Star Odyssey

As Hai Qiqi stared at the fading fireball in outer space, her face grew even paler; she had just been on that spacecraft a few moments ago. 

Before she stepped out of the Starfall Sea, she had already known that this journey would not be dangerous, because no one would dare to harm the Sea King's daughter. However, when she saw a scene of life and death for the first time in her life, she felt a little panicked, and was scared as well. This was also the first time she appeared to be completely lost. Did these people truly deserve to die? What about their families? The moment they faced death must have been agonizing for them! Many thoughts flew through her mind. 

Lu Yin did not speak with her. Instead, he set a course for Frostwave Weave, and they soon started speeding towards their destination. 

One day later, Hai Qiqi looked at Lu Yin seriously. “You don’t have even a single ounce of hesitation?”

Lu Yin looked out at outer space. “Once, yes. Now, no.”

“Why? Did you become numb to it?” Hai Qiqi could not help herself from asking.

Lu Yin looked at her. “Once you’ve experienced death, you’ll become the same. Can you imagine being seen as white meat by others?” 

“White meat?” Hai Qiqi was lost.

Lu Yin’s lips curled up disdainfully. “Food, for human consumption.”

Hai Qiqi’s gaze changed, and she looked at Lu Yin in shock. She had never imagined that the universally famous Lu Yin had lived through such an experience, and she had never expected such a dark matter to exist in the universe. 

“You’ve spent your entire life in the Sea King’s Dome and have the protection of the Sea King, so no one in the entire universe will dare to provoke you. You’ve never seen death, so you have no worries, and you’re even so innocent as to assume that most people in the universe live similar lives. In reality, the universe is cruel. Do you think that those people never thought that they could die? The moment they left their homes, they had already mentally prepared themselves to die. Each one of them had hands stained with the blood of countless people…”  

Hai Qiqi silently listened on, as she had never heard Lu Yin speak so seriously before, and she had seen the true side of the universe for the first time.

If not for the Sea King, Lu Yin would have no interest in teaching this girl about such things. He hoped that he would not corrupt her with his personal perspective. However, his perspective was quite normal, and he did not wantonly kill others either. He had his own bottom line and righteousness; he was just slightly addicted to money. 

After he had spoken on the subject for a while, Hai Qiqi leaned on her seat and looked at the heavens with a deep look. 

“Seventh Bro, congratulations. You’ve dragged a girl onto the wrong path,” the Ghost Monkey said with a snigger. 

Lu Yin let out a pent up breath. He did not know what impact this conversation would have on Hai Qiqi, but she was an adult with her own thoughts. She should not be someone whose thoughts would be easily influenced by others. This was the reason why the Sea King only allowed her out at this point in time, as he wanted her to mature a bit. 

“Lu Yin, I’m going to ask you a very serious question, and you must answer me honestly,” Hai Qiqi suddenly solemnly said as she turned around. 

Lu Yin nodded, and seriously replied, “Ask away.”

“When we get to the Great Yu Empire, have you thought of which places you’ll take me to sightsee?” Hai Qiqi asked earnestly. 

Lu Yin was stumped. “You’ve already come to terms with things?” 

“With what?” Hai Qiqi blinked. 

“You just saw someone die for the first time, and it was a lot of people at that,” Lu Yin reminded her. 

Hai Qiqi proudly replied, “I’m the Sea King's daughter! I was born as an elite among elites, so I’m different from a commoner like you. Do I need to come to terms?”

“Weren’t you just thinking about everything I told you?”

“Yes, I’m also thinking about who has such poor eyesight as to treat you as white meat. Food is chosen for its smell, looks, and taste. You don’t pass a single bit of that criteria.”

Lu Yin was speechless. “Actually, there’re many cruel facts about the universe. Let me share them with you one by one.” 

“There’s no need, as nothing is crueler than being forced to deal with you. Hurry up and think about where you’ll take me to play. Otherwise, I’ll tell Father that you have a mistress,” Hai Qiqi threatened.

Lu Yin realized that he was losing control of this brat. He had assumed that committing homicide in front of her would subdue her and cause her to behave better. But now, he had a suspicion that the event had actually intensified her mischievousness. 

Days later, in Grandtop Weave, an important heir of the Nine Stacks Sect was killed by an independent cultivator when the sect was sneak attacked by a group of them. 

Another power’s headquarters in Woori Weave suffered at the hands of a similar group as well. 

In Russel Weave, a transport spacecraft was destroyed, and all the supplies that it had been carrying vanished. The culprits were similarly proven to be independent cultivators.

Not long after, the Great Yu Empire released a public announcement that independent cultivators had invaded them, and then they sealed the space at the borders.

Quickly, news of independent cultivators being employed by the various great powers of the Innerverse spread, as well as their goal of clearing out the surrounding weaves. Initially, the surrounding weaves did not believe this information, especially the Nine Stacks Sect. However, as information concerning pyrolyte became more widespread, they began to act more cautiously and employed all sorts of measures. For one, they sent people to visit the Northcastle Weave to join the competition for pyrolyte, and at the same time, they also sealed their borders in order to prevent any independent cultivators from entering their territory. 

When the Second Grade Hall learned of this, their first reaction was to stop it, but it was already too late. It tried to explain the situation to powers like the Nine Stacks Sect, but there was nothing they could argue about since the Nine Stacks Sect had indeed been attacked by independent cultivators. Even the Second Grade Hall was uncertain if they had been the one to hire that group. It was particularly so because the cultivators they had employed were no saints, and it would be perfectly reasonable for them to have taken advantage of a convenient situation to ambush the Nine Stacks Sect. 

As such, the surrounding weaves were all sealed almost simultaneously, and the independent cultivators employed by the Second Grade Hall were not able to approach Frostwave Weave. Powers like the Nine Stacks Sect headed towards Northcastle Weave, passing through the region of space where the Second Grade Hall had temporarily taken over, and a conflict between the two parties broke out. The Second Grade Hall’s plot against Frostwave Weave had failed, and the failure even managed to drag them down. 

The Great Yu Empire followed Lu Yin’s orders and did not participate in the struggle for pyrolyte. Instead, they pulled their forces back and watched the proceedings take place. 

The Innerverse definitely would not allow the Outerverse to participate in the contest for pyrolyte; Lu Yin was certain of that. It was not a matter of which method the Outerverse powers used, but rather the disparity in their strengths. If the Great Yu Empire participated, then they might even be directly crushed. Powers like the Nine Stacks Sect had been momentarily dazzled by the allure of pyrolyte, but they would run out of luck sooner or later. 

However, the crisis was larger than what Lu Yin could imagine. Someone had purchased pyrolyte in the dark at exorbitant prices, which made the various weaves unable to resist this opportunity. More Outerverse powers charged towards Northcastle Weave to participate in the contest. 

The Second Grade Hall could no longer control the situation. They were forced to request help from the Beast Tamers Flowzone, asking the other powers to send experts over to fight for pyrolyte. 

The highest level of combat suddenly jumped from Hunters to Enlighters.

The first Enlighter who appeared was a senior commander from the Second Grade Hall, Karthika. His appearance intimidated the Outerverse forces, temporarily managing to bring the situation under control. For this reason, the powers from the surrounding weaves such as the Nine Stacks Sect had to pay a blood price with multiple fleets being destroyed. The Outerverse powers’ casualties increased greatly. 

There were too few Enlighters in the Outerverse. Although the contest for pyrolyte was important, it had not reached the extent where the supervising Enlighters would leave their bases. Only the great powers of the Innerverse could send out such powerhouses for this occasion, simply because they had more than one Enlighter among their ranks. 

With Karthika’s appearance, the Nine Stacks Sect became more docile. 

But this was just temporary. Once the output of pyrolyte increased to the point where it made others envious, even the Outerverse’s Enlighters would not remain still. A disastrous war that would sweep up the entire universe was brewing on the horizon. 

In the Astral Wilderness, the planet where large amounts of pyrolyte had been found was officially named the Planet Pyrolyte. At present, the strongest person on Planet Pyrolyte was undoubtedly Xi Yue. She was the top disciple of the Souldream Tribe and was the only direct disciple who had appeared so far. Thus, she was able to suppress all the other Limiteers from the other great powers. 

This was especially so for the Dire Barbarian Clan, which had already lost more than ten of its scouting teams. This angered their Hunter, but he was helpless since it would still take some time for their clan’s Limiteer experts to arrive. Their top disciple, Avery, was a Cruiser, so he could not descend onto the planet even if he arrived. 

“Slut, you just wait and see! Lord Avery will personally capture you and torment you to death just like what happened to your ancestors,” the Dire Barbarian Clan’s Limiteers cursed as they perished under Xi Yue’s Three-Note Eruption. 

Xi Yue’s face showed her determination as she looked at the surrounding corpses; the more people she killed from this clan, the merrier. 

In another month, the Dire Barbarian Clan’s expert would arrive. The powerhouse currently closest to Planet Pyrolyte should be the Blazing Mist Flowzone’s expert. It was time to move the extracted pyrolyte out. 

Not long after, a spacecraft dashed towards the Souldream Tribe’s battleship. Xi Yue was in the ascending spacecraft, and she had brought out the pyrolyte that had been mined by the Souldream Tribe. 

However, before she could arrive at the Souldream Tribe’s battleship, the ugly Hunter from the Dire Barbarian Clan personally acted and destroyed her small spacecraft. Fortunately, the Souldream Tribe’s Hunter acted in time and was able to rescue Xi Yue. 

But the Dire Barbarian Clan did not just let the matter drop there. The other powers were all focused on extracting pyrolyte, but only his clan’s members had been cleanly wiped out by Xi Yue. 

The Souldream Tribe was at a slight disadvantage for the battle in outer space. However, when Xi Yue used the extracted pyrolyte as a weapon and threw it at the Hunter from the Dire Barbarian Clan, the momentum of the battle suddenly shifted. The various powers recalled that pyrolyte was a strategic military resource that could be used to threaten any powerhouse, even those old freaks with power levels in the hundreds of thousands. It just required enough pyrolyte. 

In theory, pyrolyte’s destruction potential could be stacked infinitely, as one gram was roughly equivalent to 10,000 power levels. However, even if fifty grams of pyrolyte was used at once, it would not be able to threaten a powerhouse whose power level had reached 500,000. This was because the destruction waves would partially cancel themselves out. At best, fifty grams could threaten an Enlighter, but even so, it was still extremely terrifying. Once the amount of pyrolyte reached one kilogram, ten kilograms, or even a ton, how fearsome would that explosion be? Such an event could truly threaten a powerhouse with a power level of 500,000. 

Xi Yue was carrying the pyrolyte, which meant that the Souldream Tribe now had the ability to resist the Dire Barbarian Clan. Although it was impossible for her to have brought out too much, no one was willing to bear the risk. 

Finally, the expert from the Dire Barbarian Clan retreated.

Only then did Xi Yue relax. The Souldream Tribe had only mined about ten tons of pyrolyte, but that was not pure pyrolyte. The ore still needed to be refined. Ten tons of pyrolyte ore would at best produce a few grams of pure pyrolyte, as this was an extremely light substance.

Fortunately, the Dire Barbarian Clan powerhouse was not sure how much pyrolyte the Souldream Tribe had mined. Otherwise, he would have acted without any reservations. After all, ten tons of pyrolyte ore exploding at once would, at best, be equivalent to an attack with a power level in the tens of thousands. There was actually nothing for a Hunter to worry about. 

The Souldream Tribe had mined so much, and the other powers had naturally managed to mine some as well. However, most had not been able to extract as much as the Souldream Tribe, as Xi Yue had raided quite a few pyrolyte mines. 

After news spread that Xi Yue had threatened the Dire Barbarian Clan with pyrolyte, the various great powers gathered to discuss the situation. Soon after, they laid down a new rule: they could not attack the juniors leaving Planet Pyrolyte. Otherwise, the fighting would drag the gathered powerhouses in and might even possibly result in the destruction of Planet Pyrolyte itself.