Star Odyssey

Emperor Luo's eyes swiveled over to look at Leader Hong. "Don't worry about us. We can't retreat at this time, so let's just enter the Royal Frost Continent altogether."

Leader Hong's eyes flickered as he thought about something.

Emperor Luo suddenly asked, "How's the Purge going?"

Leader Hong's tone turned gloomy. "I was thwarted by Lu Yin. Didn't I tell you?"

"But what happened, specifically? How did he avert the Purge?" Emperor Luo pressed.

Leader Hong snorted and gave a brief accounting of what happened.

Long Yi clenched a fist. "That little brat's quite powerful. Were the Sword Sect and the Lingling clan really overwhelmed by him?"

Leader Hong replied, "It's true that very few in his generation can match up to him, and my guess is that only the Neoverse's inheritors or maybe Liu Tianmu with the Thirteenth Sword have a chance of beating him. All of the others are too far behind him, and it would not be difficult for Lu Yin to drag them down one by one."

"Is ZENITH really that important?" asked Long Yi. The sylvan dragon clan had a truly embarrassing status in the Human Domain. Not only were they traitors to the Astral Beast Domain, but they were also outsiders within the Human Domain. Not having any access to sensitive information was just the beginning of the dragons' troubles. They had intended to take refuge under the umbrella of the Daynight clan even if as mounts, but unfortunately for the dragons, that path had been severed by Lu Yin.

When it came to their hatred for Lu Yin, the sylvan dragons did not fall behind the Blaze Realm in any way.

The problems between the Ross Empire and the Great Yu Empire went back as far as when Lu Yin had first been admitted to Astral-10, and the grudge between the two parties had only grown since then.

No one replied to the dragon's question. Even Leader Hong looked down on the sylvan dragon clan, and if not for the dragons' strength, Leader Hong would never have tolerated their presence in Blazing Mist Flowzone.

Outside the vessel, the large sylvan dragons roared and released a strange scent.

There were some people within the Blaze Realm's forces who felt contemptuous for the dragons while others were excited by the prospect of owning a sylvan dragon as a mount, which would be amazing.

As for the army from the Ross Empire, no sound could be heard from them at all. This was a true army, unlike the Blaze Realm's Heavenflame Army where the members were more individual cultivators than hardened soldiers.

After half an hour, Leader Hong, Long Yi, and Emperor Luo made their way out of the spaceship and towards the spatial crack that lay near Planet Coo. They had finally agreed to explore the Royal Frost Continent together.

On the Royal Frost Continent, Lu Yin had become a little uneasy, so he once again asked to confirm something. "Senior, the rulers of Blazing Mist Flowzone's three major forces are about to attack. Can you really stop them?"

From the very beginning, the Frost Emperor was the foundation of this plan. The continent had to be able to stop Blazing Mist Flowzone's united forces in order to stop the various powers of the Innerverse from making moves due to rumors about a secret technique.

Lu Yin had the means to prevent the Royal Frost Continent from being targeted over a rumored secret technique, but he had no confidence in the Frost Emperor being able to hold off three Envoys. These three had been able to maintain their positions as masters of Blazing Mist Flowzone, and they could not be underestimated.

The Frost Emperor appeared calm. "Even if I can't win, it will be fine as long as I can hold them off."

Lu Yin pursed his lips and touched his cosmic ring. He had no intention of holding back. If Blazing Mist Flowzone's three major forces were not weakened, then his entire plan would go up in flames. At first, Lu Yin had hoped that the Blaze Realm would simply send in their army along with their powerhouse so that they would be destroyed all at once. Even if that did not work, at least the Frost Emperor would be able to wound Leader Hong.

However, although Leader Hong had been defeated in the last battle, he had not been seriously injured. Lu Yin knew that he had underestimated Leader Hong's abilities and that he had similarly looked down upon the Frost Emperor. If no accidents occurred, then the Frost Emperor would indeed be able to hold off the three other Envoys, but the whole endeavor would be nothing more than a joke if Lu Yin failed to achieve his goal. At best, the plan would help the Royal Frost Continent, but everything revolved around a key point: could the Frost Emperor really hold three Envoys back?

Still, even if the Frost Emperor was incapable of holding the three powerhouses back, Lu Yin had some power vessels on him, and that was even without considering that Lu Yin's backing might be enough to intimidate Leader Hong and the other two into not taking any actions against Lu Yin.

It was very important to have this kind of backing. Lu Yin had known this from the beginning, and he had always sought the support of strong organizations and powerful experts. His most effective support was Leon's Armada, as they were famous for being unreasonable.

It was a pity that Leon's Armada also had a bad reputation and that they were always under the Hall of Honor's scrutiny. Taking revenge was fine, but there would be trouble if certain lines were crossed.

At this moment, Lu Yin needed to find a way to preemptively weaken the three armies outside of the spatial crack. He glanced up at it, set his cosmic ring aside, opened his hand and brought out his die. He wanted to give it a shot.

The dice slowly stopped spinning and revealed four pips. Lu Yin quickly snatched up his cosmic ring as the scenery changed before his eyes to that of the Timestop Space.

Using the die had worked out smoothly this time, and as long as Lu Yin was able to enter this space, he would feel at ease.

He rolled the die again.

Three pips was one of the few useable rolls within the Timestop Space, though it might take him a few attempts to make such a roll.

Lu Yin had recently acquired a great deal of star essence, so he was really hoping to roll three pips right now.

His only problem was that many of his items could no longer be upgraded because of their materials, such as the mechanical right arm, the one-way mirror, and the sealed cannons. Thus, there were only two items that Lu Yin was anxious about upgrading: his cosmic armor, and the poison.

As far as items that Lu Yin could use as weapons went, both his poisons and the arrows in his possession could be upgraded, but Lu Yin did not have any skill when it came to arrows. While he also did not have any particular expertise when it came to poisons, it was versatile enough and easy to use, which made it his first choice.

He had not upgraded his universal armor to the limit yet, mostly because he had run out of star essence last time. His current armor had been constructed from materials that came from the Technocracy, and Lu Yin believed that it should have an upgrade limit of six more times, which would allow it to stop attacks of power levels of 700,000.

Lu Yin tapped his die, only for it to land on six pips. Useless.

He calmly sat down and began reciting the complete Stonewall Scriptures while simultaneously increasing the gravity in here to the limit of what he could bear in order to train his body.

Ten days quickly passed by, and he rolled the die again. One pip. Useless. Again.

The next time he rolled the die, it landed on five pips. Still useless. Again.

On the third try, he finally rolled three pips, and Lu Yin's eyes lit up. He had succeeded.

Lu Yin sucked in a deep breath as he stared at the two screens of light. He had not upgraded anything in a long time, and doing this once again felt a bit nostalgic and exciting.

Items. Without upgraded items, Lu Yin would have never been able to unify the Outerverse, and he actually would have perished right after the Outerverse had been isolated from the Innerverse.

As he revisited this memory, Lu Yin felt that upgrading his universal armor was his foremost priority. So, he quickly set it on the upper light screen and began to frantically throw out star essence. One million. Two million. Three million. Only then did the armor fall through.

Lu Yin's heart ached at the cost. He had only spent three million star essence on a single upgrade once before. When he had last upgraded this armor, it had cost him 1.5 million star essence, so it made sense for the eighth upgrade to cost three million.

THREE MILLION star essence. Three million… Lu Yin felt like he was about to vomit blood, as this was simply just too much.

Lu Yin was the leader of the entire Great Eastern Alliance. In the eight years that he had held this position, he only received a bit more than thirteen million star essence, and he had just used a quarter of that amount in one go.

Surprisingly, Lu Yin felt like he was spending funds as quickly as any one of the Innerverse's eight great flowzones. His expenses could compare to those of an entire organization with countless disciples.

Lu Yin gulped nervously as he looked at his universal armor that had just been upgraded for the eighth time before gently touching it. After the seventh upgrade, its rune lines were nearly on the same level as those of an expert with a power level of 500,000, but now, its rune lines far exceeded the previous number. This armor was now able to withstand attacks from an Envoy.

Anything on the power level of an Envoy had to pass through a difficult barrier. Lu Yin had spent more than six million star essence for his armor to break through this barrier, and that was not even counting the effort to get his hands on the precious materials from the Technocracy. If the value of those materials were also accounted for, then this armor would cost more than ten million star essence to make. Certain things could not be bought, and the materials of Lu Yin's armor were simply not available within the Human Domain.

At this moment, the question before Lu Yin was whether or not he should upgrade it once more.

Lu Yin swallowed as he stared at the universal armor before ultimately deciding to wait. He would upgrade the poison first.

He was a little worried, as he was afraid that upgrading the poison just once would not be enough for it to be effective.

Why was it that the further one progressed, the less they valued money? This reality caused Lu Yin to feel rather depressed.

To Lu Yin, things like poison were quite magical, as there seemed to have no limit to how many times they could be upgraded. At the least, he had not found a limit yet.

All of Lu Yin's poisons had come from Elder Wu, who had been an Enlighter with a gift for poisons. Elder Wu was also the only powerhouse that Lu Yin had encountered who used poisons. The Neohuman Alliance's Regression poison did not count, as even if it were given to Lu Yin, he would not dare to use it.

He still had seven bottles of Wu Lao's poison remaining. Each one had been upgraded eight times already, and their rune lines were close to matching those of an Enlighter with a power level of 400,000. Lu Yin placed one of the bottles of poison on the upper light screen and began to throw out star essence.

He upgraded the poison three times, which ended up costing him a bit more than 1.3 million star essence, and it caused the poison's rune lines to nearly rival a power level of 500,000. The fourth upgrade would be a slow and expensive process.

It ended up taking two million, a full two million star essence to upgrade the bottle of poison one more time. At this point, Lu Yin estimated that it's rune lines should exceed a power level of 500,000, which meant that the poison could threaten even an Envoy.

It really was not easy to produce something so potent. Lu Yin had had to upgrade the poison twelve times and spend almost four million star essence in total for it to be able to threaten an Envoy. Although it was one-third the cost of his universal armor's upgrades, it was still an absurd cost.

Lu Yin once more felt the pain of spending his wealth, but there was nothing that he could do about it. He had to improve, and one bottle of poison was clearly not going to be enough. After thinking about it for a moment, Lu Yin grabbed another bottle of poison.

As he looked at his cosmic ring, Lu Yin closed his eyes. He still had more than seven million star essence left, but he had burned through nearly half of his funds in such a short amount of time to only upgrade three of his items.

It was hard for him to calm down, but he knew there would be more money in the future. After he used his funds this time, he would be able to earn more later. Additionally, it would not take as long as it had in the past. Lu Yin was guaranteed to earn more money in the future.

As he comforted himself, Lu Yin placed his armor on the upper light screen and started frantically throwing out star essence once again. He would not be safe with its current level of defenses.

6.25 million. That was how much it cost to upgrade his universal armor for the ninth time. When Lu Yin looked at his cosmic ring and saw that he once again had less than a million star essence, despair almost took him. However, even though he was almost out of money, he had gained something that would protect his life, so it was absolutely worth every essence spent!!!

Lu Yin still had more than two months of time left in the Timestop Space, so Lu Yin pulled out his fatesand and merged two more grains into it. They did not add much mass to the fatesand near his heart, and it was still not enough to conceal the black and white fog in his heart, but he still had more fatesand grains to absorb.

Just what was that black and white fog? In this place, Lu Yin could test it out safely.

…

The scenery changed before Lu Yin's eyes as he returned to the Royal Frost Continent.

Not even an Envoy like the Frost Emperor was able to notice that Lu Yin had just experienced several months in that moment. After all, time was an illusory thing, and it had nothing to do with one's strength.

The only ones in the entire universe who dared to claim to have a sensitivity for time were those of the Starsibyl Sect, though Lu Yin had always felt that they were just bragging.

Still, he did not dare to enter his die's Timestop Space near anyone from the Starsibyl Sect.

"Your breath?" Lu Yin heard the Frost Emperor's voice as the older man looked at Lu Yin in confusion. It had just been a moment, but Lu Yin's breath had suddenly changed dramatically in that moment. It was a weird feeling.

Lu Yin instead asked, "Senior Frost Emperor, what will you do if the leaders of Blazing Mist Flowzones three top powers spread out? What will you do if one of them tries to keep you pinned down while the other two rush over to Subzero City?"