Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  The entire planet was full of reed-like plants.

  There was nothing else besides that.

  It was a weird planet. It was extremely impossible for a planet to evolve with only a single plant species, but it would be entirely possible if it resulted from artificial influence.

  Plus, the entire planet appeared peaceful. The only audible sound was the rustling of the reeds in the wind.

  There were no bugs and birds chirping or animals roaring. The entire planet was quiet.

  “It’s hard to imagine that there are billions of living things lurking on such a planet, let alone hundreds of super-clustered beings.”

  Ling Jiu gasped, releasing a little of his energy.

  Swish!

  Just as he did that, the reeds in the distance swayed, and a huge, as well as hideous head, poked out from the reeds.

  Hiss!

  It was the head of a Hydra, which was the size of a dustpan, with black scales all over the surface. A pair of blood-red eyes were staring at Ling Jiu.

  “Huh, a human?”

  The Hydra flicked its tongue as it hissed, looking surprised. The next second, 33 Hydra heads popped out from the reeds.

  These 33 heads grew on the same neck, and they were densely packed. The sight would have scared the hell out of those with trypophobia.

  “Hiss…… I never expected to see a human here. What a surprise! But since he’s here, I will make him my snack today.”

  The 33 Hydra heads flicked their tongues and swished their tails as they moved toward Ling Jiu in a whirlwind.

  “According to what you said, with 33 Hydra heads, this guy is a Level 6 super-clustered being?” Ling Jiu asked faintly, ignoring the approaching giant Hydra.

  “That’s right. The Lernaean Hydras will grow a head every time they evolve to a higher level. They go from planetary Level 1 to super-clustered Level 6, ending with exactly thirty-three heads,” Leoux replied.

  “Not bad.” Ling Jiu nodded gently.

  The Lernaean Hydra had arrived before him, and it was about to bite him. It was going to tear him into pieces and eat him.

  It was a shame that right then, time in its surroundings suddenly came to a standstill.

  A beam of black light shooting out of Ling Jiu’s wrist wrapped around and dragged the Hydra into the Leoux.

  “Extract its soul and leave the body to me, Leoux.”

  “Understood.” Leoux was doing it so fast that it seemed effortless. Before long, it spat out the body of the Lernaean Hydra.

  Ling Jiu took the body into his Inner World (Flame Astral Behemoth) and decomposed it.

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  The decomposing ability of his Inner World became super robust after he became a super-clustered being.

  The Lernaean Hydra was decomposed into the purest vitality and sent into Ling Jiu’s body in no time.

  Just like the Saiyan Golden Ape avatar, Ling Jiu was wearing a Gravity Bangle that constantly consumed his vitality. His and his avatar’s body became stronger during the process of such consumption.

  Ling Jiu issued his first command. “Leoux, give me the soul fragments. Find and catch the other Lernaean Hydras on this planet—I mean all of them.”

  “You got it.” Leoux lunged out of Ling Jiu’s wrist and carried out the order, while Ling Jiu started to digest the soul fragments of this Lernaean Hydra.

  According to Leoux’s findings, there were 3 billion Lernaean Hydras on this planet. They lived in the water beneath the reeds. They were one of the only two living species on this planet. It was hard to imagine how they survived.

  But this was not something Ling Jiu cared about. No matter how many Lernaean Hydras were here, they all were going to become his source of nourishment.

  Any other thing was not important.

  Leoux was highly efficient in its job. It piloted the Leoux to find and capture all the Lernaean Hydras it could find, like a harvester sweeping across the surface of the planet.

  It captured them indiscriminately, whether they were strong or weak, stellar beings or super-clustered beings.

  Not a single Lernaean Hydra on this planet could escape the raid. They all went into the Leoux.

  All the Lernaean Hydras on this planet were wiped out in just ten hours. There was not a Hydra left.

  Of course, the Lernaean Hydras would not go extinct just yet. Instead, Leoux had detected tons of Hydra eggs in the reeds.

  These Hydra eggs would hatch in the coming spring, and by then, the Lernaean Hydras would take over the planet again.

  So, the Lernaean Hydra was really a disgusting species.

  “Extract the souls out of the super-clustered beings and shred them into soul fragments and then pass their bodies to me.”

  “Understood.” Leoux faded into a stream of light and left the planet. They were heading to the next Lernaean Hydra-infested planet.

  During the flight, Ling Jiu started to get busy. He had to digest not only the soul fragments but also the many Lernaean Hydra bodies. He was up to his neck.

  He threw hundreds of super-clustered Lernaean Hydras into the Floating Island, converting them into Dark Psionic Energy to expand the Soul Nebula.

  He then divided the remaining Lernaean Hydras into two parts, one part going into his Inner World (the Flame Astral Behemoth), the other part into that of the Saiyan Golden Ape avatar (the Flame Astral Behemoth). There, Lernaean Hydras would be converted into pure vitality to strengthen the physical body.

  Time flies when you are busy. Before they knew it, they had come to a second Lernaean Hydra-infested planet.

  They subsequently went from second, third, fourth to the fifth planet.

  Over time, Ling Jiu found that the Lernaean Hydras were actually highly vicious creatures. No other species could exist on the planet where Lernaean Hydras lived.

  There might be many plant species on a planet, but there was always only one species of creature, which was the Lernaean Hydra.

  “I wonder what these guys feed on.”

  “I have studied them. The Lernaean Hydra is an artificially created species. They do not need to forage but have the same photosynthesis ability as plants. They can survive forever by just converting light into energy,” Leoux said.

  “This ability is really sick, just like mine.” Ling Jiu was astonished.

  He did not actually need food, because he had replicated Absorb Any Form of Energy Into Vitality Arcana.

  He could live without food and water, but just by converting solar and wind energies into vitality.

  So when the Lernaean Hydra had the same ability it was just sick.

  “That thing is just as sick as you are.”

  In the following three months, Ling Jiu and Leoux went around all the planets and hunted the Lernaean Hydras.

  During those three months, countless Lernaean Hydras were killed, planets cleaned up.

  In the fourth month, Ling Jiu and Leoux arrived at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy where a supermassive white hole was.

  This white hole was so massive that it was tens of thousands of times larger than the one near Whitehole 1, ejecting torrents of energy all the time.

  The amazing things were, there were hundreds of planets around this white hole, and they were all life-harboring planets.

  Ling Jiu could sense the powerful energy of life on these planets from a far distance.

  These planets looked like bright moons in the night sky; they were hard to miss.

  “If I am not mistaken, this white hole is the lair of the Lernaean Hydra. Or rather, the hiding place of their boss.” There was a hint of suppressed delight in Leoux’s voice.

  Ling Jiu nodded gently. “We have visited half of the Andromeda galaxy for the past four months and never once encountered a region with so many life-harboring planets. If the primary lair of the Lernaean Hydra is on any celestial body, this white hole is the most probable place.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Leoux scanned around and quickly came back with results. “There are three hundred and thirty-four planets near this white hole. 333 were life-harboring planets with 129,860 super-clustered beings. Wait a second. What is that?”

  Leoux’s voice went up an octave in excitement all of a sudden. “Damn! Ling Jiu, you will be rich. You are so damn lucky!”

  “Rich?”

  It confused Ling Jiu to see Leoux suddenly becoming so excited for no reason. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Ling Jiu was more interested in the 129,860 super-clustered beings. He was imagining how large his Soul Nebula would expand if he refined all of them.

  “I told you before, the Lernaean Hydra is an artificially created species, and that there must be a big boss behind this, right?” Leoux said.

  “Yeah. So?” Ling Jiu was confused. “You have found the boss?”

  “You bet.” Leoux nodded vigorously. “I told you before that there are 334 planets, of which 333 are life-harboring planets, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The remaining one planet is not a natural life-sustaining but a metal planet,” Leoux said as it randomly pressed a few buttons. A light flashed in the Leoux and a holographic projection of a planet appeared.

  This was not the first time Ling Jiu saw a hologram.

  The planet shown in the hologram was a black planet, looking like a massive spherical Rubik’s cube with countless squares engraved on the surface, and each square was as large as dozens of square kilometers.

  Diving the squares were ravines that were thousands of meters long and tens of meters deep. These ravines were all over the planet.

  “See that? This is the only metal celestial body among the 334 planets.” Leoux had calmed down by now. “It is made of Class 5 alloys, obviously the work of the Grand Unified Civilization. Not only that; it looks like a planet on the outside, but actually was a metal fortress, or you can call it a spaceship. The Lernaean Hydra is just a group of brutal creatures with a low IQ and brute strength. Apparently, they could not make such a spaceship. The question is, who built it?”

  “The Boss?” Ling Jiu raised his eyebrows.

  “Bingo! It is the boss hiding behind the Lernaean Hydras. But do you know what this boss is? An Evogod. It is an Evogod.”

  “An Evogod? Seriously?”


  Chapter 357: At the Pinnacle of Super-Cluster, Another Upgrade

  Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  “Are you sure there’s an Evogod here, Leoux?”

  There was a light in Ling Jiu’s eyes. He could not hold back his excitement.

  “The Leoux will not go wrong with such a small thing.” Leoux had a smile of confidence on its face. “I have detected a very strong Dark Psionic reaction on the metal planet. The soul strength surpasses that of a perfect three-dimensional life form, but the vitality reaction only corresponds to that of a super-clustered being. The soul’s strength does not match the body’s—this is a typical characteristic of the Evogods. I am dead sure that the living being hiding on this metal planet is an Evogod.”

  “This is interesting.” Ling Jiu nodded repeatedly. “What should I do next? Should I go straight in, or should I capture the Evogod first and finish off the minions later?”

  “I would say, save the best for last. I have checked, and there are no traces of wormholes around this white hole,” Leoux said. “Besides, this Evogod is only at the level of a Grand Unified Civilization. It does not possess wormholes or teleportation technology. So there are no concerns about it escaping.”

  “That will be great then.”

  Ling Jiu licked his lips and shut down the Gravity Bangle. As the gravitational force vanished, he felt a sense of weightlessness and relaxation as if he had been released from a shackle.

  “Both my avatar and I have absorbed too much vitality in the last four months. We are now seriously overloaded with energy.”

  Ling Jiu cracked his neck, finding his body so light that he felt like he was about to float. “I need to relieve myself of this energy badly.”

  “Enjoy yourself, then. There are 129,860 super-clustered Lernaean Hydras here. You can do whatever you want,” Leoux said.

  “Besides, the time flow near this white hole is 888:1. This means that a day on Earth equals eight hundred and eighty-eight days here. So you have all the time in the universe to squander.”

  “Wonderful.” Ling Jiu nodded with delight. “In that case, leave these 129,860 super-clustered beings to me. Meanwhile, I will leave the Evogod to you—I don’t want to get blown into pieces by the gravity bomb.”

  “No worries. I will make sure that it can’t fire a single shot.” Leoux guffawed. Of course, it knew the seriousness of the matter. If the gravity bomb were to hit Leoux, or even Ling Jiu, who was a super-clustered being, they would be vaporized into a plume of hydrogen.

  As Ling Jiu’s auxiliary intelligence, Leoux certainly would not allow such things to happen.

  “I’ll be off now.” Ling Jiu vanished from the Leoux. When he reappeared, he was tens of thousands of kilometers away, arriving at the first life-harboring planet.

  It was a white planet.

  The sky was white, the clouds were also white, and even the land was white. It was apparently a frozen planet.

  Hovering in the sky, Ling Jiu felt an icy cold air blowing into his face. The air temperature was about -70 or -80 degrees.

  Not far away from him was a massive cloud of ice crystals.

  The ice crystal cloud was suspended in the air, like a lump of stiffened cotton. A slight touch would cause an enormous chunk of ice crystal to fall and create a magnificent sight.

  “Magnificent scenery of mountains and rivers. High concentration of dark bio-energy! Super-fast time flow!” Ling Jiu could not help but exclaim in awe. “Such a beautiful place, yet occupied by a group of dirty Lernaean Hydras. Everything is so wrong!”

  He no longer concealed his energy.

  Bwoom!

  Extremely powerful energy exploded out of him and swept across the entire planet in an instant.

  Hiss!

  Hiss!

  A series of hissing sounds rose from all over the planet, and then came the muffled rumbling of the earth.

  Icebergs were collapsing, ice sheets were cracking, and snow was exploding.

  All that followed by the Lernaean Hydras with dozens of heads bursting out of the ground into the air before flying towards Ling Jiu in midair.

  Ling Jiu did not even bother to conceal his aura. He was too hard to miss, as he looked like a bright sun in the sky.

  Swish! Swish! Swish!

  The Lernaean Hydras moved so quickly that tens of thousands of them had come in front of Ling Jiu in the blink of an eye.

  They all had over 30 heads and over 30 pairs of eyes staring at him. They looked extremely ghastly and vicious.

  “Who is this guy? How did he find his way here?”

  “He looks like a Caius Titan, but they should have been extinct a long time ago. But at the same time, he is different.”

  “Who cares? He will die after all.”

  “That’s right. He has to die. This is our territory. Whoever dares to invade must die.”

  Swish! Swish! Swish!

  Tens of thousands of Lernaean Hydras attacked at once. Ling Jiu roared. As he removed his Size Reduction arcana, he expanded into a 50,000-meter giant.

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  He had knotted muscles and stood towering into the sky like Pangu.

  “Come on!”

  They all came to blows at once.

  Bwoom!

  Since this was an alien planet, and the Lernaean Hydras were the only living things here, Ling Jiu was free to use his full strength to fight without worrying about collateral damage.

  He deployed a right punch, smashing dozens of Lernaean Hydras that stepped up to him. With a left kick, he sent dozens of others flying back. He then clashed with the other with his back.

  How did the elites fight?

  Here it was……

  The shock wave produced from the clash of Ling Jiu and a Lernaean Hydra was so powerful that it blasted open the sky and left behind a black hole.

  The Lernaean Hydra was smashed to the ground, crushing an iceberg and the glacier. It was the scene of cracking open, mountains collapsing and earth sinking.

  Baroom!

  As the battle raged on, more and more Lernaean Hydras joined the fight.

  These Lernaean Hydras living on this planet were well-nourished by the dark bio-energy, their combat strength incredibly robust.

  Not to mention they had the advantage of numbers.

  The situation quickly deteriorated for Ling Jiu when the Lernaean Hydras’ attack started to overwhelm him. Fortunately, Ling Jiu could perform Blink Arcana and Time Halt to get himself out of trouble.

  So even if he was besieged, beaten, pursued by thousands of Lernaean Hydras, his life was not in danger.

  Ling Jiu fought thousands of Lernaean Hydras. But sometimes, he retreated, ran, and fled.

  This brutal battle went on for three months before it stopped.

  The planet’s surface had been smashed until it was unrecognizable. The collapsed iceberg, broken ice sheet, and ice layer all told a brutal story of the battle.

  Thousands of Lernaean Hydras had disappeared, some going into hiding, and some fleeing. They were now all gone.

  Ling Jiu was sitting on a sharp icy edge, catching his breath.

  “All the Lernaean Hydras have finally been wiped out after three months! I am completely exhausted.”

  Ling Jiu breathed out a turbid air.

  He did not use Blink Arcana and Time Halt as an attack for the past three months. He only used them as self-protection to escape dangers.

  That was the reason it took him three months to wipe out Lernaean Hydras and send them all into his Inner World.

  It had been a long and tough battle, but the results were absolutely gratifying.

  Three months of high-intensity fighting had drained too much of this vitality. Fortunately, he had devoured many Lernaean Hydras before and even during the battle.

  It was like fueling war with war.

  After three months, Ling Jiu’s physical strength had increased one hundredfold. He had upgraded from super-clustered Level 1 to Level 4.

  It was a multifold jump.

  It was truly impressive.

  Each minor upgrade of a super-clustered being would translate into a huge jump in combat effectiveness.

  Not to mention that Ling Jiu had replicated the Ultimate Physique of the Flame Astral Behemoth. Every jump in level would translate into a massive qualitative leap in combat effectiveness.

  That was the reason it took Ling Jiu only three months to jump from super-clustered level 1 to level 4. The progress was incredibly impressive.

  Not forgetting that the Soul Nebula was also expanding.

  In the past, Ling Jiu had been weak, and digesting a super-clustered being had been difficult. He needed Leoux’s help to break down the super-clustered being into soul fragments.

  But now, that was no longer necessary.

  He just needed to throw the super-clustered being into the Inner World (Flame Astral Behemoth) and the Inner World would break it down into vitality and dark psionic energy.

  Vitality would enter the body, while dark psionic energy would flow into the sea of consciousness.

  So after devouring thousands of souls of the super-clustered beings, his Soul Nebula was also expanding, albeit on a smaller scale.

  “I have to take a few days of rest before I send my avatar to a second planet.”

  For Ling Jiu, sleep was the best way to rest. He released the maglev airship, took a hot bath, and then fell asleep.

  After three days of sleep, his mental state returned to its peak. He switched into the body of his avatar, the Golden Saiyan Ape, and headed to a second life-harboring planet.

  Using the same way to lure the enemy, he successfully attracted a large group of Lernaean Hydras.

  The same kind of battle followed.

  However, there was a difference this time: the Golden Saiyan Ape differed completely from that of Ling Jiu.

  When facing thousands of Lernaean Hydras, Ling Jiu had to use guerrilla tactics, while the Golden Saiyan Ape was using a more brute-force method.

  A guerrilla tactic?

  What the heck were guerrilla tactics?

  One word: fight!

  The Golden Saiyan Ape had just made a breakthrough, and it was only a Level-1 super-clustered being, but its super-robust physique with a body attribute index of 20 million gave it incredibly destructive power in every strike.

  A simple punch, a casual kick, and the use of its elbow could seriously hurt a Lernaean Hydra.

  The Golden Saiyan Ape took less than five days to kill the same number of Lernaean Hydras, which was in the thousands.

  “These opponents are too weak, completely unchallenging. Fighting them did not consume too much vitality.” Ling Jiu forced a smile. “So the result is, the Golden Saiyan Ape avatar hasn’t improved at all. It seems that I have somewhat underestimated this avatar of mine.”

  Since the fight with the Lernaean Hydras had not improved the Golden Saiyan Ape avatar’s strength, it was obviously meaningless to continue to let it fight.

  Ling Jiu recalled the Golden Saiyan Ape avatar and sent it to receive gravity training on the Floating Island, while he headed to a third life-harboring planet. ……

  Time flies when you are busy. 100 years had passed since then.

  Ling Jiu walked out of his maglev airship on this day. He was wearing pajamas, apparently just getting up.

  “I had a good sleep.”

  Ling Jiu stretched as he looked into the distance. Before his eyes was the clear-blue sea. The water so crystal-clear and almost as blue as it was green.

  Below him was a small island, on which lush-green strange plants grew. Combined with the greenish sea, it was picture-perfect scenery.

  “What a beautiful planet!”

  Ling Jiu liked the scenery. So he chose this planet as a place of rest when the battle was over. It was so beautiful here that it was a pure enjoyment just by looking at it.

  Ling Jiu took out a chair, a table, some fruits, and wine. Then he sat down and ate the fruits while he sipped on the wine as he enjoyed the scenery in front of him.

  He was apparently in a good mood……

  And he could not help feeling otherwise.

  A battle that lasted for 100 years……

  After hopping onto 333 different planets, and devouring 129,860 super-clustered beings, his strength had undergone tremendous changes. His physical body was upgraded from super-clustered Level 4 to its limit, which was just one step shy of achieving another breakthrough.

  His Soul Nebula had also exploded rapidly to 260 soul stellar units, more than twice the previous number.

  Of course, the changes on the Floating Island were no less spectacular over the past 100 years.

  The 50 million square kilometers of Floating Island were planted with super arcana trees. In other words, the entire Floating Island had turned into a forest.

  There were 500 billion super arcana trees right now.

  And the amount of dark bio-energy produced every day was absolutely massive.

  This was only about Ling Jiu himself.

  The changes of the Golden Saiyan Ape avatar were equally impressive.

  Its physical body had been upgraded to super-clustered level-2, which was a level of improvement, but the increase in combat effectiveness was immeasurable.

  Its Floating Island, just like that of Ling Jiu, at 50 million square kilometers, had been planted with 50 million super arcana trees.

  “The Floating Islands are full now. It is time for another round of expansion. When I go back this time, I will devour the moons and continue with the expansion.”

  While Ling Jiu was enjoying himself, Leoux suddenly called him on the phone. “Have you gotten enough rest, Ling Jiu?”

  “What’s up?” Ling Jiu frowned.

  “You better hurry, the Evogod is going to get an upgrade soon,” Leoux said.

  “An upgrade?” Ling Jiu got up to his feet. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I have been trapping that Evogod in its lair for the past one hundred years, and that was the reason you could fight undistracted,” Leoux explained. “But it seems that what I have done has angered the Evogod. It is taking the risk to make an upgrade—I am talking about an upgrade of the soul.”

  “The strength of its soul has reached the peak of a perfect three-dimensional life form. If it upgrades again, it will become a cosmic life form.” Speaking of this, Leoux’s tone of voice turned solemn. “An Evogod whose soul strength reaches the level of a cosmic life form will be extremely nasty.”

  “I told you before that the souls of the Evogods are incredibly special. They can possess any object, including machines and spaceships. The Leoux is a spaceship. I can’t imagine if it infiltrates the Leoux and seizes control from me. Honestly, I can’t stop it. I have been monitoring it, and the possibility of it infiltrating the Leoux is extremely low. But I don’t want to take chances. You had better come over quickly. We are to get rid of that guy before things get out of hands.”

  “I will be right there at once.”