A Century

"It looks like I'm in trouble..."

After watching Xia's memories, Bai Muye wore a bitter smile.

Xia had been born into the royal family of Usol, a mid-level cosmic civilization under the Wild Peak Universe Kingdom. Though she came from a branch so distant it could hardly be more remote, her older brother was a Domain Lord Rank ninth-order Giant Axe Warrior.

Xia had been an ardent admirer of her brother since childhood. That was why she had followed in his footsteps, hoping to earn the title of Giant Axe Warrior herself.

In her memories, the siblings had been very close. Her brother had tried his hardest to dissuade her from taking part in the life-and-death battles, but Xia had stubbornly insisted. After signing up and completing her first battle, she had boasted to him about it. He had told her that if she were ever killed in a life-and-death battle, he would avenge her!

"Then who's supposed to avenge the more than nine hundred innocent souls you killed?" Bai Muye was at a loss for words.

In every life-and-death battle, one side was guaranteed to die. Some even ended with both sides perishing together. If everyone sought revenge, wouldn't every person to earn the title of Giant Axe Warrior have a mountain of blood debts?

Fortunately, he would at least be safe until he had completed a thousand battles.

He hadn't known this before, but Xia's memories contained information about it.

When her brother had promised to avenge her, he had said that if the person who killed Xia managed to survive a thousand victories—That meant he would be safe, at least until he had won a thousand battles.

"At worst, I can hide my name and move somewhere far away. The Universe Country is enormous. Let's see where you'll find me..." Bai Muye thought it over. "And if you do find me, maybe I'll already be stronger than you!"

He stopped worrying about things that might never happen. Just as he was about to have Xiao Si "purify" Xia's memories and then choose to merge with them, Bastian came to see him.

"You performed well this time." The smile on Bastian's face looked a little more "sincere" than before. He tossed him a Consciousness Sensor. "I know you've always wanted more training time in the Virtual Universe. This is a new anonymous Consciousness Sensor. It has a hundred years' worth of time on it..."

Bai Muye reached out and caught it. His thoughts raced, but he still couldn't figure out why this stingy "fat pig" was being so generous.

"Train hard." Bastian started to reach out to pat his shoulder, but realized that doing so would be awkward with his build—unless he jumped, which would look incredibly strange. Instead, he touched his own antennae.

"Just seventy-five more victories, and you'll be free..." Bastian narrowed his eyes as he watched him. His antennae glowed faintly red, and his voice was so gentle it almost made one feel sorry for him. "Have you thought about what you'll do once you're free?"

"...I haven't." Bai Muye didn't know why he was asking, so he could only put on a confused expression.

"That's all right. There's still plenty of time. You can think it over..." Bastian lowered his hand. "Although you only have seventy-five battles left, it'll probably still take decades. If it's hard to find suitable opponents, it could take over a century..."

Perhaps Bastian himself couldn't stand the awkward conversation. He repeated, "Train hard," then turned and left.

Watching him go, Bai Muye finally began to see what was going on.

"He must've been probing me..." he thought. "He's brought up 'freedom' several times. Either he wants to unsettle me and get me killed in my next life-and-death battle—the closer I get to freedom, the more distractions I'll have—or he's testing whether I've thought about getting revenge once I'm free..."

He had thought about revenge, but he wouldn't act recklessly in the heat of the moment. He would only do what his abilities allowed.

Although Luoluobai Muye had suffered greatly at Bastian's hands, and the brutal training and selection process remained vivid in his memories, the person he hated most was that Domain Lord.

Over a personal grudge with a Planet Lord, he had not only killed the Planet Lord but, by association, sold the entire planet to slave traders. All of Bai Muye's relatives had died while being captured.

As for Bastian, he ranked only third on Bai Muye's list of people he hated. The training camp instructors came second—there had been more than one, of course, and they were tied.

In Bai Muye's heart, that Domain Lord was on his kill list. Once he had enough strength, he would definitely go after him—

Not killing him would be a betrayal of the unbearably heavy memories in his mind!

As for the instructors, Bastian, and the others, he would leave it to fate. If he came across them, he would kill them. If he never saw them again, then they were lucky to escape with their lives.

But Bastian's probing made Bai Muye wary. For now, though, he was helpless, with his life in someone else's hands. Any plans he made were just castles in the air.

"Everything still comes down to strength. If I were a Domain Lord right now, I wouldn't have to worry about that disgusting chip..."

After his last life-and-death battle, he had spent nearly two years cultivating and was now close to Universe Level Sixth Order. With the three months he had spent training on the way back, he was ready to break through at any moment.

He put away the Consciousness Sensor but didn't rush into the Virtual Universe. Instead, he sat cross-legged and began cultivating.

Perhaps his urgent desire to grow stronger had helped, because this time he made a smooth breakthrough to Universe Level Sixth Order.

During the three months on the way back, aside from cultivation, he had also kept working to master the Lightning Law. But the cabin was too cramped for him to test it freely.

After breaking through, he was in high spirits and began merging with Xia's cultivation memories.

It had taken Xia less than eight hundred years to go from birth to Universe Level Fifth Order. Even with the help of many treasures that accelerated cultivation, that was remarkably fast, proof of her exceptional talent.

This time, Bai Muye slowed the merging process considerably, sometimes reducing its speed by as much as tenfold. By the time he finished, nearly two months had passed.

Xia's understanding of the Lightning Law had been far deeper than his. After merging with her memories, he made enormous progress in his comprehension of it.

Guided by the Law, his Lightning Domain broke through to the seventh layer in one leap, leaving the Light, Wind, and Water Domains far behind.

He connected his consciousness to the sensor and entered the Virtual Universe.

First, he tested his current combat strength. Against opponents who had yet to step into the Law Domain, he could easily win even when they had reached the Domain Ninth Layer.

He had previously fully incorporated his fifth-layer Light Domain into his Wind-Thunder Domain, but integrating the Water Domain was so much harder that it would take far longer.

Fortunately, he now had a hundred years. He kept his primary consciousness in the Virtual Universe, conjuring all kinds of opponents as he tried to incorporate the Water Domain as well.

Whenever he made progress, he tested it in the real world.

A little over a year later, the Lightning Domain had reached the ninth layer first. The Light and Wind Domains had also reached the seventh layer, while the Water Domain had finally been integrated by one layer.

After integrating the first layer of the Water Domain, his Mixed Domain changed from almost transparent to a faint green. The secret patterns within it were far more complex than those of a single domain.

Time continued to pass. The Giant Axe Arena arranged a life-and-death battle every few months or so, sometimes once a year. His opponents were almost always fighters with between seven hundred and eight hundred victories. A few of them were even as strong as Bai Muye had been before he crossed the threshold of the Law Domain.

But none of them had broken through in the middle of a battle as he had. It seemed that such a breakthrough was a rare occurrence.

The fights were utterly one-sided.

The life-and-death battles continued, one after another. By the time the hundred years on his anonymous Consciousness Sensor were about to run out, Bai Muye had won 999 battles in a row without even realizing it!