Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

After exiting chaotic space several million li away, Yan Zaizen explained what he had just witnessed to Tao and Bai Lufeng. When he did, their expressions were painted with fear and their backs with cold sweat. They knew odd creatures existed in the Border Expanse but this was ridiculous.

"At least, it's over now." Yan Zaizen said with a sigh of relief. Bai Lufeng and Tao nodded, thinking about how close they were to an unfortunate fate. Luckily, Yan Zaizen was quite capable and handled the situation with swiftness.

"Deluge Realm will take about eighteen years to reach, I'll cultivate on the deck to handle any other odd events." Yan Zaizen announced. Neither of them had objections to this plan. If anything, they felt safer knowing Yan Zaizen was watching.

With that, they continued their journey through the Border Expanse. They even saw a floating nude corpse. It was a lycah woman. Her body was covered with lacerations and ravaged marks. Her eyes displayed intense unwillingness and horrific pain. When they saw this, they couldn't help but shake their heads. Regardless of where one goes, the cultivation world will always be cruel.

He stored the corpse in the Meteor Ring, he'll have a proper burial for her body when he finds it appropriate. He could at least do this much.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to twelve years.

Yan Zaizen had been cultivating his qi cultivation base, but he discovered, after reaching the True Essence Realm, each step takes an immense amount of time and effort. Even with the resources obtained from the Asura Phantom Realm and Wu Clan shopping connections, his progress was as slow as a snail. After merging his Origin Core with his dantian and undergoing an evolution of the dantian, qi pathways, and meridians, he understood that each stage was a minor evolution to better suit true-essence storage and quality.

Despite this, he had already reached the peak initial-True Essence Realm. However, taking that next step proved to be incredibly difficult. He figured it had to do with his meridians having been refined by heavenly liquid. Because of that, he had a rather difficult time ascending.

Inversely, his accumulation of essence or conversion to true-essence was ten thousand times faster than normal. He felt if he hadn't refined his meridians, he would've ascended to the peak stage already. Unfortunately, this was the path he took due to his unfamiliarity.

Pinaka did suggest that this was beneficial in the long run as the heavenly liquid will funnel into the dantian and qi pathways, bettering the quality of his true-essence, circulation, and reserves. It would also allow his body to contain a trace of heavenly aura, enabling an easier foundation to build a heavenly shrine.

He agreed with this, obviously seeing the benefits. It's possible that his true-essence quality exceeded even peak-True Essence experts at the moment. Unfortunately, quality wasn't the only thing that made the Heavenly Genesis realm powerful.

"Young Lord!" Bai Lufeng shouted. Yan Zaizen opened his eyes to see an approaching skyship in the distance. It was small and coming towards them with swift speed. As a smaller vassal, it was even faster than the Heretical Lightning Skyship.

Getting up, Yan Zaizen had a curious gaze. It wasn't long before the skyship was in close range. It looked as if it had been battered by attacks, its formations were in disarray, and there was only a single person onboard.

This person was a woman. She had ripped clothes that exposed her soft skin, her body dripped with sweat, and her expression was pained but filled with brisk hope. She stopped nearby, her breathing labored as she waved her hands for Yan Zaizen and crew to stop.

"Stop." Yan Zaizen ordered. Bai Lufeng halted the skyship near the other. His eyes looked at the female onboard and realized she wasn't their type of human race. Instead, her soft skin was blue. Her long waist-length hair had a deep blue-green color that looked mesmerizing. If it wasn't for her current haggard appearance, she could be called a beauty regardless of race.

"Please, Help!" She said in a voice filled with weakness and excitement. Yan Zaizan motioned for Bai Lufeng to open the shields. The skyship the woman was on didn't seem like it was going to last much longer. The woman used her late-Origin Core cultivation base to fly over. As she did, she seemed weak and her cultivation base radiated odd fluctuations.

Yan Zaizen's eyes flickered.

When she boarded, she looked as if she had found hope. Her gaze was looking at Yan Zaizen with thanks. She could see he was the leader on the ship, his cultivation was the highest as well.

After some questions, Yan Zaizen learned of who she was and her current predicament. Firstly, she was a part of the main humanoid race in the Deluge Realm, called the Gunyu Race. Her group of cultivators from her sect was killed by a group of bandits. She was chased by this group of cultivators lead by a True Essence Expert. They pursued her through the Border Expanse with full intention to kill her, not wanting to leave witnesses.

After she explained, she essentially begged for Yan Zaizen to shelter her. Hiding her in the ship so she can avoid pursuit. Yan Zaizen looked at her deeply and agreed. Before he did, he asked if the incoming enemies would be able to outrun the Heretical Lightning Skyship. Her eyes flickered and she said no.

Afterward, she was stowed away on the ship by Bai Lufeng.

However, Yan Zaizen had a slight smile on his face. When Bai Lufeng returned and saw Yan Zaizen's smile, he was bewildered. "Young Lord, what is it?" He was truly curious.

"We're about to get a faster skyship and a payday." Yan Zaizen was happy. However, Bai Lufeng was confused.

Several months passed, Yan Zaizen calmly cultivated as they made their way to the Deluge Realm. Suddenly, Yan Zaizen's eyes opened and his smile returned. "She took long enough."

Stretching his muscles, he looked at the dim, dark space. He started to countdown in his head.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Just as he finished, a spatial ripple emerged nearby. It was far bigger than any spatial ripple Yan Zaizen could create. When he saw this, his eyes lit up with excitement.

Bai Lufeng's eyes widened, but then he recalled what Yan Zaizen had said before and made a realization. A smirk appeared on his face, one befitting the arrogant Bai Lufeng of old that enjoyed watching people overestimate themselves.

Tao came on the deck with the Gunyu woman. The woman wore a shocked expression, while Tao's brows were furrowed. When he turned to see Yan Zaizen, he couldn't help but shake his head. He went back to his room, unwilling to deal with this mess.

The Gunyu woman saw Tao just return without care, her heart shook a little. She saw Yan Zaizen's smile and Bai Lufeng's smirk, and her originally shaking heart went cold. She had a faint belief...that she had messed up.

Immediately, a skyship three times the size of Yan Zaizen appeared. It was completely black and seem to merge invisibly with the Border Expanse like a backdrop of a painting. It was a skyship that could produce and travel through a spatial tunnel.

It was a realmship!

With this, traveling to different realms were simple. What took twelve years, could've taken twelve days. The entire myriad realms were open for exploration. This was something even the Xiantu Emperor didn't have!

On the tip of this newly arrived realmship, a burly, tall man released a heavenly aura equivalent to a first-floor Heavenly Genesis expert. He was also of the Gunyu race. His blue skin and beefy body felt oddly mesmerizing to look at. His eyes released a domineering and disdainful light.

On the skyship, the Gunyu woman eyes, despite her earlier feeling, revealed a vicious light and cold sneer. She crushed a talisman and suddenly, the Heretical Lightning Skyship formations all collapsed simultaneously. A deflating sound echoed as all the formations of the skyship deactivated. With this, leaving with the skyship was no impossible.

Yan Zaizen's smile didn't cease despite this. This Gunyu chick was tampering with the formations of the ship in secret this entire time she was here. She was a master formationist. However, despite witnessing it all, Yan Zaizen didn't stop her. Instead, he let her continue and waited patiently.

He had to admit, her act was greatly done, but she made three crucial mistakes. Firstly, Yan Zaizen spiritual sense was at the Astral Soul Realm. He could easily tell her injuries were self-inflicted. As for everything else, the weakness, expressions, and such. They were real and thus incapable of being seen through.

The second mistake? Underestimating Yan Zaizen's cultivation base.

Third? Making the decision to board and target Yan Zaizen, this malignant star, skyship.

Before the man could say a word, Yan Zaizen's smile grew as big as the crescent moon revealing spectacular pearly whites. His eyes contained an intense greed that caused all those to look at it feel insecure. Some even touched their spatial possessions instinctively.

He looked at the beefy man and said, "Thank You."

-----

Outside the Deluge Realm, the surrounding space rippled. From this ripple, a realmship appeared.

"We made it." Yan Zaizen looked at the sun, moon, and many planets from afar. He was at the helm of his brand new, happily-gifted realmship. He caressed his new ship and felt nice. With a wave of his hand, he held a small water-attributed, one-floor Heavenly Shrine. It was surrounded by Yan Zaizen's vital energy.

"This should sell for quite a lot in a realm of water, right?"

Bai Lufeng couldn't stop laughing, his hands held his sides, and his eyes formulated tears.

Earlier, literally just a few days ago, Yan Zaizen had taken every last thing from those wannabe scheming robbers, clothing and all. After soul searching the captain, he obtained the method to pilot the ship. After, Yan Zaizen sent them far, far away using spatial laws and told them to walk back home.

Ruthless.

The chances that they could last in a space without essence and no skyship or possessions were disgustingly low. Even traveling to the nearest realm, Deluge Realm, would take an early-stage Heavenly Genesis cultivator centuries.

Bai Lufeng couldn't stop laughing looking at their varied expressions. Each of the crew members was looking at that woman who brought them there with eyes that could maim and kill. As for the captain, his heavenly shrine was forcefully taken and his cultivation regressed back to the peak-True Essence Realm and it was slowly weakening.

He was beyond weak and immediately entered a coma. Losing one's heavenly shrine does heavy damage to the soul, because their concepts were directly linked with it, and body. It's like having your arm removed brutally from your torso. However, to do so, one needed to have a strong enough soul cultivation to segregate the shrine and cultivation base to subdue and prevent the cultivator from commencing self-detonation.

However, Bai Lufeng didn't care. Robbers deserve to be robbed.

Tao was beside Yan Zaizen, he couldn't help but softly remark, "You sure your Dao isn't the Dao of Greed and Robbery?"

"Hehe. Maybe it is?" Yan Zaizen deviously chuckled while brushing the bridge of his nose with his index finger.