Prey

“The human Sector Lord team has departed!” the undying scaled creature, Fuviesa, exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh?”

The man, whose entire body was covered in silver skin, stood only two meters tall, possessed a human physique, and a snake-like head, looked over from his alloy chair. Beside him were two more alloy chairs, occupied by a man with a human body and a scaled dinosaur-like head, and a woman with a human body and a rat-like head.

“Yes, Your Highness Meng Weina,” Fuviesa replied respectfully.

“They’ve just departed. It should take their spaceship a day to fly out of human territory, right?” said another slightly taller undying scaled creature, Lei Keya, from beside him. “No rush, it’s still early.”

Fuviesa immediately retorted, “If we depart now and fly to intercept them, it will still take us over two days to encounter them. Leaving now is not early at all.”

“Alright, let’s depart then.”

The man with the human body and snake head stood up. The man with the human body and dragon head, and the woman with the human body and rat head, also rose simultaneously.

At first glance, these three seemed entirely forged from alloy, somewhat resembling the ‘Flowing Silver Guards’ Luo Feng used back then, not at all like real living beings.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Five figures flew out one after another along the deep passage. When they reached space, the leading man with the human body and snake head waved his hand, and a biological spaceship, approximately a hundred meters in diameter, appeared in the starry sky. A hatch automatically opened on the ship.

“I truly envy you,” the man with the human body and snake head looked down at the two Qiusi clan undyings, Fuviesa and Lei Keya, and sighed softly. “Although your bodies are tiny, you can easily board spaceships. For us demon race members... especially the powerful ones among us, it’s very difficult to board a spaceship in our true forms. Like me, just to accommodate my body, I would need a starship...”

“Indeed.” The man with the human body and dragon head, standing beside him, also nodded. “It’s the same for my true form; it doesn’t just require a starship-sized vessel. The hatch also needs to be extra large, otherwise, my body would get stuck and I wouldn’t be able to get out.”

“Every advantage has its disadvantage,” the woman with the human body and rat head remarked.

The two Qiusi clan undyings couldn’t help but curse inwardly upon hearing this. Fuviesa was particularly envious: “Born with such advantages, and so powerful, yet their only inconvenience is boarding a spaceship. I wish I was born with such a powerful body. What’s wrong with a massive true form... can’t they just use a puppet body to travel by spaceship?”

Indeed, the human-bodied, snake-headed; human-bodied, dragon-headed; and human-bodied, rat-headed figures were puppet bodies, somewhat akin to mechanical puppets.

The true forms of the three demon race undying gods were too massive to board spaceships, so they could only hide within ‘world rings’.

They had their puppet bodies carry the world rings aboard the spaceship. Should danger arise, they could emerge from the world rings at any moment. As for these ‘puppet bodies’, they were a very popular type of consciousness-controlled puppet among the demon race, forged from alloy and containing consciousness receivers.

By splitting off a wisp of consciousness into the puppet body, one could control it.

The world rings where their true forms were hidden had long been refined, allowing them to emerge at any time. Moreover, these were very weak world rings, containing relatively small inner worlds... even if they encountered a special predicament, their true forms’ power could completely blast apart the entire inner world before they emerged.

In short—

Hiding their true forms in ‘world rings’ and having puppet bodies carry them was quite safe. This was a very popular method for the demon race to travel by spaceship when venturing through the cosmos, effectively avoiding many dangers.

Of course, this method was only affordable for powerful demon race members, as world rings were very expensive.

“I truly envy the demon race for their formidable bodies. Our bodies are so small, even our undying divine bodies are weak,” Fuviesa lamented inwardly.

“If only we had a divine body as formidable as the Ziqian Myriad Snake...” Lei Keya also envied.

The larger the body, the more advantageous it was once one became an undying god!

Because at the moment of transitioning from a Sector Lord to an ‘undying god’, by drawing upon the cosmic origin and the sea of laws, an endless supply of energy would instantly convert the Sector Lord’s body directly into an ‘undying divine body’. This opportunity to freely obtain such terrifying energy for conversion into an undying divine body occurred only once.

Some life forms, only one or two meters tall, absorbed how much energy when converting to an undying divine body?

Others, with bodies extending one or two kilometers, naturally required an astonishing amount more energy to absorb for their undying divine body conversion.

For example, Starry Sky Behemoths, with bodies thousands of kilometers long, absorbed an incredible amount of energy! Perhaps their pure attack power was only 10 times stronger, but the ‘undying divine power’ reserves within their undying bodies were immeasurably greater.

...

The undying team led by His Highness Meng Weina of the demon race, aboard their biological spaceship, rapidly flew to intercept the human Sector Lord squad.

Time flowed on.

In the blink of an eye, two days had passed.

In the control room of the biological spaceship, the three demon race puppet bodies sat in alloy chairs.

“Your Highness Meng Weina, it is estimated that the two ships will meet in three minutes,” Fuviesa respectfully said in the common language of the demon race. “The human Sector Lord team’s detection equipment is quite low-end, not even comparable to what I use, let alone yours, Your Highness. They will definitely not detect us in advance.”

His Highness Meng Weina, with the human body and snake head, nodded and chuckled, “Excellent. By the time these humans discover us, it will be too late for them to escape.”

“Longtu,” Meng Weina looked at his two subordinates beside him. “Soon, you two and the two Qiusi clan members will quickly split up and surround the humans. No matter what, do not let a single human escape.”

“Understood.”

The man with the human body and dragon head, and the woman with the human body and rat head, both responded. They followed Meng Weina only because his strength surpassed theirs, but they didn’t need to be overly respectful. After all, they were also members of the demon race, and in terms of lineage... Longtu was in no way inferior to Meng Weina.

“Contact imminent: 60 seconds, 59 seconds, 58 seconds, 57 seconds, 56 seconds...” Fuviesa suddenly announced.

“Fuviesa, Lei Keya, the task of destroying their spaceship is yours,” Meng Weina ordered.

“Yes.”

Fuviesa and Lei Keya respectfully responded.

“Humans...” Excitement gleamed in the eyes of Meng Weina’s puppet body.

...

Just over ten million kilometers from the biological spaceship was a C9-class cosmic vessel.

Inside the vessel’s lounge cabin.

A group of people were laughing and chatting, but Luo Feng sat on a corner sofa. “Three demon race puppet bodies? Two Qiusi clan undying gods?” Luo Feng’s detection equipment had already discovered that biological spaceship when it appeared within a billion-kilometer range. In terms of cost, Luo Feng’s detection equipment... was immeasurably more advanced and expensive than what His Highness Meng Weina used.

“It seems they’re heading directly this way, targeting our team.”

“The undying god who escaped last time dares to come again. It seems he’s confident now, having invited powerful helpers.” Luo Feng’s eyes narrowed. “Three demon race puppet bodies. Ah, the demon race, the puppet bodies they use... are usually human bodies with demon heads. Hmph, they dream of suppressing humanity.”

“Judging by the respectful demeanor of those two Qiusi clan undying gods, those three demon race members must all be undyings.”

“Five undying gods!”

“No wonder they’re so confident,” Luo Feng mused. “Captain Taiwo and Poison alone definitely won’t be able to handle this.”

“I’ll need to make a move. I’ve never killed an undying god in the Outer Territory Battlefield before. The Qiusi clan undying god Poison killed last time was an ordinary Beginner Tier undying god. Because I helped, I received a 10 million military merit reward, and Poison received 90 million, totaling 100 million military merit.” Luo Feng thought to himself, “Stronger undying gods probably yield more military merit.”

Luo Feng already knew that killing an alien Sector Lord alone yielded a minimum of 100,000 military merit and a maximum of 10 million.

Killing an undying alone yielded a minimum of 100 million, and a maximum of 10 quadrillion (for killing a peak King-level undying).

The talk of 10 quadrillion military merit had long spread throughout the military base: one could earn such an astonishing amount by killing a powerful peak King-level undying god. But a peak King-level undying! That would at least be on the level of ‘Illusory Spirit King’, ‘Bloodthirsty King’, or ‘Blood Demon King’, and powerful gods were notoriously difficult to kill.

To kill a Marquis-level undying, one generally needed King-level undying strength.

To kill a peak King-level undying?

Difficult, difficult, difficult.

Defeating was easy, sealing was hard, and killing was the hardest.

Luo Feng’s 10 trillion military merit quota... would probably take a very long time to complete. However, the military’s required ‘1 billion military merit’ was quite easy.

“Five undying gods, I wonder if they’ll be enough to reach 1 billion military merit,” Luo Feng mused. “I hope they aren’t all just 100 million military merit fodder.”

“Alert, under—”

A piercing alarm suddenly blared through the spaceship.

“What?”

The previously relaxed team members all suddenly stood up, Combat Armor appearing on each of their bodies, and weapons materializing in their hands.

“Boom!” A powerful impact immediately struck the cosmic vessel. Luo Feng and the others inside the cabin felt a violent jolt, and then the lounge cabin itself was sent tumbling and flying wildly. As for the C9-class cosmic vessel’s hull, it was as fragile as tofu under the assault, already completely shattered.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

All four hatches of the cabin opened simultaneously. The elite Sector Lord squad members quickly rushed out in pairs. The undying god, Taiwo, casually collected the lounge cabin.

...

In space.

Taiwo and ten other humans stood in space, looking at the two undying scaled creatures in the distance.

“You actually dare to come back,” Poison snarled, glaring intently at Fuviesa in the distance.

“Of course I dare to come,” Fuviesa of the Qiusi clan said with a sneer in harsh human common cosmic language. “Detestable humans, you made me destroy 10% of my soul. This time, you are all dead.”

Boom! Boom!

Suddenly, incredibly powerful auras erupted from two other directions in the distance. This caused Taiwo, Poison, and the other humans, who had initially been confident, to change their expressions drastically. They all turned to look, only to see... two colossal beings appear in two different directions in the distant starry sky. One was an undying reptilian creature with a single-horned dragon head covered in scales, while the other was entirely covered in sharp, spear-like spikes, with a membrane fluttering around its neck. Its head, however, was a seemingly cute rat head, and its round, beady eyes appeared adorable, yet the killing intent within them sent shivers down one’s spine.

“Demon race!”

“Demon race undyings.”

“Four undying gods.” Taiwo, Poison, Wild Dance, Wei, Hammer, Cyclone, Enchantress, God, and Rock all turned pale and looked distressed. Luo Feng, however, glanced at the human-bodied, snake-headed demon race puppet in the distant starry sky.