The transmigrator ran into the evil god Weiguang, and it looked alarming and came to nothing.

Because he not only had a snow-sister fighting at his side but a Conquest Queen who had once swept the Heavenly Realm standing behind him. And so that senior evil god Weiguang, so insufferably arrogant in front of the transmigrator, had no choice but to take up unlucky residence in one small world on one page of a certain Sacred Codex, and go on with the leisurely business of being sealed. By the time Her Majesty Empress Vivienne remembers to let him out, Yue Yang’s thousand-and-eighth-generation grandson will probably be old enough to run out for the soy sauce.

But there is a saying: same people, different fates.

By comparison.

Ye Kong and Sea Fatty and Xue Tanglang, who had run into strong enemies of their own, were not getting through it anything like as easily.

The Sky Tower. The dueling ground in the alternate dimension — the vast wilderness the old fox had opened up specially. Two camps stood facing each other in it now.

On the left was that young man who was very nearly a god. Beside him stood a black-robed old man and a middle-aged scholar, and behind the three of them were the lion-headed and man-faced leader, the leader with the rhinoceros nose and the protruding tusks, the three-headed and six-armed leader, and the rest of the Heavenly Realm’s commanders, along with the Heavenly Realm slaves lying flat on the ground in terror. Facing the three of them, Sea Fatty and Ye Kong, Xue Tanglang and the Tianra Prince, and the Liqie brothers stood off against the entire mass of Heavenly Realm enemies in front of them… and although they had entered the vast wilderness of the dueling ground the old fox had opened up, nobody else could come in to lend them so much as a hand. The plan had been laid this way from the beginning. To draw the enemy in, Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the others had not flinched from putting themselves in danger.

There were only two possible outcomes.

One was death.

The other was to beat the strong enemy, break the boundary, and get out.

If Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the rest could not beat the invading enemy and all died fighting, then the old fox would seal this vast wilderness permanently. Unless Yue Yang returned to the Sky Tower and needed it opened to avenge Sea Fatty and the others, it would never open again.

“Very good. Everything about the construction here is unexpected, and every part of it is ingenious. Looking at the space alone, you would never see that a power below the divine realm had opened it. Even to a very demanding eye, this decisive-battle space is perfect. To open a decisive-battle space like this on strength below Sky-rank level three — Dean Shui Dongliu really does deserve to be called Yue Titan’s mentor. By comparison, you so-called Heavenly Realm commanders, you lords who have enjoyed the Heavenly Realm’s abundant resources to the full, ought to feel some shame. If you have even a scrap of a sense of shame left in you.” The young man who was very nearly a god applauded, and looked at Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the others with a smile. “If I were not my father’s son but some other commander of the Central Divine Hall, I would certainly have been crushed by a design as flawless as yours. Honestly, you have out-calculated me completely. There was no way for me not to walk into it. There is only one small pity, and that is that you rather overlooked the role treasures play.”

“The role treasures play?” Ye Kong’s brows drew together.

“Just so.” The young man first made a courteous salute, exactly as though he were seeing Ye Kong and Sea Fatty for the first time. “Allow me to take up a little of your time and introduce myself. My name is Dongfang Xi, and my courtesy name is Chenxi. Certain busybodies have also given me a nickname and call me the Young Lord of Dawn. In truth none of this comes from any strength of my own. It is the work of a great many petty people flattering my father, and it is too vulgar to be worth hearing.”

“Sorry, but I’ll be blunt — we’ve never heard of any Young Lord of Dawn.” Ye Kong answered without the least courtesy.

“And we don’t want to know who your father is either.” Sea Fatty cut the rest of it off in one line.

“Chenxi had no wish to blow his own horn either. It is only that my house is in fact inseparable from the Sky Tower, which is why I praise my own goods. Forgive me for making you laugh.” The near-divine Young Lord of Dawn was not the least bit provoked, and went on smiling. “My father is Dongfang. On the surface he is the Grand Hall Master of the Central Divine Hall. In fact he is nothing but a cast-off disciple of the Sky Tower. For several thousand years, as his son, I have constantly seen him sighing without end. When I asked, what he spoke of was the Sky Tower, in all its particulars. My father hates everything about the Sky Tower — but there is no denying that everything about the Sky Tower long ago entered his blood, and ten thousand years of time cannot wear away the smallest part of it.”

“Oh, so your father is that traitor Dongfang?” Ye Kong indicated that he had understood.

“What? Dongfang? The Grand Hall Master of the Central Divine Hall? That title’s frightened your daddy half to death.” Sea Fatty put on an act of being terrified out of his skin.

“If it were not for that wrong choice all those years ago, how could my father — who loves the Sky Tower into his bones and into his soul — ever have betrayed the beautiful homeland that raised him and fed him? For years I have watched his painful longing not lessen with time but grow heavier by the day. A home that haunts his soul and his dreams, and for several thousand years he has not been able to see it once. What kind of pain is that? I understand him, and I feel for him.” The Young Lord of Dawn let out a long sigh.

“I find that a bit contradictory.” Xue Tanglang shook his head.

“What is contradictory about it?” the Tianra Prince asked back.

“If he loves this beautiful homeland, the Sky Tower, so deeply, why be a traitor?” Xue Tanglang was the first to fail to follow.

“Does being a traitor need a reason?” Sea Fatty burst out laughing the moment he heard it, and slapped his own thigh. “If the Central Divine Hall promised me beauties and treasures, I’d betray the Sky Tower on the spot. Damn it, being a traitor is that simple. Who can’t do it? Give me a profit and I could betray a hundred times a day. Deep love? Deep love for your homeland is a fart. You’re afraid people will be disgusted when it comes out, so you put a grand-sounding name on it. However you dress betrayal up, it’s still betrayal. Deep love for your homeland means it isn’t betrayal? By that logic, if I rape some girl, does pretending I deeply love her mean it isn’t rape?”

“Understood. So it’s a chastity arch a whore puts up for herself.” Ye Kong spread both hands to show that he had grasped it completely.

“Whatever you say, my father’s love for his homeland cannot be erased. And I understand the contempt you loyal-unto-death soldiers have for a traitor. To some degree I even admire you, because a loyalty unto death — however outmatched or however laughable — is a spirit worth affirming.” The Young Lord of Dawn was born with an even temper, and still did not lose it.

“You’ve finished showing off your dad. What else do you want to show off?” Sea Fatty dug at a nostril while he looked at him with contempt.

“In fact this is not showing off. If I wanted to show off, I could knock every one of you down on the ground and laugh at you while you groaned. That would be real showing off. What I am doing now is patiently laying out a fact — which is that however hard you try, against me, the Young Lord of Dawn, who knows every fighting method the Sky Tower has and controls the Central Divine Hall’s First Treasury of the Outer Hall, you have no chance of winning. As for a space opened up like this one, other people might not manage it, but I have at least a hundred ways to leave. And even if I used none of those hundred methods, I still have ninety-nine treasures that could take me out of this space easily.” There was not a trace of impatience in the Young Lord of Dawn’s expression. He laid it out with no heat at all, as though this were simply how things naturally were.

“So your dad’s a traitor and that’s very impressive, and your house has a lot of treasures it got by being traitors. Scared me to death. Are you satisfied now?” Sea Fatty flicked away what he had dug out of his nose, and yawned without much interest.

“Very good.” The Young Lord of Dawn suddenly applauded that too.

“Get on with it. You’re a windbag. A hundred-and-eighty-year-old toothless granny doesn’t have your patience. Can we start fighting right now? We’re all sick of waiting. If you think a few boasts and a bit of overlord’s aura are going to frighten us, frighten us flat on our faces, frighten us into hugging your leg and crying for mercy, then you’ve got it wrong.” Sea Fatty shrugged, and a wave of flesh rippled across his belly.

“He’s only stalling.” The Tianra Prince gave a cold grunt. “In fact he started long ago. From the moment he came in, he’s been using his talent to lay out a battle formation in their favor. All that nonsense he’s been talking is nothing but stalling for time.”

“I admit that is a fact.” The Young Lord of Dawn smiled without any annoyance at all. “But I also wanted to test how cunning the Sky Tower’s guardians — who used to be so easy to provoke — have actually become. What I said before was not flattery. It was sincere praise directed at Yue Titan. Since he rose, the whole face of the Sky Tower’s guardians has been made new. In the old days, if I had opened my mouth to provoke you, young juniors like you would presumably have come charging in long ago with your blood up, howling and ready to fight to the death. How would you have gone on standing there perfectly calm after seeing through my formation?”

“You’re trying to say Yue Yang taught us bad habits?” The Tianra Prince shook his head. “What Yue Yang gave us wasn’t cunning and it wasn’t anything else. It was confidence.”

“Confidence indeed. I agree. Under Yue Titan’s influence you have all become confident.” The Young Lord of Dawn nodded.

“Young Lord of Dawn, can you not wait until that brat Yue Yang gets back to praise us? Praise him now and he can’t even hear it.” Sea Fatty would have given a good deal to record the Young Lord of Dawn’s words and play them back for Yue Yang. It was such a rare thing — somebody actually praising him. It wasn’t the main point, but there was at least some praise in it.

“Get on with it. Talk is no use on me.” Ye Kong summoned his grimoire, steady as a mountain.

“Bring out plenty of treasures. I’m badly short.” Sea Fatty had been with Yue Yang long enough to have picked up the habit of killing monsters and taking their loot, and had never been afraid of carrying too many treasures. Now a Young Lord of Dawn had turned up looking like the god of wealth himself, which was simply his favorite thing in the world.

“Careful.” The Liqie brothers were more practical, and gave everyone a warning before the fight.

“Ice — roar!” Xue Tanglang raised both hands to the sky, and under his cold the whole vast wilderness turned at once into a world of ice and snow.

His life-guardian war beast, the Storm Giant, reared up behind him with a crash and pressed one palm to the ground, and the ground, already frozen solid, threw up millions of ice chips and frost-flowers in a sweeping wave.

Never mind the Heavenly Realm slaves — even the lion-headed and man-faced leader, the rhinoceros-nosed and tusked leader, the three-headed and six-armed leader and the rest of the Heavenly Realm commanders went stiff with cold, and their movements slowed enormously. Apart from the Young Lord of Dawn, the middle-aged scholar and the black-robed old man, who were unaffected, everyone else took some degree of injury in that roaring blizzard.

A few of the weak ones froze into ice sculptures without anyone noticing.

And they lost their lives without a sound.

The Storm Giant brought its palm down on the ground again.

What appeared in front of them was not more ice and snow and frost-flowers. It was a floor cast entirely out of gold.

Enormous golden bricks — edges cleanly drawn, laid out square and true in every direction, looking as though they had formed that way naturally — were stacked together without a flaw and fitted to one another to form a colossal arena the like of which had never been seen. This Golden Arena was not very different from an ordinary arena, except that it was made entirely of square golden bricks, and it was a hundred times larger than an ordinary one.

Both its length and its width ran to more than ten thousand meters.

And at its highest it stood ten meters.

A thick layer of gold.

There was no telling when it had formed, but this was absolutely not a native thing of the vast wilderness.

“If I told you that this Golden Arena, which only war beasts of gold tier and above may enter to fight in, is merely one of my side’s hundred ways to win — what would you loyal guardians of the Sky Tower think of that?” The Young Lord of Dawn still had the smile on his face. He looked with narrowed eyes at Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the rest, who were staring dumbfounded, and the expression on him was that of a clever little fox looking at a few chicks.

(End of Chapter 1234)