Star Odyssey

Lu Yin looked at Xu Xiangyin, who nodded before secretly sending him a voice transmission, "A truly powerful voidforce puppet is something that even the void struggles to endure. If you observe things carefully, you might notice certain anomalies."

Lu Yin took a deep breath and turned his head back to look at the Voidchaos Territory before starting to move towards it himself.

Shi Jiao indifferently asked, "Xu Xiangyin, if you were given another opportunity to choose a life-bound voidforce puppet, then would you be certain that you could choose the best one?"

"Of course not," Xu Xiangyin replied.

"Then what sort of guidance can you give Xuan Qi?"

None of the people present were fools, and thus they had naturally all noticed Xu Xiangyin’s actions.

Xu Xiangyin remained silent.

Just as the group of students was about to enter the Voidchaos Territory, a stern shout rang out from behind them. "Stop!"

Accompanying the voice was a majestic wave of voidforce energy that blanketed the entire region of space, causing it to tremble.

Even Xu Xiangyin and Shi Jiao were almost left unconscious by the overwhelming surge of voidforce energy that had suddenly enveloped the area.

The person who had just arrived was a tall, muscular man. He reached a height of five meters, and there were two bull horns on his head, giving him a rather strange appearance. His arrival was accompanied by a violent pressure that fell upon everyone, and they all heard resounding roars.

"Senior Xu Han?" Xu Xiangyin exclaimed in shock.

Xu Han threw a palm strike towards the Voidchaos Territory. As soon as his attack landed, Shao Qingfeng and all of the other students would die. There was no other possibility.

"Senior!" Xu Xiangyin shouted.

Shi Jiao's eyes went wide.

Lu Yin turned around and saw the shocked expressions on everyone’s faces, including people like Shao Qingfeng. No one had expected a sudden attack from a peak powerhouse. All of their defensive measures would be futile against this strike. This solitary attack was enough to annihilate all of them.

"Has the Voidforce Universe gone crazy?" This was the only thought that appeared in Shao Qingfeng, He Shu, and the other students' minds at that moment.

Lu Yin was able to clearly make out the images of the hands in Xu Han's palm strike as it fell. Suddenly, an invincible power enveloped the students, and it instantly swept them into the Voidchaos Territory. Anyone who could use such a force to escape from Xu Han was undoubtedly a powerhouse as well.

Right at the border of the Voidchaos Territory and the rest of the Voidforce Universe, one person turned back to face Xu Han, a sinister smile on their face.

Xu Han's attack had missed its intended target, but the shattered void revealed a person. "Oh no."

Xu Xiangyin and Shi Jiao raced forward, immediately asking, "Senior, who is that?"

They had already realized that a powerful expert had been hiding within Sixverse Academy and that they accompanied them to the Voidchaos Territory. There was no question that the person harbored ulterior motives.

Xu Han said not one word, and instead shot towards the Voidchaos Territory, only to be repelled by a counterforce. "As expected. Even so, how long can you continue to stop me?"

At the same time, Lu Yin and the other students were thrown back and into the Voidchaos Territory. Practically simultaneously, they all scattered in every direction, too afraid to look back. They had also understood what had just happened; a powerful expert had been hidden in their midst.

An ugly expression appeared on Shao Qingfeng's face. The hidden expert was Qi San, one of Sage Qi’s disciples. Someone whom Shao Qingfeng had completely ignored had turned out to be a powerful expert. No, it was clear that the Qi San who had accompanied them was only an imposter. Who could it be? The only suspect that Shao Qingfeng could think of was someone from Aeternus.

They could not turn back, and they could not stop. They had to escape, which meant that they had to get away.

Shao Qingfeng was not alone, as several others had also recognized Qi San, including He Shu.

For the moment, escape was the only thought that filled their minds—the farther, the better. However, their chances of success were extremely remote. Escaping from a peak powerhouse was nothing more than wishful thinking for people with their strength.

Lu Yin was also trying to escape, but his mind was filled with completely different thoughts. While he did not recognize Qi San or know who he was, Lu Yin was able to recognize the power that had sent them tumbling into the Voidchaos Territory: it belonged to the Progenitor of Secret Arts, Yi Ren.

Lu Yin had never even considered the possibility that Yi Ren would be hidden in the Sixverse Academy and that he would accompany the students to the Voidchaos Territory. Yi Ren must have been hidden within the Sixverse Academy long before Lu Yin himself had arrived.

Surprisingly, Yi Ren did not attack any of the youths. From his perspective, the young geniuses held some value to him, but it paled in comparison to the value of the Voidchaos Territory itself. That was the goal of his mission: the Voidchaos Territory.

A disc appeared, and it sliced through the void as it shot into the distance.

The power of a Progenitor spread out without encountering any restrictions. Yi Ren was a Progenitor, and such powerful experts wielded the power to change the universe itself. Despite not being in the Fifth Mainland and having no access to stellular energy while in the Voidforce Universe, Yi Ren was not greatly affected.

Mu Mu and the other youths felt their scalps go numb. The appearance of a Progenitor's power had erased any thoughts that they might have had of trying to resist.

The disc flew past Mu Mu. There seemed to be an incredibly strong attraction that was pulling the voidforce puppets towards the disc.

Countless voidforce puppets streaked through the Voidchaos Territory like meteors, clearly no match for the force that was pulling them towards the disc. Mu Mu found that even she herself was being pulled toward the disc. She crashed into a voidforce puppet and lost consciousness.

She could be considered lucky, as some of the students were decapitated once they were pulled closer to the disc, while others had their bones shattered into dust after colliding with the voidforce puppets.

As the disc swept through the entire Voidchaos Territory, Yi Ren muttered, "Ten."

Shao Qingfeng was also dragged towards the disc as well, but a powerful, unknown item on his body allowed him to survive the impact. As a result, he merely ended up unconscious, the same as Mu Mu.

"Nine."

One by one, all of the voidforce puppets were pulled over. The disc acted like a magnet, attracting all of the voidforce puppets in the Voidchaos Territory.

"Eight."

Mu Cheng coughed up blood. He did his best to escape, but he lacked the strength needed to resist the disc. His body was reduced to blood that then scattered.

"Seven."

Zhi Xiao took out a card and entered it. The card disappeared into the void, but even the void was being distorted. Before long, the card was dragged out of the void, and it also stuck to the disc.

"Six."

The Voidchaos Territory was neither massive nor minuscule. For someone like Yi Ren, it was possible to cross the entire place in a single stride. However, for people like Shao Qingfeng and the rest of the students, it would take them a great deal of time to scour the Voidchaos Territory for a voidforce puppet. As for Lu Yin, he was also capable of crossing the region in a single step.

He put on a show of frantically trying to escape, all the while keeping an eye on Yi Ren. For this reason, Lu Yin saw the man countdown to five.

"This should be enough." Yi Ren glanced at the vortex that was the Voidchaos Territory. He waved his hand, and the disc returned to him. He then shook off Shao Qingfeng and the other students from his Progenitor’s world. To him, such people were nothing but trash. Zhi Xiao’s shattered card was flung away together with the young man himself. That done, Yi Ren left, along with countless voidforce puppets. In total, only five seconds had passed. Even so, no one had any idea just how many voidforce puppets the man had stolen in that brief amount of time.

The puppets in the Voidchaos Territory formed the very foundation of the Voidforce Universe. According to Xu Xiangyin's explanation, even the weakest voidforce puppets in the Voidchaos Territory were powerful enough for Lu Yin to cultivate until he reached the equivalent of a peak Envoy. The normal puppets found in other places would only allow him to reach the level of an ordinary Envoy, or possibly not even the level of an Envoy at all. After a person reached the same level as their life-bound voidforce puppet, they would then need to cultivate together with that puppet.

Xu Xiangyin only managed to obtain his own life-bound voidforce puppet, which was a carrion bug, through a stroke of luck. Even when compared to the puppets kept in the Voidchaos Territory, Xu Xiangyin’s puppet was impressive. If he had only obtained an ordinary voidforce puppet, he would have been limited to the Envoy level at most, and he would have never been able to reach the level of a Semi-Progenitor.

There were both advantages and disadvantages to the Voidforce Universe's cultivation method. At this moment, Yi Ren had reduced the number of voidforce puppets kept in the Voidchaos Territory by half, which had effectively sealed the fate of the Voidforce Universe.

The moment Yi Ren left, Lu Yin's pupils transformed into runes. The God of Flames’ figurine appeared on his shoulder, and countless runes spread out.

Lu Yin believed that Yi Ren’s countdown had been an indication of the time in which he could act. He had only counted five seconds, which suggested that he had kept five more seconds as a precaution. Lu Yin decided to use just two seconds. Since Yi Ren was enjoying a feast, Lu Yin wanted to at least steal a bit of soup!

Even so, Lu Yin had no intention of randomly searching the area, which was why he had instead decided to use Truesight’s runes to search it.

The power of runes was unique. Any sort of power would be reflected by the runes. While Lu Yin’s naked eye was unable to observe the amount of voidforce energy that each puppet contained, he could still try to make that out by using the power of runes.

One second passed, and the power of runes quickly spread out. No, things were not as easy as Lu Yin had hoped. His runes were not able to determine the amount of voidforce energy contained within the various puppets. As long as the voidforce puppets did not release their voidforce energy, it was essentially the same as hidden strength. The Fifth Mainland’s Neoverse had many ways for people to avoid detection by runes.

Helpless, Lu Yin could only grab a few random voidforce puppets. He lifted his foot, and the space around him became filled with lines.

Hm? Lu Yin looked to his right. Then, without any hesitation, he reached out and grabbed a voidforce puppet. He instantly stored it away, without even looking at it. That puppet had actually managed to influence the spatial lines that Lu Yin could observe, and that had reminded him of Xu Xiangyin’s advice: some voidforce puppets made it difficult for even the void to endure.

With the sight of the spatial lines filling his vision, Lu Yin could observe the Voidchaos Territory from a completely different perspective. Even so, he was out of time. He could only collect two more voidforce puppets before he needed to pretend to be unconscious.

One second later, Xu Han appeared within the Voidchaos Territory and examined the place. His expression fell. He had been too late.

Xu Xiangyin entered as well. "Senior, was that someone from Aeternus?"

Xu Han's was twisted by an extremely ugly expression. "More than half of the voidforce puppets have been stolen. It will be difficult to explain this matter to Lord Xu."

Xu Xiangyin's heart dropped at the news. Then, he suddenly remembered something. He looked around and quickly saw that both Shao Qingfeng and He Shu were unconscious. The old man then saw Xuan Qi. Still alive!

Xu Xiangyin heaved a sigh of relief.

Xu Han quietly said, "Take them back to the Sixverse Academy. Inform them that Lord Xu appeared and dealt with the enemy, but the opening of the Voidchaos Territory has been temporarily postponed."

Xu Xiangyin wanted to say something, but Xu Han had already left to pursue Yi Ren. Whether or not the man could catch up, he needed to at least try. If not, he would never be able to explain himself to Lord Xu.

It was clear that the day’s events had to have been planned far in advance. Lord Xu had been kept occupied, as Aeternus had launched a massive attack on the Voidforce Universe, weakening the universe’s defenses. On top of that, a peak powerhouse had been hidden within the Sixverse Academy, which had provided the enemy with the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the Voidforce Universe. Everything had been carefully planned out.

Things needed to change on the battlefield, or else the same events would play out again.

Xu Xiangyin stared at the nearly empty Voidchaos Territory. There had previously been so many voidforce puppets shooting through the area, filling the sky, but only a few remained now. He sighed. With this, Xuan Qi would no longer be able to find a life-bound voidforce puppet. There was nothing that he could do about it. With such a great loss of voidforce puppets, there was no choice but to save what remained for the people of the Voidforce Universe. Geniuses from foreign universes would never be able to get a chance to enter the Voidchaos Territory, not even Xuan Qi. The only way that would change was if he became a part of the Voidforce Universe.

With a heavy heart, Xu Xiangyin took everyone back.

Shi Jiao asked about what had happened, and Xu Xiangyin shared the explanation that he had been given by Xu Han.

"If the enemy’s already been dealt with, then why do we need to return to the Sixverse Academy right away? The students can still search for their life-bound voidforce puppets after they awaken," Shi Jiao questioned.

Xu Xiangyin replied, "Senior Xu Han suspects that more than just one enemy might be hiding in the Sixverse Academy. Lord Xu is currently stationed at the frontlines, so he cannot remain here for long. This is why the opening of the Voidchaos Territory needs to be postponed."

Shi Jiao's eyes flickered. "That's such a pity."

Xu Xiangyin said little. He cooperated with Shi Jiao to take all of the students back to the Sixverse Academy.

When Xuan Qi regained consciousness, three days had already passed. Upon opening his eyes, the first person that he saw was Xu Xiangyin.

Xu Xiangyin had truly treated Lu Yin very well. Even if it was because of his demonstrated talent, the concern filling the old man's eyes was genuine. "Senior."

Xu Xiangyin looked down at Xuan Qi and spoke softly, "You're awake."

Lu Yin rubbed his head. "Senior, what happened?"

Xu Xiangyin thought for a moment. "An enemy from Aeternus infiltrated the Voidchaos Territory. You were caught in the attack, but fortunately, Lord Xu appeared and dealt with the enemy."

Lu Yin shot to his feet in shock. "Lord Xu appeared? I actually fainted and missed it? What a pity!"