Setting Out

"Luoluobai Muye, your hundred-year leave application will end in 10 days. Please prepare accordingly."

Luoluobai Muye looked at the message sent by the Military System, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth: "Has it already been a hundred years? Truly, time holds no meaning in cultivation..."

This past century had been the most leisurely period of his cultivation career. Now that his leave was ending, he was about to step back onto the battlefield. Yet, he felt no despondency; instead, his spirits were high, as if he had been looking forward to this day for a long time.

He logged his consciousness into the Virtual Universe, entered the Military System, and submitted his request to end his leave, declaring that he had reached the World Lord rank and would soon be venturing out alone as a free agent.

The Military System used his consciousness sensor to verify his World Lord status, approved the request shortly thereafter, and sent him the star map for the Seventh Battlefield.

He had not possessed a complete star map of the Seventh Battlefield before, but having browsed through the memories of so many Domain Lords, he already had a certain understanding of the overall layout.

However, the complete star map contained records of jump points for all combat zones, which was the most useful information for Luoluobai Muye.

Now that he had the complete map, he studied it carefully and decided to head first to a relatively low-end battlefield—Dragon Mountain Pool.

This was actually something he had decided upon even before obtaining the complete map. Dragon Mountain Pool was a lower-level battlefield under the control of the 049 Barracks Base, and most of those roaming there were at the World Lord rank, making it the most suitable combat zone for him at present.

Decades ago, before Zhu Ang set off, he had sent a message stating that they would be venturing to Flowing Light Valley, to which Luoluobai Muye had replied with a blessing.

Although his leave had ended, he did not contact Zhu Ang at this time.

After tidying up, he did not wait for the final day and departed from the island where he had been cultivating.

Flying above the ocean, he followed his whim and slightly executed the "Lightning Escape" secret technique he had been practicing for the past few decades. His figure became ghost-like, vanishing from the spot without a sound.

He first went to the commercial center of the barracks base to dispose of items he had no use for. He had stored a vast amount of spoils in his Internal World, and he sold them all, including every spaceship he possessed.

Although the technological level of some alien races was inferior to that of humans, their own spaceships still had basic intelligent measures. Since Luoluobai Muye lacked a high-level AI to crack them, they were essentially useless to him.

After finishing, he purchased several dozen standard-issue human spaceships. He could not afford an F-Rank spaceship, but E-Rank spaceships were still quite easy for him to acquire.

However, while processing his spoils, he kept a lounge made entirely of F-Rank metal. He had discovered it in the Storage Space of some unknown Domain Lord, and it was the most valuable item among all his loot.

He kept it and requested that all the spaceships he purchased have their lounge areas left vacant, with the dimensions left just right to embed the F-Rank lounge.

Once everything was settled, he arrived at the departure hall. This was a super-hall with a diameter of tens of thousands of kilometers. At this moment, it was packed with people, and various spaceships of different sizes were queuing up in an orderly fashion.

He selected an E-Rank spaceship from his Internal World and released it. He climbed into the triangular vessel, which was nearly a hundred meters in diameter, went straight to the lounge, and ordered the ship's AI to connect to the barracks base's control system. Soon, the ship began to fly out along the departure channel.

After flying for over a hundred thousand kilometers along the spacious channel, the path curved, and the ship began to turn.

Not long after, the ship flew out from the exit at the end of the curved channel.

"Activate energy defense," Luoluobai Muye commanded, "100% external virtual projection."

He had long wanted to see just how magnificent this AAA-Rank Deity Base was from the outside, but unfortunately, he had never had the chance before.

Whoosh!

The walls and floor of the lounge, including the exterior of the spaceship, all seemed to vanish, leaving him as if he were floating in the starry sky.

The ship was now tens of thousands of kilometers away from the barracks base. He turned his head to look, and the Deity Base, with a diameter of several million kilometers, revealed itself before his eyes.

On the massive base shell, a layer of colorful energy shielding shimmered, covered in dense, ancient yet powerful cannon ports and solidified Law secret patterns...

"Truly magnificent!"

After watching for a while, Luoluobai Muye withdrew his gaze, satisfied, and ordered the ship to head to the nearest jump point.

Dragon Mountain Pool was about 70,000 light-years away from the 049 Barracks Base, making it a relatively close combat zone.

It was a landmass floating in the void with endless mountain ranges. Seen from a great distance, the entire landmass resembled a winding divine dragon. In the low-lying areas between the peaks, there were countless mysterious deep pools, hence the name "Dragon Mountain Pool."

"Xiao Si, during the time it takes to reach the jump point, you must constantly scan the surroundings. Only by entering the Dark Universe for travel can we be considered relatively safe..."

In the past, when he set off, he always traveled on large spaceships. Alien races would immediately recognize them as military legions, which surely contained Immortals, so they rarely encountered anyone foolish enough to attack large vessels.

But the small spaceship Luoluobai Muye was currently riding was less than a hundred meters in diameter; there was no guarantee they wouldn't run into alien races eager to earn merit.

He could already sense energy fluctuations coming from several directions; clearly, battles were already taking place in the distance.

"Don't worry," Xiao Si chuckled, "In just this short time, I've already observed several battles..."

It then added with regret, "It's a pity they're too far away to devour... Should we get a little closer?"

"Forget it. By the time we rush over to a battle that has already started, it will likely be over. Besides, we don't know the strength of either side. Let's just stick to the plan."

Half a day later, the ship arrived at a jump point and soon entered the Dark Universe.

"It will take about three days or more to travel through the Dark Universe. After exiting, we'll still have to fly for over a month..." Luoluobai Muye calculated while looking at the star map.

Even in the Dark Universe, Xiao Si continued to diligently scan the surroundings, while Luoluobai Muye logged most of his consciousness into the Virtual Universe to continue practicing "Lightning Escape."

Over these past few decades, because his consciousness could submerge into the place of the Universal Origin, his progress in the Laws had been significant. Especially in the Lightning Law, with the guidance of Introduction to Lightning, his progress was even greater. Although he had not yet reached the level of being acknowledged by the Law, he was not far off.

Then there was the practice of the "Lightning Escape" secret technique. One could also practice this technique within the Virtual Universe, and the most convenient aspect of the Virtual Universe was the ability to set up all kinds of scenarios, terrains, and enemies.

The only drawback was—it was expensive!

Fortunately, although Luoluobai Muye was a World Lord, he was a lone wolf; he had no one else to provide for. The money he earned from selling the spoils he had acquired over the years was more than enough to cover the high costs of the Virtual Universe.

He had watched countless memories, many of which contained scenarios for practicing movement techniques. Take the World Lord who possessed the Divine Envoy Inheritance Crystal, for example; his Venerable teacher had set up countless extremely complex and difficult scenarios in reality to hone his movement techniques.

Luoluobai Muye had no teacher to guide him, but the useful parts of those memories could fully compensate for this. He directly replicated those scenarios in the Virtual Universe, even integrating other scenarios from different memories that he felt would increase the difficulty.

The Lightning Escape secret technique primarily interpreted the Lightning Law and had very little involvement with the Time Law. With his current comprehension of the Lightning Law, it was sufficient for practicing the Lightning Escape technique.

Based on the battles between World Lords he had witnessed previously, as well as the countless combat memories he had reviewed, his movement technique could already be considered rare and peerless among World Lords.

That was why he had the confidence to act alone; as long as his opponent was below the Immortal realm, he felt certain that even if he couldn't win, he would definitely be able to escape.

Three days passed quickly, and the spacecraft emerged from a jump point nearest to Dragon Mountain Pool, heading toward the destination.

The spacecraft had been flying for less than a day when Bai Muye received a warning from Xiao Si.

"Lao Bai, five Ninth-Rank World Lords have entered within a distance of ten light-seconds from you..."