Aden raised an arm, and the lightning mountain formed from his star energy was suddenly covered with a red hued battle force as it ruthlessly struck the Amethyst Beast.

The beast released a furious howl, but it had already been stopped by Aden’s attack.

Aden had a vicious expression. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to use my nine lined battle force. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.” He threw a punch at the beast. “Let’s see if your defenses can still stop me.”

The Amethyst Beast raised a paw and batted at Aden.

The two of them were entangled in a stellar battle once again.

Liu Qiuyu was in shock. Where had this monster with nine lined battle force come from? Aden clearly had a strong will, and considering how he didn’t seem to be that old, he was sure to become a major powerhouse in the future.

The Enlighter beast looked perplexed. Freakish geniuses often showed up among humans. There was no denying this.

On a planet, Lu Yin stared up into space with envy. He’d seen the red battle force: it was clearly nine lined battle force. At the moment, Lu Yin’s battle force was only at six lines. The difference between them was just too vast. It was unbelievable that Aden had actually attained nine lined battle force.

This battle continued on for two days. During this time, the fiercest battle was the one between Aden and the Amethyst Beast.

Aden’s innate gift, the thunder shield, had been absorbed by the Amethyst Beast, so he needed some time to call it out again. However, by using his nine lined battle force, he had essentially seized the advantage.

However, the Amethyst Beast’s defense truly lived up to its reputation of being invincible. Even Aden’s nine lined battle force was not enough to fully stop it. At most, its crystal body might have been cracked, but actually defeating it was an entirely separate issue.

In the end, the battle concluded when the astral beasts withdrew like the tide. When the Amethyst Beast left, its eyes were filled with reluctance as it looked back at Aden. The reason why the battle had ended had something to do with them, as Aden had been just about to reform his thunder shield. The moment it reappeared, the beast would no longer be able to hold on. For this reason alone, the battle had to end.

The Astral Beast Domain wanted to make use of the Amethyst Beast to destroy Seasons Fort in a pivotal attack, but the defenders had managed to hold out thanks to Aden. The battle between the two had actually determined the very survival of the stronghold.

After the battle, Liu Qiuyu personally summoned Lu Yin to commend him for bringing Aden and contributing to the defense of the fort.

Lu Yin accepted the compliments, but he also knew that Aden would no longer have any attention to spare for him.

To give Lu Yin some peace of mind, Liu Qiuyu instead arranged for Huo Qingshan to stay by Lu Yin’s side, which could be considered as compensation for taking Aden. It was also meant to make Aden feel more comfortable about the new situation.

Lu Yin did not tell Liu Qiuyu that he and Aden weren’t exactly close, and he instead simply accepted it. However, he had already considered whether or not he should have Aden join the Great Yu Empire, so now, he was slightly regretting his choice. If he’d known that something like this would happen, he would have changed their bet and have Aden directly join the Great Yu Empire.

After the most recent battle, Lu Yin’s Ironblood Points had increased to 2,090. The second battle had lasted longer than the first, but during this battle Lu Yin had mostly only killed Limiteer realm beasts. Since they had surrounded him, he had not been able to earn as many points as before.

The five people ranked in front of him had around the same number of points as him at the moment. After another battle, he would be able to surpass them.

Lu Yin thought that he would be able to get some rest for a few days and take a breather, but a piece of shocking news soon spread through the entirety of Seasons Fort fort that hit everyone like a bucket of cold water: they had lost Ironblood Fort.

While Seasons Fort was locked in battle, Ironblood Fort had been caught in the same situation, though it had encountered a battle the likes of which had never been seen before. The Astral Beast Domain had sent ten Enlighter realm beasts at the fort, and while Ironblood Fort had almost ten Enlighters itself after Nightqueen Qiuyu and the rest arrived, they had still lost in a very pathetic manner. More importantly, the hidden powerhouse protecting the fort, Crow Phoenix, had died in the battle after being attacked by a terrifying Amethyst Beast and an astral beast called a Monster Loach.

Ironblood Fort had always been the foremost defense of Ironblood Weave. As long as it stood strong, the other eight fortresses of Ironblood Weave would remain secure. Ironblood Fort had always been the weave’s mental pillar, but because of that, when it was destroyed, it acted as a huge mental blow to the other eight strongholds.

On the day the news was received, Seasons Fort went silent. Nobody was happy that the battle had reached a lull; all they felt was absolute despair.

Lu Yin sat on an island next to a sea and stared up at the sky.

“So that’s why that Amethyst Beast attacked Seasons Fort. It was because there was an even more terrifying Amethyst Beast that could even kill a monster from the Phoenix Family with a power level of over 350,000. That means that that creature must be a terrifying existence within the Celestial Beast Empire and the top powerhouse of all Amethyst Beasts. We need to run, Seventh Bro! Even someone with a power level of 400,000 can’t stop that thing!” the Ghost Monkey wailed fearfully. He didn’t want to sit there waiting for his death.

Lu Yin was feeling incredibly down. The power of the Amethyst Beast from the battle that had just ended was still fresh in his mind. Even Aden had only been able to contend with the beast on roughly equal terms even though the creature only had the strength of a Hunter. And now, he had just learned that there was an even more terrifying Amethyst Beast that had killed an almighty powerhouse with a power level of over 300,000. What’s more, that monster had been someone from the Phoenix family. This piece of news came with a heavy wave of pressure, and this pressure was not something that could be easily removed.

More importantly, this wasn’t even the worst that the Celestial Beast Empire was capable of. That empire was a tremendous power that was capable of single handedly contending against the Human Domain’s Innerverse, and it did not lack for Envoys either. The moment powerhouses of that level appeared, nobody in the entire Ironblood Weave—no, the entire Outerverse, would be able to stop them. Lu Yin could not see any trace of hope for survival. He could not see a future.

“Say something! Let’s escape! Nobody will blame you. Ironblood Weave is done for,” the monkey urgently exhorted.

Lu Yin sounded depressed. “I’m human. Where can I run away to as a human? Tell me.”

The monkey fell silent. The Outerverse where the humans lived was now about to be crushed by the Astral Beast Domain. Nobody would be able to survive.

Lu Yin thought things over and shook his head. This was not something that he could solve alone. Right now, the most important thing he could do was break through and become an Explorer. It had been a while since he’d first felt like he was about to break through. He believed that the next time it would come wasn’t far off. So, he needed to urgently upgrade his formcast model to a six-stage model.

Right now, most people were busily repairing the battlefield. Lu Yin blocked off the star energy in his right arm and found somewhere to hide. He then raised a hand and looked at his die, which was rotating slowly. It’d been quite a while since he’d last rolled it, and it was about time.

He tapped out with a finger, and the die started to roll until it stopped and showed Gift Copy. Lu Yin was speechless at how useless this roll was.

The next time he rolled the die, it landed on Timestop.

In order to guarantee that he would roll Enhance, Lu Yin extended the duration of the Time Stop Space so that he could rest for ten days before rolling the die again. Unfortunately, he rolled Pilfer. He had no choice but to rest for ten more days before rolling the die again.

He had plenty of star crystals, so he could easily extend the time. If he hadn’t already reached the peak of the Limiteer realm with the last step being to break through to the Explorer realm, then the amount that he had would be enough for him to reach the peak of any realm anyways within this isolated space.

The only resource that he was not lacking in was time.

Finally, the fourth time he rolled his die, he got Enhance.

When he saw the two light screens appear, Lu Yin sighed in relief. Cultivators needed to be able to endure loneliness, but if possible, he didn’t want to stay in this isolated space for too long. It was far too suffocating.

He retrieved his formcast model, and without any hesitation, tossed a thousand star essences onto the upper screen.

Previously, he’d used more than a hundred star essences, which only caused the formcast model to dip slightly into the screen. Based on that progress, fully upgrading the formcast model would require at least thousands of star essences, maybe even more than ten thousand. It was an exorbitant amount.

The result turned out to be about what Lu Yin expected. It took him eight thousand star essences to fully upgrade the formcast model.

At this moment, the formcast model had a very different appearance from before, and it looked rather interesting. Lu Yin filled his eyes with star energy and looked at it, only to discover that its number of rune lines was incredible. It even exceeded what he had seen from Enlighters.

While touching the formcast model, Lu Yin suddenly felt a sort of boundless strength that shocked him to the core. This six-stage formcast model had been upgraded through his die rather than being created by an Envoy, but he could still feel an unfathomable power that was reminiscent of an Envoy from it.

He was finally becoming increasingly aware of how truly amazing his innate gift was.

Then, Lu Yin put the formcast model away and sighed. All he had to do now was wait to break through. When the feeling returned, he wouldn’t be able to suppress it anymore, so his success or failure could only be left to fate.

He still had 24,000 cubes of star crystals with him, and he did not want to waste them. Lu Yin considered his options and decided that his survival was still the most important thing. For the moment, the attacks of his gun were more than powerful enough. If he ended up running into an expert whose power level exceeded 300,000, then even all the money that he currently had wouldn’t be enough to raise the power of the gun to a threatening enough level. Therefore, it would be better to upgrade his universal armor.

His armor had already been upgraded nine times, but he took it out again and threw out four thousand star essences.

The previous nine upgrades had cost him nearly three thousand star essences, but for this tenth upgrade, another four thousand turned out not to be sufficient. Although it made his heart bleed, Lu Yin tossed out another thousand star essences to finish upgrading the armor for the tenth time. However, he wasn’t satisfied with just a single upgrade, so he gritted his teeth and threw out more than ten thousand star essences in one go. The universal armor fell through the screens very quickly and was upgraded once again. But as the cost, Lu Yin was now left with very few star essences.

He had initially wanted to upgrade it one more time, but from the looks of it… Lu Yin stored the remaining star essences away. He didn’t have enough for another upgrade, as the next one would require at least 15,000 star essences while he only had 13,000 remaining. These upgrades cost an insane amount of money, but the armor should now be able to withstand an attack with a power level of 300,000.

When considering the entire Outerverse, there were only a handful of people who could withstand attacks from powerhouses whose power levels had reached 300,000. Lu Yin was now one of those few.

The rest of the star essence that he had left was only enough for him to upgrade one thing: the Money Bombs. It had cost him 3,300 star essences to upgrade the Money Bombs to their current level, and the next upgrade would probably cost him five or six thousand. The gun, on the other hand, would need nearly 20,000 star essences to upgrade again, and he really could not afford that much.

He took out the Money Bombs, though he only had two of them left. One was a regular one that had not been upgraded while the other one had been upgraded to the point of being able to kill an Enlighter. He threw the upgraded one onto the screen and used the last 13,000 star essences in his possession on it. Under Lu Yin’s hope-filled eyes, it was upgraded twice. He could see a large amount of rune lines on it, which numbered about the same as the ones on his upgraded universal armor. That meant that this Money Bomb had the power to threaten a powerhouse whose power level was around 300,000.

Lu Yin was excited as he stored the newly improved Money Bomb away, but then he looked at his now empty cosmic ring. There was one thing that he had to admit to at this moment, which was that he was completely broke.

The amount that he’d spent during this round of Enhancing his equipment really hadn’t been worth what he had spent. He had only upgraded a few items, but each upgrade’s cost was increasing exponentially. He had no idea how he was going to earn enough to continue doing this, as even killing an Enlighter wouldn’t provide him with enough funds.

Once the clock of the Time Stop Space ran out, Lu Yin suddenly heard a warning alarm sound from above. His expression immediately changed; was the next battle already starting?