Chapter 403: A Radiant Ice Flower Blooms Across the Xingkong — The True Nature of Ability

"Crack~ crack~ crack~~"

An unbroken chain of sounds suddenly rang out from every direction across the Xingkong.

Following Baichuan's startled exclamation, the young woman who had been about to make a last stand and sacrifice herself froze.

Not only her—everyone on the main ship froze as well, their half-bent waists, bent to see off the warriors, going completely rigid in an instant.

They had thought the previous scene was shocking enough, but compared to the exaggerated, magnificent spectacle unfolding at this very moment, it was nothing—small fry beside a great one!

Looking out, as far as the eye could see, the entire Xingkong was nearly packed full of grotesque Zerg swarming in with gaping maws—but at that moment, tiny, almost imperceptible rhombus-shaped ice crystals abruptly condensed within the advancing swarm—

In an instant, biting cold erupted from the spinning ice crystals. As the cold from countless crystals linked together, it began to form a stream of frost visible to the naked eye across the Xingkong, draping a veil of hazy white over the deep, dark cosmos.

Deadly Ice Frost began corroding the Zerg, seeping a thin layer of ice over each creature's hard carapace, then slowing them, halting them, until they were frozen solid!

And so, one after another, magnificent and lifelike ice sculptures were slowly born across the Xingkong, spreading rapidly in every direction like dominoes.

Each crystalline, translucent rhombus ice crystal, sustained by the cold of the endless ice sculptures, slowly condensed and grew within the Xingkong, rising like lotus buds about to bloom, rooted in the cosmos as their pond.

At last, a flow of cold that blanketed the entire Xingkong appeared!

Deadly! Beautiful!! Pure white!!!

At a glance, a crystalline, translucent kingdom of ice and snow had descended!

With the Xingkong as its pond, with the flesh and blood of the endless Zerg swarm as its nourishment, an ice flower of indescribable beauty slowly bloomed across the Xingkong!

Truly:

A radiant ice flower blooms across the Xingkong!

"So… so beautiful~~"

After a long moment, the young woman seated inside her battle armor's cockpit gazed in a daze at the unbelievable sight before her eyes, and carefully reached out a hand, as if to cup a falling crystalline petal.

In an instant, she felt as though she had passed from a brutal battlefield of machines and blood into a fairy-tale kingdom of ice and snow brimming with girlish wonder—or as if she had entered a land of giants, standing before an enormous lotus blossom of ice and snow planted by their hands.

As the dreamlike ice blossoms of the endless star sea swayed, intoxicating drifts of ice powder fluttered down, refracting and glittering in the starlight—magnificent beyond words.

If a true immortal realm truly existed in this world, it could hardly surpass this.

"The war is over…"

"Over… th-that's… that's wonderful…"

Yes—the brutal war that had cost the lives of countless comrades—was over…

In the main ship's command room, someone stood slowly upright, tears streaming down their face, murmuring softly—as though speaking any louder, or even breathing too hard, might shatter this dreamlike fairy realm.

Everyone, as if by unspoken agreement, held their breath and stared fixedly at the dreamlike scene before them, as if to etch it forever into the deepest part of their minds—this might be the most beautiful sight they would never have the chance to witness again in their entire lives.

The astonishing, breathtakingly beautiful spectacle had robbed nearly everyone present of the ability to think, leaving only awe.

"That powerful and mysterious being, sir… if… if it is Him…"

On the main seat, the blue-haired girl, her face covered in Ice Frost, observed the joyful crowd below, and quietly pressed a hand to her chest as she made a silent decision!

If it is Him, then He definitely—definitely can help them!

No matter the cost, she must obtain His aid!

……

Yet for others, this scene that was no different from an immortal realm was, for certain other beings, nothing less than the most terrifying, darkest, most despairing hell in all the world!

One must remember—this was a scene forged at the cost of the lives of an immeasurable Zerg swarm!

The abilities the Zerg had always taken pride in seemed, before this power, as if they did not exist at all.

Their sturdy carapaces, which could easily withstand warship beam-cannon bombardment? Before this power that came from nowhere, they were as if they did not exist—the deadly Ice Frost still steadily appeared!

Their terrifying adaptability? The powerful adaptability that allowed them to endure nearly every harsh environment—high heat, extreme cold, flame, magma, Ice Frost, ocean, desert…—was, before this Ice Frost, still as if it did not exist!

The instant they became ice sculptures, they lost their lives.

Their terrifying offensive power? Most of the Zerg could not even sense where the attack was coming from; by the time they could see those ice crystals, the cold had already rendered them utterly unable to move.

The few that held out longer, even after they understood where the danger came from—whether they used sharp spikes that could easily pierce several centimeters of special-alloy metal, or liquids corrosive enough to eat through battle-armor Protective Shields—still could do nothing against that seemingly thin, transparent layer of ice.

The only path left to them was to quietly await death!

This was the first being the Zerg had ever encountered that filled them with despair—a being so powerful they could not resist it at all, one that left them with nothing but death the moment they faced it!

"Crack~"

At the rear end of the endless expanse of ice sculptures, an extremely subtle and faint sound of ice breaking rang out.

Immediately after, large swathes of ice began slowly cracking open, revealing the flesh and blood below that looked as though it had been burned—traces of frostbite from the extreme cold. The hard biological carapace the Zerg once wore was long gone.

Before long, atop the massive flesh, a frenzy of writhing caused it to slowly split open, revealing yet more burned, blurred crimson flesh beneath. At this point, the enormous mass of flesh resembled a corn cob or a cabbage, layer after layer being peeled away to protect the blurred flesh at the very core.

Finally, after breaking through countless layers, a pink, tender larva no larger than a human infant burrowed out.

This was the mother worm that, at the final critical moment, had cast off its bloated main body—still in a frenzy of reproduction—and, with the aid of a large number of guard bioforms, survived the fatal strike.

The instant it burrowed out, its tiny eyes glanced in terror at the source of all this, then, seized by violent fear, slowly turned transparent and fled toward an unknown direction.

Run! Run far away!

That was absolutely not an enemy a tiny mother worm, split off from the progenitor worm, could resist!

Its extreme terror of that mysterious being made it not even dare to use the 【Jump】 normally employed to escape lethal crises, fearing that the slightest spatial ripple would draw the other's attention.

Only after fleeing far enough would it dare to activate its Jump ability and escape to an unknown Star System.

But the extreme terror, and an unprecedented weakness, caused it to fail to notice a pair of eyes glancing its way.

That was, naturally, Baichuan's gaze. Having reached the ultimate realm—the Ancient Immortal realm—his perception was not so poor as to be unable to discern the life or death of even a tiny mother worm.

He left it alive only because it still had value.

……

Seven days later, aboard the luxurious main ship at the very center of a massive fleet formation in the Xingkong.

"So that's how it is~ What a peculiar and bold idea…"

"Abilities can be understood this way? Truly worthy of being a descendant of Xuanwu…"

In a spacious and rather luxurious room, Baichuan lay on a soft, comfortable mattress, holding a book of peculiar material and flipping through it continuously, frowning in thought from time to time, and occasionally showing an expression of sudden realization, deep in contemplation.

And the name of that book was prominently 【Seventy-Two Earth Fiend Arts】!

A book placed within his personal world-space by a son of Xuanwu whom he had slain in the past.

Not only that, but not far beside him were piled stacks upon stacks of books, utterly out of place amid the room's decorations, the massive quantity of books scattered everywhere making the room somewhat messy.

Now, feeling himself nearly fearless, deeply aware that his own foundation and knowledge were far too meager, and having ample Time, he decisively set about sorting through the gains he had accumulated along his journey.

It had to be said, although those beings might not necessarily surpass Baichuan in raw power — this near-cheating existence — setting aside the aspect of power, they each had certain unique insights regarding every realm and every stage of life.

After all, those cultivation civilizations required vast amounts of knowledge and foundational support for every step forward, in order to advance and break through steadily, opening up realms powerful beyond imagination.

Therefore, Baichuan, who had broken through too quickly and was lacking in knowledge, at least under his current continuous reading, still felt he had gained greatly, feeling his understanding of power, realms, and levels had become far more profound.

He had also come to understand what the essence of cultivation truly was in other cultivation civilizations.

Of course, this referred to the cultivation philosophy of the sons of Xuanwu he had slaughtered, and the civilization behind them.

In their view, cultivation was this: beings not born too powerful in the acquired sense use special means to sense the various energies within the universe, then draw out one of them in a unique way, imitating powerful beings to transform themselves, causing changes in their bodies and souls, thereby giving birth to powerful strength.

The crystallization born at the end of this cultivation was Ability, though They themselves called it "Divine Power"!

Or more precisely, Abilities from LV1 to LV3 were 【Spells】, those from LV4 to LV5 were 【Immortal Arts】, and those at LV6 were 【Divine Power】.

The methods by which they cultivated these Abilities were dharma-decisions, cultivation arts… the energy drawn in during the cultivation of Abilities was mana, spiritual power… the fruit derived when an Ability was born was a realm.

In summary, it was a complete process in which the weak imitated the power inherent in the strong, or alternatively, the strong, in pursuit of greater perfection, drew upon the dense energy of external things to sublimate themselves, making themselves more perfect.

And the book he was currently reading was the cultivation tome compiled by that civilization, gathering seventy-two extremely profound Abilities (Divine Powers).

At this point, Baichuan had roughly understood where the Abilities he plundered actually came from, resolving a long-standing question of his — since his breakthroughs could draw upon the Abilities of slain beings to break through and grow stronger, what about other beings who could not plunder Abilities from others like he could?

Surely not all powerful Abilities evolved by creatures over long stretches of time?

Weak Abilities might have that possibility, but powerful Abilities — and all of them at that — the probability was far too small. And the time required would be far too long; if it were truly so, cultivation civilizations and those who gathered great power into a single self could never have been born.

Now, he understood clearly: aside from freaks like himself, most beings in the world grew stronger step by step, continuously upgrading and strengthening the Abilities they possessed.

Abilities could be upgraded!

This knowledge came none too soon — he had long suffered from several of his other LV6 Abilities being incomplete, and it also allowed his chaotic power system to become unified and orderly.

Perhaps, as long as he found the right method next, he could perfect them, and at the same time, by analogy, he could deduce all the Abilities he possessed step by step into cultivation manuals and secret books for the world's beings to cultivate, using them to help his Juanzhu and subordinates cultivate systematically and grow stronger, barely keeping pace with his footsteps.

As he grew ever stronger, it became increasingly difficult for his Juanzhu to keep pace with him.

Even though he had the Ability Panel, other beings could not compare to him — the Ability Panel was a perfect percentage fit with him, and no matter how powerful an Ability, when it evolved onto him, it would adapt to him and perform at full percentage.

But other beings were different. With weak Abilities it wasn't obvious, but the more powerful the Ability, the more exaggerated and heavy the power after evolution — power that could shatter stars — not every being could wield it. If one's spiritual strength was insufficient, if one's realm was insufficient, it was like a child holding a handgun — having that power, could one actually use it?

If it were really that simple, there wouldn't be so many tales of cultivation deviation on the cultivation side.

This was also the reason Baichuan had always fought alone — his Juanzhu and subordinates could no longer keep up with him.

In the past, when he was weak and had provoked the powerful enemy Zishu, there was no time to consider such things, which was fine. But now, with no crisis and his power not lacking, he would welcome Zishu's attack.

Therefore, in this vast Xingkong, Baichuan naturally considered establishing a faction, fully interfacing with Xingkong, and moreover, his next goal — to spread the legend of his Dragon throughout the entire universe.

This grand goal, achieved by him fighting alone, would simply be too inefficient. Moreover, there were the Xingkong Divine Race, the mysterious world where Lingxin resided, the great clan behind Zishu…

Needless to say, the numbers of these factions were certainly not small. Now that he was strong enough, he would inevitably clash with them next, so fighting alone would not work.

Even if he didn't expect his subordinates to deal with powerful enemies, they should at least handle some trivial matters, deal with some cannon fodder, right?

Moreover, if his subordinates were strong enough, each one at the realm of Ancient Immortal, the faction vast enough to spread across most of the universe, invincible wherever it went, he could simply lie back and wait for them to go out and spread the word, quietly waiting until the power of legend was sufficient to break through.

This was also the reason he had taken action against that group of humans below — he needed a platform and channel to understand everything…

"Knock knock~~"

While he was thinking, the sound of knocking came from the direction of the door.

"Here?"

Baichuan, who had been sitting cross-legged, put down the book in his hands, curled up a slight smile, and turned his head to look.

"Come in…"

……

(End of this chapter)