Chapter 1708: The Tainted Race Reinforcements

In the vast starry void, there are countless races of all shapes and sizes, numbering at least eight thousand, if not ten thousand, including those with no or low intelligence.

Among these myriad races, two are particularly infamous: the Insect Race and the Blood Race!

The reason is simple: the Insect Race prefers to invade realms, devouring their resources and foundations to develop themselves. Wherever the Insect Race passes, life is essentially extinguished.

The Blood Race is no better. Any realm they target usually sees its inhabitants turned into their blood slaves, their lives completely at the Blood Race's mercy.

Consequently, both the Insect Race and the Blood Race face an unfavorable situation in the starry void; they are essentially pariahs, universally reviled.

The Blood Race can at least disguise themselves as humans, which makes their situation somewhat better. The Insect Race, however, cannot; even if they take on human form, their insectoid characteristics remain extremely obvious and are easy to distinguish.

Beyond these two major races, there is actually another race despised and scorned by all others.

That is the Blight Race!

However, unlike the widely known Insect and Blood Races, the Blight Race is not common knowledge because they rarely appear. Yet, when they do, they bring devastating disaster.

Take Yuluo, for example; they still haven't figured out what kind of enemy is attacking them.

The root of all this lies in the Blight Race's stealth.

The Blood Race possesses five major top-tier realms, formed from parts of the Blood Ancestor's body. Although the locations of these five realms are not fixed, they are generally traceable.

The Insect Race is similar; their top-tier Hives are mostly under the surveillance of powerful entities in the starry void, making it difficult for them to move freely. If not for the significant number of powerful individuals within both the Blood Race and the Insect Race, and the difficulty for other cosmic powers to reach a consensus, these races would likely have been jointly exterminated long ago.

Yet, no one in this world knows where the Blight Race's true foundation lies.

They often suddenly appear through wormholes, and after destroying a star system, they vanish without a trace, leaving behind only devastation and brutality.

Legend has it that the Blight Race's foundation is called the Blighted Land, an immense and peerless realm, and one of the top-tier realms in the starry void. However, that is merely a rumor; no one has ever been able to confirm it.

Lu Ye and Ma Shangsi's quiet conversation did not escape the attention of Yuluo's several Moon Reaches. Han Dong couldn't help but turn his head and ask, "Junior Brother Lu, you're widely experienced; do you know something?"

What Yuluo first needs to understand is exactly what race the invading enemy belongs to and what their intentions are. Only then can they formulate an appropriate counter-strategy. If they lack even this most basic intelligence, they are bound to suffer heavy losses in any confrontation.

Lu Ye replied, "I'm not entirely sure, but Ma Shangsi told me that the forces coming through the wormhole are likely the Blight Race."

"The Blight Race?" Yuluo's Moon Reaches, even Wu Zhuo, looked bewildered, clearly having never heard of them.

Lu Ye turned to Ma Shangsi and said, "Tell us more about it."

Ma Shangsi then proceeded to share what he knew about the Blight Race. Han Dong had thought Lu Ye, having spent years in the Myriad Manifestation Sea, was widely experienced, but among the Moon Reaches present, it was Ma Shangsi who was truly the most knowledgeable.

This individual was the strongest and had lived the longest, having once disguised himself as a human and spent an unknown number of years in the Myriad Manifestation Sea. In terms of knowledge, he far surpassed Lu Ye.

After hearing all about the Blight Race, Qiu Wu's expression grew serious. "Fellow Daoist Ma, how can you be sure that the attackers this time are the Blight Race?"

Ma Shangsi replied, "It's simple. Their method of invasion is basically the same as what I've heard: they utilize a frigid domain wormhole. It's said that the Blight Race possesses a cosmic treasure called the Heavenly Frost Mirror. With this artifact, they can randomly project Heavenly Frost Aura to a location in the starry void, which must be the frigid domain you observed earlier in your realm. This Heavenly Frost Aura poses no significant harm and can even be beneficial for the cultivation of certain cultivators. However, its other, most crucial function is to freeze space, then shatter it, artificially creating a traversable wormhole!"

"A cosmic treasure!"

"The Heavenly Frost Mirror!"

Several of Yuluo's Moon Reaches looked astonished.

Even though they came from a remote area, they had still heard of cosmic treasures. These were artifacts born when the starry void itself was formed, and their number was limited throughout the entire cosmos.

Lu Ye, however, focused on a different point. Although he didn't possess a cosmic treasure, he had encountered a few, so his reaction wasn't as extreme as Yuluo's Moon Reaches. "Random? So, the Blight Race also can't determine the exact location where the Heavenly Frost Aura will be projected?"

"That's what's said," Ma Shangsi nodded.

"Damn it!" Wu Zhuo couldn't help but curse. "Why are we so unlucky?"

Yuluo's other Moon Reaches also felt incredibly unlucky.

The starry void is so vast; why did that Heavenly Frost Aura appear in the Yuluo star system?

Yuluo is remote. They had just managed to produce a Lu Yiye, who opened a path to the Myriad Manifestation Sea, and good days seemed to be on the horizon. Yet, this is what happened.

Qiu Wu's expression was grave. "As Fellow Daoist Ma said, isn't the Blight Race incredibly powerful? There must be quite a few Sun Reaches among them, right?"

Ma Shangsi nodded. "The Blight Race naturally has many powerful individuals, and there are certainly Sun Reaches among them, and not a small number. However, Realm Lord, you needn't worry about Sun Reaches attacking, because as far as I know, the wormhole opened by the Heavenly Frost Mirror differs from a true wormhole. It has a certain capacity limit, so Sun Reaches cannot directly pass through it to attack."

Han Dong pondered, "So the wormhole is like a water pipe, and Sun Reaches are too large to fit through? If they force their way, they might even burst the pipe?"

"Roughly so," Ma Shangsi nodded.

Everyone let out a long breath, feeling a little relieved. Given Yuluo's current strength, if a Sun Reach truly came to attack, there would be no point in resisting; they might as well just offer their necks.

Even so, the situation remained grim. While Sun Reaches couldn't pass through, Moon Reaches certainly could.

Furthermore, for a race as vast as the Blight Race, even if not too many Moon Reaches came, just thirty or fifty would be enough to overwhelm the Yuluo star system.

As if sensing everyone's concern, Ma Shangsi spoke up, "The situation shouldn't be so pessimistic. The Blight Race is a conquering race that wages war everywhere, so the battlefields they open with the Heavenly Frost Mirror are definitely not limited to just Yuluo."

Hearing this, Lu Ye's eyes lit up. "So, even if the enemy really is the Blight Race, we only need to face a small portion of their strength?"

"That's correct. Now that the wormhole has been opened, there's only one way to protect this star system: kill all the invading enemies and make the Blight Race retreat in the face of difficulty," Ma Shangsi stated.

Although he said this, Ma Shangsi knew it would be incredibly difficult for Yuluo's forces to achieve such a feat. He secretly resolved that if the situation turned dire, he would have to take the Holy Venerable away from here, absolutely not allowing the Holy Venerable to perish here.

Following this, Ma Shangsi shared more of what he knew about the Blight Race. The deeper everyone's understanding of the Blight Race became, the more they realized how arduous their future situation would be.

During their journey, a continuous stream of reports arrived from the frigid domain.

The situation was far from optimistic.

In just a few days, the frigid domain was on the verge of falling.

It wasn't that Yuluo's cultivators weren't fighting hard enough. Although they didn't know the Blight Race's full details, the Moon Reaches stationed there understood that if the frigid domain couldn't be held, Yuluo's destruction was imminent, so they were fighting with almost all their might.

However, the invading enemies were fearless of death, and upon dying, the corrupting power within their bodies would dissipate. The frigid domain was now saturated with this corrupting power. Originally, when the enemy invaded, there was only one wormhole for passage, giving Yuluo's cultivators a significant tactical advantage by simply guarding the exit. But now, the situation had reversed.

To kill enemies, Yuluo's cultivators now had to risk being corrupted by this power.

The current situation there was that Yuluo's cultivators were paralyzed, unsure whether to kill the enemy or not.

This was the most troublesome aspect of the Blight Race: they didn't care about death, because those who died were usually not cultivators of their own race, and the initial deaths merely paved the way for their ultimate conquest.

According to reports from the frigid domain, the enemies Yuluo had been killing were not the Blight Race at all, but cultivators from various races enslaved by the Blight Race.

The Blight Race had long hidden in the shadows, using the Heavenly Frost Mirror to wage wars. Countless star systems had been annihilated, and not all living beings within them were killed. Many were instead tainted by the corrupting power, becoming slaves of the Blight Race, to be used in new wars.

Therefore, the only thing Yuluo's cultivators could do now was to exert all their effort to dispel or purify the corrupting power in the frigid domain.

The effect was minimal because those capable of wielding such power were mostly medical cultivators, who were also the fewest in number among all factions.

The starship Lu Ye was on was already traveling at maximum speed towards the frigid domain, but even so, it would still take several days to arrive.

Two more days passed, and new reports came back from the battlefield.

After gathering a certain scale of forces in the frigid domain, the Blight Race stopped sending new enemies. Instead, they began setting up something, and as time passed, Yuluo's Moon Reaches felt that the wormhole in the frigid domain was beginning to stabilize.

This wormhole was created by the Heavenly Frost Mirror's aura freezing and shattering space. It wasn't quite like a normal wormhole, so it was unstable at first and had a limited capacity. This was also why Sun Reaches couldn't directly pass through it; forcing their way would risk collapsing the wormhole, and any being caught in its collapse would surely meet a terrible end.

But now, with the Blight Race's various arrangements, the wormhole was actually showing signs of stabilization!

This was a very bad sign, because if the wormhole became sufficiently stable, could the Blight Race's Sun Reaches directly come through?

If that were the case, Yuluo would be completely doomed.

When the news arrived, everyone turned to Ma Shangsi, who shook his head and said, "My knowledge of the Blight Race is limited to what I've told you; I don't know anything else. However, based on the reports from the front, everything the enemy is doing very likely points to them wanting Sun Reaches to come through."

All the Moon Reaches felt their scalps tingle.

Qiu Wu couldn't help but urge, "Faster, even faster!"