This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

Years of repeating the same action caused Tianyi to put everything on autopilot. This was his strongest conduit, yes, but most of his attention was elsewhere. The fact that he had many avatars was still unknown to the public. It was in his best interest to keep it that way.

Since Tianyi couldn’t show up elsewhere in another of his conduits, he simply appeared in his Nine Heavens Universe. Anyway, it wasn’t like anyone could detect him in his inner universe if he so wished.

Inside the Nine Heavens Universe, Tianyi had sectioned off a distant solar system and threw the Void Whale in there. There was no life in the solar system, but the Void Whale could survive through the energy of the sun. Thanks to this, he could survive in the void, unlike most other demons. Because of this, although the Void Whale panicked at first, it didn’t worry too much. He could survive, but the demons inside of him couldn’t.

The Void Whale couldn’t let the demons remain inside of it forever. So after several years inside its belly and making sure there was no danger, it found the planet with the highest qi density and let them out. The spiritual qi density only equaled the weakest low-rank realm, but the demon lords and demon kings couldn’t object because the other planets within the solar system only had a fraction, equaling unranked realms.

Although the conversion rate from spiritual qi to demon qi took a long time, they didn’t have to worry about dying because of the lack of qi. However, that didn’t mean they were willing to stay put. Once they secured their safety, many of them tried to discover how and where they were teleported.

Many of the demons explored the void, but had to return because they couldn’t find any suitable planets with spiritual qi. If they continued, they would become stranded without enough qi to return. Then they would die, becoming a cold corpse in the void. Even the Void Whale was not an exception. Although it could travel farther, once it went too far, the sun’s ray could not reach it.

The longer the demons stayed, the more worried yet calm they became. It was as if they teleported to a new world free of the war, or even other life. Still, the demons knew in their hearts that it was an illusion. If they did nothing, they could only become fish on the chopping block when the humans finally decided to deal with them.

Unfortunately, they were trapped with no way to communicate with the Demon Clan. The only method they could use to break out of their predicament was to grow stronger. This meant comprehending the worldly laws, but it was as if this world didn’t have any laws, and the demons couldn’t sense it no matter how hard they tried. Were it not for the laws they already mastered, they might have begun to suspect that the myriad laws were a lie.

“Dammit, where is this? Even in the Vast Void, I can at least sense a hint of the laws and the Law of Space, but I can’t sense anything here,” a demon lord said. His voice was full of despair, having almost lost all hope.

“The solar star is in a strange shape, and the realm is shaped like a sphere. It reminds me of the description of the Primordial World, but on a far smaller scale,” one demon king commented. He was laying down with his chin on the ground. He opened one eye and glanced at the giant whale in the sky. “Do you think the humans have a method to teleport us outside the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System?”

The Void Whale, Demon King Cetitus, frowned. The Void Whale had lived over two hundred thousand years, so it had far more experience than most demon kings or even demon emperors. In fact, his willpower was starting to decline. Otherwise, Demon Emperor Jiaolang would not have sent him out so easily.

“I’ve been to the space outside the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System before,” Demon King Cetitus began. His old eyes grew cloudy as he sank into his memories. “I had just entered the Demon King Realm and was full of confidence. When I first heard of the space outside the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System, I was not scared, but curious. As a Void Whale, why would I fear the void?”

“On one of the patrols in the Three Thousand Immortal Realm System, I left the boundary without telling anyone.” A moment later, an indescribable emotion filled the Void Whale’s eyes. Fear made up a small portion, loneliness another, and much, much more.

“I have never felt so insignificant,” said Demon King Cetitus. “As a Void Whale, my innate ability allows me to teleport even in the Vast Void, but I couldn’t do so in the nothingness outside the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. I couldn’t feel the connection to the Law of Space at all. Many demons say that the Vast Void is barren, but they have never known true desolation. It was complete darkness..”

“I only caught a glimpse because the next moment, I re-entered the Three Thousand Immortal Realm System. I only stayed for a second, but the moment I exited, I felt a devouring force sucking away all my qi, blood, and flesh. When I entered the safety of the Vast Void, I discovered I lost over thirty percent of my qi.” Fear transformed into the dominant emotion. “Nothing exists in the darkness. Not even the Law of Space.”

“So I call the darkness outside the True Nothingness.”

An oppressive silence filled the atmosphere. It only disappeared when Demon King Cetitus broke out of his memory. His gaze lingered on the rest of the demons. “Although you can’t sense the laws, it just means that it’s hidden. Compared to the True Nothingness, it’s like heaven and earth. In my opinion, this is a special prison realm controlled by the humans to trap demons like us.”

“Then what can we do?” a demon king asked.

“Just do your best,” the Void Whale said.

Unknown to the group of demons, Tianyi held his chin as he digested the words of Demon King Cetitus. ‘True Nothingness. Speaking of which, I haven’t visited myself either. Are the other pantheons living in different systems in the True Nothingness?’

Tianyi shook his head. Once the Immortal Court united the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System, he might send a conduit into the True Nothingness and explore, but definitely not now. Instead, he worked on expanding the population of Void Whales.

He could already imagine his legion of mobile fortress. Equip each Void Whale with a palace artifact and set them ablaze. It would be the cultivation world’s version of advanced warships.

Of course, Tianyi didn’t do something as vulgar as forcing the demons to procreate to achieve his goals. It would hurt his dignity. Besides, he only wanted Void Whales, and there was only one Void Whale present. So, he had to find another method.

Tianyi pointed a finger at the Void Whale. Before any of the demons could react, a light pierced the Void Whale. It didn’t kill him, but plenty of blood essence flowed out of the wound. He collected the blood essence and left.

Although the Void Whale wasn’t critically injured, the extraction of blood essence dramatically weakened his aura. The other demons entered a high alert state, thinking that the humans were finally going to deal with them after years of inaction.

While the demons entered a frizzled state, Tianyi entered Fourth Heaven.

He found a few monsters with similar bloodlines to the Void Whale and injected a drop of the Void Whale’s blood essence into many monsters. If they bore live children, he would teleport the blood essence into the still-developing embryo. If it was an egg, he would teleport it into the egg right after it was expelled.

To increase the success rate of mutation, Tianyi also injected soul essence into the embryos and eggs.

Because the war took place in the Divine Beast Pseudo-System, the Heavenly Dao was not strong. As a result, the world did not immediately absorb the souls of the dead immortals and demons. Thanks to this fact, the Immortal Court, Numinous Sword Sect, and Demon Clan used this chance to collect soul essence without incurring Karmic Sin.

Perhaps out of all the participants, none collected more than Tianyi thanks to his Nine Heaven Style spells and his control over spacetime.

Even with the injection of the soul essence, most of the embryo or eggs died. The backlash caused some of the mothers to perish as well. Less than one percent survived. For the one percent that did, it didn’t mean everything was well, as the mutation could go out of control. Had it not been for the colossal tree showering them with vitality, all of them would have long died.

While Tianyi paid attention to the growing eggs and fetuses, his thoughts drifted toward a dream he once had. He had always wanted to have a dragon as a mount, but because of scarcity, he had never succeeded. Even if he transformed his clone into a true dragon, it would be too wasteful to use his clone as a mount.

Not to mention the dissatisfaction of his clone. As a being born from his split soul, his clone would invariably inherit some of his traits.

Tianyi rubbed his chin. ‘Should I tell Longzi to grab some dragon eggs when he has a chance? After all, my conduit is on him.’

Unlike Tianyi’s method of mutating monsters with Void Whale blood, true dragons would be installed with knowledge immediately after hatching. This included their race’s history, which meant that they would become hostile to Tianyi. Of course, Tianyi could subvert this hostility with time and effort, but he didn’t know how successful he would be.

The best-case scenarios would be if the true dragons continued to procreate in the Nine Heavens Universe for a long time. Eventually, they would forget their hatred of humanity and not include this enmity in the inherited knowledge.

The greatest downside would be that it would take a long time, and by then, he would likely lose interest.

Tianyi rubbed his chin. “Maybe I should just catch a monster with dragon blood and purify its bloodline. Even if it becomes a true dragon, it won’t harbor much hostility toward me. In fact, it might even be grateful. Plus, I have my clone’s blood, which can also alter its bloodline. Right, let’s just do that.”

Although Tianyi decided to implement Plan B, he didn’t give up on Plan A. Raising a brood of true dragons in his Nine Heavens Universe would only have benefits, no demerits. Probably.

He told Donghai Longzi to keep an eye out for monsters with high concentrations of dragon blood in their body. After that, Tianyi continued to wait for the monster eggs or fetus to be born. However, he didn’t have time to watch them hatch or be born—not that most of them weren’t stillborn—because the Divine Beast-Human War entered a new state of intensity.

Ye Chen saw that more than two thousand true immortals appeared in the high-rank realm, and couldn’t help but be amazed. Even in the Numinous Sword Sect, most true immortals were in secluded cultivation and hardly showed themselves. So, it was incredibly rare for so many immortals to gather in one place.

His eyes drifted toward the newly constructed palace. Not to mention the large number of emperors present.

Originally, he worried that the Immortal Court or Numinous Sword Sect would overstretch themselves, allowing the Demon Clan to retaliate fiercely and deal a heavy blow. But he heard the situation on the front lines and gained more confidence in this aggressive assault.

Ye Chen’s eyes radiated a bloody light. This time, he must succeed and grab the blood essence of a dragon with a powerful bloodline!