Greenvalley City.

The ruler’s palace had a new master today.

The country was no longer called Windstill — it was Gentle Breeze now, and its queen was a woman of incomparable beauty. That was the first piece of news to reach Greenvalley City’s residents. In the Tianhua Domain, changes of ruler — city lord, domain lord, national king — were unremarkable. A single major battle could overturn everything, and though the Windstill national ruler had held the city for a long time, everyone had always known this day would come. In some ways, a new master taking up residence in the palace was genuinely good news — new rulers typically opened with tax reductions and other measures of goodwill to establish their name quickly.

The second piece of news, however, stopped the city cold.

The Radiance Domain Emperor had fallen in battle. The Rage Domain Emperor had fallen. The Revenge Domain Emperor had exiled himself. And the new successor was a woman no one had ever heard of — a Divine Punishment Empress.

Tianhua Domain’s endless chaos had always stemmed from having too many warriors with domain emperor-level power, each contending with the others. But even by that measure, losing two domain emperors and watching a third leave within a matter of days — and then having a new one appear at lightning speed — was beyond anything anyone could have prepared to understand. Where had this Divine Punishment Empress come from? Who was she?

Everything felt like a riddle with no visible answer. Even the Greenvalley branch leader of the Celestial Realm Mercenary Guild could only confirm what little he’d managed to glean: the Divine Punishment Empress was staying in the ruler’s palace, and she and the new Gentle Breeze queen were something like sisters.

“Tianhua Domain is about to descend into chaos again,” the branch leader sighed.

Steward Ye lost count of how many visitors he received that day. Three heads and six arms would not have been sufficient.

External affairs demanded attention. Internal matters were more urgent still. The Windstill national ruler’s several dozen consorts and concubines could not remain in the palace — accommodations had to be arranged immediately. His loyal guards presented a separate problem of retention and reassignment. Fortunately, all of them had accepted the reality of their former master’s death; otherwise, a new ruler’s arrival would typically have been accompanied by bloodshed. These were minor concerns. The real challenge, in Steward Ye’s estimation, was whether the new masters could come to genuinely love this city and this country. Without that, administration would always be hollow.

Yue Yang himself had no interest in any of it. He was constitutionally suited to the life of a man who holds his beloved and lets the world burn — other people had their ways, he had his, and as long as he managed himself, everything else would sort itself out.

Not that he had any objection to Fengxian and the Southern Wilderness Demon King volunteering to share his burdens.

“When it’s not at war, Tianhua Domain is actually quite beautiful,” Fengxian said, lying against Yue Yang’s side, idly leafing through a regional map while enjoying a frozen purple jade grape peeled and presented by one of the succubus attendants. She noticed Yue Yang was deep in an ancient text studying rune formations and not paying attention to her, so she turned her head, half extended her tongue, and transferred the grape from her mouth to his.

“Governing a country is simpler than people think,” the Southern Wilderness Demon King said from nearby, though she lacked Fengxian’s ease about displaying affection in company. “Feed the people, and the rest follows.”

“The difficulty,” Steward Ye said from where he and Gold-Tooth were kneeling, heads carefully lowered, “is that we don’t have enough food.”

The Southern Wilderness Demon King had proposed a sweeping set of new policies: tax exemption for commoners, wages for slaves, and leave for soldiers. Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth privately considered every one of these impossible in the current environment, but lacked the courage to say so directly. They could only hint, obliquely, that not just Gentle Breeze Country but even the single city of Greenvalley couldn’t sustain such measures.

Tax exemptions and slave wages were one thing. But soldiers on leave — in a region where decades of war had filled the ranks with people who knew nothing but fighting — would immediately become roving bands of armed men looking for something to do. The violence wouldn’t stay on the front lines. It would come home. And the feuds between cities, between countries, between races, accumulated over thousands of years of mutual slaughter — no ceasefire order, however powerful the issuing authority, could dissolve those in less than centuries.

“Food,” the Southern Wilderness Demon King said with a dismissive wave, “we have plenty of.”

This was accurate. Sky Tower’s new era of rising cooperation had quieted the inter-tribal conflicts that had always consumed the region’s surplus. Even the Demon Abyss, historically the most expansionist of the major forces, had suspended its campaigns. The resources that had been stockpiled for war were now sitting in warehouses with nowhere useful to go. Beyond Sky Tower, the Emerald Domain in the Southern Celestial Realm had transformed into a thriving commercial hub ever since Yue Yang’s involvement there — the Lion King and surrounding rulers had quietly stepped back from controlling it, having no interest in making enemies of whoever stood behind the Night-Free City. Goods were flowing through in quantities that were beginning to exceed what the region could productively absorb.

Tianhua Domain, in desperate need of basic supplies, was exactly the right destination for that overflow.

The solution was straightforward: it relieved Tianhua Domain’s crisis, gave Sky Tower and the Emerald Domain’s commerce another outlet to keep growing, and generated benefit for everyone involved. The only requirement was that Yue Yang make several trips through the Three Realms Compass.

The leadership of Sky Tower’s various tribes, the city lords of the Emerald Domain — they had already prepared everything. Cargo loaded into storage rings, representatives waiting, ready to move the moment Yue Yang agreed. Once Tianhua Domain’s conflict settled, merchants from every surrounding domain would follow the smell of opportunity. Fengxian and the Southern Wilderness Demon King had never had serious doubts about whether Tianhua Domain could be governed well — the mechanics were clear enough. Any territory that didn’t comply with the new order was simple: Sky Tower’s warriors were standing by, and without the Radiance Domain Emperor, Rage Domain Emperor, Revenge Domain Emperor, Water Palace Master Cang Long, and the Solar King’s interference, there was no force in Tianhua Domain capable of resisting a Sky Tower-led campaign.

“I suppose I’ll have to do some manual labor for a while,” Yue Yang said, seeing that Fengxian and the Southern Wilderness Demon King had made up their minds, and that Fourth Mother, Jun Wuyou, the Old Fox, and Elder Yuehai had all expressed approval.

Tianzhu, the Dragon Emperor, and the Underworld Emperor did not return to Greenvalley — their cultivation couldn’t spare the time. But the Heaven Devil Hall contingent, the Demon Abyss’s demon lords and commanders, the Eastern Demon Clan, the Dark Underworld Clan, and elite warriors from across Sky Tower’s many tribes all came with Yue Yang when he led the way to Greenvalley City. They brought with them the supplies the city desperately needed, and in exchange they found something valuable for themselves: a relatively safe environment in which to grow. In a Sky Tower outpost established in the Western Celestial Realm, they could cultivate and develop without the constant threat of annihilation that characterized most of the outside world.

The scale of trade that followed was extraordinary. Every tribe in Sky Tower received celestial realm resources they had never had access to before. What each tribe chose to do with those resources was their own affair.

On the Emerald Domain side, the accumulated surplus of food and goods was finding its way out in torrents. For every merchant involved, the result was a level of profit that made their eyes go red — they had never encountered a market that wanted everything, in unlimited quantities, and always needed more. Within days, the Emerald Domain had become the Southern Celestial Realm’s most frenzied commercial hub. Under the legend that you could sell a random stone you picked up off the ground and turn a profit, a gold rush atmosphere erupted and sustained itself.

The Lion King himself — a supreme-tier warrior — came personally to meet with Yue Yang and request a formal partnership.

“I’m busy,” Yue Yang said. “A partnership is fine, but I won’t be doing this forever. Don’t count on me being available every day.”

The truth was that money meant almost nothing to him at this point. He already had more than he would ever need. The only reason he ran these transport routes at all was that money could be exchanged for the rare treasures, crystals, and unusual botanical specimens that actually interested him. He didn’t have to physically carry anything — everyone packed their goods into storage rings in advance and simply waited for him to arrive, at which point he transported them in one pass, and they gave him half the profits for it. Without his Three Realms Compass, the journey from the Southern Celestial Realm to the Western Celestial Realm cost six months of travel time, with taxation at every border crossing and the constant risk of being robbed entirely. No conventional merchant could operate that route profitably.

Cargo Master Baoguo of the Night-Free City had built his current position entirely on Yue Yang’s patronage — everyone in the Emerald Domain knew that. Sky Tower’s own people even more so. The warrior guilds, thief guilds, and mercenary guilds had all begun posting the same message:

Want to rise? Want to see the celestial realm with your own eyes? Want the finest possible opportunities for your tribe’s elite and talented young people? Go. The young master of the Yue family is waiting for you in the celestial realm. Come to his side and you might become the next Snow-Hungry Wolf. The next Ye Kong. The next Hai Dafu…

What are you waiting for?

Within a few days of Yue Yang’s presence, Greenvalley City had absorbed tens of thousands of Sky Tower elite fighters and merchant representatives from across its many tribes. The city that had been limp and lifeless was budding like a tree after a long winter — Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth watched the transformation with expressions that suggested they were questioning whether they were seeing it correctly.

The Southern Wilderness Demon King didn’t need to govern at all. Sky Tower’s people took over comprehensively. Her only actual responsibility was to accompany Yue Yang between his three daily transport runs, studying ancient texts alongside him and investigating the mysterious treasure map drawn on the ancient beast hide.

Fengxian, meanwhile, had already issued her first domain emperor’s decree: every national ruler and major tribal leader in Tianhua Domain — over ten thousand of them, divided among the three former factions — was ordered to present themselves at Greenvalley City within one month to formally acknowledge the new empress, regardless of prior allegiances and regardless of reasons for absence.

Failure to comply would be treated as rebellion and dealt with accordingly.

“We have to stay here for a whole month,” Yue Yang muttered, dispatching a letter to Ming Rihao that contained several pointed remarks about the concept of loyalty among friends.

“We could spend the time exploring the Water God Palace under White River City,” the Southern Wilderness Demon King suggested, taking pity on him — three cargo runs a day was genuinely demanding, and a month was a long time. “There might be divine artifacts down there.”

“Bring Liuye,” Fengxian agreed. “Her barrier-piercing deer would help.”

“Explore the Water God Palace?” Something stirred in Yue Yang’s mind.

A sudden feeling: that the treasure marked on the ancient beast hide map might be located somewhere on the sunken floating continent. If they were going to explore the Water God Palace anyway, they might surface something even older and more valuable while they were at it.

And there was still the mysterious Wave-Mist Sea. The legendary Hidden Fog. Both of those needed investigation eventually.

Could there be Law-force inheritances hidden there — the way the Dragon Sovereign’s divine power had been left waiting for Jiang Ying? Something older, something stranger?

He found himself genuinely curious.

(End of Chapter)