Swallowing the Stars: Starting with the Battle of Geniuses

Chapter 193 The Illusory True Demon God Makes His Move, the Divine Eye Clan Joins the Battle

"Mechanical, humph, you're really getting worse with age. You want me to make a move now to deal with such a small fry? This is outside the contract; what price are you prepared to pay this time?"

"Stone (the Mechanical Race Father God's name for the Phantom Demon God)! I don't need you to lecture me!"

The Mechanical Father God spoke with the Phantom Demon God hidden within the World Ring, saying in a deep voice, "By letting you make your move ahead of time, I will naturally raise the price! However, you must devote yourself fully to this matter and assist me throughout the entire process! After it's done, I will give you that rare treasure you've been coveting for so long!"

"What if things don't work out?" the illusory demon god asked in return.

"Hmph! You and I, the two strongest, failed to defeat a universe lord? If this doesn't work, I'll have to suspect you weren't putting in the effort! In that case, let's stick to the original price!"

"When it comes to mechanics and meticulous calculations, you're the best."

"Are you going to say yes or no!?"

The Mechanical Father God spoke firmly, adding, "If I lose track of the Lord of Time and Space, you won't even have a chance to help me subdue her with illusions! If you don't even make a move, then the promised supreme treasure will naturally not be delivered!"

"That's precisely why I call you cunning—because I saw right through your thinking!"

The illusory demon god within the ring sighed softly: "Fine, when you used that favor to get me to come out of seclusion, I was already prepared to suffer some losses!"

"Don't complain after getting the benefit!"

"hey-hey."

The illusory demon god chuckled and said, "Who told you to be my big spender? Mechanical, just tell me when I'm going to make a move, and how we'll cooperate."

"We don't need to devise any schemes. The more we try to outmaneuver this junior, the more likely we are to make mistakes. The two strongest of us can simply overwhelm her with sheer force. The Lord of Time and Space couldn't have predicted that you were hiding by my side, so she naturally couldn't resist. Instead, she should worry that we might go too far and not only shatter her palace's treasures but also kill her directly. Such an outcome would be a failure for us."

"Alright, we'll do as you say."

The two had known each other since their early years and trusted each other's abilities.

At the same time, they also have a very good understanding of each other's temperament.

As for the True Demon God, he knew perfectly well why the Mechanical Race Father God wanted him to act ahead of schedule.

In the mind of the True Demon God, the Mechanical Race Father God must have a trump card that could directly destroy the Palace Treasure of the Lord of Time and Space, but this would probably leave him in a weakened state.

This would give him an opportunity to betray him.

Even if this pursuit fails, the mechanical god will not allow himself to fall into such a situation.

If he doesn't agree, this pursuit and the subsequent assistance in soul control will all fall through.

In other words, the illusory demon god, after spending so much time in the world ring of the mechanical race's father god, only managed to acquire a few top-tier treasures.

Even the most supreme treasures are rare for the Lord of the Universe, but to the True Demon God, they are, frankly, only a general equivalent for exchanging consumable resources.

After the two strongest beings in the universe finished their discussion, just as the father god of the machine race had said, they used their power to intimidate others and, without waiting for long, immediately chose to take action.

The mechanical god's ability to control mechanical puppets accounts for most of his combat power, so he can exert his combat power normally without leaving his palace treasures, but the illusory demon god does not have such an ability.

The palace's treasures possess passive material and spiritual defense capabilities, protecting those inside the tower while also restraining them from making any moves.

In order to maximize its combat power, the illusory demon god naturally needs to manifest its true form.

Immediately, a wisp of black mist emanated from the oval black sphere of the Machine Race Father God.

The False Demon God reached the pinnacle of the illusion school, and can be called the number one illusionist in the primordial universe. His signature technique is to use illusions to confuse enemies, causing them to live in a daze or even truly perish in the illusion.

However, if we want to join forces with the Mechanical God to conquer the palace's treasure, then physical attacks combined with other attacks are naturally the best approach.

While the illusory demon god is most skilled in illusion, he is not incapable of using physical attacks.

Relying on illusions and soul-annihilation techniques, the False True Demon God can be considered an eighth-order true god, but he is also a rather extreme eighth-order true god.

If they encounter an eighth-tier true god with a weak will or who lacks a top-tier soul defense treasure, they might not even be a match for the illusory true demon god.

However, if one possesses a supreme soul defense treasure or a true god whose will reaches the level of a void true god like the Lord of the Stars of Bechi, he is not even as good as some of the stronger seventh-order top true gods.

In other words, in terms of physical attacks alone, the illusory demon god is only at the seventh level, which is a relatively ordinary level of true god.

However, the combined attack of different secret techniques and laws is not just a 1+1 effect.

Just like in the original work, when ten fourth-order universe masters joined forces, their combat power should have been multiplied by ten to reach the fifth order, but in reality, they directly reached the sixth order.

When a seventh-tier True Demon God and an eighth-tier top-tier Mechanical Race Father God join forces, they can achieve the ultimate killing power of the eighth tier!

Black mist billowed, and a giant, pitch-black serpent emerged from it.

At the same time, the raging thunder arrived, merging with the black serpent that seemed to devour the heavens and the earth, transforming into a serpentine dark purple lightning bolt that sped toward Hunzhen.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The terrifying shockwave even tore apart the extremely stable space within the spaceship's interior.

Right at this moment.

An endless grayness shrouded the void.

The dark purple serpent remained suspended in mid-air, maintaining its forward-moving form.

"This is--"

"Time Stop!!!" x2

The two strongest beings in the universe, who were also frozen in place, were deeply shaken.

The Mechanical Father God had long known about the ability of Hunzhen, and the Void Demon God had also heard about it from the Mechanical Father God.

Even though they had heard about it before, the two of them were somewhat skeptical of this ability.

If you can freeze the time of the Lord of the Universe, then you can freeze the strongest being in the universe?

Are you kidding me!

The so-called "words of the strongest being in the universe become law" is actually an upgraded version of the universe's mastery of spacetime.

This means that although the achievement of the strongest in the universe depends on the mastery of secret techniques, once a breakthrough is made, their spacetime abilities will naturally receive a significant boost, far exceeding those of ordinary universe masters.

But I've never heard of any ability or magical artifact that could stop time even for the strongest beings in the universe!

Of course, compared to the legendary rulers of the universe who were rumored to be so oblivious that even their thoughts were frozen, these strongest beings were at least able to notice when the other party activated this ability.

Being able to perceive and be aware of something means being able to fight back and break through with divine power.

With a whoosh, the two strongest beings simultaneously unleashed their divine power, shattering Hunzhen's inherent time control almost instantly.

Even if it were to freeze for a moment, stopping the time of two of the universe's strongest beings simultaneously would be astonishing.

That split second was enough for Hunzhen to use teleportation to escape a distance.

"Chase!"

Watching Hunzhen slip through his fingers once again, the mechanical father god gritted his teeth in hatred.

After so long, they finally forced out Hunzhen's trump card.

However, he felt little joy.

Because this was because he and the illusory demon god attacked at the same time.

Even their joint attack failed to capture the Lord of Time and Space in the first instance, demonstrating that the Lord's difficulty had increased to an even higher level.

Now that the trump card is known, there is a way to counter it.

Once they realized that Hunzhen's inherent power could not freeze their minds, they were able to quickly come up with countermeasures.

While the inherent difficulty of dealing with the enemy remains unchanged, at least the situation where their joint sneak attack did not cause any trouble for the other side will not happen again.

But here's the problem... who can be sure that this is the opponent's last trump card?

Having personally experienced the taste of the inherent power, the mechanical god has confirmed that the last time Hunzhen caused him to make a mistake in his attack was definitely not with this move.

The thought of those mysterious and unpredictable moves cast a shadow over the heart of the Mechanical God.

When Hunzhen used his Innate Time Control for the first time, he gave the Mechanical God a huge surprise.

As we all know, ultimate skills have a recovery animation.

In the real world, it is extremely mentally taxing for two of the strongest individuals to unleash their most powerful killing moves together.

This allowed Hunzhen to extend the distance even further.

The change in distance is neither a huge nor a small matter.

This would help him buy himself an extra month or two.

However, the changes that occurred in the past month or two were that the avatar that rode in the Forbidden Hall finally succeeded in reuniting with the original body.

The latest novel is first published here!

The mechanical race's father god ultimately failed to shatter the supreme treasure palace that Hunzhen himself was riding in before Hunzhen's avatar arrived.

But the more this was the case, the clearer the Mechanical Father God became that he could not allow Hunzhen's true form to hide in a top-tier palace treasure.

That would be almost equivalent to starting from scratch.

The only saving grace was that he had successfully persuaded the Demon God of Illusion to come out of seclusion before things escalated to this point.

With an additional powerful figure obstructing their path, it will be no easy task for Hunzhen to merge his true form and his avatar.

He chose to send over a thousand mechanical puppets along with the True Demon God to intercept the Forbidden Hall that was approaching this place.

He led the remaining mechanical puppets, which constituted the majority of his fighting force, to continue his attempt to breach the supreme palace treasure where the true essence of Hunzhen resided.

The advantage of this move is that with the Void Demon God acting as a "hub" at a distance, the thousand mechanical puppets can exert their seventh-tier combat power normally. The Void Demon God himself and the mechanical puppets working together can easily hold off the Forbidden Hall.

However, it also has its drawbacks.

He can unleash top-tier eighth-order combat power by simultaneously controlling nine thousand mechanical puppets out of ten thousand puppets.

The remaining thousand is a margin for error, and it can also be used to unleash a relatively short burst of near-ninth-tier damage when necessary, which is a last resort.

He had previously deployed a thousand mechanical puppets as part of his plan.

In order to pursue and kill Hunzhen in time, it was naturally impossible to recall these thousand mechanical puppets in time.

In addition to the thousand puppets assigned to the False Demon God, he only has eight thousand mechanical puppets at his disposal, which is insufficient to maintain top-tier eighth-order combat power.

This is a slight drop in rank, only reaching the level of an ordinary eighth-tier combatant.

It represents a qualitative change, but a qualitative change in a negative sense.

In a direct confrontation, a top-tier eighth-order fighter is usually enough to instantly kill a top-tier sixth-order fighter.

However, an eighth-tier ordinary weapon can only instantly kill a sixth-tier ordinary weapon.

Hunzhen is undoubtedly a top-tier sixth-order combatant.

If he couldn't kill Hunzhen instantly with a single strike, and couldn't bring him to near unconsciousness, his plan would become much more unpredictable.

And this is still the case where the turtle's shell was shattered, forcing it to fight head-on.

A decline in combat power means that the time required to break through the turtle shell has also increased significantly.

If he was confident he could break the tortoise shell within a year before, now it would take at least ten years, or even several decades!

Variables, variables...

With so many variables, even the mechanical god himself began to doubt how much of his idea of ​​controlling Hunzhen with his soul still had a chance of being realized.

He's already starting to regret it.

He regretted his initial actions that deliberately targeted Hunzhen.

In the eyes of the Machine Race Father God, there are two scenarios regarding the Lord of Time and Space.

If the Lord of Time and Space has a weak background, then naturally he would use the power of the strongest to quickly and decisively kill the enemy, thus demonstrating the might of the strongest and the most powerful race, and telling all the villains in the world—the mechanical race is not to be trifled with!

If the Lord of Time and Space is still entangled with humanity, he will naturally expose humanity's hypocrisy and use the death of the previous Lord of Heaven as a pretext to collude with the insect race and the demon race to infringe upon and divide up human rights.

However, the goal has not been achieved in any of the current scenarios.

They've already paid the price of getting the True Demon God to help, plus a guaranteed five top-tier treasures.

Furthermore, the accidental killing of two universe masters of the Divine Eye Clan will most likely incite the hatred of this fanatical race.

Even if they still couldn't defeat the Lord of Time and Space...

The price was far too heavy and tragic!

The pain was so intense that even the Machine God, as the leader of his race, felt a pang of heartache!

Nowadays, simply using matter to kill the Lord of Time and Space once is an absolute loss!

Even if the soul were to annihilate the Lord of Time and Space, it would still be a huge loss!

Only by controlling the Lord of Time and Space with one's soul can one make a profit, even if one has to give up ten supreme treasures plus one rare soul treasure. Only by overestimating the Lord of Time and Space's talent can one barely make a profit.

How could the Machine God not feel remorse!

At this point, the mechanical god could no longer back down.

Decades passed, and the precious palace that Hunzhen rode in became increasingly dilapidated, riddled with cracks and on the verge of collapse. If its lifespan were compared to that of a candle flame, it would be like a candle flickering in the wind, about to shatter completely.

But it always falls just short of that one little bit.

Perhaps just one more strike will achieve our goal.

However, a tremendous surge of life force caused the mechanical god's expression to change once again.

The true lord of the Divine Eye Clan has descended.

The seven gods did not all venture into the spaceship, and those who did venture into the spaceship were at varying distances from each other.

The first to arrive was the Fourth True Lord of the Divine Eye Clan.

He is neither the strongest nor the weakest among the seven True Lords, but he is definitely an eighth-tier combatant.

"The Machine Race's Father God?"

The Fourth God called out coldly from afar: "Who gave you the audacity to attack a junior of my tribe? You beat the young, and now the elder has come. Are you satisfied?"

As if belatedly realizing something, the Fourth True One looked at Hunzhen, who was being chased by the Mechanical Race Father God, and said with a half-smile, "Mechanical Race Father God, it seems that bullying the younger generation is really your hobby?"

"Not content with bullying my clan's younger generation, now they're going to bully others?"

"Haha! How can I not join in this fun!?"

"Of course, I'm not as shameless as you. I won't play the same game as you. Since it's someone your Mechanical God wants to bully, I'll naturally choose to protect them fiercely!"

(End of this chapter)