Hungry Ghost said nothing more.

Instead, his body suddenly gave off a thick black smoke.

The smoke billowed up and blotted out the entire cabin. Nether Flame’s half-visible form, oddly, became more distinct within it, and Phantom’s transparent body seemed to turn nearly solid — an eerie effect indeed. Flying Corpse, who had withdrawn into the corridor, seemed to dislike this smoke intensely; he knit his brows and fell back another dozen meters, though his eyes, sharp as arrows, stayed fixed on the cabin, marking every movement within.

Inside, the black smoke grew denser and denser, until in a blink it was pitch dark. You couldn’t see your own hand before your face.

Out of the darkness came Hungry Ghost’s voice — no longer the escaping-gas wheeze of before, but restored to perfect clarity: “Boy, you have the power to destroy in an instant, which means someone stands behind you. Divine power granted by the Southeast divine lord, is it? No wonder you’re so arrogant, so utterly without fear. But to imagine that possessing a scrap of divine power lets you swagger about the Mountain Beyond the Mountain — that’s laughable… You, with your few crumbs of divine favor, have probably never once considered what your weakness is. So let this senior of long standing tell you. Your weakness is your body.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my body.” Yue Yang didn’t feel there was anything wrong with his body at all.

“You use the forbidden power, same as the rest, but you haven’t fused with it — you suppress it from the outside. The moment I strip away your divine crystal fragment, your body will burst and you’ll die on the spot. Of course, before that, I could still torture you to death a hundred times over.” Hungry Ghost knew exactly how to deal with a user of the forbidden power.

Take Raven. Under the suppression of an ancient relic fragment, Raven could wield the forbidden power in his black clothes and cloak and fight Hungry Ghost nearly to a draw. But it was, in the end, an external thing. The moment Hungry Ghost removed the relic-fragment pendant that suppressed the forbidden power, Raven plummeted from a super-powerhouse straight back to his original strength — weakened a hundredfold and worse. At that point he couldn’t even use the forbidden power to self-destruct, because Hungry Ghost, who knew all of this intimately, had already subdued him a step ahead.

In Hungry Ghost’s mind, this rookie newcomer was the same.

He’d used the forbidden power. That was the only way his attack could have reached so terrible a level — bursting Hungry Ghost’s own skull so easily.

Whatever the case, a man who used the forbidden power without his body mutating had only one possibility open to him: external suppression, whether by divine power or by a divine crystal fragment. Raven and Pelican were the latter sort.

As for this arrogant young man before him, he was likely not only the latter but the former too. Inside this rookie’s body there was probably divine power left by the Southeast divine lord — or some other great power — to protect him. That was why the rookie was so utterly without fear.

Hungry Ghost was no stranger to dealing with men like this. In Earth Valley or the Mountain Beyond the Mountain, any newcomer with potential would be welcomed — but what no one realized was that once a promising newcomer definitively joined one faction, he was very likely to be assassinated or destroyed. Without a super-powerhouse guarding him every step of the way, growing to maturity was all but impossible.

Hungry Ghost alone had killed several such promising newcomers, to say nothing of the others among the five great evildoers.

Killing a promising newcomer like this was a far greater achievement than seizing a sky-hanging mothership. A mothership could be built; promising newcomers were not common, and even when they appeared they might not belong to you… Hungry Ghost was certain that if he finished off this rookie, he’d be richly rewarded on his return — the Western divine lord himself might even bestow something special.

“Careful.” Gravely wounded and weak, Raven forced out the word. He wanted to warn Yue Yang: he too had been defeated in smoke like this.

“It’s done. You may die now.” Hungry Ghost’s voice grew louder and louder, and the black smoke in the cabin gradually thinned, gradually receded — and Hungry Ghost’s form reappeared before them all.

His head had, at some point, been restored to its original condition.

More uncanny still: he had not only regrown his head, he had grown a second one of equal size upon his shoulders.

Yue Yang had burst his head — and inside of a minute, within that black smoke, he had grown two new ones.

Flower Duck and Guoguo stared, dumbstruck.

This thing isn’t human.

This thing — it really isn’t human…

Even Raven, too weak to catch his breath, shook his head at the sight, feeling his defeat had been no injustice. How could anyone beat a monster like Hungry Ghost? No wonder the legends said that unless a god struck them down in person, the five great evildoers could not be killed.

“Careful!” This time it was not Raven who cried the warning, but Flying Corpse, standing far off in the corridor.

“?” Hungry Ghost found this utterly baffling.

Careful — who are you telling to be careful?

He had unsealed the forbidden power within his body; he was an undying body now. Apart from a god, who could kill him? And this fellow still tells him to be careful? What was Flying Corpse playing at?

Nether Flame did not cry any warning. She was on Hungry Ghost’s team but not of his heart; the worse his luck, the happier she was.

After Flying Corpse’s warning, Nether Flame retreated out into the corridor with a whoosh.

And even Phantom — the most obstinate of them all — slipped soundlessly out as well.

Their movements were eerie, like small animals fleeing some formidable predator… Could the Southeast divine lord have come in person to shield this rookie? Impossible. By the eight gods’ covenant, no god interfered in reception affairs; however promising a newcomer, he could only be cultivated in secret, never openly attended to. How could the Southeast divine lord appear in a place like this? But if it wasn’t him, then why were Flying Corpse, Nether Flame, and Phantom being so exceedingly cautious?

A thought stirred in Hungry Ghost, and he withdrew all his smoke — especially the smoke shrouding his enemy. He’d meant to use it for a game of cat and mouse; now he only wanted to see clearly.

What in the world had happened to this newcomer, to make Flying Corpse and Nether Flame so uneasy?

Yue Yang still stood where he had been. He had not moved a single step.

But over his tall frame, at some point unnoticed, there had appeared a peculiar suit of battle-armor, deep purple verging on black. Upon that heavy armor were traced abstruse rune arrays that not one soul present recognized — every array answering every other, resonating with every other, and, until their master’s will set them in motion, resting in silent permanence like the eternal, unmoving laws of nature. A power of Law almost impossible to sense linked them together, and what it truly pointed toward — what divine intelligence had given it form — none could say.

The armor’s style was novel, its design profoundly subtle.

Even Raven, who knew every weapon, war-machine, and piece of protective armor in the world, had never seen armor like it.

It was a wholly new existence. The Mountain Beyond the Mountain had never possessed such armor. Even the eight gods had never worn armor made from this material.

God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal.

Of all those present — Nether Flame, Phantom, Flying Corpse, Raven, even Flower Duck and Guoguo, who had seen little of the wide world — every one could tell at a glance what the armor was made of. God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal! The entire sky-hanging mothership Gannet was made of this very material, exactly the same: a special substance that not even a god could easily destroy.

That sky-hanging motherships were built from God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal was a secret only gods could know.

What’s more, the method had been created jointly by the two fallen gods, Taiyan and Bingli, and handed down by them. Apart from motherships, no divine nation and no faction in all the Mountain Beyond the Mountain could make a second thing from God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal.

And now, standing before them all, was a suit of battle-armor in a strikingly novel and singular style.

How had he done it?

Every heart there was filled with incomprehension… And what left Flying Corpse and Raven most speechless of all was that this kid had actually inscribed rune arrays into God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal. Since ancient times, God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal had been called the one thing no force could destroy save a god — no power could so much as scratch a mark into it. And now a rookie newcomer had inscribed runes upon it… How on earth had he managed it? An innate gift? A war beast? Some other power entirely?

“You—” Seeing Yue Yang clad in such armor, Hungry Ghost nearly coughed up a mouthful of old blood in fury.

“Handsome, isn’t it?” Yue Yang produced a helmet, put it on, and pulled down the visor. There — now, by his reckoning, ten divine-general-rank powerhouses could gang up on him and it wouldn’t stop him from calmly finishing a nice little breakfast.

God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal. A substance that gave even gods a headache. The natural Law contained within it could weaken the might of any living thing in the world at least a hundredfold. Make a suit of armor from it and the enemy would simply burst into tears without a blow being struck. It wasn’t that no one had ever thought of using it before — but every such attempt had ended in failure. Hungry Ghost had never imagined he could be so wretchedly unlucky as to encounter an opponent unheard of in ten thousand years: a young man wearing God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal armor, and armor covered besides in arcane rune arrays.

Had he not spoken so grandly beforehand, he’d have wanted to beat a retreat.

Attacking a man clad in God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal was meaningless — never mind that this young man could also use the forbidden power.

“Hmph. Don’t think that means I can’t do anything about you.” Hungry Ghost glanced toward Flying Corpse out in the corridor and discovered that this careful, meticulous fellow had already withdrawn more than fifty meters. He was deeply displeased. Why is it always me charging out front, serving as your stepping-stone?

“I’m leaving.” Flying Corpse had no wish to trade blows with Yue Yang any further. At this point, if someone told him this newcomer was the Southeast divine lord’s bastard son, he’d believe it. He even sensed the boy’s backing might be greater still — that moving against such a man would not only fail to harm him but bring down a fatal calamity on one’s own head. Right now it was Hungry Ghost trading blows with the newcomer; it had nothing to do with him. Why stay and please neither side, ending up in the wrong with everyone? Given Hungry Ghost’s idiot conduct, he’d very likely fight it out to the bitter end — and then drag Flying Corpse down with him. That would be a disaster.

At the thought, Flying Corpse spared no consideration for brotherly loyalty.

What is loyalty, anyway? Can you eat it?

Who would keep an idiot like Hungry Ghost company on the road to death? Flying Corpse waved a hand at Yue Yang and said with a smile: “Young friend, our acquaintance began in a misunderstanding — but the wise are free from confusion. Flying Corpse takes his leave here. We’ll meet again someday.”

This sounded less like a parting word to an enemy than a farewell between friends — and Hungry Ghost was so galled he nearly vomited three pints of blood on the spot. You disloyal wretch, it’s bad enough that you’re running out on me — but you have to publicly disavow any connection to me and curry favor with the enemy while you’re at it? You’ve taken the good-guy role entirely for yourself. What does that make me? Unlucky is one thing, but to be stabbed in the back by my own teammate!

Before Hungry Ghost could get his cursing out, Nether Flame chimed in with a grin: “We’re also wise and free from confusion — and we have no quarrel with the young friend. We were merely curious, passing by to watch the fun. Never mind us; we absolutely won’t interfere. You two go on and fight!”

At this, Hungry Ghost couldn’t hold it in any longer and bellowed: “What are you playing at? You think I’ve already lost?”

Nether Flame spread both hands. “Well, I certainly don’t think you’re going to win.”

A brave man doesn’t take a beating he can see coming, and Hungry Ghost was no fool. One look at Flying Corpse slipping off, at Nether Flame and Phantom watching his misfortune with such keen interest, and his will to fight drained clean away, replaced by a surging urge to retreat. Still, verbally, he kept up the bluff: “Wearing that great clumsy tortoise shell — good for taking a beating and nothing else! I, I’ve had enough fun for today. I’ll spare you for now. Next time you dare swagger, I’ll finish you with a single finger!”

At those words, even the expressionless Phantom couldn’t suppress a look of contempt.

The duck is dead but the beak’s still holding out. This, precisely.

Hungry Ghost’s body poured out thick black smoke, which flooded the cabin again in an instant, and under its cover he retreated from the cabin like lightning.

Phantom seemed about to move, but Nether Flame, standing beside her, shook her head. As Hungry Ghost swept past the two of them, he was secretly on his guard, terrified that these two women — never on good terms with him — would stab him in the back at this critical juncture. Fortunately they didn’t act. Counting his blessings, Hungry Ghost accelerated at once, fleeing with all his strength from this cabin where he had lost his luck and every scrap of his face.

“Did I say you could go?”

Just as Hungry Ghost believed he had escaped safely, a voice rang out in the corridor beyond the cabin door, clear as a spring.

And then a hand — seemingly unhurried, yet so fast that Hungry Ghost had no time whatsoever to react — pressed against the back of one of his two heads.

It was no different from the earlier motion; only one had been laid on the face, and this one on the back of the skull. In the next second, Yue Yang, clad in the Black Tortoise Battle-Armor, flashed into view, and drove Hungry Ghost bodily downward, smashing him savagely into the deck plating…

And every person there, save Hungry Ghost, heard Yue Yang say this:

“I’ve never believed there’s an enemy in this world who can’t be persuaded. My ‘winning men over through virtue’ negotiating method has never once failed — and this time is no exception.”

(End of Chapter 1147)