Paragon of Sin

Like the passing of silica sand in an hourglass, two months flowed onwards since the Tang Clan's failed mission. During this period, unsettling developments, both shocking and unpleasant, occurred with very little warning. The most notable of these developments, the most sensational, was none other than the Soul Rising Sainthall's announcement.

A week after the Tang Clan's defeat and losses, when many were speculating looming war, malicious intent, and other things, the Soul Rising Saint declared that she had obtained a profound insight after the fight and was entering secluded meditation to digest this particular insight.

This development wasn't too special in and of itself, but the timing was highly suspicious. Still, the cultivation world somewhat accepted it as Earthly Saints; even those lesser beings within the Ascended level, would perform these spontaneous seclusions at a moment's notice. Yet after a week, the Soul Erupting Saint and Soul Enlightening Saint had visited the Soul Rising Saint's Main Hall, which was their core planet, and discovered that the Soul Rising Saint, her disciples, and family had abruptly vanished!

This news leaked incredibly quickly! The world reeled in shock after further information was revealed, including the vault of the Soul Rising Sainthall that contained thousands of years of savings had been emptied! The Soul Rising Saint had absconded with the entire wealth of the Soul Rising Sainthall and directly fled!

And the Ninestar Sainthall's response was surprisingly swift and decisive, offering an absurd reward for any information regarding the whereabouts of the Soul Rising Saint or those who fled with her. Moreover, the Ninestar Sainthall issued an official declaration that the discovery of hiding the Soul Rising Saint in their territory knowingly was a declaration of war against them! This vigorous reply was world-shaking, and the word of 'traitor' began to spread as investigations grew hot and the pursuit began.

The next development came later that took almost everyone for a loop! It was later discovered that the Ravenous Edge Starfield's Saint, Ravenous True King, had lost his life! However, this paled in comparison to the eventuality of this news, as the Ravenous Edge Starfield descended into civil war almost instantly. In a matter of a few days, tens of thousands of Astral Core Realm cultivators had died, and several planets were destroyed.

This shook the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region and caused many to grow curious about what the last Earthly Saint of the Ravenous Edge Starfield was doing amid this discovery, but the World Prison True Queen had suddenly vanished without a single word. No one could locate her or find any information regarding her whereabouts. If it weren't for the Ravenous Edge Starfield showing her intact life talisman to the world, they would've already been invaded by their neighbors.

These developments of these Earthly Saints, the most prominent and prestigious figures of the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, began to make numerous individuals incredibly uneasy as a strange, unpredictable undercurrent seemingly formed throughout the world.

"...That's it, Captain." A pretty young woman with square-shaped spectacles pushed her frames up the bridge of her nose. This was Shao Yi, who was given the role of Executive Admin Assistant, the personal assistant to the Captain with various duties. For one, the compilation of information regarding the ship and the outside world.

Her aura at the Sixth Stage of the Astral Core Realm, the Gravity Emission Phase, was far lighter than before, indicative of the lack of impurities within her body, and her complexion was richer, a sign of improving bodily health. Since becoming Wei Wuyin's Assistant, she was given a few additional resources to elevate her cultivation base.

She had just given Wei Wuyin a deep run-down of the outside world's developments the last two months, including the various bits of information gained from their activities and contacts of former captives turned agents.

Wei Wuyin was seated in his private room; his eyes closed shut as he was seemingly contemplating all these details.

'The Ravenous True King and the World Prison True Queen of the Ravenous Edge Starfield must've been a part of the Earthly Saints that acted earlier. The Ravenous True King must've been the one killed. As for the one who fled with injuries, that one must be the World Prison True Queen. She was also skilled in spatial arts, but according to the Legion Commander, that Earthly Saint was nearly crippled, and would take at least half a century to fully cover without external support.' Wei Wuyin vigorously rubbed his chin, contemplating the identity of the third, unidentified Earthly Saint.

If those three were members of Trueborn…

Wei Wuyin sighed internally. A notorious organization renowned for malicious activities had an entire starfield and their upper-echelon in their ranks. Furthermore, the Soul Rising Saint had departed without warning while taking all the resources and wealth of her Sainthall. His first thought was that the Soul Rising Saint was a member of Trueborn and was ousted after allowing them to act freely in her territory, but the more he pondered this situation, the more it felt incorrect. He felt as if he was missing a piece of crucial information.

Wei Wuyin's line of thinking wasn't improper here. He lacked crucial information: the relevance of a 5th Runic Ascendant. While the Legion Commander was the trigger, Wei Wuyin couldn't coincide the two seemingly casual comments of arrogance with a sporadic action of abandonment.

After a few minutes of rumination, he settled his thoughts and regarded his agents of information, a network born and bred out of opportunistic cultivators that were captured and freed. Who would've thought the information network that he'd created out of random cultivators were able to bring about such astonishing benefits. For example, there were leaked shipping routes, news of various treasures, and even corruption reports of certain Hallmasters of the Ninestar Sainthall.

These individuals didn't hesitate to spread this information for guaranteed profit. Fortunately, their price was remarkably low for an alchemist of his caliber. Due to needing to fund this, he was left with no choice but to concoct sixth-grade products. Fortunately, without his eyes, or even his spiritual sense, he could concoct these products with remarkable ease using merely his memory of previous concoctions. This alleviated the worries about his Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity situation and reinforced his self-confidence as an Alchemist.

This, however, was only the beginning. His network was merely at the lowest level of the Ninestar Sainthall, limited to the Soul Rising Domain. He needed to begin recruiting others not captured, lured by benefits, cowed with power, and loyal to profit. And then, he would branch out with time.

"Good work," Wei Wuyin complimented Shao Yi, who responded with a faint blush but kept an upright and stable stance. While Wei Wuyin was effectively blind through his eyes, she acted formally and properly towards her Captain.

"How's the cultivation of the crew coming along?" Wei Wuyin shifted topics. Shao Yi's eyes brightened as she proceeded to excitedly relay the heavy changes on the Vanishing Colossus. In just the eight months since Wei Wuyin had taken over, thirty-two thousand Astral Core Realm cultivators had been born. The easy to refine and premium alchemical products of the sixth-grade had brought about this change.

Moreover, three new Spatial Resonance cultivators had risen. Two of which were at the seventh-ripple while the last had reached the eighth-ripple, shocking everyone on board as they held brief celebrations to commemorate their advancement. After all, the average spatial resonance of rogue cultivators like them was roughly fifth-ripple. In the declining Everlore Starfield, reaching sixth-ripple was the utmost limit even with the full support of an Emperor Alchemist and a Hegemonic Force's resources, so this was absolutely incredible.

Wei Wuyin listened to every detail, including the names of the crew and their advancements, nodding from time to time with a contemplative frown. Cultivation was difficult, so this growth was astonishing in a short period of time, especially with such a division of resources and lacking of a personally curated cultivation path.

After listening to all of it, Wei Wuyin dismissed Shao Yi while instructing her to pick a seventh-grade product within the vaulted storage and refine it. This was a benefit to a job well-done. She was jubilant as she thanked Wei Wuyin and departed, but as she left, a hint of disappointment emerged in her eyes as she looked back at the closed door.

It seemed Wei Wuyin had no interest in her…

Wei Wuyin wasn't ignorant of Shao Yi's thoughts, but his mind was focused on more pressing issues. After a series of calculations, Wei Wuyin sighed. He hadn't realized how absurdly difficult it was to restore Primary Soul Light. He never came across a product that could do such a thing, so he had to refine light energies and have them properly refined through his Astral Souls. This was a tedious process and required enormous time.

The Legion Commander had used his essential soul power, so he'd need several times more Soul Light than originally needed to refine the Nexus War Flag to 1%. The essential soul power was at a complete state when he obtained the War Talisman, therefore there was no need to invest any Soul Light within it. But after it was used, it needed to be brought to a complete state, or the Legion Commander couldn't be brought out.

This refinement process was already going to take a long time, but with this setback, the process will take an even longer time. This process would be inconsequential if he acquired a pill recipe that could rapidly restore Primary Light Source, but he didn't.

"Seems like I absolutely must visit an alchemy organization soon," Wei Wuyin remarked wistfully. The other alternative was using his connections with the Golden Life Pavilion, but Wu Yu had already informed him that many concoction methods were guarded intellectual properties of certain Alchemist Associations. This was a wildly different practice than the Alchemist Association's freedom of information exchange in the Everlore Starfield. No individual force kept their concoction methods to themselves there, and even the King of Everlore's legacy was spread freely.

In the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, the King of Everlore's legacy, alchemical methods, and various product recipes was kept in the Everlore Association, such as the Seven World Wonders of Everlore. The only exceptions might be the Sky Zenith Saint Alchemist who was rumored to be the King of Everlore's disciple. However, some of his product recipes during his up-and-coming phase were publicly available. Unfortunately, this didn't include the secrets of the Alchemic Stars of Mortal Spirituality.

Wei Wuyin soon calculated through his plans once again and settled on his path.

Several hours later, Wei Wuyin and Bai Lin were flying to the edge of the Ninestar Starfield on a new white-colored, small-sized Voidship with grey stripes that Shao Yi had purchased on his command. It was focused on flight speed, being faster than the average Starlord.

When they reached the edge of the starfield, they exited the boundary and a Void Portal manifested itself before them. They zipped into it with remarkable quickness and it closed just as swiftly.

Shortly after their departure, a lithe and proud figure shimmered into existence at the edge of the Ninestar Starfield in a glow of silver light. It was none other than the veiled woman who observed the clash between Trueborn and the Legion Commander!

"...." She was silent for a long moment, and then she muttered a series of unintelligible words as she gently touched the crescent moon necklace around her neck.