeared in the air directly above Giant Sarcoma's head.

Before Giant Sarcoma could breathe a sigh of relief at escaping the Dragon Flame, he heard the four-faced individual's voice from above his head.

"I'd already made preparations in case you escaped!"

As soon as the four-faced individual finished speaking, Giant Sarcoma saw him shoot both his palms forward, and a golden shockwave blasted out.

"Get back in there!"

Giant Sarcoma was completely unable to dodge this attack. He was directly hit by the shockwave and his form was sent tumbling downward.

At that moment, several clones cooperated in perfect synchronization to remove the net made of whips, letting Giant Sarcoma fall into the sea of flame.

The minute Giant Sarcoma's body was swallowed up in the golden sea of fire, the four-faced individual's true form and remaining clones inhaled deeply at almost the same time. They then spat endless streams of golden Dragon Flame below…

This massive inferno burned for close to half an hour.

Only when the four-faced individual could vaguely feel that he could no longer control his second personality did he finally remove it. He resumed his regular form with relief.

Amid the sea of flame, Giant Sarcoma's life force had utterly dissipated more than ten minutes ago.

The four-faced individual kept on forcibly spitting Dragon Flame for over ten minutes because he was afraid that Giant Sarcoma might not be completely dead.

However, he could basically be sure that Giant Sarcoma was now deceased.

No living being could stop themselves from groaning and fighting back while they were being incinerated by Dragon Flame.

After dispersing all his clones, the four-faced individual patiently waited for the flames and smoke to dissipate.

A good long while later, the remaining flames burned out completely and the smoke gradually thinned out as well.

Within the deep pit burned into the ground by the fire, the four-faced individual saw a completely charred black sphere.

He cautiously went nearer. He could even smell the reek of scorched flesh, as well as an extremely putrid reek of decay that made one gag.

The four-faced individual stopped in his tracks when he was some ten meters away from the charred sphere. He did not go any closer.

Instead, he spread five fingers and extended several threads of Divine Power to touch the incinerated sphere from a distance.

As the Divine Power brushed against the scorched sphere, the four-faced individual was finally able to see its structure. It was made up of layers wrapped upon layers, like those of an onion.

He peeled off the layers of the "onion" quickly with Divine Power. He wanted to see if Giant Sarcoma had been totally destroyed by the flames.

As he peeled off the charred layers, he could soon see that the innermost structure had been utterly incinerated into powder.

Clearly, Giant Sarcoma was so dead he could not be any further deceased than he was at present.

The four-faced individual retracted his Divine Power only after ascertaining this and exhaled a long sigh of relief.

However, a peculiar thing happened right at that moment.

A blood-colored tentacle suddenly broke through the ground beneath the four-faced individual's feet. The tip of the tentacle divided like tree roots and extended like forked lightning, worming its way into the four-faced individual's mouth, eyes, and nose…

The four-faced individual could clearly feel a strange power rapidly occupying his physical body.

"Get out!"

The four-faced individual harnessed all the Divine Power within his body in an attempt to free himself from Giant Sarcoma's latest defensive maneuver. However, he was only able to stop Giant Sarcoma for one to two seconds. The takeover of his body continued.

He could clearly sense that at the rate his physical body was being occupied, it would take five minutes at most to make him lose control of his body altogether.

Once he realized this, he made a determined effort.

"You forced me to do this!"

The next second, the four-faced individual's head suddenly turned. The face that was initially at his back slowly rotated 180 degrees so that it now faced forward.

It was a face that was malevolent beyond compare. All three of its eyes were pitch-black, without any trace of whites. There were even two large, blood-red horns on its forehead.

The second he opened his eyes, the muscles all over his body started to began to swell and knot, turning red. Wisps of black mist began to seep out of his pores as well.

He lowered his head to glance at the current state of his body. The long-horned four-faced individual stretched out a massive hand tipped with black, sharp claws and grabbed the tentacle that was connected to his eyes, nose, and the ground. He then pulled hard.

One hand kept pulling upward, while his other hand shoved the tentacle into his mouth. He began chewing hard.

"Four Face, you lunatic!" A dismal howl soon came from under the ground.

The Long-horned Man suddenly grinned. "Four Face? He's not here anymore. I should thank you for allowing me to gain total control of this physical body.

"If it hadn't been for that final push of yours, that Four Face fellow wouldn't have let me out. If you hadn't fought him and utterly weakened his consciousness, I would never have been able to take control of him so easily.

"To show my gratitude, I shall eat you!"

As he spoke, he continued to devour Giant Sarcoma.

Very soon, Giant Sarcoma's dismal howls became weaker and weaker. Eventually, the sounds died away completely…

From far away, the Nine Gloom Vine witnessed the entire battle between the four-faced individual and Giant Sarcoma. He also heard what the four-faced individual said to Giant Sarcoma at the very end.

Although he was not completely sure how the four-faced individual's change of mode worked, the Nine Gloom Vine was still able to make a guess about several things.

He patiently waited for the four-faced individual to pull every inch of Giant Sarcoma from under the ground and finish devouring him completely before using voice transmission to ask him a question.

"Four Face, are you a friend or a foe now?"

The long-horned four-faced individual turned his head and looked in the direction where Nine Gloom Vine was, far away. He grinned.

"Four Face is Four Face, I'm me. I'm not interested in your fight!"

"If they get hold of the castellan's seal, whether you're Four Face or not, they'll attack you sooner or later." The Nine Gloom Vine did not want to give up. He still wanted to try and get the four-faced individual on his side.

After all, if the four-faced individual left just like that, the Nine Gloom Vine would have to fight two enemies on his own after this—Silver Armor and the three-tailed snake lady.

"If that day really comes, I'll kill them myself." The long-horned four-faced individual remained unmoved.

"Alright then." The Nine Gloom Vine fell silent for a moment. In the end, he did not say very much more. "If you wish to leave, then leave."

If he lost an ally, so be it. At this time, he did not want to offend someone who was even more powerful than the four-faced individual. The best thing to do was to let him go.

Seeing the God Territory's exit rapidly materializing not far away, the long-horned four-faced individual did not bother wasting any more words. His form wended its way through and departed.

Outside the God Territory, the Nine Gloom Vine's sliver of consciousness watched the long-horned four-faced individual swiftly leaving the dense forest area where he himself was. He could not help sighing softly.

He could sense that the long-horned four-faced individual was eager to leave. He also guessed that the long-horned four-faced individual might be facing some issues with his form since he had just taken over the four-faced individual's body. At one point, Giant Sarcoma had considered whether or not he should seize the opportunity and dispose of the long-horned four-faced individual. However, he chose to abandon the idea in the end.

There was no reason other than it was not a simple task to kill the long-horned four-faced individual despite his unstable state. Moreover, the Nine Gloom Vine had two other powerful enemies in his lair at the moment.

Compared with a future threat, getting rid of the current threat that faced him was the most important thing.

Seeing that, in the God Territory filled with vines, there remained only the three-tailed snake lady—who was still hiding in the Purple Cloud—and Silver Armor, who was slowly making his way toward him, the Nine Gloom Vine very quickly came to a decision.

His form, which had transformed into tens of thousands of giant boa constrictors, rapidly retreated from the Purple Cloud and directly targeted Silver Armor.

The three-tailed snake lady, who had been watching the outside world closely, felt slightly relieved only after this. She had not dared to lift her head the entire time as the Nine Gloom Vine had been keeping track of her from the sidelines. She knew that he would definitely attack her at lightning speed if she made even the slightest movement.

Even though he had left, the three-tailed snake lady did not recklessly show herself just yet.

She was afraid that her opponent had not gone very far and might turn back to deal with her.

"Giant Sarcoma's aura is clearly gone; he must have been killed. The four-faced individual's aura became very strange earlier—even unfamiliar—and vanished after that. I wonder if he died alongside Giant Sarcoma."

In this vine-infested world, all sensing techniques, including Divine Telekinesis detection, were all severely curbed by Nine Gloom's vines. Everyone could only vaguely sense whether or not an aura was present, as well as battle fluctuations.

The three-tailed snake lady could only determine who else was left on the battlefield through auras. As for those whose auras had disappeared, she was unable to tell if they had left the God Territory or if they had been killed.

"The only ones left on the battlefield now are Nine Gloom, Silver Armor, and myself. If Silver Armor's been killed by that old wretch Nine Gloom…"

The three-tailed snake lady's brow furrowed tightly. She had never expected the initial four against two, sure-win scenario would turn out like this.

She had also never imagined that Four Face, whom she had been sleeping with for years, possessed the ability to kill two powerhouses—Giant Sarcoma and Crimson Eye—on his own.

The three-tailed snake lady's thoughts drifted for a while, but very soon, she came back to her senses. Patiently, she waited for an opportunity to exit the Purple Cloud.

Not long later, she sensed intense battle fluctuations from a distance.

She guessed that Nine Gloom and Silver Armor might have begun fighting.

"That old wretch Nine Gloom is completely ignoring me now?!"

Although she was somewhat infuriated, the three-tailed snake lady also felt slightly happy.

This happiness was because Nine Gloom had not chosen to forcibly disperse the Purple Cloud and kill her before Silver Armor could arrive.

However, after some consideration, she could understand why Nine Gloom had made such a choice.

After all, Silver Amor's abilities were powerful. Instead of spending such a lot of effort to breach the Purple Cloud's defenses, Nine Gloom would rather stay in prime condition to fight Silver Amor.

"You'll pay the price for underestimating me!" A ferocious gleam flashed through the three-tailed snake lady's eyes.

Only after sensing that the distant battle fluctuations had continued for a while did the three-tailed snake lady quietly appear from the Purple Cloud.

However, the very moment she moved, vines surged out from all directions and lashed toward her.

The three-tailed snake lady was stunned at first. Her initial reaction was to think that the Nine Gloom Vine had returned. However, she soon realized that this was not the case. He was merely controlling the vines from a distance to attack her.

"So you want to imprison me here to prevent me from meeting up with Silver Armor?!" The three-tailed snake lady narrowed her eyes slightly and immediately guessed Nine Gloom's battle strategy.

No matter what, he definitely did not wish to fight two enemies alone.

After all, Silver Armor's abilities were very strong. In a battle between powerhouses, the slightest difference could cause one to lose, much less one more person interfering from the sidelines.

Once she had considered this, the three-tailed snake lady decisively retracted the Purple Cloud. After making sure of where the distant battle fluctuations were, she charged in that direction, dodging the attacks of the all-encompassing vines with everything she had.

As soon as she moved, out of nowhere, she suddenly felt an intense sense of danger.

The next instant, she felt a vine twining around one of her snake tails. She frantically tried to free herself, but realized that the moment she stopped, more vines tangled themselves around her.

She turned her head to look, but discovered that there were no vines at all in the areas where she had been entangled. She used Divine Telekinesis to scan and realized then that those vines were actually threads that were 10,000 times thinner than a hair.

At that moment, a familiar voice came from behind her, "You've decided to come out at last!"

When she heard the voice, the three-tailed snake lady's facial expression underwent a dramatic change.

She turned her head. A giant boa constrictor created from countless vines was looking at her in a condescending manner.

She also sensed that the distant battle fluctuations had now vanished completely.

"Nine Gloom! You tricked me?!"

"How could I lure you out of that cloud of purple fog if I didn't use some tricks?" Nine Gloom's tone was calm.

"So I've been your target since the very beginning?!" The three-tailed snake lady came to a sudden realization.

"You could say that." Nine Gloom did not deny it.

"So you pretended to fight Silver Armor, letting me think that you couldn't fight me at the same time to lure me out of the Purple Cloud. You even attacked me on purpose on the pretense of forcing me back into the Purple Cloud, so I would have a sense of urgency to meet up with Silver Armor and retract the Purple Cloud without hesitation… What a great trick!" The three-tailed snake lady said resentfully. She had now completely understood what sort of trick the Nine Gloom Vine had played on her.

"Unfortunately, you figured it out a bit too late."

As soon as the Nine Gloom Vine finished, countless threads invisible to the naked eye had already enveloped the three-tailed snake lady, forming a giant, white cocoon. A moment later, the cocoon suddenly changed shape, as if a towel were being wrung by a huge, invisible hand.

At that moment, purplish-red drops began to spread over the white cocoon. In the beginning, it looked like purplish-red flower petals were falling on a piece of white cloth. However, the entire cloth turned purplish-red very quickly.

Purplish-red liquid even began to seep out onto the cocoon's surface….

Upon sensing Giant Sarcoma and Four Face's auras vanish one after the other, Silver Armor began to be rather anxious.

He felt the urge to break through the obstructing layers of vines and directly confront the Nine Gloom Vine for the final battle.

He knew that if things dragged out any further, the three-tailed snake lady might be killed.

It was not that he harbored any particular feelings for the three-tailed snake lady, but he knew that Nine Gloom was extremely powerful. Silver Armor was not confident that he would be able to win. He hoped that the three-tailed snake lady could survive and join forces to fight the enemy with him.

As his thoughts drifted, intense battle fluctuations suddenly came from a distance.

'That direction—isn't that the direction the Nine Gloom Vine was guarding…' Silver Amor paused his steps for a moment as he hurried toward where the Nine Gloom Vine was guarding, 'Don't tell me the three-tailed snake lady has escaped?!'

In the entire God Territory, right now only the three of them remained—the Nine Gloom Vine, the three-tailed snake lady, and himself.

He had not encountered any enemies, so the battle happening now could only be between the Nine Gloom Vine and the three-tailed snake lady.

As soon as he realized this, Silver Armor hesitated no longer. He turned and broke through the vine layers, charging in the direction of the battle fluctuations. He wanted to reunite with the three-tailed snake lady before she was killed.

However, before very long, the intense battle fluctuations suddenly stopped.

Silver Armor's heart skipped a beat.

'The three-tailed snake lady has been killed?!'

The three-tailed snake lady's abilities were the weakest among the six overlords. This weakness was not just in regards to her overall abilities but also every other aspect. Without her two powerful lovers, Four Face and Silver Armor, she would not have otherwise been able to take her place as one of the six overlords, given her level of ability.

In all honesty, Silver Armor was not surprised that she had been killed by the Nine Gloom Vine in such a short time. It was just that the battle fluctuations had stopped rather suddenly.

'No, that's not right—the Snake Lady's aura hasn't dissipated yet!' Silver Armor reacted immediately after a brief moment of astonishment.

However, another wave of intense energy fluctuations came from another direction almost simultaneously.

That other direction was where the Nine Gloom Vine had been since the beginning.

Although Silver Armor had not entirely figured out what exactly was going on, he turned without hesitation in the direction of this new wave of energy fluctuations and began forcing his way through.

With a sense of urgency, he charged toward the energy fluctuations, evading the vines that were obstructing him in every direction.

He sensed that the three-tailed snake lady's aura only began to plummet and weaken after the last round of energy shockwaves.

'The battle fluctuations that lasted for over ten minutes wasn't the battle between Nine Gloom and the Snake Lady. It's this one, the latest round of energy shockwaves!'

After a moment's consideration, he was roughly able to hazard a guess at what had happened just now.

'That old wretch Nine Gloom is really such a schemer!'

When he sensed the three-tailed snake lady's aura dissipating, Silver Armor immediately felt that the pressure on him had significantly increased.

A two-against-one battle had now entirely become a one-on-one.

Although the three-tailed snake lady's abilities were nothing to shout about, if she were still alive, she could at least still assist from the sidelines. Even if she could only cause minimal disruption, Silver Armor's chances of winning would increase significantly.

However, he had no choice but to go one-on-one now.

…

After setting up a plan to get rid of the three-tailed snake lady, the pressure on the Nine Gloom Vine from losing an ally eased slightly.

In reality, he had come up with a new one-against-two scheme the moment Four Face departed. He had also swiftly come up with a plan to trick the three-tailed snake lady, taking into consideration every possible move that she might make.

In the end, out of all the possibilities, the three-tailed snake lady had finally chosen the one that benefited Nine Gloom the most and lost her life on the spot.

"Now there's only you left…"

The Nine Gloom Vine's countless vines converged into a giant boa constrictor. Lifting his head high, he looked across the distance at the faraway Silver Armor.

The next moment, the giant boa disintegrated and transformed into tens of thousands of tiny snakes which burrowed into the sea of vines.

Almost at the same time, the vines in the entire God Territory began stirring wildly.

At that very instant, the vines around Silver Armor seemed to go berserk. The intensity and frequency of their attacks began to increase significantly. Even the trajectory of their attacks began to become manic and strange, making it very difficult for anyone to predict.

Silver Armor found himself in an awkward situation, but only for a moment. After that, he settled into the new tempo of battle.

This sudden change out of nowhere did not put pressure on Silver Armor at all. Instead, it had an increasingly steadying effect on him.

There was no other reason beyond knowing that the Nine Gloom Vine was going to attack soon.

In reality, he had been rather worried in the beginning, in case the Nine Gloom Vine went head-to-head right away without doing any probing. After all, this was the Nine Gloom Vine's territory. If he were to attack head-on, Silver Armor would be at a complete disadvantage.

Fortunately, the Nine Gloom Vine chose a more cautious opening gambit.

On the one hand, he used the vines as a means of suppression, taking advantage of the vines' sheer numbers and frequency of attack to make Silver Armor reveal his weakness. On the other, he was also draining the Divine Power within Silver Armor's body.

However, from this, Silver Armor deduced another piece of information—the Nine Gloom Vine was already lurking nearby.

This was because the Nine Gloom Vine had to be in closer proximity before he could launch a fatal attack the minute Silver Armor revealed his weakness.

In reality, the Nine Gloom Vine was intentionally conveying that message to increase pressure on Silver Armor.

As far as the Nine Gloom Vine was concerned, this was his territory. In his God Territory, the drain on his Divine Power was much slower. Therefore, the longer this battle dragged on, Silver Armor would be at a greater disadvantage. The more psychological pressure Silver Armor felt, the more chances of him revealing his weakness

…

On his end, Silver Armor was aware of this point as well.

However, he did not panic. He maintained the tempo of battle without revealing any weakness at all.

This state of affairs went on for over half an hour.

Suddenly, the Black Dragon Spear in Silver Armor's hand vibrated. In the void, circle upon circle of black ripples began to spread like waves.

These circles of ripples were like sharp blades. In every area they passed through, the vines would be sliced into countless pieces.

The speed at which the waves were spreading was extremely fast. In practically an instant, they had spread to a radius of several hundred kilometers.

At that moment, Silver Armor did not pause at all. Suddenly, he jabbed forward with his spear and pointed in the air in a random direction.

Suddenly, a black shockwave shot out from the tip of the spear wildly, swallowing up the surrounding region within a radius of several hundred kilometers.

If one's eyes were good enough to follow the speed of Silver Armor's move, they would be able to see that within the area of attack in his field of vision, vines like tiny snakes were swallowed up by the waves.

All these tiny snakes did not seem to be affected by the slashing of the black ripples. Impressively, they were still in the form that the Nine Gloom Vine had split into earlier.

The moment the black shockwave swallowed up the tiny snakes, Silver Armor swiftly performed a hand seal. The red spark in his eyes blazed to full strength in an instant.

A giant black dragon materialized into concrete form above his head within a blink of an eye.

Almost the very instant its form consolidated, the giant dragon's gaze locked onto a certain area swallowed up by the shockwave. With practically no hesitation, it opened its mouth and spat forth endless black Dragon Flames, engulfing the entire area again…

"Got him!"

Silver Armor clearly sensed that his attack had not failed.

Just when he was about to continue pursuing the Nine Gloom Vine further, his danger instincts suddenly sensed an intense threat. Rapidly, he made a decisive retreat the moment his toes touched the ground.

The instant he moved, countless black vines turned into tens of thousands of thorns that penetrated right through the spot where he had been standing earlier. They resembled a giant black crystal flower in bloom.

Although he had anticipated that his combination attack would not kill off the Nine Gloom Vine right away, Silver Armor still felt that it might do some injury to his opponent. However, from the looks of things, he had underestimated Nine Gloom; his combination attack did not appear to have done any concrete damage to the Nine Gloom Vine at all.

The giant crystal flower's prickly leaves consolidated into a giant face as Silver Armor's attack failed. It was the impressive face that had greeted the four-faced individual previously.

"You lived up to your name, Silver Armor. If you had used that combination of attacks outside my God Territory, you might actually have severely injured me.

"However, you're in my God Territory now, so you have no choice but to submit to my rules of the game. Under these rules of mine, you'd better just admit that you're soundly beaten!"

As soon as the huge face finished speaking, it disintegrated instantly, turning into countless black vines.

Right as Silver Armor was about to dodge, he noticed that the vines did not charge at him. Instead, their forms were rapidly changing at a speed visible the naked eye could barely follow, transforming one by one into monsters of different shapes and sizes.

There were humans, Protoss, Bug Tribe monsters, as well as Abyssal creatures…

Each of them had an aura almost as powerful as a ninth-rank Heavenly God.

Dozens of them had auras that were very close to overlord-rank.

There were even a number whose auras were clearly no weaker than those of the six overlords.

As he glanced over the monsters with the most powerful auras, the red glow in Silver Armor's eyes flickered slightly.

He was familiar with at least half of them.

Each of those powerhouses had been formidable individuals in the inner world's history who had once laid claim to the position of overlord.

What disturbed Silver Armor's state of mind even more was that he saw the newly-defeated three-tailed snake lady, Crimson Eye, and Giant Sarcoma. Their auras were almost the same as when they had been alive.

"So this is the trump card that you've been concealing all this time?!" Silver Armor forcibly suppressed just how shocked he was. He now had a rough idea of the kind of ability that the Nine Gloom Vine possessed.

"Do you think my name—Nine Gloom—is merely an empty reputation?" The Nine Gloom Vine's slightly cynical voice drifted through flatly, "Nine Gloom is my title!"

The flame burning in Silver Armor's eyes flickered again when he heard that.

Naturally, he was well aware of what a title was.

As one progressed along the path of cultivation, one would obtain a corresponding title when they had achieved some specific condition.

Different titles came with different effects. Some directly endowed the individual with a god rule, a sequence, or perhaps a divine ability. Some might allow one to comprehend a certain true meaning heavenly rule, and some would even produce some unique effects…

The title Nine Gloom evidently gave the Nine Gloom Vine a certain special divine ability or sequence power that allowed him to revive and control dead powerhouses with some specific technique.

To Silver Armor, this sort of ability was a bit of a riddle.

After all, the Nine Gloom Vine's ability was by no means inferior to his own. Given that there were several powerhouses on par with Crimson Eye and Giant Sarcoma, his chances of winning were rather slim.

However, Silver Armor knew very well that he had already witnessed his opponent's biggest trump card, and the Nine Gloom Vine was not likely to leave him alive. Right now, Silver Armor no longer had any way of escape; he could only fight to the death.

At this point in his considerations, Silver Armor had absolutely no intention of fleeing. Seeing that there was a horde of monsters swarming his way, he advanced to meet them immediately.

Like a violent storm, the Black Dragon Spear in his hand stabbed forward, swiftly impaling one monster after another.

These consecutive kills looked easy, but in his mind, Silver Armor felt increasingly concerned.

Before attacking, he had been trusting to luck. He thought Nine Gloom might have merely simulated the forms and auras of those deceased individuals. By nature, these simulated beings were still clones of the Nine Gloom Vine and did not possess their original abilities.

However, it took only the first wave of impact for him to know that he had made a serious error.

These monsters were not simulated beings; they possessed battle wills of their own. Not only were their auras the same as when they were alive, but they were also practically able to replicate perfectly the abilities and strength that they had before.

Naturally, the Nine Gloom Vine sensed Silver Armor's probing.

"It looks like you've already discovered they've almost entirely been able to replicate their abilities from when they were still alive. However, did you know that my title's ability is very simple to use? All I need to do is to obtain part of the deceased's body before their soul completely dissipates. With that, I can 'revive' them perfectly.

"Of course, this sort of 'revival' comes with restrictions—they can't leave my God Territory. However, that's not much of an issue. All I need to do is to drag my opponent into my God Territory. "

Perhaps because he felt sure that he would win or because of some other reason, the Nine Gloom Vine started becoming talkative.

"It's unfortunate that something happened to that brat Four Face, so he managed to escape my God Territory in advance. Initially, I considered getting rid of all of you, then killing him as well so that I could live in peace forever!"

The Nine Gloom Vine disclosed what he really had in mind. In reality, if he had not felt that Four Face's condition was somewhat peculiar, he would have certainly killed him right away.

Their so-called alliance had been formed solely because of benefits. As soon as these benefits had been achieved, one naturally did not have to be concerned about any falling out between both parties. To Nine Gloom, this was completely normal.

It was only at this moment that Silver Armor found out Four Face was not dead.

Previously, he had sensed Four Face's aura vanish, so he had assumed all along that Four Face had died in battle.

Now, after hearing what Nine Gloom said, Silver Armor realized that Four Face had successfully escaped from the God Territory. He could not help feeling a surge of envy. He even regretted having gotten himself into this predicament.

If he had known previously that the Nine Gloom Vine had this sort of ability, he definitely would not have chosen to become enemies with him. However, he had entirely no choice now.

While dodging the attacks from the monster horde, Silver Armor was swiftly trying to come up with countermeasures.

Given the number and abilities of the monsters that the Nine Gloom Vine had summoned, it was basically impossible to kill all of them. Silver Armor even had doubts about whether his Divine Power would be enough to kill one-third of them.

Therefore, the key to resolving the problem still lay in the Nine Gloom Vine's true form.

As soon as he killed the Nine Gloom Vine, who was the source, the Nine Gloom Vine's God Territory would automatically collapse. These 'revenants' that he had created would also naturally disappear.

Now the biggest problem was how to bypass these 'revenants' and kill the Nine Gloom Vine.

Furthermore, Silver Armor had to kill the Nine Gloom Vine within an extremely short timeframe, or these 'revenants' would soon surround him again.

Silver Armor could not help sinking into deep thought…

In the God Territory, time ticked on in minutes and seconds.

The number of 'revenants' that the Nine Gloom Vine created decreased rapidly as Silver Armor massacred them. However, this did not decrease the pressure on Silver Armor very much at all.

The 'revenants' he slaughtered were all those whose abilities were far below his own. He would basically kill them instantly, then immediately extricate himself and retreat.

As for those powerhouses whose abilities were either close to overlord-rank or who were genuine overlord-rank powerhouses, he did not go head-to-head with them at all. He evaded them as much as he could. Those whom he really could not avoid, he would retreat from, even if they preferred to force him into a confrontation. The reason was that he knew very well he would be caught up in the fighting, and by then, there would be even more overlord-rank enemies appearing.

This battle was a fight to the death.

If the Nine Gloom Vine managed to seize an opportunity, Silver Armor knew that he himself would come to a tragic end.

From the moment the Nine Gloom Vine summoned forth these 'revenants', the battle was no longer a fair fight of one against one. The scales of victory were tipped in Nine Gloom's favor; the Nine Gloom Vine had no cause for concern at all in that respect.

However, Silver Armor did not abandon the struggle.

He was like an elusive mudfish—despite being trapped in a bog, it never allowed itself to be caught, and thus have its weaknesses revealed.

Nine Gloom was in no hurry at all. To him, Silver Armor was already trapped like a rat in a cage. No matter what, Silver Armor would not be able to escape from Nine Gloom's God Territory. It was only a matter of time before his weaknesses revealed themselves.

The Nine Gloom Vine did not even bother concealing himself anymore. Instead, he let the 'revenants' serve as a blockade between himself and Silver Armor. He watched the fight from a close range of less than 100 meters from the battlefield; it did not seem like he was planning to fight at all.

Even though he saw Silver Armor attempting several times to break out from being besieged in order to fight the Nine Gloom Vine's true form, the Nine Gloom Vine did not move from his place at all.

In reality, he was intentionally staying at such close range so Silver Armor would think he had a chance.

The Nine Gloom Vine enjoyed watching his prey repeatedly struggle and fail. He would give them a glimmer of hope, but that hope itself was a chasm of despair one was doomed never to cross.

As time ticked on, Nine Gloom could clearly sense that Silver Armor's Divine Power output was decreasing and weakening. He also knew that Silver Armor would not last for long under such a high-powered assault.

Ten minutes went by rapidly. Suddenly, Silver Armor broke through the ranks of opponents that besieged him and began madly fighting his way to where the Nine Gloom Vine's true form was.

Although Silver Armor had given his all in this berserk attack, his speed was obviously considerably slower than when he was at his peak.

However, he seemed to be even more determined this time, doing his best to avoid whatever attacks he could. Those that he could not avoid, he faced head-on.

A mocking smile appeared on Nine Gloom's giant face. He could clearly see that Silver Armor's armor was beginning to show traces of cracks.

He guessed that this was probably why Silver Armor was suddenly roused to action—he could not hold on for much longer.

"Since you seem so eager to die, I'll grant your wish." A ruthless gleam flashed through Nine Gloom's eyes. His opponent was in a hurry to advance—the perfect opportunity for slaughtering his target

Simultaneously, as the Nine Gloom Vine manipulated the revenants to bar the way in front of him, he also controlled the revenants that Silver Armor had bypassed so that they silently cut off his retreat.

It was unclear whether it was because Silver Armor had discovered that he had enemies behind him and also surrounding him, or because of some other reason entirely, but he was extraordinarily determined this time. He advanced with unusually resolute steps.

Under Nine Gloom's manipulation, Crimson Eye, Giant Sarcoma, and a few overlord-rank powerhouses stationed themselves as the last line of defense.

Previously, Silver Armor had refused to go head-to-head with those revenants that were close to overlord-rank. This time, however, he did not back down at all when faced with these few true overlord-rank powerhouses such as Crimson Eye and Giant Sarcoma.

He tried his best to dodge the assaults from the few of them while attempting to break free from their blockade.

Those attacks that he could not evade, he faced head-on, unwilling to give up any opportunity that would allow him to advance.

Even though his defense capabilities were practically the most powerful among the six overlords, he could not afford to have several overlord-rank powerhouses join forces to attack him.

In merely the time it took for several breaths, the cracks on his silver armor were increasing and also becoming larger. However, he paid no heed to them at all, as if he had become obsessed with wanting to break free from these revenants' blockade and fight Nine Gloom. He did not care about the consequences at all.

The smirk on Nine Gloom's face grew broader when he saw that Silver Armor seemed to have become possessed. The way he saw it, the more Silver Armor behaved like that, the closer he was to death.

Under the combined suppression of Crimson Eye, Giant Sarcoma, and the other overlords, more and more cracks began to appear on Silver Armor's body. Very soon, there was practically not a single spot that was whole and unbroken. He no longer looked like the commanding, awe-inspiring silver-armored god of battle from before; instead, he looked more like a porcelain vessel that had been knocked about. Although he had not yet completely fallen apart, he was riddled with wounds all over and was on the verge of collapse.

There were several times when Nine Gloom even thought that Silver Armor's body would crumble completely if he were attacked just once more.

However, the toughness of Silver Armor's body was still beyond what Nine Gloom had expected.

After going head-to-head for more than a dozen attacks, Silver Armor's suit of armor had still not fallen apart. However, the cracks were thicker and more numerous, making his body seem all the more ruined.

However, in this final round of direct clashes, he managed to forcibly break through the final line of defense.

The grin on Nine Gloom's huge face was malevolent. At the very last moment, he had intentionally manipulated Giant Sarcoma and the others to lower their defenses.

He had no reason for this other than Silver Armor was already on his last legs and was no longer a threat anymore. Moreover, rather than Silver Armor being killed outside the line of defense, Nine Gloom wanted to crush his opponent's very last sliver of hope himself.

'I see you want to break through the lines of defense and fight me head-on. Very well, I'll give you the chance to break through and fight me face-to-face so I can crush your very last hope!'

Watching Silver Armor charge at him with his battered body after breaking through the defending line, the aura of Nine Gloom's entire body instantly soared to its peak. Countless vines rose like a tsunami and surged toward Silver Armor.

Silver Armor's body of over three meters in height seemed unbelievably small right now. He was like a tiny skiff in a universe of infinite vines.

The flash of silver merely lasted for a moment before it was entirely swallowed up by the sea of vines.

Nine Gloom could very obviously sense that the very instant Silver Armor was completely devoured, his suit of silver armor finally fell apart completely.

Before Nine Gloom could celebrate his victory, a terrifying wave of heat suddenly began spreading within the depths of the encompassing vines.

It was like a nuclear warhead exploding. A surge of extreme heat instantly radiated outward, spreading like a wave. Wherever it passed, all the vines in that area were immediately scorched black.

Even Nine Gloom's true form was affected. He felt a wave of terrifyingly high heat spreading through his body and his skin began carbonizing at a visible speed. The heat was like a toxin, even invading the inner parts of his body. Wherever the heat passed, that area would be scorched to cinders.

Furthermore, Nine Gloom could clearly sense that the source of this extreme heat came from where Silver Armor's body had disintegrated.

At that moment, the entire vine-infested world was quaking violently.

That terrifying extreme heat was no ordinary heatwave but an overbearing sequence power.

Although Nine Gloom had no idea what exactly this sequence power was, he could more or less judge that it was an extreme flame with powerful destructive and combustive characteristics.

On a certain level, this type of flame was even more volatile than most Dragon Flames.

Horrified, Nine Gloom's true form fled deep underground. At the same time, he manipulated countless vines to smother the flames. He no longer harbored any unreasonable hopes of extinguishing the blaze; he merely hoped to suppress it a little, as well as shrink its scope.

'Did that lunatic Silver Armor self-destruct?' Nine Gloom secretly cursed as he hastily fled as far away as he could. He did not even dare to release his Divine Telekinesis to do any probing, for fear the flames would burn his spirit.

However, very soon, he retracted his previous speculation.

This was because he could clearly sense that apart from himself, there were remnants of an aura in his God Territory.

Silver Armor was still alive!

Not only that, a humanoid monster formed from dark red flame was slowly stretching its body inside a deep, scorched pit.

Impressively, the monster's body was seventy to eighty percent similar to Silver Armor, but his head was many times larger. He was at least one thousand meters tall.

Unlike his body, which was completely dark red, there was an incandescent blaze of white where the pupils of his eyes should be.

He stood where he was as if momentarily dazed, but the incandescent white in his eyes soon blazed up brightly.

All he did was lift his legs slightly, and he was able to stride out of the deep pit that had just been blasted into the ground. Each time he took a step, the ground would split, and fiery red larva would ooze from the cracks.

He walked aimlessly forward, swinging his heavy fists wildly to bombard every obstacle in his path.

Mountains, rivers, swamps… Wherever he passed, that place would become a sea of lava.

Naturally, Nine Gloom also sensed that his God Territory had been severely contaminated.

Each step Silver Armor took—and even every punch he threw—would contaminate and assimilate Nine Gloom's God Territory.

After forcibly restraining himself for a long while, in the end, Nine Gloom could no longer hold back and spread his Divine Telekinesis to sense out the situation.

As his Divine Telekinesis swept the area, he immediately noticed the flame monster that seemed to have descended into madness.

Although the aura and size had changed significantly, Nine Gloom could tell at once that it was Silver Armor because traces of Silver Armor's aura still remained on the other's body.

"How did that fellow transform into something like this?!" Nine Gloom was extremely baffled. This was another life form entirely.

However, very soon, Nine Gloom was unable to continue pondering the matter because he sensed that Silver Armor's gaze was fixed on the direction where he was hiding.

His probing with Divine Telekinesis had exposed him!

Nine Gloom frantically fled without a second thought.

Meanwhile, the flame giant that was at least ten thousand kilometers away had his gaze locked onto Nine Gloom's aura. His eyes spewed forth white sparks as he ran like a maniac toward Nine Gloom.

Nine Gloom was fast, but the flame giant was even faster.

In merely ten minutes or so, the flame giant had caught up with Nine Gloom.

The sole of the giant's massive foot came stomping down without hesitation, and the entire surface of the ground collapsed.

The cracked ground rapidly began to soften, turning into dark red molten lava that began spreading in all directions and contaminating the area.

The stomp was vicious, but Nine Gloom managed to dodge it in time. Right as the flame giant's foot came down, Nine Gloom wormed his way out from the ground and just managed to evade the attack.

However, his evasive maneuver had completely exposed his form.

It was a black vine resembling a giant python, with a reflective surface that looked like snake scales.

Just looking at him on his own, Nine Gloom's size was indeed quite massive, over half a meter thick and at least a hundred meters long. However, right now, in the presence of the flame giant, he was not so different from a mudfish.

At this moment, fisherman and mudfish seemed to have exchanged positions.

Nine Gloom knew that he could not escape now.

While he observed Silver Armor's altered form quietly from close range, he also rapidly checked the revenants' imprints, attempting to summon them again.

"Silver Armor, why don't we just end the battle here." Nine Gloom tried to buy himself some time. "Look, we've shown all of our trump cards. If we continue battling it out, it will be a fight to the death. There's no need to go to that extent…"

However, the flame giant completely ignored what Nine Gloom said. Without waiting for him to finish speaking, the huge palm of flame came down in the direction where Nine Gloom was.

The sky seemed to collapse as the massive palm hurtled down.

Nine Gloom did not dare to mount a direct resistance and swiftly teleported once again.

He could not outrun this current Silver Armor, but he could at least teleport a short distance to avoid any attacks.

The flame giant flew into a mad rage when the attack missed and began striking wildly at everything around him. Nine Gloom's mind loosened up, and he began to think.

Silver Armor's mind was obviously immature when he was in this state. One could even say that he was completely functioning on battle instinct alone.

Although his opponent was very powerful in this state of being, for Nine Gloom, there was a fatal flaw in it.

This was because when fighting while being controlled by instinct, Silver Armor did not have the ability to be calculative. He could only function in a very straightforward manner, and all of his actions could be predicted at a glance.

This relieved Nine Gloom's mind. He did not hurry to escape; instead, he remained where he was and dealt with the flame giant.

While dodging the flame giant's repeated attacks with ease, he planned his next attack.

The sudden explosion caused by Silver Armor's transformation had destroyed almost all of the revenants that Nine Gloom had summoned.

Most of them had not only been destroyed on a physical level, but even their soul imprints had disintegrated as well.

At this level of obliteration, Nine Gloom had no way of summoning these revenants again.

However, fortunately, there were still a handful of revenants that had only been destroyed on the physical level—their soul imprints were still intact. Not only that, the few that remained were the most powerful of the lot.

Nine Gloom was ecstatic when he sensed the remains of the soul imprints.

He secretly gathered his Divine Power and waited patiently for an opportunity to summon the revenants again.

Ten minutes or more passed.

At a moment when the flame giant bent to strike the ground, countless vines unexpectedly extended from thin air and entangled the flame giant's neck and limbs en masse.

Although the flames on the giant's body did wild damage to the vines that entangled him, vines kept surging over endlessly, merely to temporarily restrain his movements.

With this abrupt temporary restraint in place, Nine Gloom summoned the revenants again without hesitation.

Giant Sarcoma, Crimson Eye, the three-tailed snake lady… All these powerhouses of overlord-rank with abilities close to overlord-rank were summoned once again.

As soon as the several dozen revenants appeared, they worked together without hesitation to attack the flame giant, who had now been immobilized.

Even Nine Gloom seized the opportunity to fight, unleashing his fatal move.

Countless vines began to devour the Divine Power within the flame giant's body by force.

Right as this wave of assault began, the flame giant roared and struggled free from the vines that had entangled him.

However, he was a little too late. He was only able to defend himself from a small percentage of the attacks; the majority of the other attacks scored definite hits.

Although the flame giant was not killed in this round of attacks, his size had clearly diminished quite a bit, while the color of his body had dimmed significantly.

When he saw these changes, Nine Gloom knew that his strategy was the right one.

"Continue attacking and drain his Divine Power!"

In this state, Silver Armor quite possibly had up to a hundred times more Divine Power within him than before. However, there was no qualitative change in his nature.

His attacks were more powerful only because every time he attacked, his consumption of Divine Power was higher than before.

Judging by the change in the flame giant's size and color, he did not have endless Divine Power; it could be drained.

Nine Gloom was relieved to discover this.

This God Territory was his territory. In a competition for draining Divine Power, he feared no one at all.

Nine Gloom became calmer after ascertaining his strategy.

He no longer directly clashed with the flame giant. Instead, he manipulated the several dozen revenants to conduct guerrilla warfare by constantly harassing the giant and draining his Divine Power.

Each time the flame giant attacked, Nine Gloom would control the revenants so that they dodged and ran, avoiding direct conflict as much as possible.

Over half an hour passed.

Only half the revenants under Nine Gloom's control were left. Even though he manipulated the revenants to evade attacks as much as possible, there were times when they could not dodge in time.

However, his consolation was that the flame giant's size had shrunk to a mere100 meters tall now, and the flame on the giant's body had begun to become unstable.

Nine Gloom patiently dragged the battle out.

After some ten minutes had passed, the flame giant's size suddenly shrank dramatically. Nine Gloom was stunned when he saw it happening.

He immediately halted the attacks and waited patiently for his opponent's form to finish transforming.

Within merely the time it took for a few breaths, the flame giant's height of over a hundred meters shrank to around two meters or so—even smaller than Silver Armor's initial size.

After his body stopped diminishing, the flame on Silver Armor's body slowly began to fade away.

Two to three minutes later, the flame faded completely, revealing a new body.

Instead of silver armor, this body was clad in bronze armor.

The bronze armor looked rather beaten-up, and it was considerably smaller than the silver armor.

If Nine Gloom had not sensed the remains of Silver Armor's aura on the other's body, he might have had some doubts as to the other's identity.

"So this is the price to pay for becoming a flame giant?" Nine Gloom smiled and looked at the bronze-armored man whose aura had plummeted to rock bottom.

The bronze-armored man before him only possessed the combat strength of an eighth-rank Heavenly God—he had dropped one entire level!

Nine Gloom stared for a while at the unconscious bronze-armored man, but he did not kill him. Instead, he extended a black vine and plunged it into the vicinity of the bronze-armored man's heart.

A moment later, the vine was retracted. The smile on Nine Gloom's massive constructed face was even broader now.

"What an excellent live seed cultivation bed…"

Now that this battle with Silver Armor had ended, Nine Gloom released a long sigh of relief. Subsequently, his God Territory began slowly disintegrating, revealing the original ancient forest.

Right at the very moment that his God Territory had been completely recalled, Nine Gloom suddenly heard a languid voice very clearly drifting to his ears.

"This battle between the two of you dragged on for so long, I'm a little sleepy from all that waiting."

The pupils of the huge face that Nine Gloom had conjured up in mid-air contracted slightly.

Not too far away in the air, a figure slowly revealed itself and walked slowly in Nine Gloom's direction.

The figure wore a trench coat and was rather slim in build. In its hand was a black walking stick, and a golden mask covered its face.

Even though he could not see the figure's face, Nine Gloom could still vaguely sense the sophisticated charisma radiating from them.

"An outsider?!" Nine Gloom needed only a glance to ascertain the other party's identity.

"You're right. However, I'm sorry, there's no prize for guessing correctly." The golden mask on the masked man's face appeared to be smiling.

"Outsider, are you barging into my territory to provoke me?" Nine Gloom did not attack the masked man right away.

One of the reasons he did not do so was because he had just gone through a major battle, and his Divine Power and physical strength were severely drained. Another reason was that he sensed a threat emanating from the other party. Although this individual had concealed their combat strength, judging from what Nine Gloom could sense, they were definitely an overlord-rank powerhouse. Their ability was probably by no means inferior to Four Face or Silver Armor.

In all honesty, considering that he was not in the best of conditions right now, Nine Gloom did not particularly wish to have a direct confrontation with the other party.

"No, I'm not trying to provoke you…" The masked man raised both his arms. However, his arms abruptly dropped a second later. "I just want to kill you!"

As soon as he finished speaking, hundreds of monsters with formidable auras rapidly consolidated in the air. Howling, they charged toward Nine Gloom in an attack.

"An Imperial Censor?!" Nine Gloom could not help exclaiming in astonishment.

His opponent was able to control several hundred ninth-rank heavenly god-level monsters. Each of their auras was at peak ninth-rank, and more than a dozen of them had auras no lower than overlord-rank.

At this very instant, it occurred to Nine Gloom that this was karma. He remembered that he had used a similar technique to kill Silver Armor half an hour ago. He never expected that retribution would come so soon—this time, he was the one being besieged.

Regaining his composure slightly, Nine Gloom immediately extended countless vines, attempting to defend himself against the monster horde's attack.

"He fell for it."

From a short distance away, the man with the golden mask sent two voice transmissions in a certain direction.

The minute he finished speaking, two figures swiftly came into view. In a flash, they appeared beside the masked man at practically the same time.

One of them wore a gray monk's robe. His head was completely hairless and covered with Buddhist ordination scars. The biggest difference between himself and ordinary monks was that he had eight very skinny arms.

Meanwhile, the other person was clad in a black robe and even wore a black mask under his hood. The loose black robe enveloped his entire body, shielding him from any probing from the outside world. The only recognizable feature he possessed was his tall, muscular body.

These three figures were Virtuoso, Saber9, and Lin Huang's forms in Phantom City.

As he watched Nine Gloom standing in a daze on the spot, Lin Huang asked from under his black mask, "Aren't we going to seize the opportunity now and attack?"

"There's no rush, just wait a little longer." Virtuoso, on the other hand, was very patient.

"If he's still at his peak, then it would definitely be best to attack him the instant he falls into the trap because he might be able to struggle free of my illusion at any time. However, I'm estimating that currently, he only has 30% to 40% left of his total ability. The chances of him freeing himself from my control aren't very high in the short term. Let him sink deeper into the illusion for a while—it still won't be too late if we attack later on."

Naturally, Lin Huang and Saber9 understood Virtuoso's explanation.

Based on Nine Gloom's actual abilities, it was quite unlikely that he would fall prey to Virtuoso's illusion. Even if he accidentally became ensnared by it, he would be able to free himself in a very short time. Therefore, they had to strike swiftly.

However, now that Nine Gloom had been through a major battle, the Divine Power within him had been significantly drained, and his Divine Telekinesis had flagged considerably. This was the reason why he had fallen into Virtuoso's trap so easily. However, Nine Gloom was not completely blocked off from perceiving the outside world, since he had only just fallen prey to the illusion. As soon as he sensed anomalies in the outside world, he might realize that he was in an illusion and struggle to free himself.

That was also why Virtuoso had told Lin Huang and Saber9 to delay making their move.

Virtuoso wanted Nine Gloom to be ensnared even further. Once Nine Gloom was too busy within the illusion to attend to anything else, naturally, he would not have any excess energy to sense the anomalies in the outside world—this, then, would be the best time to launch an attack.

Lin Huang and Saber9 could hear the certainty in Virtuoso's tone. Therefore, they said nothing more and waited patiently.

Meanwhile, Nine Gloom—having fallen prey to the illusion— was currently facing a major crisis he had not previously encountered.

Individually speaking, there were not many imperial monsters that could pose a threat to him.

However, what made things difficult for him was that this horde of imperial monsters was not battling him one-on-one individually; instead, they had formed small teams. In every team, there were one or two with powerful defense capabilities, a few with controlling and assisting abilities, and a few with sufficiently powerful attack capabilities to incapacitate him.

What made things even harder was that no matter which team he locked onto and attacked, the other teams would immediately interfere and come to their rescue, temporarily giving the first team a respite from battle.

Over ten minutes went by, and Nine Gloom had made no progress at all. He was not able to kill even a single imperial monster. (Time in the illusion was a perception of his consciousness and was by no means the actual time flow in the real world).

Nine Gloom began to panic. He was very much aware that in his current condition, he was not fit for a protracted battle. The longer things dragged on, the higher the chances that he would suffer defeat.

After a mere moment of hesitation, he made a decision to open up his God Territory again and envelop the entire vicinity within it.

It was not just those several hundred imperial beasts that were swallowed up—even the man with the golden mask was also enveloped within the God Territory.

However, what Nine Gloom did not know was that in the real world outside the illusion, the lips under the golden mask quirked up just a little.

The second Nine Gloom slackened his efforts slightly, Lin Huang and Saber9 heard Virtuoso's voice clearly in their ears.

"Go!"

Without hesitation, Lin Huang and Saber9 attacked like lightning.

Lin Huang held nothing back in this attack.

It was the perfect integration of twelve compounded levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule, which consolidated into a dazzlingly bright blood-red arc.

It surged through the air as fast as a bolt of lightning, looking like a moving galaxy.

This move was almost at the limit of what Lin Huang's current physical body could handle.

Even Virtuoso's eyes betrayed a flash of amazement.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Saber9 finally brought out his trump card, which he very rarely revealed.

Millions of golden saber gleams consolidated in the air before him.

His eight skinny arms pointed in the air, and the millions of golden saber gleams consolidated into eight saber formations. The eight saber formations then rapidly integrated into an even more massive saber formation.

Boosted by this giant saber formation, the Saber Dao heavenly rule's aura grew increasingly powerful more than several dozen times over.

In the air, countless saber gleams consolidated into a massive golden dragon. It opened its giant maw and charged straight at Nine Gloom…

Inside Virtuoso's illusion, Nine Gloom watched his God Territory descend. It enveloped all his enemies, including the individual with the golden mask. With no hesitation at all, Nine Gloom summoned Giant Sarcoma, Crimson Eye, the three-tailed snake lady, and the other overlord-rank revenants once more.

In his God Territory, he could repeatedly summon the revenants, but it would require expending a massive amount of Divine Power. He could replenish this expenditure by recalling the revenants.

However, many of the revenants had been killed in the earlier battle with Silver Armor. This meant that Nine Gloom could not replenish his Divine Power, causing him to lose close to seventy percent of it. Even with the utilization of his God's soul, the loss was severe, and his condition was deteriorating significantly.

Now that he was left with so little Divine Power, he did not dare to expend large amounts of it. Therefore, in this confrontation with the golden-masked individual, he could only summon a few overlord-rank revenants to aid in the battle. He did not have the courage to attempt a horde attack strategy against his opponent.

However, as far as Nine Gloom was concerned, this was already sufficient.

With several overlord-rank powerhouses joining the battle, the pressure on him decreased substantially.

Furthermore, the recovery of his Divine Power was more than several times faster in his God Territory. As long as he did not use any major techniques, it was practically impossible for his Divine Power to be exhausted. He also no longer had to worry about his opponent trying to drain his Divine Power. On the contrary, if the battle dragged on for a longer time, the Divine Power within his body would replenish even more, which was much more advantageous to him.

After the arrival of his God Territory, the tide of battle rapidly began to turn.

Nine Gloom had been under heavy suppression earlier, but now, with the assistance of the several revenants he had summoned, he began massacring his enemies.

With Nine Gloom and the revenants working together, the small teams were swiftly split up and obliterated. Their numbers began to dwindle.

Just when Nine Gloom was getting enthusiastically into the killing spree, an impending sense of danger suddenly assailed him.

Before he could even discover where this new threat lay, he felt a sudden wave of intense pain.

Upon looking down, he saw that his body had already been sliced apart at the waist by a scarlet electric arc.

When he lifted his head again, everything before him began disintegrating.

Every single one of the revenants that he had summoned, the imperial monster horde that was battling them so intently, the golden-masked individual in the distance, and the God Territory that he had summoned…

Everything was disintegrating and falling apart like broken glass. The only thing that was still vivid was the scarlet beam of light that had sliced him in half.

"This is an illusion?!" Nine Gloom came to an abrupt realization. He did not even know when he had fallen for his opponent's ruse.

Once again, he lifted his head and looked in the direction from which the scarlet electric arc had originated. Three figures were standing there.

The one who had sliced him in half was a black-robed individual wearing a black mask.

However, Nine Gloom very quickly diverted his attention from the black-robed individual. This was because he saw that there was an eight-armed monk not too far from the black-robed individual. Furthermore, in front of that monk, nine gigantic saber formations were poised for action and targeted straight at him!

Without even thinking, Nine Gloom turned into thousands of snake-like vines that fled in all directions.

He was fleeing so decisively because the earlier slash from that black-robed individual had almost killed him.

He had less than ten percent of his Divine Power left after that slash; he had no more strength to continue fighting.

However, right as he moved, the hundreds upon thousands of saber gleams in the air surged down like a torrential rainstorm, completely swallowing him up.

When he saw that the area within several hundred meters had been entirely enveloped by Saber9's saber formations, Lin Huang ceased any further attacks.

His move earlier was just about his most powerful attack, which was extremely taxing on his physical body.

For one, he needed to rest his body for a little while.

For another, he was secretly calculating the rewards obtained from that attack.

That move comprised twelve levels of compounded sequence power, in addition to Sword Dao heavenly rule.

An attack like this was enough to annihilate most ordinary ninth-rank Heavenly Gods.

However, Nine Gloom had been struck by the attack when he was completely off-guard, and yet he had not been killed.

The instant he slashed at his opponent, Lin Huang had clearly been able to sense that Nine Gloom's body had immediately exuded a great deal of Divine Power and sequence power to offset the shock of the attack and its encroaching effects.

In the end, it looked as if he had certainly sliced Nine Gloom in half, but in reality, this had not done any concrete damage to his opponent. The attack had merely drained a portion of Nine Gloom's Divine Power and Rule Bending Powers.

'From the looks of it, one can't be careless when fighting top heavenly god-level powerhouses. The intensity of Nine Gloom's Divine Power and the number of rules he's mastered far surpass my own. He didn't even have time to utilize any defensive techniques whatsoever, yet he didn't suffer any concrete damage from my blow. If we were to engage in direct confrontation, I fear even this attack of mine wouldn't be able to breach his defenses. However, all he has to do is casually launch an attack, and if I'm hit, I'll almost certainly be dead. This is an absolute gap in ability.

'Furthermore, among Heavenly Gods, there are many powerhouses who have abilities that are on par with Nine Gloom's, and there are quite a few who are even more powerful. Let's not even talk about the higher-ranked half-step lord-level powerhouses…'

After reviewing the battle mentally, the threat that Lin Huang had sensed in his heart only increased.

Initially, he had considered his current abilities to be fairly top-notch already. However, now that he had encountered a true powerhouse, he was finally able to distinctly see the disparity between his ability and theirs.

While Lin Huang was still replaying the battle in his head, Virtuoso, who was next to him, had spread his Divine Telekinesis over an area of several thousand kilometers to prevent Nine Gloom from escaping.

The golden deluge of sabers finally stopped after pouring down for several minutes.

The entire surface of the ground in the area covered by the saber formations had been bombarded until it had become a depression full of potholes. In the whole area, not even a single microorganism could possibly have survived, much less any vegetation. Nine Gloom, on the other hand, had disappeared.

"From the looks of it, he should have been killed," Saber9 commented somewhat uncertainly after he had withdrawn the saber formations and scanned the surroundings with Divine Telekinesis.

Virtuoso did not respond immediately; they seemed to be using Divine Telekinesis to sweep the area for quite a few rounds. Only after that did they observe, "My Divine Telekinesis certainly hasn't picked up any signs of life at all. Moreover, when you attacked, the entire area was under constant coverage from my Divine Telekinesis. I didn't come across any black vines that managed to escape from within your range of attack…"

"So, are we going to search his lair now?" Only now did Saber9 feel more at ease.

"Somehow, I feel… this is a little too easy." Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang after they finished speaking.

"I have the same feeling." Lin Huang gave a slight nod. "If that fellow could become the final winner in this battle between overlords, it's not very likely that we'd be able to kill him off so easily."

"I think he was just far too gullible, so it makes sense that he would fail miserably." Saber9 was extremely confident in his own abilities. He felt that Nine Gloom, with his almost-depleted Divine Power, would not have been able to survive the onslaught of the saber formations from earlier on.

Lin Huang did not bother to keep arguing about the matter. "Honestly, it's no longer important whether he's dead or alive. Given his condition just now, even if he's still alive, he won't be an obstacle to us. We'll leave after we obtain the fragment, and it's unlikely that we'll ever encounter him again in the future."

"When you put it like that, why am I suddenly harboring a faint hope that he might still be alive?" Saber9 said with a smile, "I'm just worried that he won't show his face. If he dares to reveal himself, we'll eliminate him immediately to prevent future problems!"

Virtuoso said nothing more. Instead, they turned around to look in the direction of Nine Gloom's lair.

"Let's go!"

They were off and running the moment they finished speaking. Lin Huang and Saber9 hurriedly caught up with them, and together, all three headed toward Nine Gloom's lair, which was nearby.

As Lin Huang and the other two were approaching the middle of the dense forest, Virtuoso suddenly spoke.

"Stop!"

Lin Huang and Saber9 halted immediately and scanned their surroundings with Divine Telekinesis. However, they did not find anything wrong at all. Nonetheless, Lin Huang sensed a faint inkling of something being slightly off while Saber9 looked at Virtuoso, a puzzled expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" He asked in confusion.

"There's an illusion formation ahead," Virtuoso murmured, dropping his voice.

Saber9 lowered his head and carefully scrutinized the area before them. All he saw was still an expanse of dense forest; he could not make out anything unusual at all.

Once again, he used Divine Telekinesis to scan the area a few more times, and the results were the same. He was still unable to discover anything that was not supposed to be there.

"I don't see anything at all!" Saber9 could not help muttering.

Meanwhile, the outlines of the formation were gradually revealing themselves to Lin Huang's eyes.

He had never studied formations before, but he had cultivated Sorcerer Dao runes, which were considered a similar system. Furthermore, under Bloody's tutelage, he had used quite a number of battle formations before. He also had dabbled in some general knowledge and theory about formations, so he was not completely new to this.

As soon as Virtuoso's warning came, Lin Huang activated his ocular skill and was then able to see the contours of this massive formation.

It was an enormous, complex formation that covered a range of several hundred kilometers, camouflaging the entire area to look like a dense forest.

Though Lin Huang did not really understand what formation had been used here, given its level of complexity, he knew it was not merely a simple illusion. It almost certainly had various other functions as well.

"Is there a way to dispel it?" Lin Huang turned his head to look at Virtuoso.

Despite asking this, he had already secretly come up with a plan.

Virtuoso fell silent for a moment. "I'm not sure, but I can try."

"Hey, please don't say that." Saber9 became rather anxious when he heard this

However, Lin Huang was very calm. He already had a plan for their next step. If Virtuoso was not able to deal with this formation, he would summon a clone of Bloody's consciousness into his physical body and have her dispel the formation instead.

Just when he was thinking about how to prevent Virtuoso and Saber9 from sensing anything odd, Virtuoso took action.

Lin Huang and Saber9 saw Virtuoso swiftly performing complicated hand seals. A moment later, three Virtuoso clones appeared.

Two of the clones immediately transformed into Lin Huang and Saber9's current appearances.

Right after that, the three clones charged ahead at the same time. Before they had flown very far, they suddenly vanished into thin air before the eyes of the watching three.

After releasing the clones, Virtuoso sat down calmly, cross-legged. "Let's wait first. If this doesn't work, we'll look for other solutions."

Lin Huang and Saber9 did not have any better suggestions either, so they had no choice but to wait patiently for the result.

After almost half an hour, just when Lin Huang and Saber9 felt that the attempt to dispel the formation had failed, the dense forest not far from them suddenly altered in an extraordinary manner.

An instant later, the entire forest disintegrated, revealing its true face.

When the three of them saw what was in front of them, they were so utterly shocked that for a moment, they were rooted to the spot in a daze.

"Are these…Nirvana Trees?!" Saber9 was the first to react, asking rather uncertainly.

Lin Huang and Virtuoso's silence was obviously agreement.

"All these Nirvana Trees—how did he get his hands on them?!" Saber9 quickly voiced his second point of doubt.

He brought this up because there was not merely one Nirvana tree here—there were hundreds of them, all densely packed together.

These trees were something that could only be found in the Abyss, and even then, they were a considerably rare species.

A mature Nirvana Tree was a powerful existence among Heavenly Gods. Not only could they master life and death sequence powers, but a small number were also able to comprehend time and dimensional sequences. Even half-step lord-level powerhouses were respectful of them.

However, right before their very eyes were over three hundred Nirvana Trees, practically all of them mature specimens.

What was even more peculiar was that all of the Nirvana Trees seemed to have lost their consciousness, with only empty shells remaining.

"They must have been created with the castellan's seal…" This was the only possibility that Virtuoso could bring to mind.

Although Nine Gloom only had a fragment of the castellan's seal and therefore could not carry out any refining, he might have used some other techniques and found a way to utilize the fragment. That might have been how he created these Nirvana Trees.

What Virtuoso was very sure of was that no matter what method Nine Gloom had used, he must have paid a heavy price to create so many Nirvana Trees.

"He must have used the illusion formation to hide this area because he was worried that people would see these Nirvana Trees." Saber9 looked confused. "But what's the purpose of him planting so many Nirvana Trees in the first place?"

He could not really understand why Nine Gloom had done that.

Lin Huang was somewhat uncertain about that as well.

Among his imperial beasts, Bloody was the one who had been a vine monster since the beginning. She had parasitical abilities, and she could manipulate other monsters to fight for her through the use of parasites. However, it did not seem as if Nine Gloom were creating battle puppets. Furthermore, the Nirvana Trees themselves were not monsters whose forte was fighting. If Nine Gloom were merely creating battle puppets, he certainly had better choices of monsters.

"Are both of you aware that the Nirvana Trees have a very unique characteristic?" Virtuoso suddenly spoke up after a moment of consideration.

Lin Huang and Saber9 looked at Virtuoso, rather perplexed. Clearly, they both knew very little about the Nirvana Tree.

Virtuoso glanced at the two of them and said calmly, "Nirvana Trees only grow near the death spring or the death spring's tributaries. Their roots are forever connected to the death spring. Even if they're moved to another time and dimension, on a spirit level their roots would still be connected to the death spring. When they die, they return to the death spring as well.

"Just like these three hundred-over Nirvana Trees here—they appear to be planted here, but in reality, they remain intimately connected to the death spring. They're able to obtain endless cultivation resources needed for their own growth from it.

"If I'm not mistaken, Nine Gloom must be using these Nirvana Trees to obtain nutrients from the death spring," Virtuoso gave voice to his speculations.

"Is it really possible to obtain cultivation resources from the death spring?" Lin Huang could not help muttering quietly.

To him, it was utterly unbelievable. This was because, from what he understood, the death spring was something extremely dangerous. In the Abyss, even a lord-level powerhouse would not be willing to be polluted by it. The reason for this was that if they were not careful, they might be contaminated and mutate, or they might be enchanted and go mad.

"Theoretically, as long as one uses a suitable filtration device to filter out the contamination, there shouldn't be an issue," Virtuoso said and lifted their head to look at the small Nirvana Tree forest nearby. "These Nirvana Trees are the perfect filter."

"Which means to say, we're rich now!" Saber9's eyes lit up when he heard this.

He even began to imagine himself obtaining all sorts of cultivation resources from the death spring through the Nirvana Trees.

"I think the matter's not as simple as you make it out to be."

Right as Saber9 finished speaking, Lin Huang noticed that the Nirvana Trees in front of them were starting to emit a misty blue light….

"This isn't a good sign, right?"

Lin Huang pointed in the direction of the Nirvana Tree forest, turning his head to glance at Virtuoso and Saber9.

"From the looks of it, either that wretch Nine Gloom isn't completely dead, or there's something else guarding this area." Saber9's expression betrayed mixed feelings. As Virtuoso and Lin Huang had anticipated, obtaining the final fragment of the castellan's seal was not going to be so easy.

"Well, since he isn't completely dead, let's kill him again! If someone else is guarding the area, then we'll get rid of that guardian!" Virtuoso's tone sounded calm enough, but Lin Huang and Saber9 could hear the underlying grim coldness in his voice. Clearly, having already come so far, Virtuoso was determined to obtain the last fragment of the castellan's seal.

Lin Huang and Saber9 had no objections to Virtuoso's statement.

After all, they were already at the final stage. No matter who their opponent was, they would have to fight regardless, or their efforts over the last few days would be in vain.

In just the blink of an eye, the misty blue light in the Nirvana Tree forest had spread rapidly.

As they had no idea what the exact situation was, the three of them did not recklessly plunge into the area.

Lin Huang and Saber9 attempted several attacks. Regardless of whether it was sword gleams or saber gleams, the attacks weakened and rapidly dispersed as soon as they were sent into the area of blue mist.

After a few rounds of futile testing, the three just decided to wait patiently.

Within merely the time it took for a few breaths, the blue mist had become so thick it completely obscured their vision and their Divine Telekinesis scans.

Very soon, the blue mist began reducing dramatically, as if there were something in the middle of the Nirvana Tree forest sucking it up at lightning speed.

Within less than ten seconds, the mist-covered area from earlier had shrunk significantly, and the entire Nirvana Tree forest was revealed.

Lin Huang and the other two could clearly see that less than ten meters of the center area was still covered in blue mist now.

Upon seeing that, Saber9 could not help taking action again; he sent more than a hundred saber gleams hurtling toward the blue mist.

However, as soon as the gleams entered the mist, they dissipated and vanished immediately.

When Lin Huang and Virtuoso saw what happened, they did not bother with any further fruitless attempts.

The three of them were basically already certain that the entity within the mist ought to be their final enemy.

After around two to three minutes, the blue mist slowly began reducing again. When it was about three meters in diameter, it stopped reducing entirely and consolidated into a humanoid figure.

At that moment, Lin Huang and the other two were already fully alert and on guard, ready to fight.

However, they could not help feeling somewhat puzzled by the form the blue mist had taken.

This was because, judging from the shape, their opponent this time very likely was not Nine Gloom.

If that was the case, then who on earth was their current opponent?

All three of them were seized by the same sense of doubt.

A short while later, the humanoid figure finally moved. It took a step forward, and the last layer of blue mist enshrouding its body finally began to dissipate.

As it strode forward one step at a time, its figure also became more distinct.

When Lin Huang and the other two saw what their opponent looked like, their faces filled with shock.

"Silver Armor?!"

Although he looked a little different from the description contained in the information they had, the three could immediately identify that this was Silver Armor, one of the six overlords of the inner world.

The three of them had the same sense of doubt rise in their minds almost simultaneously—had Nine Gloom not already killed off this fellow?!

Previously when they had observed Nine Gloom recalling his God Territory, they knew that the battle between the overlords had ended, and Nine Gloom was the final winner.

That was why they had genuinely not expected to see Silver Armor here.

When they saw Silver Armor emerging, their hearts sank a little.

Unlike Nine Gloom, Silver Armor was the enemy that they most particularly did not wish to encounter.

This was because that fellow possessed terrifying defense capabilities; Lin Huang and the others would have a very difficult time breaching his defenses.

Moreover, judging by the aura currently radiating from Silver Armor, he seemed to have recovered and was now in peak condition—completely different from the condition Nine Gloom had been in after fighting Lin Huang and the rest.

Lin Huang was even fairly certain that this current Silver Armor standing in front of them could utterly defeat Nine Gloom from earlier on.

The eyes of the three met; each saw the other's unwillingness to back down. Their fighting spirit began to rise rapidly.

No matter how difficult this battle might be, all three of them felt strongly that they should not retreat just like that.

After all, they were at the very last lap now. All they had to do was kill Silver Armor, who was there in front of them, and their purpose for entering the Abyss this time would be achieved.

With this conviction in mind, the three of them attacked Silver Armor without hesitation.

Lin Huang held back nothing at all in this strike. Just like before, his sword was imbued with the same twelve compounded levels of god sequence chains combined with Sword Dao heavenly rule, and he slashed down with it.

The blood-red sword gleam was like a surging river of blood, hurtling toward Silver Armor with earth-shattering power.

On his side, Saber9 held nothing back either.

He released all nine saber formations at once. Countless golden saber gleams consolidated into a single gigantic saber that swung straight at Silver Armor.

Not too far off, Virtuoso performed complicated hand seals with both hands.

One by one, black chains coalesced in the air, transforming into massive black pythons that charged in Silver Armor's direction.

In an instant, the massive pythons coiled around Silver Armor's limbs, preventing him from moving.

A second later, the blood river-like sword and the gigantic saber also reached Silver Armor.

Just when the three of them thought the attack would definitely defeat their foe, something unforeseen happened!

Blue mist pervaded Silver Armor's eyes. Both his arms suddenly exerted strength, and blue Divine Power washed over his entire body like a shockwave, pulverizing the black chains that were as thick as a man's arm.

The next instant, Silver Armor—who had broken free of his restraints—made no move to dodge at all. He merely raised both arms calmly, and countless ice-blue vines shot out violently from his palms. The vines from one palm turned into a tsunami, while the other turned into a massive blade. They each charged straight toward Lin Huang and Saber9's attacks, respectively.

When they saw this, Lin Huang and the other two were dumbstruck.

Before they could even come back to their senses, both parties' attacks had collided.

Lin Huang's blood river-like slash was swallowed up by the blue vine tsunami within the time it took for a mere few breaths.

Saber9's gigantic saber clashed with the vine saber and fell apart, scattering all over the ground.

The two attacks that were Lin Huang and Saber9's pride had been easily decimated by Silver Armor—no, that would be Nine Gloom!

The moment they saw him releasing vines, Lin Huang and the others immediately realized that this fellow, who looked like Silver Armor, was not the real Silver Armor, but Nine Gloom!

Although the three had no idea what Nine Gloom had done to Silver Armor, Nine Gloom did not seem to be concealing anything. After forcing the three of them to retreat, he did not pursue them in haste. Instead, he spoke to them, smiling. His tone sounded like he was sharing something that made him happy with his good friends.

"I must thank the three of you. If not for you, I fear I might not have so swiftly made the decision to use Silver Armor's body to perform living body reincarnation. I hadn't anticipated that this time, the reincarnation would be much smoother than I had expected!"

Lin Huang and the others looked dismayed.

Nine Gloom was a peak heavenly god-level powerhouse who was not that far from elevating to the status of a half-step Lord.

The three of them were able to defeat him in the previous battle because Nine Gloom's Divine Power and spirit had suffered severe depletion after fighting Silver Armor. Moreover, Nine Gloom had been utterly unsuspecting of their scheme, and Virtuoso had managed to pull Nine Gloom into their illusion as soon as they appeared on the scene. The three of them had successfully managed to kill off Nine Gloom only because of these factors.

However, the Nine Gloom currently standing before them had not only completed reincarnation with the help of the Nirvana Trees but was also in possession of Silver Armor's physical body.

Nine Gloom's combat strength post-reincarnation had not immediately elevated to its former peak standard, merely crossing the threshold of ninth-rank heavenly god-level. However, judging by the aura emanating from his body, his abilities in this reincarnation were definitely no weaker than when he had been at his peak previously.

Earlier, Lin Huang and the others had not staged a direct confrontation with Nine Gloom even when he had not been in peak condition. Instead, they had used various techniques and schemes to battle him. If they had a choice, the three of them would certainly not wish to fight the current Nine Gloom.

However, they had no choice but to face their enemy now.

Their most powerful moves had been easily countered by Nine Gloom. Under his mask, Lin Huang's brow creased slightly.

A quick glance showed that Saber9 was also frowning at the moment.

Although he could not see Virtuoso's expression under their mask, he knew that they would most certainly not be relaxed.

Unlike in the previous battle, the three of them had lost the upper hand entirely now that they were facing Nine Gloom's successful reincarnation.

Moreover, having had the chance to test his ability via their first round of attacks, the three of them knew that Nine Gloom's abilities were in no way less than when he had been in prime condition previously.

"Do we fight or retreat?" Saber9 asked Lin Huang and Virtuoso through voice transmission.

He asked this because the chances of them winning were extremely low.

Lin Huang made no reply; he was also waiting for Virtuoso's answer.

After all, this trip to the Abyss had been at Virtuoso's invitation.

They could not call the shots on whether to fight or retreat; it depended on what Virtuoso wanted.

Virtuoso only hesitated for a brief moment and rapidly came to a decision.

"Fight!"

Lin Huang and Saber9 were not at all surprised by Virtuoso's decision. After all, they were only a step away from obtaining the last fragment of the castellan's seal. They could completely understand Virtuoso's current state of mind.

Even though on the face of it, victory seemed highly unlikely for the three of them, Lin Huang was very certain that their chances of winning were not as low as they appeared to be.

He had a trump card. He also knew that as clones of Almighty reincarnations, Virtuoso and Saber9 definitely would have powerful trump cards as well.

Moreover, Virtuoso was a meticulous individual. No matter how much they wanted the castellan's seal fragment, if they were truly unable to obtain it, they would definitely not force the issue. Given their character, they would choose to retreat immediately and look for the next target.

Since Virtuoso had chosen to fight, it showed that there was a definite chance of them winning this battle.

Lin Huang felt considerably relieved as he considered this.

"I'll be responsible for stalling Nine Gloom; both of you focus on attacking him!" Virtuoso instructed Lin Huang and Saber9 via voice transmission.

When Lin Huang heard that, he did not hesitate at all, taking the lead to charge at Nine Gloom with his sword.

His close-range attack ability was the strongest among the three of them. Naturally, he had to shoulder part of the burden of drawing Nine Gloom's fire.

Although Saber9 was highly skilled at attacks, his forte was Sword Manipulation. He was best at mid-range and long-range combat; close-quarter combat, conversely, did not allow him to showcase his skills.

As for Virtuoso, they could only serve as reinforcements for now. They would certainly die if they had to engage in close-quarter combat.

Noticing Lin Huang coming at him with his sword, Nine Gloom knew they had decided to fight to the death. His rage knew no bounds, and he laughed in their faces mockingly. "All of you are a mere raggle-taggle group of brats with exaggerated opinions of your own abilities. Do you really think you can defeat me a second time just because you defeated me before?!"

"Whether we can defeat you or not, we're still going to try." As Lin Huang spoke, he had already sliced apart numerous vines, crossing the vine barrier and emerging not too far from the silver-armored figure of Nine Gloom.

When Nine Gloom saw this, he did not bother using vines to obstruct Lin Huang. Instead, he extended his arm and lightly grasped at the air. A black battle spear rapidly consolidated in his hand.

If Lin Huang and the other two had seen Silver Armor previously, they would have immediately recognized that this weapon was the Black Dragon Spear Silver Armor had used when he was still alive.

Spear in hand, Nine Gloom launched himself off the ground with a sudden burst of strength in both legs, using the air as a stepping stone. He charged straight at Lin Huang.

Wherever the head of the spear passed through, even the air itself was torn into jagged rifts.

Simultaneously, as Nine Gloom charged with his spear, a red arc lit up in the void.

In an instant, the red and black gleams abruptly collided, releasing multiple energy shockwaves in the aftermath. The shockwaves spread out over thousands of kilometers, crushing everything to dust.

However, this evenly-matched battle lasted only for the time it took for a few breaths before the red gleam began to disintegrate…

Right at that moment, countless golden gleams shot through the air like a torrential storm, completely deluging the area where Nine Gloom was.

Impressively enough, the attacker was Saber9.

He had once more consolidated the nine massive saber formations, accumulating millions of golden saber gleams that hurtled toward Nine Gloom with murderous intent.

Nine Gloom glanced at the golden saber gleams that were coming at him from all directions. A smirk of disdain curled the corners of his lips.

He did not withdraw his spear defense. Instead, his gaze locked onto Lin Huang. Once more, Nine Gloom increased his Divine Power output.

The red gleam that had already begun to disintegrate was instantly obliterated to nothing.

The black gleam turned into a terrifying shockwave and swallowed up Lin Huang's blood-red sword gleam in a blink of an eye. It then charged straight at Lin Huang.

Nine Gloom completely ignored Saber9's attack this time. The spear was directed at Lin Huang with the intention of finishing him off.

Saber9's expression was indescribable. Clearly, he had not expected that he would fail to contain Nine Gloom.

On one hand, he was rather worried that Lin Huang would be killed by the spear. On the other hand, he was also somewhat angry that Nine Gloom had utterly ignored his own attack.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso continued performing complicated hand seals off to one side. They did not stop at all.

Nobody knew what expression they harbored at the moment under their mask.

Under his mask, Lin Huang's lips quirked up slightly as he watched the black shockwave surging toward him.

Just as the attack was about to reach him, a black mirror suddenly appeared before him.

The seemingly invincible black shockwave merely formed water-like ripples as it collided with the mirror. It could not bypass the mirror at all, nor was it able to harm even a hair of Lin Huang's head.

Nine Gloom could not help feeling rather stunned when he saw what happened.

He had initially thought that his attack would be fatal. Even if it did not kill Lin Huang, it should have been enough to make him lose his combat effectiveness and retreat from the battle.

Never had he thought that Lin Huang would so easily counter an attack that contained almost every ounce of Nine Gloom's strength.

The instant Nine Gloom stood stunned, Saber9 seized the momentary distraction that this afforded. The millions of saber gleams in the air accelerated, pouring down like rain and swallowing Nine Gloom up completely.

At the same time, the black mirror in front of Lin Huang lit up with a piercingly bright red beam of light.

The next second, an alternating red-and-black shockwave—almost identical to the one Nine Gloom had released just now—shot forth. It was aimed straight at where Nine Gloom had been standing earlier…

Nine Gloom, now utterly swamped by golden saber gleams, was calm and composed.

In reality, Saber9's saber formations were by no means considered weak—they were powerful enough to harm a ninth-rank Heavenly God. However, as far as Nine Gloom was concerned, an attack of this level was still far from sufficient to worry him.

A mere thought formulated in his mind, and countless vines writhed out from under the earth, surging toward the golden saber gleams.

Almost at the same time that he responded to his enemy, he sensed a powerful threat coming from another direction.

He lifted his eyes immediately and looked toward the source of this new danger. He saw that the mirror in front of the black-masked sword cultivator—the same mirror that had absorbed his attack—was sending out a shockwave with intersecting red and black gleams.

More peculiar still, he could sense clearly that this shockwave generated by his opponent contained a trace of his own Divine Power's aura.

"That mirror can not only absorb my attack but deflect it as well?!" Nine Gloom was rather shocked. He was even a little envious of Lin Huang's Mirror divine ability now.

He could clearly sense that the power of Lin Huang's current attack was no weaker than his own from earlier on. Such intensity was more than sufficient to cause him considerable harm.

Seeing that the intersecting red and black shockwave had cut through the torrent of golden saber gleams in an instant and was now heading for him, Nine Gloom used the black battle spear once again without hesitation.

A black gleam coalesced at the point of the spear and rapidly began expanding. In the mere time it took for a breath, it had expanded as far as it could go, transforming into a black shockwave that shot through the air.

The next instant, both shockwaves collided.

The moment the two shockwaves slammed against each other, Nine Gloom's heart suddenly started racing. He sensed immense danger coming from multiple directions.

His Divine Telekinesis immediately spread out, scanning his surroundings. He saw over a dozen figures hovering in the void, surrounding him. Each of the figures had on a black robe and a black mask; all of them were identical to the sword cultivator who had deflected his attack earlier.

What was even more extraordinary was that black mirrors had consolidated in front of them all, and identical red and black intersecting shockwaves were now surging out from the surface of the mirrors.

Each of the attacks spawned a dire sense of danger within Nine Gloom.

However, he sneered and glanced at Virtuoso, who was not far away, "Do you think I'm going to fall into your trap again?

"Your simulation is pretty good; it was even able to confuse my senses. However, an illusion is just an illusion. It will never turn into reality!"

As soon as Nine Gloom finished speaking, the dozen-over shockwaves had almost reached him.

However, he chose to ignore them completely.

An instant later, the shockwaves swallowed him up entirely.

Almost at the same time, a devastating shriek was heard.

Even Lin Huang raised his brows upon hearing that shriek. He looked over at Virtuoso in some confusion.

"How did you do that?"

"I can duplicate imaginary images." Virtuoso's explanation was very simple.

However, this explanation did not answer Lin Huang's doubts. He continued to stare at Virtuoso, waiting patiently for them to expound further.

"The imaginary images can be transformed into actual images," Virtuoso paused for a moment, then resumed speaking.

"Is it similar to skill duplication?" Lin Huang immediately thought of a popular comic that he had seen on Earth, which had in it an ability called the Sharingan. (TN: A reference to an ability in the Japanese manga Naruto. This ability allows the user to copy a variety of attacks.)

"It's not simply skill duplication," Saber9 could not help interrupting from where he was standing to one side. He then shot a glance at Virtuoso.

Virtuoso nodded slightly at him, and Saber9 resumed, "More precisely, what's known as an image is something that occurs within a specific timeframe.

"This ability of Virtuoso's is like taking a picture with a camera or recording a video; it replicates the event that happened within that timeframe."

"Initially, it was just a useless divine ability that could only be used to record information. However, by chance, I realized I could convert imaginary images into actual images," Virtuoso continued the topic and proceeded to explain.

"In an attack like the one earlier, how many actual images are you able to replicate?" Lin Huang asked this, not because he wished to pry into Virtuoso's divine ability, but so he could work better alongside them.

Virtuoso hesitated but answered regardless, "One is my limit."

They did not explain much more than that. At their current level of ability, they could, at most, replicate images below half-step lord-level. Moreover, Lin Huang's attack earlier was already at peak heavenly god-level, which could be considered close to the level of a half-step Lord. Replicating one actual image was indeed their limit.

"How many times can you use this divine ability, at most?" Lin Huang resumed his questions.

"If I'm not converting things into actual images, theoretically, I can use it countless times," Virtuoso answered very readily this time, "However, if I were to convert them into actual images and use them in an attack with the same level of intensity as earlier, I can only do that three times in a day at most."

"Alright." Lin Huang did not enquire any further.

He was indeed a little envious of Virtuoso's ability, but he did not plan on asking for more details. After all, everyone's divine abilities and skills were private. The questions he asked were about things that he needed to know in order to fight effectively alongside them.

If not for the fact that he had been teamed up with Virtuoso and they were now very familiar with each other, he might have been a little embarrassed to ask such questions.

Lin Huang raised his head and looked over in the direction now completely swamped by countless shockwaves.

"If this round of attack doesn't finish him off, we'd better prepare ourselves to battle it out later."

Naturally, Nine Gloom could not hear the voice transmissions between Lin Huang and the other two.

He had certainly paid a heavy enough price by erroneously thinking that Virtuoso's attack was just an illusion.

He only realized that one out of the dozen-over illusory shockwaves was real at the very moment he was struck. However, by then, it was far too late for him to dodge.

Lin Huang's attack this time was almost equal to the attack Nine Gloom had launched at full force, and Virtuoso had replicated it in its entirety.

With no other alternative in sight, Nine Gloom had no choice but to tough it out. The attack drained close to one-fifth of the Divine Power within his body.

Very soon, the shockwaves dispersed completely, and Nine Gloom's figure slowly emerged from within the smoke.

He was not as arrogant as before. Instead, he cut a rather sorry figure, which secretly thrilled Lin Huang and the other two.

After such a devastating loss, Nine Gloom was burning with rage. He glared fixedly at Virtuoso, the culprit.

"What an excellent technique!" From Nine Gloom's tone, it was very evident that he was clenching his teeth.

"You're too kind." Virtuoso accepted this "compliment" with no qualms whatsoever.

Nine Gloom scoffed, then quietly glanced at Lin Huang. A faint trace of fear flickered through his eyes.

Compared to Virtuoso, he actually feared Lin Huang more.

Although it was Virtuoso who had wounded him earlier, the attack Virtuoso had duplicated was Lin Huang's technique.

Based on the earlier skirmish, he had a certain understanding of the trio's abilities and where they stood. Currently, in his mind, the threat level ranking he had given them was Lin HuangVirtuosoSaber9.

More precisely, Lin Huang and Virtuoso were the only ones who were a threat to him. Saber9 could almost be ignored.

Naturally, he did not completely overlook Saber9.

After all, a saber cultivator was theoretically the cultivator with the most powerful attack abilities.

Perhaps Saber9 was intentionally hiding his ability, waiting for the perfect opportunity to surprise Nine Gloom…

To Lin Huang and the other two, Nine Gloom standing in front of them now was the most powerful enemy they had ever faced.

Although he appeared to be somewhat clumsy, Lin Huang and the rest sensed no signs of his energy waning. This meant that he had not suffered any substantial physical harm.

Lin Huang was sure that the deflected attack from Mirror had surpassed his own strongest attack at least three times over. Despite the intensity and power of the attack, it had merely given Nine Gloom a few superficial injuries.

What was even more frightening was that Nine Gloom had taken Virtuoso's attack head-on. He had had no time to evade, nor had he been able to utilize any methods of defense. He had directly taken the hit armed only with his Divine Power and his physical body.

Under their mask, Virtuoso's expression became rather weighty.

For their attack earlier, they had copied Lin Huang's Mirror completely. As the replicator, they knew very well how powerful and terrifying Lin Huang's attack was. They had reached their limits in terms of psychic-level capacity, just from replicating that attack.

One could say that the attack was practically at half-step lord-level already.

Initially, Virtuoso had anticipated that Nine Gloom would definitely be hurt even if he were not severely injured since he had taken the attack without being prepared for it. However, what surprised them was that Nine Gloom was stronger than they had expected and had not sustained any substantial physical damage at all.

This also meant that it would be impossible to kill Nine Gloom even if he were hit two, even three times when his guard was down.

Furthermore, at Virtuoso's current ability, they could only replicate images of such intensity three times, at most.

Just as Lin Huang and Virtuoso were trying to figure out how to turn the tables on Nine Gloom, Saber9 attacked again unhesitatingly.

As a saber cultivator, his fighting style was usually to fight first and think later. Whether he won or not was another matter—but he had to take action first. Only after taking action would he decide whether or not to exercise his brain based on the battle situation.

One just had to fight, regardless!

Watching the nine saber formations consolidating again in midair and the golden saber gleams condensing into being at lightning speed, Lin Huang and Virtuoso knew that it was time for them to attack.

Countless saber gleams filled the sky, but Nine Gloom did not look at Saber9. He did not even bother to lift his head to look at the sky full of saber gleams. His gaze was fixed on the direction where Lin Huang and Virtuoso were.

He was not intentionally looking down on Saber9; this was because he could sense Saber9's attack was similar to the one from earlier. Nine Gloom could easily tell from the intensity of the wave of Divine Power.

An attack like this would not be able to breach his defenses at all.

However, to Saber9, this was undoubtedly a form of disdain, as well as a provocation.

The million-over saber gleams consolidated in the air almost immediately. The next second, they came hurtling down on Nine Gloom like a rainstorm.

Countless saber gleams surged at Nine Gloom from all directions.

Nine Gloom had no interest in this current wave of attack. When he saw the incoming saber gleams, he already knew that Saber9's attack was no different from the last round.

He did not even bother to waste effort evading it; he merely enveloped his body with a layer of Divine Power as a defense.

At present, he already possessed Silver Armor's defense abilities. Given the vast amount of Divine Power within him, Saber9's attack fell far short of being able to penetrate his defenses.

Observing that Nine Gloom had now set up his defenses, the corners of Saber9's mouth abruptly twitched up in a smirk.

A second later, the golden saber gleams collided with Nine Gloom's defense layer and exploded, taking away a portion of his Divine Power.

Yes—Saber9 had no intention of breaching Nine Gloom's defenses at all with this attack.

Once he became aware that his attacks were not powerful enough to cause any physical harm to Nine Gloom, he swiftly changed his battle strategy and designated himself as combat support.

The nine saber formations seemed no different from the last round. In reality, though, Saber9 had secretly made tiny tweaks to the formations, increasing the explosion, absorption, and interference traits.

Every time the saber gleams exploded, they would absorb around threefold's worth of Divine Power as well. They would also release this portion of Divine Power to create interference waves that would obstruct Nine Gloom's senses and his Divine Telekinesis probing.

This time, Saber9's purpose in attacking was not only to drain Nine Gloom's Divine Power but also to create an opportunity for Lin Huang and Virtuoso to deal some severe damage to their opponent.

In reality, most saber cultivators did indeed prefer to fight blindly and think less—the reason being, their ability was sufficient to crush their opponents. They did not have to think most of the time.

However, as a saber cultivator with extensive battle experience whose Primordial form was also an Almighty, Saber9 did not really have to think much after his first round of attack had failed. The strategy came to him automatically.

This was why he had attacked without hesitation while Lin Huang and Virtuoso were still considering how to turn the tables.

Not only did he give Nine Gloom the impression that he was a reckless hothead, even Lin Huang and Virtuoso thought the same.

However, Lin Huang and Virtuoso realized what was going on the instant they saw Saber9's saber gleams explode. Without hesitation, they attacked once more.

Lin Huang charged at Nine Gloom again, slashing at him with twelve levels of compounded god sequence chains combined with Sword Dao heavenly rule.

Unlike his previous assault, the compounded twelve levels of god sequence chains he added this time were not for attacking but for absorbing and draining Divine Power.

After he saw Saber9's attack, he had the same inspiration—to fight Nine Gloom by draining him!

This was because he was clearly aware that even his most powerful blow was not even one-third as powerful as the deflected wave from before, so it was difficult for him to cause any substantial physical harm to Nine Gloom.

Standing off to one side, Virtuoso took on the responsibility for this round of attack.

As they performed complicated hand seals, over a dozen figures that looked exactly like Lin Huang appeared in the air once again, a mirror swiftly consolidating in front of each of them. After that, terrifying, intersecting red and black shockwaves shot forth!

It was one of Virtuoso's biggest secrets—they could replicate an imaginary image over and over again.

After replicating Lin Huang's deflected shockwave the first time, Virtuoso could utilize it for themselves in the future. As long as they had sufficient Divine Power within their body and a strong enough psychic capacity, they would be able to use it.

Even Lin Huang could not help raising his brows when he noticed that his attack was being replicated again. He was a little envious of Virtuoso's ability now.

Nine Gloom, currently swamped by countless exploding saber gleams, was not feeling very good at the moment.

True, the assaults had not breached his defenses. However, the glaringly bright explosions were interfering with his vision. Furthermore, the Divine Power waves being released were also disturbing his sensing ability and Divine Telekinesis.

He could sense two powerful attacks coming from not too far away. However, given the interference, he could not determine the direction or the angle of the attacks with any accuracy.

After a moment of consideration, he soon came to a decision.

Countless vines surged forth from both his hands, turning into two giant half-spherical shields in the blink of an eye. As he gave both arms a slight shake, the two half-spheres integrated, creating a complete sphere that completely enveloped his body within it.

Just when Nine Gloom had practically completed forming the shield, two attacks landed at almost the same time, striking the giant spherical shield.

Lin Huang's blood-red sword attack landed on the giant shield. It did not penetrate through; instead, it began to absorb the Divine Power that covered the shield.

Virtuoso's shockwave struck the massive shield violently from another angle. After a few seconds of being eroded, traces of cracks finally began to appear on the shield's surface.

However, Lin Huang and the other two noticed that more vines were extending to fill in the cracks.

This contest lasted for some two to three minutes before the shockwaves finally dissipated.

The surface of the giant shield was now covered with cracks and pitted with holes. However, in the end, it still did not collapse…

Within the giant spherical shield made of vines, the silver-armored Nine Gloom had not suffered any injuries to his body at all. However, at the moment, he felt exceedingly gloomy.

True, Lin Huang and the other two's round of attacks had not caused him any harm. However, this time his Divine Power had been depleted much more than in the first clash earlier.

This was for no other reason than Lin Huang and Saber9's use of techniques that absorbed and drained his Divine Power, thus depleting it significantly.

Although Nine Gloom had managed to defend himself against Virtuoso's shockwaves, overall, the drain on his Divine Power had increased. He had exhausted almost one-third of his full store of Divine Power.

On top of the Divine Power loss from that first battle, he had lost over half of his Divine Power just from these two rounds of attacks.

As far as Nine Gloom was concerned, this was not good news at all.

No matter how powerful his abilities, without Divine Power, he could do nothing.

Realizing that Lin Huang and the other two had targeted him, Nine Gloom rapidly began thinking of counter-strategies.

Meanwhile, although Lin Huang and the rest were aware that this wave of assault was insufficient to cause Nine Gloom any harm, they were still satisfied.

They had no idea what percentage of Divine Power loss Nine Gloom had suffered, but they had a rough idea of how much Divine Power would have been absorbed and drained in the attack just now.

If one round were not enough to drain Nine Gloom's Divine Power completely, they would merely repeat the process several times. Eventually, his Divine Power would run out.

Nine Gloom was clearly aware of this. More than half the Divine Power within his body had been drained just from these two rounds of attack. If he were to allow them to continue their onslaughts, he could only sustain two more rounds at most before his Divine Power depleted entirely.

Once this occurred to him, he initiated an attack the moment the shockwaves dissipated.

The giant spherical shield abruptly split apart and proliferated. Countless vines extended in the direction where Lin Huang and the other two were, blotting everything out.

The three of them hastily dodged, slicing away tendrils as they evaded the attacks coming at them from the vines.

However, the wave of incoming vines was endless. Every time vines broke off, they would regenerate within the blink of an eye and continue to attack the three of them.

As there were too many vines, the three of them could only struggle to cope. They could only defend passively; they did not have the energy to initiate any more attacks.

Nine Gloom finally had the upper hand in this round of battle.

However, Lin Huang and the other two did not panic at all. They were even communicating secretly through voice transmission.

"Has this fellow gone insane? Why is he suddenly pulling out all the big moves?!" Saber9 could not help grumbling.

"It proves that our previous two rounds of attacks drained his Divine Power significantly. He dare not drag things out any further, so he's eager to take control of the battle in order to end it quickly." Virtuoso saw through Nine Gloom's plan right away.

"You're right about that, but not entirely." Lin Huang, on the other hand, raised his head to look at the sky.

Apart from the vines that were attacking the three of them, there were considerably more vines that had grown past their heads and were now extending even further toward the distance.

"The ranged attack is just a smokescreen. His real goal is to shift the battlefield!" As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, the all-encompassing vines had already rapidly surrounded them, completely blotting out heaven and earth.

The next instant, Lin Huang and the other two emerged in a world full of vines.

An overwhelming curtain of vines surged toward them in an onslaught.

"We're in trouble now—we've been dragged into his God Territory…" Saber9's expression instantly changed to one of dismay.

Although the three of them had powerful abilities, their combat strength was still only at true god-level after all. Their God Territories were nowhere near as strong as Nine Gloom's; they had no way of defending themselves against being swallowed up by his God Territory.

In his God Territory, Nine Gloom was practically the god of this world. His Divine Power was almost limitless.

Therefore, the plan that Lin Huang and the other two had come up with earlier was more or less utterly useless here.

If they continued to drain Nine Gloom's Divine Power, they might very well drain themselves to death.

"What the hell do we do now?!" Saber9 looked at Lin Huang and Virtuoso.

Virtuoso said nothing. They still seemed to be thinking about counter-strategies.

Lin Huang spoke up right away, "There are only two ways to get out of a God Territory. One is to forcibly eradicate the God Territory; the other is to kill the God Territory's master.

"Given the current level of our attack power, naturally, we can't achieve the former, so we can only go for the latter."

One could only eradicate a God Territory by force if the power of their attack exceeded the limits of what the God Territory was able to withstand. Given Nine Gloom's ability, destroying his God Territory was something perhaps only half-step lord-level powerhouses would be able to achieve.

Clearly, Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 did not possess such capabilities. Therefore, the option of eradication by force was not viable.

However, upon hearing Lin Huang saying that only the second option was available to them, Saber9 could not help curling his lips slightly, secretly critical within his heart.

If they could not even eradicate a God Territory with force, could they kill Nine Gloom, who was now within his own God Territory?!

From Lin Huang's tone, it sounded as if killing Nine Gloom was a piece of cake.

"Lin Huang is right. If this had been before Nine Gloom activated his God Territory, we would still have had options—if we were no match for him, we could have abandoned the battle and fled straight away. However, we have no choice now. We'll only be able to get out of this God Territory if we kill him," Virtuoso finally delivered his verdict after pondering for a moment.

Saber9 looked helpless when he heard this. "The problem is, how do we kill him?! If we were outside his God Territory like before, we could still drain his Divine Power slowly. However, now that we're in his God Territory, the Divine Power within his body is limitless. If we continue trying to exhaust his Divine Power like we did before, we'll be the ones who die in the end."

Virtuoso glanced at Saber9 after hearing him out and said calmly, "That's why we have to bring out some actual trump cards now, or the three of us really will die here."

Saber9 went completely silent upon hearing what Virtuoso had to say.

Virtuoso did not press him either. They waited patiently for Saber9's response as they continued to dodge Nine Gloom's vine attacks.

They were waiting to hear what Saber9 had to say because they were worried that their own trump card might not be able to kill Nine Gloom in one go. If they attacked with Saber9, their chances of succeeding would increase significantly. Therefore, they did not dare make any rash moves before getting a response from Saber9.

Saber9 was silent for a long time. Finally, he made up his mind.

"Alright, I'll go first! If I don't end up killing him, you finish him off."

The reason he made this decision was that he knew the situation would only get worse if they dragged things on. By the end of it, he might not have sufficient Divine Power to even use his trump card.

Naturally, Nine Gloom was aware that the three of them were discussing counter-strategies. However, he could not hear any concrete details, nor did he pay attention to what they were saying.

As far as he was concerned, the three of them were like rats caught in a trap. They had nowhere to run.

He even did not bother wasting effort to launch powerful attacks at the three of them. After all, their abilities were not weak; a strong assault might not gain him much in the way of advantages. Therefore, he opted for the strategy the three had used earlier, which was to use vine attacks to wear down their Divine Power. Once their Divine Power had been completely depleted, the three of them would naturally become sitting ducks; he could do whatever he wanted with them.

Unfortunately, he did not know about Virtuoso and Saber9's backgrounds.

If he had had any inkling at all, he would definitely have killed the three of them as swiftly as possible to prevent anything unforeseen from happening.

However, it was this tiny bit of misinformation that created an opportunity for Lin Huang and the rest.

High up in the air, Saber9 stood tall. Sword gleams circled around his body like schools of swimming fish, easily fending off wave after wave of vine attacks.

He began to perform rapid hand seals, and the aura radiating from him started to become peculiar.

Naturally, Nine Gloom noticed this transformation as well, but he did not really pay that much attention to it.

After the two rounds of previous attacks, he already had a rough understanding of Saber9's level and felt that Saber9's attacks were not much of a threat. His attention was focused more on Lin Huang and Virtuoso.

He did not completely ignore Saber9 either. Instead, he sent out more vines to counter Saber9's assault, and also increased the frequency of the vine attacks, attempting to hamper Saber9's moves.

However, the sword gleams swimming around Saber9 seemed to be alive. Not only did they increase in number along with the vines, but their movement also sped up in response to the increased frequency of the attacks.

Then again, Saber9's hand seals were also completed very rapidly.

The instant he was done, both his eyes suddenly lit up with a golden sword glow.

About a meter in front of him, a golden sword gleam consolidated at a speed visible to the naked eye.

There was only one sword gleam, which gradually elongated to approximately one meter in length. It did not look very different from the millions of sword gleams that Saber9 had consolidated earlier.

However, only Saber9 knew that this sword gleam was completely different from the ones consolidated previously.

The essence of this particular sword gleam was a sword formation that Saber9's Primordium had left behind. Furthermore, a sliver of energy was inserted into it.

This sword formation was originally meant to ensure Saber9's survival. The moment Saber9 died, it would be activated passively, releasing an attack that was on par with a lord-level assault.

Naturally, the effect that Saber9 activated was much weaker than that.

Firstly, this was because Saber9 had yet to master this particular sword formation and thus could not fully unleash its power.

The second reason was that he had activated it himself, which meant that the sliver of energy inserted by his Primordium could not be used. The driving force for this formation was entirely Saber9's own Divine Power.

Although on the surface it was impossible to detect the sword gleam's peculiarity, Lin Huang and Virtuoso clearly sensed that terrifying energy was concealed within it.

However slow on the uptake Nine Gloom might be, he was still able to sense the threat emanating from the sword gleam. The sense of danger coming from it was even slightly more pronounced than that of the two shockwaves Virtuoso had replicated previously.

Naturally, Nine Gloom had no idea about the background of Saber9's sword gleam. However, this did not stop him from treating it as a formidable attack-type secret skill.

'It seems I really have underestimated this saber cultivator!'

In reality, he had never actually looked down on the three opponents he was facing. However, he had not expected to have miscalculated Saber9's ability quite so much.

Nine Gloom was on full alert as he watched the sword gleam consolidate completely within the mere blink of an eye.

The instant the golden sword gleam materialized into being, it transformed into an electric arc and shot forward.

'That's fast!'

Nine Gloom was not the only one who thought so—even Lin Huang and Virtuoso could not help secretly exclaiming to themselves.

The strike was so swift that Lin Huang felt it might even be the fastest attack he had ever seen since he started down the path of cultivation.

He was unable to follow the attack at all by sight. Even when he used Divine Telekinesis, he was only able to make out the trajectory left behind by the blow.

'What a move… If I were his opponent, I might be dead before I even had time to use Mirror,' Lin Huang sighed secretly in his heart.

He could imagine that the attack would be outstandingly powerful as well as fast.

After all, it was the trump card left by an Almighty!

As the clone of an Almighty as well, Virtuoso was able to see much more than Lin Huang.

At a glance, they realized that Saber9 had not unleashed the full power of the trump card in this attack. Virtuoso was able to roughly guess at the reason for it.

'As expected, the attack is much weaker when he activates it himself,' Virtuoso thought to themselves, cupping their chin, 'It's also far less powerful… an attack of this intensity very likely won't kill Nine Gloom.'

Virtuoso began to plan the next step without waiting for the results of the attack.

Meanwhile, confronted by this attack, Nine Gloom was under extreme duress.

This attack was incredibly fast. Even Nine Gloom could only catch a glimpse of the sword gleam. It was fortunate that he possessed powerful Divine Telekinesis and could sense the sword gleam's complete trajectory.

The moment Nine Gloom caught sight of the sword gleam, he attacked without hesitation.

The vines multiplied in countless numbers, surging toward the golden sword gleam.

He no longer held out any high expectations of being able to block the attack. He only hoped that he could use the vines to wear down the power of Saber9's assault.

When the golden sword gleam locked onto Nine Gloom, it had actually completely broken free of Saber9's control.

Faced with layer upon layer of obstructing vines, it had no intention of circumventing them. Instead, it pierced straight through them. Wherever it passed, destruction followed in its wake, leaving only dust behind.

The vines could not stop the sword gleam at all. They were crushed into dust as soon as they got within ten centimeters of it.

However, Nine Gloom did not panic when he saw what was happening.

The sword gleam did not seem to dim at all, but Nine Gloom was very certain that each time it came in contact with his vines, it would weaken by just a fraction.

This time, he utilized the technique that Lin Huang and Saber9 had used to counter him earlier—he secretly infused all the vines with the ability to absorb and drain Divine Power.

The sword gleam would not weaken very obviously after colliding with the vines two or three times. However, what if they collided a hundred times or even a thousand times? What if they collided over ten thousand times?!

Even Nine Gloom had not anticipated being able to apply this method so soon—using his opponent's own techniques against them.

It was not long before Lin Huang and the rest noticed that something was off.

Although Lin Huang did not know what Virtuoso's expression was under their mask, he saw Saber9 frowning slightly. Lin Huang was not sure whether Saber9 was unsatisfied with his attack or if he was upset that Nine Gloom had used his own technique against him.

However, under his mask, Lin Huang looked rather helpless.

He had never expected that the trick he and Saber9 had played on Nine Gloom would be used against them now.

In the void, countless vines besieged the golden sword gleam.

The golden sword gleam was still moving like a hot knife through butter with no hint of any slowing down. It pierced through the multiple layers of obstacles and reached Nine Gloom within the blink of an eye.

Nine Gloom did not bother evading, knowing that it was fruitless to even try.

He had no way of dodging this attack.

Therefore, he chose to counter it full force.

He extended countless vines to fortify his defenses, forming a complicated structure of giant curved silver shields in front of him.

In short order, eighteen of these massive shields were formed.

They were like eighteen city walls acting as a barrier in front of Nine Gloom.

On each of the massive shields were entwined close to twenty thick god sequence chains of various colors. Those were the concrete, physical manifestations of sequence power.

In the time it took for a mere breath, the golden sword gleam collided with the giant shields.

Golden and silver divine rays abruptly flared up, immediately blotting out the heavens. At that instant, it seemed as if gold and silver were the only colors remaining in the world.

Even the two spectators, Lin Huang and Virtuoso, could not help squinting slightly.

However, apart from the gold and silver rays, neither of them could see anything at all.

A moment later, the two rays gradually faded, and Lin Huang and Virtuoso were finally able to see the state of battle at the moment.

The eighteen thick, massive wall-like shields had been completely pierced through, leaving a hole as big as a water barrel.

Meanwhile, Nine Gloom, who had been sheltering behind the shields earlier, was now nowhere to be seen.

'Nine Gloom… is dead?!' Lin Huang was skeptical.

Saber9's attack could not be considered weak by any means.

Although this was the less powerful version, from Lin Huang and Virtuoso's point of view, it was at least at the level of a half-step Lord.

Seeing that Nine Gloom's figure had utterly vanished and even his aura was no longer present, the first reaction from Lin Huang and the others was—could Nine Gloom finally be dead at last?!

However, a moment later, the three of them had a change of expression almost simultaneously. All of them looked at a spot on the ground not too far away.

A new vine tendril suddenly extended from the surface of the earth, then a second and a third… Within the blink of an eye, they consolidated into a humanoid figure.

It was Nine Gloom, clad in the silver armor from earlier!

"I almost died…" The silver-armored Nine Gloom could not help exclaiming as his body regenerated.

"As expected, I most certainly underestimated you." His gaze finally alighted on Saber9 now. "However, I don't suppose you have any remaining strength to attempt a second attack like the one you just pulled off."

Nine Gloom's speculation was because he could sense Saber9's aura slowly decreasing. This was a phenomenon that would only happen when one's Divine Power was drained.

Nine Gloom's guess was absolutely correct. In fact, Saber9's actual condition was even worse than Nine Gloom's initial speculation.

Drawing on the life-saving saber formation left by his Primordial form had resulted in a definite backlash for Saber9.

Currently, not only had he suffered a drain on his Divine Power, his spirit and physical body had been taxed to the limit. He was on the verge of collapsing entirely.

Fortunately, apart from discovering that Saber9 had no more strength left to fight, Nine Gloom did not sense any further anomalies.

As for Lin Huang and Virtuoso, they had no idea that Saber9 was in such a dire condition after his attack. However, before he made his move, Saber9 had already informed both of them that he could only launch a single attack. Whether or not it killed Nine Gloom, he no longer had the strength to fight anymore.

When Virtuoso saw the look that Saber9 sent them, they needed no words to understand what it meant.

Saber9 had completely lost his capacity to fight. The only chance for killing Nine Gloom now depended on their own trump card.

At this point, Virtuoso spoke to Lin Huang through voice transmission, "If I'm not able to kill him after using my trump card, run as far away as you can. Don't bother about the two of us; we both have means of survival."

When he heard this, Lin Huang knew that the other two had not considered that he himself might have a trump card or two. However, upon thinking about it, he let it pass. After all, the pair had trump cards left to them by Almighties who far surpassed lord-level. From their point of view, if their trump cards could not kill Nine Gloom, then none of Lin Huang's trump cards would be very effective.

However, in his heart, Lin Huang could not help grumbling, 'This is Nine Gloom's God Territory. Even if I really wanted to flee, where would I go anyway?!'

At that moment, Virtuoso added, "Our means of survival might very well affect you."

Only then did Lin Huang realize that Virtuoso was not asking him to flee from Nine Gloom's pursuit but to get away from the effect that would result from the pair using their trump cards.

After this exchange with Lin Huang, Virtuoso then turned their attention back to Nine Gloom.

This enemy that they were facing had certainly far exceeded their expectations in terms of difficulty.

Initially, Virtuoso had thought that even if Saber9 activated his trump card on his own, it might still be sufficient to kill this wretched fellow in front of them, despite the attack being significantly less powerful. Even if it failed to kill Nine Gloom, it might still injure him severely.

However, from the looks of things, Nine Gloom appeared to be completely fine. They wondered what sort of special technique he might be using.

Despite having been on the receiving end of Saber9's nigh half-step lord-level attack, even Nine Gloom's aura showed no signs of weakening at all.

Virtuoso was not at all sure if their trump card would be able to kill him.

A great many thoughts passed through their mind within just that brief period.

They lifted their head and looked at Nine Gloom again, then attacked without hesitation.

They performed rapid, complicated hand seals with both hands. At the same time, the mask covering their face swiftly began disintegrating, turning into points of starlight that consolidated speedily above Virtuoso's head.

In some astonishment, Lin Huang raised his head and looked over at what was forming above Virtuoso's head. To some degree, he could make out that it was a human face with both eyes tightly closed at present.

Very soon, the massive, seemingly illusory face floating in midair had consolidated completely.

Lin Huang could not help staring at that face. It was utterly flawless; each detail could be considered exquisite. Even if it were magnified over a hundred times, not a single defect would be found. However, Lin Huang still could not be certain if the master of the face was female or male.

As soon as the gigantic face consolidated fully, its eyes finally opened slowly.

Those eyes were dark blue. The moment they opened, Lin Huang felt as if he could see the entire universe revolving within them. However, when he blinked and looked at them again, those eyes displayed no signs of vitality; they looked supremely indifferent. At the same time, they seemed to transcend everything else.

The instant the eyes opened completely, a golden glow suddenly flared up in the darkness of the void right in front of them.

The golden glow was approximately the size of a piece of gravel—perhaps even smaller. The light it gave off was very weak; it could even be considered dim.

It gave one the impression of a firefly's glow on a summer night; perhaps even fainter than that.

Lin Huang could not even feel any energy waves from that tiny golden gleam. However, he instinctively felt that it was dangerous and that he should stay as far away from it as he could.

Saber9's reaction was even more straightforward. He seemed to be aware of the potential of this attack; unobtrusively he teleported to hide behind Virtuoso.

Nine Gloom obviously sensed the danger posed by this attack. Countless vines surged wildly toward Virtuoso and the golden glow, attempting to hamper the attack.

However, the strange thing was, his vines went through Virtuoso and Saber9's bodies easily. They pierced through the golden glow as well, but nothing happened.

It was as if Virtuoso, Saber9, and the golden glow were just projections that did not really exist.

Given the futility of the attempt, Nine Gloom did not try to attack Lin Huang after that. Something seemed to occur to him, and he hurriedly performed a series of hand seals with both hands. Countless black vines transformed into white fog, encasing him in multiple layers. Within the blink of an eye, he had become a giant white cocoon. There was no telling how many layers he was enveloped in.

"A spiritual defense technique?!" Under his mask, Lin Huang's brows shot up. He finally knew why he had not sensed any Divine Power waves from the golden glow earlier.

Virtuoso's attack was a purely spiritual attack technique!

Nine Gloom had sensed this, so he had set up a heavy spiritual defense without hesitation.

By the time Nine Gloom's cocoon had fully formed, Virtuoso's golden glow had also fully consolidated.

The golden glow "slowly" drifted like a firefly and lightly penetrated the giant white cocoon…

Naturally, the slowness was a visual illusion experienced by Lin Huang and Saber9. In reality, this attack was impossible to dodge.

Everything happened within the blink of an eye—from Virtuoso using voice transmission to tell Lin Huang to run, to them using their trump card to consolidate that massive face; then to the golden glow shooting out and Nine Gloom extending countless vines in an attempt to stop Virtuoso's attack, to Nine Gloom using his spiritual defense technique to complete his cocoon.

Subsequently, Lin Huang saw a dazzling golden ray of light rising from the giant cocoon.

In the beginning, it looked like sunlight piercing through the cracks of an eggshell, except that these were rays shining through gaps in the cocoon. However, a moment later, the giant cocoon swiftly began to collapse, and countless golden rays began to shine through even more gaps. Finally, the giant cocoon collapsed entirely, and all of earth and heaven were illuminated by that dazzlingly bright golden light!

"This time Nine Gloom has to be dead, right?!" Lin Huang squinted in the direction of where the golden light had burst forth. He could no longer sense any remnants of Nine Gloom's aura.

In the void, the dazzling golden glow released a burst of ultimate brilliance for an instant, then gradually began to dim.

Lin Huang could sense that as the golden glow released its burst of light, Virtuoso's aura was obviously weakening.

Noticing his scrutiny, Virtuoso spoke through voice transmission rather weakly.

"I'm fine—my God's soul is slightly drained, that's all. However, I don't have any strength left to fight for the short term, not after that attack."

Lin Huang nodded slightly and glanced at Saber9 a short distance away, who was also in the same weakened condition. "Don't worry; I'll protect the two of you until you recover your combat strength."

The moment Lin Huang finished speaking, the three of them almost simultaneously turned their heads to look in the direction where the golden glow had just released its rays.

Saber9's expression was indescribable.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso spoke to Lin Huang through voice transmission right away, "Run as far as you can! Don't bother about us!"

However, Lin Huang remained where he was without moving. He squinted slightly, staring at the spot where countless vines now extended out of thin air.

Nine Gloom was still alive!

In reality, the most shocking thing about the whole matter was that the trump card Virtuoso had used just now was a spiritual attack. Furthermore, they had sensed beyond all doubt that Nine Gloom's God's soul had been utterly wiped out in the attack.

The death of the spirit was different from the death of the physical body.

Generally speaking, for many powerhouses who were proficient in the art of spirit cultivation, the death of the physical body was a minor matter. As long as their spirits remained intact, there were many ways for them to revive and resurrect themselves.

If a spirit cultivator's spirit was wiped out, that meant he was truly dead. It was virtually impossible for them to have a method of resurrection.

However, Nine Gloom had managed it. His spirit had been completely eradicated during the attack, but he had resurrected himself. Not only that, he seemed completely unharmed.

Such a technique was simply incredible!

Naturally, Nine Gloom noticed how shocked Lin Huang and the others were. He spoke again, his body as yet not fully consolidated.

"Your trump cards are certainly powerful. However, each of you can only use them once at most. If the three of you each kill me once, you'll still only be able to kill me three times…" At this point, Nine Gloom was smiling extraordinarily happily as he spoke, "But I have far more than three lives!

"The three of you should just stop your futile struggles; it will all be in vain. What's the point of it anyway?"

When Saber9 heard that, his expression became truly awful indeed.

Virtuoso shot a glance at Lin Huang. Noticing that Lin Huang had not run away, they were about to speak to him through voice transmission again, asking him to leave. However, they noticed that Lin Huang's aura was skyrocketing.

Within the mere time it took for a breath, he had elevated from true god-level to heavenly god-level right away.

His aura was over ten times more powerful now.

Nearby, Saber9 noticed Lin Huang's transformation as well and was rather startled.

He had seen people using specific techniques to elevate their rank, but he had never seen anyone who had elevated an entire level.

After all, there was an immense gap between ninth-rank True God and first-rank Heavenly God.

However, Lin Huang had elevated just like that, as if it were as easy as breathing.

Lin Huang was the only one who knew that he was not using some secret skill to elevate his combat strength. He had merely used a Provisional Combat Strength Upgrade Card.

Once he had crushed the card, elevating his combat strength was a piece of cake. He went straight from ninth-rank true god-level to first-rank heavenly god-level. (This is not a bug. The Provisional Combat Strength Upgrade Card cannot create a tenth-rank true god-level. It can only directly elevate Lin Huang to heavenly god-level based on the normal standards for combat strength.)

Lin Huang could clearly sense how powerful he had become. Each particle in his physical body and soul seemed to have undergone a qualitative transformation.

He merely took a step forward and completely disappeared from Virtuoso and Saber9's view.

They could no longer perceive Lin Huang's movements by sight. Even their Divine Telekinesis was unable to track his motion trajectory.

Nine Gloom, whose physical body had only just fully consolidated, was feeling exactly the same as Virtuoso and Saber9.

Under his silver armor, his burning pupils contracted slightly. He forced himself to calm down, laughing maniacally. "I've told you, even if you kill me again, it's futile. I'll just resurrect once more…"

"In that case, I'd love to see exactly how many times you can resurrect!"

A voice suddenly spoke, and a specter-like figure appeared in front of Nine Gloom.

The next instant, a blood-red arc cut Nine Gloom in half at the waist, killing him.

Lin Huang sheathed his sword back into its scabbard and hovered in midair.

His aura was terrifying and overwhelming; it showed no signs of decreasing either.

He remained on the spot where he had killed Nine Gloom; it did not seem as if he were going to move. Clearly, he was going to guard Nine Gloom's corpse.

Virtuoso and Saber9 were relieved when they noticed that Lin Huang's aura remained at heavenly god-level instead of dropping.

However, they were a little curious about exactly how powerful Lin Huang's earlier attack had been.

This was because he had moved and attacked far too swiftly, so they had not been able to get a clear view.

They merely saw Lin Huang vanish. When he reappeared again, the blood-red arc had already slaughtered Nine Gloom.

The two of them had not even been able to sense the Divine Power wave in the attack, let alone the sequence power contained within it.

In no time at all, Nine Gloom resurrected on the spot once again.

Lin Huang did not make his move immediately. Instead, he waited patiently for the other's body to fully consolidate.

"That was a sneak attack—how shameless of you!" Nine Gloom spit furiously at Lin Huang as soon as he regained consciousness.

"You were too slow." Lin Huang gave a mocking laugh.

Despite noticing that Nine Gloom was rapidly mobilizing his vines to form a shield, Lin Huang did nothing to stop him.

He merely stared at Nine Gloom as if he were a complete idiot.

Once Nine Gloom's figure had fully consolidated, more than a hundred tiers of massive shields had already formed.

"Are you done with all those tiers?" Lin Huang enquired.

Nine Gloom ignored him. Instead, he seized every second to continue forming layer upon layer of shields.

When Lin Huang saw this, he did not bother waiting any longer.

Grasping his sword hilt, he unsheathed the blade in an instant.

This time, the sword gleam shot forward like a bolt of lightning, aiming right at the center of all those massive shield layers.

A second later, all the shield layers shattered into fragments.

It was like a bullet easily traveling through layers of thin glass.

The hundreds of massive shield layers were instantly pierced through without a single trace of difficulty.

The red lightning bolt-like sword hardly slowed down at all after it went through all the massive shields. It pierced straight through Nine Gloom's body, leaving a hole that was the size of a small bowl.

The instant the hole appeared, Nine Gloom's body cracked like glass and disintegrated into fragments.

His thriving life force immediately dispelled.

Within the time it took for a mere two to three breaths, Lin Huang had easily killed Nine Gloom twice.

As they watched what was happening, Virtuoso and Saber9 had no idea what to say.

Although they knew Lin Huang was powerful, they had treated Lin Huang as a powerhouse of the same level despite their prodigious backgrounds.

However, at that very moment, both of them finally witnessed Lin Huang's true trump card.

Although the strength of each of his attacks was not as powerful as that of their trump cards, the frightening thing about Lin Huang's trump card was that it was not a one-time-only affair.

Once his combat strength had elevated to heavenly god-level, he was able to overwhelm Nine Gloom repeatedly. This sort of lasting endurance was the most terrifying thing about his trump card.

"Impossible!"

Shrieks of rage came from the countless regenerating vines. Within the blink of an eye, they consolidated into the silver-armored Nine Gloom again. Under his helmet, his eyes were now scarlet in the extreme.

"That giant shield I formed was compounded with eighteen levels of sequence power. Given the number of sequences you've mastered, it ought to be impossible for you to shatter it!"

Nine Gloom said this because he was utterly unable to figure out how Lin Huang could deliver such a powerful attack.

Although he had no way of finding out Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso's exact combat strength, he had more or less figured out the number of sequence chains the three had mastered, based on the previous battle.

He also knew that Saber9 and Virtuoso had been able to kill him earlier because they had utilized unique methods for their trump cards. Therefore, those could not be considered part of their inherent power.

However, Lin Huang—who was right in front of him—had merely elevated his combat strength and breached Nine Gloom's defenses just like that, relying only on his own abilities.

To Nine Gloom, this was unimaginable.

That was because, theoretically, this sort of provisional combat strength elevation technique could only elevate the amount of one's Divine Power and its intensity. It could not give someone mastery over more sequence chains.

If an individual had only grasped comprehension of one sequence chain, even if they could temporarily elevate their combat strength from first-rank heavenly god-level to ninth-rank heavenly god-level, they would still only have mastery over one sequence chain. The number of sequence chains would not increase.

However, judging from both Lin Huang's attacks, he did not appear to have elevated only his combat strength. The number of sequence chains he mastered had increased as well.

"Theoretically, what you said is correct," Lin Huang responded, smiling faintly, "However, that's based on your cognitive limits."

Lin Huang's mastery of sequence chains did not come from however many sequence chains he could grasp and comprehend. It actually depended on how many sequence chains his physical body and spirit strength could sustain, because he could borrow all the sequence chains his sword servants had mastered.

When he was still only at ninth-rank true god-level, he could sustain a limit of thirteen god sequence chains (twelve sequence chains including Sword Dao heavenly rule). Now that he had elevated to first-rank heavenly god-level, this number had tripled to become thirty-nine sequence chains.

Based on pure numbers alone, this was at least twice what Nine Gloom had mastered.

Such compounding of sequence power was not a simple math equation.

Each time a level of sequence power was mastered, it had the advantage of being able to offset flaws that were difficult to remedy in other areas.

"The number of sequence chains I've mastered is far beyond what you expect!"

Lin Huang smiled at Nine Gloom, who was frantically forming shield layers.

He knew that his opponent was buying time to create more such shield layers. Furthermore, this time, the massive shields had a completely different form from the last round. They were embedded into the ground and seemed to be a deflection technique.

This did not bother Lin Huang at all. He patiently waited until Nine Gloom had formed over a hundred shield layers. Only then did he ask, smiling, "Are you done layering your defenses this round?"

Lin Huang charged forward with his sword again as soon as he finished speaking.

This move was still a stab, but it was completely different from his attack earlier.

The sword gleam thrust forward almost gently. It pierced through the multiple layers of massive shields as easily as slicing tofu.

It did not make any great noise or commotion. It merely left a gash smaller than a thumb on all the shield layers.

When the sword gleam finally pierced through all the hundred-over layers of massive shields and impaled the silver-armored Nine Gloom right between his brow, all the shields did not collapse. They remained as they were.

Only a moment later, when Nine Gloom's aura dispelled completely, did all the giant shields gradually vanish once their source of Divine Power had been lost.

Upon seeing that, Saber9 could not help exclaiming, "That attack of his is already bordering on the threshold of Heavenly Dao."

There were three levels to Sword Dao heavenly rule—Heavenly Sword, Heavenly Heart, and Heavenly Dao.

Even a heavenly god-level sword cultivator would be in the top tier among Heavenly Gods once he crossed the threshold of Heavenly Dao. A single sequence chain alone would have an attack effect comparable to over ten levels of compounded sequence power.

This was where the strength of sword cultivators and saber cultivators lay.

However, Virtuoso noticed something else. "The way he combines and applies the various sequence powers doesn't look as if he's only just mastered them at all.

"I've a slight feeling that what he's just displayed might be far from the limits of his true abilities."

Saber9's pupils contracted slightly at this point. He glanced intently at Virtuoso, then fixed his eyes on Lin Huang again, his expression inscrutable.

Even though Nine Gloom had still resurrected after being killed three times in a row, Lin Huang did not panic in the least. He merely waited patiently for Nine Gloom to finish regenerating.

Lin Huang did not seem to mind at all what kind of methods Nine Gloom still had up his sleeve. No matter what, he could still suppress him with brute strength.

"I'm pretty sure you can't sustain this state for too long, can you?" Nine Gloom took the initiative to talk to Lin Huang again even before his body had fully consolidated, "However many times you kill me, it's no use—I can regenerate. All I have to do is to hang on until this state of yours comes to an end; sooner or later, the three of you will become my trophies!"

"Oh, really?" There was a hint of derision in Lin Huang's tone, "Even if your substitution technique really has some connection to all of the Nirvana Trees here, you can only die and resurrect 300 times.

"Even if you factor in the time I wait for you to resurrect and set up your defenses, I'd only need three to five seconds at most to kill you each time. Even if we calculate it as five seconds per resurrection, I'd only need half an hour at most to kill you 300 times.

"Furthermore, I can sustain this state for more than half an hour…"

The first time Lin Huang had killed Nine Gloom earlier, Xiao Hei's push notification had popped up, notifying him that he obtained a Nirvana Tree card fragment. He was confused for a moment but immediately realized that Nine Gloom was using a substitution technique. Furthermore, it was connected to the Nirvana Trees.

Lin Huang had not bothered to expose Nine Gloom's secret earlier as it did not really matter. However, when Nine Gloom brazenly pretended to his face that he could not be killed, Lin Huang could not stand it any longer. Therefore, he chose to reveal his insights into the true facts of the matter which he had gained from the very beginning.

Nine Gloom went dead silent as soon as Lin Huang said this.

He had never expected that Lin Huang would see through his technique.

Virtuoso and Saber9, who were watching off to one side, finally came to a sudden realization.

In truth, Virtuoso had already speculated about this possibility when he saw that his trump card had not killed Nine Gloom. However, such a substitution technique was rare and unusual. Not only that, almost all of Nine Gloom's substitution techniques were different. Therefore, Virtuoso could not be absolutely certain.

They only confirmed their earlier speculation when Lin Huang made his revelation.

Saber9, on the other hand, genuinely had no idea what technique Nine Gloom had been using all this time. He had not considered that Nine Gloom might be using a substitution technique either. However, although he had never come in contact with this type of substitution ability, he had heard of it. Once Lin Huang revealed the truth, he immediately understood.

When Nine Gloom saw that his greatest secret had been exposed, his confidence immediately plummeted.

Initially, he had thought that he would be able to bluster at the three of them and get them to retreat after discussing terms.

Never had he thought Lin Huang would expose him right away.

An incredibly powerful technique like substitution also had severe limitations.

In reality, he was not connected to each of the three hundred-over Nirvana Trees at all. At his current spirit strength, he had already reached his limit connecting to only eleven trees. In other words, including his own life, he only had twelve lives.

At present, he had already been killed five times consecutively by Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso.

At the rate Lin Huang had killed him off—as fast as slicing and dicing vegetables— Nine Gloom felt that he would truly die at Lin Huang's hands in merely half a minute.

All kinds of thoughts flashed through Nine Gloom's head at lightning speed. After weighing things up again and again, in the end, he chose to surrender.

"How about this—we come to a compromise. All of you want the castellan's seal. I can give it to you and release you from my God Territory as well. However, in return, you're not allowed to attack me any further! When you obtain the complete castellan's seal, you can't obliterate my existence either."

That was as far as he could go in terms of compromise.

Even Virtuoso and Saber9 were rather swayed when they heard this.

However, Lin Huang outright rejected this proposal. Without hesitation, he slashed down with the battle sword in his hand.

"After we kill you, we can obtain the castellan's sea tool!"

There were two reasons why Lin Huang refused to accept Nine Gloom's surrender.

The first was that by killing Nine Gloom three times, he had obtained two Nirvana Tree card fragments and a complete Nirvana Tree card. He felt that he would be able to gain more by killing Nine Gloom.

The other reason was that he was unsure if Nine Gloom's surrender was just a strategy for a temporary compromise. He could give in briefly just to save his life and give them the castellan's seal fragment. He could also take back his words once he was safe, after Lin Huang and the other two had departed, and mobilize the entire inner world to kill the three of them.

From Lin Huang's point of view, letting Nine Gloom go was a risky choice.

Furthermore, he disliked trouble. Therefore, he made a safer, simpler decision.

A slash of his sword and Nine Gloom was dispatched once more.

The minute he revived, Nine Gloom immediately upbraided Lin Huang.

Lin Huang did not bother wasting words and merely killed him again with yet another slash.

Nine Gloom revived once more a moment later. This time, he finally realized that his insignificant life was completely within Lin Huang's hands. He had completely changed his attitude now, pleading desperately.

"…Just tell me what you want from me. There's no need to be so ruthless… I've only achieved what I have now after cultivating for millions of years. Can't you let me go…?"

He had no choice but to admit defeat, as he had already used his substitution technique seven times. Including his own life, he was only left with five lives now.

However, Lin Huang was merciless. He killed him again, his face expressionless.

When Nine Gloom regenerated this time, he begged Virtuoso and Saber9 for mercy, attempting to plead for his life through the other two parties.

However, Virtuoso and Saber9 were not greenhorns. Naturally, it was impossible for them to pity him. Moreover, both of them had considered the possible risks if they let Nine Gloom go. They remained silent throughout and continued watching as bystanders.

When Nine Gloom revived for the ninth time, he knew that it was futile for him to beg.

As soon as his body consolidated, he manipulated countless vines, sending them surging at Lin Huang.

Lin Huang thought that Nine Gloom was going to fight back. However, he was not expecting Nine Gloom to swiftly retreat and flee toward the distance the moment he attacked.

"Haha…"

A cold chuckle escaped Lin Huang. With one slash of his sword, countless vines were annihilated. A blood-red gleam shot out from his sleeve.

The blood-red gleam was as fast as lightning—many times faster than the fleeing Nine Gloom.

Within the time it took for a breath, the gleam caught up with him and pierced right through his silver armor.

The moment Nine Gloom's silver-armored body toppled to the ground, the blood-red gleam retreated and shot back into Lin Huang's sleeve.

Although Virtuoso and Saber9 had not been able to see the blood-red gleam's attack too clearly, they knew it was Lin Huang's telekinetic flying dagger the moment they saw the lightning arc shooting out from his sleeve.

Nine Gloom evidently had no idea that Lin Huang possessed such a technique.

After his tenth death, Nine Gloom revived again for the eleventh time.

He attempted to utilize a strategy of attack, defense, and escape both times. However, Lin Huang managed to counter this each time and kill him again.

Currently, Nine Gloom had completely used up his substitution chances. He was left only with his original life now.

Before his physical body even consolidated completely, he swiftly formed another shield.

The layers stacked up one over the other on the shield. By the time Nine Gloom's physical body had fully consolidated, the massive shield already had over a hundred layers on it.

At the same time, a Dimensional Whirlpool swiftly formed behind him.

Clearly, since his multiple attempts at escape were futile, he planned to flee via dimensional teleportation.

Lin Huang merely raised his brows slightly and slashed out with his sword, piercing through the massive shield's multiple layers easily. Nine Gloom had only taken half a step through the Dimensional Whirlpool in mid-air when his body was impaled.

At that moment, a vine that looked like a tiny black snake escaped from the shadow below Nine Gloom's silver-armored foot. His aura shrank to almost nothing, and he wriggled toward the Dimensional Whirlpool.

Lin Huang gave a cold snort, and countless blood-red lightning arcs shot out violently from his sleeve. The moment the tiny black 'snake' entered the Dimensional Whirlpool, the entire Whirlpool was punctured with so many holes it looked like a sieve.

This included that tiny black snake, which was torn to shreds.

A moment later, the Dimensional Whirlpool collapsed, and the tiny black snake's decimated body fell out of it. The pieces gradually but swiftly assumed Nine Gloom's original countenance again—a demonic face thickly overgrown with vines. In the very last moments of his life, the glare he fixed on Lin Huang was seething with rage and resentment.

In this last battle, Nine Gloom had chosen to discard the silver-armored body that had integrated perfectly with him since his rebirth. He thought he could attract Lin Huang's attention with this silver-armored physical body while he slipped away in secret.

As long as he got as far away as he could from the battlefield, he could then utterly confine Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 within his God Territory. He could then attack them with endless vines until Lin Huang's elevated mode had worn off. At that point, he would be able to turn the tables on them.

Never had he thought that his escape plan would be discovered by Lin Huang, after all. At the very last moment, his life had been ended by a telekinetic flying dagger.

In the end, the demonic face was unable to leave any last words. Every single one of the vines charred rapidly, turning into ashes that filled the air…

The formidable, longest-lived character in the inner world had now fallen!

Lin Huang stood where he was, seemingly staring at Nine Gloom's gradually disintegrating corpse. In reality, he was looking at the push notification that had popped up in front of him.

"Congratulations, host. You've obtained a complete Monster Card—Silver-Armored Nine Gloom (Supreme God)

"Monster Card: Silver-Armored Nine Gloom "

"Rarity: Supreme God"

"Monster Name: Not named yet"

"Type of Monster: Unique-type / Unknown Tribe"

"Bloodline: Death Spring"

"Combat Level: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God (Ninth-Rank heavenly god-level)"

"Major: Control, Combat Cultivator…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Worth training!"

"Remarks: An extremely rare and special symbiotic creature type!"

Lin Huang had not at all expected to obtain a complete Monster Card from killing Nine Gloom.

'That's a delightful surprise.'

He merely cast a quick eye over the card information and closed the page in front of him. He then turned around to look at Virtuoso and Saber9.

"Has he really been killed for good this time?" Saber9 asked immediately.

He had a full-blown case of paranoia, thanks to Nine Gloom's resurrection ability.

"Don't worry, he definitely won't revive now." Lin Huang was absolutely certain of this.

After all, he had now obtained a complete Monster Card. Naturally, it was impossible for Nine Gloom to revive anymore.

"Substitution is a truly powerful technique, but it also has severe limitations. I'm guessing eleven substitutions was his limit." Virtuoso nodded in agreement. "Also, given he regenerated so many times, it was possible to tell that he could only be revived on the spot where he died. He couldn't change the coordinates of his regeneration, nor could he control the interval between each revival…"

"Since he isn't regenerating where he fell, it proves he's well and truly dead this time," Saber9 interjected before Virtuoso could finish speaking.

"Let's not waste any more time. We'd better hurry up and collect any loot, then leave as soon as we can," Lin Huang urged, raising his head to glance at Nine Gloom's God Territory, which was now collapsing.

The battle fluctuations from earlier would certainly have attracted the attention of other powerhouses in the inner world. As soon as Nine Gloom's death was confirmed, it was very likely that many others would swarm out of the woodwork to gain a share of any loot.

Given Lin Huang and the other two's current situation, getting embroiled in that would be extremely problematic.

Clearly, Virtuoso and Saber9 realized this as well. Ignoring their bodily weakness, they swiftly joined in to collect the battle spoils.

Within a minute, Lin Huang and the other two had completely looted Nine Gloom's lair.

As for the two hundred-over interconnected Nirvana Trees that covered the area, they transferred them all into Lin Huang's God Territory.

Once they had finished collecting the spoils of battle, the three of them did not linger, swiftly departing from Nine Gloom's territory.

"The battle fluctuations have stopped…"

An Argus Bug Beast poked its head out of the ground, peering from a distance in the direction of Nine Gloom's territory.

This creature's territory was located closer to Nine Gloom's, so it sensed the battle fluctuations between Nine Gloom and Lin Huang's group almost right away. It was even able to distinctly sense the aftermath of the battle.

However, because Nine Gloom was such a powerful entity, it dared not risk probing with its Divine Telekinesis.

In the end, it finally could not restrain itself any longer and spread its Divine Telekinesis roughly about twenty minutes after the battle fluctuations had stopped.

When it saw the destroyed, desolate ruins that used to be Nine Gloom's lair, the Argus Bug stared for a long time, not even blinking.

"W-What happened?!"

A moment later, it was more than absolutely certain that Nine Gloom's aura had been utterly obliterated after it had scanned the entire area with Divine Telekinesis a few times.

"Someone killed Nine Gloom?!" As it came to this conclusion, a film of secretion resembling cold sweat seeped out of its carapace.

As Nine Gloom's neighbor, it was naturally aware of how powerful Nine Gloom was. However, someone had still managed to kill such a powerful entity—one could imagine just how incredibly strong that individual was.

After dithering where it was for a while and making sure with Divine Telekinesis that there were no auras of other powerhouses around, the Argus Bug Beast finally made up its mind to head over and investigate Nine Gloom's territory.

At that moment, apart from the Argus Bug Beast, several other monsters around Nine Gloom's territory sensed the anomaly in Nine Gloom's territory as well. They decided to visit the area too and see for themselves.

While these powerhouses were making their way to Nine Gloom's territory, Lin Huang and the other two had long since left via teleportation.

The three of them stepped out of the Dimensional Whirlpool at an abandoned building in the inner world, which was located an extremely long way from Nine Gloom's territory.

These were the return coordinates they had set before they embarked on their mission.

There were no heavenly god-level monsters around as this was a wasteland that spanned thousands of kilometers.

As soon as they stepped out of the Dimensional Whirlpool, Virtuoso retrieved a crystal from their space storage and activated the formation rune on it.

The next second, a virtually transparent barrier formed almost immediately, enveloping the entire building.

Under this barrier, the auras of all three of them were completely cut off from the outside world. They would not be sensed now.

"In our current condition, the two of us definitely can't leave the Abyss. If we're attacked on the way back, we'll just be a burden to you," Virtuoso put the formation crystal down and turned around, saying to Lin Huang, "So for the next few days, the two of us will have to temporarily stay here and recuperate. We'll leave together when we've more or less recovered our ability."

"Approximately how long will that take?" Lin Huang asked.

"I'm guessing at least ten days to half a month," Saber9 was the first to answer this question, "The trump cards that we forcibly used earlier have definite repercussions. We need sufficient time to nurse our physical body and spirit so that the backlash won't leave behind any unseen injuries."

Beside him, Virtuoso nodded slightly, "We might need to trouble you to protect us for this period of time."

"Of course!" Lin Huang agreed right away, "Let's divide the loot first."

Once he finished speaking, Lin Huang brought out all the loot he had collected earlier, including all two hundred-over Nirvana Trees.

"In this battle, even though the both of us did contribute our efforts, you're the one who deserves the most credit. Not only that, you killed Nine Gloom," Virtuoso said while bringing out the spoils they had collected, "If we go by contribution, the two of us actually have no right to take anything."

Saber9, who was standing by, said nothing. He also brought out all of his loot and piled it onto the ground.

"The two of you killed Nine Gloom once each, respectively, and exhausted your trump cards as well." Lin Huang in no way felt that he should take everything.

"Let's do it this way. Apart from the Nirvana Trees, all the other loot is yours," Virtuoso took a moment to think, then proposed a distribution plan, "You take half of the Nirvana Trees, while Saber9 and I share the remaining half. However, we won't take them for free. We'll trade you for them at the universe's market price."

"I agree." Saber9 indicated his consent.

"Let's not talk about market price. You can just divide the Nirvana Trees between you," Lin Huang said generously.

"Do you know how much a Nirvana Tree costs in the universe?" Virtuoso's tone was rather odd.

"How much is it?" Now that Virtuoso had brought the matter up, Lin Huang was rather curious.

"A heavenly god-level Nirvana Tree's starting price at auction would be that of a top-notch god sequence relic," Saber9 revealed, smiling.

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard this, upon which he hurriedly changed his mind. "I think it's a great idea then, trading them at the market price…"

One must know that Virtuoso and Saber9 would get over a hundred trees if they were to share. The value would be on par with over one hundred top-notch god sequence relics.

Although Lin Huang was not petty, a profligate gesture like giving away over one hundred top-notch god sequence relics for free was something he would never be able to do.

"Would you like Divine Crystals or something else?" Virtuoso asked.

"I don't want Divine Crystals. Let's trade with other resources then. I haven't figured out what I want yet, though," Lin Huang said after giving it some thought.

"We owe you then. Tell me when you've thought of what you want. I'll inform Saber9 at that point." Virtuoso nodded.

"Alright!"

After the three of them had discussed things, they very soon divided up the loot.

Virtuoso and Saber9 each sat down cross-legged and began recuperating from their injuries.

Lin Huang watched for a while. After pondering for a little, he left behind a clone, then exited the building.

Virtuoso and Saber9 would need over ten days at least for their recovery this round. He could not possibly keep waiting here the entire time.

Apart from helping Virtuoso to obtain the castellan's seal of Phantom City, Lin Huang's purpose for entering the Abyss this time was to elevate his combat strength.

To do this, he needed to plunder a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.

Furthermore, in the Abyss, there were massive numbers of heavenly god-level monsters that could be slaughtered. It was the perfect place for plundering.

After leaving the building where Virtuoso and Saber9 were recovering, Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to search for heavenly god-level monsters nearby. He then began a gory massacre.

Within a mere day, he had slaughtered hundreds of mid-level and high-level Heavenly Gods. He successfully plundered over one hundred million Rule Bending Powers and over one thousand sequence powers, successfully elevating to ninth-rank true god-level.

After elevating to ninth-rank, Lin Huang could distinctly feel that this was not the end of true god-level yet.

After his elevation, he could still plunder more Rule Bending Powers by killing Heavenly Gods. His body had not yet reached satiety in its ability to contain Rule Bending Power.

Therefore, for the next few days, he chose to continue his plundering.

For one, he wanted to see how much Rule Bending Power his body could actually contain. For another, he wanted to know if there was a tenth-rank after ninth-rank.

Lin Huang ran into some small problems over the next few days.

The reason was that the powerhouses in the inner world soon noticed that heavenly god-level powerhouses were disappearing en masse. Some hid completely in the surface world, while some teamed up in groups.

However, this did not significantly affect Lin Huang's hunting.

Very quickly, four days went by. The limit on the number of Rule Bending Powers that Lin Huang could plunder reached a new high.

He achieved another breakthrough in his combat strength once he obtained almost six hundred million Rule Bending Powers.

He had broken through from ninth-rank to a rank that nobody had ever reached before—tenth-rank true god-level!

After he had achieved a breakthrough in his combat strength, Lin Huang noticed that his body's capacity for containing Rule Bending Powers increased once again.

For the next ten days or so, he continued hunting and plundering. However, he discovered that the efficiency of his plundering rapidly began to plummet.

There were fewer and fewer Heavenly Gods in the inner world.

Given that Heavenly God powerhouses had several times formed groups to fight him, and all of them had been consecutively massacred, almost all of the remaining Heavenly Gods had fled out of the inner world.

For almost ten days after that, the number of Rule Bending Powers he mastered merely broke through to 1.3 billion—far from even reaching his upper limits.

However, Saber9 and Virtuoso had now come out of their closed-door cultivation one after the other. Lin Huang had no choice but to stop his hunting.

Although they had spent close to half a month cultivating, the pair had yet to regain peak condition. They had recovered to around ninety percent at most.

However, both of them knew that they would need several times the duration they had spent to be restored to their peak. Therefore, they decided not to hold things up any further.

As soon as Lin Huang himself returned to the building, Saber9 and Virtuoso spoke almost simultaneously the moment they saw him.

"You've gotten more powerful again?!"

Although Lin Huang had hidden his combat strength, they were very familiar with his aura from the time they had spent together. Even if the change was very subtle, they were able to sense it.

"You've broken through to heavenly god-level?!" Saber9 could not help asking.

"It doesn't really seem like he's broken through to heavenly god-level…" Beside him, Virtuoso repudiated Saber9's speculation.

"I've only broken through to ninth-rank," Lin Huang explained, smiling.

He did not reveal the rest, which was that he had then broken through to tenth-rank.

The pair did not pursue the matter further after hearing that.

After all, whatever chance encounters Lin Huang ran into were his own private affair. They did not continue probing.

"How are you both?" In reality, Lin Huang could sense that the duo had yet to regain peak condition. He could also roughly guess why they were in a hurry to get out of closed-door cultivation. He only asked what he did to find out if they were prepared.

"We're not in too bad a shape." Virtuoso nodded.

"Yes, we can't drag things out any further." Saber9 nodded as well.

The expedition of conquest that the powerhouses from the great world were carrying out in the Abyss was just a small-scale operation that was impossible to maintain for an extended length of time. If Lin Huang and the others delayed any further, it would be hard for them to leave the Abyss when the lord-level powerhouses from the great world had left. If by chance, the three of them were targeted by half-step lord-level or lord-level powerhouses, they would not be able to leave at all, even if they wanted to.

"Let's go then!" Lin Huang said nothing more

Virtuoso put away the formation crystal and summoned the Dimensional Whirlpool again. The three stepped into it, one after the other, without hesitation.

After getting out of Phantom City, Lin Huang and the other two quickly contacted Lan Ling and Tu Tong.

Within half an hour, the five of them finally met up together again.

Lan Ling and Tu Tong were obviously somewhat moved upon seeing that Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 all appeared to be in one piece and that nobody was missing.

"Did you find the Phantom City?!" Tu Tong asked, restraining his emotions.

"We did." Virtuoso nodded.

"Did you get the stuff?" Tu Tong hastily followed up with this.

"Yes, we even managed to obtain it a little more smoothly than anticipated," Virtuoso replied, smiling.

"I thought all of you wouldn't be coming back…" As Lan Ling spoke, tears welled up in her eyes.

"This girl has been crying goodness knows how many times over the last couple of days," Tu Tong said, somewhat at a loss for words.

"Silly girl, stop crying. Look, aren't we all here now in one piece?" Lin Huang comforted her rather helplessly.

Although age-wise, he was the youngest within the group, he was considered on par with Virtuoso and Saber9 in terms of ability. Naturally, he thought of Tu Tong and Lan Ling as his juniors.

He also knew that Virtuoso and Saber9 were not the types who would comfort people. He had no choice but to step into the breach himself and help Lan Ling calm down as soon as possible.

"All of you have been missing for over twenty days. To be honest, when you didn't return on the third day, I guessed that you might already have gone ahead and entered Phantom City right away. You didn't come back either as the days went by, which further confirmed my speculations."

"There was a powerful guardian at Phantom City. We went in directly, after considering that you might not make it past the guardian, given your level of ability," Virtuoso explained.

In reality, this was just an excuse. The real reason was that right after passing the guardian's test, the three of them had been so impatient to get inside Phantom City that they had hurried through the gates, completely forgetting about Tu Tong and Lan Ling.

It was not until after they had passed through the gates into Phantom City that they belatedly recalled there were two remaining members of the group who had not entered yet. Therefore, the three of them discussed the matter and came up with this explanation.

Fortunately, Tu Tong and Lan Ling believed the explanation and did not dwell further on it.

Tu Tong said very frankly, "To be honest, by the time both of us had waited until the fifteenth day, we were sure that all of you had perished in Phantom City. But this girl was unwilling to leave; she insisted on waiting some more. She told me to wait for another fifteen days and see. If you hadn't come out by then, she would leave with me and say nothing more about it. I couldn't sway her, so I had no choice but to wait with her. Honestly, we didn't really hold out much hope. I can't believe that we did actually wait until you came back…

"Of course, we haven't been idle all this time either. We've been cultivating while hunting the monsters that are nearby…"

When Tu Tong saw that Lan Ling still could not calm down, he had no option but to describe in detail what they had encountered in the last twenty or so days.

By the time he finished speaking, Lan Ling's emotions had finally settled down at last.

Under questioning from the pair, Lin Huang and the other two also gave a brief account of what had transpired in Phantom City.

At the end, when they heard how Lin Huang had killed Nine Gloom, Tu Tong and Lan Ling's gazes were filled with admiration when they looked at him.

The five of them conversed for a while, then Virtuoso finally got down to business.

"I've obtained the castellan's seal of Phantom City, so my objective for this trip has been achieved. Do the rest of you have anything you want to do in the Abyss? If there is, do speak up if you need help so we can work together and finish it as soon as possible. If not, then let's get ready to leave."

As he spoke, Virtuoso glanced around the rest of the group, his gaze lingering on Lin Huang very briefly.

Everyone shook their heads.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, he had already elevated to tenth-rank. Although he had yet to reach peak tenth-rank, there was no need for him to finish this in the Abyss.

Furthermore, the most urgent matter at hand was to get Virtuoso and the rest out of here. After all, Virtuoso and Saber9 were not in the best of conditions.

As for the rest, Virtuoso had invited them to come along and help, so they did not have any other objectives.

Virtuoso nodded slightly after seeing that Lin Huang did not say anything. "Alright then, let's go!"

Lan Ling immediately said, "We've already worked out our return route."

Previously in Phantom City, everything was cut off from the outside world. Therefore, Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 had dared to use dimensional teleportation techniques.

However, they did not dare do so now that they were back in the Abyss.

This was because there was a definite chance of the spatial fluctuations attracting the attention of half-step Lords or even Lords.

The safest way of returning was to go back the way they had come.

Fortunately, since Lan Ling and Tu Tong had had nothing to do for the last few days, they had already figured out part of the return route.

With Tu Tong leading the way, all five of them rose slightly into the air. They set off in the distance, flying low the entire way.

Along the way, they did encounter obstacles in the form of Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines in the dense forest. These were instantly dispatched by Lin Huang's flying daggers. Virtuoso and the rest did not even have a chance to attack.

After getting out of the Demonic Fir Forest, the five continued hurrying along.

On the way, Lin Huang easily killed off any monsters that attacked them. None of the creatures required a second flying dagger to dispose of them.

Virtuoso and Saber9 initially thought they would be able to help if any of the creatures got away from Lin Huang.

They had not expected that Lin Huang would not even give them a chance to do so.

Secretly, they were grateful when they saw this. They thought that he had taken all the fighting upon himself as he was worried about their injuries.

In reality, however, Lin Huang was grabbing all the monsters for himself only so he could plunder more Rule Bending Powers.

In less than half an hour, they had returned to the familiar toxic fog swamp.

Sensing that Tu Tong was slowing down in the lead, Lin Huang immediately said via voice transmission, "There's no need to slow down. I'll get rid of all the monsters we encounter along the way. Just prepare to defend yourselves in case."

If it were anyone else, Tu Tong might have hesitated. After all, the toxic fog swamp was different from other places. The Fiendish Swamp Monsters and Poison Arrow Frogs were extremely skilled at ambush and stealth killings. Not only that, they were immensely poisonous.

However, after hearing the story of how Lin Huang had killed Nine Gloom—a ninth-rank lord-level powerhouse—and after seeing him kill the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines in one hit, Tu Tong chose to believe Lin Huang with barely any hesitation.

The five of them continued flying at full speed over the toxic fog swamp.

Almost immediately, the Fiendish Swamp Monsters ambushed them. Lin Huang sent his telekinetic flying daggers shooting out, easily slicing through all the tentacles that besieged them. Not only that, the flying daggers impaled the Fiendish Swamp Monsters one after the other.

The initial ambush instantly turned into a massacre.

Lin Huang had originally planned on killing his way through. He had not expected, however, that before all of them had even gotten halfway over the swamp, there would already be very few monsters trying to ambush them.

It was not that there were no hidden monsters in the toxic fog swamp. It was just that they saw how forcefully Lin Huang suppressed their attacks and did not dare try anything more.

This proved that even monsters with low intelligence had survival instincts as well.

After passing over the toxic fog swamp, the five of them found themselves out of the foggy area at last.

"If we proceed any further, we'll come to the Disaster Abyss Land."

Tu Tong and Lan Ling were still a little worried about such a place.

Not only did the Disaster Abyss Land have many different Disasters, but the various extreme negative emotions were also frighteningly infectious. It would be extremely problematic if any of them were contaminated.

"Don't worry. Now at least we can basically confirm that we're only in the middle layer of the Abyss. The highest combat strength of the Abyssal creatures here is only ninth-rank heavenly god-level—no higher than that. It's the same in the Disaster Abyss Land as well," Lin Huang was very casual when saying this, "Just head back using our original route."

Although he sounded indifferent, the other four could tell that he did not take ninth-rank Heavenly Gods seriously at all.

When they heard this, Tu Tong and Lan Ling's worries immediately settled, almost miraculously.

The two of them proceeded to lead the way and swooped into the Disaster Abyss Land with practically no slowing down.

The Disaster Abyss Land still had that familiar stench and was filled with an air that made one extremely uneasy.

Lin Huang and the rest chose to return by their original route.

Under Tu Tong and Lan Ling's guidance, the five of them entered the Gluttons' territory first.

Compared to before, the five of them progressed through the area more than a few times faster now.

Within less than an hour, they had navigated through the Gluttons' territory.

However, in this short one hour, Lin Huang killed over 200 Gluttons. His efficiency in slaughtering them was certainly no lower than in the beginning when he spent a full day doing so.

After going through the Gluttons' territory, they continued on their original route from before, passed through the territories of the Greeds, Jealousies, and Furies one after the other.

The number of god rules that Lin Huang had plundered increased steadily.

Over four hours later, the five of them finally left the Disaster Abyss Land.

Following the route in her memory, Lan Ling soon located the Demonic Bug Maze the five of them had entered when they first arrived in the Abyss.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling's expressions were somewhat uneasy as they stared at the Demonic Bug Maze from a distance.

Nobody in the Abyss would willingly take the initiative to enter the Demonic Bug Maze.

One reason was that there were many Bug Tribe beasts within the Maze. One could exhaust oneself to death just by fighting them.

Another reason was that as soon as one entered the Maze, it was extremely difficult to find an exit and come out alive.

Fortunately, Lin Huang and the rest did not need to locate an exit. All they had to do was to find the coordinates that the five of them had been teleported to inside the Demonic Bug Maze.

There were many dimensional weak points in the Abyss that connected to various other worlds.

Virtuoso had also recorded down many dimensional weak points just in case. However, the problem was that something had happened to the coordinates when they were teleported in. As a result, they had been sent to an area outside the map that Virtuoso was familiar with.

Apart from the dimensional weak point the five of them had entered through, they had no idea at all where another weak point like that might exist. Even if they discovered another dimensional weak point, they would not dare to use it, as they had no idea what kind of world that particular weak point might lead to.

Therefore, their only option was to return to the spot where they had entered.

That spot just happened to be the Demonic Bug Maze ahead of them.

This time, they did not forcibly break in.

The Demonic Bug Maze was different from other places in that the sheer number of creatures alone would be sufficient to exhaust them all to death from the fighting.

Moreover, the Demonic Bug Maze's internal structure was extremely complex. If they alerted the enemy and were pursued by the Bug Tribe, it would be difficult for them to find the initial coordinates if they happened to panic and go down the wrong tunnel.

Based on the plan they discussed along the way, the five of them used Virtuoso's illusion to camouflage themselves as five Bladefoot Worms.

The Bladefoot Worms were fairly ordinary patrol groups in the Demonic Bug Maze.

"My illusion has a limited effect on ninth-rank Heavenly Gods. Let's hope we're lucky," Virtuoso warned them beforehand.

After the five had finished camouflaging themselves, they headed into the Maze's entrance one by one.

"We're quite lucky." Tu Tong sighed with relief when he realized that there were no bug beasts around.

"This way." Lan Lin made certain of their direction and rapidly led the team forward.

Despite their sense of urgency, the five of them did not dare to reveal any flaws that might give them away. They could only move ahead slowly at the Bladefoot Worm's normal patrol speed.

Over half an hour went by; so far everything had gone smoothly.

They ran into some bugs along the way, and they even passed by a few of the bugs' gathering areas, but they were not discovered.

However, when they encountered a decaying giant beetle, Virtuoso suggested that they hide inside it.

Along the way, they could not guarantee that the group would not bump into bug beasts with powerful psychic powers that might expose their disguise. It would be safer to hide within the decaying giant beetle's body.

The five had no objections to this suggestion. Actually, the five of them remembered that they had also hidden in a decaying giant beetle's body over a month ago when they had just entered the Demonic Bug Maze.

This poor decaying giant beetle suffered the same fate as its predecessor.

After Virtuoso had taken control of the creature via their illusion skills, Lin Huang cut an opening on its abdomen. The five of them blocked their sense of smell and enveloped themselves in Divine Telekinesis. They then wriggled into the beetle's body one after the other, retracting their auras as much as they could.

Under Virtuoso's control, the decaying giant beetle turned around and slowly moved in the direction from which the five of them had come.

These decaying giant beetles were not particularly welcome in the Maze.

They possessed low intelligence, and they moved very slowly. An intense rotten stench emanated from their bodies, and they were poisonous as well. Basically, no bugs were willing to get close to them.

The Demonic Bug Maze accepted the decaying giant beetles' presence because they would eat the trash the other bugs left behind. They were the scavengers of the entire Maze.

They would wander among the various Bug Tribes daily in search of food remnants.

No matter where the decaying giant beetle went, all the bugs would not find anything unusual about that.

It was not the first time that Lin Huang's group had hidden in a decaying giant beetle's body; they found it much easier this time around.

It was still the same familiar stench and the same familiar sticky feeling.

Now that they were in a familiar place, Lin Huang even had an absurd thought cross his mind. 'If not for the intense stench of decay, the corrosive toxin, the infectious Abyssal energy particles, and the stickiness, this fellow could actually be considered quite a good mode of transport. At least it walks steadily; it doesn't jolt at all.'

All five members of the group fell silent for a long time in the decaying giant beetle's abdomen.

Apart from Lan Ling, who would speak occasionally as she pointed out the way, the rest did not say a word.

In an environment like this, everyone lost their desire to converse. All they wanted was to arrive at their destination as soon as possible so that they could get out of these filthy conditions.

"What plans do the rest of you have after we get out of here?" Lin Huang could not help breaking the silence as he sensed the atmosphere was rather oppressive.

"Go into closed-door cultivation to refine the castellan's seal, then elevate to heavenly god-level." Virtuoso's answer was simple.

Seeing that Virtuoso did not plan to say anything more, Tu Tong was the next to take up the subject. "I'll go into closed-door cultivation so I can break through to heavenly god-level as soon as possible."

"Me too." From where she was off to one side, Lan Ling gave an even simpler answer.

"I've been rather enlightened, this trip into the Abyss," Saber9 glanced at Lin Huang as he said this, "I'm preparing to go into closed-door cultivation for a while to digest things. I'll think about elevating my combat strength only after that."

"Do you still plan on remaining with Death Sickle?" Virtuoso suddenly asked Lin Huang.

"I think Death Sickle is pretty good," Lin Huang answered with a smile, "They have resources, and they're reliable. I don't have to worry about anything."

"Are you interested in visiting the Club to look around?" Virtuoso used voice transmission to ask this.

Lin Huang was startled when he heard that. Immediately, he asked through voice transmission, "Does the Club have a branch in the great world?"

"Of course it does. There are branches in all the worlds where there are Club members." After saying this, Virtuoso seemed to feel that they had not been cautious enough, so they added, "There are a handful of worlds that have only one or two members, so there aren't any branches there. The number is too low."

"How many members does the branch in the great world have?" Lin Huang asked.

"Including you and I, there are five who are presently still alive," Virtuoso went on to explain, "There are two who are like you—they're locals. There's one who is like me, a reincarnated being's clone."

"What are their combat strengths like?" Lin Huang probed a bit further.

"Apart from both of us, they're all Lords." Virtuoso's answer made Lin Huang fall silent.

After a moment of consideration, Lin Huang shook his head. "For now, I won't contact the other three yet."

He could not be certain whether or not there were spies from the Raiders among those three.

In reality, although he had developed a sort of friendship with Virtuoso from their trip into the Abyss, he had yet to trust Virtuoso completely and exclude them from being a Raider.

Furthermore, before he had sufficient ability to protect himself, he did not wish to reveal himself and attract the Raiders' attention, especially lord-level Raiders.

"Very well, I can understand that." Virtuoso seemed to see through Lin Huang's caution. "If you don't personally meet them, however, I can't reveal their identities to you. I hope you can understand why."

"I understand." Lin Huang nodded.

The voice transmission conversation between the two only took a moment. Saber9 and the rest did not notice anything.

Now that Lin Huang had initiated things, all five of them engaged in desultory, somewhat forced conversation.

After approximately two hours or more, there had been some scares along the way, but nothing had happened. Finally, the decaying giant beetle brought the five of them to the spot they had set coordinates for when they initially entered the Abyss.

After Virtuoso had alerted everyone, all five of them exited the decaying giant beetle's body one by one.

Virtuoso remained cautious and did not remove the illusion that camouflaged the five of them as Bladefoot Worms.

They glanced at the decaying giant beetle; in the end, they did not kill it. Instead, they let Virtuoso wipe its memory and send it on its way.

Not long after the decaying giant beetle had left, Virtuoso brought out a space-time flying shuttle the size of a human palm and rapidly performed complicated hand seals.

A moment later, the space-time flying shuttle tore open a Dimensional Whirlpool in the void.

At almost the same time, the entire Demonic Bug Maze began to vibrate intensely. A terrifying aura rose at alarming speed from deep under the ground.

"The Bug Queen has awakened?!"

Lin Huang and the others immediately stepped into the Dimensional Whirlpool without hesitation, fearing it might already be too late.

The instant the Dimensional Whirlpool closed, a sharp claw pierced through the layers of space and landed right on the spot where the Whirlpool had vanished.

Right after that, a shriek of pure rage echoed through the entire Demonic Bug Maze.

In the Great Heaven Palace, Lin Huang patiently sorted out the rewards he had obtained from this trip into the Abyss.

Above all else, the biggest gain was that his combat strength had broken through two ranks. He had elevated from eighth-rank true god-level to tenth-rank.

Although he had yet to achieve peak tenth-rank, he had mastered over 1.5 billion types of rules in his inner world.

Based on the precedents established previously, Lin Huang guessed that he might have to accumulate up to 1.8 billion to reach his limit.

This was not a difficult task for Lin Huang. It was just a matter of time.

In truth, he could now actually start thinking about how to elevate to heavenly god-level.

However, he put that problem aside for now and resumed checking over his gains.

Over the past one month of killing various heavenly god-level monsters in the Abyss, apart from plundering Rule Bending Powers, he had also plundered over twenty thousand god sequence chains. The god sequence chains in the God Territory within him had surpassed thirty thousand in number.

He had obtained over five thousand God Territory Shell Remnants.

In general, most people would not dare to refine the God Territory Shell Remnants of Abyssal creatures, as there would still be a great deal of Abyssal energy remaining within. Such energy was an extremely virulent contaminant.

However, this was not a problem for Lin Huang.

The Eternal Fire left by Qi Muxiong's Goldfinger could absorb and convert all sorts of energy, including Abyssal energy.

Others would be terrified of Abyssal energy, worried that they might be contaminated by it. However, to the Eternal Fire, the Abyssal energy was delicious.

All Lin Huang had to do was wait for the Eternal Fire to completely devour the Abyssal energy. Then he could start to refine and integrate the five thousand-over God Territory Shell Remnants.

Apart from these resources that he could directly utilize, Lin Huang had also obtained a massive amount of materials from Abyssal creatures. Not only that, most of these were heavenly god-level materials.

A lot of these were superb research materials. Many others could also be used to refine weapons and medicines.

Based on the amount and the quality of materials he now possessed, Lin Huang felt certain that he would be able to get a handsome price for all of them.

Naturally, the gains he obtained this round also included the hundred-over Nirvana Trees, but Lin Huang did not plan on selling them.

Virtuoso had given Lin Huang some information on the function of the Nirvana Trees. All it took was a mere glance at this, and he immediately realized how precious the trees were. If he were not forced into an absolute last resort, he would not part with them at all—not a single one of them!

Apart from these surface gains, Lin Huang had managed to obtain several Skill Cards and over a dozen complete Monster Cards from Xiao Hei due to the multitude of Abyssal creatures he had slaughtered.

Among the dozen-over Monster Cards, apart from the supreme god-level Silver-Armored Nine Gloom, who was at ninth-rank heavenly god-level, there were two pseudo-supreme god-level Monster Cards. They were Greed from the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe and a humanoid female Jealousy. Both of these possessed high combat strength, and they were both seventh-rank heavenly god-level.

After spending half an hour or so to sort out all of his gains, Lin Huang finally retrieved from his space storage the item with the highest value that he had obtained from this trip to the Abyss.

This object was a red, irregularly-shaped thumb-sized crystal. Its color resembled a ruby illuminated by the sun, but its form was like a leftover fragment from a large piece of glass that had been crushed.

This small, inconspicuous crystal that did not emanate even a single trace of Divine Power waves was Virtuoso's payment to him by way of thanks at the end of the trip—a Soul seal fragment.

A Soul seal was a remnant of a crushed Dao seal after a spirit-cultivating Lord had died.

Since a Dao seal might be crushed into fragments that varied in number and quantity, each fragment would contain different information.

An example would be the Sword seal fragment that Lin Huang obtained from Virtuoso previously. In reality, not all Sword seal fragments contained Sword Dao Inheritances. Some might contain complete Sword Dao Inheritances, while some might contain incomplete Sword Dao Inheritances. Then again, some might only contain sword skills or memory images about cultivation.

Simply put, refining a Dao seal fragment was like opening a mystery box.

Those who were lucky might obtain the complete skill inheritance from the Dao seal Lord's main cultivation path. Those who were unlucky might only be able to see some worthless information in images.

As soon as Lin Huang had returned to the great world, he could barely wait to enter the Great Heaven Palace. Apart from sorting out his loot, his main objective was actually to open the mystery…no, to refine this Soul seal fragment.

He scrutinized the ruby-like Soul seal fragment in his hand carefully. The bright red light within the crystal looked like flowing lava; it also resembled a burning charcoal fire.

Lin Huang had a rough idea of what the main cultivation path of this Lord's Elemental Dao might be.

Without any hesitation, he extended his Divine Telekinesis and wrapped it around the Soul seal fragment, drawing it between his brows.

Under the guidance of Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis, the Soul seal fragment fell like a meteor, heading toward Lin Huang's spiritual dimension.

The moment it dropped into his spiritual dimension, the crystal began to burn intensely, radiating endless sparks.

At the same time, countless golden divine patterns lit up on the crystal's surface, the light from it growing more and more intense.

After the divine patterns lit up, the entire crystal began showing traces of hairline cracks. Not only that, as the divine patterns grew brighter, the bigger the cracks became.

In the end, the crystal disintegrated completely, turning into blood-red stars that masked the divine patterns.

Meanwhile, the divine patterns were spinning wildly like tiny golden snakes as they hurtled toward Lin Huang's Sword Soul.

They turned into golden streams of light that penetrated the middle of the Sword Soul's brow.

Almost at the same time, Lin Huang felt an upheaval in his mind, and endless strange messages immediately surged in.

He quickly did a scan with Divine Telekinesis to see if there were any cultivation method inheritances. However, he did not find any God's soul cultivation methods. Instead, he only found a fire element cultivation method inheritance called the Immeasurable Calamity Fire.

Just when Lin Huang was feeling a little disappointed, he saw a spark light up on the Sword Soul's brow.

"This…this is the Immeasurable Calamity Fire's tinder?!" The inheritance messages were transmitted into Lin Huang's head immediately.

After the spark lit up, it swiftly began spreading from the Sword Soul's brow at alarming speed. Within the time it took for a breath, it had set the entire Sword Soul alight.

"What's happening?!"

Lin Huang was shocked when he saw this. He was even a little dumbfounded.

The intense pain and burning sensation that was transmitted from the Sword Soul caused him such agony he felt as if he might die. This burning was targeted at his God's soul.

However, he soon saw an even more terrifying scene.

The flames from the Calamity Fire not only spread throughout the Sword Soul's entire body but even began spreading to areas outside the Sword Soul.

Days passed. In endless agony, Lin Huang watched the flame burning every single place within his body.

The flame even spread outside his body until his physical flesh began to burn.

Even his telekinetic threads were on fire, every single one of them.

The intense burning sensation spread through every nerve in Lin Huang's body. He could not think of any way to douse the fire. However, a phrase flashed through his head suddenly.

"The true spirit doesn't die, it revives in countless calamities!"

In his confused, blurred state, Lin Huang could not even remember where he had seen this phrase. However, he gradually began to calm himself. He set aside all distracting thoughts and held fast to his true spirit, completely entering a state of emptiness.

The burning body in the Great Heaven Palace was losing its life force bit by bit.

One day, two days, three days…

A hundred days, two hundred days, three hundred days…

A thousand days, two thousand days, three thousand days…

The flame burned for an entire three thousand and thirty-three days before finally extinguishing itself gradually.

On the spot where Lin Huang had initially been sitting cross-legged, there remained only a pitch-black scorched body. Even its features were completely unrecognizable.

After an unknown length of time, a surge of life force arose from the blackened body.

The scorched corpse that had been sitting with its legs crossed suddenly opened its eyes…

Lin Huang had utterly not anticipated that the benefits he obtained from this Soul seal fragment would so greatly surpass his expectations.

Although there was no Soul Dao inheritance in this Soul seal fragment, there was an Immeasurable Calamity Fire tinder concealed within it.

As soon as it had been integrated, the tinder was swiftly set ablaze. Not only had the flame grown, but it had also fully cleansed Lin Huang inside out.

Lin Huang checked carefully and discovered that the benefits he had reaped were considerable.

His physical strength had originally been merely at ninth-rank heavenly god-level, but now it had achieved peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat cultivators aside, his physical body was in no way weaker than any other top-tier ninth-rank powerhouse.

His God's soul was also strong enough to reach peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level, which might possibly be second only to a ninth-rank heavenly god-level Soul Dao cultivator.

Even the speed of Seamless's normal revolutions had increased approximately threefold. The number of telekinetic thread divisions per hour had elevated to nine thousand threads.

His Divine Telekinesis had also reached peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level strength.

If he were to use only telekinetic weapons, he would still be evenly matched against most top ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouses.

The Sword Soul's strengthening by the flame had caused Lin Huang's Sword Heart to become even more intensely luminous. He had only just elevated to Heavenly Heart Sword Dao not long ago, and now he was already at the peak of Heavenly Heart.

Aside from that, the size of his entire God Territory had increased almost onefold.

It had to be said that the benefits Lin Huang had reaped from the Immeasurable Calamity Fire far surpassed what he would have gotten by directly obtaining a Soul Dao Inheritance.

Anyway, in truth, Lin Huang did not lack for Soul Dao Inheritances. He had yet to digest the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance he had obtained from God Capital previously.

The inheritance had come from a half-step lord-level Divine Telekinesis Master, and Lin Huang felt it was a better fit for his specialization.

Not only that, the nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization images from the inheritance had come from an unknown civilization in the ancient era. According to Lin Huang's inherited memory, this half-step Lord had not completed visualizing them either.

Out of one hundred and eight visualization images, Lin Huang had only visualized eighty of them at present.

As it took too much time to visualize the later images, he could only put them aside for now.

Lin Huang's thoughts drifted for a while before he looked at the red flame burning in his palm.

"The Immeasurable Calamity Fire…"

This was a flame that could aid in cultivation. Its main purpose was to assist in Soul Dao cultivation, but it could be used to aid in physical cultivation as well.

Since the Immeasurable Calamity Fire came with unique attributes, it could consume any sort of flame. It could also replicate all the characteristics of the flames that it consumed.

It could even imitate all sorts of Fire God Rules and god sequence chains…

However, Lin Huang was thinking about something else as he stared at the ever-changing form of the Immeasurable Calamity Fire in his palm.

Did Virtuoso know that there was this Immeasurable Calamity Fire hidden in the inheritance?!

One had to be aware that Lin Huang had almost been killed by the Immeasurable Calamity Fire earlier.

This inheritance appeared to have helped him progress. In reality, however, it concealed an infinitely murderous intent.

If Virtuoso had known prior to this that the Immeasurable Calamity Fire was concealed in the inheritance, it proved that they had intended to dispose of Lin Huang and wanted to seize the opportunity to kill him.

However, upon careful consideration, Lin Huang felt it was not very likely that Virtuoso would know about the Immeasurable Calamity Fire.

After reaching an agreement with Virtuoso regarding the Abyss trip, Lin Huang had used Death Sickle's channels at the first possible chance so that he could check for information about the Dao seal fragment he had received as pre-payment.

Through Odyl, half-step Lords and lord-level powerhouses could indeed discover the attributes of various Dao seal fragments and some other general information. However, they would not be able to tell what information was contained within the seal.

Only by refining could one discover in detail the contents of the Dao seal fragment.

Furthermore, each Dao seal fragment would be imprinted in the refiner's body after refinement. It could not be extracted unless the refiner died.

There was also another reason why Lin Huang felt fairly sure that Virtuoso knew nothing about the Immeasurable Calamity Fire.

When Virtuoso initially invited Lin Huang to enter the Abyss with them, the proposed condition was to first pay Lin Huang the Soul seal fragment, with the Sword seal fragment to be paid upon completion of the deal. It was Lin Huang who had requested for the Sword seal fragment first and the Soul seal fragment at the end of the trip.

If both of them had gone by Virtuoso's original arrangement, Lin Huang would have obtained the Soul seal fragment first.

If he had died at that point, it was of no benefit to Virtuoso when going into the Abyss.

Lin Huang's excessive caution was not because he lacked trust in his friends.

It was just that after hearing Yang Ling's story, he could not help but be extremely vigilant.

A Raider could masquerade as Yang Ling's brother, lying low around him for over ten thousand years just for the opportunity to plunder the Goldfinger within him.

It was entirely possible for them to disguise themselves with any identity, just to get close to Lin Huang.

In truth, Lin Huang did not really trust the Club's headquarters, much less one of their small branches.

After all, everything about the Club that he learned, including their stance against the Raiders, had been revealed by the Club members themselves.

He had not been able to find out anything at all about the Club on other channels.

Fortunately, this time it was all smoke and no fire. Not only had he not died, but he had also advanced even further in his abilities.

He was sufficiently confident in himself at present. Apart from lord-level and half-step lord-level entities, he did not fear being challenged by any other powerhouses.

Lin Huang put away the fire in his palm, his eyes gleaming brightly. He got up and pushed open the doors of the Great Heaven Palace.

When he saw that Lin Huang had come out of closed-door cultivation, Sword1 hurriedly stood up from his cross-legged position at the doors.

It did not matter if Lin Huang was at the Great Heaven Palace or not—Sword1 never abandoned his role as a guardian. Day and night, he kept watch at the doors of the Great Heaven Palace.

When he sensed Lin Huang's aura, delight flashed through Sword1's eyes once more.

"You seemed to have improved again during this round of closed-door cultivation, Lord Swordmaster."

"A little bit."

Lin Huang nodded lightly and took a few steps forward. He suddenly turned his head to look at Sword1.

"Sword1, come to the arena with me. I want to see what the level of my actual combat skill is now."

"Of course, Lord Swordmaster," Sword1 agreed without hesitation. He was also eager to find out how powerful Lin Huang was now.

One reason why Lin Huang chose Sword1 to be his sparring opponent was that he was the nearest in proximity. Another reason was that Sword1's ability was considered to be the best among all the Heavenly Gods—close to half-step Lord even.

Lin Huang wanted to know if his abilities had reached the same level as Sword1. If not, he wished to find out how far apart they were.

The two of them entered the arena and fought intensely for one full day before finally ending the battle.

In truth, approximately half an hour after the battle began, Lin Huang already knew that his abilities were lacking in comparison with Sword1.

Going by just the number of sequences that each of them could use, Lin Huang was already outclassed.

Although the Immeasurable Calamity Fire had made Lin Huang stronger, his physical body and spirit strength could only sustain eighteen god sequence chains at most.

As a rank-5.5 super genius, Sword1 had mastered thirty-one god sequence chains. Even though he had suppressed his ability to match Lin Huang's level, only using eighteen god sequence chains, his familiarity with sequence power and his combat experience were things that Lin Huang could not compare with by far.

To Sword1, the final sparring result was a draw. However, Lin Huang himself knew that he had lost.

In the great world, Sword1's ability would certainly be ranked as one of the top three powerhouses below half-step lord-level.

Being able to face a powerhouse like this on equal footing was sufficient proof of Lin Huang's own abilities.

As Sword1 had screened off the sparring session, none of the other Sword Servants witnessed it.

However, the next day after Lin Huang had left, some Sword Servants still managed to find out about the spar and that Lin Huang and Sword1 were evenly matched in battle.

The news immediately spread like wildfire to all the Sword Servants. All of them were in a state of disbelief when they first heard this, but after that, their admiration for Lin Huang knew no bounds.

Only Sword1 remained seated at the doors of the Great Heaven Palace, cross-legged and eyes closed, looking as if nothing had happened.

However, if anyone were to look closely, they would see that the corners of his mouth had quirked up in the tiniest of smiles.

When Lin Huang left the Great Heaven Palace, a mere three and a half days had passed in the outside world.

Lin Huang took a quick look at the date, then stepped through the dimensional portal and returned to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

He had chosen the Devil Hunter Star Zone as his temporary station mainly because it was sufficiently far from the human world's core zone and not under the jurisdiction of any major organizations. Moreover, it had sufficient resources and was quite suited for future development.

Another important reason was that the Sword Servants under Lin Huang's command were mainly Protoss or members from other tribes. There were less than ten humans in total. If their identities were discovered by any major human organizations, things would become slightly problematic.

In no time at all, Lin Huang managed to locate the gathering place for Lin Xin and the others through a Divine Telekinesis scan.

This was a series of connected palaces constructed on a high mountain.

Lin Huang passed through multiple sword formations in a flash and entered the palace courtyard.

Almost as soon as he appeared, the Sword Servants sensed his aura and immediately hurried over to welcome him.

Only four Sword Servants had remained at this station; they were led by Sword12. Lin Huang noticed that Sword12 had disguised his combat strength as first-rank heavenly god-level, while the other three Sword Servants had disguised theirs as high-rank true god-level as well.

Lin Huang was taken aback at first but then immediately realized the reason for them doing so.

"Welcome back, Lord Swordmaster!"

"This gathering point that you've found isn't bad at all," Lin Huang commented, looking around and smiling.

"The Sword Alliance's headquarters naturally has to be at least a bit more impressive," Sword12 answered with a chuckle, his bald head gleaming.

"You've set up the Sword Alliance?" Lin Huang raised his brows at this.

Although he did return to the Devil Hunter Star Zone occasionally, over the last few months he had been busy with his own affairs. He had initially intended to found the Sword Alliance when he had time to spare since it was not urgent. He had never expected Sword12 to have already set it up. He did recall mentioning this to Sword12 during a casual chat previously, about wanting to set up the Sword Alliance in the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

"I thought I'd set it up first, so I registered at the Hunt's station, then bought this piece of land as our headquarters," Sword12 explained immediately, "In the end, because I was registered as heavenly god-level, the Hunt certified the Sword Alliance as a grade-4 organization right away…"

Lin Huang continued nodding as he listened.

Once his combat strength had elevated to tenth-rank, the Sword Servants' combat strength had been unsealed to ninth-rank heavenly god-level. Their abilities had almost been restored to their previous peak.

However, to prevent attracting unwanted attention, on the surface Sword12 only displayed first-rank heavenly god-level ability. When he set up the Sword Alliance, the other Sword Servants also hid their true strength.

Since Sword12 was human, as well as a heavenly god-level powerhouse, it was a piece of cake for his application to be approved.

After doing some background checks, the staff from the Hunt had even approached Sword12 with the suggestion that he take up the post of the Devil Hunter Star Zone's guardian. (Of course, they did not fully relinquish all the rights and authority.)

Every ten years, the Hunt had to reassign a Heavenly God to guard this remote zone; furthermore, nobody was willing to come here. If it were not a border that had to be guarded, the Hunt would have given up on this area long ago.

Although the entire star zone was considered to be fairly prosperous, the actual annual income was low, as half of the gross profit was to be given to the guarding Heavenly God.

Now, suddenly, a Heavenly God who was going to set up an organization there had shown up. The Hunt was more than happy to 'rent' out the piece of land. At least they would have a big part of the burden taken off their shoulders.

Sword12 agreed to this after some consideration. The reason was that if he became guardian, it would be of the greatest benefit to the Sword Alliance's development in the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

To a grade-6 top organization like the Hunt, a small organization of less than ten members formed by a first-rank Heavenly God would be limited, no matter how much they expanded. They were not sufficiently powerful to become a threat.

The biggest beneficiaries of the Hunt's generosity were Sword12 and the Sword Alliance.

This had even attracted a considerable number of true god-level powerhouses to try and join the Sword Alliance, but they had all been excluded by the test that Sword12 had set up.

"No wonder the other organizations on this planet are all gone…" Lin Huang finally understood why the handful of organizations that had been guarding the planet previously were no longer there when he had done a Divine Telekinesis scan earlier.

Clearly, they had given way to the grade-4 Sword Alliance organization and moved out.

Just when Lin Huang was done chatting with Sword12, Lin Xin appeared before Lin Huang in a flash. She too had sensed his aura.

"Big brother!"

Lin Huang lifted his eyes. Lin Xin was completely clad in form-fitting black training wear that set off her figure admirably.

He also noticed that her forehead and neck were beaded with tiny sweat drops. She must have been sparring with someone earlier.

Lin Xuan showed up right after Lin Xin arrived.

Obviously, Lin Xin had been sparring with Lin Xuan earlier.

Lin Huang only needed a glance to ascertain their combat strength.

Lin Xin had broken through to first-rank true god-level, while Lin Xuan had elevated to third-rank.

"Not bad, you two have broken through to true god-level." Lin Huang nodded in satisfaction.

"I just broke through two days ago." Lin Xin was over the moon at Lin Huang's compliment.

In truth, even without her explaining, Lin Huang could also see this from her aura waves.

"You've improved a lot too. It's only been a few months, and you've elevated two ranks." Lin Huang looked at Lin Xuan.

He had come back here a few times over the last few months, but Lin Xuan had almost always been in the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss, so Lin Huang could not tell how his cultivation progress was going.

"I've still got a long way to go compared to you." Lin Xuan could vaguely sense the immense power concealed within Lin Huang's body. As of right now, he regarded Lin Huang as the ultimate role model to pursue.

"Where are Chan Dou and Xiao Mo?" Lin Huang inquired. His Divine Telekinesis had not picked them up on the scan.

However, he guessed the answer as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"Where else can they be?" Lin Xin pursed her lips in a little moue.

From beside her, Lin Xuan explained, "Xiao Mo said he won't leave the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss until he's achieved Virtual God rank-9. Chan Dou said he wants to elevate to true god-level as soon as he can. Huang Wuji went with them."

"It's not a bad thing for them to be so ambitious." Lin Huang nodded, smiling.

Right after that, he asked, "How about Old Fu?"

Ever since Mr. Fu elevated to second-rank true god-level, he felt that his cultivation progress had begun to slow down. Subsequently, he had gone traveling after bidding farewell to Lin Huang and the others.

However, there was a Sword Servant secretly following him. For one, it was to covertly ensure his safety. For another, it was to report on Mr. Fu's recent activities.

"Everything has been going well lately," Sword12 disclosed the information that he obtained, "He recently entered some ruins with a new acquaintance. It's just a ninth-rank true god-level ruin left behind by a Heavenly God who failed to elevate. It's not particularly dangerous."

Lin Huang nodded after hearing that. To him, Mr. Fu was not merely his teacher, but family as well.

After reporting everything to Lin Huang, Sword 12 left with the other three Sword Servants.

Once the Sword Servants left, Lin Xin—inquisitive child that she was—hung around Lin Huang, wanting to know what had been happening to him lately.

Lin Xuan did not display any desire to leave either. He quietly walked behind the siblings, who were chatting while walking, and followed them into Lin Huang's courtyard.

After sending Lin Xin and Lin Xuan off, Lin Huang sat alone in the courtyard and checked on the status of his Monster Cards.

It had been close to five months since he had released his imperial monsters to obtain their own cultivation resources. Since then, he had practically never reviewed Bai and the others' cultivation progress.

Now that he finally had time, he began to check through the cards one by one.

The first Monster Card he saw was Kylie's. She was already at Pure Spirit rank-6 and was, without a doubt, the strongest powerhouse among all the imperial monsters.

Four months ago or so, Kylie had already elevated to heavenly god-level. Now, in just these four short months, her combat strength had gone up to sixth-rank heavenly god-level.

This sort of advancement speed could practically be considered terrifying.

Lin Huang's combat strength elevation was already rapid enough, but in the past five months, he had merely elevated from sixth-rank to tenth-rank. Furthermore, he had elevated to sixth-rank before Kylie went into closed-door cultivation for advancement to heavenly god-level.

However, he felt at ease again after doing some careful thinking about it.

Kylie was already Pure Spirit rank-6. She also had the full support of a top grade-6 organization—the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

If she needed any cultivation resources, she only had to ask.

Moreover, based on the situation at present, the Nephilic Judge Tribe was probably hoping that Kylie could elevate her combat strength to ninth-rank heavenly god-level as soon as possible so she could protect herself with absolute certainty.

After all, the abilities of a Pure Spirit rank-6 ninth-rank Heavenly God could at least compare with those of a half-step Lord and might even, in fact, be more powerful.

As for any concerns about a weak cultivation foundation, such a problem did not exist for a Pure Spirit rank-6 being.

If a being were inherently Pure Spirit rank-6, they would be born as a lord-level living being.

Although Kylie had only elevated after birth, she did not need any sort of foundation before she advanced to become a Lord. At most, she merely needed some actual combat experience to familiarize herself with the exponential increase in various aspects that had resulted from her rapid rise in combat strength.

Lin Huang was extremely satisfied with Kylie's improvement.

"At the rate she's going, this girl will elevate to ninth-rank within three months at most…"

After reviewing Kylie's information, Lin Huang then turned his attention to Bloody's.

As expected, Bloody's combat strength had soared as well. She had now elevated to fifth-rank heavenly god-level.

Obviously, she had benefitted from associating with Kylie.

Her combat strength elevation most likely had been achieved through the Nephilic Judge Tribe's resources.

As Kylie's best friend, at present, Bloody was probably being treated like a princess as well by the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

Lin Huang was not worried that something would go wrong with Bloody's foundation. After all, she had elevated to supreme god-level rank-5. (TN: We believe the author may have made an error since it is mentioned earlier that Bloody has elevated to fifth-rank heavenly god-level, but we have chosen to translate it as written.)

All she needed to do was to strengthen her foundation a little when she got to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Once he had checked out Bloody's progress, Lin Huang looked at the other imperial monsters who were supreme god-level rank-5.

The three supreme god-level rank-5 imperial monsters—Killer, Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain), and Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son)—had elevated to fourth-rank heavenly god-level.

This did not surprise Lin Huang. The three of them were already heavenly god-level even before he released them. Furthermore, they had teamed up when they were given the freedom to choose their own teammates. Since all three of them were class-5, their combat strength was heavenly god-level as well. This meant that their abilities far exceeded that of the other imperial monsters, so they were unable to team up with the rest.

As expected, once they had formed a group, their improvement over the last few months was very evident.

After he had checked on the progress of Killer's group, Lin Huang then looked over Bai and Teng Ran.

Since Bai and Teng Ran had been class-4.5 at the time, they spent a month elevating to supreme god-level rank-5 after Lin Huang had used the Advance Cards on them. Therefore, the two had to hunt for resources a month later than the other imperial monsters.

Nevertheless, Bai and Teng Ran had also advanced to fourth-rank heavenly god-level, which meant they had caught up with Killer's group in terms of progress.

There was no need to say anything about Teng Ran. He had already been first-rank heavenly god-level before elevating to supreme god-level.

(TN: We also believe that the author might have made an error here with the levels, given that supreme god-level has already been established as lower in rank than heavenly god-level.

However, we have opted to translate it as it, out of respect for the author.)

However, Bai was truly something else. Before elevating to supreme god-level, he had only been ninth-rank true god-level. (TN: As with the above paragraph, we believe that the author may have made an error in the order of the levels. Again, we have chosen to translate it as written.)

In other words, he had used less than four months to level up through five ranks of combat strength. This included advancing by a full level.

Lin Huang could almost imagine how much work Bai had put in to catch up with Kylie and the rest over the past few months.

After turning his attention from Bai's card, Lin Huang then checked on Grimace, whose combat strength was second only to Bai's.

"This fellow…" Lin Huang was stunned when he saw Grimace's card.

He was shocked that Grimace had already elevated to class-4.5.

Grimace was not the only one—Lancelot and Charcoal had elevated to class-4.5 as well.

He cast his mind back carefully and recalled that the three of them had teamed up during that time.

It seemed as if they had managed to encounter some great stroke of fortune, for their rankings all to elevate by half a class.

Moreover, the elevation of all three's combat strength was by no means slower than Bai's progress. They had all advanced to third-rank heavenly god-level. One must know that five months ago, they were only seventh-rank and eighth-rank true god-level. They had not even reached ninth-rank yet.

The ones who had elevated just as rapidly were several of the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers.

Just like Grimace and the other two, they had elevated to third-rank heavenly god-level.

However, Lin Huang was not that surprised at the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers' advancement.

They had an entire tribe of bugs to support them.

Furthermore, apart from the Queen Mothers, several of the Bug Kings had elevated to second-rank as well. There were even a thousand-over bug beasts that had elevated to heavenly god-level.

This number far surpassed Lin Huang's expectations.

After looking over the bug beasts' progress, Lin Huang then turned his attention to the remaining imperial monsters.

Although Tyrant, Thunder, and Witch had not elevated as rapidly as Grimace, Bai, and the others, their progress was not too shabby either. They had steadily advanced to heavenly god-level.

Lin Huang was beyond satisfied with the progress of his imperial monsters' cultivation.

Although Kylie, Bai, and the rest could not participate in battles of his level at the moment, given their progress, they would not take long to elevate to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

When the time came, sooner or later, they would become his most powerful assistants.

The imperial monsters still needed time to develop, but it was not as if Lin Huang did not have subordinates he could utilize.

Since elevating to tenth-rank true god-level, almost all of his Sword Servants' combat strength had been fully unsealed. They had been completely restored to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Apart from Swords 1 to 10, whom he could not utilize just yet, he had a total of over three hundred Sword Servants.

All of these three hundred and fifty-eight Sword Servants were ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Not only that, there were even twenty-five class-4.5 powerhouses and two class-5 powerhouses among them.

Sword11 and Sword12 were the two class-5 powerhouses. In the great world, their abilities would certainly rank right at the top. In fact, they might be second only to peak powerhouses like Buried Heaven.

Lin Huang reviewed his own abilities as well. Without the use of a trump card, he might just be on the same level as Sword11 and Sword12.

There was still a fine line between himself and the ultimate Heavenly God powerhouses like Sword1 and Buried Heaven.

In reality, such power was already enough to dominate all the grade-5 organizations in the entire great world.

However, this was not sufficient for Lin Huang.

The more powerful he became, the more he realized how terrifying half-step lord-level and lord-level powerhouses were. He was also more fearful of the Raider organization.

Lin Huang had never been a coward, nor had he ever been intimidated by any of his opponents. However, it was his habit to properly prepare before making a move against his enemies, even outclassing them if possible. When he felt the time was ripe, he would even take the initiative to attack, annihilating his opponents.

However, if he were not sufficiently powerful, he would lie low patiently, waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Just like in a game of Go chess, the moment he made a move, his opponent would lose!

After returning to the Devil Hunter Star Zone, Lin Huang did not go into closed-door cultivation right away.

Throughout the last few days, apart from handling some trivial matters, he had been thinking of how to break through to heavenly god-level.

Ever since early on, while elevating from virtual god-level to true god-level, his method of advancement was already completely different from everyone else.

Others elevated by killing True Gods and igniting their Divine Fire.

However, Lin Huang's Divine Fire had already been ignited since virtual god-level.

Therefore, he had taken a giant leap when he elevated to true god-level by consolidating a Godly Right with a massive amount of God Rule Power.

Under normal circumstances, individuals only constructed Godly Rights when they elevated from true god-level to heavenly god-level.

Thus, Lin Huang had sabotaged himself by rendering this usual method for advancement completely useless.

"Back then, I constructed my Godly Right through accumulating God Rule Power. In all honesty, it can't be considered a genuine Godly Right. Based on the situation now, once my capacity for absorbing God Rule Power has reached satiety, I should be able to enter the second stage of a Godly Right and begin accumulating sequence powers.

"Therefore, if I want to elevate to heavenly god-level, I just have to wait for the Godly Right to absorb enough God Rule Power, then I can advance to the second stage—sequence power integration…"

Lin Huang very quickly discovered the way forward for his breakthrough, but he was rather unsatisfied with this method.

"In that case, the amount of sequence power a Godly Right can hold is the same as its capacity for God Rule Power. There's a limit…

"Is there a way to increase my Godly Right's capacity so it can hold more sequence power, or else make its capacity infinite?!"

Lin Huang went back and read through the inherited memories of Great Heaven and the Sword Servants. Very soon, he found what he suspected might be an answer.

"So the Godly Right's maximum capacity is related to the strength of one's God Territory!"

From the inherited memories, Lin Huang realized that the more powerful the Heavenly Gods killed when constructing the Godly Right, the more powerful the integrated God Territory would be. Not only that, its capacity for containing sequence powers would also be greater.

Apart from the fact that he could consolidate a staggering number of god sequence chains far beyond what ordinary folk could manage—forty-two in total—Great Heaven was powerful also because the Godly Right he constructed was sufficiently mighty.

From first-rank to ninth-rank—from the first time he constructed his Godly Right until the end—he integrated ninth-rank heavenly god-level God Territories during each Godly Right elevation. This bolstered his Godly Right by an increase of eighty-one times its power.

In his God Territory, the maximum number of god sequence chains he could invoke while using his Godly Right was a staggering 3,402 god sequence chains.

His might was sufficient to be a threat to many half-step lord-level powerhouses.

Lin Huang's cultivation path was already completely different from Great Heaven's.

He did not need to use his Godly Right for amplification as he had already fully integrated his Godly Right and his God Rule Power. In the future, he would also be integrating god sequence chains.

In other words, this meant he could invoke all of the sequence chains in his God Territory, no matter how many there were.

However, there was a limit to the number of god rules and god sequence chains that a Godly Right could integrate.

For instance, the Godly Right in Lin Huang's body could integrate a maximum of 1.8 billion god rules. He had accumulated 1.5 billion now; it was fast approaching its limit.

Based on this, Lin Huang could foresee that the number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could integrate in the future would have a limit as well.

However, from the inherited memories of Great Heaven and the others, Lin Huang saw that the Godly Right's strength could be increased and intensified.

However, from first-rank to ninth-rank, there were only nine chances for his Godly Right to achieve advancement.

In other words, by elevating his Godly Right, he could increase the upper limits of its capacity for integration.

"However, my God Territory has already integrated half-step Lord God Territories. If I want to elevate my Godly Right, using lower-level God Territories won't work. The only way is to integrate the God Territories of more half-step Lords…"

Step by step, Lin Huang rapidly came up with the solution to his problem.

However, he soon ran into another headache. At his current ability, he was unable to kill half-step Lords. Therefore, the only way to obtain their God Territories was through purchasing them or trading resources.

Half-step Lord God Territories were definitely expensive. In auctions, they were usually sold at the same price as Pseudo-Dao Weapons.

Even if Lin Huang pawned everything he had, he would not be able to afford even a few.

After thinking for a while, he turned on his communicator and called Virtuoso's number.

After a mere moment, Virtuoso's figure projected itself in front of Lin Huang.

"You contacted me just in time. I'm officially going into closed-door cultivation tomorrow." Virtuoso sounded happy; they seemed to be in a good mood. "Is anything the matter?"

"How many half-step Lord God Territories would I be able to trade for the Nirvana Trees that I divided between you and Saber9?" Lin Huang did not bother with small talk and got down to business right away.

Virtuoso was stunned upon hearing that, and their tone became rather odd. "How many? You might not even be able to get one. The price will more or less be considered the starting bid at auction."

Lin Huang frowned slightly at that. He did not want to pour resources into purchasing a God Territory.

After all, if that were only the starting bid, the final auction price would go up several times over—perhaps even by several dozen times.

"Don't tell me you want to refine the God Territories of half-step Lords to boost your Godly Right's amplification?" Virtuoso "saw through" Lin Huang's intention right away. "Let me tell you, it's useless. A half-step Lord is still, in essence, a ninth-rank Heavenly God.

"Not just in the universe, but even in the great world where we are now, countless people have tried that. After refining half-step Lord and ninth-rank heavenly god-level God Territories, a Godly Right's amplification remains the same. Not only that, the refinement takes more than a dozen times longer than refining ninth-rank heavenly god-level God Territories.

"You have sufficient authorization now to do a quick search and find at least several hundred threads on Death Sickle's forum regarding this matter. It's common knowledge among Heavenly God and many True Gods.

"If you really want to refine God Territories, Saber9 and I can help you gather nine ninth-rank ones. That will be sufficient to last you until you get to ninth-rank…"

Virtuoso said a great deal more, but Lin Huang let it go in one ear and out the other.

Naturally, he was aware of this common knowledge. However, with his body's current state, he could only refine half-step Lord God Territories. Ninth-rank ones were of no use to him at all.

"If not, I don't mind Abyssal half-step Lord God Territories either," Lin Huang interrupted Virtuoso's continuing flow of conversation.

"Are you sure you only want half-step Lord ones?" Virtuoso paused, then asked in all seriousness.

"I am." Lin Huang nodded resolutely.

"Alright then…" Virtuoso did not pursue the matter further. After all, everyone had their own secrets.

"As long as they're half-step Lord God Territories, that will do. Abyssal ones will work too—if they haven't been cleansed, that's not a problem either. Even those that have had their sequence powers sucked dry and are merely an empty shell are fine as well…" Lin Huang extrapolated on his requirements, "Just get me as many as you can."

"Very well, I'll think of something." Virtuoso nodded and added, "The same goes for Saber9 as well?"

"Yes." Lin Huang nodded.

After ending the call, he felt slightly relieved.

Fortunately, Virtuoso had not asked any sensitive questions, so Lin Huang had no need to fob him off with the answers he had prepared.

However, at least his heart was finally settled.

Abyssal half-step Lord God Territories would be much cheaper, especially those that had yet to be cleansed. He should be able to trade one with the hundred-over Nirvana Trees.

At the very least, he had prepared the most essential component of elevating to heavenly god-level.

August was the hottest month on the Pfister Star; it was also the dry season that hardly rained.

During the day, the average temperature was above 40 degrees Celcius, but it would drop to approximately 20 degrees Celcius at night. Even for ordinary folks, it was more comfortable at night, let alone cultivators.

Moreover, all one had to do was look up, and they would see a starry sky; it was rare that there were no stars.

The main reason why Lin Huang and his subordinates had chosen to station the Sword Alliance here was that this planet was closest to the teleportation point connecting the gravel world to the great world.

Lin Huang lay on the rooftop, silently watching the unfamiliar starry sky overhead.

It did not taking him very long to identify the other planets around the Devil Hunter Star Zone, as well as the planet where he suspected the teleportation point was.

That particular planet was in the same galaxy as the Pfister Star. Although it was just a dwarf planet that was slightly further from the other stars and reflected a much weaker light, it was very close to the Pfister Star. One could still see it with the naked eye.

Right as Lin Huang was about to use Divine Telekinesis to confirm that the teleportation point was located on the planet he had spotted, his communicator device suddenly began vibrating.

He tapped on the communication page. It was a message sent from an unfamiliar number.

"Are you in the Devil Hunter Star Zone now?"

Lin Huang was stunned when he read this. The image of a particular skinny figure immediately came to mind.

"Yang Ling?!"

The only person he could think of who liked using unfamiliar numbers to contact him and who was also able to locate his coordinates was Yang Ling—a traveler just like himself.

Just when he was about to reply to the message and ask if this was Yang Ling, another message came.

It was from another unfamiliar number.

"Don't reply. The previous message was just to confirm your current location."

Almost at the same time, a message came in from yet another unfamiliar number.

"See you tomorrow morning. We'll talk when we meet. (Don't reply)"

Lin Huang frowned slightly after closing the communication page.

From the looks of things, Yang Ling had run into some serious trouble, or he would not be this cautious.

He still distinctly remembered the last time Yang Ling had sent him a message—that had been four months ago or so. Lin Huang had been in closed-door cultivation back then and had only seen the message around two months later. When he had called back, the number was already out of service.

What caught his attention back then was that Yang Ling had only sent a short message—"Take care of Hong Zhuang for me…"

At the time, he already suspected that something might have happened to Yang Ling.

Fortunately, he had finally received a message from Yang Ling after four months or more.

Lin Huang was slightly relieved that at least he had received some form of communication. It proved that Yang Ling was at least safe for the time being.

"I'll find out what exactly happened tomorrow when we meet," Lin Huang mumbled to himself.

When he checked the time, it was already past one o'clock in the wee hours of the morning.

He swiftly slipped into his bedroom, took a quick shower, and went to bed.

In reality, at his current level of ability, his physical body would not get dirty, nor did he need sleep.

It was just that he was used to doing these things. When he was not cultivating, he still retained his normal habits of eating, sleeping, and showering.

The next morning, Lin Huang woke up early.

By the time he finished his morning ablutions, it was not even 6 a.m. yet.

One of the reasons he woke up so early was that in the early hours of the morning previously, he had agreed to meet Yang Ling. For another, he wanted to try breakfast at one of the small shops.

This little breakfast place was extremely busy, even in the morning. Lin Huang was unwilling to queue for a place, so he decided to just wake up early instead.

Once he had finished getting himself ready, he made an area sweep with Divine Telekinesis and discovered that the breakfast place had just opened its doors. In a flash, he immediately appeared at the entrance.

He ordered two trays of the shop's signature buns and a bowl of plain congee. He then sat down and waited patiently for the buns to be served.

A figure appeared out of nowhere less than two seconds after he had taken his seat.

Lin Huang was utterly stunned when he saw who it was. It took him a moment to regain his composure.

"How come you're here? Where's Yan Ling?"

The person who had come to meet him was Hong Zhuang!

Lin Huang scrutinized her from head to toe. She was different from before; her personality had undergone a drastic change.

Not only was her previous alluring air conspicuously absent, but she was also no longer wearing red. Instead, she wore a plain green blouse, and a faint trace of worry creased her brow.

"Yang Ling… he's dead…" Hong Zhuang hesitated for a moment but decided to say it anyway.

"Yang Ling is dead?!" Lin Huang found this rather hard to believe. He squinted at Hong Zhuang. "Then who sent me those messages after midnight?"

"I did." As Hong Zhuang spoke, screenshots of the three messages popped up.

The screenshots confirmed that she had indeed sent those messages.

"How did you find my coordinates then?! My communicator device's location has been turned off," Lin Huang voiced his suspicions again. From what he remembered, Yang Ling was the only one who could do that. It was no use even if his communicator's location had been turned off; Yang Ling could still locate him.

"He transferred his Goldfinger to me before he died." While Hong Zhuang was explaining, Lin Huang kept staring at her. However, she did not look as if she was lying.

Lin Huang knew about Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang's relationship. However, he did not think that Yang Ling would reveal his identity as a traveler and the matter of his Goldfinger to Hong Zhuang. After all, Yang Ling had been betrayed before, so it was very hard for him to fully trust anybody.

However, what Hong Zhuang said convinced Lin Huang a little further.

This was because Yang Ling might have planned for the future once he realized he was marked for death. To prevent the Raiders from obtaining his Goldfinger, it sounded like it was something that Yang Ling would do— transfer his Goldfinger to someone else in advance. Furthermore, the recipient of the Goldfinger was Hong Zhuang, which was completely logical as the two of them were already in an intimate relationship.

Theoretically speaking, only travelers could use Goldfingers. However, Yang Ling's Goldfinger was not whole. Moreover, with his intelligence and capability, it was entirely possible that he had found a method of transferring his Goldfinger to Hong Zhuang.

"He asked me to look for you." Hong Zhuang made no move to avoid Lin Huang's scrutiny. "He also said that in this world, you're the only traveler he trusts."

Lin Huang became very thoughtful after he heard this.

What Hong Zhuang said sounded rather cheesy, but it certainly seemed to be something that Yang Ling would say before he died. Hong Zhuang probably did not make this up.

"How did he die?" Lin Huang asked again after sorting out his thoughts and feelings.

"We were actually targeted by Raiders as soon as we arrived in the great world. Yang Ling's Goldfinger was just a remnant, but the individual capable of plundering his Goldfinger could sense its rough location. We've been on the run these past few years in the great world because of that.

"About four and a half months ago, the person who plundered Yang Ling's Goldfinger personally made a move. It was a Lord who easily located our hiding place… Yang Ling sensed that all the layers of security measures he put in place had been breached. He knew our enemy was coming, so he transferred both his Goldfinger and the secret information in his mind to me before sending me away."

"So you didn't actually see Yang Ling's death with your own eyes?" Lin Huang persisted.

"I didn't see him die, but I'm sure of it," Hong Zhuang explained patiently, "I can sense that his aura remnant has been completely obliterated from his Goldfinger.

"You don't need to worry that the Goldfinger within me might attract that particular Lord. Yang Ling reset the Goldfinger entirely when he transferred it to me. Although the reset made the Goldfinger lose most of its functions, it has cut off any connection with the original Goldfinger. Otherwise, I would have been captured over four months ago."

"Let's talk somewhere else," Lin Huang shot a glance at the buns that were now ready and got the lady proprietress to pack them for takeaway.

With breakfast in hand, Lin Huang led Hong Zhuang to the Sword Alliance's headquarters.

Lin Huang had initially thought he would be reuniting with Yang Ling; he had never expected Hong Zhuang to be the one who showed up instead.

Not only that, the woman had brought news of Yang Ling's death.

Lin Huang was familiar enough with Hong Zhuang—he had met her the first year he had traveled to the gravel world. Back then, he had just started on his cultivation path. Since that time, the two of them had crossed paths more than once. However, as far as Lin Huang was concerned, his interactions with her could not be considered pleasant.

From the very beginning, he had never understood this woman.

If he only took into consideration their past interactions, Lin Huang would not be willing to have too much contact with her.

However, due to her position, he could not ignore her request for help.

She was Yang Ling's girlfriend.

Furthermore, Lin Huang had considered Yang Ling a true friend.

Although on the surface it seemed that many of the interactions between the two over the last few years had been limited to business transactions involving disguising identities, Yang Ling and Lin Huang were both travelers from Earth. As a result, they were able to relate to many of the things that each encountered respectively.

They were both strangers in a strange land.

Both of them came from the same place; both also had similar experiences as travelers who were now strangers residing in strange lands. In truth, they could sympathize with each other.

Lin Huang had even considered that when he had time, he would chat with Yang Ling about things that had happened on Earth.

However, he would never have the opportunity to do so now.

After a detailed talk with Hong Zhuang, he found out what had happened to her and Yang Ling.

The pair were almost constantly hiding from the Raiders' pursuit. Many times, they had to resort to hiding in various gravel worlds and mini worlds.

Yang Ling had also mentioned that he wanted Hong Zhuang to leave him so she could avoid being dragged into this matter. However, she rejected his suggestion and had remained with him, on the grounds that she could help Yang Ling handle many things where it was not convenient for him to reveal any traces of his existence.

The ill-fated couple had not lived a good life for the past few years. The resources they managed to obtain were also extremely limited.

According to Hong Zhuang, Yang Ling had only managed to restore his combat strength to ninth-rank true god-level before he died.

Meanwhile, she had elevated to first-rank true god-level. In Yang Ling's own words, he had given her more resources to prevent her from becoming a burden.

As for the Goldfinger Yang Ling had transferred into Hong Zhuang's body, in reality, it could not be considered a real Goldfinger by far.

Lin Huang could only vaguely sense that there were energy remnants in the Goldfinger within her.

Yang Ling's Goldfinger had been incomplete ever since it had been plundered. Now that he had reset it and transferred it to Hong Zhuang, it might not be capable of even one-tenth its previous function.

"Although Yang Ling had me look for you, he didn't expect you to avenge him."

As Lin Huang's thoughts ran rampant, Hong Zhuang suddenly spoke again, pulling him back from his woolgathering, "He even asked me to tell you to stay as low profile as you can. If you can't, at least disguise yourself. Before you're sufficiently powerful enough, try not to attract the Raiders' attention.

"In the memories he left for me, there are some things that he stressed I must pass on to you.

"The first thing is that, among the Raiders, the Primordium of the Lord that plundered Yang Ling's Goldfinger has departed for the universe. However, he left a clone in the great world. This clone has the ability of a Lord as well. Not only that, he wears a surveillance device that the Lord's Goldfinger left behind. The surveillance device monitors the information of any suspected travelers.

"The second thing is that due to the existence of this surveillance device, when we're somewhere with surveillance equipment or if we're on the internet, we can't mention these two keywords—traveler and Raider. This includes the intranet of some organizations, as well as encrypted devices—it's best not to bring up the keywords, as there's no way of guaranteeing complete safety.

"Thirdly, in front of all surveillance equipment or if you're on the internet, never mention the name 'Yang Ling' again, or anything at all regarding Yang Ling. Whether it's via text or voice recording, don't do it at all.

"It's best not to mention my name anymore as well, since it's most probably connected with Yang Ling already. I've given myself a new name—Violet. From now on, just call me that. I'll change my appearance and physical body too." As Hong Zhuang spoke, her body began rapidly transforming into a young lady with short purple hair. She looked only about fifteen or sixteen years old and had a scattering of tiny freckles on her face. She was at least ten centimeters shorter than before.

Lin Huang raised his brows as he watched Hong Zhuang's transformation.

She had used a disguise god sequence relic that could practically deceive most heavenly god-level powerhouses. As for Lin Huang, whose spirit strength had reached peak heavenly god-level, he had seen through her disguise right away. However, it was entirely sufficient for use on a daily basis.

After patiently listening to the precautions that Hong Zhuang had mentioned, Lin Huang felt only a faint sense of sorrow.

Yang Ling was already dead, but his name could not even be mentioned…

From this, the tyranny of the Raiders could be seen.

Not only did they want to take every good thing from an individual, but they also wanted to wipe out every trace of one's existence.

This was viciousness of the highest order!

Lin Huang fell silent for a long time, looking at Hong Zhuang. Her form had changed completely now, and she had purple hair. There was almost no trace to be seen of the former Hong Zhuang.

This woman had truly changed a great deal.

The old Hong Zhuang had been stubborn, untamed, and free. However, in place of that, Lin Huang now saw grief, steadiness, and a strange determination.

Even after hearing her story, it was hard to imagine the things she had gone through over the last few years.

"I definitely have to avenge him…" Lin Huang suddenly spoke.

Hong Zhuang was stunned when she heard this and stared blankly at Lin Huang. She had initially thought that this man would be fearful—afraid that she would bring disaster upon him. She had never expected him to react in this manner.

"Yang Ling was my friend. Even without him, it's only a matter of time before I would be targeted by Raiders." Lin Huang fixed his gaze on Hong Zhuang and continued, "Sooner or later, I'll have to settle the grudge between the Raiders and myself. However, now isn't the time to do so.

"I'm not powerful enough at the moment. One day, though, I'll be so powerful that those people will tremble!

"When the time comes, I'll take that man's head to console Yang Ling's spirit in heaven!"

Although what Lin Huang said sounded like a tall tale, Hong Zhuang was not sure why she found it extremely convincing.

She could be considered someone who had witnessed Lin Huang's growth.

She still remembered that when they had met for the first time, he was only an insignificant bronze-level.

Now, however, Lin Huang had grown into a formidable individual capable of establishing an organization of his own in the great world.

"You can settle down in the Devil Hunter Star Zone with peace of mind. Although this is a remote location, the resources here are sufficient for you to cultivate to heavenly god-level.

"Yang Ling is already dead, and you need time to mourn as well—but don't stay mired in your emotions. Spend more time on cultivation. When humans are busy, they'll naturally have fewer distracting thoughts. In your free time, if you really don't feel like cultivating, getting Lin Xin and the others to go shopping with you for some distraction wouldn't be a bad idea either."

Lin Huang got up slowly after he finished speaking. "I'll show you around first and then introduce you to everyone."

Yang Ling had genuinely liked Hong Zhuang. However, Lin Huang was not sure if Hong Zhuang had reciprocated Yang Ling's affections. In any case, he did not wish to probe further into the matter.

However, as Yang Ling's friend, he would fulfill Yang Ling's dying wish, which was to take care of Hong Zhuang for him.

After getting Hong Zhuang settled in, Lin Huang began sorting out his thoughts.

Yang Ling's death gave him an even more acute sense of impending danger.

The Raiders were much more powerful than he had expected, as well as more despicable.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, the best way to rid himself of this overhanging sense of danger was to elevate his ability.

"Let me max out the number of god rules for my Godly Right integration first, as soon as possible. That way, as soon as I get the half-step Lord God Territories from Virtuoso, I can refine them right away and elevate to heavenly god-level!"

Although there were other channels he could use to elevate his ability, Lin Huang decided to fill up his god rules to capacity first after some consideration.

His Godly Right had already integrated 1.5 billion god rules; in truth, he was fast approaching his limit.

Moreover, this was not a difficult undertaking—it could be achieved by killing Heavenly Gods.

However, Lin Huang wanted to kill two birds with one stone. Therefore, he pulled up the missions page on the Death Sickle forum and began looking for missions.

Although obtaining god rules would be a little slower when hunting down mission targets, he would be able to gain some handsome rewards from the missions themselves.

To Lin Huang, who needed a massive amount of resources to trade many times for half-step Lord God Territories, everything counted, however small. After all, most people's wealth was accumulated bit by bit like this.

If one did not take on any missions today or tomorrow, when would they be able to accumulate the money needed to purchase a half-step Lord God Territory?

"It would be great if I could take out a mortgage… I'd get one that lasts for a million years so I could pay it back slowly!"

When he thought of just how expensive half-step Lord God Territories were, Lin Huang began yearning a little for the mortgages on Earth.

He collected his thoughts somewhat and looked at the missions page again.

The level of difficulty for Gold Sickle missions was fighting Heavenly Gods.

Generally speaking, either the assassination targets would be Heavenly Gods, or he would come into conflict with heavenly god-level powerhouses while carrying out the mission.

Lin Huang glanced through the missions list and realized that the missions were arranged by the time of publication. The ones that were published later would be listed further up on top.

He changed the sorting order right away, opting to list the missions with the most handsome rewards first.

The missions list changed immediately.

Lin Huang looked over everything again and realized there were very few changes in which missions were listed first.

The mission in the top spot was still the same one, which was to kill a half-step heavenly god-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother. It was published over eight thousand years ago.

In eight thousand years, nobody had ever managed to complete this mission.

Lin Huang skipped over it after a mere glance at the heading and continued scrolling down. He did not even look to see what the reward was.

Killing a half-step heavenly god-level powerhouse was still a tall order for him to pull off in a short time.

Furthermore, this was a half-step heavenly god-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother that might have heavenly god-level guards by her side.

Lin Huang looked at the second mission on the list after skipping over the first one.

It was still a familiar heading, also about killing a Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

To be exact, the mission was to kill a fallen Queen Mother that resided in the Abyss.

This fallen Queen Mother possessed half-step heavenly god-level combat strength too.

Lin Huang skipped over this as well and looked at the third mission.

It was the exact same mission as previously—killing the half-step heavenly god-level Succubus Mia.

He shook his head helplessly and quickly scanned down the list.

He skipped past a dozen or more missions for killing half-step Heavenly Gods and looked at those that had ninth-rank heavenly god-level targets.

"Killing God Capital's King Kong…"

"King Kong, saber cultivator, suspected to be class-5.5, ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength…"

The first mission listed was to kill King Kong.

Lin Huang was familiar with King Kong. He was the most powerful of all the Heavenly Gods in God Capital, with abilities that might be no less than those of Buried Heaven.

He was an overbearing entity who could directly take on half-step heavenly god-level powerhouses in a fight.

Previously, when the Great Heaven Territory had been opened, King Kong had been the leader of God Capital. Lin Huang had met him once at the time.

"This fellow's abilities might very well be on par with Buried Heaven's. Among the Heavenly Gods in the God Territory, his abilities are definitely in the top three ranks." At present, Lin Huang did not think he would be able to fight a battle with King Kong on equal footing.

After skipping over the mission to kill King Kong, he saw yet another familiar name.

"Kill Peerless Overlord from the Combat God Temple…"

"Peerless Overlord, spear cultivator, suspected to be class-5, ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength…"

Peerless Overlord, King Kong, and Buried Heaven were all powerhouses of the same level. The three of them were already at peak heavenly god-level and had been cultivating at ninth-rank heavenly god-level for years in order to break through to lord-level in one fell swoop.

Although a target like this offered extremely handsome rewards, Lin Huang did not consider the mission for the time being.

He resumed scrolling down and finally found a suitable target.

"Killing God Capital's Shen Jue…"

"Shen Jue, saber cultivator, class-5 supreme god-level, ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength…"

"Reward for completion of mission: Pseudo-Dao Weapon x1"

Lin Huang had heard of this Shen Jue individual before.

He ranked No. 7 on the God Territory's Heavenly God Leaderboard.

However, Lin Huang's familiarity with him was not because of the Leaderboard, but because Shen Jue's name frequently appeared on Death Sickle's forum.

This fellow was an utter racist.

He had been born into the largest pure blood clan in the God Territory—the Shen family. Not only that, he was a direct descendent of the Shen family. Therefore, since childhood, he had always possessed a superiority complex, regarding everyone else as beneath him.

His looks were unparalleled, but in character, he was brutal and extreme.

To him, all living beings that were not pure blood Protoss were nothing but animals. They were only fit to be slaves.

What he loved most was to buy slaves of various races and subject them to abuse and torture. After he was done, he would then kill them using various methods.

Unfortunately, due to his status and his abilities, everyone else could not say anything. They could only fume in silence.

"This jerk is also on the missions list." Lin Huang raised his brows. "His abilities should be on par with mine now…"

After some consideration, he accepted the mission.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, accepting easily achieved missions with generous rewards was a matter of course. However, he also felt that more challenging missions afforded him the opportunity to improve.

Besides, this Shen Jue fellow certainly deserved to die!

After accepting the mission to kill Shen Jue, Lin Huang resumed scrolling down the list and came across yet another familiar name.

"Killing God Capital's Shen Yu…"

"Shen Yu, saber cultivator, class-5 supreme god-level, ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength…"

"Reward for completion of mission: Pseudo-Dao Weapon x1"

Shen Yu was Shen Jue's older sister by birth; the pair of them were twins.

Brother and sister had grown up together, and their characters were so similar it was as if they came from the same mold. She and Shen Jue were constantly up to no good, and they would even exchange slaves so that they could torment them further.

Rumor was that Shen Yu had been the one who had first given Shen Jue his taste for slave torture.

Her own abilities were also powerful. She was ranked No. 11 on the God Territory's Heavenly God Leaderboard and could be considered extremely talented.

Without hesitation, Lin Huang accepted that mission too.

After that, he continued perusing the list and accepted over 20 missions at once before closing the missions page.

Mixue Planet was located in the Milky Star Zone. It was a planet covered in snow all year round, and it produced ice honey.

The plants here were extraordinarily resistant to cold, and most of them could bloom even at -80 degrees Celsius.

On this planet lived a very special species of bee—the Ice Bee—that had unique ice crystal scales on its body. They were impervious to cold weather of even -200 degrees Celsius, and the honey they made was remarkably delicious.

The weather and this specialty product were what gave the planet its name.

The most bustling city on Mixue Planet was Ice City.

Currently, Lin Huang was at one of the bubble tea shops there. While patiently waiting for his target to appear, he sipped on an iced tea called Sweetness Tea.

He had accepted twenty-six missions from Death Sickle all in one go and had also marked out all the mission targets' coordinates one by one. He had then planned out his route based on how easily accessible the location was, from the easiest to the hardest.

Milky Star Zone was less than thirty thousand light-years away from the Devil Hunter Star Zone. A dimensional portal would take him straight there.

Therefore, the target on Mixue Planet naturally became the first on Lin Huang's list.

This round, his target was Este, the governor of Ice City, who was also the master of the entire Milky Star Zone domain.

His main cultivation path was ice elemental truth. In terms of abilities, he was ranked No. 97 on the God Territory's Heavenly God Leaderboard and could be considered a powerhouse.

He had a particular obsession for freezing living people into ice sculptures which he then displayed in his showroom. In his ice sculpture collection, there were not only Protoss and humans but also beings from many other tribes. He had over a thousand of these sculptures.

As a result, he took great pride in his collection and had designated himself an "ice sculpture artist".

Lin Huang wrapped himself in a heavy trench coat, not because he was cold, but because everyone else was wearing thick clothes.

He sipped on his iced tea, waiting patiently for Este to show up.

According to the information he had received, Este would come to this shop to get iced tea every morning.

Halfway through his drink, Lin Huang slowly glanced up and saw his mission target gradually coming closer. A faint smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.

A red gleam suddenly flared at the opening of his sleeve.

The next instant, the ice-blue bearded Este suddenly stopped in his tracks and toppled to the ground immediately after.

Nobody noticed that the storage ring on Este's finger had quietly disappeared without a trace, along with the God Territory in his body.

At the same time, Lin Huang had also vanished into thin air.

The powerhouse who was ranked No. 97 on the Heavenly God Leaderboard was disposed of within seconds, just like that.

In all honesty, Lin Huang would have certainly found it difficult to kill Este in a direct confrontation.

However, he had used a telekinetic flying dagger to launch a stealth attack. At such close proximity, given the flying dagger's speed, Este had been unable to dodge at all.

Furthermore, Lin Huang had compounded this telekinetic flying dagger—a top-grade god sequence relic—with eighteen levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule.

Even if it had been Buried Heaven or King Kong, they might not have had time to react either if they encountered a stealth attack like this from such close proximity.

After taking care of the first target, Lin Huang immediately withdrew and left without any hesitation.

"Second target, Gu Ming…"

After killing his first target, Lin Huang had no plans to rest. He immediately headed to the location of his second target and began his second hunt…

On the first day after accepting the missions, he successfully killed seventeen targets within a short twenty-four hours.

Each target was killed by a single telekinetic flying dagger strike. Lin Huang did not have to use a second telekinetic flying dagger on any of them.

He killed seventeen ninth-rank Heavenly Gods within a day; thirteen of them were also in the top one hundred rankings on the Heavenly God Leaderboard. Lin Huang killed all of them within seconds!

This made all the major organizations panic.

Many grade-5 and even grade-6 organizations felt as if they were confronting a mortal enemy and were afraid that their organizations would be targeted. After all, ninth-rank Heavenly Gods possessed the highest combat strength within their organizations. Losing these Heavenly Gods would be a crippling blow.

All the major organizations were speculating as to who this assassin might be.

Naturally, the news spread to Death Sickle as well. Very soon, the members in Death Sickle discovered that someone had accepted many difficult missions on the missions list. Furthermore, the seventeen people who had died were all targets of these particular missions. The missions had yet to be submitted, though, so they had no idea who exactly might be behind them.

However, many people in Death Sickle's inner circle suspected that Buried Heaven was responsible.

This was because thirteen of the targets were in the top one hundred ranks on the Heavenly God Leaderboard, and they had been killed almost instantly. As far as everyone knew, out of all Death Sickle's Gold Sickles, Buried Heaven was the only one who could pull this off.

After a busy first day, Lin Huang did not slow down on the second day either.

He rapidly disposed of his eighteenth, nineteenth, and other subsequent targets.

By dawn of the third day, Lin Huang had completed twenty-four missions.

Only two targets remained—Shen Jue and Shen Yu.

The twins' territory was located within the core zone of the God Territory—a fiefdom that God Capital had allocated to them.

This was also the most difficult thing about the mission.

God Capital's headquarters was guarded by a Lord. Not only that, there were several half-step Lords who were stationed across God Capital's various territories.

Shen Jue and Shen Yu's fiefdom was not far from the territory of one of God Capital's half-step Lords.

Therefore, the greatest difficulty in killing the pair lay not in their inherently powerful abilities but in the fact that Lin Huang had to dispatch them swiftly and then escape from God Capital's territory.

Based on the information provided by Death Sickle, Lin Huang had to kill both Shen Jue and Shen Yu within three seconds and then teleport out in order to successfully complete this mission.

If not, the half-step Lord from the next territory would hasten to the scene.

Furthermore, once the half-step Lord had sprung into action, the Lord who was guarding God Capital would send his consciousness over right away.

In other words, even if the half-step Lord powerhouse were the one making a move, Lin Huang would die on the spot if he were unable to escape in time.

'I only have one chance to attack. Whether I manage to kill them or not, I have to leave immediately.' Upon entering Gemini, Lin Huang had gone into complete seclusion and was now cracking his head over how to complete this mission.

He was also aware that his two-day killing spree had alerted the various major organizations, including God Capital, which was a grade-7 organization.

After all, the ones killed were all ninth-rank heavenly god-level, and most of them were well-known figures on the Heavenly God Leaderboard. Not only that, they had been instantly killed and completely unable to defend themselves.

The several grade-7 organizations were rather worried that their young potentials would be targeted.

After all, individuals who had been singled out for nurturing all had the potential to become Lords and were immensely talented.

The siblings, Shen Jue and Shen Yu, happened to be young potentials of this sort.

God Capital was a gathering ground for pure blood Protoss, and most members looked down on other tribes. Theoretically, they did not think that there was anything wrong with the twins. At most, they thought their behavior was rather cruel; no one disciplined them either.

God Capital's upper echelons were not unaware of the things the pair had done behind their backs. They merely turned a blind eye and acted as if they saw nothing.

This was why over the years, the siblings had become increasingly unreasonable and ruthless.

However, as far as Lin Huang was concerned, the duo's behavior was completely unforgivable.

Gemini was where siblings Shen Jue and Shen Yu were stationed.

Since many ninth-rank geniuses on the Heavenly God Leaderboard's ranking list had been killed one after the other, the twins' movements had been curtailed by God Capital's upper echelons. The siblings had been unable to leave Gemini for the past few days.

God Capital's upper echelons thought it would be the safest for them to stay on Gemini.

The minute something went awry, the half-step Lord would be able to get there at once.

Not only that, God Capital was now regulating all entries and departures from Gemini. Any powerhouses above heavenly god-level who wished to enter Gemini would have to submit a complete set of identification documents for review; they would only be allowed entry if they passed. For high-level Heavenly Gods and half-step Lords, the process was especially stringent.

However, none of this had anything to do with Lin Huang. No matter what, he still looked like a True God.

In God Capital's eyes, he was the completely harmless type.

Lin Huang disguised himself prominently as a tourist over the next few days and visited various tourist attractions. In reality, though, he was secretly gathering information while waiting patiently for the chance to carry out the assassinations.

Seven days passed as he waited…

In the Gemini God Palace on Gemini, a lady in a white dress and purple stilettos was standing on the back of a muscular Protoss.

The Protoss retained his human form and was at least three meters tall. His body was knotted with muscles, and he was clad only in a pair of underpants. At the moment, he was crawling on the ground on all fours like a dog, letting the lady stand on his back as she pleased. Around his neck was a collar with a black chain attached to it. The lady was holding the other end of the chain.

"Three Two Six, go to Shen Jue's courtyard."

The muscular Protoss immediately began crawling, going as fast as the wind.

Judging by his speed alone, his abilities were definitely those of a heavenly god-level powerhouse.

However, this powerful being was not only chained like a dog, but he was also submitting to the lady's orders.

It only took a moment for the Protoss to arrive at a particular courtyard, bearing the lady on his back.

However, once he got to the entrance, he stopped and prostrated himself on the ground.

The lady in the white dress stepped forward on her stilettos and trod on his head, taking her time to hop down slowly.

She then casually fastened the chain around the neck of a stone sculpture at the entrance, then went through the gate.

After seeing the lady in the white dress through the gate, the muscled Protoss glanced at the length of the chain between him and the stone sculpture. It did not seem long enough for him to sit up, so he crawled two steps forward to try and shorten the distance. When he saw that the chain had loosened significantly, he slowly got up and tried to sit down.

However, before he could be fully seated, the chain tightened completely—it was not long enough.

He hurriedly stopped trying to get up, worried that he might accidentally break the chain. Once again, he lay down and prostrated himself helplessly on the ground.

In reality, the chain was looped around the stone sculpture several times. He could absolutely have unwound the chain twice, and it would be sufficient length for him to be able to sit. However, he did not dare to touch it at all.

The lady in the white dress and purple stilettos went into the courtyard and slipped quickly into a large palace.

In the deep recesses of the palace was a naked lady tied to a metal stand.

She had seven foxtails growing from her lower back—she was obviously was a member of the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe.

The Nine-tailed Fox Tribe was part of the Protoss. A nine-tailed lord-level powerhouse had even emerged previously, and they had attained the rank of a grade-7 organization.

However, since the death of that particular Lord, the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe had been utterly reduced to a grade-6 organization. Not only that, for thousands of years, they were ranked at the bottom of all the grade-6 organizations.

Despite their decline, theoretically, members of the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe should not have been reduced to the level of slaves.

Clearly, this nine-tailed fox had not been obtained via legal channels.

"What? It's been over a month now, and this girl still hasn't yielded?" The lady in the white dress seemed to be enjoying the show. She was watching a man who bore ninety percent resemblance to her whipping the nine-tailed fox lady with a whip imbued with a thunder god sequence chain. Not only was the lady in white devoid of sympathy, but she also seemed eager, as if she would like to have a go with the whip herself.

"Her God's soul is already ninth-rank, and she has immense force of will. I've tried countless ways over the past few months, but the results are insignificant. All I can do is torture her slowly." Upon hearing that, the man wielded the whip twice more before stopping. He turned around and looked at the lady in the white dress, "However, there will come a day when I'll make her kneel on the ground and lick my toes willingly and obediently."

In appearance, he was extremely handsome—he could even be considered pretty. If he were on Earth, he would certainly outshine all the young, pretty-boy celebrities. The white suit he wore set off his charisma, making him look extraordinarily refined.

However, those who were acquainted with him knew that although he looked good on the surface, there was nothing else good about him. He was rotten on the inside—even more odious than the Disasters in the Abyss.

"Why did you come here today?"

"You're my brother. Can't I visit you when I have nothing to do?" The lady in the white dress said with a smile.

"If you're not here for anything in particular, I'll resume what I'm doing," the man in the white suit said and raised the whip in his hand.

"Aren't you bored after being confined for a week?" The lady in the white dress asked in exasperation.

"The old geezers won't let us go out. What can I do?" The man in the white suit more or less guessed the purpose of his older sister's visit.

"I heard there'll be good stuff at the auction tonight," the lady in the white dress commented.

"What you think is good might not be something I find acceptable." The man in the white suit feigned indifference.

"Do you think I don't know your taste? Don't worry, there are things that will suit you."

Only then did the man in the white suit turn around and look at his sister. "What about the old geezers?"

"It's not like we're leaving Gemini. We can't stay in all the time. It's been a week!" The lady in the white dress sounded rather annoyed as she spoke, "Do they think we're pet birds they can lock in a cage?!"

"That's true. It's been a week, and there's been no more news about other Heavenly Gods being assassinated. I wonder what those old geezers are worried about." The man in the white suit was not very happy either. "Who would be foolhardy enough to barge into God Capital territory to kill someone?!"

"That's right!" The lady in the white dress agreed, "The minute the half-step Lord shows up here, the Lord would sense it. The assassin wouldn't even have a chance to attack. If they were heavenly god-level and we joined forces to fight, even if we're no match for Buried Heaven and King Kong, it wouldn't be hard to drag things out for a couple of hours. Besides, it will only take three to five seconds for the half-step Lord to get here."

The man in the white suit abruptly fell silent. Naturally, he knew that his sister was exaggerating their abilities. He had seen King Kong fight; he was very much aware that they would not be able to hold out for an hour even if he joined forces with his sister. In fact, it would be hard to last for even half an hour. However, he also felt it should not be a problem for them to hold out until the half-step Lord arrived.

"Given how vigilant that bunch of old higher-ups is, they probably aren't going to let us out for at least a month." The man in the white suit thought this over. "If we want to go out, we'll have to sneak out."

"I think so too." the lady in the white dress nodded in agreement, "Anyway, we're not leaving Gemini. Even if they find out later on, at most, they'll just give us an earful."

"Alright, that's set then. After dinner, we'll each leave a clone behind to cover up for our absence, then we'll meet up directly at the entrance to the black market." The man in the white suit officially finalized the plans for their outing.

Lin Huang headed straight to the black market after dinner.

There was an underground auction there tonight.

He had heard that there would be slaves of various tribes among the items up for bid.

Lin Huang knew that the siblings, Shen Jue and Shen Yu, would be there.

It had been a week since the consecutive killings of the Heavenly Gods who were on the Heavenly God Leaderboard's ranking list.

Throughout the week, this incident had stirred heated discussions everywhere.

At first, most people speculated that Buried Heaven was responsible. However, someone confirmed that Buried Heaven had gone into the Abyss with an expedition of troops and had not come out yet.

There were also several people who thought it might be Xiu Mu from Death Sickle, who had risen to fame recently. However, others quickly shot this speculation down.

After all, although Lin Huang had obtained the highest combat results under the guise of Xiu Mu a couple of months ago, he had only killed third-rank heavenly god-level powerhouses. Furthermore, he was only a True God.

Many of the dead victims were geniuses from various organizations and had been on the Heavenly God Leaderboard's ranking list. Anyone who could make it into the Heavenly God Leaderboard rankings was the cream of the crop among ninth-rank Heavenly Gods. Their abilities were beyond those of any ordinary ninth-rank Heavenly God. Any individual who could kill these people almost instantly had to be either a half-step Lord or a peak heavenly god-level powerhouse like Buried Heaven.

Many people had no doubts about Xiu Mu's ability once he elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level in the future. They even felt that he might surpass Buried Heaven.

However, logically speaking, it was less than half a year since Xiu Mu had first shown his face in public. No matter how talented he was, it was impossible for his combat strength to advance a whole level within such a short time and elevate to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

The name Xiu Mu merely came to everyone's mind for a second and was then immediately buried and forgotten.

Anyway, there were other assassin organizations in the God Territory as well, apart from Death Sickle. Not only that, but the assassin might also be from outside the God Territory.

After several days of enthusiastic discussion, Lin Huang's temporary pause in the killings caused the popularity of the topic to gradually die down.

On the internet, with its constant information explosion, everyone had short memories. They were easily distracted by new things as well.

This was what Lin Huang wanted because he knew that if the topic grew more popular, it would only make it more difficult for him to kill his last two targets.

After entering the auction grounds, he quickly found himself a seat.

After sitting down, he began looking around.

This sort of illegal underground auction happened from time to time with no fixed schedule. Each time, the venue would either be temporarily erected, or rented to avoid the event being reported.

The auction venue in Gemini's black market was not very large and could only hold three thousand people. There was no VIP room either.

It was just an open hall with thirty rows of seats in total, with one hundred seats per row.

Lin Huang's seat was in the last row—the thirtieth row—and was beside the walkway, closest to the door.

One of the reasons why he picked this seat was that if anyone were sitting behind him, they would notice something unusual if he made any moves, however small. Another reason was that this was the most convenient seat for leaving the hall.

He chose to carry out the assassination inside the venue, as there were many uncertain factors if he were to attempt the killings while his targets were on their way to the auction.

If the two targets did not depart at the same time, he could only kill one of them and would have to give up on his second target.

No such issue existed if the assassination took place in the venue itself because the siblings would meet there sooner or later. All he had to do was to wait patiently for the two of them to appear.

Moreover, during this period when everyone was jittery, Shen Jue and Shen Yu's status and potential in God Capital meant they would certainly have powerful guardians covertly following them.

In a place with a crowd, it would also be easier to distract these guardians.

Lin Huang's arrival at the venue was considered relatively early; after he went in, more people began showing up rapidly.

Seeing that the first row was fast filling up, Lin Huang became increasingly uncertain whether or not Shen Jue and Shen Yu would come.

After all, the guest list was completely confidential, and he was only guessing that they would make an appearance since there were slaves at the auction this time. He was not one hundred percent certain that they would.

Right as the auction was about to officially start and the auctioneer was waiting to go on stage, two figures finally showed up late.

These two individuals were a lady in a white dress and a man in a white suit.

Both of them looked ninety percent similar to each other. In face and form, they were so utterly perfect that no one could find anything to nitpick.

Their appearance soon attracted the attention of everyone in the venue, including Lin Huang's.

These two were no other than the targets he intended to kill—the siblings Shen Jue and Shen Yu!

Despite having attracted everyone's attention as soon as they showed up, the twins' expressions betrayed no signs of surprise, as if they were already used to such reactions.

Shen Yu held onto Shen Jue's arm, and they slowly made their way to the last two seats on the first row. They occupied the two best seats in the entire auction.

However, nobody objected.

On Gemini, even tourists were aware of who the siblings were.

Lin Huang smirked faintly. He might well be the happiest person in the venue to see the brother and sister.

The thing he had been most worried about for his plan this time was if the pair did not make an appearance. If they did not come, he would have wasted his efforts. Not only that, he had no idea when he would have another opportunity to make his move.

To Lin Huang, the twins showing up now was the equivalent of completing half his assassination mission.

Lin Huang did not attack right away when he saw the siblings taking their seats. Instead, he waited patiently.

The auction had yet to begin, so there was no one to distract the crowd's attention from him. It was not the best time to attack.

After Shen Jue and Shen Yu entered, the auctioneer checked the time, then made his way on stage.

After some opening remarks, the underground auction officially began!

"Let's look at the first item we have up for bids today!" As the auctioneer spoke, he pulled off the red cloth that covered the item, revealing a suit of golden armor.

Lin Huang could not see what was so special about this item. It was just a top-grade god sequence relic, and the craftsmanship could not be considered particularly exquisite. He had no idea why it would be sold as part of an underground auction.

However, he noticed that many people seemed to be interested in this suit of armor.

Just when he was having doubts, the auctioneer finally began introducing the item.

"I'm sure many of our guests can tell that this is a suit of General's Armor from the Combat God Temple. Even in the Combat God Temple, only the top Heavenly Gods have the right to purchase it. Under normal circumstances, something like this would be prohibited from being displayed anywhere outside of the Combat God Temple. Therefore, in the entire God Territory, apart from the Combat God Temple, it's said that only three people own such a collectible.

"I wonder which of our guests will be able to obtain this collectible and become the legendary fourth person to own one…"

After listening to the auctioneer's description of the item up for bid, Lin Huang suddenly realized that the suit of armor was contraband goods from the Combat God Temple.

Some powerful organizations possessed exclusive equipment that was strictly for their own internal use. This set of armor was clearly one of these items.

As such, it was no longer a god sequence relic but a limited edition collectible.

As potential purchasers kept shouting bids continuously, the price skyrocketed. Within ten seconds, it had gone up to triple the price of regular top-grade god sequence relic battle armor and was still getting increasingly higher.

All Lin Huang could say was that the joys of the rich were things one could not even begin to imagine.

"I believe many men here will be interested in the second collectible we have today…"

The auctioneer removed the red cloth covering the display case. Within the transparent case was an exquisite bottle the size of a human palm.

Lin Huang stared at the bottle for a little bit. It was nothing special—just a regular jade bottle. The patterns carved onto it added to its aesthetics, but they were actually divine patterns for sealing off its aura.

However, Lin Huang could obviously sense that many of the men present began to breathe more heavily once they saw this collectible.

They must be coveting whatever the bottle contained.

Right as Lin Huang was puzzling over this, the auctioneer finally announced the name of this collectible—the Desire Elixir!

Lin Huang still looked confused after he heard the name of the item. He had never heard of such a thing before.

Fortunately, the auctioneer seemed to have taken into consideration that there might be people who knew nothing about the item's provenance or its use, so he launched into an explanation.

"The Desire Elixir is a rare and very special potion. This bottle that you see before you came into the auction house's hands by chance. There are no reliable channels for obtaining it.

"There are two main reasons for this elixir's rarity. One is that there are very few apothecaries who know the formula. At present, in the entire God Territory, there are perhaps only two or three individuals who can formulate this potion. The other reason is that its main ingredient is the blood of Abyssal Desires, which is extremely difficult to obtain!"

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard Abyssal Desires being mentioned.

A Desire was a type of Disaster derived from extreme desire and Abyssal energy.

'Can we really use an elixir made from the blood of something like that?' Lin Huang had already guessed the so-called Desire Elixir's general function without the need for further explanation from the auctioneer.

No matter how thoroughly the apothecary had purified the elixir from Abyssal energy and negative emotions, its ingredients alone meant that it could not be auctioned or sold legally.

It could only be put up for bid at underground auctions.

A short while later, the auctioneer began describing the elixir's powers after he had finished boasting about its rarity and how difficult it was to produce.

He added many exaggerated embellishments, but they were not too far from Lin Huang's speculations.

This potion was an extremely powerful aphrodisiac with strong hallucinogenic properties.

The auctioneer even admitted that it could be slightly addictive.

However, the word 'slightly' made Lin Huang scoff. If this could cause even half-step Lords to become addicted, one could imagine how tremendously habit-forming such a thing could be for less powerful Heavenly Gods and True Gods.

Even if one did not take into account the main ingredients and focused only on the elixir's function, it was inconceivable that the various major organizations would allow this to be sold legally through the proper channels.

What made Lin Huang speechless was that Shen Jue and Shen Yu also joined in the bidding wars, even bidding against each other a few times.

In the end, the two seemed to come to some sort of agreement and stopped bidding against each other.

Shen Jue managed to obtain the Desire Elixir at a high price, equivalent to that of a Pseudo-Dao Weapon.

This made Lin Huang greatly covet the storage rings the twins were wearing.

He knew that they were definitely wealthy, based on their extravagant bids.

After the second item sold, the auction continued.

The subsequent items that were put up for sale made Lin Huang realize why this was an underground auction.

Among the auction items were limbs of unpurified Abyssal creatures, exclusive items obtained from major organizations, including grade-7 ones, as well as strange, peculiar cursed items. There were even the remains of half-step Lords from sources unknown…

The entire auction went on in a heated frenzy, with endless bids being shouted out.

To avoid suspicion, Lin Huang bid numerous times as well.

He bid on exclusive items from the Combat God Temple and Death Sickle, two cursed items, and the remains of three half-step Lords.

In truth, he was genuinely interested in the remains of the three half-step Lords. This was because, according to what the auctioneer had said, the God Territories within their bodies were intact and had not been stripped away.

However, in the end, all his bids were unsuccessful. He was completely unable to go up against the others.

As for the remnants of the three half-step Lords, Shen Jue bought the female remains, while Shen Yu bought those of the two males.

Both of them bid so high it was ridiculous.

The female half-step Lord's remains were eventually sold for the price equivalent of seven Pseudo-Dao Weapons.

Shen Yu's bid was the price equivalent of six Pseudo-Dao Weapons for the two male remains.

Everyone else could not compete with them at all.

Watching the pair and their starting bids, Lin Huang could not help exclaiming secretly in his mind, 'Are Pseudo-Dao Weapons worth so little this year?!"

After the remains of the three half-step Lords had been sold off, the auction finally entered the next session—the auction of living creatures.

As soon as it began, a huge case was brought on stage.

The auctioneer removed the red cloth, revealing an inky-black monster sealed in a transparent crystal cylinder.

Lin Huang's pupils contracted slightly upon seeing this.

He had come across such a monster in the Abyss not long ago. It was an abyssal monster called the Ink Killer.

Its combat strength was usually that of a high-level Heavenly God, and its main cultivation path was Shadow Elemental Truth. It was extremely proficient in the art of killing by stealth.

Although the one on stage had been sealed within the crystal, its aura was still able to seep through faintly. It was obviously still alive.

Lin Huang could sense that this Ink Killer's combat strength was only seventh-rank.

Although its combat strength was low, in the Abyss, this creature could severely harm even a ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse if it managed to successfully ambush them.

A living creature like this was most certainly a dangerous item!

Lin Huang felt that anyone who wished to purchase this would be just asking for death.

Even an Imperial Censor could not tame this creature.

That was because a monster like this harbored only murderous intent within its mind, and it possessed only partial consciousness. All living things were its prey.

However, Lin Huang had not expected that there would be successive waves of bids, even after the auctioneer had introduced the item.

Subsequently, he watched, somewhat speechless, at the abyssal monsters being auctioned off one by one. He had no idea what those people were going to do with the creatures they had purchased.

'Do they have nothing better to do except purchase Abyssal creatures, then feed themselves and their families to them?' Lin Huang could not help secretly ridiculing the bidders.

After the auction of Abyssal creatures ended, the auction of living creatures went on.

It was already the early hours of the morning now, but the auction did not seem like it would be ending any time soon.

Lin Huang continued waiting patiently. In truth, there were a few times when he had wanted to make his move, but he had restrained himself in the end.

This was because even when the remains of the half-step Lords came up for auction, there was no upsurge in the twins' emotions.

If he attacked under such circumstances, it might alert the siblings.

He wanted to wait for an opportunity when the pair's attention was fully focused on the item up for bids.

Since Lin Huang had withheld making his move, the auction proceeded smoothly to the last session at around one in the morning—the auction of slaves!

Lin Huang noticed that even before the session began, Shen Yu and Shen Jue's behavior was clearly different from before. Even their sitting posture was no longer indolent.

'Here's my chance…' Lin Huang's lips curled up in the slightest of smirks.

Many of those present started breathing heavily when they saw the auction item that was being brought on stage.

A lot of them had come to this underground auction specifically for the slaves.

The siblings Shen Jue and Shen Yu were two such individuals. They had bid on other things just because those items happened to be there.

On stage, the auctioneer quickly removed the red cloth from the crystal display case.

Sealed inside the crystal was a living female being with a snake's tail. Her upper body was no different from that of a human female and extremely impressive to boot.

She was completely naked, with only a line of sigils encircling her neck. This was for controlling slaves and was concealable. The auction house had intentionally revealed it to show the guests that this slave was under restriction and controlled.

What primarily caught Lin Huang's attention was that the snake lady's tail was golden.

'They managed to capture something like this as well?'

He could not help giving vent to a secret exclamation about how capable the auction's organizers were.

"The item being auctioned this round is a snake woman," the auctioneer said calmly upon seeing how stirred the crowd was, "I'm sure all our guests have noticed that this isn't an ordinary snake woman, but a class-5 supreme god-level Golden-scaled Snake Woman.

"There's a secret in the Snake Woman Tribe that most of the guests here might not be aware of. That is, the Snake Queen of each successive generation in the Tribe is selected from among the princesses. How then are these princesses selected?"

The auctioneer paused and looked around. He only answered the question, smiling, after seeing that nobody volunteered a reply.

"There's only one selection requirement for the princesses in the Snake Woman Tribe—they have to be class-5 supreme god-level! It has nothing to do with their combat strength or their clan. As long as they're class-5 supreme god-level, they will acquire the title of 'Princess' right away and become a candidate for succession to the Snake Queen's throne.

"If the Snake Queen dies and there's only one princess, she doesn't even have to go through any selection—she'll directly inherit the position of Snake Queen.

"In other words, we're auctioning off a princess of the Snake Woman Tribe. Who knows, she even might be the future Snake Queen!"

Lin Huang felt he had learned something new when he heard this. It was also his first time hearing the selection rules for choosing the Snake Queen's successor.

The crowd went absolutely wild.

Everyone understood the underlying meaning of what the auctioneer was saying.

If they could obtain this Snake Woman princess and come up with a suitable plan—for instance, killing off the Snake Queen and the other Snake Woman princesses—they could have their slave inherit the Snake Queen's position. This would give them control over the entire Snake Woman Tribe.

Although the population of the Snake Woman Tribe was low and they were not considered a major tribe in the God Territory, there might just be a half-step Lord in the tribe—perhaps even more than one.

Gaining control of a tribe like this would be the equivalent of controlling a top grade-6 organization.

Naturally, Lin Huang caught the hidden meaning behind the auctioneer's words. However, he was not thinking about the affairs of the Snake Woman Tribe—rather, he was considering the situation in the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

Ever since Kylie's elevation to class-6, she had become the queen of the entire Nephilic Judge Tribe. In actuality, this also meant that Lin Huang secretly controlled the fate of the entire Nephilic Judge Tribe.

The Nephilic Judge Tribe was much more powerful than the Snake Woman Tribe.

Among the numerous pieces of information she had passed on to Lin Huang, Kylie had conveyed a specific detail to him once.

There were only three visible half-step Lords in the Nephilic Judge Tribe, but the actual number might be double that. Furthermore, there might also be still-living lord-level patriarchs; it was just that they had not made an appearance in this era.

The abilities that this tribe displayed publicly were just the tip of the iceberg.

This was also why Lin Huang had dismissed the idea of using a summons to compel Kylie to return. Instead, he had agreed to Bloody's plan, which was to have Kylie remain with the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

Thanks to the auctioneer stirring up the crowd, the bidding for this first slave was extraordinarily intense.

The siblings Shen Yu and Shen Jue were bidding continuously.

However, they were not the only wealthy ones present at the auction. There were also several others who kept bidding against the twins and were not willing to give up.

One lady even raised the bid to the price of a Dao Weapon, scaring off a few competitors.

It was not just the people present who were puzzled; even Lin Huang was confused at this.

A price like that was enough to buy a half-step lord-level slave.

This Golden-scaled Snake Woman was only third-rank heavenly god-level, after all. However incredible her potential, one would still need to invest in resources to train her.

As for what the auctioneer had said about controlling the entire Snake Woman Tribe through her, it was utterly ridiculous.

The Snake Queen of the present era was a half-step Lord. According to the succession rules for the Snake Queen that the auctioneer had described, the Snake Queen currently in power should be at least class-5 supreme god-level.

The abilities of a class-5 supreme god-level half-step Lord would certainly be outstanding even among half-step Lords. How could she be assassinated so easily?

Those who did possess the ability to kill the Snake Queen would not covet the Snake Woman Tribe either.

Lin Huang could understand why Shen Yu and Shen Jue were bidding. After all, the pair loved to collect slaves.

However, he could not understand why the lady sitting in the same row as him was bidding so furiously.

Could it be that this lady had the same interests as the sibling?

However, in terms of wealth, in the end, it was still the twins who were more solid financially.

When the lady saw that the siblings were still bidding after she had raised the price to that of a Dao Weapon, she dropped out and did not continue.

The siblings seemed to have come to a quick agreement, and Shen Jue raised the bid for the Golden-scaled Snake Woman to the price of a Dao Weapon and two Pseudo-Dao Weapons.

Just when the auctioneer was about to announce that the bid had been successful, an incident suddenly occurred in the venue.

The lady in the same row as Lin Huang—the one who had been bidding—suddenly made a move. She thrust a hand out and made a snatch at the crystal that contained the Golden-scaled Snake Woman.

Even Lin Huang's pupils contracted when he saw her claws. She was clearly a half-step Lord.

At that moment, a hand extended out of thin air on the stage and swung a punch at the lady's sharp claws.

It was another half-step Lord!

Right as everyone's attention was focused on the two half-step Lords, Lin Huang immediately went into action without any hesitation.

Two blood-red gleams shot out from his sleeve like faint, almost imperceptible electric arcs, heading straight for Shen Jue and Shen Yu.

The two half-step Lords immediately became aware of the covert assassin within their midst—Lin Huang. The lady ignored him, while the man who held her in check wanted to attempt a rescue. However, seeing that the lady wanted to seize the opportunity and circumvent him, he withdrew the hand he had extended.

The two half-step Lords started fighting once more.

Since everyone present was focused on the two half-step Lords, nobody else had noticed Lin Huang's attack at all.

Shen Yu and Shen Jue were craning their necks to watch the battle as well. By the time death threatened them, even if they had wanted to react, it was already too late.

This time, within Lin Huang's eighteen compounded levels of sequence power, not only were there multiple speed-type powers but there were also two concealment-type powers. Only when the attack presented itself right before Shen Jue and Shen Yu was its murderous intent revealed.

Two telekinetic flying daggers with eighteen compounded levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule—both weapons on par with top-grade god sequence relics —pierced through the sibling's heads like lightning bolts.

Almost at the same time, Lin Huang immediately appeared in a flash beside the two bodies. He extended multiple telekinetic threads, picking up the two headless corpses so he could put them in his storage space.

However, at this point, the half-step Lord at the auction finally had a moment to strike at Lin Huang with his palm.

"You stay right where you are!"

However, Lin Huang smirked, "You can't make me."

The next instant, he suddenly crushed a card.

A golden saber gleam consolidated out of thin air before him. It was only a meter long and looked nothing out of the ordinary.

Of course, the saber gleam was not Lin Huang's technique; he had replicated it using a Skill Card. It was the last trump card Saber9 had used when he killed Nine Gloom—the attack that had been triggered using the survival measures left behind by his Primordium.

Since the power of the attack remained below lord-level, the grade-5 Skill Card authorization that Lin Huang possessed happened to be able to replicate it, so he did just that.

In actuality, aside from Saber9's attack, Lin Huang had also replicated the attack from Virtuoso's survival measures.

He had done that to prevent a situation like this from happening.

He had never thought it would actually be put to use.

The golden saber gleam collided with the half-step Lord's palm print, stirring up a terrifying energy storm.

"Is this fellow a half-step Lord as well?!"

Amid the two half-step Lords' astonishment, Lin Huang's figure had already vanished with the two headless corpses…

After killing the siblings Shen Yu and Shen Jue, Lin Huang randomly located a Death Sickle branch and submitted the missions. After that, he returned to the Devil Hunter Star Zone straight away.

As soon as he arrived at the Devil Hunter Star Zone, he immediately passed the storage rings he had obtained over the last few days to Hong Zhuang so she could unlock them.

Most of the great world's storage equipment technology was copied from the human world. The God Territory was no exception.

Even if the Goldfinger's capabilities had been significantly reduced, to Hong Zhuang—who had inherited Yang Ling's Goldfinger—unlocking dimensional equipment like this could more or less be considered the easiest task of all.

In less than half an hour, she had unlocked all thirty-four storage rings.

Throughout the entire process, Hong Zhuang did not once use her Divine Telekinesis to discover what exactly these storage rings contained.

She knew that her current position was awkward in the extreme. After all, the few occasions she had met Lin Huang in the past were probably not entirely pleasant as far as he was concerned. Now that she was under his protection, it was only natural that she wanted to show her worth.

She genuinely did not covet the items in the storage rings.

She knew that she would not lack for cultivation resources at all, now that she was staying in the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Therefore, she did not so much as even glance at whatever these valuable storage rings might contain.

After receiving the unlocked storage rings, Lin Huang returned to his own courtyard.

Here, a quaint, antique house with three floors had been designated for his exclusive use.

In terms of interior size, it did not seem very big—the three floors only added up to three hundred square meters or so. In reality, however, this was a top-grade dimensional god sequence relic. It was just that the interior and exterior had been decorated to look like a Chinese villa.

Lin Huang entered the house and sat down on the sofa right away. He took out all thirty-four storage rings and placed them on the coffee table. He then began checking through them one by one.

As he did so, the expression on his face became increasingly peculiar.

This was not because he had gained very little—it was because the profits obtained from this round of missions were far too astounding!

Of the twenty-six targets he had killed, eighteen of them were ranked on the God Territory's Heavenly God Leaderboard. The eight of them who were not on the Leaderboard were either from major organizations or were members of major clans.

The value of the items in almost every storage ring far surpassed Lin Huang's expectations.

"I thought Shen Yu and Shen Jue were extra wealthy because they were direct Protoss descendants in God Capital. I had no idea even grade-5 and grade-6 elders would have such an extensive array of collector's items!"

Naturally, out of all the storage rings, it was the siblings' collections that were the most astonishing.

Lin Huang felt that the twins' net worth might even have surpassed some half-step Lords.

Since the Gemini auction did not require immediate payment per item, and a lump sum would be paid after the entire auction had ended, the siblings had not paid for the items they had successfully made a bid on.

In the twins' storage rings, Lin Huang saw not one, but two Dao Weapons and close to thirty Pseudo-Dao Weapons. There were also over two hundred top-grade god sequence relics… that was not even counting the staggering piles of Divine Crystals and various other energy crystals.

What shocked Lin Huang the most was that there was also a half-step lord-level God's Dead Body Puppet in Shen Jue's storage ring.

This seemed like it might be a treasure that God Capital had given the siblings as a life-saving measure. Unfortunately, at the auction earlier, Shen Jue had been killed instantly before he even had time to use it.

While Lin Huang returned to the Devil Hunter Star Zone and leisurely inventoried his loot, the entire God Territory was already in an uproar.

The news of the twins Shen Yu and Shen Jue being killed in Gemini by a half-step Lord spread like wildfire throughout the entire God Territory in less than half an hour.

One must know that the siblings were powerhouses who were high on the ranking list of the God Territory's Heavenly God Leaderboard. One was ranked No. 9, the other No. 11.

They could almost be considered peak entities among those at heavenly god-level.

However, these two powerhouses had been instantly killed. Not only that, they had been assassinated as a half-step Lord tried to intervene.

Rumor had it that the individual responsible was a half-step Lord saber cultivator.

The incident had even galvanized God Capital's Lords into action!

Furthermore, God Capital was offering a substantial reward for capturing the killer.

According to the rules of the God Territory, Lords and half-step Lords could not simply attack Heavenly Gods where and when they pleased.

This was also to prevent confrontations between those of ultimate combat strength within the God Territory.

After all, if conflict of this level broke out, the God Territory might end up with dead half-step Lords or even Lords. It would be an immense loss for the entire God Territory.

Furthermore, preventing Lords and half-step Lords from attacking Heavenly Gods was considered something of a safeguard for top heavenly god-level powerhouses. This would allow the God Territory to gain more half-step Lords and even Lords in the future.

In reality, to powerhouses who had mastered Dao seal power, combat sans the use of Dao seal power was child's play to them. No matter how many conflicts they had with each other, those were just minor flare-ups that would not harm the God Territory at all.

Although all the major organizations had an assassination list, the Lords or half-step Lords basically would not involve themselves personally.

This was also why there were many missions on Death Sickle's Gold Sickle missions list that remained uncompleted, even after so many years.

It was not that Death Sickle lacked capable individuals—it was that the handful of Blood Sickle members with the ability to complete these missions could not take part.

However, Lin Huang's emergence shattered this

trend.

As a Death Sickle insider, he completed the missions easily. Not only that, he made everyone else think that an outsider was interfering.

This was the real reason why God Capital's upper echelons were so furious.

They thought someone had broken the rules of the game—that a half-step Lord had personally stepped in and assassinated Shen Yu and Shen Jue.

Lin Huang, however, was completely unaware of the checks and balances that God Capital's upper echelons had imposed. He had borrowed the use of Saber9's attack at the time because, for one, his own inherent ability was definitely insufficient to counter the half-step Lord's attack. For another, he truly did wish to confuse everyone else to prevent them from connecting the incident to him.

However, he had not expected that his ploy would cause such a massive chain reaction.

Practically the entire God Territory was discussing the matter of Shen Yu and Shen Jue's death.

On the internet, many people were applauding Lin Huang's actions.

There was nothing new under the sun, and in this era of internet access, news spread with extraordinary rapidity. Shen Yu and Shen Jue had already been rendered notorious many years ago when their torturing and killing of slaves had come to light. Countless netizens had criticized them. Although God Capital had quickly suppressed the matter, many people still remembered it. Now that the twins were dead, their dark pasts were once more dragged into the open. Both were now being maligned on the internet.

Unfortunately, the siblings were unable to witness this.

As Shen Yu and Shen Jue's dark pasts were exposed, netizens very quickly discovered that the twenty-six individuals who were killed during this time all had skeletons in their closets.

The collective power of netizens was mighty indeed.

Within less than a day, the remaining twenty-four individuals' dark pasts were dug up one after the other.

Therefore, everyone started another round of flogging the dead on the internet.

Not a single one of the twenty-six individuals that Lin Huang had killed escaped this fate.

After sorting out his loot, Lin Huang dropped by Death Sickle's headquarters and entrusted them with the handling and disposal of all the items he did not need.

After all, there were certain unique items among his battle spoils. If he gave them to Sword12 to handle, Sword12 might be targeted by people with ill intentions.

By comparison, it was much simpler to have Death Sickle dispose of all these items. After all, they were a top grade-6 organization, and they also had their own channels within the black market.

At the same time that he entrusted Death Sickle with the disposal of his loot, Lin Huang also requested their help in purchasing half-step Lord God Territories.

For the next few days, he was able to relax completely.

He was waiting for the outcome of Death Sickle's disposal of his loot, as well as the end result of the purchase of half-step Lord God Territories. He was also waiting for news from Virtuoso.

Three days went by just like that. Early in the morning of the fourth day, Lin Huang suddenly received a call request on his communicator.

When he raised his wrist for a look, he discovered it was Buried Heaven's number.

Once he clicked the answer button, the figure of a young man with white hair was immediately projected into the room.

"Have all of you returned from the Abyss?" Lin Huang asked as soon as he saw Buried Heaven.

"Yes, we've come back one by one over the last two days." Buried Heaven nodded. He was not surprised that Lin Huang knew about this. After all, Lin Huang's Xiu Mu identity had Gold Sickle-level authorization and could check on information about this expedition into the Abyss.

"How was it?" Lin Huang asked once more.

Naturally, he was not about to tell Buried Heaven that he and Virtuoso had gone into the Abyss as well and come out with significant gains.

"Overall, it wasn't bad at all." Buried Heaven already regarded Lin Huang as a peer when conversing with him. "This time when we went, the timing was a little more ideal. The Abyss is in its dormant season, so the powerhouses in the deep reaches were all in hibernation. The journey went very smoothly, and we were able to withdraw in a timely fashion as well…"

After a brief account of their journey, Buried Heaven realized he had gone slightly off-topic, so he immediately brought the conversation back on track.

"I contacted you this time because I'm going into closed-door cultivation, and it might take longer this time."

"Are you going to try breaking through to lord-level?" Lin Huang's eyes lit up. This was the level that he had targeted as well.

"Yes. I managed to obtain some good things from the Abyss this time, so I think this may be my chance for a breakthrough," Buried Heaven admitted generously; he did not hide anything.

From this, it was clear that he treated Lin Huang as someone he could trust. If it were anyone else, he definitely would not have admitted anything.

"Then let me convey my wishes in advance for a smooth breakthrough and a successful elevation to lord-level! You'll lead Death Sickle to new heights!" Lin Huang said with a mischievous smile.

"There's one more thing…" Buried Heaven paused, then continued, "The siblings Shen Yu and Shen Jue, as well as the twenty-four others on the missions board—they were all killed by you, am I right?"

"Yes." Lin Huang had submitted the missions anonymously.

However, the several Blood Sickle members, including Buried Heaven, would have the necessary authorization to check. If Buried Heaven wanted to, he would be able to look up the information, so there was no need for Lin Huang to conceal this fact.

"So what exactly are your abilities now?" Buried Heaven was aware of Shen Jue and Shen Yu's abilities. They were definitely the cream of the crop among the Heavenly Gods in the God Territory. However, Lin Huang had killed them both instantly; this puzzled Buried Heaven a little.

"Currently, I ought to be slightly weaker than you and King Kong," Lin Huang readily admitted, "I was able to kill the twins because I had the advantage of a sneak attack."

The latter half of what he said was true as well.

Buried Heaven fell silent for a moment and did not inquire further about Lin Huang's combat strength.

He had always thought highly of Lin Huang, but he had never expected that the young man would be able to reach this level in such a short time.

"This kind of ability is enough for you to protect yourself in the great world," he exclaimed softly.

"The caveat being, as long as I don't tempt death," Lin Huang added.

Buried Heaven was bereft of speech when he heard Lin Huang's addendum.

As far as he was concerned, Lin Huang assassinating Shen Yu and Shen Jue was absolutely tempting death.

"Just treat the entire matter as if it never happened. Death Sickle will take care of the aftermath, don't worry," Buried Heaven reassured Lin Huang, then resumed.

"I also looked at the consignment list you submitted; the gains were certainly substantial. However, I'm a little confused about the purchasing list. What do you want with so many half-step Lord God Territories?"

"I want to strengthen my God Territory." Of course, Lin Huang could not disclose that his elevation method was different from everyone else.

"Alright, then…" Buried Heaven did not pursue the matter any further. He knew that Lin Huang's answer was not the truth. "I have one that I'm unable to refine. I'll just give it to you. Later I'll have someone send it over to you along with the God Territories that have already been traded in."

"Thank you very much." Lin Huang gladly accepted the other's kindness.

Even though Buried Heaven had said nothing about it, Lin Huang knew that in the future, he would have to return the favor.

After ending the call with Buried Heaven, Lin Huang began to feel some anticipation about his impending breakthrough.

He was not exactly worried about Buried Heaven's elevation.

One must know that Buried Heaven could almost be considered No. 1 among all the Heavenly Gods in the entire God Territory.

If a powerhouse like that failed to elevate to lord-level, then hardly anyone in the entire great world would be able to become a Lord.

"If Buried Heaven elevates to lord-level, theoretically, Death Sickle would also be elevated to a grade-7 organization…" Lin Huang's thoughts drifted slightly, and he soon thought of even more things. "Will the existing veteran grade-7 organizations allow him to elevate?"

Although he was not sure what kind of protocols and balances the major organizations in the God Territory had, Death Sickle's rise would definitely affect the God Territory's original setup.

No one had any idea what attitude the several grade-7 organizations and some grade-6 organizations would take regarding this matter.

At this point, Lin Huang suddenly felt that Buried Heaven's elevation might not be as smooth as he had predicted earlier.

Naturally, Buried Heaven's individual ability was sufficient to elevate him. However, if there were external factors affecting him, then it would be hard to say.

One must know that back in the day, Great Heaven was even more powerful than Buried Heaven was currently. However, Great Heaven was also ambushed by Raiders when he was elevating to lord-level. In the end, he was unable to escape and died as a result.

After a moment of consideration, Lin Huang sent Buried Heaven a message advising him not to reveal his plans to go into closed-door cultivation to achieve a breakthrough before he had done so.

In the afternoon, the delivery person that Buried Heaven sent showed up.

Once Lin Huang had received the storage ring, he immediately checked through it.

There were six half-step Lord God Territories inside the ring.

One was a gift from Buried Heaven, while the remaining five were the ones Death Sickle had acquired for him through trading.

Of course, it was not that his resources were only sufficient to be exchanged for five half-step Lord God Territories. Rather, it was because he had requested that the half-step Lord God Territories be sent to him first. As for the rest of the resources, he could wait until all the items had been sold and then have everything delivered to him together.

"Virtuoso is so slow!" Lin Huang could not help sighing secretly as he looked at the storage ring he had just received.

A few days had passed, but there had been no news from Virtuoso. Lin Huang did not bother to hurry them either. He took the six half-step Lord God Territories currently in his possession and entered the Great Heaven Territory.

After all, it would take only a few days to refine all of them as the time flow within the Great Heaven Territory was a thousand times faster.

He would just go into closed-door cultivation for a few days when the God Territories from Virtuoso arrived.

After entering the Great Heaven Territory, Lin Huang greeted Sword1 and went straight into the Great Heaven Palace…

In the Great Heaven Palace, Lin Huang adjusted the time flow once more to be one thousand times faster than the outside world. He then brought his mind into a calm, meditative state and sat down cross-legged.

He retrieved the headless corpses of the twins Shen Yu and Shen Jue, then began refining the God Territories within their bodies.

In all honesty, he did not care how many god rules he could plunder from them.

Previously in the Abyss, he had already obtained over five thousand God Territory Shell Remnants.

The Eternity Fire had already devoured all the Abyssal energy remaining in this earlier batch of God Territory Shell Remnants.

Lin Huang's main objective in killing Shen Yu, Shen Jue, and the other twenty-four targets was actually to plunder resources and obtain the mission rewards. Plundering God Territories was just a habit.

After all, in order to trade for half-step Lord God Territories, one required a massive amount of resources.

What Lin Huang had not expected was that the net worth of all twenty-six people he had assassinated was far beyond anything he could have possibly imagined. The loot that he obtained from this round of assassination was enough to allow him to elevate to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Within merely half an hour, Lin Huang had fully completed the refinement of Shen Yu and Shen Jue's God Territories. The pair contributed a significant number of god rules—added up together, they numbered over two million in total.

He had already refined the God Territories of the other twenty-four targets one by one and plundered their god rules when he had been lying low in Gemini, waiting for a chance to carry out his assassinations.

None of the twenty-four targets possessed more than a million god rules each. When the god rules were all added up together, they came to a total of less than 15 million.

After refining Shen Yu and Shen Jue's God Territories, Lin Huang opened his eyes and glanced briefly at the two headless corpses in front of him. Casually, he produced two blood-red flames and immediately burned the bodies to ash in no time at all.

After disposing of the bodies, Lin Huang did not give them a second glance. Instead, he closed his eyes and resumed refining the five thousand and more Abyssal God Territory Shell Remnants within his body.

Time passed in the Great Heaven Palace.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes again, one week had already gone by.

The Godly Right in his body had already reached the maximum number of god rules it could contain, but he persisted and refined all five thousand-plus God Territory Shell Remnants.

As for the extraneous God Rule Powers, Lin Huang put all of them into the mainland area where the gravel world was.

By now, he had plundered many thousands of God Territories. There were complete gravel worlds or mini worlds in many of these God Territories; there were even a considerable number of living beings in existence.

Lin Huang had preserved everything. On some level, these living beings in the refined worlds were his all people. Essentially, this was no different from the gravel world.

It was just that he possessed a certain affection for the gravel world that he had grown up on, so he took special care of its inhabitants.

By the time his god rules had reached the limit of what his Godly Right could hold, Lin Huang's combat strength had finally elevated to full tenth-rank true god-level as well.

After he achieved this stage, he could clearly feel that his physical body and spirit strength had grown stronger once more.

He experimented a little and discovered that his body could now sustain twenty levels of compounded sequence power.

Theoretically, in this present state, he could break through to heavenly god-level entirely.

However, Lin Huang did not do that. Instead, he closed his eyes again and sent his mind into his inner world. He then began to visualize the nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization images.

Before going into the Abyss, by the time he had visualized the 80th image, he had reached the limit his God's soul could sustain. His visualization efficiency had plummeted.

Now, his combat strength had elevated to full tenth-rank true god-level. Not only that, his God's soul had been refined by the Immeasurable Calamity Fire, and his God soul's strength was at least a hundred times more powerful than before.

He felt that it was the right time to visualize this set of inheritances again.

Before elevating to heavenly god-level, he wanted to raise his God's soul's strength even further.

This was because he knew that each level of advancement was an opportunity for transformation.

The stronger his foundation, the better his transformation results would be.

Now that he was visualizing this set of inheritances again, Lin Huang was absolutely certain that it was progressing much faster than before.

Based on his current God's soul's strength, he would still need two years of outside world time to completely visualize the 81st to the 90th visualization image, despite time being sped up a thousand times.

However, he merely used around six years to fully complete the visualization this time. Less than two and a half days had passed in the outside world.

The visualization this time had gone so quickly because apart from his God's soul becoming stronger, his innate understanding had also increased after being refined by the Immeasurable Calamity Fire.

After he was done visualizing the 90th visualization image, Lin Huang realized that his God's soul's strength had broken through the limit for Heavenly Gods. Although he had not reached lord-level yet, he supposed he was already at the level of a half-step lord.

As his God's soul became stronger, Seamless' separation of telekinetic thread accelerated again.

The automatic hourly separation had now increased to thirty thousand threads.

Seeing that he still seemed to have energy left, Lin Huang looked at the 91st visualization image.

He tried to visualize it for a little bit; it did not take him long to calculate the visualization speed. Given his current state, approximately a month would pass in the outside world for him to visualize all the way to the 100th image.

Lin Huang felt that this was an acceptable period of time. He then entered another round of closed-door cultivation and began to visualize the rest of the visualization images.

Eighty-one years passed by as he did so.

Although the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace was one thousand times faster, almost a month passed in the outside world still.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes again, he felt that his God's soul had once again become stronger.

He did not know if it had reached lord-level strength, but he could clearly sense that it was more than a few times more powerful than a month ago.

He did not continue trying to visualize the last eight images.

This was because he knew that it would take several dozen times, perhaps even several hundred times, longer. For now, he did not have that sort of time.

Now that he had pushed his God's soul's strength to its limit, Lin Huang finally let out a long sigh.

"After this, I'll just follow my original plan for my breakthrough."

A thumb-sized purple crystal appeared in his hand.

It was the God Territory Shell Remnant of a half-step Lord.

Lin Huang flicked his fingers and sank the crystal into his brow. He then activated the Divine Fire in his body to refine it.

This round of refinement was not considered very long—it only took around three hundred days or so to complete both the refinement and integration.

The moment the integration was fully complete, Lin Huang sensed waves of new energy emanating from his God Territory and feeding back into his body.

He observed carefully for a while before discovering that these were sequence powers issuing from countless god sequence chains.

Although he was familiar with sequence powers and had even successfully consolidated god sequence chains, Lin Huang had only borrowed sequence powers in the past. The cells in his body were still full of God Rule Power.

However, at this very instant, countless sequence powers started surging into every cell and particle of his body, beginning another round of cleansing his entire physical body as well as his God's soul.

He could clearly feel that his physical body was transforming. Even his God's soul was undergoing a further change.

His entire body was being continuously fortified—from each strand of hair on his head down to his skin, his bones, his inner organs, and every particle that made up his body.

The process lasted a full twelve days before finally coming to an end.

Lin Huang sensed things out carefully; he felt that he was now so powerful, he was practically invincible.

To test his limits, he rapidly began stacking and compounding layers of sequence power onto his fingertips.

Ten layers!

Twenty layers!

Thirty layers!

…

Eighty layers!

Ninety layers!

One hundred layers!

Once he had stacked and compounded one hundred layers, Lin Huang finally began to feel that his body was being burdened.

He did not go on, as he already had a rough idea now of his limits.

One must know that going from twenty layers to one hundred layers was not just a simple matter of fivefold multiplication.

Each additional layer of stacked and compounded sequence power would result in a surge of potential ability.

"Right now, I think I might be able to defeat Buried Heaven with one hand," Lin Huang mumbled softly, "Of course, the caveat is that he hasn't broken through to lord-level yet."

Lin Huang was only saying this, of course.

He knew that he was more powerful than Buried Heaven if he were to base this solely on the number of sequence powers he could compound. In that regard, he was even more powerful than Great Heaven, who had dominated an entire era back in the day.

However, he was not sure what would happen if he really were to attack.

After all, Great Heaven could massacre half-step lord-level powerhouses back then, while Buried Heaven had a record of battling half-step Lords as well.

"I genuinely would like to know how powerful a half-step lord-level powerhouse is!"

When Lin Huang successfully elevated to first-rank heavenly god-level, not only had his physical body broken through Heavenly God limits, but it had also reached a level comparable to that of a half-step Lord. His God's soul had broken through as well, officially crossing the threshold to lord-level.

Apart from that, the original limit of twenty god sequence chains that he could borrow had now increased to a hundred chains.

It could be said that he was invincible among Heavenly Gods now.

He even suspected that he might have the ability to fight a half-step Lord if he encountered one.

This was still based solely on brute force alone.

In terms of mastery and skill, all of his God Weapons had been upgraded due to his elevation.

His combat sword, combat armor, telekinetic weapons, and one of his offense and defense Soul Weapons—a total of four God Weapons—had successfully been elevated to level-4. They had directly leveled up from god sequence relics to Dao Weapons.

This set of equipment could fully raise his abilities by another level.

Apart from these personal changes, Lin Huang could sense many other changes as well.

His successful elevation had fully unlocked authorization for the Great Heaven Territory. He could now put the Great Heaven Territory into his God Territory and leave with it. The authorization to accelerate time by ten thousand times had also been unlocked.

Apart from that, Lin Huang's authority over Swords1 to 10 had finally been unlocked as well. Not only that, but he could also bring the Great Heaven Territory's living beings out of the Great Heaven Territory now.

After checking over the authorization for the Great Heaven Territory, Lin Huang soon noticed that the Great Heaven inheritance in his mind had finally been fully unsealed.

He immediately began an in-depth exploration.

Given that Great Heaven had been a supreme powerhouse who had dominated an entire era, his cultivation experiences were naturally a valuable reference.

Within these fully unlocked memories, Lin Huang very soon came across information that utterly shocked him.

"It seems the Great Heaven Palace isn't just a top-grade god sequence relic?!"

Great Heaven had deliberately sequestered this secret within the deepest reaches of his memory, and now it had finally been unsealed.

The Great Heaven Palace's real name was unknown. It was a damaged treasure that Great Heaven had obtained from a ruin in the universe.

These ruins were an ancient battlefield. It was said that there had been Almighties—entities above lord-level—who had died there.

Lin Huang had thought all along that the damage in the Great Heaven Palace was due to Great Heaven's unification. Only now did he find out that this treasure was already over 80% damaged when Great Heaven obtained it.

Not only that, the treasure's original form was a cauldron. It was Great Heaven who had camouflaged it into a palace, so the form had been in use until the present day.

"I've always said that a function like the time accelerator doesn't seem to be something that a god sequence relic could possess." Lin Huang had always thought the Great Heaven Palace's functions were too overblown. "Even if it contained Time Sequence, being able to accelerate time tenfold is already impressive enough. Not only that, it can affect the flow of time in the entire Great Heaven Territory…"

In the meantime, the authorization for accelerating time in the Great Heaven Palace had increased exponentially from one thousand times to ten thousand times now.

Lin Huang could not help wondering if it would affect the flow of time in his God Territory if he were to put the Great Heaven Territory in there. After all, his God Territory was much bigger than the Great Heaven Territory.

If he were able to do that, once the time flow was ten thousand times faster, he would be able to train up a significant number of powerhouses.

Lin Huang gave it a shot and attempted to move the Great Heaven Palace into his God Territory.

However, the attempt failed. The Great Heaven Palace's deeply slumbering weapon spirit transmitted a wisp of consciousness, indicating that it was unwilling to be moved out of the Great Heaven Territory.

"In that case, if I refine the Great Heaven Territory completely, that would be alright, wouldn't it?" Lin Huang asked in some frustration.

After a moment of silence, the weapon spirit gave its consent.

Lin Huang immediately began refining the Great Heaven Territory. It was only during the refining process that he discovered just how vast the Great Heaven Territory was. It even extended beyond the half-step Lord God Territories that he had just finished refining.

Furthermore, as there were many living beings, the benefits that the Great Heaven Territory brought to Lin Huang's God Territory were on par with those of a half-step Lord God Territory.

"Impressive—I can't believe this is equivalent to refining a half-step Lord God Territory," Lin Huang could not help exclaiming.

This time, the refinement process lasted more than four hundred days. It took even longer than refining the half-step Lord God Territories previously.

Refining the Great Heaven Territory had also caused the number of living beings in the God Territory within Lin Huang's body to increase more than threefold.

However, when the refinement process was complete, he felt something was lacking when he compared this with refining half-step Lord God Territories.

He tested the effects of using time acceleration and discovered that not only did the effect extend to the area outside the location of the Great Heaven Territory, but it also spread through his entire God Territory.

This was good news, no doubt about it!

Lin Huang thought for a moment, then retrieved a half-step Lord God Territory and proceeded to refine it.

Time passed. A year went by swiftly.

Lin Huang felt an obvious difference when refining this God Territory. He sensed his God Territory had really absorbed the nutrients.

"So it has to be a half-step Lord's God Territory?"

He still did not elevate, but he knew this was because his God Territory had not yet reached its limits.

Consequently, he retrieved another half-step Lord God Territory and began another round of refining.

Close to one year passed, and the second God Territory was now completely refined. Lin Huang's combat strength finally advanced a notch and elevated to second-rank heavenly god-level.

"The number of half-step Lord God Territories required for elevation has increased?! Judging from the situation, the number required might very well keep getting higher and higher…" Lin Huang had initially thought that once he had reached heavenly god-level, he could elevate a rank every time he refined a half-step Lord God Territory. From the looks of things now, he had been entirely too naïve.

After elevating to second-rank, he did not bother wasting time. He resumed closed-door cultivation to refine the remaining three half-step Lord God Territories.

This round of closed-door cultivation went on for three years before Lin Huang finally managed to completely refine all three God Territories.

However, he still had not achieved a breakthrough. He remained stuck at second-rank heavenly god-level.

He could more or less sense that he should be able to elevate if he refined one more half-step Lord God Territory.

"It's true then—the number of half-step Lord God Territories required increases for every elevation in rank.

"One for first-rank, two for second-rank, four for third-rank… If the numbers keep doubling according to this pattern, I wonder if there'll be enough half-step Lords in the entire great world for me to kill." Lin Huang felt rather frustrated.

Naturally, this was just a joke.

One must be aware that in the entire great world, half-step Lords were the ones who had the highest combat strength, second only to Lords. They were respected entities in every major organization.

Whether it was in the God Territory, the human world, or in other tribes, fighting between Lords and half-step Lords was basically prohibited. The reason was that they were the ones with the highest combat strength in the great world. Losing even one would be a great loss for the entire tribe, equivalent to damaging their foundations.

If anyone with nothing better to do took it upon themselves to kill a half-step Lord belonging to any of the tribes, they would only end up becoming the tribe's common enemy. The entire tribe would pursue them.

This no longer had anything to do with which organization the half-step Lord belonged to.

Naturally, if they killed Abyssal creatures or the Bug Tribe's half-step Lords, the other tribes might applaud them for it.

There were only two ways for Lin Huang to obtain half-step Lord God Territories.

One was to go into the Abyss or enter the Bug Tribe's battlefield. Another was to trade a massive amount of resources for them.

He could not kill the half-step Lords in the God Territory because even Death Sickle might turn against him directly if he did so.

When Lin Huang came out of the Great Heaven Palace, only a month had passed in the outside world.

Sword1, who had been guarding the door, immediately rose and hurried over to him.

Lin Huang nodded slightly at him, then walked down the steps. He extended his arms toward the two pure gold sculptures on both sides of the steps.

The bodies of both three-legged Golden Crows rapidly blazed up with pure gold flames.

The flames melted the metal on the surface of their bodies. They turned into two giant blazing birds that flapped their wings and rose into the air.

These two three-legged Golden Crows were archaic legacies. They were comparable to class-5 Supreme Gods. Furthermore, they possessed peak heavenly god-level combat strength.

If they were to join forces and fight together, their abilities might be on par with Sword1!

When Sword1 saw this, he realized immediately that Lin Huang's authorization had increased again. His spirits rose.

"I've refined the Great Heaven Territory into my God Territory. My authority over all of you is also completely unsealed now." Lin Huang looked at Sword1. "From now on, Swords 1 to 10 no longer have to guard the Great Heaven Palace. I'll bring all of you back to the great world."

"Lord Swordmaster may command us as you please." Sword1 immediately cupped his hands together in respect and spoke to Swords 2 to 10 through voice transmission.

The swordmaster's ten guardians all gathered at the palace a moment later.

"All of you will leave the Great Heaven Territory with me today. Once you've reached the great world, you can discuss arrangements for any specific matters with Sword12."

Once Lin Huang finished speaking, he said to Sword1, "Summon Sword11 and Wu Hao here."

Sword1 nodded slightly and contacted Sword11 right away.

Not too long later, the red-haired Sword11 brought a handsome young man to the palace.

"Lord Swordmaster!"

"Master!"

Both of them greeted Lin Huang as soon as they saw him.

Lin Huang shot a glance at Sword11, then transferred his gaze to Wu Hao and scrutinized him from head to toe.

Wu Hao was the disciple that he had accepted in the Great Heaven Territory. In fact, he suspected all along that this boy might be Great Heaven's reincarnation.

It had been over half a year since they last met. Wu Hao was taller now, close to 1.7 meters in height. His skin was considerably fairer compared to when they had first met.

Lin Huang could still remember when he first met Wu Hao; he had thought the boy seemed like a scared little creature. Looking at him again now, Wu Hao carried himself like an elegant young master. He did not seem flustered at all, even in the presence of so many seniors.

The only thing that had not changed was his raven-black eyes. They had always shone brightly, flashing with intelligence.

"Not bad. You've grown considerably taller, and your combat strength has improved significantly." Lin Huang could tell from a glance that Wu Hao's current combat strength was already at Virtual God rank-9. He was just half a step away from crossing the threshold to elevate to True God.

What surprised and delighted him the most was that Wu Hao's comprehension of Sword Dao had reached the level of Sword Dao true meaning. Not only that, he had made a leap from True Martial Level and advanced to the second level of Sword Dao true meaning—True Meaning Level.

He had suspected all along that the boy was Great Heaven's reincarnation. Now, upon seeing the outstanding progress of Wu Hao's Sword Dao, he was even more certain of that.

"You can participate in some actual combat now." Lin Huang patted Wu Hao's head.

"Master, where are we going?" Wu Hao asked in some curiosity.

"We're leaving the Great Heaven Territory today to go to the great world." Lin Huang did not plan on leaving the boy in the Great Heaven Territory.

Wu Hao's eyes lit up at this. Naturally, he had heard about the great world from Sword11 and the others and was aware that it was a world countless times larger than the Great Heaven Territory.

Young men had the instinctive desire to explore the vast universe.

"From now on, Swords 1 to 10 will be your teachers, just like Sword11. If I'm away, you can ask them any questions you might have." Lin Huang glanced at Sword1 and the rest.

Although Swords 1 to 10 had no idea who Wu Hao was, they felt an inherent kinship with him.

Moreover, he was the swordmaster's disciple. Naturally, they would not dare to neglect him.

Sword11 had no objections to Lin Huang's arrangement. The boy had long since exhausted most of his personal resources. Furthermore, the materials he used to instruct Wu Hao had basically been provided by Lin Huang; he was just instructing the boy on Lin Huang's behalf. Sword11 was very much aware that at his level of skill, he would only be able to be Wu Hao's teacher for a time.

Although he felt a measure of reluctance, he knew he would have to let the boy go when he grew up.

Wu Hao seemed to notice that Sword11 felt a little down. He comforted him through voice transmission, "Uncle 11, you'll always be my teacher. That won't ever change."

At that moment, Sword11's eyes became slightly wet.

Naturally, everyone present could hear Wu Hao's voice transmission loud and clear.

After all, he was just a Virtual God, while everyone else present was a peak heavenly god-level being.

No one said anything; they merely felt that this boy was very sweet. Sword1 and the others immediately liked him even more now.

"Alright, if there's anything that you haven't brought with you, I'll give you another five minutes to sort it out. We'll meet here in a moment." Sword1 and the rest did not move after Lin Huang finished speaking.

Sword11 was the only one who disappeared on the spot in a flash.

Meanwhile, Wu Hao moved closer to Lin Huang and asked, "Master, will we be coming back here in the future?"

"All of you can come back anytime you want." Lin Huang nodded.

Wu Hao nodded only after hearing that. He disappeared in a flash as well to pack his belongings.

In a short while, Sword11 came back first.

Not long later, Wu Hao managed to make it back in the nick of time.

Lin Huang did not ask the two what they had brought with them. Straight away, he gestured with his hand and activated the dimensional gateway.

With Sword1 in the lead, they went in, single file.

A moment later, the dozen over people appeared directly in the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Sensing the dense population of the Pfister Star, Sword1 and the rest were rather stunned.

Apart from Sword11, it had been many thousands of years since the swordmaster's ten guardians had come into contact with outsiders.

Even Sword11 was moved. Although he had lived and mingled in the Great Heaven Territory for years, it had been several hundred thousand years since he had returned to the great world.

Wu Hao was the only one who looked excited and adventurous.

Ever since he started cultivating with Sword11, he had remained on the Golden Crow Mountain for this entire year or so. He had never returned to the Great Heaven Territory after that.

The Pfister Star he saw before him was much more lively and bustling than Heavenly Sword Planet, where he used to live. The population was on an entirely different level in terms of numbers.

Moreover, although the Pfister Star was not considered a flourishing territory in the human world, there were still tall buildings clustered everywhere.

The tallest building on Heavenly Sword Planet would be considered merely ordinary if it were placed here.

Wu Hao was not the only one who had never seen a place packed with tall buildings. Even a few of the swordmaster's guardians were also curious.

"These buildings are so tall. Are they all accommodations for powerhouses?" Sword8—her hair in two ponytails—could not help asking.

Lin Huang glanced at the girl. Throughout this year, apart from her ability being restored to its peak, her appearance had remained practically unchanged. She had been as tall as Wu Hao over a year ago, but Wu Hao was now a full head taller.

"No, they're just normal residential buildings," Lin Huang explained.

"I'll get Sword12 to show all of you around in the next few days so you can familiarize yourselves with this new environment."

While Lin Huang was speaking, he led them all into the Sword Alliance's territory.

Sword12 stepped forward as soon as Lin Huang and the group entered the Sword Alliance.

In fact, he had sensed familiar auras the moment they teleported here.

"Lord Swordmaster, Master Guardians," Sword12 greeted.

"For the next few days, help them familiarize themselves with this new environment."

"Of course, Lord Swordmaster!" Sword12 responded immediately.

"Did anything happen during the month or so that I was away?" Lin Huang asked.

Although he was an absentee leader, he would still occasionally ask about recent developments.

"The delivery person who came from Death Sickle the last time dropped by again two days ago. He gave me an encrypted ring, saying that the exchanges for the items you wanted have all been completed. Everything is in the ring. He also left a note inside," Sword12 answered and brought out two storage rings.

"There's another encrypted ring as well. A man in a mask delivered it over a month ago. He said his name was Virtuoso, but he didn't say very much more. He only asked me to tell you to inform him when you returned."

"Alright, I've got it." Lin Huang casually took the rings from Sword12. He already had a rough idea of what was probably in them.

The storage rings were encrypted because they had not been sent to Lin Huang directly but through someone else. It was not that Virtuoso or the delivery person from Death Sickle did not trust Sword12. It was just a regular procedure for items when a middle person was involved.

As for the encryption password, it would usually be sent directly to the receiver's communicator.

Lin Huang had not had the chance to check his communicator yet.

After assigning Sword1 and the others to Sword12, Lin Huang returned to his courtyard again.

He tapped on the communicator's contact page and soon found the passwords that Virtuoso and Death Sickle's delivery person had sent.

Lin Huang entered the two passwords into the rings accordingly and unlocked the two storage spaces.

Inside the ring that Virtuoso had sent were the God Territory Shell Remnants of five Abyssal half-step Lords. Not only that, the Abyssal energy in all five God Territory Shell Remnants had been cleansed—something Lin Huang had not expected at all.

It was very clear that the hundred over Nirvana Trees were insufficient to be exchanged for five cleansed and purified Abyssal half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants. The only logical explanation was that Virtuoso had found someone else to handle this for them after obtaining the God Territory Shell Remnants.

"Virtuoso really is considerate." Lin Huang could not help giving a quiet sigh. In reality, he would have preferred if God Territory Shell Remnants were not cleansed, as the Abyssal energy was a rare delicacy to the Eternity Fire in his body.

After setting down the ring that Virtuoso had sent, Lin Huang checked the other ring.

There were many items in this second ring.

There were twenty-one half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants alone, as well as a considerable number of various rare materials.

Lin Huang very soon saw the note that the delivery person had left for him.

He immediately picked it up to read.

The rough gist of the note was that Death Sickle had tried their best to collect half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants for him. However, twenty-one was the most they could gather. It was probable that in the entire God Territory, there would not be half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants on the list of commodities in the immediate future. This was because Death Sickle had purchased all of the available ones. The remaining exchange items had been traded for various rare materials to substitute for the God Territory Shell Remnants.

"All the half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants on the God Territory market have been purchased?!" This piece of news was something Lin Huang was not expecting. However, after thinking it through carefully, he realized that it was nothing unusual.

Half-step lord-level powerhouses hardly had any opponents.

In all probability, since the founding of the God Territory, the number of deceased half-step Lords could likely be counted. Even if this were expanded to include the entire great world and the total number of deceased half-step Lords from every tribe were tallied up for every battle throughout history, it would not come to very many at all.

For Death Sickle to collect the God Territory Shell Remnants of over twenty half-step Lords within a month or so was already no small feat.

The number of God Territory Shell Remnants Death Sickle had managed to gather had completely surpassed his expectations—that was what Lin Huang felt, even. It was just that he now had a slight problem—how to gather more half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants later.

Only when he had taken all the items out from the two rings and put them away in his storage space did Lin Huang turn on his communicator and call Virtuoso's number.

A moment later, the video call connected, and Virtuoso's figure was projected into his room.

"It's been over a month, and you're only contacting me now. How was it? Did you get the items?" Virtuoso was still wearing their mask, and their expression could not be seen. However, Lin Huang could tell from their tone that they were in a good mood at the moment.

"Yes, I did, thank you very much." Lin Huang nodded.

"I specifically looked for someone to cleanse them for you," Virtuoso added.

"Yes, I noticed. That was very considerate of you," Lin Huang expressed his gratitude again.

"That's all you have to say? Let me tell you, the value of these God Territory Shell Remnants has increased at least tenfold after the cleansing," Virtuoso emphasized.

"Actually… I do have a method of cleansing them," Lin Huang had no alternative but to be forthright.

"Alright. Apparently, I poked my nose in where I shouldn't have," Virtuoso said in a huff.

"Have you finished refining the Phantom City?" Lin Huang changed the subject rather stiffly.

"I have. I've also elevated to first-rank heavenly god-level now." Virtuoso sounded rather smug at this point. They thought that since Lin Huang had just elevated to ninth-rank true god-level, it was unlikely that he would advance to heavenly god-level in such a short time.

"Oh, I've elevated to second-rank," Lin Huang returned expressionlessly.

"What?!" Virtuoso was stunned when they heard this.

"I said I've elevated to second-rank heavenly god-level," Lin Huang repeated for emphasis.

"You only elevated to ninth-rank true god-level over a month ago, didn't you?" Virtuoso was completely bereft of speech. "You've advanced to heavenly god-level so quickly, aren't you afraid that your foundation won't be stable?!"

"My foundation is very stable. If I had enough resources, I would be able to elevate all the way to ninth-rank." What Lin Huang said was very true.

However, to Virtuoso, this was clearly bragging.

"I don't want to listen to you anymore. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up."

"Wait a moment." Lin Huang stopped Virtuoso, who was about to terminate the call.

"If you've got anything else to say, hurry up and say it!" Virtuoso snapped irritatedly.

"Do you know if there's any way to obtain a large number of half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants?" Lin Huang asked.

"Why do you want so many half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants for?" Virtuoso was getting more and more puzzled. "Oh, that's right, when I got out of closed-door cultivation a few days ago, I received news that Death Sickle has been gathering God Territory Shell Remnants lately. Were they helping you collect them, then?"

"Just tell me how to obtain them, that's good enough." Naturally, Lin Huang was unwilling to reveal his secret.

"How else would you go about it? You'd have to trade resources for them." Virtuoso was practically speechless.

"Of course I know that. What I mean is, do you know if there are any channels to do so?" Lin Huang persisted.

"What, aren't Death Sickle's channels enough for you?" The words were barely out of Virtuoso's mouth when they suddenly froze for a moment, then snapped back to their senses and stared at Lin Huang, eyes wide. "You've cleaned out the God Territory's resources?!"

"That's right… That's why I asked you about other channels," Lin Huang had no alternative but to admit it.

"You're really something!" Virtuoso gave Lin Huang a thumbs up; his feelings were convoluted.

"How do I say this? Things like half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants aren't regular items. For one, the demand is very low, so not many people specifically supply these commodities.

"Not many people collect these things, even at the Club, so even if you send out a request there, you'll probably only be able to obtain a few. After all, compared to all those major organizations in the universe, the Club has too few members."

After they finished speaking, Virtuoso cupped their chin and pondered for a while.

"There's an organization called Royal here in the great world. It's a branch of Royal in the universe. It seems low profile in the great world, but its combined strength is actually on par with any grade-7 organization. It's said they have a special channel that can bring in resources from the universe and other worlds. That's why many major organizations collaborate with them. I think you could go talk to them."

'Royal?!'

If Virtuoso had not brought it up, Lin Huang would have almost forgotten that he also had Royalty status.

Lin Huang's official arrival in the great world after resolving the crisis in the gravel world had, in fact, only been nine months ago or so—not even a year.

Most of his time had been spent in cultivation.

As for cultivation resources, most of them came from Death Sickle.

All this while, the resources he had obtained from Death Sickle via exchange had been sufficient for his needs.

Therefore, he had also never contacted Royal this entire time.

It was not until Virtuoso brought the matter up earlier that Lin Huang remembered his existing status as a Rank-A member of Royal.

From being a nobody in the gravel world to becoming Royal's elected Emperor, all this had come about because he had passed Royal's trial and became an official Royalty.

However, ever since he arrived in the great world, he had set aside this identity.

After ending the call with Virtuoso, Lin Huang took out Royal's identity token.

Based on the information that Virtuoso had provided, he now had a new understanding of Royal.

In the great world, Royal was just a branch; their headquarters were located in the universe.

All the major organizations in the great world knew about Royal's background. Although they were not certain what exactly Royal's standing was in the universe, they knew that Royal's branch was guarded by a Lord—more than one, in fact. That told them all they needed to know.

As a grade-7 organization with lord-level powerhouse guardians, Royal was very low profile in the great world. Royalties hardly ever stirred up trouble. Furthermore, most of them were outstanding suppliers of resources.

Businesses and auctions in the great world loved working with Royal.

Even grade-6 and grade-7 organizations of different tribes had established partnerships with them.

Virtuoso had suggested that Lin Huang go to Royal because the number of half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants that he needed was just too high. After all, Lin Huang had snapped up all the available ones in the God Territory, and the amount still proved to be insufficient. Royal was perhaps the only channel in the great world that could provide him with enough half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

Lin Huang had never expected that his status as a Royalty would come in handy at such a time.

Using his Royal identity token, he was able to log into the Royal market very quickly.

After glancing at the list of goods, Lin Huang did a direct search for the keywords "half-step Lords' God Territories".

An instant later, the list changed to show only the God Territory Shell Remnants of half-step Lords.

Lin Huang glanced through the list. There were not many—only twenty-eight available in total.

He then looked at what trading for them required. None of them could be exchanged for Divine Crystals; they all required cultivation resources or Pseudo-Dao Weapons.

Lin Huang felt rather frustrated. Death Sickle had traded in just about all of his battle spoils. Apart from the two remaining Dao Weapons, all the Pseudo-Dao Weapons had been exchanged for rare materials.

Moreover, he could not trade in those materials either, as they were for his imperial monsters to elevate from Class-5 supreme god-level to Class-6 Pure Spirit.

Although he had said that he wanted the imperial monsters to be independent, he also knew that it was hard to obtain some of the rarer materials. If the imperial monsters were to collect these themselves, they probably might not be able to gather all the necessary materials to elevate to Class-6 even after hundreds and thousands of years.

He even somewhat regretted not checking out the Royal market sooner.

At least he could have obtained this batch of God Territories first and then given Death Sickle the remaining loot to trade. That way, Death Sickle would have been able to get around twenty half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants in exchange. By doing that, he would have obtained at least twenty God Territories, but he would have considerably less rare materials.

After looking through the trade-in list for a while, Lin Huang felt rather aggravated.

However, he quickly noticed the auction option on top of the page. "Auction?"

After pondering for a moment, he clicked on it.

There was a stunning array of items up for bids; Lin Huang was dazzled by just the sight of them.

However, he merely gave everything a cursory glance, then searched for the keywords "Dao Weapon".

Previously, he had given Death Sickle practically all his loot for disposal. He had only retained Shen Yu and Shen Jue's two Dao Weapons and their half-step Lord's Dead Body Puppet.

He had kept the half-step Lord's Dead Body Puppet so he could use it to mask his actual abilities.

As for the two Dao Weapons, he did not intend to keep them for his own use.

His four God Weapons had now been elevated to Dao Weapons, which were good enough for him.

Besides, one of the Dao Weapons was a saber, and the other was a suit of battle armor.

Lin Huang could not use the saber. As for the suit of battle armor, its function was a repetition of his own God Weapon battle armor.

One of the reasons he had not given these to Death Sickle for trading in was because the value of his other battle spoils was considerable—enough to be used in exchange for the materials he desired. Therefore, he was not in a rush to sell them. For another, he was also worried that Death Sickle would not be able to get a good price for them.

However, now that he had access to Royal's trading channel, he felt that he could definitely put them on the market now.

After typing in the keywords "Dao Weapon", hundreds of related pieces of auction information appeared on the list. They were all about various types of Dao Weapons.

Lin Huang went through these pieces of information one by one. After scrolling for a long time, he finally gained some insight into Dao Weapons.

In reality, Dao Weapon was just a general term. Weapon-type Dao Weapons were usually called Dao Weaponry, while armor-type Dao Weapons would usually be called Dao Armor… Furthermore, Dao Weapons were divided into grades, namely low-grade, intermediate-grade

and expert-grade from low to high.

Low-grade Dao Weapons would usually be inscribed with single-digit Dao tattoos and would not exceed ten tattoos in total.

Intermediate-grade Dao Weapons would usually be inscribed with anywhere from between ten to a hundred Dao tattoos.

Meanwhile, expert-grade Dao Weapons would have anywhere from one hundred up to one thousand inscribed Dao tattoos.

There was also a handful of supreme-grade Dao Weapons with more than one thousand Dao tattoos inscribed. As there were so few of these, they were not considered an official grade.

In all honesty, Lin Huang did not even need to think about it to know that the two Dao Weapons he had were low-grade ones.

If they were intermediate-grade or expert-grade, they would certainly not have come into Shen Yu and Shen Jue's possession.

He took out the two Dao Weapons and checked them with Divine Telekinesis.

The sword was inscribed with only two Dao tattoos. However, apart from Dao tattoos, there were also many engraved divine patterns.

As for the suit of battle armor, it had three Dao tattoos inscribed and was also engraved with many divine patterns.

It had to be said that the quality of both Dao Weapons was lower than Lin Huang expected. Among low-grade Dao Weapons, they could only be considered ordinary goods.

Lin Huang checked out two or three Dao Weapons of similar quality to see the final price they had fetched in the auction.

He then uploaded pictures of both Dao Weapons.

His condition for trade-in stated, "Will only accept half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants".

As for the starting bid, Lin Huang filled in "50 half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants" for both Dao Weapons.

This number was actually the final successful bid that other people had used to purchase Dao Weapons of similar quality.

Although the market price of half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants and Pseudo-Dao Weapons were similar in the great world, Lin Huang knew that if price were the sole consideration, then Pseudo-Dao Weapons possessed higher value. After all, Pseudo-Dao Weapons were in higher demand, while half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants were hardly in demand under normal circumstances.

Therefore, Lin Huang set 50 half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants as his starting bid.

As for the auction period, Lin Huang filled in "Ten days".

He knew that the serious bidders who frequented Royal's auction would come on almost every day to check on item information. Even if they were busy and unable to log in for a few days, they would certainly log in whenever they had the time. In reality, it did not matter very much if he set the auction period for ten days or even a month because the ones who would bid were always the same group of individuals.

Finally, Lin Huang wrote a quick note in the "Remarks" section.

"Remark: All half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants from every tribe will be accepted, including those of the Bug Tribe and the Abyssal Tribe. There's no need to cleanse them."

After listing his items for auction on Royal's page, Lin Huang did not intend to waste the ten days. Instead, he entered the Great Heaven Palace once more.

He adjusted the time flow to be 10,000 times faster than the outside world and began another round of closed-door cultivation.

Of course, Lin Huang's main objective was to refine the twenty-six half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants that Death Sickle and Virtuoso had contributed.

This time, his closed-door cultivation took over nine thousand days or so.

At the end of it, he had completely refined all twenty-six half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

His combat strength had also soared all the way from second-rank to fifth-rank heavenly god-level.

As he had anticipated, the number of half-step Lords' God Territories needed for refining doubled every time he elevated a rank.

He only had to refine 1 God Territory when he elevated to first-rank, then 2 for second-rank, 4 for third-rank… all in all, it would require 256 to elevate to ninth-rank.

Furthermore, this was only the number of half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants required to elevate from eight-rank to ninth-rank. If he started counting from first-rank to ninth-rank, he would need a total of 511.

If one Dao Weapon could only be exchanged for 50 half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants, then he would need 11 Dao Weapons to be able to obtain enough half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants to elevate to ninth-rank.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes, he did not feel at ease in the least.

Although he seemed to be elevating faster than other people at the moment, he required a hundred or a thousand times more resources than they did.

After pushing these convoluted thoughts to the back of his mind, he checked through the changes that had taken place.

His physical body and God's soul's strength had seen significant advancement. His Divine Telekinesis was also considerably more formidable.

Most importantly, the number of god sequence chains that he could borrow had skyrocketed from 200 to 1,600.

"I think I should be much more powerful than many half-step Lords now," Lin Huang roughly gauged his ability. However, he did not think that he could call himself a half-step lord-level powerhouse at the moment.

After thoroughly checking over his current status, his expression soon became rather odd.

"I can't believe that a genuine sword cultivator like myself is currently being held back by Sword Dao cultivation…"

Since he had been busy elevating his combat strength, he had barely spent any time at all practicing his swordsmanship for the past half a year. As a result, his Sword Dao had been stagnant at level-2 of Sword Dao heavenly rule—Heavenly Heart.

Although he had reached the pinnacle of Heavenly Heart quite some time ago, he had not been able to experience a breakthrough.

"It hasn't even been a day in the outside world, and the auction will only end in another nine days. In the Great Heaven Palace, that would be more than ninety thousand days." Lin Huang had no intention of wasting the remaining nine days. "I'll seize the opportunity to focus on cultivating my Sword Dao then."

It did not take Lin Huang very long to list out, one by one, all of the Sword Dao inheritances that he had obtained. He then began to practice by simulating them in his mind.

Days passed in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang began simulating the Sword Dao inheritances one after the other, starting with mythical-level, then going to supreme god-level (including Rule Bending Power), and onto Pure Spirit (including sequence power).

There were not only inheritances he had obtained from the many sword cultivators in the Great Heaven Territory, but also endless inheritances from the Sword Scripture.

After all his Pure Spirit sword skills had been simulated for practice, a Sword Dao general outline consolidated swiftly in his mind.

This Sword Dao general outline had a core of over thirty thousand Pure Spirit sword skills, millions of supreme god-level sword skills as its frame, and more than ten million god-level sword skills to flesh it out, as well as hundreds of millions of transcendent sword skills as its outer covering.

As soon as the Sword Dao general outline had consolidated, Lin Huang did not even have time to amend and streamline it before his Sword Dao achieved a breakthrough right away. It elevated from level-2, Heavenly Heart to level-3, Heavenly Dao!

After this Sword Dao breakthrough, Lin Huang did not stop. He merely glanced at it and resumed amending his Sword Dao general outline.

Days passed in the Great Heaven Palace, as well as in the outside world.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes again, twenty-one days had passed in the outside world.

He had never thought that this round of closed-door cultivation would take so long.

After looking at the progress of his Sword Dao, he felt satisfied.

Although his Sword Dao had not yet achieved a breakthrough and he still remained at Heavenly Dao level, he had already come to complete-stage Heavenly Dao.

Only an opportunity separated him from a Sword Dao breakthrough and the consolidation of a Sword seal.

This period of closed-door cultivation also gave him a complete understanding of what a sword cultivator would have to do in order to become a Lord.

It was very simple; all one had to do was to consolidate a Sword seal.

Of course, this was easy to say, but in reality, not many people could do it.

Lin Huang knew very well that he would be able to do so, and it would work.

However, he had no intention of going down this path since someone else had already done it. Even if he were more powerful than other sword cultivators, it was difficult for him to surpass the essential gap in abilities.

He wanted to use his method to achieve complete-stage in all aspects that nobody could surpass, and then go onto become a Lord!

It was not until he came out of the Great Heaven Palace that Lin Huang discovered twenty-one days had passed in the outside world.

The amount of time needed for this round of closed-door cultivation had taken far longer than he had anticipated.

Once he returned to the Devil Hunter Star Zone, he checked his Royal identity token immediately.

The auction had already ended eleven days ago.

When he saw the amount of the final bid, Lin Huang was clearly stunned for a moment.

"The bidding went up to such a high price?!"

The final bid for the saber Dao Weaponry was 112 half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

The battle Dao Armor's final price was even higher—127 half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

Lin Huang doubtfully looked at the God Territory Shell Remnants within his identity token; the exchanges had been fully completed.

The traded items from both the Royal market and the auction would be stored in both parties' identity tokens respectively. There were no extra logistics procedures required. This was also a Space Rule inherent in a Royal identity token.

Both batches of God Territory Shell Remnants had been automatically moved into Lin Huang's identity token eleven days ago upon completion of the trade.

With doubts in his mind, Lin Huang looked through them with Divine Telekinesis. It only took a moment for him to understand why two such low-quality Dao Weapons could be sold for such a high price.

Among the total of 239 God Territory Shell Remnants, seventy percent of them were from Abyssal half-step Lords, while thirty percent of them were from Bug Tribe half-step Lords.

None of them had been cleansed…

Lin Huang could even faintly smell a pungent stench of blood and a disgusting reek. Clearly, some of these half-step Lords had been killed very recently.

Abyssal God Territory Shell Remnants were hardly worth anything as they were contaminated by Abyssal energy. Cleansing them required considerable effort. Furthermore, only Lords and powerhouses above Lords had the ability to cleanse half-step lord-level Abyssal God Territory Shell Remnants.

As for the Bug Tribe's God Territory Shell Remnants, nobody wanted them as they were just too incompatible.

Bug Tribe powerhouses obtained god sequence chains by inheriting or plundering them, so the interior of their God Territory was extremely disorderly. The expulsion rate from God Territories of other living beings was very high; they were also highly difficult to refine and integrate.

Compared to other God Territories of the same rank, refining Bug Tribe God Territories of that rank might well take several dozen times longer or more. Not only that, the Bug Tribe God Territories might be expelled as well. Not only would one be unable to strengthen their personal God Territory, but it might also cause problems for their own God Territory.

However, none of these things were problems for Lin Huang at all.

After putting Royal's identity token away, Lin Huang tapped open his communications page.

Very soon, he saw two missed call requests. One was from Lin Xin half a month ago. Another one was from eighteen days ago; it was Sword12 who had called.

He did not call back right away. Instead, he opened up his message page and checked it.

As expected, he saw the messages that Lin Xin and Sword12 had sent. There was also a message from Buried Heaven, as well as an unfamiliar number.

With some curiosity, he tapped on Lin Xin's message first.

Only after reading the message did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Initially, he thought Lin Xin might be calling him about some urgent matter. It turned out she was entering the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss with Xiao Mo and the rest and only wanted to inform him of this.

Lin Huang then opened the message from Sword12.

It was nothing too urgent either. Sword12 was merely informing him that he had sorted everything out for Sword1 and the others. Sword12 also mentioned that he had turned over everything regarding the Sword Alliance to Sword1, and he would now be assisting Sword1 instead.

Lin Huang had anticipated that such a thing might happen.

From Great Heaven's inheritance memories, he had realized that Swords1 to 10's functions were more complicated compared to those of the other Sword Servants. Apart from guarding the swordmaster, they were also involved in combat, as well as managing and coordinating all the other Sword Servants. All of that was included in their job scope. Naturally, the girl—Sword8—was excluded.

As for the Sword Servants after Sword11, they were actually only combat personnel.

Lin Huang had previously assigned Sword12 to be responsible for the Sword Alliance as he had been training Wu Hao back then, and Sword12 had the highest authority among the Sword Servants. Sword12 had no inherent work experience of this kind, so he was thrown entirely into the deep end with something far beyond his skills. Since the swordmaster had requested it, he had no choice but to take up the task regardless.

Now that Sword1 and the others had taken over, he was more than happy to be a backseat boss.

After reading over Sword12's message, Lin Huang thought about it and decided to send a brief reply back to him.

After that, he glanced at the topmost message, which was from Buried Heaven. He skipped it for now and opened the message from the unfamiliar number.

The communicator he had was different from mobile phones on Earth in that there were hardly any messages that were advertisement-related.

When Lin Huang saw the stranger's number, the name that flashed through his mind immediately was, without question, Yang Ling. However, on second thoughts, he remembered that Yang Ling was now dead.

He opened the message with some misgivings.

Only after quickly glancing over the message was he able to ascertain the sender. It was not Yang Ling but Sword1.

This unfamiliar number was Sword1's new communicator number in the great world.

Sword1 was not the only one; in fact, Swords 1 to 10 all had their own respective communicators.

Sword1 had sent the message to give Lin Huang a brief update on their current situation.

He and the other swordmaster's guardians had taken over management of the Sword Alliance. Sword12 remained a member of the management team, but no longer had any real authority.

Sword1 also gave a brief description of the future development plans he had drawn up for the Sword Alliance.

Apart from that, he also indicated to Lin Huang that whenever the swordmaster was out, he had to have guardians with him at all times—at least two each time. His position required a show of prestige, after all.

Lin Huang was rendered slightly speechless upon reading this, but he did not directly reject it. Naturally, he knew that Sword1 meant well.

After reading Sword1's long message, Lin Huang gave it some thought, then replied as well.

He suggested promoting Sword11 and Sword12 to become swordmaster's guardians.

After all, be it ability or prestige among the Sword Servants, both were imminently qualified.

Sword1 replied almost immediately after the message was sent.

"I'll arrange it accordingly. Lord Swordmaster does not need to worry."

Only after replying to Sword1 did Lin Huang look at the message from Buried Heaven.

It had been sent just a day ago.

Upon opening it, he only saw two brief sentences.

"I'll officially perform unification in ten days' time. If you'd like to witness the ceremony, you can come and watch."

The message came with a star map attached that had coordinates marked on it.

It had to be said that Buried Heaven trusted Lin Huang implicitly.

The process of a Heavenly God's unification for elevating to become a Lord was very risky. The slightest mistake might see one forever doomed.

Under normal circumstances, one would only invite one's closest friends to witness a Heavenly God unification ceremony.

Furthermore, the ceremony's coordinates were secret and not disclosed to the public.

This was to prevent any disruptions when one was performing the unification.

One must know that if by chance the unification failed, the most minor consequence would be the individual failing to consolidate their Dao seal and being unable to elevate to lord-level forever. The worst-case scenario was that their Dao seal would collapse, and they would immediately disintegrate into smoke and ash.

Lin Huang knew that one of the reasons Buried Heaven had invited him was because he trusted Lin Huang. For another, he thought highly of Lin Huang, so he had specially given him an opportunity to observe the ceremony.

After all, Lin Huang would certainly have to elevate to lord-level in the future, so he would have to go through the unification process as well.

"He sent this yesterday, so I still have nine more days." Lin Huang checked the date and replied to Buried Heaven right away.

"I'll definitely be there! Let me express my wishes in advance that Master Buried Heaven will succeed in this unification and become a Lord!"

Buried Heaven replied immediately as well after Lin Huang replied.

"Thank you!"

After closing the communications page, Lin Huang scanned his Royal identity token with Divine Telekinesis to check the number of God Territories within. He then came up with a rough time estimate.

"There should be enough time…" He gave this some thought, then set a date reminder on his communicator.

After that, he did not waste any more time but teleported straight back to the Great Heaven Palace in a flash.

After entering the palace, he adjusted the time to be 10,000 times faster than the outside world again. He then retrieved the half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants one after the other…

Time went by in the Great Heaven Palace.

As Lin Huang had expected, the refining of all the God Territories was extraordinarily successful.

It did not matter if it was the Bug Tribe's chaotic half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants or the half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants contaminated with Abyssal energy. There was no hindrance to his refining process at all.

This round of closed-door cultivation went on for over eighty-five thousand days.

During this time, he fully refined a total of two-hundred and thirty-nine half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

His combat strength elevated from its initial fifth-rank heavenly god-level all the way to eighth-rank heavenly god-level.

Sensing the number of god sequence chains that he could borrow had skyrocketed to twelve thousand eight hundred chains, Lin Huang had a vague feeling that he might possess sufficient ability to challenge a Lord now.

He raised his brows after looking at the time on the communicator.

"Eight and a half days have passed in the outside world."

This was not too far from what he had anticipated—perhaps a little slower, that was all.

Lin Huang stood up immediately and spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with his massive increase in both power and his God's soul's strength. He did not go in-depth, nonetheless, and opened the doors of the Great Heaven Palace.

Since he had given Buried Heaven his word that he would be present at the ceremony, of course, he was not going to break his promise.

Moreover, watching Buried Heaven performing unification would be beneficial to him.

In the future, he would definitely have to do the same to become a Lord. Watching another's unification procedure could be considered a preview of what he would be doing.

Lin Huang did not waste even a second and teleported out of the Great Heaven Palace. On the way, he activated the spatial dimensional gateway and hastened to the coordinates marked on the star map.

In a vast, silent sky full of stars, a giant black hole invisible to the naked eye rotated slowly.

It was mercilessly devouring everything around it—stars, meteorites, dust, and even light…

Right now, however, a figure stood before this black hole, seemingly unaffected by gravity at all.

If one were to observe from up close, they would see that this was a "young man".

He looked to be thirteen or fourteen at most and was less than 1.6 meters tall, but he had a head of short white hair.

He hovered before the black hole's great mass just like that. His hands were in his pockets, and his eyes were slightly lidded as if he were waiting for something.

Not too far from the white-haired "young man" stood six figures of various shapes and sizes.

If any senior Gold Sickle members from Death Sickle were here, they would be able to identify these six as Death Sickle's Blood Sickle members.

Six out of the seven Blood Sickle members were present. Clearly, they were guarding Buried Heaven's unification ceremony to prevent anyone from interfering.

When Lin Huang traversed the void and showed up, the six Blood Sickle members immediately had their guards up.

Fortunately, from quite a distance, Lin Huang had sensed the presence of seven people and had revealed himself. Otherwise, he might really have been attacked by the six Blood Sickles.

Sensing Lin Huang's arrival, Buried Heaven slowly opened his eyes and nodded at him.

Lin Huang nodded slightly in response, then turned his head to study the six Blood Sickle members.

He had never seen the Blood Sickles before. However, judging from the intensity of their auras, all six were half-step Lords. Furthermore, among half-step Lords, they would be considered powerhouses.

Meanwhile, the six Blood Sickle members were weighing Lin Huang up as well.

Over the course of this year, they had naturally heard many stories about Lin Huang, this exceptional newly-emerged genius. Whether in his identity as Xie Lin or Xiu Mu, he had left behind a stunning record of battle exploits in Death Sickle.

Not long ago, Lin Huang had anonymously accepted twenty-six missions. They knew about his consecutive killing of the geniuses on the Heavenly God Leaderboard in the God Territory, as well as how he had managed to successfully assassinate Shen Yu and Shen Jue despite a half-step Lord attempting to stop him.

Right now, this young man had finally appeared before them.

Naturally, the Blood Sickle members could not help giving him a second look.

However, the more they studied him, the more apprehensive they felt. In fact, a moment later, their expressions revealed bewilderment.

Although Lin Huang had concealed his aura instead of letting it show through, powerhouses did not need to sense a fully released aura to gauge the standard of their opponent—just a trace would do.

The six Blood Sickle members only had one word come to mind after sensing the aura emanating from Lin Huang's person—impenetrable!

Due to this peculiar feeling, two of the six could not help but try probing with Divine Telekinesis.

Naturally, the probe attempts ran into a snag.

Lin Huang's current God's soul's strength was already at the level of a regular Lord. Not only that, he had a spirit-type Dao Weapon within him that easily blocked any attempts at Divine Telekinesis probes from the outside world.

The two Blood Sickle members who could not resist probing had both their strands of Divine Telekinesis snuffed out easily by the Dao Weapon.

After the failure of their attempts, the two gave an involuntary exclamation at practically the same time.

After the remaining four asked about it via voice transmission, they could not help trying to probe as well. They encountered the same issue.

All six Blood Sickles were looking at Lin Huang in an increasingly odd manner.

Naturally, Lin Huang had sensed the six of them probing one after the other. However, it did not particularly bother him; he then took the initiative to greet them.

"Xiu Mu greets the six Blood Sickle seniors!"

"Young Xiu Mu, we've heard many things about you throughout this year, and now we're finally able to meet you in person today." The first person to greet Lin Huang was a tall, thin old man. He was fully three meters tall and then some, while his body was as gaunt as a withered corpse. His skin was pale, and he looked almost bloodless.

Although Lin Huang had never met any of the Blood Sickle members before, Death Sickle's Gold Sickle authorization gave access to a limited amount of information regarding the seven Blood Sickle members.

The man in front of him was one of Death Sickle's founders. His name was Boundless Blood.

He had been born into the Blood Protoss Tribe, which was considered a major tribe in the God Territory, and had a large population.

"Truly, the younger generation has surpassed their elders!" The second person to speak was a long-legged woman of alluring beauty.

Her body was almost no different from that of a human. However, several flame-like red tails undulated beneath her skirt.

Lin Huang recognized at a glance that this was the only female among the seven Blood Sickle members—Hu Xian'er of the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe.

The Nine-tailed Fox Tribe had been considered prominent for a time in the God Territory. At their peak, they had been regarded as one of the most powerful tribes in the God Territory. However, they had experienced a significant decline since then.

The rest of the Blood Sickles did not speak, but Lin Huang saw one of them nodding slightly at him.

This was a saber cultivator who was roughly about the same height as Lin Huang. In appearance, he looked no different from a human, with no distinguishing features to set him apart from an ordinary human being.

It was only after Lin Huang had been promoted to Gold Sickle-level and obtained authorization to look at information about the Blood Sickles that he found out there was a human among the seven Blood Sickle members. The man standing before him was evidently this individual.

Although only a few brief pieces of information were disclosed, Lin Huang knew that this Blood Sickle was called Gao Ming, and he was a saber cultivator.

Lin Huang was aware that the reason he had been able to progress so smoothly as a human within Death Sickle was in no small part due to Gao Ming.

It was because of Gao Ming—a human within the Blood Sickles—that such a massive organization in the God Territory like Death Sickle had never discriminated against humans. Furthermore, they had always accepted human members.

Lin Huang nodded back at Gao Ming as well, indicating that he knew the other's identity.

As for the anomaly they sensed from Lin Huang's being, the Blood Sickles did not ask about it.

Every supreme genius possessed inherently matchless destinies and incredible luck. These were things others might envy but never achieve.

In reality, the six Blood Sickles had vaguely guessed that Lin Huang might have a soul-type Dao Weapon on him.

Very soon, the Blood Sickle members came forward one by one to chat for a while. The atmosphere was not as awkward as Lin Huang expected. He had initially expected that since the Blood Sickle members had higher status and were all half-step Lords, they would definitely be haughty in front of him, a mere junior. However, this was not the case. They seemed to sense that his ability was no weaker than theirs. All six Blood Sickle members did not treat him as a junior, nor did they put on airs.

"When selecting a venue for the unification ceremony, is there anything particular that one must pay attention to? Why did Buried Heaven choose this place?" After they had become a little more familiar with each other, Lin Huang soon brought up his concerns.

From a long way off, he had already sensed the giant black hole behind Buried Heaven. As he had heard a great deal about black holes during his past life on Earth, he still regarded this celestial phenomenon with some awe.

"The process of unification releases massive amounts of energy, and one also has to battle raptors. It would cause destructive harm to the entire star zone. Naturally, one can't select a region with a dense population," Gao Ming explained, "Moreover, there's an advantage to performing unification near a black hole. It can absorb massive amounts of energy waves, which will significantly lower the possibility of being sensed by other powerhouses."

"I see. So that's why." Lin Huang had evidently learned something.

After that, he asked some questions about unification, and the Blood Sickle members answered him one by one.

Several hours passed by in this manner.

When they sensed Buried Heaven's aura beginning to emanate from him, Lin Huang and the others immediately stopped talking and turned in Buried Heaven's direction.

They knew that Buried Heaven's unification was about to begin!

Buried Heaven's figure hovered in front of the black hole, like a particle of dust facing a giant black whirlpool. He appeared infinitely small in this vast starry sky.

However, his aura kept skyrocketing.

Within the blink of an eye, Buried Heaven seemed to transform into a ferocious, unrivaled beast even more terrifying than the black hole.

God sequence chains of various colors extended out of his body like tentacles. They were no longer invisible like they usually were to ordinary people but had materialized into actual chains.

As the god sequence chains extended, Lin Huang was finally able to see the number of god sequence chains that Buried Heaven had mastered—twenty-seven in total.

Compared with Lin Huang, this was not considered very many. However, in the entire great world, this number was already the ultimate limit.

After all, Great Heaven, who had dominated an entire era in the great world, had only mastered forty-two god sequence chains.

Although Lin Huang could control over ten thousand god sequence chains, most of them were borrowed and were not ones he had comprehended himself. In all honesty, the number of god sequence chains that he had comprehended was far less than Buried Heaven.

Lin Huang did not find it that impressive, but the six Blood Sickle members were clearly envious.

The more god sequence chains a Heavenly God had mastered, the more powerful the Dao seal would be after unification.

From this standpoint, Buried Heaven's foundation was enough to suppress most Heavenly Gods. They might elevate to become Lords, but Buried Heaven would undoubtedly be more powerful than the rest after elevation.

Furthermore, he would only become even more powerful after elevating to become a Lord.

The number of god sequence chains used in the first Dao seal would determine the maximum number of god sequence chains all the subsequent Dao seals could hold. In other words, two Lords who started with different numbers of god sequence chains would see an increasing disparity in their abilities as they consolidated more and more Dao seals.

Buried Heaven, for example, had consolidated a Dao seal that could hold 27 god sequence chains. If he consolidated two Dao seals, they would be able to contain 54 god sequence chains. However, if another Lord's Dao seal could only hold 9 god sequence chains from the start, then they would only have 18 god sequence chains when they consolidated two Dao seals. Even if the two Lords had the same combat strength, the gap between their abilities would only grow wider as the number of consolidated Dao seals increased.

Although the number of god sequence chains that Buried Heaven had mastered did not unduly surprise Lin Huang, he was still fully focused on watching the entire unification process without so much as a blink.

In the void, the god sequence chains moved threateningly in a frenzy as if they were completely out of control.

Amidst his uncertainties, Lin Huang saw a scene that shocked him even more.

The god sequence chains detached from Buried Heaven's body one by one and began coiling together in the air above his head. They seemed to be possessed of some form of sentience. The feeling they gave off was one of dissatisfaction each with the other and wanting to fight until a winner finally emerged.

"Is this normal?" Lin Huang could not help asking the Blood Sickle members.

"This is the first stage of unification—psychic communication," Gao Ming was the first to explain, "During this stage, the god sequence chains in the body gain a measure of intelligence. Therefore, they'll vie with each other, with none willing to surrender."

"This stage is also called the chaotic sequence period and is a very dangerous state. If one's God's soul is not strong enough to suppress the god sequence chains, the unification will fail right away," the Nine-tailed Fox off to one side added with a smile, "The best-case scenario would be one's God's soul being severely injured and losing their god sequence chains. If they're unlucky, their God's soul might be impaled by the berserk god sequence chains, resulting in immediate death."

"Shouldn't this be happening within his body? How come we can see it?" Lin Huang brought up the point that was puzzling him.

"It's happening in the God Territory within his body, certainly. We're only seeing the Heavenly Dao's projection," Gao Ming explained again, "The exact reason is unknown, but the great world's will appears to hope that this process will be noticed by the outside world. Therefore, it projects the process of the Lord's unification."

Very soon, Lin Huang saw Buried Heaven's God's soul drifting out and engaging the god sequence chains in battle.

The god sequence chains had transformed into mutated monsters of all kinds, releasing all sorts of different sequence powers.

Within a moment, half the nearby star zone had turned into a battlefield.

However, Lin Huang and the rest did not retreat. As this was just a projection, it would not interfere with reality.

Nevertheless, they could all fully witness the intense battle in Buried Heaven's God Territory.

The resilience of a combat cultivator was no exaggeration. Buried Heaven was completely fearless in the face of the multitude of sequence powers, inflicting heavy blows on them. Within half an hour, he had forced all twenty-seven god sequence chains to surrender.

Only at that moment did the god sequence chains gradually consolidate into line after line of Dao tattoos.

All twenty-seven Dao tattoos swiftly coiled together, forming a Dao tattoo in the void.

However, right at this moment, the Dao tattoo began frenetically radiating endless Divine Power.

At the same time, Buried Heaven's God Territory materialized before them at last. It was like a phantom galaxy suspended in front of them.

Before Lin Huang could ask, Gao Ming immediately explained right away.

"This is the second stage of unification—unification. Simply put, it's the god sequence chains turning into a Dao tattoo and consolidating into a Dao seal.

"This process is also the one that has the highest failure rate in Heavenly God unification. In the past, over 80% of individuals failed at this stage of unification.

"Since the process of consolidating god sequence chains into a Dao seal releases terrifying energy, it's a triple test of the individual performing the unification in terms of their physical body, their God's soul, and their God Territory.

"The energy released from consolidating god sequence chains into a Dao seal impacts the individual's God Territory first. At the same time that the God Territory is affected, there will be a measure of energy seeping out that will impact the individual's physical body and God's soul.

"If either the individual's God Territory, physical body, or God's soul is unable to withstand the impact, the unification will fail straight away."

Lin Huang kept nodding as he listened. He immediately thought of the nuclear fusion of hydrogen bombs on Earth.

The process of nuclear fusion was the collision of two atomic nuclei, causing polymerization and producing atomic nuclei with heavier substances. At the same time, it would trigger a large number of electrons and neutrons into releasing massive energy.

This process was exactly like consolidating god sequence chains into Dao seals.

It was also the first time Lin Huang realized that apart from a strong physical body and God's soul, one also needed a powerful God Territory to perform unification.

However, he was aware that he himself was unusual.

From the very beginning, his God Territory had been at imperial-level, which was already different from everyone else. From that time on, he could already refine and integrate the God Territories of others.

As for later on, he could already directly integrate massive amounts of half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants after he had only just elevated to heavenly god-level.

However, for normal cultivators, the number of God Territories they could refine and integrate was limited. The intensity of the refining process was severely restricted as well.

Great Heaven was so powerful that he had dominated an entire era and mastered forty-two sequence chains. Yet even he only dared to refine nine ninth-rank Heavenly Gods' God Territory Shell Remnants from first-rank all the way to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

That was the limit his God Territory could sustain.

Although Buried Heaven was powerful, the strength of his God Territory was certainly weaker than Great Heaven's.

Fortunately, the number of god sequence chains he had mastered was lower than Great Heaven's. Therefore, there was significantly less pressure during his unification.

Through the Heavenly Dao's projection, the scene inside Buried Heaven's God Territory was clearly displayed.

At the moment, the Dao seal that had been consolidated from the twenty-seven Dao tattoos was like an intensely blazing star suspended above the God Territory, radiating endless awe-inspiring power.

The glaring white light had almost spread to every corner of Buried Heaven's God Territory. Wherever it passed through, it left scorched earth in its wake.

Lin Huang could even see countless planets inhabited by living beings, all burning fiercely. Some even crumbled immediately. Almost all the living creatures in the God Territory were killed; none were spared.

"Does this happen to the God Territory of everyone who performs unification?" Lin Huang asked the handful of Blood Sickle members with some misgivings.

"This process is almost inevitable. Living beings will die, stars will collapse, and even galaxies will fall apart…" Gao Ming answered, nodding, "However, as soon as unification is completed successfully, time in the God Territory will revert to the moment before unification started. The destroyed galaxies will be restored to their original state, while the living beings that were killed will be revived where they were. Furthermore, all their memories of having died will be removed.

"The God Territory might seem the same as before, but in reality, once unification is successful, the entire God Territory will evolve to a new stage. Realms, rules, and sequences will be reconstructed, creating a fully complete internal circulatory system and forming an independent universe. Only then can the God Territory truly be called a Kingdom."

'It sounds very much like a system being upgraded and restarted…' Lin Huang thought to himself.

As the Dao seal released its energy, the God Territory within Buried Heaven's body became riddled with craters in the mere span of a few breaths. Practically none of the star zones remained whole.

Even the area of space around the entire God Territory was starting to quake, and cracks began appearing in the air.

Lin Huang and the others could clearly feel a terrifying energy wave being transmitted from Buried Heaven's body.

"The God Territory within his body can directly interfere with the material realm we're in?!" At this moment, Lin Huang finally became aware that the energy produced from the unification process was utterly beyond what he had expected.

Off to one side, Gao Ming could hear the misgivings in Lin Huang's question. He then immediately explained, "The energy produced from unification isn't energy from the Dao seal itself but from the consolidation of the Dao tattoos. During this process, the energy released from the Dao seal might be dozens, even hundreds of times more than what the Dao Seal itself inherently contains."

This caused Lin Huang to think about nuclear fusion again.

"If one's God Territory isn't strong enough and can't sustain this process, it will immediately collapse, causing the unification to fail," Gao Ming added.

At that moment, Buried Heaven suddenly gave a low groan. A trickle of fresh blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

"When the energy from unification breaks through the God Territory's restrictions, it will impact the individual's God's soul and physical body. This is also the second most difficult stage in the unification process. If either one's physical body or one's God's soul cannot sustain this process and collapses, unification will fail."

"Then does this mean that if one's God Territory is strong enough, they can directly suppress the force coming from the unification process and prevent it from impacting their physical body and God's soul?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

"Theoretically, that should be the case." Gao Ming glanced at Lin Huang, then continued, "However, nobody has managed to achieve this yet. No one's God Territory has ever been so powerful that it can directly suppress the process of unification."

Lin Huang was not paying attention to the last part of Gao Ming's words. At the moment, he was wondering whether he could strengthen his God Territory sufficiently to completely suppress the energy released from unification if—at his current pace—he were to integrate more half-step Lords' God Territory Shell Remnants.

Buried Heaven, who was not too far off, had his eyes tightly closed, but he seemed to be very much aware of his current condition.

A layer of battle armor automatically began appearing on his body. At the same time, a golden glow lit up between his brows, protecting his God's soul.

These two pieces of equipment were clearly Dao Weapons.

Once this equipment appeared, Buried Heaven's aura very clearly calmed itself.

Not long later, the white rays of light released from the Dao seal suspended mid-air in his God Territory gradually began to diminish at last.

The expressions of the watching Blood Sickle members finally relaxed slightly.

"I think we can consider him as having made it through this stage," Nine-tailed Fox Hu Xian'er said with a smile.

Lin Huang was slightly relieved as well. He could sense that the crest of energy released by the Dao seal had passed and was beginning to wane.

Buried Heaven making it past this crest meant that half the unification process was already complete.

In a little while, the white glow radiating from the Dao seal faded entirely.

Buried Heaven finally opened his eyes and exhaled long and slow.

Without hesitation, he retrieved a handful of elixirs from his storage ring and gulped them down one after the other.

"The most difficult stage is coming up next!" Gao Ming said softly.

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard that.

His first reaction was to wonder, 'Didn't they say earlier that consolidation of the Dao seal had the highest failure rate—over 80%? Why is the next stage the most difficult one?'

However, he quickly revised this first impulse. The most difficult stage did not mean that it had the highest failure rate. This was because 80% of the candidates had not made it past the consolidation of the Dao seal. Therefore, less than 20% would make it to the next stage.

"What's the next stage?" Lin Huang could not help tilting his head and asking.

"The third stage of unification, which is also the last stage—Dao plundering!

"When a Dao seal has been properly consolidated through unification, it will attract the attention of raptors who covet and desire it."

"Raptors?" This was not Lin Huang's first time hearing this term. However, he had only heard it; he did not really understand what it meant.

"That's right. We're not sure where the raptors come from. We only know they don't belong to the material realm. Each raptor is unbelievably powerful. They only appear they sense a Dao seal, and they always show up without warning.

"These raptors will steal the Dao seal of the individual performing unification. The individual must defeat the raptor to officially gain control of their Dao seal."

"If the individual is defeated and the raptor takes the Dao seal, what will happen then?!" Lin Huang asked curiously.

"When an individual performing unification loses their Dao seal, they'll lose all of their cultivation abilities and become an ordinary mortal, if the consequences are light. Severe consequences would mean immediate death," Gao Ming explained patiently, "As soon as the raptors obtain the Dao seal, they'll refine it almost immediately and arrive in the material realm as a Lord. This would result in an utter catastrophe.

"I've read related records from historical data where a raptor in the ancient epoch took someone's Dao seal during unification. When the raptor arrived in the material realm, the Lords could not kill it immediately, and it was able to escape. It caused a terrible disaster. That raptor devoured many Heavenly Gods, half-step Lords, and Lords within a short few years, causing it to become extraordinarily powerful. In the end, the Almighties above lord-level had to take a hand before it was finally suppressed for good."

As he listened to this story, Lin Huang had already started pondering. In the event Buried Heaven failed his unification, and the raptor took his Dao seal, arriving in the material realm, Lin Huang wondered if he should show his hand and reveal his true abilities.

Just when Lin Huang was still turning the issue over in his mind, a change happened in Buried Heaven's God Territory.

Not far above the Dao seal, an irregular space rift began to form at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Within less than the time it took for a breath, the rift had expanded to the maximum. It looked like a malevolent eye.

Lin Huang was stunned when he saw the rift. 'Isn't that the Virtual Eye from the gravel world?!'

1

Lin Huang was slightly dazed when he saw the space rift in Buried Heaven's God Territory. It was as if he had returned to the gravel world and was seeing the Virtual Eye opening in the heavens.

From the very beginning, he had already known the truth about why the gravel world had been invaded by the Virtual Eye. It was a result of the Emperor's Heart performing modifications to the gravel world in order to train the native residents.

Seeing the space rift that preceded the raptor's arrival, Lin Huang immediately understood that this must be the inspiration for the Emperor's Heart in creating the Virtual Eye.

The space rift above the Dao seal split apart like an eye opening.

In the black, fathomless void, a massive, muscled arm suddenly extended out of nowhere, reaching right through the space rift and into Buried Heaven's God Territory.

Immediately after, a head poked through as well.

The head had a face that looked human. It was bald, and there was a single eye on its forehead, while a huge mouth occupied almost half its face.

The creature's inky-black eye swept its gaze over Buried Heaven's God Territory and finally alighted on Buried Heaven. It opened its huge mouth, revealing a maw full of sharp, shark-like teeth.

"So this is the unification raptor…" Lin Huang mumbled softly. He did not verbalize the second part of the sentence, which was, "It doesn't look very powerful".

Off to one side, Gao Ming heard Lin Huang muttering and explained earnestly, "The raptor's form isn't fixed. The fact is, the people who performed unification—the ones we know about—encountered different raptors. None of them were the same.

"However, the one thing we're certain of is that the raptor has a specific connection to the individual. Almost all saber cultivators will encounter a saber cultivator-type raptor. Almost every sword cultivator will encounter sword cultivator-type monsters. Buried Heaven is a combat cultivator, so the raptor he's encountering this time is clearly a combat cultivator like him."

"What if it's someone like me, who is a sword cultivator and a psychic?" Lin Huang asked rather curiously.

"Ordinarily speaking, the raptor you encounter at that point will most likely be a sword cultivator-type monster. After all, sword cultivation is your main cultivation path. There were Lords in the great world who were in the same boat as you. In essence, they encountered raptors that cultivated the same path. There doesn't seem to have been anyone who's encountered a raptor that cultivated their secondary path," Gao Ming answered after giving this some thought.

During Gao Ming and Lin Huang's conversation, the raptor had fully emerged from the space rift and intruded into Buried Heaven's God Territory.

Only now were Lin Huang and the others finally able to see the monster's full appearance.

It was a one-eyed giant that was at least a hundred meters tall. It looked like a skinned, deformed human.

The surface of its body was enveloped in a layer of blood-red energy that did not give off the feel of Divine Power; it was another type of energy. An indeterminate aura radiated from its entire being.

Its single eye had practically never left Buried Heaven.

"What a powerful flesh-and-blood aura. You're definitely delicious. Just catching a whiff of the scent on you from far away has already increased my appetite…"

As the one-eyed raptor spoke, it extended its long tongue to lick its lips. It did not seem to care what an ugly, drooling spectacle it made.

"I've made up my mind. I'm going to devour you first, then refine your Dao seal!"

The one-eyed raptor had only just finished speaking when Buried Heaven attacked from his end.

Even though the raptor was unbelievably arrogant and aggressive, right now Buried Heaven did not fear it in the least.

One must know that this was his God Territory. He had full advantage on his turf.

Moreover, his Dao seal had already been consolidated, which also gave him absolute confidence in his abilities.

As Buried Heaven was illuminated by the Dao seal's light, a Dao tattoo that was exactly the same as the Dao seal formed on his forehead. At the same time, golden Odyl began flowing through his entire body.

At that moment, it was as if he had transformed into a golden-armored combat god.

Within the blink of an eye, his figure darted forward like lightning. Landing in front of the raptor, he landed a heavy blow on it.

He did not bother testing this blow at all; he launched into it full force.

A combat cultivator's physical body was already formidable. In addition, this basic punch had been compounded with all the sequence powers that Buried Heaven could borrow in his God Territory. In fact, its sheer power could be considered earth-shattering.

The six Blood Sickle members watched with wide eyes. Clearly, the force of Buried Heaven's blow was way beyond anything they had expected.

Even Lin Huang could not help raising his brows.

"He's compounded over one thousand eight hundred levels of sequence power… Is this the Godly Right's effect in his God Territory then?"

Through his inherited memories, Lin Huang had discovered that powerhouses who elevated to heavenly god-level by the usual methods could—within their God Territory—boost their Godly Right by using Rule Bending Power.

An example was Great Heaven, who had only mastered forty-two god sequence chains. However, from first-rank all the way to ninth-rank, he had integrated ninth-rank heavenly god-level God Territories when he first constructed his Godly Right and during every subsequent elevation. This had given his Godly Right a full eighty-onefold boost.

This meant that in his God Territory, he could allocate a maximum of 3,402 sequence powers when using his Godly Right.

As for Buried Heaven, he had mastered twenty-seven god sequence chains. He could compound one thousand eight hundred levels of sequence power in his God Territory because his Godly Right had clearly given him a sixtyfold boost.

Lin Huang's Godly Right, however, was completely different from theirs. His Godly Right's maximum limit was far beyond that of Buried Heaven and Great Heaven, and not just in terms of numbers. In his God Territory, he could freely borrow all of the sequence powers it contained.

If his God Territory absorbed a million or even ten million god sequence chains, then he could use a million or ten million sequence powers.

However, under normal circumstances, a Heavenly God's Godly Right would only work in their own God Territory. It could not be used in the outside world.

Only by consolidating a Dao seal, becoming a Lord, and making their Dao seal the vehicle of the Godly Right could the Godly Right be used in realms outside the God Territory. This would result in the Lord benefitting from the boost in their god sequence chains.

It was the equivalent of having one hundred million in fixed assets; if it could not be converted into cash, it could not be used at all. However, if one had one hundred million in cash, they could use it where and when they pleased.

That was the reason why the disparity in ability between Lords and Heavenly Gods could not be bridged.

Buried Heaven had yet to complete the entire process of unification. Naturally, his abilities could not be reflected in the outside world. Fortunately, the current battle was happening inside his God Territory. This was his turf, which meant he could allocate his Godly Right's boost as he wished. On top of that, he had successfully consolidated his Dao seal, so the flow of Odyl throughout his entire body right now made him no different from an actual Lord.

The punch he threw at the one-eyed raptor at that moment was undoubtedly the most powerful blow he had ever thrown in his life!

The heavy blow was imbued with a dazzling golden layer of Odyl and sent straight at the raptor's face. It was unbelievably fast.

However, just as the punch was about to strike the raptor's face, the raptor suddenly grinned at Buried Heaven. The next second, its hand shot out, transforming into eagle-like talons that stopped Buried Heaven's attack midway. With its other hand, it curled its fist and sent an even faster punch at Buried Heaven.

Boom!

The six Blood Sickle members had not even been able to see very much of the exchange of blows between the two when they heard the loud boom.

Dust and smoke rose from every corner of the God Territory after that, obscuring the figures of the two combatants.

Lin Huang was the only one who could see everything clearly, and he could not help but frown slightly.

"This raptor's physical strength is even more powerful than Buried Heaven's. Not only that, it's far more familiar with using its body than he is… I'm afraid Buried Heaven might have a difficult time in this battle."

Smoke and dust rose from every corner of Buried Heaven's God Territory.

This first clash between Buried Heaven and the raptor was extraordinarily spectacular.

However, Lin Huang was frowning slightly as he watched.

Buried Heaven's situation was not exactly ideal.

Whether it was physical strength, power, or speed, the raptor was still a cut above.

Furthermore, its battle style was based more on instinct. Even when encountering techniques that it had never seen before, it could react accurately in time.

As for Buried Heaven, even though he displayed great initiative and did not withhold any of his martial arts skills, he was gradually losing the upper hand. His tempo of battle was also beginning to be affected by his opponent.

Buried Heaven's expression was gradually becoming more serious as well.

From the very beginning, he had not made the mistake of underestimating the raptor. However, after they had exchanged blows, he realized that the raptor was more powerful than he had expected.

The six Blood Sickle members could only see the two fighting within the smoke and dust; they seemed to be equally matched.

However, Lin Huang saw what was going on more clearly than the rest.

The raptor's overall ability was certainly more powerful than Buried Heaven's, but its ability also had its limits.

Buried Heaven's advantage was that the God Territory was his turf. The drain on his Divine Power was minimal there.

As long as he stood his ground and fought steadily without making mistakes and did not allow his opponent to affect his tempo of battle, he would, in essence, be undefeatable.

The raptor was only able to remain in the material realm for a limited time. The longer the battle took, the more it would be at a disadvantage.

Lin Huang had initially thought that Buried Heaven would be aware of this logic.

However, he had never expected that Buried Heaven might fall prey to rashness right from the start, to where his battle rhythm now was affected by the raptor.

If this went on and the raptor gained full control of the tempo of battle, Buried Heaven would completely lose his chance to turn things around.

As a bystander, Lin Huang felt somewhat anxious for him as he watched.

However, Buried Heaven's physical body was currently in his God Territory at the moment. He could not sense anything in the outside world.

If not for the Heavenly Dao's projection, Lin Huang and the rest would not be able to see anything at all either.

Within the God Territory, the battle between the two combatants was growing increasingly worrying.

Buried Heaven was gradually beginning to lose the upper hand, to where the six Blood Sickle members could clearly see that something was off. They began an anxious discussion.

"Just now, it was very clear he held the advantage; why has the raptor gained control of the tempo of battle all of a sudden?"

"This raptor's ability is more powerful than Buried Heaven's, to begin with, and now it's seized control of the tempo of battle. If this goes on, I'm afraid Buried Heaven's unification will fail this time."

"It has nothing to do with how powerful the raptor is. Buried Heaven was too impulsive and gave his opponent an opportunity. The truth is, he's always held the advantage because that's his turf. He could defeat the raptor just by stalling it."

After all, the onlookers were able to see the situation in a much clearer light. The Blood Sickle members' estimation of the situation was roughly the same as Lin Huang's previously.

Unfortunately, Buried Heaven could not hear these discussions.

While the few of them were still in a heated debate, the first clash between the two in the God Territory came to an end at last.

Buried Heaven was sent flying by the one-eyed raptor's heavy blow, shattering dozens of planets.

The discussion among the Blood Sickle members stopped as soon as they saw what was happening in the projection. They stared at the projection with worry in their eyes.

Lin Huang was the only one who raised his brows.

Buried Heaven had lost this first encounter.

However, as far as Buried Heaven was concerned, this might just be a chance for him to regroup.

Lin Huang clearly noticed that while Buried Heaven seemed to have been sent flying, in reality, he had put up a defense at the very last moment and had not suffered any physical harm.

Furthermore, he had utilized the impact of his opponent's attack to exit the battlefield temporarily. Perhaps he wanted to buy himself some time to replay the battle mentally and find out what the issue had been in the previous encounter.

Lin Huang had always regarded Buried Heaven as a true powerhouse.

A true powerhouse not only had to have formidable abilities but also extreme mental fortitude.

Lin Huang felt that Buried Heaven possessed such qualities.

Just like Lin Huang had thought, Buried Heaven was indeed rapidly replaying the battle in his mind.

The truth was, he had succumbed to his opponent's blow on purpose.

He merely wanted to get out of this battle temporarily, so he could utilize the viewpoint of a bystander and see where his problem lay.

It only took a moment for his mind to replay the entire first round of battle.

He instantly realized his problem after watching the entire battle as an observer.

"I was in too much of a rush to defeat him…"

Buried Heaven grinned slightly after discovering the root of the issue.

He felt that in the next round of battle, he would definitely be able to emerge victoriously.

The raptor had no idea what Buried Heaven was thinking. It merely assumed that it held the upper hand.

It did not intend to give Buried Heaven a chance to recoup at all. Right after it had sent Buried Heaven flying, it leaped into the air and pursued its opponent's falling body.

The minute it caught up and was preparing to deal a heavy blow to the other party, it noticed Buried Heaven's calm smile as well as the kick that he had been preparing for some time.

In a flash, millions of golden rays shot from Buried Heaven's right toe, aiming straight for the one-eyed raptor's single eye.

The angle of the attack was extremely tricky; it was also swift, accurate, and savage!

The raptor immediately used its hands to block the attack.

It was then sent flying by Buried Heaven's kick.

Almost simultaneously, countless golden chains emerged like undulating boa constrictors, sweeping toward the raptor.

Buried Heaven had now fully understood that this was his turf and he possessed not just combat cultivator techniques.

He had consolidated these chains by invoking the use of his Godly Right's sequence powers.

He did not need the chains to cause any harm to the raptor. All he needed was for them to obstruct its movements just a little, which would be enough to affect the entire battle situation.

Watching as the raptor tried to free itself from the chains, Buried Heaven was in no hurry to take the initiative and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Instead, he consolidated more chains to interfere with it, then looked for an opportunity to attack.

Within a few short seconds, he had already taken control of the entire tempo of battle.

"Things should be stable from now on." Lin Huang gave a slight nod.

Sure enough, Buried Heaven's performance was now completely different after adjusting his mindset.

The six Blood Sickle members—who had initially felt somewhat worried—were now overjoyed and their spirits lifted.

It was as if they could see that Buried Heaven's elevation to lord-level was not far off.

However, just when the situation in the God Territory had improved and Buried Heaven was taking control of the battle, an abnormal wave of energy came from the nearby black hole.

Lin Huang sensed the anomaly at once and immediately looked in that direction.

He saw a Dimensional Whirlpool appear inside the black hole. It had almost completely integrated with the black hole so that it appeared as one with it and was extremely hard to see with the naked eye.

Right as Lin Huang looked over, he saw a fair, flawless palm extend itself from the Whirlpool. Imbued with immeasurable force, it hurtled toward the Heavenly Dao's projection of Buried Heaven's God Territory.

As soon as the palm appeared, the six Blood Sickle members instantly attacked without hesitation, intending to block the assault.

Thanks to the broken Dao seal's effect, the power of the six Blood Sickles' attacks far surpassed that of Heavenly Gods.

The attacks were compounded with over one hundred levels of sequence power.

The minimum was over four hundred levels, with a maximum of over seven hundred levels.

As the six joined forces, a vast and mighty momentum struck the massive palm in succession.

However, the palm breached the six Blood Sickle members' attacks one by one. Its speed merely decreased slightly; it was still determinedly heading in the direction of Buried Heaven's God Territory.

"Since you don't seem to want this hand anymore, you may as well leave it here!"

Lin Huang muttered softly as if he were talking to himself. An instant later, a long, narrow-bladed battle sword had appeared in his hand—when, no one could tell. He returned the sword to its scabbard slowly.

In the distance, a blood-red sword gleam had already swept over the massive palm.

The unstoppable palm halted its advance as if time had stopped that very instant.

The individual who had attacked so suddenly was clearly a Lord.

The six Blood Sickle members were not able to block the assault even though they had joined forces.

If the massive palm struck Buried Heaven's God Territory, it might wreck the God Territory altogether.

Once Buried Heaven's God Territory was damaged, the unification raptor would certainly escape.

Since the God Territory was Buried Heaven's turf, for the raptor, the only fair place to do battle was outside the God Territory.

As soon as the raptor escaped out of the God Territory, Buried Heaven would lose his home ground advantage.

Although his Dao seal had already consolidated, and he could invoke the boost from his god sequence chains outside his God Territory, the Divine Power within his body would not be inexhaustible like it was within his God Territory.

In his God Territory, at least he could exhaust the raptor to death. However, outside his God Territory, the raptor would most likely wear him down instead.

Furthermore, once the raptor escaped, Buried Heaven would have no choice but to follow it out. Once he did so, he would become the target of the Lord's attack.

That was why Lin Huang and the rest wanted to stop that massive palm.

Although the onslaught of the six Blood Sickle members was halted, Lin Huang made his move in the nick of time, stopping the enemy's attack.

In truth, he was rather unwilling to display his real ability in front of the six Blood Sickles. After all, he was not familiar with any of them. He knew nothing of their characters, nor did he know if there were any Raider spies among the six.

However, he had no choice. If he did not show his hand, there was a high possibility that Buried Heaven's unification this time would fail.

Within the Dimensional Whirlpool inside the black hole, the Lord powerhouse who had attempted the stealth attack withdrew its arm, turned around and made good their escape after the attack failed. They did not even retrieve their severed hand.

From that one clash alone, they knew that they were not Lin Huang's match. In fact, they feared that Lin Huang would kill them on the spot.

"It's certainly fleeing very quickly." Naturally, Lin Huang immediately sensed the other party escaping far away.

He did not pursue it either. For one, he was worried that the opponent might be creating a diversion—once he left in pursuit, another Lord would attack Buried Heaven. For another, he felt that he might not be able to catch up. The black hole inherently possessed a spatial distortion effect. Even if he followed the other via teleportation, the tiniest variance would result in the dimensional coordinates being completely different.

Lin Huang knew that it was only a matter of time before his true ability was revealed.

He could hide it for a time, but he could not hide it forever.

Compared to before, now, he no longer shied away from his identity being exposed. After all, he already possessed the ability to fight on equal footing with Lords.

Watching the severed hand hovering in the air, the six Blood Sickle members only snapped back to their senses a moment later. They all turned to look at Lin Huang.

They knew Lin Huang was a genius with astounding ability. After all, he had previously assassinated the twins, Shen Yu and Shen Jue.

However, in their eyes, this young fellow named Xiu Mu could only be regarded as a mere junior. At most, he was just a slightly bigger fish in the pond.

After all, no matter how powerful a Heavenly God was, their Godly Right would only be effective in their own God Territory. Outside the God Territory, it would be useless.

However, at that very moment, the six of them finally realized just how much of a mistake they had made.

Lin Huang had suppressed a bona fide Lord on his own!

If not for the fact that their attacks had been easily countered, the six might even have had doubts about the ability of the stealth attacker. However, they had attacked full force earlier, yet they had failed to stop their opponent by even a fraction.

Lin Huang, however, had not only stopped the stealth attack, but he had even severed the other's hand.

The disparity in ability was extremely obvious.

"Your cultivation base is at lord-level?!" Gao Ming could not help but ask.

Actually, this was the speculation of the remaining five Blood Sickles as well.

After all, the preconception they had was that only Lords could fight Lords.

"Not yet." Lin Huang shook his head. He did not mention exactly which rank he was at; he did not think this was necessary.

"How is that possible?!" Boundless Blood was in slight disbelief. "A Heavenly God's Godly Right can only be used inside their God Territory. The sequence powers they've mastered in the outside world won't gain a boost. Your attack earlier likely had over ten thousand levels of compounded sequence power. How is it possible that it wasn't a boost?!"

"Why do I need that? Can't I have mastered up over ten thousand types of sequence power?" Lin Huang retorted at once.

The six Blood Sickle members present thought Lin Huang was spouting nonsense.

One had to be aware that individuals with a normal heavenly god-level aptitude would need tens of thousands of years to master one god sequence chain. Even if it were a one-in-a-million talented genius, they would need hundreds of years at least to master a single god sequence chain. They would need tens of thousands of years to accrue mastery for over ten thousand god sequence chains.

Moreover, Lin Huang was a newly-emerged genius. According to Death Sickle's investigation, he might not be even a hundred years old. Naturally, he could not possibly have mastered ten thousand god sequence chains.

It was even more unlikely that he had already elevated to Lord!

The six Blood Sickle members rapidly calmed down when they remembered Lin Huang's identity information.

All six had practically the same speculation—Lin Huang must have used some special technique, such as borrowing an Almighty's power. That was how he had managed to stop the Lord's massive palm.

Indeed, logically speaking, that was the most reasonable explanation.

In addition, Lin Huang had also stopped a half-step Lord's attack previously during Shen Yu and Shen Jue's assassination, and the technique he had used then was very obviously not inherently his own.

This made the few half-step Lords even more certain of this point—Lin Huang had a powerful survival trump card left to him by an Almighty.

Only after they had thought this out did the Blood Sickle members come out of their shocked state and regain their composure.

Seeing that Lin Huang was stubbornly denying any use of an Almighty's technique, they did not pursue the matter further.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, had no idea what the Blood Sickle members were thinking. Since they had stopped asking, he also did not bother to explain further.

He extended a telekinetic thread and coiled it around the severed hand. He then put the hand away in his storage space.

Only then did he turn his head to watch the projection of Buried Heaven's God Territory.

The six Blood Sickle members did not speak any further. They looked over at the projection of the God Territory in silence and continued observing the fight.

In the God Territory, the battle between Buried Heaven and the raptor was becoming more and more intense.

Buried Heaven had also gotten increasingly into the zone and had taken control of the entire battle now.

Every attack was delivered full force without holding back.

Even in defense, he was only protecting crucial body parts.

He was like a mad demon now.

Lin Huang and the rest could not help exclaiming in admiration to themselves.

This was the best way to do battle in the God Territory. There was no need to worry about the drain on one's power or be concerned about getting injured.

On the other end, the Divine Power in the raptor's body was nearing critical levels.

When the raptor entered the material realm, it was restricted by the realm itself.

Before obtaining the Dao seal, they could not replenish their power from the material realm at all. The more they used the energy in their bodies, the more it would decrease.

The battle between Buried Heaven and the raptor lasted for almost three days and three nights before coming to an end at last.

The powerful raptor was finally drained to the point of collapse, and Buried Heaven slaughtered it in his God Territory.

After the raptor's death, Buried Heaven's Dao seal absorbed the raptor's true spirit automatically, making it part of the Dao seal itself.

Only then was Buried Heaven considered to have completed his unification.

A moment later, he strode out of his God Territory and his aura was now completely different.

"Buried Heaven, your successful unification can be considered something that we haven't managed to achieve. That's awesome!"

"You've become a Lord today—after this, you'll soar to new heights!"

"Congratulations—let's have a celebration party when we return to headquarters!"

…

The six Blood Sickle members immediately hastened forward to congratulate Buried Heaven.

Seeing that Buried Heaven was surrounded by Blood Sickle members, Lin Huang did not join them. Instead, he waited till they had finished chatting, and Buried Heaven was making his way over before he delivered his congratulations, grinning.

"Congratulations, boss Buried Heaven, for succeeding in your unification and becoming a Lord! Don't forget to protect me, boss."

"You little rascal…" Buried Heaven smiled and scrutinized Lin Huang for a while. He noticed the anomaly in Lin Huang's aura as well but was still able to vaguely sense his combat strength. "Given the current progress of your cultivation, it won't be too long before you're at this level.

"Don't rush into things after achieving ninth-rank. Build your foundation and only break through when you're confident," Buried Heaven added, "I have a feeling that your ability might far exceed mine after you become a Lord. When that time comes, it won't be me protecting you anymore."

Clearly, Buried Heaven had no idea that a Lord had attempted a stealth attack outside his God Territory earlier, nor was he aware of Lin Huang's true ability. He genuinely thought that right now, he could protect Lin Huang.

The expressions on the faces of the six Blood Sickle members were rather odd. In their minds, they were thinking that this young fellow's background was much more complicated than Buried Heaven had imagined. He had an Almighty above lord-level protecting him. Why would he need the protection of a low-level Lord who had just elevated?

Lin Huang did not intend to reveal his abilities for the moment. He nodded with a smile. "Alright, when I become a Lord in the future, I'll protect you!"

The two of them chatted for a little bit before Buried Heaven was dragged away by the Blood Sickles for the celebration party. They invited Lin Huang along as well.

Initially, Lin Huang wanted to decline since he was not familiar with the Blood Sickle members. However, after giving it some careful thought, he realized that nobody had mentioned the Lord's attempted attack earlier. He felt that he should find some time to tell Buried Heaven about it.

The Lord had attempted to attack during Buried Heaven's unification, but this did not mean they would not try again after Buried Heaven's elevation to lord-level.

Everyone went through the dimensional portal and returned to Blood Sickle's Shelter right away.

However, everyone sensed something odd right after they went through the dimensional portal.

The guardian half-step Lord's aura was gone. Not only that, there was no trace of any life force in Death Sickle's headquarters.

Lin Huang did a sweep with Divine Telekinesis. Everyone in Death Sickle's headquarters was dead!

Buried Heaven and the six Blood Sickles looked grim. Evidently, they had just discovered the situation at headquarters.

Buried Heaven vanished right away in a flash. The next instant, he appeared in the cultivation room on the highest floor of headquarters.

Lin Huang and the rest hurriedly followed suit.

Subsequently, Lin Huang saw a middle-aged man quietly sitting on a meditation cushion in the cultivation room. His head was sunk low, and any signs of vitality were completely absent.

Lin Huang immediately identified the man; he was one of the seven Blood Sickle members, Sun Zhan of the Heavenly Ape Tribe.

According to the information Death Sickle had made public, Sun Zhan was a combat cultivator and the powerhouse with the most powerful physique in Death Sickle. Of course, this was based on the rankings before Buried Heaven had elevated to lord-level.

"Old Sun!" The Blood Sickle members exclaimed involuntarily.

"Don't get close yet. Check with Divine Telekinesis to see if someone's left any sort of booby trap on him." Lin Huang immediately stopped them, seeing that they were about to hurry forward and lift the body.

It was not that Buried Heaven and the other Blood Sickle members had not thought of this; it was merely that concern had made them lose their heads.

In comparison to Buried Heaven and the rest, Lin Huang was the least familiar with the deceased. In fact, it was his first time seeing Sun Zhan. Naturally, he was also the most vigilant.

The others halted immediately upon hearing Lin Huang's reminder. They began carefully checking the deceased over with Divine Telekinesis.

They only went forward a moment later after finding nothing amiss.

"There are no traces of battle, and Old Sun doesn't have any wounds on him," Gao Ming said after checking the corpse, "It should be that his God's soul was obliterated right away by a lord-level powerhouse."

"It has to be the same group of people as that fellow who launched a stealth attack at Buried Heaven," Hu Xian'er said venomously.

"What? Someone tried to launch a stealth attack at me?!" Buried Heaven's expression was full of disbelief.

"During your unification, a Lord tried a surprise attack. He wanted to damage your God Territory. However, Xiu Mu stopped him…" Gao Ming gave a brief summary of what had happened.

Buried Heaven looked at Lin Huang with an utterly astonished expression.

"You severed the Lord's hand?!"

"I've got some special techniques." Lin Huang did not deny anything, but neither did he admit that he possessed this level of ability.

The six Blood Sickle members were now even more certain about their previous speculation when they heard this. Lin Huang had to have borrowed the technique that an Almighty had left for him.

"Can you show me the hand?" Buried Heaven asked.

Lin Huang immediately retrieved the severed hand and passed it to Buried Heaven.

Buried Heaven took the severed limb and sent his Divine Telekinesis into it. A second later, there was a low grunt, and the hand tore free from Buried Heaven's grasp. It then charged in Hu Xian'er's direction as if it had come alive.

However, at that moment, Lin Huang extended a few Divine Telekinesis threads and entangled the hand in them. He then pulled it back forcefully.

"If you dare try moving again, I'll obliterate you!"

Lin Huang's battle sword came out of its scabbard once more. The point of the sword lightly rested on the back of the hand and pierced down about a centimeter or so. Blood began oozing from the severed hand. It seemed to be able to understand Lin Huang's threat and did not dare to move again.

Nearby, Hu Xian'er was still in a state of shock. Earlier, she had thought she was going to die.

The others were staring at Lin Huang in amazement.

At that moment, Buried Heaven spat out a mouthful of blood. He gave Lin Huang an inscrutable glance after coming back to his senses, then said, "This person's abilities are more powerful than mine. Although he's also a low-level Lord, he's definitely consolidated more Dao seals than I have. He's mastered at least five thousand god sequence chains."

As to how Lin Huang had managed to sever the hand, Buried Heaven did not pursue the matter further.

"For now, we'll leave the suppression of the hand to you; in a few days, when we need it, we'll come to you then.

"From the looks of things now, Old Sun's death and the attempted attack on me ought to be related. Moreover, it's no surprise that the same group of people is likely responsible. That's because it can't possibly be a coincidence—two such events happening at the same time." Buried Heaven did not dwell further on the issue of the hand.

"They sent two Lords to suppress Death Sickle. That's unbelievably brazen." Boundless Blood's eyes narrowed slightly.

"The attack might not really be directed at Death Sickle," Lin Huang could not help speaking up at that point, "They might have a personal grudge against Buried Heaven, or Old Sun and the rest of you Blood Sickle members. Killing everyone in Death Sickle might just have been in passing.

"It's also possible that they targeted some other Death Sickle members rather than all of you…" Lin Huang thought of the Raiders when he said that.

"Of course, I'm just stating other possibilities; they're not necessarily correct," Lin Huang added.

"The things you've mentioned are certainly possible," Buried Heaven was the first to agree.

"Right now, my thoughts on the matter are that we should look at Lords specializing in God's soul cultivation first. That's the biggest lead. Secondly, we should look for a Lord who has recently had his hand severed. The hand Xiu Mu severed isn't something that can be regenerated within a short time. The third thing is that the Lords who attacked might not have come from the God Territory but from somewhere else. We can check the God Territory's entry records for Lords. Lord-level powerhouses have to report to the authorities when visiting other territories…"

Buried Heaven rapidly sketched out his investigation plan.

As soon as Lin Huang returned to the Devil Hunter Star Zone, he activated the communication transfer function on his communicator and transferred it to Sword1's communicator. He also authorized access for Sword1 to enter and exit the Great Heaven Territory freely.

Furthermore, he let Sword1 know that if he received news from Death Sickle or any other important information, he could come into the Great Heaven Territory and knock on the door of the Great Heaven Palace.

After making these arrangements, Lin Huang entered the Great Heaven Palace again and went into closed-door cultivation.

As for the matter of Death Sickle's headquarters being attacked, he did not participate any further in subsequent discussions.

In reality, his presence did not really matter since Buried Heaven and the Blood Sickle members were there.

In terms of resources and connections, Death Sickle most certainly had more of them than he did.

Lin Huang did not want to waste his time by joining in.

Of course, if they needed his help with anything, he would not say no either.

Since the two Death Sickle incidents, all he wanted now was to become as powerful as possible.

This was because he felt that it was only a matter of time before he was noticed by Raiders.

He even suspected that he might already have been targeted by Raiders.

Inside the Great Heaven Palace, Lin Huang sat down cross-legged and began to list out, one by one, the methods for making himself more powerful.

"First of all, for my combat strength, I'll need 256 half-step Lords' God Territories to elevate from eighth-rank to ninth-rank. Although there are an extra 17 God Territories left from elevating to eighth-rank previously, I still need 239 more to elevate. In the interim, it will be extremely difficult to obtain so many half-step Lords' God Territories. All I can do is obtain more resources later on to trade for half-step Lords' God Territories.

"Secondly, my Sword Dao is already at a critical boundary. Whether or not I can go a step further and break through from Sword Dao heavenly rule to Sword seal will depend on chance. Looking at things now, the possibility of achieving a breakthrough in the short term isn't very high.

"Thirdly, the maximum number of god sequence chains that I can borrow is already at twelve thousand eight hundred chains. If I want to increase that number, I have no choice but to use combat strength to achieve a breakthrough. Of course, in the long run, I need time to comprehend those borrowed god sequence chains and transform them into my own. However, I can't strengthen my ability by comprehending god sequence chains from scratch. I can definitely wait on this until I've elevated to ninth-rank or tenth-rank.

"Number four—there's still room for improvement in my Divine Telekinesis. I still have the last eight images of the unknown Divine Telekinesis visualization set that I haven't visualized yet. This is a way for me to elevate my abilities at present.

"Number five—the God's Figurine's Combat Souls' strength is lagging far behind my current abilities. This is actually also something that can be elevated. However, should I refine a new batch of half-step Lord dead bodies or use Advance Cards right away to elevate the original God's Figurines? For now, I haven't figured that out yet…

"The sixth thing would be elevating the imperial monsters' abilities. They'll mainly have to rely on themselves for this. After all, I can't help with elevating their combat strength. I'll help when they need to advance a level. However, apart from Advance Cards, it's quite impossible to expect them to accumulate materials. I'm guessing that for rare elevation materials, I'll still need to find a way to gather them…

"Number seven—there's room for improvement in the Sword Servants' abilities as well. The swordmaster guardians like Sword1 and Sword2 in particular; they have the ability and the accumulated experiences necessary to break through and become Lords. However, this can't be rushed. I still need to give them enough time to prepare themselves. For the rest of the Sword Servants, their potential has almost been exhausted. Not many of them will be able to elevate to lord-level…"

Lin Huang analyzed every aspect of his current situation.

After a moment of thought, he calmed his mind and began to visualize the 101st unknown Divine Telekinesis visualization image.

He chose to strengthen his Divine Telekinesis since this was the fastest way for him to elevate at present and would not cost him anything extra. All he had to do was to invest time and effort.

Very soon, Lin Huang entered a visualization state.

Time passed, day by day, in the Great Heaven Palace.

In the outside world, three days had passed.

However, in the Great Heaven Palace, it had been over thirty thousand days.

Lin Huang—who had been sitting, legs crossed, like a piece of deadwood—finally opened his eyes today.

After spending over thirty thousand days, he had finally visualized the 101st image successfully.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he did was check the date. When he realized he had only used thirty thousand days or so, he felt quite happy.

This was because he knew that the visualization would become increasingly difficult after the 100th image. Based on his estimation, if he had tried this when his Divine Telekinesis was not at lord-level yet, he would need over three hundred thousand days to visualize just the 101st image. In other words, approximately a month would pass by in the outside world.

Now, however, the efficiency of his visualization had increased significantly.

He could clearly sense that his Divine Telekinesis had also become more powerful.

"It looks like the origin of this set of visualization images might not be so simple after all." Lin Huang had only now realized that the improvement in his Divine Telekinesis brought on by the visualization images had far surpassed his expectations.

Seeing that Sword1 had not come to awaken him, Lin Huang decided to quiet his mind again and seize the time to visualize the 102nd visualization image.

Six days went by in the outside world.

In the Great Heaven Palace, however, over sixty thousand days had passed, since time was accelerated ten thousand times.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes again, he had already visualized the 102nd visualization image.

He only needed a cursory check to discover that his Divine Telekinesis strength was now at peak lower-rank lord-level.

He had initially supposed that his Divine Telekinesis strength would elevate to lower-rank lord-level after visualizing all one hundred and eight visualization images. However, he now discovered that this had been achieved even though he had only visualized the 102nd image.

"If I continue the visualizing, don't tell me my Divine Telekinesis strength might achieve a breakthrough to middle-rank lord-level?!" Lin Huang was rather astonished.

Seeing that there was still no news yet from Sword1, Lin Huang calmed his mind again and continued to visualize the 103rd visualization image.

However, this time, he had only been visualizing for a few days before a series of knocks sounded on the door of the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang immediately came out of his visualization state.

"It looks like news has probably come from Death Sickle."

He gestured, and the door of the Great Heaven Palace opened. Sword1 was standing there, clad in a long green robe.

"Lord Swordmaster, news has come from Buried Heaven. I've already informed him that you'll reply to him in a little while."

"Alright."

Lin Huang nodded slightly and strode out of the Great Heaven Palace.

A moment later, the two teleported back to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Lin Huang returned alone to his courtyard and called Buried Heaven's number.

In just a little while, the video call connected. Buried Heaven's white-haired, youthful figure projected into the courtyard.

"How is the investigation going?" Lin Huang asked right away, without bothering about niceties.

"We've located someone whom we suspect might be the owner of the hand you severed." Buried Heaven paused and took stock of Lin Huang. "But I need you to bring the severed hand over to verify it."

"Not a problem. Where do we meet?" Lin Huang agreed readily.

"Let's meet at headquarters," Buried Heaven said, a ferocious gleam flashing through his eyes, "After that, we'll both go and pay a visit to the Combat God Temple!"

Kratos Star Zone was a galaxy supercluster with a diameter of over 180 million light-years.

If it were viewed from sufficiently far away, the shape of this star zone looked a little like a battle-axe.

This was also the location of the Combat God Temple's headquarters.

It was Lin Huang's first time setting foot on this star zone. It was also his first time at the Combat God Temple's headquarters—the Combat God Shelter.

Looking at the massive palace in front of him that seemed to be built for giants hundreds of meters tall, Lin Huang was somewhat bereft of speech.

The door alone measured at least five hundred meters in height.

"The Combat God Temple's headquarters is a Dao Weapon left behind from the ancient epoch. It's said to be the palace of the Giant King of the ancient epoch's Giant Tribe," Buried Heaven explained off-handedly as if noticing Lin Huang's confusion.

Both of them made their way slowly to the door. A warrior in silver armor, who was guarding the door, quickly went to announce their arrival.

A moment later, the warrior returned and said to them respectfully, "Please follow me."

Led by the silver-armored warrior, Lin Huang and Buried Heaven made their way into the palace.

After all, this was the Combat God Temple's headquarters. It would be imprudent for them to invade the place before they had ascertained the facts of the matter—that would be equivalent to a complete falling out with the God Combat Temple.

Therefore, Buried Heaven led Lin Huang through the usual visitation procedures.

Right after they stepped into the Combat God Temple, many people in the palace turned their gazes toward them.

Not many were able to identify Lin Huang as Xiu Mu, but almost everyone recognized Buried Heaven.

Of course, Buried Heaven was not using his youthful Primordial form right now, but the muscular form that he displayed to the outside world.

In the crowd, countless people whispered among themselves.

"Is that fellow Buried Heaven?"

"Why is Buried Heaven here at the Combat God Temple?"

"I heard a rumor a few days back that Buried Heaven succeeded in unification and elevated to become a Lord."

"I saw the gossip thread online too. What's strange is that Death Sickle didn't deny it, nor did they give a definitive answer."

"I think that's got to be fake news. If I were Death Sickle's upper echelons and Buried Heaven really did successfully undergo unification to become a Lord, I'd trumpet it with a foghorn everywhere I went. I'd want everyone in the entire God Territory to know. What's there to hide?!"

"That's right. Death Sickle has been so low-key lately. It doesn't look as if they have a new Lord."

Naturally, Lin Huang and Buried Heaven heard the gossip among the crowd as clear as could be.

Lin Huang felt rather puzzled. He had thought the news about Buried Heaven's elevation to lord-level had been circulated much earlier. That was because good news like this would usually be announced right away. Furthermore, it was also considered a boost for Death Sickle's reputation.

"The news of your successful unification hasn't been announced?" Lin Huang asked rather doubtfully through voice transmission.

"Not yet." Buried Heaven shook his head. "As soon as it's announced, we'll have to temporarily shelve the investigation. That's because the God Territory gaining a new Lord is no small matter. All the major organizations would take turns to congratulate us, and we'd need to host a banquet out of courtesy and invite them… It would be at least half a month before things settle down."

Lin Huang immediately understood Buried Heaven and the few Blood Sickle members' points of view.

The longer the two cases dragged on—the attempted attack on Buried Heaven, as well as the massacre at Death Sickle's headquarters—the more difficult it would be to find the murderer.

Buried Heaven and the others had prioritized investigating the truth over Death Sickle's honor to find the perpetrator as soon as possible.

The warrior in silver armor led Buried Heaven and Lin Huang through the crowd. They ascended a floating staircase and soon came to a cultivation room.

"Please go in, both of you."

The two opened the door and went in. Lin Huang realized that the cultivation room was completely bare. There were no furnishings; even the walls, ceiling, and floor were like those of the most rudimentary unfinished house.

There was only a woolen blanket on the floor in the middle of the room. An old man with white hair sat upon it, cross-legged.

Lin Huang identified the man at a glance. This was the Combat God Temple's current Temple Master—Zhan Guang!

Lin Huang had seen his picture on the internet more than once.

Zhan Guang opened his eyes when the two of them entered, then locked his gaze on Buried Heaven. Only after observing him for a good while did he venture, "So you really have succeeded in unification and elevated to become a Lord, young fellow. I knew I wasn't mistaken in you."

"Senior Zhan Guang, you praise me too highly," Buried Heaven said respectfully.

Zhan Guang was a veteran Lord. Even the few Blood Sickle members from Death Sickle would have to address him as their senior.

"This is…" Zhan Guang then turned his gaze to Lin Huang. It was not long before he discovered that there was something odd about the young man.

"This humble junior is Xiu Mu. It's a pleasure to meet you, senior." Lin Huang went forward and offered his greetings.

No matter what, they were still not enemies for now and should not skip the usual formalities.

Zhan Guang scrutinized Lin Huang again and realized that he was still unable to read this young man. He could not help exclaiming, "The younger generation has certainly surpassed the old!

"Please take a seat." Zhan Guang casually brought out a teapoy and arranged the tea service, taking his own time. "Peerless told me there's something important that you'd like to speak to me about in person? What is it exactly?"

The Peerless mentioned was the Combat God Temple's Peerless Overlord, whose rank was on par with Buried Heaven.

"During this junior's unification, a Lord attempted a stealth attack on me…"

Buried Heaven took his seat directly across from Zhan Guang; Lin Huang followed suit and sat beside Buried Heaven.

"Such a thing actually happened?!" Before Buried Heaven could finish speaking, Zhan Guang paused in the middle of what he was doing. Frowning, he asked, "Do you suspect that this was someone from the Combat God Temple?!"

Buried Heaven did not answer this question. Instead, he continued, "Almost the same time as the attempted assault on me, Death Sickle's headquarters was attacked. Old Sun, who was standing guard, was killed. Besides him, there were also five hundred and thirteen lives lost. Nobody was spared."

Zhan Guang's expression was one of utter shock when he heard this. "Old Sun, the combat cultivator?! How did he die?"

"There were no traces of battle at all in Death Sickle's headquarters, nor did Old Sun have any wounds on him. His God's soul was instantly obliterated," Buried Heaven explained.

"This must have been done by a Lord whose main cultivation path is God's soul!" Zhan Guang said with certainty, "None of the four Lords from the Combat God Temple are experts in God's soul techniques, let alone specializing in God's soul cultivation."

"I know that. However, it's impossible for there not to be a connection between the two attackers. It's just too much of a coincidence." Buried Heaven nodded.

"So what you're saying is that the Lord who tried to attack you is from the Combat God Temple. And he collaborated with another Lord to destroy your headquarters?" Zhan Guang looked at Buried Heaven with a displeased expression.

Although he had always thought well of this junior sitting in front of him, Zhan Guang would definitely turn violent if Buried Heaven dared to slander the Combat God Temple.

"I only suspect this is so; nothing has been confirmed yet." Buried Heaven stared right back at Zhan Guang as well. He had no intention at all of backing down.

The two of them locked gazes for a long time before Zhan Guang finally spoke, "Tell me the reason for your suspicions. If it's not legitimate, I'll have no choice but to ask you to leave."

"A few days back, the Combat God Temple discovered the battlefield of a Lord. Your Lords were preparing to explore it. However, there was someone who cited closed-door cultivation as a reason and declined to join in…" Buried Heaven abruptly changed the topic of conversation as soon as he finished speaking. "The Lord who attempted to attack me was wounded."

"Are you suspecting that it was Zhan Zhuo who tried to attack you?" Zhan Guang's eyes narrowed slightly at this point. "What means do you have to verify your suspicions?"

"He left behind a severed hand," Buried Heaven stated very calmly.

Zhan Gang fell silent.

Buried Heaven had the stealth attacker's limb. As soon as the limb approached its body of origin, it would immediately sense this. It was a reaction that could not be faked.

If the individual responsible for the covert attack really was Zhan Zhuo, he would be exposed as soon as he met Buried Heaven.

Zhan Guang had no intention of shielding the murderer. It was just that he felt Buried Heaven's request to verify whether or not Zhan Zhuo was the perpetrator would not look good for the Combat God Temple's reputation.

"What if he's not the perpetrator?" Zhan Guang finally broke the silence after a long while.

"I'll publicly apologize to the Combat God Temple, as well as compensate Zhan Zhuo with a Dao Weapon," Buried Heaven said unhesitatingly. Clearly, he had prepared his mitigations before he came here.

"If he really is the perpetrator, though, I hope that the Combat God Temple will seek justice for myself and Death Sickle." Buried Heaven stared fixedly at Zhan Guang, waiting for his response.

Zhan Guang pondered for a moment, then nodded. "If he is truly the attacker, the Combat God Temple definitely won't shield him. Not only that, we'll give Death Sickle our full support to help find the wretch who destroyed Death Sickle's headquarters!

"As a member of the God Territory, attacking a person performing unification in the God Territory violates the God Territory's joint pact. Slaughtering a grade-6 organization's entire headquarters makes them a public enemy of the God Territory!"

"Senior is wise!" Buried Heaven complimented immediately.

"If something's not right with Zhan Zhuo, he'll definitely sense something is off if I asked him to come here. He might even flee straight away. I think it's best I take you over to see him." Zhan Guang gave this some thought and took a sip of tea before standing up.

Lin Huang and Buried heaven immediately got up as well. They followed Zhan Guang and left the cultivation room.

As soon as they stepped out of the door of the cultivation room, Zhan Guang summoned a Dimensional Whirlpool with a flick of his wide sleeve and led the other two into it.

A moment later, they exited the Dimensional Whirlpool.

The three of them had arrived directly on another planet.

This was a barren, desolate place. Lin Huang did not sense any traces of life force at all. He only saw an ancient palace not too far away.

Zhan Guang arrived in front of the great palace in just a few steps. He pounded on the door heavily with his fist.

"Zhan Zhuo, Buried Heaven from Death Sickle wants to ask you about something."

However, despite knocking for quite a while, the massive doors of the palace remained closed.

Lin Huang and Buried Heaven glanced at each other. Both of them felt that the chances of Zhan Zhuo showing his face were low.

He most likely would pretend that he was away to avoid this meeting.

However, after knocking for a long time without a response, Zhan Guang decided to shout at the top of his lungs.

"Zhan Zhuo, I'm here today to give you the chance to explain yourself. However, if you refuse to see us today and Buried Heaven and his people make trouble for you later, the Combat God Temple won't intervene on your behalf. Also, according to the God Territory's joint pact, the Combat God Temple will join forces with the other grade-7 organizations to aid in your capture!"

Lin Huang had never expected Zhan Guang to go this far.

Initially, he thought that at most, Zhan Guang would only bring both of them here and would not bother whether Zhan Zhuo was willing to see them or not. After all, Zhan Zhuo was part of the Combat God Temple. Even if Zhan Guang could not display favoritism openly, there was nothing that they could do if he privately decided to let Zhan Zhuo get off scot-free.

However, Buried Heaven did not seem surprised. Evidently, he knew Zhan Guang's character very well. This was also why he had met with him directly in person and confided in him about what had happened to Death Sickle.

After Zhan Guang's shout, the door of the ancient palace finally opened a moment later.

"Come in."

A voice came from within the palace.

Lin Huang was expressionless, but Buried Heaven frowned slightly.

Zhan Zhuo's ancient palace was clearly a Dao Weapon.

If they went in, they would be in his territory altogether.

Zhan Guang turned his head to glance at Buried Heaven and Lin Huang. He seemed to notice Buried Heaven's hesitation. "Don't worry, I'm here after all."

As soon as he finished speaking, he took the lead and entered the ancient palace.

Buried Heaven did not hesitate any further. Following behind Zhan Guang, he went into the palace with Lin Huang.

As soon as the three of them stepped inside, the door of the ancient palace closed with a loud thud.

They walked straight through into the deeper recesses of the palace and saw a young man sitting upright on a prayer mat.

This man's appearance was extremely eye-catching. His countenance was handsome, his eyes were like stars, and he gave off a sense of standing out from the common crowd.

Lin Huang immediately looked in the direction of the young man's right hand. The limb was whole.

However, this did not explain away anything. For Lords, physical regeneration of the body was a simple task. However, Lin Huang had not just simply severed the attacker's hand; he had also severed a quantity of Odyl. If this was a regenerated hand, Odyl could not possibly circulate smoothly in the short term.

Obviously, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang also looked at Zhan Zhuo's hand at once.

"I've been in closed-door cultivation for the last few days. Is there something I can help both of you with?"

Zhan Zhuo did not even ask Buried Heaven who Lin Huang was at all.

However, although Zhan Zhuo did not so much as glance at him, Lin Huang sensed that he had surreptitiously used Divine Telekinesis to look him over.

Buried Heaven took a step forward and said bluntly, "A few days back, was it you who attempted a covert attack on me during unification?!"

Beside them, Zhan Guang raised his brows when he heard that. He had not expected Buried Heaven to be so straightforward.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Zhan Zhuo's eyelids twitched as he looked at Buried Heaven, his expression quite displeased. "Have you considered the consequences of accusing a Lord like this?"

"Oh, really?" Buried Heaven turned his head to nod at Lin Huang. "Bring it out."

The minute Buried Heaven gave the word, Lin Huan retrieved the severed hand from his storage space.

Almost as soon as the severed hand was taken out, it began struggling intensely, eager to go to where Zhan Zhuo was.

However, several of Lin Huang's telekinetic threads secured it in a death grip, forcibly suppressing it.

Zhan Guang's brow furrowed tightly when he saw what was happening. Although he had already been mentally prepared, feeling that Buried Heaven would not have come here without a strong case, he still found it hard to accept the evidence of his eyes—that the severed hand was clearly Zhan Zhuo's.

"Do you have any other explanation for that?" Buried Heaven stared at Zhan Zhuo coldly.

Zhan Zhuo did not answer the question, nor did he continue feigning ignorance by asking what the hand was. Instead, he turned his head to look at Zhan Guang. "You shouldn't have come."

"Covertly attacking an individual during unification is behavior that violates the God Territory's joint pact!" Zhan Guang's expression was severe."Why did you do that?!"

"The God Territory's joint pact?" Zhan Zhuo gave a snort of laughter. "Why would I bother obeying a child's game?"

Zhan Zhuo had completely revealed his true colors now. His gaze had finally settled on Lin Huang as well.

"I never thought that we'd actually manage to lure you here, even though we were just attacking to test the waters."

Lin Huang's heart sank when he heard that. "You're a Raider?!"

Zhan Zhuo smirked suddenly. "I was merely guessing just now, so I used that simple sentence to test you. Who would have thought that you would betray yourself?"

Lin Huang frowned.

Only travelers were aware of the Raiders' existence. His question earlier had completely exposed his identity as a traveler.

"You've not lived this life in vain, seeing that you'll have two Lords as your burial companions." As soon as Zhan Zhuo finished speaking, the hand seals that he had been secretly performing within his sleeves suddenly took effect.

The relief carvings on the bronze pillars in the palace seemed to come alive. Every single one of their auras was lord-level!

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang frowned when they saw what was happening.

"Zhan Zhuo, are you out of your mind?!" Zhan Guang realized that Zhan Zhuo was going to kill him as well.

"I already said you shouldn't have come." Zhan Zhuo turned his head to look at Zhan Guang, his eyes set with killing intent. "After you brought them here, you could have just given an obligatory show of courtesy and left after you knocked and the door didn't open. You should have just let them figure something out. But no, you had to make threats, demanding I open the door so you could force me into confronting them."

"Senior Zhan Guang, you needn't indulge in wishful thinking anymore. From the moment this fellow opened the palace door, he already knew that his deeds would be exposed. From that instant as well, he never intended to leave any of us alive." Lin Huang did not use voice transmission; his voice resounded through the great palace.

"You're absolutely right," Zhan Zhuo admitted frankly after hearing what Lin Huang said. "I began setting up the palace ever since you teleported here. I opened the door because I had completed my preparations. What a pity all of you were so foolish as to step right into my carefully-prepared trap."

One by one, the relief-carved monsters on the bronze pillars came alive and materialized in the palace. There were a full twenty to thirty of them, and the intensity of each of their auras was obviously lord-level.

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang's expressions were rather odd. Both of them could clearly sense that the monsters' auras were very similar to that of the unification raptors.

These dozen-over monsters soon split into three groups and charged at Lin Huang and the other two, respectively.

When Zhan Guang saw this, he did not hold back any longer.

He made a sweep with the Dao Weaponry spear in his hand, aiming at the monsters surrounding him.

On the other end, Buried Heaven was frowning hard. He wanted to go to Lin Huang's rescue, but he was blocked by several monsters.

Although he had roughly guessed that Lin Huang had severed Zhan Zhuo's hand using his own inherent abilities and not some unique technique, he did not dare guarantee that his speculations were correct.

If Lin Huang had indeed previously used the trump card that an Almighty had left for him, then what he faced now under the current circumstances was certain death.

However, the next instant, Buried Heaven saw dozens of blood-red gleams shooting out from Lin Huang's sleeves. They shot through the air like dozens of lightning bolts.

A moment later, the monsters charging at Lin Huang all toppled to the ground and did not get up again.

Not only that, even the monsters that surrounded Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang all fell to the ground.

When Buried Heaven took a closer look, he realized that all the monsters' heads had been instantly impaled, and their God's souls removed.

"This is your carefully prepared setup?" Lin Huang took a step forward and asked Zhan Zhuo calmly.

The flying daggers he used earlier were his elevated Dao Weapon-rank telekinetic god weapon. Each of the daggers had up over ten thousand levels of compounded sequence power.

One could say that the power of each attack far surpassed Zhan Zhuo's inherent full-force attack, what more the relief-carving combat spirits he had conjured up.

For a moment, it was difficult for Buried Heaven to regain his composure. Although he had guessed long ago that Lin Huang's abilities might be astounding, Lin Huang's attack earlier had startled him a little.

He could clearly sense that if he had been attacked by any of the flying daggers earlier, there was a very high chance that he would have been killed instantly.

Nearby, Zhan Guang was dumbfounded.

He had never expected that the heavenly god-level junior Buried Heaven had brought along possessed such terrifying ability—he was powerful enough to suppress Zhan Guang himself. Zhan Guang had no idea what to say at the moment.

Zhan Zhuo's expression, on the other hand, was not very pleasant.

Initially, he had thought he would win through numbers by draining the three's Divine Power. He had never expected that the first phase of his setup would be destroyed completely in just the first encounter.

Although he had intentionally given Lin Huang's abilities as high an estimate as possible, Zhan Zhuo could not believe he had still underestimated him.

"It's too early for you to celebrate yet."

Zhan Zhuo gave a cold snort. Lin Huang and the other two could clearly sense that more auras were rapidly awakening in the shadows all over the palace.

The auras were similar to the twenty-over monsters, but they had doubled in number now.

When they sensed the monsters' auras again, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang were finally able to confirm that these monsters were unification raptors.

They did not know what method Zhan Zhuo had used to summon so many unification raptors and seal them within the relief carvings of the ancient palace. What he had done subsequently was merely to unseal the carvings and release these raptors.

In reality, the unification raptors were not very powerful in terms of ability. The most powerful one had only mastered less than two thousand god sequence chains. Most of the others had only mastered a thousand or so god sequence chains, which was on par with a new Lord who had just succeeded in unification.

The trouble was that there were far too many raptors.

If Lin Huang had not intervened earlier, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang would definitely have been sucked into a grueling battle that drained large quantities of their Divine Power.

A subsequent second round would certainly have exhausted them to death.

However, Lin Huang was now a variable within the ancient palace.

The second round of monsters rapidly emerged from the relief carvings on the walls of the ancient palace and surrounded Lin Huang and the other two.

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang looked tense. There were over a hundred unification raptors surrounding them this time. Just the sheer numbers alone were enough to cause them psychological stress.

However, Lin Huang remained calm. He shook his sleeves, and over a hundred telekinetic flying daggers turned into blood-red streams of light that traveled through the palace like fishes swimming.

It was the mere work of a moment before the hundred or so unification raptors toppled to the ground. Their wounds were in the same place—the flying daggers had directly impaled their heads.

After that, the bodies gradually blurred, then vanished.

"If that's all you have, stop wasting time continuing to fight. Surrender your partner willingly, and I'll make sure to give you a quick death." Lin Huang withdrew the telekinetic flying daggers and turned his head to look at Zhan Zhuo.

From off to one side, Zhan Guang spoke as well, "Stop persisting in the error of your ways!"

"Do any of you know the nature of the raptors?" Zhan Zhuo suddenly asked with a smirk.

Lin Huang and the other two thought it ridiculous of Zhan Zhuo to ask such a thing out of nowhere.

"The world the raptors inhabit is called the virtual realm. What we know as raptors are actually the resident living beings of this virtual realm," Zhan Zhuo explained, heedless of anyone but himself.

"Do you know what the virtual realm is?" he asked again.

Lin Huang, Buried Heaven, and Zhan Guang had even more misgivings now. They could not figure out what Zhan Zhuo was trying to say at all.

"The virtual realm is the reflection of the material realm. The size of the material realm will be the size of the virtual realm. It's not just the whole universe—it stretches even beyond that…

"All of you are just ants with no idea of how vast this world truly is. The boundless great world that you see is essentially a speck of dust.

"Death Sickle, the Combat God Temple, the God Territory… What of them, they're just dust within the dust!

"To us Raiders, every living thing, every item, all the power, all the worlds—in fact, everything that there is—they're targets for plundering as long as they bring us benefits!

"To me, the three of you will forever be mere targets to be plundered!

As soon as Zhan Zhuo finished speaking, three 'Virtual Eyes' opened in the vault of the heavens. They were like living eyes staring at Lin Huang and the other two.

"Enjoy the big gift that I've prepared for the three of you!"

The three Virtual Eyes in the void opened slowly, while Zhan Zhuo's figure became increasingly indistinct as well, vanishing a moment later.

"We're in his God Territory." Buried Heaven frowned slightly.

After undergoing unification just a few days ago, seeing the Virtual Eyes opening once again gave him a vague sense of unease.

"He must have shrouded the entire ancient palace with his God Territory before we entered." Zhan Guang seemed to have noticed this as well. "However, I have no idea how he managed to do it and spontaneously open a passage to a virtual zone within his own God Territory."

Under normal circumstances, the consolidation of a Dao seal during a Heavenly God's unification would attract raptors. This process would be initiated by the raptors opening a passage from the virtual zone to come into the material realm. However, Zhan Zhuo had currently used some unknown method to spontaneously open a passage to the virtual zone on his own.

As to what methods Zhan Zhuo had used, Lin Huang had a vague suspicion that it might be connected to the other party's Goldfinger. That was because he could not figure what other methods Zhan Zhou could have used to do this.

Furthermore, ever since the beginning of the fight until now, Zhan Zhuo did not seem to have displayed his Goldfinger's ability. If that were the case, it was entirely possible that communicating with the virtual realm was his Goldfinger's ability.

The auras emanating from the Virtual Eyes were becoming increasingly powerful. Lin Huang could even clearly sense that the aura radiating from one of the Virtual Eyes was already a threat to him.

Zhan Guang and Buried Heaven looked grim as well. Both of them also clearly sensed that the monsters within the Virtual Eyes this time were much more powerful than those that Lin Huang had killed earlier. In particular, as the aura of the strongest monster began permeating through, both of them experienced the suffocating feeling that preceded death.

Although they had seen Lin Huang's display of ability earlier, they did not think that he stood a chance of defeating this creature at all.

"I'm mainly responsible for both of you ending up in this situation. I shouldn't have brought you in here," Zhan Guang apologized with a wry smile. He knew that if he had not led them in, Lin Huang and Buried Heaven would certainly not have entered the ancient palace recklessly, and they would not have fallen into Zhan Zhuo's trap.

"Right now, we should be thinking more of how to deal with the impending threat." Buried Heaven glanced at Zhan Guang. Although he did not think they had very much chance of winning at all, he still had no intention of giving up just like that.

In the Virtual Eyes, the figures of three monsters began to coalesce.

"If I'm not wrong, these few monsters should have the same nature as the raptors; they're attracted by our auras. Therefore, even if they're more powerful than we are, they won't be that much more powerful. This ought to be a rule limitation when arriving from the virtual realm," Lin Huang ventured a guess.

The reason for his speculation was that he sensed the strength of the three monsters' auras, which was similar to their own auras.

However, Lin Huang had been hiding his aura all along, so Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang could not sense it. That was why they had erred in supposing that his ability was much weaker than the most powerful monster of the three. In reality, if Lin Huang were to fully unmask his aura, it would not be very much weaker than that of the monster.

"So the most powerful one was attracted by your aura?" Zhan Guang came to a sudden realization.

"I think so." Lin Huang nodded.

"Are you confident enough to fight the strongest monster?" Buried Heaven turned his head to ask Lin Huang.

"If I don't use my trump card, maybe about fifty percent confident," Lin Huang admitted after thinking about it.

Buried Heaven really wanted to follow up by asking, "What if you used your trump card?" Seeing Lin Huang's calm expression, however, he felt there was not much point to the question.

Within the Virtual Eyes, the forms of the three monsters rapidly materialized.

One was a giant ape monster, one was a black-armored cavalry soldier, and one looked almost entirely like a human.

The one whose aura was so powerful it gave Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang the shudders was the humanoid fellow.

His appearance was that of a handsome young man who looked to be in his early 20s. His hair was pulled up in a man bun, and he was clad in white.

His build was slim, and his fingers were long and slender.

If he were on Earth, this man would definitely be a top celebrity.

Be it appearance or charisma, he made a definite impression. He was certainly the sort of person one would be unable to forget after merely meeting them once.

The handsome man's gaze immediately fixed on Lin Huang. He did not even give Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang so much as a glance.

The man smirked slightly after that. With one stride, he passed through the Virtual Eye and appeared not too far from Lin Huang.

"You're human?" The man in white asked Lin Huang directly.

His tone was calm, without a trace of killing intent at all.

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard that. He had previously determined that the enemies the three of them were about to face ought to be entities similar to raptors. However, this fellow in front of him did not look like a raptor no matter what. Not only that, he was even engaging in small talk with Lin Huang.

"That's right." However, Lin Huang quickly regained his composure and asked immediately, "You're human too?"

Upon hearing that question, the expression in the man's eyes altered slightly. "Human… I was considered one in the past."

"How about now?" Lin Huang followed up by asking.

"Now, I'm a Void," the man in white answered with a smile, as if he felt this was nothing to be ashamed of.

Li Huang became quite curious upon suddenly hearing the term 'Void'. "Are all living beings in the virtual realm called Voids?"

"Your understanding is not wrong." The man in white nodded.

"You said you were human before—so how did you become a Void?" Lin Huang asked curiously.

The smile on the man in white's face became rather mysterious upon hearing that question. "Do you really want to know? I don't mind letting you experience it."

"There's no need for that," Lin Huang declined at once, "Can you explain what the virtual realm is like?"

"There's no color in the virtual realm. Everything is black and white." The man in white did not elaborate further. "Black and white, and barren.

"It's not like your material realm—rich and colorful and vibrant…" The man in white clearly displayed a look of yearning. "It's so wonderful!"

"Do you want to stay in the material realm?" Lin Huang inquired.

"More precisely, I want to return to it." The man in white eyed Lin Huang and corrected him, "All Voids wish to return to the material realm!"

"Return…" This term caught Lin Huang's attention. "Do you mean to say all of the Voids used to be living beings in the material realm?"

The man in white smiled when he heard Lin Huang's question. "Some things are secrets that only Voids know. Are you sure you want to hear them?"

Lin Huang smiled awkwardly and without mirth when he heard the man's reply.

During their conversation, the two monsters from the other two Virtual Eyes rapidly emerged as well.

Seeing that, Lin Huang finally set aside his curiosity and got down to the subject matter.

"How were you able to enter the material realm this time without someone consolidating their Dao seal during unification?"

"Someone opened the passage for us and offered the three of you to us as sacrifices for free."

Lin Huang could not help frowning slightly when he heard the man in white's answer.

At that moment, the two other monsters passed through the Virtual Eyes almost simultaneously. Their eyes locked onto Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang, respectively.

Both the monsters fully unleashed their auras as soon as they stepped out of the Virtual Eyes, targeting Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang respectively.

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang's nerves were also were taut. Both could clearly sense that the two monsters in front of them were no weaker in terms of ability.

Right as both parties were on the verge of beginning a massive battle, the man in white suddenly turned his head to look at his two 'partners'.

A black battle sword suddenly appeared in his hand, and he swung out with it immediately.

A circle of faint black fog seemed to spread through the air, piercing straight through the bodies of the two Voids.

An instant later, both Voids were sliced in two. Immediately after that, their bisected bodies burst apart on the spot.

Lin Huang, Buried Heaven, and Zhan Guang were stunned to see him attack.

Lin Huang raised his brows. He could see that the man in white's Sword Dao attainment was higher than his own. This fellow must have consolidated a Sword seal and become a Lord.

After their initial shock, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang felt goosebumps rising on their skin.

The two monsters as powerful as themselves had been easily disposed of by the man in white. Not only that, he had killed both of them instantly with just one slash. This meant that the man in white possessed the fearsome ability to kill them both in one attack as well.

"I don't like being interrupted in a fight." The man in white calmly slid his sword back into its scabbard, as if what he had just done was something not worth mentioning.

These words made Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang tense up.

The man in white seemed to guess their thoughts. He smirked lightly. "Don't worry, I have no interest in the two of you. However, if this fellow loses, after I kill him, I don't mind taking both of you as well so you can be his escorts."

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang were bereft of speech when they heard this.

The two of them were overlord-rank personages in the God Territory. They had never expected to be reduced to someone else's escorts once they arrived here. However, after witnessing the man in white's display of ability, they did not dare to refute his words. After all, he was a terrifying entity who could kill both of them immediately.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, did not seem to be shocked by the man in white's ability at all.

"I have another question." Lin Huang gestured to the spot where the two Voids had been killed. Their corpse remains had vanished completely. "Do Voids die after they're killed? Or do they return to the virtual realm?"

The man in white smiled when he heard Lin Huang's question. "Voids can only be expelled from the material realm. They can't be killed."

"Then after a person undergoing unification kills a raptor, what's the 'true spirit' that gets left behind?"

"That's the price to pay for accepting a Dao plundering contract," the man in white paused, then elaborated more in detail, "Under normal circumstances, Voids must pay a price to enter the material realm. To plunder a unification Dao seal, they must sign a Dao plundering contract. The minute the plundering fails, they'll be stripped of a portion of their Origin Energy. It's rather appropriate that you call it 'true spirit'.

"This is what's known as Heavenly Dao balance. When there's a catastrophe, there will be good fortune also. Every gain has its price.

"Just like how I'm answering your questions and helping all of you expel those two Voids—I'm actually paying a price first.

"Although on the surface it seems as if it cost nothing for me to come to the material realm this time, I know that if I kill all of you without paying something, there'll be a bigger price for me to pay later."

Lin Huang was somewhat speechless after hearing what the man in white had to say. Naturally, he was aware of the 'gain some, lose some' theory. However, the man in white seemed to wholeheartedly regard it as an absolute law by which things worked.

All along, Lin Huang had been curious why the man in white was so easy to talk to and why he answered almost everything Lin Huang asked. It turned out that the other party had drawn up this set of peculiar rules that governed his behavior.

"In that case, what if I kill you instead?" Lin Huang asked mockingly, "Wouldn't you have paid that price in vain then?"

"If that's the case, I'd be even happier." The man in white smiled. "You would expel me back to the virtual realm so I wouldn't gain anything this time. In that case, I'd definitely be able to gain even more at some point in the future."

Lin Huang was speechless when he heard the man in white's perfect circular logic.

"Do you have any more questions? If not, let's begin as soon as possible. After all, the time I have here is limited." The man in white's tone remained amiable; he did not display any trace of enmity at all toward Lin Huang.

"One last question." Lin Huang thought about it and felt he had asked almost everything necessary. If he asked any further about the virtual realm's secrets, the man probably would not answer him either. "How do I address you?"

"You mean my name?" The man in white did not answer the question right away. Instead, he lifted his head to look at the ceiling of the ancient palace as if he were trying to recall something. "I don't remember anymore…

"Names have no meaning in the virtual realm. We simply give ourselves a codename.

"My codename is—Dark Sword."

Lin Huang looked at the black sword that the man in white held. He guessed that this black sword must be the source of his codename.

"Alright, I have no more questions." An inky-black, narrow-bladed sword coalesced in Lin Huang's hand as soon as he finished speaking.

"An excellent sword!" Dark Sword could not help complimenting Lin Huang when he saw the God Weapon in Lin Huang's hand.

"Yours isn't too shabby either." Lin Huang could tell that Dark Sword's blade was a Dao Weapon also.

Almost at the same time that Lin Huang finished speaking, both their figures vanished immediately on the spot.

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang could only catch two afterimages, even after boosting their vision to its limit.

Their Divine Telekinesis was able to capture the movement trajectories of the two figures, but their speed had clearly far exceeded the speed of Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang's reactions.

The two figures clashed immediately.

Two black swords—one narrow and long, the other broad and thick—unleashed Divine Power full force once they clashed together.

At the moment of impact between both parties' Divine Power, Odyl began to spread.

It was like two waves rippling together, causing mutual interference.

Violent winds sprang up endlessly from all four directions.

Lin Huang had yet to consolidate a Dao seal, but he had a complete Sword seal within him.

This Sword seal was what the Sword Scripture from before had transformed into.

In the past, Lin Huang could not activate the Odylic Force within it.

However, as his God's soul's strength elevated to lord-level, he realized that he could borrow the use of the Odylic Force within the Sword seal.

At the level of his previous battles, though, he had been able to resolve things easily without resorting to the use of Odyl.

Now that he was facing a strong enemy like Dark Sword, he could no longer conceal his strength.

He could clearly sense that if he continued to do so, he might end up being killed by his opponent.

Buried Heaven was utterly shocked when he saw Lin Huang using Odyl.

He knew that Lin Huang was only heavenly god-level and had not undergone unification yet.

Theoretically speaking, one could not have a Dao seal within them without undergoing unification, which meant that it was impossible to spawn Odylic Force. However, Lin Huang was now using Odylic Force in front of Buried Heaven's very eyes.

Zhan Guang did not know any of this. Since witnessing Lin Huang's attack, he had thought all along that Lin Huang was a Lord, just like him. He thought Lin Huang was merely feigning heavenly god-level combat strength.

However, Lin Huang was the only one who knew that he was only borrowing the use of Odylic Force. Not only that, due to the limitations of his physical strength, he could not sustain this borrowed usage for very long. After all, the hardiness of his physical body was merely near lord-level right now—it was still not at lord-level yet.

In this battle, he had to kill his opponent as quickly as possible! The longer things dragged on, the worse it would be for him.

Inside the massive palace, the two figures clashed ceaselessly.

Black and red electric arcs intersected continuously. Every time they collided, they generated terrifying Divine Power aftermath.

Even two Lords like Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang could barely watch the battle at close quarters in the face of such intense Divine Power aftermath. They were forced to retreat over ten kilometers away.

After a mere two to three minutes of fighting, Lin Huang and Dark Sword had clashed hundreds upon thousands of times over.

These hundreds upon thousands of encounters gave them insight into each other's abilities.

In terms of Sword Dao attainment, Dark Sword was more powerful.

However, Lin Huang could borrow the use of more sequence powers than Dark Sword.

These pros and cons balanced out the abilities of both combatants to the same level.

However, Lin Huang knew very well that Dark Sword surpassed him in terms of Sword Dao skills.

After all, he was a lord-level powerhouse who had consolidated a true Sword seal.

Lin Huang did not feel pressured by that.

To him, battling an opponent who was also a Sword Dao powerhouse like himself was the perfect opportunity to study and test everything he had learned.

On his part, Dark Sword was roughly able to determine Lin Huang's level.

Based on Sword Dao alone, Lin Huang was no match for him. However, Lin Huang's overall ability was by no means inferior to his own.

Despite the hundreds and thousands of encounters, he had not been able to gain the upper hand at all.

After a moment of thought, he began to change his style of fighting.

He used his sword and forced Lin Huang to retreat. However, this time, he did not engage in a direct confrontation with Lin Huang. Instead, he thrust from a distance with the point of his sword.

An instant later, countless crystal blades swiftly began to form in front of him.

This assault no longer utilized pure Sword Dao alone. Instead, it was powered mainly by the Odylic Forces of both Ice Element and Sword Dao.

Lin Huang knew right then that the warm-up had ended.

He only had one Sword seal within him, as well as merely level-1 Odyl.

If he were to counter Dark Sword purely by using Sword Dao, that would be biting off more than he could chew.

He shook his sleeves, and over ten thousand telekinetic flying daggers shot out like blood-red lightning bolts, colliding with the white crystal blades.

The intensity of his Divine Power was already at peak lower-rank lord-level. With the addition of Sword Dao Odyl and over ten thousand compounded levels of sequence power, he shattered the crystal sword gleams easily.

Dark Sword had initially thought he could suppress Lin Huang with that attack. He had never expected that Lin Huang's attack would catch him by surprise.

Seeing that blood-red lightning bolts were besieging him from every direction, Dark Sword did not dare to hold back anymore.

He attacked with water, fire, wind, and lightning Odylic Forces all at once. Compounded with Sword Dao Odylic Force, they formed swathes of Sword Energy swirling with Dao tattoos.

The aura of each swathe was so powerful that Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang shuddered as they watched from the sidelines.

They could almost imagine that if they were the ones on the battlefield, they might have died countless times already.

In the void, over ten thousand swathes of terrifying Sword Energy formed in just the blink of an eye.

However, this number seemed to be the limit of what Dark Sword could consolidate. After all, this trump card was an extreme drain on his Divine Power.

The swathes of Sword Energy shot forth at an even more terrifying speed than before. They were also multiple times more powerful.

As they collided with Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers, the daggers ricocheted off them.

Lin Huang could not help but raise his brows when he saw what was happening.

Dark Sword's current attack was compounded with level-5 Odylic Force. In comparison, Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers were enveloped in level-1 Odylic Force; they could not give him any sort of advantage.

Watching the swathes of Sword Energy surging toward him after causing his telekinetic flying daggers to ricochet, Lin Huang did not panic at all.

More telekinetic flying daggers shot out from his sleeves. Each of them was compounded with Sword Dao Odylic Force and over ten thousand levels of sequence power.

Within the blink of an eye, the telekinetic flying daggers in the void had multiplied to over one million in number and continued to increase. They did not seem as if they would stop anytime soon.

Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang were somewhat stunned as they watched what was happening.

The sky was filled with blood-red electric arcs that almost blotted out the heavens.

"How many telekinetic flying threads can this fellow divide his Divine Telekinesis into?!"

"That's not the only issue either—his telekinetic Dao Weaponry can split into far too many flying daggers!"

As Lin Huang's opponent, Dark Sword experienced a similar shock.

He could tell that Lin Huang's telekinetic weapon had evolved from a God Weapon. He was not surprised at all by the number of flying daggers, but he was indeed shocked by the number of telekinetic threads Lin Huang was able to divide his Divine Telekinesis into.

In general, lord-level powerhouses could certainly divide their Divine Telekinesis into over a million units.

However, to be able to achieve what Lin Huang was doing was bizarre. Not only could he divide his Divine Telekinesis into such a vast number of telekinetic threads, but he could manipulate each thread like fingers.

Apart from the three people present, there was also someone else secretly watching the battle, who was utterly astounded as well.

After leaving his God Territory, Zhan Zhuo had actually been covertly watching the battle happening inside his God Territory.

When Dark Sword displayed his true ability, he thought that Lin Huang would be defeated.

He had never expected that Lin Huang's ability would be on par with Dark Sword.

This round of battle completely turned everything he had imagined upside down—even more than before. Dark Sword had already compounded his attack with level-5 Odylic Force.

However, using merely level-1 Odylic Force, Lin Huang had found his own way to forcefully suppress Dark Sword's lethal attack by countering with sheer numbers of flying daggers.

Lin Huang had certainly used that rationale. Since he only possessed level-1 Odylic Force, which was not enough to defeat Dark Sword, he would overpower him by sheer numbers.

If he could not drain Dark Sword's Sword Energy in one clash, then he would clash with him ten times, a hundred times, even a thousand times!

He wanted to whittle down the layers of Sword Energy one by one!

That was what he was doing by using the telekinetic flying daggers to surround the swathes of Sword Energy and besiege them.

Very soon, the Odyl on the Sword Energy was stripped away one layer at a time and eventually destroyed altogether.

In contrast, Lin Huang's flying daggers had not decreased at all. Instead, they had now accumulated to over ten million in number.

One needed to be aware that these flying daggers were a bona fide Dao Weapon. Even if the outer layers of Odylic Force and sequence power were destroyed, the Dao Weapon itself would not be damaged.

Watching himself surrounded by over ten million flying daggers, Dark Sword knew that he had lost the battle.

The attack earlier was already his lethal move; it had drained ninety percent of the Divine Power within him.

Lin Huang had successfully countered Dark Sword's assault; the Void no longer had the capacity to fight.

Dark Sword did not bother to try and mount a defense. Instead, he slid his sword back into its scabbard and looked at Lin Huang with a smile.

"I've lost this battle. I feel we'll probably encounter each other again, though. I hope you'll have become even more powerful when we next meet!"

"If we do have a chance to meet again, I also hope that I'll be able to defeat you with my sword!" Lin Huang nodded slightly.

The minute he finished speaking, all ten million or more telekinetic flying daggers shot forth at almost the same time. They turned into an endless blood-red lightning storm that utterly swallowed up Dark Sword's figure.

A moment later, the last Virtual Eye in the sky gradually closed, then vanished from sight.

Lin Huang lifted his head and looked at the sky. "Zhan Zhuo, have you seen enough yet?"

Almost simultaneously, Lin Huang attacked again. The ten million or more telekinetic flying daggers hurtled toward the heavens.

In an instant, the entire world seemed to be deluged with lightning raining down from the sky.

In just the time it took for a few breaths, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang saw that the ceiling of the massive palace had split open immediately.

Lin Huang, Buried Heaven, and Zhan Guang were preparing to fly through the crack in the ceiling, but suddenly the view in front of them began shaking violently. Zhan Zhuo had directly teleported them out.

Clearly, he was worried that Lin Huang would really destroy his Kingdom, so he teleported all of them out with no hesitation at all.

The three of them had only just managed to find stable footing when they immediately felt an intensely powerful suction force pulling at them.

Instantly, they could not stop themselves from shooting backward toward the door of the massive palace.

Zhan Zhuo was evidently manipulating the ancient palace into ejecting them.

Lin Huang made a prompt decision. His telekinetic flying daggers turned into a blood-red stream of light that surged toward Zhan Zhuo in an attack.

He knew that if they were really ejected out of the ancient palace, it would be hard for them to act against Zhan Zhuo again.

A Dao Weapon ancient palace's defenses like these were not something Lin Huang would be able to breach on his own.

Not only that, there was usually a teleportation function.

As soon as the three of them left the dimension that the ancient palace was in, Zhan Zhuo would certainly activate the ancient palace and flee immediately. It would be extremely difficult to find him again.

Zhan Zhuo did not dare hold back any of his abilities after seeing Lin Huang's ten million or more telekinetic flying daggers coming at him.

The Dao Weaponry in his hand formed countless saber gleams that charged toward the telekinetic flying daggers.

Each saber gleam was compounded with level-3 Odylic Force, as well as over five thousand levels of sequence power.

Although they were not as numerous as the telekinetic flying daggers, they sent Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers—which were almost completely drained of Divine Power—ricocheting away with ease.

Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers this round were the same ones he had used to battle Dark Shadow earlier. Even the Divine Power on them had basically been completely stripped away, let alone any Odylic Force.

Now that he was encountering an attack from Zhan Zhuo, who was at his peak, it was inevitable that Lin Huang seemed somewhat tired.

Seeing that the three of them were about to be forcibly driven to the door of the palace, Lin Huang smirked without a trace of panic. His fingers moved slightly after that.

The next second, Zhan Zhuo's movements were suddenly halted.

Right after this, his figure flew in Lin Huang's direction at a speed more than several times faster. However, his movements were peculiar no matter how one looked at them.

He seemed to be tied up by something and could not move a muscle. Not only that, it was very evident that he was hurtling toward Lin Huang entirely not of his own volition. It looked more like something was pulling him over.

At first, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang were stunned, but subsequently, they realized that Lin Huang had done this using telekinetic threads.

Although his telekinetic flying daggers had ricocheted away, the telekinetic threads had secretly entangled themselves around Zhan Zhuo's body one by one without him realizing it at all.

At the very last critical moment, Lin Huang was finally able to close the net on his opponent.

Even if Zhan Zhuo had regrets, it was too late now.

Against his will, his body was pulled along by Lin Huang's telekinetic threads as he too was driven out of the ancient palace by its force of repulsion.

He looked at the swiftly-closing great door of the ancient palace as well as his feet at the bottom of the palace steps, then at the three people who were watching him like a hawk.

Zhan Zhuo felt a little like crying, but he could not muster up the tears.

He could only blame the ancient palace for being too intelligent and immediately carrying out the ejection order he had given. By the time he was able to react and wished to cancel and amend his order, Lin Huang had already dragged him out of the massive palace.

"It's a little late now for you to think of escaping." As Lin Huang spoke, the narrow blade in his hand was already against Zhan Zhuo's neck. The razor-sharp sword sliced a faint, bloody wound across his neck.

Zhan Zhuo could clearly sense the pain and the faint trace of coldness emanating from his neck.

"Who is your partner who attacked Death Sickle's headquarters?" Buried Heaven asked immediately, seeing that Zhan Zhuo was now being held captive.

Zhan Zhuo glared at Buried Heaven with no small amount of disdain. "Do you think I'm going to tell you?"

"I'll slaughter you if you don't!" The battle sword in Lin Huang's hand pushed down two centimeters deeper, cutting into the flesh of Zhan Zhuo's neck. Blood began to flow from the wound.

Zhan Zhuo could even clearly sense the warm blood slowly trickling from his neck to his collarbone. It continued to drip down.

At this point, Zhan Guang finally spoke as well.

"You should be very aware how our Combat God Temple interrogates traitors in our midst."

Zhan Zhuo was evidently swayed from his stubbornness by what Zhan Guang had said.

"I don't know who he is, only that he's not from the God Territory. There aren't that many Raiders in the great world. For safety, we don't know each others' real identities. The only thing we know is each other's codenames. That fellow's codename is Babble. I only know that his abilities should be higher than mine."

"If you don't know each other's identity, then how do you get in contact?" Lin Huang asked with a slight frown.

"All our missions are assigned by a superior, and he assigns our collaborators as well," Zhan Zhuo continued after he finished, "For this mission, both of us worked separately. We actually had no contact with each other at all. Our superior set a time for us and told us to go into action at the same time."

"So you can only contact your superior?" Lin Huang asked again.

"He can contact me, but I can't contact him." Zhan Zhuo shook his head.

"What if something major happens and you need to contact him?"

"Generally, we try to resolve any problems ourselves. However, if it's something really major, Spy would know, and they'd contact a superior. That's Spy's specific duty; it's not part of our job scope."

"Is Spy someone's codename? Or is it the job title of a group of people?" Lin Huang pursued the matter further.

"I'm not too sure about this. I think both are possible," Zhan Zhuo replied after thinking for a moment.

"Can you contact Spy?"

"I can't, only he can contact me," Zhan Zhuo finished speaking, then added, "I think we should skip any discussion of him. I've had a vague feeling all along that he's more dangerous than my superior. Spy knows everything. He might be watching everything that we're doing now."

Lin Huang narrowed his eyes slightly at this point. He vaguely thought of someone.

"Tell me about the inner organization of the Raiders, such as the members' ranking, their combat strength, their job scopes…"

"The members' ranking system is very simple. It's grade-1 to grade-5, from lowest to highest. It's mainly related to their combat strength.

"Lower-rank Lords are basically grade-1, middle-rank Lords would be grade-2, upper-rank Lords would be grade-3, and ultimate-rank Lords would be grade-4. Above that would be grade-5 for individuals who are above the level of Lords.

"From what I've heard, grade-5 is the highest rank. As to whether they have any higher rankings than that, this I'm not sure about. After all, there's a lot of information that I can't see with my grade-1 authorization."

"So your superior is grade-2, as well as that Spy entity?"

"I'm not sure about Spy, but my superior is at least grade-2. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible for him to be in command of all matters in the entire great world," Zhan Zhuo said with absolute certainty.

"How many members are there in our great world?" Lin Huang asked again.

"I don't know the exact number. There are four people with different code names whom I've worked with. So, including myself, my superior, and Spy, there are at least seven of us. However, my guess is that there won't be more than ten," Zhan Zhuo hazarded a guess.

Lin Huang tried his best to milk Zhan Zhuo for any information regarding the Raiders. Zhan Zhuo seemed to have given up as well and answered as best as he could.

However, Lin Huang soon realized that what Zhan Zhuo told him did not get to the core of the Raiders. Clearly, he was restricted by authorization and only had access to superficial information.

He only knew the codenames of the four people he had collaborated with. As for the rest, he did not know anything more.

"Tell me about the mission you were given this time. Also, why did you attack Buried Heaven and Death Sickle?" Seeing that he was not able to gain any more information about the Raiders, Lin Huang switched topics and began asking about the details of this recent mission.

"This mission was actually a one-off affair to test the waters. Attempting to kill Buried Heaven and destroying Death Sickle was just something incidental along the way.

"This whole thing came about because previously, someone had assassinated powerhouses consecutively on the Heavenly God Leaderboard. We suspected the individual in question was a traveler." Zhan Zhuo glanced at Lin Huang at this point. Clearly, he already knew that the one responsible for the killings was Lin Huang, the one standing before him now.

"In the process of investigating this traveler's identity, we came across Death Sickle and inadvertently discovered that Buried Heaven was about to perform unification soon. We felt that it was an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone.

"For one, if we got rid of Buried Heaven and nipped things in the bud, it would be the equivalent of destroying Death Sickle's chances of elevating to a grade-7 organization. Once Death Sickle elevated to grade-7, there would be a significant increase of difficulty in many of the missions targeting them.

"For another, we discovered that you were the one who killed the powerhouses on the Heavenly God Leaderboard previously. Furthermore, you're close to Buried Heaven. If he died, you would lose your backing, which would make it easier for us to move against you.

"Thirdly, we wanted to weaken Death Sickle and decrease their popularity. This would benefit us in our covert scheme to take over Death Sickle in the future."

"For you to accurately obtain Buried Heaven's unification coordinates, it ought to have been one of the Blood Sickle members from Death Sickle who leaked the information, right? Who exactly was your informant?!" Lin Huang continued to pursue the matter.

"This, I don't know. However, I suspect that the coordinates being leaked has something to do with Babble. He might very well have used some sort of technique on one of the Blood Sickle members. I'm not sure exactly what he did."

"So you found out about my identity through the Blood Sickle authorization, including the fact that I accepted Death Sickle's missions anonymously to kill those fellows on the Heavenly God Leaderboard." Lin Huang had actually long since suspected that his identity had already been exposed. However, he had not expected that Zhan Zhuo would verify this.

"Yes. It was only after discovering your identity that we began to suspect you might be a traveler. However, it was merely an unconfirmed suspicion.

"Our initial plan was to kill Buried Heaven first and move against you after that."

"Didn't you intend to confirm my identity as a traveler first, then directly attack me?" Lin Huang was rather confused.

"There 's no need for any confirmation." Xhan Zhuo shook his head. "If you were truly a traveler and we disposed of you right away, that would be equivalent to eradicating any future problems. If you weren't a traveler, we'd just be killing a Heavenly God by mistake. As far as we're concerned, we'd rather kill the wrong person than let the chance slip by!"

"You really treat lives like nothing at all." Lin Huang could not help sneering when he heard that.

"Why did you murder Old Sun then?" Lin Huang raised a new point of doubt.

"I'm not sure exactly what mission Babble was entrusted with. Sun Zhan was no threat to us at all. I think Babble might have killed him because he was alone and an easy target. Naturally, we can't rule out the possibility that Sun Zhan was the spy that Babble set up. If so, he was killed to silence him."

Buried Heaven was simmering with rage at this point.

Since they had both been combat cultivators, he and Sun Zhan had gotten along very well all this time and had often sparred with each other. It could even be said that out of the seven Blood Sickles, Sun Zhan had been the one closest to him.

In reality, Sun Zhan's death was what had upset Buried Heaven the most, even more so than being covertly attacked.

"Based on what you've said, your main target this time was actually me. So how far did your investigations go, and what did you find out?" Lin Huang glanced at Zhan Guang; he did not mind that the man was standing on the sidelines and listening to what was being said.

"We know everything that a Blood Sickle member of Death Sickle would know. We know that you have two identities in Death Sickle—one is Xiu Mu, and the other is Xie Lin. We also know that you're actually a human. Your real name is Lin Huang, and you come from an unknown gravel world.

"We suspected that you were most probably a traveler because the rate of your combat strength elevation is just too astounding. Furthermore, the abilities you've displayed are also very unusual. However, all along, there hasn't been enough evidence to prove this.

"Even when you severed my hand during Buried Heaven's unification, at the time, I merely thought that you had a trump card left to you by an Almighty. I didn't think you were using your true ability.

"It wasn't until I tricked you into admitting it in the palace earlier that I was able to officially confirm that you're a traveler."

"So the others don't know the latest news?" Lin Huang raised his brows at this point.

Zhan Zhuo heard the underlying killing intent concealed in Lin Huang's words. "Honestly, it doesn't matter whether we verify your identity or not. When we found your real identity information on Death Sickle, you were already put on the Raiders' list of individuals who were marked for death.

"It doesn't matter if you're a reincarnated being, a traveler, the chosen one, the reincarnation of an Almighty, or something else entirely. It won't change the fact that you're already on the death list."

"Since I'm your target and you've already discovered my identity, why didn't you attack me directly?" Lin Huang voiced out the biggest point of confusion he had up to this point.

"We didn't know your coordinates. Someone with Blood Sickle authorization wiped out your mailing addresses completely. Even your sender information was deleted as well. We couldn't find out who the senders were.

"That's why we changed our target to Buried Heaven instead. We thought we'd kill him first, then wait for you to show yourself."

"I was the one who deleted your mailing information and sender information," Buried Heaven could not help speaking up at this point, "Not long after I elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level, a few of the Blood Sickle members gave me Death Sickle's Blood Sickle-level authorization access. Very few of the Blood Sickle members knew about this.

"I've been continuously deleting your mailing address and sender information because one of the Blood Sickle members is rather biased against humans. He complained about your hidden identity during meetings more than once. I was worried that he'd stir up trouble for you," Buried Heaven explained.

"No wonder I had to fill in my address and contact number every time I accepted missions. I thought Death Sickle's forum deleted them automatically for confidentiality purposes. I figured everyone had to do the same…" This was something Lin Huang had not expected.

Buried Heaven's actions had certainly protected Lin Huang and the Sword Alliance, but it had brought disaster upon himself as well as Death Sickle.

Lin Huang also realized that Death Sickle had indeed taken the fall for him.

After Lin Huang had asked Zhan Zhuo almost everything that he wanted to know, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang took turns to interrogate him.

Zhan Zhuo was also very much aware of the situation he was in and answered everything that he could.

He cooperated with them also because he wanted a chance to stay alive.

After Zhan Guang finished his interrogation, he looked at Lin Huang.

"Young Lin, will you let us handle Zhan Zhuo? He belongs to the Combat God Temple, after all. We can compensate you accordingly."

"It's not that I don't want to hand him over to you alive." Lin Huang looked at Zhan Guang, his expression very serious. "But if you bring him back to the Combat God Temple, you'll only bring disaster upon yourselves.

"The Raiders would never allow any of their members to be captured alive.

"You heard it yourself earlier. There are at least seven Raiders in this great world we're in right now. Each of them possesses abilities that are on par with Zhan Zhuo; in fact, they're even more powerful. Not only that, there's at least one middle-rank Lord."

Zhan Guang's lips moved, but in the end, he did not raise any objections.

Indeed, he had not thoroughly thought things through earlier. He felt that since Zhan Zhuo was a member of the Combat God Temple, it only made sense that the Combat God Temple should handle the matter.

Lin Huang's analysis made him break out in a cold sweat.

The trouble Zhan Zhuo would bring down upon their heads would far exceed what the Combat God Temple could handle.

Zhan Guang was not sure if there were any middle-rank Lords left in this great world. However, he knew that there were none in the Combat God Temple.

All the Raiders had to do was send a middle-rank Lord; they could easily annihilate the entire Combat God Temple.

Protect the traitor Zhan Zhuo, or protect the Combat God Temple—Zhan Guang rapidly made his decision.

Seeing that Zhan Guang was not saying anything anymore, Lin Huang smirked and looked at Zhan Zhuo.

"You can't kill me…"

Zhan Zhuo had not even finished speaking before a blood-red sword gleam sliced across his neck.

An instant later, one generation of the Combat God Temple's Lords had his head severed.

A grayish-black stream of light silently escaped from between Zhan Zhuo's brows and directly penetrated into Lin Huang's body.

However, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang did not notice this at all.

"I won't leave you his corpse either." Lin Huang's tone did not sound like he was going to discuss this with Zhan Guang. He put Zhan Zhuo's corpse and its head into his storage space. "If someone from the Raiders comes to look for you, tell them that I killed Zhan Zhuo, and I took his body away."

After seeing to the body, Lin Huang did not bother with any niceties. He looked at Zhan Zhuo's ancient palace and headed straight for it.

Zhan Zhuo was dead. Naturally, this ancient palace had no owner now.

However, Zhan Guang had no intention of fighting over this. For one, he was certainly no match for Lin Huang. For another, it was Lin Huang who had killed Zhan Zhuo, so it was only fitting that he collected the spoils.

After subduing the ancient palace, Lin Huang did a sweep with Divine Telekinesis and made sure that nothing had been left behind. Only then did he bid farewell to Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang.

Death Sickle's headquarters, inside Buried Heaven's office.

Buried Heaven blocked the room off from the outside world as soon as he got there.

"What exactly are these Raiders, travelers, and reincarnated beings that you and Zhan Zhuo were talking about earlier?" Although Buried Heaven had heard Zhan Zhuo speaking about many secrets earlier, he did not really understand what exactly these entities known as Raiders, travelers, and reincarnated beings were.

"Right now, I can't explain any of this to you in detail. Moreover, the more you know, the more problems you may bring down upon yourself." Lin Huang had no intention of elaborating much further. "I can only tell you that the Raiders are an evil organization. Any and all outstanding genius powerhouses are their targets. This group of people will do anything to become more powerful. I even know of Raiders who are willing to wait for tens of thousands of years to be able to gradually get close to their target, disguising themselves as their victim's best friend just to plunder a treasure they possessed."

Buried Heaven felt a chill run down his back when he heard this. After a moment of silence, he could not help asking a question.

"Do you really intend to fight these fellows on your own? If it's like you said—that the other Raiders possess abilities on par with Zhan Zhuo or are perhaps even more powerful than him—I don't think you'll be able to go up against them at your current level of ability."

"My current abilities aren't powerful enough to go up against them, that's true. However, my abilities will elevate. Not only that, I'm not alone." In reality, Lin Huang had already roughly put together a counter-strategy.

"Why didn't you get the Combat God Temple fully involved?" Buried Heaven asked again, "As long as you turned Zhan Zhuo over to Zhan Guang, the Raiders' first target would definitely be the Combat God Temple. The Combat God Temple would have had to think of a way to deal with the Raiders, no matter what, when the time came.

"Furthermore, the Combat God Temple is a veteran grade-7 organization in the God Territory. Given their reputation and the right price, it would be no trouble at all to get Lords from the other grade-7 organizations to help. They might even be able to contend with one or two Raiders."

"If I did turn Zhan Zhuo over to the Combat God Temple alive, the end result would more likely be the Combat God Temple coming to an agreement with the Raiders. They'd give Zhan Zhuo back instead of fighting them." Lin Huang shook his head at that. "A middle-rank Lord is just too powerful a threat. The Combat God Temple wouldn't make an enemy of a middle-rank Lord just for one Zhan Zhuo."

"That's true. The great world's resources aren't sufficient to support a middle-rank Lord's cultivation. Most of the Lords in the major organizations head to the universe after consolidating a level-7 or level-8 Dao seal, what more those middle-rank Lords who consolidate level-10 Dao seals." Buried Heaven nodded slightly, frowning.

"I'll find my own solution to this matter of the Raiders. If I really can't handle them, I can always hide," Lin Huang continued after that, "You and Death Sickle shouldn't involve yourselves with this anymore."

Buried Heaven looked a little displeased, but he knew what Lin Huang meant.

Lin Huang was a lone ranger. If he were truly unable to fight the Raiders, he could still go on the run. However, Death Sickle was an organization with many members. If they were really targeted by Raiders, they would not be able to escape.

"In the next few days, you need to quickly announce the news of your elevation to lord-level and make Death Sickle a grade-7 organization as soon as possible. Once Death Sickle becomes a grade-7 organization, they'll be in the limelight, at least for the immediate future. Under the circumstances, the Raiders won't risk becoming a public enemy of the God Territory by openly attacking Death Sickle.

"As for Old Sun, don't continue with your investigations. Let me handle it. I'll definitely avenge him for you.

"Also, there has to be a spy who leaked the coordinates for your unification. Not only that, it must be one of the seven Blood Sickle members. There might even be more than one spy.

"Whether Old Sun was killed by the spy or not, the remaining six of you need to be on your guard," Lin Huang issued a reminder.

"I know." Buried Heaven was still frowning.

Lin Huang only left after he had chatted for a while with Buried Heaven regarding matters in Death Sickle.

Upon his return to the Pfister Star in the Devil Hunter Star Zone, Lin Huang had Hong Zhuang unlock Zhan Zhuo's storage ring at the first available opportunity.

He then put Zhan Zhuo's ancient palace up for bid on Royal's auction site. The requirement for trading was still half-step Lords' God Territories regardless of type. As for the auction period, it would only be listed for 24 hours.

The Raiders might hunt him down at any time. This timeframe was the longest he could wait.

After he settled these matters, he went to Sword1 and had him organize the Sword Alliance's members so they could begin evacuating all of the Pfister Star's residents.

Lin Huang had already told Buried Heaven not to resist and to just tell the Raiders where he was if they went to Death Sickle and demanded to know his whereabouts.

It was only a matter of time before the Raiders would find this place. As soon as the war began, anyone below lord-level would basically die.

Initially, Sword1 wanted to ask for more details. However, seeing that Lin Huang was unwilling to explain further, he refrained in the end. He had a vague feeling that this had to be related to the Raiders. Sword1, who had all along been supremely confident in his own abilities, was aware of how terrifying the Raiders were. He also knew that he could not be of much help until he elevated to become a Lord.

After returning to his courtyard, Lin Huang sat down on a stone bench in the pavilion. He turned on his communicator and looked for Virtuoso's name on the message page.

After staring at Virtuoso's name and pondering for a little while, he composed a message and sent it.

"I've been targeted by Raiders."

A moment later, a sudden video call request came in from Virtuoso.

As soon as Lin Huang connected the call, Virtuoso's masked figure was projected into the pavilion.

"What happened?! How did you manage to offend the Raiders out of the blue?"

"I killed one of their members. They're likely to catch up with me soon," Lin Huang said with a chuckle.

"Are the Raiders in this world so weak?" Virtuoso was rather confused. "From what I know, they usually won't recruit members below lord-level."

"I killed a Lord," Lin Huang explained. He did not really mind revealing a little bit of his ability in front of Virtuoso. This was because, in a few days, he would be elevating his abilities again.

Virtuoso was clearly stunned for a second. They asked immediately, "What level is your combat strength now?!"

"I'm currently at eighth-rank." Lin Huang did not hide the fact.

"So fast?!" Virtuoso exclaimed involuntarily, "A Goldfinger that can elevate your combat strength at lightning speed… I'd like to have one too!"

Virtuoso was obviously under the mistaken impression that the abilities of Lin Huang's Goldfinger focused primarily on combat strength elevation.

"To be able to kill a Lord at eighth-rank—you're quite something," Virtuoso complimented.

"Don't just keep flattering me; help me think of a solution," Lin Huang said, smiling, "If I can't resolve this current threat, it's very likely I'll be a cold corpse in a few days."

"I think you can probably get those few fellows from the Club to help," Virtuoso suggested after some thought.

"Out of those three people in the Club, are any of them middle-rank Lords?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

He was not actually afraid of most of the Raiders' members. The ones he was worried about were that grade-2 member and the one named Spy, who was suspected to be grade-2 as well.

"This I'm not too sure about, but my guess is no. Middle-rank Lords generally go to the universe instead of staying here." Virtuoso shrugged, then looked at Lin Huang. "Are you sure there's a middle-rank Lord among this world's Raiders?"

"There's definitely one for sure, and there's another who might be." Lin Huang did not hide this from Virtuoso.

Virtuoso fell silent for a moment after hearing that, cupping their chin in their hand. Only after a long moment did they lift their head. "If you're really not able to handle them, you'd better run. Head to the universe— with your current abilities, you'll more or less be able to protect yourself anyway."

"…"

Lin Huang was rendered speechless upon hearing this suggestion.

After Lin Huang ended his call with Virtuoso, Virtuoso very quickly sent over three other Club members' numbers.

Lin Huang saved the three numbers and composed a message which he then sent to the three of them.

"Greetings, respected seniors. I'm the Club's new member, Xiu Mu. I killed a Raider by the codename of Mr. Gate, so I've been targeted by them. If you happen to be interested, I can be the bait, and we can hunt the remaining Raiders together."

Less than ten seconds after the message was sent, one of them replied.

"How much do you know about the Raiders?"

This individual's codename at the Club was Epic Player.

According to the information Virtuoso had provided, this individual was like Virtuoso—he was also a clone left by a reincarnated being. In the universe, his Primordium was an Almighty who was higher than lord-level.

Lin Huang thought about it for a while and decided to reveal some information in the end.

"There are at least seven Raiders in this great world at the moment. The one with the most powerful ability is a middle-rank Lord, as well as an individual with the codename Spy, who is suspected of being a middle-rank Lord as well. The rest are lower-rank Lords."

He was not worried about whether or not Epic Player was a Raider spy because this information was more or less meaningless to the Raiders.

On the other hand, revealing the information about middle-rank Lords would allow him to estimate what exactly Epic Player's abilities were.

If his abilities were not powerful enough to fight a middle-rank Lord, he would not reply after receiving that piece of news.

"So there are middle-rank Lords. Sounds interesting, count me in!

"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My codename is Epic Player, a reincarnated being, lower-rank Lord. Although I'm a lower-rank Lord, I'm very interested in hunting middle-rank Lords."

Epic Player replied with two messages in a row.

Lin Huang smiled slightly after reading the message. At least he had found a comrade in battle.

Although he was just a lower-rank Lord, judging by his replies, his abilities ought to be powerful.

"Of course—welcome! To prevent information from being leaked, I'll keep my coordinates a secret for the time being. I'm estimating that they'll find me in two or three days—five at most. When the time comes, I'll send my coordinates immediately. Please come as soon as possible."

He did not directly send his coordinates to guard against the possibility of this individual being a Raider spy as well.

Furthermore, he wanted to seize the opportunity to elevate his abilities again in the next few days before the Raiders showed up.

After Epic Player, another individual sent a message not too long later.

"That's not a bad proposal at all—what are your coordinates?"

The person who sent the message had the codename Steel Fist.

However, after reading the message, Lin Huang had some suspicions about whether or not this individual was a spy.

They had agreed right away to hunt the Raiders without asking a single question and were asking for his coordinates as well.

"I'm keeping my coordinates a secret for the time being. I'll send them to you two days later." Lin Huang thought about it and decided to reply to the message. "I've confirmed that there's a middle-rank Lord among the Raiders, and there's another who's suspected of being a middle-rank Lord. Are you sure you want to come?"

"By this great world's rating, the Raiders won't too powerful even if they have a middle-rank Lord as a guardian. He definitely won't have a Dao seal above level-20. Even if we're no match for him, I have sufficient means to survive. You, on the other hand, are a rookie. Don't underestimate other Raiders just because you've killed one. You'll die very quickly if you have such a mindset."

"Thank you for your reminder, senior. I'll take note." When Lin Huang saw this reply, he was not angry at all.

Although the other's words were hard to swallow, what they said was spot on. Lin Huang could even tell by this that the other was most probably not a Raider spy.

Upon reading the other's first message again, he felt that it was actually reasonable.

Steel Fist had replied in such a straightforward manner because he knew the limits of the highest combat strength level for the Raiders in the great world. Any other information was extraneous—they did not need to ask about it.

Lin Huang was in an excellent mood after obtaining two battle comrades.

He waited for a while but did not see a reply from the third individual. He felt this was nothing out of the ordinary.

It was completely understandable for someone to be unwilling to take part in something related to the Raiders. This individual might also be in closed-door cultivation, in a ruin, or in a secret zone where they were unable to receive news from the outside world. This individual might also be a spy for the Raiders and could be currently reporting to the other Raiders about Lin Huang asking for help. There were many possibilities.

After turning off his communicator, Lin Huang quickly set aside his delight.

His partners from the Club were external forces. It was hard to say exactly how much help they would be.

Lin Huang was very much aware that his ability was the only thing he could rely on.

If he could fight off a middle-rank Lord using his own abilities, he would not have to worry at all about the Raiders finding him.

After turning off the communication page, Lin Huang got up and went through the garden. He then headed into the living room.

After closing the door of the villa, he sat down on the sofa right away, then closed his eyes and checked within his body.

After he killed Zhan Zhuo, a grayish-black stream of light had entered his body.

He had known immediately that it was Zhan Zhuo's Goldfinger.

As a Goldfinger could only lodge in a traveler's body, there were only three things that could happen to it once the traveler died.

One was that it directly escaped, one was that it lodged itself in the closest traveler's body, and the last was that it might be forcibly refined by another traveler to become a source of nourishment for other Goldfingers.

Zhan Zhuo's Goldfinger seemed to have sensed that there were many Goldfingers coexisting in Lin Huang's body. From this, it was aware that Lin Huang was not the type who was fond of refining other Goldfingers to serve as nutrients, so it chose to surrender without hesitation.

This proved that not all travelers had a close rapport with their Goldfinger.

Lin Huang sank his consciousness into his body and soon saw the extra Goldfinger inside—a grayish-black metal door.

He communicated with his consciousness and soon received a brief piece of feedback.

"Gate of All Realms…"

This Goldfinger was called the Gate of All Realms. Its function was just like its name—it could open passages to different realms.

The most special among these realms was the virtual realm.

Previously, Zhan Zhuo had actually displayed this ability. He had managed to open three passages to the virtual realm at the same time to release the Voids.

However, what piqued Lin Huang's interest was not this function but another one.

The Gate of All Realms could construct a virtual body for its host to enter the virtual realm and hunt.

Not only that, this virtual body currently had three lives per day.

In other words, Lin Huang would have three chances to explore the virtual realm every day.

Based on what Dark Sword had said, Voids could not be killed in the material realm. They would merely return to the virtual realm after death. However, Lin Huang managed to learn something else from the Gate of All Realms.

Voids could be killed in the virtual realm. Not only that, as soon as they were killed, all of their Origin Energy would be left behind and could be absorbed by virtual bodies.

The Origin Energy absorbed by a virtual body would be reflected in the actual body that resided in the material realm.

Lin Huang was extraordinarily excited to see this information.

He knew that he had found another way to increase his ability!

Lin Huang tried to communicate with the Gate of All Realms.

The Gate of All Realms did not seem to have a very high intelligence; it could only transmit some simple thoughts.

Nevertheless, Lin Huang managed to gain some information from it.

After Mr. Gate obtained the Gate of All Realms, he had used it almost solely as a dimensional portal. Naturally, using it in such a manner was also very convenient.

The Gate of All Realms could entirely disregard distance in space and transport the host to any place they had traveled to before.

When Mr. Gate killed a raptor during his unification, the Gate of All Realms had gained the Origin Energy left by the raptor. Only then had it been able to connect a passageway to the virtual realm.

After this, Mr. Gate had been recruited by the Raiders and had also been given two Goldfingers in succession.

The Gate of All Realms was able to open three passageways into the virtual realm only after it had absorbed the two Goldfingers.

Previously, it could only consolidate a virtual body once a day—this had now been increased to three times a day.

Once the Gate of All Realms had connected a passageway to the virtual realm, Mr. Gate had used a virtual body to enter the virtual realm many times at first. However, he was killed almost every time he encountered any Voids. After that, he completely abandoned any thoughts about killing Voids and used the Gate of All Realms in the opposite manner—to summon Voids.

According to the information provided by the Gate of All Realms, the virtual realm was a very unique place.

What caught Lin Huang's attention most was the time rule within it.

Under normal circumstances, the flow of time in the virtual realm was the same as that of the material realm.

However, if one entered the virtual realm using a virtual body, no matter how long they stayed in the virtual realm—whether it was one day, one year, ten years, or a million years—time would not change when one returned to the material realm.

It was as if time in the material realm froze when the virtual body entered the virtual realm.

Once he had ascertained this, a thought instantly flashed through Lin Huang's mind. 'I can cultivate in there!'

After all, any benefits obtained by his virtual body had would be reflected in his actual body.

Therefore, theoretically, the virtual realm was undoubtedly a utopia for cultivation.

However, after a more detailed study of the information that the Gate of All Realms provided, Lin Huang rapidly became rather vexed.

He could enter the virtual realm with a virtual body, but he could not bring items from the material realm into the virtual realm.

Earlier, he had thought that if he cultivated in this place, he would be able to rapidly refine his half-step Lords' God Territories.

However, now he discovered that he could not bring those half-step Lords' God Territories into the virtual realm all.

He even considered hiding the items in his God Territory so he could retrieve them when he got to the virtual realm, or else he could hide himself in his God Territory. However, he soon abandoned this idea as well.

A God Territory consolidated in the material realm was an inherent integration of time and space. There were many celestial bodies, all kinds of living beings, and other material substances in it. In the virtual realm, all of them would be completely masked off, and one would not be able to sense them at all.

After a moment of fruitless thinking, Lin Huang had no other option but to ask Xiao Hei for help.

"Are there any sorts of dimensional cards that would allow me to bring half-step Lord God Territory Shell Remnants or other items into the virtual realm?"

"Bringing them in is useless, you can't retrieve them for use."

Xiao Hei's response stunned Lin Huang.

He immediately realized that it was not enough even if he could bring items in. He had to find a way to be able to use them.

After all, the virtual realm rejected material substances. Even if he were to use some special dimensional technique to bring items in, by the rules of the virtual realm, he would not be able to retrieve them either.

He thought for a moment and asked again, "Then is there any way to create an independent space in the virtual realm that's isolated from the influence of the virtual realm's rules, allowing me to bring in items from the material realm for cultivation?"

"Although the Gate of All Realms has shared information on the virtual realm with us, I must still go and experience it myself to determine whether or not I can create such a card."

"Can my virtual body bring all of you in?" Naturally, Lin Huang meant the Goldfingers within him when he said "all of you".

"Based on the information provided by the Gate of All Realms, Goldfingers are probably not restricted."

Lin Huang nodded as soon as he heard that. "Then let's go in and check things out."

He communicated with the Gate of All Realms again as soon as he finished speaking.

A moment later, with Lin Huang's consent, his consciousness was drawn out of his body by the Gate of All Realms. Subsequently, a new "body" was rapidly formed.

To Lin Huang, this virtual body was practically no different from his physical body. However, it was a figure that had no substance at all. It could not be seen or touched; even Lin Huang's peak lower-rank lord-level Divine Telekinesis could only be sensed as the vaguest of traces.

However, Lin Huang could clearly sense that his power was still there. He could still use his Divine Power, as well as all kinds of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers. He could also clearly sense the presence of the Goldfingers within him.

Right as Lin Huang was still adapting to his new body, the Gate of All Realms opened a gate that looked like the Virtual Eye.

Seeing that the Virtual Eye-like gate was rapidly forming in front of him, Lin Huang asked with some concern, "The Voids won't be released, will they?"

However, he soon received feedback from the Gate of All Realms' consciousness.

The gate this time was a one-way gate. One could only enter from the material realm into the virtual realm, but nothing could exit the virtual realm.

Lin Huang was relieved when he heard that.

When the Virtual Eye had fully consolidated, the Gate of All Realms transmitted a trace of consciousness.

Lin Huang understood right away. In a flash, he controlled his virtual body to step into the Virtual Eye.

After stepping into the Virtual Eye, he did not feel anything special. An instant later, he passed through the Virtual Eye and arrived in the legendary virtual realm.

This was a black and white world; there were no other colors.

For a moment, Lin Huang felt as if he had become colorblind. However, it only took him a moment to adapt to this new environment; he then began looking around.

The world had become black and white, but nothing seemed to have changed in his surroundings at all.

He was still in his living room as before.

The furniture and decorations in the house had not changed at all.

Lin Huang got up and opened the door. The arrangement of the courtyard was entirely the same as in the material realm. All the plants were there. The only difference was that they were now black and white.

In a flash, Lin Huang appeared right away in the air above the courtyard.

Very soon, he saw the Sword Alliance's entire headquarters. It was no different from the material realm at all.

Apart from the colors having become black and white, perhaps the only difference was that there were entirely no signs of life.

The entire station was quiet.

After looking down at the Sword Alliance's headquarters for a while, Lin Huang swiftly flew higher and released his Divine Telekinesis to scan the entire Pfister Star.

The result of the scan showed very obviously that there were no living beings on the entire planet.

However, Lin Huang did not want to give up. He sent his Divine Telekinesis out, spreading it further away.

One lightyear, two lightyears… Ten lightyears… A hundred lightyears… One thousand lightyears…

Very soon, he had scanned the entire star zone with Divine Telekinesis, but to no avail still.

The planets in the material realm with myriads of humans living on them were nowhere to be found—there were no traces of them here at all.

Just when Lin Huang was preparing to retract his Divine Telekinesis, the faraway area where the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss was located suddenly transmitted an overpowering surge of Divine Telekinesis in Lin Huang's direction.

"There's a Void?!"

Lin Huang lifted his eyes immediately to look in the direction of the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss. At the same time, he used Divine Telekinesis to make a sweeping scan. Very soon, he saw the Void's full appearance.

It was a gigantic python with horns on its head similar to that of a dragon. Half of its body occupied a star. Although the star was ablaze, the massive python remained completely unharmed. The upper half of its body was raised high and was more than seven to eight times longer than the star's diameter.

The black bat wings on its back were only slightly unfurled and were already more than several times larger than the surface area of the star.

The eight crimson eyes on its head spewed lava-like sparks. Each of its eyeballs was far bigger than the other surrounding stars.

It was, without a doubt, a colossus.

"Is this the legendary Apocalypse Dragon Python?!" Lin Huang could not help but raise his brows.

Although the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss only allowed powerhouses below heavenly god-level to enter and hunt, in the earliest times, it was actually the main battlefield of a fight between a Dragon Tribe Lord and an Abyssal Lord.

Back then, the Abyssal Lord was an Apocalypse Dragon Python that had been killed here by the Dragon Tribe Lord.

The information that Lin Huang had read about this fight in the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss was by no means detailed, and much of the information was unclear. However, he managed to guess at a glance that this creature ought to be the Apocalypse Dragon Python that had been killed.

Upon seeing the Apocalypse Dragon Python, Lin Huang immediately realized why there was not a single Void in the entire star zone.

This Apocalypse Dragon Python had most likely eaten all the Voids, not just in the Devil Hunter Star Zone, but probably in the several other star zones near the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss as well.

While Lin Huang was scrutinizing the Apocalypse Dragon Python, it was weighing him up as well.

It found it rather peculiar that this human had appeared without warning. However, its thoughts were soon occupied by its appetite.

The aura coming from this human in front of it was delicious—much more so than all the Voids it had consumed before.

From the time it sensed the aura emanating from Lin Huang, it had been drooling involuntarily.

Naturally, Lin Huang became aware of why the other was drooling and could not help raising his brows. "You think I'm as big a prize as the elixir of immortality?!"

At that moment, the Apocalypse Dragon Python suddenly flapped its wings.

Its gigantic figure leaped forward and swooped toward the Devil Hunter Star Zone where Lin Huang was.

Lin Huang smirked and shook his sleeves. Countless God Weapon flying daggers shot out furiously, forming a giant dragon in the starry dome of the heavens, which then charged toward the Apocalypse Dragon Python.

That was one of the advantages Lin Huang had, unlike Zhan Zhuo—his God Weapons could be brought into the virtual realm. This was because God Weapons were different from ordinary equipment in that they became entirely part of the body after they were refined. They would be considered bones or organs by the virtual realm, so they would not be restricted.

The Apocalypse Dragon Python was furious when it saw the dragon beast that suddenly appeared in the void. Although it had long since lost any memories from when it was alive, it would still become enraged for no reason whenever it saw dragon beasts now.

In reality, Lin Huang had done this on purpose to irk it.

Although the size of this dragon beast formed from over a million God Weapon flying daggers could not compare to the Apocalypse Dragon Python at all—it was not even as big as one of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eyes—Lin Huang was very confident about his attack.

In the starry sky, endless black rays radiated simultaneously from the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eight eyes, as if eight massive shockwaves were attacking the blood-red dragon beast made from the God Weapon flying daggers.

The dragon beast scattered into countless lightning arcs immediately and spread in all directions, easily dodging the other's attack. It then re-formed, charging toward the Apocalypse Dragon Python.

By the time the Apocalypse Dragon Python wanted to react, it was a little too late.

Powered by the Dao seal and compounded with over twelve thousand levels of sequence power, the blood-red dragon beast went through one of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eight eyes immediately and exited through another eye.

Within the blink of an eye, it had destroyed two of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eyes.

On his part, Lin Huang did not dodge the attack that the God Weapon had evaded.

He hovered above the Pfister Star and raised eight Mirrors at the same time. Each Mirror had a surface bigger than the Pfister Star. They immediately met the incoming eight black rays shooting out of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eyes.

Practically the instant Lin Huang raised the Mirrors, eight black shockwaves hit them almost simultaneously. With not even a pause of 0.0001 seconds, the black shockwaves were deflected back straight away.

The eight shockwaves changed direction without stopping, aiming straight for the Apocalypse Dragon Python.

Before the Apocalypse Dragon Python could recover from the pain of losing two eyeballs, the eight black shockwaves were already approaching—and were coming straight at its face.

Amid its shock and consternation, the Apocalypse Dragon Python hurriedly attempted to dodge, but it was already too late.

Although it managed to evade slightly, four of its remaining six eyes were destroyed.

In an encounter that lasted barely the time it took for a breath, the Apocalypse Dragon Python had lost six of its eight eyes.

Very likely, it still had not managed to figure out what exactly had just happened.

'This fellow has powerful defenses. Not only that, the area around its head seems to utilize a special defense technique.' Lin Huang felt it was a pity that he had failed to kill the creature in his earlier attack.

His purpose in having the God Weapon flying daggers evade the other's attack and then re-form was so he could use the Apocalypse Dragon Python's eyes as the breaching point to destroy its head directly.

He had never expected that after the God Weapon flying daggers penetrated its eye, there would be another shielding layer protecting its head. Lin Huang had no choice but to retreat and settle for the next best option—manipulating the God Weapon flying daggers to pierce through its second eyeball.

The deflected attack seemed to have hit it directly in the face and destroyed four of its eyeballs. In all honesty, Lin Huang had not expected that to happen.

He thought the creature would be able to react in time and shield its eyes since they were such vital points.

Perhaps it had been too long since it had encountered a powerful opponent, so its actual combat abilities had weakened. Perhaps it had been momentarily careless, or whatever other reason, allowing the attack to achieve unexpected results.

Although Lin Huang had gained the upper hand in this encounter, he did not dare to underestimate the creature in the least. After all, it was a bona fide Lord, and its physical strength might already be near middle-rank lord-level.

Eyes were indeed crucial to ordinary people.

However, to lord-level powerhouses, eyes did not have a significant effect.

This was because lord-level powerhouses rarely relied solely on their vision to capture their opponents' movements in battle. They depended on Divine Telekinesis most of the time.

Lin Huang destroying his opponent's six eyes at the beginning of the battle did not have any substantial effects on the Apocalypse Dragon Python's abilities. At most, it had only taken away one of its attack methods, but it had also made the creature more cautious now.

After this, Lin Huang controlled the God Weapon flying daggers, intending to try and destroy the Apocalypse Dragon Python's remaining two eyes. However, it was clearly more alert now and did not give him so much as a chance for that.

'This fellow has such thick skin. I'm afraid this battle is going to consume a considerable amount of time.' Lin Huang tried attacking the Apocalypse Dragon Python's other body parts. After a moment, he could not help frowning slightly.

After merely one clash, Lin Huang already had some gener insight into the ability of the Apocalypse Dragon Python that he was facing.

This was a Lord with five Dao seals that had mastered a total of some ten thousand god sequence chains.

Overall, its ability was similar to Dark Sword, whom he had encountered previously.

However, Dark Sword was a sword cultivator, after all, and more proficient in attacks; his techniques were also more varied.

In comparison, the Apocalypse Dragon Python had a more powerful physical body and stronger defenses.

For Lin Huang, the Apocalypse Dragon Python was more difficult to deal with compared to Dark Sword.

Its physical body was almost perfectly integrated with its Dao seals, and the surface of its scales was completely covered by Dao seal layers.

For Lin Huang, who only had a level-1 Sword seal, it would be very difficult for him to breach the creature's defenses.

Whenever the blood-red dragon beast formed from the God Weapon flying daggers struck the body of the Apocalypse Dragon Python, there would be the ringing sound of metal striking against metal. Sometimes, there would even be sparks. Even if that happened, however, the daggers only left faint scratches on the creature's scales at most.

"This definitely won't do if I go on exhausting myself. Given the current strength of my attacks, it's able to defend itself without expending that much Divine Power at all." In his mind, Lin Huang was rapidly thinking through all sorts of countermeasures. "I have to increase my attack power!"

While Lin Huang was still considering combat tactics, the Apocalypse Dragon Python had swiftly regrouped from its earlier injuries.

Losing six of its eyes did not make it fear Lin Huang. Instead, the injury had aroused its ferocity.

As far as the Apocalypse Dragon Python was concerned, Lin Huang was just a Lord with one Dao seal who had managed to injure it earlier through sheer luck.

It lowered its head, its two remaining crimson eyes staring fixedly at Lin Huang.

However, this time, it did not dare to release any more shockwaves. Instead, it opened its enormous mouth and spewed out endless black flames.

The flames were like a flowing galaxy. Within the blink of an eye, they had spread over a distance of several dozen lightyears, surging toward Lin Huang. Even a small part of the Devil Hunter Star Zone was swallowed up.

Although it was not particularly intelligent, the Apocalypse Dragon Python had clearly learned its lesson from earlier. It did not plan on giving Lin Huang a chance to deflect the attack—it used a ranged attack right away.

Lin Huang smirked slightly. He had no intention at all of fighting the tsunami-like inferno that was surging toward him.

In a flash, he vanished on the spot.

When he reappeared, he was already outside the area that the black flames covered.

As for the Pfister Star, he would not feel psychologically burdened at all if such a barren planet was destroyed in the material realm, much less in this virtual realm.

After dodging the Apocalypse Dragon Python's black flame attack, Lin Huang began to perform hand seals rapidly.

In the starry sky, the million or more God Weapon flying daggers swiftly began changing shape. In an instant, they transformed into over a million swords. The dragon beast form dispersed completely as well, rapidly forming a massive sword formation in the air.

This was the killing move that Bloody had left for Lin Huang the last time they met.

In total, there were twelve sets of ultimate sword formations. Bloody had derived these ultimate killing formations using her own spirit strength and computational skills.

Based on what Bloody had mentioned at the time, if Lin Huang were able to use them, it should not be difficult for him to kill a half-step Lord.

The abilities Lin Huang displayed currently were at least a hundred times more powerful than before as well.

It was also his first time using this type of sword formation in actual combat. He could clearly sense that as the countless battle swords returned to their places in the sword formation and resonated with each other, the formation's power was also continuously increasing.

In less than the time it took for a breath, the formation's power had shot up to its peak!

"It's almost the equivalent of compounding two additional Sword seal levels…" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

The power of his compounded Sword seal far exceeded the Apocalypse Dragon Python's level-5 Dao seal.

This was because his level-1 Sword seal contained the power of over twelve thousand god sequence chains. By compounding another two levels, this gave it the equivalent power of thirty-six thousand god sequence chains.

The Apocalypse Dragon Python's compounded level-5 Dao seal, however, had only amassed the power of some ten thousand god sequence chains.

Although Lin Huang did not have as many Dao seals as the creature, he could completely overwhelm it in terms of the volume of sequence power.

Once the sword formation was complete, the Apocalypse Dragon Python clearly sensed the threat radiating from it.

Its massive snake tail lashed out, intending to smash the newly-consolidated sword formation to bits.

In the time it took for a breath, the enormous snake tail had traversed a distance of several dozen lightyears.

At the same time, the huge sword formation began spinning furiously as Lin Huang controlled it with his mind.

The million or more battle swords in the sky transformed into a single giant sword. It slashed toward the snake tail at an even faster speed.

Boom!

In an instant, both attacks collided in the starry heavens.

The boom even pierced through the limits of the vacuum of space, transmitting in all directions. It spread toward the distance at a speed that was hundreds of times faster than the speed of light.

At the same time, what the collision produced—energy waves, overwhelming Odylic waves, all sorts of sequence powers and Rule Bending Powers, as well as Divine Power that had dispelled—was sweeping in all directions.

Suddenly, all the planets in the entire Devil Hunter Star Zone exploded one after another and were then completely reduced to dust.

Even stars and black holes were no exception. They were crushed to powder by the escaping energies caused by the two combatants.

This, then, was the Holy Power of lord-level powerhouses.

They could destroy the entire galaxy in the time it took to turn one hand over!

At that moment, one of the main culprits in this attack—Lin Huang—remained where he stood, unmoving. He watched the Apocalypse Dragon Python across from him with calm, clear eyes.

The tail that the Apocalypse Dragon Python was so proud of now sported a massive wound so deep the bone could be seen.

It was very evident who the winner of this encounter was.

The corners of Lin Huang's mouth quirked up slightly when he saw the wound. It was at least one thousand kilometers long and was still bleeding.

He had finally breached the creature's defenses!

Although it was a far cry from directly severing its tail, the fact that he had broken through its defenses and had been able to cause such a massive wound was already good news.

Lin Huang finally felt completely relieved when he saw the Apocalypse Dragon Python's wound.

Only now was he sure that he had a chance of winning.

"Roar!"

The Apocalypse Dragon Python released a terrifying roar at Lin Huang—whether from anger, pain, or whatever other reason was unknown.

Endless black flames accompanied the roar.

This time, the Apocalypse Dragon Python spewed considerably more black flame than previously. If it had been just a river bursting its dams before, it was now truly a surging tsunami.

It flung its head and spurted flames in every direction. It clearly wanted to seal off all possible escape routes for Lin Huang.

However, in face of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's behavior, Lin Huang merely shook his head and smiled.

This was nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum after losing a game.

It would not affect the final outcome of the game at all.

Lin Huang did not even bother to evade this time. As he moved his fingers slightly, Mirror consolidated in front of him immediately. It then turned into a sphere over two meters in diameter, entirely enveloping his body with no neglected areas in his defenses at all.

At the same time, he used his mind again. In the distance, the sword formation made from the God Weapon flying daggers transformed into a giant, blood-red sword once more and slashed at the Apocalypse Dragon Python.

This time, the target of its attack was the creature's vital parts!

Approximately half an hour later, Lin Huang looked at the severed carcass of the Dragon Python. He then recalled the innumerable God Weapon battle swords that were gliding around like a school of fish.

The Apocalypse Dragon Python's carcass hovered in the starry heavens, its body full of wounds both deep and shallow. What had finally killed it, however, was most certainly the wound on its vital parts, which had completely sliced it in two.

Naturally, a mortal wound like that had not been caused by just a single attack.

It was the result of Lin Huang releasing more God Weapon flying daggers, utilizing fully eight sword formations, and spending more than half an hour to finally kill it.

The Apocalypse Dragon Python was undoubtedly the most powerful opponent that Lin Huang had ever encountered.

As he sensed the Apocalypse Dragon Python's life force dissipating entirely from not too far away, Lin Huang suddenly raised his brows involuntarily.

This was because the Dragon Python's carcass was disintegrating gradually into grayish-black points of light. They swiftly consolidated together and transformed into a grayish-black cloud of mist that was merely the size of a soccer ball.

"This ought to be the Void's Origin Energy, right?" Lin Huang extended his hand with some curiosity.

The cloud of mist not only did not reject his advances but seeped into Lin Huang's body through his fingers.

Lin Huang did not sense any threat at all. He sent his consciousness into his body and discovered that the sphere of energy had immersed itself in the God Territory within him.

After using his consciousness to seek it out, countless memories began wildly surging into his mind.

Lin Huang finally opened his eyes again after a long time.

"So that's how it is… full Origin Energy contains everything there is to know about a Void…"

From the Apocalypse Dragon Python's memory, Lin Huang rapidly obtained all sorts of information about Origin Energy.

As long as he fully refined this mass of Origin Energy, not only would he obtain the Apocalypse Dragon Python's memory and inheritance, but he would also gain everything that it had ever accumulated. This included the Dao seals it had mastered, its sequence powers and Rule Bending Powers, its God Territory… it even included everything the Apocalypse Dragon Python had obtained from refining other Origin Energies in the past.

However, Lin Huang soon noticed something odd. After killing the Apocalypse Dragon Python, although a fatality notification had popped up from Xiao Hei, there was no notification at all about any rewards. There was not even a piece of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's card fragment.

"Why isn't there even a card fragment this time after I killed the Apocalypse Dragon Python?" Lin Huang directly asked Xiao Hei.

After a moment of silence, Xiao Hei very soon responded.

"You've already gained all of its Origin Energy, so there's no need for me to take a portion of its Origin Energy to create a card."

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard this, but he instantly realized what Xiao Hei meant.

"Do you mean to say that when you created cards previously, you converted a portion of the deceased's Origin Energy to do so?"

"Your understanding is essentially correct."

"So the level and quantity of the cards you can create is dependent on the Origin Energy that you take and has no actual connection with my combat strength?!" Something suddenly occurred to Lin Huang, and his expression immediately became rather peculiar.

Xiao Hei fell silent again for a moment but answered anyway a little while later.

"That is indeed the case. However, restricting the number of cards you can obtain per combat strength level is also to prevent you from exploiting the cards and relying too much on the cards' functions."

"So you've appropriated a great deal of the Origin Energy for yourself from the monsters I've killed?" The number of monsters Lin Huang had killed far exceeded the maximum number of cards he had obtained.

For each monster he killed, Xiao Hei would secretly take a portion of Origin Energy. However, only a small fraction of the Origin Energy was used to create cards for Lin Huang—most of it was hoarded by Xiao Hei.

This time, Xiao Hei fell into a long silence.

"Don't pretend you can't hear me. And don't think you can deceive me about this matter," Lin Huang prodded, seeing that Xiao Hei did not reply for a long time.

The Goldfingers—the stone tablet, Eternity Fire, Yin Yin, and the newcomer, the Gate of All Realms—were watching the drama unfold.

In reality, it was common for a Goldfinger to sneak benefits from its host. However, not very many of them had been caught red-handed.

"I do admit that I've appropriated a great deal of Origin Energy. However, my restricting your rewards is not because I wish to withhold any of the Origin Energy.

"Even if I only used one-tenth of the Origin Energy to create all kinds of card rewards for you, the number of cards you would obtain will be several dozen times over what you have now. That does not benefit your development in any way."

Lin Huang knew that Xiao Hei was telling the truth.

He had been prodding himself to become stronger all this while; to a certain extent, this was also because of Xiao Hei's restriction on the number of cards he could obtain.

Since the number of cards he could gain per level of combat strength was limited, he had no option but to elevate his combat strength quickly so he could obtain more card rewards.

If Xiao Hei truly did lift its restrictions—if it merely used one-tenth of the Origin Energy to make him all sorts of card rewards, as it had mentioned earlier—his motivation to elevate his combat strength would likely drop significantly. Moreover, there was a high possibility of him relying on the cards' functions and slacking in his personal cultivation. He was almost certain that he would definitely not have the ability he possessed now.

"I won't bring up what's already in the past. However, right now, I think we can apportion the ratio of Origin Energy all over again." Xiao Hei had admitted its problem, and Lin Huang did not want to dwell on the matter. He had brought up the Origin Energy issue not to blame Xiao Hei but to allocate the ratio of resources anew.

"No problem."

Xiao Hei agreed with alacrity, then suggested a ratio.

"I can allocate thirty percent to you. Given your current ability, I'm no longer worried that you'll exploit the cards."

"Let's make it fifty-fifty. It's fairer if each of us has half." It was not that Lin Huang wanted more, but he knew that Xiao Hei had appropriated Origin Energy in the past because the Origin Energy was most certainly beneficial to him. "I'll store my fifty percent with you for now and let you know when I need it. You can use it whenever you want. Also, there's no need to portion out the Origin Energy that you appropriated. It still belongs to you."

"Deal!"

Xiao Hei thought about it for a moment and very quickly agreed. After all, Lin Huang was currently making an extremely big concession with his current proposal. It knew that it would be very difficult for it to fight for an even higher ratio.

After the two had discussed the apportioning of Origin Energy, Lin Huang looked at the mass of grayish-black Origin Energy from the Dragon Python.

"What's the most powerful card you can create with this kind of lord-level Origin Energy?"

"I can create a Lord Elevation Card."

"What?!" Lin Huang's eyes widened, thinking he had misheard. "By using this card, one can directly elevate to become a Lord?!"

"Of course, it's not as easy as that. There's a caveat to be able to use it. One has to be ninth-rank heavenly god-level, and ranked no lower than Class 5.5 Pseudo Pure Spirit."

"There's no need to go through unification?!" Lin Huang still thought such a function was rather incredible.

"No. Unification will be achieved right away when the card is used. The user will directly elevate to become a Lord, and no raptors will be attracted."

"There aren't any side-effects?" Lin Huang questioned further.

"No. It's the same as a successful, normal unification."

Lin Huang's eyes lit up after hearing that. He was beginning to imagine what the scenario might be if he built an army of lord-level imperial monsters.

"Is there any way to bring in items from the material realm?"

That was the main reason why Lin Huang had brought Xiao Hei into the virtual realm this time.

"After putting together the situation in the virtual realm and the information that the Gate of All Realms shared, it shouldn't be a problem."

As soon as Xiao Hei finished speaking, a card rapidly began to coalesce on Lin Huang's right palm.

He picked up the card and looked at it. "A Virtual Realm Cabin Card?"

Lin Huang checked the information on the back of the card.

This was a cabin that could exist in the virtual realm. The duration of its existence would depend on the cabin's interior capacity, how many items were placed inside, and the influx of Origin Energy.

With an influx of Origin Energy, the smaller the capacity of the cabin and the fewer the items, the longer the cabin would be able to exist.

Anything from the material realm could be stored in this cabin, except living beings.

Naturally, this meant living beings from the material realm, excluding Lin Huang's virtual body.

"Why is there a restriction on living beings?" Lin Huang could not help asking when he saw that particular caveat.

"Without this restriction, the Origin Energy required to build this cabin would be at least a hundred times more than what's currently needed."

Lin Huang nodded once he heard the explanation. "I think that's a pretty good restriction."

In truth, he had not given this much thought earlier; he was just asking a casual question. In reality, it would not affect him significantly whether or not the virtual realm cabin could contain living beings from the material realm. Moreover, even if the cabin were able to contain living beings, they would not be able to leave the cabin and enter the virtual realm.

"Does it require a lot of Origin Energy to maintain the cabin?" Lin Huang asked again.

"As long as you don't make the capacity of the cabin too extreme and store too many items inside, the daily consumption is practically negligible."

"That's good then." Lin Huang could finally be at ease.

He did not ask Xiao Hei about how to use the cabin, as it was clearly stated on the information on the back of the card.

In one move, Lin Huang teleported to a nearby planet that had not been damaged. He then crushed the Virtual Realm Cabin Card in his hand.

A second later, the card turned into countless golden points of light that rapidly formed into a small cabin in front of Lin Huang.

The exterior was the default form of the card and could be altered by the card user.

However, Lin Huang did not want to bother thinking about a concept, so he left it on the default setting.

The cabin looked as if it had less than ten square meters of surface area. This did not bother Lin Huang; he pushed the door open and went in.

Upon entering, he realized that the interior was even smaller—probably only six or seven square meters. The cabin could only hold one bed and a set of tables and chairs at most, and it would already be thoroughly cramped inside.

This even reminded Lin Huang of the house on Earth he had rented with a few others after graduating from university back in the day. The partitioned room he lived in back then was similar to the size of this cabin.

Lin Huang looked around. There was nothing in the room at all except for a stone floor, four snowy-white walls, and a triangular roof.

He made some mental calculations. The highest part of the roof was approximately 3.5 meters. If he were to calculate using the surface area of the interior, the maximum capacity of this cabin at present was no more than 25 cubic meters.

He did not increase the capacity of the interior, nor did he alter the structure of the house. He merely opened the door and left.

From what he saw, the current surface area was fully sufficient for his needs.

If it were not enough, he could still change it when the time came. This was also a unique characteristic of the virtual realm cabin. The interior capacity of the cabin, its structure and exterior appearance, as well as the interior decorations, could be changed at any time.

"Let's return to the material realm and test this function then."

Lin Huang had barely finished speaking before the Gate of All Realms opened a Virtual Eye.

He stepped into it. When he reappeared, he was already in the material realm.

However, his real body was not on the Pfister Star but on the barren planet where his virtual body had arrived earlier.

After returning to the material realm, Lin Huang checked the time immediately. It was exactly the same as when his virtual body had left the material realm. Not even one second had passed.

He turned around and looked in the direction of the virtual realm cabin.

The Virtual Realm Cabin Card within his body that had become blurred and out of focus was suddenly illuminated by points of light. A moment later, the form of the Virtual Realm Cabin Card that he could see gradually began to solidify into being. It was exactly the same as the one in the virtual realm.

Not only could he see it, but even his Divine Telekinesis could perceive it.

However, he knew that it was a projection of the virtual realm cabin into the material realm. As the user of the card, only he could perceive it; others could not.

Lin Huang pushed the door open and went in right away. The interior of the house was exactly the same, with no changes whatsoever.

He retrieved a storage ring from his storage space. After placing some items in the ring, he put it on the floor. He turned around and left after opening the door.

"Let's go to the virtual realm again," Lin Huang told the Gate of All Realms.

Very soon, a Virtual Eye appeared before him. His virtual body consolidated immediately, which he then stepped into.

After passing through the Virtual Eye, Lin Huang's virtual body appeared in the virtual realm again.

He glanced at the cabin nearby, then pushed open the door and went in again.

Upon entering the house, he saw the storage ring on the floor right away. He picked it up and sent his Divine Telekinesis into it. Nothing was missing inside.

Lin Huang then tried taking out the items in the storage ring one after the other.

Divine Crystals, god sequence relics, minerals, herbs, monster carcasses…

He was able to retrieve every item he had brought from the material realm without being restricted by any of the virtual realm's rules at all.

Lin Huang even tried absorbing a Divine Crystal. There were no issues at all.

At this point, he was finally sure that the virtual realm cabin functioned perfectly.

"It's like a cabin in which time has stopped. If I have sufficient resources and cultivate inside for over a hundred million years, not even a second of the material realm's time would pass!" Lin Huang thought the virtual realm cabin was the most valuable treasure in cultivation.

Of course, the caveat was that he would not be interrupted by any Voids.

However, according to the memories he obtained from the Apocalypse Dragon Python, most of the Voids in the virtual realm could only move around within a specific area. They could not distance themselves from a particular region.

This was just like the Apocalypse Dragon Python that could not go too far from the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss. He could only move around a few nearby star zones at most. Furthermore, he could not leave the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss for too long, or he would be teleported back by force.

Lin Huang had some speculations about this unique characteristic of the Voids.

It was possible that the Voids were unable to leave the place where they had died or the place where their corpses were in the material realm.

However, such a restriction was not absolute.

According to the Apocalypse Dragon Python's memories, some powerful existences could break such restrictions. However, Lin Huang gauged that the only ones who could do that would be super powerhouses above lord-level.

Therefore, he was not worried about being disturbed when he cultivated in the virtual realm cabin. After all, the only Void nearby—the Apocalypse Dragon Python–had been killed by him.

If he were truly so unfortunate as to encounter a Void that could break this restriction, he would just have to admit defeat.

However, if that did happen and worse came to worst, it was only the destruction of a virtual body. Besides, the Gate of All Realms could currently create three virtual bodies per day.

After dispelling the virtual realm cabin, Lin Huang returned to the material realm again.

He had already thought about how he was going to elevate his ability over the next few days.

Just before the sky darkened into night, Hong Zhuang returned Zhan Zhuo's unlocked storage ring to Lin Huang.

He immediately checked through Zhan Zhuo's battle spoils.

After a cursory scan with Divine Telekinesis, the items in the storage ring caused Lin Huang to exclaim in admiration at how wealthy a lord-level powerhouse could be.

Zhan Zhuo had eleven Dao Weapons alone, as well as two lord-level dead bodies. He also had three sealed Origin Energy spheres, hundreds of inherited crystals, storage rings of various shapes piled high in a small mountain, as well as innumerable Divine Crystals and various minerals…

Lin Huang guessed that many resources in Zhan Zhuo's storage ring might not have come from the great world at all. It was very possible that they had been obtained from other Raiders in exchange and had come from other worlds or universes.

As for the three Origin Energy spheres, they were obviously lord-level. Zhan Zhuo must have obtained them from killing Voids in the virtual realm.

As to why Zhan Zhuo had not absorbed the spheres, Lin Huang speculated that either he had encountered a temporary bottleneck and could not absorb them, or he had intentionally kept them. Perhaps he wanted to use them as goods to trade for resources with other people.

After making a detailed inventory of Zhan Zhuo's loot, Lin Huang did not post the eleven Dao Weapons on Royal's auction. This was because he had previously calculated that the number of half-step Lords' God Territories he could get in exchange for selling Zhan Zhuo's ancient palace ought to be sufficient.

He retrieved the small mountain of storage rings inside and passed them all to Hong Zhuang again.

Whatever the ability of the original owners of those rings, he would let Hong Zhuang unlock them all first before he decided on what to do. It was still better than nothing, however small.

After seeing to all these matters, Lin Huang did not enter the virtual realm again, nor did he enter the Great Heaven Palace for closed-door cultivation. Instead, he waited patiently for the result of the ancient palace's auction.

At noon the next day, the alarm clock Lin Huang had set went off as soon as the twenty-four hours for the auction was up. He immediately took out his Royal Token and accessed the Royal auction page.

The auction showed that the ancient palace had sold for 1,274 half-step Lords' God Territories.

This number had far surpassed what Lin Huang required.

When he saw the auction results, his mood grew increasingly cheerful.

After confirming the transaction, the 1,274 half-step Lords' God Territories were entered into his account immediately and stored within his Royal Token.

He took out all of them right away and put them in his storage ring.

Now that he had possession of these half-step Lords' God Territories, Lin Huang did not delay any further.

He had Xiao Hei create another Virtual Realm Cabin Card and walked to the courtyard with it, then crushed it immediately.

The card turned into golden points of light again and consolidated into a virtual cabin that only Lin Huang could see.

He went inside, removed his storage ring, and placed it on the floor.

After opening the door and exiting, he had the Gate of All Realms create a virtual body for him. He then stepped into the virtual realm.

When he entered the virtual realm again with his virtual body, Lin Huang immediately saw the cabin in the nearby courtyard. He strode over, pushed open the door, and entered.

After picking up the storage ring on the floor, Lin Huang collected his thoughts and sat down with his legs crossed.

A moment later, after his mind was completely calm, he took out the half-step Lords' God Territories from the storage ring one by one and began to refine them.

Days passed in the virtual realm.

In no time at all, sixty thousand days had passed.

When Lin Huang refined the two hundredth and thirty-ninth God Territory, his combat strength successfully broke through to ninth-rank heavenly god-level. (During his elevation to eighth-rank, he had refined 17 extra God Territories.)

Just as he had expected, he could clearly sense that his heavenly god-level had yet to reach satiety, so he continued to refine more God Territories.

Nearly one hundred and twenty thousand days passed. When he refined the seven hundredth and fifty-first God Territory, his combat strength achieved another breakthrough, and he elevated to tenth-rank heavenly god-level.

At this point, Lin Huang finally sensed that his God Territory was full. He could no longer absorb any more half-step Lords' God Territories.

Only now did he descend into his mind and begin checking over the current state of his body.

His combat strength had elevated to tenth-rank heavenly god-level. After undergoing the baptism of combat strength elevation twice, his physical strength had officially achieved lord-level. Naturally, his God's soul's strength had also broken through to middle-rank lord-level.

Apart from that, his Godly Right had grown significantly stronger as well. The number of god sequence chains it could contain had increased to over fifty thousand. In his God Territory, the total number of god sequence chains had skyrocketed to at least one hundred and eighty thousand, while the number of god rules was immeasurable.

These two consecutive elevations in rank had undoubtedly increased Lin Huang's ability significantly.

However, he did not exit closed-door cultivation just yet, or halt his cultivation.

Instead, he looked at the unknown Divine Telekinesis visualization images.

He had set these aside earlier mainly because he genuinely did not have the time to visualize them. Even though time flow in the Great Heaven Palace had been accelerated ten thousand times, to Lin Huang, it was still insufficient.

However, the elevation of his combat strength this time had increased the strength of his God's soul to middle-rank lord-level. Without a doubt, his visualization speed was much faster now. Moreover, he had the virtual realm cabin, which was the ideal place for cultivation.

Naturally, Lin Huang intended to take advantage of it.

After letting his mind submerge into his inner body, he soon began a new round of Divine Telekinesis visualization.

He spent twenty-seven years (approximately ten thousand days) visualizing the 103rd visualization image.

He then spent fifty-five years (over twenty thousand days) visualizing the 104th visualization image.

At this point, the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had also skyrocketed to the limits of middle-rank lord-level.

However, Lin Huang did not stop just yet but continued with his visualization.

He spent more than five hundred full days (over two hundred thousand days) to visualize the 105th visualization image.

He spent over a thousand years to finally complete the visualization of the 106th visualization image.

As for the 107th visualization image, Lin Huang merely glanced at it and completely abandoned any further attempts at visualization.

If he continued to visualize at his current God's soul's strength, he might have to spend over ten thousand years to complete the 106th visualization image successfully.

He felt that he could certainly wait until his God's soul had another breakthrough before proceeding with any more visualization.

He was fairly satisfied with the current strength of his Divine Telekinesis. After all, it was already at the peak of upper-rank lord-level.

After setting aside the visualization image, Lin Huang looked at the God's Figurine's Combat Souls within him again.

The combat strength of the ten original God's Figurine's Combat Souls had remained stagnant at ninth-rank true god-level.

There was no reason other than they were restricted by the God's Figurine's innate limitations.

Lin Huang stared at the ten God's Figurines and thought for a moment. After that, he soon made up his mind.

"Xiao Hei, elevate all ten God's Figurines to Pure Spirit!"

"Certainly. Let me have all of the Apocalypse Dragon Python's Origin Energy from previously, and supplement me with one more sphere of Origin Energy."

"Deal!" Lin Huang agreed with alacrity, then took out an Origin Energy sphere and gave it to Xiao Hei.

Lord-level Origin Energy was a class-6 material. To elevate from class-5 to class-6, he would need a grade-5 Advance Card, which was a class-5 material.

Furthermore, Lin Huang had requested to elevate ten God's Figurines and had not provided any other materials, so Xiao Hei would need to provide all of the Origin Energy.

Therefore, this deal was still relatively fair—in fact, Lin Huang had even taken advantage of it.

After all, his ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls were only class-4. They would need to elevate from rank-4 mythical-level to rank-5 supreme god-level.

A moment later, Advance Cards appeared one by one in Lin Huang's hands.

Lin Huang crushed them one at a time and inserted them into the ten Combat Souls' bodies, respectively.

Very soon, the ten Combat Souls elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6 one after the other.

After this, Lin Huang communicated with the Eternity Fire so it could imbue the ten original Combat Souls with God's soul energy.

After being infused with God's soul energy from the Eternity Fire, the ten Combat Souls' combat strength kept skyrocketing.

First-rank, second-rank, third-rank…

After a mere few minutes, they had elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

However, that was not the end of things yet. The God's Figurine's Combat Souls' combat strength merely paused at ninth-rank heavenly god-level for a moment, and then the next breakthrough occurred. They had been elevated to lord-level!

Many inherently Pure Spirit rank monsters were born as Lords. Even the weakest ones would automatically elevate to become Lords when they grew to adulthood.

However, the God's Figurine's Combat Souls were only dead bodies.

After elevating to Pure Spirit rank-6, their combat strength elevation only required that their God's souls be replenished.

Once their God's souls had been replenished to lord-level, they would naturally elevate to lord-level.

This was why Lin Huang had decided to expend Advance Cards to perform this round of elevation.

Compared to nurturing imperial monsters and Sword Servants, it was much faster to elevate his God's Figurine's Combat Souls and far more convenient.

However, the Eternity Fire halted the infusion of God's soul energy after elevating the ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls to lower-rank Lords.

Although the Eternity Fire could theoretically produce an infinite amount of energy, creating ten Lords at once was a great strain on it.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, he could still make use of ten lower-rank Lords, albeit grudgingly.

He retrieved an Origin Energy sphere from his storage space to compensate the Eternity Fire.

After that, he sat down again with his legs crossed and began another round of visualization.

However, this time he visualized the True Spirit Guide instead.

He was preparing to completely visualize the ten Pure Spirit God's Figurine's Combat Souls into the forms that were in the True Spirit Guide…

Upon his return to the great world from the virtual world, Lin Huang's ability had undergone yet another significant increase.

Not only had he elevated from eighth-rank to tenth-rank, but his abilities in all aspects had leveled up in a manner that could even be described as terrifying.

After a full day, the evacuation of the residents of the Pfister Star and the several other habitable planets in the Devil Hunter Star Zone was finally entering its last stages.

Lin Huang did a scan with his Divine Telekinesis; the Sword Servants were still busy.

After using Divine Telekinesis to sense out Sword1, Lin Huang communicated directly with him via voice transmission, "Inform the other Sword Servants to leave the Devil Hunter Star Zone and the nearby regions as soon as the evacuation is complete. Remember to bring Lin Xin and the others with you. There might be a lord-level battle later on; I'm not sure how far-reaching the impact will be."

Seeing that Sword1 wanted to say something, Lin Huang continued, "I know that all of you have powerful abilities, but when faced with a bona fide Lord, it still won't be enough. If you stay, that would only be more of a distraction to me."

He added after this, "I'm confident about this battle. You don't need to worry."

Only then did Sword1 nod. "This humble subordinate understands."

After finalizing these arrangements, Lin Huang thought for a moment, then sent his coordinates directly to his two allies from the Club—Epic Player and Steel Fist.

In reality, he did not really need assistance now. However, since he had requested their help earlier and they had agreed, he sent his coordinates over as promised.

Lin Huang did not enter cultivation mode after that. Instead, he waited patiently for the Raiders to come.

Sword1 and the rest finished evacuating the population of the entire star zone by the next morning. They took Lin Xin and the others along and departed far away from the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Epic Player and Steel Fist arrived the next evening.

Epic Player's appearance was that of a young man in his early twenties. Tall and lanky with short blue hair, he was dressed in casual attire.

Steel Fist, on the other hand, was not quite what Lin Huang had expected—they turned out to be female.

She looked about twenty-five or twenty-six and was clad in form-fitting sports attire. Her shoulder-length hair was tied into a ponytail, and her skin bore a healthy tan.

Her limbs were long and elegant, and she had a good figure. At a glance, one could tell she worked out frequently and was the type who loved outdoor activities.

"Hello gorgeous, it's been a while!" Epic Player went forward to greet Steel Fist upon her arrival.

Steel Fist merely shot him a glance, then turned her head to look at Lin Huang.

"So you're Xiu Mu?"

She did a scan with Divine Telekinesis and discovered Lin Huang was the only person left on this planet, so naturally, he ought to be Xiu Mu—the one who had invited the two of them here.

"Yes, I am. Hello, Senior Steel Fist." Lin Huang maintained the necessary courtesies.

Although he might already be more powerful than both of them in terms of ability, his combat strength was not yet at lord-level after all. Moreover, he had joined the Club later than the two of them, and he was definitely younger than they were.

"Before I came here, I thought you were just bragging about having killed a Raider. From the looks of it now, you probably do possess that sort of ability," Steel Fist said bluntly; her personality had always been like this.

She had been suspicious of Lin Huang previously because there was an insurmountable gap between Lords and non-Lords. Moreover, his opponent was a Raider who had a Goldfinger. The level of difficulty in killing them would be even higher.

She had even suspected that Lin Huang was just bait for luring the Club members into a trap.

She had come this time because, for one, she had sufficient confidence in her abilities. Even if she could not fight the Raider, she could run away. For another, she was worried that Lin Huang might be telling the truth. If this turned out to be a genuine situation and Lin Huang was killed by the Raider, it meant the Club would lose a new member.

However, after seeing Lin Huang, her suspicions about him decreased significantly. At the very least, she had no doubts about his abilities now. This was because she could faintly sense danger signals emanating from his person.

She would only experience a feeling like this if she were facing someone no weaker, or even more powerful, than herself.

"Actually, I felt the same way you did. I was skeptical of his ability before I came here," Epic Player said with a smile after Steel Fist's comments.

"But after meeting him, I think it's probably true that he killed Mr. Gate."

Only then did Lin Huang realize that, just as he had mistrusted them initially, they had also been wary of him, keeping their guards up. They had been worried that he was merely bait the Raiders had set up.

"Seniors, since you both have admitted as much, I may as well be truthful. In reality, I had to think twice before asking for your help because I couldn't rule out the possibility that the Club might harbor Raider spies as well. I was worried that I'd be inviting trouble for myself. That's why I didn't send my coordinates to you right away," Lin Huang also expressed his thoughts on the matter.

"Aren't you worried now?" Epic Player asked playfully.

"Not at all," Lin Huang said, shaking his head with a smile.

"Is it because you feel we're reliable after meeting us?" Epic Player persisted.

Steel Fist looked at Lin Huang too, appearing rather curious about his answer to this question.

"It's because of another reason." Lin Huang smiled and shook his head.

He secretly added in his heart, 'Because my current ability is sufficient to handle every threat there is.'

He did not say it out loud because it sounded too pretentious and would not be very amicable to his two allies.

Seeing that Lin Huang was unwilling to say anymore, the two did not pursue the matter further.

After interacting for a while, Lin Huang became a little more familiar with both of them. He invited them into the courtyard and served them tea. The three of them sat in the pavilion and began chatting in a relaxed manner.

It was mainly Steel Fist and Epic Player asking Lin Huang how he had managed to offended the Raiders. They also asked for some details about the killing of Mr. Gate.

Lin Huang answered their questions one by one.

The three of them chatted in this manner for over two hours. Suddenly, Lin Huang's communicator began to vibrate.

He looked down and saw that it was a voice call from an unknown number.

After a moment of consideration, he answered the call anyway.

Once the call was connected, a voice that appeared to come from a synthesizer spoke before Lin Huang could ask who it was.

"I've found you! Lin… Huang…"

Lin Huang narrowed his eyes slightly. "Is this Spy?!"

This individual had not only managed to find out his number but had also called him by his real name. Lin Huang immediately thought of the Raider with the codename Spy.

"Don't hang up yet. I have a question for you."

Hearing the other fall silent, Lin Huang continued, "Were you the one who killed Yang Ling?!"

"So you were the one who wiped out Yang Ling's information! Over this period, his lady friend probably has been hiding with you all this time." Despite the synthesized nature of the voice, Lin Huang could hear the excitement in it. "All that looking high and low, and I stumble upon her whereabouts by sheer blind luck!

"Lin Huang, more and more I'm beginning to look forward to meeting you."

"I'm looking forward to meeting you too…" Lin Huang's tone suddenly turned icy, "And then I'll kill you!"

After Lin Huang ended the call with Spy, Steel Fist and Epic Player looked at him.

"Was that Spy from the Raiders that you were talking to?" Steel Fist asked immediately.

"It was." Lin Huang nodded.

"Based on the information you provided, that fellow is indeed a bigger threat. Since he was able to find out your contact number and verify your real identity, it proves that he might be able to find out our real identities too. He might even be able to locate our coordinates through our communicators." Epic Player frowned slightly.

"If he's a middle-rank Lord, it'll be hard for us to kill him." As a close combat powerhouse, Steel Fist particularly disliked encountering this kind of opponent, who possessed showy abilities.

"Let me handle Spy," Lin Huang's tone was calm as if he were talking about something insignificant.

Although Epic Player and Steel Fist still had some doubts about Lin Huang being able to kill a middle-rank Lord, they could tell from the conversation between him and Spy earlier that both had an irreconcilable grudge. They did not delve further into the subject.

"Since he's already discovered your contact number and your real identity, it shouldn't be hard for him to locate your coordinates," Epic Player added. "I reckon it won't take him long to get here."

"I wonder how many people they'll send this time." Steel Fist looked serious; she could not relax at all.

"If they don't know that both of you are here, they probably won't send too many people. I anticipate that there'll only be three or four people at most," Lin Huang put forward his speculations, "But if the news that I requested your help has been leaked, they'll definitely send quite a few people—maybe even all the members they have. They certainly won't let a perfect opportunity to kill three Club members slip by!"

What Lin Huang said made Epic Player and Steel Fist look even grimmer.

All this while, they had never considered the possibility that there might be a mole in the Club.

After all, apart from Lin Huang, who was a new member, everyone had known each other for years.

However, they did not refute what he had said either. They were also not entirely sure whether or not there were any moles in the Club.

"We'll see when the time comes, but hopefully the situation won't be so dire." Epic Player sighed lightly.

Lin Huang poured the two of them more tea and began leading the conversation in a lighter direction.

In no time at all, it was already early next morning.

The stars had just risen on the Pfister Star's horizon when Lin Huang sensed powerful auras approaching the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Epic Player and Steel Fist lifted their heads and looked in the same direction almost simultaneously. Their expressions were both extremely grave.

There were nine powerful auras!

Lin Huang had been right after all. If the Raiders had wanted to capture only Lin Huang, even if they were to take him alive, there was no need for all of them to make an appearance.

Both of them exchanged glances and read the message in each other's eyes—there was a mole in the Club after all!

Almost the next instant after all three sensed the presence of the Raiders, a series of formidable shockwaves surged through the void at practically the same time.

Epic Player and Steel Fist dodged immediately. In the blink of an eye, they appeared outside the Pfister Star's atmosphere.

Just when they had found stable footing, they realized that Lin Huang had not dodged at all.

At the same time, both of them saw a curtain of black light rising from the Pfister Star's surface. It spread across half the planet almost immediately and just happened to obstruct the direction the shockwaves were coming from.

"There are nine of them—he can't possibly defend himself against all of them!" Steel Fist muttered softly.

"This Xiu Mu fellow…" Epic Player looked extremely grim. He had never expected Lin Huang to do something so risky the minute he showed his hand.

This was an attack with the combined forces of nine Lords. Not only that, there were two auras that were clearly middle-rank Lords.

Even a middle-rank lord-level powerhouse would be forced to dodge an attack of such power.

However, right as they thought Lin Huang was definitely going to die, the nine shockwaves struck the curtain of black light at almost the same time.

A second later, Epic Player and Steel Fist's eyes widened. The shocked expressions on their faces seemed to have frozen in place.

'What did I just see?!'

The two of them had the same thought at almost the same time.

Only a moment later were they able to confirm that what they had seen earlier was not an illusion.

The nine shockwaves of various colors were immediately deflected when they struck the curtain of black light.

Not only was the black light curtain not perforated, but the entire Pfister Star remained intact and whole.

"What kind of defense technique is that?!" Steel Fist and Epic Player were immediately dumbfounded.

On the other end of things, the nine Raiders who had attacked looked even more stunned.

When the nine of them saw Lin Huang using the curtain of light to envelop the Pfister Star earlier, they all thought that Lin Huang was signing his death warrant.

They could almost imagine what would happen next. The curtain of black light would shatter the moment the shockwaves hit it, and the entire planet would be crushed into dust, including Lin Huang.

However, what they had imagined was completely different from reality.

The nine of them had the same reaction when they saw the shockwaves being deflected—they thought they had been ensnared in an illusion.

However, they immediately realized the truth a second later.

This scenario was by no means an illusion—it had actually happened!

Seeing that the deflected shockwaves were going to reach them in merely the time it took for a breath, all of them braced to take the impact head-on.

Suddenly, the man leading the team and another middle-rank Lord shouted a warning at the same time, "Get out of the way!"

Both of them had obviously sensed the peculiarity of the deflected shockwaves.

All nine Lords hastily scattered immediately in an attempt to avoid the incoming shockwave attack.

However, at this point, a black kitten the size of a human palm appeared out of nowhere. Its nine tails were proudly raised high like swaying serpents, while its black eyes were full of disdain.

As soon as the kitten appeared, the nine Lords sensed that their bodies had frozen in place.

The two middle-rank Lords freed themselves from this restraint at the first possible moment and immediately attacked the kitten. Clearly, they realized it was the kitten that was causing this mischief.

However, the black kitten merely shot them a glance and vanished instantly, rendering their attacks futile.

At this point, the shockwaves had already approached. Of the remaining seven Lords, only three managed to forcibly free themselves from their unseen bonds, barely dodging the shockwave attacks.

However, the other four Lords were killed instantly.

Just this one encounter alone had caused their side to lose half of their members.

The three lower-rank Lords who had barely escaped felt themselves break into a cold sweat over their entire bodies. If they had not broken free of their spatial bonds at the very last minute, they might not have been able to escape death.

The middle-rank Lords were pale. They had not expected Lin Huang's abilities to be this powerful.

Naturally, this encounter had been clearly witnessed by Epic Player and Steel Fist, who were hovering in the air.

They were utterly dumbstruck; even after a few minutes, they could not recover their composure.

When the two of them had first met Lin Huang, they sensed faintly that Lin Huang's abilities were not weak at all. However, they had never expected him to be this powerful.

Just one attack earlier, and he had easily disposed of four lower-rank Lords. The two of them, at least, could not do this.

"This fellow is really ruthless!" Epic Player could not help exclaiming.

"We underestimated him…" Steel Fist did not know what she was supposed to say now.

As Lin Huang petted the Ninetails Lynx that had landed on his shoulder, he looked toward the distance in the direction the Raiders were coming from.

He was quite satisfied with the results of this first clash.

After all, this Ninetails Lynx was only a lower-rank Lord with a level-10 Dao seal. It was extremely difficult for it to use its space barrier abilities to restrain middle-rank lord-level powerhouses. Moreover, it was attacking nine Lords at once this round, so it made sense that some were able to break free. Furthermore, the three lower-rank Lords who had broken loose all had powerful abilities and more than six Dao seals.

However, the Ninetails Lynx seemed to be rather dissatisfied with the result. It sat on Lin Huang's shoulder, its pitch-black eyes staring at the two middle-rank Lords in a somewhat unfriendly manner.

If these two Lords had not attacked it, the three lower-rank Lords would not have been able to break free of their restraints so easily.

"A rank-6 imperial monster?!"

The appearance of the Ninetails Lynx attracted Steel Fist and Epic Player's attention immediately.

The two of them could only roughly gauge its ability, but they did not pick up on the fact that it was one of Lin Huang's Combat Souls.

This was because, ordinarily speaking, nobody would cultivate their God's Figurine's Combat Souls to lord-level in a fit of idleness. If they had the resources, it would be far better to utilize those resources themselves.

"A rank-6 imperial monster with a main cultivation path in spatial rule. That's rare." Epic Player looked envious.

As a clone of a reincarnated being, he had obtained a few fairly excellent imperial monster cubs from his Primordium and had raised them himself as well. The one with the highest combat strength was already at lord-level too. However, compared to the Ninetails Lynx on Lin Huang's shoulder, there was a big gap in their abilities.

A single direct confrontation had killed almost half their members in one attack, but the remaining Raiders did not give up on their pursuit. Instead, they immediately entered the Devil Hunter Star Zone and arrived in the starry sky not far from the Pfister Star.

"Lin Huang, it seems we've truly underestimated you." The leader was a man with the codename Black Mountain.

His build was stocky, and he was over three meters tall. He only gave Steel Fist and Epic Player a glance before turning his gaze toward Lin Huang, who was on the Pfister Star.

In a flash, Lin Huang disappeared from where he was and reappeared next to Steel Fist and Epic Player.

"It's not that you've underestimated me; it's that you've overestimated yourselves," Lin Huang replied calmly.

He merely gave the middle-rank Lord leader a glance, then turned his gaze toward the other middle-rank Lord.

He was a man of very ordinary appearance with an inconspicuous face; he was not even one point eight meters tall. He looked thoroughly harmless.

"You must be Spy, yes?" Lin Huang's tone grew colder.

The man lifted his head, and the smile on his face became increasingly bizarre. He then spoke in a synthesizer-like voice, "That's right, I'm Spy who killed Yang Ling. Give me Yang Ling's girlfriend, and I'll allow you a quick death."

"Unfortunately, I don't intend to give you a quick death!" Lin Huang turned his gaze from Spy and looked at the team leader again.

"Are these all of the Raiders in this great world?"

"Almost." Black Mountain gave a bland smile. "What—are you going to kill us all?"

"I'm certainly planning on it," Lin Huang answered bluntly.

"You're young in years but certainly not small in your boasting." As soon as Black Mountain finished speaking, he signaled one of the lower-rank Lords with a glance.

The lower-rank Lord moved his fingers slightly. No one knew at which juncture he had managed to set up Divine Telekinesis threads that twined around Steel Fist and Epic Player's arms, pulling them away from Lin Huang.

At the same time, the other two lower-rank Lords advanced on Steel Fist and Epic Player, respectively.

Lin Huang watched this happening, completely expressionless, but did not try to prevent it.

In reality, he had already noticed the lower-rank Lord's maneuvers earlier and had guessed their battle strategy.

They wanted to separate his allies from him, then muster the two middle-rank Lords to dispose of him first.

All they had to do on Steel Fist and Epic Player's side was to stall them, preventing them from coming to his rescue.

"The abilities of the two aides you've summoned here are indeed quite excellent, but unfortunately, they can't help you now." A ferocious grin appeared on Spy's face.

"You're not really thinking the two of you can definitely take me out, are you?" Lin Huang remained extremely calm. He did not betray any traces of the anxiety and fear that ordinary people would have when facing two middle-rank Lords.

"You restrain that cat; I'll get rid of him," Black Mountain told the nearby Spy, not bothering to conceal his words. He was not worried about Lin Huang hearing him. After all, to him, Lin Huang was already a dead man.

However, Lin Huang smiled when he heard that.

"I think you've made a mistake about one thing. What I've reared…isn't just a mere cat."

As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, the remaining God's Figurine's Combat Souls appeared almost simultaneously.

These were the Divine Sun Tree, Enchanted Fairy, the Destructive Divine Mammoth, Nightmare Tapir, Undead Styx, Withered Flower, Creation Clock, Shackle Serpent, and Death Butterfly!

Each of them was a lower-rank Lord with a level-10 Dao seal.

This was the result of Lin Huang spending countless years visualizing in the virtual realm. Only then were the ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls able to consolidate level-10 Dao seals and achieve lower-rank lord-level.

Even middle-rank Lords Black Mountain and Spy had a change of expression when they saw the ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls appearing all at once.

The two battlefields nearby also rapidly became aware of the anomalies happening on this end.

The three lower-rank Lords looked rather pale. After all, the Ninetails Lynx had displayed its abilities earlier for all to see, and the three of them had almost been killed.

Meanwhile, Steel Fist and Epic Player's faces bore rather strange expressions.

Both of them had initially been worried about how long Lin Huang would be able to face down the two middle-rank Lords on his own. Now they saw that Lin Huang did not just have one aide in combat—he had an entire group of them.

'That aura strength—all ten of them are rank-6 monsters!' Epic Player could not help secretly exclaiming to himself.

He had reared imperial monsters before, and could tell at a glance that Lin Huang's God's Figurine's Combat Souls were all terrifying Pure Spirit rank-6 entities.

Steel Fist, on the other hand, could not identify the imperial monsters' ranks, but she could clearly sense that the aura of these "imperial monsters" was no lower than her own.

'No wonder this fellow was so confident from the start.'

Although a lower-rank Lord with ten seals had not yet elevated to middle-rank lord-level, they more or less possessed the ability to fight a newly-elevated middle-rank Lord.

"I'll stall these imperial monsters—you look for an opportunity to kill him!" Black Mountain changed his strategy right away.

As a combat cultivator, he had more powerful defensive abilities. Under these circumstances, it was natural that he was more suited to drawing fire from the "imperial monsters".

If he allowed Spy to draw fire from the "imperial monsters" instead, Black Mountain was slightly worried that all ten of them would finish Spy off before he himself managed to kill Lin Huang.

Clearly, Spy was aware of this as well. He did not put forward any objections.

Lin Huang's expression remained calm as if he were not really bothered about whatever battle strategy his opponents were going to use.

As soon as he gave his order, the God's Figurine's Combat Souls immediately went into action.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth led the way, lumbering toward Black Mountain with its steel hooves…

Although the Destructive Divine Mammoth was massive, it did not slow it down at all.

It reached Black Mountain in no time and its steel hooves lashed out without holding back.

Black Mountain did not dodge when he saw what was happening.

He was a bona fide combat cultivator who would not retreat at all when encountering opponents with powerful physical bodies. This was the pride of every combat cultivator.

Faced with the Destructive Divine Mammoth's steel hooves, he attacked with both fists, throwing heavy punches.

Two forceful beams of black and yellow light enveloped in layers of Dao seals collided with a loud, resonating boom.

An instant later, rings of Odylic Force shockwaves imbued with god sequence power rippled outward. Wherever the shockwaves passed, countless planets exploded one by one.

In the end, even the Pfister Star was not spared. The impact completely shattered it into cosmic dust.

As the two combatants clashed, the Destructive Divine Mammoth's body was sent flying backward. It only managed to stop after being flung back a hundred kilometers or more in the star-filled heavens.

In comparison, Black Mountain had merely been thrown back less than ten meters.

The disparity in ability between the two was very evident.

However, Black Mountain's expression was rather grim.

Although he held the upper hand during this collision, he could clearly sense that his attack had not breached the Destructive Divine Mammoth's defenses at all.

One must know that he had held nothing back earlier—the attack was practically full-force, without the boost of a trump card.

However, the assault had not made a dent in the Destructive Divine Mammoth's defenses at all.

Furthermore, there were still nine more monsters of similar ability in his opponent's camp.

This encounter made him wonder for the first time whether or not he had made the right decision in spearheading a team to kill Lin Huang.

Amid Black Mountain and the Destructive Divine Mammoth's mighty collision, Spy, on the other end, was targeted by the other God's Figurine's Combat Souls.

The Ninetails Lynx attacked first, disappearing from Lin Huang's shoulder directly without so much as an overt move. A second later, it appeared behind Spy, slashing out with its sharp claws.

In the void, layer upon layer of spatial blades attacked, surging toward Spy like an all-encompassing net.

Spy's sense of danger immediately skyrocketed. Hurriedly, he fled.

These waves of assault were no ordinary spatial blades but terrifying attacks compounded with level-10 Dao seals.

However, right as Spy moved, Withered Flower's frost and Creation Clock's time freeze were unleashed at almost at the same time.

Although he was prepared for the Ninetails Lynx's time freeze abilities, he was caught off guard by the attacks from the other two Combat Souls.

Under the effects of two sets of restraining powers compounded with level-10 Dao seals, Spy's body froze involuntarily for a fraction of a second.

At that very instant, his figure was completely swallowed up by countless waves of spatial blades.

Lin Huang stared fixedly in the direction of Spy's besieged figure. The countless God Weapon flying daggers in his sleeves were at the ready.

That was to prevent Spy from escaping this fatal scenario.

However, a moment later, Lin Huang frowned hard.

He could sense that the Ninetails Lynx's attack had failed.

The countless spatial blades did not seem to have hit anything concrete.

'He escaped?!' Lin Huang was suspicious.

He had clearly sensed earlier that Withered Flower's frost and Creation Clock's time freeze had scored hits on Spy.

Spy had definitely been struck by the attacks. Even if he had only been restrained for a second, he would not have been able to escape the Ninetails Lynx's net of spatial blades.

Lin Huang's brain kept churning as he thought of all the various possibilities.

A moment later, an image of Virtuoso's body becoming insubstantial suddenly appeared in his mind.

"Could it be that this fellow has a technique similar to an obscuring technique?"

If Spy had really mastered such an ability, he might actually be able to evade the Ninetails Lynx's attack even while under restraint.

This was just like Virtuoso—although their body had been put under restraint, they could still use their obscuring skills.

As soon as their body became illusory, almost all attacks on the material plane could do nothing to them.

Not long later, the Ninetails Lynx's spatial blades dissipated, and Spy was still where he was, completely unharmed.

He flashed an irritating smile at Lin Huang. "The survival technique I used earlier was retrieved from Yang Ling's memory. I must say that it's pretty useful."

"You're dead meat!"

Lin Huang's killing intent soared.

What Spy said made him recall that Yang Ling had indeed possessed such a technique. It seemed as if it turned his body into something digital to dodge material attacks.

However, Spy's words also enraged Lin Huang. Previously he had not been sure all along whether Yang Ling was really dead or not. After all, he had only learned the news from Hong Zhuang's story and had not seen any concrete proof. Now that Spy had mentioned extracting something from Yang Ling's memory, he was now fundamentally sure that Spy had really killed Yang Ling.

"I love seeing that expression on your face—so desirous of killing me and yet totally helpless." Spy's smile grew more and more savage. "I don't mind telling you that since mastering Yang Ling's technique, even an ultimate-rank Lord might not be able to kill me. You're just too inexperienced…"

At that moment, the Ninetails Lynx abruptly attacked again.

However, it did not use spatial blades this time but a spatial bind.

Withered Flower and Creation Clock attacked simultaneously as well.

As the three binding techniques struck Spy, Shackle Serpent—which had concealed itself in the dark—launched an attack.

Countless black shackles wrapped around Spy's limbs and neck.

"I've told you it's useless…"

Spy's laughter stopped abruptly because he sensed that the Dao seals in his body had been disconnected. Not only that, the god sequence powers, Rule Bending Powers, and even the Divine Power within him were vanishing.

"Wh-What's happening…"

Spy was now in a complete state of panic.

Now that it had elevated to lord-level, Shackle Serpent's sealing abilities were no longer restricted to merely Divine Power. Dao seals, god sequence chains, Rule Bending Powers, Divine Power, God Territories, and all kinds of god skills and divine abilities… it could seal off just about anything.

Although the sealing duration for a lower-rank Lord sealing off the abilities of a middle-rank Lord was extremely short, it was enough for Lin Huang.

A second later, countless blood-red electric arcs shot like lightning out of Lin Huang's sleeves.

Over ten million God Weapon flying daggers surged through the air. The Sword seal imbued over fifty thousand levels of sequence power crushed Spy's body to dust immediately.

"An ultimate-rank Lord might not be able to kill you, but that doesn't mean I can't," Lin Huang commented indifferently as he looked in the direction of Spy's dissipating body.

However, as soon as he finished speaking, something odd occurred at the spot where Spy's body had dissipated. A figure rapidly began to form at a speed visible to the naked eye…

"Eh?" Lin Huang raised his brows and looked confused.

Xiao Hei's push notification had popped up, stating that he had successfully killed Spy.

Naturally, Spy could not possibly be still alive.

Now there was a body consolidating—what on earth was happening?!

Lin Huang did not rashly launch into an attack, halting the God's Figurine's Combat Souls' attacks as well.

A moment later, the figure finally consolidated fully.

Lin Huang was stunned when he saw its face.

"Yang Ling?!"

Although Yang Ling looked much more mature now and his physique was more muscular, Lin Huang recognized him at a glance.

"I genuinely never thought that you'd be able to kill Spy."

Yang Ling's expression was also full of astonishment as he stared at Lin Huang.

After that, he unhurriedly fashioned a set of illusory garments and put them on. It was not the first time Lin Huang had seen him naked anyway.

Lin Huang could tell that the person in front of him was really Yang Ling. However, this was not his actual physical body but a digital projection.

"Hong Zhuang told me you had been killed by a Raider and that your connection with your Goldfinger had been completely wiped. What's going on now?" Lin Huang was rather confused about Yang Ling's current state.

Yang Ling sighed when he heard Hong Zhuang being mentioned. After a brief moment to settle his emotions, he began relating what had befallen him.

"I wasn't killed at all. Theoretically, it could be considered being captured alive…

"After sending Hong Zhuang off the other day, I digitized my consciousness as I knew I was no match for Spy. After that, I separated my consciousness into nine layers from the core to the surface, setting a password for each layer to seal them off. The deeper the layer, the harder the password. I set a group of passwords on the last layer—the core—that would definitely change randomly.

"I knew that given Spy's character, he would certainly try to decode them. That's because all along, he's wanted to surpass me in every aspect. I left passwords that ranged from easy to difficult, firstly to prevent him from becoming humiliated and angry at being unable to decode the password and immediately destroying my consciousness data. For another, I wanted to buy myself more time to stay alive.

"I knew very well that with Spy's intelligence, he would easily discover my plan. However, I was also aware that he would most certainly take up my challenge and fall into my trap.

"Apart from setting up passwords, I'd also made other preparations for my return. One of them included Spy's death. I made his death a trigger condition. As soon as he died, my consciousness data would automatically be unsealed.

"Now that you've killed him, you've successfully triggered the conditions for my revival.

"Simply put, that's the entire process. As for the disconnection from my Goldfinger, that ought to have been caused by my consciousness being sealed. We'll talk about the details later after we get back."

After Yang Ling had given a quick summary of what had happened to him, he immediately switched to the topic which concerned him most. "Oh yes, is Hong Zhuang alright?"

"She's doing pretty well." Lin Huang nodded slightly. "After you were captured alive, she located me approximately four months later, and I set her up safely in the Devil Hunter Star Zone. A few days ago, in anticipation of the Raiders showing up, I arranged for her, Lin Xin, and the others to move to another star zone. They have peak lord powerhouses guarding them now, so their safety is definitely guaranteed."

"That's great." Yang Ling could at least finally be fully at ease.

"You should stay in digital form for the time being. We'll talk more after I settle these fellows." Lin Huang could tell that Yang Ling was still in his digitized form. His body was not a materialized physical entity but a virtual projection.

If not, he would have been pulverized by the aftermath of the battle between the Destructive Divine Mammoth and Black Mountain earlier since his cultivation base was not yet at heavenly god-level.

Yang Ling nodded and turned his head to look at where the Destructive Divine Mammoth and Black Mountain were.

At his current level of eyesight and Divine Telekinesis strength, he could not catch any of the battle proceedings at all.

He could only rely on his eyes to see the sparks from the encounter.

Although he was only a digitized form now, he could faintly sense the shockwaves rippling from the collision between lord-level powerhouses. The terrifying aftershocks even interfered slightly with the digital world.

Lin Huang merely transmitted a thought, and all ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls joined in to besiege Black Mountain.

At that moment, Black Mountain was endlessly bemoaning his current predicament mentally. When Lin Huang had killed Spy earlier, he already had decided to pull out from the battle.

After all, he knew Spy's abilities.

Although Black Mountain was a combat cultivator with powerful defense abilities, Spy had far surpassed him in terms of survival abilities.

However, Spy, who had claimed that even ultimate-rank Lords could not kill him, had been disposed of by Lin Huang in less than ten seconds.

Black Mountain was not even really able to fathom how Spy's digitized physical body had been decoded.

That made him even more fearful of Lin Huang now.

'We can consider this hunt an utter failure this time.'

Black Mountain gave Lin Huang a long, hard look and merely hesitated for a moment before he made up his mind.

His opponent had ten imperial monsters. If the battle continued, Black Mountain would exhaust his Divine Power sooner or later.

Moreover, the other two people on Lin Huang's side had abilities that were close to middle-rank lord-level.

Meanwhile, on Black Mountain's side, apart from himself who still could fight, it was only a matter of time before the three remaining lower-rank Lords were killed.

If he did not pull out now, he might not have the chance to do so later.

Black Mountain did not even spare a glance for his three partners. He forced the Destructive Divine Mammoth, Divine Sun Tree, and the other Combat Souls back with an attack, then immediately retreated as fast as he could.

As a combat cultivator, the speed of his retreat was really quite astonishing.

When Lin Huang saw what Black Mountain was doing, his mouth twisted in a sneer of disdain.

A second later, a black kitten blocked Black Mountain's way. Beside the kitten was a dark blue butterfly flapping its wings.

"Move!"

Black Mountain did not slow down; he charged right at the two little creatures.

Naturally, the Ninetails Lynx was not used to his temper. It slashed continuously with its sharp claws, and countless spatial blades surged forth torrentially like a violent storm.

A ferocious gleam flashed through Black Mountain's eyes. He made no move to dodge at all. Instead, he used his Dao seal to raise a heavy shield in front of his body to counter the spatial blades that were raining down on him.

He did this because he knew that the other imperial monsters behind him would catch up if he stopped for even a second. At that point, he would only be surrounded by more imperial monsters.

That was why he was willing to risk injury and meet the Ninetails Lynx's attack head-on.

Only by breaking out from the circle of imperial monsters that surrounded him would he stand a chance of survival.

He did not even spare a glance to see how the battle was going for his three partners. To him, all three were just cannon fodder for attracting the attention of Lin Huang and the others.

The heavy shield was soon dented and scarred from being slashed by the spatial blades. Some spatial blades even pierced through the shield's defensive layer, slicing bloody wounds on Black Mountain's body.

Black Mountain did not pause at all. He did not even fight back only because he wanted to reserve enough Divine Power to escape.

Just as Black Mountain's figure approached the Ninetails Lynx, Death Butterfly abruptly stirred its wings from beside the kitten.

An instant later, a colorless, formless wave began to ripple outward.

The already heavily damaged shield began to collapse inch by inch under the rippling of the wave.

The moment Black Mountain's muscular frame was exposed, his body appeared to be sliced by countless thin blades and began spurting copious amounts of blood…

Black Mountain did not slow down at all—in fact, he completely ignored the wounds on his body.

He was a combat cultivator, so his physical body was more resilient than ordinary Lords. Death Butterfly's attack seemed terrifying, but in reality, it only caused him superficial wounds rather than any actual damage.

After taking the brunt of this attack with his physical body, Black Mountain bypassed the Ninetails Lynx and Death Butterfly, his body entirely covered with blood.

Although both the creatures were within arms' reach, he still did not retaliate by attacking them.

This was because he knew even a second's delay might cause him to be trapped by the encircling imperial monsters.

Although he had never before in his life experienced this injustice of being unable to fight back despite being attacked, Black Mountain chose to use reason to suppress his fury.

He knew very well that he might die here if he made even the slightest mistake.

What he did not notice was that just as he bypassed the two imperial monsters obstructing his way, Lin Huang's mouth curled up in a faint smirk.

A second later, Black Mountain saw blood-red arcs of light surging toward him in quick succession.

His mind instantly panicked because he had seen this move previously—in fact, Spy had been killed by this technique.

'Do I brace for it, or do I dodge?'

Both choices flashed through Black Mountain's mind for only a moment before he twisted his body aside without hesitation.

The reason he chose to dodge so decisively was that his body was instinctively sending out furious warning signals.

If he met this attack head-on, even if he were not killed, he would definitely be severely injured.

In truth, his instincts were not wrong. Although Lin Huang had currently only mastered a level-1 Sword seal still, this level-1 Sword seal was not compounded with ten thousand levels of sequence power like before, but with over fifty thousand levels.

This attack exceeded most middle-rank Lords with twenty seals in terms of power—more so even than many middle-rank Lords with thirty seals.

The instant Black Mountain moved, he did not dare stop. Instead, he diverged from his current direction and tried to escape.

When he lifted his head, he saw countless bloody-red arcs raining down on him like a torrential storm.

He switched directions again without hesitation.

However, the other end was also blocked by blood-red arcs like a sky full of stars.

Naturally, Lin Huang was the one who attacked first.

The ten million or more God Weapon flying daggers were like a giant hemispherical wall that covered the entirety of the starry heavens, blocking Black Mountain's way forward.

Black Mountain scanned with Divine Telekinesis and realized it impossible for him to keep forging ahead.

He steeled himself and turned around right away, charging in the direction of the several God's Figurine's Combat Souls.

The way forward was blocked, so he could only escape by turning back.

He was also taking a gamble!

He was betting on Lin Huang not having more telekinetic flying daggers, or not being able to control more telekinetic flying daggers.

However, he did not see that the instant he turned around, Lin Huang's smile became more pronounced.

Ignoring the Ninetails Lynx and Death Butterfly's fresh wave of attacks, he passed the two of them again.

At that moment, the remaining eight God's Figurine's Combat Souls arrived in succession.

Divine Sun Tree compounded ten levels of Holy Fire Dao seal, its branches lashing at Black Mountain's body.

This attack practically caused Black Mountain to feel that his physical body had reached its capacity for enduring high temperatures. Even as a middle-rank lord-level combat cultivator, his body was shriveling. It felt as if all the moisture and fat content in his body were being squeezed out by the intense heat.

Enchanted Fairy's assault hit him a moment later.

That terrifying chill—way below zero degrees celsius—could even freeze time and space.

Frost climbed up Black Mountain's body immediately. Even the speed of his movement slowed down.

At that moment, Creation Clock attacked as well.

It utilized a time-stopping skill, and added the power of pausing time—as strong as shackles and compounded with a level-10 Dao seal—to Black Mountain's body.

Black Mountain's body suddenly ground to a halt. When he saw Shackle Serpent appear, however, his pupils contracted suddenly.

This was the "imperial monster" that had immobilized Spy's body earlier when he had been killed.

Black Mountain roared in fury and forcibly shook off Enchanted Fairy and Creation Clock's layers of restraints.

The instant Shackle Serpent attacked, Black Mountain's body expanded to several times its size. He threw heavy punches with both fists in Shackle Serpent's direction.

At that moment, the Destructive Divine Mammoth trumpeted and lashed out with two feet at Black Mountain's fists, taking the brunt of the attack.

However, the Destructive Divine Mammoth was sent flying thousands of kilometers away when it collided with the attack.

Lin Huang raised his brows when he saw Black Mountain's body enveloped in vital blood energy, eyes spurting blood-red flames.

"He used a fire element Dao seal to ignite vital energy, blood, and Divine Power?"

In terms of strength alone, that earlier punch was at least six or seven times more powerful.

After sending the Destructive Divine Mammoth flying with one hit, Black Mountain did not continue fighting. Instead, he launched into the air with both legs and fled several times faster than before.

His initial speed was already very swift. Now that it had increased several dozen times, apart from the Ninetails Lynx, the rest of the God's Figurine's Combat Souls could not catch up with him.

The Ninetails Lynx had not been able to do anything to Black Mountain when it had joined forces initially with Death Butterly; now, on its own, it was doomed to fail.

However, Lin Huang did not intend to let Black Mountain go just like that.

He shook his sleeves lightly, and blood-red electric arcs shot out in quick succession.

In an instant, they had amassed to over ten million in number.

They surged toward Black Mountain again, intercepting him and immediately blocking his way, forcing him to turn back.

The God's Figurine's Combat Souls caught up in pursuit once more.

The Ninetails Lynx, which was the first to arrive, cast a spatial bind without hesitation. It knew its attack had a limited effect on Black Mountain, so it chose to use its control skills to prevent him from escaping again.

However, Black Mountain—having ignited his vital energy, blood, and Divine Power—had increased more than a level in terms of ability. In an instant, he had freed himself from Ninetails Lynx's spatial bind.

He was intending to flee again when the Destructive Divine Mammoth attacked in a rage.

It was livid at being sent flying in the attack earlier.

It displayed almost one hundred and twenty percent of its power in this attack, charging toward Black Mountain.

Black Mountain threw a punch again, and the Destructive Divine Mammoth was sent flying once more.

However, the distance was clearly less this time. It only shot back some two hundred kilometers.

After being momentarily impeded by the Destructive Divine Mammoth, Black Mountain was surrounded again by the remaining nine God's Figurine's Combat Souls.

Under the continuous siege from Divine Sun Tree and the rest of the Combat Souls, Black Mountain rapidly became exhausted from fighting back.

He kept his gaze fixed on Shackle Serpent to prevent himself from falling victim to its technique. As for the other Combat Souls, he countered them as much as possible, trying his best to reserve Divine Power for his escape.

Black Mountain's several attempts to break free were futile. However, the God's Figurine's Combat Souls could not do anything to him even after taking turns to attack him.

Both sides fell into a stalemate.

Now that the battle on Steel Fist and Epic Player's side was in its last stages, Lin Huang finally stopped merely watching from the sidelines.

It was not that he was deliberately toying with Black Mountain. He was just using him as a means of gauging the current abilities of his ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls.

At this point, he had basically seen everything necessary, and he already had an idea of their capabilities.

It was useless for the battle to continue like this.

Lin Huang finally took a hand in the proceedings.

Dozens of telekinetic flying daggers found their way through the fighting to the scene of battle where Black Mountain and the God's Figurine's Combat Souls were.

Black Mountain immediately became nervous and did not dare to delay any further.

To Black Mountain, the pressure from the thirty-odd telekinetic flying daggers far exceeded the pressure from all ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls taken together.

The reason was that he knew Lin Huang was his most powerful enemy here.

Although he did not quite understand why Lin Huang did not activate all of his telekinetic flying daggers at once, he did not dare underestimate him in the least.

He did his best to dodge whenever he saw the telekinetic flying daggers coming. If he were unable to evade them, he threw heavy punches to knock them aside.

After several rounds, the thirty or more telekinetic flying daggers had failed to gain even an inch of ground.

Right as Black Mountain was considering how he might find an opportunity to escape, he suddenly felt a tightening around his four limbs.

A second later, even his neck was entwined by threads.

He panicked. Only after a careful scan with Divine Telekinesis did he discover that his limbs and neck were now bound by telekinetic threads.

He had not noticed this earlier at all.

He tried hard to struggle free, but he could not move at all.

One must know that Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis strength was already at peak upper-rank lord-level.

As soon as they saw Black Mountain's body abruptly stop as if he were tied up and dangling in midair, the God's Figurine's Combat Souls immediately knew that it was Lin Huang who had done that.

This time, Shackle Serpent finally found an opening to attack. It was the first to launch an assault and did not hesitate at all.

Black shackles began forming out of thin air on Black Mountain's body.

As the black shackles appeared, Black Mountain could only sense his Divine Power fading rapidly, including even the secret skills he used in the battle earlier. His body reverted to its original form.

At the same time, he realized that he could no longer sense the Dao seals within his body, his god sequence chains, his God Rule Powers, or even his God Territory.

That very instant, he finally realized why Spy—who had claimed that even ultimate-rank Lords could not kill him—had been killed.

In that split second, he felt utter despair.

He knew that he was finished.

An instant later, he saw the attacks of the "imperial monsters" coming at him in succession, and his consciousness went dark immediately.

He did not even know which attack finally killed him.

Lin Huang put away Black Mountain and Spy's corpses and turned his head to look at the other battlefield.

The fight between the three Raiders, Steel Fist, and Epic Player was coming to an end.

Two of the three Raiders were severely wounded.

A lady assisting in the battle was clearly a cultivator whose main path was God's soul and Divine Telekinesis.

She had been using telekinetic flying daggers to interfere with Steel Fist and Epic Player. Not only that, she would launch spirit attack maneuvers every now and again.

Lin Huang immediately guessed the other party's identity. She was most probably Babble, the one who had invaded Death Sickle and killed Sun Zhan.

Of the team Black Mountain had brought this time, this lady was the only one whose main cultivation path was God's soul.

As if she sensed that the other fight over there had ended, Babble glanced at the battlefield on Lin Huang's end and saw him weighing her up. Not only that, Black Mountain, Spy, and the other two middle-rank Lords were nowhere to be seen.

A layer of cold sweat suddenly sprang up on her back. She took only a moment to come to a decision and abandoned both her teammates without hesitation, beating a rapid retreat to try and escape the battlefield.

At that moment, the corners of Lin Huang's mouth curled up in a faint smirk.

If the other party had not tried to run, it would have been rather impolite for him to interfere. After all, she was Steel Fist and Epic Player's enemy.

However, now that she was fleeing, it gave him an excuse to attack.

It was not for the sake of plundering one more Goldfinger, but because she had killed the people in Death Sickle's headquarters. Lin Huang felt that bringing her corpse back to Death Sickle would be a more fitting final destination for her.

If she had not fled and had ended up being killed by Steel Fist or Epic Player, it would have been awkward for him to ask for the body.

Babble moved at full speed. She only wanted to be able to escape the battlefield before the others noticed and then summon the dimensional portal.

However, before she had retreated less than a thousand kilometers away, a voice drifted to her ears.

"Where are you going?"

As soon as the voice finished speaking, a black cat appeared elegantly before her, blocking her way.

Its nine tails undulated like snakes, swaying in the starry sky.

At the same time, Babble felt herself pausing abruptly. Her body seemed to be restrained by an invisible force.

It was exactly like when they had just landed on the Devil Hunter Star Zone earlier.

'A spatial bind?!'

Babble felt a sudden chill in her heart, and her pupils suddenly turned pitch-black.

A second later, the Ninetails Lynx's body shuddered suddenly, and the spatial bind was removed, just like that.

"Interesting!" Lin Huang raised his brows as he watched.

She had actually controlled the Ninetails Lynx for a second using a God's soul secret skill. One must know that the Ninetails Lynx's current God's soul's strength was already at peak lower-rank lord-level.

In terms of Dao seal level, the Ninetails Lynx had reached level-10, while Babble had only consolidated a level-7 or level-8 Dao seal at most.

After freeing herself from the spatial bind, Babble did not dare to stop in her bid for escape. The reason was, she knew that Lin Huang had more than one "imperial monster". Not only that, Black Mountain had been killed by this group of "imperial monsters".

She did not have sufficient confidence to confront enemies that even the two middle-rank Lords, Black Mountain and Spy, could not defeat.

However, she did not have Black Mountain's speed. She had not fled very far before she encountered a combined attack from a few of the God's Figurine's Combat Souls.

The Ninetails Lynx that Babble had controlled attacked in a rage. Its sharp claws slashed out, sending countless spatial blades surging toward Babble like a net.

Almost simultaneously, Death Butterfly attacked as well. Its wings stirred slightly, and an invisible death wave spread through the starry heavens, fanning out toward Babble.

This was followed immediately by attacks from the Destructive Divine Mammoth and the other Combat Souls.

Babble's pupils turned pitch-black again, and black blood began trickling from her eyes.

She released another God's soul attack that rippled through the starry sky like waves of water.

The attack stunned almost all the God's Figurine's Combat Souls into a trance as it passed them.

However, when the God's soul attack reached Nightmare Tapir, Nightmare Tapir suddenly released a shriek.

Babble immediately spat out a mouthful of blood. At the same time, the remaining God's Figurine's Combat Souls regained their senses.

Lin Huang clearly sensed the full process of the God's souls colliding this time.

Nightmare Tapir already possessed the combat strength of a peak lower-rank Lord, and its God's soul's strength was peak lower-rank Lord as well. However, it specialized in God's soul power and was able to wield its God's soul attacks to yield middle-rank lord-level results.

In reality, Nightmare Tapir and Babble were on par with each other in the earlier collision between God's souls.

However, Babble had too many targets to attack, so the strength of her assault was reduced. Thus, she was injured by Nightmare Tapir's counterattack.

If they were to fight one on one, Lin Huang felt the chances of Nightmare Tapir defeating Babble would be fifty-fifty.

Although this woman, Babble, was only a lower-rank Lord, her overall abilities were by no means very much weaker than Spy's earlier.

Lin Huang attacked mercilessly. At the same time, he found it rather amusing to see his God's Figurine's Combat Souls being repeatedly embarrassed.

Dozens of electric arcs resembling blood-red lightning shot out from his sleeves.

Sensing the incoming threat, Babble did not dodge. Instead, she used the same skill, turning her head to look directly at Lin Huang.

Her black pupils bled without stopping as her God's soul attack surged toward Lin Huang.

Her idea was simple. Since she was unable to escape from the encircling "imperial monsters", she would directly attack the imperial monsters' master. Even if she failed to kill Lin Huang, the master, injuring him severely could increase the chances for her escape.

However, Babble released a devastating shriek a second after she released the God's soul attack.

At the same time, her eyes immediately burst, eye sockets becoming two bloody holes.

Her God's soul attack had backfired instantly.

After all, Lin Huang currently possessed God's soul strength at peak upper-rank lord-level. He was only half a step away from becoming an ultimate-rank Lord. Not only that, he had a spirit-level God Weapon in his God's soul's space that could increase the strength of his God's soul.

Babble attacking head-on with a lower-rank Lord's God's soul strength was utterly ineffectual.

Right as Babble shrieked in agony, her God's soul nearly shattering, a blood-red electric arc flashed through the air and pierced right through the middle of her brow.

The several God's Figurine's Combat Souls looked at Lin Huang with mixed emotions on their faces.

The ten of them had surrounded Babble and attacked but failed twice. However, with just a single blow, Lin Huang had killed this powerful spirit cultivator.

After using Divine Telekinesis to retrieve Babble's corpse and put it away in his storage space, Lin Huang glanced over in the direction of the other battlefield.

Steel Fist and Epic Player's fight had come to an end in quick succession, with the two lower-rank Lords being slaughtered on the spot.

Their battle appeared to have taken a long time, but in reality, less than ten minutes had passed.

It felt much longer because the battle on Lin Huang's side had ended far too rapidly.

After putting their acquired loot away, Steel Fist and Epic Player approached Lin Huang. Their faces bore extremely complicated expressions as they looked at him.

Although they had not seen the full proceedings of Lin Huang's battle when the two of them had been fighting, they had taken moments to observe. Therefore, they had caught the instance when Lin Huang had killed the two middle-rank Lords and Babble.

Having discovered that the new Club member had such terrifying abilities, they were not too sure what to say at the moment.

Lin Huang, however, initiated the conversation when he saw how awkward both of them felt.

"Thank you so much for your aid. If there's anything you need help with in the future, I'll definitely help out if it's within my power to do so."

"Don't say that. The two of us didn't help at all. We're just here to freeload off the loot." Epic Player gave a wry smile.

"With your abilities, you don't need our help at all. I don't understand why you asked both of us to come." Steel Fist looked as if she had been stunned by a blow.

"I didn't know their exact abilities after all, so I asked for your help just in case," Lin Huang only disclosed part of the truth. He did not tell them that his abilities had skyrocketed after he had requested their presence.

Although the answer sounded a little like prevarication, the two of them believed it regardless.

"What are your plans after this? Are you going to the universe?" Steel Fist could not help but ask.

"I doubt I'll be leaving the great world for the foreseeable future. There are still a great many things I need to settle here." Lin Huang shook his head.

"Which means to say we can still be in contact?" Epic Player said with a smile.

"Of course, we're colleagues at the Club." Lin Huang smiled and nodded.

"Speaking of colleagues…" Steel Fist's expression turned a touch colder. "I think there's an eighty percent chance that brat Cunning Rabbit is the Raider spy!"

"What eighty percent chance—it's one hundred percent that it's him!" Epic Player scoffed, "Otherwise, how would the Raiders know to send all their members to hunt the three of us?!"

The two of them had already found out from Lin Huang that he had only sent the three of them a request for help.

Cunning Rabbit was the only one who had not replied.

Therefore, Cunning Rabbit had to be the one who had leaked the information to the Raiders.

"Does Cunning Rabbit have a permanent address?" Lin Huang looked at Steel Fist and Epic Player with a beatific smile.

"I know of a foothold he uses, but I'm not sure if there's where his permanent residence is," Steel Fist replied with a smile.

"I think we can pay him a visit and surprise him." Lin Huang looked at the two of them with a smile.

"I think we can do that!"

"I think it's a great idea too!"

After putting Yang Ling into his God Territory temporarily and recalling the ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls, Lin Huang concealed his aura and disguised himself. After that, he departed with Steel Fist and Epic Player.

After passing through the dimensional portal, Lin Huang appeared directly on the rooftop of a tall building.

He could not help frowning slightly when he saw the never-ending stream of crowds, vehicles, and horses below.

A place like this was not ideal for a fight.

"Is this the Ricky Star?!" Epic Player asked at once after he swept his gaze over his surroundings. Clearly, he was familiar with this planet.

"The Ricky Star in the Coyne Star Zone?" Lin Huang had heard of this planet as well.

The Coyne Star Zone was in the core zone of the God Territory. It was one of the top three commercial trade star zones. Furthermore, the Ricky Star was the richest of the several planets in the God Territory.

Anyone who had been in the God Territory for some time would have probably heard the saying—"Ricky Star, Ricky Star, Divine Crystals everywhere!"

"That's right." Steel Fist nodded slightly, confirming Lin Huang's suspicions.

"This isn't a good place for a fight," Epic Player verbalized what Lin Huang was thinking, looking rather helpless.

"Let's confirm first whether he's here or not." Lin Huang did not say much.

To keep from alerting the enemy, the three of them concealed their auras and even disguised their appearances. They certainly could not use Divine Telekinesis either.

Lin Huang had given the matter some thought and decided on his plan. If Cunning Rabbit were really hiding on this planet, he would summon Shackle Serpent to seal off his Dao seal immediately and take him somewhere safe before dealing with him.

"Follow me." Steel Fist was now in a black leather dress, and her charisma was considerably more beguiling.

In a flash, she vanished on the spot.

Lin Huang and Epic Player immediately followed suit.

A moment later, the three of them appeared in the air above a bar.

They no longer had to hide their auras once they had arrived at this location.

"Cunning Rabbit opened this bar. The private room in the furthest part of the basement is his," Steel Fist communicated to the other two via voice transmission.

"The two of you stand guard here; I'll check it out." Lin Huang nodded slightly. In a flash, he appeared directly at the door of the room that Steel Fist had mentioned.

The room seemed to have a unique barrier in place. Even Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis could not penetrate it.

Not only that, there was a defense barrier as well.

Lin Huang drew his sword and shattered the door with one slash. He then stepped inside.

The private room was actually a luxurious suite, but it was empty at the moment.

Lin Huang scanned through once with Divine Telekinesis; however, he did not find anything of note.

He only contacted Steel Fist and Epic Player with Divine Telekinesis after he left the room to summon them both down here.

The two of them scanned the room with Divine Telekinesis as well after entering. They then began a physical search of the place.

After approximately ten minutes or so, the three of them gathered in the living room after a fruitless search.

"This room has quite evidently been cleared out. Even most of the furniture has been taken away," Steel Fist said with a frown.

Apart from a few paintings on the living room walls, nothing remained. Even the wardrobe and bed in the bedroom had been removed. The entire suite appeared vacant.

"I'm guessing he used some method to find out about Black Mountain and the others being killed." Lin Huang turned his gaze to Steel Fist. "Furthermore, he was very much aware that you knew about this foothold of his, so he rushed back to clean everything up and avoid exposing his tracks."

"Unfortunately, I only know about this foothold of his." Steel Fist frowned slightly. "Now that this lead has fizzled out, it'll be hard to find him again."

"His running away is further proof that he's the spy." Lin Huang did not show very much emotion. He had already anticipated that this might happen.

"Let's send the information about him being a spy to headquarters first," Epic Player said and looked at Lin Huang. "Since he already knows the result of our battle earlier, he'll definitely transmit information about you to the Raiders' headquarters the first chance he gets.

"Once you've come to the attention of the Raiders' headquarters, the Raiders in the universe will most certainly send even more powerful Raiders to hunt you. Black Mountain and Spy were middle-rank Lords, so the Raiders they send next will definitely be more powerful than both of them combined. They might even send upper-rank Lords!"

Lin Huang could not help frowning at this point.

He had never imagined that the aftermath would bring so much trouble.

"That's why we must send the information about him being a spy to the Club's headquarters right away. Then we'll tell them about your situation in detail and request headquarters for backup.

"But even if the powerhouses from headquarters can defeat the Raiders from the universe, your troubles might not be over yet," Epic Player continued, "There might be more Raiders who will accept the mission to kill you."

"What you've just said makes me want to kill Cunning Rabbit even more now," Lin Huang said with a smile, seemingly unconcerned.

In reality, he already felt a sense of danger.

Initially, he had thought he was already powerful enough. However, from the looks of things now, this was entirely not the case.

With the threat of the Raiders hanging over his head like a huge mountain, Lin Huang just could not feel completely at ease.

"That's why I asked if you were planning to go to the universe," Steel Fist could not help commenting from where she was. "As soon as you enter the universe, it will be difficult for the Raiders to find you since it's so vast. However, if you stay in this great world, it will be much easier for them to find you."

Lin Huang shook his head still. "There are matters in the great world that I haven't sorted out, so I can't leave just yet. What do both of you intend to do next?"

"We'll have to hide for a while in the universe." Epic Player gave a wry, resigned smile. "If the Raiders really do send upper-rank Lords over, both of us can't fight them."

From beside him, Steel Fist did not raise any objections.

The three of them went their separate ways after chatting for a while.

Lin Huang had fully anticipated failing to capture Cunning Rabbit. He did not dwell further on the matter.

After returning to the Devil Hunter Star Zone, he glanced at the near-total destruction wrought on the area and did not linger.

He appeared on a planet in a nearby star zone.

Ignoring the bustling crowds of people, Lin Huang pushed open the door and entered a particular courtyard.

"Lord Swordmaster!" A figure welcomed him immediately. It was Sword1 in a purple robe.

"Is everyone on this planet?" Lin Huang asked immediately after a faint nod.

"Not at all. To be safe, we're scattered over five different star zones." Sword1 shook his head. "Is there a problem?"

"The danger isn't fully past yet." Lin Huang's expression remained tense. "Summon all of them here, please."

Less than five minutes later, everyone from the Sword Alliance had gathered in the courtyard.

"For a while in the future, there might be more powerful Raiders from the universe coming to attack. The great world isn't safe, in particular the areas around the Devil Hunter Star Zone. For safety, I've decided to place all of you in the God Territory within me…"

After this brief explanation, everyone present did not raise any objections at all. Lin Huang then put all of them into the God Territory within him.

Once he was done, Lin Huang looked toward a specific direction in the distant heavens. It was where the Nephilic Judge Tribe was…

"Those who have already elevated to rank-5 and those who have prepared the materials for elevation to rank-5, or who have already elevated to rank-4.5 can come to the Ricky Star in the Coyne Star Zone. I'll elevate you immediately to Supreme God rank-5 and Pure Spirit rank-6.

"Those who haven't completed collecting materials, send me a detailed list of the materials you haven't managed to obtain yet. I'll help you gather them. Once I've completed gathering everything, I'll notify all of you, then follow it up with your elevation in rank.

"Also, please inform me as soon as you've elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level. There'll be a pleasant surprise at that point."

Lin Huang sent these three messages to all his imperial monsters through telepathic voice transmission.

Now that Xiao Hei had lifted its restrictions, as long as it was supplemented with Origin Energy, it could create Advance Cards in batches to elevate all the imperial monsters to Pure Spirit rank-6.

When the imperial monsters received the voice transmission messages, their first reaction was to wonder was if Lin Huang had made a slip of the tongue.

They were all aware that Xiao Hei could elevate monsters.

However, from mythical-level rank-4 onward, each advancement required a massive amount of materials.

It was very clear what Lin Huang's voice transmission message meant—they only required materials for rank-5 to be able to elevate two ranks and advance to Pure Spirit-level.

"Don't we need materials to elevate to rank-6?" The first one to ask a question through voice transmission was Bai.

This time, he did not choose to message Lin Huang privately via telepathic voice transmission. Instead, he asked his question publicly so the rest of the imperial monsters could hear him.

"No," Lin Huang gave a straightforward, public answer, "Due to some specials reasons, you don't need materials to elevate from rank-5 to rank-6."

When all the imperial monsters heard Lin Huang's reply, their expressions were full of surprise and delight.

This was fantastic news for all of them. After all, they had already exhausted their efforts collecting elevation materials for just rank-5 alone. The difficulty in gathering materials for rank-6 would only increase.

At that moment, Kylie—who was with the Nephilic Judge Tribe far away—spoke up as well.

"What's the surprise when we elevate to ninth-rank?"

Kylie had already elevated to rank-6. Moreover, her combat strength had advanced to eighth-rank heavenly god-level. She was only a step away from ninth-rank. Naturally, what she cared more about now was the reward for elevating to ninth-rank.

Lin Huang did not answer her question. Instead, he asked through voice transmission, "Would it be convenient for you to leave the Nephilic Judge Tribe's star zone?"

"I have ways of not being found out." Kylie nodded.

"That's perfect. Let me know as soon as you elevate." Lin Huang said this because it was impossible for him to keep tabs on the changes in his Monster Cards at all times. "As for the surprise, you'll find out then. I definitely won't disappoint all of you."

Lin Huang still kept things a secret in the end.

He glanced over Kylie's card—her combat strength was eighth-rank now. He knew that she would probably break through to ninth-rank in less than a month.

Grimace spoke as soon as the two of them had finished conversing.

"Are you on the Ricky Star now, Master?"

"I am," Lin Huang responded immediately.

When he went to the Ricky Star with Steel Fist and Epic Player earlier, he had secretly used the Gate of All Realms to program the coordinates. After making sure everyone from the Sword Alliance was settled, as well as Lin Xin and the rest, he had teleported here at once.

"Then we'll sort out a few matters at hand and come by later. We're not far too far from you," Grimace said at once.

"Where are you guys?" Lin Huang asked, slightly puzzled.

"We're in the Kash Star Zone."

The Kash Star Zone was also in the core zone of the God Territory. Just like the Coyne Star Zone, it was one of the richest star zones in the God Territory.

Grimace had said they were not too far away. In actual fact, there were three star zones in between. Taking into account the distance of the void as well, they were over five million lightyears away.

However, this was certainly not considered very far in the vast God Territory.

Although he was curious why Grimace and his group had gone to the Kash Star Zone, Lin Huang did not delve further into the matter.

"Alright, just come over later then," Lin Huang agreed quickly.

The other imperial monsters listened enviously. They already knew that Grimace and his group had elevated to rank-4.5 Pseudo-supreme God-level. It was completely in accord with the elevation conditions that Lin Huang had mentioned.

After informing the imperial monsters about the matters pertaining to their elevation, Lin Huang glanced at the hotel room he was in.

There would be barriers in such a high-end hotel. Moreover, they would have been put in place by heavenly god-level powerhouses. It could easily block the probing of most Heavenly Gods. However, it was still not sufficient for Lin Huang.

He set up several barriers himself and isolated the entire room from the outside world.

He then sat down again with his legs crossed to look through the spoils he had obtained from killing the group of Raiders.

The only whole corpses he had obtained were those of Black Mountain, Spy, and Babble. As for the three people he had killed using Mirror's reflection, their corpses had been blown into bits. Not only were the defense Dao Weapons on the three incomplete bodies damaged, but there was only one storage ring that remained intact.

"If I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have shown off with Mirror," Lin Huang sighed helplessly. He felt he had lost far more than twenty million.

He felt grateful that Black Mountain and the other two's storage rings had been preserved in perfect condition.

"I'll give these bodies to the Queen Mothers to use as materials. They should be able to nurture rank-6 Bug Emperors or Queen Mothers… However, the prerequisite is that I need to advance the Queen Mothers to rank-6 first, then directly elevate them to lord-level."

After staring at the bodies for a moment, Lin Huang very soon came up with a way of dealing with them.

He withdrew his Divine Telekinesis from the storage ring and sank his mind into his inner world.

When he killed the group of Raiders, he had simultaneously obtained their Goldfingers as well. Those were the most valuable of all his loot.

Earlier, he did not have time to check them through in detail. Now that he was free, he could finally take some time to look at them.

The first one was Black Mountain's Goldfinger.

It was a tiny golden man the size of a human palm.

"A Goldfinger that strengthens one's physical body?!"

Lin Huang used Divine Telekinesis to scan the Goldfinger and found out what its functions were.

This Goldfinger could plunder the physical energy and Divine Power of all living things that the host killed, as well as inherit their combat cultivation inheritance, rules related to combat cultivation, sequence powers, and Dao seals.

Lin Huang raised his brows after checking it through. As far as he was concerned, this Goldfinger was not very powerful, but it could remedy his shortcomings at this stage.

His biggest shortcoming at the moment was that his physical body was not strong enough. His God's soul was already at the strength of a peak upper-rank Lord, but his physical body was merely at the standard of a lower-rank Lord.

Once he refined this Goldfinger, he could inherit Black Mountain's physical body right away, and the strength of his own body would directly advance to peak middle-rank lord-level.

After this, Lin Huang looked at the second Goldfinger.

It was a piece of "meat" shaped like a brain.

Lin Huang scanned it with Divine Telekinesis and soon found out the Goldfinger's function.

"This isn't bad at all, a God's soul-type Goldfinger…"

Without a doubt, this had to be Babble's Goldfinger.

The main function of this Goldfinger was to plunder their opponents' God's soul and strengthen the host's God's soul. It could also read their opponents' God's soul's memory and replicate inheritances…

It was certainly a very useful Goldfinger.

After putting the second Goldfinger away, Lin Huang looked at the third Goldfinger.

It was a gold metal piece the size of a little finger and similar in shape to the chip inside an electrical device.

Lin Huang scanned it with Divine Telekinesis and obtained a rough idea of what the Goldfinger's function was.

This was Spy's Goldfinger.

Although its functions were quite outstanding, he did not intend to keep it. Instead, he planned to give it to Yang Ling.

After all, Spy had plundered Yang Ling's Goldfinger back in the day, and Yang Ling had been pursued by Spy for hundreds and thousands of years all this while. Giving him the Goldfinger would help him gain closure.

Moreover, the usage and utilization of this Goldfinger was extremely complicated. Lin Huang did not plan to waste time and effort on it. As far as he was concerned, Yang Ling was perhaps the only person who could best exploit the Goldfinger's functions.

The remaining three Goldfingers held no attraction for Lin Huang.

Their functions could basically be replaced by Xiao Hei and the other Goldfingers. Moreover, their effects were nothing like those of Xiao Hei and the rest.

In the living room of the hotel, Yang Ling's digitized body gradually materialized.

Lin Huang tossed him a set of god sequence relics for defense right away. Yang Ling caught them and acknowledged ownership of them by putting them on.

"To be honest, when Hong Zhuang found me, I thought all along that you couldn't really be dead." Lin Huang watched Yang Ling fashion a set of illusory casual attire with the defense relics, before stating calmly, "Until Spy fought me and I saw him digitizing his physical body while telling me that he had extracted that skill from your memory, only then did I believe you were truly dead."

Yang Ling sat on the armchair to Lin Huang's left and took a sip of the tea on the coffee table. Only then did he slowly explain, "To prevent him from damaging my digitized body right away, I divided my consciousness into nine parts. Apart from the core, the remaining eight layers actually had information hidden within them that he wanted. One of them was the technique of digitizing the physical body—he was dying to get his hands on it. I intentionally placed the digitization of the physical body in the first layer to create the illusion that the deeper the layer, the more valuable the information.

"In the end, over the past half a year or so, he was only able to decode three layers of passwords. That was much slower than I expected.

"Initially, I thought I'd set up nine layers of passwords to buy myself as much time as possible. Although I harbored a very faint wish that Hong Zhuang might grow and avenge me, I didn't hold out much hope. I knew very well it was only a matter of time before I was well and truly dead. My purpose in transferring the Goldfinger's remaining power to her was so that she could grow quickly, and have the ability to protect herself in the great world.

"I asked Hong Zhuang to look for you only because I was thinking of her safety. I never expected you to avenge me. After all, apart from you and me, she doesn't know anyone else in the great world. Furthermore, you're the only person I trust.

"What I didn't expect was that you'd grow so fast, and to this extent!" Yang Ling subjected Lin Huang to a long, in-depth scrutiny. He was quite astounded at Lin Huang's cultivation speed.

"Definitely a little faster than most normal people," Lin Huang replied humbly with a faint smile.

Yang Ling could not even find the words to poke fun at this statement.

"Alright, let's just skip all the sentimental stuff." Seeing that Yang Ling wanted to say more, Lin Huang interrupted him, "We've known each other for so many years. You took good care of me in the past and helped me a lot. You can consider me killing Spy as returning the favor."

After he finished speaking, Lin Huang took out a gold metal piece that was the size of a little finger. He flicked it toward Yang Ling with one finger.

"I'm giving back your Goldfinger."

"What…" Yang Ling's expression was somewhat torn.

Since Spy's Goldfinger was Lin Huang's loot, technically, Yang Ling ought not to take it. However, this Goldfinger had devoured his own Goldfinger before—there were even remnants of a familiar aura. He was rather unwilling to relinquish it.

When Lin Huang saw the expression on Yang Ling's face, he knew what was going through his mind and spoke up again.

"Stop dilly-dallying. This Goldfinger belongs to you by right; I can't use something so complicated. It will only be able to display its full abilities when it's with you. Anyway, I have quite a number of Goldfingers now, so it doesn't matter if I lose one or gain one.

"If you really feel guilty about it, then don't charge me when I go to you to unseal Goldfingers and check information."

Yang Ling was finally relieved upon hearing that. "Alright, just treat it as if I borrowed it. In the future, when I get hold of other Goldfingers, I'll give them to you in exchange."

"Not a problem." After some consideration, Lin Huang did not decline. This was because if he rejected Yang Ling's proposal, Yang Ling might not accept the gift.

"Since you're just borrowing it, why don't you choose one or two more?" As Lin Huang spoke, he took out the three Goldfingers that did not interest him.

Yang Ling was stunned when he saw this. Immediately he asked in astonishment, "How many Raiders did you kill?!"

He had only awakened after Lin Huang killed Spy, so he had seen him kill Black Mountain and Babble later on as well. However, he had no idea what had happened in the earlier stages of battle.

"Including Spy, I killed six of them," Lin Huang's tone was utterly calm as if he were talking about something insignificant.

"There are two Goldfingers that will be fairly helpful to me, so I retained them for myself. The remaining three aren't very useful as far as I'm concerned. See if you can make use of them. If you can, take them with you. You can return them to me later on in the future."

Lin Huang was being so generous mainly because travelers were the only ones who could use Goldfingers. Even if he kept the extra Goldfingers, he would not use them. At most, he could only use them as materials for refining. Of all the people he was close to, aside from Lin Xin, Yang Ling was the only one who could use a Goldfinger.

Yang Ling was rendered speechless at Lin Huang's casual tone as if he were merely selling cabbages at the market. However, he scanned the Goldfingers with Divine Telekinesis anyway and checked them out in detail.

Regardless of whether it was one, two, or three items, he would still be borrowing them. Since he was already indebted to Lin Huang, a few more debts would not matter.

If he really were to encounter Goldfingers that were suitable for him and could boost his abilities or remedy his shortcomings, he would be able to grow more powerful much more rapidly if he obtained them now.

At this point, he decided not to stand on ceremony any longer.

He picked one of them after thoroughly checking them all with Divine Telekinesis.

"I'll take this God's soul-type Goldfinger. The strength of my God's soul has a significant impact on my abilities."

"Sure." Lin Huang tossed Yang Ling the Goldfinger that he had chosen and put away the remaining two.

He had already thought of what to do with the remaining Goldfingers.

"What do you intend to do after this?" Lin Huang asked as he watched Yang Ling putting away the two Goldfingers.

"I don't have any plans…" Yang Ling thought for a moment, then lifted his head to look at Lin Huang. "I might as well follow you now.

"Spy is dead, and I don't have any goals at present. If you're willing, Hong Zhuang and I will stay on and "work" for you. I can forgo a salary, but I do need to have time off."

"Of course," Lin Huang agreed immediately, "If you stay on with me, it'll be more convenient if I need to get hold of you.

"There's no need for you to work for me, though. You can just be an honorary professor. Both of you aren't my subordinates, and you won't be bound to me. You'll have absolute freedom as well. You can leave any time you want."

"Alright, it's settled then."

The two of them were in accord!

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, Yang Ling was an assistant who was hard to come by. For unsealing storage rings, forging identities, and some tasks involving the retrieval of secret information, Yang Ling was undoubtedly the best candidate.

He needed Yang Ling.

Meanwhile, for Yang Ling, his purpose in staying on was actually mainly to repay Lin Huang for what he had done. Not only had Lin Huang saved his life, but he had also killed Spy for him and even gave him Spy's Goldfinger. These three things were, without a doubt, significant favors.

Now that he had been avenged, he genuinely did not have a clear goal any longer. Since it did not matter to him where he went, he would just stay on for the time being to help Lin Huang. After he had repaid the favors or when he finally had a clear goal, it still would not be too late for him to leave.

Therefore, the two of them came to an agreement very quickly.

After agreeing to work together with Yang Ling, Lin Huang sent him back to the God Territory within him.

Unlike before when he had casually put Yang Ling back into the God Territory, this time, Lin Huang sent Yang Ling directly to the planet where Lin Xin and Hong Zhuang were. He even sent him directly to the courtyard entrance where Hong Zhuang was.

When Yang Ling opened the door and emerged before Hong Zhuang, she was utterly stunned.

She stared in Yang Ling's direction and stood in a daze for a good while before she rubbed her eyes. She thought she was seeing an illusion.

When she opened her eyes again, Yang Ling had already come over to stand right before her.

Hong Zhuang could not control the tears from welling up in her eyes. "I thought you were truly dead this time…"

"I definitely almost died." Yang Ling pulled Hong Zhuang into his arms, smiling.

Hong Zhuang hugged Yang Ling tightly as if she were afraid that he would disappear again. Her tears kept flowing as if a dam had broken.

The two of them did not say anything else. They remained where they were, holding onto each other, and stayed thus for a long time.

When Hong Zhuang finally stopped crying, she wiped away her tears and finally let go of Yang Ling.

He reached out and brushed away the tear stains on her face. "It must have been hard on you all this while."

"I'm alright." Hong Zhuang shook her head then asked curiously, "How did you manage to escape?"

"I didn't escape at all," Yang Ling explained with a smile, "Lin Huang killed Spy…"

Yang Ling very quickly related the events that had unfolded later.

Lin Huang had no idea what was going on in his inner world. After sending Yang Ling into the God Territory within him, he began busying himself with his own affairs.

"The Goldfingers I have now are Xiao Hei, the Soul-controlling Tablet, the Eternity Fire (Qi Muxiong), Yin Yin (Great Heaven), the Gate of All Realms (Mr. Gate), the Tiny Golden Man (Black Mountain), and the Brain of the Soul (Babble), as well as these two extra ones…" In truth, strictly speaking, Yang Ling was the only traveler that Lin Huang knew very well.

Although Lin Xin had a Goldfinger, the Emperor's Heart, Lin Huang had not spoken with her at all regarding the matter of travelers—he had kept this from her all along.

However, he felt that it was probably time they talked about it now.

Lin Huang greeted Lin Xin with his consciousness via voice transmission, then teleported her out of his God Territory.

Lin Xin was delighted to finally meet her brother face to face again after not seeing him for such a long time.

"Come sit down, silly girl." Lin Huang poured Lin Xin a cup of tea as he spoke.

He was thinking of how to bring the matter up.

Lin Xin sat down obediently. Noticing the tense expression on Lin Huang's face, her initial happiness was now marred by a touch of anxiety.

"Big Brother, has something happened?"

Lin Huang fell silent for a moment, then looked straight at her and said, "Emperor's Heart, please come out."

"What…" Lin Xin was shocked when she heard this. She had never expected Lin Huang to find out her secret—that she had a Goldfinger. Not only that, he knew its name.

Just as Lin Xin was somewhat at a loss, a three-dimensional projection shone from the communication ring on her finger.

It was a lady who looked almost exactly like Lin Xin. Only two things were different—her hair was purple, and her eyes were golden.

Lin Huang was slightly taken aback when he saw what the Emperor's Heart projected. He knew that this was how Lin Xin had looked in her past life.

Since the Emperor's Heart had appeared in this form, it clearly had not told Lin Xin about her past life.

"Is anything the matter?" The Emperor's Heart looked at Lin Huang in a rather unfriendly manner.

Before it had acknowledged Lin Xin as its owner, it had come to an agreement with Lin Huang. It would keep his identity as a traveler secret, and Lin Huang would keep the Emperor's Heart's past a secret from Lin Xin.

However, now that Lin Huang had suddenly summoned it like this, it suspected that Lin Huang might be intending to break their agreement.

"Both of you know each other?" Lin Xin's face was full of confusion.

Initially, she thought that her possession of this Goldfinger—the Emperor's Heart—was a secret from her brother. She had never expected that her brother seemed to know her Goldfinger.

"I've seen it a few times before you claimed ownership of it," Lin Huang explained immediately. He still did not wish the Emperor's Heart to expose his identity as a traveler.

After all, his soul had traveled into another body, so theoretically, he was not Lin Xin's brother.

He was not sure how Lin Xin would react if she found out about that.

"We've only met two or three times, so we're not well-acquainted." Emperor's Heart nodded in agreement with Lin Huang.

It turned its head to look at Lin Huang after it finished speaking. "So tell me—what's going on, that you insist on summoning me out?"

Lin Huang sorted out what he wished to say first before stating, "You know that I have a Goldfinger—in fact, I have more than one.

"More specifically, I've obtained two more of late that I won't be able to use. I think Xiao Xin can take a look and see if she might be able to make use of them." Lin Huang took out the Goldfingers that he did not need as he spoke.

Surprise flashed through the Emperor's Heart's eyes, but it did not say anything.

It could more or less guess how he had managed to obtain the two Goldfingers.

"You can have more than one Goldfinger?" Lin Xin was stunned to hear that.

"Yes, you can. It's just that it's something rather rare, so it's difficult for an ordinary person to possess even one." Lin Huang nodded.

Lin Xin turned her head to look at the Emperor's Heart after she heard this. It seemed to matter to her how the Emperor's Heart felt.

The Emperor's Heart, however, was not bothered at all and nodded. "Yes, take a look at them. If they're suitable, you can take them. After all, every Goldfinger has somewhat different functions. Some of the functions might just be the ones you need."

Only then did Lin Xin nod and direct her Divine Telekinesis toward the two Goldfingers on Lin Huang's palm one after the other.

A moment later, she raised her head and looked at Lin Huang. "Both of them seem like alright to me."

Although the Emperor's Heart's functions were powerful, they emphasized more on various aspects of online networks. The immediate boost to Lin Xin's combat abilities was insignificant.

Of the two Goldfingers on Lin Huang's palm, one had energy storage and conversion abilities, which was equivalent to a weaker version of the Eternity Fire. The other one contained the ability to create mechanical devices. They were completely useless to Lin Huang.

However, Lin Huang seemed to be very interested in both Goldfingers.

She had even begun to conceptualize designing firearms and weaponry with this ability to create mechanical devices.

"Take both of them then." Lin Huang tossed both Goldfingers to Lin Xin.

Lin Xin did not stand on ceremony this time and caught both of the Goldfingers. "Thank you, Big Brother."

Lin Huang chatted for a little bit with Lin Xin after having settled the matter of the two extra Goldfingers. He then transported her back to the God Territory within him.

Right after he had sent her back, a voice came from within him all of a sudden.

"Lin Huang, I've thought it through…"

Lin Huang instantly identified that this was the Soul-controlling Tablet's voice. He said in some astonishment, "What have you thought through?"

"All this while I've been obsessed with becoming the host's only Goldfinger. However, it's only now that I've realized it's not very likely that true powerhouses among travelers would own merely one single Goldfinger."

Back in the day, the Soul-controlling Tablet had requested that Lin Huang replace Xiao Hei before it would follow him because a traveler could only have one primary Goldfinger. This primary agreement was completely fair, whereby the primary Goldfinger was bound to the host for good or ill. As for the Goldfingers that made agreements with the host later, theirs would be more of a master-slave relationship.

Back then, Lin Huang had been unwilling to replace Xiao Hei. The Soul-controlling Tablet did not force the issue either. Instead, it had left a clone in Lin Huang's body, letting Lin Huang find it a new host.

However, over the last few years, Lin Huang had hardly met any trustworthy travelers. Therefore, he had not been able to find the Soul-controlling Tablet a suitable host all this time.

The Soul-controlling Tablet had not been in a rush either. Since it was a Goldfinger, its lifespan was much longer than most living beings.

Now, however, it saw the ease with which Lin Huang obtained multiple Goldfingers—so many, in fact, that he could give them away as he wished. At last, it was beginning to realize that it was not so rare and unique after all.

"Do you want to make me your host?" Lin Huang immediately understood what the Soul-controlling Tablet meant.

"That's right." The Soul-controlling Tablet fell silent for a while before continuing, "But currently my primary form is still in damaged condition…"

"If you truly acknowledge me as your master, of course I'll help to restore you fully," Lin Huang promised readily.

"Then it's a done deal." The Soul-controlling Tablet was finally able to be at ease after hearing confirmation from Lin Huang. In reality, it had been worried that Lin Huang might reject its request. After all, it had rejected Lin Huang initially.

Lin Huang had not expected that giving the Goldfingers away would make the Soul-controlling Tablet feel threatened, causing it to be willing to acknowledge a master.

In a flash, he returned to the God Territory within him and appeared right away in front of the cliff where he had found the Soul-controlling Tablet.

He approached the cliff wall and passed through it, emerging in the void that the Soul-controlling Tablet had created.

After a glance at the huge stone tablet, which was more massive than all the stars, Lin Huang's figure appeared on top of it in a flash, standing on it.

"Have you thought it through thoroughly?" Lin Huang asked, looking down.

"I have!" The Soul-controlling Tablet did not hesitate any longer.

The next instant, a black stone tablet as big as a human palm sank into the giant stone tablet beneath Lin Huang's feet. This was the clone the Soul-controlling Tablet had previously left behind in Lin Huang's body.

A moment later, the giant stone tablet began to shrink rapidly.

In the time it took for a breath, the huge stone tablet shrank from the massive size of a star to the size of a palm.

It transformed into a stone tablet full of cracks and penetrated through Lin Huang's brow.

After dinner that evening, Lin Huang went strolling around the night market.

The Ricky Star had an abundance of nightlife. Even the night market was on a much bigger scale than any Lin Huang had been to on other planets.

This night market was the size of an Earth city—at least a few times bigger even than Wulin Town in the gravel world where he used to live.

There were thirty to forty intersecting streets, both big and small. The longest street stretched fully ten meters or more and was densely packed with hundreds upon thousands of stalls.

There were even more people than that strolling through the streets, however. Although their shoulders did not touch, the crowd could be considered an endless stream of moving figures.

As the sky darkened gradually, warm lights began to light up one by one above the night market, a decorative touch that made the place seem even lovelier.

As the lights came on, more people began showing up at the night market.

Lin Huang relaxed and strolled around aimlessly. Along the way, he saw countless weird and wonderful snacks, as well as many local crafts. For a while, he was dazzled by the sheer amount of things to look at.

He also rapidly discovered that the night market on the Ricky Star must have been inspired by humans. Aside from the larger scale, the types of items for sale were generally the same.

There were all sorts of snacks, drinks, tidbits, crafts, little trinkets, and children's toys…

After strolling around for almost an hour, Lin Huang suddenly sensed the auras of Grimace and his group.

Only then did he return to his hotel room in a flash.

A moment later, the three imperial monsters found him by following their contract sense.

As soon as Grimace, Lancelot, and Charcoal appeared in front of Lin Huang, they were subjected to a Divine Telekinesis scan.

"All three of you have improved quite a lot." Lin Huang nodded in satisfaction after the scan.

The three of them were already at eighth-rank heavenly god-level now; they were almost as fast as Kylie in terms of advancement speed.

Furthermore, the three of them had successfully elevated to Pseudo-supreme God-level rank 4.5.

At this level of rank and combat strength, as long as they did not encounter half-step lord-level or lord-level powerhouses, they would be practically invincible in the God Territory when the three of them joined forces.

Grimace gave a faint smirk when he heard Lin Huang's compliment. Lancelot was expressionless; Charcoal was the only one who was so happy that his tail began undulating.

"We worked really hard the past few months!" Charcoal immediately wanted to show off. "Grimace took us…"

However, Grimace, who was standing to one side, coughed lightly once. Charcoal glanced at him and swallowed the rest of his words with an effort.

"What did Grimace take you all to do?" Lin Huang raised his brows. He had a vague sense that it was probably something illegal. Otherwise, Grimace would not have purposely interrupted Charcoal.

"Well…" Charcoal failed to respond for a while.

At this point, Grimace finally spoke up from where he was standing off to the side, "I just took them along to collect a few treasures, then exchanged those for money."

Lin Huang eyed Grimace. He knew that this fellow was certainly lying. If that were really the case, there would have been no need for him to stop Charcoal at all.

At that moment, Lancelot spoke up as well from beside them, "Can you truly elevate us directly to rank-6 this time?"

This fellow was obviously helping to change the subject.

"When did the three of you get so close?" Lin Huang teased, looking at Lancelot and Charcoal.

Both of them looked in other directions immediately. They did not dare meet Lin Huang's gaze.

"I don't care how you obtained your resources, but there's a bottom line you can't cross." Lin Huang glanced over the three of them, "You're not allowed to do things that will do harm or commit atrocities."

Lin Huang did not extrapolate on the subject after he finished speaking.

He opened the door to his God Territory with a wave of his hand, then gestured at the three of them. "Come with me."

Lin Huang appeared directly in front of the Great Heaven Palace together with the three imperial monsters.

If one wanted to talk about the safest available place, it would undoubtedly be the Great Heaven Palace.

Therefore, Lin Huang chose to elevate his imperial monsters here.

When Charcoal saw the two guardian beasts at the door, he involuntarily shrank back slightly.

The two three-legged Golden Crows were Combat Souls of archaic descent. Not only were they supreme god-level rank-5, but their combat strength was also peak heavenly god-level.

Charcoal, whose main cultivation path was the fire element, could clearly feel the sense of oppression emanating from the two guardian beasts. He could also sense even more that he was no match for both of them.

However, what he did not know was whether even King Kong and Peerless Overlord would be able to hold the advantage if these two three-legged Golden Crows were to join forces.

Naturally, Lancelot and Grimace also sensed how powerful the two guardian beasts were, but they could not sense it as clearly as Charcoal could.

Both of them could not help warily eyeing the two sculpture-like three-legged Golden Crows.

The two three-legged Golden Crows observed the three of them for a while as well, only withdrawing their gaze when they saw Lin Huang bringing the group over to the steps.

The three imperial monsters followed Lin Huang and arrived at the Great Heaven Palace's entrance only after going up the steps.

The three became nervous again upon seeing the two palace doors.

The eyes of the two relief-carved Archaic Fire Dragons on the doors slowly began moving round and round, then fixed their gaze on Charcoal and the other two imperial monsters.

The two Archaic Fire Dragons merely gave Lancelot and Grimace a glance, then turned their eyes upon Charcoal to check out this member of their tribe.

They were not scrutinizing Charcoal.

As pure blood Dragon Tribe members, naturally, the two were more curious about this junior who possessed the same bloodline.

Charcoal felt an immense pressure bearing down on him at that moment.

He could clearly sense how powerful the bloodlines of the two Dragon Tribe members were.

He merely gave the relief carvings a glance, then lowered his head and did not dare to look at them again.

Only after Lin Huang pushed open the Great Heaven Palace's doors and the two Archaic Fire Dragons closed their eyes once more did Charcoal feel that the pressure had lifted. Hurriedly, he caught up with Lin Huang and slipped into the palace.

Grimace and Lancelot also released a sigh of relief almost simultaneously.

Although they had not been singled out by the Archaic Fire Dragons, the pressure from the Dragons' aura was still tangible.

Lin Huang led the three imperial monsters deep into the palace. He only stopped when he arrived at the dais where the throne was.

"Sit down first, all three of you, and settle your state of mind."

The three of them sat down immediately with their legs crossed when they heard this and began to regulate their breathing with their eyes closed.

In all honesty, their auras had been affected by their emotions since meeting up with Lin Huang and had been continuously fluctuating. When they saw the three-legged Golden Crows and the Archaic Fire Dragons, especially, it was hard to calm their auras under such immense pressure.

Lin Huang had sensed this, which was why he had asked the three of them to regulate their breathing to calm themselves.

After a moment, sensing that their emotions had gradually stabilized and their auras were no longer fluctuating, Lin Huang contacted Xiao Hei and requested for consolidation of all the rank-5 and rank-6 Advance Cards.

"You don't have to open your eyes. Just feel the sensation of being elevated, that's good enough."

As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, he targeted the three intended card users and crushed the cards in his hands.

The six cards turned into golden points of light that entered the bodies of the three imperial monsters, respectively.

The golden points of light had barely been in their bodies for a few seconds before cocoons rapidly began forming over their figures at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Days passed in the Great Heaven Palace.

Soon, the days turned into months.

Given that time had been accelerated ten thousand times, less than twenty minutes had passed in the outside world.

Lin Huang returned from the God Territory within him to the Ricky Star. He poured himself a drink that the hotel had prepared and slowly walked to the hotel balcony.

He sat on a deckchair, sipping his drink. As he looked up at the starry sky, his thoughts were already drifting.

He had almost finished his drink when he felt a sudden premonition.

Lancelot and the other two had awakened one after the other in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang put down his drink. He returned to the God Territory within him in a flash and appeared in the Great Heaven Palace.

He saw all three imperial monsters, now out of their cocoons, and their auras were quite different from before. They were also countless times stronger.

The three of them were checking through their own transformations in delight.

Meanwhile, their cards had popped up in front of Lin Huang.

"Monster Card: Charcoal"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Black Flame Dragon Forefather"

"Type of Monster: Archaic Dragon (Pure Blood)"

"Nickname: Flame Forefather"

"Combat Strength: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God"

"Major: True Dragon Dao"

"Major Skills: Power of the Dragon Forefather, Archaic Dragon Flame, Ancient Dragon Breath, Ancient Secret Draconian, Dragon Forefather Kingdom…"

"Minor Skills: Elemental Immunity, Physical Reflection, Cell Immortality, Immortal Dragon Soul…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

"Monster Card: Grimace"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Mysterious Lord"

"Type of Monster: Absolute Mystery"

"Nickname: The King of Secret Techniques"

"Combat Strength: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God"

"Major: Control"

"Major Skills: Mask Control, Puppet Domination, God of Deceit, King of Divine Illusion…"

"Minor Skills: Supreme Intelligence, Divine Telekinesis, Mysterious Trap, Mysterious Mirror…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

"Monster Card: Lancelot"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Ruthless Sword Master"

"Type of Monster: Holy Blood"

"Nickname: Killer"

"Combat Strength: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God"

"Major: Sword Dao"

"Major Skills: Supreme Sword Master, Darkest Sword Spirit, Sword Dao Holy Method, Sword Kingdom…"

"Minor Skills: Sword Steps, Dark Mirror…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

The three cards clearly showed that the three of them were Pure Spirit rank-6 now.

Not only that, their combat strength had advanced as well. They had been directly elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

Lin Huang made a thorough check through the other information changes on the cards.

Their skill panels were already densely packed.

For main cultivation path skills alone, there were already over one hundred of them listed on the main skill branch. As for supporting skills, altogether they came to almost a thousand.

Their secondary cultivation path skills were even more numerous—there were over one hundred and fifty core skills on the main skill branch and two to three thousand supporting skills.

Lin Huang only discovered after checking through the skill descriptions that the main skill branch was comprised of the main skills derived from the god sequence chains that Lancelot and the others had fully mastered.

In other words, the three of them had mastered over two hundred god sequence chains.

One must know that someone as powerful as Great Heaven—who had dominated the great world for an entire era—had only mastered forty-two god sequence chains at ninth-rank heavenly god-level back in the day. Even Buried Heaven, who had recently elevated to become a Lord, had only manifested twenty-seven god sequence chains during his unification.

The number of god sequence chains the three imperial monsters had mastered at present was almost tenfold the number that Buried Heaven had mastered.

One could well imagine that if their abilities were placed within the great world, the three of them would be able to subdue all enemies who were under lord-level.

Lin Huang was rather shocked as he stared at the three cards.

He was not shocked by the number of god sequence chains they had mastered but by the effect of the Advance Cards.

Previously, he had not paid too much attention to the connection between Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers in the main branch of the imperial monsters' skill trees.

Only now was he finally able to see the connection clearly.

It turned out that the Advance Cards could simultaneously bestow terrifying inheritances upon the imperial monsters during their elevation, including Rule Bending Powers and god sequence chains.

That was also why Lancelot and the others did not need to spend time consolidating god sequence chains. Their god sequence chains had skyrocketed to over two hundred in number from just the initial twenty or so god sequence chains that they had mastered.

After ascertaining this, Lin Huang was even slightly envious of this group of imperial monsters.

'What a great thing—to be able to immediately become so powerful without needing to cultivate!'

Naturally, Lin Huang could only think such a thing in secret; it would not be very nice to verbalize it.

It would hurt Lancelot and the other two's self-esteem if he said it out loud.

"How are you feeling?" Lin Huang asked, smiling faintly.

"I feel invincible!" Charcoal's eyes lit up. He looked like he was eager to find someone to spar with.

"That's merely an illusion caused by your abilities skyrocketing." Lin Huang poured cold water on this notion at once.

Charcoal's moment of enthusiasm was immediately doused.

"I'm so much more powerful now. I probably can battle a half-step Lord if I encounter one," Lancelot thought about it and gave his opinion.

Lin Huang shook his head still after hearing what Lancelot said.

"All of you still haven't grasped the disparity between Heavenly Gods and Lords. A Heavenly God's Godly Right can only be used within his own God Territory. However, a Lord's Godly Right has been integrated with a Dao seal, so it can be used outside the God Territory and still have a boosting effect.

"Right now, you've mastered over two hundred and fifty god sequence chains. In the God Territory, with the addition of the Godly Right, that would be an effect of an eighty-onefold boost. In other words, the actual effect would be equivalent to over twenty thousand chains. This number certainly surpasses that of all half-step Lords and most lower-rank Lords. However, you'd only have two hundred and fifty or so chains outside the God Territory.

"Although those Lords and half-step Lords haven't inherently mastered as many god sequence chains as you have, they can use their Godly Right outside their God Territory. With the Godly Right's boosting effect, they'll far exceed your abilities."

"Which means all we've got to do during battles is to drag the opponent into our God Territory, then we'll be invincible." Grimace gave an eerie grin from where he was standing off to the side.

"You could look at it that way." Lin Huang glanced at Grimace and added, "But don't underestimate any enemy. Those half-step Lords and Lords certainly aren't going to let you drag them into your God Territory so easily."

Lin Huang chatted with the three of them for a little, and the subject soon expanded to include talking about the gift for elevating to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

"Boss, all of us have elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level now. What's this gift that you said would definitely delight us?!" Charcoal asked, his face full of anticipation.

Although Lancelot and Grimace said nothing, their ears had obviously perked up, worried that they might miss out on something.

Lin Huang glanced at the three of them and thought they looked rather comical.

He decided not to keep it a secret any longer and directly told them what it was.

"The gift… is to directly elevate you to become Lords!"

The three of them were stunned when they heard this. They thought they had misheard or that Lin Huang was just joking with them.

"Boss, please don't joke about such a thing." Charcoal gave two forced laughs and stared at Lin Huang in a shifty manner. He did not believe Lin Huang but still harbored some faint hopes.

"Who says I'm joking?" Lin Huang raised his brows.

"You aren't joking?!" Charcoal bellowed at the top of his voice. He was so thrilled he almost overturned the roof.

"Can you really do that?" Grimace also found this hard to believe.

"Isn't this kind of elevation considered to be forcing things to happen before we're ready?" Lancelot asked. He was the calmest of the three.

After all, it had not even been a day since the three of them had elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level. He felt that elevating his current abilities again would be proceeding too quickly.

"Don't worry, there won't be any side effect." The certainty of Lin Huang's tone set the three imperial monsters at ease.

At least up until now, Lin Huang had never yet disappointed his imperial monsters.

"You can go into closed-door cultivation with your minds at ease. When you finish, you'll be my right-hand men." When Lin Huang finished speaking, three Lord Elevation Cards had already appeared in his hands.

He crushed the cards an instant later.

The three cards turned into three streams of light and penetrated through the brows of the three imperial monsters…

After returning once again from the God Territory within him to the Ricky Star, Lin Huang poured himself another drink.

This time, he did not go to the balcony. Instead, he sat on the sofa in the living room and began pondering, his gaze not focused on anything in particular.

He had previously questioned Xiao Hei about directly elevating his imperial monsters' ranks and combat strength. Xiao Hei's response was that there would not be any side effects.

Only after persistent questioning had Xiao Hei finally explained why there would be no side effects.

All the cards that Xiao Hei created were derived from Lin Huang's energy.

The difference between creating Monster Cards and Item or Function Cards was that Monster Cards possessed a cognizance of self. This consciousness could not be created out of nothing, so Xiao Hei had to divide out consciousness seeds to be implanted into the cards.

However, after the consciousness seeds had entered into the bodies of various Monster Cards, they would grow into all kinds of individual characters after absorbing the essence of memories and inheritances.

Essentially, all of the Monster Cards that Xiao Hei created through capturing Origin Energy were its clones.

To be exact, whether it was Bai, Lancelot, Kylie, or Charcoal… All of them were projections of Xiao Hei on the material plane with different concrete, individual characters.

Therefore, Bai and the others could elevate without having to follow regular elevation and advancement rules. They could inherit myriads of god sequence chains and Rule Bending Powers without incurring a burden.

As long as there was sufficient Origin Energy and Xiao Hei had sufficient authorization, they could even be elevated to terrifying entities higher than Lords, and there still be no side effects.

Lin Huang was soon pulled out of his reverie by energy waves within the Great Heaven Palace.

Thanks to the time flow being accelerated ten thousand times, Lancelot and the other two had completed their elevation to Lords one by one after less than five minutes had passed in the outside world.

1

Recalled to his senses, Lin Huang returned to the Great Heaven Palace in a flash.

Only after sensing that the auras of all three imperial monsters were undoubtedly lord-level did Lin Huang finally set his mind at ease.

He checked their card information again.

All three had successfully consolidated Dao seals. Although they had only consolidated level-1 Dao seals, there were over twenty thousand Dao tattoos on their Dao seals.

This was comparable to many lower-rank Lords who had compounded level-10 Dao seals.

It also meant that ability-wise currently, all three were almost invincible among lower-rank Lords.

If they were to encounter a lower-rank Lord with a level-10 Dao seal, even if the three of them could not defeat the Lord, they had the ability to go head-to-head with them.

However, to prevent the three of them from becoming arrogant, Lin Huang concealed the truth from them.

"Your current abilities are at lower-rank lord-level now. That's already considered fairly powerful. However, in the great world, there are Lords with seven or eight Dao seals, so don't think that you're invincible now."

Charcoal nodded immediately after hearing that. Beside him, Lancelot said nothing, while Grimace, on the other hand, seemed excited to try out his new abilities.

After the three of them had elevated to lord-level, the inheritances within them had been unsealed even further. They were also aware of the divisions within lord-level cultivation. They knew that they had only consolidated one Dao seal, so their abilities were definitely nothing compared to Lords with more Dao seals.

However, what they did not know was that the Dao seals they had consolidated were much more powerful than the Dao seals consolidated by others.

"Don't stir up trouble after all of you return to the God Territory." Lin Huang's gaze lingered on Grimace intentionally when he said this. "You can gather more high-level resources during this period. You're going to need a huge amount of resources to support your cultivation when we go to the universe in the future."

After giving them a few reminders, Lin Huang led the three of them out of the Great Heaven Palace.

This time, the three imperial monsters could sense very clearly that the Archaic Fire Dragons on the doors and the three-legged Golden Crows at the bottom of the steps were no longer threats to them.

Charcoal's expression was proud as he walked past the several guardian beasts. He even raised his tail high like a male peacock who had defeated a rival in love.

Lin Huang eyed Charcoal's childish behavior, but he did not stop him.

Instead, he waited for Charcoal to finish showing off before bringing all three of them back to the Ricky Star.

After returning to the Ricky Star, Lin Huang gave them reminders again. He also specifically sent Lancelot a voice transmission, asking him to keep tabs on Grimace and prevent him from stirring up trouble. Only then did he let them leave.

Lin Huang frowned slightly, looking in the direction where they had vanished. He had no idea why, but he kept having a nagging feeling that Grimace would cause trouble.

After sending the three of them off, Lin Huang thought for a moment, then asked the Gate of All Realms to open the passage to the virtual realm.

Before setting up the virtual realm cabin so he could cultivate later, he first had to clear the Voids nearby.

He stepped through the passage with his virtual body and entered the virtual realm.

As soon as he teleported through, he sensed intense battle fluctuations being transmitted over.

He lifted his head to look and was immediately rather stunned.

Battling it out were Black Mountain and Spy whom he had killed previously, while Babble and the other three lower-rank Lords stood on the sidelines, trembling.

'Why have they showed up on the Ricky Star?' Lin Huang felt rather puzzled. 'Could it be because their corpses are with me?

"But why would they suddenly fight among themselves?" Lin Huang was even more confused by this.

However, his sense of confusion had not lasted for very long before he discovered he was being targeted.

Sensing Lin Huang's aura, the battle between Black Mountain and Spy stopped abruptly. Both of them looked right at him.

Lin Huang did not know why but he could clearly sense the ill intent emanating from these few Voids. It was not just Black Mountain and Spy—even Babble and the rest who were watching the battle nearby had obvious murderous intent in their eyes when they looked at him.

Right as Lin Huang sensed the Voids' malicious intent, Black Mountain and Spy attacked almost simultaneously. This time, their target was Lin Huang.

Lin Huang gave a cold snort and shook his sleeves. Countless blood-red electric arcs shot out in a burst.

There were millions of electric arcs.

Each of them was guided by the Sword seal and imbued with over fifty thousand levels of sequence power.

Black Mountain and Spy made a lightning retreat when they saw that.

However, Babble and the other three lower-rank Lords nearby failed to dodge in time. They were impaled by so many blood-red electric arcs that they were practically turned into sieves, and died on the spot.

Spy digitized his body in an instant and avoided Lin Huang's attack this round.

Black Mountain, however, evaded the attack and used his overwhelming defense techniques to defend himself.

'As expected, it's still rather difficult to kill a middle-rank Lord instantly.' Lin Huang was also very much aware of his own abilities.

The next second, he did not hold back any longer and summoned his ten Combat Souls right away.

Although the God's Figurine's Combat Souls had the physical form of a God's Figurine, in essence, they were Combat Souls and part of Lin Huang's body. Naturally, he could bring them into the virtual realm.

As soon as the God's Figurine's Combat Souls were summoned forth, Lin Huang could sense even more clearly that Black Mountain and Spy's killing intent grew increasingly intense.

'I thought Voids don't possess their memories from the material realm?' Lin Huang did not really understand. However, he suddenly realized why Black Mountain and Spy were fighting.

In the virtual realm, both of them had no memory of each other. Now that they were in the same space, it was only natural that they would fight for territory.

As soon as the ten God's Figurine's Combat Souls joined the battle alongside Lin Huang's millions of God Dao Weapons, Black Mountain was immediately subdued with no trouble at all.

After Black Mountain had been disposed of, Spy was soon captured and sealed by Shackle Serpent. He was killed on the spot.

Within less than two minutes, Lin Huang had managed to obtain six portions of Origin Energy.

Among them were two that were middle-rank Lord in strength.

The rewards he obtained this round were handsome indeed.

After killing Black Mountain and the others who had turned into Voids, Lin Huang spread his Divine Telekinesis to scan through the several nearby star zones.

Unexpectedly during the scan, he discovered another Void.

He did not know if Black Mountain and the other Voids had not managed to discover it when they were fighting earlier or if they had noticed its presence but chosen to ignore it.

When Lin Huang appeared in a flash, the lower-rank lord-level Void was still trembling.

Its ability could not be considered particularly powerful. Lin Huang estimated that it had only consolidated four or five seals.

Its eyes brightened when it saw Lin Huang, and it stopped trembling.

Clearly, what it feared was the battle fluctuations from earlier. However, it was not in awe of Lin Huang, whose ability it was unable to probe.

Sensing the other's intent to kill, Lin Huang did not wait for it to attack but made his move first to gain the advantage. A red gleam shot out of his sleeve and immediately pierced through the Void's head.

A moment later, he obtained yet another portion of Origin Energy.

Lin Huang spread his Divine Telekinesis again in the Void's location. After discovering that there were no more Voids in the surrounding star zones, he returned to where the Ricky Star was.

The Coyne Star Zone in the virtual realm had been almost completely destroyed by the massive battle between Black Mountain and Spy.

The Ricky Star had long since been turned into a mass of cosmic dust.

Lin Huang glanced around him and very soon picked a planet that had not been destroyed.

It was a neutron star with an extraordinary gravitational force. In the material realm, it was highly improbable that there would be any living beings on it. It was one of the most uninhabitable stars in the universe.

Lin Huang appeared on the surface of the planet in a flash, then crushed a Virtual Realm Cabin Card.

He summoned the Gate of All Realms and returned to the great world only after making sure that the virtual realm cabin had fully consolidated.

After returning to the material realm, Lin Huang was still in the same initial location he had been at when on the neutron star. He pushed open the door and entered the virtual realm cabin. He removed his storage ring from his finger and placed it on the floor of the room. Then he turned around, opened the door, and left.

Lin Huang summoned the Gate of All Realms again after leaving the virtual realm cabin and entered the virtual realm once more.

As soon as he entered the virtual realm, he pushed open the door immediately and entered the virtual realm cabin.

He picked up the storage ring on the floor.

He had decided to cultivate in the virtual realm cabin this time because he had a new conjecture about the next step in his cultivation, and he was quite eager to verify it.

When he crossed the threshold of ninth-rank heavenly god-level, the Godly Right in his body seemed to have reached satiety and had stopped absorbing any half-step lord-level god sequence chains.

This had also led to the number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain reaching its upper limit of fifty-one thousand two hundred chains. Although the total number of god sequence chains in the God Territory within him had surpassed one hundred and eighty thousand chains, due to the limits imposed by the Godly Right, he could only compound fifty-one thousand two hundred god sequence chains outside his God Territory.

Lin Huang had been considering whether or not to elevate to lord-level in this condition; in fact, he had been thinking about the matter for days.

However, for the past few days, he had a vague sense that his Godly Right ought not to be completely satiated yet.

Sitting in the virtual realm cabin with his legs crossed, Lin Huang took out a Lord's body.

This body belonged to a lower-rank Lord in Black Mountain's group. It was one of the three lower-rank Lords whom Lin Huang had killed with Mirror.

To be honest, Lin Huang could not tell exactly which one among the three it was.

After taking out the body, Lin Huang pressed his hand against its abdomen and soon retrieved its God Territory.

Before giving this Lord's body to the Queen Mothers to use as material, he decided to make full use of it first.

Looking at the illusory crystal in his hand that was smaller than half his palm, he hesitated no more and pushed it between his brows with a smack.

The next second, the illusory crystal sank into Lin Huang's brow and disappeared.

He followed suit with his consciousness and sank into his inner world immediately.

As soon as he entered the God Territory within him, he felt the entire God Territory shaking as if the whole universe were quaking.

A moment later, Lin Huang saw a piercingly bright light unfolding in the far-off starry sky.

After a long time, the white light that had illuminated everything as bright as day finally began to dim.

At the same time, Lin Huang sensed that the God Territory within his body had expanded again.

"It was successful?!" Lin Huang was over the moon. He checked his Godly Right immediately.

As he had expected, the limit for god sequence chains in his Godly Right had finally been triggered. It increased to 51,201 chains, then 51,202 chains, 51,203 chains…

The entire process was slow and steady.

Lin Huang finally completed refining the Lord's God Territory after goodness knows how long.

The number of god sequence chains that the God Territory in his body could contain had skyrocketed to over two hundred and thirty thousand chains. (The number of god sequence chains in an ordinary Lord's Kingdom within them far exceeded the number he could invoke using his Dao seal.)

Furthermore, the limit for god sequence chains that the Godly Right in his body could contain had doubled instantaneously. It had skyrocketed to one hundred and two thousand four hundred chains.

However, he could clearly sense that he had not reached his limit yet.

He realized that his previous conjecture was completely accurate. Lin Huang took out the second Lord's God's corpse without hesitation and extracted its God Territory from its body.

He then began a new round of refining.

He did not know how long this round of refining took either.

However, the total number of god sequence chains in the God Territory within him had skyrocketed to over two hundred and seventy thousand.

The limit for god sequence chains that his Godly Right could contain had also increased. It had skyrocketed to one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred chains.

Lin Huang subsequently refined the God Territories from the remaining two lower-rank Lords' bodies one after the other.

The unknown lower-rank Lord boosted the total number of god sequence chains within Lin Huang's body to over sixty thousand chains.

As for the lower-rank Lord with the codename Babble, her God Territory was considerably more powerful. It added another one hundred and twenty thousand god sequence chains to the existing ones within Lin Huang's body.

At this point, the god sequence chains within Lin Huang's body had reached over four hundred and sixty thousand in total.

However, Babble's God Territory did not boost Lin Huang's Godly Right; it remained at fifty-one thousand two hundred chains.

Refining the two lower-rank Lords' God Territories had also resulted in the number of god sequence chains that Lin Huang's Godly Right could contain increasing to two hundred and fifty-six thousand chains. Compared to previously, this was a fivefold increase.

Looking at the remaining two middle-rank Lords' bodies, Lin Huang did not hesitate any further and extracted their God Territories.

However, he was unable to refine the God Territories after they entered his body.

Instead, they occupied a corner of the God Territory in Lin Huang's body and went into hiding.

He tried twice, and the result was still the same.

Lin Huang guessed that the middle-rank Lords' rankings were probably too high, which caused the refining to fail.

Feeling helpless, he had no choice but to give up.

However, he did not come out of closed-door cultivation just yet. Instead, he retrieved the remaining five hundred and twenty-three half-step Lords' God Territories from his storage ring. He absorbed all of them into the God Territory within him and began a new round of refining.

After a mere moment, Lin Huang smiled wryly and shook his head.

'As I expected, half-step Lords' God Territories can't boost the Godly Right's containment limit any longer.'

However, Lin Huang did not stop refining this time, as the god sequence chains inside his God Territory were still increasing.

This new round of refining made Lin Huang lose the concept of time entirely.

He was focused heart and soul on the refining process and completely forgot about the passing of time until he had refined all the half-step Lords' God Territories.

Although there were no changes to his Godly Right at all, this round of refinement boosted the total number of god sequence chains in his God Territory to over six hundred and thirty thousand chains.

When Lin Huang opened his eyes again, he gave a very long exhale.

"It seems I'll need to use a large number of resources to trade for lower-rank Lords' God Territories next!"

After returning to the great world from the virtual realm, Lin Huang immediately contacted Steel Fist and Epic Player from the Club.

He was not sure if there were Lords' Kingdoms in other people's possession, but he knew that his two colleagues from the Club who had just been in a battle with him definitely would have some.

The reason was that the two of them had just killed three Raiders together.

Moreover, the two of them had been Lords for many years, so they might also have killed other lord-level powerhouses in the past.

Within ten minutes, Lin Huang had come to an agreement with both of them.

He would trade three Lords' bodies for three Lords' Kingdoms.

It was a pity the two of them did not have more Lords' Kingdoms. They had long since refined the Kingdoms of the Lords that they killed in the past.

Epic Player even stated frankly that if Lin Huang had not managed to contact them in time, both of them might have decided to refine the Kingdoms.

For lord-level powerhouses, refining other Lords' Kingdoms did not have any boosting effects on their abilities. At most, this would just further strengthen the foundations of their own Kingdom and expand their Kingdom's size slightly.

The reason was that the number of god sequence chains their Dao seals could control was limited. Moreover, under normal circumstances, the number of god sequence chains in their Kingdoms would already have exceeded the limit their Dao seals could manage. Even if they refined more god sequence chains, they could not convert them into abilities.

However, having three Lords' Kingdoms was certainly better than having none at all.

After sealing the deal, Lin Huang turned off the communication page and took out his Royal Token.

He then opened the trading page.

After keying in the keywords 'lower-rank Lord's Kingdom', he instantly saw information on hundreds of sellers who had this item up for bids.

He quickly clicked on them one by one.

Lin Huang felt rather frustrated after spending over half an hour reading all the information.

Most of these people were trading for rare and unusual items. There were even some Lin Huang had never heard of before.

Clearly, there were many things in the universe that the great world did not possess.

After thinking about it, he decided not to trade Black Mountain and Spy's God's corpse for now.

Although he knew he could definitely trade middle-rank Lords' God's corpses for many lower-rank Lords' Kingdoms, he made up his mind that he would only decide after unlocking Black Mountain and the others' storage rings.

He had only passed the four storage rings to Yang Ling recently. In Yang Ling's current condition, he would probably not need very long to unlock them.

If there was nothing valuable in their unlocked storage rings, Lin Huang would have no option but to trade the two corpses for Lords' Kingdoms. If there were many valuable items that could be used in exchange for a sufficient number of Lords' Kingdoms, naturally, he was more willing to keep the God's corpses as materials for the Queen Mothers.

At this point, Lin Huang could not help sending his consciousness into the God Territory within him. He communicated to Yang Ling through voice transmission, "Please remember to notify me as soon as you're done unlocking those few storage rings."

"I'll be done with them latest by tomorrow afternoon," Yang Ling replied immediately.

Lin Huang's spirits instantly lifted when he heard that.

As for Death Sickle, his other channel, Lin Huang had initially not planned on contacting them. After all, prior to Buried Heaven, no Lords had emerged from Death Sickle before. The possibility of them having Lords' bodies and Kingdoms was low.

However, after thinking about it, Lin Huang still sent Buried Heaven a message anyway to ask about the matter.

On the off-chance that they did indeed possess such items, he did not want to miss out.

However, as Lin Huang had expected, Buried Heaven's answer was no, and he replied instantaneously.

After turning off the communication page, Lin Huang sat on the sofa in the hotel room. He browsed through Death Sickle's forum while sending part of his consciousness into the God Territory within him. He observed the Dao seals with their various colors, all of them like eternal stars.

There were currently thirty-one Dao seal stars like that in his body.

He had obtained them from refining the Kingdoms of Zhan Zhuo, Babble, and the rest.

However, he could not refine these thirty-one Dao seals, nor could he use them.

Unlike the Sword seal, they were consolidated within Lin Huang's body from Dao seal fragments.

These were Dao seals that had originally been whole. Although their initial Will Imprint had been erased, they were still in a self-sealed, unactivated state.

Lin Huang had tried using many ways in the virtual realm but failed to communicate with them still.

He conjectured that he might only be able to refine these Dao seals and use them for himself after he had elevated to become a Lord.

Lin Huang turned his gaze from the Dao seals and looked at the Dao seal fragments that dotted the void like stars.

He had obtained these from refining the half-step Lords' God Territories.

For the time being, he had not figured out how he ought to deal with these thousands of Dao seal fragments.

After a moment of consideration, he decided not to think about it for now.

He sent his consciousness deep into his God Territory, where two giant spheres hovered in the void.

They were like two giant eggs floating in the sea.

These two spheres were the Kingdoms of the two middle-rank Lords, Black Mountain, and Spy.

Even though they were in a self-sealed state, their size was still comparable to a star zone.

They existed in a form like this within Lin Huang's God Territory and had not become a part of it because Lin Huang could not refine them. He had no option but to leave them as they were for the time being.

Anyway, since their wills had been erased, the two God Territories were now in an ownerless state. They would cause no harm hovering in the air like that.

After withdrawing his consciousness from his inner world and feeling rather helpless, Lin Huang slowly began thinking of other ways to strengthen his ability.

Time passed; the night proved uneventful.

Public security on the Ricky Star was so well-maintained it was uncanny. After all, this was the territory of Precious Treasure Pavilion, the grade-7 organization. Even though there were no Lords guarding the place, there were still half-step Lords.

Furthermore, there were a great many organizations here as well, with multitudes of heavenly god-level powerhouses coming and going daily.

Naturally, there were not very many people who would dare to cause trouble here.

Lin Huang, too, enjoyed the peace and quiet.

The next morning, not long after Lin Huang had finished breakfast, a visitor came calling.

It was Epic Player from the Club.

He was still in casual attire, but his originally blue hair was now dyed a shade of manure-like yellow. Furthermore, it had been cut into an asymmetric style with one side short and the other long. The fringe on the long side curved down from his forehead, not only covering his entire right eye but also extending all the way to his lips.

Lin Huang could not even bring himself to compliment the aesthetics of Epic Player's hairstyle.

He merely glanced at it and hurriedly averted his gaze from Epic Player's head.

"Steel Fist said something came up at the last minute and asked me to help her handle the exchange."

Lin Huang nodded, "I've just received her message."

He did not tell Epic Player that Steel Fist's message had been, "I won't be coming with Epic Player this round. His hair annoys me every time I see it. He even discussed hairstyling tips with me for ages—it took me forever to get rid of him…"

"What do you think of my new hairstyle?" Epic Player suddenly pointed to his head and asked.

"It's pretty nice. It suits you." What else could Lin Huang say?

"I think it's pretty nice too. Can you believe that girl Steel Fist actually said it's hideous?!" Epic Player said in puzzlement, "She also told me that even if I shaved my head, I'd look better than I do now. I'm not One Punch Man, I won't become more powerful if I shave my head…

"I really don't understand women's sense of aesthetics…"

Lin Huang secretly added to himself mentally, 'I don't understand your sense of aesthetics either.'

After seeing Epic Player off, Lin Huang eagerly entered the virtual realm again and refined the three Kingdoms he had just obtained.

After this round of refining, the number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain went up to one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred chains. The total number had increased to four hundred and nine thousand six hundred chains.

As for the total number of god sequence chains in the God Territory within him, they had increased significantly from over six hundred and thirty thousand chains to seven hundred and eighty thousand chains.

Lin Huang's abilities also received another round of boosting.

After returning from the virtual realm to the great world, he patiently waited for Yang Ling to unlock the storage rings.

To kill time, for lunch that afternoon, he specifically picked a restaurant with excellent reviews and which required queuing up for entry. The queuing alone took up one and a half hours.

Lin Huang returned to his hotel room after lunch. Just as he was about to take a nap, he suddenly sensed familiar auras approaching.

The instant Lin Huang sensed this, someone knocked on the hotel room door the next second.

When he opened the door, he saw it was Bai and Teng Ran.

What surprised him was that Bai and Teng Ran had already elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level. They had even surpassed the speed of Kylie's combat strength elevation.

"The speed of your combat strength elevation…"

"We entered the Abyss," Teng Ran said, his expression rather helpless. He even specifically glanced at Bai, who was standing beside him, before he made his reply.

"…" Lin Huang was utterly bereft of speech. "Both of you really have some nerve."

One must know that even Lin Huang would not go into the Abyss as he pleased despite his current level of ability.

"We were only hunting in the middle layer, and if we sensed any unusual fluctuations in the Abyss, we retreated immediately," Bai explained calmly as if it were something not worth mentioning.

Naturally, Lin Huang was aware of Bai's anxiety. Bai had been trying his best to catch up with Lin Huang in the hopes that he could be Lin Huang's right-hand man. However, the gap between their abilities had kept increasing to the point where the imperial monsters could no longer battle Lin Huang's enemies.

However, Lin Huang also knew it was sheer luck that Bai and Teng Ran had managed to come back safely.

Based on the timeframe that Bai and Teng Ran had elevated to supreme god-level rank-5, they must have entered the Abyss earlier than Lin Huang. Their exit from the Abyss ought to have been around the same time as Buried Heaven and his group.

During that period, the Abyss just so happened to be in a state of hibernation.

"The fact that both of you survived at all is pure luck alone." Lin Huang's tone contained a hint of reproach. "The Abyss happened to be in a period of hibernation.

"The God Territory's earlier expedition to the Abyss probably awakened many Abyssal powerhouses. When the two of you get out of closed-door cultivation this time, don't go to the Abyss again. Monster Paradise's revival function has limitations. If the two of you are killed by Lords, you'll really die."

"No wonder the number of monsters in the Abyss suddenly started increasing…" Teng Ran muttered quietly.

From beside Teng Ran, Bai remained silent. It was not clear if he had taken Lin Huang's words to heart or not.

"Alright, come with me." Lin Huang summoned up the door to the God Territory with a mere gesture after he finished speaking. He led both the imperial monsters into the Great Heaven Territory.

When they arrived in front of the Great Heaven Palace, Teng Ran looked left and right, scrutinizing his surroundings.

Bai, on the other hand, remained silent. He merely glanced at the three-legged Golden Crows, then turned his gaze away.

After pushing open the door and entering the Great Heaven Palace, Teng Ran could not help questioning Lin Huang when he noticed that there was no one inside.

"Master, hasn't Lancelot's team come yet?"

This was a subject that obviously mattered to Bai as well.

"They've completed their elevation and already left some time ago."

When he said this, Lin Huang deliberately stole a glance at Bai to see his reaction. As expected, Bai's change of expression indicated that he was definitely affected by the news. However, this was only visible on his face for a brief moment before he erased all traces of it from his expression.

"So soon?!" Teng Ran's expression was full of confusion which he did not bother to conceal at all.

"The Great Heaven Palace has the power to accelerate time. Time flow in here can be sped up to ten thousand times faster than the outside world," Lin Huang explained patiently, "According to the time flow in the outside world, the two of them used approximately twenty minutes or less to elevate from rank-4 to rank-6."

"How about their combat strength? It shouldn't be higher than both of ours, right?" Teng Ran persisted.

"Before they elevated, it was definitely lower than yours," Lin Huang said with a smile.

The penchant for men making comparisons with each other was vividly on display at the moment.

Teng Ran's lips curled slightly. "They've elevated to ninth-rank now after their advancement?"

"The three of them have already broken through to lord-level now," Lin Huang told them the truth straight away.

Teng Ran's expression froze abruptly.

As for Bai, a mixture of emotions including shock and astonishment flickered over his face.

Although Bai tried his best to hide his expression, Lin Huang still caught that look very clearly.

Lin Huang observed the interesting expressions on his imperial monsters' faces, then smiled and said, "Don't worry. Both of you will be able to elevate to become Lords later on too."

"You mean… the surprise…?" Bai immediately recalled something after hearing what Lin Huang said.

"You'll find out in a while." Lin Huang preserved the secret for now.

Since it was a surprise, naturally, he did not wish to reveal it in advance.

After asking the two of them to sit with their legs crossed and regulate their breathing to its ideal state, Lin Huang crushed two Advance Cards, which entered into Bai and Teng Ran's bodies, respectively.

The Advance Cards he used at present were slightly different from the ones he had used on Kylie previously.

When he elevated Kylie, he had used five grade-5 Advance Cards. Actually, Xiao Hei had set restrictions on the cards to limit the imperial monsters' abilities and to make Lin Huang work harder to obtain cards.

In reality, the functions of five Advance Cards could entirely be integrated into a single card.

Once the authorization limits were lifted, naturally, he no longer needed to use five cards.

It was also after the restrictions were removed that Lin Huang had discovered how much he had been exploited.

After he observed the two cards turning into stars and entering Bai and Teng Ran's bodies, and their forms rapidly becoming swaddled in cocoons, Lin Huang activated the time flow acceleration in the Great Heaven Palace to ten thousand times once more. He then departed from the palace and returned to the Ricky Star.

This time, he only waited for about ten minutes at most. He had only sat on the sofa for a little while, watching the news, before he sensed tremors coming from Great Heaven Palace. He then returned to the Great Heaven Palace again.

After seeing that Bai and Teng Ran had broken out of the cocoons and their auras were vastly different now, Lin Huang did not bother checking through their card information. Straight away, he told the two of them, "Now you can receive your surprise."

When he finished speaking, the two Lord Elevation Cards in his hand had already turned into two streams of light that entered Bai and Teng Ran's bodies, respectively.

Lin Huang only began looking through Bai and Teng Ran's cards after he returned to the Ricky Star from the Great Heaven Palace.

"Monster Card: Bai"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Blood Demon Monarch"

"Type of Monster: Vampire King"

"Nickname: Vampire King"

"Combat Strength: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God"

"Major: Blood Bond"

"Major Skills: Supreme God Blood Factor, Blood Galaxy, Blood Demon Forbidden Code, Blood Demon Nation…"

"Minor Skills: Particle Immortality…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

"Monster Card: Teng Ran"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Archaic Teng Snake"

"Type of Monster: Archaic Mutated Serpent"

"Nickname: Snake Forefather"

"Combat Strength: Ninth-Rank Heavenly God"

"Major: Spear Dao, Wind Elemental Truth, Water Elemental Truth"

"Major Skills: God-Slaying Spear, God-Crashing Storm, Galactic Frost…"

"Minor Skills: Illusory World, Fright…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

Before Lin Huang had the time to look through the cards thoroughly, more tremors came from the Great Heaven Palace.

Bai and Teng Ran had elevated to become Lords!

When Lin Huang returned to the Great Heaven Palace, Bai and Teng Ran were checking out in detail the changes that had taken place within them.

Lin Huang did not rush them; he waited patiently for them to finish their examination.

After some time, Teng Ran was the first to withdraw his consciousness from within him.

When he saw Lin Huang, he could not help smiling as he said, "I truly never thought that I would be able to achieve this in my lifetime."

Nobody knew whether he was talking about elevating to Pure Spirit rank, or lord-level, or perhaps even both.

"This is still a far cry from what all of you will be able to achieve in the end," Lin Huang responded with a smile.

As they were chatting, Bai had finally withdrawn his consciousness from within him as well.

"How are you feeling?" Lin Huang asked with a smile.

"I feel… very powerful." All along, Bai never did have a boastful personality. "I'm under the illusion that I'm in control of everything."

"I'm under the same illusion too," Teng Ran said with a smile from where he was standing off to one side.

However, after speaking, Bai was now scrutinizing Lin Huang closely. He shook his head a moment later, "Unfortunately, I'm still not powerful enough. At present, I still don't have sufficient abilities to protect Master."

From where he stood on the sidelines, Teng Ran's expression was full of confusion when he heard Bai say this. "I thought Master hasn't yet elevated to become a Lord?"

Clearly, he had not sensed the abilities that Lin Huang was concealing.

"As expected, our Xiao Bai saw through me," Lin Huang teased with a smile, "Teng Teng, you should learn from Xiao Bai."

"What sort of nonsense nicknames are these?" Teng Ran covered his face with one hand.

Standing where he was to one side, Bai remained expressionless from beginning to end.

"Would you like to experience the gap between our abilities?" Lin Huang looked at the two of them with a cheeky grin.

For one, he was truly bored, and for another, he did not want these two to enter the Abyss again without being aware of their own abilities.

When he heard Lin Huang's invitation, Teng Ran's expression was full of puzzlement.

Even Bai, who had always been impervious to strong emotion and desires, displayed some interest.

He was the imperial monster who had been with Lin Huang the longest; this was not the first time Lin Huang had invited him to spar. However, it had been a long time indeed since he had last sparred with his master.

"You can both attack together. Also, under no circumstances must you hold back at all. If you don't give it everything you've got, there's a chance I might kill you right away." Lin Huang chuckled, and the Great Heaven Palace instantly transformed into a sky full of stars.

Bai and Teng Ran locked eyes for a moment, then went into action at practically the same time.

They had developed this rapport over the last few months.

A blood-red mist shrouded the area behind Bai's figure almost immediately. An instant later, countless blood-colored tentacles shot out of the blood-red mist like lightning, aiming straight at Lin Huang.

On every blood-red tentacle was a complex bright red Dao seal. Over twenty thousand Dao tattoos swirled on each bolt of lightning like hot molten iron.

There were over a million tentacles.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Teng Ran's entire body was enveloped in golden scales. Golden battle spear in his hand, the pair of wings on his back stirred suddenly, and he charged forward at a speed faster than even that of the tentacles.

On the point of the golden spear was a shining Dao seal as well, with over twenty thousand Dao tattoos swirling on it.

He was like a golden star hurtling at Lin Huang head-on.

Lin Huang's lips quirked up very faintly. He raised both hands slightly, and two blood-red arcs of lightning shot out.

One of them seemed to have a consciousness of its own, moving furiously through the sea of blood-red tentacles.

The tentacles were destroyed wherever it passed through.

The sensation was that of plastic being scorched by high heat, melting quickly and vanishing.

The other lightning arc collided directly with Teng Ran's spear.

With a loud boom, Teng Ran's body was flung backward at a speed over several times faster than before.

Bai's pupils contracted slightly because he noticed that Teng Ran's body was now headless as it hurtled backward.

Teng Ran's head had exploded in the collision with the flying dagger. His powerful life force was instantly annihilated.

Only at that moment did Bai realize that Lin Huang's ability was much more powerful than he had expected.

Bai was only distracted for a moment but immediately sensed an immense threat coming his way.

He lifted his eyes and saw the flying dagger that had crushed Teng Ran's head turning around and coming straight at him.

Bai's expression changed slightly, but his hand movements were not slow in the least.

He performed hand seals rapidly with both hands. A blood-red shield with many layers consolidated instantly.

The giant shield had twelve layers and was three meters tall. Like an iron city gate, it formed a barrier between Bai and the flying dagger.

There was a lava-like Dao seal carved on each layer of the giant shield.

Over twenty thousand bright red Dao tattoos filled almost every corner of the shield.

A second later, the blood-red lightning arc collided with the shield.

Subsequently, like the point of a needle piercing through a sheet of paper, the lightning arc easily pierced through all the layers of the giant shield. The Divine Telekinesis flying dagger did not slow down in the least. It pierced right through all twelve layers of the shield's defenses and shattered Bai's head.

The illusory scene in the Great Heaven Palace faded quickly as the headless body toppled to the ground.

In the Great Heaven Palace, Bai and Teng Ran stood where they were, faces pale, unable to speak for a long time.

Although they had only been fighting in an illusory simulated battle earlier, both of them knew that it was no different from what would happen in actual combat.

In the illusory simulation, Lin Huang had killed the two of them instantly.

In the real world, he would be able to do the same thing.

"Master, have you truly not elevated to lord-level yet?" Teng Ran asked with a gloomy expression. He felt that Lin Huang was concealing his combat strength from them.

"I definitely haven't elevated to lord-level yet." Lin Huang nodded and smiled.

"You didn't use full force earlier, did you?" Bai, on the other hand, lifted his head to look at Lin Huang. "I'd like to know how much of your actual ability you did use."

"Approximately ten percent or so," Lin Huang answered after giving this some thought.

In reality, he had only used a Sword seal compounded with thirty thousand levels of god sequence chains. This was not even one-tenth the number that his Godly Right contained. He had only used middle-rank lord-level Divine Telekinesis to power the two flying daggers.

Overall, that was far less than ten percent of his actual ability.

However, he was genuinely worried that he would crush Bai and Teng Ran's confidence.

"I'm more of a special case though," Lin Huang added, "In reality, both of you aren't considered weak at all among lower-rank Lords.

"With your current ability, apart from the Abyss, you can explore most of the regions of the great world."

Despite what Lin Huang said, Bai and Teng Ran's moods did not improve very much.

"Don't be so gloomy; it's not embarrassing to have lost to me. Come on. I'll take you both for some good food." Lin Huang put his arms around their shoulders and teleported back to the Ricky Star.

He then treated the two moody imperial monsters to a sumptuous meal.

Although Bai and Teng Ran were not in high spirits, they could not resist when they saw good food.

After the meal, they were clearly less upset now.

Lin Huang reminded them not to go to the Abyss again before sending them off.

It was already past 3 p.m. when he saw Bai and Teng Ran off.

Right as Lin Huang returned to his hotel room, he sensed a message being transmitted from Sword1.

"Lord Swordmaster, Yang Ling is asking to see you."

As messages from the communicators were unable to be sent to Lin Huang from the inside of Lin Huang's God Territory, Yang Ling had no option but to go to Sword 1 and get him to send a telepathic voice transmission message.

Lin Huang was aware of this as well. After receiving Sword1's voice transmission, in a flash, he returned to the God Territory within his body straight away.

When Lin Huang returned to the God Territory within him and saw Yang Ling again, he could obviously tell that Yang Ling's mental state had undergone significant improvement.

It was not clear if this was because Spy's death had eliminated the pressure or if it was because Yang Ling had now reunited with Hong Zhuang.

Lin Huang did not enquire further into this. He merely smiled and commented, "You look much better now."

Yang Ling had a cheeky grin on his face. "Exercising is beneficial for your mind. I've been exercising more."

"Err… I can tell," Lin Huang was rather speechless.

As expected, this fellow had once more resumed his lecherous nature…

Sensing Hong Zhuang glancing in his direction from not too far off, Yang Ling hurriedly contained his grin. He took out all six storage rings and passed them to Lin Huang.

"They've been unlocked. There's lots of good stuff inside."

"Is there anything that you'd like?" Lin Huang asked with a smile after taking the rings.

"No." Yang Ling shook his head, "But there are a few things that I'd like to talk to you about."

"Go ahead." Lin Huang nodded at once.

"Haven't you put together an organization in the great world? I think you can start an internal trading platform so the members can enjoy some preferential treatment."

"I can do that. Actually, we also did that in the gravel world previously, and it was quite a success," Lin Huang agreed to this suggestion immediately. "If you're willing, you can lead this project. If you need help from other people at any point, just let Sword1 know upfront.

"On my side, I'll take some time to sort things out and put in the resources I don't need."

For Lin Huang in his current state, any treasures below Dao Weapon grade were completely useless to him. Moreover, within the loot he had obtained previously, there were many god sequence relics and sequence items which he had disposed of directly at the black market. It would actually be better to let his own people benefit instead.

"Also, I checked the previous communication logs in these rings. Some of this information ought to be useful to you," Yang Ling continued.

Lin Huang nodded and did not interrupt, implying that Yang Ling should carry on.

"Firstly, Black Mountain, Spy, and that lady called Babble have powerful connections in the Raiders. Black Mountain has the backing of an ultimate-rank Lord in the universe. This Raider's codename is Lonely Peak. This Lonely Peak is reportedly only half a step away from the level above Lord, and his abilities are fairly terrifying."

"Is he close to Black Mountain?" Lin Huang asked this because some superiors did not even know the names of their subordinates.

"Based on the information records that I managed to find, these two have an extremely complicated relationship. Both of them became brothers after transmigration. Black Mountain was the elder brother, around five years older than Lonely Peak. It seems Black Mountain transmigrated here earlier than Lonely Peak did. However, Lonely Peak's Goldfinger is more powerful, and he's also more talented. After transmigration, his ability soon surpassed that of Black Mountain.

"When Lonely Peak's brilliant talents came into prominence, he soon received an invitation from the Raiders to join their organization. It was Lonely Peak who recommended Black Mountain for membership later on."

"In other words, the relationship between these two is practically no different from that of actual biological brothers." Lin Huang frowned when he heard this. "If that's the case, then as soon as the news of Black Mountain's death gets out, Lonely Peak will very likely come to the great world to hunt me down…"

"The situation won't become as dire as you think." Yang Ling shook his head.

"I only found out that there are countless great worlds in the universe after reading Black Mountain and the others' communication logs. These great worlds are divided into regions and are managed by organizations in the universe. The great world we're currently in falls under Royal's jurisdiction.

"Since the highest level of local combat strength in this great world is only lower-rank lord-level, to avoid upsetting equilibrium, other organizations are only allowed to send middle-rank Lords as guardians if they want to settle here. Not only that, guardians can't be middle-rank Lords who are too powerful.

"If something goes wrong with the branch organization that's settled here, their headquarters will need to apply to Royal for authority to investigate. Not only that, they will have to conduct the investigation under Royal's surveillance.

"If something happens to a lower-rank Lord, the highest possible combat strength allowed for the investigator is middle-rank lord-level only. If something happens to a middle-rank Lord, then the highest possible combat strength allowed for the investigator is upper-rank lord-level only.

"This is expressly stipulated in the universe's oath of alliance. This rule alone puts paid to the possibility of Lonely Peak coming here in person."

When Lin Huang heard this, he was finally able to be a bit more at ease.

He was very much aware of his current abilities. If he worked harder, he should be able to go head-to-head in a direct confrontation with an upper-rank Lord. However, if he wanted to fight on equal footing with an ultimate-rank Lord, he would not be able to do this—at least not in the immediate future.

"However, the Raiders won't send only one upper-rank Lord to investigate this time," Yang Ling elaborated again, "Now let's talk about Spy and Babble's backgrounds."

"Babble's background is still much simpler. She has a lover in the universe, and this lover's codename in the Raiders is Rose."

"A female?" Lin Huang raised his brows.

"That's right, she's an absolute beauty. However, she's also an upper-rank Lord with overwhelming abilities. She's successfully consolidated a level-1000 Dao seal already and is only one step away from achieving ultimate-rank lord-level.

"Rose has many lovers both male and female; she has at least a thousand lovers, including flings. However, she doted on Babble, who was definitely on her top five list of lovers. Reportedly, this is because Babble had the divine ability to enter one's dreams. Nobody can replace that."

"So she might come to the great world to avenge Babble?" Lin Huang asked.

"It's possible, but the chances of her arriving here in her Primordial form aren't high. After all, her ability is too close to that of an ultimate-rank Lord. The chances of obtaining an investigator's ID and passing Royal's assessment are extremely low.

"I think there's a higher chance of her sending a lover here to investigate the matter for her. However, I've no idea which one she'd send."

"How about Spy's background?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"Spy's background is much more complicated…" Yang Ling paused and only continued after organizing his thoughts.

"First of all, he's a member of the Electronic Tribe, a mechanical species. This tribe possesses powerhouses above lord-level. In the universe, they've conquered practically the entire information industry, occupying an almost seventy percent share of the market.

"Naturally, Spy isn't anyone important in the Electronic Tribe. However, he's still a middle-rank Lord who has now died. The chances of the Electronic Tribe coming to investigate are quite high.

"However, we have no way of ascertaining to what extent the Electronic Tribe will pursue this matter.

"Compared with his identity as a member of the Electronic Tribe, though, what's even more problematic is that Spy was Lonely Peak's treasury designer and gatekeeper. He has the key to the treasury."

"So he's no less important to Lonely Peak than Black Mountain is?" Lin Huang was even more puzzled when he heard this. "Then why did Lonely Peak send two such essential people to our great world?"

"Because Lonely Peak was preparing to achieve a breakthrough in secret. On the surface, he wanted the two of them to believe that they were going to the great world to plunder loot. In reality, he was worried that if the breakthrough failed, he would die and bring disaster down upon Black Mountain. He also probably did not want the collections that he had spent years amassing to wind up in someone else's possession," Yang Ling put forward his conjecture.

"So that's why this time it wasn't just me—you were Lonely Peak's target too!" Lin Huang finally realized why Yang Ling was discussing the matter with him so seriously.

Yang Ling nodded, unsure whether to laugh or cry, "I have the key to his treasury now…"

"Lonely Peak's treasury… Can it be accessed with just the key? Or does the key have to be used at specific coordinates to open it?" Lin Huang gave a malicious smile.

"The space isn't anchored to a set point; anyone can open it as long as they have the key," Yang Ling explained, a touch resignedly. "Right now the key is bound to Spy's Goldfinger.

"Apart from necessary items, Lonely Peak seems to have put almost all of his collections in there. I have a feeling he might not be very confident about achieving a successful breakthrough. That's why he left a back door for himself. As soon as the breakthrough failed, he would reincarnate immediately, then have Black Mountain and Spy locate his reincarnation. By doing this, his reincarnated self would be able to directly inherit everything he left behind once he obtained the key. He also wouldn't need to expend a great deal of effort to specify a particular set of coordinates."

"Which means to say we can directly access his treasury right now?" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

"We could, but…" Yang Ling was clearly concerned.

"No buts, just open it right away."

"Listen to me first." Yang Ling still felt he needed to explain exactly where the problem lay.

"First of all, Lonely Peak very likely has some sort of setup on the treasury or the key. At the very least, if the treasury is accessed, he'd definitely sense it. Otherwise, if Spy stole something, he wouldn't even know. He won't have let his guard down entirely with Spy.

"Secondly, there's almost certainly a safeguard mechanism in the treasury. We have absolutely no idea what kind of traps Lonely Peak might have left in there. However, given his personality, whatever methods he used ought to be able to kill an upper-rank Lord easily."

Lin Huang nodded slightly to express his agreement.

"The first problem you mentioned—Lonely Peak sensing someone opening the treasury—isn't a problem at all. We've already killed Black Mountain, and we've obtained Lonely Peak's treasury key. That's already a grudge. Whether or not he knows we've accessed his treasury won't affect his determination to kill us."

In the face of Lin Huang's rebuttal, Yang Ling was rendered somewhat speechless.

Since Lonely Peak already had a grudge against the two of them, one more thing would not affect matters in the least. Stealing one of his treasures would certainly not make any difference.

"As for the traps he left in the treasury, that's certainly a problem, but it's not something that can't be solved…" An idea suddenly popped into Lin Huang's mind.

"You can use a clone to try instead of going in yourself, but it's not entirely safe either." Yang Ling saw that Lin Huang had stopped speaking and guessed that he might have been intending to use a clone. "Lonely Peak is sure to have thought of every possible situation, so he probably won't have overlooked this. Whatever he set up might be able to kill one's Primordial form directly through its clone.

"I think the wisest thing to do is to leave this great world temporarily and avoid the arrival of the Raiders' investigators," Yang Ling paused and put forward his suggestion anyway.

Even though he knew Lin Huang possessed sufficient ability to kill Black Mountain and Spy, Yang Ling still felt he would not stand a chance if he were to face down the Raider's investigators.

"Don't get so worried first. If, as you say, the universe's oath of alliance has sufficient restrictions to prevent ultimate-rank Lords from coming here, then I have ways to deal with things."

"What ways? Are you going to get the Club's upper-rank Lords to help?" Yang Ling persisted

Seeing that Lin Huang did not reply, he continued.

"I kept rejecting the Club's invitation back in the day because I knew there were spies in their midst. Furthermore, there are a considerable number of them.

"Don't put too much trust in any assistance from the Club. If you really do ask them to help, we have no way at all of confirming whether the assistants we get are Raider spies or not."

"I have another plan that has nothing to do with the Club." Lin Huang was very much aware that Yang Ling had a great deal of psychological trauma regarding the Raiders. Even though Spy was now dead, the crippling fear he felt for the Raiders had not receded by very much.

Seeing that Lin Huang was still unwilling to disclose his plan, Yang Ling did not pursue the matter any further.

After all, with his current ability, he could not participate in lord-level battles at all.

"If I'm absolutely certain my plan won't work, I'll consider your suggestion and leave this great world." Lin Huang patted Yang Ling's shoulder.

After their conversation ended, Lin Huang returned to the Ricky Star again.

He sat down on the sofa in the hotel living room and took out the six storage rings that belonged to Black Mountain and the others. He then checked through each of them.

It did not take him long to make a list of the items he could upload onto Royal's auction platform.

The first thing he noticed in the storage rings were dead bodies.

This was because what he needed most now was the Kingdoms in the bodies of Lords.

However, most of these bodies were carcasses of heavenly god-level monsters. There were only ten or so Lords, and only two of them had not had their God Territories removed.

Lin Huang immediately put away the two Lords' bodies in his storage ring.

Apart from corpses, there were a total of forty-eight Dao Weapons. Of these forty-eight, thirty-seven were low-grade Dao Weapons, and only eleven of them were intermediate-grade Dao Weapons. There was not a single expert-grade Dao Weapon.

Although Lin Huang was slightly disappointed, he had expected this.

Dao Weapons were different from god sequence relics. They were the same in that the higher the grade, the more powerful they were. However, the more Dao tattoos there were, the greater the consumption of Odylic Force to activate the Dao Weapon. With Black Mountain and the rest's ability, since they had only consolidated twenty to thirty Dao seals, intermediate-grade Dao Weapons were fully sufficient for their use and were the most convenient weapons to utilize. Not only would more powerful expert-grade Dao Weapons accelerate Odylic Force consumption significantly, but their power would also not experience a significant boost.

Within the storage rings were also hundreds of bottles of elixirs with different effects. They were exclusively used by lord-level powerhouses.

There were some elixirs that could temporarily boost one's God's soul's strength and some that could increase the ferocity of one's Odylic Force…

There were also some precious mineral stones and medicinal materials. Lin Huang even noticed quite a few elevation materials for his imperial monsters.

Apart from these, the rest were miscellaneous items.

Among these miscellaneous items, Lin Huang even discovered several runes.

These runes had temporary Dao seals sealed within them. When they were activated, one could temporarily utilize the Dao seal's power.

Lin Huang considered for a moment, then uploaded all thirty-seven low-grade Dao Weapons on the auction page. The trading condition he set was, "Only accepting lower-rank Lords' God Territories, including God Territories of Abyssal tribes, the Bug Tribe or any other tribes.

The auction was set for a duration of 24 hours.

Based on what Yang Ling had said, the Raiders would have to expend some time going through the necessary processes required by Royal so they could send their investigators here. However, if the process was swift, it could be completed in one or two days. He could not afford any delays.

After setting up the list on Royal's auction page, Lin Huang did not waste any more time.

He passed through the gate to the virtual realm and entered the virtual realm cabin once more.

This time, his main objective for entering the virtual realm was not to refine the God Territories he had retrieved from the two Lords' bodies earlier.

After sitting down in the middle of the virtual realm cabin with his legs crossed, he took out the Nirvana Trees one by one from the God Territory within him.

This was the loot he had obtained from the Abyss with Virtuoso and the others.

The Nirvana Trees were derived from the death spring. Once they were refined, they would be able to appropriate massive amounts of cultivation resources from the death spring.

Previously, Nine Gloom had used the Nirvana Trees as filters to appropriate the energy of the death spring.

However, that was not Lin Huang's purpose this time in bringing out the Nirvana Trees. Instead, he planned to refine these trees into his clone by using the secret skill he learned from Nine Gloom.

If he were killed, the clone could be used as a death substitute.

This was the little trick he had only just thought of using for exploring Lonely Peak's treasures.

"What is this place?! Wasn't I refining the Nirvana Trees earlier?"

Lin Huang stood naked on a blood-red beach, confusion filling his face as he looked at the golden sea not far away.

He tried to spread his Divine Telekinesis but discovered there was no response at all even though it was peak upper-rank lord-level. It was as if something had completely sealed off his Divine Telekinesis.

It was not just his Divine Telekinesis—even the Divine Power in his body could not be used at all, much less his god rules, god sequence chains, and his Sword seal.

Lin Huang tried to communicate with his Goldfingers like Xiao Hei and the Soul-controlling Tablet within his body, but they displayed no response either.

At this point, Lin Huang was really somewhat panicked.

It was his first time encountering something like this since his transmigration to the gravel world.

It was as if he had completely turned back into an ordinary person.

"What's happening?! Is this an illusion…?"

After taking a moment to calm down, Lin Huang looked around. No matter what had transpired, there had to be some clues in his surroundings. At the very least, he needed to find out where he was.

Not far away on the blood-red beach were massive trees, their branches swaying in the wind.

"Are those… Nirvana Trees?!"

As soon as Lin Huang saw the Nirvana Trees, he vaguely recalled something and immediately turned his head to look at the golden sea.

Only upon looking this time did he realize that it was not a golden sea at all.

It was an enormous river formed by countless particles that were enveloped in golden light. It stretched as far as the eye could see and seemed to have no end. From afar, it looked like a massive sea.

A small number of golden particles were stirred by the surging waves and the strong winds. They drifted toward the Nirvana Trees, and were caught by the trees' branches, turning into nutrients…

Lin Huang had a vague sense that the aura coming from the golden particles was familiar. Only upon a closer look did he discover that the particles were tiny fragments of Origin Energy…

Unlike the Origin Energy spheres in the virtual realm that were still whole, the golden particles here seemed to be crushed fragments of Origin Energy.

Lin Huang harbored a faint suspicion that the reason these Origin Energies were in particle form was most probably from continuously colliding with each other as they swirled along in this powerful current.

"Nirvana Trees… a massive golden river…" Lin Huang stared at the "sea" and muttered quietly, "Is this the death spring?!"

The minute he uttered the words "death spring", the entire world suddenly began quaking.

Countless massive waves seemed to roil and churn in the death spring.

A feeling of helplessness arose in Lin Huang's heart—the sort felt by mankind in the face of nature's power. At the same time, his consciousness blacked out suddenly, and his naked figure gradually faded.

The next second after Lin Huang's figure faded, a golden eye formed in the air above the golden river, staring at the direction where Lin Huang had disappeared.

An ancient divine tone resonated above the death spring.

If one could understand what it said, it would translate to, "What a strange little brat, descending upon my Kingdom in the form of a true spirit. (curious)"

After the divine tone faded, the golden eye looked at the stretch of Nirvana Trees not far away. A few ancient syllables could be heard after it stared at the forest.

This translated to, "Interesting. (happy emotion)"

As soon as the syllables were heard, endless golden waves emitted golden points of light, as if a golden mist had covered the entire forest…

Obviously, Lin Huang did not know what had happened after he left. When he regained consciousness, he realized he had returned to the virtual realm cabin.

"Did that happen because I'm refining the Nirvana Trees? I actually saw the legendary death spring…" In truth, Lin Huang still could not really understand exactly what had happened.

"The death spring's persona is certainly above lord-level. My power was actually sealed in the face of an entity like that; I couldn't even contact my Goldfingers…" Lin Huang still felt a trace of fear when he thought about it.

He sank his consciousness within his body again and very quickly sensed the existence of his Goldfingers.

Divine Power, Divine Telekinesis, Dao seal, god sequence chains, God Rule Powers… all of them were back.

"Xiao Hei, did all of you sense an anomaly earlier?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

Lin Huang was rather surprised at Xiao Hei's response.

"Didn't the rest of you sense it either?" Lin Huang asked the other Goldfingers—the Soul-controlling Tablet, Yin Yin, and the rest.

"We didn't sense anything unusual," the Soul-controlling Tablet and Yin Yin replied, their tones filled with confusion.

The rest of the Goldfingers' simple responses were the same.

"Didn't all of you sense that we were disconnected for a while earlier? Or that you were temporarily sealed off by some force?" Lin Huang pursued.

"Not at all," Xiao Hei responded without hesitation.

"Haven't you been sitting here this whole time refining those Nirvana Trees?" Yin Yin asked Lin Huang.

"In any case, nothing unusual happened at all in my sensory perception," the Soul-controlling Tablet said with absolute certainty.

The rest of the Goldfingers gave the same answer as well.

"So the Goldfingers didn't sense any anomalies when that entity sealed the Goldfingers in my body?!" Lin Huang frowned slightly. The Goldfingers' answers caused him to feel that the death spring was even more terrifying now.

He did not think that he had encountered an illusion earlier. If it were truly an illusion, the Goldfingers would instantly sense an anomaly in his God's soul fluctuations.

Therefore, the only logical explanation was that the death spring used some specific method to block his Goldfingers' senses.

Lin Huang did not dare dwell any further on a matter like this, which kept getting more frightening the more he thought about it.

After calming himself down a little, he set these distracting thoughts aside and checked the refinement state of the Nirvana Trees within him.

The minute he checked, he was immediately somewhat startled.

The Nirvana Trees in his inner world seemed to have been galvanized by some force and had unexpectedly broken through to lord-level. Not only that, their auras were still increasing significantly.

As he watched the Nirvana Trees growing into giant trees comparable in size to stars, their branches swaying like massive living beings gliding in the galaxy, Lin Huang was so stunned his mouth was left hanging open for a long time.

He only came back to his senses after a long while and discovered that the two hundred over Nirvana Trees only slowed down their combat strength elevation speed finally once they had reached upper-rank lord-level. Only when they had achieved peak upper-rank lord-level did they completely halt their combat strength elevation.

Impressively enough, the Nirvana Trees' God's soul strength had now reached the same level as Lin Huang's God's soul.

Lin Huang connected his God's soul to the Nirvana Trees, and a massive volume of information surged into his head like waves… The feeling was exactly the same as when he was refining the Origin Energy from the virtual realm and had obtained its inheritances.

He closed his eyes, rapidly digesting and sorting all of it out.

The volume of information was truly enormous, at least several hundred times more in total than the information he had obtained previously when refining the Apocalypse Dragon Python's memory. However, it was also very disorganized and jumbled up.

It was as if there were countless memory fragments belonging to different people. However, each fragment had a different length. Some were short, some were long, but all of them were complete segments of memory.

It took Lin Huang fully half a day before he finally managed to sort out all the memories.

Unlike the inherited memories he had previously obtained from the virtual realm that had no memory images of the material realm, the memories Lin Huang obtained this time had a massive number of images from the material realm.

He saw countless scenes from various great worlds, as well as the beauty of untold galaxies. Of these memory fragments, the weakest was only true god-level, while the most powerful was peak ultimate-rank lord-level.

He even saw numerous tragic scenes of some ultimate-rank Lords' attempts to break through to the next level…

When his consciousness returned to his body, he silently recorded these inheritances down in detail, whether they were strong or weak.. He felt that these legacies needed to be inherited by a successor.

After sorting out the inheritances, Lin Huang looked through them one by one.

Very quickly, he discovered that within all these inheritances were at least several hundred Sword Dao Inheritances.

Some of them were merely a single sword skill, while some might only be a little bit of cultivation knowledge. Naturally, there were also a small number of complete Sword Dao Inheritance.

Although these Origin memories had been crushed into particles, each inheritance had not lost its information. They were complete; the only difference lay in the quantity of information they harbored.

What surprised and delighted Lin Huang even more was that more than half of these hundreds of Sword Dao Inheritances were lord-level inheritances.

He checked them carefully one by one, from the weakest level to the strongest.

After digesting a mere two hundred or so Sword Dao Inheritances below lord-level, he already felt that they had truly opened his eyes.

Subsequently, Lin Huang did not hesitate at all and began to digest the lord-level inheritances.

Out of three hundred or more lord-level Sword Dao Inheritances, only three of them were fully complete.

Of these three complete inheritances, two were lower-rank lord-level, while the third was upper-rank lord-level.

Most of the remaining inheritances only contained one sword skill.

However, as far as Lin Huang was concerned, that was good enough.

Lord-level sword skills were all activated by a Sword seal. Perhaps non-sword cultivators could only see the utilization of the surface-most sword skills. However, a sword cultivator like Lin Huang could see more than that.

He could easily tell from the other party's sword skills how many Sword Dao sequences their Sword seal had consolidated. It was also not difficult for him to determine the effects of each Sword Dao god sequence chain, as well as how to use them, and how to combine them with other Sword Dao sequences…

In the virtual realm cabin, there was neither day nor night nor any seasons.

Lin Huang studied these Sword Dao Inheritances, heedless of time. He also corroborated everything that he had learned.

After goodness knows how long, an ethereal emptiness abruptly filled his mind.

All of a sudden, his comprehension of Sword Dao seemed to have broken through its initial ceiling to reach new heights.

All the Sword Dao Inheritances and sword skills that he had ever obtained and or learned had now reached a new level of understanding.

Lin Huang paid no attention to what had happened and seized the opportunity to madly absorb the nutrients of all the inheritances.

All the different inheritances and sword skills were automatically stripped out and separated into the most basic Sword Dao elements. They were then rearranged, inferring countless new sword skills and inheritances.

Within his body, the Sword Dao god rules and Sword Dao sequences were now furiously being built up, as if an accelerator had been pushed to speed time up.

It was unclear how much time had passed before he finally came out of cultivation mode.

Only then did he realize that his Sword Dao had achieved a breakthrough.

He had advanced from the initial complete-stage Sword Dao heavenly rule to Heavenly Dao.

Not only that, a brand new Sword seal had been consolidated within him.

Lin Huang was stunned when he saw the Sword seal. He immediately checked his body and discovered to his surprise that he had not elevated to lord-level.

Theoretically, a Sword seal was also a type of Dao seal.

Most sword cultivators would elevate to become Lords right away through the consolidation of a Sword seal.

The peculiar thing was that Lin Huang's combat strength remained at tenth-rank heavenly god-level. No breakthrough had happened in that area.

He was not sure if it was because he did not go through the process of unification, or for some other reason.

However, Lin Huang actually felt relieved.

The truth was, he had not planned on achieving a breakthrough to lord-level at the moment.

The reason was that he knew that he was still very far from reaching the limits of a Heavenly God.

If he broke through to lord-level right away at this point, it would be the equivalent of undermining his potential.

A Dao seal consolidated from nine god sequence chains and a Dao seal consolidated from ninety god sequence chains were utterly different levels of ability and future potential.

Lin Huang could clearly sense he was far from reaching the maximum number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain.

If he wanted to achieve a breakthrough, he had to achieve that limit!

This was the condition he set for himself.

However, Lin Huang was still satisfied with the new Sword seal that had been consolidated.

Not only did this give him a sense of achievement from his Sword Dao breakthrough, but it also gave him a boost in ability.

"An additional Sword seal means that the god sequence chains I can invoke outside my body will be doubled!" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

Due to the limit on the number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain at the moment, right now there were less than forty-one hundred thousand chains. Naturally, in the past, he could also only invoke less than forty-one hundred thousand god sequence chains through his Sword seal.

However, he had two Sword seals now.

This meant that the number of god sequence chains he could use outside of his God Territory had effectively doubled.

This was the boost effect of the Dao seal on the Godly Right.

However, this sort of boost would be restricted by the total number of god sequence chains in the God Territory.

Theoretically, the maximum number of god sequence chains that Lin Huang could use at present with his two Sword seals was eight hundred and nineteen thousand two hundred chains.

However, even with his newly obtained Sword Dao god sequence chains, the number of god sequence chains in his body at the moment was less than eight hundred thousand.

For Lin Huang, this was not a problem at all.

As long as he refined a sufficient number of God Territories, the total number of god sequence chains in his God Territory would definitely exceed the limit of the Dao seal boosts.

The newly consolidated Sword seal's boost effect on the Godly Right had, without a doubt, tremendously strengthened Lin Huang's abilities.

"This is a real surprise." Lin Huang had actually never expected to be able to consolidate a Sword seal.

His main purpose for entering the virtual realm cabin this time was to refine the Nirvana Trees so he could set up a death substitute method for himself. He had never expected to receive consecutive surprises.

After calming himself down, Lin Huang finally began inspecting the connection between his God's soul and the Nirvana Trees.

However, before he had the chance to check on the status of his death substitute setup, he noticed that the two hundred or more Nirvana Trees were still absorbing massive amounts of information resources from the death spring, even though they had stopped elevating in combat strength.

It felt as if someone were forcibly flooding the Nirvana Trees with all this information.

Fortunately, each of the Nirvana Tree's combat strength was at peak upper-rank lord-level now. Their God's souls could sufficiently hold this vast quantity of information resources, so they could still contain it all without anything overflowing into Lin Huang.

When others obtained Nirvana Trees, their main intention was to use the Trees like a water pump to draw the death spring's information resources into their heads.

However, on Lin Huang's end, the two hundred or so Nirvana Trees were more like a giant dam and reservoir, preventing information resources from flooding Lin Huang.

This made Lin Huang suspect that something might be wrong with the way his God's soul connected to the Nirvana Trees.

He had read Nine Gloom's memories previously, and the situation Nine Gloom had encountered was completely different from what Lin Huang was experiencing. Every time Nine Gloom drew an inheritance from the death spring, it would take several years at least. Some inheritances with more information could take up to dozens, even hundreds of years. Throughout this process, spiritual energy had to be channeled to the Nirvana Trees every day to maintain the trees' consumption.

Despite this, the problem was that very often, the information resources the Nirvana Trees drew were not even heavenly god-level, which was not exactly useful to Nine Gloom.

Since Lin Huang knew what Nine Gloom had encountered in the process, he had not considered the Nirvana Trees' ability to draw information resources from the death spring an effective technique. Therefore, he had chosen to use the Nirvana Trees as the object for his death substitute.

However, the situation he was encountering now was completely different from what Nine Gloom had experienced.

This made him take the Nirvana Trees' ability to plunder information resources more seriously.

As far as he was concerned, whether something went wrong with the way his God's soul connected to the Nirvana Trees or not, at the very least, the end result was still positive for the time being.

Since Lin Huang had no idea whether the anomaly in the Nirvana Trees' connection to the death spring would be temporary or permanent, he did not dare let the opportunity slip by just like that. He immediately focused his entire being and received the massive volume of information resources furiously.

He was afraid that if he bypassed this round of benefits and the connection channel returned to the state that Nine Gloom had encountered, that would be a bitter pill to swallow.

However, Lin Huang did not look over all this information in detail this time.

Not only did he not look through it in detail, but he only preserved lord-level information resources. Any information resources below lord-level, he stored in memory crystals.

To prevent redundant information in his mind, he completely sealed all of the information resources lower than lord-level after they had been transferred to the memory crystals.

Days passed in the virtual realm cabin.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Lin Huang had accumulated tens of thousands of lord-level inheritances in his mind. The Nirvana Trees' retrieval of information resources from the death spring still showed no signs of drying up at all. Not only that, the absorption speed did not slow down in the least.

Only now was he basically able to confirm that the unusual connection between the Nirvana Trees within him and the death spring was most probably not a temporary one. Although he had no way of being sure whether it was permanent or not, he felt that it would not stop in the immediate future.

He did indeed feel that the information resources he had retrieved were more than sufficient.

More importantly, the thousands of memory crystals in his storage rings were all full.

Lin Huang put aside the information transfer from the Nirvana Trees for now. He did not bring out the bodies of the two Lords in his storage ring to refine their Kingdoms. Instead, he got up right away and left the virtual realm cabin.

As soon as he returned to the Ricky Star, he contacted Bloody through telepathic voice transmission.

He transferred all of the inheritances to Bloody through telepathic voice transmission, including the lord-level inheritances.

As the load of information was massive, even with telepathic voice transmission, Lin Huang spent a full day and a half to complete transferring all the information resources.

After delegating the task of sorting out the information to Bloody, he returned to the God Territory within him in a flash.

He gave the entire batch of memory crystals to Yang Ling so he could digitize the information and sort it out for storage.

After seeing to the matter of the memory crystals, Lin Huang returned to the Ricky Star again.

Now he finally had the time to take out his Royal Token to check on the auction status of the Dao Weapons.

The final bid for the thirty-seven low-grade Dao Weapons surprised Lin Huang once more.

"One hundred and one lower-rank Lords' Kingdoms?!" Based on his initial expectations, it would be incredible if he could trade the thirty-seven low-grade Dao Weapons with thirty lower-rank Lords' Kingdoms. That would be an astonishing number already.

He had never expected that he would be able to get one hundred and one of them.

He clicked into the trading details to check and soon saw the description of the traded items.

"As expected… All hundred and one of them are Abyssal Lords' Kingdoms…" In reality, Lin Huang had already speculated this might be the case when he saw the unusually high number of items traded. However, he had not expected that all hundred and one Lords' Kingdoms would be Abyssal. None were from other tribes.

Lin Huang had always known that the God Territory Shell Remnants of Abyssal half-step Lords were not valuable, but it had never occurred to him that the Kingdom Shell Remnants of Abyssal Lords were equally worthless as well.

What he did not know was that for many people, cleansing God Territories was an exceptionally troublesome task.

He had within him the Eternity Fire, which could easily devour all of the Abyssal energy in the Abyssal God Territories.

However, for most other people, the cost of cleansing Abyssal God Territories was extremely high.

First of all, only powerhouses who were middle-rank lord-level or above could cleanse a lower-rank Abyssal Lord's Kingdom.

Moreover, an ordinary lower-rank Abyssal Lord's Kingdom would take a middle-rank Lord hundreds of years at least to fully cleanse it. If the Kingdom's size was slightly larger, or if it possessed more living beings, the time required for cleansing would be even longer.

Unless they were in dire straits of poverty, no Lords would waste their time cleansing Abyssal God Territories.

Therefore, such a thing would usually be sold at a cheap price.

Furthermore, Dao Weapons were hard currency in the universe.

Divine Crystals were hardly used for trading between Lords. Bartering was basically the common practice now, and Dao Weapons were practically the equivalent of currency.

Conversely, Abyssal Lords' Kingdom Shell Remnants and Abyssal Lord bodies were items that were harder to sell.

The Lords from Royal were more than willing to trade Abyssal Kingdoms for hard currency like Dao Weapons as long as the price was not too outrageous.

This had made Lin Huang the biggest beneficiary in the exchange.

After transferring all hundred and one Abyssal Lords' Kingdom Shell Remnants from his identity token to his storage rage, Lin Huang returned to the virtual realm cabin again.

The investigators from the Raider would be coming soon; he did not have much time to waste. Therefore, the minute Lin Huang obtained these Kingdom Shell Remnants, he wanted to convert the Kingdom Shell Remnants into abilities as soon as possible after obtaining them.

He picked up the storage ring in the virtual realm cabin and took out the two Lord's bodies. He retrieved their Kingdoms and began to refine them.

At the same time, the Eternity Fire began to cleanse the one hundred and one other Kingdoms.

When the refinement of the two Kingdoms was complete, the Eternity Fire had cleansed all of the Kingdom Shell Remnants.

The vast quantity of Abyssal energy was a rare delicacy for the Eternity Fire. This round of Abyssal energy consumption had advanced it another level; it was even more powerful now.

As for Lin Huang, he did not stop refining the Kingdom Shell Remnants at all.

Days passed. He worked day and night refining Kingdom Shell Remnants without taking even a second or a minute of rest.

As he was refining the thirteenth Kingdom, he finally sensed that the Godly Right within him had now come to satiety.

The number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain had reached its upper limit—one million god sequence chains!

At present, the number of god sequence chains in the God Territory within his body had skyrocketed to one million eight hundred and sixty thousand chains.

Although his Godly Right was now at its upper limit, Lin Huang did not stop refining Kingdom Shell Remnants.

Without hesitation, he chose to continue refining them.

The number of god sequence chains in his God Territory kept increasing, just like previously.

After an indeterminate length of time, he finally managed to fully refine all the remaining eighty-eight Kingdom Shell Remnants.

The number of god sequence chains his Godly Right could contain was still one million but the total number of god sequence chains in his God Territory had increased to seven million one hundred and sixteen thousand chains—an increase of more than several times over.

Lin Huang did not come out of closed-door cultivation even after his ability had increased significantly.

Instead, he sat with his legs crossed and his eyes closed and began inferring god sequence chains again.

One must know that the god sequence chains he currently possessed were borrowed from the God Territory in his body. He had not truly mastered them.

Excluding the Sword Dao heavenly rules that he had comprehended from consolidating the Sword seal earlier, in reality, he had mastered very few god sequence chains.

However, inferring god sequence chains was easier than comprehending god rules himself and then elevating them into god sequence chains. After all, he had used those god sequence chains before and possessed an in-depth understanding of the sequence power within them.

Lin Huang crushed an Epiphany Card and rapidly immersed himself, heart and soul, into inferring god sequence chains…

The god rules in his body swiftly began to consolidate and assemble into god sequence chains… The speed at which the god sequence chains consolidated exceeded what everyone else generally understood about god sequence chains.

Lin Huang completely lost track of time in the virtual realm cabin.

He had no idea whether a hundred years had passed—maybe a thousand years, even ten thousand years… perhaps even longer.

The god sequence chains in his body consolidated one by one from nothingness. Only at the end when they reached one million god sequence chains did Lin Huang finally open his eyes.

The number of god sequence chains had skyrocketed to one million, which was the maximum number his Godly Right could contain.

He instinctively sensed that the number of god sequence chains he could consolidate had reached its limit as well.

He even tried to consolidate the one million and first god sequence chain, but it failed at the very last second of its consolidation. He only gave up trying after three consecutive failures.

"So if I want to elevate my abilities any further, the only thing I can do is consolidate a Dao seal, I suppose…" Lin Huang considered for a moment. He seemed to have reached the true limits of heavenly god-level at present; he could not go any further.

In order to advance his abilities even more, his only option was to consolidate a Dao seal and become a Lord.

'Do I want to consolidate the Dao seal now?' Lin Huang thought about it and felt that he did not really have much reason to continue procrastinating.

However, he soon ran into a problem that troubled him.

'All raptors are Voids. If I consolidate the Dao seal in the material realm, the process should be similar to Buried Heaven's. The biggest difference will probably be the strength of the raptor.

'But what if I consolidate the Dao seal in the virtual realm with my virtual body? Will I attract more raptors?'

Lin Huang was considering whether or not he wanted to seize this opportunity to bait and lure large numbers of Voids over to kill them.

'It doesn't matter even if this virtual body dies anyway. My virtual body has three lives every day…'

Lin Huang hesitated no longer at this point.

He got up right away and stepped out of the virtual realm cabin, returning it to card form.

Although he was not very sure if the virtual realm cabin could be destroyed, he did not wish to experiment and find out.

Watching the still, dead black and white world before him, Lin Huang calmed his state of mind slightly. The aura of his entire being began to rise.

This time, he did not suppress his strength at all.

He released the full power of the god sequence chains one by one.

His body began to detach from the neutron star and its terrifying force of gravity, gradually floating into the starry heavens.

In this boundless black and white universe, he was as tiny as a particle of dust.

However, his aura had shrouded all the stars around him completely.

If there had been other living beings present in the surrounding star zones, even an ordinary person with no cultivation base would have been able to clearly sense the Holy Power of a god spreading through the entire galaxy.

Lin Huang closed his eyes, his body completely relaxed.

On his body, god sequence chains of various colors surged out from within him like endless tentacles. These god sequence chains were no longer invisible to the eyes of ordinary folk—they had materialized into actual chains.

If onlookers were to witness this scene, they would certainly be shocked by the number of god sequence chains surging out of Lin Huang's body at present.

There were a million god sequence chains. This terrifying number was beyond all common logic.

One must know that when Buried Heaven had elevated to become a Lord previously, he possessed only twenty-seven god sequence chains. Furthermore, he was already the top powerhouse among Heavenly Gods in the great world.

Even Great Heaven, who had subdued the great world for an entire era, had only mastered forty-two god sequence chains at the time of his unification.

This was no longer a simple disparity in numbers; it was one of magnitude.

The more god sequence chains a Heavenly God mastered, the more powerful his Dao seal would be after unification.

The reason was that the number of god sequence chains would be equivalent to the number of Dao tattoos.

This was common knowledge among all Heavenly Gods.

Furthermore, the number of Dao tattoos on the Dao seal consolidated during each Lord's first unification would determine the number of Dao tattoos on all subsequent Dao seals.

The Dao seal consolidated during unification would determine a Lord's foundation.

Two Lords who started with a different number of Dao tattoos would have a bigger gap between their respective abilities in the future as they consolidated more and more Dao seals.

Naturally, the greater the number of Dao tattoos, the greater the difficulty in consolidating the Dao seal. It would also take much longer.

Therefore, Lords with fewer Dao tattoos were not entirely at a disadvantage. They would be able to elevate much faster.

However, for Lin Huang, elevation speed was not a problem at all.

His cultivation speed had never been slow. Now that he had the Gate of All Realms, which enabled him to enter and exit the virtual realm whenever he wished, he did not have to worry about the amount of time he spent on cultivation at all.

He had enough resources to do what others could not do.

If this were someone else, even if they had sufficient talent and potential to consolidate millions of god sequence chains at heavenly god-level, they could not afford to expend that amount of time to do so.

Possibly by the time they had consolidated millions of god sequence chains, their opponent would have long since elevated to become a Lord—maybe even a middle-rank or upper-rank Lord.

Moreover, hardly any cultivators of the same level had God Territories as powerful as Lin Huang's, which could contain so many god sequence chains.

Lin Huang's time resources, his constitution, as well as his God's soul, God Territory, and his talent and potential…

No ordinary individual could compare in practically every single one of those aspects.

All these factors combined were what gave him such terrifying abilities.

In the void, after the god sequence chains had extended themselves out of Lin Huang's body, they rapidly began weaving around menacingly, as if each of them had a consciousness of their own.

Not long later, the god sequence chains started to detach from Lin Huang's body one by one, beginning to dance riotously above his head. They even unleashed all sorts of sequence powers and began to fight.

It seemed as if none of them wanted to submit to each other, and all were trying to gain the upper hand.

Lin Huang, however, did not panic at all. He had known about this already from watching Buried Heaven's unification previously. This was the first stage of unification—psychic communication.

Moreover, when he obtained the Lords' inheritances from the death spring earlier, he had looked through some information regarding unification as well. He was now very experienced in how to handle each stage of unification.

During the psychic communication stage, the god sequence chains would gain a measure of intelligence. Therefore, they would battle amongst each other, all vying for supremacy.

This stage was also called the chaotic sequence period and was a very dangerous state.

If one's God's soul were not powerful enough to subdue the god sequence chains, the unification would instantly fail.

It was even possible that one's God's soul might be crushed by the berserk god sequence chains, and the individual would die on the spot.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, solving the issues involved in this stage of the process could not be easier.

As soon as his peak lord-level God's soul was unleashed, myriads of Divine Telekinesis threads shot out, tightly binding the strange creatures that the god sequence chains had become and forcing them to blow up!

The entire process ended in less than three seconds and was extremely violent.

Lin Huang watched as the creature manifestations of the one million god sequence chains blew up one by one to reveal the original forms of the god sequence chains. They retreated back into his body, crestfallen, and Lin Huang nodded, displaying a satisfied grin.

"That's more like it."

The first stage of unification—psychic communication—went by easily, just like that.

Inclusive of the time the god sequence chains took to manifest as creatures, the entire process only lasted less than half a minute.

After the god sequence chains withdrew into the God Territory within Lin Huang's body, they consolidated into lines of Dao tattoos in the heavens above his God Territory.

Once the millions of Dao tattoos were fully consolidated, they began releasing an endless frenzy of Divine Power.

At the same time, Lin Huang's God Territory finally manifested on its own around him. The size of his God Territory was like a boundless universe that had descended into the virtual realm.

Lin Huang himself did not know at present exactly how many star zones it covered.

However, he could clearly sense that many Voids were contained within his God Territory.

Fortunately, he did not sense the existence of anything threatening.

After all, he was in the great world right now, not the universe.

At present, the great world did not even have a publicly visible middle-rank Lord. Fewer still had died and become Voids. Even back in the ancient era, when resources in the great world were ample, not many upper-rank Lords would stay in the great world, so very few of them had died in the great world and become Voids.

This was also the main reason why Lin Huang dared to try unification in the virtual realm.

However, he was by no means certain if the unification would attract powerful entities from the universe.

Lin Huang ignored the Voids contained within his God Territory.

He focused his entire attention back on the process of unification.

This was the second stage of unification—unification.

Simply put, this was the transformation of god sequence chains into Dao tattoos, which would then consolidate into a Dao seal.

This stage was also the one with the highest failure rate in the process of a Heavenly God's unification. Over eighty percent of individuals had their unifications fail at this point.

This was because the process of god sequence chains consolidating into a Dao seal would release terrifying energy, somewhat similar to a nuclear fusion reaction. It was a triple test for the physical body, God's soul, and God Territory of the individual performing the unification.

The energy released from the god sequence chains consolidating into a Dao seal would impact the individual's God Territory first. At the same time, some of the energy would leak out and impact the individual's physical body and God's soul.

The unification would instantly fail if either the individual's God Territory, physical body, or God's soul failed to sustain the impact.

Therefore, for most cultivators in general, this was a very dangerous stage.

However, Lin Huang was different.

Even as early as imperial-level, his God Territory had been different from that of everyone else. Back then, he could already refine and integrate others' God Territories.

As for later on, despite being newly elevated to heavenly god-level, he could integrate many God Territory Shell Remnants of half-step Heavenly Gods. He could even refine the God Territories of lower-rank Lords right away.

For ordinary cultivators, there were limits on the number of God Territories each individual's God Territory could refine and integrate. Not only that, there were severe restrictions on refinement strength. They could not increase their strength limitlessly like Lin Huang could.

Great Heaven, who was powerful enough to subdue an entire era, had mastered forty-two god sequence chains. However, from first-rank heavenly god-level to ninth-rank heavenly god-level, he only dared to refine nine Heavenly Gods' God Territory Shell Remnants.

That was already the limit his God Territory could take.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, did not merely have a powerful God Territory. The strength of his God's soul was peak upper-rank lord-level now. Although his physical body was slightly less powerful, he was still on par with a peak middle-rank Lord.

In the void, the millions of Dao tattoos rapidly consolidated into a golden Dao seal.

The Dao seal was like an intensely burning star suspended above the God Territory, releasing endless energy in all directions.

The piercingly bright golden light spread to practically every corner of the God Territory. Any place it passed through was immediately reduced to scorched earth.

Without hesitation, Lin Huang immediately invoked more god sequence chains from within his God Territory to envelope the Dao seal in layers.

One must know that only a million god sequence chains were required to consolidate this Dao seal. However, there were over seven million god sequence chains in Lin Huang's God Territory. Excluding the one million god sequence chains used to consolidate the Dao seal, there were still over six million of them remaining.

Under Lin Huang's control, these six million and more god sequence chains swiftly enveloped the Dao seal like a giant cocoon.

Although the divine rays released from the Dao seal were powerful, they could not break through a barrier several times more powerful than themselves.

The divine rays released from the giant god sequence chain cocoon were now less than ten percent of what had previously been released.

This level of energy was no longer sufficient to cause any shakeups in Lin Huang's massive, boundless God Territory.

As time passed by, the golden rays released from consolidating the Dao seal soon faded entirely. The one million god sequence chains had fully consolidated into a golden Dao seal.

From beginning to end, Lin Huang's God Territory did not experience even a tremor. The unification stage had passed.

He did not even sense any of the three challenges other Lords faced in the unification stage.

Most of the energy released from consolidating the Dao seal had been absorbed by the giant cocoon formed from the six million and more god sequence chains. It did not shake Lin Huang's God Territory in the slightest, much less bleed through into his God Territory and impact his God's soul and physical body.

The second stage of unification was now complete—in fact, far more smoothly than Lin Huang had anticipated.

In reality, he had been a little worried that his physical body might not be strong enough and had wondered if it would be crushed by the energy impact resulting from consolidating the Dao seal.

However, from the looks of it, this was an entirely extraneous worry.

The second stage of unification had now finished, and the Dao seal had been formed.

The next would be the third and last stage of unification—Dao plundering!

Once the Dao seal had been formally consolidated, it would attract covetous raptors. A raptor would then come to the material realm and attempt to snatch away the Dao seal.

Only through defeating the raptor, protecting the Dao seal, and letting it absorb the raptor's Origin Energy would the Dao seal truly be successfully consolidated.

However, this stage was the most difficult in the entire process of unification.

This was because raptors were attracted by the Dao seal's aura, and their abilities would usually be on par with the individual performing unification.

The problem was that raptors were all lord-level powerhouses. They were far more familiar with using a Dao seal than the individual performing unification.

Furthermore, both raptor and individual would be in different states of mind. The individual would mostly desire to protect the Dao seal—a more passive state of mind. The raptor, however, would be in a predatory state of mind, which was more active.

Raptors would definitely have the upper hand in terms of combat experience and state of mind.

Naturally, the individual performing the unification was not entirely at a disadvantage. At least they had the advantage of home ground, as the battlefield would be within the individual's God Territory.

Despite this, throughout the ages, individuals performing unification would lose to raptors in battle more often than not.

If the second stage of unification was extremely dangerous, then the third stage—Dao plundering—was akin to burning one's bridges.

If one managed this stage successfully, they would be reborn and become a Lord! If they could not navigate this stage, they would fail, and all their efforts would be for naught.

Lin Huang was no stranger to Dao plundering.

Several months back, he had witnessed Buried Heaven's Dao plundering and had fought a raptor more than once after that. Many raptors (Voids) had died at his hands as well.

However, Lin Huang could not help but feel rather anxious at this moment.

This was because, from what he knew, everyone performed unification in the material realm.

He had absolutely no idea what kind of raptors he would attract now that he was performing unification in the virtual realm.

In the virtual realm, Lin Huang's God Territory spread far and wide, enveloping an untold number of star zones.

The shining golden Dao seal hung like a large golden sun above the God Territory. It radiated countless golden beams into the far reaches of the starry heavens, and its overwhelming aura spread in all directions like a wave.

To the Voids' senses, the aura released by a Dao seal in the material realm was like an incomparable delicacy that made them drool.

In the virtual realm, the first to sense Lin Huang's Dao seal aura were the Voids contained within his God Territory.

They were like sharks that had scented blood, rushing in a frenzy to Lin Huang's location.

Since this was happening in his God Territory, he could clearly sense the Voids' movements.

Lin Huang did not panic at all. Instead, he felt rather excited.

The reason was that he clearly sensed over ninety percent of these hundreds of Void auras were lower-rank Lords. The small number of remaining Voids were middle-rank Lords. Not only that, they were only at the level of an ordinary middle-rank Lord.

For Lin Huang, no matter how many there were, they were insufficient to be any kind of threat to him.

Practically the next second after the Dao seal had formed, the first Void appeared in front of Lin Huang.

It was a humanoid monster wielding blades. It was of a burly build, and its body was clad in a full suit of armor. It had a white mask over its face. Each of its six arms wielded a weapon—a saber, a spear, a sword, a polearm, a hook sword, and a shield. Five weapons and one piece of defensive equipment could be considered a fairly comprehensive array.

"A White-faced King Kong…" Lin Huang recognized the monster at first glance.

The White-faced King Kong that had become a Void targeted Lin Huang and took a step forward. Right as it was about to attack, a blood-red gleam flashed through the air, swift as lightning, and instantly pierced right between its brows.

The White-faced King Kong's burly body froze. A second later, its body disintegrated at once and turned into a cloud of mist, seeping into the shining golden Dao seal.

After being infused with this Origin Energy, Lin Huang's Dao seal seemed a little brighter, although this was barely perceptible to the eye.

The White-faced King Kong had only just been killed when the second and third Voids landed at almost the same time.

One was obviously a pure blood dragonkin. Its whole body was covered in golden dragon armor, and its size was so massive it could compare with a star.

The other one was a curly-haired baboon. Although it was much smaller than the dragon beast, it was still as big as a mountain and was tens of thousands of meters tall.

Once the two Voids landed, they targeted each other instead. As if they were rivals, they utterly ignored Lin Huang's existence.

If this had happened under normal circumstances, Lin Huang would have been more than happy to watch them fight. After seeing the two monsters tear each other apart, he would simply gather the spoils.

However, he was in the process of unification right now. The longer things dragged on, the more unforeseen circumstances might happen.

Therefore, he did not wait for the two monsters to fight. He attacked at once, bringing an end to what might have been a very interesting battle.

Two blood-red electric arcs easily took the two Voids' lives.

After the two Voids were killed, they also turned into two cloud-like spheres of Origin Energy which were then absorbed by Lin Huang's Dao seal.

Lin Huang could not help raising his brows as he watched the Dao seal absorbing three Lords' Origin Energies one after the other.

"I'd like to see how much you can take."

As soon as Lin Huang spoke, a third wave of monsters landed. This time it was another two monsters as well…

He attacked and killed them both right away without hesitation, letting his Dao seal continue to absorb their Origin Energies.

Right after that, Voids began arriving continuously one wave after another.

Lin Huang easily killed all of them.

Within less than three minutes, he had killed hundreds of Voids.

His Dao seal was like an infinitely alluring bait, attracting a frenzy of Voids one after the other.

When the Dao seal had absorbed the Origin Energies of one hundred Voids, it was finally satiated and began to retract its aura.

Lin Huang felt slightly relieved only after he saw this.

On a certain level, only now could he be considered to have officially succeeded in unification.

However, within the range of his God Territory, he could still sense that there were Voids rapidly heading for his location.

As the Dao seal retracted its aura, the God Territory spread out around Lin Huang swiftly began to collapse.

This was not because it was damaged but because it was ending its manifestation.

A gleam flashed through Lin Huang's eyes when he saw the Voids that were still heading toward him in a frenzy.

Dozens of blood-red electric arcs shot out from his sleeves at lightning speed, furiously attacking the monsters that were heading his way.

He had initially thought to use the Dao seal as bait to lure many Voids over. Once he had killed them, he would obtain large quantities of Origin Energy.

He had never expected that the Origin Energy of the Voids he killed would basically be completely absorbed by his Dao seal. This resulted in him not gaining any extra benefits at all.

Seeing that his God Territory was collapsing, he did not want to let this hunting opportunity pass. He attacked without hesitation.

At the very least, he managed to kill twenty-eight Voids before his God Territory collapsed completely. He then used Divine Telekinesis threads to collect the twenty-eight Origin Energy spheres.

However, a second before the God Territory that Lin Huang manifested collapsed completely, a black Dimensional Whirlpool suddenly appeared above the Dao seal, swiftly beginning to form.

Lin Huang fixed his eyes on the Dimensional Whirlpool. Before it could even consolidate fully, an extremely terrifying aura was transmitted through from the other side.

Lin Huang's danger instincts began sounding an alarm. Goosebumps ran down his spine, and his back was drenched in cold sweat. It felt as if there were a terrifying being staring at him from the side of the whirlpool. He instinctively sensed that the power of this entity was far beyond anything he could imagine. Before it, he was just an insignificant ant.

'A being that's above lord-level…' The thought suddenly popped into Lin Huang's mind.

It was as if someone had cast an immobilizing spell on him; he could not move his body at all. He could only watch the Dimensional Whirlpool swiftly forming in front of him.

The only thing he could do was to hope that the God Territory he had manifested would collapse even more swiftly. He wanted it to collapse totally before the whirlpool had fully formed so the space anchor points would be erased.

Only if that happened would he have a chance of survival.

Lin Huang felt as if ten million years had passed right at that moment.

However, a golden ray of light suddenly cut through the air from some unknown direction and beamed into Lin Huang's collapsing God Territory. Not only that, it landed with extreme accuracy right on the black Dimensional Whirlpool.

The still-forming Dimensional Whirlpool instantly exploded. At the same time, a furious shriek came from its other side.

The shriek even passed through the Dimensional Whirlpool right away and surged toward Lin Huang's God Territory.

Everywhere it passed was instantly crushed into nothingness.

Its subjugation speed far exceeded the speed of light.

Watching as the sound wave surged toward him, Lin Huang could imagine himself being pulverized into a bloody splatter.

At that moment, a thunderous sound overwhelmed the destructive mystic sound!

"Get lost!"

The mystic sound stopped abruptly…

"What happened?"

Lin Huang stared in a daze at the peaceful black and white sky in front of him. He could not really understand what on earth had just happened.

Just an instant before his God Territory collapsed, there seemed to be a being above lord-level that had sensed his Dao seal and tried to cross over to snatch it away.

Right as this other party was about to get their hands on the Dao seal, another unknown entity had attacked and instantly destroyed the Dimensional Whirlpool.

The being above lord-level had used a mere mystic sound to penetrate through space and had almost killed Lin Huang's virtual body.

The unknown entity had spoken then and obliterated the mystic sound.

After the danger had been resolved, Lin Huang's God Territory collapsed completely soon after, and the unknown entity had not revealed themselves either.

He did not know whether it was because the space anchor points had been erased when his God Territory collapsed so they could not lock onto his coordinates, or because they did not wish to meet him.

Looking at the still, calm sky spread out before him, Lin Huang even had a moment of doubt, wondering whether everything that had just happened was merely a figment of his imagination.

"That voice… Why do I feel like I've heard it before?"

That "Get lost!" was uttered in a clear, cold female voice. Lin Huang had a vague sense that it was somewhat familiar, but he was not able to connect it with any of the girls that he remembered.

'Perhaps I'm over-thinking this.' Lin Huang shook his head with a wry smile. He felt it was not very likely to be a girl he knew.

The reason for this was that his cultivation speed had been very swift all along, far outstripping all of his friends. It was highly unlikely that there would be a girl whose cultivation speed was faster than his, who could cultivate into a being above lord-level within a short few years.

Lin Huang felt that even if it were another traveler with a Goldfinger, it was also highly unlikely that her cultivation speed would outstrip him by so much.

After setting aside these jumbled thoughts, Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis and scanned his surroundings but did not find anything. He had a feeling that the girl who had saved him was probably nowhere nearby. However, he cupped his hands in a respectful fist-palm salute toward the sky and bowed. "Thank you, Senior, for saving me! If there's anything you require from me at all, I'll try my best to fulfill it for you."

Lin Huang purposely waited for a few seconds after saying this. However, he did not receive a response.

He had expected this, but one should show proper respect to one's seniors after all, especially since this individual had intervened and saved his life twice.

After retracting his Divine Telekinesis, Lin Huang checked on the state of things within his body and nodded in satisfaction. Only then did he summon the Gate of All Realms and return to the material realm.

As soon as he returned to the material realm, he began looking over the state of his body in detail.

The first thing he noticed was an inexplicable surge in the number of god sequence chains within his God Territory.

Before, there had only been a total of 7.16 million god sequence chains in his God Territory. However, there were now 14.71 million—more than double the previous amount.

Lin Huang thought back on this carefully and realized that it was a result of his Dao seal devouring a massive amount of Origin Energy in the last step of unification, the Dao plundering.

Furthermore, his successful consolidation of a Dao seal during the unification process seemed to have caused his Godly Right to undergo a transformation as well.

Now Lin Huang could borrow not only the god sequence chains from his God Territory but also the Dao seals that he had refined from those Lords.

An example would be the Dao seals that he had absorbed and refined from the Origin Energy of the Voids he killed this round. There were over eight hundred seals.

Although all of them did not have the same number of Dao tattoos, when added up together, their Dao tattoo power was comparable to the compounding of over one point two million levels of god sequence chains.

Together with the level-3 Dao seal within Lin Huang's body, this Dao tattoo power that could inherently fuel three million god sequence chains was the equivalent of compounding four point two million or more levels of Dao tattoo power.

"It looks like I need to consolidate more Dao seals…" Lin Huang knew that the most direct way to elevate his ability would be to consolidate Dao seals.

The total number of god sequence chains in his body had already come to over fourteen million chains. Furthermore, including the Dao seal power that he could borrow, he could only invoke four point two million god sequence chains, which was less than one-third of the total amount.

To use more Dao tattoo power, it was necessary to consolidate even more Dao seals.

Apart from the changes in his Godly Right authorization and his god sequence chains, the massive volume of Divine Power in Lin Huang's body had transformed entirely into Odyl.

Odyl was considered the high-level form of Divine Power that could perfectly integrate Dao seals and Dao tattoo power.

With this surging spread of Odyl, Lin Huang's physical body and God's soul were strengthened even further.

Currently, the strength of his physical body was now at the level of an upper-rank Lord. His God's soul—initially peak upper-rank lord-level—had achieved a further breakthrough and was now at ultimate-rank lord-level strength.

His overall abilities had undoubtedly received a transformative boost.

However, Lin Huang was not the only one who had gotten stronger. The God Weapons within him had also leveled up, following the elevation of his combat strength.

They had broken through from low-grade Dao Weapons directly to supreme-grade Dao Weapons.

This was, without a doubt, another round of external enhancement.

Lin Huang even felt that his current ability ought to be sufficient for him to go head-to-head in battle with some newly elevated ultimate-rank Lords.

An ultimate-rank Lord would have consolidated thousands of Dao seals at the very least. However, even if one were to use Buried Heaven as a benchmark, a level-1 Dao seal could only invoke the Dao tattoo power of one thousand eight hundred or so god sequence chains. A level-1000 Dao seal could only invoke the Dao tattoo power of less than two million god sequence chains.

At present, Lin Huang only dared to go up against a newly-elevated ultimate-rank Lord. An ultimate-rank Lord with more powerful abilities would have consolidated at least three thousand Dao seals and above. Lin Huang's abilities were not yet sufficient to fight back.

However, Lin Huang was in no hurry. He knew that as the number of Dao seals in his body increased, he would only become more and more powerful.

It was incredibly difficult for the ultimate-rank Lords in the universe to further elevate their abilities.

'At my current level of ability, I should be able to handle the investigators that the Raiders send.' The threat present in Lin Huang's mind abated slightly after he checked his body thoroughly.

According to the information Yang Ling had provided, Royal would not allow ultimate-rank Lords to enter the great world, which was their territory. Therefore, the most powerful investigators that the Raiders could send would only be upper-rank Lords.

For Lin Huang at present, upper-rank Lords no longer posed any kind of threat to him.

However, he did not plan to just wait passively for the investigators to arrive.

Although the investigators were no longer a threat to him, he had no intention of ending his cultivation just yet.

After mulling over the possibility that his coordinates in the virtual realm might have been exposed, for safety purposes, Lin Huang opened the Gate of All Realms and directly teleported himself to an uninhabited planet in the human world.

This place was millions of star zones away from the Ricky Star in the God Territory.

After arriving at this new location, Lin Huang summoned up the virtual realm cabin again.

He took out his storage ring and put it in the cabin.

After that, he opened the Gate of All Realms and stepped into the virtual realm again.

Upon entering the virtual realm, Lin Huang spread his Divine Telekinesis and noticed three lower-rank lord-level Voids within the perimeter of the dozens of star zones nearby.

After using his God Weapon flying daggers to dispose of the Voids without hesitation, Lin Huang was finally able to be at ease and enter the virtual realm cabin. He picked up the storage ring from the floor, then sat down with his legs crossed.

Lin Huang raised his head and looked toward the deep reaches of space in the Kingdom within him. Two giant spheres hovered in the air there, like two massive eggs suspended in the ocean.

These two spheres were the Kingdoms that had been extracted and refined from the two middle-rank Lords—Black Mountain, and Spy—after Lin Huang had killed them.

Although they were sealed at the moment, the size of both spheres was comparable to a star zone.

They existed in a state like this within Lin Huang's Kingdom and had not yet become a part of it, because Lin Huang had been unable to refine them previously.

Although their wills had been erased, the two Kingdoms were currently ownerless. Lin Huang had been unable to refine them, so he had had no choice but to set them aside for the time being.

However, now that he had elevated to become a Lord, he was fully certain that his current self would not encounter any hindrances when refining middle-rank Lords' God Territories.

He immediately set about the matter with barely any hesitation.

All it took was a mere thought, and endless blood-red Divine Fire seemed to appear out of nowhere. It enveloped the two giant eggs instantly and began the refining process.

Days passed in the virtual realm cabin.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the two Kingdoms were finally fully refined. They then became part of Lin Huang's Kingdom.

Including forty-eight Dao seals from Black Mountain and Spy, three hundred thousand god sequence chains, and a massive number of god rules also became part of Lin Huang's Kingdom.

After successfully refining the two Kingdoms in their entirety, Lin Huang lifted his head once more to gaze at the heavens of his Kingdom.

There were still five hundred and forty-one Dao seal stars there, moving around in disorderly fashion.

Apart from the ones he had obtained from killing Babble's group of lower-rank Lords, there were also those that Lin Huang had extracted and refined from the Kingdoms of the lower-rank Lords he had obtained from trading on Royal's auction.

As his Godly Right could not control Dao seals previously, he had not refined these Dao seals. He could only let them drift around in the starry heavens.

Now, however, he could refine them at last.

Lin Huang summoned up a thought, and blood-red fire blazed up again in the Kingdom, enveloping all of the Dao seal stars that were not under any control.

Time did not exist in the virtual realm cabin; Lin Huang did not know exactly how long this round of refining had taken.

Regardless, after the refinement was complete, the number of Dao seals in his possession had exceeded one thousand four hundred in total.

Including the three Dao seals within his body, he could now invoke over five point five million Dao tattoos (previously it had been god sequence chains.)

The Dao tattoos in Lin Huang's Kingdom had also increased exponentially from the initial fourteen point seventy-one million to eighteen million.

After refining all the Dao seals in his Kingdom, Lin Huang looked at his three Dao seals again.

He took a moment to consider whether or not he should continue consolidating more Dao seals.

After all, for every Dao seal he consolidated, the number of Dao tattoo powers that he could invoke would increase by one million.

However, after some thought, he set that aside for now.

He was not sure if he would attract the attention of the previous being above lord-level if he were to consolidate more Dao seals.

If that entity showed up again, he might not be able to count on a second chance of survival.

After all, the lady who had intervened to save him before was also a being above lord-level. Lin Huang did not think that she would be watching over him constantly and protecting him at all times.

Moreover, he now owed her a considerable favor. It would be embarrassing for him to owe her another one.

Lin Huang abandoned the idea of continuing to consolidate more Dao seals and immediately came out of closed-door cultivation.

He put the virtual realm cabin away and stepped back into the material realm.

After glancing at the barren planet where he was, he summoned the Gate of All Realms again and returned to the Ricky Star.

As soon as he returned to his hotel on the Ricky Star, Lin Huang took out his Royal Token and uploaded the eleven intermediate-grade Dao Weapons onto the auction page.

His conditions for the auction were as follows. "Trading in exchange for middle-rank Lords' God Territories that have fifty seals and above. The more Dao seals, the better. No restrictions on the Dao seal type; Abyssal and Bug Tribe seals are fine as well."

This time, Lin Huang set the duration of the auction for ten days.

For one, the trading conditions he had set out were more exacting. If the duration was too short, the Dao Weapons would not go for a good price.

For another, obtaining the God Territories of Lords was not a matter of urgency for him. At his current level of ability, he was more than able to face down any investigators the Raiders would send. There was no need to be in a hurry to refine more God Territories to advance his abilities.

Lin Huang had a lot of free time in the next few days.

He had already used up whatever resources he could currently utilize. If he wanted to elevate his abilities any further, he had to wait for Royal's auction to end.

Fortunately, there were many trading markets on the Ricky Star and within the Coyne Star Zone. Lin Huang just happened to be able to use them to pass the time.

At his current level of ability and experience, there were far fewer items that caught his interest. Therefore, he browsed more and purchased very little.

After strolling around all sorts of marketplaces for a few days, Lin Huang was finally able to gain new awareness about the pricing of various items.

All along previously, he had busied himself with cultivation and had not actually made a note of what resources he did not need.

Apart from that, he had only just discovered that there were grades of marketplaces in the God Territory.

For instance, heavenly god-level powerhouses would usually shop at Precious Treasure Pavilion's Heavenly Treasure Pavilion.

The Heavenly Treasure Pavilion basically did not sell any items below the level of god sequence relics. Not only that, the quality of all their items was assured. However, item prices were much more expensive compared to the black market. It was normal for some rare items to be priced three to five times higher.

Virtual Gods and True Gods, however, usually shopped at the Precious Treasure Market, which was also a Precious Treasure Pavilion site. This market was almost the size of a town. However, it was rented to various stall owners, and the goods were all provided by the various owners themselves.

It was said that Precious Treasure Pavilion had a Secret Treasure Pavilion that only lord-level powerhouses could enter. Rumor was that the collections were all treasures such as Dao Weapons and the like.

However, Lin Huang had only heard about it; he had never been there either.

Although he was a Lord now, he did not want too many people to know about his abilities.

He was quite interested in the Secret Treasure Pavilion, but he did not think that the items would be anything that Royal would not have.

After all, Royal did have beings above lord-level in their midst; they also had countless Lords under their command. A minor organization like Precious Treasure Pavilion could not compare with that.

For the past few days, Lin Huang had strolled around various markets large and small while waiting patiently for the investigators from the Raiders to arrive.

Unlike his previous state of mind when his abilities were insufficient, now he hoped more and more that they would show up earlier.

The sooner they arrived, the sooner he would be able to resolve the issue.

Furthermore, he hoped that they were more powerful and that there would be more of them.

After all, he was severely lacking in lord-level God Territories.

Moreover, the more powerful the investigators were, the more Dao seals and Dao tattoos he could refine.

As for whether he might be subsequently targeted by even more powerful Raiders from the universe, this no longer mattered to Lin Huang.

This was because as long as he showed his face anywhere, it was just a matter of time before he would be targeted by Raiders.

That is, unless he kept his head down for the rest of his life until he was more powerful than everyone in the Raiders.

Lin Huang felt he could not do that.

By nature, he was not someone who wanted to stand out and was willing to keep a low profile in the process of his development. However, if he were truly to encounter certain situations, he would make a stand if he had to. That was his character.

An example would be now, with the Raiders sending investigators over. Lin Huang could actually flee if he wanted to, but he did not wish to run.

Instead, he chose to work hard to become more powerful, then directly confront his enemy.

Lin Huang's wait lasted three days.

At the black market that day, as he was going past a shop that specialized in selling intel, he suddenly saw information on a wanted individual being projected on the shop wall that directly faced the entrance.

"Mission: Manhunt

Target: Lin Huang

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Age: Unknown

Combat Level: Unknown

Target's Information: Joined Death Sickle previously under the identities of Xie Lin and Xiu Mu. His main cultivation path is in sword skills, with a secondary cultivation path in Divine Telekinesis. Carries disguise equipment on his person and could be disguised as anyone of any appearance.

Mission Request: If you see this man, all you have to do is provide his coordinates, and you will get a top-grade god sequence relic or another item of the same value. If any lord-level powerhouses assist in the capture, they will be rewarded with an expert-grade Dao Weapon or another item of the same value."

…

Remarks: This man's abilities are not known, but he is extremely dangerous. It is not recommended that cultivators below lord-level confront this individual."

Apart from this textual information, there were also several holographic projections of his various identities beside it.

Lin Huang could not help raising his brows after he finished reading. 'The group of investigators has finally shown up.'

He immediately went into the store and asked, pointing at the projection, "Can this mission be taken on by just anyone?"

Before he had arrived for his temporary stay on the Ricky Star, he had disguised himself with a new form. He had also gotten Yang Ling to create a new identity for him so he was not worried that he would be recognized.

"That's right. Anybody can take up this mission; there aren't any restrictions," the female staff responded with a professional smile. Clearly, she did not recognize Lin Huang.

"Alright, I'll give it a shot." Lin Huang grinned and scanned the info code at the bottom right corner of the projection. Almost immediately, he received the black market mission that the store had sent.

He made a show of looking around and glanced at some of the other missions.

After listening to almost everyone in the store talking about him, he left the black market unhurriedly.

After returning to the hotel, Lin Huang pulled up the mission information and read it over in detail.

It had to be said that the information the Raiders had on him was quite complete.

Practically all the identities he created since coming to the great world had been exposed. Furthermore, his real identity as Lin Huang and his identity as a human had been revealed as well.

This was not surprising in the least. After all, Spy had done some digging into Lin Huang's identity before; it would have been very difficult to keep that information concealed from him. From the looks of things now, he must have put Lin Huang's information on file at the Raiders' headquarters.

In other words, if Lin Huang used any of these identities—Lin Huang, Xie Lin, Huang Mu (Xiu Mu)—and was discovered by anybody in the black market, they would definitely report him.

After closing the black market mission, Lin Huang checked Death Sickle's forum.

He logged in with Xiu Mu's identity using incognito mode, which would not attract any attention. However, if he used his Blood Sickle member authorization, anyone on the system's backend would be able to see his login status.

He used Xiu Mu's identity because it had Gold Sickle authorization in Death Sickle. This meant he could see more information using that identity.

However, as soon as he logged in, he saw that forum's main page was practically swamped with discussions about him.

There were also all sorts of strange headings.

"Xie Lin, Xiu Mu, can't tell them apart"

"Xiu Mu (Xie Lin)'s true identity exposed"

"Xiu Mu, the human spy who sneaked into the God Territory!"

"A boss is still a boss no matter how many identities he's switched"

"My night with that sleaze Xiu Mu"

…

Lin Huang could not help clicking into a few threads to read the contents. The ones exposing his identity were all wild guesses. There were a few conspiracy theories saying that he was a human spy, but none of them provided a shred of solid evidence—they all insisted on laying the blame for various matters at his door. As for the threads that proclaimed he was a sleaze, Lin Huang did not click into those stories at all. However, he glanced at a few of the posters' accounts. They were all men…

Given the state of the forum, Lin Huang did not even need to think about it to know that everyone from Death Sickle must have seen the manhunt information which listed him as its target.

He clicked into the mission section. As expected, the first mission pinned on top was the mission to hunt him down.

Furthermore, the thread was authorized for public viewing. Even reserve members could see it.

Lin Huang did not think there was anything untoward in Death Sickle posting the mission about the manhunt.

He knew that Death Sickle had had no choice but to do it, under pressure from the Raiders' investigators. It not, they would be destroyed in the investigators' fury.

There would be at least one upper-rank Lord among the investigators; Death Sickle would not be able to contend against this at all.

Death Sickle might have a backer behind the scenes in the universe, but in the great world, it was just a small branch organization without a guardian Lord (Buried Heaven had elevated on his own later on).

If Death Sickle truly did enrage the upper-rank Lord and they were wiped out, at most, the Raiders would compensate their backer in the universe out of courtesy. It was highly unlikely that there would be more serious consequences.

Although he had already faked his death to sever any ties to Death Sickle, the Raiders' investigators most certainly would not allow any possible clues on Death Sickle's end to slip through their hands so easily.

However, Lin Huang did not know how much contact the investigators had had with Death Sickle, or if they had been in touch with Buried Heaven. Given Buried Heaven's character, Lin Huang was rather worried he might bring down trouble upon himself by protecting Lin Huang.

Currently, seeing the mission that Death Sickle had posted actually helped him feel slightly less worried. At the very least, Death Sickle's compromise meant that they had not been wiped out.

After closing Death Sickle's forum, Lin Huang checked out the forums of a few grade-7 organizations by logging in as a guest.

Based on the situation in Death Sickle's forum, any news in the grade-7 organizations should also be accessible to the public.

Just as he expected, the discussions on all the forums of the grade-7 organizations were entirely about him.

Most of the topics were discussions about his identity as a human, while most of the threads had nothing good to say.

Of all the discussions, the ones on God Capital's forum were the worst. It was almost entirely one-sided abuse, using the most derogatory of terms.

After all, God Capital was an organization of pure blood Protoss. They even looked down on those of their own kind who were not of pure blood. Naturally, they looked down on humans even more.

Lin Huang ignored these vituperative threads and looked at the mission section.

The five major grade-7 organizations—the Combat God Temple, God Capital, Precious Treasure Pavilion, Xeno, and Divine Clapnet—had published the mission about the manhunt. Not only that, it was accessible to the general public; even guests could view it.

It was the Combat God Temple and God Capital that puzzled Lin Huang a bit more. One must know that these two grade-7 organizations never accepted external missions. However, not only had they accepted the mission this time, but they had even made the mission public.

Lin Huang then checked on news from the humans' side. It turned out that they were discussing him as well.

The three Saints and seven sects—Daluo Temple, Sanctuary, Leiyin Temple, and the rest— had also posted up the mission about the manhunt. The time of the mission's publication was even several hours earlier than the organizations in the God Territory.

This alone had shown Lin Huang how powerful the Raiders were.

It did not matter if the investigators went door to door requesting the organizations' cooperation, or whatever other reason. All of this was sufficient to prove how afraid of these investigators the organizations in this great world were.

"Just as I expected, force wins the day." Lin Huang smiled and shook his head.

If this had occurred before he had performed unification and become a Lord, he might have panicked a bit upon seeing this news. After all, the situation made one feel as if the entire world were against them.

However, right now, Lin Huang merely found it amusing.

The God Territory, Blood Sickle Shelter, Death Sickle's headquarters.

In the conference room, the expressions of Buried Heaven and the several Blood Sickle members were not very pleasant.

Sitting across from Buried Heaven at the conference table was a red-haired man with a red beard.

He rested both his legs on the table, his upper body practically slouched on the chair. He had a cigarette in his mouth and was blowing a cloud of smoke; his tone of voice sounded rather indifferent.

"I'll give all of you a bit more time to think over whether or not you want to ask Lin Huang to show himself. However, I suggest that you make up your minds soon, as my partners aren't going to ask so nicely."

"Seniors, Lin Huang hasn't made an appearance since he entered a secret Heavenly God territory as Xiu Mu over two years ago. If not for your mentioning him, we'd have thought all along that he had already died," one of the Blood Sickle members said, looking helpless.

The red-haired man blew out a puff of smoke and fixed his gaze on Buried Heaven. "Mr. Buried Heaven, I've heard that personally, you got on fairly well with Lin Huang, and you took good care of him in the past. Hasn't he contacted you since then?"

"No," Buried Heaven responded expressionlessly, "I took good care of him in the past because he had extraordinary talent and incredible potential. I felt he was a worthy young successor and decided to train him up. After he went missing, I tried contacting him, but to no avail, so I just left it at that.

"Anyway, I've been busy with pre-unification preparation work for the past two years. I certainly haven't had time to spare any thoughts for a person who's most probably dead."

Buried Heaven's reply was fully convincing, but the other party clearly did not believe him.

The red-haired man flicked away his cigarette ash and glanced at Buried Heaven. His tone remained casual.

"To be honest, I'm a lazy individual. Whenever I encounter an issue, I always hope to be able to resolve it in the easiest manner. Distinguishing whether a person is lying or not isn't my strong suit. However, some of my partners specialize in this. I hope that what all of you say remains consistent when they show up. Otherwise, the consequences might be extremely serious.

"Alright. I'll end my questions here." The red-haired man glanced at his cigarette, which was already down to its end, and stubbed it into the ashtray. He then lit another cigarette and said rather indistinctly to Buried Heaven and the rest, "You won't mind if we borrow your conference room for a moment, will you?"

"Not at all. Please go ahead, seniors," one of the Blood Sickle members returned immediately.

Just as Buried Heaven and the rest were getting up to leave, they heard the red-haired man's voice again suddenly.

"Oh yes, later on, when our partners arrive, you can just bring them up here straight away, and that will do."

After Buried Heaven and the others departed, the only ones left in the meeting room were the red-haired man and two other men seated on his left and right, who had not said much the entire time.

The man on the left was extremely cadaverous, practically skin and bones like a mummy. "The one called Buried Heaven was clearly lying. Why didn't you detain him directly and force him to contact Lin Huang?"

"If we directly read his memories, perhaps we might find something useful." The one on the right—a tall, lean individual over three meters tall—nodded as well in agreement.

"Do the two of you really think we can do as we please in the great world just because we've applied to Royal for an investigation permit?" The red-haired man glanced casually at the two people on either side of him. "This is Royal's affiliate territory. Everything we do is constantly under Royal's surveillance.

"Furthermore, the top organizations of the universe's affiliated territories are usually under the protection of the organizations in the universe. Judging by how the organizations in this great world are graded, Death Sickle belongs in the top category—they're a grade-7 organization under Royal's protection.

"If we want to move against Death Sickle, we must have a solid reason. Otherwise, Royal will very likely intervene."

The red-haired man took a deep drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke out after he had finished speaking. "It's not worth coming into conflict with Royal over something so insignificant."

"Then what do we do now?" The cadaverous man asked again.

"We wait," the red-haired man responded simply.

…

Buried Heaven and the rest looked grim as they walked out of the meeting room.

Although this time only three individuals from the universe had come to call, all three were Lords.

Buried Heaven was unable to discern the red-haired leader's combat strength at all. However, he could clearly sense that the two who hardly spoke were middle-rank Lords.

He was vaguely conscious of the deadly threat emanating from these two myrmidons.

As for the red-haired man, Buried Heaven could only hazard a guess that he was an upper-rank Lord.

The crux of the matter was that more than three of them had arrived in the great world.

Given that the veteran grade-7 organizations like the Combat God Temple and God Capital had posted the orders for Lin Huang's capture under coercion from the red-haired man's partners, Death Sickle had no choice but to post the mission regarding Lin Huang as well.

The red-haired man had made it very clear. If they did not cut ties with Lin Huang now, he could regard Death Sickle as accessories in the death of his Raider partners.

If they could not find Lin Huang, they would have no choice but to take revenge by killing all of his Death Sickle teammates.

No matter how close Buried Heaven was to Lin Huang, he could not sacrifice all of Death Sickle's members just to protect him.

Besides, it was merely posting a manhunt mission. They were not being asked to move against Lin Huang.

It was an expedient compromise.

Buried Heaven believed that Lin Huang would understand their situation if he saw the mission that they had posted.

"What do we do now?" Blood Sickle Gao Ming asked Buried Heaven via voice transmission, his brow furrowed tightly.

Buried Heaven fell silent upon hearing the question.

He did not know what he could do at the moment either. Right now, the only thing he could do was to try his best to keep Lin Huang's hiding place a secret.

He had no idea that Lin Huang's previous hiding place—the Devil Hunter Star Zone—had already been reduced to ruins.

"I think that red-haired fellow isn't lying. His partners are likely to be even more dangerous. As soon as they show up at our headquarters, we might run into even bigger problems," Boundless Blood voiced his concerns from where he was standing when he saw Buried Heaven remaining silent.

"So what you're saying is that we should betray Lin Huang for Death Sickle's sake?" Buried Heaven shot a dismissive glance at Boundless Blood.

All along, he had harbored a deep respect for this senior who had participated in the founding of Death Sickle. However, right now, Buried Heaven felt that Boundless Blood was being selfish.

"Buried Heaven, Senior Boundless Blood definitely doesn't mean that." Beside them, the Nine-tailed Fox Hu Xian'er hurriedly smoothed things over. "I think we should at least discuss a plan on how to respond."

"It doesn't matter what we plan; once we make our move, our odds of winning are zero." Buried Heaven shook his head helplessly.

As a Lord, he was the most capable of intuitively sensing the gap in abilities between himself and the three Raiders.

"What if we collaborate with the Combat God Temple and the other organizations? Wouldn't that work?" Hu Xian'er followed up with another question.

"Why do you think the Combat God Temple and God Capital made an exception and posted a reward for capturing Lin Huang? Why do you suppose they made the mission public as well? They haven't made their missions public for a few eras now," Buried Heaven asked in return.

"Because… they've been threatened by these outsiders from the universe?" Hu Xian'er answered rather uncertainly.

"Let me put it this way. That red-haired fellow in the meeting room could easily destroy all the grade-7 organizations in the entire God Territory on his own." What Buried Heaven said stunned the several Blood Sickle members. For a while, they had no idea what to say.

Right as the atmosphere turned chilly, almost to freezing point, Buried Heaven's communication ring suddenly began vibrating…

By the time Lin Huang finished perusing one round of information on the internet, the sky was beginning to darken on the Ricky Star.

He thought for a moment, then called Buried Heaven.

When Lin Huang heard the ring tone being cut off before it had even rung halfway, he smiled.

This was because it meant Buried Heaven was still alive.

If the communicator sensed the host's death, it would be locked and shut down within less than a minute. If one called, they would get a message saying, "The number you have dialed cannot be reached".

"He ended the call in such a hurry…" Lin Huang raised his eyebrows. "That means the investigators are still at Death Sickle."

Now that he had ascertained this, Lin Huang composed a message and sent it off.

"If investigators arrive at Death Sickle, just give an honest answer to whatever questions they ask. There's no need to cover up for me. If they want my contact, just give it to them right away. All of you can't handle these people from the Raiders. Don't put up any resistance; let me deal with them…"

…

Buried Heaven merely glanced at the communication page and ended the call immediately.

Beside him, Boundless Blood and the others glimpsed the name of the caller—Xiu Mu!

The atmosphere became even weightier now.

At that moment, a voice suddenly came from in front of them. "Why didn't you answer the call?"

It was not clear when the red-haired man had shown up in front of them. Smiling, he barred Buried Heaven and the others' way.

Almost at the same time, two figures appeared behind the Blood Sickle members. They were the subordinates who had not spoken at all in the conference room earlier.

Buried Heaven and the few Blood Sickle members looked extremely grim.

However, at that moment, Buried Heaven's ring vibrated again.

The vibration was slightly gentler this time and only sounded once. It was clearly a message notification.

The red-haired man smiled at Buried Heaven. "Take a look and see. Maybe it's Lin Huang?"

Buried Heaven kept his head down and did nothing.

He knew that he would die if he were to attack. He would not be able to escape either, even if he tried.

"Please open your communication page." The red-haired man smiled as he looked at Buried Heaven, his tone still mild. "This isn't a suggestion, by the way."

Buried Heaven knew that he would die if he did not obey the order!

He raised his hand rather stiffly and tapped open the communication page.

A new message notification popped up instantly.

The sender was Xiu Mu!

The entire corridor instantly went silent.

The Blood Sickle members' faces turned ashen when they saw the sender's name.

Even Buried Heaven had some difficulty swallowing.

His mind was rapidly churning as he tried to find a counter-strategy, but nothing occurred to him.

"Ooh, what a coincidence! Isn't this the friend we're looking for?" The red-haired man smiled and walked over to Buried Heaven, then put an arm around his shoulders. "Why are you hesitating? Open it and see what he says. We can read it together."

Feeling the weight on his shoulders, Buried Heaven tapped opened the message helplessly.

The moment the message popped up, everyone focused their eyes on it.

There were only a few short lines in the message. Practically everyone finished reading it almost at once.

After reading the message, Buried Heaven's mind was a tangle of confusion. Since matters had come to this point, he no longer knew what he should do afterward.

The red-haired man next to him patted his shoulder with a smile. "This young fellow is certainly very loyal and self-sacrificing to suggest on his own that you should give him up.

"I think it's not a bad suggestion at all. What about the rest of you?" The red-haired man tilted his head and stared at Buried Heaven.

Buried Heaven kept his head down expressionlessly and did not answer.

Clearly, despite matters coming to this, he was still unwilling to betray Lin Huang.

Observing that Buried Heaven said nothing, the red-haired man kept on smiling.

"Mr. Buried Heaven, Xiu Mu already sent you a message. Isn't it rather rude not to reply?"

He paused, then shook his head. "You should call him back right away. I think a video call would be even more polite."

Buried Heaven remained motionless.

He used silence to indicate his defiance.

However, he suddenly felt as if his body had lost control of itself.

His right hand lifted on its own. Not only that, his finger extended and pressed the sender's name above the message on the communicator display. He then pressed the video call request in a practiced manner…

"You…" Buried Heaven stared at the red-haired man beside him, appalled.

"Since you're unwilling to betray your friend, I had no choice but to give you a little help." The red-haired man's tone remained mild.

…

'Eh? He's calling back? Has he found a safe place to talk then?'

Seeing the sudden video call request from Buried Heaven on his communicator, Lin Huang did not give it another thought and accepted the call.

After that, he saw Buried Heaven and another person's projections appearing simultaneously in front of him.

A red-haired man had his arm around Buried Heaven's shoulders in what seemed to be a very friendly manner.

However, Lin Huang caught the stiff expression on Buried Heaven's face at first glance and instantly guessed the red-haired man's identity.

"If I'm not mistaken, you ought to be one of the Raiders' investigators?"

"Amazing, Mr. Lin! It seems you've guessed my identity with just one look." The red-haired man gave a thumbs-up sign. "You're certainly worthy of being the man who destroyed our branch."

"Let's talk, shall we," Lin Huang returned calmly with a smile.

The red-haired man had obviously not expected Lin Huang to be so calm. However, he nodded immediately. "Very well then, let's talk."

"How many of you came this time? Can you tell me?" Lin Huang asked, still smiling. His tone sounded as if he were catching up with a friend.

"Are you scouting out the enemy's position?" The red-haired man asked with a smile.

"I just want to make sure beforehand so I can prevent any fish slipping through the net when the time comes."

Lin Huang's reply stunned the red-haired man for a moment. Clearly, he had not anticipated such a reply. He then laughed. "I never thought that you would be such a fascinating person. Since you're so interested, I can answer your question.

"Nine of us have come this time. Of these nine, three are upper-rank Lords, and six are middle-rank Lords."

The red-haired man stared at Lin Huang as he was talking, as if he wanted to see the shock on Lin Huang's face. Unfortunately, from beginning to end, Lin Huang did not display any trace of being disconcerted in the least.

"That's more or less what I anticipated." Lin Huang nodded, smiling.

However, Buried Heaven found it hard to stay calm. He had earlier guessed that the red-haired man was an upper-rank Lord, but he had not expected that there would be two more upper-rank Lords on the way.

The Blood Sickle members behind Buried Heaven all displayed shocked expressions. They knew that the red-haired man and the rest were powerful, but they had not expected that there would be upper-rank Lords coming.

"You asked me a question, so now I can ask you a question? It's only fair this way," the red-haired man smiled and asked Lin Huang.

"Sure, ask away." Lin Huang nodded with a smile.

"I want to ask…" The red-haired man continued after a moment, "Where are you right now?"

Buried Heaven's pupils contracted slightly as soon as this question was asked.

The rest stared fixedly at Lin Huang's video projection as well.

Upon hearing the red-haired man's question, Lin Huang smiled. "What, you're so anxious to meet me?"

"That's right." The red-haired man was smiling too. "If we don't meet you, we'd even lose our appetites."

"It's not that I can't tell you where I am." Lin Huang glanced over the three investigators. "But only three of you are here; it's no fun with so few of you. I prefer more people to liven things up. We'll talk about it when the rest of you arrive."

"You're not afraid to disclose your location, are you?" The red-haired man said with a smile, trying to provoke Lin Huang.

"I'm just worried that after I kill off the three of you, the other six won't dare to come here. Since nine of you arrived, I ought to send all nine off together. I can't leave a single one of you out."

Buried Heaven and the rest of the Blood Sickle members felt their hearts quake when they heard what Lin Huang said.

They had not expected Lin Huang to be this unyielding when confronted by an upper-rank Lord. What made them speechless was that they felt Lin Huang's tough attitude did not seem to be an act at all. He genuinely appeared to be that confident.

The red-haired man was furious, but he smiled instead. "You're the one who said it. I'd like to see if you'll still dare to share your coordinates once all of us have shown up!"

"Don't worry, I'm a man of my word," Lin Huang did not forget to issue a reminder, "Don't forget to send me a video call request as soon as everyone on your side has arrived."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Huang immediately ended the call. The video projection of him instantly faded.

The red-haired man stared at the spot where the video projection had faded and growled in irritation, "This fellow…"

It had been years since he last lost a verbal fight to anyone. However, in his conversation with Lin Huang this time, he had not managed to get the upper hand at all. Lin Huang had even ended the call before he had, which also made him feel extremely out of sorts.

"Might there be an ambush?" The cadaverous man asked.

"Would an ambush even work? Judging by the entry restrictions Royal has set, this great world has no upper-rank Lords at all. Besides, we have three upper-rank Lords on our side. What's more, Master Nine Snake is a peak upper-rank Lord. Even if this fellow could get help from hundreds of middle-rank Lords, he won't be able to turn the tables." The tall, thin man had full confidence in the team's abilities. "He was just pretending to be calm earlier in the video call. When all of us have arrived later on, I'm sure he won't accept the video call request."

The red-haired man said nothing. However, he clearly felt that Lin Huang was merely putting on an act in the video call earlier. The reason for this was that he could not figure out what sort of methods Lin Huang might be able to use to extricate himself from this situation.

The investigators were not bothered by the fact that Buried Heaven and the rest were right there during their discussion. It seemed that as far as the investigators were concerned, there was no need to conceal anything.

The several Blood Sickle members kept their heads low and pretended not to hear anything. In their hearts, they were silently hoping that this band of murderers would leave Death Sickle as soon as possible.

Buried Heaven, on the other hand, looked depressed. He put himself in Lin Huang's shoes right now and tried to think of a counter-strategy. However, he could not come up with any way at all to turn things around.

This was a hopeless situation!

He could not help feeling sad for Lin Huang.

"Send word to Nine Snake and the others, and have them come here as soon as they're done with their missions," the red-haired man ordered his two subordinates.

He then patted Buried Heaven's shoulder. "Good job, all of you."

After that, he headed straight for the conference room where they had been earlier.

The cadaverous man and the tall, thin man immediately followed suit.

…

Lin Huang could not help giving a faint smirk after ending the call.

'I was originally wondering how to contact all those investigators. I never thought that they would show up at my doorstep on their own.'

Initially, he had only wanted to ascertain the situation with Buried Heaven and Death Sickle. If the opportunity presented itself, he would ask about the investigators' movements.

He had not expected that there would be investigators standing guard at Death Sickle. What was more, they had used Buried Heaven to contact him.

Not only that, the entire exchange could be considered fairly pleasant.

'So in that case, after this, where should I set my battlefield?" Lin Huang tapped open the star map and began choosing suitable battlegrounds.

…

In the evening, a man with snake eyes showed up in the conference room of Death Sickle's headquarters.

As soon as he arrived, the six remaining people in the conference room immediately came to their feet.

"Master Nine Snake."

The snake-eyed man nodded slightly, then turned his gaze to the red-haired man. "Scarlet Fox, why don't you tell me the specifics of the conversation all of you had with Lin Huang."

The snake-eyed man's codename was Nine Snake. His position in the Raiders was higher than the other two upper-rank Lords. This was because he was a direct subordinate of the ultimate-rank Lord, Lonely Peak. He had even been called Lonely Peak's right-hand man.

As for Lonely Peak, he was only half a step away from surpassing lord-level. Among the Raiders, he was one of several Lords with the most potential.

He had already received the message that Scarlet Fox and the others had sent, so he had a rough idea of what had transpired during the video call with Lin Huang.

The red-haired man—Scarlet Fox—nodded and began to recount the conversation he had had with Lin Huang. He did not leave out even the slightest detail.

Scarlet Fox had been dispatched here by Rose. To be exact, he could not be considered Rose's underling; in fact, he was her lover.

Of course, Rose was not his only girlfriend; he had hundreds of other girlfriends and boyfriends.

His tribe was rather unique—they could change their genders whenever necessary.

Nine Snake narrowed his eyes slightly after listening to Scarlet Fox's account of what happened. He directed an inquiry at Scarlet Fox only after falling silent for a moment.

"Do you think he's pretending to be calm, or is he genuinely calm?"

"He didn't look as if he were pretending to be calm, but I think his acting skills are excellent. I couldn't see any flaws, no matter what," Scarlet Fox admitted truthfully after thinking things over for a moment. "However, I did consider things for a good long while. If I were in his place right now, I wouldn't be able to find a way out at all."

Nine Snake turned his gaze to the cadaverous man and the tall man. "What do both of you think?"

"I think he's just putting on a show," the cadaverous man said expressionlessly.

"As far as I'm concerned, he was clearly pretending to be calm," the tall man was even more certain of his answer.

Nine Snake gave a slight nod and did not dwell any further on the matter. He turned his head and looked at the only metal robot present.

This was a bright silver humanoid being. In appearance, he looked like a human formed from metal. His skin, as well as the clothes and shoes on his body, was bright silver like metal.

"Silver, will you be able to pin down his coordinates when we call his number later?"

"Only if the call is answered." Silver's voice sounded like it had been electronically synthesized.

He was a mechanoid. Although he was not from the same Electronic Tribe as Spy, he had taken the initiative to apply for the mission. His purpose for doing so was naturally to obtain Spy's Goldfinger.

As an upper-rank Lord, he was also one of the three investigation team leaders.

"After the call is picked up, how long do you need?" Nine Snake followed up with another question.

"Given the size of this great world, I can lock down his coordinates in five seconds at most. The closer he is, the less time I'll need," Silver answered with complete certainty.

"What if he doesn't pick up?" Nine Snake asked.

"Then there's no way we can locate him," Silver said very frankly.

Nine Snake's expression immediately darkened. "Find a way even if there's none!"

The meeting room instantly went silent.

"Alright, get Buried Heaven in here, and let's give Lin Huang a video call!"

"I'll pick this one."

Lin Huang spent over half an hour before finally deciding on a battleground that he felt was suitable. He immediately felt much happier.

After that, he stepped through the Gate of All Realms.

It was almost an hour or so later before his communicator finally vibrated again.

Lin Huang clicked into the communication page and saw that it was Buried Heaven who had sent the video call request.

The corners of his mouth quirked up slightly, and he clicked on the answer button.

As soon as the video call connected, the red-haired man and the others immediately appeared in the projected image.

.

The few of them sat around a long table, but Lin Huang did not see Buried Heaven. He was most likely on the other side of the table.

"Good evening, Mr. Lin Huang," red-haired Scarlet Fox greeted with a smile.

In truth, he was rather confused right now, just like everyone else present. They had thought that Lin Huang most likely would not answer the call. They certainly had not expected him to pick up before the first ring.

As Nine Snake watched the projection of a clearly relaxed Lin Huang, his own expression was obviously rather stiff.

Now that he was seeing Lin Huang for himself, he, too, felt that the other's ease of manner was not faked.

"It's noon over here," Lin Huang responded with a smile, then asked, "Is everyone there?"

"Of course. All nine of us are here." As he nodded, Scarlet Fox shifted the camera angle slightly to include all nine people in the conference room in the shot.

"You can make good on your promise now, can't you?" Scarlet Fox asked with a smile. However, up until now, he still did not think that Lin Huang would truthfully disclose his coordinates.

Silver had begun trying to locate Lin Huang as soon as the video call connected.

"Of course. But before that, I need all of you to promise me something." Lin Huang swept a glance over the nine people in the shot.

Scarlet Fox glanced at Nine Snake when he heard that.

"Go ahead," Nine Snake said expressionlessly.

"I hope that all nine of you will come together without leaving anyone behind." Lin Huang stared at Nine Snake, smiling. "Can you do that?"

Nine Snake stared back at Lin Huang and fell silent for a moment before responding, "Very well."

"In that case, I'll tell you my coordinates now. Please make careful note of it since I'll only say it once," Lin Huang emphasized, smiling. "The Ten Thousand Bug Maze in the Queen Mother Star Zone…"

"Are you messing with us?" Nine Snake's eyes were cold.

Way before coming here, they had gathered information on this great world, including information from star maps. They had noted down some key landmark regions as well.

The Queen Mother Star Zone was the core star zone of the Bug Tribe's territory. What was known as the Ten Thousand Bug Maze was actually the Bug Tribe mother hive in this great world. Practically all the Queen Mothers lived there.

By giving this location, Lin Huang clearly intended to make use of the Bug Tribe's advantage in numbers to deal with his opponents.

Nine Snake was not the only one who thought this; almost all of the investigators at the scene did so as well.

However, right at this point, Lin Huang switched the camera angle to the other side.

Very soon, Nine Snake and the rest saw that Lin Huang was really in a hive.

"I'm definitely not kidding." Lin Huang switched the camera angle back, smiling as he looked at Nine Snake and the rest.

"Do you think that will stop us ?" Nine Snake remained expressionless.

"I just thought it would be more fun if I chose this place," Lin Huang answered with a smile.

"I'll be here for one hour waiting for you. If you don't make it here within that hour, I'm very sorry, but we'll have to meet again next time. I'm the sort of person who doesn't really like meeting tardy dates.

"The countdown starts…" Lin Huang extended his hand and tapped open the timer. He raised his brows at Nine Snake and the rest and pressed the timer button without hesitation. "Now!"

The minute he finished speaking, the video projection in Death Sickle's conference room instantly vanished.

Only Nine Snake and the others were left, staring at each other.

"What a nasty character."

Scarlet Fox could not help growling in disgust.

Nine Snake looked at Silver right away. "Have you locked down his coordinates?"

Silver projected the star map at once. A set of red coordinates was blinking on it. The location was right in the Bug Tribe's territory in the Queen Mother Star Zone.

"So he's really in the Queen Mother Star Zone!" Scarlet Fox's eyes widened, and he immediately pulled himself together. "This fellow definitely intends to take advantage of the Bug Tribe's numbers to drain our Odyl."

Nine Snake looked grim. He turned his head and looked at Buried Heaven. "Get out."

Buried Heaven stood up and left without hesitation after hearing this.

Although this was Death Sickle's territory, he felt no sense of security in this conference room.

He was also aware that the affairs of these investigators were not things that he could listen in on. As soon as he heard anything that he should not be privy to, there would only be one end for him—death!

Nine Snake only spoke after he saw Buried Heaven leaving and closing the conference room door.

"I don't think this affair is as simple as it seems…"

As soon as he said this, everyone in the conference room looked at him.

"He didn't seem like he was pretending to be at ease. I think there are two possibilities.

"The first is that he doesn't fear death. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many of us are here or how powerful we are—it doesn't bother him at all.

"The other possibility is that he genuinely has a trump card to go up against us. What's more, he's very confident that he can kill all of us with it. That's why he requested that all nine of us show up there, without leaving anyone behind.

"He might be trying to confuse us by choosing the hive for a showdown so he can conceal his true objective.

"Of course, there's another possibility, which is that he needs the help of the Bug Tribe to unleash the trump card's effects."

"Should we change the meeting point, then?" Scarlet Fox asked immediately, "Or else we can just wait for an hour and let him suggest a change of location."

"He's not going to let the advantage fall into our hands, so he most certainly won't agree to our meeting point suggestions." Nine Snake shook his head, "As for waiting for an hour—if we really do that, I suspect he'll use even more vicious methods to take revenge. It's highly likely he might instantly go incommunicado rather than picking another location like we want.

"Our position would be even more passive then. After all, as investigators, our time in this great world is limited."

"So, what do we do now?" Scarlet Fox asked again.

"We get to the coordinates he's given as soon as possible." Nine Snake's murderous intent flared up instantly. "After that, we join forces to consolidate a battle formation and kill him at once! We won't give him a chance to attack at all!"

Clearly, he had come up with a strategy. No matter what Lin Huang had up his sleeve, things would be fine as long as they disposed of him fast enough—before he had sufficient time to initiate whatever he had in store.

After all, Lin Huang was someone who was not even lord-level yet. Even if he possessed methods that could kill upper-rank Lords, it was highly unlikely that he would be able to pull them off instantly. He probably needed a certain amount of time to prepare.

Nine Snake and the rest did not have any inkling at all that Lin Huang had already elevated to become a Lord.

"Are all of us really going to go?" Scarlet Fox frowned slightly.

He felt that if Lin Huang truly did possess methods of killing them instantly, they would be going straight to their deaths if all of them went.

"The more people, the more powerful the battle formation," Nine Snake gave his opinion, "The power of a battle formation created by all nine of us is comparable to that of an ultimate-rank Lord. Even if he does manage to initiate whatever special methods he has, we should be able to handle him."

Scarlet Fox did not raise any further objections after hearing that.

"Silver, plan the route. We'll get there as fast as possible!"

After ending the call, Lin Huang's figure gradually transformed into a Mantis King.

His level of disguise was already no longer mere simple camouflage but a transformation resulting from a card contract.

This sort of transformation allowed him to take on the appearances of all of the Monster Cards he owned. Furthermore, he would also be able to fully inherit all of the relevant Monster Card skills.

The Mantis King that he had currently transformed into was one of his Monster Cards.

As long as he did not remove the disguise, he could maintain it indefinitely, and no one would be able to see through the ruse.

At the very least, lord-level beings would certainly not be able to see through his disguise.

Hiding in the biggest Bug Tribe mother hive in this great world as a Bug King was practically equivalent to being in the safest place in the entire great world.

However, Lin Huang was not concealing himself here for safety.

He knew very well that in this mother hive, be it Queen Mothers or Bug Queens, even their most powerful abilities would not exceed middle-rank lord-level.

It was only a matter of time before Nine Snake and the other two upper-rank Lords would annihilate this hive once they had joined forces. At most, it would only drain a small fraction of their Odyl.

However, as far as Lin Huang was concerned, this was not his goal. It was merely a small supplemental benefit.

Initially, when he had begun choosing battlefields, he had been considering barren regions.

This would allow him to avoid casualties.

In the great world, there were actually quite a few regions that met this condition.

After looking at several of these places, Lin Huang suddenly discovered a region that was in the core zone of the Bug Tribe. It surrounded the Ten Thousand Bug Maze in the Bug Tribe mother hive.

This was an empty zone constructed by the Bug Tribe specifically to protect the mother hive of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze and had been specially cleared out for this purpose.

However, any living beings that dared to enter this empty zone would be surrounded by the Bug Tribe army immediately.

Lin Huang's discovery of this empty zone was what had led him to transfer his sights to the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

He suddenly felt that his previous way of thinking had been wrong.

The Ten Thousand Bug Maze was clearly a better battlefield.

The Bug Tribe had wreaked havoc in the great world for countless eras. They now occupied a small, distant plot of land and had become one of the most powerful Tribes.

Furthermore, given the Bug Tribe's reproductive ability, this entire great world might have become their empire if not for the fact that various parties had joined forces in eras past to limit the Bug Tribe's numbers through occasional wars.

The Ten Thousand Bug Maze was the largest Bug Tribe hive in the great world.

Throughout the eras, the hive had continued expanding. Currently, it already encompassed more than twenty star zones.

Over 50% of the Bug Tribe in the great world lived in this giant hive. What was more, there were at least ten Bug Tribe Lords guarding it.

Lin Huang had intentionally chosen this place as his battlefield primarily to draw upon the group of Raiders' powers to destroy this hive, thus removing a grave threat to humans in the great world.

Secondly, he could attack without holding back in here and not worry about harming innocents.

Thirdly, killing mass numbers of Bug Tribe monsters would mean he would definitely be able to obtain many complete bug beast Monster Cards and card fragments. He could use these to expand the numbers of his Bug Tribe army.

Fourthly, all of the Bug Tribe Lords that died here would enter the virtual realm. Lin Huang would subsequently be able to harvest another round of benefits there.

This could be considered killing four birds with one stone.

Compared to other barren regions, this was undoubtedly the better battlefield.

Lin Huang, in his Mantis King disguise, hid himself in a bug cave and patiently waited for the Raiders to arrive.

An hour practically flew past just like that.

Just as Lin Huang was about to start his countdown, Nine Snake appeared above the giant hive of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze with the eight investigators.

As they were too quick, the Bug Tribe could not stop them in time.

However, since enemies had appeared right before their eyes, the Bug Tribe responded immediately without hesitation. A massive horde of bugs swarmed furiously at the nine invaders.

Naturally, Nine Snake and the others did not take the bug horde seriously. Only one middle-rank Lord attacked.

It was a white-robed "Priest".

He struck at the air with an open palm.

In an instant, frightening white rays of light like those of an exploding star lit up the entire Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

The swarming bug horde rapidly melted like accumulated snow under a bright sun. Within three seconds, the tens of billions of bugs in the first bug horde wave were completely annihilated.

This was suppression resulting from an absolute gap in abilities.

Naturally, Lin Huang was able to observe everything happening in the outside world using Divine Telekinesis. Even he could not stop nodding as he watched this subduing of the bug horde.

However, the second bug horde wave arrived merely a moment later.

A massive number of bug beasts surged in a frenzy from various hive exits. Almost in the time it took to breathe, hundreds of billions of them had gathered.

This time, the bug hordes were no longer coming at their opponents in a frontal assault. Instead, they swarmed toward the nine Raiders from every direction.

Not only that, the number of bug beasts joining the battle kept on increasing.

This did not surprise Lin Huang at all.

The Bug Tribe was an extremely ferocious Tribe. They would not easily negotiate with their enemies.

What surprised Lin Huang was that Nine Snake and the rest did not seem as if they were intending to negotiate with the Bug Tribe either. Instead, they were planning to die in here with the Bug Tribe.

He realized why after thinking about it carefully for a moment.

The Bug Tribe was inherently enemies with every other Tribe in the universe. The Raiders must have slaughtered countless Bug Tribes in the universe as well.

Now that they had arrived in the great world, the Raiders looked down on these "native" Bug Tribes even more.

Although they knew Lin Huang was merely drawing on the might of the Bug Tribe, the nine Raiders attacked the Bug Tribe without hesitation anyway.

This antagonism was also what Lin Huang was most desirous of seeing.

Like a tsunami, massive numbers of bugs surged from all directions toward the nine Raiders hovering in midair.

Nine Snake and the rest did not panic in the least. The three upper-rank Lords were even calmer; they did not look like they were going to attack at all.

Just a split second before the wave of bugs was about to swamp all nine of them, the white-robed "Priest" took action again.

He tapped the air with a finger. A silver gleam the size of a needle point seemed to slowly drift above their heads. Suddenly, it seemed to freeze in midair.

The next instant, endless silver gleams spread out in all directions. Not a single spot was overlooked.

Wherever the gleams passed through, all the bug beasts were charred to ashes and dissipated in the air…

The silver gleams even found their way through the bug hordes and struck the surface of the Ten Thousand Bug Maze, creating a loud buzzing sound.

Priest smiled faintly. "This hive's defenses are pretty good."

"It's at least as powerful as an intermediate-grade Dao Weapon." Red-haired Scarlet Fox's interest seemed to have been piqued. He turned his head and looked at Nine Snake beside him. "Let me have this hive. I'll trade it with something of the same value."

Nine Snake did not even look at Scarlet Fox. He merely stared at the hive. "Up to you."

When Nine Snake said this, disappointment clearly flashed through the eyes of the few middle-rank Lords present.

Within their midst, the white-robed "Priest" betrayed a slight change of expression as well. However, he did not dare to argue with Scarlet Fox over this matter.

He even had some regrets about the words that had slipped out of his mouth earlier. He wondered if Scarlet Fox would have coveted the hive if he had not brought up the power of its defenses.

Naturally, Scarlet Fox noticed all these microexpressions. However, he merely smiled and ignored them.

Lin Huang lay quietly inside a cave deep within the hive, happily using Divine Telekinesis to observe the battle in the outside world.

Since elevating to become a Lord, his Divine Telekinesis strength had broken through to ultimate-rank lord-level. Furthermore, he was only using its sensing function to do peripheral spying, so he did not need to worry about being discovered.

After two rounds of futile attempts, the Bug Tribe still had no intention of negotiating. Instead, they were becoming increasingly frenzied.

Watching the trillions of Bug Tribe fighters swiftly gathering to consolidate a bug formation outside the hive, Lin Huang could more or less understand the Bug Tribe's fury.

This was their stronghold. It was also the temporary dwelling of tens of thousands of Queen Mothers, as well as many Bug Queens that had not yet grown to full maturity.

Any living beings who barged in were not only showing utter disrespect to the Queen Mothers, but they were also an immense threat to the Queen Mothers, the young Bug Queens, and even the future of the entire Bug Tribe.

A hive was sacrosanct to the Bug Tribe. The Ten Thousand Bug Maze was the most sacrosanct of all sacrosanct objects to the Bug Tribe in this great world.

It was understandable that they seemed to have abandoned all reason, wanting to drive out Nine Snake and the others.

Nine Snake and the team had possibly been aware of this since the beginning, so they had not made any overtures to negotiate at all. They did not even bother to explain why they were here.

They were also aware that Lin Huang was certainly secretly watching the drama unfold at the moment. However, they had no choice but to play things according to what Lin Huang had scripted out.

Even as they watched the bug formation consolidating in the air, Nine Snake and the others made no move to stop it in the least.

A one-sided massacre was indeed rather boring. It was much more interesting to see one's opponents struggle on occasion.

With that attitude in mind, Nine Snake and the rest patiently waited for the bug formation to finish consolidating.

The formation created from trillions of bug beasts had Heavenly Gods as its core and True Gods as auxiliary support, consolidating into a gigantic celestial beast.

Its massive size exceeded many of the surrounding stars.

This was a Galactic Titan Bug, a mutated bug from ancient times.

Back in ancient eras, the Galactic Titan Bugs consumed stars, absorbing the metal mines within them to strengthen their bodies.

When they were young, their size could compare to a planet. As they consumed more and more stars, they would continue to increase in size. The biggest ones were comparable to a star zone and consumed star zones as food.

As they looked at the Galactic Titan Bug that had been consolidated from the bug formation, Nine Snake and the rest remained calm.

For a moment, nobody was willing to make a move, even.

Seeing the Galactic Titan Bug charging over like a tank, a muscular brawler finally stepped forward.

He was short, only around one point six meters tall, but his entire body was terrifyingly muscled.

From where he was watching in the distance, Lin Huang felt that the thickness of this fellow's arms might be at least twice the size of his thighs. He thought the man's pectoral muscles were even bigger than his own head.

As for the man's legs, the word 'bucket' was insufficient to describe how thick they were. More precisely, they were as thick as water tanks.

Lin Huang stared at the man's bald head and secretly gave him a nickname—Short, Burly Baldy.

He abbreviated this to Short Baldy.

After Short Baldy walked out, his body swiftly began to crystallize. Instead of transforming into a white crystal, he changed into a red crystal.

He seemed to have been entirely transformed into a short, burly, bald ruby in human form.

He glittered under the light of the nearby stars.

Lin Huang noticed that the crystallization was not just a superficial change on the surface of the man's skin but a transformation of the cells in his body. Every single one of his cells seemed to have transformed into crystalline structures from the inside out.

"He looks pretty tough," Lin Huang commented casually.

The second his body completely crystallized, Short Baldy grinned ferociously. Suddenly he sprang forward to confront the Galactic Titan Bug, throwing a punch.

An instant later, the blood-red crystal fist collided with the Galactic Titan Bug's head.

Boom!

A violent boom shook the entire galaxy, even transcending the restrictions of a vacuum and spreading in all directions.

A second after colliding with that fist, the Galactic Titan Bug's head instantly exploded.

Immediately after, the punch's power continued to spread deep into the formation itself. The Galactic Titan Bug's body rapidly began to disintegrate like the collapse of a large building triggered by building implosion.

That single punch easily tore through the bug formation made up of trillions of bug beasts. More than half the bug beasts were killed or injured.

Nine Snake and the team watched the entire scenario expressionlessly. They did not display any traces of surprise or delight.

It was as if everything went without saying.

Lin Huang, watching the battle from afar, was not surprised at all either.

Although this bug formation was powerful, the consolidated Galactic Titan Bug was only lower-rank lord-level.

However, the short, burly bald man was a bona fide middle-rank Lord as well as a combat cultivator.

It was not surprising that the bug formation had been shattered by a single punch.

"This third round of assault has been countered as well…" Lin Huang was rather curious what the Bug Tribe's reaction would be next.

Honestly speaking, the Bug Tribe should have had a fairly "accurate" gauge of the abilities of Nine Snake's team after the three rounds of testing. If nothing else, they could determine that these arrivals had the abilities of at least middle-rank Lords

Logically speaking, at this point, they ought to have abandoned resistance and considered making peace with their opponents instead.

After all, given that all nine arrivals were middle-rank Lords, all these Bug Tribe beasts in the Ten Thousand Bug Maze had no chance of winning at all. This was not yet taking into consideration that there might be beings above middle-rank Lords among these nine.

The problem was that the Bug Tribe could not maintain rationality once someone had laid hands on their sacrosanct object.

Lin Huang felt the situation was hard to predict.

However, a moment later, he witnessed the answer to this question.

A massive number of Bug Tribe beasts swarmed out of the hive. Among them were even ten lower-rank lord-level Bug Queens, as well as a middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen.

Lin Huang was quite surprised to see this battle array.

It had to be said that the number of Lords in the Ten Thousand Bug Maze was indeed frightening. Not only that, this was clearly not everyone in the hive because not a single lord-level Queen Mother had revealed themselves yet.

Lin Huang knew that there was at least one lord-level Queen Mother in the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

The eleven lord-level Bug Queens immediately gathered, creating a bug formation. One by one, they consolidated into the form of ferocious mutated bugs from the ancient era.

Each bug formation was made up of a lord-level Bug Queen as the core, with tens of billions of Bug Tribe Heavenly Gods and trillions of True Gods as auxiliary support.

Within the time it took to breathe, eleven bug formations had consolidated.

The mutated bugs in the heavens were comparable to a star in size. Their aura was skyrocketing.

The weakest aura was middle-rank lord-level, while the aura of the bug formation created by the most powerful Bug Queen had definitely reached upper-rank lord-level.

The team from the Raiders was clearly stirred when they saw that.

Nine Snake was the only one who remained expressionless. His emotions did not display any changes whatsoever.

"This ought to be fairly worth seeing."

Deep in the hive, Lin Huang stared with great interest at the battlefield where both parties were. If not for the fact that he was worried the other bug beasts would smell it, he almost felt as if he wanted to bring out the popcorn.

This time around, the Bug Tribe finally began taking things seriously.

Without any further testing of the waters, the eleven lord-level Bug Queens marshaled their bug formations, assembling eleven ancient mutated bugs of various forms in the air.

The mutated bug formed by the leading middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen was a Divine Magic Winged Bug. This was a mutated bug beast that possessed extremely powerful overall abilities back in archaic times past.

It had one hundred and eight pairs of wings, and each wing was a heavyweight killing weapon. Every single scale on the wing surface could transform at will into weapons and defense equipment of all kinds.

Not only did the bug possess powerful attack capabilities, but its speed was also top-notch among monsters of the same level.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug's one hundred and eight pairs of wings slowly unfurled. After that, it let out a high-pitched shriek.

The shriek was like a bugle sounding the charge. The remaining ten mutated bugs immediately went into battle mode and besieged Nine Snake and the others.

The Raiders did not dare delay their response.

The white-robed Priest and the remaining six middle-rank Lords attacked almost simultaneously, charging at the ten mutated bugs.

However, the three upper-rank Lords—Nine Snake, Scarlet Fox, and Silver—watched quietly from the sidelines and did not attack.

For one, they thought it was not necessary.

For another, they wanted to reserve their Odyl to fight Lin Huang later.

On the Bug Tribe's side, the Divine Magic Winged Bug with its upper-rank lord-level combat strength did not attack either.

In reality, the middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen that controlled the bug formations had only sensed Nine Snake and the other two's real combat strength after consolidating the bug formation.

The three of them had not attacked before this, nor had they intentionally released their auras. With the hive in between, the Bug Queen could not sense how unusual these three were.

Not until the bug formations had been consolidated and the hive was no longer separating them did the Bug Queen finally become aware that the sense of danger Nine Snake and the other two gave off was still extremely threatening.

This also made it somewhat reluctant to attack.

The reason was that it knew once it acted, at least one of the three individuals opposite would definitely take a hand. Not only that, there was the worst-case scenario of all three of them joining in the fight together.

The Bug Queen was very much aware of its own abilities. It was not so arrogant as to think it could battle three upper-rank Lords just because it had assembled a bug formation.

The truth was, the three Raiders did not attack because they saw that the Divine Magic Winged Bug across from them had not made a move.

As a spectator of the battle, Lin Huang was actually the most qualified to voice an opinion.

If Nine Snake and the other two fought, this battle would lose all its suspense. It might even be over completely in just a few seconds.

After all, Nine Snake was a peak upper-rank Lord. Once he attacked, he could easily destroy the entire hive on his own.

As for the Divine Magic Winged Bug assembled from the bug formation, the strength of its aura was upper-rank lord-level. However, if someone who had mastered a level-101 Dao seal was an upper-rank Lord, so was someone who had mastered a level-1000 Dao seal. The disparity in ability between the two could almost be considered an insurmountable gap.

Nine Snake was clearly the latter. As for the Divine Magic Winged Bug, it was not that much more powerful than the former.

In terms of the combat strength of the middle-rank Lords in both parties, Lin Huang did not even need to look to know that the Raider team was more powerful.

Although the Bug Tribe had more bug formations, their numbers were far from sufficient to compensate for the disparity in ability.

However, all along, the Bug Tribe's strong suit had never been their abilities. Rather, it was their teamwork in battle.

At least judging by the Bug Tribe's team deployment this time, Lin Huang anticipated that victory would not be so easy for the six Raiders.

Therefore, this round of battle was sure to be interesting.

The battle between both parties swiftly began in the starry heavens outside the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

As their massive size was not an advantage in this current battle—since this would only result in them become giant targets—the ten mutated bugs consolidated from the bug formations shrank themselves from the size of a planet to the size of a regular bug beast.

The first group of formations spearheading the charge on the frontlines consisted of three heavily armored mutated bugs.

One was a Sacred Beetle that looked as if it were made entirely from gold, one was a Demonic Jumbo Bug that seemed as if it were carved from obsidian, and the last was a Dragon-scaled Beetle with scales that enveloped its entire body.

The second group of formations consisted of three attack-type mutated bugs.

These were a Six-winged Golden Cicada, a Flying Centipede, and a Demonic Armored Mutant.

They were superb fighters in terms of speed and attack capabilities.

The third group of formations was comprised of three control-type mutated bugs.

These three were an Archaic Demon Spider, a Devilish Sonic Cicada, and a Black Abyssal Demon Bug.

The formation bringing up the rear was a Shadow Bug that specialized in stealth attacks.

On the Raiders' side, the short, burly bald man enthusiastically faced down the attack from the three heavy-armored mutated bugs.

The first target he chose was the dazzlingly glittering golden Sacred Beetle that was as tall as himself.

Two golden rays of light collided in the starry heavens.

Just that one collision sent the Sacred Beetle flying backward. However, it was evident that its defenses had not been breached.

However, just as the Sacred Beetle was sent flying, the Six-winged Golden Cicada suddenly attacked. Both its wings stirred in the air, and countless colorless sabers were sent flying at the short, burly bald man.

In a mere instant, tens of thousands of saber gleams shot through the air.

The short, burly bald man was immediately swallowed up in the colorless saber gleams.

The five remaining Raiders made no move to act. They knew how powerful the short, burly bald man's defense capabilities were. The might of the Six-winged Golden Cicada's attack was not enough to breach his defenses at all.

However, a devastating shriek sounded an instant later from where the short, burly bald man was.

Even Nine Snake and the other two upper-rank Lords looked over in his direction with some confusion.

A moment later, Nine Snake looked across the void with his snake eyes. His gaze fell on a mutated bug at the back.

It was the Devilish Sonic Cicada!

At present, a faint light was radiating from its entire body, and it was muttering softly as if it were chanting.

The short, burly bald man's physical defenses were indeed still intact. However, the Devilish Sonic Cicada's mystic tone had infiltrated his mind and was directly attacking his God's soul.

Lin Huang, watching the battle in secret, was able to observe this even more clearly. The Devilish Sonic Cicada was extremely adept at seizing opportunities to attack. It had taken advantage of when the short, burly bald man was defending himself against the saber gleams. The bald man had thought that his opponent's attack would not breach his defenses, so he had relaxed his guard for just an instant.

It had to be said that the Bug Tribe's collaborative efforts were indeed splendid this time.

The remaining five people on the Raider team soon noticed the anomaly.

"Muscle Overlord, you missed this time," the white-robed Priest teased, pointing all ten of his fingers in the air. Countless golden beams of light shot in the Devilish Sonic Cicada's direction like bullets being fired continuously.

In less than the time it took for a breath, the golden beams already numbered over ten

The white-robed Priest was not only attacking the Devilish Sonic Cicada, but also the nearby Archaic Demon Spider and Black Abyssal Demon Bug.

However, the Demonic Jumbo Bug suddenly let out a high-pitched cry. The sound wave rippled and formed a black mirror in the air, shielding the Devilish Sonic Cicada and the several mutated bugs. It devoured all of the golden beams of light; not a single one escaped.

The white-robed Priest raised his brows when he saw what happened. "This is quite interesting."

At that very moment, a bewitching sound suddenly arose in his head, and his gaze abruptly became vacant.

At the same time, a tall, thin humanoid figure rapidly consolidated within his shadow. An inky-black, sharp arthropod leg stabbed toward the back of the white-robed Priest's head.

An instant before the Priest's head was about to be impaled, the arthropod leg suddenly froze in its tracks.

Blood-red threads wound themselves around the Shadow Bug's body.

The red-robed woman's voice was charming. "I've got you now…"

Before she finished speaking, the body bound by the blood-red threads gradually faded, as if what had been captured earlier was merely a phantom.

The white-robed Priest struggled free from the illusion at the same time. He was panting hard. "Damn it, I nearly failed at something so easy!"

Watching the Bug Tribe's beautifully timed cooperation over and over again, Lin Huang could not help cheering for them.

He suddenly realized that the battle was much more interesting than he had initially anticipated.

On the Bug Tribe's side, there were tanks, strikers, controllers, and even covert killers.

The ten mutated bugs had their own duties. They worked together seamlessly in practically every round of battle. Clearly, they had trained countless times before this.

However, the six individuals on the Raiders' team obviously had no rapport.

Even with the few rescues that had been enacted, Lin Huang could still clearly see how hastily they had been carried out.

If they had been just a second late, the white-robed Priest would have been killed by the Shadow Bug.

Even a layman could tell by a glance that the six of them had definitely never worked together before.

Lin Huang even had some suspicions that among all six, some might have been meeting their partners for the first time because of this mission.

With that in mind, it made total sense that some of them had no sense of rapport at all.

The fight between both sides was still going on in the starry heavens.

Their several embarrassing performances caused the six individuals from the Raiders to begin taking things seriously.

The Bug Tribe's camp, however, was orderly and methodical. They were old hands at working together.

Their plan remained the same—three defense mutated bugs, two assault bugs, and one mobile defense that was ready to take the attacks for the other mutated bugs at all times.

The three high-damage dealing mutated bug strikers attacked in a frenzy as soon as they decided on their target.

The three control-type mutated bugs were ready to take control of the battlefield at any time. They were watching for any chances to create an opportunity for the mutated bug strikers to fight.

As for the Shadow Bug proficient in stealth attacks, it was watching the entire battle situation attentively. It would attack immediately as soon as it found an opportunity to do so.

Whether or not it managed to kill its target, it would slip away immediately after its attack without lingering.

The ten mutated bugs worked together in a practically flawless manner.

Lin Huang could almost imagine the extremely strict training these bug beasts had gone through in private to be able to perform so competently on an actual battlefield.

In comparison, the Raiders' side messed things up completely despite having superior abilities.

As the ten mutated bugs fought steadily, the six middle-rank Lords from the Raider's camp were gradually split up.

The courageous short, burly bald man's heavily muscled, resilient physique was useless at present. As soon as he came back to his senses in the slightest, the Devilish Sonic Cicada and Black Abyssal Demon Bug would take turns to attack his God's soul.

He could only strive to protect his God's soul. He did not have the strength to attack at all.

The white-robed Priest, who possessed the fastest attacking speed, was being targeted by the Shadow Bug. It would attack him whenever it could seize the opportunity to do so; he was completely unable to defend himself against this. The few control-type mutated bugs would attack him once in a while as well.

After almost being killed two or three times in a row by the opportunistic Shadow Bug, his mental state completely went under. He could only unleash less than fifty percent of his ability.

Meanwhile, the red-robed woman who used the blood-red threads had been targeted by the Demonic Armored Mutant. The blood-red threads she unleashed were easily cut through by the Demonic Armored Mutant's blade-like legs.

In addition, the several control-type mutated bugs had been controlling the battlefield, so she was practically being subdued the entire time.

She felt as if the Demonic Armored Mutant was pursuing her to her death.

There was also a plump man who specialized in violent damage dealing, but his defense capabilities were nowhere near those of the short, burly bald man. However, his ability to deal damage as an individual was probably the most powerful of all six Raiders.

He had almost killed the six defense-type mutated bugs in the beginning. However, the Bug Tribe had very soon found a counter-strategy.

The Flying Centipede—the most mobile of the mutant bugs—confronted him, with the Six-winged Golden Cicada acted as auxiliary support and the Archaic Demon Spider controlling from a distance away.

Under the effects of the Flying Centipede's toxin, the plump man's condition very evidently deteriorated. The space between his brows was already gradually beginning to turn jet-black.

Watching the entire battle via Divine Telekinesis, Lin Huang noticed that even the plump man's God's soul had been contaminated by the Flying Centipede's toxin.

However, the plump man himself did not seem to notice this at all. Instead, he continued to deal out massive damage, venting his fury.

Judging by how fast the toxin's contamination was spreading, Lin Huang's best guess was that the plump man could only last for another half an hour at most. After half an hour, even an upper-rank Lord would not be able to be revived.

Lin Huang saw from the surveillance image that the two middle-rank Lords were obviously not in good condition at this point.

From a distance, the Six-winged Golden Cicada's colorless saber gleams targeted the cadaverous man by kiting him. As soon as he went after the Cicada, however, he would inevitably be blocked by the Archaic Demon Spider's spider webs.

His defense capabilities were second only to the short, burly bald man. Therefore, the Bug Tribe's strategy was to restrain him instead of treating him as the main hunting target.

However, the plump man was worn out from the Six-winged Golden Cicada's interference. Not only that, he would occasionally be hampered by spider webs and did not have extra energy at all to go to anyone else's aid

As for the tall, thin man, the situation was worse.

He specialized in God's soul attacks. However, this ability was not very useful when he was faced with the bug formations.

This was because a portion of his God's soul attack was filtered off by the bug formation. The load of attack power that passed through the bug formation would be disseminated among the massive numbers of bugs in the bug formation.

One must know that there were trillions of bug beasts. After the bug formation had filtered the attack and the Bug Queen Lord at the core of the formation had taken the brunt of the impact, the shared load of the God's soul attack that each bug beast bore would be somewhat minimalized.

After sensing his condition, the Bug Tribe immediately put him on the list of those that absolutely had to be killed.

The tall, thin man was the one with the highest rate of interference from the three control-type mutated bugs. Not only that, he was the main target of the Six-winged Golden Cicada's kiting. He was also the Shadow Bug's primary target.

Within just a short few minutes, he almost died several times.

Lin Huang broke out in a cold sweat for the tall, thin man as he watched, giving a running commentary.

"Hey, he hasn't died yet!"

"That still didn't kill him?!"

"This fellow may just have used up a lifetime of luck in this battle."

…

Right as the Shadow Bug ambushed the tall, thin man once more, and Lin Huang felt that he was truly doomed this time, a blood-red electric arc shot into the air, crushing the Shadow Bug's newly consolidated shadowy figure.

It was Scarlet Fox who had attacked.

Unable to restrain himself anymore, the upper-rank Lord had finally been moved to act.

Nine Snake's expression displayed no signs of joy or sadness. Silver, whose whole body seemed to be made of metal, showed no trace of emotion on his face either. However, the irritation on Scarlet Fox's countenance was clear for all to see; he did not conceal it at all.

Scarlet Fox had been annoyed ever since the battle started, and he saw the six Raiders falling into the tempo of battle the Bug Tribe had set. However, since Nine Snake had not said anything, he had forced himself to tolerate things until now.

At this point, he could take it no longer and finally made a move.

This was because he knew the tall, thin man he had brought along would die if he did not do so.

The ten mutated bugs from the Bug Tribe's side swiftly fled the battlefield as soon as Scarlet Fox attacked.

The six disgraced middle-rank Lords from the Raiders' side did not pursue them. Instead, they returned to their camp.

The intervention of an upper-rank Lord was a signal that the fighting was about to escalate.

The warm-up battle had ended, and the second stage was about to begin!

As he watched both sides stop fighting at the same time, Lin Huang felt as if he were left wanting more of that excitement.

"Tsk, tsk. That tall, thin fellow escaped death again. This guy is really lucky!"

As soon as Scarlet Fox attacked, he entirely disrupted the initial balance of the battlefield.

Both parties began the next stage of battle proper.

With regards to this stage, Lin Huang felt there would be no real suspense to it.

After all, there were three upper-rank Lords in the Raiders' group. What was more, one of these was Nine Snake, who was a powerhouse nearing the level of an ultimate-rank Lord.

However, Lin Huang still continued to watch the battle with great interest.

On the Raiders' side, after Scarlet Fox's attack, Nine Snake remained expressionless and silent throughout.

Silver remained where he was. He did not have any intention of taking a hand.

Scarlet Fox rubbed his nose and had no choice but to step forward.

After all, he was the one who had intervened earlier, not Silver or Nine Snake.

On the Bug Tribe's side, the middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen that was the core of the Divine Magic Winged Bug felt slightly relieved when it saw Scarlet Fox standing out there on his own.

When it saw him attacking earlier, its biggest concern was that a war would fully break out, and the three upper-rank Lords would attack together.

Fortunately, such a situation had not happened.

Seeing Scarlet Fox coming forward, it immediately controlled the Divine Magic Winged Bug to shrink it down to a smaller size.

"My apologies, I was curious. I was wondering if I could experience for myself how powerful your bug formation really is." Scarlet Fox's tone remained polite.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug said nothing; instead, it immediately made its move.

Its one hundred and eight pairs of scale-covered wings vibrated at high speed. Countless blade-like rays rained down like a storm, deluging the entire area in an instant. They filled the sky as far as the eye could see, and all of them surged toward the lone figure of Scarlet Fox.

Although Nine Snake and the rest were standing not far behind Scarlet Fox, the Divine Magic Winged Bug still did not dare to include them in its attack. It only dared to target Scarlet Fox alone.

It knew very well that if it dared to attack anyone other than Scarlet Fox, it would definitely be met by combined suppression from the three upper-rank Lords.

It was not even sure if it could defeat Scarlet Fox, so of course, it was unwilling to face the combined forces of all three Lords.

Scarlet Fox watched as the blade-like rays that filled the whole sky headed toward him. Remaining utterly calm, his figure moved continuously, forming tens of thousands of shadows in the air. For a while, the spectators had some difficulty differentiating which figure was real and which was false.

"This fellow is definitely something." Lin Huang was also staring at Scarlet Fox's display of movement skill.

This was a lord-level movement skill that clearly combined shadow rule and illusion rule.

Cultivators who had weaker God's soul strength than Scarlet Fox were entirely unable to counter movements like this because there was no way at all to differentiate the real from the false.

On the outer perimeter of the battlefield between the two combatants, the eyes of the six middle-rank Lords in the Raiders' team widened at this point. On the Bug Tribe's side, the ten lower-rank Lords who were the core of the mutated bugs looked completely dumbfounded as well.

The truth was when one's movement skill had reached this level, the shadows were not totally illusory—they were clones that could be made tangible. Not only that, Lin Huang could tell that Scarlet Fox was probably even able to switch his own position with that of the shadows as he pleased.

This set of movement skills was so subtle and exquisite that even Lin Huang felt a slight urge to learn it.

In a little while, Scarlet Fox's figure and the tens of thousands of shadows were completely swallowed up by the massive torrent of blade-like rays.

Any of the spectators watching with Divine Telekinesis could clearly see that the illusory figures were rapidly destroyed by the attacking blade-like rays. However, many more illusory figures consolidated to take their place.

Eventually, when all the blade-like rays had faded, Scarlet Fox's figure was still standing where it had been all along as if it had not moved at all from the beginning until the end.

"This round at least has some sort of standard to it. Thumbs up for you," Lin Huang commented, smiling.

Naturally, he had clearly seen that Scarlet Fox did actually move, switching his position with the shadows at least ten times. However, in the end, he had gone back to his initial position on purpose.

It was just that he had performed all of this with extreme subtlety. If not for the fact that Lin Huang possessed a more powerful God's soul than Scarlet Fox, it would have been hard for him to notice this.

Since the first round of attack had failed, the Divine Magic Winged Bug launched a second assault without hesitation.

It did not know what kind of rules its opponent had mastered or what kind of abilities Scarlet Fox possessed. Therefore, it chose to attack first to subdue him and not give him a chance to attack.

The one hundred and eight pairs of scale-covered wings on the Divine Magic Winged Bug's back mutated abruptly, spawning countless tentacles which surged toward Scarlet Fox like a tsunami.

However, on the other side of the battlefield, Scarlet Fox's hair swiftly grew out at a speed that was visible to the naked eye. In an instant, it had already reached his waist.

As Lin Huang watched in shock, Scarlet Fox's chest began to expand like an inflating balloon, and the lines of his facial features began to soften…

One by one, fiery red, furry tails rapidly sprouted from his coccyx—nine in total.

"What's happening?!" Lin Huang's expression was full of shock.

This was a scenario he had obviously not anticipated at all.

Lin Huang was not the only one—on their side, the Bug Tribe was rather stunned as well.

Even on the Raiders' side, the eyes of the six middle-rank Lords widened too. Clearly, it was their first time seeing this as well.

Some of them might have heard about Scarlet Fox's abilities and were aware that he could change gender whenever he wished. However, this was the first time they were seeing it with their very own eyes.

Even Nine Snake, who had been calm all this while, had a faint, startled expression flash through his eyes upon seeing Scarlet Fox in a female body.

The only one who remained unmoved was Silver, the mechanoid.

To him, gender was quite obviously something completely immaterial.

After the transformation, it was very evident that Scarlet Fox's aura was no longer the same. It was much more ferocious now.

Her nine tails transformed into nine bright red flames. They increased dramatically in size in the face of the opposition and attacked the tsunami of tentacles surging toward her.

This time, she did not dodge the attack at all, meeting it head-on instead.

Lin Huang kept his gaze intently on Scarlet Fox. "This fellow's character seems to have changed as well after the transformation. Is that a different personality?"

It was not just Scarlet Fox's aura that had changed. Even his style of fighting and his demeanor were completely different from before.

Previously, he had always given the impression that he was indolent, unable to rouse up much enthusiasm to do anything. His style of fighting had also always seemed to concentrate on frontal attacks.

However, right now, he was very clearly on the warpath and full of energy. His current style of fighting was full of animosity as if he had swallowed dynamite—eager to fight tens of thousands of rounds to vent his internal rage.

After observing him for quite a while, Lin Huang was almost certain that this was Scarlet Fox's second personality on display.

"His personality changed after he transformed… I wonder if he would display more personalities and fighting styles if he transformed into other appearances…"

When Lin Huang was delving into this issue, someone from the Raider's camp was thinking about matters outside the battlefield.

'Lord Rose is so lucky…'

On the battlefield, the clash between both parties swiftly produced an outcome.

Scarlet Fox was obviously more powerful. She attacked continuously with her nine tails, inexorably vanquishing the tsunami-like wave of tentacles and subduing her opponents by direct confrontation.

Not only that, her figure continuously flickered from point to point as she approached the Divine Magic Winged Bug, attempting to fight it at close range.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug's one hundred and eight pairs of wings finally displayed their ferocity as well.

One by one, the pairs of wings began to transform into different Dao Weapons for attack, control, and defense…

The single mutated bug abruptly transformed into a team formed from hundreds of mutated bugs…

Even Lin Huang's eyes lit up as he observed how it utilized its abilities. He rapidly began thinking about how he could construct a similar fighting style.

Clearly, everyone present did not expect the Divine Magic Winged Bug to suddenly display such a move.

Everyone knew that its wings could transform into various forms. However, nobody knew that they could transform into Dao Weapons, let alone that they could possess the abilities of those Dao Weapons.

Twelve of the wings turned into massive bells. As they rang loudly, circle upon circle of formless ripples began spreading out.

Scarlet Fox's rapidly approaching figure was dozens of times slower now as if he had suddenly fallen into mud.

Another forty-eight of the Divine Magic Winged Bug's wings transformed into sabers, spears, swords, and halberds, seizing the opportunity to attack Scarlet Fox.

When Scarlet Fox saw this, his form immediately altered again.

This time, he transformed into a muscled strongman standing more than two point five meters in height. His build was even wider than that of the short, burly bald man.

At the same time that his transformation completed, his body immediately turned a bronze color, its surface entirely covered with Odyl. Inexorably, he faced down this wave of attack.

Lin Huang particularly noticed that the Divine Magic Winged Bug's attacks did not leave any wounds on Scarlet Fox's body at all.

'A transformation like this probably isn't a rule power; it's his Goldfinger's ability,' Lin Huang rapidly conjectured as he watched Scarlet Fox laughing arrogantly at the Divine Magic Winged Bug. 'What's the principle behind his Goldfinger's function? It likely isn't as simple as being able to transform when he sees someone. Could it be that after he kills someone, he's able to transform into that person and gain all of their abilities…

'His personality seemed to have changed again after this transformation… So the price for using his Goldfinger is that he gains a personality each time he obtains a new transformation privilege?'

In his heart, Lin Huang silently speculated about this.

'If gaining split personalities isn't the cost of utilization, then this Goldfinger's abilities can probably be considered extremely powerful.'

After his transformation into the muscular strongman, Scarlet Fox's fighting style had clearly become increasingly crazed.

He began making his way closer to the Divine Magic Winged Bug, disregarding everything else. Snarling and roaring as if he had lost his mind, he ignored all his opponent's attacks.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug possessed considerable combat experience. Immediately, it changed its battle strategy.

Its wings transformed into more massive bells to restrict its opponent's movements.

On another front, its initial attack weapons also instantly transformed into spiritual attack Dao Weapons. They transformed into ghost heads.

The dozens of ghost heads simultaneously uttered piercing shrieks, spreading circle after circle of God's soul attacks.

Not only was it hard for Scarlet Fox to move forward, but there was an excruciating stabbing pain in his head. He felt as if his God's soul was being bitten by tens of thousands of ghosts.

This time, Nine Snake finally could not stand it any longer and took a hand.

His tongue darted out like an electric arc and coiled around Scarlet Fox's waist, dragging him out of the battlefield.

"Rest for a while."

Seeing that the heavily-muscled Scarlet Fox was still holding his head in pain, Nine Snake immediately gave an order and signaled to Silver—who was standing beside him—with his eyes.

Naturally, Silver did not dare to refuse. He turned into a silver ray of light and closed in on the Divine Magic Winged Bug.

Despite noticing that it suddenly had a different opponent, the Divine Magic Winged Bug remained calm.

The battle with Scarlet Fox earlier had clearly boosted its confidence.

It used the same technique from just now on Silver.

Although Silver's movements did slow down considerably, the God's soul attack did not seem to work on him at all.

When the Divine Magic Winged Bug saw this, the ghost heads instantly turned into Buddha statues.

The Buddha statues were striking wooden fish—percussion instruments made from hollow blocks of wood— while chanting scriptures.

For a while, there was chanting in the air accompanied by the percussion sounds of the wooden fish and the ringing of bells.

Lin Huang felt as if he had been transported into a temple. The only thing lacking was a stick of burning incense.

This technique involving Buddha statues was still a God's soul attack; it merely used a different method to do so.

However, apart from his body being slightly dented, Silver remained unaffected by the God's soul attack.

Only then did the Divine Magic Winged Bug realize that its opponent's God's soul might be anomalous, making it immune to God's soul attacks.

Without hesitation, it decisively changed methods.

One by one, the Buddha statues transformed into sabers, spears, swords, and halberds again, as well as a comprehensive variety of other weapons.

It only did this so it could test which kind of weapon would be most effective on its opponent.

However, all the weapons comparable to expert-grade Dao Weapons could only cause light scratches less than one centimeter deep when they struck Silver's body.

Silver was even able to repair those light scratches instantly. They did not remain on his body for any longer than one second at most.

"A powerful mechanical species with dual defense capabilities…" Lin Huang fell into deep thought as he stared at Silver.

He was considering how he would respond if he encountered an opponent like this, and he could not use force to break their defenses.

Silver was practically immune to God's soul attacks because he was a purely mechanical being that did not have a God's soul at all.

His consciousness was stored in a mechanical tinder somewhere within his body.

Naturally, God's soul attacks would not work on him in the least.

If one wanted to kill Silver with God's soul attacks, one had to possess a God's soul so powerful that it could break into the tinder within his body and erase his consciousness by force.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug's God's soul had obviously not reached such a level yet.

Even Lin Huang was not really sure if he himself could do that. After all, the other party was an upper-rank Lord.

Silver was clearly top-notch in terms of physical defenses.

Purely mechanical beings were top-notch in physical defense capabilities even if these abilities were transplanted into the universe.

Not only did they have powerful defense capabilities, but they were also immensely strong. They were by no means inferior to many ferocious combat cultivator-type beasts from the ancient epoch, even.

To kill an individual with such powerful physical defense capabilities, the best method was still subjugation via might. Either one mastered Dao seal power that was much stronger than that of the other party, or else one could use Dao Weapons that surpassed the opponent's physical strength.

However, the Divine Magic Winged Bug clearly possessed neither of these.

Lin Huang even envisioned putting himself in the Divine Magic Winged Bug shoes for a moment and imagined himself fighting, using the Divine Magic Winged Bug's current level of abilities. He ran a simulation in his head and realized it would still be difficult to breach his opponent's defenses, despite being a sword cultivator with powerful attack ability.

"Now that's quite difficult." Lin Huang glanced at the Divine Magic Winged Bug with a touch of sympathy.

Any attack methods that the Diving Magic Winged Bug could use had been completely suppressed by Silver.

Apart from control-type skills that were still effective, spiritual and physical attacks had very little effect.

Just when Lin Huang thought the Divine Magic Winged Bug had exhausted its bag of tricks, an unusual change abruptly occurred on the battlefield.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug let out a shriek, and the ten mutated bugs not far behind moved almost simultaneously. One by one, they began to integrate with the Divine Magic Winged Bug's bug formation.

As the mutated bugs integrated one by one, the Divine Magic Winged Bug's aura began to skyrocket extremely quickly.

Its aura—initially early upper-rank lord-level—soon rose to peak upper-rank lord-level at a speed that could seen with the naked eye.

"This bug formation is quite powerful."

Lin Huang could not help raising his brows when he saw what was happening. When the bug formation was fully integrated, the strength of the Divine Magic Winged Bug's aura was only a step away from that of a Lord.

Nine Snake had preserved his calm all along, but when he saw the Divine Magic Winged Bug's transformation, a grave expression flashed through his eyes.

The bug formation's elevation in power was enough to make him feel threatened.

After the Divine Magic Winged Bug had integrated with the remaining ten mutated bugs, its abilities were boosted significantly.

Due to the vibrations from the giant bells that the Bug's wings had transformed into, Silver seemed as if he had fallen into a bog. He could barely move forward and was practically a target now.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug seized the opportunity without hesitation. It charged at Silver again after transforming its remaining wings into all manner of weapons such as sabers, spears, swords, and halberds.

This round, the attacks were clearly much more powerful than before. Almost all of the Dao Weapons that the wings had transformed into left deep wounds on Silver's body.

Silver could do nothing except to protect his vital body parts and attempt to retreat out of the area that was under the giant bells' control.

However, the wounds on his body were increasing significantly almost every second.

One, ten, one hundred, one thousand…

Very soon, there was an obvious decline in how swiftly his wounds recovered.

Silver, who had almost entirely subdued the Divine Magic Winged Bug earlier, was now the one being subdued completely. He did not have the strength to fight back at all.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug was aware that it would be very difficult to kill Silver, but it was trying its best to drain the Odyl within his body.

Nine Snake, who had been observing the battle all along from not too far away, hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to take a hand.

He hesitated because he knew that Silver had yet to use his trump card. Nine Snake was deliberating on whether Silver might still have a chance to turn the tables. However, after a moment of consideration, he decided to attack anyway. This was because he felt that under such circumstances, it meant little if Silver used his trump card and won the battle. It would be better for him to save his strength to fight Lin Huang later.

After all, their biggest enemy was not the Bug Tribe in front of them, but Lin Huang, who was somewhere watching secretly.

A shadow suddenly sprang out from behind Nine Snake. It turned into a dark ray of light that wound around Silver's body, then swiftly pulled him back.

Nine Snake could not help frowning slightly when he sensed the massive resistance that came from the giant bells.

He had originally brought the entire team of Raiders here to forcefully subdue the Bug Tribe and display the Raiders' might in front of Lin Huang.

He had never expected that matters would escalate to this point.

Scarlet Fox and Silver had been defeated one after the other. He had no option but to take the initiative to rescue them.

He had intended to punish the Bug Tribe as a warning to his enemy, but his plan had backfired, and he was now being laughed at.

After pulling Silver back to the Raiders' camp with his snake tail, Nine Snake turned a cold-eyed gaze toward the Divine Magic Winged Bug, whose aura strength was now not that much weaker than his own.

Naturally, he was confident that he could defeat his opponent. However, if he were going to fight, then he had to win the battle decisively and in style.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug did not take the initiative to attack him. The Bug Queen in the core had a fearful expression on its face. Naturally, it knew that this leader with the vertical pupils was the most powerful of the nine intruders.

The Bug Queen had known this after watching Nine Snake save his teammate earlier. Although it had fortified itself to this extent at present, the dozens of massive bells still did not seem to decrease Nine Snake's speed by much.

"To be honest, even I find it quite admirable that all of you have managed to get to this level." Nine Snake took a step forward. The aura around his whole body began to skyrocket. "But let's end this nonsense now."

As soon as he finished speaking, a giant shadow suddenly appeared above his head.

It was a giant snake monster.

Black scales covered its entire body, which was wreathed in black mist. A pair of solid gold snake eyes with vertical pupils stared fixedly at the Divine Magic Winged Bug.

An instant later, the black snake tail lashed out like a long whip that also resembled a full moon scimitar, attacking the Divine Magic Winged Bug.

The arc-shaped black ray was extremely fast, reaching the Divine Magic Winged Bug almost at once.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug was completely unable to dodge the attack. It could only try its best to transform its wings into massive shields to block the front of its body.

Almost at the same time that all these layers of shields consolidated, the arc-shaped black ray collided with them.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug felt a burst of immense power the second the collision happened. Its entire body was sent flying back, completely out of control. It then crashed hard into the hive.

The attack dented a large crater at least three meters in diameter on the hive. Even the entire Ten Thousand Bug Maze shook slightly, emitting a dull rumble.

Deep in the hive, even Lin Huang clearly sensed the tremor.

"Truly worthy of a being who's almost an ultimate-rank Lord." Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis traversed the void, allowing him to clearly see that practically all the Divine Magic Winged Bug's wings that had reverted to their original form had faint cracks on them.

He could also distinctly sense that the Divine Magic Winged Bug's aura had slumped significantly.

However, what he could not see was that the bodies of many True God fighters in the bug formation had instantly ruptured from the impact of the earlier attack. A small number of Bug Tribe Heavenly Gods also died at the same time.

Nine Snake could be considered to have held almost nothing back in this attack. The strength of the assault had obviously exceeded what the bug formation could sustain in terms of force.

This impact, which was over the limits of what the bug formation could sustain, automatically spread through the inner sections of the formation, killing many Bug Tribe fighters.

However, Nine Snake did not seem to be fully satisfied with the result of this attack.

He could not help frowning slightly when he saw that the bug formation had not been destroyed by the assault and that the Divine Magic Winged Bug's aura had only decreased slightly.

"I'd like to see how many more hits you can take!"

Nine Snake attacked again as soon as he finished speaking.

The giant python shadow over his head locked onto the Divine Magic Winged Bug as its target, and the inky-black snake tail lashed through the air again.

This time, the Divine Magic Winged Bug did not dare delay its response to the attack. It flapped all one hundred and eight pairs of wings suddenly and swiftly moved.

It had witnessed how powerful Nine Snake was and did not dare meet the attack head-on.

However, right at that moment, the black snake tail abruptly split into countless snake heads, hurtling like a giant net toward the Divine Magic Winged Bug to try and encompass it.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug speeded up to its limits to try and escape. However, the snake heads frenziedly divided over and over again until, at last, they enveloped the Bug's body entirely.

Its one hundred and eight pairs of wings turned into sharp blades, slicing at the snake heads that had divided multiple times. Sparks flew as the blades sliced down, leaving no trace behind at all.

Currently, the Divine Magic Winged Bug had been reduced to a bird in a cage.

However, the cage kept on getting smaller. The snake heads continued shrinking; in the end, everything was swallowed up entirely.

Right at that moment, the Ten Thousand Bug Maze suddenly began to shake.

Lin Huang thought the Bug Tribe had more tricks up its sleeve and wanted to mount a rescue. However, he soon sensed a wave of immense dimensional power.

"They're trying to escape?!" Lin Huang was stunned for a moment but realized why an instant later.

This move seemed ruthless, but it was actually a wise one.

They were no match for their opponent; the entire hive would fall into enemy hands if the battle dragged on. Naturally, the best choice was to sacrifice a proverbial pawn to save the queen.

Before the Divine Winged Magic Bug was completely annihilated, they would seize the opportunity to escape!

The hive immediately tore open a space rift and headed straight for the deep reaches of the heavens. Clearly, they had made escape preparations much earlier.

However, fleeing was not going to be as easy as it seemed.

Before Nine Snake stepped in to fight, he had communicated with Scarlet Fox and Silver through voice transmission, telling them to watch the hive. He wanted to prevent it from escaping.

He had crossed paths with the Bug Tribe in the universe numerous times and had seen them playing similar tricks many times over.

Since Scarlet Fox and Silver had lost their battles, naturally, they did not dare neglect Nine Snake's order. On the surface, it looked as if they were fully concentrating on watching the battle. In reality, they had never stopped covertly observing the hive with Divine Telekinesis.

As soon as the hive made the slightest move, both of them noticed and intercepted it immediately.

As the two upper-rank Lords joined forces, the space rift that the hive had torn open was instantly obliterated.

Half the hive that had initially made it through the rift into space was sent rebounding right back. The escape plan was considered a total failure!

Watching as the hive was intercepted, Lin Huang, who had been hiding deep within it, was relieved.

He had genuinely been worried earlier that the hive would flee, which would be the equivalent of him failing to keep his appointment with Nine Snake's team. The crux of the matter was that they might make trouble for Death Sickle if they were stood up.

This was what Lin Huang did not wish to see happen at all.

Naturally, he did not know that as a grade-7 organization, Death Sickle was protected by Royal in this great world. If the matter was not a direct conflict, Royal would expel the Raiders if they were to take action against Death Sickle.

Lin Huang had cut ties with Death Sickle in name by faking his death previously.

The conflict between him and the Raiders could be said to have little connection with Death Sickle.

That was why Scarlet Fox and the rest had mounted guard at Death Sickle, but they had not forced Buried Heaven's group to hand Lin Huang over to them.

If not for Lin Huang contacting Buried Heaven of his own volition and Scarlet Fox finding out, the Raiders might have needed to take a great many more twists and turns to find him.

Deep in the hive, Lin Huang had been observing the changes in the outside world through Divine Telekinesis. However, he was unable to probe the state of things inside the hive.

Now that their escape plan had failed, the Queen Mothers in the Ten Thousand Bug Maze were in despair.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug's bug formation outside had amassed practically all the forces of the entire hive.

Currently, only the old and the weak, the Queen Mothers, a small number of young Bug Queens, and many unhatched eggs remained in the hive.

The Divine Magic Winged Bug's defeat in battle was the equivalent of the entire hive's defeat.

If they wanted the hive's legacy to live on, their only recourse was to escape.

However, that solution was now a dead end.

The space tunnel that the hive opened up had now been destroyed by Scarlet Fox and Silver.

It was no longer just the two upper-rank Lords—even the short, burly, bald man and the other five middle-rank Lords were watching the hive now. They were standing guard in case of any unexpected moves.

Escape was definitely not possible now.

Not too far off, the Divine Magic Winged Bug had been taken captive by Nine Snake. However, it was still resisting stubbornly.

Any discerning person could tell that it would not be able to last long.

The bug formation itself was a method that gained its immense strength through putting pressure on the participants in the bug formation. The more powerful the bug formation, the heavier the burden on the host in the core.

In one respect, all of the bug beasts that participated in the bug formation would have constant pressure applied to the Divine Power, God's soul, god rules, sequence powers, and even Odyl within their bodies.

On the other hand, the longer the bug formation lasted, the more the damage inflicted on the God's soul and the physical body of the host in the core.

As a result, the formation could only be sustained for a limited amount of time.

Now that it was imprisoned by the snake tail, the Divine Magic Winged Bug could not even dodge anymore.

It could do nothing except forcefully resist the snake tail's continuous shrinking and strangling.

However, each time it resisted, this would result in the death of many bug beasts in the bug formation. This was caused by the Odyl shockwaves that were beyond what the bug formation could bear.

This also resulted in a decline of the Divine Magic Winged Bug's ability.

The middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen controlling the core was coming under more and more pressure.

A scant few moments after being imprisoned by the snake tail, the entire bug formation was already at the point of collapse and could fall apart at any time.

Nine Snake remained expressionless from beginning to end. As far as he was concerned, he was merely defeating a bunch of hillbilly bug beasts. It was no cause for happiness.

From the very beginning, he had not taken these bug beasts seriously.

If not for Scarlet Fox and Silver's consecutive defeats, he would not have wished to take a hand at all.

Lin Huang watched Nine Snake's one-sided subjugation of the Divine Magic Winged Bug from faraway. He had already begun counting down to the moment when he would show himself.

After all, there were eleven lord-level bug beasts in the Divine Magic Winged Bug's bug formation. Among them were at least ten Supreme God rank-5 Bug Queens. Lin Huang even suspected that the middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen might be Pseudo Pure Spirit rank-5.5.

He was not about to let Nine Snake have these creatures.

Ever since Xiao Hei had released authorization, card fragments no longer dropped whenever Lin Huang killed monsters. As long as he agreed, Xiao Hei could consolidate complete Monster Cards right away.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, the eleven Bug Tribe Lords were already his. Naturally, he was not about to let Nine Snake kill them.

However, Nine Snake did not know what Lin Huang was thinking. He only wanted to dispose of the Divine Magic Winged Bug as soon as possible, then kill Lin Huang and bring his body back to the universe. That would signal the successful completion of his mission this time as an investigator who had arrived in this great world.

After his snake tail imprisoned the Divine Magic Winged Bug, he began using it to violently strangle the Bug.

He could even distinctly sense that the Divine Magic Winged Bug's bug formation was weakening drastically.

Practically within the time it took for a few breaths, it plummeted to initial-stage upper-rank lord-level.

In another few more breaths, the Divine Magic Winged Bug's combat strength nosedived significantly again, dropping to middle-rank lord-level.

Almost at the same time, the bug formation rapidly began to collapse.

Nine Snake felt a slight frisson of happiness. 'It's finally going to end!'

Once the bug formation was crushed, it would be much easier for him to kill this horde of bug beasts.

However, blood-red lightning bolts abruptly lit up the sky. They filled the heavens; in almost an instant, they had reached the area where he was.

Shock flashed through Nine Snake's eyes. Simultaneously he abandoned the bug beasts and beat a frantic retreat.

A second later, the area where he was standing was deluged by endless blood-red lightning bolts.

Scarlet Fox, Silver, and the others stared at the blood-red lightning bolts with utterly shocked expressions.

They could distinctly sense how terrifying the lightning bolts were. If those lightning bolts were to swallow them up, there might not even be dregs remaining.

More terrifying was the fact that from start to finish, they had not even seen where this attack originated from.

Even Nine Snake was frowning hard. He had spread his Divine Telekinesis earlier but had not found anything at all.

His gaze finally landed on the hive.

There was no powerful aura within the periphery of the dozens of surrounding star zones. In that case, the individual who had attacked was most likely in the hive that was right in front of them.

As to whether it was Lin Huang hiding in the hive or other beings within it, he was not very sure yet.

However, an instant later, he sensed that the auras of the bug beasts which formed the bug formation were rapidly being obliterated.

Nine Snake swiftly came to a conclusion and his gaze grew even keener as he stared at the hive.

"Lin Huang, are you brave enough to come out and face me in battle?"

His voice rumbled like thunder and spread toward the hive.

Scarlet Fox and the rest looked utterly confused.

"It was Lin Huang who attacked?!"

Currently, Lin Huang was indulging in the joy of having obtained the bug beasts' cards.

After using a dimensional secret technique and his Divine Telekinesis flying daggers to kill all the bug beasts that formed the Divine Magic Winged Bug, he had Xiao Hei consolidate eleven complete Bug Tribe Lord Monster Cards.

As he had expected, of the eleven Bug Queens, the ten lower-rank Lords were Supreme God rank-5, and the middle-rank Lord was Pseudo Pure Spirit rank-5.5.

He was thrilled to have obtained eleven Bug Tribe fighters out of the blue—ones he could immediately utilize, even.

When he heard Nine Snake's deliberately provoking comment, he was not angry at all.

"The show that all of you put on was even more interesting than what I had imagined. I was so engrossed in watching that I didn't really have the heart to interrupt things." At the same time that this voice was heard, Lin Huang's figure slowly materialized outside the hive. With a faint smile, he looked at Nine Snake and his team.

Nine Snake did not display any delight when he saw Lin Huang reveal himself.

He could not help frowning slightly either when he realized that he could not read this young man in front of him.

He was unable to sense how powerful Lin Huang's aura was, but his instincts told him that the young man before him was extremely dangerous.

Scarlet Fox and Silver, who were nearby, had similar reactions. However, they could not sense things as distinctly as Nine Snake; they were only able to get a vague sense of the threat emanating from Lin Huang.

Under normal circumstances, powerhouses who had elevated to lord-level usually had very acute preternatural senses.

For a while, the three upper-rank Lords fell silent, quickly trying to think of a plan.

Perhaps because the disparity in their abilities was too great, the short, burly, bald man and the remaining five middle-rank Lords did not sense the danger. They even thought that Lin Huang's aura was less powerful than their own.

Seeing that Nine Snake and the other two remained silent, the few middle-rank Lords assumed they wanted them to test Lin Huang's abilities.

The short, burly, bald man who had full confidence in his defense capabilities took the lead and spoke first, "So you're Lin Huang?"

"That's right, I'm Lin Huang." Lin Huang turned his head to look at the short, burly, bald man, smiling. He continued after that, "Your defense capabilities aren't bad. I want them!"

The moment he finished speaking, a blood-red arc pierced right through the short, burly, bald man's forehead, leaving a hole that was as big as two fingers.

Everyone else present could distinctly sense that the short, burly, bald man's life force seemed to have been instantly snuffed out.

His face still retained its arrogant expression, but he had already become a corpse. It was obvious that he had utterly failed to defend himself against Lin Huang's attack.

Upon seeing the short, burly, bald man's sudden demise, practically everyone present felt their hair stand on end.

The three upper-rank Lords, including Nine Snake, were no exception.

Although they could not consider themselves close with the short, burly, bald man, they knew that he was a formidable combat cultivator. Among the Raiders' middle-rank Lords, his defense capabilities were in the top three ranks.

Scarlet Fox and Silver were secretly making some assessments. At their current upper-rank lord-level combat strength, it would be very difficult to kill the short, burly, bald man in a direct confrontation, much less kill him instantly.

Nine Snake also had a general idea of the abilities of the current team that he had brought with him. He knew that at his present level of ability, it would not be difficult for him to subdue the short, burly, bald man, but killing him would take some effort. Although he could kill him instantly like Lin Huang had, it would require the use of some trump card techniques.

He had to admit that the attack Lin Huang had used to kill the short, burly, bald man was no less powerful than if he himself used a trump card. He did not even have enough confidence to pull off a move like that.

However, he did not know whether Lin Huang had merely launched an offhand attack or if he had used a trump card to intentionally intimidate them.

Only Lin Huang himself knew that his attack earlier had been an offhand one.

His God Weapon flying dagger was inherently already a supreme-grade Dao Weapon. Even if he were to encounter ultimate-rank Lords, he could easily breach his opponents' defenses without utilizing any defensive techniques at all.

The short, burly, bald man, on the other hand, only had the physique of an upper-rank Lord at most. Even with maximum compounding of defense techniques, at best, he would still only achieve peak upper-rank lord-level strength. Naturally, Lin Huang's God Weapon flying dagger had easily impaled him.

Furthermore, Lin Huang had compounded two Dao seals onto the flying dagger in this attack.

However, any single one of Lin Huang's Dao seals was different from everyone else's because it was constructed from millions of Dao tattoos.

Compounding two such Dao seals was comparable to the Odylic Force released by two million Dao tattoos simultaneously.

Moreover, under normal circumstances, even an ultimate-rank Lord possessing over a thousand Dao seals would have less than two million Dao tattoos in total, even if they were all added up.

On top of that, Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis was ultimate-rank lord-level in terms of strength, so even though he had not unleashed his full power, it was a legitimate ultimate-rank lord-level attack.

It was no wonder that the short, burly, bald man had been killed instantly.

The short, burly, bald man being killed instantly was a scene so shocking to everyone that nobody dared to stop Lin Huang when he collected his victim's Goldfinger and corpse.

Lin Huang calmly put away the man's Goldfinger and his corpse. Only then did he turn his gaze to everyone else present.

However, no matter where he looked, practically everyone kept their heads down and did not dare to meet his eyes.

Nine Snake was the only one who stared at Lin Huang, his expression betraying mixed emotions.

Initially, he had thought that coming to a great world in a corner of nowhere and apprehending a local brat would be an easily accomplished task.

After all, according to the information Royal had provided on this great world, there were only three middle-rank Lords here.

He had not anticipated that his target would have hidden his abilities so well.

'The information Royal gave us has caused us a great deal of trouble…'

Nine Snake cursed secretly in his heart, then rapidly began thinking of a counter-strategy.

What he did not know was there was actually no error in the information Royal had given.

In the great world under Royal's jurisdiction, every powerhouse who elevated to become a Lord would be registered and reported to the relevant authorities as soon as the staff in the great world found out about it. Royal's headquarters would then enter the information on the Lord and file it on record.

The issue was that Lin Huang had only elevated to become a Lord three days ago and had not displayed his abilities since his advancement.

Therefore, Royal had no idea that he had elevated to lord-level. Naturally, this information was also not on record.

Nine Snake made up his mind immediately after only a few moments of consideration.

His voice transmission spread to the remaining Raiders. "Don't be scared by him. He may have used a special technique to attack just now, so his subsequent attacks might not be as strong. His defense capabilities might not be that powerful either. Let's attack together! I'll be responsible for dealing with him; the rest of you find opportunities to deal some lateral damage!"

What Nine Snake did not know was that Lin Huang—whose Divine Telekinesis was significantly more powerful—had intercepted the voice transmission loud and clear.

However, Lin Huang's expression did not change outwardly at all. He continued smiling faintly.

He calmly observed the figure of the giant python above Nine Snake's head as it abruptly grew a second and third snake head. Immediately after that, more snake heads began sprouting one after the other.

Within a blink of an eye, a massive nine-headed python had fully consolidated.

The strength of its aura was infinitely close to that of an ultimate-rank Lord.

The instant the giant nine-headed python finished consolidating, Nine Snake initiated an attack without hesitation.

This time, he held nothing back at all, utilizing an ultimate move with the strongest attack power.

The giant nine-headed python's heads opened their mouths at practically the same time. Black electric arcs rapidly consolidated in their maws.

The next second, nine black shock waves shot forward almost simultaneously at maximum speed. Practically an instant later, they were right in front of Lin Huang and were about to swallow him up.

However, Lin Huang extended a finger into the void and a mirror so black it could swallow up everything consolidated, blocking the shock waves like a massive wall.

He could not help but sigh faintly when he saw the nine shock waves being swallowed up by the Mirror. "Why do all of them like releasing shock waves as soon as they attack?"

As soon as he finished speaking, nine blood-red shock waves shot out from the Mirror, aiming straight at the giant nine-headed python above Nine Snake's head…

The nine blood-red shock waves shot through the void like lightning, more than several times faster than the shock waves Nine Snake had released.

Lin Huang secretly added two Dao seals to this round of deflection.

The blood-red shock waves immediately shot through the void. Before Nine Snake could even fully react, they had struck the shadow above his head.

The next instant, the giant nine-headed python's nine heads exploded almost all at once. Immediately after that, the shadow swiftly disintegrated, transforming into countless black points of light and fading away.

Below, Nine Snake abruptly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Although Lin Huang had not directly attacked Nine Snake's actual person this round, Nine Snake had still suffered a backlash.

Nine Snake's technique was powered by his God's soul and had integrated Divine Power, Odylic Force, and Dao seal power.

Since his technique had been shattered by violence, naturally, his God's soul was impacted.

Fortunately, he managed to withdraw his Divine Power in time, so he only suffered the aftermath of the impact.

However, in order for the giant nine-headed python to absorb Lin Huang's attack, he had drained an immense amount of the Divine Power and Odylic Force within his body.

Almost one-third of the Divine Power and Odylic Force within him was stripped away by the attack.

He had no choice either because by the time he could respond, the nine shock waves were already practically in his face. There was no way he could evade them at all, so he was forced to take the brunt of the attack head-on.

If he did not do that, his God's soul would have been instantly annihilated.

Nine Snake thought that Lin Huang must surely have seen through the nature of this technique, which explained why he had not attacked Nine Snake's physical body, instead launching an assault on the giant nine-headed python above his head.

However, the truth was that Lin Huang had not made a study of Nine Snake's technique at all.

The Mirror's deflection angle could be adjusted as necessary to attack whatever target he wanted. However, he had not bothered to make any adjustments.

The giant nine-headed python was massive and obviously a target that would be easier to hit.

Moreover, crushing an energy being like this would definitely drain a great deal of his opponent's Divine Power and Odylic Force. This was something one would know even without even needing to study the technique.

The first clash between both of them began abruptly and ended just as abruptly.

Scarlet Fox and the others watched, dumbfounded.

As upper-rank Lords, Scarlet Fox and Silver could distinctly sense the giant nine-headed python's terrifying aura, which was already almost as powerful as that of an ultimate-level Lord.

An off-hand attack could easily kill any powerhouse at the scene, let alone if all nine heads were to attack at the same time.

As for the handful of middle-rank Lords, although they did not have such a clear perception of Nine Snake's technique, they were still able to sense how terrifying it was when the giant nine-headed python spat out its shock waves. The aftermath alone made the hearts of all six quail.

Initially, almost everyone present thought there was a ninety percent chance that as soon as Nine Snake attacked, Lin Huang—who was opposite him—would die.

After all, the attack was already as powerful as that of an ultimate-rank Lord.

However, they had never expected the actual situation to turn things upside down.

Not only had Lin Huang suffered no harm, but he had also confounded Nine Snake's attack immediately.

The rest of the Raiders initially thought they might individually have a chance to bag Lin Huang as a trophy if Nine Snake's attack did not kill him.

However, after witnessing what happened, the eight of them felt cold chills running through them.

Even Silver, the mechanoid, displayed fear.

His silver physical body turned dark red at a speed discernible to the naked eye.

This physical state was a reaction that would automatically be triggered whenever Silver sensed life-threatening danger. It would temporarily raise his physical constitution by a level.

Under normal circumstances, Scarlet Fox would certainly not have been able to restrain himself from asking questions if he saw Silver changing color like this.

However, he was entirely in no mood to do so right now.

He had already begun rapidly plotting an escape plan.

All of them would certainly die if they fought someone that even Nine Snake could not defeat. Their only chance of survival was to seize the opportunity and flee.

Lin Huang did not even look at Scarlet Fox and the others.

Right now, among the nine of them, Nine Snake's ability was the only one that drew his attention, albeit reluctantly.

As for the rest, he would not even need to use a second God Weapon flying dagger to kill them.

"If you hadn't used that move earlier, perhaps you might have been able to last a little longer." Lin Huang smiled at Nine Snake.

Nine Snake said nothing, but his expression was indescribable.

He had certainly not expected things to turn out this way.

"Since you attacked first earlier, it's my turn now." As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, countless electric arcs shot out of his sleeves like blood-red lightning bolts that filled the heavens as far as the eye could see.

Nine Snake's pupils contracted slightly when he saw this.

However, the blood-red electric arcs suddenly disappeared.

A second later, Nine Snake saw the blood-red electric arcs covering the entire area densely, fully three hundred and sixty degrees without a single gap…

Things looked entirely different from where Scarlet Fox and the others were standing.

They only saw the electric arcs shoot out and cover the distance almost instantly, forming a blood-red sphere of light around Nine Snake to completely envelope him…

This was a new technique that Lin Huang had devised after seeing how the Divine Magic Winged Bug used its wings.

He integrated teleportation into the Divine Telekinesis flying daggers' use.

The moment the millions of Divine Telekinesis flying daggers shot out, Lin Huang teleported them to surround Nine Snake, then envelop him entirely.

In less than the time it took for three breaths, Scarlet Fox and the rest sensed that Nine Snake's life force had been completely obliterated.

Scarlet Fox did not need to think at all. Without hesitation, he hid behind Silver in a flash and summoned a dimensional portal.

However, the instant he called up the portal, he saw a red beam of light in his peripheral vision. Immediately after that, everything went black, and he completely lost consciousness.

Only then did Lin Huang's gaze shift from the area surrounded by the lightning bolts. He then turned his head to look at where Scarlet Fox and the others were.

The seven people left alive were still in shock. They only reacted when Scarlet Fox made his move; all of them immediately chose to flee.

All Lin Huang did was glance over, and a red electric arc flashed across the distance, killing the six of them instantly.

"Eh?"

Suddenly, Lin Huang raised his eyebrows.

Out of the seven Raiders, one of them was surprisingly not killed at once.

The Divine Telekinesis flying dagger had not gone completely through his body. It had merely left a wound.

This individual was Silver, whose body was now dark red. He looked like a metallic being entirely covered by rust.

However, this form was the state in which his defenses were at their most powerful.

This peak mode would only be triggered when his subconscious sensed lethal threats.

His original physical constitution was already at peak upper-rank lord-level. Now that he had practically elevated a full level, his constitution was comparable to that of a peak ultimate-rank Lord.

This was why Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis flying dagger had not been able to completely breach Silver's defenses.

However, Lin Huang knew that this mode could not be sustained for long.

With a touch of interest, he looked across the distance at the fleeing Silver. He manipulated more Divine Telekinesis flying daggers to attack Silver for a second time, then a third time, and a fourth…

When the flying daggers attacked Silver for the eleventh time, they finally impaled his body all the way through.

It was not that his defenses had been breached; instead, the Divine Power and Odylic Force within his body had been totally drained. He no longer had the strength to maintain this mode.

In the end, all nine Raiders were wiped out en masse after being subjugated by Lin Huang's show of force. Only after a glance at Silver— who eventually toppled to the ground—did Lin Huang turn around unhurriedly. He looked in the direction of the colossal edifice behind him—the Ten Thousand Bug Maze!

Lin Huang's face was expressionless as he faced the colossal edifice in front of him.

He remained where he was, wondering how to deal with this batch of Bug Tribe monsters.

Suddenly, a spatial fluctuation began spreading out.

Lin Huang immediately turned his head to look in the direction of the spatial fluctuation and was instantly on guard.

He had not requested for any assistance.

Therefore, anyone who showed up now might well be the Raiders' reinforcements.

A figure slowly stepped out of the Dimensional Whirlpool.

It was a fairly well-dressed man who was even wearing a top hat. He looked to be in his early twenties, handsome in appearance and possessed of rather extraordinary charisma.

Although the other did not release his aura, Lin Huang's pupils contracted involuntarily the instant he saw the newcomer. He immediately went into a state of combat readiness.

He could sense that the person in front of him was an ultimate-rank Lord.

"Don't worry, Lin Huang. I don't belong to the group that you've just disposed of." The man removed his hat, revealing neatly slicked-back hair, and gave Lin Huang a faint nod.

"Let me introduce my humble self. I am Liu Fu, Rank-S Royalty. I'm also the Supervisor for this investigation."

"Supervisor?" It was the first time Lin Huang had heard of such a position.

Although he was Royalty as well—a Rank-A member even— he knew almost nothing about Royal's internal organizational structure.

Liu Fu had obviously read Lin Huang's file and knew that he had had practically no contact with other Royal members. As a result, his knowledge of Royal was very limited. Patiently, Liu Fu proceeded to explain.

"You probably know that this great world is Royal's affiliate territory. Organizations from the outside world have to submit an application to Royal for entry, and they are only allowed to enter if we approve.

"However, if the applicant's ability exceeds the highest combat strength of our affiliate territory's local population, our assessment will be extra strict. The applicant needs to have sufficiently legitimate reasons, or we'll completely deny them entry.

"However, what many outsiders don't know is that if the applicant's ability exceeds the highest combat strength of our affiliate territory's local population and their application is approved, Royal will secretly arrange for a Supervisor to observe the applicant's every move.

"In Royal's internal department, a Supervisor isn't a position—it's a mission codename.

"Any time Royal is in need of a Supervisor, they will publish the mission. Whoever accepts the mission will be the Supervisor of the mission in question.

"Of course, there are requirements that must be met when one accepts a Supervisor's mission. The Supervisor's ability must be more powerful than that of the applicant seeking entry. If there are many applicants, the Supervisor must possess the ability to keep all of the applicants under control.

"When this group of Raiders applied for entry, I happened to see the Supervisor's mission and accepted it, so I became the Supervisor for this matter."

Lin Huang more or less understood what Liu Fu was saying. The Supervisor would be the one who kept the investigators' movements under surveillance to prevent them from behaving as they pleased in Royal's affiliate world.

"You're here now because I've stirred up trouble by killing the Raiders' investigators?" Lin Huang asked, his gaze fixed on Liu Fu.

"You're over-thinking matters." When he heard this, Liu Fu shook his head, smiling. "It's very common for investigators to die during the course of their investigations. Royal won't make trouble for its members just because of an outsider.

"However, if the Raiders demand an explanation from us, we might just send them the video showing the entire process of you killing all those nine investigators. After all, the Raiders are a top organization in the universe; we can't refuse to give them an explanation."

Lin Huang's expression altered slightly at this point. He did not wish to be targeted by Raiders in the universe who were even more powerful.

He had now killed a peak upper-rank lord-level powerhouse like Nine Snake.

If the Raiders saw the video, the next time they would send at least an ultimate-rank Lord to kill him. They might even send a supreme powerhouse above lord-level.

When Liu Fu noticed Lin Huang's change of expression, he continued.

"You don't have to worry about that. Even if we do send the video, as long as you hide in this world, the Raiders can't do anything to you.

"This is because the most powerful combat strength of the local population in this world is only that of a middle-rank Lord. The highest rank that Royal will allow into this world is an upper-rank lord-level powerhouse. Anyone more powerful than that is barred from entry. Even if they do send more investigators, it should be no problem at all; your current ability is sufficient for you to protect yourself."

"I can't hide like a coward in this great world forever." Lin Huang shook his head when he heard this.

To become more powerful, he would have to leave this great world.

"You've made your presence known just to tell me this?" Lin Huang fell silent for a moment, then abruptly asked Liu Fu, "Or is there something else?"

"Actually, all members of Royal are under Royal's protection. Even if Rank-A members offend lord-level powerhouses, Royal will still protect them. However, if they offend powerhouses above lord-level, Royal will hand over this member without hesitation. That's because it isn't worth offending a powerhouse above lord-level for the sake of a Rank-A member.

"However, Royal will protect a Rank-S member with everything they have, even if that member offends a dao-level powerhouse above lord-level…"

Liu Fu paused at this point and smiled, looking at Lin Huang.

Lin Huang locked eyes with Liu Fu for a moment. Seeing that Liu Fu did not continue, he could not help but ask, "How does one become a Rank-S member?!"

"It's very simple. As long as you possess Rank-S potential and talent, you're eligible." Liu Fu smiled and continued, "To be more specific, you only need to kill an upper-rank Lord by using lower-rank lord-level combat strength. That will be sufficient."

"So I can be upgraded to Rank-S, then?" Lin Huang felt slightly more at ease at this point.

Although he usually disliked being dependant on any organization, based on the current situation, Royal was undoubtedly his best refuge.

"What do you want?" Lin Huang calmed down very quickly, then looked at Liu Fu.

He knew that Liu Fu had to have some sort of motive for disclosing so much information to him.

"I can recommend that you be upgraded to Rank-S. What's more, your chances of successfully being upgraded are very high," Liu Fu smiled as he spoke, "What I want is simple. When the time comes, just write my name in the referral column, and that will be enough.

"When a member is upgraded to Rank-S or when there's a new Rank-S member, the referrer gains a handsome reward."

"There aren't any other requirements?" Lin Huang was quite surprised.

"No." Liu Fu shook his head with a smile. "I'm a mere half step away from breaking through to lord-level. There isn't anything I want from a junior just yet.

2

"I'm recommending you be upgraded because you do indeed possess the ability. For one, I happen to be able to do a good deed. For another, the reward I'll obtain from recommending that you be upgraded to Rank-S might just increase my chances of a breakthrough by that much."

"I understand. Thank you, senior." Once Lin Huang realized that the other was not imposing any further demands on him, he relaxed his guard slightly.

Liu Fu left after they had chatted a little.

Lin Huang only turned around after seeing Liu Fu off and focused his attention back on the hive in front of him.

Lin Huang hovered before the Ten Thousand Bug Maze. In contrast to the massive hive, he was as tiny as a particle of dust.

However, he was not afraid at all in the face of this colossal edifice.

Instead, he was very sure that the many Bug Tribe beasts in the hive ought to be filled with respect for him at the moment.

For a while, he did not do anything at all. He was thinking of how to deal with the hive and the remaining bug beasts within it.

He had no sympathy at all for the Bug Tribe.

This was because the tribe destroyed every place they went to. They would frenziedly plunder various resources in the great world to strengthen their Tribe. After exhausting all the available resources, they would migrate to the next world in a carefree manner, leaving the dead world behind. They would then repeat the same process as before.

They did this to such an extent that the ancient legends of many Tribes even called the Bug Tribe a bug plague. In essence, they regarded the Bug Tribe as a type of calamity.

It did not matter what kind of sci-fi work Lin Huang had seen on Earth in his past life, the games he had played, or the knowledge he had obtained from being in contact with the gravel world later on. They all contributed to his distaste for the Bug Tribe.

His first thought was to kill all of the hives in the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

However, he soon encountered a problem.

The material that the hive was made from could obstruct all sorts of energy transmission to a great extent. This not only included Divine Power and Odyl, but it also included the transmission of God's soul power and Divine Telekinesis.

Therefore, he could not control his telekinetic flying daggers so that they would penetrate through the hive and kill his enemies.

It was also a problem locating the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers in such a massive hive.

If he wanted to kill the Queen Mothers in the hive, he could only do it the hard way, which was to go deep into the hive and hunt for them one by one within the hive passages. This would definitely be an extremely time-consuming process.

Naturally, there was another way, which was to destroy everything, hive and all.

If the hive was crushed into smithereens, the Queen Mothers in the hive would not be able to escape, much less the rest of the bug beasts.

However, Lin Huang still had some reservations about that.

He really wanted to preserve the Ten Thousand Bug Maze. After all, he had his own Bug Tribe army. Furthermore, since the several Queen Mothers were creating more and more Bug Tribe armies, his original hive would be at full capacity soon.

The Ten Thousand Bug Maze in front of him was massive enough for the Queen Mothers under his control to use for a very long time.

Even if he obtained more Queen Mothers in the future, it should still be sufficient for their use.

Right as Lin Huang was at a loss, a tremor shook the hive, and a voice came from it.

"Senior, we're willing to surrender."

"Eh?" Lin Huang was rather surprised. He had not expected that the Bug Tribe would choose to compromise.

What he did not know was that after he had killed Nine Snake, the group of Queen Mothers in the hive had actually been discussing what to do next.

All of the top-ranking elite fighters in the entire hive had been killed in action.

The highest combat strength left in the hive was a lower-rank lord-level Queen Mother, a group of heavenly god-level Bug Queens, and around a dozen heavenly god-level Queen Mothers. The rest were old, weak, or infirm.

They knew very well that even if all of their remaining comrades were to go into battle, as far as this human male was concerned, he might very well be able to kill them all off with a single attack.

Resisting was futile. It would only increase their chances of dying.

What about escape?

They had already seen what had happened to Scarlet Fox and the rest. After observing and learning from the others' mistakes, they knew very well that running away would only hasten their deaths.

Therefore, after the discussion, the Bug Tribe finally made a decision—they would surrender!

This was because only surrender would guarantee them a chance of survival so their Tribe would be able to continue its legacy.

Lin Huang narrowed his eyes slightly and pondered for a long time after hearing the Bug Tribe's offer of surrender.

He definitely intended to accept their offer. After all, this would mean that he would be able to obtain a perfectly intact Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

He was now considering how he should deal with this group of Bug Tribe beasts after accepting their surrender.

A moment later, he finally nodded in agreement.

"Very well, I accept your surrender. Come into my Kingdom first, then."

The hive fell silent for a brief while, but it did not take them long to agree to this.

Lin Huang opened up his Kingdom, enfolding the dead bodies of the Raider team into it along with the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

From any outsiders' point of view, Lin Huang had probably done this so he could have better control over the hive.

However, the truth was that he did not want Liu Fu to see what would happen next, even though he had no idea whether or not the man was still covertly watching his actions.

"Come out now, all Queen Mothers and Bug Queens rank-5 and above." Lin Huang's voice drifted above the hive after he saw that it had entered the Kingdom in his body. "I don't wish to see anyone left behind."

Not long after he spoke, the bug beasts began crawling out of the hive one by one.

Leading them was the lord-level Queen Mother.

Its upper body was almost the same as a human. Even to human aesthetic senses, it was definitely an enchantingly beautiful woman. However, although the faulds of its armor covered most of the area below its waist, its striped abdomen characteristic of the Bug Tribe was still visible.

There were a dozen over Queen Mothers who followed their leader out. All of them were in half-human, half-bug form.

This was not what they looked like in reality. Instead, knowing that Lin Huang was human, they had intentionally taken on this form.

There was also a group of fairly powerful rank-5 Bug Queens who came out of the hive together with the Queen Mothers.

These were the Queen Mothers' bug guardians. However, the highest combat strength in their midst was only a half-step Lord; most of them were only high-level Heavenly Gods.

In actual fact, the abilities of this group of bug guardians were already considered powerful in the great world. However, they were nothing compared to Lin Huang.

After that, the early intermediate-stage Heavenly God Bug Queens, as well as the Bug Queens and Queen Mothers that were not yet heavenly god-level, came out of the hive one by one as well.

Lin Huang was actually a little shocked to see how many of them there were.

There were over forty Supreme God rank-5 Queen Mothers alone. There was one lower-rank Lord and fourteen Heavenly Gods, while the remaining thirty-one were not yet heavenly god-level. The youngest of them all appeared to have been born very recently; it was only a first-rank True God.

There were even more rank-5 Bug Queens—over three hundred of them.

However, most of them had yet to achieve heavenly god-level. Apart from the Queen Mothers' group of bug guardians, the heavenly god-level Bug Queens had basically been killed on the battlefield earlier.

There were close to four hundred rank-5 bug beasts in total.

This was the number of the old, the weak, and the infirm that remained after the defeat just now.

Lin Huang could almost imagine how powerful this Bug Tribe had been before the battle earlier.

He felt rather glad that his unintentional action had resolved a massive threat to the great world.

Lin Huang observed the rank-5 bug beasts standing before him with their heads lowered. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his mouth twitched up in a faint smile.

He had already decided how he was going to subdue these bug beasts.

"If all of you wish to submit to me… then you should die once first…"

Hundreds of blood-red arcs shot out as the Bug Tribe beasts all displayed shocked expressions. The arcs pierced through the heads of all the Queen Mothers and Bug Queens present.

Lin Huang glanced at the hive, aware that all the other bug beasts in the hive were watching what was happening.

He casually gathered up the bug carcasses scattered all over the ground and put them away in his storage space. He then crushed the cards that Xiao Hei had just consolidated.

Close to four hundred Queen Mothers and Bug Queens suddenly reappeared, as if the group of newly slain Queen Mothers and Bug Queens had been resurrected.

After gaining control over the Queen Mothers and Bug Queens, Lin Huang let them all go. He had them lead him into the core of the hive, where he then assumed control over it and had Xiao Hei turn the core into a card.

If he had not subdued this group of Queen Mothers and Bug Queens, he might have needed to spend several months just to find the core.

However, to save Origin Energy, Lin Huang did not ask Xiao Hei to produce a simulation of the entire hive. Instead, he turned the hive's core into a card and assumed control of the core itself.

After all, as long as he controlled the core, it would be equivalent to controlling the entire hive.

When he had finished with these matters, Lin Huang had Xiao Hei transfer the contract relationships of all the Queen Mothers and Bug Queens to the hive's core, except for that of the lower-rank lord-level Queen Mother.

This way, they would no longer occupy his summoning quota.

Although Xiao Hei had entirely abolished the limit on Lin Huang's number of summoning cards, the more bug beasts he summoned, the greater the burden on Xiao Hei's functions.

Transferring the contract relationship to the hive meant less pressure on Xiao Hei.

Furthermore, at present, Lin Huang found it almost unnecessary to summon beasts below lord-level anymore.

The reason he had killed those Queen Mothers and Bug Queens, then turned them into Monster Cards, was only so he could assume total control of the entire hive.

After all, each Queen Mother and Bug Queen had a definite influence in the hive—they each had their own supporters. The more powerful their abilities and the higher their rank, the more influence they had in the hive.

If Lin Huang did not have complete authority over the hive and any of the Queen Mothers' combat strength elevated to lord-level, or any of the Bug Queens elevated to Pure Spirit, it would affect his control.

Therefore, he decided to turn all of them into Monster Cards to put an end to this risk once and for all.

Not only that, after transferring the contracts of multiple rank-5 bug beasts and the hive's core, Lin Huang had the Queen Mothers decree that all the other bug beasts in the hive must establish a new contract with the hive's core within the next few days.

This would ensure that he would have control of all the bug beasts in the entire hive. There would be no chances for betrayal at all.

After completing all these matters, Lin Huang put away his Kingdom and let the hive out.

Standing before the colossal hive, he considered for a while. In the end, he decided not to conquer the other hives once and for all.

According to the memories Shasha (the lower-rank Lord Queen Mother) had shared with him, apart from the Ten Thousand Bug Maze, there were still three super hives in the great world.

The Queen Mothers of two of these hives were Shasha's twin sisters. Both were half-step Lords.

The last hive had Queen Mothers that were peak heavenly god-level twins. They were Shasha's two daughters.

These three super hives all had lord-level bug guardians protecting them.

In scale, those hives were as massive as the Ten Thousand Bug Maze.

Lin Huang thought it over once more but still abandoned the idea of trying to capture Shasha's family in the end.

First of all, he had little interest in half-step lord-level Queen Mothers, much less the twins who were only heavenly god-level.

Naturally, if the twins elevated to become Lords, he did not mind making a trip to establish a contract with the two of them.

Secondly, Shasha had taken the initiative to surrender, so he had been able to swiftly establish a contract and assume control of the hive.

If the Queen Mothers of the three other hives refused to surrender regardless, then he would have no choice but to destroy them together with their hives at that point.

If he wished to keep the entire bug horde intact, he would need to spend a couple of months playing hide-and-seek with the Queen Mothers in the hive.

After settling the matter of the hive, Lin Huang summoned the Gate of All Realms and stepped directly through it.

This time, he did not return to the Ricky Star but to the human world.

He emerged right away in the Demon Eye Star Zone in the human world.

1

The Demon Eye Star Zone was so named because this super star zone made up of hundreds of star zones of various sizes had the biggest Abyssal rift in the human world.

From afar, the entire super star zone looked like a gigantic closed eye.

Furthermore, this dangerous area was also an exceptionally flourishing location, second only to the core zone of the human world.

Lin Huang was planning to establish a branch of the Sword Alliance in this region.

This was because land in the core zone was scarce and expensive, and practically every star zone was already occupied by major organizations.

Although he was powerful, he could not bring himself to occupy someone else's territory by force.

However, the Demon Eye Star Zone was different. Criminal elements and good people mingled; danger and opportunities coexisted. Practically every day, organizations were destroyed, and new organizations were built up.

The most flourishing star zone in the Demon Eye Star Zone was called Heaven Island.

In this star zone, the three most prosperous and bustling planets had been respectively established by three grade-7 organizations—Daluo Temple, Leiyin Temple, and Sanctuary.

1

On the surface, these planets appeared to be the territory of the three Saints. In reality, the seven sects had also established branches on these three planets.

In a flash, Lin Huang appeared on the Eastern Cruise Planet in Heaven Island.

This was Leiyin Temple's territory. Temples could be seen everywhere.

There were not just humans on this planet, but many other Tribe members as well. Lin Huang also sensed the aura of many Protoss.

This proved that humans were still very tolerant.

They did not display hatred or hostility toward other Tribes.

Lin Huang strolled around for a bit before he found a hotel where he could stay.

In the hotel room, he let Sword1 and the others out from his Kingdom.

"Lord Swordmaster, has the crisis been resolved?"

Sword1 asked as soon as he saw Lin Huang.

"Yes, it has." Lin Huang nodded while smiling.

However, Sword1 and the team still looked somewhat gloomy.

The Sword Servants knew very well that with their current abilities, they could not help their swordmaster. In fact, they were even beginning to slow him down.

Lin Huang could tell what his Sword Servants were thinking and patted Sword1's shoulder. "All of you have actually helped me a great deal. What's more, there are many matters later on that I'll need your help with."

Lin Huang then brought up the matter of establishing a branch of the Sword Alliance. After that, he held a discussion with the entire group of Sword Servants until nighttime, setting out the preliminary plans for the formation of another Sword Alliance.

For one, he wanted to found a Sword Alliance in the great world to complete Great Heaven's dying wish. For another, he wanted to set up a bigger territory so the people in the gravel world could better establish themselves.

Although the gravel world was currently in Lin Huang's Kingdom and resources were much more abundant than before, there was still a definite disparity when compared with the great world.

Lin Huang also hoped that more talented geniuses would emerge from the gravel world.

This was because as far as he was concerned, the more powerhouses produced in his Kingdom, the more powerful his Godly Right would become. Even if these powerhouses left his Kingdom, they would still essentially be his people. As they became more powerful, it would still result in a reciprocal effect for his Kingdom.

Lin Huang was anxious to train up more Lords from his Kingdom.

He had even considered using Combat Strength Upgrade Cards to elevate Sword1 and the rest directly to Lords. However, Xiao Hei had vetoed his suggestion at once.

Cards like the Combat Strength Upgrade Card and the Advance Card could only be used on Monster Cards.

After pondering for a moment, in the end, Lin Huang gave up on the idea of converting Sword1 and the rest into card monsters.

If he converted them into card monsters, their contract relationship with Lin Huang's Kingdom would be automatically be dissolved. In other words, even if he elevated them to Lords, it would not strengthen his Kingdom at all. Therefore, it would be useless to convert them into card monsters.

For another, Lin Huang certainly could not bring himself to kill Sword1 and the rest, even if doing so would merely translate them into another form of existence.

After seeing his Sword Servants off, Lin Huang set up barriers in the hotel before he began making an inventory of the spoils he had obtained from his earlier battle.

First on the list were the nine bodies of the Raiders' investigators. There were three upper-rank Lords and six middle-rank Lords. Unfortunately, Cunning Rabbit was not among them.

It was not clear whether his identity as a spy had been exposed and he was afraid of retribution from the Club, or for some other reason, but Cunning Rabbit had not come to the great world with Nine Snake and the other investigators this time.

However, Lin Huang had committed his codename to memory.

If not for this spy, the Raiders might not have taken notice of Lin Huang for a very long time.

Now that the Raiders' team of nine investigators had been completely wiped out, the Raiders' headquarters in the universe would certainly have made note of Lin Huang's name, even if he was under Royal's protection.

Lin Huang had initially intended to stay under the radar as long as he could and try to develop himself further while trying his best to avoid being noticed by the Raiders.

After all, there were many powerhouses among the Raiders and no lack of terrifying entities above Lord-level.

Even though Lin Huang possessed the abilities of an ultimate-rank Lord, he was still afraid of this organization.

After removing the equipment and storage rings from the nine corpses, Lin Huang checked through the bodies carefully, then extracted the Kingdoms from all of them.

Only after doing all this did he begin to examine the Goldfingers he had managed to plunder.

Regretfully, out of the nine, only three possessed Goldfingers.

The reason was that only three of them were travelers.

Nine Snake, the most powerful of them all, was not a traveler. Instead, like Virtuoso's Primordium, he was a reincarnated being.

As for the rest, they were reincarnated beings and regenerated beings.

Even Silver, the upper-rank Lord, was a mechanoid.

Respectively, the three Goldfingers came from the short, burly, bald man, the white-robed Priest, and the plump man who was the most powerful damage dealer.

The short, burly, bald man's Goldfinger was a drop of golden liquid.

He had named it Pure Golden Blood.

As for its effects, it integrated blood from various sources, extracting the body's energy from within the blood itself to strengthen his physical body.

The more types of blood integrated, and the higher the rank and level, the more effectively the physical body could be strengthened.

For Lin Huang, this was actually quite useful.

Currently, his physical body was his weakest aspect.

Although he had refined Black Mountain's Goldfinger, the Tiny Golden Man, his current physical strength was only upper-rank lord-level.

After understanding the information on the Pure Golden Blood, Lin Huang did not take long to come up with how he subsequently wished to operate it and utilize it.

The second Goldfinger came from the white-robed Priest.

His Goldfinger was a golden particle of light which he had named the Holy Light.

The sense that the Goldfinger gave off to Lin Huang was one of nothingness.

He observed it with Divine Telekinesis for a while and realized that it was actually a photon.

He did not know what mysterious changes had occurred to transform it into a Goldfinger.

This Goldfinger's function was also very extreme.

The photon could convert all kinds of energy into the form of light, which would then give them the properties of light. This included Divine Power, Odyl, and even Abyssal energy… the Goldfinger could absorb and convert them all.

It could be considered a highly unconventional Goldfinger.

Lin Huang felt that this Goldfinger was an extremely simplified version of the Eternity Fire within him.

Practically all of this Goldfinger's functions could be fulfilled by the Eternity Fire.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, it was of no use to him at all.

After setting the Holy Light aside, Lin Huang looked at the third Goldfinger—the one from the plump Lord.

This Goldfinger was a metal hammer the size of a human palm.

It was dark purple and covered with sigils.

Lin Huang casually picked it up and checked it out with his God's soul. He could not keep the hint of a smile from showing on his face.

"This is good stuff!"

Despite having plundered so many Goldfingers from the Raiders, this was the first time he had given an evaluation like this.

Although the Goldfinger was shaped like a hammer, it was not a weapon.

Its function was to generate random critical hits.

However, this Goldfinger was actually not very useful in the initial stages of utilization.

In the first stage, its effect could range from 0 to 10 times the damage.

The critical index might very well randomly appear as 0, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001… any of these were possible.

In other words, not only would the Goldfinger not generate a critical hit, but it would also weaken or even nullify the user's attack. It could weaken the strike to one-hundredth or one-thousandth of its regular damage or even reduce the damage to absolute zero.

Furthermore, the smaller the index, the higher the probability of this happening.

Therefore, at this stage, the Goldfinger was a massive resource sink.

When it got to the second stage, its effect would increase—it would now range from 1 to 20 times the damage.

At this stage, the Goldfinger would finally stop being such a massive resource sink.

The plump Lord had cultivated this Goldfinger to stage three.

Its current effect was 2 to 30 times the damage.

In other words, critical hits of at least two times the damage would be generated in each attack, with the maximum effect being thirty times the damage.

That was why the plump Lord's ability to deal damage was the most powerful among the six middle-rank Raider Lords.

Having this Goldfinger in his possession completely dispelled Lin Huang's initial disappointment at only being able to obtain three Goldfingers.

This Goldfinger had only boosted the plump Lord's close-range damage-dealing abilities by just a little.

However, with Lin Huang, it was an entirely different story.

Each of his hundreds upon millions of Divine Telekinesis flying daggers would be boosted with critical hits.

Hundreds upon millions of Divine Telekinesis flying daggers all attacking en masse—just the thought of it was terrifying.

Most importantly, this Goldfinger still possessed space for continued upgrades.

All he had to do was to refine more Goldfingers.

This also piqued Lin Huang's interest in hunting Raiders.

Setting the two other Goldfingers aside, Lin Huang immediately began refining the hammer-shaped Goldfinger.

With the Goldfinger's cooperation, he completed the refining process in less than ten minutes.

Lin Huang then turned his attention to the drop of Pure Golden Blood and rapidly refined this second Goldfinger as well.

As for the "Holy Light", he gave the matter some thought and ultimately decided to feed it to the "Critical Hit Hammer".

After all, this item was too extreme. If he gave it to Lin Xin, it might cause her cultivation path to deviate.

After the Critical Hit Hammer integrated with the "Holy Light", it immediately went into deep sleep mode.

Lin Huang had not anticipated this at all. If nothing else, the critical hit effect he wanted could not be achieved while the Critical Hit Hammer was in deep sleep. He had no choice but to wait for it to finish digesting.

He then checked on the status of the drop of Pure Golden Blood in his body and discovered that it did not clash with the Tiny Golden Man. Not only that, it was rapidly strengthening his physical body.

Not very long later, Lin Huang's initial ordinary upper-rank lord-level physical strength elevated all the way to peak upper-rank lord-level.

However, it stopped at upper-rank lord-level and refused to elevate any further.

Lin Huang raised his eyebrows lightly. This was entirely within the realm of his expectations.

After all, the short, burly, bald man's physical strength had only been peak upper-rank lord-level before receiving a complete boost.

Furthermore, Lin Huang had already decided on how to elevate his physical strength after this.

Although Lin Huang had only obtained three Goldfingers, he was fairly satisfied with matters.

Once the Critical Hit Hammer had completed the digestion process and its function began formally taking effect, his abilities would gain another round of significant boosting.

This Goldfinger could be considered the perfect match for his Divine Telekinesis flying daggers.

With several hundred million flying daggers attacking en masse, even if there were only one chance in ten thousand for a thirtyfold critical damage hit, there would still be several dozen thousand flying daggers with the statistical probability of generating this thirtyfold critical hit effect.

Just this one Goldfinger alone made Lin Huang feel that this round of killing Raiders had been extremely profitable.

After putting away the nine corpses, he summoned the Gate of All Realms again.

He planned to begin a second round of harvesting so he could obtain another batch of True Spirits.

After stepping through the Gate of All Realms, Lin Huang emerged in the virtual realm once more.

As soon as he teleported over, he sensed intense battle fluctuations.

He probed with his Divine Telekinesis and discovered that, apart from Nine Snake and his eight team members, there were also over a dozen other figures present.

There were six auras that clearly belonged to the Abyssal Tribe. Out of these six auras, two were from upper-rank Lords, and four were from middle-rank Lords.

There were seven other auras—human, Protoss, and a member of the Dragon Tribe. One of the humans and the one member of the Dragon Tribe were upper-rank Lords, while the rest were all middle-rank Lords.

From the looks of things, Nine Snake and his team had disrupted the initial equilibrium after their arrival, and this had caused an uprising among the residents.

Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis even noticed that there was a handful of remaining Bug Tribe beasts scattered across the battlefield; they were fleeing for their lives. Their numbers consisted solely of Heavenly Gods and True Gods. These were most likely the Bug Tribe fighters that had formed the Divine Magic Winged Bug Lin Huang had killed earlier.

Since Xiao Hei had captured the lord-level Bug Queens' True Spirits and turned them into card monsters, only these remaining Bug Tribe fighters had shown up in the virtual realm.

In their leaderless state, they could not even consolidate a bug formation.

Without a doubt, the True Spirits of these Heavenly Gods and True Gods were delicious delicacies to lord-level True Spirits.

As soon as the trillions of Bug Tribe fighters showed up, a group of Lords immediately devoured them.

When they had almost eaten all of the bug beasts, the Lords' True Spirits very quickly got into a free-for-all skirmish.

As a result, they had not noticed Lin Huang's arrival at all.

'I didn't expect there to be surprises still.' When Lin Huang saw what was happening, he felt happy all over again.

He had previously thought that there might be lord-level True Spirits remaining in this area since it had been the largest ancient battlefield for humans and the Abyss.

However, he had not expected such a startling number of them.

After ascertaining the number of True Spirits, Lin Huang did not bother continuing to watch them fight.

He shook his sleeves, and millions of God Weapon flying daggers shot out at lightning speed, enveloping the entire battlefield instantly.

In less than the time it took for a breath, True Spirits began to die one after the other, turning into Origin Energy spheres one by one.

Within ten seconds, the entire battlefield had fallen completely silent.

The twenty-two lord-level True Spirits that had just been fighting a fierce battle to the death were now all transformed into Origin Energy spheres of various colors.

As Lin Huang looked over these twenty-two Origin Energy spheres, the expression on his face was rather peculiar.

Of these twenty-two spheres, two had unusually powerful auras.

Although they were currently sealed, the faint auras that managed to seep out from the two Origin Energy spheres made Lin Huang's hair stand on end.

"What on earth is this?!"

Now that he possessed ultimate-rank Lord abilities, he could distinctly sense that the power of the energy contained within the two Origin Energy spheres most definitely exceeded lord-level!

Amid his confusion, the Soul-controlling Tablet suddenly spoke up.

"These two spheres ought to be Origin Energies that were converted from the True Spirits of regenerated beings."

"Is there anything special about the True Spirits of regenerated beings? Why is their Origin Energy so powerful?" Lin Huang was even more confused now and immediately pursued the matter further.

"You've come to the right person for answers, at least. One of the previous masters I served happened to be a regenerated being, so I'm familiar with such matters.

"A regenerated being's True Spirit is innately powerful. That's a prerequisite for becoming a regenerated being.

"After a regenerated being dies, their True Spirit retains its awareness of self when it returns to the virtual realm. This also allows them to advance faster than other True Spirits in the virtual realm, in terms of becoming more powerful. They're more acute at sensing the fluctuations of Dao seals and reincarnation gateways in the material realm.

"However, no matter how many times they're reborn or how powerful their abilities in any of their reincarnations, after they die, the True Spirits of regenerated beings possess only the abilities they attained in that particular life right before their deaths.

"After a regenerated being's True Spirit is destroyed, however, the resulting Origin Energy that they are converted into is the sum total of all the accumulated energies of every previous reincarnation of the host.

"There are two possibilities as to why these two Origin Energy spheres are so powerful they exceed lord-level.

"One—they've reincarnated multiple times, and their abilities in many of those lives were fairly powerful. Therefore, upon accumulation, their True Spirit's Origin Energy has exceeded lord-level in terms of power.

"The other possibility is that in one or more reincarnations, their combat strength exceeded lord-level, so their True Spirit's Origin Energy has now exceeded lord-level as well.

"Whichever reason it is, you've gained an incredible benefit.

"It's the equivalent of killing an upper-rank Lord and a middle-rank Lord, but obtaining two Origin Energies that exceed lord-level."

"You can tell who these two Origin Energies belong to?" Lin Huang asked in some surprise.

"That's not hard. After all, I'm an expert in God's soul." The Soul-controlling Tablet seemed to be purposely making an insinuation at the Brain of the Soul with this comment. It then continued, "The black one exuding dark red mist belongs to the middle-rank lord-level woman in the red robe. The purple one with its surface shrouded in faint red mist belongs to the upper-rank Lord named Scarlet Fox."

"Which one is Nine Snake's?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

He had no real reason to doubt the Soul-controlling Tablet's identification.

However, he initially thought that one of them ought to be Nine Snake's.

After all, Nine Snake possessed the most powerful abilities of the nine Raiders.

"The one with black mist shrouding its surface and a blood-red interior is Nine Snake's."

The Soul-controlling Tablet pointed it out without a pause.

Lin Huang looked at the Origin Energy sphere indicated. He did not think that this sphere was very much more powerful than the silver one.

As if it had noticed Lin Huang's doubts, the Soul-controlling Tablet continued.

"After a True Spirit dies, the Origin Energy's power isn't entirely connected to ability. It's mainly related to combat strength and God's soul's strength. As long as one's combat strength and God's soul are similarly powerful, the Origin Energy will be somewhere around that level as well.

"However, in the material realm, one's actual combat ability is tied to many external factors.

"It's like that upper-rank Lord named Nine Snake. His abilities are powerful mainly because he's a reincarnated being. He gained many benefits from the reincarnation dimension. Furthermore, he often battled different enemies in different worlds, which also allowed him to rapidly accumulate actual combat experience.

"In truth, his God's soul's strength and the number of Dao seals he mastered isn't that much higher than that of the other two upper-rank Lords."

"So that's what it is."

"At your current God's soul's strength, you'll be able to absorb these two minor dao-level Origin Energies, albeit with difficulty. However, my personal suggestion is that it's best if you absorb them only when you've elevated to peak ultimate-rank lord-level. After all, the chances of your God's soul's strength breaking through to lord-level and achieving minor dao-level within the immediate future are fairly low, but it's certainly possible for you to get to peak lord-level.

"Only absorb them when you've elevated to peak lord-level. For one, the burden on your God's soul during absorption will be far less taxing. For another, your absorption efficiency will also be much higher."

Lin Huang gave a slight nod, then asked curiously, "I've heard of dao-level before, but what's this minor dao-level that you've mentioned?"

"The level above lord-level is dao-level, which is divided into minor dao-level and major dao-level.

"Using three thousand Dao seals to establish your own Divine Dao is called minor dao-level. Using thirty-six levels of minor dao-level to consolidate Divine Dao twice—that's called major dao-level.

"That's why there's a saying in the universe that goes, "Three thousand minor dao, one hundred thousand major dao".

"Is there a level that's higher than dao-level?" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

"There ought to be…" The Soul-controlling Tablet coughed twice in a slightly embarrassed manner.

"However, I've only heard about minor and major dao-levels. I've never seen powerhouses as strong as that before. As for anything higher, that would have to be a level that I previously couldn't reach."

"Alright, then…"

Lin Huang thought it was a pity, but he was still delighted.

This conversation with the Soul-controlling Tablet had not only allowed him to gain a great deal of new knowledge, but it had also given him even bigger hopes for the future.

Ultimate-level Lord was far from the limit.

The universe was certainly considerably more vast than that!

In the virtual realm cabin, Lin Huang went into closed-door cultivation again.

This time, his main objective was to refine the Kingdoms of Nine Snake and the other Raiders.

In the cabin, days went by.

Lin Huang completely lost all concept of time as he immersed himself fully in the refining process.

It was unclear how much time had passed when he finally managed to refine all nine Kingdoms completely.

On average, the short, burly, bald man and the other five middle-rank Lords had contributed approximately 80 Dao seals, which had given Lin Huang an increase of 483 Dao seals. His Dao tattoos had also shot up to over two million in number.

Nine Snake and the other two upper-rank Lords had added 2,728 Dao seals to Lin Huang's existing total, and his Dao tattoos had increased to over twelve million in number.

This brought the total number of Dao seals in Lin Huang's Kingdom to 4,618 and significantly increased his Dao tattoos to over 33 million.

It could be said that this had exceeded the limits for an upper-rank Lord.

However, this was merely the limit of the power that he was able to use within his Kingdom.

In reality, outside his Kingdom, his ability was still restricted by the strength of his God's soul.

Apart from being able to invoke the three million levels of Dao tattoo power from his three Dao seals, at most, he could only borrow the Dao seal power of the 1,000 Dao seals in his Kingdom to give himself a further boost of 1.8 million levels of Dao seal power.

As long as he did not encounter a top-notch ultimate-rank Lord, he could fight anyone at all.

However, if he descended into his Kingdom, the total number of Dao seals currently within it was enough to defeat all ultimate-rank Lords.

This round of ability boosting was something entirely within the realm of Lin Huang's expectations.

After refining the Kingdoms of the nine Raiders, he did not proceed with the absorption of the twenty-two Origin Energies.

Aside from the two minor dao-level Origin Energies, he fed the remaining twenty spheres to Xiao Hei.

This was because Xiao Hei needed Origin Energy to create various cards.

Lin Huang needed Xiao Hei's help to create a lot of Advance Cards and Combat Strength Upgrade Cards so he could elevate the imperial monsters under his control to a level where they could be useful.

Furthermore, to Lin Huang at present, lord-level inheritances were not of very much use to him, even if there were Sword Dao cultivators and Lords with cultivation paths that specialized in God's soul. For those that were truly useful to Lin Huang, Xiao Hei could also use a small amount of Origin Energy to create Inheritance Cards, so there was no need for Lin Huang to absorb all of the Origin Energies.

As for the two minor dao-level Origin Energies, Lin Huang decided to keep them for the time being.

He would use them when he was finally able to do so.

He was not in a hurry to elevate his ability at present anyway. The twenty Origin Energies that Xiao Hei had absorbed were sufficient to elevate all of his imperial monsters to Pure Spirit rank-6 Lords.

As soon as he returned from the virtual realm to the Demon Eye Star Zone, Lin Huang summoned Yang Ling and passed him the storage rings from Nine Snake and the other Raiders.

Yang Ling immediately sensed the anomaly when he received the dozen or more storage rings. With some curiosity, he scrutinized them.

"This batch of storage rings isn't from our great world, right?" Yang Ling asked off-handedly as he carefully checked the rings.

"They're from the universe." Lin Huang nodded with a smile.

Yang Ling paused what he was doing when he heard that, and raised his head to look at Lin Huang. "Raiders?"

"That's right." The smile on Lin Huang's face did not change.

"You handled all of them?" Yang Ling pursued the matter further.

"Not a single one was left." Lin Huang nodded again.

"Didn't they send any upper-rank Lords?" Yang Ling was rather puzzled.

Theoretically speaking, since a middle-rank Lord had been killed, there had to be upper-rank Lords among the investigators sent by the Raiders' headquarters. Yang Ling felt that Lin Huang's abilities were likely not enough to handle the investigators that the Raiders sent this time.

"Yes, three came. One of them had abilities that weren't bad at all," Lin Huang commented with a smile.

"You killed all three upper-rank Lords?!" Yang Ling looked utterly shocked.

"I happened to achieve a small breakthrough before they arrived. I can only say that they were unlucky."

Yang Ling was rendered speechless. After quite a while, he could not help asking, "What exactly is your level of ability now anyway?"

In reality, he had been wanting to ask this question for a long time and finally could no longer resist the urge.

"It's almost the equivalent of an ultimate-rank Lord." Lin Huang silently added, 'If I don't go into my Kingdom.'

"Your elevation speed in terms of ability is just too frightening for words," Yang Ling exclaimed involuntarily.

He could be considered someone who had witnessed Lin Huang's development as it progressed. When Yang Ling first met him, Lin Huang was only at bronze-level. He had seen Lin Huang's combat strength elevate significantly along the way until lord-level, encountering practically no bottlenecks at all.

All this time, Yang Ling had even suspected that Lin Huang's Goldfinger had a connection to the elevation of his combat strength.

After passing the storage rings to Yang Ling, Lin Huang wanted to let Lin Xin and the others out from his Kingdom.

After all, for the time being, the threat from the Raiders was resolved, and he felt much more at ease about their safety.

Moreover, under the Sword Servants' covert protection, nothing would happen as long as they did not offend any half-step Lords or Lords.

However, Lin Xin rejected his suggestion when he brought it up.

Her reason was very simple. She wanted to become more powerful and did not want to be a burden.

Lin Xuan, Xiao Mo, Chan Dou, and the rest also declined to return to the great world.

Lin Huang had previously been worried that they would be bored staying in his Kingdom, so he had selected a hive and duplicated it for them so they could kill time through combat training.

It turned out they had become rather addicted to killing monsters in the duplicate hive.

They could train their combat skills and elevate their combat strength as well—there was no need to waste time moving to another place.

The reactions of Lin Xin and the others actually surprised Lin Huang a little.

He guessed that most likely, the move back into his Kingdom this time had caused them some pressure as well.

Naturally, they felt that they ought to become stronger.

Even if they could not fight enemies of the same level as Lin Huang, at the very least, they would not hold him back, nor would they give him trouble.

Lin Huang had to admire this sort of attitude, however.

It was a good thing for one to have a desire to improve.

In truth, he had been concerned that Lin Xin and Lin Xuan might become too sheltered and over-protected under his aegis. However, for a time after that, he had also felt that as long as he was a sufficiently powerful guardian, it would not matter if his siblings were sheltered. Allowing them to have a stable life was by no means a bad thing.

However, from the looks of things, Lin Xin, Lin Xuan, and the others had never lost their enterprising spirit.

All along, they had hoped to be able to share the burden with Lin Huang. It was just that their abilities were not yet up to par.

Seeing that Lin Xin and the rest had made up their minds, Lin Huang chose to respect their decision.

He merely informed them that they could return to the great world any time they wished.

Lin Huang was smiling as he withdrew his consciousness from his Kingdom. The decision that Lin Xin and the others had made gave him a great deal of comfort.

After only a moment of letting his mind wander, Lin Huang soon communicated through his consciousness with the contract within him. He then spoke to his imperial monsters through voice transmission.

"All of you can stop gathering resources for now. Return to the Demon Eye Star Zone in the human world as soon as possible."

The smile on Lin Huang's face grew increasingly brighter after he sent the message. "It's time to build my lord-level rank-6 imperial monster army…"

Within less than a day of Lin Huang sending the message, the imperial monsters returned one by one.

This included not just Tyrant, Thunder, and the others who were waiting for advancement and elevation—even Bai, Grimace, and those who had already elevated to the level of Pure Spirit Lords came back as well.

Naturally, what surprised Lin Huang the most was Bloody's return.

The group of imperial monsters gathered in the meeting room of the hotel.

Lin Huang smiled at Bloody, who was clad in a red dress, and commented, "I honestly didn't expect you to be able to come this time."

"Didn't you say there would be a surprise when I elevated to ninth-rank heavenly god-level? I wanted to see just what sort of surprise this is." Bloody's smile was bright and blossoming like a flower.

Lin Huang felt she was distinctly more feminine now compared to before.

"Don't worry. My surprise this time definitely won't disappoint all of you," Lin Huang answered, smiling.

To maintain the mystique of the surprise, he even intentionally asked Bai and the others, who had elevated to lord-level, to disguise their combat strength to ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

"Since you've elevated, that means Kylie has as well, right?"

Kylie was the only one absent from the gathering of imperial monsters this time.

Lin Huang could understand this. Given her current identity and position, it was indeed quite difficult for her to leave the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

"She elevated a day earlier than I did," Bloody said, grinning. "She wanted to come too. However, she's the Queen of the Nephilic Judge Tribe now, so she has to have a half-step Lord covertly guarding her wherever she goes. Since this gathering is our private meeting, after all, it would be extremely inconvenient to have an outsider along."

"It seems we'll have to visit the Nephilic Judge Star Zone when we have the time."

If he let Kylie cultivate on her own, it would definitely be extremely difficult for her to break through to lord-level within the immediate future. It might take a few years or even a few dozen years. After all, some Heavenly Gods would only dare to attempt a further breakthrough after staying at ninth-rank heavenly god-level for tens of thousands of years, or even several hundred thousand years.

Lin Huang felt that he might break through to dao-level in a few years.

At that point, it would be quite meaningless for Kylie and the rest to elevate to Lords.

His purpose for elevating his imperial monsters' ranks and combat strength this round was so they could catch up with him and take some of the burden off his shoulders.

His imperial monsters were also very willing to take on these burdens.

"Why did all of you come back this time?" Lin Huang looked at Bai and the others who had completed their advancement and combat strength elevation.

"I suggested it," Bai answered bluntly.

"To join in the fun." There was no emotion in Lancelot's voice at all.

"I just felt it's been a long time since we all gathered together. We've nothing to do anyway. I thought we may as well come back to visit our old partners and meet some new friends while we're at it," Grimace said, casting a surreptitious glance at Silver Armor, Nine Gloom, and the several Bug Queens led by Queen Mother Shasha, all of whom were sitting in a corner.

At his current level of ability, he could easily sense that the group of Bug Tribe beasts were all lord-level powerhouses.

The truth was, Grimace was not the only one—Bai, Charcoal, and the rest of their group had also noticed that the new additions were already lord-level.

Meanwhile, the newcomers such as Shasha and the others were rather curious about Lin Huang's several existing Queen Mothers and Bug Queens.

Lin Huang took the entire group of imperial monsters for a meal. After that, he opened the door to the Kingdom and had them all go in.

This time, their teleport destination was right in front of the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang grandly led the group of imperial monsters into the Great Heaven Palace.

He then used Advance Cards and Combat Strength Upgrade Cards on them one by one.

In the palace, cocoons of various colors and sizes rapidly began forming.

Bai and the rest watched this familiar scene in silence; they did not interrupt at all.

It was not until all of the imperial monsters had completely transformed into cocoons that Bai could not help asking a question.

"There's a middle-rank Lord in that group of bug beasts?"

"Yes, there is. Its name is Xia Ke, a rank-5.5 middle-rank lord-level Bug Queen." Lin Huang nodded, smiling.

Bai and the rest fell silent immediately. Clearly, they felt the force of the pressure emanating from this newcomer.

"It's innately well predisposed, but it doesn't mean that it will always be more powerful than all of you." Lin Huang patted Bai's shoulder. "On the path of cultivation, the person you must compete with is yourself. There's no need to compare yourself with others."

Bai hesitated for a moment before speaking again.

"Actually, meeting up with everyone isn't our main purpose for coming back this time…"

"What's your main reason, then?" Lin Huang asked with a smile. He knew Bai's character and Grimace's even better. He was aware that they would not specially come back just to meet up for a gathering.

"We want to become more powerful!" Seeing that Bai did not continue his sentence, Grimace took the initiative and finished it off for him.

"We don't want to immediately become powerful with the help of the cards. We want to fight in actual combat to strengthen ourselves for real," Bai added.

"I don't mind becoming more powerful right away with the help of the cards," Grimace protested innocence immediately. "It'd be best to elevate me to ultimate-rank Lord instantly; I'd become powerful without even having to lift a finger."

"You wish." Lin Huang raised his eyebrows.

Xiao Hei had the ability to do this, but it would drain far too much Origin Energy.

Lin Huang felt that elevating his imperial monsters' abilities was something that could be done when necessary. However, under the current circumstances, there was no need to do so.

Grimace's abilities were fully sufficient for now. Elevating his combat strength again would be a complete waste of resources. Moreover, if they depended on Xiao Hei to elevate their combat strength every time, in the future, his imperial monsters might not be willing to work hard on cultivation.

If not for the fact that Lin Huang felt his imperial monsters' abilities were too far behind his own, he would not have had Xiao Hei do a collective elevation for them this time.

Naturally, Lin Huang knew that Grimace was only half-serious when he said this.

"A way to elevate your abilities quickly…" Lin Huang thought quietly for a moment. In reality, he had already been thinking about this matter. However, before this, he had not been sure if he wanted to carry out his plan. However, now that Bai and the rest had requested it, he felt he could satisfy their needs.

"Let's go outside and talk about this." Lin Huang accelerated the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace to be 10,000 times faster than the outside world, then led Bai and the rest back to the Demon Eye Star Zone.

Once he had returned to the hotel room, Lin Huang summoned Mr. Gate (the Gate of All Realms) immediately.

"Behind this door is a place called the virtual realm. You can enter using a virtual body, take part in battles, and obtain Origin Energy. However, only three people can enter per day. Furthermore, once you die, you can't enter for 24 hours…"

Actually, Lin Huang had initially thought about sharing the virtual realm with his imperial monsters.

After all, at their current level of ability, Bai and the others could hardly find any opponents in the great world.

By letting them into the virtual realm to hunt on their own, they could elevate their actual combat ability, for one. For another, they could also obtain Origin Energy.

Moreover, the virtual realm was within the boundaries of the great world, and most of the Lords were lower-rank and middle-rank. For Bai and the rest, they were actually the most ideal combat opponents.

However, Mr. Gate was currently limited to the creation of three virtual bodies a day.

In other words, only three imperial monsters could enter every day.

They would have to take turns.

Furthermore, as soon as Lin Huang entered to go into closed-door cultivation, it would occupy a slot as well.

However, to upgrade Mr. Gate any further, he had to refine other Goldfingers.

For the time being, there was no way to solve the entrance limit.

"Is this the virtual realm? It doesn't look that different from the material realm." Charcoal, who had shrunk himself in size, perched on Bai's shoulder and looked around.

"Are you color blind, Little Charcoal?" Grimace had a snide smile on his face. "Can't you tell that the world is black and white?"

"You're the one who's color blind!" Charcoal retorted instantly.

"Then tell me, what's the color of my sock?" Grimace pulled up his right pant leg and revealed a sock with alternating yellow and red stripes.

Charcoal merely scoffed, "I don't want to answer your childish question."

"Stop wasting time. Let's quickly locate a target and finish the hunt as soon as possible," Bai interrupted the conversation between the two at once.

Grimace finally curbed his tongue. His Odyl rapidly began forming a star map in front of him.

Before they had come here, Lin Huang had shown the three of them the star map and gotten Grimace to record it.

"This is the Demon Eye Star Zone where we are right now…" Grimace circled a region on the star map that was similar to a closed eye. "This is the biggest Abyssal rift in the human world.

"Based on what master has said, he's already cleared this star zone cluster.

"If we want to hunt Voids, we'll have to leave the Demon Eye Star Zone cluster far behind and go to the other surrounding star zones. There might not be any suitable prey within close range."

"What are you trying to say?" Bai asked bluntly.

"We actually have a hidden choice…" Grimace's lips curled up in a slow grin. "We can go deep into the Abyss and hunt there!

"Although master didn't mention it, I'm pretty sure he didn't go deep into the Abyssal rift."

Bai fell silent for a moment.

Charcoal, on the other hand, agreed with the suggestion immediately, "I think that works. Instead of wasting time going to other star zones looking for targets, we might as well go straight to the Abyss. We might be able to kill over ten Voids in the Abyss in the time we spend looking for a Void in other star zones."

Bai hesitated for a moment but ultimately agreed in the end.

"We can go to the Abyss, but first, let's get this straight. The two of you must behave when we go in."

"That's fine by me," Grimace agreed right away and looked at Charcoal.

"Why are you looking at me? I always listen to Bai Bai." Charcoal's expression was that of an angelic little child.

After ascertaining their target, the three of them quickly made their way to the Abyssal rift.

As soon as they entered the Abyss, they distinctly sensed a malicious intent approaching.

"We seem to have been targeted by someone through Divine Telekinesis," Charcoal commented to Bai and Grimace. This advance notice was also for the other two to give instructions for what to do next.

"That proves we've found the right place." Grimace not only displayed no signs of panic, but he was also thrilled.

"Don't get reckless. This is the Abyss, after all." Bai was much more cautious.

Theoretically speaking, True Gods and Heavenly Gods would also enter the virtual realm after they died. However, if there were lord-level Voids in the surrounding star zones, they would end up being food.

This was also why most of the Voids Lin Huang had seen were lord-level.

Based on the information Lin Huang had provided, it was not hard to determine that most of the Voids in the Abyss ought to be primarily lord-level.

The reason was that there were many Lords inherent in the Abyss. Over the years, there must have been a considerable number of them who had died there.

A Lord occupied one single region, and each region ranged in size from several star zones to dozens of star zones. The Heavenly Gods and True Gods basically had very little space to live.

"The Divine Telekinesis strength is normal; it shouldn't be hard to handle." Grimace swiftly evaluated the opponent. After all, he was also a powerhouse who specialized in God's soul. He could roughly gauge the strength of an individual's Divine Telekinesis strength by mere contact. "Maybe I should try first?"

"We'll let you have the first target then, and we'll take turns after that. The three of us can fight one each in turn. If we run into something we can't handle alone, then we'll fight it together." Bai nodded slightly.

Grimace had no objections to this. He took a step forward and vanished on the spot.

When he reappeared, he was already hundreds upon thousands of lightyears away.

Grimace frowned imperceptibly as he studied the deformed monster, which looked like a skinned human with its entire body shrouded in black mist.

"What a truly hideous creature."

The skinned, deformed monster seemed to understand what Grimace had said. It was clearly quite enraged. With a shriek, it pounced at Grimace in a flash.

Immediately, golden sigils appeared in Grimace's eyes. An instant later, the skinned, deformed monster's body suddenly froze where it was and did not move at all.

It had obviously been hit by Grimace's illusion.

Within a mere moment, the skinned, deformed monster's life force swiftly weakened. Eventually, its life force faded away completely, and it turned into a grayish-black Origin Energy sphere.

From beginning to end, Grimace had remained where he was.

He was the only one who knew what exactly had transpired in the illusion.

"Is this Origin Energy?" Grimace flung out his hand and grabbed the grayish-black Origin Energy sphere.

He could clearly sense that this human fist-sized sphere contained terrifying energy and a massive amount of information.

He hesitated for a second. Instead of absorbing it right away, he returned to Bai and Charcoal in a flash with the Origin Energy sphere in his grasp.

"So fast?!" Charcoal exclaimed involuntarily.

"The target was more or less what I had anticipated. It was only a lower-rank Lord with five Dao seals and mediocre abilities. It wasn't proficient in God's soul technique either, so it got hit by my illusion right away," Grimace gave a brief account of the battle earlier, "The one thing we need to beware of is not to be contaminated by Abyssal energy."

"Is this Origin Energy, then?" Bai gave a sidelong glance at the Origin Energy sphere in Grimace's hand.

"It should be." Grimace nodded. In actual fact, they had never seen what an Origin Energy sphere looked like. They only had a rough idea from Lin Huang's description.

"The energy it contains is truly very terrifying." Bai nodded slightly. "This thing will definitely elevate our combat strength very quickly. I wonder if there are any restrictions on its use?"

"It doesn't just contain energy; there's a great deal of information stored within it," Grimace corrected him from where he was standing to one side.

"Are those redundant memories or inheritance information?" Bai asked again.

"I think it might be both."

"Try refining it," Bai urged.

"I think that even if there's inheritance information in there, it won't be of very much use to me. I'm too different from that guy." Grimace shook his head. "I thought I'd keep it first and swap with both of you when you come across anything that's more compatible with my personality."

"I think that's a great idea," Charcoal expressed immediate agreement, "That way, we can obtain the inheritances we really want to a much greater extent, instead of obtaining a lot of inheritances that aren't useful to us."

"I think that's a feasible idea too." Bai nodded as well. "My suggestion is that we can first refine those that we think are most suitable for us and leave the rest. Not only can we trade among the three of us, but there's also Lancelot and the others after this. Later, there'll be the group that's currently undergoing advancement in the Demon Star Zone—we can exchange with all of them as well. When more people are involved, it'll be easier for us to obtain the inheritances we want most."

Bai only turned his head to look at Charcoal after watching Grimace put away the Origin Energy sphere. "You can take the next target."

"No problem." Charcoal immediately got excited and got into combat-ready mode almost at once.

In the material realm, Bai and the others stood where they were, momentarily dazed, before regaining their senses.

Although Lin Huang had told them beforehand that the flow of time in the virtual realm was quite abnormal, he could still see that Lancelot and Teng Ran's expressions were thoroughly confused.

However, the more puzzled one was Lin Huang.

"Didn't the three of you find any monsters to target?"

Lin Huang asked this because he sensed that the auras of all three did not seem to have changed much in terms of strength.

"We found quite a few. It's just that we didn't absorb the Origin Energy." After saying this, Bai brought up their idea of the three of them exchanging Origin Energy spheres.

After listening to what they had to say, Lin Huang approved as well, "I think that's actually even better. Using it to its full potential will allow for higher overall utilization of the Origin Energy.

"I have another idea. If there are any Origin Energy inheritances that aren't suitable for you, pass them to me. I'll feed them to Xiao Hei directly."

Bai and the rest had no objections to that.

After all, Xiao Hei could only create higher grade Advance Cards if it had stored sufficient Origin Energy.

They had now elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6, but they did not think that rank-6 was the ultimate end.

"After going in for a while, how do you feel?" Lin Huang asked with a smile.

"The virtual realm is truly an amazing place—there are many battles we can take part in!" Charcoal was the first to give an assessment as if the virtual realm were an instance dungeon in a game.

"There are a lot of powerhouses there. It also made me realize that lord-level is just a stop on the cultivation path, not the ultimate destination," Bai sighed ruefully.

Grimace, on the other hand, was all smiles. "It's an awesome hunting ground!"

"How long did you stay there?" Lin Huang inquired further into the matter since this was something he really could not gauge at all.

This was because even if they stayed in the virtual realm for hundreds upon thousands of years, only a moment would have passed in the outside world.

"We only stayed for less than five months, and we encountered a middle-rank Lord with around thirty Dao seals. We joined forces and almost defeated it. Unfortunately, that Death Fiend suddenly generated a burst of power and destroyed our virtual bodies…" Charcoal had barely finished speaking before Bai and Grimace's expressions turned somewhat grim.

"Death Fiend? You went to the Abyss?" Lin Huang frowned slightly.

"Not Death Fiend, Charcoal made a slip of the tongue. It was a Four-winged Fiend," Grimace corrected hastily.

"A Four-winged Fiend was able to cultivate to lord-level?" Lin Huang raised his eyebrows and looked at Grimace. "Or was it a middle-rank Lord?"

"We went to the Abyss," Bai admitted frankly.

"I forbade all of you from going to the Abyss because there are a great many powerhouses there. Furthermore, the Abyss is gradually entering its waking season, and it's an extremely dangerous period. Even though I currently possess the ability to kill ultimate-rank Lords, I still wouldn't dare go to the Abyss during this season whenever I liked. I've prohibited you from going because I'm worried that you might die there.

"However, the situation in the virtual realm's Abyss ought to be slightly better. At the very least, there won't be as many monsters. Not only that, since all of you entered using virtual bodies, even if you died, your consciousness would directly return to the material realm.

"Therefore, I won't prohibit all of you from going into the virtual realm's Abyss. However, keep in mind that as soon as you die, your hunt in the virtual realm will come to an end. You'll just have to wait for your turn again.

"You can see right now that only the five of you have completed advancement and elevation to lord-level. However, half an hour later, Tyrant and the rest will advance to Pure Spirit rank-6, and their combat strength will elevate to lord-level as well. You'll have to wait for at least ten days or so before it's your turn again.

"So my suggestion is to stay for as long as you can once you enter the virtual realm. As for whether or not you want to go into the Abyss, that's entirely up to you.

"I genuinely forgot about that group. I thought it would be Lancelot and the rest's turn tomorrow, and then it would be our turn again the day after tomorrow." Grimace covered his face with one hand.

"I told you not to provoke that Death Fiend, but you refused to listen…" Charcoal looked upset. "We could have just bypassed him and hunted more Voids."

"That guy's ability was only so-so. We would definitely have won if it hadn't generated that burst of power in the end!" Grimace was still somewhat dissatisfied. "It better not get killed by the other teams in the interim. We'll go back the next round and finish him off !"

"We're doing it again next round?!" Charcoal was clearly somewhat reluctant.

"Challenging powerhouses is also a way to cultivate." Surprisingly, Bai also approved of the idea.

"You'll just have to think it through carefully since whatever choice you make, you'll have to bear the consequences." Lin Huang did not offer any suggestions.

"The two of you can go for the second round tomorrow. You can choose another teammate from the imperial monsters that have elevated this round." Lin Huang looked at Lancelot and Teng Ran.

There were only two of them, one less than the required team of three.

Lancelot barely hesitated at all. "I choose Bloody."

Teng Ran, standing off to one side, had no objections.

He knew that as a veteran, Lancelot had a much better in-depth understanding of the others.

"That's a great choice." Lin Huang nodded, smiling.

Lancelot's choice this time was indeed very wise. Of all the imperial monsters under Lin Huang, Bloody was the one with the highest intelligence, perhaps even more so than Grimace.

It could even be said that her overall planning skills and other abilities had far surpassed Grimace.

With her as a teammate, they practically did not need to think at all. All they had to do was follow her.

Furthermore, Lancelot was a powerful striker, so he was not in need of a teammate with those sorts of abilities.

Therefore, Bloody was an excellent choice.

"You can try inviting Bloody. However, it's up to her whether she's willing to join you all or not," Lin Huang said with a smile, "If she disagrees, you'll just have to look for another teammate."

"I want to be in a team with Bloody too…" Charcoal muttered from where he was off to one side.

"Little Charcoal, you have me and Bai—isn't that enough?" Grimace turned his head and asked in all seriousness.

"Um…" For a moment, Charcoal did not know how to answer this question.

"Let me see the results of your hunting." After sorting out the second round of team members who would enter the virtual realm, Lin Huang turned to look at Bai and the other two.

The three of them immediately took out the Origin Energy they had stored in his Kingdom.

There were a total of twenty-seven Origin Energy spheres. Twenty-five of them were from lower-rank Lords, and two were from middle-rank Lords.

Lin Huang was satisfied with these results. The number of targets was fairly acceptable.

After all, the God's souls of all three had just broken through to lord-level very recently. Their Divine Telekinesis coverage was limited, so their efficiency in searching for Voids was much lower than his.

He gave the twenty-seven Origin Energy spheres a cursory examination. From the sense of the auras, most of the inheritances ought to be useful to the imperial monsters.

The group of them had not chatted for very long in the Demon Star Zone before Lin Huang sensed imperial monsters were breaking out of their cocoons one after the other.

As Lin Huang had anticipated, the first one to emerge from its cocoon was the Bug Queen Xia Ke.

It had previously already been at Pseudo Pure Spirit rank-5.5. In addition, its innate combat strength was middle-rank lord-level, and it did not use a Combat Strength Upgrade Card. Its elevation time, therefore, was the shortest of them all.

However, right as Xia Ke broke out of its cocoon, it suddenly sent Lin Huang a message through telepathic voice transmission.

Lin Huang could not help frowning when he saw the message it had sent.

There was only a single sentence in the telepathic voice transmission that Xia Ke sent.

"I sensed the prying of the bug horde's will during my elevation."

Lin Huang fell into a moment of silence after hearing that.

He teleported Xia Ke from the Great Heaven Palace to where he was.

Xia Ke, in the black bug shell, was clearly one-fold larger now. There were no changes in its combat strength. It was still a middle-rank Lord, but its aura was clearly more powerful than before.

"You said that you sensed the prying of the bug horde's will. What does that mean exactly?" Lin Huang ignored the fact that Bai and the rest were next to him and asked directly.

Xia Ke organized its thoughts before speaking, "The bug horde's will is our Bug Tribe's supreme will. Its authority is even higher than the Queen Mother's will. All Bug Tribe creatures are unable to disobey it."

"I sensed the prying of the bug horde's will, but maybe He was just glancing casually. However, as soon as He notices me, there's no way I will be able to disobey any orders that He gives me. That's the thing that I'm most worried about."

"Have you never sensed the bug horde's will prying or watching you in the past?" Lin Huang continued to ask.

"No." Xia Ke shook its head, "Only rank-5 Bug Tribe Queen Mothers are blessed by the bug horde's will once they are born."

"Then how did you know that it was the bug horde's will?" Lin Huang was rather confused.

"Because the will was extremely majestic. It gave me the feeling that I couldn't disobey it at all. It far surpassed the bloodline pressure coming from the Queen Mother that gave birth to me. Although it was just a glance, it gave me the feeling that it could tear the contract between master and I easily."

Xiao Hei suddenly spoke as well once Xia Ke was done speaking.

"I sensed that too. That unknown will was unusually powerful."

"Is it really possible for it to break our contract?" Lin Huang asked instantly.

"It's highly possible. After all, my ability is restricted by your combat strength. The strength of the contract I established for you is only enough to constrain dao-level powerhouses."

"This is a powerhouse above dao-level. It's entirely possible that it could tear apart someone else's contract."

Lin Huang squinted slightly and only spoke up after a moment of thought.

"If it's not an accident that you sensed the bug horde's will when you elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6, it proves that there's a high chance of Queen Mothers being noticed by the bug horde's when they elevate to Pure Spirit rank-6. Can I interpret things this way?"

Xia Ke nodded without hesitation. "The chances of Queen Mothers being noticed when they elevate would definitely be higher."

"You're from the Bug Tribe. What do you think the bug horde's will do as soon as it finds out about the Queen Mothers' elevation?"

Xia Ke fell into a moment of silence. It gave an answer soon after. "I've no idea what He exactly would do but, if He really noticed the elevation of the Queen Mothers, He definitely won't allow anyone to bind them with a contract."

"So, will He destroy the contract?" Lin Huang raised his eyebrows.

"Not only will He destroy the contract, but He will also send His wrath to punish the contractor." Xia Ke corrected him.

"What's the punishment?"

"I don't know, but it won't be as simple as destroying the contract." Xia Ke was sure.

Lin Huang nodded lightly and he looked at Bai and the rest.

They were listening as they stood aside. They heard the conversation between Lin Huang and Xia Ke loud and clear.

"Do you have any decent suggestions to address this situation?"

"My suggestion is simple. Just kill all the imperial monsters that might potentially be a hidden threat. Wouldn't it be the same if you used the extra resources on others?" Grimace was the first to speak while smiling. "Moreover, the slots to get into the virtual realm are limited. We won't have to wait as long in the queue if a batch of imperial monsters are gone."

What he said clearly crossed the line a little bit.

Even Charcoal who was standing next to him took a few steps to distance himself.

"You…"

Xia Ke was so mad that it temporarily could not speak up.

If not for the fact that Lin Huang was here, it wanted to hit Grimace directly.

"I think we can monitor the situation first. If there's really an issue, you can seal the imperial monsters back to their card forms and then come up with a solution later." Bai thought about it and gave his suggestion as well.

"I agree with Bai." Charcoal flapped its wings instantly and leapt onto Lin Huang's shoulder.

Its size had shrunk intentionally at this moment. It was approximately the size of a magpie currently.

Lancelot and Teng Ran did not voice their opinions at all. They merely listened as they stood to the side.

"I'm worried that it'll be too late if we wait for the issue to present itself. I think it's better to nip the problem in the bud immediately." Grimace persistently advocated his perspective.

Lin Huang glanced at Lancelot and Teng Ran. The two of them still did not seem like they were going to voice their opinions on the matter.

He turned his head to look at Xia Ke. "What do you think?"

"I'm not sure whether it was an accident that I attracted the attention of the bug horde's will, therefore, I don't know what exactly will happen when the Queen Mothers complete their elevation. However, I don't think you should decide to kill us just like that."

"I hope that you'll monitor the situation first, master. If something is wrong with the contract, seal us. I've no objections to that. You can figure out a solution to handle us when that happens."

Naturally, Xia Ke agreed with Bai's suggestion.

It could not think of a better way to go about things.

"Let's do it according to Bai's suggestion." Lin Huang made the final decision.

Xiao Hei's voice suddenly chimed in after Lin Huang had made up his mind.

"The bug horde's will showed itself again. He didn't try to destroy the contract. He retreated after leaving an imprint on Shasha."

Lin Huang could sense that Queen Mother Shasha had completed the elevation.

He immersed his consciousness into the Kingdom in his body and teleported Shasha before him directly.

Shasha, who had just completed the elevation, was stunned momentarily. It only snapped back to its senses when it saw Lin Huang and Xia Ke.

"Greetings, Master."

"Shasha, do you feel anything amiss after completing the elevation?" Lin Huang asked directly.

"The bug horde's will showed itself. He watched me for a moment and left a blessing imprint on me." An imprint was revealed on Shasha's waist as it spoke.

It was a complicated black sigil. It looked similar to a tattoo.

Lin Huang stared at it for a while, but could not make heads or tails of it.

"Do you know the exact effect of this imprint?" Lin Huang asked further.

Shasha did not lie. That was a good thing at least.

"It's just a blessing imprint. It's similar to the blessing that we were given when we were born, but more powerful," Shasha explained. "This imprint provides us longevity, a more powerful body and improves our chances of producing high-grade offspring… Those are the effects of the blessing."

Shasha looked like it was telling the truth, but Lin Huang did not trust it entirely.

"Is it possible that the bug horde's will can influence the Queen Mother's thoughts directly?" Lin Huang asked Xiao Hei secretly.

"The possibility is low, but we can't rule it out completely. After all, we don't know what kind of techniques and abilities the beings above Lord-level possess."

"As such, we can only observe if the remaining few Queen Mothers encounter similar things when they complete their elevation and make our judgment based on what they say." Lin Huang felt rather troubled.

He did not expect to have such a situation arising out of nowhere. He had initially been waiting happily for his lord-level imperial monster army to emerge from their cocoons.

As the Great Heaven Palace accelerated time by 10,000 times, the imperial monsters soon broke out of their cocoons one by one.

Lin Huang teleported them over as the few Queen Mothers completed their elevations one after the other.

After questioning them, he found out that they had encountered the same thing as Shasha did.

The bug horde's will left a blessing imprint on their bodies too.

Lin Huang did a detailed comparison by scanning them with Divine Telekinesis. The sigils of the imprints were completely different. Each imprint looked similar, but there were subtle differences.

The Queen Mothers had the same understanding as Shasha regarding the imprints. They thought it was a blessing imprint.

On the surface, Lin Huang could not see any problems in these Queen Mothers.

He checked them thoroughly with Divine Telekinesis again, but failed to find anything out of the ordinary.

Given that Xiao Hei did not sense any issues with the contracts, Lin Huang eventually decided to put the few Queen Mothers onto his watchlist for the time being.

He did not seal them into their card forms.

Instead, he got Xiao Hei to watch these Queen Mothers' cards' conditions at all times. As soon as it noticed anything off, it would seal them instantly.

To Lin Huang, no matter what the bug horde's will did, as long as nothing happened to the contract, these Queen Mothers would still be under his control.

Moreover, Xiao Hei would seal them as soon as any situation occurred. It would only take a second.

After settling the unforeseen circumstance that arose from the elevations of the few Queen Mothers, Lin Huang questioned and investigated the few Bug Queens, excluding Xia Ke for safety purposes.

In the end, the investigation result was that, apart from Xia Ke, all of the other Bug Queens did not sense the prying of the bug horde's will.

They did not have a blessing imprint left on their bodies, nor did they experience anything unusual.

Lin Huang guessed that it was perhaps because Xia Ke was the first to elevate, thus gaining the attention of the bug horde's will. Clearly, a Pure Spirit rank-6 still did not deserve the bug horde's will's attention.

Not only that, he could tell that as beasts of the same rank, which was rank-6, a Queen Mother's status was much higher than that of the Bug Queens.

Lin Huang thought about it carefully. He could understand why the Queen Mothers' status was higher.

Queen Mothers had a certain chance of breeding offspring that were a rank higher than they were.

Theoretically, a rank-6 Queen Mother might give birth to a rank-7 offspring. Although the chances were extremely low, it was not impossible.

Moreover, even in the universe, a rank-7 being could definitely be considered as somewhat heaven-defying.

After handling the Bug Tribe's emergency, all of the imperial monsters in the Great Heaven Palace had broken out of their cocoons and completed their advancement and elevation.

Lin Huang's lord-level rank-6 imperial monster army had finally been established.

He began to check the Monster Cards one after the other.

"Monster Card: Bloody"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Wise Goddess"

"Type of Monster: Super Wisdom-type"

"Nickname: The Wise One of the Era"

"Combat Level: Lower-rank Lord (level-1 Dao seal)"

"Major: Intelligence"

"Major Skills: Perfect Parasitism, Total Control, Heart of Knowledge, Inheritance Duplication…"

"Minor Skills: Memory Administration, Immortal Tinder, Consciousness Transfer…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

"Monster Card: Tyrant"

"Rarity: Pure Spirit"

"Monster Name: Genie Combat Saint"

"Type of Monster: Celestial Giant Tribe"

"Nickname: Combat Saint"

"Combat Level: Lower-rank Lord (level-1 Dao seal)"

"Major: Combat God Dao, Martial Dao, Combat Cultivation"

"Major Skills: Combat Saint Technique, Galactic Power, Combat God Ax…"

"Minor Skills: Immortal Being of the Galaxy…"

"Summon Authority: Activated"

"Card Remarks: Please spare no efforts in cultivating this!"

…

Bloody, Tyrant, Thunder, Bloody Robe, Fiend, Imp, Witch, Death Knight, Fallen Knight, Warlord, Herculean King, Bing Wang, Eclipse Boa, Dark Crescent Snake, Killer, Evil Dominator, Abyssal Fountain (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain), Nine Gloom (Silver-armored Nine Gloom) as well as Shasha, Xia Ke and the bunch of Bug Tribe beasts…

Lin Huang looked at the cards one by one.

None of the Mythical-level rank-4 and Supreme God rank-5 Monster Cards from before were left behind. All of them had been elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6. Not only that, apart from Kylie, all of the remaining members had been elevated to lord-level.

Naturally, Lin Huang only got Xiao Hei to consolidate a Dao seal for them.

The imperial monsters would have to do the rest on their own.

After all, consolidating a Dao seal would drain a great deal of Xiao Hei's Origin Energy.

Moreover, Lin Huang had helped his imperial monsters to cross the most difficult hurdle. He did not want his imperial monsters to slack off and get lazy.

The imperial monsters guessed what Lin Huang had in mind. After all, they would have to gather materials to elevate each time before. If not for the fact that they were slowing him down too much, he would not be in such a rush to skip the step of getting them to gather materials.

Lin Huang glanced through the many imperial monsters present. He was planning to give them some pressure.

"Since everyone is here today, I'd like to be frank about something.

"The resources that I provided to elevate everyone to lord-level is almost the limit I can bear at my current level."

"You guys will have to depend on yourselves for the next combat strength elevation."

"Also, the resources required for your elevation to the next rank, which is rank-7, will be tens or even hundreds of times more than the amount used this time. I'm not sure if I can gather enough resources to elevate all you guys by then when we get to that stage."

"I'll be honest now. If the resources are insufficient at that point, then I'll most probably prioritize elevating those who have a higher level of combat strength."

"Also, I'm aware that your combat strength has just received a boost at this moment, and that you're quite proud of yourself, but I'll let you in on a secret—Lord-level is far from the end."

"Above the lord-level, there is the minor dao-level, major dao-level and levels that are even higher than those."

"I'm not sure how far I can go, but I hope that you guys can work hard enough to keep up with me."

…

They thought that they were invincible since they had just been elevated to Lords, but instantly felt pressure by Lin Huang's words.

When they looked around again and realized they all had the same combat strength and that they were on the same starting line, the pressure they felt became even greater.

Although they knew what their master said was to add a sense of pressure on purpose, they understood that they definitely required even more resources to elevate to rank-7. If their master really had insufficient resources at that point, then he could only choose to elevate a portion of his imperial monsters.

If their performance was not as outstanding as the other imperial monsters, they might stay at rank-6 forever.

To the imperial monsters who had just felt how powerful Pure Spirit rank-6 was, that was definitely something that was hard to accept.

Moreover, there were more levels above lord-level. To most of the imperial monsters present, it was like a bombshell had been dropped on them. They had not been aware of this previously, and a sense of ambition was slowly growing within them…

Lin Huang was secretly relieved seeing the imperial monsters beginning to develop a competitive mentality.

'As I thought, only competition can boost their will to fight!'

"You guys don't have to worry too much about obtaining resources."

Lin Huang looked at them and calmly told them about the virtual realm.

"From now on, I'll send three of you into the virtual realm each day to hunt Voids and obtain Origin Energy. You can absorb the Origin Energy you obtain if you deem it suitable for you. If it's not suited to you, you can swap it with others."

"As there'll be three in a group each time, you guys can come up with your own teams. Also, I've given the slots today to Bai, Charcoal and Grimace. The second team that will go tomorrow will be Lancelot's team."

"Therefore, after all the teams have entered once, you guys will follow the current order in the future to enter for the second, third cycles…"

"If one of the team members of the team that's supposed to go in has an emergency or cannot make it, you guys can discuss with the other teams to propose a change in the order of entry. Of course, the member who had something come up must communicate with the other two members to reach an agreement beforehand."

"Also, I'll inform all of you in advance if I need to use the virtual realm. The team that is supposed to go in will have to delay their turn to the next day."

"You guys can ask Bai, Charcoal and Grimace regarding the exact situation regarding the virtual realm."

"You guys can discuss the swapping of Origin Energy too."

"Lastly, I want to tell you something that might upset you guys a little. I'll be taking 30% of the Origin Energy you guys obtain in the virtual world." Lin Huang mentioned the distribution ratio after explaining the rules roughly. "I'll tell you the reasons why I'm taking a portion."

"Firstly, you guys are actually taking up my hunting slots to enter the virtual realm. If I didn't give you the slots, I could go into the virtual realm three times a day. Not only that, my hunting efficiency is much higher than yours."

"Secondly, Xiao Hei requires a huge amount of Origin Energy to make all sorts of cards, which includes the accumulated energy required to create the higher level Advance Cards later on. Most of my share of the Origin Energy will eventually be used on you guys."

"My personal suggestion to you guys would be that, after you've obtained Origin Energy from the hunt, you should consider prioritizing keeping the Origin Energy that suits you and the Origin Energy that's suitable for swapping. Let me handle the Origin Energy that's not suitable for trading."

Indeed, Lin Huang suggested taking a share from them because, after giving these slots to enter the virtual realm to the imperial monsters, it would mean that Xiao Hei would lose its source of Origin Energy replenishment.

After taking that into consideration, Lin Huang had been repeatedly thinking about a solution and eventually decided to "exploit" the portion of the deficit from his imperial monsters.

Most of the imperial monsters were quite dumbstruck when they heard about the arrangement in the beginning.

It was not that they were unwilling. It was just that they did not understand why Lin Huang would suddenly come up with such an arrangement.

However, they thought it made perfect sense after hearing his explanation.

"I have a tiny request before you all start teaming up." Lin Huang's lips curled into a smirk. "I need all of you here to provide me with a drop of your blood essence."

Lin Huang did not elaborate on this matter any further.

Although they did not understand why exactly Lin Huang wanted their blood essence all of a sudden, none of them objected. They went forward one by one to provide their blood essence.

Bloody did not ask when she saw that Lin Huang was unwilling to tell them the reason. She went forward as well to give her blood essence.

Lin Huang only spoke again after gathering all of the imperial monsters' blood essence, "Alright. That's all I have to say. All of you can pick your teams now. Report your teams to Bloody when you're done."

"Regarding the order of teams going into the virtual realm, let's follow the sequential numbering of the teams. Bai's team will be No. 1, and Lancelot's will be No. 2. Whichever team that reports to Bloody first will be No. 3. That'll be the order."

Lin Huang came up with such an arrangement with the goal of preventing them from wasting too much time picking their teams.

Although it did not actually make much difference by nature if it was done a few days earlier or later, everyone would have been occupied with thoughts of fighting for the first place. They were unwilling to be placed further behind in the sequence.

Within five minutes, all of them had come up with their teams.

Bloody had also given the sorted list to Lin Huang.

He listed down the sequence and dates and made the information public to indicate his fairness.

All of the teams jotted down the dates their team would be going into the virtual realm instantly.

"You guys can stay in the Demon Eye Star Zone for the time being. You can do whatever you want as long as you make it back in time to enter the virtual realm officially."

Lin Huang gave them their freedom after he was done speaking.

The imperial monsters surrounded Bai, Charcoal and Grimace immediately and began to ask about the virtual realm.

Lin Huang flashed and returned to the Great Heaven Palace.

The first thing he did when he returned to the Great Heaven Palace was to adjust the time flow. He then sat with his legs crossed and dripped the blood essence onto the Goldfinger Pure Golden Blood one by one.

The function of the Pure Golden Blood was to absorb different varieties of creatures' blood and extract their energy to strengthen the host's physical body.

The more types of blood that were integrated, and the higher the rank and combat strength of the creatures, the better the effect of strengthening his physical body.

The quantity of blood did not really matter, as the Pure Golden Blood only needed a drop of blood to extract its primary substance. After doing that, it could duplicate the substance on its own.

Lin Huang had already thought about how he would use it as soon as he obtained the Goldfinger earlier.

After all, he had many imperial monsters under him. Although Bai and the rest only had lower-rank lord-level combat strength, their current rank was Pure Spirit rank-6.

The nutrients in their blood essence might have surpassed many ultimate-rank Lords.

As Lin Huang expected, after the Pure Golden Blood absorbed the first drop of blood essence, his physical strength began to undergo a new round of strengthening.

The level of his peak upper-rank Lord's physical body began to loosen.

After absorbing the third drop of blood essence, Lin Huang's physical strength finally broke through again, stepping into the realm of ultimate-rank Lord.

As the Pure Golden Blood continued absorbing the blood essences, Lin Huang's physical strength skyrocketed.

In the end, after absorbing all of the blood essences, his physical strength grew to peak ultimate-rank lord-level, just shy of the upper limit.

Initially, physical strength had been his biggest shortcoming. However, his physical strength had now surpassed the strength of his God's soul.

In reality, this result was not really what Lin Huang had expected.

He initially thought that, even if he absorbed all of the blood essences, the physical strength boost coming from the Pure Golden Blood would be limited. After all, Bai and the rest only had the combat strength of lower-rank Lords. He had previously estimated that it would be good enough if his physical strength could break through to ultimate-rank Lord. He did not anticipate that he would break through all the way to peak ultimate-rank Lord at all.

"This round of strengthening is pretty great." Lin Huang was very satisfied with the overall results that far exceeded his expectations.

The truth had proved that the Goldfinger Pure Golden Blood's effect was much more powerful than he initially thought.

Under the accelerated time flow in the Great Heaven Palace, merely a moment had passed before Lin Huang returned to the Demon Eye Star Zone.

The imperial monsters were still surrounding Bai's team to ask about all sorts of information regarding the virtual realm.

Lin Huang was the only one who knew that he had become much more powerful after that fleeting moment in time.

As the disparity between the imperial monsters' abilities and his were too vast, they did not sense any changes from him at all.

Over the next few days, one after the other, the imperial monsters entered the virtual realm everyday to hunt for Void beasts.

Bloody joined Lancelot and Teng Ran's team on the second day. After the hunt ended, she created a clone to return to the Nephilic Judge Star Zone.

Given her current identity and status, although Kylie was definitely safe with the Nephilic Judge Tribe, Bloody was still a little worried about leaving her alone with them for long periods of time.

Bai, Grimace and a small number of imperial monsters left the Demon Eye Star Zone after getting out of the virtual realm.

However, most imperial monsters chose to stay.

Lin Huang would obtain a 30% share of the Origin Energy collected by the imperial monsters' daily. Although it was not much, it was better than nothing at all.

He did not remain idle over the past few days either.

He received the Nine Snake team's storage rings that had been unsealed from Yang Ling.

The items in there had far surpassed Lin Huang's expectations.

Among them, Nine Snake's collection was the most shocking.

As a reincarnated being, Nine Snake could not refine Goldfingers.

However, there were three Goldfingers in his storage ring.

Clearly he had obtained these after killing travellers, and had not had the opportunity to trade them.

Lin Huang checked the three Goldfingers. Almost all of them were of the lowest grade and had mediocre functions.

He placed them into the Gate of All Realms to refine them.

After spending a few days refining them, the number of virtual bodies the Gate of All Realms could create increased to six.

Lin Huang increased the daily allocations for the imperial beasts to enter the virtual realm from one team to two.

Apart from three Goldfingers, Nine Snake's storage ring contained all sorts of reincarnated beings' tools and medicines.

Even Lin Huang coveted some of these tools and medicines.

However, these were exclusively for reincarnated beings. Others could not use them at all.

Not only that, some of the tools and medicines could only be used in the reincarnation dimension.

Lin Huang could not get into the reincarnation dimension, and therefore could not use them.

He could only post them on Royal's auction to sell them.

He did not have to worry about people bidding on them by mistake since he included a remark stating that these items were exclusively for reincarnated beings.

There were many powerhouses in Royal, which meant that there were definitely entities such as travellers and reincarnated beings.

In reality and in the universe, reincarnated beings, travellers and regenerated beings were not a secret to powerhouses at the lord-level and above.

Though Lin Huang could not use the reincarnated beings' tools and medicines, there were other more valuable items in Nine Snake's storage ring.

There were tens of Dao Weapons alone.

Moreover, most of them were expert-grade Dao Weapons. There were even two supreme-grade Dao Weapons.

To Lin Huang who possessed God Weapons, these were valuable items that could be traded.

The person who had the second most valuable collection was the upper-rank Lord, Scarlet Fox.

Scarlet Fox was a regenerated being, which was probably why he knew some of the ancient secret zones and ruins that outsiders were unaware of.

There were hundreds of Dao Weapons in his collection.

However, these were mostly intermediate-grade Dao Weapons, amounting to a total of about 60 intermediate-grade Dao Weapons.

There were over 20 low-grade and expert-grade Dao Weapons.

There was one supreme-grade Dao Weapon.

Apart from Dao Weapons, there were other luxury items such as precious stones in his storage ring as well.

These were not just accessories. Most of them were engraved with complicated sigils and could boost one's capabilities to an extent similar to that of Dao Weapons.

Lin Huang was not too sure whether they were gifts he received or if they were items he planned to give away as gifts.

There were hundreds of these luxury items. He speculated that the price of each luxury item was on par with some of the Dao Weapons.

The one who had the third most valuable collection was not the upper-rank Lord, Silver, but rather the middle-rank Lord, the mummy-like man.

He was a regenerated being too.

The number of Dao Weapons in his storage ring was only second to Scarlet Fox. There were over 80 Dao Weapons.

However, most of them were intermediate-grade Dao Weapons. There were only five expert-grade Dao Weapons.

Lin Huang also received a surprise gift from his storage ring.

There were over a hundred bottles with a variety of lord-level beings' blood essence.

Lin Huang immediately thought of feeding the Pure Golden Blood again.

There were no surprises to Lin Huang on what the remaining Raiders had in their storage rings. The value of their contents was similar to what he had anticipated.

The one that disappointed him the most was Silver's storage ring.

As an upper-rank Lord, apart from a Goldfinger, there was almost nothing that Lin Huang could use in his storage ring.

He thought there would be mechanoids who would be interested in those items if he auctioned them on Royal's auction.

The Goldfinger, on the other hand, was of the lowest grade. Lin Huang gave it to the Gate of All Realms to absorb without much hesitation. After that, the Gate of All Realms could create seven virtual bodies daily.

After briefly sorting out spoils, Lin Huang posted the items that could be sold on Royal's auction.

He evaluated the valuable ones and decided that they could only be traded with upper-rank Lords' and ultimate-rank Lords' God Territories.

Those that were not valuable could be traded with middle-rank Lords' and upper-rank Lords' God Territories.

Naturally, he did not forget to include the remark—There was no limit to the type of God Territories. Bug Tribe and Abyssal ones were also acceptable.

As he was not in a hurry, Lin Huang set the auction duration to last a month.

The next morning, after doing an inventory of the spoils and posting more of them on the auction, his Royal Token suddenly vibrated.

He thought something had gone wrong with his trades, so he took out his identity token immediately.

However, a call request popped up directly as he spread his Divine Telekinesis over it.

Lin Huang looked at the name. It was Liu Fu.

He was stunned for a second, before he clicked the answer button shortly after.

The next moment, Liu Fu's image projection appeared not far from Lin Huang.

"Congratulations, Brother Lin Huang!"

Liu Fu congratulated him with a smile on his face as soon as his image was projected.

"From today on, just like me, you're a Royal Rank-S member."

In reality, when Lin Huang saw Liu Fu's name on the call request, he had already guessed that he would be calling about this. Nevertheless, he was still slightly surprised.

"Is the Royal Rank-S evaluation that easy?"

It had only been less than three days. Not only that, nobody came looking for him for assessments of any sorts.

After all, as a job seeker on Earth in the past, you would have to go through at least one round of interview after sending in your resume before being selected. The company would only get them to start working after meeting the job seeker and deeming the person suitable for the job.

However, there was not even an "interviewer" from Royal for the Rank-S evaluation this time. Lin Huang thought that the process was a little too easy.

"Was it easy? Royal's headquarters receives tens of hundreds of applications to upgrade the members to Rank-S almost every year. There might not be even one person who passes the application over tens of years." Liu Fu looked at Lin Huang with a smile.

"The passing rate is so low?" That fact indeed surprised Lin Huang.

"What do you think?" Liu Fu continued, "Your application passed so quickly because I recorded the entire battle between you and Nine Snake's team. Your ability, talent and potential were shown completely. After the superiors saw it, they passed your evaluation unanimously. Nobody voted against you."

"Aren't they worried that the video might be fake? Shouldn't they at least send someone to verify the applicant's ability?" Lin Huang raised his doubts anyway.

"Firstly, I recorded that battle video as a Supervisor. I used tools exclusive to Supervisors to record the video. The video was saved immediately, and was recorded into Royal's network database directly. The video can't be edited."

"Secondly, I saw the entire battle with my own eyes. The superiors asked about you as well. I'm a Rank-S member, so I have a certain amount of credibility in Royal. I wouldn't lie for the sake of a newbie. Moreover, some of these entities would be able to tell if I'm lying at glance."

"To put it simply, your brute force proved your qualifications. You even surpassed the average Rank-S member's standard. Therefore, it was easy for your application to be approved."

Liu Fu explained in detail.

"What's the difference between a Rank-S and Rank-A member?" Lin Huang stopped dwelling on the difficulty of being upgraded and asked about something else instead.

"The difference is quite significant. Rank-S members are considered to be Royal's core members. There's a great upgrade in your authority, as well as all sorts of rights."

"Rank-S members can apply for resource subsidies annually. There are also the convoy quotas. Convoys will enjoy Rank-A member's treatments in Royal. The number of affiliate organizations under you increases too. The authority relative to that has been upgraded as well. Also, you won't have to pay any handling fees to participate in Royal's auction…" Liu Fu said a bunch of things. "I won't go into the specifics. You can check the details and description yourself."

"To put it simply, Rank-S members are Royal's biological sons, while members below Rank-S could only be considered their illegitimate children."

After hanging up on Liu Fu, Lin Huang checked his current account authorization status instantly.

"Member: Lin Huang"

"Gender: Male"

"Authorization level: Rank-S"

"Qualification Assessment: Grade-S+"

"Combat Strength: Lower-rank Lord-level"

"Affiliate Organizations: Dynasty (Two-Star), Misery (Two-Star)"

"Remarks: He killed Raider's peak upper-rank lord-level powerhouse Nine Snake with his lower-rank lord-level combat strength."

…

As expected, his personal information page was altered to Rank-S, and there was an update on his related information as well.

He looked at the exact contents of the Rank-S authorization status in detail. He found out that it was indeed as Liu Fu said, Rank-S members were almost considered to be Royal's biological sons.

Firstly, Rank-S members could conduct trades of all kinds in Royal without having to pay the handling fees.

This authorization perk was not only useful in Royal, but was also applicable to all of Royal's affiliate organizations. As long as it was registered under Royal, he would not have to pay their handling fees.

To Lin Huang, this was the perfect time to use his new Rank-S authorization status.

He could seize the opportunity to list a bunch of items on the auction. The Rank-S authorization would save him the handling fees.

Not to mention, the money-saving authorization perk was only considered an insignificant benefit among the many authorization perks included in the upgrade.

Among all of them, Lin Huang thought that the most practical perk was the one that gave him complete access to all trial zones.

He could not help but compare it to the description of his previous authorization status.

"Rank-A Authorized Member: Access to any grade-0 to grade-3 trial zones, 30 grade-4 trial zones, ten grade-5 trial zones and ten great world trial zones."

"Rank-S Authorized Member: Unlimited access to any trial zones (a small number of forbidden areas are excluded from this clause)."

One must know that the trial zones were either ruins or secret zones. In reality, it was equivalent to one instanced dungeon.

It would mean that Lin Huang had countless instanced dungeons available for him to grind. The resources he could obtain would not be limited to the great world he was currently in.

Even the authorization status for the members of his affiliated organizations received a qualitative upgrade.

"Rank-A Authorized Member: Access to any grade-0 trial zones, 80 grade-1 trial zones, 20 grade-2 trial zones, ten grade-3 trial zones, three grade-4 trial zones, one grade-5 trial zone and one great world trial zone."

"Rank-S Authorized Member: Unlimited access to trial zones of any grades, any great world trial zones and most public trial zones in the universe."

Theoretically, the treatment Royal provided was enough for their Rank-S members to train and cultivate a batch of lord-level subordinates.

Lin Huang thought for a moment and registered the Sword Alliance as an affiliate organization under him.

Considering that Sword1 and the rest were at the heavenly god-level, he registered the Sword Alliance as a grade-4 organization.

After passing the Royal headquarters' assessment, he could send anyone and everyone from the Sword Alliance into the trial zones' instanced dungeons that best suited their levels.

Lin Huang glanced through the remaining authorization perks. Very soon, he saw one that he was interested in—the convoy authorization.

Rank-S members could set up their own convoys.

The total quota of such convoys was ten. As soon as the setup process was completed, all his convoys would possess Royal's Rank-A membership identity. They would enjoy all of the Rank-A member authorization perks that Royal provided.

Rank-S members could add, change or remove a convoy as they wished, as long as the quota requirement was met.

Seeing this authorization perk, Lin Huang thought of Bloody and Kylie first.

The both of them would possess Royal's Rank-A membership identity if he assigned them a convoy quota. He could totally grow the Nephilic Judge Tribe as an organization under him.

He only dwelled on this thought for a second before telling his idea and the information regarding Royal to Bloody and Kylie via telepathic voice transmission.

Later on, he proceeded to examine the remaining authorization perks.

"Resource subsidies…" Lin Huang soon noticed an authorization perk that had not existed prior to this.

"Rank-S members can apply for an annual resource subsidy once per year. They can choose a subsidy with a value equivalent to a supreme-grade Dao Weapon…"

"The subsidy authorization perk can be accumulated and stored without being claimed over the course of many years. The value of the subsidy would stack cumulatively…"

"This means if someone sets it aside and doesn't claim it for tens of thousands of years, they can apply to claim a subsidy that's equivalent to tens of thousands of supreme-grade Dao Weapons?!" Lin Huang widened his eyes.

One had to say that Royal was generous indeed.

A Rank-S member's annual benefit was comparable to a supreme-grade Dao Weapon.

To his surprise, this benefit could even be accumulated.

However, when he thought about it carefully, Lin Huang figured that such a reward would be inconsequential to other Rank-S members.

The reason being that, as Liu Fu had said, most Rank-S members in Royal were at the dao-level.

There were only a few members who were below the dao-level.

A supreme-grade Dao Weapon would look pretty valuable from the perspective of a lower-rank Lord.

However, to dao-level powerhouses, supreme-grade Dao Weapons would not interest them at all.

When he thought up to this point, Lin Huang instantly understood the reason why Royal set up a subsidy system that could accumulate over time.

To Lin Huang, the accumulation would not mean much either.

It had only been a few years since he started cultivating. Tens of thousands of years aside, he even had no idea what level he would be at after cultivating a hundred years from now.

Naturally, he would choose to claim it every year.

Apart from resource subsidies, there was another reward that made Lin Huang happy.

The reward he would receive from being upgraded to Rank-S was a dao-level item.

Just when Lin Huang was thinking about what kind of dao-level item he should pick as his upgrade reward, Kylie and Bloody seemed to have arrived at a conclusion from their discussion and replied to his telepathic voice transmission.

"We've decided to accept the convoy quotas."

Kylie sent a couple of voice transmissions consecutively.

"I only came to this decision after much thinking. At first, my concern was that I couldn't decide things for the Nephilic Judge Tribe as I wished. The reason being that they might not be willing to become dependent on Royal. However, what Bloody said makes sense. I'm also one of the Nephilic Judges. I can try my best to change the Nephilic Judge Tribe's fate.

"This is the only Nephilic Judge Tribe left in this great world. There are only a mere hundreds of individuals left, and their fertility rate is extremely low. Although it's a top grade-6 organization that looks majestic from the outside, in reality, they're barely scraping by among all the other organizations that are their equals".

"Perhaps getting them some backing is the best choice to change the entire tribe's fate. Although it sounds demoralizing to depend on Royal and become an affiliate organization, this great world is Royal's territory after all. All grade-7 organizations are protected by Royal. It doesn't make much difference for us to become an affiliate organization."

"Moreover, the abundant resources Royal provides could get the Nephilic Judge Tribe out of their current predicament…"

Lin Huang thought about it and replied to Kylie via voice transmission.

"Do you want to make the Nephilic Judge Tribe an organization under you when you receive the convoy status? You guys can decide that yourselves. If you're certain that you want to do that, I'll give you and Bloody full authority regarding management in the future. I won't intervene."

Lin Huang would be completely free over the next few days.

Royal's auction had yet to end, so he did not want to go into closed-door cultivation for the time being.

However, he was not a person who could stay idle. Thus, he got Kylie to help gather information regarding the Myriad Tribe Palace.

"The Myriad Tribe Palace is a top grade-6 organization in the God Territory. Its overall ability is almost only second to the five grade-7 organizations with Lords guarding them. There's a rumor in the God Territory that their Palace Master and Vice Palace Master are supreme powerhouses at half-step lord-level. They have thousands of Heavenly Gods and countless True Gods under them…"

Lin Huang had many thoughts floating about in his head as he read about the Myriad Tribe Palace.

The Myriad Tribe Palace was the culprit behind why the gravel world's cultivation civilization was destroyed over and over again. The Thousand Snake Sect that attacked was just a pawn of theirs.

If he did not kill the Thousand Snake Sect's intruders himself, and moved the gravel world into the Kingdom in his body, the gravel world's cultivation civilization might continue to be destroyed over and over again. Nobody knew how long it would suffer through this endless loop.

Just over two years ago, the Myriad Tribe Palace was a giant that Lin Huang could not afford to offend.

Since arriving at the great world, he had disguised himself, taking on many different identities over and over again as he was afraid that the Myriad Tribe Palace would find him.

He initially thought that this large mountain would hinder him for a long time. He never imagined that, in less than three years, he would arrive at a point where exterminating the Myriad Tribe Palace was a viable option.

"Since I'm free these few days, I should seize the opportunity to solve this matter once and for all." Lin Huang thought it was almost time to put an end to this grudge.

He did not have the ability nor the time to do so in the past, but this was no longer the case in the present.

However, Lin Huang did not plan to fight them on his own this time. As he spread his Divine Telekinesis out, he realized that Lancelot, Tyrant, Charcoal and the rest were nearby.

He communicated via voice transmission to his imperial monsters, excluding the Bug Tribe, directly, "Gather everyone. We'll drop by the God Territory for some training."

Almost the next second after the voice transmission was sent, Charcoal landed on Lin Huang's shoulder in a flash.

"Are we going to fight?!" Charcoal had a look of excitement etched all over its face.

It had initially wanted to get Bai and Grimace to bring it out of the Demon Eye Star Zone, but they rejected it, claiming that they had some personal matters to deal with.

Charcoal had been upset for the past two days because of that.

Lin Huang figured that they probably went to the Abyss and refused to bring Charcoal along, worried that it would let slip their plans and tell him where they went.

He did not stop them.

As long as they were not killed by dao-level powerhouses, his Kingdom could actually revive the imperial monsters under him.

Given Bai and Grimace's current abilities, the places they could go to in the Abyss were rather limited, and there was a high probability that there were no dao-level powerhouses in those places.

Lin Huang hit Charcoal's head. "You're always thinking about fighting. Why don't you give some thought to elevating your combat strength quickly?"

"Can't I elevate my combat strength by fighting?" Charcoal buried its head and quibbled softly.

"You're speaking as if you're very powerful in actual combat." Lin Huang raised his eyebrows. "Do you want to spar with me?"

"No!" Charcoal rejected decisively.

It happened to see Thunder showing up, and hid behind Thunder in a flash. It merely popped its head out and refuted, "Sparring with you isn't actual combat training, but being abused instead."

The next second, Charcoal felt its body tighten. Subsequently, beyond its control, its body landed back on Lin Huang's shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" Lin Huang flicked Charcoal's head before releasing the Divine Telekinesis thread.

Thunder shrunk its body silently as it watched that. It shrunk to the size of a sparrow and landed on the other side of Lin Huang's shoulder. It secretly peeped at Charcoal after managing to stay absolutely still.

After Thunder arrived, Lancelot, Tyrant and the rest arrived one after the other.

Charcoal, Thunder, Lancelot, Tyrant, Bloody Robe, Fiend, Scarlet Imp (Imp), Witch, Eclipse (Eclipse Boa), Crescent Moon and Dark Moon (the two Dark Crescent Snakes), Death (Death Knight), Fallen (Fallen Knight), Warlord, Herculean King, Bing Wang, Killer, Evil Dominator, Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son), Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain) and Nine Gloom (Silver-armored Nine Gloom).

Lin Huang felt a sense of achievement as he looked at the 21 imperial monsters before him.

It would be an immense fortune for any imperial censors in the great world to have even one Pure Spirit rank-6 lord-level imperial monster.

He had more than 21 imperial monsters standing before him; part of the imperial monster army that he had built.

Lin Huang even speculated that, even if there were imperial censors with such high-level imperial monsters in the universe, they definitely would not have as many imperial monsters as he did.

He soon snapped back to his senses after falling deep into thought.

"I gathered you guys this time mainly because I have some grudges to settle with an organization from before. I happen to have time to deal with it these few days, so I thought I'd train all of you."

"The target this time is a grade-6 organization in the God Territory—the Myriad Tribe Palace."

"On the surface, this organization has at least three half-step Lords. The actual number should be more than that. There's also a very low chance that they have a Lord guarding them."

The imperial monsters' excitement clearly dropped when they heard that.

Their current abilities were enough to fight middle-rank Lords. They had little interest in fighting half-step Lords.

Lin Huang guessed that they would have such a reaction.

"To increase the difficulty of the mission for you guys, the task this time is to capture all of the half-step Lords and Lords at the Myriad Tribe Palace alive, especially the one named Zos. No matter what his combat strength, he must be captured alive."

Zos was the individual from the Thousand Snake Sect that the Myriad Tribe Palace had given their orders to.

Lin Huang only knew the name of this individual.

He did not know how the person looked like and what the person's combat strength was.

Lin Huang wanted Zos alive mainly because he wanted to learn about the truth from Zos. He wanted to know why Zos repeatedly ordered the destruction of the gravel world's cultivation civilization.

Teng Ran and the rest from the Thousand Snake Sect had their guesses.

However, those were still guesses and not proven to be the truth.

Naturally, keeping Zos alive was just a temporary arrangement.

After Lin Huang obtained the truth, no matter what role Zos played in this matter, as he was the person who directly issued the order, it was impossible for Lin Huang to let him go.

As for the Myriad Tribe Palace, regardless of how many people were involved in this matter, Lin Huang did not plan to let this organization continue to exist.

The reason being was that it was impossible for the Myriad Tribe Palace to not have any idea about Zos giving out such an order.

However, the upper echelons of the Myriad Tribe Palace chose to indulge him and ignore it.

They allowed Zos to order the Thousand Snake Sect to destroy the gravel world's cultivation civilization over and over again, repeatedly massacring the cultivators in the gravel world.

Throughout the eras, there were at least tens of billions of gravel world's cultivators who died innocently under the hand of the Thousand Snake Sect.

The Myriad Tribe Palace had to pay the price for allowing such atrocities to occur!

"I've already told you guys about the mission and target. I won't say anything further. Let's depart directly."

As soon as Lin Huang was done speaking, he summoned the Gate of All Realms and set its coordinates to the Myriad Tribe Palace…

The Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters was located within the Pilgrim Star Zone within the God Territory's core zone.

It was less than three million lightyears away from the Combat God Temple's headquarters. They could be considered fairly close to each other.

Unlike the Nephilic Judge Tribe, whose growth and strength was restricted by its population, the standing of the Myriad Tribe Palace could be described as being like the sun at high noon. Among the top grade-6 organizations, their overall strength ranked steadily within the top three.

Although on the surface they only had three half-step Lords with top-notch combat strength, the Myriad Tribe Palace had members everywhere. They had at least three times the number of members than Death Sickle had.

Before Buried Heaven was elevated to Lord, and before Death Sickle was upgraded to a grade-7 organization, in the eyes of everyone in the God Territory, the Myriad Tribe Palace's overall ability was actually no lower than Death Sickle's.

That was the reason why Lin Huang had never dared to use his real identity over the past few years since arriving in the great world.

Clearly, his growth rate was pretty stunning throughout his period of incognito living.

The current Lin Huang was so powerful that he could end the Myriad Tribe Palace with a flip of his hand.

Leading a bunch of imperial monsters through the Gate of All Realms, Lin Huang's team appeared directly above Pilgrim Star Zone, the planet where the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters was.

The few half-step Lords guarding the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters sensed their arrival immediately.

"Who are you?"

A half-step Lord's Divine Telekinesis voice transmission sounded out.

Although they could not sense Lin Huang's team's exact strength, what they sensed was enough to tell that their appearance meant trouble.

The few Myriad Tribe Palace guardians became tense as if they were facing their mortal enemies.

However, even now, they had no idea who exactly they offended.

"You guys can attack now. Don't hurt the innocent." Lin Huang did not waste time and gave out the order directly.

He specifically reminded them not to hurt the innocent because there were quite a few non-cultivators living on the planet where the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters was.

Lancelot took the lead to attack the moment Lin Huang issued the order.

He stretched his hand through the air. Four half-step lord-level guardians were immediately enveloped by a black sphere.

Not to mention Charcoal and the others, even Lin Huang was stunned as he watched the technique unfold.

"What an epic technique…" Lin Huang realized from a glance that it was Mirror that Lancelot had used.

Mirror was usually a skill used as a form of defense to deflect damage.

Lancelot used a double-sided black mirror to envelop the few Myriad Tribe Palace guardians this time.

Not only would it defend against the exterior attacks, but there was a layer of defense inside as well.

He used Mirror as a cage to capture the guardians.

After all, Lin Huang had said at the beginning that he wanted them alive. Lancelot executed Lin Huang's order quite thoroughly.

The rest of the imperial monsters were dumbstruck.

Less than a second had passed since the battle began, and four half-step Lords from the enemy's side had been captured alive.

What was there left for them?!

Just when they were in a daze, a chant came to their ears suddenly.

They turned their heads to look. Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son) looked like a Buddha statue with a solemn face. There was a corona that rose above his head.

He closed his eyes slightly and performed a hand seal with both hands. A chant with unusual syllables came out of his mouth.

Just when the crowd was doubtful of what he was doing, the many cultivators in the Myriad Tribe Palace beneath started flying up. All of them pressed their palms together and looked sincere. They looked like monks who had been in seclusion for years.

They were even more dumbstruck now.

Who were they going to fight now?!

All the cultivators had been captured alive.

Naturally, Lin Huang knew what kind of technique Ku Rong used. It was just that he did not expect that he would use such a powerful move in such a place.

One must know that such Buddhist precepts were classified as weapons of mass destruction in battlefields. As long as his God's soul was powerful enough, even bug hordes numbering in the billions would have to yield wherever the chant spread.

Ku Rong clearly had locked on to all the targets with Divine Telekinesis first with his technique. It did not affect the non-cultivators on this planet.

Everyone, including Lin Huang, did not expect that the battle would end so quickly.

Less than a second the battle began, Lancelot and Ku Rong had both attacked consecutively and…

They subdued all the enemies instantly.

The remaining 19 imperial monsters did not manage to attack at all.

They thought that they would show off their skills before their master this time. They felt beaten now.

"Lancelot… You're too much!" Charcoal could not help but vent its dissatisfaction to Lancelot directly.

"Master wants them alive. This is the best way," Lancelot responded in all seriousness.

Lin Huang said nothing. He appeared in the camp of the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters directly in a flash.

He glanced through the buildings around that were rather extravagant and walked toward the palace right in front of him. He walked straight to the main seat right across the door.

"Bring them here," Lin Huang said to Lancelot and the rest through voice transmission after taking his seat.

When Lancelot and Ku Rong heard that, they immediately controlled the many cultivators to land in the palace.

The remaining imperial monsters quickly entered the palace too.

"Let them out." Lin Huang nodded at Lancelot lightly after glancing at the sphere made of four black mirrors.

Ku Rong, who was standing at the side, performed hand seals and chanted scriptures with his eyes shut.

Lancelot unsealed Mirror when he saw that.

The four half-step Lords saw bright lights before them but, the next second, they heard the chanting of scriptures. Their gaze turned empty all of a sudden.

Lin Huang only asked when he saw that, "Which one of you is Zos?!"

A middle-aged man with a moustache took a step forward looking in a daze. The remaining half-step Lords looked at him.

Lin Huang took a good look at him.

He looked like he was in his early forties. He had a mediocre appearance with a moustache above his lips.

To be honest, apart from him being 1.8 meters tall, this person's appearance was unremarkable.

"4815162342, you should remember this number, right?" Lin Huang asked expressionlessly.

"I do. It's a mini world's serial number." Zos nodded with a blank stare.

"Why did you order the Thousand Snake Sect to destroy this mini world's cultivation civilization over and over again?" Lin Huang finally asked the question.

"Because this mini world evolved from Alex's God Territory fragment."

"Who is Alex?" Lin Huang asked further.

Zos struggled for a second when he heard that question. However, he soon answered the question, "He's my junior brother…"

As time went on, Lin Huang and the rest listened to Zos talk about the story of a love-hate relationship between a senior brother and junior brother.

Zos and Alex were adopted by a cultivator from a young age.

Zos was two years older than him. However, from childhood until adulthood, he had lived in his junior brother Alex's shadow.

He started cultivating over a year earlier than Alex did, but Alex caught up to him within two months. Since then, the gap between their cultivation had grown further and further apart.

When the master who adopted them died, Zos was 19. He had yet to step into virtual god-level. Meanwhile, Alex who was 17 at that time was already at Virtual God rank-8.

Since their master died, the two of them parted ways (it was Zos who suggested this).

Initially, Zos thought he would no longer be in Alex's shadow after parting ways.

Never had he thought Alex would soon stand out in the great world.

He appeared on the Virtual God Leaderboard, and then broke through to true god-level not long after.

Zos did not expect that Alex's shadow would grow even larger after they parted ways.

He worked hard at his cultivation to catch up with him. However, he could only watch as Alex's back drifted further and further away.

Throughout the tens of thousands of years that passed, Zos would hear Alex's name every now and then.

He watched him being ranked on a variety of leaderboards along the way and accrue praise from the masses. His combat strength skyrocketed all the way to the heavenly god-level.

A piece of news suddenly came one day.

Alex had failed in his attempt to elevate to lord-level and had died on the spot!

At that time, Zos had only managed to achieve heavenly god-level through all manners of hardships.

When he heard the news, he locked himself in a room for over a month without stepping out.

He was not sure if he was happy or sad.

Theoretically, he would no longer have to live in Alex's shadow since he was dead. He was finally liberated. He should feel happy.

However, Zos could not be happy.

Nevertheless, he did not shed even a single tear for Alex's death.

On the other hand, the unusual emotions he held inside were festering throughout the month of locking himself in.

He hated Alex!

He hated the fact that he was more powerful than him in every way.

His appearance, charisma, cultivation… Every single aspect of Alex was much better than him.

He hated that he was loved and respected.

He had countless lovers and tens of thousands of followers.

He hated that he died young.

Which destroyed the possibility of him ever catching up to Alex…

Not long after Alex died, Zos focused all of his efforts on cultivation completely in order to break through to lord-level. He wanted to surpass Alex's highest combat strength when he was alive.

During his cultivation journey, he made some heavenly god-level friends, and built the Myriad Tribe Palace.

Soon after the Myriad Tribe Palace was built, Zos suddenly received a piece of news.

When Alex died, his God Territory collapsed. A few remnant fragments did not disintegrate completely.

Since then, Zos spent many years trying to find the few remnant fragments.

Eventually, he finally found the mini world No. 4815162342, which he suspected was Alex's God Territory fragment.

He was worried that Alex would be reborn in his God Territory fragment.

To prevent himself from being surpassed again, Zos made a decision.

"I'll destroy your cultivation civilization over and over again. Even if you reincarnate, you can only watch me surpass your highest combat strength in your past life by elevating myself to lord-level!"

However, Zos did not fulfil his wish in the end.

Many years later, he failed in his lord-level elevation. He could only go for the second best option, which was to become a half-step Lord…

Lin Huang squinted slightly after hearing Zos' story.

He then questioned the remaining three half-step Lords.

Two among the three of them were like Zos. They were founders of the Myriad Tribe Palace. They knew about the whole thing from the beginning to the end.

The two's narratives were virtually identical to what Zos had said.

However, Lin Huang frowned and fell into silence after hearing their stories..

The reason being the stories they narrated were completely different from what the Emperor's Heart said.

The Emperor's Heart told Lin Huang previously that gravel world No. 4815162342 was Lin Xin's God Territory fragment from her past life.

The reason why gravel world No. 4815162342 was wiped out over and over again was caused by Lin Xin's enemy during her past life—an Abyssal Lord.

The Myriad Tribe Palace was his vassal.

Lin Huang went after the Myriad Tribe Palace in order to find out more information about the Abyssal Lord, as well as the complete story behind the whole saga from them.

Never would he have thought such a situation would occur.

Although Zos and the rest's stories had no loopholes, it was completely different from the story he had heard.

"Did this group of people have their memories distorted?" Lin Huang thought long and hard about it. That was the only conclusion he could draw.

The Abyssal Lord might be the only one who could distort the memories of these few half-step Lords' so easily.

"Remove your control on Zos and let me try again," Lin Huang said to Ku Rong, refusing to give up.

Ku Rong nodded lightly and excluded Zos from the chant.

Zos very soon snapped back to his senses since he no longer had to listen to the chant.

However, when he took a good look at Lin Huang's face, his eyes fell into a daze once again. He stood where he was without moving.

Black sigils appeared in Lin Huang's pupils.

"Tell me the truth about gravel world No. 4815162342."

Zos began to narrate instantly without hesitation.

However, what he spoke of was still the story of the love-hate relationship between the sect brothers before.

It was not that Lin Huang had no faith in the effect of Ku Rong's Buddhist precepts.

After all, Ku Rong was a lower-rank Lord. The strength of his God's soul was barely that of a middle-rank Lord. It made sense that his technique would not work on the Abyssal Lord's memory distortion.

On the other hand, the strength of Lin Huang's God's soul was already at ultimate-rank lord-level. Theoretically, his hypnosis should be sufficient to dismantle the memory distortion technique that was set up by a person whose God's soul was weaker than his.

It was a surprise to him that Zos' memory remained distorted.

Lin Huang listened to Zos' story patiently. Apart from the additional details, it was basically identical to the story from before.

The sigils in his pupils faded. He appeared before Zos in a flash and pointed his finger between his eyebrows.

This time, he read his memory directly.

Within a mere second, Lin Huang copied all of Zos' memories.

He scanned through the memory images using Divine Telekinesis one by one. Zos' hundreds of thousands of years worth of memories were revealed in their entirety.

However, his memory about gravel world No. 4815162342 was exactly the same as his story.

Not only that, Lin Huang was unable to find anything unusual about his memory.

He frowned hard.

There were only two possibilities in such a situation.

One was that Lin Xin's enemy had a God's soul that was far more powerful than his.

Another possibility would be that the Abyssal Lord might be proficient in God's soul; an expert in techniques such as tampering with one's memory.

Lin Huang was more willing to accept that it was the latter. At least he might not be defeated if they really were to fight.

If it was the former, then things would be quite troublesome.

After all, the strength of his God's soul was at ultimate-rank lord-level now. If the strength of the person's God's soul was so much more powerful, then it might even be at dao-level.

"It seems like I can only ask the Emperor's Heart…"

Now that it had come down to this, the Myriad Tribe Palace was a complete dead-end as a clue.

Lin Huang did not plan to leave any loose ends behind. As he activated his Divine Telekinesis, countless God Weapon flying daggers turned into blood-colored electric arcs, penetrating all of the captives' bodies.

Subsequently, he casually tossed Zos and the other three corpses into his storage space.

"Clean up this place." Lancelot and the rest were stunned when they heard what Lin Huang said.

They thought they could leave after this was over.

Never had they thought they would have to clean up.

"Don't you guys think this is a pretty great foothold?" Lin Huang said while smiling when he saw Lancelot and the rest looking stunned.

The location of the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters was amazing. Not only that, the surrounding resources were abundant.

In reality, when Lin Huang first landed on this planet, he already planned to take it over.

After all, with his current ability, he could be carefree in everything he did in this great world.

"I'll need you guys to make a trip later." Lin Huang glanced at the group. "Clear out all of the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches in the surrounding star zones."

Although Lin Huang had taken over the headquarters, he did not want to leave any future troubles behind.

He figured he would occupy all of Myriad Tribe Palace's territories once and for all.

This would in turn save him a lot of time in developing the Sword Alliance.

Population growth and migration would have been a significant hindrance to his developmental plans. However, by occupying this territory, he could simply take over all the habitable planets the Myriad Tribe Palace initially had, which would solve the problem completely.

To most civilians, a change in the guardian organization would not affect their lives much. They would still continue living as they were. As long as the guardian organization's policy was not overly strict, the civilians would be unlikely to migrate.

Similar to the civilians on Earth, life went on when the country had a new president. Migration was a very unlikely scenario for most people.

As the takeover plan commenced, Lin Huang could almost foresee the rapid development of the Sword Alliance over the next few years.

After clearing out the palace, very soon, Lancelot and the rest left separately. They began purging the Myriad Tribe Palace's various branches.

Charcoal and the rest put in all of their effort in order to prove their capabilities.

Many imperial monsters were clearly more competitive in this mission since Lancelot and Ku Rong had stolen the limelight previously.

In under 10 minutes, Lancelot and the rest began to return one after the other.

All of the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches in the tens of star zones were cleared out.

Many busybodies took videos of the Myriad Tribe Palace being destroyed and posted them onto the internet.

In the beginning, many thought it was fake news.

After all, the Myriad Tribe Palace was a top organization that was only second to the few grade-7 organizations in the God Territory. The few half-step Lords who guarded the organization were not to be offended.

However, as more and more videos surfaced, they could see different Myriad Tribe Palace's branches being destroyed from different angles in the videos. They finally began to believe that someone had really attacked the Myriad Tribe Palace.

There were over 20 Myriad Tribe Palace's branches that were destroyed in the videos alone.

Clearly, it was not a one-time incident. Instead, someone was really dealing the Myriad Tribe Palace a devastating blow.

As those threads with videos went viral on the internet, people soon spread rumors and suspicions about the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters being attacked…

An unprecedentedly heated discussion broke out on the internet…

Lin Huang saw the heated discussions on the internet as soon as they broke out.

Throughout the next two to three days, the number of topics discussing the Myriad Tribe Palace increased to an astounding figure.

Myriad Tribe Palace became the number one trending topic on all internet platforms, and stayed there for a long time.

Not only did the discussions not let up, but rather they continued to intensify.

The reason was that a verified account on the internet, specializing in refuting rumors, visited all of the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches that were in ruins from the videos and proved the authenticity of the matter.

In addition, the entire video was broadcasted live.

It had provided solid evidence to verify the news of the many Myriad Tribe Palace branches being destroyed.

Many busybodies even found their way to the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters. They could only see that the door was shut tight, and that many barriers had been erected to conceal what was happening inside.

In reality, it was Lin Huang and the rest who occupied the Myriad Tribe Palace's headquarters. He was having a meeting with Bloody to decide on the future development pathway of the Sword Alliance.

Lancelot and the rest did not stay idle. Throughout those few days, they traveled to the Myriad Tribe Palace's remaining branches in the star zones further away to clear them out.

Meanwhile, Sword 1's team sent people to start taking over the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches that had been cleared.

On the fifth day, the matter escalated, just when the discussions regarding the Myriad Tribe Palace on the internet were beginning to die out.

Suddenly, a thread appeared early in the morning , quickly jumping to the top of the ranks on all the internet platforms.

"Breaking: A Mysterious Organization Has Taken Over the Myriad Tribe Palace's Stations!"

The thread caught every netizens' attention instantly.

Any organization that dared to take over the Myriad Tribe Palace's stations at such a time would most likely be the one responsible for the destruction of the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches.

The thread did not point out that the organization that took over was Sword Alliance. However, there were a couple of videos and many pictures in the thread that bore witness to the entire process of this mysterious organization taking over the Myriad Tribe Palace's branches.

This had immediately stirred up a frenzied discussion online.

Everyone was guessing the identity of this mysterious organization.

They were dumbstruck too. The way the Myriad Tribe Palace had been destroyed was just too strange.

They guessed that the mastermind behind the whole thing had to be a lord-level powerhouse. However, nobody knew how many Lords there were exactly and the abilities of this newly-risen mysterious organization.

Within an hour of the thread about the mysterious organization taking over the Myriad Tribe Palace's stations being posted, another thread suddenly jumped to first rank on all internet platforms.

"Revealing the Mysterious Organization that Destroyed the Myriad Tribe Palace".

The thread was posted by a verified account.

It was a thread with a video only.

In the video, the user shamelessly interviewed a few staff members who had taken over the Myriad Tribe Palace's stations.

Eventually, they learned from the staff members that the organization was called the Sword Alliance.

Everyone looked dumbstruck after they watched the video.

What grade of an organization was this Sword Alliance?! Why had they never heard of it before?

The cultivators in the God Territory had all memorized the names of the grade-6 and grade-7 organizations clearly. Most of them even knew about the rather popular grade-5 organizations as well.

However, the name Sword Alliance was completely unfamiliar to them.

It was not among any of the grade-6 and grade-7 organizations.

Very soon, people began to inquire on the internet.

In the end, the result all of them found was the Sword Alliance that Great Heaven founded in the previous era.

Many people conveniently found information about Great Heaven.

"This person named Great Heaven was so powerful. He was a Heavenly God who suppressed an entire era! Our God Territory aside, none of the Heavenly Gods in the entire great world were his match!"

"Do you guys think this dude named Great Heaven is still alive? Did he rebuild the Sword Alliance?!"

"The information said that he died during his lord-level elevation. It's more likely that he reincarnated and cultivated all over again. That's probably the reason why he has only rebuilt the Sword Alliance after so many years."

"You guys are speculating about this and that, but it's uncertain whether this Sword Alliance has anything to do with the Sword Alliance of the previous era. Perhaps they just happen to have the same name."

…

While the internet was rife with discussions on the topic, the grade-7 organizations, including the Combat God Temple and the others, got into action immediately and began to look for the Sword Alliance's information.

The grade-7 organizations possessed the authorization to check the registration details of the rest of the organizations.

However, they could not find anything about the Sword Alliance.

The reason being was that, when Lin Huang registered the Sword Alliance in the beginning, he did so in the human world. He did not do it in the God Territory.

However, not all organizations were clueless about the Sword Alliance.

At least Death Sickle were aware of it.

Buried Heaven and the rest already found out much earlier that Lin Huang had built an organization called the Sword Alliance in the human world.

In reality, even before the Sword Alliance was exposed, Buried Heaven had suspected that it was Lin Huang behind it all.

The reason was that, in the God Territory, only a couple of veteran grade-7 organizations could suppress the Myriad Tribe Palace.

Even if Death Sickle, which had just been upgraded to grade-7, wanted to destroy the Myriad Tribe Palace, it was not something that they could do within a short period of time.

Meanwhile, other organizations would definitely notice if any large commotion was stirred by the other grade-7 organizations. Therefore, it was impossible for them to have done it.

Therefore, Lin Huang became an obvious suspect.

Now that the Sword Alliance had been exposed, Buried Heaven contacted Lin Huang directly.

He asked about the Myriad Tribe Palace.

He said nothing much after Lin Huang gave a simple explanation.

After all, the Myriad Tribe Palace was at fault first. Lin Huang did not stir trouble with them for nothing, but was rather taking revenge.

Buried Heaven then asked about Lin Huang's future plans, and Lin Huang gave him a rough idea of what those would be.

In order to grow, the Sword Alliance definitely needed an ally.

Death Sickle would undoubtedly be a great ally.

In reality, this was within Bloody's plan.

Over the next few days, people started to uncover more and more information about the Sword Alliance (it was actually the Sword Alliance that released it secretly).

The discussions about the Sword Alliance ranked foremost on all internet platforms.

As Lin Huang's team expected, the Sword Alliance's popularity was growing by day.

The topic was trending for three days.

Then finally the Sword Alliance's representative spoke up.

A thread with the title "A Little Something About the Sword Alliance" was soon trending on the entire internet.

Naturally, Bloody was the author of the thread.

There were not many words in the thread. It merely gave a simple explanation of the grudge between the Sword Alliance and the Myriad Tribe Palace, introducing the organization's internal structure, as well as declaring their future vision.

There was a document at the end of the thread.

It was signed by Royal. It was a document recognizing the Sword Alliance as a grade-7 organization.

Most people thought it was rather ridiculous when they saw the document at the end. Many netizens had no idea who Royal was at all.

However, all grade-7 organizations and a portion of the grade-6 organizations knew the document was authentic when they saw it.

The Sword Alliance was a grade-7 organization that Royal legally recognized!

Within half an hour of the thread being posted, Death Sickle was the first to extend their congratulations on the internet.

They congratulated the Sword Alliance on becoming a new grade-7 organization!

Within ten minutes of Death Sickle posting their congratulations, the Nephilic Judge Tribe became the second organization to extend their congratulations.

Later on, the Combat God Temple, Divine Clapnet, Xeno and Precious Treasure Pavilion congratulated the Sword Alliance one after the other.

Among the six grade-7 organizations besides the Sword Alliance, God Capital was the only one who remained silent.

Seeing the six grade-7 organizations extend their congratulations, many grade-6 and grade-5 organizations immediately realized that it was a great opportunity to butter them up. They extended their congratulations as well.

The scale of the congratulations had even exceeded the time when Death Sickle had been upgraded to a grade-7 organization not long ago…

All of a sudden, the name of the Sword Alliance went completely viral on the internet.

Almost all the cultivators in the entire God Territory became aware of this new grade-7 organization.

Even the few people who did not know about Death Sickle's upgrade to grade-7 organization knew that the Sword Alliance was the new grade-7 organization.

After all, the Sword Alliance's rise to prominence was quite different to that of Death Sickle's.

The Sword Alliance rose to power by destroying a grade-6 organization, the Myriad Tribe Palace.

In addition, due to Royal's endorsement, apart from God Capital, the other grade-7 organizations in the God Territory all extended their congratulations.

With them leading the way, it caused the Sword Alliance to receive far more congratulatory messages from the different organizations than Death Sickle did back then.

Naturally, increasing the Sword Alliance's popularity was part of Bloody's plan.

If Lin Huang's ability was still insufficient, like it had been before, he would have naturally preferred to grow his strength while lying low. He would have avoided attracting too much attention.

However, he now had the ability to stand tall, and he had the backing of Royal as well.

He figured that he could totally grow the Sword Alliance in this great world.

By increasing their popularity, it would in turn hasten the development of the Sword Alliance.

Lin Huang would not have to worry about many issues that would arise when the Sword Alliance was developing.

With Bloody as the advisor, and Sword 1's team as the supervisors, they would only require some time to adapt at most. He would be able to fast-track the Sword Alliance's development soon.

…

Although the Combat God Temple and the other grade-7 organizations had extended their congratulations due to Royal's endorsement, they were actually rather confused.

The few Lords from the Combat God Temple had even specially requested Peerless Overlord to ask Royal about what exactly happened. As a Royal Rank-A member, Peerless Overlord was considered to possess some connections within Royal.

In the end, he only received a one sentence reply—"The Sword Alliance's Chief is Lin Huang, a Royal Rank-S member."

Peerless Overlord was stunned after seeing that message.

As a Royal Rank-A member who had been a member for many years, he naturally knew what being a Rank-S member meant. He was clearly aware of how difficult it was to become a Rank-S member.

In reality, he barely passed his Rank-A membership evaluation.

One could even say that, in the entire God Territory in this era, only Buried Heaven and him barely had the right to pass the Rank-A membership evaluation, what more the Rank-S membership evaluation.

Moreover, a Rank-S member would be a core member of Royal.

As a Rank-A member, Peerless Overlord would gain far more advantages by simply getting close to Lin Huang than he had gained through hard work all these years.

"Lin Huang… Why is this name rather familiar?" Peerless Overlord frowned slightly. He only recalled a while later, "He seems to be the guy that those bunch of outsiders from the universe came to capture a while ago…"

Peerless Overlord soon connected the dots after confirming Lin Huang's identity and his Rank-S membership evaluation. "Don't tell me this guy has killed those outsiders from the universe?!"

He was terrified just imagining it. He had been in contact with the investigators from the Raiders. He could clearly sense that any one of them could kill him easily.

Peerless Overlord did not hesitate at all, and immediately informed Zhan Guang and the others about Royal's response and his speculations.

The few Lords from the Combat God Temple fell into a long period of silence after hearing his words.

"Indeed, there was no news about the investigators who came…"

"While it could be a case of having the same name, I think it's impossible that it's all a coincidence. It should be the same person."

"Unfortunately, the Sword Alliance's Chief has never shown his face. Otherwise, we could compare it with the image from the wanted order." Zhan Guang could not help but ask, "Overlord, didn't you find out Lin Huang's personal information from Royal? Isn't there a picture at least?"

"Rank-S members are Royal's core members. Their personal information is confidential. I can't find anything about him with my level of authorization," Peerless Overlord said rather helplessly, "However, I also think that it should be the same person."

"He must possess powerful abilities if he's wanted by a group of middle-rank lord-level outsiders. Even more so since he's a Royal Rank-S member and destroyed the Myriad Tribe Palace. The possibility of having two powerhouses with lord-level ability with the same name is abysmally low."

While Combat God Temple and the other grade-7 organizations were investigating the Sword Alliance and trying to figure out what sort of relationship to have with them, Death Sickle had already finalized all the details of their collaboration with the Sword Alliance. They even signed an agreement and posted the collaboration announcement online.

While the bunch of grade-5 and grade-6 organizations were waiting and observing, the few grade-7 organizations had reacted immediately.

Death Sickle definitely knew something.

They started contacting Death Sickle, wanting to obtain more information from them.

Within two hours of Death Sickle posting the collaboration notice, the Nephilic Judge Tribe also posted a collaboration announcement with the Sword Alliance too.

After all, unlike Death Sickle where the upper echelons were aware of Lin Huang's capabilities, Kylie and Bloody had to spend some time before finally convincing the upper echelons of the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

Combat God Temple was the third one to publish a collaboration announcement. It was because they had confirmed with Death Sickle that both Lin Huangs were the same person.

His Royal Rank-S identity alone was enough for the Combat God Temple to want to cozy up to him.

Soon after the Combat God Temple published the notice, Divine Clapnet, Precious Treasure Pavilion and Xeno published theirs in rapid succession.

The grade-5 and grade-6 organizations sent negotiation invitations immediately when they saw what was unfolding. All of them wanted to be in the loop as well.

Meanwhile, the smaller organizations and some rogue cultivators had a heated discussion on what exactly Sword Alliance was.

While the internet was still discussing the Sword Alliance enthusiastically, organizations such as Death Sickle and the Combat God Temple quietly removed Lin Huang's wanted notice that they had initially posted under the threat of the Raiders' investigators.

The Sword Alliance's rise to fame also made Lin Huang so busy that he did not have time to enter the virtual realm to cultivate.

He had obtained a vast amount of lord-level God Territories from Royal's auction earlier, but could not spare any time to refine them.

He got Sword 1's team to check and amend the few grade-7 organizations' terms of collaboration one by one before giving them to Bloody. After Bloody revised the terms, he participated in discussions about them with Sword 1's team.

There were also video conferences of discussions with various organizations such as the Combat God Temple and others…

Naturally, Lin Huang had only participated in the collaboration discussions with the grade-7 organizations. He gave the authority to Bloody and Sword 1 to handle the grade-6 organizations, excluding the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

Apart from new collaborations, Lin Huang got Sword 1's team to do a selective takeover of the organizations under the Myriad Tribe Palace.

Just like what Bloody said, taking over the Myriad Tribe Palace's organizations would give the outsiders the impression that the Sword Alliance was generous. On the other hand, this could reduce their potential enemies as well.

After all, it was possible that the organizations that used to rely on the Myriad Tribe Palace in the past would see Sword Alliance, the one that destroyed the Myriad Tribe Palace, as an enemy after losing the protection of the former.

Although the Sword Alliance did not care about that, it would be better to have one more organization under them as opposed to having one more enemy.

Furthermore, some of the organizations under the Myriad Tribe Palace were in great shape.

There were four grade-5 organizations among them. Though they did not rank amongst the top, the annual "protection fee" they paid was significant.

Lin Huang got his Sword Servants to run an evaluation. They basically took over any organization as long as their reputations were not below average.

Outside the God Territory, the human world received the news a few days later. Grade-6 and grade-7 organizations contacted the Sword Alliance's branch in the Demon Eye Star Zone one after the other in an attempt to initiate a collaboration with them.

Lin Huang only managed to finally spare some time to enter the virtual realm after he was more or less done with the arrangements regarding the Sword Alliance. He began a new round of cultivation…

Lin Huang sat with his legs crossed and entered the cultivation state in the virtual realm cabin.

His priority during the closed-door cultivation this time was to visualize the nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization images.

Among the 108 nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization images, he was only left with the final two that he had yet to complete.

He had put it aside because, back then, he would have had to spend tens of thousands of years to visualize the 107th image alone with his upper-rank lord-level God's soul.

Since elevating to Lord-level, the strength of his God's soul had reached ultimate-rank lord-level. Given that he had two God's soul-type Goldfingers in his body now, the Soul-controlling Tablet and Brain of the Soul, the visualization duration would be reduced significantly.

After calming his mind, Lin Huang no longer hesitated and entered a state of visualization directly.

Days passed by in the virtual realm cabin.

He spent less than 200 years to completely visualize the 107th visualization image successfully.

The strength of his God's soul had elevated directly to peak ultimate-level lord-level.

He spent over 800 years to complete the 108th visualization image.

The strength of Lin Huang's God's soul and Divine Telekinesis elevated again when he was done visualizing the last nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization image. They reached the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level.

"I've finally completed the visualization process!" Lin Huang released a long exhale of breath.

Although he did not keep track of the exact duration, he was very sure that he spent a fairly long time visualizing the last two images.

Sensing the speedy transformation of his God's soul within his body, Lin Huang felt an inexplicable sense of achievement, akin to the feeling when he had conquered a stage in the games he used to play.

However, the second his God's soul completed its transformation in its entirety, the set of nameless Divine Telekinesis visualization images were suddenly crushed, turning into sparkles and disappearing.

Lin Huang was stunned for a moment, but soon came to a realization.

The nameless Divine Telekinesis inheritance had clearly self-destructed as he had already completely mastered the inheritance.

"The owner of this inheritance was a decent person. I can't believe he did that because he was unwilling to have his inheritance being exploited." Lin Huang roughly guessed the mindset of the owner of the inheritance.

On one hand, he hoped that there would be a successor for his inheritance.

On the other hand, he did not want his inheritance to end up in the wrong hands.

Therefore, he set things up accordingly.

Since someone had inherited it completely, he would destroy it directly. There was no need for a second successor.

Naturally, the risk of doing that was grave.

If the person who obtained the visualization images died before completing the visualization, the inheritance might be buried together with the person who died. The possibility of it being inherited would have vanished entirely.

Naturally, the owner had to be mentally prepared for this eventuality if he chose to make such a decision.

Lin Huang fell into a daze momentarily as he watched the visualization images disappear. He began to worry a little now.

There was no way for him to cultivate his God's soul and Divine Telekinesis in the future.

Although the strength of his God's soul had reached the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level, he did not think that ultimate-rank lord-level was his final destination. He wanted to step into the dao-level; he wanted to achieve an even higher level.

However, without a way to cultivate his God's soul and Divine Telekinesis, he had no idea how he would break through to the next level of his God's soul.

Nevertheless, Lin Huang did not worry or dwell on the problem for too long.

His current combat strength was merely at lower-rank lord-level. He still had ample time to figure out how to break through to the next level of his God's soul.

Seeing that there was no way to elevate the strength of his God's soul, he shifted his focus to his physical strength.

He had used the Goldfinger Pure Golden Blood's function to absorb Bai and the rest's blood essences earlier. He elevated his physical strength to peak ultimate-rank lord-level. He was only a step away from the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level.

In addition, Lin Huang happened to obtain hundreds of Lords' blood essences from the mummy-like man's storage space he had killed previously.

Although the quality of these blood essences could not be compared with the blood essence he had obtained from Bai and the others, it would be wasteful not to make use of the resources he had obtained.

Whether or not they could elevate his physical strength to the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level, that was something he would only find out after absorbing them.

With that mindset, Lin Huang fed the bottles of blood essences to the Pure Golden Blood in his body one by one.

Very soon, the Pure Golden Blood began a new round of reaction after absorbing the Lords' blood essences.

Lin Huang could sense clearly that his physical strength was increasing slowly.

Though slow, the increase was steady.

Lin Huang fed it hundreds of bottles of Lords' blood essences.

The Pure Golden Blood extracted the effective substances from them continuously to strengthen Lin Huang's physical body.

Time continued to pass in the virtual realm cabin.

Very soon, his physical strength elevated from peak ultimate-rank lord-level to the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level.

Although the quality of the blood essences could not compare, there were more in quantity after all.

Moreover, Lin Huang's physical strength had already been a half step away from the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level previously.

This round of strengthening had bridged the half-step gap entirely, pushing his physical body to its limit once and for all.

The strength of his God's soul and physical body had reached the limits of ultimate-rank lord-level. In reality, this exceeded Lin Huang's expectations.

However, he did not plan to leave his closed-door cultivation session just yet. Instead, he chose to continue on.

For the third round of closed-door cultivation, he chose to refine the Lords' God Territories.

He had busied himself over the Sword Alliance's matters for a month. The auction to sell the spoils he obtained from Nine Snake's team had also ended earlier. There were also the 11 intermediate-grade Dao Weapons he obtained from killing Black Mountain and the others. He had traded them for Lords' Kingdoms on Royal's auction before.

He had been putting these aside until now, and he could finally spend some time to refine them now.

This time, he had obtained many Lords' Kingdoms from trading the spoils.

He obtained 648 middle-rank Lords' Kingdoms alone.

There were also 211 upper-rank Lords' Kingdoms.

Finally, he had also managed to obtain eight ultimate-rank Lords' Kingdoms as well.

Naturally, the Kingdoms he obtained this time were the same as before. They were Abyssal and Bug Tribe Kingdoms that nobody wanted.

Otherwise, it was impossible that he could have obtained that many.

However, the quantity was the only thing that mattered to Lin Huang.

No matter what kind of Kingdom it was, the Eternity Fire was able to remove the contaminated energy contained in those Kingdoms.

Lin Huang began the refining process directly after doing a rough inventory.

There was no concept of time in the virtual realm.

Day after day, Lin Huang did not eat, drink, rest or sleep. It was unclear how long it took for him to finally refine all the 648 middle-rank Lords' Kingdoms.

The 648 middle-rank Lords' Kingdoms provided a boost of over 38,000 Dao seals in Lin Huang's Kingdoms. The total number of Dao seals increased to 43,161.

Regarding the number of Dao tattoos, it provided a boost of over 260 million Dao tattoos; the total number surpassing 300 million.

The round of elevation seemed to provide a comprehensive boost to Lin Huang's ability on the surface.

It even seemed like he could fight a minor dao-level entity head-on if he unleashed his Kingdom.

However, Lin Huang realized that, though there were many Dao seals in his Kingdom indeed, they seemed to be restricted by the strength of his God's soul and physical body. Even in his Kingdom, 3,000 Dao seals was the limit he could use.

He clearly sensed that there would be a great risk of his God's soul and physical body collapsing instantly if he was to use even 1 additional Dao seal past his limit.

His initial excitement faded away; he felt as if a bucket of cold water had been splashed on his face.

Looking at the remaining upper-rank and ultimate-rank Lords' Kingdoms, he gave up on the plan of continuing to refine them.

"I should just obediently refine my god sequence chains to elevate my brute force outside my Kingdom," Lin Huang said, feeling rather helpless.