Chapter 312: A Planet for a Snack!

Vast, boundlessly vast!

A pair of eyes, almost tangible, gazed at him with boundless curiosity; threads of searing breath and terrifying lightning flickered without cease,

fangs sharp enough to seem capable of tearing the earth apart in bites—even the smallest among them was larger than he was—and a magnificent horn that soared skyward beyond sight, brimming with endless mystery—

Upon coming back to his senses, this was the Ridgeback Demon Dragon's very first impression of the creature that had appeared before him!

Th-this… is this truly a being that a world can give birth to?

Having lived for over a hundred thousand years, the Ridgeback Demon Dragon had always thought his own size was already enormous enough.

Once, when he was still upon the earth, every living creature around him—not even his own kind—reached half his size, and he was hailed as the God of the Earth; no beast in all the world could rival him. He looked upon all living things as one might look upon an ant colony, and a casual low growl could make the entire world tremble.

Believing himself invincible, he never expected to encounter here a colossal creature whose bounds he could not even see.

He, a homeless beast, had merely slept for a stretch of time—how had he run into such a terrifying being right inside his own lair?!

Is this what those tiny creatures of the past felt when they saw him?

Truly makes one…

The very next instant, before he could continue reminiscing,

a claw that blotted out the sky, as though the heavens themselves were collapsing, came pressing down!

The terrifying giant claw churned the exceedingly thin air of this planet, transforming it into a hurricane visible to the naked eye, wantonly pressing down upon the earth.

"Crack-crack-crack…"

Crisp sounds rang out one after another; the rock that in days past had been indestructible now trembled and crumbled into dust beneath this hurricane, terrifying enough to sweep across half the planet.

The Ridgeback Demon Dragon even felt that the rock-blade ridge he had once taken such pride in was loosening, on the verge of falling off.

In an instant, the transparent hurricane, tinged with streaks of earthy yellow, swept up countless clouds of dust, dyeing the heavens an oppressively dark yellow, as though the end of the world had arrived!

In the final moment, gazing upon a scene that looked like the apocalypse,

Was the Ridgeback Demon Dragon afraid?

Of course he was afraid—but what of it?

In days past, having found no worthy opponent, had he not left his world precisely in search of one?

Besides, he had been sleeping perfectly well and had been beaten up for no reason at all—could he swallow that?!

Thus, he summoned his courage and let out a world-shaking roar—

Ao-woo—!

Immediately after, his two thick, sturdy legs—as though rooted in the earth, iron-boned and unyielding—bent with a thunderous crash, and he dropped to his knees like a mountain of gold collapsing or a pillar of jade toppling!

……

"So, this is your story?"

A voice, like rolling thunder, rose from within the planet.

"Mm-mm-mm!"

The little lizard, its tender, fragile belly exposed, pinned beneath the giant claw as though it were a small toy, nodded its head frantically, its expression tinged with fawning flattery.

If his former subordinates and ordinary beasts had witnessed this scene, their eyeballs would surely have popped out in shock—

Of course, that was already an impossibility.

Because his home, the very planet that had given birth to him, had now become the thing pressing down on him—this Baichuan!

Even before this Baichuan had appeared, his world, every last one of his kind, had already been wiped out.

By a group of fugitives…

Indeed, after Baichuan had just pinned him down and questioned him, he had come to understand this little lizard's self-introduction and origins.

He was precisely the strongest Banzhu of Tianyuan Star from before the arrival of those fugitives tens of thousands of years ago!

The mightiest among the Mountain Beasts' kings—not even the former Canglan could compare to him!

According to this little lizard, it had lived for nearly three hundred thousand years. From the moment of its birth, it was innately different from the rest: not only did it possess intelligence while still young, its own growth and development were also far faster than that of its kin!

In less than fifty thousand years, it had surpassed the strongest Banzhu of Tianyuan Star at the time, becoming a Banzhu in the truest sense, its body reaching twenty thousand meters!

Back then, when Mountain Beasts on that planet were generally only seventy to eighty thousand meters tall, and even the strongest barely exceeded fifteen thousand, it was the undisputed super-king, the absolute NO. 1!

If measured by Baichuan's current classification of strength, the little lizard at twenty thousand meters had already reached the Earthly Immortal Realm of a Planet Overlord—and this was not achieved through any energy or cultivation system, but through the gradual, step-by-step growth of its physical body over the accumulation of Time.

After all, back then the fugitives' fleet had not yet arrived, and Spirit power cultivation had not yet appeared.

All Mountain Beasts grew stronger through the accumulation of Time; the more ancient they were, the more powerful—except for it!

But alas, the very thing that made it succeed was also the thing that brought it to ruin!

Possibly because its innate talent was too extraordinary, even after breaking through, its growth did not halt—it continued to grow without cease.

Yet by then, the entire world could scarcely meet its needs.

Every feeding meant a catastrophic blow to the world's ecology—not only because of the feeding itself, but also because of the battles that erupted from hunting its own kind for food.

As the strongest, in repeated bouts of hunger losing its reason, it nearly ate every single Mountain Beast in the entire world into extinction.

When it awoke from hunger and thirst for the last time, it was horrified to discover that nearly all of its kind across the entire world had been devoured to the brink of extinction by it!

This time it could finally bear it no longer. Being called the Demon Dragon by its kin and other beings—it did not care,

but watching its once-vast world reduced to utter desolation because of it, the super-strong among the Mountain Beasts vanished, and the entire species dwindled to a mere handful of big and small cats left, it deeply felt that the next time it fell into hunger, it might well die of starvation from lack of food.

Weighing all these reasons, it decisively resolved to leave this world and step into Xingkong!

For one who, upon standing, was nearly twenty thousand meters tall, this was but a trivial matter.

Simply standing up brought it almost to the atmosphere; a being like that, even without the ability of Flight, needed only a single leap, a single Burst, to vault straight into space.

Not to mention, it was also a pure-blooded descendant of a Star Beast!

Baichuan even suspected the other might have undergone a mutation!

Thus, after one such leap, the little lizard packed its bundle, left behind its home, its planet, and truly beheld the vast, boundless Xingkong for the first time, coming to know the true face of the world…

Afterwards, after a period of exploration, it chose the planet nearest its own world to slumber upon, for there it could find the vast quantities of rock it needed—in truth, it could eat soil and rock…

It's just that with flesh and blood, who would be willing to eat dirt!

But after entering Xingkong, the few planets he explored had no life, so he had no choice but to choose this dull yellow rocky planet.

As a result, he never expected that after just one normal slumber, he would discover his old home... was gone!!!

That Tianyuan Star had simply vanished into Xingkong!

At that moment, he understood that his home had disappeared for some unknown reason...

It had vanished without a trace!

At this point, Baichuan understood that this little lizard must have been slumbering at the time and happened to miss the Fugitive Fleet that arrived later, and the other party used the Faba Ancient Bell they brought to shift the entire Tianyuan Star into another space, successfully stealing his home!

If during this period he had woken up even once, perhaps that group of fugitive humans would never have had the chance.

But looking at this fellow's somewhat tragic experience, Baichuan also felt secretly fortunate.

If he had not encountered that World Passage, and the entire planet possessed no supernatural power whatsoever, with no blood worms existing, then even with the Ability Panel, he would probably not be much better off, perhaps even worse off than the other party!

Because he did not have the power of a Star Beast descendant.

He figured that at most he would have eaten the ecology of one planet to extinction, and with no choice entered Xingkong to see if there were any planets relatively close by, then occupied one and waited for an opportunity.

However, how should this fellow be dealt with?

Baichuan looked at the little lizard before him with uncertain eyes; during the questioning period, he had long since taken advantage of the other's inability to resist and scanned out its ability model.

"Squeak, wooo..."

Looking at the super super giant beast king before him whose gaze had become somewhat dangerous, the little lizard also grew anxious, constantly making pleading sounds, a pair of slightly slender front claws waving nonstop.

Although their languages were different, it did not prevent them from communicating through spiritual wave fluctuations.

Listening to the little lizard's words, Baichuan thought about it and felt it also made some sense,

The other party was after all a rare mutant Star Beast descendant, and its strength was among the elite of the Planet Overlord realm; taking it in would not be amiss.

After all, Xingkong is vast and dangers are countless; even he could not afford the slightest carelessness, and having one more subordinate is not bad—this was a strong being whose strength was almost identical to his main body, both having stepped into the extreme, not to mention they had an innate intimate relationship—being from Tianyuan Star.

Seeing this little lizard missing home so much, he might be able to use the home point to lure it, making it work harder and be more loyal.

Of course, everything still required imprinting his own mark—Will Projection.

Only by imprinting this could the other's life and death be at a single thought, and only then could he truly feel at ease with the other party.

Thoughts flickering continuously in his mind, in an instant Baichuan reached a decision, then he slowly opened his mouth to speak...

One month later, having successfully taken in a subordinate, Baichuan began to feed under the other's horrified gaze—the Bai'an body opened its terrifying maw and bit down at the dull yellow Yan Star!

Amid horrifying tearing bites one after another, large amounts of matter from this Yan Star began to disappear.

Baichuan was preparing to transfer the matter from this planet into his own Tianyuan Star, then create another layer of world within the Bai'an's internal firmament!

After all, it was already a mythological-type world; how could it have only Ren Jian and no heavenly world above.

Moreover, with so many subordinates of his, how could they stay in the energy sun that belonged to the Bai'an's vital area all the time.

Therefore, he decided to create another layer of "Xiansheng" above Ren Jian, to be managed by those subordinate followers, while his Juanzhu and he himself would stay in the sun world of the Bai'an's energy Core.

Even later when there was room, he could create another layer belonging to cultivators, to separate cultivators from ordinary people.

And the rock and soil being consumed now would be the foundational land of the "Xiansheng"; as for later, he would prepare to draw up large amounts of seawater from Ren Jian for modification, supplemented with various special flowers and plants, and that would be enough.

Anyway, the seawater proportion of this Tianyuan Star was somewhat large, a full 8:2, seawater 8, while the land was a single complete giant continent, though only accounting for two-tenths of the total.

Of course, continuously using internal matter was ultimately not a good strategy; later if he encountered some rare planets, he would probably have to open the Bai'an's mouth wide and devour them.

While pondering, Baichuan also sped up his tearing and biting, making the little lizard beside him tremble in fear, afraid it might accidentally end up in the belly too.

Time flowed leisurely, and in the blink of an eye a year had passed.

And at this time, what appeared before Baichuan's Bai'an body was a Yan Star missing a large chunk with lava still flowing—of course now it probably did not deserve to be called Yan Star; anyone could see this planet was ruined. Looking from afar at this moment, this planet was just like an egg missing a corner with yellow-red egg liquid flowing out from inside.

And at this, Baichuan smacked his lips and stopped the movements of his mouth.

The matter he had currently ingested was already enough to establish a complete continent no smaller than that country from his previous life; even if some places were filled in as lakes and the like, it would probably be considerably larger. It was time to stop.

The next target should be the other surrounding planets.

Triggered by this little lizard, Baichuan somewhat suspected whether other planets might also possibly harbor some living beings, so he planned to go check and add some special matter, minerals, and the like.

With this thought, the massive Bai'an once again turned its body and headed toward the other few planets.

Behind it followed a tiny rock-spined little lizard—this was the affectionate nickname Baichuan had given the other party.

In the blink of an eye, another thirty years had passed.

Xingkong was truly too vast; just one Star System had taken him this long to explore.

If his current lifespan were not already quite long, he really could not afford such consumption.

And the gains this time, besides some rare matter, included another handsome great bird!

This was a creature different from flesh-and-blood life; of course, speaking of it, that little lizard was also not a flesh-and-blood body, but a life form constructed of rock,

It's just that this time the great bird was a plasma creature; more precisely, it should be called a plasma life. It took the form of a bird, with a wingspan of about forty thousand meters, its entire body constructed of plasma formed from gaseous matter under high temperatures, and its strength had only reached the Planet Overlord level.

It lived in a relatively marginal gas giant planet within this Star System. When Baichuan first encountered it, the other party was still in the form of a giant thunderstorm, sweeping everywhere as the planet changed, with its consciousness in a constant slumbering posture. If not for his Ability Panel being able to identify and scan out life, he would probably have missed it.

With this, all places within this Star System had been thoroughly searched by him.

Successfully harvesting two fairly capable subordinates.

Not only that, during this he had also figured out a means of rapid travel in Xingkong, because his speed in Xingkong was really too slow, too slow!

Or rather, it was not that his speed was slow, but that the distances between various things in Xingkong were too vast—distances routinely measured in millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of kilometers, and this was just within one Star System; if he wanted to leave this Star System, it would be even farther.

Even though his current Bai'an body, being too massive, could span nearly 10,000 kilometers in a single step, so what use was that?

In Baichuan's previous life's world, the distance between that planet and its nearest satellite was 384,000 kilometers, and the farthest distance between Red Star and it was 400 million kilometers; even the Bai'an body would need nearly 40,000 steps to walk it, and if converted to Time, the Time required would not be short.

Not to mention, this Star System was even more vast than the one that planet from Baichuan's previous life was in.

Therefore......

(End of this chapter)