"Time Beast God, surrender! Seven of the Eight Beast Gods have already fallen. Do you really think you can still escape?"
In a vast, empty Dark Universe, two streaks of light flew at incredible speed, several light-years apart. The one slightly behind was a Strange Beast covered in scales and incredibly ugly-looking.
"Cut the nonsense! Monster Beast Progenitor, if I escape today, I swear I'll make you and the Monster Race regret it!" The powerful being fleeing at top speed was a white-gold creature that looked like a one-horned lizard.
Any knowledgeable expert present would have recognized the one being hunted as the Light Beast God, one of the Eight Natural Beast Gods of this era in the Primal Universe, known as the "Time Beast God."
And the one chasing the Time Beast God in his desperate flight was the Monster Beast Progenitor, the oldest of the Monster Race's two remaining Universe Supreme Beings. The Monster Race was one of the Six Great Peak Races of the Primal Universe.
Of course, the Monster Beast Progenitor alone wouldn't have been enough to drive the Time Beast God into such a desperate flight. But the Monster Beast Progenitor hadn't come alone to hunt him. He had also brought nine powerful Universe Masters of the Monster Race, who were inside his World Ring.
With ten Monster Race powerhouses working together, even the other Universe Supreme Being would have had a hard time facing such a lineup in the Primal Universe, let alone the Time Beast God, who was only a Universe Master.
Fortunately, the Time Beast God had been born with mastery over light and the Time Beast God Path. He was also quite powerful and exceptionally skilled at speed. Once he accelerated in the Dark Universe, he was barely any slower than the Monster Beast Progenitor. Otherwise, the Monster Race powerhouses would have surrounded and killed him long ago.
Hearing the Time Beast God's furious curse, the Monster Beast Progenitor laughed. "You still think you can escape? Don't dream. I advise you to surrender. The Starry Sky Giant Beast lineage in my Monster Race is descended from you Natural Beast Gods, after all. Giving your life for your descendants would be a fitting end. Isn't that better than letting another peak race benefit?"
"Hmph!"
The Time Beast God snorted and said no more.
Starry Sky Giant Beasts? They were merely descendants left behind by other Beast Gods as they wandered the universe. They had nothing to do with him, Time Beast God. Even if they had been his own descendants, he wouldn't have given up resisting for their sake.
"Senior Shi Yan, take care of yourself. The Six Great Peak Races have joined forces to pressure us. We had no choice." Just as the Time Beast God—or rather, Shi Yan—faced a life-or-death crisis, a message came through the Communication Token of the Ancestral God Sect he kept inside his body.
The message came from the Double-Faced Ancestral God, one of the Three Ancestor Gods of the Ancestral God Sect. As soon as the Monster Race powerhouses had cornered him, Shi Yan had sent a plea for help to the Ancestral God Sect. Its response, however, had been exactly what he expected.
If the Three Ancestor Gods had truly intended to protect the Eight Beast Gods at all costs, the Ancestral God Sect would already have clashed with the various peak races. It would never have remained so peaceful.
"Ungrateful bastards!"
Though he had expected this, Shi Yan still couldn't help cursing under his breath.
The Three Ancestor Gods were all beings born after the beginning of the universe. They had started out weak and cultivated their way to power. In the earliest days of the Primal Universe, the Ancestral God Sect had received no small amount of protection from the Eight Natural Beast Gods, and the Three Ancestor Gods had benefited greatly from them. Yet now they sat by and watched so readily.
"I can only rely on myself..."
Shi Yan took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He was an extremely powerful Universe Master who had created two Sixth-Order Secret Techniques. Without question, he was the strongest of the Natural Beast Gods. Shi Yan believed he still had a chance to escape.
The Beast God Horn on Shi Yan's forehead suddenly blazed with white light. At once, the flow of time around him sped up a thousandfold. From the Monster Beast Progenitor's perspective, the Time Beast God's speed had increased a thousandfold.
"A thousandfold Time Acceleration? It's a good move, but it's still not enough to escape me."
The Monster Beast Progenitor laughed as the flow of time around him also increased five hundredfold. He hadn't broken through by following the path of space-time, so his control over time was only average.
"His Time Acceleration is even faster than mine. The Time Beast God really does have profound attainments in the Dao of Time. No wonder he's called the fastest being in the Primal Universe." The Monster Beast Progenitor praised him, but a small white ship appeared in his hand.
"Go!"
As the white ship shot forward, it rapidly expanded into a massive battleship. Its terrifying suction dragged at Shi Yan, trying to pull him inside and suppress him.
At the same time, black winds swept across hundreds of light-years around the Monster Beast Progenitor.
"The Holy Sound Ship? The Black Wind Domain?" Shi Yan's expression changed.
The Black Wind Domain was the Peak Domain Supreme Treasure the Monster Beast Progenitor commonly used. As for the Holy Sound Ship, it was the Peak Palace Treasure of the Monster Race's other Universe Supreme Being, Demon Ancestor Zhen. The Monster Beast Progenitor had borrowed it.
Caught between the terrifying suction and the raging winds, the timeline Shi Yan controlled immediately fell into disarray. He had no choice but to reduce the Time Acceleration multiplier to stabilize time.
Although his attainments in time still let him accelerate it, the multiplier dropped to around tenfold.
"Time Beast God, I told you. You can't escape."
The Monster Beast Progenitor closed in quickly, his arrogant laughter echoing around them as his tail swept toward Shi Yan like a whip.
As a Universe Supreme Being, the Monster Beast Progenitor naturally had far greater abilities than the Universe Masters. In the Dark Universe, the other Universe Masters were too slow to even catch a glimpse of Shi Yan.
But Universe Supreme Beings were different. They could easily exceed the speed of light in the Original Universe, and even those who weren't skilled at speed could move through the Dark Universe almost as fast as Shi Yan.
"Don't even think about it!" Shi Yan roared. His white-gold body suddenly began to turn translucent.
Whoosh!
The terrifying tail whip swept through the space occupied by his ghostly form, but somehow made no contact at all. Shi Yan merely grunted, and the aura of his Divine Body barely changed.
"Manipulating the dimensions of time... He actually avoided my attack. This Time Beast God really is extraordinary. Given more time, he might even have reached the realm of a Universe Supreme Being."
The Monster Beast Progenitor sounded full of admiration as Shi Yan evaded his attack, but the murderous intent in his fierce eyes only grew stronger.
A Universe Master with a chance of reaching the realm of a Universe Supreme Being was all the more dangerous once they had become enemies. If Shi Yan escaped and eventually broke through, a lone Universe Supreme Being seeking revenge would inflict devastating losses on the Monster Race.
"..."
Shi Yan's body remained half-translucent, and he had no time to respond to the Monster Beast Progenitor. His Beast God Horn glimmered silver as space-time across dozens of light-years around him rapidly twisted, silver points of light flickering within it.
"Is that the Time Beast God's most famous space-time Secret Technique, 'Chaotic Space-Time'? And his Peak Domain Supreme Treasure, the 'Starlight River'?"
Like the Three Ancestor Gods, the Eight Natural Beast Gods never went to the Universe Ocean. But as favored beings of the Primal Universe, all eleven had each received a Peak Supreme Treasure in the Ancestral God Secret Realm. That was why the Ancestral God Secret Realm was known as "the richest secret realm."
Hiss...
Combined with the Starlight River, the space-time Secret Technique drove back the surrounding black winds in an instant.
"Accelerate!"
With the black winds gone, the flow of time around Shi Yan surged once more, reaching three hundred times its normal speed. But the Holy Sound Ship's suction remained, and that was as far as Shi Yan could go.
"Damn it... There's no other way."
After struggling for a while, Shi Yan gritted his teeth in frustration. Contrary to what the outside world believed, the Starlight River was only a top-tier Domain Supreme Treasure. What had driven back the Black Wind Domain was his space-time Secret Technique, one of the two Sixth-Order Secret Techniques he had created. The other was his movement technique.
As for the Peak Supreme Treasure he had obtained in the Ancestral God Secret Realm, it was a Soul-type Supreme Treasure called the Clear Heart Mirror.
Even with two Sixth-Order Secret Techniques at his disposal, Shi Yan had only one Peak Soul-type Supreme Treasure. Against the Monster Beast Progenitor, who carried two Peak Supreme Treasures, he had no way to shake him off. The Monster Beast Progenitor was slowly closing in, and now only a few million kilometers separated them.
Once he was caught, the ten Monster Race powerhouses would attack him together. Shi Yan could hold out, but his divine power couldn't. In the end, he would certainly die.
"Damn it!"
Shi Yan roared, then seemed to make up his mind. He abruptly changed course, his True Body leaving the Dark Universe and speeding toward the depths of the Space Interlayer instead.
"The Space Interlayer?"
Seeing Shi Yan change direction, a question mark seemed to appear over the Monster Beast Progenitor's head.
The Space Torrent Layer deep in the Space Interlayer was dangerous to Immortal Gods. But once they reached the level of Universe Venerables, the Space Interlayer could no longer threaten them, let alone beings like these two.
"Is he trying to flee to the Universe Ocean?"
At the end of the Space Interlayer lay the Universe Membrane. Breaking through it meant entering the Universe Ocean. There, the Monster Beast Progenitor would no longer be strongly suppressed by the Primal Universe and could unleash Seventh-Order power.
The Monster Beast Progenitor couldn't imagine that the Time Beast God wanted to feel the sweet Chaos Airflow of the Universe Ocean before dying.
Though he couldn't make sense of it, the Monster Beast Progenitor was sure he had Shi Yan cornered. Without hesitation, he left the Dark Universe and pursued him into the depths of the Space Interlayer.
One chased while the other fled. But outside the Dark Universe, Shi Yan, a Universe Master, could no longer exceed the speed of light, while the Monster Beast Progenitor quickly surpassed it.
Fortunately, distances in the Original Universe were a thousand times greater than in the Dark Universe. The two, who had originally been a million kilometers apart, were now nearly ten light-years apart.
Whoosh!
Shi Yan's body swept past a vast Space Fragment. His True Body, hidden in another dimension of time, overlapped with the fragment before slipping past it.
The Monster Beast Progenitor followed close behind, but he had nothing like Shi Yan's exquisite movement technique.
The Monster Beast Progenitor charged straight through. The Space Fragments were as fragile as tofu before the mightiest being in the Primal Universe, crushed with ease. They did nothing to slow him, and the distance between the two rapidly shrank.
One billion kilometers... ten million kilometers... one million kilometers...
"Die!"
The Monster Beast Progenitor began attacking Shi Yan to disrupt him.
Shi Yan didn't fight back at all. He focused on escaping, dodging with his movement technique, but as time passed and the two Supreme Treasures took their toll, they remained close enough to reach out and touch.
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