Martial World

Lin Ming’s second choice was the jade ship.

Seeing this, To Bagui, Smokeless, Diwuhen, and the others were all left stunned.

This jade ship should have once been the personal transportation of the Asura Road Master, a Beyond Divinity level spirit treasure spirit ship.

Creating a spirit ship was far more difficult than forging a weapon or refining a pill, moreover, the materials required for the construction were also far higher. But to Lin Ming, the furnace with the Law runes engraved within or the pill would have been much more useful for his cultivation.

To him, this spirit ship wasn’t too meaningful.

“Lin Ming… you chose this spirit ship, for…?”

Diwuhen had already guessed why Lin Ming made this choice, but he didn’t dare to randomly assume. Thus, he asked Lin Ming this question.

“To escape… otherwise, even with the god decree, none of you will be able to escape the Chaos Star Ocean. Without reaching the edge of the Primeval Universe, there will be no way to break through the God Lamenting Wall…”

Currently, the primal god race and the celestials were under a deep siege by the saints. They had only managed to delay for time by relying on the endless black holes and space-time vortexes within the Chaos Star Ocean.

In this situation, wanting to break through the ranks of the saints was unlikely.

“This…”

Diwuhen and To Bagui were at a loss for how to respond to Lin Ming’s words.

Lin Ming had used one of his chances to choose a supreme treasure to pick the spirit ship, all in order to allow the ancient remnant races a slim ray of hope. This benevolence was far too heavy!

Lin Ming shook his head. “You do not need to thank me. First, the old God Sovereign has treated me well, and second, I am also doing this for my own people. I think that the ancient remnant races can break through the space barrier to fly to the Divine Realm, and then use this spirit ship to carry away a part of the Divine Realm’s people to break through the God Lamenting Wall once more and fly to a wild universe together.”

The great calamity lay before them. Lin Ming was well aware that just by relying on himself as well as the Empyreans of humanity, it would be impossible to resist the saints.

It was inevitable that the Divine Realm would be captured by their enemies.

The Divine Realm had quadrillions of trillions of people as well as millions of worlds. The total number of humans was incalculable. Moreover, they were widely dispersed throughout the vast Divine Realm, so wanting to exterminate them all was a nigh impossible task.

Even if the saints used crowds of Empyreans and World Kings to search through each world and kill all humans they could find, they might not be able to finish the job even with 100 million years.

But, the truth was that the saints didn’t need to totally annihilate humanity. Rather, they simply needed to destroy the inheritances of humanity.

As long as they destroyed all the human Holy Lands and large influences, humanity would lose their foundation. They would devolve into the humans that lived in the Soul World, becoming nothing but a race of slaves that were ruled by others. After that they would slowly decline until they were finally destroyed.

Thus… the elites of humanity could not be allowed to die.

Divine Dream, Emperor Shakya, Dragon Fang, Jun Bluemoon, Hang Chi… as well as the many Empyreans, World Kings, Empyrean descendants, the peerless proud children of heaven… these people were all the future of humanity. They represented the greatest achievements in martial arts that humanity had developed. In order for the inheritances of humanity’s martial arts to continue onwards, these people were all needed.

With a short hundred years, this was all Lin Ming could do. In fact, this could be said to be the only choice possible in a situation where they were cornered and without a path out…

“Pass into the Divine Realm and join together with the human race?”

Diwuhen was thoughtful. The ancient remnant races allying with humanity was perhaps a good decision. Since they both had the goal of destroying the saints, this was a union of interests.

Of course, such a significant prospect had to be reported to the old God Sovereign so that he could make the final decision…

…….

Like this, the venture into the Asura forbidden land ended.

Lin Ming had obtained what he wanted the most – the emperor jade of fate. What followed next was waiting for the Asura Road’s final trial to open.

But before then, he had to assist humanity and the ancient remnant races in evacuating their universes.

All of this was a perfectly ideal situation. But… would the future really develop in the road he wished…?

Lin Ming couldn’t judge that.

As they said, man proposes, but heaven disposes!

Even if he failed, even if humanity was destroyed, even if he died, he would not regret the choices he made for himself, he wouldn’t regret refusing Sheng Mei.

Everything he did was to follow his heart.

This was especially true after he saw Empyrean Primordius in that dark chamber, and those alarming words he had etched into the ground.

Seeing them had strengthened Lin Ming’s belief.

Even if he suffered a cruel death, he wanted to follow his heart and walk forwards, one step at a time!

……

Lin Ming returned to the primal god race. The old God Sovereign had already been waiting for him for a long time.

After seeing everyone return safely as well as after hearing Diwuhen’s recounting of what happened, the old God Sovereign was extremely startled. Although he knew that Lin Ming was extraordinary, he didn’t think that his performance in the Asura forbidden land would have been so amazing. He had jumped ranks to strike down one of the strongest geniuses from the ancient era.

As for allying the god race with the human race, the old God Sovereign readily agreed to this.

Although taking a detour to the Divine Realm would make their escape far more dangerous, this would be greatly beneficial to the reformation of their race in the future.

Moreover, if it weren’t for Lin Ming, they would have had no chance of fleeing; they would have only been able to sit here and wait for death.

“This is a spirit ship left behind by the Asura Road Master?”

Next to a black stone table, the numerous powerhouses of the god race and celestial races had gathered together. An emergency summons had been sent out, calling them all here.

“Yes, we’ve studied this spirit ship. It can change size at will and there is a separate dimensional space within it, one that is extremely vast. It can completely fit all the ancient remnant races that are currently residing in the Chaos Star Ocean.”

Wanting to fit several billion martial artists in the spirit ship wasn’t difficult at all. A 30 by 30 mile square plane could fit a billion people, and if divided into levels, it could fit dozens of billions or even hundreds of billions of people. And, this spirit ship was far, far larger than that.

Moreover, those within the spirit ship also carried their own spatial magic tools. These magic tools could also hold people, increasing the holding capacity at exponential rates.

Currently, the god race’s population only consisted of a pitiful several dozen millions of people. And these people weren’t all located within the Chaos Star Ocean.

Even with the celestials and all the other races added together, the spirit ship could still fit many times more their number.

“The plan will commence one month from now. At the appointed time, we will begin a covert operation and convene all our people here. We will have them all shifted into the spirit ship within 20 days, and afterwards, the spirit ship will set off! The fate of our people will depend on whether or not we can break through the siege!”

The old God Sovereign waved his hand, loudly declaring.

The truth was that this was not a meeting, but simply a notice. An escape plan had been formulated long before this. No matter who or where they were, all had to obey.

Break through…

Hearing these words, the numerous powerhouses present fell silent. They knew that breaking out of the siege wouldn’t be easy. Making sacrifices was an unavoidable matter, and if they were unlucky, it was possible they would all be annihilated.

The great war that would happen 50 days from now, that would concern the life or death of all the ancient remnant races!

After everyone was silent for a long time the old God Sovereign quietly spoke up. “Lin Ming…”

“Junior is present.”

Lin Ming stood up.

The old God Sovereign lovingly looked at Lin Ming. He slowly said, “This is a spirit ship that you brought back. Its name has long been lost to time. Why don’t you give it a new name?”

Lin Ming’s thoughts stirred.

His eyes moved away from the old God Sovereign.

At that moment, his eyes seemed to pierce through the space barrier of the grand hall and gaze into the boundless starry skies.

“Let’s call it Hope. The Ark of Hope…”

Lin Ming whispered.

……….

News of Lin Ming, Diwuhen, and the others bringing back the method to salvation from the Asura forbidden land was completely blocked off. Only the high level figures of the god race and celestial race were aware of it. This was in order to avoid anything being revealed to the saints, so that they wouldn’t launch a desperate invasion into the Chaos Star Ocean.

Currently, the god race needed time!

The old God Sovereign had chosen to leave a month before the summoning of the people and the start of the plan. The truth was that this was all in order for Lin Ming to repair god decrees.

As soon as Lin Ming returned to the god race, he threw himself into a chamber.

There wasn’t much time until they fled. With the god race’s current strength, even with the support of the Asura Road Master’s spirit ship, wanting to break out of the saint race’s encirclement would be mind-bogglingly difficult.

And if they had a batch of high quality god decrees assisting them, this mission would be much easier!

For a time, the entire god race was shrouded in a tense and oppressive atmosphere.

Lin Ming repaired the god decrees without a sense of day or night. His cultivation wasn’t high to begin with and these god decrees were top divine runic symbols left behind by True Divinity level supreme elders. Wanting to repair them wasn’t easy at all.

Thus, the old God Sovereign had sent out several peak Empyreans to be on standby and assist Lin Ming wherever possible.

These peak Empyreans also considered following Lin Ming to learn some techniques.

At this time, they wanted to learn divine runic arts not to steal anything, but only to help Lin Ming. They wanted to assist him so that there would be more god decrees and stronger god decrees to deal with the saints.

But they slowly discovered that no matter how diligent they were in their studies, they weren’t able to learn anything at all.

This divine runic arts technique seemed exclusive to Lin Ming. Besides him, no one else was able to understand anything about it.

Another god decree was repaired by Lin Ming. His soul force frequently ran dry.

Then, he would sit in meditation, slowly restoring himself.

“Lin Ming, his Majesty the Battle Sovereign has bid me to send these soul recovery pills…”

After Lin Ming completed a repair job and was beginning to rest, Smokeless entered his chamber.

In order to break out of the besiegement, the celestials gave every effort they could.

These soul recovery pills that Smokeless brought were top quality pills amongst top quality pills. Several soul forging specialized celestial Empyreans had collaborated in order to refine these, using all sorts of precious soul nourishing materials without hesitating to pay any price.

At this time, no one felt there wasn’t anything they weren’t willing to give up. They would spend anything as long as it helped that much more.

“Thank you…”

Lin Ming’s voice had a hint of exhaustion that was hard to conceal. At this time, his face was white and his eyes were bloodshot. Piles of materials were haphazardly thrown about all over his chamber.

This was because some god decrees were incredibly damaged. Lin Ming even needed to redraw some tiny runes on these god decrees.

Adding runes was even more taxing on Lin Ming. Even if it was just a little, this exhausted his soul force.

Smokeless looked at such a Lin Ming, a complex light in her eyes. Because she had taunted Lin Ming and had even been hostile to him in the past, she felt nothing but a crushing guilt.

“Make sure you rest well…”

Smokeless bit her lips, speaking in a soft voice.

If an ordinary person were to say such words, it would only be considered polite. But to Smokeless who was born arrogant and coldly indifferent, these were rare words.

“I understand. Thank you for the soul recovery pills.”

Lin Ming had incredible attainments in the soul; he was naturally able to see how uncommon these soul recovery pills were.

To him, repairing these god decrees under a high period of stress was a good chance to temper himself. And with these precious soul recovery pills, he could wantonly overdraw his soul force without consideration of whether there would be any lasting damages left over.

“Mm…”

Smokeless nodded. She looked deeply at Lin Ming and then left the chamber…

The repair process of the god decrees continued on as intensely as it did before.

At this time, Lin Ming who had overdrawn his soul force numerous times already, didn’t know that in a place countless miles away, something terrifying was brewing.