Harvest

In the distance, Tong Yan was pushing his movement technique to its limit. A plunder target at the level of an Incandescent White Golden Core... This was truly a big fish. Usually, one could reap over ten thousand Pure Yang Great Pills from a single one of them. If the fish was particularly plump, netting several tens of thousands or even well over a hundred thousand was hardly unheard of. Hunting just one such big fish was essentially equivalent to more than half a year of revenue for the Black Dragon Pirates. Under these circumstances, to ensure the fish would not slip away, he had not only come personally, but had also brought several chiefs along with him. However, as the six of them drew closer to their target... especially when he saw the combat power reading displayed on the combat power detector, Tong Yan felt that something was amiss. This big fish seemed exceptionally fierce! Although they could certainly take him down, they would inevitably have to pay a price. Yet within moments, Tong Yan reached a decision. The fiercer the fish, the more delicious and valuable it was once hauled in. What did paying a price matter? In a place like the Sea of Chaos, as long as the Black Dragon Pirates reaped sufficient profits, even if all the other chiefs died, he could quickly replenish their ranks. If one wasn't ruthless, one couldn't stand firm. On Beihai Star, where every avenue was seized by the major sects, where every resource was monopolized, and where there was virtually no room for upward mobility, there was never any shortage of cultivators willing to harden their hearts and put everything on the line. "Be careful in a moment. Strike with everything you have the instant we clash. Aim to kill him in a single blow... Otherwise, his deathbed counterattack will definitely inflict casualties on us." Watching the Third Chief draw nearer, along with the fierce big fish hot on his heels, Tong Yan barked out hasty instructions. "Understood!" "Leave it to us, First Chief!" "Against such strength... we will naturally bring our absolute best!" The others chorused in agreement. Tong Yan nodded. Just as he was about to say more, an object suddenly materialized in the hand of the prey chasing the Third Chief. Immediately after, the object was hurled straight forward. Like a streaking fireball, it flew with unbelievable speed past the Third Chief, appearing right in front of them in the blink of an eye. "This is..." Tong Yan keenly sensed that this boded ill. In the very first instant, he moved to project his divine mind to order everyone to retreat. Yet in the next second... A terrifying burst of blinding light, intertwined with all-consuming flames, violently erupted from the object. The cataclysmic power unleashed in that split second made Tong Yan feel as though he were facing the self-detonation of an Azure Blue Golden Core head-on! At this moment, he finally recognized what it was. "The Crimson Refined Divine Fire Thunder!" Refined from a Flame Demon Heart, a single-use lethal weapon that not even an Azure Blue Golden Core could withstand—the Crimson Refined Divine Fire Thunder! A shriek of pure terror tore from Tong Yan's mouth. The Azure Blue Golden Core inside his body erupted frantically, forming a powerful energy barrier to shield him with everything he had. The 1,008 acupoints of his Star God body blazed with starlight, shining in concert with the blue barrier. Yet even so, he could not escape the deluge of energy akin to an Azure Blue Golden Core detonating itself. His entire being, along with the five Incandescent White Golden Cores accompanying him, was utterly consumed by the explosive shockwave. *** Across the void, having fled for his life by continuously burning forbidden arts until he was pushed to his absolute limit, the Third Chief saw First Chief Tong Yan and the others right before him, poised to link up at last. An uncontrollable surge of joy welled up in his eyes. "Big Brother..." He opened his mouth and shouted, his divine mind filled with the euphoria of having survived disaster. Yet immediately after... Something seemed to fly past. And then, the thing that flew past... Exploded. An energy release no weaker than an Azure Blue Golden Core detonating its core instantly created a cataclysmic torrent spanning hundreds of li, swallowing whole the Black Dragon Pirates' First Chief, Second Chief, Fourth Chief, and all the rest who had come to reinforce him. The searing light, the raging flames... The Third Chief, who had thought fortunes had turned and he had escaped certain death, was frozen on the spot, completely dumbfounded. Such a terrifying burst of energy—ordinary Azure Blue Golden Cores couldn't possibly withstand it, could they? And this time, aside from the Sixth Chief who was away, the First Chief had brought out all of their upper echelon. So... The Black Dragon Pirates... Were finished!? Just because of his call for help, the Black Dragon Pirates—who almost never mobilized together—had moved out in force, only to have their entire leadership wiped out in one fell swoop by an Incandescent White Golden Core wielding a lethal trump card!? "No! No! No!" The Third Chief let out an indignant, incredulous scream. In the next instant, the Swimming Dragon Sword abruptly accelerated, rippling through space and slashing violently into the Third Chief, whose reserves were already completely spent. His cries of agony, resentment, and disbelief were cut short in an instant. *** Swish! Yaoguang, who had arrived brandishing the Two Realms Ruler, landed in this pocket of void. Reaching out with an immaterial hand, he scooped up two spirit treasures and a storage tool. He glanced toward where the leaders of the Black Dragon Pirates had been blasted by the Crimson Refined Divine Fire Thunder without leaving even a corpse behind, and frowned slightly. "In aiming for a single-strike kill, I struck a bit too hard." Still, there was no helping it. Tong Yan was, after all, an Azure Blue Golden Core whose apparent combat power reached a staggering 760,000 and who might well possess some life-saving secret art. Yaoguang naturally couldn't afford to leave him any leeway when executing the fatal blow. Otherwise, in a direct, grinding showdown... While he could still win, it certainly wouldn't have been this swift and clean. "Oh well. Even though their loot didn't survive, there's still the 300,000 bounty... Furthermore, the bounties on the other Black Dragon Pirate chiefs add up to several tens of thousands as well, which makes for a handsome harvest. The only thing is..." Looking at the scene devoid of any corpses, Yaoguang shook his head. "I recorded the entire process with a shadow-recording stone, so it shouldn't affect collecting the bounties." After a moment, another thought occurred to him, and he looked up into the distance. "From the moment the Third Chief spotted me to when Tong Yan led his reinforcements here took very little time. Estimating the distance based on that timeframe..." He invoked the Nine Transformations of Heavenly Walk once more, swiftly flying several thousand li away. "It should be in this area." Upon arriving in the calculated region, he dispersed his divine mind, searching meticulously. He swept a perimeter of a thousand li, but the result... He found nothing out of the ordinary. Unwilling to give up, he searched even more thoroughly, scouring the space almost inch by inch. As he searched for the Black Dragon Pirates' stronghold, Xu Nianhua caught up after finishing the inventory of the spoils. "Master, I have collected all the resources from that fleet... The total value is roughly eight thousand Pure Yang Great Pills." Yaoguang nodded without answering, continuing to comb through the space around them. This search took three full days. Three days later, he finally detected something. Even though his divine mind was formidable enough to rival a Void Piercing cultivator, what ultimately allowed him to spot the anomaly was the acute spatial perception of a Child of the Void. In one specific stretch of sea, the ebb and flow of spatial ripples was clearly unnatural. Having noticed these discrepancies, Yaoguang spent another ten days using his exquisite mastery of formations to pry open that subtle anomaly. At a certain moment after half a month, having grasped the critical crux, Yaoguang suddenly drew his sword. Relying on a Child of the Void's precise control over spatial ripples, he unleashed a thunderous Sky-Cleaving Strike with the Swimming Dragon Sword. Under this blow, the sea below seemed to be severed cleanly by an invisible force, torn into a massive chasm spanning hundreds of li. Yet once the chasm opened, what appeared before him was not the seabed, but a flying boat concealed beneath the sea surface. A massive flying boat nearly six thousand meters long, almost completely sealed. "Found it!" Yaoguang was somewhat surprised. These Black Dragon Pirates were truly adept at hiding. Even if a genuine Void Piercing expert flew over this area, they would never have spotted the slightest anomaly. Only someone like him, utterly certain the Black Dragon Pirates were in this vicinity and combing through the space inch by inch, could manage it—and even so, it had taken nearly a month to ferret out their stronghold. With the flying boat exposed, the Black Dragon Pirates left behind to guard it seemed to realize disaster was upon them. They frantically activated the vessel, preparing to force their way out. Moreover, feeling the spatial ripples stirred up as the flying boat powered up... "A Dao artifact!?" Yaoguang was startled. But soon, relying on his extraordinary discernment as a Level 15 artifact refiner, he determined that this was not a true Dao artifact. Rather, constrained by the artisan's technique, even after consuming a colossal amount of precious materials, it had ultimately failed during the forging and remained a top-tier spirit treasure that had never undergone metamorphosis. Judging from some of the refinement techniques on the flying boat... That artifact refiner was still quite a ways off from a Level 13 refiner who could truly forge Dao artifacts, and had not even reached the peak of Level 12. Probably around forty to fifty percent progress through Level 12. "What a waste of materials." Yaoguang waved a hand, invoking the Heaven-Sealing Stele. In the next moment, the space surrounding the flying boat was directly suppressed by the Heaven-Sealing Stele, as though encased in amber. Having frozen the flying boat in place, the Swimming Dragon Sword in Yaoguang's hand flew up on its own, plunging into the sealed space like a streak of golden light. Under his precise manipulation of the two great supreme treasures, the Swimming Dragon Sword was like a true dragon of sword qi. It darted into the flying boat with incredible speed and, guided by his immense spiritual power, slew the cultivators within, the strongest of whom was merely at the Radiant Sun Golden Core realm. Within a dozen breaths, the entire flying boat had turned into a land of the dead. Immediately afterward, he descended directly onto the vessel. Drawing upon his mastery of artifact refinement—which surpassed the boat's owner by an unfathomable margin—he swiftly began to refine this top-tier spirit treasure. "That artifact refiner intended to craft this flying boat into a doomsday ark capable of ensuring the survival and escape of core sect members whenever disaster strikes..." This characteristic was somewhat similar to the Void Disk. However, compared to the Void Disk, which excelled at spatial traversal, this flying boat leaned more toward living comfort and amenities. While it appeared under six thousand meters long, through spatial expansion its interior was several times larger, with an actual holding capacity nearly a hundred times greater. Such a volume could easily accommodate millions of people living aboard. If limited to merely ensuring basic living space, one could even pack tens of millions inside. "If what I held back then had been this flying boat instead of the Void Disk... we definitely could have brought far more people with us." Yaoguang mused as he rapidly refined the vessel. He planned to find some spare time to see if he could help this flying boat undergo metamorphosis into a Dao artifact. If it could complete that transformation, then once he reached the Void Piercing Realm, he could try merging the Void Disk and this flying boat together. When that time came, he might very well be able to forge a high-grade Dao artifact star carrier that could truly serve as a mobile sect headquarters.