Swallowing the Stars: Starting with the Battle of Geniuses

Chapter 196 The Time-Scarring Demon Blade Advances, the Legacy Emerges

The Lord of Wuqiu had to admit that what Hunzhen said was very much in line with reality.

If a ruler of the universe insists on hiding, even the methods of the Divine Eye Clan may not be able to track him down.

But at the level of the Lord of the Universe, especially the Lord of the Universe in the current cycle of reincarnation, which one isn't aiming to become the strongest?

If one simply hides away and abandons all opportunities, just as Hunzhen said, leaving the black-patterned stone pillar space where he was forced to return by the mechanical race's father god several times, and hiding his identity, his cultivation speed will inevitably decline significantly.

The Lord of Wuqiu believed that unless it was a dead end, given Hunzhen's past behavior and style, he would not truly choose to go into hiding.

Conversely, if you push the other party too far, the outcome is hard to predict.

Most importantly, the Lord of the Witch Fur felt that they might not be able to leave behind Hunzhen.

The Lord of the Witch Coat remained silent, carefully examining Hunzhen, but he could not discern the depth of the person before him.

According to the information relayed by the Fourth God, the person before us is very likely an existence capable of rivaling the strongest being even as the ruler of the universe.

In addition, the records show that Hunzhen was extremely good at escaping, which is why the mechanical race's father god hadn't been able to capture him for so long.

It is likely that only the combined efforts of two or more Allahs would be absolutely certain of keeping it.

Clearly, it's a better choice to prioritize maximizing benefits than to simply break things off.

The Divine Eye Clan possesses a madness about them, but they are not fools.

They weren't that crazy to involve two of their strongest warriors in a single incident against a cosmic ruler with whom they had no actual conflict, just to seize a few top-tier treasures.

Seeing that Hunzhen did not accept the threat, the Lord of Wuqiu assessed the situation and felt that there was room for negotiation, but he did not intend to directly reveal his bottom line.

Instead, he wore an expression of complete fearlessness, and said in a chilling tone, "Lord of Time and Space, do you mean you want my Divine Eye Clan to give you face? Hmph, what audacity! Do you think you're the strongest just because you escaped from the clutches of the Mechanical Clan's Father God?"

Hunzhen shook his head: "Comparing myself to the strongest? No, no, no, I just want to propose a suggestion that would benefit both of us."

As Hunzhen spoke, he raised one index finger.

"What suggestion do you have? Tell me."

Lord Wuqiu stopped the other Divine Eye Clan Universe Lords from causing trouble and asked with a frown.

He knew that this was the formal stage of negotiation and bargaining.

Hunzhen slowly spoke: "The most valuable possessions of the Five Hun Lords and the Ultimate Arrow Lord are three supreme treasures. One is the Ultimate Arrow Lord's supreme domain treasure, the Blade Core Realm. Another is the Five Hun Lord's supreme palace treasure, the Forbidden Hall. The last one is the Five Hun Lord's supreme armor treasure, the Extinction God Armor. Of the three supreme treasures, the latter two are more valuable, but the supreme domain treasure is not much less."

Seeing the Lord of the Witch's furrowed brows, Hunzhen smiled slightly: "I can return half of the other treasures besides these three, and you can choose any one of these three treasures."

A cosmic lord from the Divine Eye Clan stepped forward angrily: "Lord of Time and Space, don't go too far! These are treasures of our Divine Eye Clan! Are you saying you want to take more than half of them?! You're far too greedy!"

Hunzhen's face turned cold: "I took more than half? Have you got it backwards? I clearly gave you half unconditionally!"

"Master of the Mountain Temple, step down."

The Lord of the Witches spoke coldly, using his divine power to throw the primordial cosmic ruler behind him.

The Lord of the Mountain Temple stared wide-eyed at the Lord of the Witch Clan: "Witch Clan, are you siding with the outsiders? Heh heh heh, you're not intimidated by this guy's so-called reputation, are you?"

The Lord of the Witch Coat looked directly into the eyes of the Lord of the Mountain Temple. After a moment, his gaze swept over the others, noticing the subtle resentment on their faces, and he asked, "Is this what you all think?"

He sighed inwardly, not wanting to explode in front of Hunzhen, but instead transmitted his voice, saying, "If we clash head-on with the Lord of Time and Space now, do you think a bunch of you worthless cowards can stop him? Huh!? If we break ties with him, we won't be able to take a single treasure back!"

"They've fallen out! He just ran away. Not only will we not get the treasure back, but we've also become a laughingstock for our Divine Eye Clan in the eyes of other forces!"

"If you understand, then shut up and stop causing trouble!"

As the one in charge, Lord Wuqiu's reprimand instantly left the universe lords of the Divine Eye Clan speechless.

Having delivered the warning, Lord Wuqiu turned to Hunzhen and said, "What they said also represents my opinion to some extent. You want to consume half of the treasures left behind by the Lord of the Universe of my Divine Eye Clan? I'm afraid I cannot grant that request."

"To be honest, with so many treasures, I can't possibly use them all by myself. So how about we each compromise?"

Hunzhen slowly said, "Of the three supreme treasures, I will keep the Mad Demon God-Slaying Armor, and return the remaining two to your Divine Eye Clan. However, I have one condition: your Divine Eye Clan must give me ten additional supreme treasure battle blades! Melee weapons are the cheapest type of treasure. The combined value of the Forbidden Chan Hall and the Blade Core Realm is probably more than thirty supreme treasure battle blades, and they are practically priceless, impossible to exchange for. You will definitely make a huge profit!"

The Forbidden Hall and the Blade Core Realm?

The Lord of the Witch's eyes flashed, already somewhat tempted.

The Extinction God Armor, as the most top-tier supreme armor treasure, is comparable in value to the Blade Core Realm, but the Forbidden Elucidation Palace is even more valuable.

The fact that the other party is willing to give up two items is actually close to two-thirds of the combined wealth of the Five Chaos Lord and the Ultimate Arrow Lord.

Of course... there is also the most important piece, a peculiar sculpture that God specifically instructed about, suspected to be a component of the most powerful and precious treasure.

The Lord of the Witch Coat asked, "Then how will the other half of the treasures be divided?"

"Each person chooses one, until there is nothing left to choose from. Of course, I have already made a huge concession, so naturally I will choose first." Hunzhen responded with a matter-of-fact expression.

Lord Wu Qiu narrowed his eyes, a hint of hesitation in his heart.

The other half of the wondrous sculpture is still in the hands of the Mechanical Race's Father God. If they can't seize that part, according to the Five Lords, it's essentially worthless. Therefore, whether or not they can obtain this treasure remains uncertain.

Letting the Lord of Time and Space choose the treasure first does indeed have a slight chance of letting the other party take it first.

Even if the probability is extremely small, and even if this attempt fails, we can still obtain the remaining parts from the Lord of Time and Space after acquiring the other parts from the Mechanical Father God.

The difference in difficulty between taking treasure from the Machine God and taking treasure from the Lord of Time and Space is self-evident.

"That's acceptable... But—"

The Lord of the Witch's Robe abruptly changed the subject, saying, "Ten top-tier supreme treasure battle blades? That's too many!"

He smiled knowingly, realizing that he had already achieved his goal.

Now, the Time-Shattering Demon Blade only needs to devour five more peak-level treasure battle blades to complete its evolution. Ten peak-level treasure battle blades were not its goal, but merely a bargaining chip.

Both sides were aware of their own situation and quickly began haggling over the price, eventually settling on the five-piece price that Hunzhen had anticipated, thus concluding the negotiation.

They agreed to complete the transaction when the Lord of Wuqiu and his party returned next time.

Hunzhen watched the departing figures of the Divine Eye Clan, feeling somewhat helpless but not particularly resentful.

As the weak, in the struggle for resources, they can only snatch scraps from the mouths of the strong.

Hunzhen knew that if the Divine Eye Clan hadn't been busy targeting the Mechanical Clan's Father God recently, they probably wouldn't have even given him a chance to negotiate.

Instead, they directly and domineeringly ordered the strongest member of the Divine Eye Clan to come and demand the treasure.

Although he was forced to "bleed heavily" by this outcome, he actually resolved the hostility of the Divine Eye Clan while obtaining the resources he desperately needed.

Five supreme treasure battle blades are unlikely to be produced in the short term by any major power other than the Holy Land Universe or the Divine Eye Clan.

He could use the channels of the rampaging demon gods to exchange for the resources of the Time-Shattering Demon Blade, but getting one or two would probably be the limit.

As for exchanging two or three items with Hongmeng, it wouldn't be difficult.

It may seem easy, but in reality, "extreme" means that both the exchange and transportation will require a lot of extra time.

Alone in the vast universe, with the possibility of many unforeseen events, Hunzhen chose to pay money to settle the matter peacefully.

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Moreover, just as he himself told the Lord of Wuqiu, most of the items left behind by the Lord of Wuhun and the Lord of Jiujian were of little use to him.

He already has the Wolf Heart Tower, a supreme treasure of the pinnacle palace.

The supreme treasure of the peak domain, the Blade Core Realm, belongs to the category of Golden Void domain treasures. Its attributes do not perfectly match his, so its value is reduced accordingly.

However, the Extinction God Armor, or rather the Mad Demon Extinction God Armor... requires at least three times the resources of the Time-Sorrow Demon Blade to allow the Void Ghost Armor to devour and evolve. He simply cannot evolve it in a short time, and therefore cannot obtain a top-tier armor treasure comparable to the Mad Demon Extinction God Armor in a short period of time.

Hunzhen learned through the Omniscient Vision that the bottom line for the Divine Eye Clan among the three supreme treasures was to retrieve at least two of them, so he chose the Mad Demon God-Slaying Armor between the Mad Demon God-Slaying Armor and the Blade Core Realm.

And so, several hundred years passed.

The Divine Eye Clan arrived again and successfully completed the previously agreed-upon transaction.

Among the treasures to choose from besides the ultimate treasures, Hunzhen Nature first and foremost retrieved the Thinker sculpture.

Although the Lord of Wuqiu was somewhat regretful, he ultimately chose to accept it.

Hundreds of years have passed, and Hunzhen has long since completed the devouring and evolution of the Time-Shattering Demon Blade, bringing it to the level of a peak treasure.

During this period, by using the previously recovered and destroyed mechanical puppets as materials to repair the Wolf Heart Tower and Zixiao Palace, the two palace treasures, their condition has been restored to more than half.

In the blink of an eye, more than seven thousand years have passed since Hunzhen came to the Black Pattern Stone Pillar Space to cultivate.

All eight lower-level fusion laws have reached the sixth level of inheritance, and the four lower-level fusion laws that he has deliberately favored are even more powerful and are just one opportunity away from breaking through.

The so-called opportunity is when the time is right and all the forces of heaven and earth are in sync.

Conversely, if he cannot find the right opportunity, even with his current talent, it will take him an extremely long time to break through.

Of course, this so-called long time, with the enhancement of a cultivation efficiency of 300 million times, is only a thousand years at the shortest and three thousand years at the longest.

This aligns with the initial estimate of approximately 10,000 years for the breakthrough.

However, although he has not yet truly broken through, the further advancement to the sixth level has made the Hunzhen Yin-Yang and Five Elements Laws more and more refined, taking another solid step towards the direction of great perfection.

This caused Hunzhen's strength to fluctuate forward slightly again.

On this seemingly ordinary day, about three thousand years before the deadline set by Hunzhen, a sensational event that had been the subject of much discussion among powerful figures from various factions reached Hunzhen's ears.

Through the energy avatar left in the original universe, the simulated human learned of this matter from the Lord of Youhou, who was also from the same lineage of virtual universes.

The legacy of the Broken East River has been born!

To be precise, the legacy of Duan Donghe has been born ahead of schedule!

The latter is information that only Hunzhen knows.

The timeline of Duan Donghe's legacy in the present world is tens of thousands of years earlier than the original story.

The reason is actually somewhat related to Hunzhen; it's the butterfly effect caused by his flapping wings.

Meanwhile, the mechanical race's father god and the two true lords of the divine eye race fought endlessly, advancing all the way into the core area, which inadvertently caused the tomb ship to appear in the world ahead of schedule.

Like the three True Gods and the Thunder Robe True God, they were told by Duan Donghe Wu that they had no chance to inherit the legacy.

It's unclear whether it was Thunder God's temperament that Duan Donghe Wu admired, or the behavior of these three true gods that displeased him, or perhaps it was the influence of their conflict.

Unlike the Thunder God who discovered the Tomb Ship alone in the original story, they did not gain the friendship of Duan Donghe Wu. Instead, they were threatened with their lives by him and made to widely publicize the matter of inheritance, hoping to attract many geniuses from the Cosmic Sea to undergo the inheritance test.

As for the three strongest individuals who broke into the Tomb Ship, not only will they receive no reward, but if no one can pass the assessment and obtain the inheritance within the assessment period, all three will be annihilated by Duan Donghe Wu with thunderous means!

The wielding of the Sword of Damocles forced the three to desperately spread the news, attracting those undergoing the inheritance test.

Meanwhile, the Tomb Ship, under the control of Duan Donghe Wu, continued to head towards a safer area.

When Hunzhen received this message, the Tomb Ship had already arrived in the inner domain of the Space Ship and was still flying outward.

It is estimated that it will either eventually dock in a relatively safe location in the inner domain, or fly directly to the outer domain.

"This... 'The flowers you carefully plant may not bloom, while the willows you plant unintentionally may thrive'?"

This outcome left Hunzhen, who had originally intended to bring the Duan Donghe lineage to life ahead of schedule, both amused and exasperated.

Before long, as news leaked that even immortals could undergo the inheritance test, the news of Duan Donghe's inheritance spread like wildfire throughout the Cosmic Sea.

The Lord of Chaos City went directly to Hunzhen. After learning about some of the assessment requirements for the Duan Donghe inheritance, he naturally felt that this disciple, whose talent was unparalleled in the universe, was a strong contender for the inheritance and inquired about Hunzhen's wishes.

Although Hunzhen had previously intended to bring the inheritance to the world ahead of schedule, when the Lord of Chaos asked about it now, he responded with just two words.

"No rush."

(End of this chapter)