Ye Liuyun, along with three other extraterrestrial beings with formidable spatial powers—Lan Jia and two others—engaged in daily battles across the cosmos, each clash more intense than the last.

What surprised Ye Liuyun even more was that the two hundred or so extraterrestrials he had captured refused to sit idle. They, too, wanted to hunt down other beings in this realm to enhance their own strength.

"You lot really... can’t stand being idle, can you?" Ye Liuyun didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh.

These creatures truly had no qualms—they were just as eager to turn on their own kind.

In truth, they had grown restless watching Ye Liuyun’s companions grow stronger by the day. Without battle, they couldn’t obtain the resources needed for advancement. Though under Ye Liuyun’s control, their desire to grow stronger remained unshaken.

Beyond resources, they also needed sustenance. In their eyes, even their own kin were fair game—so long as they were weaker, they were food.

So Ye Liuyun relented, though he used the slave marks to restrict their spiritual growth, ensuring they could never break free.

He also had them don his faction’s military uniforms and armor, instructing his commanders to memorize their appearances to avoid friendly fire. Then he set them loose to fend for themselves.

He kept only a dozen or so extraterrestrials skilled in controlling the altars by his side, pairing them with Lei Ming, Liang Xue, and the others for training.

Of course, after each session, Ye Liuyun would share resources with them to help them grow. Otherwise, as the gap widened, even Lei Ming and the rest would eventually dismiss them as useless.

As for the Demon-Sealing Stele and the Demon Vine, they hunted on their own, and Ye Liuyun paid them no mind. Without resorting to his white light or spatial powers, he stood no chance against those two. Worrying about them was pointless.

Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun’s own spatial abilities advanced rapidly. With three powerful extraterrestrial sparring partners—each employing unique techniques and methods—he gained profound insights. Soon, he could hold his own against two at once.

By the time he could take on all three simultaneously, a mere clench of his fist would warp the void around them, trapping them within.

A little more force, and the crushing void would reduce them to nothing.

Ye Liuyun’s rapid progress left even the three alien sparring partners utterly astonished. Though they too were learning from each other, under identical conditions, none could match his speed of improvement or depth of comprehension.

By now, Ye Liuyun had mastered spatial power with effortless ease. He could dart through the void of space in an instant, moving so swiftly that multiple afterimages blurred his true position. With this spatial displacement, he could strike an enemy from multiple angles simultaneously—his attacks landing at the same moment. He could even target foes separated by tens of thousands of miles in a single motion.

One day, after finishing his training, a sudden realization struck him: *Isn’t this almost like stopping time?*

When he moved at such speeds, everything else appeared nearly frozen. Of course, he knew it was merely an illusion—just the result of his mastery over spatial power and his incredible velocity.

But then the Book Demon chimed in, "That’s not entirely wrong. Time power isn’t as mysterious as you might think. If you’re fast enough, it’s practically the same as freezing time. Of course, true mastery over time is still far beyond you—but at least you’ve taken the first step."

Inspired, Ye Liuyun redoubled his efforts in refining his spatial abilities. Every day, he sparred with the three aliens—Lan Jia and the others—honing his control over spatial forces. He also raced across the cosmos, collecting several large floating islands along the way.

Instead of merging them into his existing spatial world, he left them suspended in its void as satellite islands. Integrating even a small island would cause violent tremors across his world, forcing him to evacuate its inhabitants—a hassle he preferred to avoid. For now, he stockpiled these valuable landmasses, waiting until he could claim a massive planet or accumulate enough to merge them all at once.

As his spatial prowess grew, Ye Liuyun adopted a brutal efficiency when encountering alien-infested islands. He crushed their inhabitants with spatial compression, preserving only the resources he needed—essence cores, armor, weapons, and storage rings—ensuring nothing went to waste.

Through relentless combat, he could now manifest twenty-one spirit blades, a significant increase from before. But this progress came at the expense of Lan Jia and the other two aliens, who often found themselves battered and bruised in their sessions with him.

If not for their natural scales and armor, along with their decent spatial abilities that allowed them to deflect some attacks, they would have been toyed to death by Ye Liuyun long ago.

To keep them going, Ye Liuyun had no choice but to supply them with healing pills and the Water of Life. He even forged three sets of armor for them to bolster their defenses.

Despite being beaten up daily, the three alien warriors—including Lan Jia—had no complaints. In fact, they were downright enthusiastic. After all, Ye Liuyun provided them with resources to grow stronger, not to mention the life-saving Water of Life.

Ye Liuyun soon noticed something else: after consuming the Water of Life, these aliens experienced noticeable improvements in their physical strength, scales, and bloodline potency. No wonder they were so eager.

Meanwhile, his clone had been absorbing the world’s origin energy while attempting to communicate with it mentally—but to no avail. The origin force remained indifferent.

So Ye Liuyun devised a new plan. He sent Lei Ming and the entire demon army—150,000 strong, all elite warriors—to absorb the origin energy together.

Under such overwhelming pressure, the origin force couldn’t hold out. It weakened rapidly and, faced with the threat of depletion, finally yielded. It acknowledged Ye Liuyun’s dominance and allowed itself to be drawn into his spatial world.

With that settled, the clone began preparations for fusion. First, it relocated all the demonic beasts from its own spatial world into Ye Liuyun’s. Only then did it proceed to absorb the entire planet.

The absorption process went smoothly, but afterward, the origin energy within the clone’s spatial world underwent a fundamental change. Its original, weaker essence had been completely assimilated by the demonic planet’s far more potent force.

For the clone, this wasn’t a major issue—except that refining and fully integrating this new origin energy would take considerable time. Only after completing this process could it harness the spatial world’s power.

But given the sheer strength of this origin force, instant refinement was impossible. Ye Liuyun estimated it would take years.

Once everything was in place, Ye Liuyun returned all the demonic beasts to the clone’s spatial world—along with the 150,000-strong demon army and even the young demons and demonic beasts he had been raising.