The shattered void.

Between the Sky Tower and the Heavenly Realm, the old passage had long since become a ruined rift in space and time. Energy storms and spacetime vortices could appear at any moment and sweep away everything in their path. The laws of heaven and earth no longer held here, and the space could never heal itself the way ordinary shattered space did.

This was forbidden ground for warriors. Apart from gods, no one could survive here unharmed.

Dongfang held up an immense ball of energy in each hand. The larger of the two was more than a thousand meters across.

If not for the divine power wrapped around them, keeping them from mixing with the energies outside, anyone else — even a divine tier without Dongfang’s staggering control — would long since have lost hold of them, setting off an explosion that would destroy heaven and earth.

Yet this traitor from the Sky Tower, the foremost strategist of the Central Divine Hall, was perfectly at ease, holding a ball in each hand, even letting the two energy spheres spin, one on the left and one on the right, as he drifted along, treading on shattered space and time. Deep in his eyes, a faint trace of smugness showed through, however he tried to hide it.

He had borrowed Yue Titan’s name and stolen every last bit of the Sky Tower warriors’ frenzied power of faith.

It had been part of his plan from the start, well within his calculations. Even so, now that it had worked, Dongfang could not help feeling a flicker of pride. Empress Vivienne, for all her strength; Her Majesty of Tianra, guarding the entrance to the Ruins of the Gods, for all her wisdom; the Yue family’s third young master, Yue Titan, a genius the world saw once in ten thousand years — in the end, all of them had fallen to his schemes.

Snatching food from the tiger’s mouth. On the eve of the enemy’s success, using the subtlest force and the cleverest scheme to push the enemy off the heights, so that he fell hard enough to smash even his foundations to pieces…

That was true wisdom. That was true success.

Before this, he had not foreseen that Yue Titan would have a day like this. The target he had planned for was Vivienne, the serpent-demon Empress, or else Her Majesty of Tianra. But that did not stop him from adjusting his plan, and once revised, the strategy had gone even more smoothly, even more perfectly, than he had imagined! The power of fate? Who could truly bear the power of fate?

For a divine tier to master his own fate was already a remarkable thing. To master someone else’s — let alone to bear the fate of something like the entire Sky Tower — never mind that brat Yue Titan, not even a true Sacred Sovereign would dare to speak lightly of succeeding!

Dongfang did not yet know how much Yue Yang could bear, or exactly how many people were bearing the power of fate together on his behalf.

He made a simple comparison against the standard of the Sky Realm’s divine tiers.

To become a Sacred Sovereign, one had to show a pillar of divine radiance at least ten thousand meters tall in the Sky Realm’s Divine Radiance space… A pillar of divine radiance ten thousand meters tall — what kind of height was that? If below one meter was divine envoy and divine general, then below ten meters was Half-Divine and pseudo-god, and below a hundred meters could be called a true god, only one lacking either a grimoire or a world.

The true gods above a hundred meters had all of it — grimoire, world and the rest, nothing missing — and whatever their rank, their realm was wholly comprehended in eternity.

From a hundred meters to a thousand meters — at that height, the divine tiers of the world spent their lives, their years, their every season, slowly climbing.

Ten thousand meters?

That was simply not something any divine tier born less than ten thousand years ago could aspire to!

Even given tens of thousands of years, a hundred thousand years, more than a hundred thousand years, there was no guarantee any divine tier could climb in all that time to Sacred Sovereign, at a pillar of divine radiance at least ten thousand meters tall. Because even with enough time to cultivate, there was still the matter of the limit of one’s potential.

The divine tier did not progress without end.

Apart from those old ghosts who existed in ancient legend, but whose very names the world had all but forgotten, where were there any Sacred Sovereigns now?

Yue Titan wanted to become a Sacred Sovereign, and to have others bear his fate for him. When Dongfang saw through his intention, his first impulse had been to laugh out loud! He had seen people overrate themselves, but never anyone who overrated himself this much… Not even divine tier, not even within sight of the true-god realm, and he dared to dream of the supreme realm of Sacred Sovereign?

How many of the Sky Realm’s divine tiers today had a pillar of divine radiance taller than a hundred meters? Never mind ten thousand — you could not find a single one at a thousand.

Only that fellow Tianyu might have reached it. But he hid himself on purpose and never showed it. To this day, he stood where he had stood ten thousand years ago, at nine hundred meters.

That was already the highest standard in the Sky Realm. Even someone as tireless in his cultivation as Tianyu had needed a full several tens of thousands of years to climb to nine hundred meters, and he still had not reached a thousand. That brat Yue Titan probably had not had even one meter before this; he had never even set foot in the pseudo-god realm. And he dared to challenge a Sacred Sovereign’s ten thousand meters head-on? Was he trying to make everyone laugh their heads off?

Of course, the ignorant are fearless.

Yue Titan dreamed of using the strength of the Sky Tower’s people to help him ascend to Sacred Sovereign… without thinking that, if a method like that really worked, would the Sky Realm not have done it already?

Tianyu, the Golden Emperor, the Demon Emperor and every divine-tier power like them — which of them did not have countless millions behind them?

To rely on other people’s support, to rely on others bearing the power of fate for him, while he himself lacked the potential and the conditions for Sacred Sovereign — with no eternal, ultimate world formed, no Divine Codex able to hold the laws of creation, no comprehension of the supreme laws of creation, destruction and eternity — and to fancy he could borrow others’ strength to fulfill his own fantasy: that was nothing but a pipe dream!

“Do not try to deceive my eyes. I saw through it long ago. The one who truly needs the help must be Vivienne, the Conquest Queen pulling all the strings from behind the curtain. The world forgot her long ago, so she has no choice but to borrow Yue Titan’s name, that is all! Ha — a petty trick like this is not worth a laugh!” Dongfang had worked it all out. Yue Titan was impossible.

The only possibility was Vivienne. Not even Her Majesty of Tianra, guarding the entrance to the Ruins of the Gods, was qualified to aspire to the seat of Sacred Sovereign.

Dongfang reckoned that Empress Vivienne had probably escaped her seal but had not yet fully recovered, so she was using this secret method to restore her strength. It was not really about seeking Sacred Sovereign at all — only about borrowing strength to return to her peak!

“Ha — great minds think alike!” A smile tugged at the corner of Grand Hall Master Dongfang’s lips. Yue Titan was lending his name to help that serpent-demon Empress Vivienne restore her strength and return to her peak — and was Dongfang not doing the very same thing, stealing the Sky Tower warriors’ frenzied faith and the contract power of countless war beasts to help the Peerless Emperor Wushuang recover his strength?

Now it was only a matter of who got there first.

The foremost ruler of the Demon Abyss, the Peerless Emperor Wushuang, against Vivienne, the serpent-demon Empress who had vowed to conquer the Heavenly Realm — now that was a fight worth looking forward to!

The more Dongfang thought about it, the happier his smile grew.

With his Game talent, heaven and earth were his board and all things his pieces, and everything in the world was under his control.

What is wisdom? What is the hand that truly moves the pieces? This was true wisdom. This was the one who truly moved the pieces of fate!

The Sky Tower.

The Tianra Imperial Palace on the Longteng Continent.

The Eastern Heavenly King and the Western Heavenly King came charging in like mad dogs. They could not stop themselves at all; they knocked the gate guards flying, along with a maid walking down the passage, and burst in on a gust of wind. Panting like oxen, they had never looked so wretched in their lives. Their bodies looked as if they had been trampled by a few hundred thousand wild oxen, and they were covered in mud from head to foot!

“Tr-trouble! That traitor Dongfang, he — he’s st-stealing…” The Eastern Heavenly King had come all the way down from the Sky Tower’s tenth floor in one go, and even a body as strong as his could not take it.

“R-right! Dongfang is stealing our strength!” The Western Heavenly King was frantic too.

“I know. You may go back.” Her Majesty, however, was perfectly composed, her heart like a mirror-still lake, without a ripple of feeling.

“What?” The two Heavenly Kings were struck dumb by Her Majesty’s reaction. What on earth was going on? If she already knew, why didn’t she use the call to the heart right now to wake the people who had fallen into the frenzy? On every floor of the Sky Tower from the sixth to the tenth, huge numbers of people had been bewitched by Dongfang and fallen into a frenzy. Even if those people couldn’t be woken, she could at least wake the Dragon Riders, the Dragon Blood Guard and the other young elites who were connected to Yue Yang!

“In truth, we did this on purpose. Many people know Yue Yang, but not many are truly bound up with his fate. And not everyone is qualified, or able, to bear his fate for him! For those without the ability, forcing it would do more harm than good. The people who can truly take part in this great undertaking each have the course of their own fate, and they will not fall for Dongfang’s bewitchment… We will not speak of others. It is enough to do our own part. So long as those of us whose fates are joined to Yue Yang’s stand together, it will be enough to support him to his future, enough to bear the power of fate for him. Perhaps the process will be a little longer and a little harder, but the final result will not change… Right now, fate has only two directions: success or failure. There is no third possibility! Dongfang’s appearance, his bewitchment, his theft — none of it lies on the course of Yue Yang’s fate. Dongfang is not the greatest obstacle to Yue Yang’s success or failure. What truly matters is us — our will, our support. That is the key to whether we can break through the barrier and bear his fate. If we succeed, Yue Yang will succeed. If not, Yue Yang will fail…” At Her Majesty’s words, the Eastern and Western Heavenly Kings’ jaws dropped wide enough to fit a thunder mammoth.

“Th-th-then what can we do? What should we do?” The Eastern Heavenly King was bewildered. If Dongfang stealing Yue Yang’s name was something they had expected, then what were they supposed to do next? Just stand by and watch Dongfang go on bewitching people?

“Follow the secret method. I have already told you!” Her Majesty signaled that this muddleheaded pair could clear out.

“And it doesn’t matter that we’re not doing anything about the Dragon Riders and the Dragon Blood Guard?” the Western Heavenly King could not help asking in a small voice. Before Her Majesty, when he was in the wrong, he really did not dare raise his voice.

“That is not your concern! So long as we can help Yue Yang succeed, never mind them — the whole Sky Tower will be made new, and its fate entirely reversed. How many times must I tell you? Out. Do what you ought to do, what you can do, and stop making a racket in here for the servants to laugh at. Look at yourselves — do you still look anything like kings?” At the burst of Her Majesty’s anger, the Eastern and Western Heavenly Kings fell silent as cicadas in winter and slunk out obediently.

Once they were outside the gates of the Tianra Imperial Palace, the two of them inexplicably cheered up again, winking and making faces at each other.

The Eastern Heavenly King, that old rascal, was especially pleased with himself. “Dongfang, you’re clever, but I’m no fool either! I knew my son-in-law would be fine. And who was it who saw something special in him in the first place? He was the best candidate picked out by me, the Eastern Heavenly King, famous for my ‘keen eye for talent’! And my little Luohua must be working so hard right now, bearing the power of fate for her sweetheart. Don’t be afraid — your old dad’s here! With your old dad on the job, that boy Yue Yang is sure to succeed. Don’t you worry, sweetheart!”

The Western Heavenly King could hardly stand it. He kept rolling his eyes.

Would it kill him to brag a little less? He should have seen who was scared half to death just now!

What was so great about having a son-in-law like Yue Yang? Yue Yang was outstanding, sure, but his own son was not bad either! Someday he might aspire to the divine tier just like Yue Yang — and if that really happened, he would be the father of a divine-tier power!

The Western Heavenly King was good at daydreaming too. He might not have a daughter like Luohua, but he had an outstanding son like the Tianra Prince!

He could not help being proud!

(End of Chapter 1293)