Beneath the ancient pine, on the stone board, the position had not changed.
But deep in the eyes of Grand Hall Master Dongfang, who sat bent over it in thought, a spark of anger flashed. “Who moved my piece?”
He had been suspicious for a while already. The whole game had gone too smoothly. The Sky Tower’s side stood on three great powers — Yue Titan, the serpent-demon Empress Vivienne, and that sleeping woman lost in her dream — and there was no reason it should have been forced into a helpless, passive position so easily. Beating it down should have taken a fierce fight at the very least. Yet the whole course of the game had gone frighteningly smoothly… The Golden Emperor stepping in to help Yue Titan escape now looked a little too much like a cover for something else. Yue Titan carried the fate of the Sky Tower’s survival on his shoulders; even without the Golden Emperor, killing or capturing him could never have been easy. Otherwise Dongfang would have done it himself long ago.
As a player at the board, even if Yue Titan lost, he would certainly lose on the very last move, not the first.
And Yue Titan had suddenly vanished, fled without a trace.
That sleeping woman lost in her dream was not even worried. She was sitting by and watching the Sky Tower’s position collapse — how could that be? And that serpent-demon Empress Vivienne, who looked down on the whole world and had the nerve to try to sweep the Heavenly Realm clean — how could she watch the Sky Tower go under and stay so unmoved, just sitting on her hands?
If his suspicion was right, then someone had to be secretly moving his pieces.
His Game talent could put even the divine tier under his control and command all things under heaven. Even so, if there was an extremely powerful “onlooker” who took advantage of his setting up the board to move his pieces in secret, it was not impossible…
Only, an “onlooker” like that would not just be stronger than he was — there was likely more than one of them, or he could never have been fooled!
So who was in on it?
The Golden Emperor was probably one. But the Golden Emperor’s strength was nowhere near enough to deceive him, and nowhere near enough to rework his whole game.
Could the Demon Emperor and that old ghost the Immovable Supreme be in on it too? If it were only them, that would not be so bad. The most frightening possibility was the Divine Hall Supreme, Tianyu, who had kept himself hidden all along. If it really was Tianyu stabbing him in the back, that would be trouble! And only the Divine Hall Supreme — the strongest of them all, with the deepest schemes — was really capable of slipping pieces around while he watched the game, and of keeping it hidden from Dongfang.
The problem was that Tianyu gained nothing at all by doing it.
Tianyu wanted the Sky Tower to go under more than anyone.
He had no reason to wreck Dongfang’s plans before the Sky Tower was destroyed. He ought to lend Dongfang a hand first, and turn on him once the Sky Tower’s fall was certain and its destruction complete — there would be time enough then. Why would he be in such a hurry to make his move now?
It made no sense!
No!
It was not Tianyu!
Then was the onlooker the Peerless Emperor Wushuang, who had made Dongfang a promise in his own words?
But the Peerless Emperor Wushuang was a divine-tier power whose word was as good as gold. What he said stood for his will, and every promise he made was a fact as hard as iron. Besides, he had every reason to want the Sky Tower destroyed. He was even less likely to reach in and disturb Dongfang’s game.
If it was not either of those two, then who?
Who else in the world had power like theirs? Who could slip so cleverly past his eyes? Who could stay invisible within his Game talent?
Was it Vivienne, that serpent-demon Empress, or that woman sleeping in her sweet dream? They might well have that kind of strength, but they were enemies. They could not be the hidden onlooker — and if an enemy maliciously shifted his layout, his Game talent could not fail to notice… The Golden Emperor, the Demon Emperor and the Immovable Supreme did not have the strength to deceive him. So who was the real onlooker?
Inside the Sky Tower, who else was there — someone he had overlooked, let slip past him?
Who else was there?
Who had the uncanny wisdom to disturb his game without him noticing in the slightest?
Grand Hall Master Dongfang sank deep into thought. From the crushing defeat of the Eighteen Divine Generals’ assault, and from Tu Wan of the Heaven-Devouring clan failing one interception after another, he had already caught a hint of danger. Under his Game talent there was an “invisible” person who could stand outside the board of heaven and earth, who could ignore the law that made all things pieces. Hidden mysteriously somewhere, watching the game in silence, this person was reaching out with “transparent” fingers and disturbing his game, again and again…
This invisible person’s strength and wisdom very likely matched his own!
And no one knew.
Not him, not the Divine Hall Supreme Tianyu, not any of the Heavenly Realm’s conquerors — every one of them had been fooled!
Inside the Sky Tower, was there really a guardian like this — unknown, silent, and with a mind that reached the heavens? Was this person a he or a she? And what kind of being was he, or she?
“I will find you, I promise you that…” A gleam of fervor flashed in Grand Hall Master Dongfang’s eyes — the fervor of a player who has met his match at last. His sure-win position had been thrown into disorder, but his fighting spirit was burning a thousand times hotter for it. “Very good. Only a fight like this is worth having, and only someone like you is truly worth everything I, Dongfang, have to give! You, hiding behind Yue Titan — it is really you I have been playing against, is it not? The real player across the board is you, and not Yue Titan, whom you pushed out to be everyone’s target. Is that not so? Then who might you be?”
Dongfang murmured to himself.
He felt strength in every part of his body. The languor of a master too long without a rival had been roused by this invisible, formidable foe, and his fighting spirit was blazing.
Tension, fear, dread and every other dark feeling came flooding back into his heart and turned into a feverish, fervent will to fight. The shadow of defeat, which had not appeared in ten thousand years, was spreading fast, and fog and the unknown had settled over the whole board.
In the face of a challenge like nothing before it, Grand Hall Master Dongfang felt excited instead.
An opponent like this was what he had craved his whole life.
Only a contest at this level, a match of this caliber, truly counted as the light of a warrior’s wisdom shining through!
As for Yue Titan — whom he had been searching for so hard, ready to use every means there was to dig him out — Grand Hall Master Dongfang now felt there was no need to bother with him for the time being. Paying him too much attention would only mean falling into the trap. The brat was not even divine tier, and his rise had been suspicious from the start. There had been far too many miracles and coincidences in his story — so many it defied heaven itself. It simply did not add up…
As things stood now, Yue Titan, that freak of a genius who defied heaven at every turn, was very likely a puppet, pushed forward by the true guardian of the Sky Tower who stayed invisible behind him.
Yue Titan had been pushed out onto the front of the stage to become everyone’s target and draw all their fire.
Meanwhile the guardian of the Sky Tower, hidden behind him, could quietly exploit that blind spot no one knew about, work that uncanny wisdom, and steer the whole situation!
The millionth step of the Sky Stairway.
Beside the bright lake.
Because Grand Hall Master Dongfang’s will had shifted elsewhere, Yue Yang — who had been drawn along invisibly by the Game talent the whole time — was finally, truly free.
Yue Yang had a Sovereign Intent as unmoving as a mountain, but his realm was still below the divine tier, and he could not yet ignore every law in the world entirely — least of all the unique law that Grand Hall Master Dongfang’s Game talent condensed and pulled with.
The Game talent could not take away Yue Yang’s freedom, but it had not let go of him completely either.
The more closely Grand Hall Master Dongfang focused, the stronger the pull, and the more likely he was in the end to sense Yue Yang and track him down!
But in one instant, for no reason Yue Yang could see, Grand Hall Master Dongfang shifted his will away. All at once Yue Yang felt wonderful in body and mind, slipping into the kind of release that only comes with true freedom.
He did not know what Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian and the others had done to keep Grand Hall Master Dongfang too busy to bother with him, but he was certain they had worked for it.
Maybe not only them, but many more — teammates like Sea Fatty and Ye Kong, elders like Old Fox and Elder Nangong — had all paid with huge sacrifices and effort to make it happen… Grand Hall Master Dongfang had given up on him. Yue Yang did not know how everyone had done it, but he knew he had to seize this time to advance — to comprehend and rise, before Grand Hall Master Dongfang came back to his senses, into something that would make Dongfang and every invader from the Heavenly Realm despair!
The power of a thousand-meter Fate Giant — whatever it took, he had to master it.
Once he had that kind of power, the Game talent could be broken, the Sky Tower’s peril could be lifted, everyone’s fate could be turned around, and final victory would be within reach!
“Idiot, there’s no time — pull yourself together!” The Supreme saw his mind drifting, almost slipping out of his cultivation state, and snapped at him quickly as a warning. Everyone had worked so hard to buy him this freedom and release, and not a second of it could be wasted. If he could not master the thousand-meter power of fate within three days, all of that would be for nothing, and everyone’s efforts would go down the drain.
“Yes!” Yue Yang hurried to rein in his mind and return to his best state of comprehension.
How could he not know how much weighed on the fate he carried? It was only that he had been set free, and he could not help being overjoyed — and deeply moved that everyone had tried so hard for him, that was all.
Afraid his mind might wander again, the Supreme took him in her arms. Her arms crossed and wound upward, her palms came to rest gently, one over the other, against the back of his head, and her clear, smooth forehead pressed silently to his. Letting go of every restraint, holding nothing back, keeping no secrets, she poured into him all the wisdom she had gained from a lifetime of cultivation and comprehension.
And her mind, too, merged with his, silently and inseparably.
To help Yue Yang advance — so that he could master fate within three days and win his future — the Supreme was willing to give him everything she had, everything she was, without holding back the slightest part.
Their two Sacred Codexes rose almost at the same moment.
Like their masters, the two Sacred Codexes touched each other. Their barriers, their wills, even the pillars of golden light that erupted up into the sky, all intertwined and fused flawlessly. A wondrous sign never seen before, something more incredible than a miracle, now appeared above Yue Yang’s and the Supreme’s heads.
Yue Yang and the Supreme both had life-guardian war beasts they kept secret and never showed to others — Yue Yang’s phantom, for one.
Now, without being summoned, all of them came out on their own and joined in their masters’ comprehension.
The phantom split into countless copies of itself, then recombined them one by one into a shadow giant, or into something taller still and more profound, until at last all of them merged into Yue Yang’s body to empower him… On the other side, a dazzling, glorious divine radiance lit up all of heaven and earth, and even the World Tree, reaching from the ground to the sky, sang in resonance at the appearance of this life-guardian war beast.
She was the life-guardian war beast the Supreme had never shown in front of anyone — the one into whom the Supreme had poured, as a sacred empowerment, everything she had gained from countless rounds of cultivation and comprehension across her life.
And at last, for the first time, she appeared.
Long ago, guided by the Sleeper’s glimpse of heaven’s secrets, the Supreme had chosen the hardest path of cultivation there was. She had poured every gain she made into her life-guardian war beast and re-cultivated herself again and again. Even at her hardest moments, even under threat of death, she had never once used her life-guardian war beast’s power… Through those countless re-cultivations, those countless hard-won advances, the Supreme had stopped being bound by her original ceiling below Half-Divine, and had climbed step by step toward comprehending her own future.
At the same time, her life-guardian war beast had grown unimaginably powerful from all those countless outpourings.
It had surpassed Half-Divine, surpassed the divine beasts, and surpassed even the higher divine tier, becoming what she was today.
A divine-tier life-guardian war beast identical to her master in both form and will, whose appearance alone made heaven and earth pale beside her — the Luminous Moon Goddess!
(End of Chapter 1285)