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Chapter 9: Apostles and Drifting City

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Shattered Starry Sky was a wonderful independent world, it possessed numerous intelligent races and powerful high-class organisms. These aboriginal races living on some of the giant floating continents formed various entirely different civilizations.

According to the goblin elder’s memories, when he was young, he had been to many different floating continents. While going out on risky adventures, he had once seen too many diverse kinds of civilizations. Among these civilizations, there were some that were similar to Transformers, those that were living machines. There were also fantasy worlds like Azeroth and he’d even seen the poetic and picturesque wonderlands of the east.

All sorts of civilization flowed together in Shattered Starry Sky, and made their appearance here like some sort of experiment of the Creator. However, according to what the goblin elder said, this was more like the landfill of God’s abandoned and failed creations. Because the intelligent races of Shattered Starry Sky had never sensed even a part of God’s favor, some sought disputes and caused turmoil amongst each of the larger races.

The floating continents within Shattered Starry Sky were not really constant, they all had their own period of existence. Small island reef-sized floating continents generally only had a limited lifespan of a millennium, while some floating continents that were as large as planets, decay after around one hundred million years.

At every intervals of time, there would always be some floating continents that would collapse and fall apart, becoming dust and disappearing from the boundless starry sky. And there were also some floating continents that would slowly condense a core then rapidly start maturing, gradually becoming a new floating continent.

Although the floating continents’ position in Shattered Starry Sky remained constant, and also wouldn’t collide with one another, due to the various kinds of limited natural resources, they had no choice but to conduct trade and war between the different floating continents. As a matter of fact, this was also the majority of where the disasters within Shattered Starry Sky truly originated from.

When an intelligent race of some floating continent prepared to invade another floating continent, they would pass through the Starry Sky Doors that were exclusive to Shattered Starry Sky, and carry out continent-wide teleportation. This kind of transportation method wasn’t really like space-time teleportation, it was merely limited to within Shattered Starry Sky, and ignored distance and matter. The only restriction was the size of the Starry Sky Door.

Small Starry Sky Doors could only transport individual lifeforms, while large Starry Sky Doors could transport an entire city stronghold, transporting it in its entirety to the other floating continent.

“So to speak, those powerful higher races, Immortals, Devils, Gods, Angels and Dragons, within Shattered Starry Sky, are the races at the summit of the pyramid?” Lily couldn’t help but become inquisitive, opening his mouth and interrupting the goblin elder’s narration. His complexion couldn’t help but become deathly pale after he returned to his senses.

However, the present serial killers around him also really wanted to know the answer, so they didn’t pay any attention to him for this time.

“No, those higher life forms are all basically in a concealed state, they are unlikely to show their faces so easily. The races that occupies the ruling position of Shattered Starry Sky are the ones that the individuals are not regarded as powerful, but their population is numerous, they are races with large potential and wisdom. For example: Human, Elf, Beastman, Dwarf, Departed Spirits, Machine Lifeforms, Elemental Lifeforms and so on!”

The goblin elder switched to a more comfortable position as he spoke with a somewhat strange expression, “In fact, these circûmstances and you people who have teleported through space and time from a different world have a large relation…”

Everyone’s eyes faintly brightened, they have a premonition about the goblin elder’s following words, will perhaps uncover the ulterior motive as to why the “Lulu Race” attached such importance to them who have come from a different space and time.

So it actually turns out that in Shattered Starry Sky’s floating continents, not only did Starry Sky Doors exists, a type of space-time teleportation gate that couldn’t be predicted also existed. Frequently there would be some life forms from different space-time worlds that would be collected by the space-time teleportation gate and sent into Shattered Starry Sky.

Being different from the aboriginal organisms of Shattered Starry Sky, when these different space-time life forms traversed through the space-time teleportation, they would combine with the Shattered Starry Sky World’s Magic to have their souls and core form a unique law body.

The law body of the people who have passed through when compared to the ordinary people, did not differ in any way; they could still fall ill and bleed, even sustain injuries and die. However, as a result of the law body’s special nature, the otherworldly people would have almost unlimited potential. Some of the strong otherworldly people were even capable of destroying heaven and earth, their strength being like the Gods and Devils. So much so that even if the brain, heart and the other vital parts of the body were seriously damaged, they would not immediately die.

However, because the other worlders are not the aboriginal residents, they would all receive the Shattered Starry Sky’s rejection over time. With the passing of time, this rejection would become more and more violent. As a result, every once in awhile, these other worlders would be transported to another space-time world by Shattered Starry Sky.

The randomness of this space-time teleportation was very big, no one knew where the otherworldly people would be transported to. Every time the other worlders were transported, some different world missions would appear in their minds. Even they do not know the origin of these missions or the motives behind them.

If they could not complete the mission, the other worlders souls would become weaker and weaker, eventually leading to their death. The overwhelming majority of these other worlders would die in the midst of these different world missions. However, as long as they finish the mission before they were teleported back into Shattered Starry Sky, they would be able to gain tremendous benefit.

It was like the other worlders and Shattered Starry Sky had agreed on a deal signed an employment contract. One party would exert themselves and complete the mission they were sent for, while the other side was entrusted with giving them a longer life and differing abilities. Thus, the space-time teleportation done by Shattered Starry Sky was also called the ‘Apostle Contract’ by the aboriginal life.

Apostles were in all sorts of danger all year round, all matured apostles all have exceedingly formidable fighting strength. Some of the talented apostles would be able to become an existence comparable to Gods and Devils in a few short years. Furthermore, because they also had all sorts of weapons and equipment from different worlds, their law body had almost no fatal weak points, even the Gods and Devils were unwilling to confront Apostles.

In the ancient times of Shattered Starry Sky, because there were so many Apostles appearing, the life forms occupying the ruling position fell down one after another, even to the extent that some of the higher races were completely extinguished. Having no choice but to shun the world and live in seclusion, no longer appearing in front of others. These higher races, in the eyes of the apostles, were equivalent to walking treasure deposits. They were very willing to use the Gods and Devils’ inheritance during their missions as a form of insurance.

In that period, it was also called the last phase of Gods and Devils. The top floor of the pyramid of Shattered Sharry Sky was completely chopped up by the apostles, and Shattered Starry Sky entered a new age of power struggles between warlords. Some of the slightly weaker intelligent races with large populations began to abruptly rise to prominence, becoming the new domination of the Shattered Starry Sky.

The apostle’s influence in Shattered Starry Sky wasn’t limited to just this. Their energy and attention to the important points depended on the risks of the missions in the other worlds. To the apostles Shattered Starry Sky was just a place to rest and prepare for their next mission. In addition to their relationship with missions, the relationship between themselves were tangled and complicated. They have existing alliances, and they also had hostility, so they could not become Shattered Starry Sky’s actual rulers.

Yet, those intelligent races occupying the ruling position were unable to neglect the apostle’s power. They were different from Gods and Devil, they do not have any value in killing, but they could employ the apostles to attack enemy races and other enemy continents.

Two floating continents with similar power, once two intelligent races of similar military power started to break out in conflict, the apostle team they have would very likely become the crucial point for victory or defeat in their war. So much so, that because some small races had managed to employ a powerful team of apostles, they were able to defeat other powerful opponents and win themselves larger spaces for their survival.

From the distant past of the period of the destruction of Gods and Devils, up until the power struggles of now, all the intelligent races of Shattered Starry Sky had begun to pursue one iron law. That was stating that the race’s life or death cannot completely depend on apostles, but they also could not lose the apostles assistance.

The reason for this was very simple, due to the existence of space-time teleportation, the origin of apostles could not be extinguished. But if they thoroughly depended on some special apostle team, and these apostles were met with heavy losses on their mission in another world, they would also lose their initiative in a war.

This kind of strange and silly phenomenon, induced Shattered Starry Sky to give birth to a special object. That is the Drifting City that some intelligent races had concentrated their everything to construct.

These immense cities, due to the difference of civilization, the source of power were also not completely identical. But they could all move as they wished on the floating continents. At the same time, they were also able to use the Starry Sky Gates, and were able to conduct teleportation at every floating continent. As the basis for the existence of the intelligent races, they serviced the apostles with these special locations.

The intelligent races that have these Drifting Cities could rely on the city, increase and maximize their survival abilities, and would also be capable of attracting apostles to enter and stay at a steady flow, In this way, they were entirely not worried anymore about losing their military strength of apostle teams during war periods.

There were all kind of drifting cities, they were both large and small, and any style of them to be found. They differentiate between the different civilizations, there were science and technology cities, fantasy cities, biochemistry cities, ability cities etcetera. They were also differentiated by the types of service for apostles they offered, there were educational cities, entertainment cities, trade and commerce cities, war strongholds etcetera.

No matter what type of city they were, they were all very courteous to the apostles. Besides some basic material benefits, they could also especially draw up an entire set of service legislation for apostles. These service legislation basically all follow an equal exchange principle. After all, not every apostle could become an existence that was on par with Gods and Devils, the majority of the apostles would meet their end in a mission in another world.

In order to plunder apostle resources, the drifting cities would set dates for dealings at every floating continent. Up to the present, the intelligent races that didn’t have any drifting cities, either slowly walked in the direction of their destruction, or become the subsidiaries of the other races. The number of drifting cities and their sizes have already become the only standard of the floating continents’ rich and powerful intelligent races.

What made people feel odd though, was that floating continents that had races with large populations often had very few space-time teleportation gates. Instead, the places that were similar to this Scarlet Gobi, where people were sparse would have environments with wild and small floating continents which would often have space-time teleportation gates and people that came from another space-time world, which were preparatory apostles.

Preparatory apostles don’t have formidable military force, but it was better to send charcoal in snowy weather than adding flowers to a brocade[1]. While the drifting cities were at their weakest, they could offer a fixed amount of assistance. In that way, after the apostles become strong, they had tossed a peach and gotten back a plum[2], they would someday return and aid their drifting cities.

In short, the more preparatory apostles they attracted, the more potential a drifting city would have. Of course, all the drifting cities were huge monsters. Although they could leisurely float and move, coming and going at every floating continent. But they could not be the same as ants, going everywhere to find preparatory apostles.

As a result, some geographically remote places, such as the Scarlet Gobi’s small floating continent, gave birth to some specialists tribes to seek traces of “other worlders”.

For example: The Lulu Race that was in front of the human prisoners!

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Footnotes:

[1]Better to help when it’s needed than to help when the person already has everything they want.

[2]Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

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