Devouring the Stars: The Lord of the Sky

Chapter 218 Prelude to Demon Hunting: The Target
The supreme treasure of the palace is so high-grade that even a fifth-order or lower-order cosmic lord cannot destroy it.

For example, the famous Lord of the Heavenly Wolf among the demon race is not very strong.

However, relying on the supreme treasure of the palace, the Lord of the Heavenly Wolf did not back down even when facing the Lord of Chaos City. He was even able to go to the Nine Netherworld without being stopped by the Lord of the Nine Netherworld.

Lu Jin said, "Let's try training a cannon fodder-level Universe Lord warrior first."

He was eager to know whether the corpse of a Zerg warrior at the level of a universe lord could produce a divine spark of the laws of spacetime after being stuffed into the Demon Refining Pot.

"Ah."

Hong'er nodded.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the primordial universe, in a spatial interlayer, within the divine realm of King Jin Jiao.

"Gentlemen, how are the preparatory steps for the demon-hunting plan progressing?"

Inside the temple, King Jinjiao addressed his more than 12,000 subordinates at the peak of the King level and above.

"Commander, the Twilight Sector is complete!"

"The Evil Luo Sector is complete!"

"The Wanren Star Region is still lacking."

"The Lingwu Star Region is still somewhat lacking."

The alien servants under Lu Jin's command reported this one after another.

Since Lu Jin formulated the demon-hunting plan, King Jin Jiao began the initial arrangements, dividing the more than 1,400 star sectors of the demon race's territory.

They deliberately avoided the eighteen royal clan star regions with many powerful demon race members, as well as many royal clan star regions, and star regions with high-level cosmic secret realms within their territory, and selected more than 1,200 star regions from them.

Each of these 1,200-plus star regions is assigned to ten fixed subordinates to prevent their own people from repeatedly enslaving the same demon race star region lord.

Furthermore, due to the inconvenience of communication and the inability to contact each other in real time through the virtual universe, they will meet in his divine kingdom five years later, regardless of their progress.

Now that the five-year period has come to an end, the prelude to the entire demon-hunting plan is also coming to a close.

However, unexpected events are always inevitable when implementing a plan.

For example, encountering situations where the Star Domain Lord is in seclusion or not in their own Star Domain, or a series of other situations where it is impossible to find the Star Domain Lord's whereabouts.

Another example is the situation where a Star Domain Lord is actually a soul servant of other powerful beings.

Soul servants cannot be enslaved a second time. When subjected to an irresistible enslavement technique, a soul servant will automatically die from a soul collapse.

Therefore, this star system is no longer suitable for causing trouble.

After all, without a star lord leading a group of star sector management members who had been reduced to servants to provide cover, the subsequent demon-hunting plan would definitely not be kept secret from the star sector management and Venerable-level star sector lords of the demon race when it was officially launched.

Fortunately, similar to the situation of the human race, most of the star field lords within the demon race's territory are immortals whose potential has been exhausted.

Those enslaved by their souls, those with ambition, those who retreat into seclusion for cultivation—these are ultimately a minority; most are simply indulging in immediate pleasures.

Moreover, even if one stays in the divine realm to enjoy pleasure, one cannot escape it.

First, enslave a demon race member who has access to the Star Domain Lord, then hide in that demon race member's world ring, enter the God Kingdom to meet them, and then suddenly pop out to enslave them again.

After summarizing the findings, King Jin Jiao, the person in charge of the operation, discovered that, to date, the enslavement network secretly deployed has covered more than 80 billion star systems in nearly 10 million star fields within the demon race's territory.

Nearly ten million immortal-level star domain lords and star domain management personnel, and more than eight hundred billion star system lords and star system management personnel ranging from domain lords to world lords, have all become part of this enslavement network.

"The overall plan is progressing well; those that haven't been completed yet should hurry up."

I hereby announce that, one year from now, regardless of the progress of the plan, the formal operation will commence simultaneously, striving to complete the plan in the shortest possible time.

King Jin Jiao announced with a solemn expression.

"Yes, Commander!"

The servants inside the hall responded in unison.

At this moment, Tianyinwang, an invincible servant of the demon race's Dream Scale Serpent royal family, said, "Commander, there is something we need to obtain the master's support for."

King Jinjiao asked, "What is it?"

The Silver King said, "A vast number of worlds."

A single star system contains anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of inhabited planets, each inhabited by a large number of demons. It would be extremely difficult for us to acquire a world large enough to accommodate such a vast number of demons in a short period of time.

"I understand. You all wait here for now. I'll go find my master and ask for help."

King Jinjiao nodded, then used the divine kingdom's teleportation to arrive at the Western Heavenly Gate, located in a remote starry sky within the demon race's territory, and returned to the celestial realm.

The Great Luo Heaven, the Lingxiao Palace.

"Approximately how many worlds are needed?"

On the nine-colored throne, one of Lu Jin's Blood God Child incarnations asked a question.

King Jin said, "According to the preliminary budget, each star system needs to prepare one thousand worlds with a diameter of 100,000 kilometers. With 80 billion star systems, that's 80 trillion worlds."

Lu Jin: "."

How many? Eighty trillion?

It's not a matter of how much money there is.

A world ring with a diameter of 100,000 kilometers would only be worth about 1 unit of Hunyuan.

Eighty trillion coins are just eighty trillion Chaos Units, which translates to only 8 Treasure Points, nothing to Lu Jin.

Most importantly, does the Virtual Universe Company actually have that much inventory?

Lu Jin waved his hand and said, "There are too many. You go back and wait for news. I'll see if I can gather enough."

"Yes, Master."

King Jinjiao bowed and took his leave.

With a light tap of his fingers on the armrest of the throne, after a moment of contemplation, Lu Jin separated a wisp of his consciousness and logged into the virtual universe within the Palace of Time.

Virtual Universe, Thunder Island, Lingxiao Temple.

Having switched to the identity of King Lingxiao, Lu Jin appeared on the throne in the temple.

"Fatty, contact Dream King."

Lu Jin gave the instructions to Fatty.

Dream King, with near-invincible strength to become a king, is a manager in the business department of Virtual Universe Company.

"Yes, Master."

Fatty responded.

Soon, a virtual screen appeared in front of Lu Jin, displaying a charming woman in a white dress with long, pink, wavy hair.

Smoothing her long pink hair, King Mengyu winked and said, "King Lingxiao, is there anything you need from this humble woman?"

Back then, King Lingxiao, along with a group of demon servants and the assistance of many human faction kings, slaughtered 90,000 kings from the three races in a single battle at the Star Tower Void Passage.

In the eyes of King Mengyu, King Lingxiao was not only a newly risen, invincible king, but also a very wealthy man.

After all, the twenty demon servants who appeared in that battle, whose strength was close to that of an invincible king, all possessed great treasures, and some even had domain treasures, demonstrating their extraordinary wealth.

Do you have any "eighty trillion world rings, each with a diameter of 100,000 kilometers" in stock?"

Lu Jin ignored the flamboyant Dream King and spoke directly.

Upon hearing this, King Dream of Desire blinked and said, "If I heard correctly, it's eighty trillion world rings?"

"Ah."

Lu Jin nodded.

King Mengyu said, "If it's eight billion, then there's definitely no problem, but eighty trillion... I'm sorry, I can't help you with that."

"Of course, if King Lingxiao doesn't have time constraints, my Ministry of Commerce can definitely assemble the necessary supplies."

Are you kidding me? Eighty trillion world rings with a diameter of 100,000 kilometers, and you want them in stock? Where am I supposed to get them for you?

Virtual Universe Company's business department is large and has a large reserve of world rings, but it doesn't have this many reserves!

This isn't about how much the world's rings are worth, but rather that the Ministry of Commerce doesn't need to stockpile so many.

When others buy world rings, they only buy a few, or even just one. How come it's eighty trillion rings for you, King Lingxiao? Are you kidding me?

Frowning slightly, Lu Jin said, "Alright, sorry to bother you."

After saying that, Lu Jin hung up the video call.

Dream King: "."

After hanging up the video call, Lu Jinyu left the Lingxiao Temple and flew towards the Tianshuang Temple halfway up the mountain.

Since the Virtual Universe Company's business department is out of stock, they'll have to ask their own teacher for help.

Inside the Frost God Temple.

"Eighty trillion world rings with a diameter of 100,000 kilometers?"

The King of Tianshuang looked at Lu Jin with a surprised expression.

"Hmm, I wonder if the teacher could get some?"

Lu Jin nodded and asked.

After a moment's thought, the King of Tianshuang said, "Three months from now, I'll have Barn send it to you, boy."

After a pause, the King of Tianshuang Kingdom warned again: "I don't care what you're up to, but be careful when you're doing it. Don't give yourself away. You should know that the Lord of the Universe can travel back in time."

The sheer number of world rings is beyond imagination.

Even a fool could guess that his disciple was planning something.

Could it be that they are planning to plunder life-bearing planets within the territory of alien races?
A world ring with a range of 100,000 kilometers could actually hold a typical life-bearing planet.

"Disciple, please remember this."

Lu Jin bowed and said.

After Lu Jin left, the Heavenly Frost King sent video calls to the Minister of Commerce at the headquarters of the Virtual Universe Company, as well as the Ministers of Commerce at the headquarters of the Giant Axe Martial Arts Arena, the Cosmic Mercenary Alliance, the Cosmic First Bank, and the Cosmic Galaxy Bank.

Although Lu Jin needs many World Rings, it's not a difficult task if the five major human powers work together.

The Dream King told Lu Jin that there weren't that many goods; it was just that the Virtual Universe Company headquarters didn't have that much stock on hand.

Let all the branches of the Virtual Universe Company come together, let the headquarters and branches of the other four major forces come together, and let other forces of all sizes within the 1008 universe countries also come together.

Eighty trillion world rings, each ten thousand kilometers in diameter, are nothing to stump the human race, one of the six most powerful races in the primordial universe. Three days later, inside the Time Palace.

"Master, the Titan warrior of the Universe Lord level has been trained."

Hong'er said to Lu Jin.

With sufficient resources, a master-level mother hive can produce one master-level warrior per year.

Now that the year has passed, the first Lord Warrior of the Universe has been born.

"What's the difference between him and a normal cosmic ruler?"

Lu Jin asked.

Hong'er said, "It's very weak. This newly bred Titan Warrior has ordinary life genes, no divine body amplitude, and also has a serious defect."

As she spoke, an unnatural expression appeared on Hong'er's face.

"What flaw?"

Lu Jin pressed for an answer.

With a bad feeling in her heart, Hong'er forced herself to say, "This Titan warrior's divine body strength has undergone a transformation, and it's now on par with a cosmic lord with ordinary life genes."

However, its power to control spacetime alone is far less than its power to control spacetime when it is under my control.

Based on this calculation, this Titan warrior's control over spacetime is not true control over spacetime.

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin raised an eyebrow.

It's not true mastery of space and time. In other words, at the level of the Lord of the Universe, the biological weapons cultivated by the innate secret technique 'Mother Nest' have already developed serious flaws?
The poignant history of an excellent Realm Lord warrior, an ordinary Immortal warrior, a mediocre Venerable warrior, and a grotesque Universe Lord warrior—the story of a Zerg warrior.

'Insufficient level of innate secret technique?'

Lu Jin thought to himself.

The innate secret technique obtained when perfecting the gene, since it carries the word 'strongest', means that this level of innate secret technique is the highest grade innate secret technique that can appear in the original universe.

The Zerg Queen's 'Hive' innate secret technique naturally wouldn't exceed this limit.

Using a talent secret technique that is at most at the strongest level of a universe master, or even less, to create a universe master-level biological weapon, there will inevitably be flaws.
"Destroy it."

Lu Jin, who wouldn't give up until he reached the Yellow River, gave the order.

Hong'er nodded, and with a thought, she obliterated the soul of the newly nurtured Titan warrior of the Universe Lord level within the Mother Nest.

"Shh!"

The next moment, the corpse of a Titan warrior of the Universe Lord level, standing only eighteen meters tall, appeared in the Temple of Time in its normal form.

The corpse was put into the Demon Refining Pot, and Lu Jin's consciousness also sank into the Demon Refining Pot.

Soon, the corpse was completely decomposed, turning into hundreds of universe-level life source crystals with a diamond-like luster, a lower-level fire law godhead, and a higher-level space law godhead and a higher-level time law godhead.

Upon seeing this, Lu Jin's face darkened.

This effectively declared that he could no longer achieve divine freedom in the laws of space and time by relying on the Mother Nest, which was at the level of a universe master.

Moreover, from the perspective of the benefits of higher-level divine powers, cultivating cannon fodder-level universe master warriors to decompose corpses is far less cost-effective than cultivating cannon fodder-level venerable warriors to decompose corpses.

Indeed, if a Zerg warrior of the cosmic master level could act like a normal cosmic master, then the Zerg wouldn't need to form alliances with so many subordinate races.

As long as the Queen Mother of the Universe is willing to sacrifice her divine body and equip it with a supreme primordial treasure, she will eventually be able to cultivate a considerable number of Zerg warriors at the level of the Lord of the Universe over countless years.

It is precisely because of the flaws of the Zerg warriors at the level of the Cosmic Master that, coupled with their high cost, the Zerg's Cosmic Master Queen only commands a legion of top-tier overlord warriors.

After a long silence, Lu Jin asked, "Can the original top-tier overlord warriors be trained a second time into complete universe master warriors?"

The divine spark of the laws of time and space came rather unexpectedly. When she acquired it, Hong'er had already cultivated two hundred thousand top-tier overlord warriors.

It would be a real shame to waste it.

Hong'er nodded and said, "It is possible, but the cultivation time and resource consumption will not be reduced. The previous top overlord warriors can only save time and resources spent on cultivating the Amplification Secret Technique."

Lu Jin waved his hand and said, "Let's retrain the warriors of the universe. The original hunting plan will continue."

After saying that, a Blood God Child avatar emerged from the inner world. Lu Jin handed the original core to the Blood God Child avatar to carry, then got up and walked towards the outside of the Time Palace.

Since he couldn't achieve freedom of spacetime and time through the Mother Nest of the Universe Lord level, Lu Jin had no choice but to continue his original hunting plan.

After all, self-reliance leads to abundance.

One cosmic master warrior per year; a legion of 100,000 would take 100,000 years.

Even if the Time Palace speeds up time a thousand times, it would still take 100 years. We can't wait any longer.

With seven top-tier overlord legions, each numbering 100,000, taking turns unleashing their combined legion attacks, he refused to believe they couldn't defeat an ordinary universe lord.

Even if these seven top-tier overlord legions can only perform the most basic legion combo attacks.

Before long, eight figures gathered inside the Lingxiao Palace.

The group included Lu Jin himself, who carried the Kunlun Mirror, and Hong'er and her seven companions, who carried the Mother Nest and 200,000 top-tier overlord warriors within the World Ring.

Lu Jin never takes the extraordinary treasure given to him by the cheat system out of the Heavenly Realm, lest he accidentally make a mistake and lose it.

In this hunting operation, the Kunlun Mirror's true form only provided intelligence and spatial travel support.

"Master, which universe lord is the target of this hunt?"

Zi'er asked Lu Jin.

Lu Jin shook his head and said, "Not one, but six."

These six cosmic lords are all relatively weak and lack any powerful background.

As he spoke, Lu Jin instructed Fatty, "Fatty, project their intelligence."

What is a superpower?

In the primordial universe, those with true gods in charge are super powers; otherwise, even if there are many universe masters, they are only top-tier powers.

Although the true gods in the primordial universe can only exert the top combat power of the sixth rank at most, the true gods can reverse time and space to revive the universe overlords and top universe overlords, which is something that the universe lords cannot do.

Of course, the Lord of the Nine Netherworlds, relying on his extremely large divine body, might also be able to resurrect top-tier cosmic overlords.

After all, the Lord of the Universe cannot resurrect the overlords and top-tier overlords of the universe, mainly because the divine body cannot withstand the backlash that occurs during resurrection.

"Yes, Master."

Fatty responded, and six virtual screens appeared on the screen.

On each of the six screens, there was a powerful figure from another race, accompanied by general information.

The Lord of Bicheng is a second-tier universe lord of the powerful clan, the Chuan Chu Clan. He is a flesh-and-blood being with a divine body that is over 600 kilometers long. He is shaped like a toad, surrounded by azure poisonous mist. His skin is dark brown, and his back is covered with countless bumps of various sizes. His limbs are extremely muscular.

Lord of the Night, a second-tier universe lord of the powerful Dark Feather Clan, is a flesh-and-blood being. The size of his divine body is unknown, but he is humanoid in appearance, with a head like an eagle, two legs, four arms, and six wings. The front of his arms and lower limbs are covered with jet-black claws, and his whole body is covered with black feathers.

The Lord of Purple Light, a second-tier universe lord of the powerful Purple-Eyed Clan, is a rock-type life form with a divine body over 300 kilometers long, appearing in human form. He has a purple vertical eye on his forehead and wears dark purple battle armor, as if forged from purple rock.

The Lord of Trolls is a second-tier cosmic ruler of the powerful troll race. He is a flesh-and-blood being with a divine body that is over a thousand kilometers tall. He is humanoid, with two heads, a blue face, fangs, and his body is covered with demonic patterns, making him look quite ferocious.

The Lord of Suanyuan is a second-tier universe lord of the powerful Purple Suan clan. He is a flesh-and-blood being with a divine body that is over 1,200 kilometers long. He has three curved, sharp horns on his head, thick limbs, and his entire body is covered in purple scales. He has purple sideburns on his neck and a long, scaled tail behind him.

The Lord of the Sky, a second-tier universe lord of the powerful Elephant Clan, is a flesh-and-blood being with a divine body three thousand kilometers long, resembling a giant elephant. Its body is covered with long black hair, its head is enormous, it has a thick, long trunk, two short and four long protruding tusks, and its limbs are like giant pillars supporting the sky.

These six universe lords were all discovered by Zi Ni Chang through her AI assistant, Fatty, who queried the territories of powerful, idle races in the original universe via the Hongmeng, without her logging into the virtual universe.

Then, a few years ago, Lu Jin enslaved the strong members of his clan and used the Kunlun Mirror to remotely probe, thus gradually pinpointing the exact location.

Without exception, all six targets were second-order universe masters, and there were no other universe masters in their race.

Picking on the weakest link is the best strategy; after all, the corpse of a second-order universe master can also produce a spacetime law godhead or a fusion law godhead.

Lu Jin had considered finding the weakest first-order universe master to target.

However, all first-order universe masters are newly ascended universe masters. Before their ascension, if their race does not have a universe master to oversee them, then that race is just an ordinary race.

The primitive universe has billions of races, and as ordinary races that are not part of an alliance of hostile forces, the intelligence departments of the human race and the Hong Alliance will not spend too much energy paying attention to them.

In some remote areas, there may be ordinary ethnic groups that have not been informed of the situation.

In addition, newly emerging universe masters are well aware of their own capabilities and rarely venture out. They mostly stay in their lairs to quietly improve their strength, making it difficult for other forces to find out about them.

"Master, that Lord of Purple Light, who is from the Purple-Eyed Clan, is a rock-type life form. Does he have a soul?"

After reviewing the information on the six universe lords, Cheng'er asked.

Lu Jin nodded and said, "A large number of rock-type life forms also possess souls, and the Purple-Eyed Clan is one of them."

One thing to note is that the information about these six universe lords may be outdated.

Therefore, in this hunt, we will fight if we can win, and run if we can't.

"Yes, Master!"

Hong'er and the other six responded in unison.

"The order of hunting is: Lord of Bicheng, Lord of Yaoye, Lord of Ziguang, Lord of Jumo, Lord of Suanyuan, and Lord of Qingtian."

"Hong'er, release the Heavenly Flame Burning Void Palace. You all enter the palace's treasure chamber. Once the legion's combined attack is ready, I will teleport the Heavenly Flame Burning Void Palace there."

Lu Jin said to Hong'er.

"Shh!"

With a slight nod, Hong'er waved her hand, and a magnificent fiery palace, tens of thousands of kilometers high, with flame patterns covering its walls and a crimson halo swirling around it, materialized within the Lingxiao Palace.

Then, Hong'er and her six companions flew into the majestic Flame Palace.

The next moment, seven mother nests appeared within the Heavenly Flame Burning Void Palace, a supreme treasure of the high-level palace.

None of the seven mother nests are small, especially Hong'er's universe-master-level mother nest, which has a diameter of up to 100,000 kilometers.

However, the interior of the Heavenly Flame Burning Void Palace is much larger. Although the outside world only shows a height of tens of thousands of kilometers, the interior is a length, width, and height of millions of kilometers.

"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!"

A large number of top-tier overlord ghost warriors swiftly flew out from the seven mother nests, then manifested into divine bodies a thousand meters tall, forming seven combined attack formations within the Heavenly Flame Burning Void Palace.

To leave behind a corpse after killing the Lord of the Universe, the only way is through soul annihilation, and naturally, the Ghost Warriors will be chosen to fight.

Otherwise, even if the Lord of the Universe only has 1% of his divine body left, he could still self-destruct instantly.

It is virtually impossible to knock a cosmic ruler unconscious and into a deep sleep with a physical attack.

(End of this chapter)