The exploration of the Nether Ruins Star Domain continued amid bloodshed and silence.
Like a battered but still ravenous beast, the World-Devourer slowly navigated through chaotic energy currents and shattered celestial bodies. It carried out several more small- and medium-scale reconnaissance and raiding missions, encountering all manner of enemies: energy lifeforms, parasitic spore colonies, and even remnants of ancient war machines driven mad. Every mission brought fresh casualties and losses. The number of living people aboard the World-Devourer dwindled, and the atmosphere grew ever gloomier and more deathly still.
After suffering losses, the Third Squad received no replacements. Only Neji, Rhino, Xuan, Jiqiao, and two other taciturn Viscount Rank members remained. Captain Rhino's attitude toward Neji became exceptionally complicated. There was fear, but also a thought he might not even have noticed himself—the desire to cling to the strong in order to survive. Xuan and Jiqiao had completely become Neji's followers. Especially after Neji occasionally taught them a few techniques for using energy, they became utterly devoted to him.
Using the gaps between missions and the resources he had exchanged for, Neji refined and absorbed the three Elder Spiritual Seeds one by one. The vast, pure Primordial Wood-Spirit Energy merged into his Chaos True Essence. Not only did it rapidly nourish his Nascent Soul, making it ever more solid and full, it also completed his understanding of the Dao of Wood, further stabilizing the foundation of his Chaos Great Dao. His cultivation had quietly advanced from Early Nascent Soul to Mid Nascent Soul. Both the quantity and purity of his true essence had risen to another level, though he still kept his outward aura at the Early Earl stage and revealed nothing.
The three-year development period finally neared its end after endless slaughter, plunder, and vigilance.
When the World-Devourer, dragging