“Fatty!” Ye Kong, Xue Tanglang and the others were stunned.
They had never dreamed that Sea Fatty would end his journey through this world in such a heroic way.
Was he really dead? Was a bastard like him — the kind who was supposed to plague the world for a thousand years — really going to die right in front of them? They hadn’t even finished beating him up yet! Undying body, Meat Mountain Demon King, Supremely Shameless Fat Demon, Number One Boss of the Sky Tower, the young master of the Hai family whose nature could change but whose lechery never would… Was he just going to die like this?
Could a guy so thick-skinned that heaven and earth and gods and men all hated him really die?
And die this cool, too!
Was a heroic deed like this something a guy like you did, Sea Fatty? Come back to life right now! The one who can really give up everything for his friends and brothers is me, Ye Kong — how could it be you, you damned fatso!
Only I deserve to die this gloriously!
Ye Kong wanted to curse, to roar, to bellow — but not a sound would come out of his throat. At some point, tears had begun streaming down his face.
Xue Tanglang did not cry. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, matching the fiery red of the eyes in his ice-cold face. The Tianra Prince covered his face, tears welling through his fingers one by one and dripping to the ground. The Liqie brothers dropped to their knees with a thud and bowed their heads, offering the greatest respect of their lives to the hundred-meter hideous monster before them — its soul gone, yet still standing tall between heaven and earth…
“Fatty?” At the starting point of the World Tree’s Sky Stairway, Yue Yang too felt something was wrong. Startled, he reached out with his mind, trying to connect with the soul that was about to be extinguished.
“I told you — I’m the boss, I’ll always have your back!”
From somewhere unseen, there really did seem to be a trace of thought, carried over from a world far, far away.
Just like always, Yue Yang seemed to see a creepy fatso in front of him, waving his arms and bragging.
Not only Yue Yang. Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian, the beautiful Luohua and the others, whose hearts were linked with his, faintly sensed it too: a comic-relief fatso, practically an extra in the story of their lives, waving goodbye to everyone… More people — everyone, every friend and family member taking part in resisting fate — “saw” it at that moment, and felt it echo in their hearts!
Old Fox, who in class had made picking on Sea Fatty his daily source of joy, wept old tears down his face.
Gray Wolf, who usually couldn’t be bothered with Sea Fatty no matter how hard he sucked up, stopped in the middle of his fight, raised his head to the sky, and let out a long, mournful howl.
At that moment, the Trial Grounds’ Divine Codex hovering above Yue Yang’s head suddenly blazed with a brilliance ten thousand feet high and merged completely with the Fate Giant.
Then, crossing who knew how much space, it pierced through layer upon layer of storm clouds and shone down on the hideous monster standing on the earth with its arms holding up the pillar of fate. The divine light fell on the summoning grimoire, which was still fading and twisting out of shape, and burst into countless rays of brilliance. In an instant it swallowed the summoning grimoire — and even the hideous monster, still standing, streaming with blood — forming a ball of light that was drawn up into the sky, through who knew how much space, back to the world of the Sky Stairway.
The ball of light was swallowed by the Trial Grounds’ Divine Codex.
But the mark that stood for Sea Fatty remained forever on the Fate Giant, at its knees.
There he was, grinning wickedly, riding his vajra rhinoceros with his little hippo and his many war beasts in tow, waving smugly at everyone, as if at any moment he might holler, “Would this great young master go around telling people he has a war beast at Bronze level two? I’m very low-key!” And then that smug image was engraved forever on the Fate Giant, becoming part of the great tide of fate, giving off his own one-of-a-kind power of will in his small, unique form and way.
“Only like this — only with the resolve to break through death — can one truly cast off the shackles of fate!” Her Majesty’s thought suddenly welled up like a spring in the hearts of everyone taking part.
“What?” When Ye Kong and the others heard that, they were stunned all over again.
Did that mean bearing the power of fate the way they had been didn’t count at all? Only by breaking through death, sacrificing themselves holding nothing back, casting off every barrier and obstacle, could they truly be said to take part?
If that was how it was — then he understood!
A look of release spread across Ye Kong’s face. He smiled, an unusually easy smile, and murmured to himself: “Fatty, I’m coming. You won’t be going down that road alone. You might have a face that’s begging to be punched, and you might act like an idiot, but we’re teammates after all… Can death scare me, Ye Kong? Back when I lay quietly waiting to die in front of the teleportation array on the Sky Tower’s first floor, I already made my peace with it. Death isn’t even worth a flatbread to fill an empty stomach, okay!”
His vajra demon ape, his earthquake dragon and his other war beasts empowered him one by one.
Grown enormous, Ye Kong braced himself on the Prison Emperor Seven-Star Pillar, threw his head back and roared wildly at the sky.
His body burst open and blood rained down. Ye Kong’s eyes burned with flame, and his pupils, like the hideous monster’s before, slowly dilated. His heartbeat thundered, then gradually weakened. Holding up his summoning grimoire in one hand, he wore a trace of a smile on his ferocious face — proud and happy, as if he had been set free, as if he had accomplished some tremendous feat…
From the sky, the same pillar of light came down.
The Trial Grounds’ Divine Codex’s divine light wrapped Ye Kong, his soul leaving his body, and enclosed him and his summoning grimoire together in a ball of light, drawing them out of the Sky Tower’s seventh floor.
In the blink of an eye, at the Fate Giant’s knees, beside the wickedly grinning Sea Fatty, an angry Ye Kong was engraved as well — glaring, fist raised to strike, as if he had seen some injustice in the world and simply had to rid the people of it.
“I understand!” Xue Tanglang closed his eyes, and soon another divine light came down from the sky and covered him from above.
Not only above his head. Above the Tianra Prince, above the Liqie brothers, and all over the Sky Tower, pillars of light like this were shining down on particular people on the ground. If you counted carefully through Yue Yang’s senses, you would find among them teachers and elders such as Old Fox, Elder Wuteng, Elder Nangong, Marshal Yuehai and Jun Wuyou. Friends who were neither family nor teachers but were still indispensable in his life — Fengkuang, Xue Wendao, Feng Xiaoyun, Xiahou Weijie and others — had divine light pouring down on their heads too.
The Death Elite Class at Ivy Academy — the little ones Yue Yang had once coached — closed their eyes and pressed their small hands together devoutly, and with a sudden flash of grace, threw themselves into this wondrous undertaking.
On the other hand, there were many family members and friends who, however hard they tried, could not let go of their own lives. They could not make the complete sacrifice, and bore the power of fate half in shame, half in regret.
They were only one last step short. But they knew themselves that they would never get past this barrier, never manage that last and best step. In the martial path they might be geniuses, and in cultivation they might work twice as hard, but in insight they could not see through life and death, and could not shake off fate… Anyone with discerning eyes would find among them two of the former three great killing stars, Yan Pojun and Feng Qisha, as well as members of the Yue family such as Yue Tian, Yue Yan and Yue Feng. Apart from the steadiest and most down-to-earth of them all, the fifth son, Yue Ting, only two pillars of divine light came down on the whole of Yue Yang’s family and relatives.
The other was Fifth Grandfather, white-haired but with the face of a child.
“I’m no good at anything else, but if dying can help you succeed, then I, Valentine, have nothing to regret!” A pillar of divine light came down on the head of Valentine the Minotaur girl.
“…” Anna and Lynn, husband and wife, exchanged a smile and, hand in hand, bathed together in one shared pillar of divine light.
Divine light came down on Leo the Minotaur and four pig-folk girls as well.
They were all true teammates.
Jude the toad merchant, Steward Yan Zheng, the Xia brothers, Round-Head Baogu, Gold-Tooth and others were the best of subordinates. They were willing to give up their lives, give up their wealth, give up everything they had, to follow their master.
There were many more besides. People Yue Yang knew and even people he had never met — the Gold Elves and the succubi of the Sky Tower, the remnant peoples of the Heavenly Realm, the cursed fish-folk and others — all had those among them who gave themselves unconditionally, lending their own share of strength to reversing and mastering Yue Yang’s fate. However feeble and however tiny the help they could give for now, it did not change the fact that they had hearts like that.
Their images were engraved on the lowest part of the Fate Giant, no higher than the ankles and the tops of the feet, each in a different pose, each lifelike, showing the single most characteristic image of their lives.
And below them were their war beasts — as though they had never been sacrificed, as though they had never perished.
In this way, in these forms, they were engraved upon fate, and existed in eternity.
From the Sky Stairway passage, Yue Qiu’s guardian soul, Gao Peng the Sky Prison King, Ming Rihao, the snake-haired demon man and others joined one after another. Their images took their places to the left and right of Sea Fatty, Ye Kong and the rest, thick as countless stars dotting the night sky, glittering in splendor between the Fate Giant’s knees and legs… But higher still, on the upper body, there was not a single image yet.
Because reaching that height required those even closer to Yue Yang’s fate, those wholly inseparable from it — the war beasts contracted to Yue Yang, the life-guardian war beasts whose souls were one with his, the lovers and wives who would be at his side all his life. Only they were qualified to rise that high.
For no reason anyone could tell, however hard Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian and the others tried, they could not receive a pillar of divine light from above the way Sea Fatty and Ye Kong had.
Without their help, all the fate borne by family, friends, subordinates and the rest, added together, did not yet reach a thousand meters.
The hundred meters Sea Fatty had held up showed on the Fate Giant as only twenty.
However closely bound to Yue Yang’s fate they were, the most help family and friends could give was twenty percent of what they could bear. War beasts without high intelligence gave even less… Only the Wind-Breath Seabird was the exception: she could leave the place of the independent war beasts at the Fate Giant’s feet and drift up to Sea Fatty’s side. She was the only one of all the independent war beasts.
At this rate of help, even ten times the number of people could never bear a Fate Giant eighteen thousand meters tall.
More hopeless still, everyone who could take part and give themselves up had already done so. No one else could join. The line between life and death had cut fate cleanly into inside and outside. The family and friends who could not cross beyond life and death were forever on the far side of the chasm.
And Sea Fatty and the others had no chance of giving themselves a second time!
“All you elders of the Sky Tower, ancestors of every dynasty and age, every life that does not want the Sky Tower to sink — whether you are legends asleep in the long river of history, or ancient great gods far from our material world, looking down on all the skies and all the earth with your great powers — please, I beg you, give us a little support. We understand now: our strength alone can never hold up a Sacred Sovereign! But we will not bow to fate. We are fighting. Please give us — weak as we are, but trying so hard — a little encouragement. In whatever way, in whatever share, we will be grateful to you ten thousand times over, and keep you in our hearts for a thousand, ten thousand years!” Xue Wuxia knelt, pressed her palms together before her forehead, and began to pray with all her heart.
She was already a divine-tier power. But she set aside her majestic Divinity and her noble divine nature, and simply as a wife, in a wife’s posture, she prayed to all things between heaven and earth — gods, spirits, or the laws themselves — begging every living being to take part together, so that it might become the power of Yue Yang’s fate, turn the whole tide for the Sky Tower, and make the one she loved a Sacred Sovereign.
She did not know whether it would work. But it was the only thing she could do now.
Beside Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian knelt too. Then Luohua and Yue Yu.
Everyone knelt and joined in the prayer… They finally understood how great a price it took to make a Sacred Sovereign. But they did not give up. Even with no other way left, they still prayed for the one they loved.
Their fates wholly one with his, they had no fear of failure, and no panic at death’s approaching shadow. They simply gathered quietly around him.
With a wisdom and insight beyond everything, they were preparing to use their own lives — lives about to be destroyed — to create, out of the void between heaven and earth, a miracle, and turn it into eternity!
No one had told them how to do it. No one had told them what was right, or what would succeed. Now they were making their last effort only in their own way, with their own insight…
On the tenth floor of the Sky Tower, Grand Hall Master Dongfang threw his head back and laughed.
It seemed he had long foreseen that any attempt to make a Sacred Sovereign was bound to fail!
(End of Chapter 1298)