108: Trapped, Beast Territory, Isaac God Clan

“This is true adventure; the path ahead is shrouded in mist, there’s no destination, and no one knows what will happen next.”

“Fortunately, I don’t have to experience all of this. I only need to control my clones to go through it all. I can reap the benefits and occasionally descend my consciousness to experience it firsthand.”

Lin Chen, located in the Lin Chen Dao Domain, shared the sensations of Aura and God Lin Chen, experiencing a peculiar feeling: he was a participant, yet simultaneously an outsider.

Aura and God Lin Chen didn't need to be lost in the spatial turbulence, drifting to unknown distant places. If they wished, they could dissolve themselves at any time and then reform near the main body, at most weakening the main body for half a month.

However, this option was collectively passed over by everyone. Unknown adventure is when luck is truly tested. Adventure with a goal is called clearing stages and fighting monsters, which isn't exciting enough.

Adventure without a goal is truly thrilling. The unknown brings fear, but also unexpected rewards.

The two clones were still drifting in the spatial turbulence, with no changes for a while. Lin Chen turned his gaze to Essence Clone, who was in a race against the collapsing spatial passage.

Essence Lin Chen had been advancing, but the spatial passage was collapsing too quickly. Just before its collapse, he finally saw hope: a spatial tear, opened out of thin air, appeared before his eyes.

Without any hesitation, Essence Lin Chen directly crashed into the rift, leaving the deep space of chaotic spatial fluctuations and returning to the current starry sky.

“Ah, what kind of place is this? The malice is almost solidified!”

Essence Lin Chen landed and was immediately enveloped by a dense malice. Countless malicious energies swept towards him like an overwhelming tide.

The malice transformed into a cage, trapping Essence Lin Chen within it.

If not for the Qi Luck Soul Garment and Cognitive Barrier resisting the malice, Essence Lin Chen would likely have been corroded by the malice upon landing, becoming a part of it.

Now the situation was a stalemate. Essence Lin Chen couldn't escape the malicious cage, and the malice couldn't corrode Essence Lin Chen. Neither could affect the other, and they remained deadlocked.

“This plot looks like a classic: a clone enters an unknown domain and gets trapped.”

“If I recall the clone, I’ll lose the coordinates of the unknown domain, feeling a sense of loss and knowing it would be incredibly difficult to encounter it again. If I don’t recall the clone, it will be confined to one place, unable to act for a short period, serving only as a coordinate point.”

Lin Chen grumbled, naturally choosing not to recall the clone.

An area where malice had almost solidified must hide a secret. While he currently lacked the ability to explore it, that didn't mean he wouldn't in the future.

So, what seemed like two choices was actually only one. Lin Chen could only temporarily abandon the Essence Clone and rescue him later when he grew stronger.

Meanwhile, Mirror Lin Chen, on a Beast Race planet, also wore a helpless expression. He had intended to gather his helpers, but they had all gone their separate ways, and it would be a while before they could reunite.

For a period in the future, he would be alone, and he was still somewhat unaccustomed to it.

However, the unexpected had already occurred. What he could do now was accept it, minimize the losses it brought, and, if possible, even turn the harm it caused into benefits.

Mirror Lin Chen did not linger in place, continuing to move away from the spatial rift and deeper into the unknown Beast Race territory.

Not long after, he discovered a small Beast Race tribe.

The Beast Race only had two political systems: tribal and kingdom.

The tribal system was suitable for small Beast Races.

The kingdom system was suitable for medium to large Beast Races.

The larger the population, the less suitable the tribal system became.

After all, resources within a certain area are limited. To obtain more resources and more living space, the civilization system naturally had to evolve.

Infiltrating the small Beast Race tribe, which had fewer than a thousand inhabitants, Lin Chen released his mental power to investigate the entire tribe and understand the current situation.

This small Beast Race tribe was a Yellow Fox Beast tribe, and its strongest member was the seventh-rank Fox Beast Chieftain.

A few minutes later, Lin Chen found that he couldn't gather more information just by monitoring the casual chats among the Fox Beasts. So, he directly knocked out the Fox Beast Chieftain and used the Human Sovereign Banner to seize his soul, probing the Fox Beast Chieftain's memories.

A tribal chieftain, after all, would have some understanding of the situation in their area.

As expected, Lin Chen obtained a large amount of information from the Fox Beast Chieftain's memories.

“Beast Frontier, I’ve really run far.”

The Beast Frontier, the main gathering place of the Beast Race, is home to over half of the entire universe's Beast Race population. It was also the original territory of the Demon Race, though the Beast Race only inherited one-tenth of it.

The remaining Demon Race territory saw a small portion of its prime areas occupied as enclaves by super-large races, while the rest was taken by several top-tier races. Some smaller areas were occupied by races that were originally vassals of the Demon Race.

The Beast Frontier is very far from the Human Race Territory, at least seven billion light-years away.

The main reason is that the Human Race had no enclaves near the Beast Frontier. When the Demon Race disappeared, the Human Race was still struggling for survival, so the Human Race had never occupied the Demon Race's territory.

The Beast Race generally held hostility towards the Human Race. They believed that if the Demon Race hadn't collapsed, and the successor Beast Race hadn't absorbed the attention of various races in the universe, the Human Race would never have developed, let alone become a dominant super-large race in just a few hundred thousand years.

Therefore, the Beast Race held great animosity towards the Human Race, feeling that the Human Race was the biggest beneficiary, and even theorized that the Human Race's ancestors had caused the demise of the Demon Race.

The various races in the universe naturally welcomed the Beast Race's persistent conflict with the Human Race. In fact, most factions even provided substantial aid resources to ensure the Beast Race continued its struggle against the Human Race.

“Since I’ve come to the Beast Frontier, is it possible for me to conquer a territory and declare myself king?”

This question, Lin Chen had never actually considered.

Within the Federal Territory, the Human Race had long ago relegated the feudal imperial system to the dustbin of history and would not permit its reappearance.

However, outside the Federation, throughout the cosmos, there were many Human Race factions that crowned themselves kings and emperors. The Federation did not pursue this, as long as upon returning to the Federation, they shed their bad habits and conformed to federal laws, the Federation would not interfere.

Becoming a king or emperor is a fundamental mechanism in the Human Race's bloodline. Even with the Federation's suppression, this mechanism will naturally revive once it encounters a suitable environment.

Just like now, this thought suddenly popped into Lin Chen’s mind, and he felt that his idea was completely feasible.

The Beast Frontier, not bordering the Human Race, is not only extremely distant but also has no Human Race forces stationed there, and its inhabitants are the Beast Race, who are unfriendly to the Human Race. All these buffs are maxed out.

So, what's wrong with conquering a territory in the Beast Frontier and declaring oneself king or emperor?

After deep thought, Lin Chen felt his idea was highly feasible, but there was an unavoidable hurdle: how to deal with the attacks from the Beast Race gods.

After all, establishing a kingdom in the Beast Frontier would harm the Beast Race's interests. How could the Beast Race gods let him off? The day he declared himself king, it was likely that the Beast Gods would directly intervene to kill him.

Therefore, the premise for becoming a king or emperor is to have a god presiding over the territory, or to do so in an area without gods.

For now, Lin Chen could only suppress the idea in his mind.

However, since this idea has emerged, it will resurface on its own when the opportunity to realize it arises in the future.

Lin Chen is currently in the northern reaches of the Beast Frontier, in the border area between the Beast Race and the Yisha God Race's enclave.

The Yisha God Race was the biggest beneficiary after the Demon Race's collapse, having taken at least one-third of the Demon Race's territory.

Therefore, the Beast Race's hatred for the Yisha God Race was no less than their hatred for the Human Race. After all, the Human Race was far away, and most of the hatred was perpetuated by the middle and upper echelons.

But the Yisha God Race was close at hand; the Beast Race commoners genuinely knew of the Yisha God Race's oppression and had memories of being oppressed and attacked.

A few hundred years ago, this area was still in a state of war.

The war has only ceased for less than two hundred years. Perhaps before long, the Yisha God Race will hold another Divine War Ritual to accumulate foundational strength for their clan's prodigies to ascend to godhood.

The so-called accumulation of foundational strength in the Divine War Ritual naturally referred to the lives of the Beast Race.

Lin Chen didn't care; he eagerly hoped for war to break out immediately so he could fish in troubled waters and profit immensely from it.

However, for now, both sides are peaceful. The Yisha God Race prodigies in the enclave still need several decades to grow, so the Beast Race border has a few decades of peace.

Lin Chen wasn't particularly curious about or interested in understanding the Beast Race; they were, after all, merely intelligent beasts, appearing civilized but still barbaric in practice.

After learning that the Yisha God Race had an enclave nearby, he became very curious about the Yisha God Race, also a super-large race, and wanted to know how they differed from the Human Race.

Therefore, Lin Chen left the planet and headed to the Yisha God Race's enclave to understand what kind of existence the Yisha God Race was, and ideally, to spar with a prodigy of the same rank from the Yisha God Race.

Every race has its strengths and advantages, and learning from others' strengths to compensate for one's own weaknesses is a fundamental virtue of a prodigy. Lin Chen, known as invincible among demigods, simply hadn't encountered a worthy opponent yet.