Chapter Thirteen: The Tyrant Moon War God (Part One)

He did not know how long had passed before Glutton realized he had regained consciousness. A searing agony, spreading through every muscle and every bone in his body, made him groan aloud despite himself.

Then he saw Jing's lovely face, filled with concern, before him.

Seeing him turn toward her, Jing hurriedly asked, “Fatty, what’s wrong?”

Glutton tried to smile, tried to speak, but every movement of his facial muscles dragged at the wound and sent fresh waves of pain through him, so that he could only groan again.

At the sight of his expression, Jing could not help breaking into a smile. “Fatty, you look much better than before. You seem at least a quarter smaller. Mr. Horn really is something.”

With that, she burst out laughing.

No one knew how much time passed before Glutton finally began to feel accustomed to his condition. At the very least, every part of him could now be commanded by his mind even through the pain.

He struggled to sit up, and almost instinctively looked toward the place where the cosmic beast had once been.

There, the cosmic beast floated quietly in the air. Before it hovered a familiar yet strange object, as large as a fist, faintly glowing with a delicate red bloom.

The moment Glutton saw it, his heart lurched violently.

Was that not the turtle egg of the Nine-Headed Turtle he had hidden within Little Black?

His heart instantly tightened with unease. That was the egg of a cosmic-level Nine-Headed Turtle. Judging by the expression of this cosmic beast that called itself Horn, it seemed to be extremely interested in it. Even when Glutton had sat up, it had given no reaction at all, as though utterly absorbed by the egg alone.

Glutton could not help worrying that the beast might harbor ill intent toward him because of that egg, which belonged to the same cosmic class of creature.

No one knew how long had passed as Glutton watched the cosmic beast in the sky, and the turtle egg floating before it.

Jing, too, soon understood what was happening, and her face turned anxious as she looked up at the cosmic beast.

She had personally seen that egg roll out of Little Black after it had eaten a piece of the rootstock. She had been the first to pick it up. At the time, when she saw the faint shadow within the egg and linked it to the reason Glutton had been exiled, she naturally understood that this was the very object responsible for the destruction of two fortresses and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers. It was also the cause of that cosmic-beast assault on the human fortress.

No one knew how long had passed before the cosmic beast spoke again.

“Human friend,” it said, “where did you obtain this egg? The body within it is the most powerful I have ever seen, and one I cannot yet understand. If I could remodel my own body according to its structure, I would become the greatest existence of my kind.”

Glutton and Jing both realized that the beast bore no hostile intentions toward them because of the turtle egg, and they could not help but release a breath they had been holding.

Glutton and Jing had truly worried that this cosmic-level beast might, because it was itself a cosmic creature, feel righteous indignation on behalf of the great turtle in question.

Neither of them answered. Only then did the cosmic beast seem to recover its senses. After laughing heartily several times, it said, “Human friends, are you satisfied with your present bodies? My race is the best at bodily modification among the cosmic peoples. I believe you will be absolutely satisfied with your new forms.”

Hearing this, Glutton could only smile bitterly in his heart. All he felt now was pain, and nothing else at all.

If he had to say whether he was satisfied, then the only thing that pleased him was that his body seemed to have shrunk considerably. At the very least, in the future, he could ease up a little on dieting, eat more delicious food, and fully indulge his appetite.

Jing, on the other hand, nodded eagerly again and again, her face bright with excitement. “Very satisfied. I feel much stronger than before. I’m absolutely a female powerhouse now. And my body feels so comfortable. Even being on this planet no longer makes me feel tired or uncomfortable.”

The cosmic beast laughed a few more times before saying, “If you are satisfied, then good. However, your body still has far less potential for modification than the human beside you, so in the future your body may be far inferior to his.”

Jing smiled carelessly. “Then so be it. I’m already very satisfied. Still, Mr. Horn, may I ask what advantages there are to this bodily modification? Is it only that one becomes stronger and more comfortable? Or perhaps, like Fatty, one simply has less flesh?”

The cosmic beast seemed to think for a moment before saying, “I do not understand the human body very well, so I could only proceed according to the requirements for remodeling the bodies of my own race. In human terms, or rather in the words once used by a human friend of mine, the body exists to store more energy, to possess greater strength, greater toughness, and greater regenerative power. And also to slow the aging and death of the body, so that one may live longer.”

The two of them were dazed by this. The cosmic beast, reaching this point, seemed unable to find any more words and stopped.

The two sides looked at one another in mutual silence, like children playing a game of staring contests.

Jing was the first to recover her wits, and once she did, she immediately asked the question that concerned her most.

“Mr. Horn,” she said excitedly, “did you just say that the rate of aging and death in our bodies has slowed?”

The cosmic beast looked somewhat puzzled, but still answered, “According to the normal rate at which your human bodies decline, the deterioration of your body now is one-third of what it was before I modified you.”

At that, Jing cried out in shock. “Mr. Horn, do you mean I can live three times as long as an ordinary person?”

The cosmic beast was still somewhat perplexed. After thinking for a moment, it said, “I do not fully understand the human body. As for my race, if our bodies begin to decline, we simply seek out things that can restore them and recover that decline. The rate of bodily decline does not correspond, for my kind, to what you humans call lifespan.”

Glutton was startled by this.

For many humans, death came because the body aged, because all the parts within it declined. His own grandfather had died this way, his brain nerves withering completely to death.

Most of humanity’s great masters died for the same reason. In the human body, nearly every organ except the brain could now be replaced. Though what was substituted could never truly compare with what one had been born with, it was still better than allowing everything to age, fail, and become unusable.

Meridians, the body’s channels for energy, were now the most important cause of death among humans.

After tens of thousands of years of human development, aside from certain viral diseases, there was no sickness left that could truly take a human life. Only time remained. Time could age all things.

Glutton hurriedly asked, “Mr. Horn, does what you call the body include our brains and our meridians?”

The cosmic beast thought for a while before answering, “If the meridians you humans speak of are the energy channels within your bodies, then yes, they are included in what I call the body. But the brain you speak of is not included. To my race, the brain is our very self. It is always eternal and unchanging to us; only the amount of energy it contains changes. If your brain’s energy should disperse as it once did with a human friend of mine, then that has nothing to do with the body. What I can alter is only your physical form.”

Jing certainly could not have understood this.

The method of cultivating spiritual power was even rarer than the method of cultivating inner force. Even where it existed, it was usually only a few simple techniques for training and use.

Only someone like Glutton, who had studied the entire Starry Vault Manual and could infer its principles from the final move, would be able to understand it.

For a true master of spiritual power, spiritual power was the self. It was eternal. Even if the body died, so long as the spiritual power remained gathered and did not disperse, the self would still exist.

It was only that the means by which humans replenished spiritual power were mostly derived from bodily cultivation. To generate spiritual power through spiritual power itself—that was the cultivation method of the seventh stance of the Starry Vault Manual. By then, such a person could no longer be considered truly human.

Glutton had always believed that the seventh stance of the Starry Vault Manual was utter nonsense, but when he connected it with the cosmic beast’s obscure explanation, it suddenly seemed as though it might actually be correct.

Understanding dawned on him, and Glutton solemnly bowed to the cosmic beast. Jing did not understand why he would perform such a formal aristocratic salute. Perhaps even the cosmic beast did not understand it. But Glutton knew how important those few words had been to him.

At last, he understood what that bizarre energy of the cosmic beast really was. He also understood why it had given him such a familiar sensation.

Because that was spiritual power.

Not ordinary spiritual power, but spiritual power condensed to near-solid form.

Jing seemed somewhat disappointed, and then said, “Mr. Horn, are you saying your modification of us only makes our bodies stronger, so that we can be beaten for longer? I thought you could turn me directly into a Martial Sovereign. Then I wouldn’t have to train every day.”

The cosmic beast laughed loudly several times before answering, “For you humans, the body is your foundation, so having a good body is extremely important. That is what my former human friend once told me. As for what you call training and becoming a Martial Sovereign, I cannot help you. The energy of my race cannot be used or stored by you. Nor is our energy system suitable for humans. However, I have modified your meridians according to the experience I gained from an earlier human friend of mine. Your future rate of energy accumulation will be much faster than before.”

At this, Jing laughed with delight as well. Faster accumulation meant faster cultivation, did it not?

Glutton glanced at Little Flower and Little Black not far away, still without the slightest movement, and asked, “Mr. Horn, what about my two divine beast friends now? Why have they not awakened yet?”

“They may need a few more days. The energy within their bodies is very similar to yours two divine beast friends, and their bodies are also very easy for me to modify, so I used their bodies and combined them with the two of them a little. Though it has no intelligence, its body is extremely powerful, and your two divine beasts happen to be lacking precisely that.”

Glutton could only smile wryly again and again. In human terms, Little Flower and Little Black were already outrageously powerful. Little Flower had once even withstood a warship’s auxiliary cannon on the battlefield with its body. Yet this creature was actually saying the two of them were lacking in bodily strength.