The way towards the center of the Space Monster World was as deserted as Jack imagined. At least, at first. The dry ground continued unabated. Even after an hour of flying, covering tens of thousands of miles, it persisted.

“What the hell?” Jack asked mentally. “Is the Space Monster World empty?”

“At the outer provinces, yes,” Venerable Saint Thousand Shell replied. “The world is huge, but the environment out here is not the best. Most importantly, space monsters suck at coexisting. The constant killing prevents the population from growing.”

Jack took another look around. Emptiness, as far as met the eye. This world really was huge—so much it made him wonder.

The Green Dragon Realm was the masterpiece of Archon Green Dragon, who specialized in spacetime and had even used a part of his body to create the realm heart. Despite that, the end result was only a hundred thousand miles in diameter. Which Jack had never thought of as small before, but this Space Monster World was significantly larger. If the Green Dragon Realm was placed here, it would just be another province. This world was far more stable, too, almost like the universe.

“Who even made this place?” Jack asked the turtle. “And don’t tell me it occurred naturally.”

“The history of the Space Monster World goes too far back… When I was born, a billion years ago, the truth was already lost in time. We weren’t always sapient. It took millions of years for us space monsters to develop the ability to record history, and by then, whoever created this world was gone. We only know what we see.”

“Don’t give me that. What about the seal outside the world, keeping A-Grades out? What about this Dark Canal Dolly mentioned?”

“There are theories. At the time, the most powerful entities in the universe were the Old Gods, but even they would be hard-pressed to create such a vast world and such a powerful seal around it. Some monsters claim our world was created by Axelor to match Enas’s act of birthing the Ancients. Others say that we, and this entire world, are natural creations of the universe. That nobody would have the power to establish this place artificially. Some even say this is a separate universe which just failed to develop fully.”

“And the Dark Canal?”

“Here, too, there are theories. Some say it contains the secret to immortality. Others that it holds clues to the realm above overlord. They even say it is the resting place of the original creator of the Space Monster World. Unfortunately, I’ve never been there, so I can’t tell you. Besides the two overlord factions who control it, nobody knows what really lies inside.”

That was intriguing.

“Could there really be someone above Archons?” Jack asked.

“No,” the turtle replied immediately. “People love to speculate, but it is impossible. There is no realm beyond Archon. Think about it. Even the hardest bottlenecks in cultivation have a success rate of one in a hundred, maybe one in a thousand. There have been thousands of Archons since the start of history. Some have reached that realm with overwhelming momentum, rising head and shoulders above their peers. Yet, of every single Archon in history, nobody has touched the next realm. Nobody has even glimpsed at it. There is no just no way forward. Even the Old Gods themselves are only extreme Archons.”

“Hmm. We’ll see.”

The turtle snorted with laughter. “If you really want to find out, kid, just go up there and try yourself. Maybe then you’ll be satisfied. Just don’t hold out hope. I was the spiritual companion of Archon Black Hole, an exceptional man even amongst Archons, and even he had expressed to me how impossible it was to advance further.”

Jack refused to be brought down. “I have devoted my life to pursuing the peak,” he replied lightly. “If that peak is the Archon realm, then so be it. If there is more, then I will reach that too.”

“Well said. That’s why I like you, kid. You’re so headstrong you can’t possibly fail.”

Jack chuckled. “Thanks.”

“Look,” Brock said, drawing Jack’s attention. “There’s someone over there.”

“Hmm?”

He saw it, too. A lone humanoid walked in the distance. It was a Double Devil, the species Jack and Starhair had transformed into. It was moving in the same direction as them, just far slower, so overtaking it would be easy.

“Shall we?” Jack asked. They had several things to check.

“We shall,” Brock replied. The three of them accelerated, speeding off into the sky and landing before the double devil shortly after. It froze as it saw them. Then, quickly, it said, “I submit.”

That was a nice change of pace from being attacked on sight. It indicated their disguises were working, and that Brock could pass as a space monster as well. Inwardly, Jack was relieved this thing wasn’t shouting—if everyone was as loud as their two horses, it would get old really fast.

He then took a better look at the double devil. It was green-skinned and of similar size as him and Starhair. Unlike them, it wore an attire one would find on an Earth desert, with brown robes falling loosely over its body. Red pants reached to its knee, while flaps of fabric wrapped around its head, only revealing its eyes and mouth. Jack guessed that lower-level double devils needed protection from the elements around here. This one was only a peak D-Grade.

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“Relax,” he said, speaking in a similar guttural voice to the other devil. “We don’t care about you. We just want directions. Which way are the inner provinces?”

The devil gave him an odd look. Jack didn’t care if he’d misspoken; at worst, they’d interrogate and kill this guy.

His intentions must have shown, because the double devil averted its eyes and turned extremely subservient.

“It’s that way, my Baron,” it said respectfully, pointing in the direction it had been following as well. “Right past a small settlement called Bone Ring. I was on my way there as well to trade.”

“Oh? What does a weakling like you have to trade?”

Jack was trying to mimic the crude manner of speaking used by space monsters. The double devil didn’t seem to sense anything off. It revealed an expression of pain as it reached into its pouch and retrieved a pair of gem-inlaid rings.

“I found these two, my Baron,” it said. It stretched its hands out, clearly unwilling. “Please take them.”

Jack glanced at the rings. He didn’t question just how the devil had “found” them. “I don’t want your trash,” he said. Then, followed by Brock and Starhair, he took to the sky and shattered the sound barrier multiple times on their way out. They’d angled their course in the direction the double devil had indicated.

“Well done, kid,” the turtle said. “You spoke like a true space monster! It seems your disguises work, too. That priestess kid knew what she was doing. As long as Brock doesn’t let anyone probe his soul, you’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded.

While they’d gotten instructions from Dolly and Aze before, it was easy to get lost in such an expansive, featureless place. Finger-pointing could only get you so far. Until Jack found a reliable way to navigate, stopping every once in a while to ask the locals was the best way to go about it.

Speaking of Dolly and Aze, the two hellhorses were currently floating in Jack and Brock’s inner world respectively. Jack glanced inward. Dolly was ineffectively wheeling her feet as she slowly traveled through space. Floating beside her was the Stone, explaining just why horses shouldn’t wear metal horseshoes. Dolly was listening with rapt attention.

“IS THAT SO?” she asked. “YOUR WISDOM IS STUNNING. TELL ME MORE.”

“Certainly! So you see, your body has methods to adjust itself. Placing iron below your hoof is a sure-fire way to disrupt your temperature regulation, your grip on the ground, and your natural defenses against wear and tear. It is a crude solution for crude situations. If I was a horse, I would—”

Jack tuned off, letting the two continue their conversation. He’d already figured out how to isolate the sound coming from his inner world. At least The Stone had company now.

They kept flying. This world’s increased Dao density made everything more tiring, so they stopped every now and then to ensure they remained at peak condition, in case anything happened. On the way, Jack sometimes chatted with Brock or the turtle, while Starhair remained downcast and silent.

It was another half hour before they passed by the settlement the double devil had mentioned. Aptly named the Bone Ring, this place resembled a desert fort with large bones arranged around it, sticking out of the ground with their tips facing the sky. It was like the entire fort was built inside the palm of an ancient, buried monster.

They didn’t stop here. Such a small settlement on a far-out location would mean nothing. Jack doubted there were even any B-Grades present. They only swooped down to ask another passing local for directions—a bipedal bison monster—before continuing on their way.

Finally, two hours after the start of their trip, the terrain began to change. The dry ground gave way to mild greenery, and the boiling temperature receded, replaced by an only slightly superhuman heat wave. Instead of weeds, bushes and trees now covered the ground. They weren’t dense by any means, but the area was at least slightly vegetated.

“This must be the inner province,” Jack said.

“Think again, kid,” the turtle interjected. “It’s just another outer province. The entrance portal to this world places you somewhere close to the outer edges, so you have to cross at least two or three outer provinces before you approach the inner ones. Unless, of course, things have changed since the last time I was here.”

Jack whistled. “Just how large is this world?”

“Millions upon millions of miles. Even the outer provinces aren’t the end of it. There is another ring behind them simply called the Inhospitable Zone. Its environment is too unstable. Nobody in their right mind would choose to live there, even if they could.”

The entire circumference of the Earth was only twenty five thousand miles. For this world to have a width of millions of miles… It really was large beyond belief. The total area was in the trillions of square miles.

Refueled by this new knowledge, the three of them soldiered on.

“Do you know which province this is, Dolly?” Jack asked, taking out his hellhorse and holding her aloft.

“IT IS NOT THE ASTARION PROVINCE,” she replied. She kept gazing at the distant ground with suspicion—horses were not used to flying.

“And you know because the terrain changed?”

“IT MAKES FOR EASY BORDERS.”

“I see. Thanks, Dolly.”

“NO PROBLEM MASTER.”

He put the horse back into his inner world. They continued flying. Given the only slightly more hospitable terrain, Jack could now see more space monsters around. The vast majority were bestial, grazing upon the rare blade of grass and attacking everything on sight. Each and every one of them had a hellish appearance.

The intelligent locals were mostly double devils. Jack saw a smattering of other species, all diverse beyond reason, including a humanoid species with four legs, three eyes, and a face which naturally resembled a creepy clown’s. He steered the heck away from those. There were also many sapient species which weren’t humanoid. The two hellhorses were a good example of that.

The existence of non-humanoid sapients meant that anything they saw could be a cultivator or an animal. Unless Jack memorized the species, it would be difficult to tell from a distance. It went the other way, too. At one point, they came down to ask a humanoid gorilla thing with four arms for directions, but it could only growl and spit at them as it ineffectively tried to attack. Once it realized it was pointless, it transformed into a stone statue, which promptly fell to the ground and shattered by itself.

Fucking weird.

So far, the strongest creatures they’d encountered were at the middle C-Grade level. Nothing stronger. They assumed—and the turtle confirmed—that stronger space monsters would only be present at the inner and core provinces. The outer provinces did have their province master, but usually there wasn’t a capital, so looking for them across an entire province was pointless.

Therefore, they ignored everything and made a beeline towards the center of this world. Nobody had time to waste on weaklings.