Chapter 398: Grox Empire and Cosmic Treasure

After coming to an understanding with the Green Tide Lord, Qi Suian began to study the alien lifeform.

"Easy there!" the Green Tide Lord snapped.

Qi Suian's methods were far too crude. So destructive, in fact, that it wondered how he ever kept his test subjects alive.

"It's just a dissection. A little rough handling won't matter," Qi Suian said nonchalantly. "Besides, you're not going to die, so what's the harm in tossing you around a bit?"

"I've already spared your life. What's a little pain in comparison?"

"Is it worse than the beating I gave you?"

The creature managed a single sentence before Qi Suian fired back with a rapid-fire barrage of retorts.

The Green Tide Lord was at a loss for words, mainly because Qi Suian had a point.

Qi Suian had truly been trying to beat it to death. If it had been even a fraction slower, it would have been killed for real.

"Right, how exactly do you summon the Grox Empire?" Qi Suian asked offhandedly.

"What are you planning?" the Green Tide Lord asked warily. It suspected Qi Suian wanted to sever its signal.

"I just think that move of yours is pretty impressive, a real 'taking you down with me' kind of thing. I'd like to keep it as a trump card for myself," Qi Suian lied, his expression unchanging.

The real reason, of course, was to keep the timing under his own control.

"Surely you don't think the Grox Empire can be used as your personal weapon?" the Green Tide Lord scoffed.

In its eyes, Qi Suian was planning to use the Grox Empire as a last resort, a final means to kill an enemy when cornered.

If it were that easy, everyone would be leading the Grox Empire around by the nose.

"Only species suspected of possessing the Cosmic Treasure, the Staff of Life, are on the Grox Empire's blacklist."

"Therefore, only a signal broadcast on my genetic frequency can attract the Grox Empire's attention."

"It's not as if just anyone can broadcast 'I have a Cosmic Treasure' into space and expect the Grox Empire's fleet to show up."

The Green Tide Lord said with a sneer.

As for the species and planets on the blacklist? Nine out of ten were wiped out. The remaining one, much like the Green Tide Lord's own kind, was typically reduced to a single survivor clinging to life.

If the remaining population ever reached double digits, the Grox Empire's hunt would resume. It only stopped when they were all dead, or when so few remained that the chase was no longer worth the effort.

The Green Tide Lord, of course, fell into the latter category.

'I see. So you have that kind of use,' Qi Suian thought. 'Good thing I didn't make a move on my own.'

Sending a signal into space wasn't the hard part; making sure it got a response was.

He'd had similar concerns before. After all, why would a massive interstellar civilization rush over at a moment's notice for some native on an Exhausted Planet?

"That reminds me, what does the Staff of Life actually do?" Qi Suian asked, curious.

"I don't know either," the Green Tide Lord said with a bitter smile. "Before my species and homeworld were wiped out, our entire civilization had never even heard of any Cosmic Treasure, much less a Staff of Life."

That kind of information was simply beyond the reach of a civilization at its homeworld's level of development.

Only the upper echelons of the very top interstellar civilizations were privy to such matters.

So their annihilation was, in a sense, a catastrophe that had struck from out of the blue.

'I see. Interesting.' Qi Suian immediately spotted the hole in the creature's story.

The Green Tide Lord claimed that only those on the blacklist could attract the Grox Empire's fleet.

But it also said only the leaders of top-tier civilizations knew about the Cosmic Treasure.

That meant knowledge of it was rare and, therefore, highly exclusive.

Therefore, any signal mentioning it would absolutely draw the Grox Empire's attention.

If for no other reason than the fact that an ordinary person shouldn't know about it. The very fact that you do implies you have a lead.

The Grox Empire had chosen to annihilate the Green Tide Lord's homeworld and civilization over a mere, unfounded possibility.

Qi Suian wouldn't need to transmit a direct message about the Cosmic Treasure. He could simply send an indirect, encrypted one and let them decipher it themselves.

A sudden sense of dread washed over the Green Tide Lord. It realized it had misspoken, that it had contradicted itself.

But Qi Suian didn't react, which left it uncertain.

"Isn't it almost time?" the Green Tide Lord said suddenly.

Qi Suian checked. The twenty-four-hour mark was indeed approaching, with about ten minutes left.

"Almost. Ten minutes to go," Qi Suian said, while covertly asking his AI, 'What's the project status? Are we ready to wrap up?'

The real timeline depended on the array, not the Green Tide Lord's supposed twenty-four-hour deadline.

[Construction completed seven minutes ago. Survivors' evacuation arrangements are finalized.]

[Array is now activating. Estimated time to full power: five minutes.]

The AI responded to Qi Suian instantly.

Once completed, the array would activate automatically; it required no manual input from Qi Suian.

'Good. Prepare yourself and remind me at the four-minute, fifty-five-second mark,' Qi Suian tasked the AI.

Nailing the timing was what mattered.

"Tell me, what would you do if I went back on my word in five minutes?" Qi Suian asked in a teasing tone.

The Green Tide Lord took him seriously and broke into a smile. "We die together."

"It was just a joke. You actually took it seriously."

"I have such a bright future ahead of me; there's no need to throw it away on your account," Qi Suian said. With a flick of his wrist, he activated a projector. "See? The breakthrough ceremony has already started."

The projection showed the array activating, vast amounts of cosmic energy being forcibly constricted within it.

"An energy reaction of this magnitude… How did you do this?" the Green Tide Lord asked, its face a mask of horror.

It couldn't comprehend how such a small device could contain such immense power.

Moreover, the energy was still intensifying. If it lost control, the entire planet—no, the entire star system would be engulfed by the blast.

If its homeworld had encountered this kind of power back then… forget it, even the Grox Empire fleet that had come to destroy its planet would have been wiped out.

"Who in the world are you? This can't be a Cosmic Treasure, can it?" The Green Tide Lord's expression shifted drastically. "An energy signature this massive will definitely attract the Grox Empire's attention."

"You're dead. And you're taking me with you."

Qi Suian heard this but was completely unfazed.

"Nice theory," Qi Suian said leisurely, "but haven't you noticed? The very process of containing this energy also serves to shield and conceal it."

According to the Green Tide Lord, the Grox Empire should have been on its way the moment they detected the energy. The fact that they weren't here meant they hadn't detected anything.

"You really do possess a Cosmic Treasure!" the Green Tide Lord exclaimed, staring intently at Qi Suian.

To be honest, it never imagined it would encounter a Cosmic Treasure on such a tiny, backwater planet.

"Of course not. What Cosmic Treasure?" Qi Suian didn't even know what a Cosmic Treasure actually was, so how could he possibly have one?

"Besides, this thing isn't even mine," Qi Suian said, glancing at the array formation. The entire planet had been completely consumed by it.

Yet, thanks to the array's power, not a single iota of energy had leaked out, turning the entire planet into one massive power source.

"I may have only been 'born' a short time ago, but I'm not an idiot," the Green Tide Lord retorted, completely unconvinced.

Even its own civilization at its zenith wouldn't have been capable of such a feat.

The seconds ticked by. The AI reminded Qi Suian that the four-minute and fifty-second mark had arrived.

He then began to speak. "Time to send you on your way, you…"

Before Qi Suian could finish, the Green Tide Lord made its move, instantly firing off the signal.

Only to be met by the sight of a beaming Qi Suian.

In that instant, it knew it had been played.

The man had wanted it to summon the Grox Empire all along. That, combined with the fact that the entire planet was now a high-energy bomb…

...made it realize that perhaps Qi Suian's true target had never been it in the first place.

Qi Suian didn't give it any more time to think. The figure of Fei materialized and, in the blink of an eye, swallowed the Green Tide Lord whole.

The fibrous tissues broke down the Green Tide Lord, killing it instantly, and delivered the remains to the Melting Furnace as fuel.

"Just as you'd expect from the female lead. Su Huayun's tastes sure are... unique. Getting it on with an alien Cyanobacteria."

"Then again, when something looks that good, whether or not it's human doesn't really matter."

Qi Suian's gaze fell on the protagonist's halo. It had reached Reinforcement +11.

[Reinforcement +11: Regenerative Self-Healing]

"The effect is pretty mediocre," Qi Suian remarked, unimpressed by the Reinforcement +11 ability.

On closer inspection, however, it wasn't so bad.

It seemed to be a rule-based effect. Qi Suian's own regenerative self-healing would no longer consume his own power; instead, it would devour ambient energy from the environment.

And when combined with his SSS-rank talent, Human World Tai Sui God, it seemed he could devour anything and convert it into a corresponding resource.

'Have I really become a devourer?'

'On its own, it's useless. But it inherited the Green Tide Lord's energy-devouring property. Combined with my talent, it creates a higher-level consumption effect.'

'Like devouring a world?' Qi Suian couldn't help but laugh at the thought. It was a nice idea, but with his current power, he couldn't even devour a single planet, let alone an entire world.

Ten seconds passed in a flash, and the array activated.

The Ghost World rapidly connected to this universe.

But that wasn't the main event. The main event was the massive spatial distortion Qi Suian witnessed in the space beyond the Exhausted Planet.

This wasn't caused by the descent of the Ghost World's will.

Rather, it was the interstellar civilization the Green Tide Lord called the Grox Empire opening a spatial rift.

Qi Suian saw a seemingly endless fleet pour out, followed by a dense formation of cosmic fortresses bringing up the rear.

"A World Will versus an Interstellar Empire..." Qi Suian murmured.

As for the Doomsday Game? It wasn't even in the same league.

Given its current state, it probably couldn't even stand up to the Grox Empire.

Let alone intervene in the coming conflict.

The light from the Exhausted Planet tore a massive rift in the fabric of the universe, and at the same moment, a terrifying will descended.

A figure landed in front of Qi Suian.

"I will first eliminate the World Will of this universe. As for giving the Doomsday Game a good thrashing, I will help you with that later." After speaking, the figure dissipated before Qi Suian's very eyes.