“But the blood altar was guarded by the ancient laws, and it was destroyed — heaven and earth along with it.”
The black bear demon and the wild boar demon wanted to dispute it as well, but the facts were right in front of them: the shattered space of heaven and earth still hadn’t closed up!
“No. I think that kid’s still alive.” The swaggering man was the only one who objected.
“Let’s hear your reasons.” The Nine-Headed Demon gave him a slightly odd look.
“I can’t see it clearly, but I’ve got a gut feeling that Yue Titan isn’t dead at all. He’s hiding somewhere. That kid just doesn’t have the look of somebody who dies young. If he weren’t so damn hard to kill, I’d have been fed up enough to charge in and butcher him ages ago. There’s nothing your old man hates more than a guy who’s better-looking than me! This kid isn’t just better-looking than me, he’s smart too, and most important of all, he’s lucky. I’m so jealous I’m about to lose my mind… No. When he comes out, I’m going to find him and beat the hell out of him, or I’ll never get this grudge off my chest!”
The swaggering man’s speech did not earn the slightest nod from Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon and the others.
Intuition?
Men have intuition too?
If a man’s intuition were worth anything, what would the world need women for?
As for that business about “the look of somebody who dies young,” it was even more ridiculous. What did a person’s looks have to do with living or dying? Did being handsome guarantee a long life? Did being ugly mean dying young? There was no justice in that at all! By that logic, this demon-race brat in front of them, who looked like a little of everything and nothing in particular, should have died young a long time ago!
The Nine-Headed Demon heard him out and smiled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“Cut the crap, kid. Didn’t your intuition tell you disaster’s about to land on your head?” The Sky Dragon overlord, who had been waiting a long while for his chance to strike, mocked his opponent with cold, merciless contempt. He stood before him like a small mountain, and his eyes were full of killing intent.
“I’ve got no disaster coming. You, on the other hand — I’ll bet you won’t live out the day.” The swaggering man lifted his chin and fired the mockery straight back, not the least bit afraid.
“You’re asking to die!” The Sky Dragon overlord raised his right hand high, ready to kill the arrogant demon-race brat with a single move.
“Wait.”
A voice rang out like music from heaven.
It was like a clear spring in the woods, trickling gently over stone and seeping into the heart.
It was as if a sweetness welled up from the very bottom of your heart. Even the most hot-tempered man in the world, hearing that soft, lovely, heavenly voice, would feel his anger vanish like smoke on the spot.
No one could be seen. There was only a sky full of brilliant starlight.
Even a top-tier power at the level of Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon could catch no more than a faint glimpse, at the heart of that brilliant starlight, of a beautiful silhouette — hazy, barely there, not quite real. He could not see her true face at all, let alone pin down where she was standing. From the passage slowly splitting open in the middle of the blood altar, starlight glittered like the Milky Way, and in an instant the whole field had become a beautiful starry sky, dreamlike and unreal.
“As one of the masters here, I’ve always been too lazy to deal with outside affairs. After all, the man handles things outside the home, and it isn’t proper for a little woman like me to keep meddling in them. Besides, I’m easygoing by nature. I have no fighting spirit at all. If I can give way a step, I give way a step, and even when people bully me, as long as I can bear it, I keep my mouth shut. But today things have gotten this out of hand, and the Yue boy isn’t here, so I’ll just have to come out and say hello to all our guests.” The heavenly voice was like a soft murmur. At first it seemed to be right at your ear, but when you listened quietly, it seemed to come from somewhere beyond the starry heavens, too mysterious to pin down.
“Hmph! Quit the spooky act — get out here this instant and face your old lady!” The only person on the whole field who was unhappy was the beautiful queen Bonemelt, her whole body burning with rising flames.
Her reason was about the same as the swaggering man’s for hating handsome men: every beautiful woman in the world was her enemy.
Big beauties, little beauties — so long as she was a beauty, she was an enemy.
And it had to end in death!
In her fury, the beautiful queen Bonemelt swung her hand toward the river of stars and flung out a sheet of violent dragon flame that could burn anything in existence.
Even if she couldn’t kill her opponent in one move, she would at least leave her scorched and battered. And if she could burn the woman’s face and ruin her looks, so much the better.
Unfortunately, the violent dragon flame that could in theory burn anything in the world sank into that dazzling, glittering river of stars like a pebble into the sea. Without a sound, without a trace, it was simply gone.
Bonemelt’s reckless attack, launched without a thought for the consequences, made Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon frown.
But he did not stop her.
He was deliberately letting his impulsive companion test their opponent’s strength.
The result of the test only deepened his frown. The violent dragon flame that could burn anything had no effect whatsoever; it had been swallowed up as though it had never existed. Or perhaps not swallowed — dissolved. Or perhaps not dissolved either, but some kind of assimilation there were no words for… Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon found that even he, with his True-Edge Dragon Eyes, could not see through to the truth. He could not even make out what was on the surface.
What on earth was going on here?
Where had the Sky Tower gotten so many powerhouses?
Could it be that Yue Titan wasn’t the Sky Tower’s only top-tier power?
And the one who had come now, so plainly a woman — who was she? Could she be the Human Supreme Dongfang had once mentioned? No, that didn’t fit. According to their intelligence, the Human Supreme was a close-combat fighter who excelled with the sword, nothing like this woman whose mere arrival filled the sky with starlight…
And even if she were the Human Supreme, nothing in the intelligence suggested she should be this strong.
Who in the world was she?
“We of the Nine-Headed Clan came from the Heavenly Realm at Dongfang’s invitation. Before this, we had made a wager with Yue Titan, but the Golden Emperor interfered partway through and knocked Yue Titan off to who knows where. Otherwise, whatever misunderstanding lay between us could certainly have been cleared up.” The Nine-Headed Demon had a gentler temper than the others, and he bowed slightly toward the center of the river of stars.
“Since you have a wager with the Yue boy, please stand aside and wait until he comes back.” The heavenly voice rang out again. “Right now, I’d like to say hello first to a few guests who have no idea how guests ought to behave.”
“Comes back? A man killed in one blow by divine power is going to come back?” The Sky Dragon overlord standing in front of the swaggering man threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“If he comes back, from now on I’ll eat with my nose and walk on my hands!” The other Sky Dragon overlord, standing a little farther back to cover him, could not stop cackling.
“You can also think with your ass and spew shit out of your mouth — you were always that kind of backward garbage anyway!” The swaggering man shot back without a shred of courtesy. He was no friend of Yue Yang’s, but he couldn’t stand the disgusting faces of the Sky Dragon powers either. Ignoring the Sky Dragon overlord in front of him, he turned his head toward the center of the river of stars and asked, “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”
“Me? I wouldn’t call myself a good person, but I don’t seem to be a bad one either!” The clear voice inside the brilliant river of stars suddenly laughed.
“Forget it, then!” The swaggering man looked thoroughly let down.
“What if I were a good person?” the heavenly voice asked, curious.
“I hate good guys more than anything. If you were a good guy, I’d beat the hell out of you. And if you were a man, I’d bite your nose off too, so you could never show your face again as long as you lived!” The swaggering man was a born rebel.
“Then it’s lucky I’m not a good person… And what if I were a bad person?” the heavenly voice inside the river of stars asked again.
“I love bad guys more than anything! You’re a woman, sure, but if you were a bad guy, I’d have no choice but to fight for you. Anybody who went against you, I’d take their bones apart, peel their hides off and rip their tendons out… Staying a bad guy in this world isn’t easy. I’d have to encourage you any way I could!” The swaggering man shook his head, full of regret, and sighed. “Too bad you’re not a bad guy, or I could help you! Why don’t you start being a bad guy right now? Then I’d have all the motivation and all the reason I need to fight for you.”
“Thank you very much, and at the same time, I’m terribly sorry. I think a decision like starting to be a bad person right now is something I’ll need to think over. If one day I finish thinking it over and decide to be a bad person, I’ll be sure to let you know!” The heavenly voice inside the river of stars held back its laughter and gently turned down the swaggering man’s crazy suggestion.
“Fine, then.” The swaggering man shrugged in deep disappointment, looking utterly helpless. She wasn’t a bad guy, so he couldn’t help her. All he could do was stand and watch the Sky Dragon powers, whom he couldn’t stand the sight of, throw their weight around.
He could have struck first.
Unfortunately, she was the host here. He was not like the Golden Emperor. Without good reason, he did not want to jump in ahead of the host.
Doing that would have been far too rude.
The Eastern Demon Clan could be very savage and very terrifying, but it could not be rude. If they behaved like that all the time, people would think the whole Eastern Demon Clan had no manners, and that would do far too much damage to the clan’s image.
Bonemelt the beautiful queen made a “go get her” gesture, snorting coldly again and again. “This is no time for chitchat! If we guests don’t hurry up and bring out a proper gift, our host is going to forget we even exist! Shanglong, Konglong — you two are overlords who rule whole regions even in the Sky Realm. Put you down in the Lower Heavenly Realm, and forget domain emperor, you might even become great powers! And now you’ve come to this Sky Tower, small as a country village, and you’re being ignored like this. Don’t you feel even a little ashamed? If you have one shred of pride left, bring out your real strength right now and give this great beauty who calls herself one of the Sky Tower’s masters a surprise!”
“You’re going to put on a show of spewing shit out of your mouths? Now that really would be a surprise!” The swaggering man badly wanted the Sky Dragon overlord in front of him to throw a punch at him. The moment he did, he would have his excuse to cut loose. So his whole face was one big arrogant provocation that said Hit me already, I can’t wait to start swinging. But Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon gave a shake of his head, signaling his companions not to provoke this demon-race brat lightly — above all, not to make the first move, not when a top-tier Sky Tower power had only just appeared.
“They won’t get the chance to put on a show, because they’re about to die!”
From within the brilliant starry sky, that lovely heavenly voice rang out with perfect clarity. “With the Yue boy away, every bit of the trouble lands on my head. It makes me so angry. I hate trouble! Not that it matters. My temper comes fast and goes fast. I’ll just kill a hundred or so people, whoever’s handy, and I expect most of my anger will be gone.”
The whole field listened, stunned.
Had they heard that right?
Was that something a great beauty ought to say?
All this fighting and killing didn’t quite seem to fit a lady’s code of conduct, did it?
The Sky Dragon overlord standing in front of the swaggering man, built like a small mountain — the one the beautiful queen had called Shanglong — froze for a moment. Then he burst into wild laughter and laughed until tears sprayed from his eyes and he could barely straighten up. “Ahahahahaha, your old man’s dying of laughter here! Does the Sky Tower grow nothing but idiots? Is bragging the local specialty of this backwater? Some genius Yue Titan turned out to be — killed in one move! And now some clueless little girl turns up blowing hot air too. Don’t you Sky Tower people know your own limits at all? Hahaha! I’m standing right here. If you’ve got what it takes, kill me. I’d really like to see how you do it. Come on — I promise I won’t fight back. I’ll just stand here and watch you kill me!”
“Then watch closely!”
At some moment no one had noticed, dozens of stars had appeared around the Sky Dragon overlord Shanglong — a hundred, perhaps.
The stars were tiny but blazing bright. They seemed tossed out one by one by a careless hand, scattered in no order at all — yet on a closer look, it was as if an invisible and uncannily intelligent hand were quietly adjusting each one’s position, arranging them into a pattern that was beautiful, mysterious and impossible to predict… Shanglong was about to sneer: With these stars? With these little specks, you think you’re going to kill me? But before the words could leave his throat, he found his body sliced apart painlessly by some miraculous force, divided into more pieces than he could count. His head went with them, flung weightless into midair in an instant.
No pain at all.
Or rather, no time to feel any pain.
Shanglong discovered that his body had been shattered, and yet, strangely, he had not lost consciousness. He could perceive the whole process of his body breaking apart, clearly and completely.
He could not understand why, or what power was doing it, but he knew one thing: this was absolutely not an illusion. It was real… Just as Shanglong, this overlord of the Sky Dragon clan, opened his mouth to scream “No!”, he saw every shattered piece of his body swallowed in an instant by a terrifying black hole hidden inside the starry sky.
Not one scrap was left.
Except for his head, every part of him had vanished without a trace.
Why leave his head? Shanglong was just turning the question over… and a second later, he understood: the Sky Tower master still inside the river of stars meant to turn his head into a meteor! At close to the speed of light, Shanglong found his head hurtling toward a tiny star, and only as he closed in did he realize that the star, so small from a distance, was in fact an immense planet.
His head struck it like a meteor, and as for the result — he didn’t need to think to know what it would be.
Boom!
In the instant of impact, Shanglong felt even his soul shatter.
Then, in a devastating explosion, he was annihilated, and everything was reduced to nothing…
That was how it went from Shanglong’s point of view. But in the eyes of Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon, Bonemelt the beautiful queen and the other Sky Dragon powers, it took less than a ten-thousandth of a second for Shanglong to be swallowed by the black hole and for his head to explode like a planet into cosmic dust. Forget rescuing him — they could not even see it clearly. Faster than a blink, Shanglong, a Sky Dragon power who could fairly be called an overlord even in the Sky Realm, had become dust between heaven and earth. Not one of them had seen it coming.
It fell short of the Golden Emperor’s terrifying divine power, but it was a one-move kill all the same, no mistake about it!
This great beauty hidden in the starry sky had the strength to kill a Heavenly Realm powerhouse in a single move? How was that possible!
“Impossible!” Konglong, who had been covering Shanglong, was scared out of his wits. He shrieked, spun around and fled behind Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon, terrified he would follow his companion down the same road and be killed in a single move.
“You — what is your name?” The color drained from Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon’s face. He forced down his pounding heart, swallowed hard, and got the question out with effort.
“My name is the Night Empress. I’m only a little nobody in the Sky Tower. The Yue boy isn’t here, and the Supreme hasn’t come back yet, so it falls to me to entertain our honored guests. That was just an appetizer — ten thousand times the power of the starry sky. If you don’t mind, I also have a soup course at a hundred thousand times, a main course at two hundred thousand, and even a dessert at three hundred thousand. With a banquet like that, I’m sure every one of you will leave satisfied!” The moment the heavenly voice finished, every member of the Sky Dragon clan except Gu Ang the Two-Headed Dragon — four of them, Bonemelt the beautiful queen included — shot straight up into the sky, fleeing that terrifying starry expanse as fast as they could go.
(End of Chapter 1261)