Chapter Summaries

Li Xingkong faced a devastating saber slash from Wan Chongshan’s leather-clad clone and survived after she erased herself and her saber. He realized his strength had reached galaxy level, but decided to digest his gains before heading to the battlefield between the Zerg and the Mechanical Scourge.

• Wan Chongshan attacked Li Xingkong with a slash embodying the Dao of Sharpness, splitting his Magic Power shield and cutting through him as his regeneration failed.
• Wan Chongshan explained that her saber could not be separated from her and erased herself, while the saber in Li Xingkong’s hand also vanished.
• The system explained that Wan Chongshan had mastered Sharpness Slash, which could sever anything within the world’s jurisdiction and physical laws.
• Li Xingkong learned he could not tell whether a Wan Chongshan was the original or a Thousand Mountains Body, and decided to focus on improving his strength.
• Li Xingkong’s instinctive saber strike shattered the galaxy where he had been cultivating, revealing his power had reached galaxy level and strengthening his confidence about visiting the Zerg–Mechanical Scourge battlefield.

Li Xingkong reached a civilization near the battlefield and discovered that the darkness swallowing the stars was an enormous Zerg swarm. He recognized signs that the Zerg had a biological intelligence system, then met Zhuoyin, a Zerg diplomat offering visitors several services.

• Li Xingkong arrived at a populated planet and saw that the surrounding darkness was a vast Zerg army consuming stars and planets.
• Li Xingkong observed the swarm and concluded that specialized bugs communicated and formed a biological computer.
• Travelers debated whether the Zerg were intelligent, and Li Xingkong told them the swarm was more sophisticated than it appeared.
• Zhuoyin introduced himself as a Zerg diplomat and offered protection in exchange for genetic codes, combat in the Heaven-reaching Tower, and other services.

Zhuoyin explained how the Zerg used the Heaven-reaching Tower to test newly evolved species, but Li Xingkong had no interest in its trials. Zhuoyin offered him a chance to fight on the battlefield above, and Li Xingkong agreed to consider it after hearing the Zerg would guarantee his safety.

• Zhuoyin explained that the Zerg protected gene providers and used the Heaven-reaching Tower to test new species through combat.
• A mercenary invited Li Xingkong to join his team in the tower, but Li Xingkong declined.
• Zhuoyin recognized Li Xingkong as the Planet Exterminator and said the tower would be too easy for him.
• Zhuoyin offered to contact the Overmind and arrange a battlefield where Li Xingkong could fight at full strength with his safety guaranteed.
• Li Xingkong felt tempted by the offer but remembered Fang Ritu's warning to look around without getting involved.

Li Xingkong investigated the restraints keeping the Zerg in check, but could not identify how they worked. Zhuoyin escorted him to the Convention’s battlefield entrance, where he met Yan Jun of Kilometer Arc, who invited him to join.

• Li Xingkong examined the Zerg swarm and found that insects probing his Divine Sense turned back without any apparent spatial influence.
• Zhuoyin told Li Xingkong the battlefield was ready and explained that only etiquette insects could leave the Zerg territory under the Convention’s rules.
• Zhuoyin escorted Li Xingkong to a spherical building and introduced him to the Convention’s Ring Envoy.
• The Ring Envoy introduced itself as Yan Jun, a Dao seeker from Kilometer Arc, and sensed an aura of light in Li Xingkong.
• Yan Jun invited Li Xingkong to join Kilometer Arc, and Li Xingkong said he would consider it.

Li Xingkong entered the Zerg battlefield to test their evolutionary abilities after Yan Jun explained that the creatures were contained in a vast single-sided space. He began fighting the swarm and watched it adapt to his attacks, then dodged its corrosive spit.

• Yan Jun explained that the Zerg and Mechanical Scourge were trapped in a single-sided spatial structure and opened a passage into the battlefield for Li Xingkong.
• Li Xingkong entered the Zerg's core territory, where Zhuoyin told him through a communicator that he could begin.
• Li Xingkong blasted the approaching swarm with divine light, but the Zerg devoured their fallen and adapted their bodies to withstand his attacks.
• Li Xingkong increased the divine light's power and reduced every bug within several astronomical units to ash.
• The remaining Zerg surged toward Li Xingkong and spat corrosive liquid at him, but he analyzed it with his Divine Sense and dodged.

Li Xingkong studied the Zerg swarm as it evolved resistance to his Divine Light and attacked his Divine Sense. He continued using Divine Light alone to hone his control as the swarm replaced its cannon fodder with resistant troops.

• Li Xingkong watched new bugs consume their fellows, reproduce, and grow highly resistant to Divine Light.
• A spirit-like sentinel bug fed on the Magic Power in Li Xingkong’s Divine Sense, and successive waves forced him to withdraw his probe.
• Li Xingkong identified the swarm’s specialized troops, commanders, researchers, laborers, and sentinels as parts of a highly unified organism.
• The cannon-fodder bugs withdrew, and an army of bugs resistant to Divine Light took their place.
• Li Xingkong kept fighting with Divine Light alone to train his control without teaching the Zerg more of his methods.

Li Xingkong fought the evolved bugs and realized that limiting their access to matter was key to reducing their numbers. After studying their tactics, he unleashed his full power as a Golden Core Sixth Level cultivator and wiped out every bug touched by his Divine Light.

• The evolved bugs adapted to Li Xingkong's Divine Light, sealed the space to block his teleportation, and tried to consume his magic power shield.
• Li Xingkong observed that the bugs relied on matter to grow and reproduce, and realized he could vaporize matter by converting it into magic power.
• Li Xingkong drew the surrounding bugs together with a growing gravitational force, compressing them into a thin wall of flesh and clearing space around himself.
• Li Xingkong unleashed his Divine Light in earnest, and every bug it touched melted away.

After wiping out the Zerg around him, Li Xingkong learned that his attack had drawn the Mechanical Scourge toward the battlefield. Yan Jun moved him into the Mirror Realm to watch the coming fight, while the system explained the Axiom Arc’s seemingly untouchable spatial nature.

• Li Xingkong destroyed nearly all the Zerg in the area, and a Zerg squad warned him that the Mechanical Scourge would arrive within twenty minutes.
• Li Xingkong signaled to withdraw, and Yan Jun brought him into the Mirror Realm, where they could observe the Zerg without being seen.
• Yan Jun explained that the Mirror Realm placed them outside a space like a bottle, and that the Axiom Arc had mastered its use.
• The system called the realm a fragmentary parallel space and warned Li Xingkong that Yan Jun existed as a one-sided space beyond attacks that operated in reality.

Li Xingkong learned more about the three powers in the Convention as he and Yan Jun awaited the Mechanical Scourge. The Scourge then attacked the bugs, and its first large warship deployed a weapon that stopped the bugs in their tracks.

• Yan Jun explained that the Kingdom of Fixed Light excluded outsiders, the Holy Church of Truth sought to create a god, and the Kilometer Arc welcomed talented researchers and transformed its members.
• Li Xingkong decided he did not want to join any power or give up his physical body.
• The Mechanical Scourge opened a spatial passage and bombarded the waiting bugs with bombs, but the bugs swallowed the resulting energy and shock waves.
• Mechanical creatures poured through the passage and clashed with the bugs in a battle where both sides sought to recover the fallen for materials.
• A large Mechanical Scourge warship charged its weapon and released a ripple that halted the bugs as it passed over them.

The Mechanical Scourge used its Element Extraction Wave to kill bugs by condensing the iron in their bodies, and Li Xingkong discussed how the technique resembled the Five-Color Divine Light. The bugs countered by assimilating wreckage and mechanical life-forms into new bugs, leaving both sides locked in a rapidly escalating war of attrition.

• Yan Jun explained that the Mechanical Scourge’s Element Extraction Wave gathered iron from affected organisms and killed the bugs it struck.
• The Mechanical Scourge teleported in more warships, while Li Xingkong recognized that its iron-controlling weapon resembled the Five-Color Divine Light.
• The system explained that the Five-Color Divine Light required mastery over many elements but could overwhelm beings whose existence depended on physical matter.
• The bugs launched fleshy lumps that assimilated dead and active organisms into new bugs, including mechanical bodies immune to the extraction wave.
• The bugs surged back across the battlefield, and Li Xingkong watched the conflict become an endless war of attrition.

Li Xingkong watched the bugs and the Mechanical Scourge fight across several star systems, learning how both sides rapidly replaced their losses and hearing that their main war had continued for over a hundred thousand years. The battle remained unresolved, but Li Xingkong decided to leave for his next destination, humbled by the universe’s power and reassured that his visit had been worthwhile.

• The bugs mass-produced troops while the Mechanical Scourge deployed a shielded factory that recycled wreckage into new mechanical units, slowing the bugs’ advance.
• The two sides fought fiercely for over a month as the bugs’ repeated charges destroyed warships between the Mechanical Scourge’s element-extraction attacks.
• Li Xingkong asked whether battles like this were always so large, and Yan Jun explained that the main conflict had lasted more than a hundred thousand years.
• Li Xingkong reflected on the civilizations’ endless war and recognized that his own strength remained far below that of the three great powers.
• With his purpose for visiting fulfilled and the battle unlikely to end soon, Li Xingkong prepared to leave for the next place.

Li Xingkong prepared to leave after watching the battle and discussed his future with Yan Jun, who gave him an Arc token and told him about a long-running search for a time reset point. Li Xingkong recognized it as the same investigation that had drawn three major powers near Divine Land and decided he could continue traveling before returning home.

• Li Xingkong told Yan Jun he might leave soon, and Yan Jun said the Axiom Circle Alliance would remain open to him.
• Yan Jun offered Li Xingkong a ring that served as a preliminary selection token and explained its connection to the Arc’s control over pi.
• Yan Jun told Li Xingkong that Arc scholars in the Kingdom of Fixed Light were searching for a time reset point.
• Li Xingkong connected the project to the earlier search by three major powers near Divine Land and concluded there was no need to hurry back.
• Li Xingkong planned to continue traveling and later return to see how construction of Divine Land’s Thirty-Three Heavens was progressing.

Li Xingkong studied Tachyon State Transformation on his return journey and scattered small Spiritual Root Servers along the way. He stopped at his fellow countryman’s restaurant for a meal and met Guapilong, who introduced himself as a member of the Deep River Dragon Clan.

• Li Xingkong realized that mastering Tachyon State Transformation would let him return instantly to any place with a server, so he focused on studying it during his journey.
• He made and scattered small Spiritual Root Servers along his route as potential teleportation points.
• Remembering his fellow countryman’s cooking, Li Xingkong landed on the planet and found the man harvesting a tentacle from a giant octopus before returning to his restaurant.
• Li Xingkong joined the line outside the closed restaurant and resumed studying while he waited.
• Guapilong approached Li Xingkong, offered to treat him to takoyaki, and asked to share a table.
• Li Xingkong agreed to eat with Guapilong, who introduced himself as being from the Deep River Dragon Clan and called Li Xingkong his good brother.

Li Xingkong met Guapilong, a talkative member of the Deep River Dragon Clan who introduced himself as a traveling merchant and tried to attach himself to Li Xingkong. While they ate at a restaurant, Guapilong demonstrated his psychic power gloves, and Li Xingkong effortlessly used Divine Sense to make his food cut and feed itself.

• Guapilong told Li Xingkong that the Deep River Dragon Clan traded throughout the Convention, though Li Xingkong had never heard of them.
• Guapilong guessed that Li Xingkong was a prince or noble and said he wanted to cling to him for a life without worries about food or clothes.
• Li Xingkong ordered extra food at the restaurant and introduced Guapilong to the owner.
• Guapilong used psychic power gloves to cut and eat the roasted tentacle while explaining how the gloves worked.
• Li Xingkong used Divine Sense to make his tentacle cut itself into pieces and feed him, leaving Guapilong astonished.

Li Xingkong and Guapilong shared a meal, and Li Xingkong found himself enjoying the company. Guapilong offered him a ride in his spaceship, and Li Xingkong expanded the ship’s interior with a formation so he could sit comfortably.

• Guapilong used a mental-power-amplifying hat to carve a flower into a piece of meat, and Li Xingkong reshaped it into a proper flower for him.
• Li Xingkong and Guapilong finished their meal, and Guapilong packed the leftover tentacle into his spatial pocket.
• Guapilong offered to repay Li Xingkong by taking him where he was going in his spaceship.
• Guapilong explained that every Deep River Dragon Clan member’s pocket connected to a shared storage space larger than a galaxy.
• Li Xingkong boarded the cramped spaceship, expanded its interior with a formation, and made himself a chair.

Li Xingkong finished developing a tachyon transformation that could carry both himself and his spaceship, then invited Guapilong to join him as a tour guide. Guapilong accepted after Li Xingkong paid him an enormous advance, and the two prepared to travel together.

• Guapilong showed Li Xingkong the sights of nearby galaxies as they traveled, while Li Xingkong completed his tachyon-state calculations.
• Li Xingkong asked Guapilong to join him on a spontaneous trip, but Guapilong said he could not leave his work and admitted he had barely made any sales.
• Li Xingkong hired Guapilong as his tour guide and transferred a huge sum to his Convention bank card.
• Guapilong was frightened by the amount until Li Xingkong explained it would cover their travel expenses, then eagerly agreed to the job.

Li Xingkong transformed himself, Guapilong, and their spaceship into information and carried them through space at tremendous speed. Guapilong accidentally tore part of a passing distress signal and learned it came from Arc Three, a star system in the Axiom Arc’s core region.

• Guapilong began planning to buy a faster, larger spaceship with more chefs, but Li Xingkong set off before he could choose one.
• Li Xingkong transformed the spaceship and both travelers into clusters of information, then carried them through a passage of rushing colors.
• Guapilong reached out and tore a piece from a passing information cluster, finding fragments of an urgent plea mentioning Arc Three.
• Guapilong decided to investigate Arc Three, then searched his memories to learn where it was.
• Guapilong recognized Arc Three as part of the Axiom Arc’s core star region and panicked over having interfered with a distress signal from such an important place.

After Li Xingkong and Guapilong crossed an immense distance in less than a second, Guapilong plotted a circuitous sightseeing route that Li Xingkong accepted as a chance to test how his cultivation would fare under different physical laws. They planned to rest until Guapilong’s supplies were ready, while Guapilong privately hoped someone awaiting his help could hold on.

• Li Xingkong restored Guapilong after their tachyon journey left his limbs uncoordinated.
• Guapilong contacted a Deep River Dragon Clan classmate, obtained a star chart, and learned they were near the northern edge of the Sihali Kingdom.
• Guapilong planned a semicircular route across the territories of the three major powers, claiming it would let them visit regions with different physical rules.
• Li Xingkong recognized the route’s value for testing his spells, Magic Power, and survival under rule weapons, and approved the plan.
• Li Xingkong and Guapilong agreed to rest for a few days while their supplies were prepared, and Guapilong worried that someone waiting for help might not last that long.

Guapilong hurried Li Xingkong into buying and boarding the luxury spaceship Heavenly Palace Above the Clouds so they could soon cross the Axiom Arc's border and rescue someone. Li Xingkong inspected the ship's systems and explored its entertainment facilities with Guapilong, leaving the pair aboard their spacious new vessel.

• Guapilong urged Li Xingkong to depart and presented him with the Heavenly Palace Above the Clouds, which he had found in his clan's warehouse.
• Li Xingkong boarded the ship and used his Divine Sense to inspect its shield system, power supply, and weak armaments.
• Guapilong showed Li Xingkong the ship's core compartments and activated its maintenance robots.
• Li Xingkong explored the ship's entertainment areas and tried a virtual combat game while Guapilong played with a toy gun.
• Guapilong said he expected to make more friends in the future, despite the ship currently having only the two of them aboard.

Li Xingkong and Guapilong began their journey and traveled toward the Heavenly Chasm World Wall, preparing for the trip and fending off repeated pirate attacks. They arrived at the World Wall, though Li Xingkong still had not seen it with his own eyes.

• Guapilong stocked the spaceship with supplies, and Li Xingkong gave him more than a dozen Golden Core constructs to serve as attendants.
• Guapilong pointed out the Heavenly Chasm World Wall on the star map as their first attraction.
• As they neared the World Wall, pirates and outlaws repeatedly attacked their conspicuous spaceship, and Li Xingkong destroyed the pursuing ships with his Divine Sense.
• Li Xingkong learned that the Deep River Dragon Clan survived through its talent for winning the favor of powerful allies.
• Guapilong announced that they had reached the World Wall, while Li Xingkong still saw no wall outside the spaceship.