The golden palace.

Past the white jade steps. Through the soaring front hall. Through the gate-tower passage of the golden palace, so high it hurt to look up at.

What opened beyond was a vast plaza of overwhelming grandeur — carved balustrades, jade-inlaid floors, opulent in a way that made any imperial boulevard in the mortal world look like an anthill. Floating in the air around the plaza, protected by their own golden shells, were nine sky islands of varying sizes, scattered above and below and in every direction.

Ahead, three main avenues, each nearly a thousand meters wide and running dozens of kilometers long.

And beyond them — golden steps, more than could be counted, every single one cast from pure gold.

If Yue Yang hadn’t already walked the World Tree of the Sky Stairway and seen wonders that beggared even this, he might have stood frozen in front of it. As it was, he took it in and kept moving.

“Go after the Solar King,” Princess Qianqian said. “We’ll search the surrounding areas and catch up.”

Something had been telling her, from the moment they entered, that separating from Yue Yang was the right move — that she could help him more effectively from somewhere else. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she had noticed something: inside the golden palace, the Six Senses talent that the Law-force had suppressed outside was working again.

“I’ll go east.” Yue Yu had felt it too, the moment they entered — a pull she couldn’t name, something like a voice she couldn’t quite hear, drawing her in that direction. Was this what Princess Qianqian had sensed when she said Yue Yu might become the decisive factor in the end?

“Then Qianqian and I go west.” The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady considered it briefly and made her decision.

The golden palace faced south. North was straight ahead. West on the left, east on the right.

By raw power, Princess Qianqian was significantly stronger than Yue Yu — but the Drunken Cat Imperial Lady’s worry ran the other direction. Yue Yu was composed, precise, someone who picked her battles carefully; when she faced an opponent she couldn’t handle, she would withdraw rather than force it. Princess Qianqian was different. She would pour everything into defeating any enemy in front of her, no matter the cost. The Imperial Lady felt her place was beside Princess Qianqian, available as backup when it mattered. Yue Yu, if she had Hong or Aman alongside her, would be well protected.

Yue Yang had Hong, Aman, and the others hold their positions for now, spread out through the surrounding area — looking for whatever critical information the golden palace might yield.

As for the fight with the Solar King — that wasn’t going to be settled quickly. He had brought everyone here for the endgame: a moment when their combined force could tip the balance when it mattered most. If they all charged in together from the start, the Solar King would take some of them down in the process — and while Aman, Hong, and Duoduo were life-guardian war beasts and wouldn’t truly die, Yue Yang still didn’t want them hurt. Being killed in combat meant more than just power reduction; wisdom, will, and potential all suffered. If there was a way to avoid it, he preferred it.

“You can’t go in there completely alone,” Princess Qianqian said. She understood why he wanted to protect the others. She also understood that his safety was the one thing that mattered more than anything else.

“Xiao Wenli. Yao and Yu — go with him.” Yue Yu had been about to add Jiang Ying and Ika, but caught Yue Yang’s slight shake of the head and stopped.

Too many life-guardian war beasts entering together would tip the Solar King off that something was wrong. The existing plan needed to hold.

For the final victory, Yue Yu decided she and Aman and Hong would work the outer area — find the golden palace’s deepest secret as fast as possible, and at the same time begin laying a net. The Solar King could not be allowed to escape after Yue Yang defeated him. The consequences of letting him reach the celestial realm again — not just for Yue Yang, but for all of Sky Tower — were too severe to think about.

“Everyone be careful,” Yue Yang said. He worked his way down the line, one embrace for each — Princess Qianqian, the Drunken Cat Imperial Lady — and then reached Yue Yu last. With a battle like this ahead, Yue Yu set aside her shyness and held him tightly, pressing her cheek against his, fighting to keep her eyes dry.

“Xiao San — you be the most careful of all. We’ll follow soon. Wait for us.”

He started up the golden steps with Xiao Wenli and the dragon sisters behind him.

Yue Yu took a few steps after him before she caught herself, calling out in a voice that had gone slightly unsteady: “Don’t try to match him blow for blow — be careful — and remember what Vivienne told you about his weakness!”

Yue Yang didn’t look back. He was afraid that if he did, they would all be in tears, and then all of them would come rushing up, and none of them would let him go. He hardened his heart and ran, bounding up several hundred steps before he was sure Princess Qianqian and the others weren’t following. Then he raised one hand and gave a brief wave without turning, to show he had heard.

Princess Qianqian bit down on her lip.

Then straightened and turned. “Go. We need to move quickly.”

Xiao Wenli and the dragon sisters Yao and Yu followed close behind as Yue Yang climbed.

The golden steps went on and on — tens of thousands of them, disappearing up through layers of cloud before the main hall finally came into view.

It was purple-gold.

The color of it was impossible to adequately describe — luminous, regal, beautiful in a way that exhausted language. At the top of the golden stairway, where the clouds parted, the scene felt like a painting of paradise rather than a real place. Before the purple-gold hall stood four colossal pillars, the kind that held up skies, framing a white jade ceremonial arch a hundred meters on each side. At the center of the arch, inscribed in ancient rune characters that glowed with layered treasure-light, were four words:

Purple-Gold Divine Hall.

And far above, above the three great doors of the hall itself, a second plaque hung.

Hall of the Supreme.

Yue Yang slowed his pace. With Xiao Wenli at his side, he stepped carefully through the central golden gate. The dragon sisters held back ten meters — a precaution against any sudden change.

The interior of the Purple-Gold Divine Hall was immense — several hundred meters from floor to ceiling, its vaulted expanse lit by giant luminous pearls that scattered light like stars scattered across a night sky. Dragon-coiled pillars in groups of nine spiraled upward throughout the space, each one so wide that dozens of people holding hands couldn’t encircle a single one. The front hall alone, by Yue Yang’s estimation, was the size of more than a dozen football fields.

On the throne at the front of the hall, someone was standing.

The Solar King.

“That was fast.” He turned. His expression, for the first time, had gone fully serious. His eyes moved over Yue Yang with careful attention — finding no wounds, no sign of a fight — and something in his gaze went cold. He shook his head slowly. “I knew Cang Long couldn’t defeat you. But I never imagined he couldn’t hold you for even ten minutes. Yue Yang Titan — are you genuinely capable of killing a Divine Hall Master in under ten minutes? Without any talent usage, without any Grimoire summoning, under Law-force restriction?”

“He was overrated,” Yue Yang said, with an easy laugh he mostly manufactured.

“If Cang Long was overrated, then who in the world isn’t?” The Solar King’s voice carried the weight of someone genuinely reckoning with something. “Even Ming Rihao — strong as he is — couldn’t take down a lifelong enemy when the moment came. But you, Yue Yang Titan, eliminated a Water Palace Master in ten minutes. That is not something I could do so easily either. I find myself compelled to say — I am genuinely impressed.”

Respect and intent to kill were apparently not mutually exclusive for the Solar King. Even as he said it, he was building his power steadily upward.

His eyes, meanwhile, were making small, careful sweeps to take in the dragon sisters.

Yue Yang matched his energy increase without showing it, while his own attention moved to what sat on the throne table. Several objects were arranged on it — brushes and ink, seals and jade — and among them, taking up a full third of the table’s surface, was an enormous Grimoire whose light and pressure announced itself from across the room.

He couldn’t see it clearly from this distance. He couldn’t tell with certainty whether it was a Sacred Grimoire or the Divine Codex itself.

But based on everything he had observed since entering — the light it cast, the weight of its presence, the way it pushed against the air around it — the answer was almost certainly not Sacred.

Was it really the Divine Codex?

If so — why hadn’t the Solar King attempted the covenant?

And if the Solar King hadn’t tried yet, did that mean the covenant could not simply be attempted?

Even Yue Yang, who had seen more extraordinary things than most, felt his mouth go dry. His heartbeat picked up.

“I have war beasts as well,” the Solar King said, “but for now — I think it should be just the two of us. If you win, I die without regret. Everything here becomes yours. The future of the celestial realm becomes yours as well.” The light radiating from the Solar King’s body surged, brighter than the sun above. In the last instant before he moved, he paused. Something genuine moved across his face. “I have never had an opponent this remarkable. If fate had not demanded a choice between us — I will be honest with you, Yue Yang Titan — I would not have chosen to be your enemy.”

“Solar King — I wouldn’t have chosen to be yours,” Yue Yang answered. Around him, he mirrored the Night Empress’s Starfield Domain, lighting constellations one by one through the surrounding air, until the blazing solar radiance of the Solar King and the deep scattered starlight met and combined into something that had never existed before — a world of stars and sun at once. “But I don’t have another choice.”

“Then let fate decide.” The Solar King came forward like thunder.

In this moment, no tactic, no scheme, no strategy applied. Against absolute power — power above his own in domain, in Law, in will — Yue Yang had one option.

Hold his ground and take it head-on.

BOOM.

The direct collision of their full strength shook the entire Purple-Gold Divine Hall to its foundations.

Princess Qianqian, still running through the lower levels, looked up — and found the entire sky smothered in light like a collapsing sun, too brilliant to look at directly. The shockwaves broke through the space itself, rolling outward and downward in waves that felt like the world ending.

Yue Yu went pale.

She stared at the sky where that light was consuming everything, and found that nothing she could do would change what was happening up there. So she pressed her palms together, closed her eyes, and prayed for her brother with everything she had.

It was the only thing left.