118 Saka

Upon the boundless plain, formed entirely from accumulated heaps of garbage, small groups of people sifted through the refuse, searching for anything of value. Above them, countless spatial gates yawning wide, each second hundreds of ships disgorged vast quantities of waste onto the land—waste that included, but was not limited to, discarded construction materials, household trash, corpses, and radioactive debris.

This place was called Saka, a peculiar planet existing in the crevice of a spatial tunnel.

No, it was less a planet and more like an enormous universal junkyard.

In an inconspicuous corner—though every spot here was equally inconspicuous—a small spatial gate shimmered briefly as a seemingly ordinary young man stepped onto the vast garbage field.

“Huff… so this is Saka. The air here is really… cough, cough, ugh… terrible! What kind of hellish place is this, where even the air reeks with sour stench?”

This newcomer to Saka was Jos, from Earth.

After bidding farewell to everyone and spending several days—sometimes ten, sometimes twenty—with Lilith, Tony finally informed him that all preparations were complete.

The transfer process went smoothly, and Jos arrived at Saka with ease.

“Tsk, although the setting differs from the hellish, globally mixed chaos depicted in the comics, this godforsaken place is still just as dreadful.”

Watching it on screen never quite conveyed the full horror, but imagining the smell of a garbage bin left baking under the scorching sun for a whole day made it clear just how vile an all-encompassing junkyard like this truly was.

Not to mention the toxic waters and radioactive materials that could infect anyone passing nearby; even the nauseating stench alone could suffocate most ordinary people.

Though Jos’s constitution no longer suffered from such minor nuisances, as a healthy individual, he certainly did not relish such a disgusting environment.

“Looks like I need to find a way closer to the arena near the High Celestial Lord. That’s the only place shown as a city in the movie. I wonder what the rest of this place is like.”

Logically, such an immense world would surely have more than one city.

However, under the comically inept rule and management of the High Celestial Lord, even the city he presided over looked like a backwater village, and everywhere else could only be worse.

“But… how to get there is another matter.”

Though possessing the ability of the Useless Omniscient, which could theoretically calculate the destination, without any clues, it was impossible—even for Jos—to extract anything useful from the astronomical amount of useless information.

“I see him! That’s him! The one who just stepped out of the spatial gate, looks like a rich man!”

Suddenly, a scream broke Jos’s thoughts. Looking up, he saw a ragtag group wielding all manner of weapons—or rather, garbage—approaching him.

“Rich man…” Jos found it less troubling that these alien locals spoke English than that they regarded him as wealthy.

To lighten his load during the transfer, Jos had stashed all his belongings into his system space, leaving only a simple outfit on him—one he had bought for five dollars from a roadside shop.

But compared to these scavengers draped in assorted trash, Jos realized his modest attire was indeed high-end.

“Hey! Kid! I advise you not to make a move. We’re eleven strong here, so if you don’t want to die, throw all your stuff over and come with us!”

About seven or eight meters away, the group halted, and a man who appeared to be their leader shouted loudly.

“Heh… thanks for the offer. I just happen to need a few guides,” Jos said, folding his arms with a proud smile before suddenly launching an attack!

The sudden move startled the robbers; they clearly hadn’t expected Jos to strike despite being so vastly outnumbered.

But these desperate, reckless souls who lived day-to-day in this garbage wasteland feared nothing. They howled as they raised their weapons and lunged at Jos.

Jos faced their assault without fear. With a forward surge, he punched down the nearest attacker, then pivoted around his right foot, delivering a powerful sweeping kick that sent another flying dozens of meters into the trash heap—life or death unknown.

“Who are these people…?” Though his strike had made an impression, Jos raised an eyebrow.

Their strength belied their appearance. They were emaciated refugees, but their speed and the recoil from their blows told Jos their constitutions were far from ordinary.

Much like in the lands of the Asa deities, where even cooks and cleaners possessed divine physiques—strength and endurance far beyond human limits—the inhabitants of Saka were evidently no ordinary mortals.

This was inevitable given Saka’s harsh environment; any species with an average constitution would have perished long ago from the toxic atmosphere, leaving only the hardened survivors to scavenge and rob here.

As these men hesitated under Jos’s intimidation, he paused briefly, choosing not to equip his system gear just yet.

He reserved some trump cards for later, deliberately limiting his strength for the moment.

After all, this world had the High Celestial Lord, theoretically an ancient cosmic elder. Though his portrayal in the movie was rather unimpressive, he had never revealed his combat prowess, which made Jos extremely wary.

Though Jos suspected that the High Celestial Lord here was just a high-ranking bureaucrat—no more than a figurehead—if his true power matched the comic version, or even a mere tenth of it, he would pose a lethal threat.

While such top-tier warriors could be utterly dominated by others in their realm, for now, Jos was not yet ready to confront such an opponent.