The local chamber of commerce only lets you trade its premium goods with Origin Essence; ordinary stuff still takes divine crystals.

Ye Liuyun and his crew had eyes on the top-shelf items—every one of them carried a fat Origin Essence price tag. Plenty of outlaws sighed and walked away; nobody had that much Essence to burn.

Li Qingyang and the other big-shot captains stayed on their shuttles, hiding their real strength. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

With almost no rivals in sight, Ye Liuyun quietly told Tang Xin-yao and the rest to grab only a token purchase and leave. Even that scrap was enough to make Liu Yan green with envy—two whole cities wiped off the map, the take must have been huge.

The moment they left, Ye Liuyun slipped out his cloaked clone. Now that the clone’s mastery of worldly force and spatial power had grown, plus the invisibility mantle, Liu Yan never sensed a thing.

Once safely out of Liu Yan’s sight, the clone reshaped its face with Thousand-Illusion Art, marched straight back into the chamber, and went on a shopping spree—burning mountains of Origin Essence for crate-loads of top-tier resources.

Origin Essence had already turned pocket-change for them. The thieving cat had looted a dozen-odd chambers and city lords’ vaults; Essence was practically lying around. They kept enough for their own cultivation and still had surplus to swap for better gear—especially the heaven-and-earth treasures that turbo-charge soul, bloodline and physique, each one shaving a year or two off their training calendar.

Ye Liuyun’s own stats were already sky-high, but improvement never stops—and everyone around him still needed boosts—so he bought for the whole team. Tang Xin-yao and the rest would come back later to cash in.

But the clone’s splurge caught the chamber’s eye. The managers never rob a client themselves; they just leak news, let someone else do the mugging, then split the take.

So the instant the clone stepped out, tails were on him. He didn’t panic—just strolled into a side alley, stepped into the void, threw the cloak back on, wrapped himself in worldly force and vanished.

The tracker, a Unity-Seven veteran, followed him into the void and found thin air. When he popped back out he caught a ripple of spatial energy, then nothing.

In fact the clone had been yanked straight into Ye Liuyun’s inner world by the Cross-Pupil technique; the hunter sensed the ripple but had no clue where the prey had gone. He swept the void with full spirit sense, found nothing, and muttered, “Didn’t expect a spatial master.” Then he started scanning every outlaw face in sight.

Ye Liuyun’s group parked themselves at a tavern—no private room, just a big communal table—to pick up gossip. When the hunter’s spirit sense brushed past, he saw no matching face and moved on, guessing the target had left the city. He drifted toward the fleets, nosing around, which instantly put Chang Yu-xing and the other big guns on alert. Sensing stronger spirit locks from the shuttles, the lone tracker backed off, cursing himself for hesitating: if he’d moved before the other bandits could jump in, the clone wouldn’t have slipped away.

Ye Liuyun exhaled silently: lucky he could yank the clone back with Cross-Pupil—otherwise he’d be the one hunted. The Fire-Seal system was the same everywhere: flash your wealth without the muscle to guard it and you’re meat. Stay low, stay safe.

Liu Yan had already ordered food and drinks, slipped a few jugs to the next table, and loosened the locals’ tongues.

What everyone here talked about was the Desolate Sea World.

It wasn’t a planet, they said, but a chunk of primordial ocean drifting in space. Sea beasts inside were off-the-scale; some were even said to have turned demon. A “small” beast could dwarf a city—one casual spout and you got a tsunami.

Of course the place was dripping with treasure; pick up a few seabed herbs and you’d turn a profit. The drinkers had done exactly that—tagged along with stronger teams, grabbed what they could and ran.

“Even late Unity-Seven goes in there and prays,” they warned. “Half your lot would die on a good day. Meet one of the big ones and numbers won’t help—total GD wipe-out. Our local Unity-Seven, -Eight hotshots won’t swear they’ll come back.”

“How much of the Desolate Sea has been mapped?” Ye Liuyun asked.

“Mapped? Ha! Nobody dares say ‘mapped.’ The shallow fringe gets patrolled—sometimes. The deep? No-go. Nobody even knows how big the thing is. Ninety percent is untouched abyss.”

“It’s a treasure vault, sure—but it eats people. Throw in all the experts you like, it’s still hungry.”

Ye Liuyun studied their faces—no bravado, just genuine dread. Everyone else in the hall wore the same look.

Then how in hell did First-Star Marauders find a vault in there? Ye Liuyun wondered.