Kong Shi was a Hunter, which made her rank slightly more reasonable, as it showed that not just anyone could surpass an Enlighter.
Below Kong Shi were two more Enlighters, and beneath them was another Hunter, Liu Zhan. He seemed to be from the Sword Sect’s Liu family. Speaking of which, the commander of Seasons Fort was named Liu Qiuyu, who should also be from the Sword Sect’s Liu family.
Beneath Liu Zhan were four Enlighters, followed by a Hunter called Liu Miaomiao, and then a Cruiser named Linley.
These were the top twenty of the battle rankings, and there were actually two Cruisers within them, which was no simple feat. It should be known that there were a whole column of Hunters in the rankings below.
However, these Hunters and Cruisers who were ranked in the top twenty were mostly stationed at Ironblood Fort. Since that stronghold was at the front lines, it was rumored that the battle there never ceased and that the fortress was eternally drafting more soldiers and cultivators.
The list was very long, as anyone with even just one Ironblood Point would be on the rankings. The tail-end of the list was rather long, and Lu Yin was too lazy to browse through the entire thing, so he only checked the top of the list.
Suddenly, Lu Yin’s eyes lit up when he saw a familiar name: Yue Xianzi. Right, that brat had been in San Dios, and she remained there ever since the Innerverse and Outerverse had become separated. Why hadn’t she contacted him after all this time?
Since Yue Xianzi had come to Ironblood Weave and had even killed enemies, then An Shaohua should also be around. It seemed that the Outerverse Youth Council members were also available for the draft, which meant that Puyu would be on the battlefield as well.
Not long after, Wendy Yushan separated from Lu Yin since she was going to Yellowsoil Fort.
Lu Yin had Ryan Merke follow her, and he ordered half of the Cruisers and Explorers to head to that stronghold as well. As long as Ryan Merke did not want anything to happen to his family, then he would do all he could to protect Wendy Yushan.
In the meantime, Lu Yin headed towards Seasons Fort with the rest of his cultivators and soldiers.
Not long after they separated, Wendy Yushan suddenly contacted Lu Yin. “Apparently, the battle system is connected to the entire universe, and the Ironblood Points that you obtain in Ironblood Weave are equivalent to contributions from the other warfronts. Similarly, once the systems are reconnected, you will be able to see the contribution rankings from the other battlefields.”
“That’s pointless. Right now, even the network connecting the Outerverse’s eastern weaves is unreliable, let alone the network connecting all the other warfronts,” Lu Yin replied.
“I’m only telling you to work hard. It would be best to exchange the Ironblood Points for some Honor Points. However, given your personality, you’ll probably exchange all of your points for star essences,” Wendy Yushan commented indifferently.
Lu Yin smiled. “You really understand me well.”
“It would be best to acquire as many contributions as you can while still preserving your life. Honor Points have benefits that you can’t even imagine. You already have two right now, and when you get eleven, if you’re injured or killed, then the Hall of Honor will move to investigate, and they will even avenge you if necessary.”
Lu Yin asked, “Isn’t the Hall of Honor in the Neoverse?”
“The Hall of Honor is everywhere,” she replied before disconnecting.
Lu Yin fell deep into thought. It seemed that the Hall of Honor’s influence was even greater than what he had imagined. It was no wonder why Undying Yushan hadn’t dared to pardon Sigmund Mathers’s crime. However, as time passed, and assuming that the Innerverse and Outerverse remained separated, the Hall of Honor’s influence would only continue to drop.
Lu Yin truly did hope that the Hall of Honor was everywhere, as it would mean that there was actually hope for defending the Outerverse.
In fact, the moment the Great Yu Empire received the aid request, Lu Yin had already envisioned a tentative plan that could possibly resolve this calamity. Of course, it all depended on luck.
An alarm unexpectedly rang, and the void broke open as a very familiar creature appeared in front of Lu Yin: a Void Wanderer.
Regardless of each individual Void Wanderer’s strength, every single one of them had the innate gift of traveling through the void. It was mostly through the work of these Void Wanderers that had paved the path for the Astral Beast Domain’s invasion into the Human Domain, and the creatures had sent countless astral beasts over.
Originally, Void Wanderers had only sent over astral beasts that were not space-exploring powerhouses. But after the sky changed, Explorers were no longer able to tear through the void, and so, both Explorer and Cruiser realm beasts now required the assistance of Void Wanderers to travel through the void and arrive at the humans’ battlefield.
What appeared in front of him was a squad of Explorer realm astral beasts.
In Ironblood Weave, it was possible for the astral beasts to invade from any location, and their assaults could not be completely withstood by just the Ironblood Fort alone. Lu Yin was not surprised by the creatures’ appearance, and he calmly donned his universal armor and moved to the top of the spacecraft, prepared to face the astral beasts that approached from all angles.
Aden and Huo Qingshan also stepped forward. A great battle was about to erupt without any forewarning, but such encounters were inevitable here.
There were too many astral beasts rushing in, and each and every one of them was an Explorer or a Cruiser. Even with Huo Qingshan and Aden’s formidable power as Hunters, which allowed them to sweep through an entire area, they were still not fast enough to completely destroy the incoming horde of astral beasts.
Outside the spacecraft, the Ghost Monkey quickly towed Lu Yin over to an astral beast, and Lu Yin then slammed a palm against the creature.
The astral beast felt disdain for this attacker, as this human still needed to use a set of universal armor to roam in outer space. Thus, he couldn’t be any more powerful than a Limiteer at best. Limiteer Realmbreakers were also practically nonexistent, so the creature didn’t even bother dodging Lu Yin’s attack. Instead, it raised a paw and swatted at Lu Yin, taking his attack head on.
If this scene was seen by Ling Que and the others, then they would definitely be amazed and exclaim, “My heavens!”
There was a boom as the astral beast burst into pieces after being slapped by Lu Yin, decorating the vacuum of outer space with a splash of fresh blood. Lu Yin sped through the bloody haze, which splattered upon his universal armor and added a fresh layer of bright red to it. He then started relentlessly attacking the other astral beasts.
Some distance away from Lu Yin, quite a few astral beasts were burned to a crisp by Huo Qingshan’s flames, though he was constantly keeping an eye on Lu Yin. Although Lu Yin had the ability to instantly kill an Enlighter, that was only by relying on his gun, which would not be a feasible method to use against this group of astral beasts. Huo Qingshan was afraid that Lu Yin would not be able to take care of himself.
However, Lu Yin’s strength stunned the Hunter once again, and it broke his understanding of how strong a Limiteer could be.
This was especially true after Lu Yin killed a Cruiser realm astral beast. After that, Huo Qingshan lost all anxiety for Lu Yin’s safety. None of the astral beasts in this attack wave was stronger than a Cruiser, so none of them were a threat to Lu Yin.
Before long, the ambushing astral beasts were nearly annihilated, though Lu Yin and the others did not come out of the clash completely unharmed either. Fortunately, the fleet full of ordinary troops that had been following behind them to reinforce Ironblood Weave had not caught up yet, or otherwise there would have been massive casualties.
In the battle, Lu Yin had managed to kill one Cruiser and more than ten Explorer beasts overall. For a Limiteer, these results were already pretty decent, and Lu Yin estimated that he had just earned dozens of Ironblood Points.
He glanced at the battle network and saw that his contributions were currently being evaluated. He wouldn’t know how many Ironblood Points he had acquired from this battle until the calculations were complete.
This battle did not delay their arrival time too much, and half a day later, Lu Yin and the others saw another colossal structure that took up an entire region of space, much like Brokenblade Fort, which they had previously passed by. The stronghold blocked their entire line of vision since it was formed from many planets, and its strong battle aura seemed to invite them. This was Seasons Fort.
Ironblood Weave was separated into Ironblood Fort at the front, three strongholds in the middle, and then five more strongholds in the back. Seasons Fort was located behind Ironblood Fort, and it was one of the three middle strongholds and another one of the fortresses that was also embroiled in constant conflict.
Lu Yin and the others did not have the luxury of time to carefully observe Seasons Fort, as they were instantly drawn to the battlefield in front of them.
Lu Yin had never seen such a massive battle take place before.
From high above in outer space, to down on the grounds before the fortress, there was fighting everywhere he could see. The battle drums clearly rang throughout the entire region.
In the past, at Erudite Flowzone’s border warfront, though the battles had been bitter, Lu Yin had only ever participated in defending the surface of a single planet, and he had not even seen what occurred in outer space. On the other hand, the battlefield at Seasons Fort gave him an acute feeling for the desperate struggle between the different races.
The newcomers were not given any time to think, and Lu Yin and the others immediately jumped into the fray. The battle system could independently differentiate between each participant’s identity, so they were able to enter Seasons Fort without any difficulty. Their arrival was greeted by the scene of a severed arm smashing into the middle of the stronghold’s space station. Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed; he could feel a powerful oppression from the arm, and it had definitely belonged to a Hunter.
As he thought of this, blood rained down like a waterfall before his eyes before a badly mangled corpse crashed down with half of its body missing.
“It’s a Hunter.” Aden immediately moved in front of Lu Yin to protect him while vigilantly observing the outside of the space station.
There was another explosion as half of the space station was shredded apart by a massive claw. Aden leaped up, and a thunderous rumble roared out from his thunder shield. The next moment, a shockwave swept across the entire area, and Huo Qingshan grabbed Lu Yin and flew away as the entire space station was torn to pieces.
Huo Qingshan took Lu Yin back into outer space, and once they were out of the space station, Lu Yin could finally make out the figure of an enormous monster that was thousands of meters long. He watched as the astral beast was blasted away by Aden and sent flying hundreds of kilometers away. The beast roared as it slashed down with its claw, slicing the void into multiple layers as numerous, incomparably huge spatial cracks crashed down towards the stronghold’s space station.
The stronghold’s space station had been constructed atop a floating mainland in space, and if it was destroyed, then the entire mainland would collapse.
At the moment, there were many human cultivators still on the mainland, fighting against the astral beasts.
Aden growled, and his thunder shield expanded in size as it collided with the claw. The Hunter forcibly resisted this astral beast’s claw strike, preventing even the remnant spatial cracks rushing towards the space station from leaking through the thunder shield’s defenses.
Countless people witnessed this scene, all of them shocked and wondering when such a terrifying powerhouse had arrived at their stronghold. It should be known that this astral beast was also a Hunter, but despite that, it had already killed three human Hunters. Aside from a select few elites, no one could stand against the creature, and the few cultivators who had the strength to do so had all been held back by other strong foes. This astral beast was its side’s strongest blade during this invasion attempt, but it had been blocked by a person who had suddenly appeared, and now, the astral beasts were gradually losing the battle.
“That astral beast is at least a monster among Hunters, and it might even be close to the level of being the strongest,” Huo Qingshan exclaimed.
Lu Yin quietly replied, “It can’t be the strongest since it can’t compare to Aden.’
Boom!
Another rumble was heard as Aden repelled the astral beast’s attack once again. Not only did he repel the beast, but he even pushed his thunder shield forward to force the beast out of the stronghold. The void distorted in the process, and it eventually caused space itself to crack and splinter apart.
At another end of the stronghold, Liu Qiuyu looked over in shock. When did such a strong powerhouse arrive? Such power can rival an Enlighter’s.
The Enlighter beast battling against Liu Qiuyu was also stunned, and it looked unwilling to accept what it saw.
Lu Yin had Huo Qingshan take him onto one of the stronghold’s floating continents. Some of the fortress’s regions were planets while others were independent continents floating in the heavens.
Lu Yin soon appeared on the floating continent that held the space station and joined the battle. He did not want to rashly join the battle in outer space before first understanding the situation of the battlefield.
Nobody knew how long this battle would last for, and Lu Yin fought for two days straight after arriving at Seasons Fort. He was constantly surrounded by astral beasts, and they were even snarling in outer space, above the fortress. At times, a powerful attack would shake the land itself, but the humans’ powerhouses held back the destruction.
Lu Yin panted heavily and donned his universal armor while he held some star essences in one hand, restoring his star energy.
