While Xue Wuxia was receiving the inheritance of wisdom, the black shadow, Storm Cloud, secretly sent his voice into the mind of his companion, the fiery red shadow, Volcano. “This is our best chance.”
“What?” The fiery red shadow, Volcano, had no idea what he meant.
“I mean we grab the little girl.” There was a hint of temptation in Storm Cloud’s voice. “You can see her strength is below any one of ours, and she’s a little girl who only recently ascended to the divine realm. And most important of all, she’s receiving the inheritance right now and can’t defend herself at all. The moment she finishes taking it in, we move.”
“Are you out of your mind?” The fiery red shadow, Volcano, very nearly cried out loud. “Aren’t we supposed to be staying neutral?”
“We are staying neutral. But if this little girl keeps fighting Dongfang and Tianyu, she’s very likely to fall,” the black shadow, Storm Cloud, coaxed quietly. “If we grab her, she can’t fight anymore, and she’ll live right through to the end.”
“And what’s in it for us?” The fiery red shadow, Volcano, still did not understand.
“We’ll need this little girl to get into the core of the Ruins of the Gods.” The black shadow, Storm Cloud, felt their side ought to keep a trump card in reserve.
Otherwise, once Dongfang and Tianyu had won their great victory, the secret treasures in the Ruins of the Gods would have nothing to do with their side at all.
But if they had this little girl — the one who could receive the ancient Goddess of Wisdom’s inheritance — in their hands, then even someone as strong as the Divine Hall Supreme, Tianyu, and someone as cunning as Dongfang, the Central Divine Hall’s foremost strategist, would have no choice but to agree to their terms.
Because with that one grab, they would be holding the “key” to the Ruins of the Gods in their own hands!
The black shadow, Storm Cloud, thought this was the perfect moment. This little girl, who did not look weak, probably belonged to the Sky Stairway’s warriors. She was pure in body and mind, had no guile, and did not guard herself carefully enough against outsiders. The moment she heard their side would stay neutral, she had actually gone and received the inheritance of wisdom right in front of them all.
If that wasn’t the best chance, what was?
But to his surprise, his companion Volcano flatly refused. “Storm Cloud, if you want to grab her, grab her yourself! Count me out.”
“What?” Now it was Storm Cloud’s turn to be stunned. Since when had this companion of his become so kindhearted?
“It’s true I’ve done every evil thing there is in the Sky Realm. I’m a villain through and through.” Hidden in his fiery red divine light, Volcano suddenly sighed. “But being a bad man doesn’t make me an idiot. Why would I do something like this? Why wouldn’t I stay strictly neutral? Say I take her down — never mind whether we even could — it would be a huge blow to the Sky Tower… And if Dongfang and Tianyu win, what good does that do us? On the other hand, if they lose, what harm does that do us? So I’m not going to do something that hurts other people without doing me any good!”
“But if we have her in hand, then even if Dongfang and Tianyu win, they’ll have to bow to us.” Storm Cloud still felt that a human “key” this important belonged in their own side’s hands.
“You’re taking far too much for granted.” Volcano shook his head slightly. “If Dongfang and Tianyu weren’t sure of themselves, they would never have started this war in the first place. Weren’t you listening just now? There are three real entrances, and this is just the easiest one to get through. With Dongfang’s intelligence and Tianyu’s strength, they may be able to get into the true core of the Ruins of the Gods without going through this entrance at all… If we take her down, we’re kicking the Sky Tower while it’s down, and the only possible result is making enemies of it. Besides, my dear old friend, why would I want to fight a divine-tier power? As you and I have both seen, she’s divine tier. However long she’s been at the divine tier — even if it’s only been a single day — she’s still truly divine tier! Fighting a divine-tier power isn’t the smartest move for you or me. At the very least, it isn’t what I came here for.”
“Do you really think we’d lose?” Storm Cloud thought the very idea was insane.
“Do you think we’d be sure to win?” Volcano shot back.
“Whatever else, we’d have better than an eighty percent chance, wouldn’t we?” Storm Cloud had been in the divine realm for several thousand years. If he couldn’t take down a little girl who hadn’t even been at the divine tier for a few months, that would be too humiliating.
“Whether she’s a divine-tier infant or a divine-tier Supreme, I won’t fight her. I won’t even try. Understand? I’m divine tier now. In the Sky Realm I have vast lands, a clan and a home that are mine alone. I’m the master of hundreds of millions of lives, and everything they have, even their thoughts, is under my will. I’m not one of those dueling maniacs from the Sky Tower’s Demon Abyss. Why would I pick a fight with another divine tier on a whim? If I win, what I gain won’t push me much further up the ladder. On the other hand, if I lose, I fall, and I lose everything I have now. Why shouldn’t I just cultivate safely and steadily? It may be incredibly slow, but I’ll never have to worry about falling short halfway, never have to worry that one day I’ll fall and never come back! I have all the time in the world now, and all the future. Why should I take risks? Taking risks isn’t something a divine tier should ever do. That’s what lowlife mercenaries do — the ones who live on the edge of a blade and throw everything they’ve got into one desperate gamble.” Volcano’s words took Storm Cloud completely by surprise. Was this really the Volcano famous across the Sky Realm for his explosive temper and his reckless ways?
“Then forget it. Pretend I never said anything.” Storm Cloud thought it over for a moment and decided Volcano had a point.
He was divine tier himself. He had the best future and the most time. There was no need at all to risk his life or fight tooth and nail. That was not what a divine-tier power ought to be doing.
He had come to the Sky Tower meaning to stay neutral and watch the show. He would take no part on either side, the Sky Tower’s or the Central Divine Hall’s. Whether it was Dongfang, Tianyu or Yue Titan, he would lend none of them a hand. Everything would simply run according to the will of heaven…
Still, Storm Cloud had his reservations about some of what Volcano had said.
That they couldn’t beat this little girl in front of them, for instance, the one who called herself “Wuxia.” How old could she be? How long had she been in the divine realm? Even if she were the most brilliant genius there ever was, more outrageous than that Yue Titan, she had still only been cultivating for twenty-odd years. Compared with himself, who had cultivated for several thousand years after ascending to the divine tier, that was nothing at all! Sky Tower warriors grew fast, but however fast they grew, there was a limit. After ascending to the divine tier especially, progress was extremely slow. It took a very long time to improve even a tiny bit.
This little girl “Wuxia” had never been through a long stretch of cultivation. She hadn’t even had time to condense her own Divinity.
How strong could she possibly be?
Just as Storm Cloud was laughing about it inwardly, Xue Wuxia’s inheritance of wisdom came to an end.
In the instant every rune vanished and the divine power of wisdom sank completely into Xue Wuxia’s body, a special shadow — hidden so deep that even Storm Cloud had not noticed it — leaped out of the void.
Faster than lightning by a thousand, ten thousand times, the special shadow flashed up behind Xue Wuxia.
Some eerie divine power, like a dagger, drove toward the back of her completely unguarded head.
Her mind and spirit were fully relaxed and her guard was down. At a moment like that, it would not even take a heavy blow of divine power; a mere interruption during the inheritance could do irreparable harm. The instant a divine-power attack of such lethal force appeared, the faces of every shadow present changed. Volcano, who had just been talking with Storm Cloud, even roared in fury, “Storm Cloud, you’ve gone too far!”
Volcano had mistaken it for an attack by his companion Storm Cloud. The moment he saw it was this kind of lethal sneak attack, he was enraged.
It was a despicable ambush that disgraced every divine-tier power there was!
Only Storm Cloud himself knew that this shameless attacker was not him. It was a special shadow somewhat like himself, but hidden so deeply that even he could not see through it! This special shadow did not belong to their group at all. He was an assassin who had been trailing behind them!
Perhaps she sensed something, for in the instant of the attack, Xue Wuxia turned around.
It’s over.
If she’d used every ounce of her strength to dodge, she might have gotten away alive.
Instead of running she’s turning around — doesn’t that just hand the assassin the best opening he could ask for? This little girl is going to fall. Even if she’s a divine-tier power, taking a sneak attack like this in a moment like this, she’s very likely to fall. I’m afraid even if all of us divine tiers jumped in together to save her, we couldn’t pull her back… That was what Storm Cloud was thinking.
Volcano and the other shadows were thinking the same thing.
The sneak attack was too fast — too fast to think, too fast to help.
And the assassin had timed it perfectly. He had waited until she finished receiving the inheritance — that blank interval when the inherited divine power was gone and her own divine power and divine mind had not yet come back up — to strike shamelessly from behind. Done that way, the damage would be as great and as severe as it could possibly be.
Her fall was a foregone conclusion. No power could turn it around, not even divine power!
“Begone!”
Just as the shadows were looking at each other in dismay — just as that deeply hidden assassin thought he had succeeded — a gigantic golden hand suddenly reached out of the void above Xue Wuxia’s head.
The golden hand was so huge that when it closed its palm around the divine-realm assassin, Storm Cloud, Volcano and the others realized with a shock that the assassin was as tiny as a flea.
The golden hand squeezed, lightly.
Storm Cloud and the others heard the muffled sound of countless bones shattering, and a chill went through them.
The divine-realm assassin’s body vanished and turned into a plume of thick smoke that seeped out of the golden hand. Driven by some divine power, the smoke moved as fast as a lightning flash and shot like an arrow toward the exit of the Hall of Guidance. But at the exit, at some moment no one had noticed, a woman stood quietly — one who looked remarkably like Xue Wuxia, only ten times taller.
Her purple-gold headdress was made of lightning.
Her flowing long skirt was a storm condensed from supreme divine power.
Frost shone behind her like a halo, radiating at every moment the divine majesty that stood for its mistress’s will and law.
Only her snow-white, jade-like bare feet had not yet had time to condense divine shoes, so they still showed moon-pale ankles and toes as slender as bamboo shoots. This feminine avatar was, of course, Xue Wuxia’s own unique, supreme Divinity… She was a fusion of Xue Wuxia’s life-guardian war beast, the Storm Valkyrie, the spirit of the Book of Truth, the true body of her Divinity and her divine mind of wisdom, all in one.
In other words, she was both Xue Wuxia’s Divinity and the life-guardian war beast who was one with her. She was even the incarnation of her wisdom.
She needed no command from her mistress, because Xue Wuxia’s will and hers were one and the same existence.
Now ascended as the Storm Goddess, she reached out her hand, ignoring the laws of space and time and moving through the world on her own unique divine majesty, and for the second time she caught the divine-tier assassin who had fled as smoke, pinching him between her fingers like a flea.
“Boom!” The Storm Goddess slammed the smoke in her hand down into the ground. Under her divine majesty the smoke burned away, leaving only the divine-tier assassin, screaming his throat raw as he suffered that supreme divine power’s blow in unbearable agony. In less than a second, a divine power that seemed able to freeze even space and time into eternity sealed the divine-tier assassin entirely in ice — even his screams froze with him.
“Don’t think that just because you’re dark, I can’t spot you!” Xue Wuxia sighed. That was her final verdict on the divine-tier assassin, who had gotten himself killed before he could even give his name.
“…” Storm Cloud, Volcano and the rest of them felt their jaws hit the floor.
The unbelievable fight in front of them left them more stunned than words could say.
This — this is impossible!
Or, to borrow the Sky Tower’s Yue Titan’s catchphrase: “This isn’t scientific!”
A divine-realm assassin who could trail several divine tiers without being noticed, and a little girl who’d only been at the divine tier a few days squashed him flat like a flea, easy as anything? Is this an illusion or a hallucination?
Xue Wuxia’s face stayed calm, and she kept smiling brightly, as if sneak attacks and assassins meant nothing to her at all. Paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that there had been an enemy, she went on inviting Storm Cloud, Volcano and the others in the friendliest way. “Please don’t let this trouble you, honored guests. Ever since the war broke out, that traitor Dongfang keeps sending assassins, thinking he’s being clever, as if that will put victory in his pocket. It’s a tiresome act of self-deception, and we’d best just ignore it. We can’t let one little fly ruin everyone’s enjoyment of touring the Ruins of the Gods. Next, Wuxia would like to introduce you all to the Sky Tower predecessors’ ‘Corridor of Time.'”
“…” Storm Cloud, his whole forehead drenched in sweat, suddenly felt the urge to rush straight back to the Sky Realm and never look back. This Sky Tower was just too terrifying!
(End of Chapter 1269)