Clan

Qinggan Palace

Chen Beixun soaked in a stone vat, the water within dyed a pale red. He slowly exhaled, clutching a wine cup in his hand while sensing the ninth crystal within his sea of consciousness.

"My soul's strength and comprehension have improved significantly. I can now vaguely perceive those ethereal laws."

"It's like looking at flowers through a mist." Chen Beixun stood up, and the water on his body seemed to lose gravity, rising into the air to gather into pale red droplets. "Gather," he commanded, manipulating the droplets with keen interest.

"It is time to practice the Tianqu Cone," Chen Beixun said.

Behind the Suanling Divine Palace lay a square room made of metal. It was not very large, only capable of accommodating a hundred people for cultivation; at this moment, the room was empty and appeared exceptionally desolate.

"This room is made of C9-grade metal; the durability is sufficient." Chen Beixun sat in the center of the room, 40 flying blades floating around him.

Following the patterns in the mental power amplification technique, Chen Beixun carefully controlled the blades. They moved like well-trained cavalry, splitting into three rings: 12 blades in the first, 24 in the second, and 4 in the third. They flew in a clockwise motion, shifting occasionally and forming strange formations as their speed increased, changing patterns roughly every six seconds.

Seven days later...

Chen Beixun's control over the flying blades was now a hundred times faster. The mere shockwaves generated by the blades' flight were enough to kill a Planetary-level being.

"Time to stop." With a thought from Chen Beixun, the 40 flying blades paused as if frozen. He waved his hand, and the blades merged into a single cone-shaped object, which he stored in his spatial ring.

It was not that Chen Beixun did not want to go to the 'Slaughter Arena', but it was simply too expensive. He could barely manage it at the Stellar level, but by the Universe level, the prices at the 'Slaughter Arena' were absurd.

He only regretted his lack of wealth; he had been too busy running for his life to convert his treasures into currency.

Chen Beixun rose and walked outside, his mind filled with thoughts.

"Chunqiu says an unidentified life form has been detected in the star that Tianwen Planet orbits."

"It is likely a Flame Star Behemoth among the Starry Sky Behemoths."

"The Flame Star Behemoth is likely a juvenile; otherwise, given the temperament of such beasts, it would have turned this place upside down."

Chen Beixun gripped the Gold Soul Stone tightly and flew into the air. Suddenly, a chill permeated the surroundings, turning the area for dozens of miles into a frozen hell.

He hovered in the sky, his gaze cold and detached as he looked down upon the Suanling Palace, pondering, "I have now completely seized control of the Suanling Divine Palace. As for that Longbai Kingdom... it is truly rotten!"

"Sigh... I suppose I shall use some minor methods to clean it up."

******

The Longbai Kingdom consisted of nine survival bases, the largest reaching 40,104.3 square kilometers. Take the capital of the Longbai Kingdom as an example: it covered 35,484 square kilometers. Outside the residential areas of the capital, billions of pipes—sewage lines, water pipes, and more—were tangled together in a dense, chaotic mess. Beneath these pipes, rivers of corpses, excrement, and industrial waste encircled the life base; the stench was enough to strike one's senses.

These residential areas were divided into levels 1 through 8, stacked like a pyramid.

The lowest levels (7 and 8) could be called a paradise for crime; a lawless land with no oversight.

For the ordinary people working here, life was no different from hell. If one had to describe the difference, even Satan would say, "That's absurd." Here, one could trade a bag of grain for a person to use as a slave. In short, the bottom line here was terrifyingly low.

The highest level was, without question, the center for the powerful and their indulgent playground. The level of depravity here was even more absurd than the radiation on the surface of Tianwen Planet.

At this level, hedonism reigned supreme; it was utterly decadent, with the powerful living like maggots, feasting and singing night after night upon this rotting empire.

It was precisely because of this that Chen Beixun had so easily seized control of the empire.

What was difficult about dominating a nation whose backbone had been eaten away by the rot of its own people?

The upper class ignored the lower class, the middle class was busy serving the upper class, and the lower class cried out to the middle class for help, while the middle class only thought of how to exploit the lower class to please the upper class.

Ancient Emperor Longzun had tried her best. She had exhausted every method to save the Longbai Race, but the 'rot' of this frail species seemed etched into their DNA; no matter how she tried to save them, it was futile. After all, she was born into the nobility; her gaze was always fixed upon the aristocrats.

After Chen Beixun took control of the Longbai Empire, he directly purged the upper echelons.

He then started from the bottom, recruiting high-level apprentices or low-level Star Travelers to form a security force to maintain order.

He integrated and centralized the distribution of supplies; although they could not eat their fill, it was far better than before.

He then abolished the miscellaneous, useless titles like Counts and Marquises to better manage resources.

He could not govern perfectly, but at least everyone had a meal to eat. With Chen Beixun's formidable strength, naturally, no one dared to object.

It is now known that this star system is called the Heaven and Earth Xingluo Field, now referred to as the Xingluo Star System. One of its stars is aging, and in less than a few hundred years, it will expand to the point of swallowing Tianwen Planet.

In the universe, there are countless races, some strong and some weak. Powerful races are mostly inseparable from their territory, as territory equals the future of the race; a group without the injection of fresh blood often faces extinction. This small, enclosed world is like a microcosm of the universe. The major factions on Tianwen Planet are all harboring their own ulterior motives. Whether Chen Beixun's arrival is a disaster or an opportunity for this small world remains to be seen.

Beneath Tianwen Planet, there are 98 survival bases (excluding the Divine Palaces and inheritance sites), 15 agricultural bases, 3 industrial zones (Light Industry: 1; Heavy Industry: 2; all controlled by the three major inheritance sites), and 1 interstellar spacecraft factory (jointly controlled by the eight great Divine Palaces), along with 10 integrated power zones (controlled by the six major nations, responsible for producing fuel, electricity, and water purification).

The lives of ordinary people on Tianwen Planet can be described as dark and miserable. Most are low-level apprentices or not even at the apprentice level, working all day just for a pitiful amount of food.

Despair and suffering permeate the lower levels of society. It is not that the upper echelons of Tianwen Planet haven't thought of migrating to Dili Planet or other worlds.

As can be seen from the surface of Tianwen Planet, resources have been mined to exhaustion. Nine thousand years ago, in desperation, they frantically developed surface resources to build interstellar spacecraft.

Dili Planet is known by the people of Tianwen Planet as the Land of Exile, a place where social criminals are banished. They wiped out the original inhabitants and took their place. The people of Tianwen Planet found this to be perfectly natural.

The arrogant people of Tianwen Planet would never have imagined that their ultimate fate was death.

Their fleet lost contact.

It simply vanished, just like that.