“Zi Tie, how dare you!” someone bellowed as the void was torn apart. A man then charged into the void that the giant hoof had emerged from. A shocking fluctuation rippled out soon after; this was a battle between space-exploring powerhouses.
Densely packed black dots fell down from the sky. Each one was a soldier, and some were even people who Lu Yin knew.
The idea had been for the four strongest students as determined by the Astral Combat Tournament to lead the top thirty two students in battle at the borders of the Human Domain. Lu Yin was one of the four top students, and Silver was not the only student under his command. Most of the other top thirty two students had not arrived yet. So far, only three had arrived: Chao Zhi, Liu Yin, and an Area Master named Tasha.
Everyone who had reached the top thirty two, especially Chao Zhi and Liu Yin, was as strong as a typical academy leader. Their participation in this small battlefield had caused the astral beasts’ forces to suffer great losses this time around.
Chao Zhi’s four-lined battle force and Liu Yin’s Soundless Field were both amazing tools of slaughter. From the very start, they continuously killed beasts without pause. Tasha was not weak either. Having the title of Area Master meant that she was strong enough to rank in the top five of her own academy, and she easily wiped out a batch of Limiteer astral beasts.
When the reinforcements arrived, the Void Wanderers were quickly massacred by Lu Yin and the rest. Although the enemy’s numbers had been reduced, a quaking aftershock soon followed afterwards, sweeping out and crushing the subdivision base. An incomparably large astral beast emerged from the void, but it quickly left after tearing the void open again. This was a sign that the battle had finally concluded.
The remaining beasts could not escape without the Void Wanderers and thus were left with no choice but to fight to their deaths. By the time the last beast fell, the ground had been stained a dark red by all the spilled blood. It was unknown whether the blood was from humans or beasts, although that felt strangely insignificant within this meat grinder of a battlefield.
This was not Lu Yin’s first contact with a battlefield. Earth’s evolutionary trial had also been a bloody battlefield, but this was his first time participating in the Human Domain’s border wars. Just the aftershocks of the movements by the astral beasts that had reached the Explorer realm or above were enough to crush more than a hundred soldiers to death. This was the warfront; here, luck was equally as important as power.
The surviving soldiers calmly started to clean up. There was no hint of terror, unease, or even grief in their actions. It was as if they had all accepted that they would one day be the spilled blood that merged into this land.
But for Trifa and the rest, this was the first time they had ever encountered such a gory battle, and they had almost died on top of it all. It wasn’t just them; even veteran soldiers like Gildor had almost died.
Lu Yin and the few other students from the Astral Combat Academy had the most outstanding performances today. Without them, the battle would not have ended that quickly as the number of powerhouses who could kill Void Wanderers at this base was too few. Furthermore, those few powerhouses had been targeted by the beasts. It had been an organized sneak attack, and Lu Yin and the others could be considered to be unexpected reinforcements.
Gildor allowed Lu Yin and the rest to return to the barracks to recuperate while the rest of the soldiers cleaned up the battlefield. However, Lu Yin and the others didn’t take advantage of this opportunity to rest and instead joined in to help the others clean up. At the warfront, they were all mere footsoldiers.
Countless mangled corpses had to be cremated, regardless of if it was human or beast. The battlefield even contained the wreckages of some high technological weapons.
“Please, please, kill me, kill me…” a feeble voice pleaded, causing Lu Yin to look over with the others. There was a young soldier who only had half of his body remaining begging in agony. Those around the young man were at a loss and only looked at him blankly.
Gildor walked forward and killed the soldier with a single strike. He looked at the onlookers and gruffly said, “Remember, this is a battlefield. There was no chances of him surviving. To him, death was the best release.”
The battlefield grew even quieter and everyone silently continued going about their own matters.
Suddenly, a brilliant light flashed past the group as Silver’s butterfly knife flew right in front of a new soldier named Maggie, splattering blood all over a nearby metal wall. In front of the wall, the head of an astral beast fell down, truly dead this time.
“Tha- thank you.” Maggie’s face was deathly white.
Silver grinned. “No problem.”
Right next to him, Feng Tao stared at Silver in shock. So this was the power of a top student from the Astral Combat Academy. He had seen that beast at the same instant and wanted to save Maggie, but Silver had already taken care of it by the time he could even think to act. If he battled with Silver, then his outcome would almost definitely be the same as that astral beast’s; he would be instantly killed out before he could even make a move. The Astral Combat Academy had produced many freaks.
Half a day later, a new layer of sand covered the dark red ground. The fresh bloodstains had been buried underneath, restoring the battlefield to the same state that Lu Yin saw when he had first arrived. This new layer would also turn black with the passage of time. Within the base, many soldiers were busy at work, repairing various structures. They had already become accustomed to this life.
Gildor assembled all of the new recruits and spoke to them briefly before arranging for them to patrol a specific region of the base. Their captain was Lu Yin.
Another half a day passed again when another warship arrived. This one brought someone who shocked the base, and quite possibly even the entire Planet Conan: Liu Shaoqiu, the first-rate genius of the Sword Sect’s younger generation, had arrived.
Lu Yin was also astonished by the news as he never expected that Liu Shaoqiu would appear here on Planet Conan.
The most senior commander came out to personally welcome Liu Shaoqiu in. This was a sign of respect to the Sword Sect, as it dominated the first Flowzone and was a peak power of the Innerverse. There was also a portion of the frontier’s allied armies that hailed from the Sword Sect, and any of their disciples would receive similar treatment, least of all Liu Shaoqiu.
Although Liu Shaoqiu had received this courtesy during his arrival, there was no other special treatment, and he also started as a normal footsoldier who was assigned under Lu Yin. Liu Shaoqiu himself did not act very arrogantly and calmly looked at Lu Yin after joining the group.
Trifa and the rest no longer dared to challenge Lu Yin anymore. The previous battle had shown them what it meant to be called a freak, and now, their curiosity was turned towards Liu Shaoqiu. The fame of the Thirteen Swords was too overwhelming, and they really wanted to experience it for themselves since they could not understand what had happened in the tournament through the screen.
But Liu Shaoqiu simply did not bother with them. The only thing he did was faithfully carry out his duties as a basic soldier.
Another two Astral Combat Academy students arrived not long after Liu Shaoqiu. It was Xue Liuyun and another Area Master named Lanke.
The four strongest students each led a team composed of eight Astral Combat Academy students, which made for a total of thirty two students.
Lu Yin did not know where Xia Luo and the others had been sent, but his team was definitely not simple. It was already astounding enough that the team had five members with the power of a Realm Master.
The eight Astral Combat Academy students were joined by Trifa and the other new soldiers to form a new team captained by Lu Yin. They were assigned to patrol the base.
The first day went by smoothly.
The second day was similarly uneventful.
On the third day, while the rookies were patrolling outside the base, they ran into a sudden ambush from underground beasts. One of the new soldiers died, and Lu Yin was chastised accordingly by Gildor.
Lu Yin himself found it slightly difficult to tolerate this lecture as he had honestly not noticed the underground beasts. Those beasts had had a strange innate gift that allowed them to perfectly disguise themselves as stones. They had turned completely cold and erased all signs of life. Not a single person in their group had sensed them, which had led to the surprise ambush that resulted in one of the new soldiers dying.
This matter made Lu Yin treat the battlefield even more cautiously.
Liu Shaoqiu and the rest reacted in a similar manner as they similarly became more alert.
Over the span of seven days, Lu Yin and the rest gradually adapted to military life and slowly began to learn who their fellow troop members were.
No one knew how many regional bases were on Planet Conan other than the planet’s commander. This was partially to blunt the surprise attacks of the mutant beasts, but more importantly, it was to prevent the beasts from ever taking root on Planet Conan.
Many of the bases had been hidden extremely well, and it was quite common for a batch of newly arrived mutant beasts to be coincidentally spotted by a base. The beasts would then be exterminated by powerful weapons from a distance. There were many such instances; hence, the number and positions of the bases were all kept top secret.
However, Lu Yin’s base had already been revealed. Gildor barely showed himself over the last few days, and it was widely assumed that he was researching where they should relocate their base to.
But before their plan could be put into action, they were struck by another large-scale attack. Countless spatial cracks that were densely packed together appeared in the sky as they extended into the horizon.
Soldiers throughout the entire base were dumbfounded, as the scale of this sneak attack was much greater than the last one.
“Attack! Eliminate the Void Wanderers!” a stern roar shouted out as the entire base began to tremble. Then, an incomparably large mutant beast charged out from the void and crushed the base’s command center with a single stomp, killing everyone inside, including Gildor, and reducing them to mere puddles of flesh and blood.
Lu Yin’s pupils constricted; the base had fallen!
At the same time that the command center was flattened, countless mutant beasts descended from the sky, heralding the start to one of the cruelest battles Lu Yin had ever participated in.
Liu Shaoqiu was the first to act as he unleashed the Second Sword. The boundless sword qi covered the entire base and swept upwards, tearing through the void. With a single strike, he had killed almost a hundred Void Wanderers, shocking many.
Chao Zhi then used her Wind of Seasons to sweep through the skies, killing another dozen Void Wanderers.
Liu Yin opened his mouth and emitted visible sound waves that coalesced into lines before exploding in midair, haphazardly blasting the sky without rhyme or reason.
Xue Liuyun, Silver, Lanke, Tasha and the rest all acted as well. Their fierce wave of attacks exceeded the rest of the soldiers’ wildest dreams, and it even surpassed the mutant beasts’ expectations. This time, they thought that they had prepared enough forces to crush this base through overwhelming numbers, but they had been stopped by these Astral Combat Academy students. In fact, more than half of their Void Wanderers had already been wiped out in an instant.
Lu Yin was just about to act when the ground suddenly quivered again. A massive pressure engulfed the base as a giant hoof encased in metal appeared once more. This time, everyone could see the rest of the beast’s appearance, which was that of a giant bull, though many times larger than normal. Its burning copper eyes stared downwards as it laughed insolently. “What great luck, I found some human geniuses! Go die!” It then pressed down with its iron hoof.
Many soldiers in the base turned pale, as only a space-exploring powerhouse could possibly block this attack. They were all doomed.
Liu Shaoqiu and the rest readied themselves to attack. They were all Realmbreakers, though they were still likely outmatched.
In the end, it was Lu Yin who leaped into the sky with an icy cold expression. He had long since wanted to directly face an Explorer, as being able to freely explore space was a fundamental transformation of one’s power. It wasn’t only an increase in power; rather, it actually focused more on conditioning one’s physical body. Once a human broke through to the Explorer realm, their body would change on a fundamental level. Everything, from the cells to the blood vessels, blood, heart, and organs, would be altered so that it was better suited to the vacuum of the grand universe. Lu Yin wanted to measure the gap between himself and one who had undergone these fundamental changes through combat.
If a Limiteer could actually break realms to challenge an Explorer, then they were truly an exceptional genius.
In midair, five-lined battle force exploded out to cover Lu Yin’s entire body. Purple lines decorated with dark-gold lines circulated vigorously as a dark-gold radiance illuminated the void, the base, and even the astral beast’s enormous eyes.
“A human with five-lined battle force?!” The beast was astonished by the sight of Lu Yin’s battle force.
But at that moment, Lu Yin had viciously unleashed his Cosmic Palm against the iron hoof. The void seemed to freeze for an instant. Then, a strong pulse of energy swept through the void and radiated outwards in a circle, ripping the void to shreds as it swept into the distance. Multiple Void Wanderers that were hidden within the void were instantly reduced to bloody pulps. At the center, nine explosions rang out as nine shockwaves caused the void to fluctuate wildly and a dark color to appear.
The nine-star Cosmic Palm was Lu Yin’s strongest battle technique, and even its physical force was close to the limit of what he could exert—the Nine Stacks, Seventeenfold Shockwave Palm. More importantly, the Cosmic Palm did not burden his body, and he could even use the nine stars to absorb star energy and make up for what he had consumed. Just operating the Cosmic Art’s operation was enough to reveal all the changes in the surrounding star energy. This was his most powerful state.
When the ninth star exploded, Lu Yin was blasted backwards, slamming heavily into the ground. The giant astral beast named Zi Tie was similarly forced back. Its attack had actually been blocked.
