The middle-aged scholar playing Yue Yang had already moved the picture of the boundless land aside and put up another place in its stead.

It was a shadow sunk deep under water.

The water world. The black tower.

That was where the Peerless Emperor Wushuang was sealed — a power from the Sky Tower’s previous epoch. This Peerless Emperor, still inside his seal, was an older existence than Empress Vivienne, who had set her heart on sweeping the Heavenly Realm in her day. His appearance had, in the truest sense, brought the chaos of the Demon Abyss under one rule, and made him the first Demon Abyss Emperor in all its history.

Yue Yang had once crossed hands with the skeleton man, the crow and the woman ghost, all of them under the Peerless Emperor’s command and all of them still sealed, and he had learned a great deal from it.

He had never met the Peerless Emperor face to face. But he judged that Peerless Emperor Wushuang would be an existence at the level of Ji Wuri’s master, the Divine Hall Supreme.

Set against the mysterious man he had fought so bitterly at Mountain Beyond the Mountain.

There was no telling how much stronger the Peerless Emperor would be.

“What is this supposed to mean?” Yue Yang understood what the middle-aged scholar was driving at as soon as he saw it, but he went on playing the fool and pretending he could not follow.

“I have already spoken with Peerless Emperor Wushuang. He has formally agreed to leave the black tower that has sealed him these tens of thousands of years, and to take part in this war.” There was no triumph on the middle-aged scholar’s face. The shaken doubt Duoduo’s arrival had put there was gone, and he had his perfect composure back.

“Even if he comes out, that doesn’t necessarily make him your piece.” Yue Yang was skeptical.

“I offered him a third of the Ruins of the Gods, and he agreed.” The middle-aged scholar explained it to Yue Yang patiently.

“All right. Say he is willing to be your piece. He has been sealed for tens of thousands of years, suffering and tormented — what strength has he got left?” Yue Yang kept up the doubt.

“Peerless Emperor Wushuang’s seal was never a seal meant to destroy him. It was a seal meant to discipline him. If he had wanted to leave, he could have done it at any time from ten thousand years ago until today — but in order to wipe out the sins he committed back then, he stayed inside the black tower of his own will to reflect on them. Which is to say that he recovered his peak strength long ago, and that in tens of thousands of years of discipline he has gone further still.” The middle-aged scholar’s answer was certain. “Apart from that martial-arts lunatic Tianyu, there is probably not one man in all the world who is his match. I can guarantee it a hundred percent.”

“A master of masters and a master above that — and you got him to come for one third of the treasures in the Ruins of the Gods?” Yue Yang found this genuinely strange. Since when had masters come so cheap?

“Because Tianyu wants a third as well.” That line from the middle-aged scholar gave Yue Yang a serious fright.

“Tianyu can’t possibly be your piece.” Yue Yang could be absolutely certain of that.

“Indeed he is not.” The middle-aged scholar agreed. “But he does not object to coming to the Sky Tower to take his share of a third of the treasure in the Ruins of the Gods.”

“And the other third goes to you?” Yue Yang drew his brows together. He felt matters had gotten a little troublesome. First Peerless Emperor Wushuang waking, and then Tianyu arriving — was there any worse position in the world than having those two on the field for the same war? Even with Her Majesty Empress Vivienne lending her weight, Yue Yang could not feel the bottom of it now. Her Majesty could cancel out one of them, and one against two was not really possible.

“No. All I want is one fifth of the remaining third.” The middle-aged scholar’s face was beginning to show a smile. “The other four fifths have all been reasonably arranged elsewhere.”

“To whom, exactly?” Yue Yang’s heart was beating like a drum, but on his face he kept up the show of calm.

“The Demon Emperor of the Sky Realm. You probably do not know him. He is the demon race’s Sky-Bird Supreme, and apart from the dragon-eating Golden-Winged Roc and the Three-Legged Golden Crows of Tang Valley, every winged thing in the entire demon race is under his rule. You tell me — for an existence like that, invited here to throw a fist into the fight, is one fifth of the remaining third really too much?” Hearing it put that way, Yue Yang felt the man had gotten a bargain. To buy a power of that caliber into the war for one fifth of what was left was simply money for nothing.

“You and the Demon Emperor take a fifth each. Who gets the other three fifths?” Yue Yang had reached the point where a man with enough fleas stops itching. A few more top-tier enemies on the field only made it livelier. One boss was a fight and a crowd of bosses was a fight, and he had stopped caring.

“There is one you may know — the father of that Eighth Prince Wuhai who was in such a hurry to get word to you. The lord of the Three-Legged Golden Crow Clan of Tang Valley, the ‘Golden Emperor.’ The other is the founder of the Central Divine Hall’s Council of Elders, the Immovable Supreme.” The middle-aged scholar looked at Yue Yang with a smile and slowly set the piece in his hand down on the stone. “As for the last fifth, I could not be bothered dividing it. I have handed it straight to the five great powers coming out of the East Heavenly Realm, the South Heavenly Realm and the West Heavenly Realm, and they may split it however they please. Ah — and the one taking part from the West Heavenly Realm is an old acquaintance of yours. The Void. He was sealed by the Prison Emperor for several thousand years, so his strength has been left a long way behind by the other four, and he may not get much of a share out of it. But out of hatred for the Sky Tower and hatred for you, he came willingly all the same…”

“I’ve got no quarrel with him. If this young master hadn’t broken his seal, the Void would probably still be stuck inside the Prison Emperor’s Divine Hall unable to get out!” Yue Yang laughed coldly.

It was one thing for the man not to weep with gratitude and stand him a dinner.

But he had the nerve to repay a kindness with an injury?

It seemed he was the same as Dongfang, this traitor to the Sky Tower — a white-eyed wolf nobody could ever tame.

The middle-aged scholar watched Yue Yang and found himself faintly puzzled. This move of his was unquestionably a beautiful one, so why did the boy look wrong somehow? He did not seem particularly panicked. Had he been frightened stupid? Or did he have some way of breaking it that nobody else could see?

Truthfully, Yue Yang had nothing!

A whole heaving crowd of bosses had come to the Sky Tower to push him around — the ones he knew and the ones he did not, the ones he had heard of and the ones he had never heard of, every last one of them. What in the world was a man supposed to do about that? But for Yue Yang, who had a habit of taking on the highest difficulty and a habit of fighting bosses, it was not actually frightening. From the very beginning he had grown up tempering himself in fights above his grade, and facing enemies too strong to beat had long ago become the ordinary state of things. It would have been strange if there hadn’t been any.

Back in the day, Yue Yang had picked ultra-hard mode from inside his own mother’s womb — born into a harmonized motherland with no spare luck to top up his account and no chance whatsoever of coming out as one of those rich-kid pay-to-win players — and he had survived it perfectly well, hadn’t he?

However hard this war got, could it really be harder than living in a celestial dynasty where the river crab of harmony runs loose?

Yue Yang, who had done rather well for himself since transmigrating, was perfectly relaxed about it.

One boss is a fight. A crowd of bosses is a fight.

And more bosses came with an advantage of their own.

Which was the problem of dividing the spoils.

By the arrangement as it stood, the split was fair enough and there was no problem with it. But Yue Yang had heard about eating out of one big communal pot, and he knew the principle: once everyone eats from the same pot, somebody is certain to starve in the end. The old fable about three monks and no water to drink did not get handed down for nothing.

“Is that everything?” Yue Yang reckoned his poor little heart had been given about as much of a fright as it could take — though it had held up, and had not died of it.

“Introducing this many friends to you all at once — is it a bit abrupt?” The middle-aged scholar was being considerate of Yue Yang’s feelings.

“Not at all. I like having lots of friends. Makes it lively.” Yue Yang waved a hand, grandly. “Skip the small fry, though. Whatever else I am, I’m a man of some standing. No need for me to be meeting bit players.”

“Very well said.” The middle-aged scholar clapped his hands in agreement, then looked at Yue Yang again with a smile and asked him pleasantly, “So — third young master of the Yue family, who calls himself the Prison Emperor of this generation. How do you intend to answer? Place your piece, and don’t stand on ceremony. If you find it a little difficult, I can spot you a few moves. Whatever else I am, I do count as a senior of yours!”

“…” Now it was Yue Yang’s turn to sink into a long deliberation. The shape the enemy was building had begun to come clear — but this first step of his counterattack, where was he supposed to put it?

The boundless land.

The fighting was over.

They had taken the Young Lord of Dawn prisoner and beaten that Solar Divine General, who had looked down on everything and everyone, to death between them. The battle of the boundless land had gone extremely well — the result was better than anything Sea Fatty and the rest had expected. While the effects of Duoduo’s Ancient Forest and Ancient Thorns blessings still held, Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the others left the boundless land in a hurry, to meet the next fight.

Old Fox waited until the thorn-flower giant Duoduo left behind had finished devouring the Solar Divine General.

Only then did he look down at the Young Lord of Dawn, bound on the ground now with God-Binding Chains.

How should a hostage of this particular kind be used?

It was plain enough that the Young Lord of Dawn had become a discarded pawn, and that his father ‘Dongfang’ did not care in the least whether he lived or died. Even so, this Young Lord of Dawn still carried a great deal of value, and having captured him they unquestionably held a good card.

“Actually.” Seeing Old Fox come closer, the Young Lord of Dawn suddenly opened his swollen, beaten eyes, and his voice was calm and perfectly clear. “I am not a fool.”

“What is it you want to say?” Old Fox found this odd. What was this supposed to mean?

“From the moment that Duoduo appeared, I knew nothing more could be done. One look at my father’s eyes and I knew I was fated to become a discarded pawn. From that moment on, I began playing the fool.” There was a soft pop from the Young Lord of Dawn’s body, and he vanished from in front of Old Fox. What was left bound inside the God-Binding Chains in his place was a golden puppet made in his exact likeness. On the Young Lord of Dawn’s head sat a green leaf giving off a flickering spirit light, and that light, radiating on its own, wrapped his whole body and turned him utterly transparent and formless — a marvel to see.

Old Fox got a fright. So this Young Lord of Dawn had a means of getting free after all!

The Young Lord of Dawn waved a hand, signaling him not to worry. “Mr. Shui Dongliu, I have no intention of offending you, and still less of making an enemy of the Yue family’s third son. I understand now: Yue Titan is not an existence I can afford to offend. And from the very instant I was thrown away and fated to become a discarded pawn, I made my decision. I am going to walk a road that belongs entirely to me. When it comes down to it, I owe you and the Yue family’s third son my thanks — you did not mean to, but you gave me exactly this chance. It was being thrown away that finally let me get out from under my father and win my freedom for real… You have no idea. Living inside a chessboard, controlled at every turn like a puppet on strings — you cannot imagine how wretched a life that is, or how much that feeling hurts.”

“I played clever in front of you, and I played clever in front of my father, so that everybody would believe I was nothing but a spoiled dilettante loaded with treasures and good for nothing else. Yes — I have always presented myself that way in public, and under my father’s watch most of all. I had to show off how clever I was at every turn. Playing clever is the greatest kind of playing the fool. If I had played the fool openly, I would never have lived this long. By playing clever everywhere, I made people think that this outstanding Young Lord of Dawn was — only that much. Ha ha ha… In fact I never needed a single treasure. I had strength enough to protect myself. What is one paltry Solar Divine General? A loyal running dog under my father, nothing more. But with him standing beside me I was a clown — I might draw the eye, but I carried no weight!” The Young Lord of Dawn suddenly bowed to Old Fox.

“I was no match for you, and I insulted you besides. Why salute me?” Old Fox smiled and asked it back at him.

“You have a powerful disciple. That is the first reason I respect you. And you have a wisdom nobody can measure — you all but saw through my playing the fool, and you deliberately had Hai Dafu and Ye Kong leave me alive, and then killed the Solar Divine General and threw him to the demon-flower giant to be eaten, which removed the trouble waiting behind me. That is the second reason I respect you.” The Young Lord of Dawn nodded with enormous sincerity. “If being humiliated lets me shake off a fate of being another man’s puppet and win my freedom, what of it? Without using a method like that one, how could I have escaped safely under my father’s eyes?”

“I did have my suspicions. But I never imagined you would have that much wisdom and that much resolve.” Old Fox nodded slowly, admitting that what he had done earlier had not been accidental.

“Freedom. I have wanted it for thousands of years. Paying a small price in exchange is perfectly reasonable.” The Young Lord of Dawn lifted his face to the sky. “My ideal is to hold a small world of my own in the Heavenly Realm — to become an independent domain emperor. That is my greatest ambition. In a Heavenly Realm where the strong eat the weak, reaching the rank of domain emperor generally counts as fairly stable, because from there you are not much of a threat to anyone above you, and nobody below you can easily threaten you… Once I leave the Sky Tower I will cultivate with my whole heart and work to reach that goal. Please tell Yue Titan I have no wish to be his enemy — not in the Heavenly Realm, and not in the Sky Tower!”

“I wish you success. Go well.” A light of wisdom went through Old Fox’s eyes, and he gave the blessing sincerely.

“Please tell Sea Fatty and Ye Kong and the others, and tell your disciple — none of this shames me, and I will hold no grudge against them for it… We are not likely to become friends, but I believe I will never be their enemy again.” The Young Lord of Dawn pulled the golden arrows out of his body one at a time and handed them to Old Fox.

“They are young and don’t know any better. Everything they do, they do on a rush of blood!” Old Fox said thank you and took the bloody golden arrows.

“That is the good thing about being young… I was the same when I was young. Set against me, how fortunate they are — even when they make a mistake, there is a Yue Titan standing behind them. I was never permitted a single mistake.”

The Young Lord of Dawn waved a hand, with envy on his face.

And conjured a golden door.

And opened it.

That golden door tore a passage out of empty space, to somewhere nobody could say. The Young Lord of Dawn turned into a golden rainbow of light, sank into it, and was gone.

(End of Chapter 1252)