Published at 9th of August 2026 8:45 am

Chapter 4444: A Civilizational War

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Lu Yin also knew the location of the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow. If this matter led to a conflict between him and Obscura, that would be even better for Hong Xia.

Hong Xia also wanted to obtain the mission reward. After all, the location of the Divine Crow was a five-star mission, yet that meant nothing since he had not yet completed his own mission.

After obtaining the location, Ba Se immediately left Vestigium to go to the Divine Crow.

Hong Xia's expression grew vicious. Lu Yin had targeted him again and again, and he needed to strike back sooner or later.

However, before long, Ba Se returned and stated, "The Ten-Eyed Divine Crow is not there."

"Impossible. That is the Divine Crow’s location." Hong Xia frowned.

"The Ten-Eyed Divine Crow is truly not there. There is no need for me to deceive you," Ba Se replied.

Hong Xia had a good understanding of Ba Se and knew that they would not lie to him over this matter. After all, there was no point in doing so. Hong Xia had given the coordinates away for free and would receive no reward.

Could Lu Yin have moved it?

But that also did not seem quite right. If the Divine Crow had been moved, how could Hong Xia have seen it recently? He had even tried to pluck one of the remaining eyes. If Lu Yin was capable of moving the corpse, there would have been no reason to leave it behind for Hong Xia to continue trying.

"Ba Se, Lu Yin must have hidden it," Hong Xia stated, but Ba Se did not answer.

Whether the Divine Crow’s corpse had been hidden or not was unimportant. Someone would eventually complete the mission.

Hong Xia withdrew from Vestigium. What exactly was Lu Yin thinking? If he could move the Divine Crow away, why had he not done so the first time he saw it? If he was not able to move it, how had it suddenly disappeared?

Hong Xia wanted to go back and take a look, but in the end, he did not. Since Ba Se had said that the Divine Crow was gone, then it certainly was not there. There was no need to make a trip for nothing.

In that case, where was the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow?

***

Elsewhere, after taking Xiang Siyu back to the Trio, Lu Yin also entered Vestigium. He had made a habit of checking in from time to time, as he might occasionally overhear something useful. Several years had passed since he had last entered Vestigium.

"Ba Se, I want to speak with the Immortal Master alone."

"You must first confirm that they are present in Vestigium before you may speak with them alone."

Lu Yin called out, "Immortal Master."

"I am here."

Lu Yin then privately spoke with them. "Has anything happened recently in Vestigium?"

The Immortal Master replied, "Hong Xia came and reported the location of the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow to Ba Se, but it seems that he ultimately failed."

Lu Yin was surprised. Had Hong Xia actually attempted to pull something like that off? The man was really seeking revenge against Lu Yin.

Unfortunately for Hong Xia, he had waited too long. The Divine Crow had already been taken away by Lu Yin.

At first, he had not even considered taking the Divine Crow away because he had tried and failed. Not even teleportation had been able to move it. Later, after thinking things over, he had covered his entire body with motes of green light and only then had it been possible to move the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow. However, he could not move it very far due to an inadequate amount of green lights. Later, after Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others had drawn the star chart of the Aevum Inch, Lu Yin had been able to visit more Mother Trees, which had finally granted him enough motes of green light to take the Divine Crow away.

The timing coincided with after he had received the mission from Obscura to find for the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow.

He had found time to take the Divine Crow away, but no one was aware of that. Naturally,

Hong Xia had also been ignorant of the development. He had confidently reported the former location of the Divine Crow to Ba Se because of that ignorance. Hong Xia wanted to infuriate Lu Yin and incite conflict between him and Obscura through the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow while also preventing Lu Yin from taking a second eye.

Hong Xia had not known that Lu Yin was capable of taking the Divine Crow away.

Lu Yin was glad that he had happened to move it when he had. If not, it really would have been taken from him.

Someone like Hong Xia was also rather pitiful. It was normal to not want to see an enemy grow stronger, but Hong Xia clearly had no ability to grow stronger with the Divine Crow, and yet he still wanted to keep trying. In the end, Lu Yin had taken the Divine Crow away, and Hong Xia had been one step too late to use it to scheme against Lu Yin.

Even so, it did appear that Ba Se knew that Lu Yin was the one who had taken the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow.

Still, that did not matter. Obscura's rules were more important than anything else, so at least for the time being, Ba Se was not able to make a move against a member of Obscura.

***

In a dim forest of steel, enormous war vessels drifted by, one after another. In the distance were endless swathes of mechanical puppets that were controlled by strange creatures. The creatures were more than three meters tall while the mechanical puppets were dozens of meters high and were arrayed like an army.

Behind those mechanical puppets was a vast city filled with noise and cheers, as if it was awaiting the arrival of some momentous occasion.

A slightly metallic voice rang across the sky. This was only one city. If one looked at the entire planet, they would see several others like it, and even the nearby planets were erupting with thunderous cheers. What followed those cheers was countless war vessels moving out into outer space in a torrent of steel.

Along both sides of the vessels, the mechanical puppets stood guard like ants, their numbers endless.

This was a cosmic civilization that boasted powerful technological capabilities that had also incorporated cultivation. This allowed the individual combat power of this civilization’s creatures to better coordinate with their technological equipment.

Relentless effort in extracting foreign resources had made this civilization incomparably prosperous. At least within their own megaverse, it was invincible. The civilization had unified the entire megaverse, and its next target was to reach outside the bounds of their megaverse.

Just a few years earlier, an image had entered their megaverse. It was of a creature just a bit more than one meter tall who had spoken to the technological civilization in a very polite manner. They had translated the words from the image: trade. The creature wanted to trade.

To be specific, it wanted to trade for a certain substance in their megaverse.

The moment the word “trade” appeared, laughter had never stopped echoing within the technological civilization. At the same time, ambition, a desire for conquest, war, and more emotions arose.

They never considered that the other civilization might have come into contact with the greater cosmos before them, nor that the fact that this foreign civilization was capable of proactively searching for the technological civilization’s megaverse meant that the foreign civilization was certainly not weak at all. The technological civilization felt no need to consider such things. Endless years of strength and invincibility within their own megaverse, as well as endless years of manufacturing more and more war vessels and mechanical puppets, had blinded them. Even if a few individuals were able to think rationally and wanted first to understand the strength of the foreign civilization, those voices were drowned out by the will of the entire civilization.

They sought not trade, but rather domination and to wield power over life and death.

As for resources, they would not give up even the smallest share and would only demand more.

Only war awaited that foreign civilization.

Kill, kill, kill…

Outside the megaverse, Lu Feiyang was watching everything with a frown. As the years passed, his cultivation had improved greatly. As one of the Trio’s most important geniuses, given his innate gift of teleportation, he had never lacked resources. By this time, he could also be considered an expert in his own right.

Even so, he continued to be very respectful to many people. This was due to his upbringing within the Lu family.

For example, the woman before him. Dressed in plain white clothes and carrying a silver spear, she was Garan Zhiluo, one of the Three Realms and Six Daos.

"As expected, communication between civilizations can only lead to war." Beside them, Mu Ke polished his blade. Despite his eyes being covered, he seemed to be observing the megaverse before them, and a cold gleam flashed on the edge of his blade.

Lu Tianyi stood with his hands behind his back, calmly observing the distant megaverse. "Then we will give them war."

Garan Zhiluo raised her head. "From the moment we stepped into the Aevum Inch, the way we do things needed to change. The rules of human civilization do not apply here. The word ‘trade’ should never have been spoken."

Lu Sizhan shook his head. "It will take some time for us to adapt. In the past, when my Nine Odysseys Megaverse destroyed foreign civilizations, it was a means of self-preservation. Now, it is for our own profit."

Garan Zhiluo looked back. Her cultivation was not as high as Lu Sizhan's, and yet she enjoyed a status no lower than his. Her group from the Tianyuan was very special and even a peak Dukkhan like Lu Sizhan did not dare to disrespect them. "Life is also profit."

After speaking, she slowly raised her long spear and thrust it forward. The silver spear transformed into a streak of white snow as it shot at the megaverse.

At the same time, Mu Ke, Lu Tianyi, Lu Sizhan, and the others all took action as well. Behind them were far more cultivators from all three megaverses. Lu Feiyang directly teleported over to the megaverse’s cultivators.

For the technological civilization, this day was an apocalypse. They saw a long spear pierce through their war vessels, unstoppable no matter the power of the counterattacks that they launched. Then, a flash of blade light appeared, and razor-sharp sword light blossomed. Someone shattered the void with a single finger, and the ripples that spread out from that point of impact crushed countless mechanical puppets. A swarm of creatures appeared in an instant, and the following war was completely one-sided.

No matter how many war vessels and mechanical puppets the civilization might have produced, they were all blasted to fragments in practically no time at all.

The invincible power that the technological civilization had prided itself on was shattered before their eyes. They simply could not believe what they were seeing. How could those small creatures possess such terrifying power?

The creatures of this civilization also cultivated, but only to complement their technology. Before these foreign attackers, they were like children.

These foreigners were a species known as human.

The dark steel forest was split apart, and countless figures floated in outer space above it, all peering down from high above.

Humanity had launched its first civilizational war since drawing the star charts of their surroundings and gaining a clear picture of things. This was not some battlefield for supreme powerhouses, but rather a battlefield for civilizations, a battlefield for countless cultivators.

Teleportation made all of this very simple. Civilizational wars were absolutely brutal, and the distinction between the strong and the weak became especially clear. Faced with countless resentful gazes from down below, Lu Sizhan showed no mercy. He simply did not enjoy slaughter.

In the distance, a flash of blade qi split the land in two, revealing a vast mechanical factory underground. It was practically another world, and all kinds of resources were stored there.

One person after another entered that underground area, and whenever they encountered resistance, they attacked without hesitation.

Lu Feiyang tallied the numbers and reported to Garan Zhiluo, "316 dead in this battle."

Garan Zhiluo remained calm. "In a civilizational war involving hundreds of thousands of cultivators and facing tens of billions of enemy lifeforms, as well as hundreds of billions of mechanical puppets and war vessels, such casualties are acceptable."

In a civilizational war, such casualties could only represent a total rout. Many of the cultivators who had died had simply been unlucky and died to collateral damage. Less than half had actually been killed by the hands of the enemy.

This was a battlefield. When people like Mu Xie and Lu Sizhan released a casual strike, they could easily affect an entire universe. On such a battlefield, everyone needed to not only avoid enemy attacks, but also the fallout of their allies' attacks.

Fortunately, humanity had their war navigation system. Without that, their casualties would have been far greater.

"There is no need to report the casualties in the future. In a war between civilizations, anyone who steps onto the battlefield must be prepared for death. There is no need for us to know." Mu Xie's voice was cold, not because he disregarded human life, but rather because, in the scope of a civilizational war, life was truly too insignificant.

For this technological civilization, this had been a civilizational war, but for the Trio, the hundreds of thousands of cultivators who had participated were just a very small group. If they wished to, the Trio could organize armies of hundreds of millions of cultivators. Not only that, but these wars also offered no such thing as death compensation. Everyone who participated did so voluntarily, and whatever they gained during the war did not need to be handed over.

For cultivators, this was simply another opportunity.

Death compensation was only offered in wars that were forced upon their human civilization. For a war on the scale of the assault on the technological civilization, countless cultivators were eager to take part.

Lu Feiyang answered respectfully. Mu Xie, as Lord Lu’s senior brother and another of Mister Mu's disciples, was another person with an extremely high status.

Share