Sovereign of the Ashes

A battle broke out without warning in the narrow interstellar passage.

With space-time fluctuation zones hemming in both sides, the merchant ships had nowhere to run when Sein and his crew moved in.

Leading his fleet as space pirates, the battered ships under Sein’s command raised a crude “Dragon Horn Flag”.

The flag had been designed by Tourmaline, featuring her own dragon horns.

No one in the Vermi Star Domain had ever seen this flag before.

In fact, even the Aribbean Star Pirates were likely unknown to the God of Dusk Desire and the God of Evil Tides.

After all, Aribbean usually went out of his way to avoid figures like them, so there was little chance they had ever crossed paths.

Sein and Tourmaline appeared at the very front of this merchant fleet, while Fermera cut off their retreat.

Tourmaline, in her full dragon-turtle form, was impossible to miss in this narrow passage.

The fact that the God of Dusk Desire and the others had not noticed her earlier only showed how exceptional her concealment abilities were.

Sein struck first.

Although his strength was still currently stuck at Rank Four, he had not lost his foundation knowledge.

With the help of the magic ingredients he had prepared in advance and the arrays laid out around him, Sein pushed his elemental power to its limit.

When he finished chanting and unleashed the Celestial Firefall spell, the God of Dusk Desire immediately felt the surrounding space erupt with violent elemental turbulence.

“A Rank Five deity?!” he exclaimed in shock.

Sein might be stuck at Rank Four right now, but that did not mean he could not cast Rank Five spells.

A torrent of blazing elemental fire surged straight toward the merchant fleet.

The suppressed elemental energy in the surrounding space grew so intense it seemed capable of melting the ships’ metal hulls.

As a seasoned caravan that had traveled the Astral Realm for years, the God of Dusk Desire and his group were not about to sit there without a response.

Coincidentally, their homeplane was a hydro-attribute world.

So when Sein’s Ashen Flames bore down on them, layers of pale blue, hydro elemental shields flared to life across the ships’ surfaces.

Defense alone was obviously not enough. As an experienced negotiator, the God of Dusk Desire immediately transmitted his divine voice to Sein, offering to pay a “toll”.

A Rank Four being stood little chance against a Rank Five opponent.

In the Astral Realm, even a single rank could mean a world of difference.

Even in a top-tier civilization like the Magus Civilization, not every powerhouse could fight opponents above their rank—let alone these two Rank Four deities from obscure backwater worlds.

When Sein gave no response and the surrounding flames only grew more intense, the God of Dusk Desire began to feel a deep sense of danger.

This strange fire was melting ships forged from Deep Sea Blue Iron at an alarming speed.

With negotiations clearly going nowhere, neither he nor the God of Evil Tides had any intention of waiting around to die.

Their counterattack came swiftly.

The God of Dusk Desire unleased a divine serpent, its body slick with a strange black mucus.

At the same time, the God of Evil Tides activated his divine domain. Law-imbued dark clouds spread outward from his ship, and countless droplets of water began to swirl through the battlefield.

Sein was pretty unfortunate that both opponents wielded hydro elemental laws.

If they had been dendro elemental deities, this would have been much easier.

The combined assault from the two Rank Four beings and their fleet rained down on Sein and Tourmaline.

At the time, Sein stood beside one of Tourmaline’s dragon horns.

With her massive body, the protection of her green arm ribbons, and the water barrier swirling around them, the incoming attacks failed to cause any real harm.

The black divine serpent was shattered by a single strike of her horn. The dense swarm of water droplets could not get past her shell and dragon scales.

Creatures like Baxia and Tourmaline were naturally prized companions for Magus World mages.

With Tourmaline on defense and Sein on offense, their coordination allowed them to handle enemies far stronger than themselves with ease.

Sein could already tell the two were just ordinary mid-stage Rank Four beings—dealing with opponents like them was hardly a challenge.

To him, the counterattack from this merchant fleet was nothing remarkable. But for the surrounding space pirates, it was a disaster.

This was, after all, just a small pirate crew that had once been led by a demigod.

Fortunately, Sein had never planned to rely on them.

The moment the battle began, nearly two hundred thousand angel robots surged in from all directions, sealing off the area.

Sein’s Magic Cube had once held close to a million angel robots. But after repeated losses in successive battles, especially the brutal fighting in the Mordora Star Domain, only these two hundred thousand units remained.

Aside from this force, Sein still had several unused Viridescent Seeds gifted to him by his mentor.

But in a space battle like this, they would be of little use.

The sudden arrival of the angelic legion placed immense pressure on the merchant fleet.

When the angels unleashed their attacks in unison, the difference in firepower became painfully clear. The fleet quickly realized just how outmatched they were against the creations of a top-tier technological civilization.

Knowing they could not win, the God of Dusk Desire and the God of Evil Tides chose to break out and flee.

The Vermi Star Domain was not far. As long as they could make it back, they believed this band of unknown space pirates would not dare chase them that far.

But the moment the God of Dusk Desire turned back, his heart sank.

An eight-winged angel stood in their way, metal wings spread wide and a lightsaber in hand—cutting off their escape.

The power radiating from Fermera made it clear that she possessed at least Rank Five strength.

“Two Rank Five gods and one Rank Four?!” the God of Dusk Desire gasped.

The God of Evil Tides snapped back, “So what if there are two Rank Five gods? If we hold out a little longer, the God of Portent and the others will sense the disturbance and come to our aid!”

Gritting his teeth, he continued, “I’ve never seen these guys before—they’re clearly not from around here! How dare they cause trouble in the Vermi Star Domain? They’ve already violated the rules set by the God of Portent and the others. Every god in this star domain will turn against them!”

However, these two lowly Rank Four gods quickly realized that the time they could hold out was far shorter than they had expected.

Hardened by the clash between two top-tier civilizations, the power Sein and Fermera unleashed in such a short time was overwhelming—even for Rank Five beings, let alone ordinary Rank Four deities.

The first to surrender was the God of Dusk Desire.

As an interstellar broker, he was not particularly skilled in combat. Still, he believed he might be able to buy his life with the right price.

The God of Evil Tides, on the other hand, refused to give in.

Driven into a corner, he suddenly charged straight toward the most unstable space-time fluctuation zone.